Back Issue #59

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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Space Ghost TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

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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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(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Spider-Man in the Bronze Age!” Drug issues, resurrection of Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy, Marvel Team-Up, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey Super Stories, CBS and Japanese TV shows, Clone Saga, CONWAY, ANDRU, BAGLEY, SAL BUSCEMA, DeFALCO, FINGEROTH, GIL KANE, STAN LEE, LEIBER, MOONEY, ROMITA SR., SALICRUP, SAVIUK, STERN, cover by BOB LARKIN!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Odd Couples!” O’NEIL and ADAMS’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Englehart’s Justice League of America, Daredevil and Black Widow, Power Man and Iron Fist, Vision and Scarlet Witch, Cloak and Dagger, and… Aquaman and Deadman (?!). With AUSTIN, COLAN, CONWAY, COWAN, DILLIN, HOWELL, LEONARDI, SKEATES, and more. New cover by NEAL ADAMS!

(NOW 8x/YEAR, WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Greatest Stories Never Told!” How Savage Empire became The Warlord, the aborted FF graphic novel “Fathers and Sons,” BYRNE’s Last Galactus Story, Star*Reach’s Batman, Aquaman II, 1984 Black Canary miniseries, Captain America: The Musical, Miracleman: Triumphant, unpublished issues of The Cat and Warlock, BLEVINS, DEODATO, FRADON, SEKOWSKY, WEISS, MIKE GRELL cover!

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!” The final DAVE STEVENS interview, Rocketeer film discussion with DANNY BILSON and PAUL DeMEO, The Phantom, Indiana Jones, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ heroes, Dominic Fortune, Sherlock Holmes, Man-God, Miracle Squad, 3-D Man, Justice, Inc., APARO, CHAYKIN, CLAREMONT, MILLER, VERHEIDEN, and more, Rocketeer cover by DAVE STEVENS!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “Dead Heroes”! JIM (“Death of Captain Marvel”) STARLIN interview, Deadman after Neal Adams, Jason Todd Robin, the death and resurrection of the Flash, Elektra, the many deaths of Aunt May, art by and/or commentary from APARO, BATES, CONWAY, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GEOFF JOHNS, MILLER, WOLFMAN, and a cosmically cool cover by JIM STARLIN!

(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!

Special 50th Anniversary FULL-COLOR issue ($8.95 price) on “Batman in the Bronze Age!” O’NEIL, ADAMS, and LEVITZ roundtable, praise for “unsung” Batman creators JIM APARO, DAVID V. REED, BOB BROWN, ERNIE CHAN, and JOHN CALNAN, Joker’s Daughter, Batman Family, Nocturna, Dark Knight, art and commentary from BYRNE, COLAN, CONWAY, MOENCH, MILLER, NEWTON, WEIN, and more. APARO cover!

(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!

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Bronze Age Mystery Comics! Interviews with BERNIE WRIGHTSON, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GERRY TALAOC, DC mystery writer LORE SHOBERG, MARK EVANIER and DAN SPIEGLE discuss Scooby-Doo, Charlton chiller anthologies, Black Orchid, Madame Xanadu art and commentary by TONY DeZUNIGA, MIKE KALUTA, VAL MAYERIK, DAVID MICHELINIE, MATT WAGNER, and a rare cover painting by WRIGHTSON!

“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!

“Licensed Comics”! Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Man from Atlantis, DC’s Edgar Rice Burroughs backups (John Carter, Pellucidar, Carson of Venus), Marvel’s Warlord of Mars, and an interview with CAROL SERLING, wife of ROD SERLING. With art and commentary from ANDERSON, BYRNE, CLAREMONT, DORMAN, DUURSEMA, KALUTA, MILLER, OSTRANDER, and more. Cover by BRIAN KOSCHACK.

“Avengers Assemble!” Writer ROGER STERN’S acclaimed 1980s Avengers run, West Coast Avengers, early Avengers toys, and histories of Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Wonder Man, with art and commentary from JOHN and SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, BRETT BREEDING, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, BOB HALL, AL MILGROM, TOM MORGAN, TOM PALMER, JOE SINNOTT, and more. PÉREZ cover!

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Volume 1, Number 59 September 2012 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

The Retro Comics Experience!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks COVER ARTIST Steve Rude COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Remembering the late Tony DeZuniga and Ernie Chan.

PROOFREADER John Morrow

FLASHBACK: Space Ghost in Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Steve Rude, Evan Dorkin, and Scott Rosema look back at the different comic-book interpretations of Spaaaaaace Ghoooooost!

IGN.com Dan Johnson Adam Kubert Carol Lay Alan Light Karen Machette Paul Kupperberg Andy Mangels Lee Marrs William MessnerLoebs Doug Rice Dottie Roberson Max Romero Scott Rosema Steve Rude Bob Schreck Diana Schutz Scott Shaw!

Dan Spiegle Joe Torcivia Voyager Enterprises Mark Wheatley Howard Whitman

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BEYOND CAPES: Hanna-Barbera at Marvel Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Mark Evanier, Scott Shaw!, and other toon-types tell the tale of how Yogi and Fred landed at Marvel CHECKLIST: Marvel Hanna-Barbera Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 An index of Marvel H-B comics, stories, and creator credits, courtesy of Mark Arnold PRINCE STREET NEWS: Hanna-Barbera Superheroes at Marvel Comics? . . . . . . . . . . .32 Karl Heitmueller takes a hilarious look at what might’ve been GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Plastic Man Comic Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Paul Kupperberger reveals cartoonist Lee Marrs’ attempt to bring the Stretchable Sleuth to the funnypapers BACKSTAGE PASS: Marvel Productions, Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 The story of how the House of Ideas became a house of animation BEYOND CAPES: Jonny Quest: The Adventure Comes to Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Learn about Comico’s celebrated cartoon continuation from Kubert, Messner-Loebs, Schreck, Schutz, and Spiegle WHAT THE--?!: Menacing Marvel: Dennis the Menace at Marvel Comics . . . . . . . . . . .65 As X-Men was becoming a cultural phenomenon, Marvel puzzled its true believers by publishing this comic-strip imp BEYOND CAPES: We’re Off to Outer Space … Star Blazers in Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Argonauts Doug Rice, Phil Foglio, and Tim Eldred share with BACK ISSUE their star-spanning adventures BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 Reader feedback BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $60 Standard US, $85 Canada, $107 Surface International.

Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Steve Rude. Space Ghost TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2012 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Toon Comics Issue

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Detail from the cover of DC Comics’ Space Ghost #1 (Jan. 2005). Art by Alex Ross. TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Roger Ash The Backroom Greg Beder Jerry Boyd DC Comics Daniel DeAngelo Evan Dorkin Tim Eldred Jack Enyart Mark Evanier Ron Ferdinand Stuart Fischer Phil Foglio Grand Comic-Book Database Hadji Hank Ketcham Enterprises Hanna-Barbera Productions Karl Heitmueller Marc Hempel Heritage Comics Auctions

by

Michael Eury

Tony DeZuniga (1932–2012) and Ernie Chan (1940–2012) In May, we lost two exceptional artists from comics’ Bronze Age: Tony DeZuniga and Ernie Chan (a.k.a. Ernie Chua). Fate linked these gentlemen during their lifetimes: Both were Filipinos who immigrated to the US, with DeZuniga being the first such artist to do so in the late 1960s, blazing a trail for Chan and others to follow. Both worked for DC and Marvel Comics and counted Conan among their many credits. Both were successful as inkers as well as illustrators. Both were featured in BACK ISSUE on many

Thor © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. Conan © 2012 Conan Properties.

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occasions, in articles, interviews, and numerous illustrations (a Jonah Hex painting by DeZuniga graced the cover of BI #42).

And ironically, both died during the same week, DeZuniga on May 11th and Chan on May 16th.

Let’s remember them the way they’d want us to, through their work, in images from the Bronze Age: a 1979 specialty illo of Thor by Chan, and a 1980 pinup by DeZuniga from Savage Sword of Conan #54, both courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions.

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Space Ghost TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions (H-B).

Max Romero

Since debuting as a Hanna-Barbera cartoon in 1966, Space Ghost has enjoyed a long life as a pop-culture icon of Saturday morning television. But somehow, in spite of his enduring popularity, the intergalactic protector and bringer of justice has only haunted the fringes of the comic-book universe that was a source of inspiration for his out-of-our-world adventures.

In the character’s 45-year history, Space Ghost has never had its own regular, ongoing series. The most recent title was a six-issue miniseries by DC Comics that wrapped up in 2005, while the rest comprise a collection of one-shots and appearances in licensed comics featuring other Hanna-Barbera characters and adaptations. Before the DC miniseries, there hadn’t been a dedicated Space Ghost comic in more than seven years, with the one before that preceding it by ten years—a trend of spotty appearances that is typical for the Phantom of the Spaceways.

On television, Space Ghost stayed in the popular culture thanks to reruns, a poorly received second series in 1981 that was gone after just 22 episodes, and later VHS and DVD collections. In the mid-’90s he was reinvented as a charming, though somewhat goofy, cable talk-show host broadcasting from the Ghost Planet and joined by co-hosts/prisoners Zorak and Moltar. For many people of a certain generation, this is who they think of when Space Ghost comes up, maybe having only a vague idea that, at one point, the hero was something else … something more.

Having gone from television to comics and back to television—and then back to comics once again, where the interstellar lawman finally got a real origin— the question is still there: Who is Space Ghost?

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A COMIC-BOOK BEGINNING Space Ghost made his first appearance on September 10, 1966 on CBS as one-half of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show Space Ghost and Dino Boy. The twoin-one episodes were unrelated, though Space Ghost would eventually cross over with other Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters such as the Herculoids (a group of quasi-barbarian humans and their superpowered creature colleagues), the Mighty Mightor (a magically empowered caveman superhero), Shazzan (an Arabian Nights–styled genie), and Moby Dick (a do-gooder version of the famous white whale). There would be 42 original episodes of Space Ghost and 18 episodes of prehistoric Dino Boy adventures before the show aired its last episode on September 7, 1968—nearly two years to the day after its debut.

Despite starring in almost 50 episodes, most of what’s known about Space Ghost is based on the equipment he has and the company he keeps—and even then, it’s not very telling. Over the course of the show’s run, viewers were introduced to Space Ghost and his supporting cast, including his two teenaged wards Jan and Jace, twins who were under his care and who served as his masked assistants at his otherwise unpopulated Ghost Planet headquarters. Comic relief was provided

by Blip, a surprisingly clever monkey who was often left in charge of the base and outfitted with the same uniform, jet pack, and inviso-belt as the twins. Almost serving as characters themselves was Space Ghost’s gear: the inviso-belt that allowed him to move unseen; his sleek spaceship, the Phantom Cruiser; and, of course, his power bands, which could shoot out anything from a stun ray and freeze beam to a heat laser and shielding “viso-wall.”

Just as important was Space Ghost’s rogues’ gallery, a substantial collection of would-be world conquerors and space scoundrels that routinely kept Space Ghost and his crew busy. Standing out from the collection of galactic criminals were the villains who would eventually band together as the Council of Doom, which included Zorak, a mantis-man and Space Ghost’s gary owens main nemesis; Brak, a cat–like pirate; Creature King, sowing terror with a menagerie of giant creatures and his “nightmare beam”; Spider-Woman (also known as Black Widow), mistress of horrifying space spiders; Mettalus, a robot master and tyrant; and Moltar, who rules his molten monsters with deadly intent.

In addition to its jazzy score, creative sound effects, and the reassuring baritone of Gary Owens as the title character, a large part of Space Ghost’s appeal was the striking character and set design, concepts that came from comic-book legend Alex Toth. Toth, who in his

In the DC Universe … Sort Of (top) DC Comics readers of 1966 first encountered Space Ghost in this house ad promoting CBS-TV’s Saturday morning. (left) Toth’s 1966 model sheets for Space Ghost’s young companions.

Characters © the respective copyright holders. Space Ghost characters © H-B.

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THE SPACE GHOST CAST In every version of Space Ghost that has been produced, the character’s supporting cast of allies and enemies has been surprisingly consistent. Here are some of the mainstays of the Space Ghost universe.

The Good Guys Space Ghost: A starspanning bringer of justice, Space Ghost is shrouded in mystery.

His connection to the never-seen Space Patrol, if any, is never explained— nor is the source of his power bands, inviso-belt, or Phantom Cruiser. Space Ghost premiered in 1966 in the iconic Space Ghost and Dino Boy cartoon. In the 1990s, Space Ghost returned to TV as a bumbling talk-show host on Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and in the 2004–2005 limited series Space Ghost from DC Comics he was identified as Thaddeus Bach, an officer in the Eidolon Elite, serving the Commandment.

Jan: Much like her twin brother Jace, not much is known about this Space Ghost assistant. Usually more thoughtful than her ready-for-action brother, Jan is still ready to mix it up when trouble brews.

Usually depicted as a teen, Jan was shown as a child of about 11 in the DC miniseries.

Jace: Where his twin sister Jan is conscientious, Jace is a little more willing to blast first and ask questions later.

Still, he’s a stable and enthusiastic assistant to Space Ghost who puts his friends and sister ahead of himself. Jace was also about 11 years old in the DC miniseries, though he’s usually depicted as a teen.

Blip: An exceptionally clever monkey, Blip tends to get the same respect as the twins, down to his own matching blue-and-yellow uniform, inviso-belt, and

rocket pack. Blip is often given the responsibility of looking after both the Ghost Planet headquarters and the twins when Space Ghost is away.

The Bad Guys Zorak: A mantis-man and Space Ghost’s arch-nemesis, Zorak is a constant thorn in the hero’s side and one of the founders of the Council of Doom.

He also appeared on Coast to Coast, where he unwillingly served as the musical director on the Space Ghost-hosted talk show. He returned again as the leader of a hive-minded race of locust-like beings in the DC limited series.

Brak: A cat-like alien, Brak is a spacepirate and another member of the Council of Doom. He is usually accompanied by his brother/ first mate, Sisto. On Coast to Coast Brak was reduced to a child-like state thanks to his run-in with a swarm of piranha mites (a callback to a scene in the original cartoon).

Creature King: Using his ray gun to cast monstrous illusions and a special helmet to control actual beasts, the Creature King uses his menagerie in an effort to take over the galaxy and defeat Space Ghost. He is also a founding member of the Council of Doom.

Lokar: A giant space locust, Lokar rules an army of fellow alien locusts and robot locusts against his enemies. Lokar also made sporadic, comedic appearances on Coast to Coast.

Lurker: Usually joined

by One-Eye, Lurker is a pirate who uses his Purple Sleep mist to knock out his victims. He is almost compelled to steal whatever isn’t nailed down.

Tansut: Also known as the Intergalactic Hijacker, Tansut is known for his space chariot and deadly lasers. Tansut also made regular appearances on Coast to Coast, where he was depicted as pot-bellied and pathetically deluded about his abilities, as well as desperately needy for Space Ghost’s friendship.

Metallus: The master of an army of deadly robots, and possibly some kind of robot himself. Metallus is one of Space Ghost’s most dangerous foes, and a founding member of the Council of Doom.

Spider-Woman: Also known as Black Widow, the Spider-Woman can creepily control several varieties of space spider, often with the intention of destroying Space Ghost. She is another Council of Doom founder.

Moltar: The leader of a legion of molten monsters, Moltar is the always-hooded lord of the Ovens of Moltor. Moltar, another Council of Doom founding member, also served as the sometimes flustered, always sarcastic director/ producer of Space Ghost’s talk show on Coast to Coast.

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Caped Inspiration The March 11, 1966 issue of Life magazine (right) featuring Adam West as Batman prompted TV exec Fred Silverman to order artist Alex Toth to pattern the in-development Space Ghost after the senior member of the Dynamic Duo. (left) Featuring a spiffy Dan Spiegle cover, Gold Key Comics’ Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1967).

Space Ghost TM & © H-B. Batman TM & © DC Comics. Life © 2012 Time Inc.

decades-long comics career worked on everything from science fiction and superhero books to Westerns, noir, and romance, brought his strong and fluid style to many cartoons of the ’60s and ’70s. In addition to Space Ghost, Toth is also credited with designing HannaBarbera’s Herculoids, Birdman, The Galaxy Trio, and, perhaps his most well known contribution to animation, Super Friends. Toth’s work on these shows would make an impact on an entire generation of artists and writers.

Strangely enough, Toth himself didn’t see what the big deal was where Space Ghost was concerned.

As Toth stated in an interview with Darrell Bowen for Toon Magazine #12 (Fall 1996): “I don’t know what all the shouting’s about. I always thought it was mediocre. Freddie Silverman [Fred Silverman, a network TV executive and producer] came in one Monday morning banging around all kinds of ideas and I guess on the previous Friday, or Thursday and Friday, we had locked down on Space Ghost but the question of the costume was still up in the air.

“So there we were on Monday morning in Joe’s [Barbera] office, and in walks Freddie Silverman with this Life magazine in his hands and damn, right on the cover is Adam West and the kid, Burt Ward, as Batman and Robin and he throws the magazine down on Joe’s

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desk and he looks at me, and he looks at Joe and he says, ‘That’s the look I want. I want that Batman look.’”

[Editor’s note: Actually, the March 11, 1966 cover of Life featured only West as Batman.] Toth continued, “I said, ‘Well, he’s supposed to be Space Ghost. He should be white, you know, so how do we…?’ And Silverman says, ‘I want that Batman look.’ So finally, Space Ghost wound up with that black cowl, that black helmet over his head, and I kept fighting him on it, saying that it would drop out in the artwork when we had him superimposed against a space background—that didn’t matter. Then they came up with the rim light idea, to edge-light him up there, with a good thick band of light so that he’d always stand out against the space and we went with that. I didn’t want the cape—that diaphanous, squirrelly cape that he wound up with, which looked like ectoplasm, but that’s what they wanted. I was just there as a pair of hands.

So anytime anyone, Steve Rude [Nexus] or all those other cats who walk up to me or write to me and say, ‘God, you know, Space Ghost changed my life and you did such a marvelous job,’ I have to keep from scratching my head and telling them I really didn’t have much to do with it.”

Toth, in fact, would not be the artist for the first Space Ghost comic to reach print. Gold Key published Space Ghost #1 in 1966 with the idea of having the comic on stands quickly in support of the show. Because of this, artist Dan Spiegle [the writer is unknown] was able to work with some of Toth’s model sheets but not much else. Spiegle’s representation of Zorak ended up looking very different than the mantis-man who appeared on the cartoon, but Jan, Jace, Blip, and Space Ghost himself were all faithful to the original designs.

(Working blind was nothing new to Spiegle, who, in addition to being well known for his six years of work on the Hopalong Cassidy newspaper strip and Korak, Son of Tarzan comic book, also provided art for many titles licensed from TV. In an interesting turnaround, Space Family Robinson, which he co-created with writer Del Connell, is widely credited with inspiring the television

show Lost in Space, which aired three years after the Even more tantalizing is a one-panel flashback to Gold Key title’s first issue was published.)

Space Ghost’s time with “his old teacher … out there.”

Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1966) features two stories, Already in full uniform, Space Ghost is shown hunched both drawn by Spiegle. The first is “Zorak’s Revenge,” over an open book in concentration, fingers at his a story featuring Space Ghost’s archenemy that temple and an energy beam being focused through a closely follows episode 24 of the cartoon, device and into his forehead. The beam is that was simply titled “Zorak.” In “Zorak’s coming from an unseen being of pure Revenge,” the evil mantis is sprung from light, which says, “Matter is but energy, Omega Prison by his henchmen, and my son … seen, felt, interpreted by he quickly makes a beeline for Ghost the mind … in many forms! So … the Planet. Out on patrol, Space Ghost power of thought gives it no limitaisn’t at his headquarters when Zorak tions … no boundaries!” arrives, so the villain decides to kidnap This glimpse at Space Ghost’s past Jan and Jace instead, leaving a note is notable for the fact that at the time saying he will trade the kids’ lives for of the character’s creation and for Space Ghost’s. decades afterward, he has very little in Space Ghost and Blip fly out in the way of an origin. Nothing is really the Phantom Cruiser to Zorak’s known about Space Ghost—who he position under the cloak of “invisois, how he came to be the guardian of dan spiegle power,” which is explained to be tied Jan and Jace, and what his connection to faster-than-light speed (though this is to the often-mentioned but neverdoesn’t provide an answer for the Ghost team’s personal seen Space Patrol. Gold Key’s Space Ghost would end inviso-power belts). Made visible by a matter-intensifier with issue #1, and even though the space cop would ray, Space Ghost is forced to use a little-seen ability: By pop up in occasional anthologies and one-shots over the sheer force of will, he is able to convert himself to next three decades, it wouldn’t be until 2004 that his thought-energy and teleport himself to the asteroid background was more than shadowy hints and asides.

Zorak is using as a hideout, a million miles ahead of the Phantom Cruiser. This special superpower is the only one not tied to Space Ghost’s uniform or power bands, and is described briefly as a talent he learned from “the great teacher-mind of the fringe galaxies.”

After fighting off mantis soldiers and giant mosquitoes, Space Ghost finally rescues Jan and Jace from a flying bomb that he redirects toward Zorak’s base. Zorak isn’t seen escaping, but like all good bad guys he can be expected to return.

The second story is “The Space Outcast,” and it does a nice job of showing off Space Ghost’s intelligence, kindness, and teleportation trick.

On the way back to Ghost Planet, Space Ghost and his assistants spot a giant man tied to a disk drifting through space. After freeing him and taking him to their home, the crew discovers Gurun is a Dweerza outcast, thrown out of the society of thieving, dwarf–like people for being too big and “too dumb.”

Space Ghost decides Gurun can have a place on Ghost Planet (“You’re entitled to a fair trial, I guess!”) and puts him to work, never realizing Gurun will see it as a chance to get back into his people’s good graces.

Gurun’s treachery leads the Dweerza to Ghost Planet, where Space Ghost has already been incapacitated and robbed of his power bands. The Dweerza immediately set themselves to ransacking the headquarters, intent on destroying everything on their way out, but Gurun balks when he realizes this includes the twins. After Blip frees him from the sonic probe keeping him from concentrating, Space Ghost is able to teleport out of his bonds and away from his captives. At this point, Space Ghost gives Gurun a second chance, and the giant helps defeat his untrustworthy colleagues.

“The Space Outcast” offers some interesting peeks into Space Ghost’s history. Early in the story, Space Ghost hints that this isn’t his first run-in with the Dweerza, saying he “clipped their wings a bit, though, a while back! Drove them back to their planet!” Later he uses his power bands “…on a certain frequency” to quell the Dweerza’s evil tendencies; whether this is what he means by “clipped their wings” is anybody’s guess.

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Gold Key Ghost Dan Spiegle’s rendition of the Phantom of the Spaceways, from the hero’s late 1966 Gold Key one-shot. © 1966 H-B.

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THE GOLD KEY YEARS

Spotty Appearances for This Specter Space Ghost cover appearances on (left) Hanna-Barbera TV Super Heroes #3 (Oct. 1968) and #7 (Oct. 1969). Cover artists unknown.

TM & © H-B.

During the course of the next ten years, spanning the time from 1968 to 1978, finding a comic book featuring Space Ghost would be hard to do. In the entire decade only five comics would put Space Ghost back on the stands, and all of them would bundle his adventures along with those of other popular HannaBarbera cartoon characters.

From April 1968 to October 1969, Gold Key included Space Ghost stories in three issues of Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes, an anthology series that regularly featured stories about the adventures of Young Samson and Goliath, Moby Dick, Birdman, and others. Birdman, another Alex Toth creation and a hero cast from the same mold, would boast twice as many appearances in Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes than Space Ghost could once the title ended with issue #7 (Oct. 1969). Space Ghost himself would only make it to #3 (Oct. 1968), #6 (July 1969), and the final issue.

Despite these brief showings, the uncredited writer and artist of Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes #3 would still manage to fill in some of the cracks in Space Ghost’s background—though it might raise more questions than answers. In a story titled “The Plague of Giants,” Space Ghost is confronted by a planet-towering Creature King, who brags about his

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newfound might until Space Ghost discovers he’s only facing an illusion and easily blocks it with a “radionics screen.”

Soon, however, Space Ghost gets an urgent call from the “Space Congress,” where giant monsters are attacking. Quickly firing up the Phantom Cruiser, Space Ghost worries that if Creature King “can sabotage the new space pact, he’ll set space law back a thousand years!” (Someone obviously got the memo that this was supposed to be a space adventure and ran with it.) The story races to its conclusion when Space Ghost traces the signal back to the source, fights a monster, and defeats Creature King handily after fearing Jan and Jace have been killed in a crash, but not before readers are told “the whole congress-city” is in danger of being destroyed in the panic. Beyond that, though, nothing about the city-spanning Space Congress is explained, much less Space Ghost’s relationship—if any—to it.

Gold Key would get into the Space Ghost business just once more with Golden Comics Digest #2 (May 1969). The softcover collection was packed with reprints, cramming older Space Ghost stories in between the tales of other licensed characters such as The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Top Cat. After that, Space Ghost would fade away from the comic racks for almost another ten years.

THE SECOND LIFE OF SPACE GHOST While it could be argued that Gold Key dominated the licensed comic-book market in the ’60s, the late ’70s and early ’80s belonged to Marvel. Beginning with its version of Star Wars in 1977—the same year the movie was released—Marvel would go on to print titles based on the TV show Battlestar Galactica as well as a number of books loosely inspired by toy lines including Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, ROM, and G. I. Joe. HannaBarbera properties would be thrown into the mix, too, paving the way for another brief Space Ghost appearance.

Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978) (not to be confused with Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes) was touted as a “superhero special” and splashed the Herculoids, Dynomutt, and Space Ghost across its cover. Dynomutt, of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder fame and partner of the Blue Falcon, takes the place of honor in the center of the cover while Zandor of the Herculoids looks down with what looks like slight disdain from his circle in the upper-left corner (Space Ghost, cropped through the torso, smiles out at readers from the bottom of the cover).

Most importantly, Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #3 saw the return of Alex Toth to Space Ghost, and as far as can be determined his only real comic-book treatment of the character. In the five-page-long, Mark Evanier-penned story titled “Pilgreen’s Progress” (though he’s called “Pilgreem” in the story), Space Ghost and his crew come across a spaceship shaped like a late-1930s sedan piloted by a man with more than a passing resemblance to P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves.

Pilgreem believes he was born in the wrong era and is scouring the galaxy in his “flivverrocket” for a space/ time warp that will take him to the Earth of 1936. alex toth He is unfazed when Jan and Jace try to explain that there is no such thing as a space/time warp, and remains unflappable even when the Phantom Cruiser is attacked by a space pirate called Buzzard.

Evanier’s economical story is packed with action and accurate characterization—where Jace smirks at Pilgreem’s ambitions, Jan is gentle and empathetic— and Toth’s simple lines burst with expression (only mildly hampered by haphazard coloring). There is even a subtle callback to Gold Key’s Space Ghost #1 when Space Ghost bursts into Buzzard’s lair and commands, “Don’t touch that defense control, Buzzard! You have an appointment at Omega Prison!” The story ends with a wink when Pilgreem saves Space Ghost from a trap sprung by atomic power with the help of his electrically powered flivverrocket, just before Pilgreem disappears again with only a deep space trail of smoke to show his progress.

And while this might have been the first and last time Toth would contribute to a Space Ghost comic story, it wouldn’t be the last—or even the most well known—story Mark Evanier would help bring to the Space Ghost mythos. This time the difference would be his next collaborator, Steve Rude, a man who has jokingly been rumored to have a tattoo on his arm reading “Born to Draw Space Ghost.”

For Rude, it was a chance to work with a character that helped inspire an early love of art and his own ambition to work in comics.

Space Ghost and Dino Boy premiered on television in 1966, “so I was ten,” Rude reveals. “We neighborhood kids would hang out and talk about the cool shows we’d seen on TV, and that summer we started to see ads for this new cartoon, and the ads alone fried our brains.

When you put together a clip of stuff [for a commercial] you take all the grandest parts and smoosh it together to show an audience … and the show itself was kind of this great extension of the 30-second trailer. When we saw the show, we all just flipped out. The shows were only about six minutes long, but my impression as a kid was that they were much longer than that. When you do things right, it can seem like you’ve been around the world. So when Comico called me up and said, ‘How’d you like to do your dream comic?’ it didn’t take long to convince me.”

It also didn’t take long for comic-book readers to take notice of Comico’s Space Ghost #1 (Dec. 1987). Written Toon Comics Issue

Toth Returns A page from Space Ghost’s only Marvel Comics story, in Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978).

Script by Mark Evanier, art by Alex Toth. © 1978 H-B.

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by Rude and Evanier, the book also features artwork by comic book move in my head, I could hear the music, Rude that uses a clean, modern line for a look that is still hear the sound effects. And that feeling just never left until very true to the show. The art is further enhanced months after I had finished the book,” Rude says.

by Ken Steacy’s work on coloring, a lush “There is a simple, single way to think about painting job that gives the book a depth how it works. You have your characters, and richness not often found in typical you have your background, and don’t comic books, much less licensed titles; do anything to mess that up. There was on many pages, panels could easily be no stupid dialogue in our comic book. mistaken for animation cels from the Steacy painted on the [original original show. Because of this and a art]—he’s the only guy I could have fast-moving, adventure-laden plot, imagined doing it. The [finished] the Comico one-shot is considered book was like the shows.” the Space Ghost book for many fans.

The Comico one-shot was like the “By the time I got into comic original show in one more way: books, I never heard anyone talking While it gave readers plenty of nonabout Space Ghost,” Rude says. “And stop adventure, it didn’t tell them steve rude when I got to do Nexus [the sci-fi anything new about the sentinel superhero he co-created with writer of the solar system. For the most Mike Baron], he was my version of Space Ghost— part, Space Ghost would stay a cipher—and a nearly the feeling of the show, the emotions, the look, the blank slate ripe for parody. cool gestures. So when I was approached by Comico, I knew the comic had to look like the show.

“When they had done comics before, they always looked kind of silly unless it was done by Toth or one of those guys, one of the Hanna-Barbera staff. [On the Comico book,] Evanier was co-writing the thing, and he sent me these faxed copies on this flimsy paper. So it was Evanier who sent me my first Toth design sheets, and it was thrilling,” Rude continues. “I had some of those, and I had some bad copies of the original show on VHS tapes a friend sent me and I could stop those and look at the poses and designs. It was a huge boost for me. I had never seen [Space Ghost] done right in comic-book form, and that drove me crazy. What I wanted to see was the show on paper, and I had never seen that in a comic book.

The Phantom Cruiser didn’t look right, Space Ghost didn’t look right … and that wasn’t Space Ghost to me. Can’t get no satisfaction that way. Even when the colors came back [from Steacy], I would touch up dozens and dozens of things to make sure those things in my head and from the show stayed intact. But once it was done, the only thing we didn’t have in the comic was actual movement.”

What it did have was a classic Space Ghost story.

Contacted by a mysterious stranger only he can see, Zorak is given a familiar-looking power band and instructions to get together a gang of criminals who together can destroy Space Ghost. Zorak uses the power band to break out of prison, along with Brak, Creature King, and Lurker. Soon Space Ghost has his hands full with assaults from this ersatz Council of Doom, the mysterious stranger, and Metallus, who manages to kidnap Jan and Jace.

Using his wits, and a helping hand from Blip, Space Ghost runs a gauntlet of sleep mist, impregnar shields, giant monsters, and the actual gauntlets of Metallus before finally facing the stranger, who stands revealed as an evil android version of Space Ghost himself. A perfect replica constructed by Rob-Corp, the android is designed to defeat and replace the real Space Ghost, when he will then use his power to further the malevolent ends of the criminal organization. But after the now-freed Jan and Jace help Space Ghost hold off the android’s aerial attack, the Galactic Protector is able to end the android’s threat for good—thanks to an unwitting assist from Zorak.

As much as an impact Comico’s Space Ghost #1 had on readers, it might have had even more of an impact on Rude.

While working on the book, “I’d walk from my apartment to the art store, and as I walked I could see the

Toon Comics Issue

Born to Draw Space Ghost The Dude’s dood it again! (opposite) A 2010 Space Ghost color-marker illo

by Steve Rude. (this page) Rude’s Hanna-Barbera–like cover to Comico’s 1987 one-shot.

TM & © H-B.

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The Ghost with the Most Goes Coast to Coast (below) SG’s plagued

by Lurker on this gloriously gorgeous Comico page. Words

by Mark Evanier, pencils by Steve Rude, inks by Willie Blyberg, colors by Ken Steacy. (center) Space Ghost the talk-show host.

TM & © H-B.

A NEW DECADE, A NEW IDENTITY In spite of the critical success of Comico’s Space Ghost #1, the character seemed destined to slip back into low-level obscurity again after it was published in 1987.

There was some talk of Rude following up the one-shot— this time with a story that would team Space Ghost up with the Herculoids against a new clutch of villains— but it didn’t get past the planning stages. “It was just talk between me and a friend of mine (animation writer/designer Darrell McNeil),” Rude says, “but never went beyond that.” [For the full story of “The Trial,” read “Your Two Favorite Cartoon Shows—Space Ghost and the Herculoids—NOT in One Comic Book Together” in BACK ISSUE #2, Feb. 2004.]

Few people would have predicted that Space Ghost would be as popular—and maybe even more so—than he was in the first couple of years after his debut. And he would do it by returning to television, though in a very different way.

In 1994, Cartoon Network was looking to shake things up. The cable cartoon channel had launched in 1992,

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a year after Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., bought Hanna-Barbera Productions. After two years of airing allages programming consisting of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the 24-hour channel was ready to branch into original programming. Soon audiences were treated to “Cartoon Cartoons” including Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, The Powerpuff Girls, and others, shows spanning a wide spectrum of styles, humor, and depth.

Then, on April 15, 1994, Cartoon Network laid the foundation for what would become a nighttime block of programming for more mature audiences when it premiered Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. A parody of late night talk shows like The Tonight Show or Late Night with David Letterman, the show blended animation, pre-taped interviews with real celebrities, and a solid dose of the surreal into quick, drive-by style comedy that was often a combination of hilarious and head-scratching.

Reusing animation from the original 1966 show overlaid with new voice-overs, Coast to Coast cast Space Ghost as the usually befuddled man behind the desk, with Zorak, Moltar, and Brak joining in as prisoners press-ganged into service on the set. Zorak served as musical director, Moltar as the director/producer, and Brak—now goodnaturedly dim-witted as a result of flying into a swarm of “piranha mites” in “The Lure” (episode #18, 1966)— was a sort of gofer but mostly just a nuisance to Zorak.

In an interview with IGN.com (July 7, 2003) Mike Lazzo, series creator and executive vice president of Adult Swim at Williams Street Studios, said, “From almost the first week, we were lamenting the fact that we were a rerun channel. And we went to Ted [Turner, the head of Turner Broadcasting] and said, ‘Please, can we have some money?’ And he said, like any parent would, ‘Use what you’ve got, and then maybe we can talk later about this.’ So we knew, for some period of time, we just had to make do. And to a large extent that’s how Space Ghost happened, because we were so frustrated with no original programming, yet we didn’t have the money to make programming, so we had to come up with different ways.”

In addition to the homemade feel of Coast to Coast, another hallmark of the show was Space Ghost’s oblivious lunk-headedness, an easy-going egotism that would allow him to ignore guests, blast his stage crew, and fret about his weight all in the course of the 15-minute program.

Zorak and Moltar didn’t hide their disdain for the boss, and guests rarely came out looking their best thanks to the fact that the show’s writers later changed the questions and rearranged the answers so the “conversation” with Space Ghost would end up being one big non sequitur. The Coast to Coast gang was also known to break out into original songs cheering or lamenting their current situation on Ghost Planet.

The lighthearted approach to the Space Ghost universe was something that was not only the initial inspiration for the show, but also something that was encouraged from the show’s writers. Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese, Beasts of Burden)—along with his wife and fellow comic-book creator Sarah Dyer (Action Girl Comics)—was a member of the Coast to Coast writing staff from late 1993 to 1999 and says he was given only one real rule to follow: Be funny.

“When Sarah and I worked on our first script, Mike Lazzo sent us a page of rules about the show which were fairly loose and flexible,” Dorkin says.

“In fact, he amended most of them with handwritten notes that pretty much amounted to ‘Don’t do this sort of thing—unless it’s funny.’ I don’t think calculated—the writers would toss anyone worried too much about being stuff into episodes and often other super-faithful to the original show writers would pick up on those beyond the very basics. All the original things and eventually it all turned evan dorkin character names were used, but the into a semi-coherent incoherent little writers gave them all-new personalities universe based on the Hannaand backgrounds … when the writers went back to the Barbera catalogue.” old series, it was to riff off it. Everyone seemed to like Besides making Space Ghost funny, the show did tossing in old villains and giving them new a schtick, something else that hadn’t been done before: It gave making up new powers like the spank ray, having the Space Ghost a secret identity and—maybe most characters complain about surprising of all—a family. Granted, it was information their jobs. The characters that had to be taken with a mine’s worth of salt, but as took on a new life of their far as Coast to Coast was concerned, Space Ghost was own, and eventually a sort also Tad Ghostal, a washed-up superhero getting a second of shared new universe chance at fame. His family included his wife Charlene developed involving (once unwittingly played by Icelandic pop singer Björk), cartoon characters and his children Eugene and Doris (who were never seen), real-life celebrities. It and an evil twin brother named Chad (viewers could tell wasn’t incredibly he was evil by the goatee he sported). Most amusing was former wrestler Randy “Macho Man” Savage bringing his barely contained mania to the voice of Space Ghost’s Grandad, a cane-wielding character that looks like an older, whiskery version of Space Ghost.

“Superheroes are inherently nuts; people in ridiculous outfits with ridiculous names doing ridiculous things— it’s practically self-parody,” Dorkin says. “I like them, but they’re crazy to their core, and Space Ghost’s no different. That being said, I don’t know if the show is a parody of Space Ghost so much as of the entertainment industry. There was no reason or value in actually tearing the original series apart in some super-condescending way. Some overwrought Space Ghost fans took the show to task for what they felt was a lack of respect for the character and the original series, which was kind of ridiculous, really, but there are always overly sensitive fans who take things a bit too personally. Space Ghost is a cartoon character, for one thing. For another, we never thought we were flogging the old cartoons or making fun of fans of the old cartoons. The talk show was just a take on an old property— it was a comedy show. I think the old series has a lot of goofy charm, and I think everyone working on the talk show was really fond of the characters, especially as they developed their new personalities in the talk show. I think we were respectful of Toon Comics Issue

Forced to Play Nice Old enemies were reluctant coworkers on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. (left to right) Space Ghost, Moltar, and Zorak.

TM & © H-B.

TM & © H-B.

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The Space Ghost Family (left) Scott Rosema’s rendition of the Space Ghost cast. (right) Rosema’s cover to Archie Comics’ Cartoon Network Presents: Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1997).

TM & © H-B.

the old series, although I don’t think anyone was walking on eggs to hold it up as some sort of sacred art or pop-culture object. We were just trying to be funny.”

And, Dorkin adds, it helped that while he had a fondness for the show, it wasn’t something for which he felt a deep, personal attachment.

“I watched the original cartoon in repeats during the 1970s,” Dorkin says. “I liked the show but I didn’t love it. The cartoon looked and sounded great, and the designs were terrific.” Alex Toth, he adds, “was a master. What he brought to Space Ghost [was] a sleek, iconic, bold and memorable design. It’s a terrific costume, a great look. Space Ghost had cool powers, but the show never completely worked for me on the whole. I always wished the cartoons were longer than 15 minutes—the stories always felt rushed at the length of a Huckleberry Hound cartoon. I was also never a big fan of Jan and Jace. I liked the monkey because he’s a monkey, and I think you can put monkeys into anything and make whatever it is better. Put a monkey into Shakespeare, it’s better.”

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There was also a small detail, something that was missing, that bothered Dorkin: “Space Ghost didn’t have a secret or civilian identity. He was always in costume and kind of a big blank, and for some reason this really bugged me when I was a kid. I’m over it now, honest.

When I was a kid I’m sure I would have really liked to see an origin story, and a background, and see him running around without the mask and whatever. As an adult, it isn’t important to me that they explain everything about a character. I think Space Ghost’s fine the way he is but it’s all up for grabs, obviously. If you can make him a clueless talk-show host you can do anything with him.”

Coast to Coast was a hit and aired for ten years until its cancellation in 2004, making it arguably the most successful iteration of Space Ghost yet. In the course of its decade on Cartoon Network, it also laid the groundwork for the Adult Swim programming block, which enjoys a robust popularity today. Space Ghost (voiced by original Coast to Coast actor George Lowe) still conducts the occasional interview, last subjecting actor Jack Black to his inquisitive style as part of a promotion for Black’s 2010 movie, Gulliver’s Travels. For many cartoon fans who came of age in the ’90s, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast is their only—or at least strongest—image of the iconic character.

That was a concern for artist Scott Rosema (Solar, Man of the Atom) when he was offered the chance to work on yet another Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1997), this one to be published by Archie Comics under the Cartoon Network Presents banner and based on the already-popular Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Like Rude (who recommended him for the job), Rosema had grown up with the original version of the space-faring hero.

“I personally wanted to keep everything [from the show] intact,” Rosema says. “When the job came up, I was excited more than you could say, but the first thing I asked was, ‘Is this going to be the classic Space Ghost, or the silly, smarmy Space Ghost?” For him, “Space Ghost

was this thing that had a bit of Star Trek to it, a bit of are set upon by the Keepers of the Fire Beast, who Batman to it, Superman, The Avengers, all these elements want to sacrifice Space Ghost to the monster. A timely together. And it had the added advantage of having the rescue from Dino Boy, Ugh, and Blip keep Space Ghost raw visceral quality of animation that’s been drawn by from being roasted alive, and Jan and Jace are able to hand. It was rough sometimes, it was not perfect by any reprogram the time-bot to open a gateway back home. means, but it was its inherent flaws that gave it its human Based on Rosema and Matheny’s work, Archie feel. It was done by real people, and as a kid I thought Comics planned a regular series that would use the that maybe someday I could be one of those people.”

Hanna-Barbera action heroes in rotation. Schedules were After being assured he’d be doing a straightoutlined that would put Mighty Mightor, the forward Space Ghost story, Rosema says he Herculoids, and others on the roster, but “jumped at it.” Soon enough he was put then fate would take an unexpected turn. to work penciling “The Final Defeat of Already well on its way to becoming Space Ghost,” written by Bill Matheny a massive media conglomerate, Time and inked by Jorge Pacheco, as well as Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting a second story that teamed up Space in October 1996; Archie Comics’ Ghost and Dino Boy. In the first piece, Space Ghost #1 saw print, but the Space Ghost is ambushed by Brak and series was killed in the transition.

Tansut, who hit him with a molecular Whatever the reason, Rosema says disruptor ray that makes him intangible. he was sorry to see Space Ghost disapHelpless as an actual phantom, Space pear from comic-book racks yet again.

Ghost can only watch as Brak and “With Space Ghost, the potential Tansut kidnap Jan and Jace, taking is such that it’s almost a genre all to scott rosema them to the Ghost Planet with plans to itself,” Rosema says. “It takes the classic take it over. Thanks to Blip (who has superhero genre—the masked hero proven himself over the years to be a handy monkey to with a sidekick, a secret headquarters, specialized have around), Jan and Jace escape, figure out how to weapons—and space. Space still fascinates us; if you reverse the polarity of the disruptor ray and make Space want to have something that still gives us a grander Ghost solid again. Space Ghost then makes short work of scope, a sense of the mysterious, put it in space. Space the would-be hijackers. “Trapped by the Time-Bot!” is the Ghost is the perfect melding of these elements that just second story in the issue, and briefly tells of a time when seem to work well together. You see that with Star Trek, Space Ghost and the crew are sent into the past by one which has an optimistic view of the future, a notion of of Metallus’ time-bending robots. Stranded in Dino Boy’s experiencing an untold number of worlds, and that gives lost valley (which was supposed to be an anachronism set you an untold potential for stories to tell—and it’s the in modern times, but just go with it), the space rangers same thing with Space Ghost. The potential is built right

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Hanna-Barbera Team-Up Courtesy of Scott Rosema, two pages from the Space Ghost/Dino Boy crossover, with color separations markups. Script by Bill Matheny, inks by Jorge Pacheco.

TM & © H-B.

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The Dark Ghost Alex Ross’ painted covers to DC Comics’ (left) Space Ghost #2 (Feb. 2005) and #3 (Mar. 2005). (Ross fans: Be sure to come back in two issues, as Alex has painted a jaw-dropping recreation of Mike Grell’s Superboy and the Legion of SuperHeroes Limited Collectors’ Edition cover as the wraparound cover of BACK ISSUE #61, our “Tabloids and Treasuries” issue!)

TM & © H-B.

into the premise. He has a huge cast of characters and a huge number of worlds that could be played against, so you could extend Space Ghost into a ton of stories. It’s a huge canvas waiting to be built upon. Joe Kelly did try to build on that [see below], but he made it gritty, brought it down to Earth—but you can’t do that. You can’t plant its feet too firmly on the ground—it’s a space opera.”

SPACE GHOST GOES TO DC As part of the Warner Bros. corporate family since the 1970s, DC Comics was already under the Time Warner umbrella when the company took over Turner Broadcasting in 1996. This in turn meant DC could now publish comics based on any and all of the Hanna-Barbera properties, as well as any based on Cartoon Network characters. No matter how you looked at it, this put Space Ghost firmly into DC’s toy box.

Starting with a 1997 appearance in Cartoon Network Presents #2 (Sept. 1997), Space Ghost would periodically pop up in the occasional catch-all comic book featuring other Cartoon Network stars, though the next time wouldn’t be until he wrangled a spot in Cartoon Network Starring #4 (Dec. 1999) two years later. He would go on to four more appearances in Cartoon Network Starring until the name of the title was changed to Cartoon Cartoons, where the character would eventually find room in five more issues (the last being published in March 2003). The comics were written and drawn by a rotating staff, with scripts often being provided by writers from the Coast to Coast show. Unlike his traditional, straight-laced depiction in the Archie Comics Cartoon Network Presents Space Ghost #1, this Space Ghost could be found in wacky situations when he wasn’t comfortably behind his talk-show desk.

But that would all change in a little less than two years—a reimagined version of the space opera that is Space Ghost was in the works, and this time things were going to get gritty.

When DC released Space Ghost #1 (Nov. 2004), it was a very different—but still recognizable—version of what had come before.

Supported by a contemporary and unapologetically grim script by writer Joe Kelly (Action Comics, I Kill Giants), and polished to a plasticized, photorealistic sheen by artist Ariel Olivetti (Punisher War Journal), the six-issue miniseries detailed … well, everything. Who Space Ghost was before he became a vigilante, the tragedy that forced him to seek

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vengeance, how he came to his one-of-a-kind weaponry, and when Jan and Jace came to be under his ephemeral wing—Kelly laid it all out in detail. Boosted by lushly painted covers by Alex Ross (Marvels, Kingdom Come), Space Ghost drew readers into a universe that was familiar but now filled with potential menace, a pair of safety scissors suddenly ground sharp.

In an interview with Greg Upton for The Backroom podcast (backroompodcast.com, April 7, 2010) at the 2010 Emerald City Comicon, Kelly explained his approach to Space Ghost and his supporting cast: “If you actually watch the cartoons, they’re obviously lighter than what I did, but it’s taking what I remember and how I felt as a kid.

That’s sort of how I approach all my projects. For example in Spider-Man, when I did Hammerhead, Hammerhead is generally a silly villain but I remember his as scary, so for me it was like, ‘I have to do him the way I remember him.’ And Space Ghost, y’know, wears an executioner’s hood. I mean, at the end of the day there’s a reason he’s a ‘ghost.’

So that’s what I brought to it.”

In the six-issue story, Kelly goes deep into Space Ghost’s motivations, fleshing out the character’s background with a level of detail missing from any interpretation that came before. Instead of opening with a routine splash page of a soaring Space Ghost, the book begins with Thaddeus Bach (a name that seems to be at least partially inspired by the Coast to Coast show) easily beating down a gang of futuristic thugs in an alley. Bach is an officer of the Commandment, a peacekeeper who has just been promoted to the Eidolon Elite and is then recruited into the Wrath, the top squad headed by Temple, the Eidolon commander himself. Bach and his wife Elua are overjoyed, imagining a bright future for themselves and their as-yet unborn child.

But the joy quickly turns sour. The Wrath is corrupt, using its power to extort, enslave, and kill without remorse, and a disgusted Bach refuses to play along. His sense of justice earns him a visit from the Wrath, who kill his wife and leave Bach for dead on a desolated, lifeless planet.

There is one sign of life on this “planet of the dead,” however: an alien named Salomon, who has isolated himself on the barren rock as penance for creating the weapons that destroyed his people. Now dedicated to a life of peace, Salomon is horrified when Bach uses some of his weapons— a pair of familiar power bands and a sleek, hawk–like spaceship—to begin his own war of revenge on the Wrath.

Meanwhile, the Wrath touch down on another planet to collect their graft from the cowed populace, only the populace isn’t there, wiped out by “the bugs” that are only supposed to be a story told to children and rubes.

Soon enough, though, both the Wrath and Bach find out the bugs are much more than a fairy tale when they come face-to-face with the hive-mind hordes of Zorak.

The series is filled with action and treachery, balanced by quieter moments when Bach is forced to care for the suddenly orphaned Jan and Jace, who not only remind him of what it is to be human, but who also give him his heroic title. With the emotional help of the pre-teen twins, Bach is able to defeat Temple and Zorak while saving his own soul, and in the end returns to the Ghost Planet, telling Salomon, “Your tools have proven better at saving lives than they are at taking them.” Salomon asks if this is true, saying he won’t let Thaddeus betray him again, and Space Ghost replies, “That man is gone, Salomon. All that pain with him.

We’re what’s left—and we need a place from which to work.” Treated to a vision of his dead wife and child— now whole and happy—Space Ghost swears to never disappoint them again before walking into the sunset with Salomon, and hand-in-hand with Jan and Jace.

While this would seem to lay a solid foundation for a follow-up mini, or maybe even a regular series, DC hasn’t yet published any other Space Ghost comics since this limited series ended in June 2005. Whether the company has any plans to bring this version of Space Ghost back to comic racks in the future isn’t known, but even if it does Kelly doubts he’ll be a part of it.

In his interview with The Backroom, Kelly said, “I’m probably not going to go back to that universe

in comics. I would love to go back to that universe in another way, and I’m sort of seeing what I can do to make that happen.” Kelly is a co-founder of Man of Action Studios, a production and development house working in television, film, comics, video games, and online content. The studio is most well known for the cartoons Ben 10 and Generator Rex. He added, “But I love that Space Ghost mini, and working on it with Ariel [Olivetti] was incredible— he did a fantastic job. Space Ghost, the Herculoids, these are characters I really, deeply love. I’d love to do it again, but [there] are no plans to go back to that book right now.”

Not Your Father’s Space Ghost Two interior scenes from the DC Space Ghost mini by writer Joe Kelly and illustrator Airel Olivetti: (left) a sinister Zorak, from issue #2, and (right) Space Ghost’s alter ego, Thaddeus Bach, as the father-figure to pre-teens Jace and Jan, from #4.

NOT DEAD YET Since the DC limited series wrapped up in 2005, there hasn’t been much talk about Space Ghost. But like any good phantom, the sentinel of the spaceways has a way of showing up where you least expect it. A DVD collection of the entire original series was released in 2007, making Space Ghost adventures available to old fans and new audiences alike. Space Ghost put in an appearance on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Episode 61, aired October 14, 2011), an animated series that paired the Dark Knight with various heroes. In “The Space Safari” (the second half of an episode titled “Bold Beginnings!”) Space Ghost gets an assist from Batman in a fight against the Creature King, who is up to his old tricks. While it’s Batman’s show, Space Ghost is obviously the honored guest: The cartoon is usually rendered in broad, thick lines, but with the exception of Batman the animation is done in classic Space Ghost style (down to the iconic

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SPACE GHOST’S COMIC-BOOK APPEARANCES Space Ghost appearances in comics have been spotty, and issues that put a spotlight on the cartoon hero can be tough to track down. Here is a list of Space Ghost comic books either starring or featuring the character: Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1966) Gold Key Hanna-Barbera Super TV Heroes #3 (Oct. 1968), 6 (July 1969), 7 (Oct. 1969) Gold Key Golden Comics Digest #2 (May 1969) Gold Key

Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978) Marvel Comics

Cartoon Network Presents #2 (Sept. 1997) DC Comics

Space Ghost #1 (Dec. 1987) Comico the Comic Company

Cartoon Network Starring #4 (Dec. 1999), 9 (May 2000), 12 (Aug. 2000), 15 (Nov. 2000), 18 (Feb. 2001) DC Comics

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast #2 (1994) Cartoon Network in-house promotional comic.

Note: In spite of the numbering, there was no issue #1.

Cartoon Network Presents: Space Ghost #1 (Mar. 1997) Archie Comics

B&B Seeing You! Space Ghost guest-stars with the Caped Crusader on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. (bottom right) The “The End” graphic, replicating the classic TV show, hails from the Comico one-shot.

Space Ghost TM & © H-B. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

opening title card). The music is jazzy and the sound effects are instantly recognizable. And the villain doesn’t even recognize Batman. Best of all, Space Ghost is one again voiced by a slightly raspier, but still heroic, Gary Owens. For a brief moment, it was a Space Ghost show.

Whether it’s been as the dashing hero, the buffoonish talk-show host, or the stoic Thaddeus Bach, Space Ghost has proven over the years that there is still life in this space-spanning character—no matter who he is.

Space Ghost, says Scott Rosema, is “almost a creature of nature, of super-nature—he’s more representational of reality than realistic. He is what we would aspire to versus what we’d like to be if we had to dig ourselves out of the depths. That’s what Batman is; Bruce Wayne had to dig out of the depths of tragedy to become Batman.

Space Ghost is where we would like to go if we could aspire to something higher than ourselves at ground level. And that’s wonderful, in a lot of ways.

Obviously there are tons of stories left to tell in the Space Ghost universe.”

MAX ROMERO is a fulltime freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. He can be found online at GreatCaesarsPost.com.

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Cartoon Cartoons #3 (May 2001), 6 (Sept. 2001), 10 (May 2002), 13 (Nov. 2002), 15 (Mar. 2003) DC Comics Space Ghost #1–6 (Nov. 2004– June 2005) (limited series) DC Comics Note: Title did not publish Feb. 2005 or Apr. 2005.

by

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera originally teamed up to create the highly popular Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon series, which won more Oscars than any other animated cartoon series during animation’s Golden Age. From 1940–1957, they produced over 114 cartoons before being shown the door by MGM. Rather than retiring and calling it a day, Hanna and Barbera pulled the unlikely trick of starting their own television animation studio. Their first series called Ruff and Reddy was an instant hit, spawning even more popular cartoons in quick succession including The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and later on, Scooby-Doo. Comic books were an integral part of HannaBarbera’s success. In the days long before home video, owning a comic book about a cartoon series was akin to owning a part of the show. It was also a way to get new stories featuring your favorite characters—in many cases, long after a show ceased production.

The first Hanna-Barbera-related comic books appeared as part of Dell’s Four Color series, with Ruff and Reddy being the first one. Many titles and series followed,

Mark Arnold

The Gang’s All Here

and eventually the Dell moniker gave way to Gold Key in 1962 and eventually to Whitman in the 1970s and 1980s. These were produced out of the same office of Western Publishing and Lithography, according to Mark Evanier, who has a page on his website (www.newsfromme.com) explaining the relationship between Western and Dell, Gold Key and Whitman.

As explained in an article about Scooby-Doo in BACK ISSUE #52, Hanna-Barbera resold the Dell and Gold Key stories to foreign markets, but eventually greed took over and soon Hanna-Barbera allied itself with Charlton Publications. This was an unfortunate misstep, as most of Charlton’s artists were inadequate for drawing the Hanna-Barbera characters on model, whereas many of the Dell/Gold Key stories were actually written and drawn by Hanna-Barbera employees.

At first, Charlton only produced the older HannaBarbera series that were retired by Gold Key. Charlton eventually took on H-B’s current properties and in doing so created a tremendous drop in quality—and in an ironic twist, a drop in revenues from the foreign markets that were so lucrative during the Gold Key days.

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Excerpt from the original art by Scott Shaw! (one of ye ed’s faves!) from the cover to Marvel’s Laff-A-Lympics #11 (Jan. 1979), recolored for BI by our designer, Rich Fowlks.

Hokey Wolf, exiting stage right, was eliminated from the cover’s printed version.

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SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE PUBLISHER Hanna-Barbera felt that Charlton was the problem and decided to remedy the situation as soon as Charlton’s license contracts expired in 1977. When they did, Hanna-Barbera considered publishing comics themselves, but eventually was swayed into having Marvel Comics do the honors.

An informed source (who prefers anonymity) who worked for Hanna-Barbera at the time reveals for the very first time the complete behind-the-scenes story of what actually happened with the Marvel HannaBarbera comic books. He speaks: “The deal was set up by people at Taft Broadcasting in Cincinnati. Taft owned H-B then and handled all the merchandising out of that office. Someone there (I forget his name) was unhappy because they couldn’t sell reprint rights to the Charlton material to most of the foreign publishers who had licensed the rights to do comics of H-B properties.

Several of the South American publishers were hiring local artists and writers to create material for their comics instead of buying material from H-B as they had done when H-B was offering the Western Publishing material. Some of the South American publishers were selling their materials to other licensees, and Cincinnati decided that had to be stopped because a lucrative revenue stream was petering out. They went to Charlton and began demanding better stories and art.

I was not involved in those discussions, but I was told Charlton said that was the best they could do.

Cincinnati decided they had to begin offering material as good as what Western had done. They hired the former Western editor Craig Chase to consult, and he told Cincinnati that the Charlton material was hopeless and that it could not be improved, even with him supervising H-B’s interest in it. Cincinnati asked if he could generate new material and he agreed. The license with Charlton was allowed to expire and was not

In the Mighty Marvel Manner (above) Toon titans William Hanna (left) and Joe Barbera, with the Jetsons. (right) First issue covers to Yogi Bear (art by Pete Alavarado and Scott Shaw!) and Dynomutt (art by Aquaman co-creator Paul Norris).

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renewed. Chase became editor of a department out of the H-B studio on Cahuenga, where I worked.

“Cincinnati had him produce mock-ups of four comics to be the first comics in a planned H-B comic company. They brought in a publishing consultant Chase knew and he shopped the package around to distributors. They all refused to carry a new line of comics. He reported back that DC, Marvel, Archie, and one or two companies had a lock on the distribution and were not about to allow a new competitor into the market. He said DC and Marvel were both willing to distribute H-B comics but they would have to be the publishers.” The irony of this statement is that eventually all three of these publishers took a stab at publishing Hanna-Barbera comics over the years, with DC being the current publisher and publishing Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Our H-B source explains why the “Mark” was Mark Evanier, who had initial series were chosen for publication: written Scooby-Doo and many other “Someone in Cincinnati decided. non–H-B comics for Craig back at They picked Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Western Publishing. Evanier wrote Scooby-Doo because those were the almost all the comics Craig edited three most popular comics among for Hanna-Barbera and later took foreign publishers, and the idea was over as editor. He concurs with our to do comics that could be sold for source in H-B business affairs. As reprints by those foreign publishers.

Evanier explains, “Their initial idea Several foreign publishers were doing was they were going to start their Dynomutt, so that was included. There own comic-book company called mark evanier were presentations for several other Hanna-Barbera Comics. That’s when comics like The Jetsons and Jabberjaw, they hired Chase Craig. They would but they decided to start with those four. make their own comics and they would control the “We produced the contents of the comics out of content and have them all done in a format to serve our studio. Craig Chase supervised the first books, and the foreign market and for the rest of the world. They then when he decided to go back to retirement, he approached every distributor and got nowhere, but recommended that Mark take it over. We delivered Curtis, which distributed Marvel’s books and was ready-to-print comics. Marvel paid all editorial costs owned by the same corporation, was willing to handle and then paid us a license fee plus royalties.” them if Marvel was the publisher.

Line Expansion Joining Marvel’s original four HannaBarbera titles were (left) Laff-a-Lympics #1 (cover art from H-B model sheets) and (right) TV Stars #1 (cover penciled by writer/editor Mark Evanier—you read that right—and inked

by Scott Shaw!).

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WHO’S WHO AT MARVEL’S HANNA-BARBERA COMIC BOOKS PETE ALVARADO (1920–2003) was an artist on Spotlight. He was also a mainstay at the HannaBarbera comics during the Dell/Gold Key days.

ROMAN ARAMBULA (1936– ) is an artist who worked on Laff-a-Lympics. He also worked on the Mickey Mouse comic strip immediately after Floyd Gottfredson’s retirement and was an animator at Hanna-Barbera and at Gamma, the company responsible for the cartoons made by Jay Ward and TTV. ROGER ARMSTRONG (1917–2007) was an artist who worked on the Marvel HannaBarbera Flintstones title. He also worked on many Hanna-Barbera TV series including Where’s Huddles? and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. He also drew for Western Publishing and for Walter Lantz.

D. BRUCE BERRY (1924–1998) was a letterer on Laff-a-Lympics.

DICK BICKENBACH’s (1907–1994) work appeared in The Flintstones and in Yogi Bear.

He was also a key animator and artist in the classic days at Hanna-Barbera Productions and also for Gold Key and Dell Comics and on The Flintstones comic strip.

PAT BOYETTE (1923–2000) was an artist on TV Stars and on Captain Caveman and Jabberjaw for the foreign Hanna-Barbera market. He also had a long career at Charlton Comics.

JACK ENYART is a writer who’s worked appeared in TV Stars. He has also had a lengthy career working for Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros., and other animation studios.

OWEN FITZGERALD (1916–1994) was an artist on Laff-a-Lympics and for Shake, Rattle and Roll in TV Stars. He was an artist on Dennis the Menace for a number of years and worked on other projects for Marvel and DC and was an animator for Disney.

CARL GAFFORD (1953– ) is a colorist who worked on virtually all of the Marvel HannaBarbera titles. He also did a lot of other comic-book work before completely dropping out of the industry about ten years ago.

GARRETT GAFFORD is a colorist who worked on virtually all of the Marvel Hanna-Barbera titles. Garrett and Carl Gafford were married at one time.

FRED HIMES (1930–2000) was an artist whose work appeared in TV Stars.

LEE HOOPER (1917– ) is an inker who inked Dick Bickenbach’s work for the Marvel HannaBarbera titles, and also had a long career with Western Publishing illustrating many Disney comics and inking the Flintstones and Yogi Bear newspaper strips.

ART CAPELLO is a letterer on Laff-a-Lympics.

He also had a long career at Charlton Comics.

WILLIE ITO (1934– ) is an artist whose worked appeared in The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. He has worked for HannaBarbera and Disney.

DON R. CHRISTENSEN (1916–2006) was a writer for Scooby-Doo. He was also an animator, cartoonist, illustrator, and inventor. He worked for Disney, Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, Walter Lantz, and Western Publishing.

DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT is a writer whose text pages appeared in Dynomutt and Yogi Bear. He also wrote scripts for Marvel and DC superhero series and published the longrunning Comics Interview magazine.

CHASE CRAIG (1910–2001) was the editor for most of the Marvel Hanna-Barbera line as well as the editor and writer for the HannaBarbera, Warner Bros., and Disney comic-book lines published by Western Publishing.

He also worked for Warner Bros. animation.

BRUCE GREEN was a pen name Craig used as writer in an issue of The Flintstones.

CAROL LAY (1952– ) is an artist, letterer, and inker who worked on Laff-a-Lympics and assisted other artists on Spotlight. At this writing she draws for The Simpsons comic books for Bongo.

SHARMAN DiVONO is a writer whose work appeared in Spotlight and TV Stars. She is also a writer on various animated TV series and at one time, a Star Trek comic strip.

JACK MANNING (1920–1986) was an artist whose work appeared in Laff-a-Lympics, Augie Doggie for Spotlight, and C.B. Bears for TV Stars. He also was a layout artist at Hanna-Barbera and drew Disney, Walter Lantz, Warner Bros., and Hanna-Barbera comics for Western Publishing.

MARK EVANIER (1952– ) is one of the key players in the Marvel Hanna-Barbera story, as revealed in the BACK ISSUE #52 article about Scooby-Doo. He wrote virtually all of the material in the Marvel books and eventually became the series’ editor, assuming the role from Chase Craig. He continues to write for comics and other projects today.

His résumé includes Groo the Wanderer for comics and Garfield for TV.

WILL MEUGNIOT is an artist whose work appeared in TV Stars. He is best known as the co-creator and artist of DNAgents.

REG EVERBEST (STEVE GERBER) (1947–2008) wrote for Spotlight and TV Stars, but was best known for his work on Marvel’s Howard the Duck.

JOE PRINCE is an inker whose work appeared in Yogi Bear and The Flintstones and inked for Gold Key comics for many years.

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PAUL NORRIS (1914–2007) was an artist for the Dynomutt series that also appeared in Scooby-Doo. He also drew for Laff-a-Lympics.

He was the co-creator of Aquaman, among other achievements. He also authored and drew a long-running comic strip called Brick Bradford.

STEVE RADZI-PHILLIPS is a British artist who worked on Spotlight.

MIKE ROYER (1941– ) is a letterer who worked on Laff-a-Lympics. He has worked for Disney and many other projects at Marvel, DC, and Western Publishing.

ART SCOTT (1914–1999) was a writer who wrote many of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera text pieces. He had a lengthy career at Hanna-Barbera as well as Disney and Bob Clampett.

SCOTT SHAW! (1951– ) is an inker and artist who worked on Laff-a-Lympics and artist in Spotlight and TV Stars. He worked for HannaBarbera Productions and on many other books and items. He is also known for his work for Rhino Records and Captain Carrot. At this writing he works on The Simpsons comic books.

FRANK SMITH (1911–1986) was an artist on Laff-a-Lympics and TV Stars. He also had a lengthy career working at UPA. BILL SPICER (1937– ) is a letterer who worked on Laff-a-Lympics. He did a lot of work on Disney comics and for Paul Chadwick’s Concrete. MORDECAI INGELFELD was a pen name Spicer used as a letterer on Scooby-Doo. DAN SPIEGLE (1920– ) is a key artist from comics’ Golden Age. His work appeared on many comic-book series before first teaming with Mark Evanier on Scooby-Doo in the early 1970s. His main contribution for Marvel Hanna-Barbera was for the Scooby-Doo and Dynomutt titles.

STEVE STEERE (1920s– ) is an inker who worked on Spotlight and TV Stars.

DAVE STEVENS (1955–2008) was an artist on TV Stars. His biggest claim to fame was his Rocketeer comic book that also became a major motion picture for Disney. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #47 for Stevens’ last interview.]

TONY STROBL (1915–1991) was an artist on Laff-a-Lympics, Spotlight, and The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. He had a lengthy career as the “other” good duck artist [after Carl Barks] for Western Publishing’s Disney titles.

ALEX TOTH (1928–2006) was an artist on TV Stars. He also worked extensively for many of the Hanna-Barbera adventure TV shows, most notably Space Ghost.

BILL WRAY (1956– ) is an artist who worked on Spotlight. He is better known for his work on Hellboy Jr., MAD, Cracked, and Ren and Stimpy.

KAY WRIGHT (1919–1999) was an artist on The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and Spotlight and had a lengthy career at Hanna-Barbera.

BILL ZIEGLER (1925–1993) was a writer for Scooby-Doo and an artist Western Publishing and the Mary Worth comic strip.

“I got to write Scooby Doo, are rising on all the Marvel HannaDynomutt, Yogi Bear, and The Barbera books.

Flintstones,” Evanier says, “and then “The editor was this guy named they decided they wanted to increase Chase Craig, who had been an editor the number of comics to have a at Western Publishing, and he hired Laff-a-Lympics comic. Chase didn’t me initially as an inker and then he want to work that hard, so he asked retired and Mark Evanier took over and me, ‘Why don’t you be the editor of was also writing most of the books,” this?’ I said, ‘Fine,’ and became editor Shaw! says. “Mark had been an old of Laff-a-Lympics comics. Then one friend of mine. We first met at Jack scott shaw! day Chase and I went to lunch and he Kirby’s house in the late ’60s and we said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. stayed friends, and Mark had me I want to retire,’ and then he just gave me the whole inking and then penciling and then writing stuff. So department, and I took it over.”

Marvel was publishing all that stuff, and about the same The interesting thing about the Marvel Hanna- time I had moved from San Diego to LA and was working Barbera comics is that they always featured a one-page in a comic shop near Hanna-Barbera because I wanted text feature called The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera to get in contact with cartoonists. I figured that a comic that discussed various aspects of animation such as shop would be the best place to attract them. voice artists, animation techniques, and character “Doing the Hanna-Barbera books led to a job at profiles. Mark Evanier gives credit to the previously Hanna-Barbera on a new Flintstones series they were uncredited text pieces: “David Anthony Kraft wrote one for Marvel that they inserted without H-B’s permission.

The texts were written by everyone around. Chase Craig wrote a few. I wrote some. Sharman DiVono wrote one text story. Carl Gafford wrote a batch of them. A lot were written by a fellow named Art Scott who was then a producer at the studio.”

They also featured a two-page preview of another comic book. For example, Dynomutt and Scooby-Doo previewed each other and The Flintstones and Yogi Bear previewed each other. And besides the standard 36-page issues, Hanna-Barbera characters appeared in three oversized treasury editions with the umbrella title of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera.

We’ll Have a Sleigh Old Time (below) The Flintstones and friends hitch a ride with Santa Claus and go tabloid-sized in the first issue of Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (Dec. 1977). Cover

by Kay Wright and Joe Prince. (Come back this November for BACK ISSUE #61, our “Tabloids and Treasuries” edition, which will be published in that self-same megasize!) (above) Sent to us by writer Roger Ash are sketches of Fred Flintstone, Top Cat, and Yogi Bear,

by Scott Shaw!

IN THE MIGHTY MARVEL MANNER Artist Scott Shaw! remembers working on the Marvel Hanna-Barbera titles: “The Marvel Hanna-Barbera titles marked a return to form with many Hanna-Barbera regulars from the Gold Key days returning to the fold.

As a result, they were and are very smart-looking books, and as a result are now highly sought-after by both Hanna-Barbera fans and ‘classic’ Marvel fans, and now command a premium price, especially the Scooby-Doo series for their excellent Mark Evanier/Dan Spiegle stories and the treasury-sized Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera for their scarcity. The Flintstones and Yogi Bear books are somewhat easier to find, but values

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Do You Know What They Call Jabberjaw in France?

Mantalo (with apologies to Quentin Tarantino). Produced for the European market, (left) a Jabberjaw original art page drawn by Charlton Comics stalwart Pat Boyette and (right) a Mantalo cover.

TM & © H-B.

doing called The New Fred and Barney Show,” Shaw! continues. “So I started at the studio in ’78. I really didn’t want to quit freelancing until I heard that they were doing new Flintstones, since those were my favorites, I figured I’d jump on board for that.”

Writer Jack Enyart has this to say about his time working on the Marvel Hanna-Barbera comic books: “Writing those comics was one of my best professional experiences. My editor was Mark Evanier, who was wise beyond his (and my) years at the time. Mark gave precisely enough leeway on the one hand, and supervision on the other, to get the best out of those who worked for him. He was honest, too, about the constraints he was under; we always wanted to give him our best.

“It helped that the HB characters were famous at the time, but not so famous as to prevent us from taking creative liberties with them—an ideal situation.”

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Carol Lay mainly was a letterer during her tenure on the Marvel Hanna-Barbera books, but she did get a chance to do some artwork. She explains, “Mark Evanier let me learn how to do comics while working on this line.

I was very raw back then, but he saw potential in me and let me letter, ink, pencil, and then eventually write stories when no one else would have given me a shot. I don’t recall anything I did then being particularly good. The work I did was just acceptable. The experience was invaluable to me, though—being able to earn while I learned helped me become a cartoonist. I think what I did after that was ink on Disney books for Western Publishing.

Mark helped me get that job by putting in a good word with Del Connell.”

Throughout this time, the H-B comic-book division was expanding with work for other companies. The source in business affairs explains, “Cincinnati was selling the artwork done for the Marvel books to many foreign publishers who had licensed the rights to do H-B comics in their jack enyart countries. The licensee in France urged us to do Jabberjaw comics because the Jabberjaw cartoons where then on the air in France and very popular. They offered to pay the costs plus a nice profit if the department at the studio would write and draw Jabberjaw stories. I went to Mark Evanier, who had taken over for Craig by then, and asked him if he wanted to do that. He agreed and soon after, France asked for stories of other H-B properties and several other countries began ordering stories of the shows that were then airing in their countries.”

Evanier concurs: “In France, they were airing Jabberjaw and they were showing that cartoon every day. The French publisher said, ‘Hey, do you have any Jabberjaw

COVER GALLERY Fantastic Four (top left) “Ghostly Governor”? Looks like Honest Abe to us! Cover to Scooby-Doo #2 (Dec. 1971) by Dan Spiegle. (See BI #52 for more on Evanier/Spiegle’s Scooby doings.) (top right) Dino’s in trouble on Roger Armstrong’s cover to The Flintstones #5 (Apr. 1978). (bottom left) Yes, that’s an Alex Toth cover on TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978), one of the most collectible Marvel H-B issues due to its Space Ghost and Herculoids appearances. (bottom right) Scott Shaw!’s in fine form on this ape-stronaut Magilla Gorilla cover for Hanna-Barbera Spotlight #4 (May 1979). This issue was published at the end of the H-B Marvel run and reflects the publisher’s acrossthe-line price increase.

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that point, they ordered a special larger comic [The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera] and then a new monthly comic to add to the line [Laff-a-Lympics] and a month later, they added two more books and more specials but decided to cancel Dynomutt and later the other three.

Of the Marvel books, Evanier says, “The people at Marvel told us they sold terribly. I wouldn’t stick to that because those people didn’t like Marvel publishing comics that were not using their talent pool anyway.

Then when I went to the execs at Hanna-Barbera and I asked them how those books sold and they said, ‘Oh, they sold very well. We had very high royalties.’

They pulled out royalty statements from Marvel and the sales figures on those statements seemed quite high. So I really don’t know. There have been times when someone at a comic-book company said, ‘Hey, why are we promoting characters and properties we don’t own?’ and they got rid of comics that were technically profitable.”

THE BEDROCK CRUMBLES

Prehistoric Discoveries (above) Chances are you didn’t see this Captain Caveman story in print, since it was produced for the European market. Art by Pat Boyette. (center) Fred finds gold on the cover of Marvel’s The Flintstones #1 (Oct. 1977). Art by Roger Armstrong.

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comic books that we could translate into French here?’

There were none, but we did some and I hired writers and artists and did Jabberjaw comic books that were published in France as Mantalo. So eventually after Marvel stopped publishing books in America, I was running a full comics department for Europe and all over the world for a couple of years. So to me it was like a four-to-five-year time.

“But the Marvel books? I really don’t know how they sold.”

The business affairs source reports, “Marvel was initially very happy with the sales. Then one day, they suddenly said the books weren’t selling and would be canceled.

That violated the terms of our contract and we threatened legal action, so they kept them going. Our publishing consultant checked with the printer of the comics and reported to us that he believed Marvel was misreporting the sales figures and therefore underpaying royalties. We informed Marvel we were exercising our contractual right to send in auditors and they responded by sending an amended, higher royalty report that we believed was more accurate. They said it had been a clerical error. At

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The Marvel Hanna-Barbera titles were all canceled after a few months … but then, Marvel was rarely good with “children’s” titles, failing again in 1981 with Dennis the Menace and the semi-successful, but ultimately failed, 1984–1990 Star Comics line. Having the Marvel books canceled did not mean the end of the H-B comic-book division. By now, Evanier’s office was producing more material for foreign markets than for America, and there was a new possible avenue opening up for this country.

The business affairs executive explains, “Marvel was back to reporting weak sales and we decided jointly to terminate the arrangement so we could find a publisher more interested in the properties. We had another accounting dispute over the final royalties. Based on the final numbers Marvel reported and paid on, the comics were rather successful.

“We took those numbers to another publisher, Modern Promotions, which was affiliated with Grosset & Dunlap, and they made a deal to publish the comics,” the anonymous source continues. “They were impressed enough with the sales figures from Marvel to make that deal and Mark started work on the new comics. But then the publisher of Modern Promotions took ill and received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He suspended most of his publishing plans and we agreed to put our contract with him on hold. He passed away and his company scaled back before the comics could come out.”

Evanier remembers the Modern Promotions plan: “We did a couple of books for them and they were never printed. The fellow in charge there—a nice man, as I remember—got sick. The plans were never officially called off as far as I know.

He just asked if we could put the contract on ‘hold’ while he devoted his attention to getting better and H-B said yes. And then he didn’t get better.

“By that point, I was getting so busy with TV work that I didn’t have time to edit the foreign comics, even with bringing in Steve Gerber as my assistant,” Evanier says.

“But we kept them going for another year or two. Then one day, someone at H-B Cincinnati came to me and asked, ‘Can you do the comics for less?’ We were paying our writers and artists and me pretty well and he asked me if we could slash the budgets. He explained that they’d been approached by an outside studio and they’d offered to do the books cheaper. They wanted me to match that price and I said no. This was an exec who was new there and had not lived through the Charlton debacle, but I told I was not going to compete with an underbid. I said, ‘If you want to give the job to someone else, that’s your right.’ He wouldn’t tell me who the other bidder was.

“A day or two later, I got a call from Dick Giordano.

This was before he went back to DC. He was running a studio and he was the one underbidding me. He did not realize that. He told me he was going to be editing a batch of comic books for Hanna-Barbera and he wanted me to help him get reference on the characters and model sheets because he was unfamiliar with the properties.

He told me Joe Gill, who had written most of the H-B comics for Charlton, was going to be writing most of them but if Joe couldn’t handle it all, he’d like me to do some of it … and he offered me a fourth of what I was paid for writing them for my own division. He also told me he was hoping to get a lot of the guys who’d drawn the Charlton books to draw the material he was going to do.

“Well, it was so perfect. I mean, it was funny … going back to the Charlton talent pool because they thought they’d make more money with them. But it was also sad because it meant the folks working for us were going to lose that income—folks like Scott Shaw! and Carol Lay and Gerber and the rest. Fortunately, they all got other work with ease, and I had plenty of other things to do, including writing for H-B TV shows and for other producers. Three months later, as was inevitable, I got a call from Hanna-Barbera Cincinnati and they said, ‘Uh, our deal with this other supplier hasn’t worked out.

How much trouble would it be to restart your division?’ I told them it would be too much trouble … and that was the end of the Hanna-Barbera comic-book department. Giordano later told me his relationship with them hadn’t survived the first batch of pages he turned in to them.”

After that, the Hanna-Barbera characters remained in comicbook limbo for a few years, save for the Jonny Quest series by Comico during the 1980s [see article beginning on page 51].

Hanna-Barbera comics came back in earnest in the early 1990s, this time published

by Harvey Comics, though no new stories were attempted. Instead, the inferior Charlton stories were reprinted, graced with brand-new, gorgeous covers drawn by Scott Shaw!

By the time Harvey got around to doing some new

Happy Feet Yogi’s colder than the average bear as he meets the Abominable Snowman in Yogi Bear #3 (Mar. 1978).

Cover by Pete Alvarado and Joe Prince. And that’s detail from the cover of Yogi #2 behind this caption. (below) Zoinks! It’s a funky phantom on the cover of Marvel’s last issue of Scooby-Doo, issue #9.

Art by Dan Spiegle.

TM & © H-B.

material, they ceased publication and Archie Publications took on the titles for a few years until Warner Bros. purchased the Hanna-Barbera library. When this happened, the license passed over to DC, where it remains to this day. After a few short-lived titles featuring their classic characters, eventually these were all canceled in favor of newer shows produced for Cartoon Network, except for the perennial Scooby-Doo, a title still being published in comic-book form to this day.

It’s a shame that a compilation cannot be issued of the Marvel Hanna-Barbera material. Most of it was of superior quality and it would be nice to see again in some sort of anthology book. Of course, it would have to be published by DC, so that might be the fly in the ointment in getting something like that reissued. And of course, DC is not very keen right now in issuing anything featuring The Flintstones or Yogi Bear anymore, which is a shame because they should be available regularly just as their own Looney Tunes title, which has been known to resort to reprints in recent times.

In the meantime, seeking out and collecting the Marvel Hanna-Barbera comic books is a rewarding experience with many talented individuals at the helm.

TM & © H-B.

Special thanks to Mark Evanier for his outstanding help on this article and Greg Beda, Joe Torcivia, Jerry Boyd, Carol Lay, Jack Enyart, Scott Shaw!, and the source from H-B who wishes to remain anonymous.

MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian with many books to his credit including books on Harvey Comics, the Beatles, Underdog, and Cracked Magazine. He recently provided commentary to DVD collections of Casper, Underdog, and Tennessee Tuxedo issued by Shout! Factory, and is at work on a book about Walt Disney Productions, among other projects.

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BACK ISSUE • 27

A COMPLETE U.S. MARVEL HANNA-BARBERA CHECKLIST

Compiled by Mark Arnold

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Dynomutt #1 (Nov. 1977) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: Little Miss Goody Twoshoes (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bill Spicer – Letterer Dynomutt: Repulsive Finster (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bill Spicer – Letterer The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Monkey Business (1 page) Scooby-Doo: Close Call (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist

Dynomutt #2 (Jan. 1978) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: The Astounding Mr. Mastermind (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: Identity Crisis (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: Fear at Fifty Fathoms (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dyno-Mail: It’s a Dog Eat Dog World! (1 page) David Anthony Kraft – Writer The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Building a Cartoon (1 page) Dynomutt #3 (Mar. 1978) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: Mother Goose’s Nursery Crimes (11 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: What Makes Them Move?

(1 page) Dynomutt: Beach Blanket Baboon (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Jinx of the Sphinx (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt #4 (May 1978) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: Top Banana (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (1 page) Dynomutt: The Martian Menace (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dyno-Mail (1 page) Scooby-Doo: A Moving Experience (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist

Dynomutt #5 (July 1978) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: Washed-Up Super-Hero (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: The Big Man (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Everyone Loves a Mystery (1 page) Scooby-Doo: Down Town Clown (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist

Dynomutt #6 (Sept. 1978) Paul Norris – Artist Dynomutt: The Zoot Suit Brutes’ Loot (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: Invasion Evasion (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Animation and the Law (1 page) Scooby-Doo: Face of Fear (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist ™

The Flintstones #1 (Oct. 1977) Roger Armstrong – Artist The Flintstones: From Rocks to Riches (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: The Terrible Pterograbber (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Glueshoe’s Big Race (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince –

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Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Dog Days (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: It’s a Cat’s World (1 page) Yogi Bear: Ghastly Grotto (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Marvel Comics Meets HannaBarbera (1 page) The Flintstones #2 (Dec. 1977) Roger Armstrong – Artist The Flintstones: Wanted: Fred or Alive (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Super Salesman (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Fred’s Fright Night (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: The Trillionaire (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Teamwork (1 page) The Flintstones #3 (Feb. 1978) Roger Armstrong – Artist The Flintstones: Fred the Barbarian (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: A Penny Saved (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: The Art of Animation (1 page) The Flintstones: Suggestion Box (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Go South, Young Bear (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones #4 (Apr. 1978) Roger Armstrong – Artist The Flintstones: Stone Age Spaceman (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Fair Play (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: A Weighty Problem (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Mirth-Making Music (1 page) Bedrock Bulletins (1 page)

Yogi Bear: Deep Sheep Sleep (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones #5 (Apr. 1978) Roger Armstrong – Artist The Flintstones: Dino, Come Home (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Agony of De Feet (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Kay Wright – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Recycling Animation (1 page) The Flintstones: Hidden Talent (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Bedrock Bulletins (1 page) Yogi Bear: Unusual Prospects (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist

The Flintstones #6 (Aug. 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist The Flintstones: The Masked Rider of Stonerock Gulch (7 pages) Bruce Green (Chase Craig) – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: The Flat Feat (3 pages) Bruce Green (Chase Craig) – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Chief For a Day (5 pages) Bruce Green (Chase Craig) – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: The Super-Duper Cartoons (1 page) Yogi Bear: Isle Be Seeing You (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist

The Flintstones #7 (Oct. 1978) The Flintstones: The Witch’s Curse (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Lots of Trouble (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Watch the Birdie (1 page) The Flintstones: The Furry Fury (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Ca$h and Carry (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones #8 (Dec. 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist The Flintstones: The Mighty Hunter (9 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Fantastic Fred (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Sketch a Story (1 page) Yogi Bear: Circus Larcenous (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones #9 (Feb. 1979) Dick Bickenbach – Artist The Flintstones: The Amazing Rubble Bubble (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: The Football Fanatics (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Story Session (1 page) Yogi Bear: Stranger Danger!

(2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist

™

The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera #1 (The Flintstones Christmas Party) (Dec. 1977) (Treasury Size) Kay Wright – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Contents (1 page) Kay Wright – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker The Flintstones Christmas Party (48 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Kay Wright – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Mike Royer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist (The Jetsons chapter was drawn by Tony Strobl and inked by Joe Prince) Scooby-Doo’s Christmas Chuckler

(1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist Have a Very Merry Christmas … and a Funtastic New Year! (1 page) Kay Wright – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker

Laff-a-Lympics: The Man Who Stole Thursday (48 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle, Scott Shaw, Owen Fitzgerald, Frank Smith, Tony Strobl, Pete Alvarado, Joe Prince and Paul Norris – Artists Inside Back Cover (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist Back Cover (1 page) Scott Shaw! – Artist ™

Laff-a-Lympics #1 (Mar. 1978) Hanna-Barbera model sheets – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Meet at Mount Ono (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Mike Royer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Laff-a-Lympics (1 page) The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera #2 (Yogi Bear’s Easter Parade) (Mar. 1978) (Treasury Size) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker Contents (1 page) Chase Craig – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Yogi Bear’s Easter Parade (18 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yakky Doodle’s Scrambled Eggs (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist Scooby-Doo and Dynomutt: Phantasma Gloria (8 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Captain Caveman: Twin Trouble (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist The Jetsons: Robots That Bloom in the Spring (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Tony Strobl – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Touche Turtle’s Crossword Puzzle (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist Top Cat: Spring Fever (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Artist – Kay Wright, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Huckleberry’s Comic Crostic Puzzle (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist The Flintstones: Spring Training (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Kay Wright – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Magilla Magic! (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist Happy Easter from Yogi and All of his Friends (1 page) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker

The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera #3 (Laff-a-Lympics) (June 1978) (Treasury Size) Willie Ito – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Contents (1 page)

Laff-a-Lympics #2 (Apr. 1978) Frank Smith – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Laff-a-Lympics: Trouble at the Track Meet (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Pete Alvarado and Owen Fitzgerald – Artists, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Daws Butler (1 page)

The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Roots (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #7 (Sept. 1978) Roman Arambula – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Purple Pig Puzzle (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roman Arambula – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Roots (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #8 (Oct. 1978) Roman Arambula – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Beef of Bagdad (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roman Arambula and Dan Spiegle – Artists, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Groups (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #9 (Nov. 1978) Roman Arambula – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: Western Style (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roman Arambula – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Roots (1 page)

Laff-a-Lympics #3 (May 1978) Owen Fitzgerald – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Laff-a-Lympics: The Miraculous Moon Meet! (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Owen Fitzgerald – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Comedy Character Scorecard (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #4 (June 1978) Frank Smith – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Laff-a-Lympics: Take Me Out to the Brawl Game! (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Roots II (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #5 (July 1978) Frank Smith – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Laff-a-Lympics: The Day the Rottens Won! (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Roots III (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #6 (Aug. 1978) Scott Shaw! – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Discount of Monty Cristo (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roman Arambula – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, D. Bruce Berry – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist

Laff-a-Lympics #10 (Dec. 1978) Mark Evanier – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Laff-a-Lympics: Now You See Them… (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris, Roman Arambula and Scott Shaw! – Artists, Art Capello – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Celebrity Voices (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #11 (Jan. 1979) Scott Shaw! – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Toys from Tomorrow (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Tony Strobl, Roman Arambula and Scott Shaw!

– Artists, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Heroes (1 page)

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Laff-a-Lympics #12 (Feb. 1979) Roman Arambula – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: The Ends of the Earth (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle, Jack Manning and Scott Shaw! – Artists, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Story Session (1 page) Laff-a-Lympics #13 (Mar. 1979) Scott Shaw! – Artist Laff-a-Lympics: No Laff-a-Lympics Game Today! (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Scott Shaw! – Artist, Bill Spicer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Yogi Yahooeys (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Scott Shaw! – Artist, Bill Spicer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Scooby Doobies (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Bill Spicer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Really Rottens (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning and Scott Shaw! – Artist, Bill Spicer – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist ™

Scooby-Doo #1 (Oct. 1977) Dan Speigle – Artist Scooby-Doo: Three Phantoms Too Many (10 pages) Bill Ziegler – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Horrible Hound Sound (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Dogs and Cats (1 page) Dynomutt: Goody Twoshoes (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Marvel Comics Meets HannaBarbera (1 page)

Scooby-Doo #2 (Dec. 1977) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: The Ghostly Governor (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Haunted Maze (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: The Sinister Threat!

(3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo #3 (Feb. 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: The Ghost of King Neptune (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: Coast-to-Coast Ghost (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: Time to Bee-Ware!

(3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Cartoon Voices (1 page) Scooby-Doo #4 (Apr. 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: Menace of the ManMummy (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: Dazzling Duds (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: The Big Bust-Out (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doodles (1 page) The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Zonks and Bonks (1 page) Scooby-Doo #5 (June 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: Ghost of the Old Witch (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Dynomutt: Two Dog Town (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: A Close-Up Look at Backgrounds (1 page) Scooby-Doo: The Spook What Loved Lemonade (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doodles (1 page) Scooby-Doo #6 (Aug. 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: Fester and the Jester (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Golden Ghost (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: The Search for Motion (1 page) Dynomutt: Zoot Suit Blues (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer,

30 • BACK ISSUE • Toon Comics Issue

Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo #7 (Oct. 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: The Faceless Phantom (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Frightful Scarecrow (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Watch the Birdie (1 page) Dynomutt’s Energy Mystery (1 page) Don R. Christensen – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist Scooby-Doo Crossword Puzzle (1 page) Mark Evanier – Writer and Artist Scooby-Doo #8 (Dec. 1978) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: The Shadow Knows (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo: The Frightful Scarecrow (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Sketch a Story (1 page) Scooby-Doo: The Phantom of Youth (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Scooby-Doo #9 (Feb. 1979) Dan Spiegle – Artist Scooby-Doo: Mystery at Malibu (17 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Mordecai Ingelfeld – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Story Session (1 page) ™

Spotlight #1 (Sept. 1978) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw!

– Inker Huckleberry Hound: Tin Can Town (14 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw!

– Inker, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: (no title featuring an interview with Huck by Yogi) (1 page) Hokey Wolf: The Bronco Buster (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Scott Shaw! – Artist, Carol Lay – Letterer, Carl Gafford – Colorist Spotlight #2 (Nov. 1978) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw!

– Inker Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey: El Kabong Rides Again!

(7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Kay Wright – Artist, Steve Steere – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Snooper and Blabber: Bounce to the Ounce (5 pages) Mark Evanier

– Writer, Pete Alvarado – Artist, Steve Radzi-Phillips – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Quick Draw McGraw (1 page) Augie Doggie: A Penny Saved (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist, Bill Wray – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist

Spotlight #3 (Jan. 1979) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker The Jetsons: All’s Fair in Love and Warranty (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Tony Strobl – Artist, Carol Lay – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yakky Doodle: Fry Now, Play Later (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Pete Alvarado and Carol Lay – Artists, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: The Jetsons (1 page) The Jetsons in Sandy Claws (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Tony Strobl – Artist, Carol Lay – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Spotlight #4 (May 1979) (only 40¢ issue) Scott Shaw! – Artist Magilla Gorilla: Big Magilla in Space! (9 pages) Reg Everbest (Steve Gerber) – Writer, Pete Alvarado – Artist, Carol Lay – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Cute Kitty by Sharman DiVono (Huckleberry Hound text story) (1 page) Snagglepuss: Chunky Chiller (8 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Scott Shaw! – Artist, Carol Lay – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist ™

TV Stars #1 (Aug. 1978) Mark Evanier – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Captain Caveman: The Shipping Magnet (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist Shake, Rattle and Roll: Silent

Knight (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Owen Fitzgerald – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Great Grape Ape: The Big Meal Deal (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Frank Smith – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: (no title, history of HannaBarbera) (1 page)

Clue Club: The Root of All Evil!

(7 pages) Reg Everbest (Steve Gerber) – Writer, Pat Boyette and Fred Himes – Artists, Carl Gafford – Colorist C.B. Bears in King of the Mountain (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning -- Artist, Scott Shaw!

– Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Story Session (1 page) Top Cat: Asparagus Alley (5 pages) Jack Enyart – Writer, Pete Alvarado – Artist, Steve Steere – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist ™

TV Stars #2 (Oct. 1978) Mark Evanier – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker C.B. Bears: The Great Cole Slaw Conspiracy (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Jack Manning – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist, D. Bruce Berry – Letterer Undercover Elephant: The Sea-Side Sneak Thief (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roman Arambula – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Clue Club: Mrs. Macree’s Mystery (5 pages) Sharman DiVono – Writer, Dan Spiegle – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: (no title, Huckleberry Hound introduces new characters) (1 page) TV Stars #3 (Dec. 1978) Alex Toth – Artist Dynomutt: The Gingerbread Man (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Paul Norris – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Herculoids: Cauldron of Disaster (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Will Meugniot and Dave Stevens – Artists, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: (no title, bio on Space Ghost and The Herculoids) (1 page) Space Ghost: Pilgreen’s Progress (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Alex Toth – Artist, Carl Gafford – Colorist TV Stars #4 (Feb. 1979) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker

Yogi Bear #1 (Nov. 1977) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Scott Shaw! – Inker Yogi Bear: The Secret of Ghastly Grotto (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Pete Alvarado – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bill Spicer – Letterer Yogi Bear: The Goodies Inspector (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bill Spicer – Letterer The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Bear Facts (1 page) Yogi Bear: The Chummy Dummy (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bill Spicer – Letterer The Flintstones: Sly Spy Guy (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear #2 (Jan. 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Yogi Bear: The Trillionaire’s Bear (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Movie Madness (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Signs of the Times (4 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: The Fantastic Places (1 page) The Flintstones: Rotten to the Corps (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Smarter Than the Average Mail: Funny Animals Are Our Friends (1 page) David Anthony Kraft – Writer Yogi Bear #3 (Mar. 1978) Pete Alvarado – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Yogi Bear: Below-Zero Bear (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince

– Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Sheriff Yogi (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Swami Bear (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Character Personality (1 page) The Flintstones: Fit and Trim (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear #4 (May 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Yogi Bear: Don’t Give Up the Sheep (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bernie Zuber – Letterer Yogi Bear: The Ranger Stranger (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bernie Zuber – Letterer The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Lights! Camera! Action! (1 page) Yogi Bear: Going to Waist (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist, Bernie Zuber – Letterer Smarter Than the Average Mail (1 page) The Flintstones: Dino For Sale (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Roger Armstrong – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist

Yogi Bear #5 (July 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker Yogi Bear: The Jelly Jam (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Wrap Session (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Call of the West (2 pages) Chase Craig – Writer,

Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: The Defective Detective (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Joe Prince – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Everyone Loves a Mystery (1 page) Yogi Bear #6 (Sept. 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker Yogi Bear: Surfer Bear (7 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: The Sinister Scheme (3 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: The Homemade Hero (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Carl Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera: Animation and the Law (1 page) The Flintstones: From Bad to Curse (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear #7 (Nov. 1978) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker Yogi Bear: The Business Typhoon (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: From T.E. to H.B. (1 page) Yogi Bear: Exit Snagglepuss (5 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Flintstones: Dig We Must (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear #8 (Jan. 1979) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker Yogi Bear: Big Top Bear (9 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: Frontier Father (6 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist The Funtastic World of HannaBarbera: Layout and Design (1 page) The Flintstones: No Soap (2 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear #9 (Mar. 1979) Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker Yogi Bear: Bearly Robin Hood (10 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist Yogi Bear: The Lonely Ranger (8 pages) Mark Evanier – Writer, Dick Bickenbach – Artist, Lee Hooper – Inker, Garrett Gafford – Colorist

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by

Paul Kupperberg

Jive Talkin’ Plas and portly pal Woozy Winks in Lee Marrs’ first Sunday strip. (background) Detail from DC’s Plastic Man #4 (May–June 1967).

Cover art by Carmine Infantino and Mike Esposito.

TM & © DC Comics.

BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION With his creation of Plastic Man in 1941, cartoonist Jack Cole caught mercury in a bottle. Comics’ Golden Age may have been a creative Oort cloud shucking off countless characters into the comics universe, but there was far more quantity being produced than quality. In a time when the average page of comic-book art could best be described as well intended but crude, written to service simple, disposable stories for ten year olds, Plastic Man was a step above the rest. Cole could not only out-cartoon most everybody, but his stories were smarter, snappier, and funnier than just about anybody else’s, as likely to bring a chuckle to the adult reader as a belly laugh from the kids.

It is no coincidence that Cole found a home for Plastic Man at Quality Comics, one of the more aptly named publishing companies of the era. His manic, malleable, bouncing, bounding stories were a perfect fit for the house that also served as home to Will Eisner, Lou Fine, Bob Powell, Alex Kotsky, Klaus Nordling, and Chuck Cuidera and their creations, including the Spirit, Blackhawk, Black Condor, Uncle Sam, and Kid Eternity. Plastic Man’s run stretched across 127 issues of Police Comics (Aug. 1941–Oct. 1953) and 64 issues of Plastic Man (Summer 1943–Nov. 1956), almost the lifetime of Quality Comics, which ceased publication in December of 1956.

But while Quality was gone, some of its characters were to live on— National Periodical Publications, the corporate forerunner to DC

Comics, acquired the failed Quality’s assets. The last issues of all Quality titles were dated December 1956. The first issues of DC’s pick-ups of Blackhawk (#108) and G.I. Combat (#44) debuted the following month, January 1957. The rest of the company’s long-running titles and characters, including Police Comics, Crack Comics, Plastic Man, Doll Man, Uncle Sam, and the rest, were relegated, it seemed, to history.

Plastic Man lay unused and alone in the memory of his fans for almost a decade—excluding three issues of unauthorized reprints by the small and marginally legit I. W. Publishing in 1963 and 1964— before DC, responding to changing trends in comic readership, resurrected the Stretchable Sleuth, first in the pages of the ’60s kitsch favorite series, “Dial ‘H’ For Hero” in House of Mystery #160 (July 1966), and then in his own title, a ten-issue run that lasted from Nov.–Dec. 1966 through May–June 1968. This series, written by Arnold Drake, with art across the run by Gil Kane, Win Mortimer, and Jack Sparling, resembled Cole’s Plastic Man the way a Yugo resembles a Rolls-Royce; both have four wheels and engines, but that’s where the similarities end.

It was enough to send Plas back into hibernation for another decade (except for a 1973 cameo on an episode of the animated Super Friends), returning briefly for a continuation (in numbering, at any rate) of the 1960s series, #11–20 (Feb.–Mar. 1976–Oct.–Nov. 1977) by Steve Skeates, Elliot S! Maggin, John Albano, and Ramona Fradon.

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A CARTOON ARTIST FOR A CARTOON CHARACTER Though this take was closer than its predecessor to Cole’s concept, it seemed to underscore the problem with the previous attempt: Plastic Man was not a character that worked particularly well under the assembly-line process of modern comic books. Plastic Man was a character best approached by a single creator, and by a cartoonist instead of a comic-book artist (Curt Swan was a comic-book artist; Joe Kubert is a cartoonist). Jack Cole was a cartoonist, a versatile illustrator who could make the absurd believable; indeed, at the end of his life (which ended, unfortunately, in suicide in 1958), he had made the jump from comics to sophisticated cartoonist for the newly launched Playboy magazine.

Fortunately, the editor assigned to the next Plastic Man project was himself a cartoonist. Joe Orlando (1927–1998) began his career in the late 1940s and by 1950 was an illustrator for Bill Gaines’ legendary line of E. C. Comics and MAD magazine. He would later help create (and draw for) Jim Warren’s Creepy and Eerie magazines, illustrate the Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip, co-create the Inferior Five, revive the horror genre for DC, and serve a long, distinguished, and creative role in the upper management of the company and its sister publication, MAD. In 1979, Joe was tasked with yet another Plastic Man revival, but not as a comic book. This time, Plas was coming back in a comic strip.

A year earlier, in April 1978, DC’s World’s Greatest Superheroes (WGSH) strip had premiered in newspapers nationwide, distributed by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate. Written by veteran Superman writer Martin Pasko, with art by George Tuska and Vince Colletta, WGSH was essentially a Justice League of America strip with the primary focus on the world’s greatest superhero himself, Superman, all done in anticipation of the December 1978 debut of the big-budget Superman: The Movie.

Thanks to the upsurge in popularity from the film, WGSH had a strong start; by the time I assumed writing duties on the strip in January 1982, the Superman furor had been spent and the strip had lost most of its major newspapers and all but a relative handful of its smaller subscribers.

But in 1979, at the height of the Man of Steelmania, the newspaper strip seemed a strong venue for DC’s character list. And, with all the big guns (Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Lightning, et al.) tied up in WGSH, the publisher looked to its second-tier heroes for inspiration.

And there was Plastic Man, the clear frontrunner thanks to his starring role every Saturday morning on ABC’s The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, a Ruby-Spears Production. The show was not very good (it included Hula-Hula, Plastic Man’s bumbling Hawaiian sidekick; Plas’ hot wife; and even a Baby Plas), but it was exposure for the character, and DC knew that would be a major selling point to the newspaper syndicates.

The job of interpreting Plastic Man for the strip format was given to underground cartoonist and DC Comics contributor Lee Marrs. Lee had begun her comics career in the strips, as assistant to Little Orphan Annie artist Philip “Tex” Blaisdell (1920–1999), himself a veteran of 22 syndicated strips, before becoming one of the first women underground comic creators, a founding mother of the Wimmen’s Comix Collective, and contributor to titles including Wet Satin, El Perfecto, and Gates of Heaven, as well as The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp (1973–1978) and Lee Marrs’ The Compleat Fart and Other Body Emissions (1976).

Lee and editor Orlando were not strangers to one another in 1979.

“During the 1970s, I did work for Joe Orlando,” Marrs says. “I started out doing inking and backgrounds for Tex Blaisdell on weekends, sort of.

The Bounce-Back King (top) The Stretchable Sleuth as rendered by his creator, Jack Cole, on Quality Comics’ Plastic Man #16 (Mar. 1949). (bottom) After a tryout in House of Mystery #160, Plas headlined his own short-lived DC title beginning with the Gil Kane-drawn Plastic Man #1 (Nov.–Dec. 1966), the first of various attempts by DC over the decades to use the character.

TM & © DC Comics.

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I was living in Washington, DC, and was going to college and I got to know his daughter, who was going to American University with me. So I did backgrounds for just about all his work. He worked on Hi & Lois and Little Orphan Annie, all kinds of things.

“Tex took me around and introduced ne to all the people he knew in the business. I had not thought of doing comic-book work at all, but Joe Orlando, then a DC editor, was interested in me anyway.

I did a lot of work for Joe for [the weird humor comic] Plop!, Weird Mystery Tales, and House of Secrets. I did both stories and art for him.”

New York News] syndicate. In 1973, Tex was leaving the strip to teach at the Joe Kubert School, so Joe Orlando offered Annie to me. I would have just been the artist on it. They had someone else writing it.

“After due consideration, from everything I had seen about how syndication worked and the way they ran the strips, I figured I would be trapped. You know, they didn’t give you your art back, you never received any royalties, blah blah blah. All the reasons I was an underground cartoonist to begin with.

I turned down Joe’s offer (Mary Perkins, On Stage creator Leonard Starr accepted the assignment and did the strip until 2000), but later, when they MAKING GOLD OUT OF were thinking of reviving Plastic Man, PLASTIC Joe called me again.”

Joe Orlando was an innovative editor, Talks with DC commenced in one of the “new breed” DC began the fall of 1979, Lee says. “Contracts hiring in the late 1960s in response to went back and forth in October and Stan Lee’s more sophisticated Marvel November, and we were ready to Comics. Editors Julie Schwartz and get going pretty fast. I think DC had Murray Boltinoff were still selling plenty lee marrs big plans for Plastic Man and were in of comic books, but newcomers Joe a hurry to get the strip in the works.

Orlando and Dick Giordano were They had all kinds of ideas about helping to create and mentor the company’s next leveraging all the characters into comic strips. Up to creative generation of comics and creators. then, all they had was a Superman strip.”

“Joe and I got to know each other working on DC had, in fact, a fairly long and successful history those Plop! stories and he started to think of me for of leveraging its two most well known characters into projects outside of the usual DC stories,” Marrs says. syndicated strips. Superman debuted in Action Comics “The first thing I was offered was Little Orphan Annie, #1 (June 1938); the Superman newspaper strip debuted which Joe was sort of managing for the [Chicago Tribune/

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Marrs Attacks (left) Lee Marrs’ The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp (1973), published by Last Gasp-Econ Funnies. (right) Lee Marrs’ The Compleat Fart and Other Body Emissions #1 (1976), published by Kitchen Sink.

TM & © Lee Marrs.

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on January 16, 1939. A Superman daily and Sunday strip ran more or less continuously until 1966, appearing during its peak in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday papers with a readership of more than 20 million. Batman first swung into action in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939); the first Batman and Robin daily and Sunday strip ran from 1942–1946, with a second, short-lived Sunday strip in 1953, and another run from 1966–1974. But the era of the great newspaper adventure strips was gasping its last, and what were left were suffering from shrinking newspaper comic-strip pages, not to mention the reduction in the physical size of the printed strips themselves.

STRETCHING THE EDITORIAL BOUNDARIES Despite the odds, Lee was anxious to tackle the Plastic Man strip, coming to the character well-versed in Jack Cole’s peerless creation. “I was a fan of the Jack Cole Plastic Man as a kid, so it was easy to get my head into that place. Joe knew I could handle the humor, so other than having to have a new arch-villain for every story arc, I wasn’t given a lot of editorial direction or suggestions. There was no real editorial supervision at all, which was a relief,” Lee recalls with a laugh. Coming from the self-supervising world of the undergrounds, she was accustomed to working without an editorial net.

The reasons for the lack of editorial interference was twofold, the first having to do with her relationship with Orlando.

“Joe enjoyed Plastic Man also, so we spent a lot of time on the phone chortling about our favorite episodes and all that kind of stuff,” Marrs says. “Joe knew my work, so he’d already done all his editing and critiquing of my work with the Plop! stories, and he knew which no-nos I would go for and warned me away from them in advance. When you and an editor you like have worked together long enough, you learn how each other thinks and it’s like a shorthand going forward.

Considering the volume of work, you have to do that in order to be able to ever get home and have supper.”

The second reason was the choice of DC Comics editor Len Wein as the project’s hands-on editor.

“I dealt directly with Len, but he just said ‘whatever!’ to everything,” Marrs says. “Len didn’t feel comedy was his long suit, so he left me to do pretty much what I wanted.”

Lee continues, “I did a sample page, like a regular comic-book size. I have sketches here showing every single thing that you could imagine I could turn Plastic Man into, trying to figure out where to put the stripes and that sort of thing.” And for her first storyline, Lee went after the roller disco fad. “Roller disco was the thing at the time,” she says, “a pretty easy target for the kind of stories I wanted to do.”

While creating the strip for the newspapers, the production of Plastic Man was very much comic-bookbusiness-as-usual, according to Lee. This was, after all, a work-made-for-hire arrangement between a property’s copyright holder and a freelance contractor creating a piece of work to the publisher’s specifications, if not specific instructions.

“They ran this just like a regular comic-book factory sort of business,” she says. “DC was paying me a page rate instead of the royalty or profit-sharing I would have had for a strip I created directly for the syndicate.

I had to draw it so there were two daily strips on every page, and that kind of stuff.” A week’s worth of strips, Sunday included, was treated as four pages of comic-

book art, a method of calculating payment that DC retained through my run as writer of the Superman strip in the early-’80s, and my later editorial involvement with the 1989–1991 Batman strip.

Disco is Dead (top) Another Sunday page. (bottom) Mike Friedrich with Lee Marrs at the 1982 San Diego ComicCon. Courtesy of Alan Light. (next page) Two dailies, and (background) detail from Ernie Chan’s cover to Plastic Man #13 (June–July 1976).

BOOGIE DOWN Lee Marrs’ sample storyline ran six weeks in daily and Sunday continuity and featured Roller Derby, an unctuous derby-wearing skating instrument who kidnapped patrons of a roller disco for his boss, a minute Mr. Big named Nez Pierce. Nez—who is apparently already known to Plastic Man and sidekick Woozy Winks— uses the kidnapped skaters as slave laborers (which he describes as “the ultimate in job security!”) to manufacture roller skates in his illegal factory. Plastic Man is almost impressed by the villain’s scheme, proclaiming it “much more ambitious than your Grand Canyon rollercoaster swindle.”

“I sent them the script, and Joe asked me if I could tone the humor down,” Lee says. “I had gone back to the Jack Cole version, which could be very strange and

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untamed. My first draft had a very wild, wacky tone. But Joe pointed out that I was doing a comic strip geared towards a general readership, so I had to make changes, like in the things Plastic Man would transform himself into, not that I remember what those things were after all these years. But I understood his changes, so I made the revisions, which were approved, and then drew and lettered the strip.”

More important than creating the Plastic Man strip was the sale of the Plastic Man strip to a newspaper syndicate. DC already had a relationship with a syndicate through the Superman strip, but Lee found out that the publisher did not have any idea how to actually market the Plastic Man strip to them. “I had no clue how dumb they would be trying to sell Plastic Man,” she says. “The strip was being sold as an adventure strip. The minute I heard that, I nearly lost my mind—this was not an adventure strip! No one was going to believe this was an adventure strip! I still have all kinds of correspondence with Paul Levitz, who was the company’s manager of business affairs in those days, about the subject, which he blamed on the sales people. I don’t know who they had selling the strip, but they totally missed the boat. As it was, they sent it out to the Chicago TribuneNew York Daily News Syndicate, the New York Times Syndicate, and the Fields Syndicate.”

Despite—or maybe because—of the incompetent sales force, Plastic Man was sold to some 70-plus newspapers.

Which, unfortunately wasn’t nearly enough papers to sustain the strip.

“They got about 70-something papers that expressed interest in Plastic Man, but I think only one big newspaper, and I can’t remember which one, was interested in taking it. But the way the economics worked, to be successful, DC needed at least three large-circulation newspapers, newspapers in major markets like New York, Chicago, or L.A. to run the strip. Even though they had lined up something like 73 small papers, that still wouldn’t have earned them any profit.”

What a newspapers pays a syndicate to run an individual comic strip depends on its circulation. In 1980, a small-circulation paper 40 • BACK ISSUE • Toon Comics Issue

may have had to pay as little as $10 a week for a strip like Plastic Man; a large paper such as New York’s Daily News or the Chicago Tribune might pay as much as $600. Thus, a syndicate could gross about as much from a single major metropolitan newspaper as from several dozen small-town papers and, with creative expenses alone likely running at more than that, the numbers just didn’t add up.

“DC decided they couldn’t make money off of the strip, so that was the end of Plastic Man,” Lee says with a sigh.

The failure of the Plastic Man strip seemed to be the end DC’s dreams of syndicated grandeur as well. “Plastic Man was DC’s one shot at syndication at the time,” Lee said. “I was sorry it fell through.

It would have been really fun to work on Plastic Man. You get into a character when you first start on it and you’re making up all kinds of things every other minute of the day with just the possibility of working on the character, so it really comes alive for you. I really admired the old Plastic Man and it would have been nice to carry him on into the 1980s.”

And it would have been nice had Lee Marrs’ sample six-week storyline been allowed to continue, offering us more than the tantalizingly brief glimpse of how a talented cartoonist might have changed the fate of the versatile and malleable Plastic Man. PAUL KUPPERBERG has written almost 900 comic-book stories featuring thousands of characters (including Plastic Man, a lifelong favorite), as well as the Superman and Tom & Jerry newspaper strips. He currently writes the critically acclaimed and bestselling Life with Archie Magazine (www.Archiecomics.com) and is the author of the mystery novel, The Same Old Story (www.kupperberg.blogspot.com). Plastic Man himself was kind enough to pose for this photo with Paul at the 2011 New York Comic-Con.

by

Marvel Productions, Ltd., formed in 1980, was Marvel Comics’ wholly owned animation studio that was set up for the purpose of Marvel producing its own shows without having to go to outside production companies with its characters.

This was a bold and very ambitious move on Marvel’s part to become more in charge of their destiny, and they succeeded.

When looking at all the facts involved, it was bound to happen, and this author always thought that it should happen. When Marvel Productions, Ltd. was announced to the public, I was not surprised and I knew that Marvel would be successful—Marvel had the characters, the brand name, the ability, and people who were already with Marvel as well as anybody who they could hire to become their own production company.

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES In 1980, Marvel Productions, Ltd. was essentially born.

At the urging of Stan Lee—who had always wanted to be in movies and television and knew that Marvel had the characters to make that dream come true— and indeed, through the efforts of other production organizations that had already done so, it was like a dream come true.

Stuart Fischer

Mighty Marvel Media

The idea of forming an in-house studio had already been floating prior to 1980. When the partnership ended between David DePatie (born: May 26, 1935) and Friz Freleng (August 21, 1905–May 26, 1995), the two men responsible for the formation of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, a major Saturday morning TV supplier that had begun in 1963, an executive with years of production experience became available to be brought in

by Marvel. Stan Lee, already established as a leader in the field of comics and eager to become involved in movie and television production, was poised for takeoff.

At this time, Marvel Comics was owned by Cadence Industries, and James Galton was the president of Marvel.

Marvel and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises already had a good relationship prior to Marvel starting their own studio and David DePatie, who had been in movies and television for many years and who just became available for something new after his partnership with Friz Freleng came to an end, was a natural to become the president of Marvel Productions, with Stan Lee heading up the creative affairs part of the studio.

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Peeking through the Marvel Productions, Ltd. logo are some of the company’s animated hits: The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Dungeons and Dragons, Muppet Babies, Jem, and Fraggle Rock. © the respective copyright holders.

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DePatie-Freleng had produced Spider-Woman and The Fantastic Four in the late 1970s for network Saturday morning and had worked with Marvel on a new Spider-Man syndicated series as well in the late 1970s.

At the time of the DePatie-Freleng breakup, Freleng went back to Warner Bros. and helped run that studio’s animation wing. He had been employed for decades at Warner Bros. before Warner had closed that division in 1963, which is where Freleng and DePatie had first met. Freleng, famous for helping to create such cartoon characters as Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, and Yosemite Sam, had produced and directed many Warner Bros. cartoons for decades. DePatie had been an executive at Warner Bros.

When it was decided that Warner would close down its animation division, DePatie and Freleng decided to form their own animation studio and call it DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. They became very successful,

producing animated motion pictures, including a few for Warner Bros., in addition to The Pink Panther, for which they are primarily known. They also produced other shows that ran on network Saturday morning television, like The Oddball Couple, Super President, and Here Comes the Grump.

But it was The Pink Panther that was their biggest hit and became one of the most successful Saturday morning cartoons of all time. When DePatie became president of Marvel Productions, he continued his relationship with United Artists, the studio responsible for distributing The Pink Panther, in a new capacity.

When Marvel Productions got underway in Los Angeles, California, DePatie brought in his longtime production associate, Lee Gunther, who became the senior vice-president of production and a co-founder of Marvel Productions and helped provide the new studio with its very special look which was clear, sharp, and detailed.

Lee Gunther (May 30, 1935–August 25, 1998) had a very good production background. He had worked for Warner Bros. in the 1960s, and when DePatieFreleng went into business, joined that company where he helped supervise production on that studio’s shows. After he left Marvel, he formed a company of his own called Gunther-Wahl Productions and helped produce that company’s shows, including Angry Beavers and The Adventures of T-Rex. He won a total of four Emmy Awards in addition to others and really knew the art and science of animation production.

SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS Marvel Productions’ first show was Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, which began on NBC-TV in the fall of 1981. This was a milestone year for both Marvel and for the animation industry, with Marvel Productions becoming a new competitor in the Saturday morning cartoon industry.

Working with NBC, Marvel learned that producing a television cartoon was a much different affair, both creatively and financially, than producing a comic book.

The TV audience is more fickle than the comicbook audience in terms of what they are attracted to and for how long, and its younger audience requires that stories be simpler than what usually appears in a comic book.

Spider-Man had been done in animation twice before this new incarnation.

His first foray into television was in 1967, when a small production company called Grantray-Lawrence Animation produced Spider-Man for ABC. Then in the late 1970s, Spider-Man was done for the syndication market by DePatie-Freleng, with some involvement from Marvel. (There was also a live-action primetime The Amazing Spider-Man TV series that was done in the late 1970s by Charles Fries Productions. Marvel reportedly was not pleased with that series.)

This new Spider-Man was going to be a bit different with Marvel at the production helm. They brought

Flagship Character (top) Spidey was featured on the company’s corporate logo. (bottom) Storyboards from an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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in Iceman from the X-Men and created Firestar to team with Spider-Man on his crimefighting adventures.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was basically an adventure show with some elements of comedy tossed in. The villains were from Marvel’s comics and a few other villains were created from scratch for the series. It became a hit, and for most of the 1980s was very strong in the ratings partially because of the immense success of another NBC Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera, The Smurfs, based on a European property. NBC was happy with Spider-Man’s success.

HULK SMASH! Having proved that it could produce a successful cartoon series, in its second year of operation Marvel Productions, Ltd. sold a second show: The Incredible Hulk.

At this time, the Hulk was a very popular superhero with a terrific track record not only as a comic-book series, but also as a cartoon (done for the syndication market in the 1960s by Grantray-Lawrence) and in a CBS primetime weekly series from 1978–1982, starring Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #5 for an exclusive interview with TV Hulk Ferrigno.]

NBC picked up The Incredible Hulk and paired it with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, giving the network a solid hour of true down-to-earth superhero action.

Marvel Productions spent a lot of time and effort making the Hulk a new cartoon star, and the personality of the Hulk was very much the same as it was from the comics, a green goliath who speaks very little but certainly does not hold back when he has to use his muscles and is capable of almost anything with his seemingly limitless strength.

The stories from the TV show were a bit simpler than those in the comics, since its target audience was the 8–12-year-old crowd. Characters such as Rick Jones, General “Thunderbolt” Ross, and Betty Ross were taken from the Hulk comics, and there were others done specifically for the show. The basic premise that made the Hulk such a popular comic book remained the same on Saturday morning TV: here was a brute who could do all kinds of miraculous things with his strength, and instead of using his powers for evil, he was always on the right side of the law and wound up protecting, rather than harming, mankind.

Hulk’s biggest drawback was his volcanic temper, which made people afraid of him and caused him to be misunderstood.

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Marvel Productions’ Big Two (top) The series title and an animation cel from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, from 1981. (bottom) An Incredible Hulk episode title and a cel featuring ol’ Jade Jaws, from 1982.

Cels courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Tails to Astonish Neal Adams’ Continuity Studios produced this 1982 comic-book house ad touting CBS-TV’s Saturday morning lineup, including Marvel Productions’ Pandamonium and Meatballs and Spaghetti. (background) Detail from Marvel Comics’ one-shot Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (Dec. 1981).

Art by John Romita, Jr. and Al Milgrom. © the respective copyright holders.

BEYOND MARVEL’S SUPERHEROES Marvel Productions placed two non-Marvel superhero shows on CBS in 1982, Meatballs and Spaghetti and Pandamonium. Both were co-productions with InterMedia, Inc., a company of Fred Silverman’s.

Fred Silverman, known for being a maverick television network programmer during the 1960s and 1970s when he was with CBS, ABC, and NBC (in that order), got his start in the Saturday morning division at CBS and helped shape the network children’s schedule into a very competitive arena. Having left the networks in 1981, Silverman formed his own production company, Inter-Media, and worked with Marvel on these two shows which got onto the CBS schedule.

They were not hits like Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and The Incredible Hulk, but branching out into the area of comedy was a good experience for Marvel Productions, Ltd. In 1983, Marvel Productions hit the big time.

By the fall of 1983, Marvel had two shows on NBC (Spider-Man and Hulk), and now having established a very respected presence for itself as both a comic-book publisher and as an animation studio, other companies who had characters that had potential for programming began to contact Marvel Productions about producing shows for them, with Marvel as a profit participant.

Toy giant Hasbro decided that it wanted to be in the television business and not just to have its toy products advertised as 30-second spots, but to develop series based on its toy properties, believing this would push sales of their products. Deregulation made it legal for toy companies by 1983 to have shows built around their products, having been prevented from doing so in the past. This was open territory, despite the objections of various pressure groups like Action For Children’s Television, which was headed at the

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time by Peggy Charren, and by certain parent groups that regarded shows based on toys as nothing but program-length commercials.

A good show can come from any source, whether it be a children’s book, a comic book, a newspaper comic strip, an original script, or a board game or a toy, and now that the door was open, Hasbro was not about to turn away.

ADAPTING TOY PROPERTIES For the record, 1983 was a pivotal year for the animation business and for television as a whole because of this deregulation, a movement of sorts that portrays what the Reagan Administration did to try to create more economic opportunities.

Mattel, at this time the largest toy company in America, started this animation revolution by having a syndication show created by a leading animation studio, Filmation Studios, based on its popular Masters of the Universe toy line. This is a story in itself and one that will forever be part of both television and toy history and rightfully so.

Filmation, at the time a subsidiary of a large broadcasting company called Group W Productions, made a deal with Mattel to be the studio for Masters of the Universe, a boys’ action-figure toy line starring a colorful hero named He-Man and his group of followers who opposed an evil being named Skeletor and his band of followers during what seemed like Medieval times.

[Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #16 for the story behind Masters of the Universe and its comic-book tie-ins.]

Lou Scheimer, the head of Filmation, saw this toy line’s potential for a show and was happy to be part of it and really did a very good job on bringing the toy line to life as an animated series, done specifically for the offnetwork market. It was financed by Mattel, which saw

even greater sales of its product after the show had been on the air for a little while and the show became a hit, receiving ratings that have not been seen since, with the possible exception of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which began its TV life in syndication.

Hasbro had been in the planning stages to have a G.I. Joe show done for a while and actually licensed the comicbook rights to Marvel to publish as a comic book in the early 1980s, which eventually grew into a major hit in the comic industry. [Editor’s note: BI #16 also includes the G.I. Joe story.] But Hasbro would not stop there. Having approached Marvel to do the show, an agreement was made between Marvel and Hasbro where Marvel would publish G.I. Joe comics and would also be the animation studio for the G.I. Joe cartoon series. Marvel Productions would work with Sunbow Productions, which was the television arm of Griffen-Bacall Advertising, Inc., Hasbro’s advertising agency, and the three companies would be responsible for bringing G.I. Joe to the small screen.

Prior to 1983, G.I. Joe was already an established and historical toy. Introduced in 1964, “America’s moveable fighting man,” a 12-inch action figure sold with a variety of military-based uniforms and accessories, was initially a big success. But the growing unpopularity of the Vietnam War negatively impacted G.I. Joe’s sales by the early 1970s, and ultimately the line was retired later that decade. Hasbro reintroduced G.I. Joe in the early 1980s, this time as a task force of high-tech combatants rather than a sole military figure.

G.I. Joe began its television career slowly and carefully.

In the fall of 1983, a TV miniseries of the property began in syndication through Claster Television, a subsidiary of Hasbro, which acted as a distributor of television programs. Claster’s biggest hit was the preschooltargeted series Romper Room, which provided the company with the knowledge to get a show cleared on enough independent television stations. Co-produced by Sunbow Productions and Marvel, the G.I. Joe miniseries, backed up by the new toy line, was a hit.

Marvel Productions was asked to produce a second G.I. Joe miniseries in 1984. It also scored high ratings

and by 1985, G.I. Joe was aired five days a week, each weekday. Marvel Comics benefitted from the success of the show, selling hundreds of thousands of copies of G.I. Joe each month, putting it on a par with X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man. It also made Marvel Productions a new star in the animation industry.

Marvel was now clearly a major television supplier that not only had characters of their own that they could produce for television, but had outside-rights owners depending upon them to make their properties into successful television shows.

It did not stop with G.I. Joe. Also in 1983, Marvel made another coup by acquiring the rights to Dungeons and Dragons, a very popular game done by TSR. Marvel sold the show to CBS and in September 1983.

Dungeons and Dragons appeared on CBS’s Saturday morning schedule and subsequently became a hit.

Go, Joe! (clockwise from top) A G.I. Joe animated cel, a page from the Joe series bible, and DVD box art. (background) Detail from Marvel’s bestselling G.I. Joe #1 (June 1982). Art

by Herb Trimpe and Bob McLeod. © 2012 Hasbro.

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MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE In 1984, two new shows joined Marvel Productions’ growing roster of hits: Transformers and The Muppet Babies.

The success of G.I. Joe led Hasbro to approach Marvel with its new toy, Transformers, a boys’ actionfigure line featuring a conflict between warring advanced robot races. Marvel, Hasbro, and Sunbow once again partnered on Transformers, which was produced for the syndication market and syndicated

by Claster. Transformers became a hit and as a result of the success of the television cartoon, sales of the toys skyrocketed. Marvel also got the comic-book rights to Transformers and the comic did very well, at least for a while, proving that Marvel was a most adept partner to have, not only in expanding the universe of a certain property, but also by doing a good job in all areas and helping to make it successful. (Of course, in recent years Transformers has been rebooted as a live-action film franchise, as well as a television cartoon and comic

book, with IDW the most recent comics publisher at this writing.)

After years of being approached by almost everybody to produce a cartoon based on his popular creation, the Muppets, Jim Henson finally agreed. Signing Marvel Productions as a co-producer, with Henson Associates, Henson developed an animated cartoon that featured his famous characters as small children: The Muppet Babies. CBS proudly added it to its Saturday morning schedule in September of 1984. Not only did The Muppet Babies get off to a good start in the ratings, but it was applauded by critics and activist groups.

It was a coup for Marvel Productions to get The Muppet Babies because Marvel, both as a publisher and as a studio, was able to grow beyond its reputation as a producer of superhero material. Through this comedy, Marvel worked very well with Henson and his team in presenting a show that both Henson and the young audience found satisfying.

The Muppet Babies grew in popularity and expanded from a half-hour to an hour and even to 90 minutes per week, a huge compliment in that network producers rarely ask for more than the typical half-hour episode. The show earned a number of awards including Daytime Emmys and the Humanitas Prize, and ran on the CBS schedule through 1991, making it among the most successful Saturday morning cartoons of all time.

Robots in Disguise (left) 1984 promo poster for Transformers and (right) model sheet for Arcee, both courtesy of Heritage. (background) Detail from Bill Sienkiewicz’s cover to Marvel’s Transformers #1 (Sept. 1984). © 2012 Hasbro.

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PROPERTY VALUES By 1984 and certainly by 1985, Marvel Productions had become a leading animation studio, establishing good relationships with Hasbro, TSR, and Henson Associates, producing programs that gave them a presence on all three networks as well as the syndication market.

The company’s main concern was that it was producing other companies’ properties for television at the expense of bringing its own characters to the screen.

During the 1980s, the networks were of the opinion that the way to get ratings was to feature shows based on well-known current properties. The Muppet Babies, The Smurfs, Dungeons and Dragons, Mr. T, and Fraggle Rock were all very big during this time, offering exposure that enticed the networks to go after those kinds of properties instead of original creations. Most of Marvel Comics’ characters had only been around for ten or 20 years and stood little chance of getting a show of their own because they were not yet exploited in other media. This harsh reality did not stop Marvel from pursuing its dream of becoming a valuable animation studio, and they succeeded with the likes of The Muppet Babies, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Dungeons and Dragons, and another 1984 entry, My Little Pony.

To the men and the women who created enduring characters that have lasted for decades with loyal fan bases, that 1980s network practice was rather insulting.

Given the right producers and writers, any concept can become successful if it is well executed. At that time, ABC and CBS and NBC apparently did not understand that, or did not have the confidence in any studio to pull off that kind of project.

This practice was especially insulting to Joe Barbera, the man who co-founded Hanna-Barbera (with Bill Hanna), and who gave the world The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, Magilla Gorilla, Scooby-Doo,

Cute and Cuter (top) Check out the voice talent in My Little Pony: The Movie! (bottom) Jim Henson’s The Muppet Babies and the truly outrageous Jem (and the Holograms).

My Little Pony and Jem © Sunbow, Marvel Productions, and Hasbro.

Muppet Babies © Henson Associates.

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SHOWS PRODUCED BY MARVEL PRODUCTIONS, LTD. • Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends • The Incredible Hulk • Meatballs and Spaghetti (in association with Inter-Media) • Pandamonium (in association with Inter-Media) • Dungeons and Dragons (in association with TSR) • Muppet Babies (in association with Henson Associates) • Fraggle Rock (in association with Henson Associates) • G.I. Joe (in association with Hasbro) • Transformers (in association with Hasbro) • My Little Pony (in association with Hasbro) • Inhumanoids (in association with Hasbro) • Jem (in association with Hasbro) • Robotix (in association with Hasbro) • Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines (in association with Hasbro) • The Charmkins • X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men (one episode) • Moon Dreamers (part of My Little Pony and Friends) • Potato Head Kids (part of My Little Pony and Friends)

and Space Ghost. Barbera had to do the same thing that Marvel and other studios at the time had to do and hunt down the best-known commercial properties of the day, make a deal with the rights owner, and then get a deal with the networks to hopefully translate that property to television.

Stan Lee might also wonder why Marvel’s characters were not in as much demand as they really should have been back in the 1980s, particularly since Marvel has blossomed in the movie market since 2000.

• Glo Friends (part of My Little Pony and Friends) • The Galavants • Defenders of the Earth (in association with King Features Syndicate) • Little Wizards • Dino Riders (in association with Tyco Toys) • Pink Panther in Pink at First Sight (in association with Mirisch/Geoffrey/DePatie-Freleng/MGM-United Artists) • The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (in association with DePatie-Freleng and Dr. Seuss) • My Little Pony: The Movie (in association with Hasbro) • G.I. Joe: The Movie (in association with Hasbro) • Transformers: The Movie (in association with Hasbro) • Robocop (in association with Orion Pictures; part of The Marvel Action Universe) • Rude Dog and the Dweebs • Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (in association with FOX) • Kid ’n Play (in association with Saban Productions and Kid ’n Play) • Space Cats (in association with Paul Fusco Productions)

By 1987, Marvel Productions, Ltd. was facing a slow-down in production. Its deal with Hasbro was winding down and their shows were dropping in the ratings. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk, and Dungeons and Dragons were canceled, and even though the networks were taking meetings with Marvel for new shows and there were some close calls, nothing that Marvel Productions was offering seemed to grab the programming executives at the networks. What was still going well for Marvel Productions was DePATIE DEPARTS, LOESCH LANDS The Muppet Babies and, to a lesser degree, Fraggle Rock, but this In late 1983, David DePatie had left Marvel and went into retirement. apparently was not enough.

He was replaced in 1984 by Margaret Loesch, who assumed the In the late 1980s, Margaret Loesch, who always had a good presidency of Marvel Productions, Ltd. Loesch had considerable eye for material, saw potential in a new property, a piece experience in the youth entertainment world. She had been of apparel called Rude Dog. She bought the rights to Rude a programming executive at both ABC and NBC, and Dog, developed it as a show, and sold it to CBS. Even then she became the vice-president of production though the show was a departure from what Marvel had and development at Hanna-Barbera. done in the past and was a pretty innovative idea, She was a seasoned developer of shows and had Rude Dog failed to ignite the interest of the audience a knack for choosing the right writers were for any and left the air after only about a year. given show, plus she knew how to sell a show to Marvel Productions received another harsh the networks. Loesch also had experience in working blow when, in 1990, Loesch left Marvel to assume with rights owners of properties. the presidency of the newly established FOX When she took the job as president of Marvel Children’s Network, a subsidiary of the FOX Productions, Loesch forged ahead with Hasbro to Broadcasting Company. She attained her highest produce more episodes of G.I. Joe and Transformers, level of success in her career, helping make that and made sure that Marvel would act as producer margaret loesch new network the most successful in children’s of other Hasbro products, like My Little Pony and television, beating even CBS, which for years had Glo Friends. She also continued to improve Marvel’s been the ratings champ in children’s programming. relationship with Henson Associates.

It was Marvel’s loss to lose Loesch to FOX, but it was also Marvel’s Yet even with a fine executive like Margaret Loesch, Marvel could gain because when she became president of FOX, Loesch bought the not get its own characters on the air for one reason or another. As the rights to the X-Men and Spider-Man. Those two shows became solid 1980s were coming to a close, Marvel Productions was not selling as hits, thanks in part to Loesch’s knowledge of Marvel. many shows as it did earlier. This became a problem, especially after For the record, it was not Marvel Productions that produced X-Men Cadence Industries sold Marvel Comics to New World Pictures. This and Spider-Man, but instead a new division of Marvel that had been looked like a good move at the time, but became a disaster when established by Marvel Entertainment, the parent company of the Marvel New World began having problems of its own and that had a trickle- production facility, that produced those two shows in the 1990s. down effect on Marvel, especially Marvel Productions.

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THE END OF MARVEL PRODUCTIONS For a while, Marvel Productions, Ltd. almost lay dormant … until opportunity took form.

New World Pictures eventually was sold to News Corp, the company that also owns 20th Century Fox. Marvel Productions, surprisingly enough, was broken off from Marvel Comics, which in the late 1980s was bought by Ronald Perlman through his MacAndrews and Forbes Company. What this meant was that the library of shows produced by Marvel Productions was now in the corporate domain of News Corp. Marvel Productions, Ltd. became New World Animation and continued to produce shows, but with different executives running the company.

Among them were Stan Lee, who was with both Marvel and New World Animation, and other corporate entities that continued to produce shows based on Marvel Comics characters.

New World Animation was replaced by Marvel Films (including Marvel Films Animation) that produced X-Men, Spider-Man, and a new 1996 incarnation of The Incredible Hulk. This gave way to Marvel Studios and its animation division, Marvel Animation. Marvel Animation is run by Eric Rollman, the president of the division that oversees production of Marvel’s characters in animated form for television.

Marvel Animation has a much different agenda from the old Marvel Productions, Ltd., in that it only produces animated shows based on Marvel’s characters.

Its shows include Spider-Man, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Wolverine and the X-Men, and The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, all of which were influenced by the motion pictures that came before them, with the exception of The Avengers, which debuted as a live-action picture in May 2012.

In 2009, Marvel went through its biggest (and hopefully last) corporate change when Disney, enticed by the huge success of Marvel’s motion pictures, purchased the entire company—lock, stock, and comic panel—for over four billion dollars. Marvel is now in the position to do almost anything that it wants, both as a comics publisher and as a studio involved in movies and television as well as animation. It is poised to do better in licensing, because few companies rival Disney’s character licensing. Marvel Comics, through its Studios subsidiary, has been co-producing their movies with major studios like Universal (for The Hulk); Paramount (Iron Man and Captain America), New Line (Blade), Columbia (Spider-Man and Ghost Rider), and 20th Century Fox (Daredevil, Elektra, and X-Men).

Whether these agreements will stay in place or not in the years to come remain to be seen, but Disney’s clout as an entertainment giant will, from this writer’s perspective, only strengthen Marvel.

If one were to ask to name the most influential people who helped make Marvel a entertainment powerhouse, that list would have contain: Stan Lee, who has always kept a watchful and creative eye on any and all television shows and movies based on Marvel’s characters, and even those that Marvel produced for other rights owners; David DePatie, whose animation experience with United Artists (Pink Panther) helped give Marvel Productions, Ltd. a leg-up; Margaret Loesch, a seasoned animation professional with network experience and major animation studio experience; Lee Gunther, an experienced production executive with a polished background before coming to Marvel;

and Avi Arad, who was involved in the design of Marvel’s toy products through Toy Biz, where he was a part owner and which was the company that bought Marvel after MacAndrews and Forbes decided to sell it, and who eventually became the president of Marvel Films, where he sold shows to the networks and got the shows syndicated like Fantastic Four and Iron Man in the 1990s as well as Spider-Man, X-Men, and X-Men: Evolution and a few others.

But let us not forget those wonderful artists and writers who had created the comics that became the basis for the shows that eventually were produced, like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Len Wein, Roy Thomas, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne, as well as those corporate executives who believed that Marvel could become a studio in its own right, like James Galton, Michael Hobson, and Isaac Perlmutter.

Mutants Invade Television!

Two cels from the Heritage archives: (top) an X-Men guest-appearance on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and (bottom) Marvel Productions’ sole X-Men project, 1989’s Pryde of the X-Men.

STUART FISCHER is the author of The Hanna-Barbera Story: The Life and Times of TV's Greatest Animation Studio (PublishAmerica, 2011).

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© 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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BACK ISSUE • 49

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Anubis! (overleaf) An undated illo by master cartoonist Doug Wildey recreating the classic Jonny Quest episode “The Curse of Anubis” (ye ed’s all-time fave JQ). Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions (H-B).

Hanna-Barbera’s Jonny Quest debuted in prime time on ABC-TV in 1964. The animated series created by Doug Wildey featured the globe-trotting adventures of ten-year-old Jonny; his friend Hadji from India; Jonny’s genius scientist father, Dr. Benton Quest; their bodyguard, Roger “Race” Bannon; and Jonny’s mischievous bulldog, Bandit. They faced dangers from mummies to robots to the machinations of the evil Dr. Zin. They were occasionally joined by the mysterious and lovely Jezebel Jade, who had a past with Race. Even though the series only lasted one season of 26 half-hour episodes, it was rerun for many years, gaining a legion of fans.

COMICO LICENSES JONNY QUEST Given the show’s popularity and lasting appeal, it’s surprising that Jonny’s exposure in comic books was limited. The only American comic to feature Jonny in the title was Jonny Quest: The Mystery of the Lizard Men (Dec. 1964) from Gold Key, which adapts an episode of the TV series. That would change in 1986 when Comico the Comic Company brought Jonny Quest to comics in a series featuring original adventures.

How did Jonny Quest end up at Comico? Bob Schreck explains: “I think Phil LaSorda [Comico business director and co-publisher] brought up his love of the TV show. I was a big fan, as well. As the administrative director (which meant I did the PR/marketing/advertising), I agreed with the Comico team that the book would have some traction with comics fans at the time. We researched who owned the license and negotiated a deal.”

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Once word of Comico acquiring the Jonny Quest license got out, one of the people interested in writing the series was William Messner-Loebs. “I heard that they were interested in doing it from Sam Kieth, who was inking Mage at the time,” Messner-Loebs says. “[Comico editorin-chief] Diana Schutz had mentioned it to him and I called her and said that I would be interested in doing it.”

That call bore fruit, as Messner-Loebs was hired to write the series. What made him a good fit for Jonny Quest?

“In 1985, when I first hired Bill to write Jonny Quest, he was best known for a book called Journey, about an American frontiersman in the 1800s,” editor Diana Schutz explains. “I’d read those comics and loved them, mostly because of the writing, which was thoughtful, provocative, and unusual, as you can probably tell just from the subject matter. Journey was evidence also of Bill’s historical knowledge and aptitude for research— both of which were essential to a series like Jonny Quest,

Early Quests (left) Gold Key Comics’ 1964 Jonny Quest one-shot and (right) a comics album produced in the UK were among the rare examples of licensing of the concept during the TV show’s original run.

TM & © H-B.

which takes place in exotic locales, often using the myths and legends of those locales as a starting point for the development of a given story.

“You know, traditionally, licensed comics have gotten a rep for poor quality, and it’s certainly true that, in those days, Marvel and DC tended to give short shrift to any properties that they licensed and didn’t own—movie or TV adaptations, for instance,” Schutz continues. “We wanted to make JQ a comic worth reading; we wanted to do right by this group of characters that we were all pretty fond of at Comico. But no matter how beautifully a comic is drawn, if the story’s not there, then it’s just not worth it. We don’t make comics to hang them on the wall like pretty pictures; we make them in order to tell stories, in order to be read. The writing had to be not only good; it had to be superlative in order to fight the existing stigma attached to licensed properties. And in order for the monthly adventures to have any real kind of impact, the characterization had to be so I thought there must be something to this. especially strong. I had tremendous I asked all my friends what they liked about confidence in Bill’s ability to pull that off, it. Their response was, ‘Oh, it was very to prove himself as a serious writer even deep.’ ‘There was this sort of conflict on a more commercial property, and between Race Bannon and Dr. Quest he came through with flying colors.” about who was going to be Jonny’s You would think for someone to father.’ When I finally got my fourthwant to write Jonny Quest, they must generation videotapes Diana duped for have been a fan of the series. That me to see the show, I realized that it wasn’t the case with Messner-Loebs. actually wasn’t any of that. It was basically “I was around 18 when the Jonny the Quest Jet would take off from Quest cartoon came out. I caught that Quest Island and they would go to a full blast of the Hanna-Barbera hype different Pacific island where there diana schutz where this was going to be the best would be some kind of monster. It cartoon ever,” Messner-Loebs says. “It would turn out that the monster was was very realistic. It was an adult show. I was old enough connected to a mad scientist who was taking over the to realize that it was extremely limited animation. It was world. Dr. Quest and Race Bannon would go and not what I was looking for. So, as a result, I judged it investigate. They would leave Jonny and Hadji on the extremely harshly. But I knew that all my friends were fans plane telling them not to go anywhere. They would

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“Totally Awesome!” (above) Well, it was the ’80s, and we said things like that back then. Steve Rude house ad for Comico’s Jonny Quest. (left) Doug Wildey’s cover to Jonny Quest #1 (June 1986).

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The Brave, the Bold, and the Bandit (below) A 1986 pencil sketch by “the Dude”: Steve Rude’s signature character Nexus, with Jonny and Bandit. Courtesy of Heritage. (right) Dave Stevens’ cover to Jonny Quest #3 (Aug. 1986).

Nexus © Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

Jonny Quest © H-B.

immediately go somewhere and get captured by the mad scientist. Race and Dr. Quest would find them. They would blow up the mad scientist’s laboratory and take off in the Quest Jet. I realized that there was a strong disconnect between what people remembered and what the show actually was. I decided to write what they thought the show had been rather than what it had actually been.”

temperament! Anyway, in a million years Dave could not have drawn a monthly-release comic book, and he was busy on his own character in any case. Don’t forget, this was still relatively early in the days of independent publishing, and the playing field had changed for creators: they were now able to write and draw comics that they owned; so, many of the best were taking advantage of these new publishing opportunities and weren’t necessarily keen ROTATING ARTISTS to devote full-time to work-for-hire properties— Instead of having a regular art team on but they were available for one issue. And Jonny Quest, the plan was to have different not just available, but interested, due to artists on each issue. Schutz explains the nostalgic appeal of the character. how this came to be: “The other consideration was “I think the idea to alternate artists Doug Wildey,” Schutz explains. “Once fell out of two considerations: the first Comico secured the license, I suggested was that many artists who had grown to my employers there that we up loving the cartoon had approached approach Doug Wildey about drawing us about drawing ‘an issue.’ Steve Rude, the series. ‘Who’s Doug Wildey?’ they for instance, was a huge Jonny Quest fan wanted to know! As it turns out, Doug and an admirer of Doug Wildey. ‘The was interested in drawing a story to Dude’ definitely wanted in on the JQ kick off the series. He didn’t know comic, but he was busy drawing Nexus anything about Comico or about any bob schreck at that time, so he certainly couldn’t of us who worked there—though he have taken on another monthly series. pretty quickly adopted Bob Schreck as Dave Stevens was a great friend of a surrogate son! I think Doug was testing us, willing to give Doug’s, in addition to being a fan of his work—perhaps us a try to see if we’d pay him on time, do a good job on you know that the Peevy character in The Rocketeer is the reproduction of his work, return the original art, that based entirely on Doug, both in appearance and in sort of thing. Doug had drawn comics during the ’40s and ’50s, and he’d been screwed over by more than a couple publishers. Well, the bottom line was that we wound up developing a good relationship; Bob and I really fell in love with Doug and his wife Ellen, and we enjoyed each other’s company, both personally and professionally. But at the start, since Doug was prepared to commit to doing only one story, and since that was also the case with several other artists whom we considered for the series, we just decided to hire everyone—for one issue each!”

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JONNY QUEST: YEAR ONE Comico’s Jonny Quest #1 (June 1986) features two interconnected stories. The first, written and illustrated by Doug Wildey, has Race, Jonny, and Hadji investigating an ancient buried city in an area of unrest in the Middle East. The unrest is being heightened by Dr. Zin, who is arming both sides. The team survives a terrorist attack and is rescued by Jezebel Jade. The second story, written by Messner-Loebs with art by Steve Rude and Mike Royer and colors by Matt Wagner, picks up where the first story left off, with Dr. Quest and Jade joining in to investigate the city that was exposed during the attack. The city has odd time qualities as Jonny and Hadji encounter a soldier from Napoleon’s army.

Since Jonny Quest was a licensed book, all the creators involved had to answer to the people in charge of the license which, surprisingly, wasn’t Hanna-Barbera.

According to Schutz, “At that time, H-B had farmed out the management of all their licensed properties to an organization called the Taft Merchandising Group. As you can tell just by the name, these were primarily businesspeople—not necessarily creative types. So, that meant all the T’s had to be crossed and all the I’s had to be dotted: every single step in the production process had to be submitted for approval, from plot to script to pencils to inks to lettering and coloring. My main contact at Taft was a woman named Judy Fireman, and she was great. Some licensing people can be fairly overbearing; they fancy themselves editors or writers, or at least more creative than they are, and too often simply interfere with a process about which they know little or nothing. Judy wasn’t like that. She was easy to work with.

Not that she didn’t pay attention to her own job, but what she didn’t understand about comics, she was willing to learn from me, and she let us do the work they had contracted with us to do: namely, publish Jonny Quest comics.

“Not that there were no approval hiccups along the way,” Schutz reveals. “For example, when Dave Stevens first drew the cover of issue #5, his very sexy rendering of the Jezebel Jade character was even more sexy than it appears: Dave drew noticeably distinct nipples bursting against Jade’s tight white blouse, and Taft forced us to smooth out those visibly hard nipples. I fought with Judy Fireman on that, of course, but … I lost. That was not a happy day when I had to call Dave and ask him to alter his original art—otherwise we would not be able to publish it. And, of course, I’d asked Dave to be the cover artist for that issue precisely because he drew such sexy ladies!”

The second issue (July 1986) features art by Wendy Pini and Joe Staton and answers two long-standing questions from the TV series: How did Jonny’s mother die and how did Race join the team? Jonny relates to Hadji the story of an adventure in Paris just after Dr. Quest started working for the government. After surviving several attacks, Jonny’s mother, Judy, becomes ill and ends up in the hospital, where she eventually succumbs to a mysterious illness. Due to the attacks, the government assigns agent Roger “Race” Bannon to protect the Quest family.

According to Messner-Loebs, he was given a lot of room in crafting this story: “They asked that we not know how she died exactly. It was obvious Judy had either had a disease or died as a result of some sort of attack. I wanted to have some kind of origin at the beginning and I thought that this was one thing that everybody had wondered about. There was also talk about how Race had gotten there so I thought that would be an interesting way to start the series.”

Jonny Quest #3 (Aug 1986) introduces the art team of Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, and Kathryn Mayer, who would eventually become the regular art team on the book. On a trip to Latin America to investigate a comet, the Quest team becomes embroiled in a political coup. This issue also introduces Race’s former partner at the Agency, Wild Jim Cannon.

We Like Being Jaded Cover detail from JQ #5 (Oct. 1986), gueststarring Jezebel Jade, by the amazing Dave Stevens. (Stevens fans, check out BI #47, featuring the final interview with the late Rocketeer creator.)

TM & © H-B.

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Mark Wheatley remembers that this was a job he pushed for: “I was a big fan of the show when I was a kid. When I knew that Comico was getting the rights to do it, I made it a personal goal to get a shot at doing a story or an illustration or something on the book. I started hanging out with Diana Schutz and the guys from Comico and talking to them about it and going on at great lengths about how much I liked the series. They came up with this idea that it might be cool if I did something for it. So Marc Hempel and I were asked to do a pinup for the first issue. We got an entire issue to do after that. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to do the cover.”

Hempel recalls this issue as being particularly memorable. Regarding their directions going in, “We were told at the outset that we were to stay ‘on model’ as much as possible, so I adhered closely to Doug Wildey’s original model sheets. It was a huge help to have those on hand.”

Issue #4 (Sept. 1986) introduces Dr. Quest’s “friend,” producer Stuart Gold, who is only heard over the phone. The Quests head to a jungle location where Gold’s new william messner-loebs epic is filming starring actress Marley Frost and a misbehaving robotic triceratops that Gold wants Dr. Quest to fix.

What no one realizes is that Marley has discovered a real triceratops! The issue was penciled by Tom Yeates and was supposed to be inked by Dan Adkins.

“Dan Adkins got sick halfway through,” recalls Schutz. “Tom called in a Who’s Who of artists to finish the issue on deadline: people like Al Williamson, Steve Leialoha, Steve Rude, Dave Stevens!”

Issue #5 (Oct. 1986), illustrated by Mitch Schauer and John Nyberg, finds Jonny and Hadji discovering a message from Jezebel Jade to Race asking him to meet her. Since Race is unavailable, they decide to go instead and become involved in an adventure in which they try to keep a mysterious artifact away from Dr. Zin. Even though the first 13 issues of Jonny Quest are stand-alone stories, that doesn’t mean they aren’t connected. A perfect example of this is issue #6 (Nov. 1986), in which the artifact from issue #5 is central to the story. Two government agents, Stark and Quiggly, are sent in to observe as Dr. Quest examines the artifact which is believed to come from an ancient civilization.

It is discovered that the artifact contains the knowledge of this civilization and Quiggly finds the only way to decode it is to swallow it and have the body’s processes decode it. With this knowledge he becomes the most powerful, and most dangerous, man alive.

The issue is an artistic tour de force from a young Adam Kubert, who did everything except write and edit the issue. Why did he do all that work?

Robot Trouble (top) Wraparound cover to Jonny Quest #6, illustrated by Adam Kubert. (bottom) Jonny, all grown up, from JQ #8 (Jan. 1987). Script by William Messner-Loebs, painted art by Ken Steacy.

TM & © H-B.

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All Star Artists Among the cover artists for Jonny Quest were (left) Tim Truman and (below right) Bill Sienkiewicz. (right) Courtesy of Mark Wheatley, an original Hempel/ Wheatley art page from JQ #10 (Mar. 1987).

TM & © H-B.

“I asked to do it,” Kubert tells BACK ISSUE. “It was something, and still is something, that would be my just some really light roughs, before going straight to preference—to be able to do every facet of the job. those lush inks of his. In addition to his unique approach At this point it’s a difficult thing to do when to page layout, Dan just draws beautifully, you’re on any kind of monthly schedule and his work on Jonny exhibited a because it’s a tremendous amount of detailed realism that brought those work. At that point I was lettering Heavy cartoon characters totally to life.”

Metal magazine, and that afforded me The story introduces a character a little bit of leeway as far as what that becomes a major character in projects I could do because I was really the series as Dr. Quest’s romantic fast at lettering and I could make a lot interest, social worker Kathy Martin. of money in a short amount of time.

Kathy is assigned to the Quest So if I spent a lot of time penciling, family to make sure Jonny is being inking, coloring, lettering on this, it home-schooled properly. On a visit to was a possibility.” get some papers signed, Kathy is Issue #7 (Dec. 1986) was the first mistaken for a master spy and of three issues drawn by Dan Spiegle gets swept up in an adventure adam kubert over the course of the series. What that sends her and the Quest made him a good choice to work on team careening through time as Jonny Quest? they battle Dr. Zin. But Kathy wasn’t initially intended “Dan is a consummate professional, sadly one of the as a romantic interest. most underrated artists in comics, because his work is “I was more thinking that one of the things that just about perfect,” says Schutz. “He worked with his everybody mentioned was, ‘Isn’t it weird that you’ve daughter Carrie as his letterer, so the pages would come got these two kids going all over the world. We never in completed from him—penciled, lettered, and inked— see them go to school or anything. How in the world everything but the color; Dan barely did any pencil work, did Dr. Quest manage to do that?’” says Messner-Loebs.

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When Jonny Met Hadji Doug Wildey’s painting for the wraparound cover of Jonny Quest Classics #2 (June 1987), adapting the classic “Calcutta Adventure” television episode.

Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © H-B.

“The assumption was that Dr. Quest is so high up in the government and world of dog fighting as Bandit is stolen with the intent of being they are so eager for his many inventions that they’re perfectly willing to “practice” for the villain’s top fighter. cut him some slack about the education of his son. I thought it might be This change in tone was intentional on Messner-Loebs’ part. interesting instead of just assuming that to see it actually happen. The “I deliberately set myself up so that there would be a funny episode, other thing was I always felt that there was only one kind of social worker an adventurous episode, and a serious episode,” the writer reveals. that you ever saw in cartoons or in comic books or in movies. It’s always “I don’t know if I always managed to do that, but I at least tried to the by-the-book one who is so eager to take the kids away from the keep that going. By doing that I tried to keep from just doing the people that we know are actually good for them. I thought it would be same story over and over again.” nice to show a sympathetic social worker. I knew people who were social Dan Spiegle returned as artist in issue #12 (May 1987). Kathy workers or a part of that world and I had never seen their point of view Martin is being given the cold shoulder by Jonny and she sets out to adequately reflected in popular entertainment. Somehow in prove that she can be just as adventurous as his mom was. doing that, I just had her get closer and closer to Dr. Quest. “ Things don’t go as planned as they investigate a cave We get a glimpse of the future in issue #8 (Jan. where they discover a primitive tribe. Race is shot in the 1987) as we see an adult Jonny face the murderous arm with an arrow during the adventure, which will X-7, who kills everyone he cares about. But things have adverse effects in upcoming issues. are not necessarily as they seem. The issue features May of 1987 also saw the publication of the first fully painted airbrushed art by Ken Steacy with issue of Jonny Quest Classics, a three-issue miniseries cameos of Steacy, Schreck, Schutz, and Wildey! in which Doug Wildey adapted three of his favorite Issue #9 (Feb. 1987) features what Messner-Loebs episodes of Jonny Quest. calls a “sort of a parody of the old Andy Hardy “We loved Doug Wildey’s work and thought that world.” Jezebel Jade arrives in a small town where fans would enjoy books by the guy who was the creative she swears she sees Jonny and Dr. Quest, but they dynamo behind Jonny Quest,” says Bob Schreck. insist they are someone else. Of course, they are The episodes adapted in the miniseries series were undercover helping another scientist with her “Shadow of the Condor,” in which Race must battle doug wildey work. However, unknown to them all, the scientist a German WWI flying ace in the Andes; “Calcutta has a strange connection to the town judge.

Adventure,” which introduces Hadji; and “Werewolf The art team of Hempel, Wheatley, and Mayer return in issue #10 of the Timberland,” in which the team face gold smugglers in Canada.

(Mar. 1987), as does actress Marley Frost. After attending a production In addition to the story, each issue featured an interview with of Shakespeare’s Richard III starring Marley’s friend Giles Montrose, Doug Wildey conducted by Howard Whitman. In the first issue, who is also an engineer, the Quests head to his home to see his time Wildey discussed the challenges of adapting the episode to comics: viewer, an invention that allows you to look into the past. Caught in “Within the limitations of 26 pages, in order to keep the thing an overload, Jonny, Hadji, and Bandit find themselves back in time, moving, you build the pace and try to make it exciting. In the original where they encounter the real Richard III, who turns out to be much picture, for instance, when these people were guests of the Baron, we had different than they were led to believe. one scene with the two kids and the dog in the bed, and another scene Jonny’s dog Bandit takes center stage in issue #11 (Apr. 1987), of Race and Dr. Quest talking. In a comic book, instead of just having two but it’s not the fun-filled romp you might expect. Instead, in this heads talking to one another, I tried to get them to look like they were story illustrated by Joe Staton and Rick Burchett, we get a look at the actually preparing for bed. Anything to keep it from being too dull.”

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JONNY QUEST: YEAR TWO Back in the regular series, Jonny is joined in issue #13 by illustrator Carmine Infantino and colorist Adam Kubert for a haunted-house adventure complete with ghost pirates. By this time, Jonny Quest had developed a passionate fan base and critical praise as well with the series being nominated for two Kirby Awards for Best New Series and Best Continuing Series.

Unfortunately, it lost to Swamp Thing and Watchmen.

Issue #14 (July 1987) marked a turning point in the series as Mark Hempel, Mark Wheatley, and Kathryn Mayer became the regular art team.

“In a way, getting a regular art team was kind of a concern because having the marc hempel rotating art team turned out to be a career-maker for me,” says Messner-Loebs. “People don’t generally focus on the writer in comics. They always focus on the artist and sometimes they don’t even realize that the art team is not also the writer. In my case, they had to realize that because the art team kept shifting but I was always there. It gave me an enormous showcase that most people are not given. I wondered if there would be a difference, but there really wasn’t.”

What made Hempel, Wheatley, and Mayer the right team for the book? “They met their deadlines!” Schutz replies. “And I’m only being a little facetious about that.

When you’re publishing a monthly comic book—and when you’re under contract with a licensor, guaranteeing that each issue will be published every month—you’d better damn well make your deadlines! Marc, Mark, and Kathryn all worked together at Insight Studios, so their collaboration was particularly tight and somewhat more

holistic than what might be suggested by the credits in terms of strict divisions of labor, and any one could pinch-hit for the other, if need be.

“That said, I’d really enjoyed Wheatley and Hempel’s Mars series, published by First Comics— which was probably the very first work of theirs I’d ever seen. Talent and reliability go a long way when it comes to producing monthly comics.”

While some issues spelled out who did what on the art, on others the three were simply listed as illustrators.

“I’m not sure that our being vague about the credits really helped at the time; it mainly served to create confusion,” says Hempel. “I think we were attempting to come across as three hands working as one. And, indeed, on our collaborations, the lines of division often blurred, as tasks sometimes overlapped, or we switched roles completely. That said, for most of the run on Jonny, I penciled and lettered, Mark inked and colored, and Kathy mark wheatley assisted on both lettering and coloring.”

Unfortunately, according to Wheatley, deadline issues became common on the book. “After the first two issues or so, Marc started really dragging his heels about getting pencils done. I started out having a fairly easy job of inking his rather immaculate pencils. Very quickly they degenerated into just tight faces and nebulous everything else. He was still doing all the breakdowns.

He was still doing the storytelling, which he’s very good at. But he wasn’t delivering finished work too well.”

Hempel admits, “To some extent the grind of doing a regular series was getting to me, and the novelty and fun of drawing Jonny was starting to

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Anatomy of a Cover From pencils to inks to print, the progression of Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley’s cover to Jonny Quest #14 (July 1987). Thanks to Mr. Wheatley for the scans!

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Hard-Boiled Hero Color original cover art for Jonny Quest #18 (Nov. 1987), by the team of Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley (who provided the scan), and Kathryn Mayer.

This Race Bannon spotlight gets the Raymond Chandler/ Dashiell Hammett Seal of Approval.

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wear off. That said, there were other more general psychological and emotional issues related to my past deadline problems. Basically, I had huge problems with stress in those days, which manifested physically as severe stomach problems. This resulted in Mark taking over on art chores if I was too ill to work.”

And they weren’t the only ones having deadline issues. “The big problem that I was having by that second year was that my mom had—years before—gotten hepatitis in a hospital and was in the process of becoming very ill,” reveals Messner-Loebs. “We had to drive across Detroit several times a week and I was having all kinds of troubles with deadlines, which meant that Hempel and Wheatley had to catch up as best they could.”

In spite of the problems going on behind the scenes, the second year produced many exciting stories beginning with an outer space adventure featuring the villainy of Dr. Zin. As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, Dr. Zin was behind many of the problems facing the Quest crew.

What did Messner-Loebs find appealing about this character? “You need somebody who the cast is going to be afraid of,” the writer states. “You’ve created a pretty powerful cast here. You’ve got Hadji, who’s ten years old and who’s nonetheless a master of the mystic arts.

Dr. Quest can invent a death ray out of three bottle caps and a flickering Christmas tree light. Jonny is an Olympic-level ten-year-old athlete. And they’re being ramrodded through these adventures by ‘James Bond’ [Race Bannon]. So you need to have a good, strong villain of some kind for most of these stories. He was already established, so it seemed like a good idea.”

Issues #15 (Aug. 1987) and #16 (Sept. 1987) feature solo art by Hempel and Wheatley, with Hempel penciling and inking #15 and Wheatley providing art and colors for #16. Issue #15 is a flashback, as Dr. Quest and wife Judy have an adventure where they encounter cactus rustlers and meet Dr. Zin for the first time. The story ends on a tragic note as Race dies! It is quickly explained

Like Father, Like Sons

in issue #16 that he merely went into shock due to an infection he got when he was shot with the arrow in issue #12. The rest of the story focuses on a new invention of Dr. Zin’s: a gum that will turn the chewer into a werewolf. Wheatley says his art for this issue didn’t go over well. “Fans, and especially Diana, were not happy because she didn’t think I had caught the likenesses and matched what Marc was doing.”

Dr. Quest’s producer “friend” Stuart Gold returns in issue #17 (Oct. 1987). This time, he asks Benton to help out with a movie involving giant robots. Race sits this adventure out and instead has one of his own in issue #18 (Nov. 1987), which is a tribute to hard-boiled film noir detective stories. Race is hired to find a man by someone who may not be human.

Issue #19 features art by Ernie Colón and stars Hadji and Jonny, as Hadji attempts to get a teacher and sets out looking for the revered Dr. Dharma. He doesn’t want the job, but ends up teaching the boys a lot by the end of the story. Hadji was a favorite character of Schutz’s.

“I have a lot of favorite moments, most of them involving Hadji, a character that Bill really developed in far greater depth for the comic—in contrast to the TV show, where he wasn’t much more than Jonny’s sidekick,” she says. “In the comic, he had a quiet, gentle

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(above) Color original art to the back cover of JQ #24. (left) Splash page original art from JQ #20 (Jan. 1988). Courtesy of Mark Wheatley.

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sense of irony about him, and every time someone went looking for him, he’d be levitating somewhere above their head!”

The regular art team returns in issue #20 (Jan. 1988), where Dr. Quest is sent to find a man who has stolen some plutonium and run off with his son. On his way to find him, Dr. Quest drives through an odd storm and ends up in a bar where he encounters a version of Race Bannon from another dimension. And the bar owner may be familiar to comic fans, as it was writer John Ostrander.

“At that point, I believe, I was doing things with John Ostrander in the back of GrimJack in ‘Munden’s Bar,’” says Messner-Loebs.” I always thought it was fun to do that kind of interaction—give a little wave to people.”

Dan Spiegle returns one last time in issue #21 (Feb. 1988), in which we learn that as a child, Race was abused by his uncle. While not an action-packed issue, it was packed with human drama, but that’s not always easy to draw.

“You try to create interest by using unusual angles in the scenes and more close-ups with more expressions,” says Spiegle. “Action is easier to create than an atmosphere.

That’s the fun of illustration, to get the right expression to go with the right action.”

If it’s humor you want, look no further than issue #22 (Mar 1988). This story is told from the static viewpoint of a camera that is dan spiegle filming a normal day-in-the-life at Quest Labs.

The completed film will be put in a time capsule. But the day is anything but normal as everyone is acting unusually around the camera and Dr. Quest conducts interviews for a secretary.

According to Wheatley, this story was “the one that Marc and I both had the most fun with. I seem to remember Marc and me talking about how having it take place from a single point of view would save him time and get him ahead on the schedule because he could photocopy the background and use it over and over again. He ended up almost animating that story. It took forever. He was OCD about the whole thing and it turned out beautifully because of it.”

“It was indeed a bit challenging to utilize that constant, visual point of view and still maintain compelling story flow,” says Hempel. “I had always been good at spatial relations as well as creating a sense of motion and timing, so that all came into play. Admittedly, I wouldn’t want to work within those restrictions every issue, but it was fun to do for one story. And a fixed, objective point of view seems to work well for humor in general.”

Issues #23–24 (Apr.–May 1988) are a two-part adventure in which the team discovers the European kingdom of Starkgrau on a jungle island. It turns out that Dr. Quest is practically the twin of the prince who, if he can pass a couple of tests, will succeed his father as king. The problem is, he can’t pass the tests and if he doesn’t, Duke Hubert will seize control with the help of his new partner, Dr. Zin. According to Wheatley, he drew all of issue #23, “then I handed it off to Marc and he tightened up the faces and made them look closer to model.

“I ended up introducing a change to the script without actually changing the script. Bill had written a scene where the Quest crew was inside a castle,” Wheatley says. “Inside that castle there was a greenhouse where the king was raising plants and trees. At one point the king asks Dr. Quest to pick up a tree. It was in a pot. I’m sure it was Bill’s oversight, but he never had him do anything with it. So I had him carry the

Well, We Love Bandit! (top) Sans captions, a color art page from that cute canine’s solo outing in Jonny Quest #25 (June 1988). (bottom) JQ Special #2 cover, by Ron Frenz. (inset) JQ #21, an issue by artist Dan Spiegle.

TM & © H-B.

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Solo Spin-Off Astounding wraparound covers by Adam Kubert from his three-issue Jezebel Jade mini, cover-dated Oct.–Dec. 1988.

TM & © H-B.

tree around for the rest of the issue. It really made some of the scenes far more interesting while he was trying to maintain his grip on the tree.

I kept expecting someone to say at pencil stage, ‘No, no, Mark. We need to have him put it down.’ But nobody ever said a thing about it.”

JONNY QUEST: YEAR THREE Issue #25 (June 1988) was another Bandit spotlight. This time out, Bandit gets lost and ends up befriending a homeless woman.

Messner-Loebs really enjoyed writing the Bandit stories: “It was funny because Doug Wildey said, ‘So, you keep using that damn dog. Do you like him?’ That fact that I kept turning Bandit into a hero was the only slight glitch in our relationship.”

According to Schutz, “Doug had had Bandit forced on him by the producers of the original show, and he never did warm up to the dog. Fans used to come up to him at conventions, gleefully telling him they’d named their own dog Bandit, totally unaware that they were rubbing salt into an old and still painful wound. Doug never said a word, but he would turn to Bob and me, and just roll his eyes!”

Some of the classic episodes of Jonny Quest are referenced in issue #26 (July 1988). Race has been captured by a would-be world conqueror, but Bannon doesn’t even break a sweat as he regales the villain with stories of Dr. Quest’s heroics while he waits to be rescued.

Race’s friend Wild Jim Cannon returns in issue #27 (Aug. 1988). He must help Dr. Quest find Race and Jonny, who were in a plane crash in a snowbound wilderness. This issue spotlights Jonny’s resourcefulness, as Race is injured in the crash and Jonny must keep them both safe and find some way to let people know where they are. Mark Wheatley says this issue has his favorite cover. It is a wraparound cover, with Jonny trudging through the snow on the back and the front cover is completely white.

September and October of 1988 saw two Jonny Quest Specials.

“The JQ Specials were, I believe, originally drawn as inventory issues— something to quickly slide into the schedule in case we ran behind and blew a deadline,” remembers Schutz. “As I said earlier, we were under contract to publish an issue every single month, so it was a wise idea to have some insurance in that regard. But towards the end of the series’ run, when it became clear that sales were continuing to sink and that we were not going to extend the license any further, rather than just waste the money we’d spent on those two comics, we released them in the last few months of the license.”

Both stories were written by science-fiction author Arthur Byron Cover. The first, with art by Richard Howell and Jim Mooney, is a tale of multiple times and dimensions as Dr. Quest meets a young version of his grandfather and alternate versions of the Quest team. The second issue, drawn by John Hebert and Bill Anderson, takes place in Russia where aliens intend to take over, led by the resurrected body of Lenin. This was the one issue of Jonny Quest not edited by Diana Schutz. It was instead edited by BACK ISSUE’s own Michael Eury.

“My love of Hanna-Barbera cartoons was no secret and Di assigned the second special to me,” says Eury, a Comico editor at the time. “I was involved with selecting John Hebert to draw it, and since I was a fan of Ron Frenz’s Amazing Spider-Man work of the day, I thought Ron would do a great Jonny Quest cover—and was right!”

Back in the ongoing series, issues #28–29 (Sept.–Oct. 1988) are a two-part Western adventure. Race, Wild Jim, Jonny, and Hadji head out West for some R&R and soon find themselves in the middle of a fight between a dude ranch and a Western theme park. And things really heat up when Jezebel Jade gets involved.

Jade appeared on a much larger stage as well, starring in her own three-issue miniseries (Oct.–Dec 1988) written by Messner-Loebs with art by Adam Kubert.

“The Jezebel Jade series was a result of Comico trying to accomplish two things,” says Schreck. “One: put out a female lead character

that might attract a female readership, and Two: give us the chance to work more with Adam Kubert, who is a great person and an amazing artist.”

In the series, Jonny and Hadji discover a manuscript in Race’s room. They start reading and discover that it’s a story of Race’s time in the Agency with Wild Jim. Race is assigned to bring back a kidnapped professor and heads to Hong Kong, where he finds treachery, betrayal, Jezebel Jade, and Dr. Zin. Since the story is being read by Jonny and Hadji, Kubert came up with a unique way to show that. “The whole story was reading this manuscript,” he says, “and I thought rather than just do something with the borders, maybe rounded corners or whatever, I decided to do something a little bit different and have a small silhouette of the characters over each two pages of the narrative. It made it fun for me, and a little bit more interesting.”

And when the professor appears in the story, the fact that he resembles Adam’s father, Joe Kubert, is not accidental. “I put him in wherever I can use him. It’s a fun thing for me.”

Issue #30 (Nov. 1988) was a rarity in that it adapted the classic TV episode, “The Invisible Monster.”

“Nostalgically it was a real trip when they said, ‘You’re going to get to do one of the episodes,’” says Wheatley. “But the reality of it was … I might be wrong about this, but I know we had problems near the end of the run because the company that owned the rights to Jonny Quest was bought by somebody else. And these new people became huge pains in the ass asking us to do things over and over again that made no sense because they decided that it was something that Jonny Quest wouldn’t do. I seem to remember

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Hard-Hitting Exit Our boy packs a wallop on the cover to the series’ final issue, #31. Cover illustrated

by Marc Hempel.

TM & © H-B.

Sealed with a Kiss (left) Sheesh! The relationship between Benton and Kathy was finally heating up when Comico’s Jonny Quest ended with #31 (Dec. 1988).

Color original art from page 30 of that issue.

TM & © H-B.

we did this adaptation as a way to get around the problem. I don’t think it helped.”

Issue #31 (Dec. 1988) features Jonny and Hadji following Kathy on the job for a day and seeing all the issues she has to deal with every day as a social worker. Although the day was tough, there is a happy ending as Dr. Quest proposes to her and she says yes.

Sadly, though, this was the final issue of the series.

Diana Schutz summed up what had happened in that issue’s letters column: “Sales on a licensed property like Jonny Quest must be even greater than those on a regular creatorowned (or publisher-owned) title, due to the additional cost of licensing fees. And although JQ’s sales started out remarkably high, they eventually dropped and continued to decline, never regaining the momentum of those early issues. When it came time to renegotiate our JQ contract for 1989, Comico was forced, sadly, to bow out.”

It’s too bad that Jonny Quest didn’t find a larger readership, as it was an enjoyable book and upheld the legacy of the characters very well. Plus, the talent involved was second to none. In addition to the creators mentioned above, there were also pinups and covers contributed by artists including Mike Mignola, Bill

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Willingham, Terry Austin, Tim Sale, Jill Thompson, Bill Sienkiewicz, and many others.

“Jonny Quest gave me the opportunity to work with three of the heroes of my youth: Murphy Anderson (JQ #9), Carmine Infantino (JQ #13), and Jim Mooney (JQ Special #1),” says Schutz. “Jim, of course, was the signature artist on the Supergirl stories in Action and Adventure in the 1960s, which are the comics that got me hooked on this medium in the first place as a little girl.”

“I’m very happy with the run,” concludes MessnerLoebs. “I’ve always been sort of sad that none of Jonny Quest has ever been repackaged. I would love to see them reprinted.”

That’s a sentiment I’m sure that many fans of the series share.

Thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this article and to Howard Whitman for allowing me to use an excerpt from his interview with the late Doug Wildey. Thanks also to Beau Smith and KC Carlson.

ROGER ASH lives in Cross Plains, Wisconsin, where he works for Westfield Comics. He believes his cat may be in league with Dr. Zin but has yet to prove it.

by

Dan Johnson

Dennis the Menace has been one of the most iconic characters on the comic pages of newspapers worldwide for over 60 years. Created in 1951 by cartoonist Hank Ketcham (1920–2001), the character of Dennis Mitchell is not just well known for his antics in your local paper.

The character has proven very popular in other mediums as well. Indeed, the perpetual five-and-a-half-year-old mischief-maker has proven time and time again that his strip, much like the corner his mom usually sends him to, isn’t enough contain him and his abundance of energy. Dennis the Menace has become a pop-culture sensation in a wide variety of productions. He and his cast of supporting characters have been featured in everything from a live-action television show to cartoons to feature films, and Dennis the Menace was even the official spokesman for Dairy Queen for 30 years.

Without question, though, the most successful venue for Dennis the Menace outside of the comic strip has been in comic books. The first comic-book publishers to produce a Dennis the Menace series were Standard and then Pines, which published his exploits from 1953 to 1958. After that came Fawcett. The legendary company that had been home to Captain Marvel and other Golden Age heroes like Spy Smasher, Bulletman, and Ibis the Invincible published Dennis the Menace comic books from 1958 until 1980.

MOVE OVER, LOKI—THERE’S A NEW MISCHIEF-MAKER AT MARVEL! Before Dennis the Menace left the newsstands for good in the early 1980s, he had one more comic-book series that was published by Marvel Comics. The Marvel Dennis the Menace comic book lasted a mere 13 issues, cover-dated Nov. 1981 through Nov. 1982, along with three digest books that reprinted earlier material.

While this run marked the end of an era for Dennis the Menace in comic-book form, it laid the groundwork for a new generation of creators to work with Hank Ketcham, and prepared them to become the guardians of Ketcham’s cartoon son and legendary comic strip.

As Ketcham prepared to bring Dennis the Menace to Marvel, he began by hiring new assistants to illustrate the comic book. His first recruits were cartoonists Brian Lum and Karen Matchette (who back then went under

(Stan’s) Soapbox Derby Alice from Richard Thompson’s delightful comic strip Cul de Sac hitches a wagon ride with Dennis Mitchell as they pick up some of Marvel’s late-1981 entries—including Dennis the Menace #1! Actually, this marker illustration (without the added comic books) was done in 2011 by Dennis mainstay Ron Ferdinand. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

Dennis the Menace © 2012 Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc. Cul de Sac © 2012 Richard Thompson.

Spider-Man and X-Men © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Marvel’s Original Menace Some of you will remember Marvel’s late-Silver Age/earlyBronze Age Dennis the Menace–like series Peter the Little Pest, which ran for four issues in 1969–1970.

What you might not know is that Marvel’s Peter was a repackaging of the Stan Lee/Joe Maneely Melvin the Monster (not to be confused with Dell Comics’ Melvin Monster), six issues of which were published in 1956–1957. Seen here are (center) Peter the Little Pest #1 (Nov. 1969), (right) Melvin the Monster #6 (July 1957), and (inset) Petey (as the Peter series was retitled with its final issue) #4 (May 1970), altering the cover art from the Melvin issue also shown here. © 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.

her maiden name of Donovan). Matchette, who had previously illustrated a children’s book called The Golden Gate Bridge Troll, remembers how she came to work on Dennis the Menace: “I learned that Hank was looking for assistants through the publication Cartoonist Profiles.

I immediately threw myself into a study of all things Dennis, especially the Fawcett books. Hank seemed pleased with those books at the time as well. And I admired his work so much and tried to emulate it as best I could. Those [Fawcett] books were very helpful in studying his style.”

Cartoonist Ron Ferdinand came onto the Marvel book a little later than Lum and Matchette, but did so through the same advertisement: “I sent Hank some Dennis pencil drawings and after a little back-andforth correspondence, he flew me out to California [from New York] and put me to work on the Marvel comic. I came in on issue #5 or 6. [In] 1981, Hank flew me out for a two-week trial period. [When I first met him,] Hank was sitting behind his drawing board, and I felt like I was meeting the president.”

UNDER KETCHAM’S WATCHFUL EYE One of the key things that Ketcham felt he needed on the Marvel series was get his young assistants up to his standards to work on the comic book. “I remember that first visit to his studio, when he showed me one of the Marvel comic books,” recalls Matchette. “I remember him being very critical of it, and if I wanted the job, he’d train me to do it much better. That actually scared me because I didn’t think it was half bad, but didn’t say so.”

Ferdinand also recalls Ketcham’s demand for excellence: “Well, since he had three trainees working on it, I’m sure he was gritting his teeth. We were all trying so hard to please him. He was such an incredible artist that it was so hard to meet his standards. He was very patient with us and didn’t care how long it

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took to produce the finished art. Quality was always first with him.”

Ketcham is well known for putting his assistants through a rigorous training so they could present Dennis in the fashion that his creation deserved. As Matchette recalls, it wasn’t just copying his style that mattered to Ketcham. “What [Hank] was looking for was many things it took me years to learn,” she says.

“Not just the likeness, but an artistic movement of the line, acting ability and gesture that could be drawn into the characters, interesting camera angles as you become sort of a film director as well. Then it was important to do research on the props used, and the actions of the figures also had to be drawn well.

Anyway, the bar was always high.”

While Ketcham’s new assistants worked on the Marvel book, they were each left to do their own stories.

“We would each be given different stories to do as we thought best,” says Matchette. “It was enough to have Hank critique our work without each other’s two cents all the time so we’d leave each other alone artistically.

We always penciled, lettered, and inked our own work.”

As Ferdinand recalls, “The art duties were pretty evenly divided. We did about the same number of pages each and we left the coloring up to Marvel.”

THE DREADED DEADLINE DOOM Sometimes Ketcham’s demand for perfection meant his employees had to keep some tight schedules. “The only problem we had with Marvel was meeting the deadlines,” says Ferdinand. “Hank was such a perfectionist, and we were all so green, that there were lots of corrections and redrawing. Even with three artists we were always straining to get the art out in time.”

Besides Hank’s new assistants, the other creative member of the Marvel Comic was Fred Toole, who was the one holdover from the Standard/Pine and Fawcett

books. Toole had been the only writer on the Dennis the Menace comic books since 1953. “Fred Toole was pretty much on his own, with occasional input from Hank,” says Ferdinand. “[When I came out for my two-week trial period,] Fred Toole picked me up at the airport and drove me out to Hank’s home in Pebble Beach. He was a kind, gentle man.”

“Fred was a good guy,” seconds Matchette.

“I always enjoyed the stories of days past when the comic books were making money and Hank would fly him to Hawaii and places to do research [for the comics that featured Dennis going to different locales around the world].”

While Toole was initially responsible for all the writing on the comic book, toward the very end of the series’ run, Ketcham did start to call upon his protégés to give their take on the stories being submitted. “There were a couple of story conferences on the last couple of stories where we, the artists, were called in to give some input on Fred Toole’s alreadywritten script,” recalls Ferdinand. “I remember feeling a little uncomfortable commenting on Fred’s work, since he’d been doing this forever. Hank just wanted to give us a chance for some input, but you could imagine how Fred must’ve felt, although he was very good about it. But, as I said, it was only the last couple of stories.”

I Hope I Passed the Audition (below) Ron Ferdinand sample drawings for Dennis the Menace, courtesy of the artist. (above) Some Marvel Dennis issues.

Dennis the Menace © 2012 Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc.

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Spider-Kid, Spider-Kid, Does Whatever a Spider Did (left) The kinda-sorta Marvel crossover issue, Dennis the Menace #7 (May 1982), featuring Dennis as Spider-Kid. (right) Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham receiving an Inkpot Award at the 1982 San Diego ComicCon. Photo courtesy of Alan Light. © 1982 Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc. Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

A MARVEL “TEAM-UP”

© 1981 Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc.

Since Dennis the Menace was being published under the Marvel banner, a crossover with that company’s stable of superheroes seemed inevitable. The one and only crossover (of sorts) did occur in Dennis the Menace #7 (May 1982). In this issue, Dennis is invited to a costume party and comes dressed as Spider-Man. As it was, this was the only nod to Dennis being at Marvel that was ever made. “I personally don’t recall any talk of including other Marvel characters,” says Ferdinand. “I think the Spider-Man thing was a oneshot deal for that issue. Of course, if we had continued with Marvel, there probably would have been other opportunities to incorporate other Marvel characters.”

As it was, by time the Spider-Kid issue was hitting the newsstands, Dennis’ time at Marvel was already winding down. Feeling the pressures of producing the comic book and maintaining the strip as well, Ketcham decided to end the Marvel series after only 13 issues. There were other reasons that Ketcham had for severing his ties with Marvel, and as it turns out, he was very prophetic in regard to the direction he saw the comics industry was headed for in the early 1980s. “Hank felt the age of large comic-book sales was fading and he wanted to move on and concentrate on training us to do the strip itself,” recalls Matchette. “It wasn’t at all like the 1960s, where the comic books generated so much interest and Hank had a stable of artists that worked on them.” Ferdinand adds, “Comic-book shops were few and far between in 1981. Hank was putting so much time into producing the comic book with the three of us, that I’m sure it was getting stressful for him.”

Dennis’ time at Marvel did serve one great purpose, though, as it prepared Ketcham’s assistants for an even bigger assignment: taking over the Dennis the Menace comic strip. “[Hank] hired me with the idea that eventually I could help with Sunday pages and merchandizing,”

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says Matchette. “[The] comic books were a good start.”

As the Marvel book ended, Matchette and Ferdinand didn’t have long before they began the next leg of their journey with Hank Ketcham. “[It] happened kind of simultaneously,” says Ferdinand. “Bob Bugg was producing the Sunday page in Connecticut and had been for many years. When Hank had built the new studio for all of us [in California], he had asked Bob to relocate so all production would be under one roof.

When Bob declined, Hank put Karen and me on the Sunday page. It was after we had finished the last Marvel comic. [The comic was] a great training ground for us assistants. So in that sense, it proved worthwhile.”

Of the three assistants that Ketcham hired to work on the Dennis the Menace comic book, the only one who chose not to continue with the strip was Brian Lum. After the Marvel series ended, he moved to Muncie, Indiana, to work on Garfield with Jim Davis. Eventually, Matchette went to work on other projects, such as the Flintstones comic strip and assisting Lynn Johnston on For Better or For Worse. To this day though, she is still a contributing writer for the Dennis the Menace strip. Ferdinand is still illustrating the Sunday Dennis the Menace strip.

For him, working on Dennis the Menace has become his career and it is one that he is proud of as he carries on Hank Ketcham’s legacy. “Hank turned out to be a great boss,” says Ferdinand.

“I am so honored to have known him and work with him for 15 years. I really miss him.”

DAN JOHNSON is one of the gag writers for the Dennis the Menace comic strip and has written graphic novel adaptations of famous literary works for Campfire Comics.

by

Daniel DeAngelo

The saga of Star Blazers begins in the year 2199.

Earth is under attack by the planet Gamilon, ruled by the arrogant Leader Desslok. Gamilon has been bombarding Earth with radioactive “planet bombs,” which have irradiated the surface and forced mankind to retreat into underground cities. In just one year, all life on Earth will become extinct.

Just as Earth seems doomed, a message arrives from Queen Starsha of the faraway planet Iscandar, who offers Earth a device called “Cosmo DNA” that will restore life to the planet. The only catch is that mankind must travel to Iscandar to get it. Fortunately, Starsha also sends plans for a new “Wave-Motion Engine” that will enable a starship to make the long journey.

The engine is installed in a sunken WWII battleship called Yamato, which is rebuilt into a space cruiser and re-christened the Argo (named after the ship that Jason sailed in to find the Golden Fleece). Captain Avatar leads the perilous mission and is given a crew of brave young volunteers called the “Star Force,” including combat leader Derek Wildstar, navigator Mark Venture, radar analyst/nurse Nova, and science officer Sandor. Initially, the hotheaded Wildstar blames Avatar for the death of his older brother, Alex—whose ship was lost during Avatar’s last battle—but he gradually matures, winning the love of Nova and being promoted to Deputy Captain when Avatar is stricken with radiation poisoning.

When they reach Iscandar, the Star Force learns that Iscandar and Gamilon are twin planets and are both dying, which is why the Gamilons attacked Earth—because they were seeking a new home. After a climactic battle with Desslok on Gamilon, the Star Force arrives on Iscandar, where Wildstar discovers that his brother was rescued by Starsha. Alex falls in love with Starsha, who is the last surviving person on Iscandar, so he decides to remain there with her.

Avatar passes away as the Star Force returns with the Cosmo DNA, arriving just in time to save Earth.

Protecting Mother Earth The star-blazing Captain Derek Wildstar, Nova Forrester, Colonel Cosmo Shannon, Captain Mark Venture, and IQ-9. Detail from the front cover of Ken Steacy’s wraparound painting for Comico’s Star Blazers vol. 2 #1 (May 1989). © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

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A year later, Earth has fully recovered when a new threat appears in the form of a white comet, which conceals a massive city/fortress called the Comet Empire. Ruled by the merciless Prince Zordar, the Comet Empire travels through space, conquering everything in its path—and Earth is its next target!

Receiving a warning from a mysterious woman named Trelaina, the Star Force sets out for planet Telezart, where she informs them about the comet’s true nature. Although she possesses great mental powers, Trelaina refuses to use them for fear of losing control.

Back on Earth, the Comet Empire wipes out the Earth Defense Fleet and destroys the moon, forcing mankind to surrender. On their way to Earth, the Star Force is again attacked by Desslok, who seeks revenge for the destruction of Gamilon. However, witnessing Wildstar and Nova’s love for each other and Earth, Desslok realizes that he and the Star Force are not so different and that both are merely fighting to preserve their homes, so he leaves in peace. After a fierce battle, the Star Force manages to destroy the Comet Empire city from within, but an enormous space dreadnaught emerges from the wreckage. Fortunately, Trelaina is moved by the Star Force’s love for Earth, and with her help, Zordar is defeated.

SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO

Searching for a Distant Star (above) An overview of the Quest for Iscandar series depicting the Argo leaving Earth along with the main cast members—the Star Force, Queen Starsha, and the Gamilons. (right) At the core of Star Blazers is the love story between Derek Wildstar and Nova. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

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The saga of Star Blazers began in 1974 with a Japanese animated TV series called Space Battleship Yamato. The series was first conceived by Office Academy producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki as “Asteroid Ship Icarus,” about a spaceship hidden within an asteroid. When manga artist Leiji Matsumoto was brought in to work on the project, he—being a WWII buff—came up with the idea of basing the spaceship on the Yamato, an actual Japanese battleship that was sunk by US forces in 1945. The first animated series, which told the Quest for Iscandar story in 26 episodes, was not an immediate success, but the series was re-edited into a movie and released in 1977.

The release of Star Wars renewed interest in science fiction, which helped make the first Space Battleship Yamato movie a big success. In fact, the movie is considered to be the start of the first anime boom in Japan. The film was so popular that a sequel was inevitable.

Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (1978) told the story of Yamato’s final battle to save Earth from the threat of Emperor Zordar and the White Comet Empire. In the end, most of the major characters are killed—including Yuki (Nova), Sanada (Sandor), and Dessler (Desslok). When Yamato is defeated by Zordar’s dreadnaught, the ghost of Captain Okita (Captain Avatar) instructs Kodai (Wildstar) to sacrifice his own life to save Earth, which he does by ramming the ship into Zordar’s dreadnaught.

The second movie was an even bigger success than the first with fans lining up for blocks to say farewell to Yamato and its crew. Although it was intended to end the saga, Farewell was the most successful animated movie in the history of Japan at that time. There was obviously more money to be made in further sequels, and Nishizaki realized that killing everyone off was a mistake (something Matsumoto was against from the start)— especially when fans began demanding more. So, when a second animated series aired in 1979, adapting the Comet Empire story in 26 episodes, the ending was changed so that most of the cast survived. Yes, long before the term became popular, Yamato “retconned” its history, ignoring the ending of Farewell. “Continuity is not a Japanese virtue,” says writer/artist Doug Rice.

series, such as Wildstar and Desslok referring to a joint FROM YAMATO TO STAR BLAZERS The first two animated series were bought by the battle with the Comet Empire (which was actually a battle Westchester Corporation to be re-edited, dubbed in with the Dark Nebula Empire in New Voyage) and the English, and released in the US as Star Blazers (a name name of Desslok’s aide, Talan, being inexplicably changed presumably derived from the word “trailblazers”). to “Masterson.” For these and other reasons, the Bolar Wars When the series aired in syndication in 1979, American is not as popular with longtime fans of the first two series.

The next movie, appropriately titled Final Yamato audiences had never seen anything like it. Even though it was intended for children, it was not as heavily edited as (1983), was intended to be the end of the saga most Japanese cartoons in the US and retained the series’ (again), with Captain Okita (Avatar) returning to themes of love, sacrifice, war, and death. The portrayal command Yamato on its final mission—to save Earth of Desslok as an “honorable enemy” was different from from being flooded by the approaching waterother cartoon villains, making him one of the most planet Aquarius. There would not be another Yamato popular characters. Star Blazers also had a continuing film or TV series in Japan for over 25 years, but the history of Star Blazers in American comics was just storyline, so fans couldn’t afford to miss an episode.

However, there were some changes made to make beginning. The first Star Blazers “comic book” was a series of graphic novels that adapted the Quest the show more appealing to American audiences. for Iscandar series in five volumes, which Japanese names like “Kodai” and “Yuki” were were published in 1983 by Office changed to “Wildstar,” “Nova,” etc. The Academy itself—now known as most significant name change was that West Cape Company—under the of the ship itself. The name “Yamato” name “W.C.C. Animation symbolizes the land, people, and Comics.” The series used animaspirit of Japan, so it was re-christened tion cels (with captions and word as the “Argo,” and its WWII history balloons placed over them) to tell was downplayed. Also in Japan, the the story. The books were printed Yamato and its crew were synonymous in Japan and distributed in the US and the ship was considered an entity

by Books Nippan. “There was talk in itself, but Star Blazers shifted the about Japanese publishers starting emphasis from the ship to the “Star up in America and doing their own Force” crew. The US version also stuff instead of licensing it out,” says Phil foglio cut back on the violence and most writer Phil Foglio. “[Back then,] character deaths were removed, when the American comics scene while enemy soldiers were often referred to as “robots.” Despite all this, Star Blazers was was a lot healthier, the profits in America compared more mature than most American cartoons at the time to the Japanese comics market was chump change. and the show developed a cult following, which it So they probably said, ‘This isn’t worth it!’ and went retains to this day. “It hit at just the right time for a back to licensing.” whole generation that was awoken by Star Wars,” says writer/artist Tim Eldred. “We were desperate for something else to strike that chord, and Star Blazers showed up on TV to give us exactly what we wanted.”

After a TV movie called Yamato – The New Voyage (1979) and another theatrical film called Be Forever Yamato (1980), a third 25-episode animated series aired on Japanese TV in 1980. Referred to as the Bolar Wars, this series told the story of Yamato’s quest to find a new planet for mankind to settle on when it is discovered that Earth will be destroyed by the sun within a year’s time. (Don’t worry, the sun gets better by the end.) Along the way, the Star Force gets caught up in a war between Desslok’s new Galman Empire and the Bolar Federation. The new series was brought to America in 1985 and added to the Star Blazers package, but it only received limited distribution.

Since the original voice actors could not be located, the characters were dubbed by new actors—including Speed Racer’s Peter Fernandez and Corinne Orr. Because the previous two movies were not shown in America, there were some continuity glitches in the third Star Blazers

© 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

Heading Off to Iscandar (above) Volume 3 of West Cape Company’s The Quest for Iscandar adaptation, the first American Star Blazers comics series. (right) W.C.C. used actual animation cels from the series and added word balloons. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

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THE COMICO YEARS (1987–1989) It would be awhile before Star Blazers made its official comic-book debut, this time as a four-part miniseries

by Comico in 1987. Comico was already publishing Robotech, another Americanized version of a Japanese anime, so Star Blazers probably seemed like a logical next choice. Writer Phil Foglio and artist Doug Rice were selected to work on the miniseries, since both were known for being huge anime fans. Rice’s first exposure to anime was a giant robot series called Raideen.

“It got me excited about giant robots and anime,” Rice says. “Eventually I discovered manga—the artwork was so dynamic and crazy. I just fell in love with the whole thing!” Rice adds, “I was contacted by Comico. When I learned they were doing a Star Blazers comic, I went, ‘Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!’” Surprisingly, Foglio had never seen Star Blazers at the time, but Rice brought him up to speed. “Doug was a lot more familiar with the Star Blazers mythos,” Foglio says. “He knew the setup and had doug rice the [story] structure in mind.” Foglio had previously worked with Rice on Dynamo Joe, an anime-style comic about a giant robot, for First Comics. “That was very much Doug,” Foglio says. “I just had to come in and make it sound nice.

He was pretty much the man in charge of that, but I had a little more creative input on Star Blazers.”

The story takes place right after the end of the Comet Empire series, with both Earth and the Argo still recovering from Zordar’s attack. “We wanted to wrap up the Comet Empire story in a way that seemed logical,” Rice says. Earth is depicted as still suffering from the aftereffects—with many having been killed by Zordar’s dreadnaught, Earth’s gravity being upset by the presence of the Comet Empire city, and fragments of the moon raining down upon the planet—while everything seems to be back to normal in New Voyage. “When it comes to science fiction, we try to take the science a little more seriously,” Foglio says. “It gives you more scope to the disaster.” It turns out that there is more to the Comet Empire, as an entire fleet led by the fanatical General Radnar attacks Earth while it’s vulnerable. “The Comet Empire that was destroyed in the series was just the center of the Empire,” Rice explains.

“If it’s an empire, there has to be a lot more of them out there.” Radnar is a devoted follower of the Empire’s goddess, Arishna, and intends to avenge Zordar’s defeat by offering Earth as a sacrifice to her. Radnar manages to take over the Argo while it is being repaired and takes Desslok prisoner on his way back to Gamilon, so Wildstar must work with the Gamilons to reclaim both him and the Argo. Radnar’s plan to use the Argo’s Wave-Motion Gun to destroy the Earth is halted by Arishna herself. She reveals that she is displeased with the Empire’s evil ways, so she destroys Radnar’s fleet and recreates Earth’s moon.

We Must Be Strong and Brave (top) Shogun Warriors fans will recognize Brave Raideen, a Japanese animated series about a giant robot that made artist Doug Rice an anime fan. (bottom) An unpublished Star Blazers cover by Rice. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

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The Comet Empire Awaits (top) Early designs for Zordar and his dreadnaught, which Doug Rice would later use for General Radnar and his flagship in Comico’s first miniseries. (bottom) Splash page for the first issue of Comico’s second miniseries, by artists Harrison Fong and Bill Anderson. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

“Every planet seems to have one of these goddess figures,” Foglio says. “It made a nice deus ex machina.”

The story seems to fit in between the Comet Empire series and the New Voyage TV movie, although the latter opens with the crew leaving the hospital after battling the Comet Empire (but perhaps they could have been recovering from the battle with Radnar instead of Zordar?). Desslok being captured on his way to Gamilon leads directly to his return there in New Voyage. “We had the benefit of knowing what came after the Comet Empire,” Rice explains, “so we were able to do something that would hopefully link one story up with the other.”

The comic book also shows how Earth’s moon is restored, which is never explained in the Yamato films. “The big plot hole Doug wanted to resolve was the destruction of the moon,” Foglio says. “Let’s just ignore the fact that it would wipe out all life on Earth [laughter]!” Also, the Star Force and Gamilons fighting together against the remnants of the Comet Empire could be the battle Wildstar and Desslok refer to in the Bolar Wars. “Doug loves that kind of retcon,” Foglio says. “I always wondered about this and they never addressed it in the actual series.

So now, I’m gonna write it … and I get paid for it!”

Fans generally enjoyed the story, although the artwork—particularly the coloring—was not as well received, especially by Rice. “[Comico] promised me the moon to make it look good,” he says. “We talked about it at length … I sent them copies of the manga pages to show them how to get the anime-style to look … authentic.” Instead, the first issue featured the blue-skinned Gamilons being colored green. “When I saw the first issue, I almost died!

I was actually ashamed to have my name on it,” Rice laments. “It was the first major assignment of my career, and I couldn’t get over how bad it was.” When asked to comment, former Comico administrator Bob Schreck says, “I really don’t recall much about that series other than we did publish it and were very proud of the job the creative team did and how the books looked and read once released.” Rice sums up the experience by saying, “I learned a bitter lesson about maintaining creative control on a project with people you don’t know.”

Rice did take pleasure in making use of designs seen only in the Japanese Yamato art books. “All of the ship designs were things that the Japanese animators had in their ‘Perfect Album’ books but had never been used,” Foglio says. “Doug was very much about trying to keep to the spirit of the [animated] series.” For example, General Radnar was based on an early design for Zordar, and Radnar’s flagship was an unused design for Zordar’s dreadnaught. Rice closely followed the style and traditions of the original anime. “When you see a spaceship, it’s not something [the animators] draw on paper,” he says.

“They actually have a model sheet that they copy, and they re-size it and cut it up and paste it on the page, so they don’t have to keep drawing it over and over again.

That’s how they keep the details consistent. If you look at Toon Comics Issue

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Keeping Peace Alive (left) The Star Force blazes into action on the final cover of Comico’s first miniseries by Doug Rice. (right) Ken Steacy’s cover for the final issue of the second miniseries depicts a more tranquil scene between Wildstar and Nova. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

my cover to #2, with all the little crab-like ships—they are all the same.

That was how Leiji Matsumoto did it. I learned that from him.”

The first Star Blazers miniseries sold beyond Comico’s expectations, but a follow-up series was not released for two years. No one seems to know the reason for such a long delay, although it is possible that Comico may have only negotiated the rights to produce one miniseries and had to re-negotiate a new deal for a second one. Whatever the case may be, Foglio and Rice were not asked to return … at least, not at first.

“We turned in the first one and heard absolutely nothing—good, bad, or indifferent,” Foglio says. “It was a big surprise to us when Comico announced another one. They didn’t tell us anything.”

The second miniseries ran for five issues and was to be written by Markalan Joplin with art by Harrison Fong and Bill Anderson. However, Joplin died of AIDS complications after writing the first issue. “Markalan Joplin was entrenched in the Star Blazers and Robotech camp at Comico when I came on board,” says Star Blazers (and BACK ISSUE) editor Michael Eury. “I remember him fondly. He understood the material and universe, which helped me as editor, since I was unfamiliar with the concept. As his condition worsened, his pace slowed down, but he kept the lines of communication going. A professional until the end.” With Joplin gone, Comico asked Foglio to replace him. “I said, ‘Sure, if I can work with Doug!’” Foglio explains. “I enjoyed the series and the characters, but Doug was very much the expert on Star Blazers.” Rice adds, “I had voiced my ire to the Comico people and they didn’t appreciate it.

So, as far as I was concerned, I was never going to hear from them again—that was the end of it. But then, they contacted Phil to do the second series … and he got me involved. I’ll work with Phil on anything!”

This time, Rice worked with Foglio on the story, but Fong and Anderson remained as the art team. “I was actually pleased with the art on the second series,” Rice says. “I thought the artist had a very nice take on the anime style.” Having to follow Joplin presented some problems, however, since he had only written a rough plot for the series.

“His notes were unclear,” Foglio recalls. “We tried to keep as much in as we could.” Rice added, “We had to kind of fill-in the blanks. We put a lot of effort into it to make it cohesive. We weren’t able to change anything, because the first issue was already in production. This resulted in some continuity errors.” Among these was the presence of engineer 74 • BACK ISSUE • Toon Comics Issue

Orion and Black Tiger pilots Conroy and Hardy, who were all killed in the Japanese version of the Comet Empire series. Although their deaths were removed from Star Blazers, they did not appear in Comico’s first miniseries. Also, Joplin had planned to explain the Talan/Masterson name switch by introducing Masterson as Talan’s son and Desslok’s new aide. Foglio and Rice were unaware of this, so they had Masterson turn out to be a traitor and killed him off. Still, Foglio and Rice did their best to link the story to the upcoming Bolar Wars by explaining how Desslok discovers the location of the Gamilon home world, Galman (referred to as “Galvin” in the comics). “It behooved us to put in as much foreshadowing as possible,” Rice says. “It gave a certain linkage from one series to another, with the comic book in-between.”

In 2202, the Gamilons are attacked by an alien army led by Lotar, a cyborg villain with a powerful weapon called a “Planet Crusher,” which—as the name implies—can destroy entire worlds. Lotar is allied with a fleet of mercenaries led by an embittered former Earth commander named Helms, who was banished from Earth for his reckless actions. The Star Force travels to the planet Eurythma, which is also under attack by Lotar, where they discover yet another planetary goddess imprisoned in the planet’s core. The Argo frees her by firing its Wave-Motion Gun into the planet’s core, which also destroys Lotar’s fleet, while the mercenaries are defeated by the Earth Defense Fleet. Although the second miniseries also sold well, it was not as popular as the first series, and Comico did not produce another one. “Phil and I had a good time writing it,” Rice concludes. “We had a lot of fun—on both series!”

THE ARGO PRESS YEARS (1995–1997) As Comico’s Star Blazers was coming to an end, Tim Eldred’s art career was just beginning on comic-book adaptations of anime such as Lensman, Captain Harlock, and Robotech for Malibu Graphics’ Eternity Comics imprint. “I had long held the dream of one day drawing Star Blazers comics,” Eldred posted on www.starblazers.com, “and not once did I ever give up the dream.” Eldred was also working for Comico and submitted a proposal for an extended adaptation of the Bolar Wars. “I was completely unaware that, at almost exactly this same time, another fan named Bruce Lewis was writing his own proposal,” Eldred says, “for exactly the same publisher. Neither of our proposals were accepted, but sheer dumb luck

would grant us our wish in the end.” Eldred became find it being mined for its remaining resources by the friends with Lewis, who also went on to work for Malibu.

Dark Nebula Empire. Gamilon explodes prematurely In 1993, Voyager Entertainment—the current owner and Desslok seeks revenge, only to be overwhelmed of the US rights to Star Blazers—took notice of Eternity’s by the Dark Nebula’s forces. To make matters worse, anime line and approached Malibu about doing a new the destruction of Gamilon knocks Iscandar out of its comic book. “Bruce and I could barely contain orbit and sends it hurtling through space. With ourselves, our heads exploding with all the Starsha and Alex Wildstar still living together possibilities,” Eldred posted. However, on the planet, Desslok sends out a message at that time, Malibu was preoccupied to the Star Force, and Yamato once with its upcoming Ultraverse line of again takes off for Iscandar. In the superhero comics and turned Voyager end, Starsha sends Alex to Yamato, down. “But we weren’t wiling to let while she sacrifices herself and her it go,” Eldred continued, “and we planet to stop the Dark Nebula hatched an idea so crazy it just might Empire. Onboard Yamato, Alex reveals work.” In 1994, Eldred and Lewis Sasha, the daughter he had with joined with another anime fan named Starsha. Desslok and Wildstar part John Ott to form “Studio Go!” and company, with the Gamilons going off pitched the idea of producing their to search for a new homeworld and own Star Blazers comic to be published Yamato heading back to Earth. The tim eldred

by Voyager itself. In March 1995, the comics include some scenes that were first issue (actually #0) was released deleted from the movie. Although the

by Argo Press, a new division of Voyager. Most of the Dark Nebulans are defeated, they would be back for series was written and drawn by either Eldred or Lewis revenge in the next movie, Be Forever Yamato. with Eldred or Ott as colorist.

Before that, Bruce Lewis wrote and drew a three-part Star Blazers #0 recaps the Quest for Iscandar series, series called “Icarus” (the original name for Yamato when told through the writings of Captain Avatar as Wildstar it was going to be a flying asteroid instead of a battleship), reads his logbook. The next issue (#1) retells the Comet Empire story through the eyes of Desslok as he prepares to return to Gamilon. Both comics were written and drawn by Eldred. Afterwards, Eldred adapted The New Voyage TV movie in #2–5. Although most of the characters were referred to by their Americanized names, the Argo would be called “Yamato” from this point on. The deaths of Orion, Conroy, Hardy, and space marine Sgt. Knox were all acknowledged, even though their death scenes were removed from Star Blazers. The story has Desslok and the Gamilons returning to their homeworld, only to

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Star Blazers Forever (left) Finished cover art from the unpublished #12, the third chapter in Argo’s Be Forever adaptation. (below) Cover art for the first part of Argo’s Press’ Be Forever Yamato prequel, “Icarus,” by Tim Eldred and Bruce Lewis, from Star Blazers #6. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

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and Sasha joins the crew. Sandor deduces that the trigger for the Hyperon Bomb must be on the Nebulans’ homeworld and they can trace the signal back there to destroy it. Once again, Yamato takes off to save the Earth … sadly, for the last time with Argo Press. In the early ’90s, when Marvel Comics turned Capital City into its exclusive distributor, small publishers like Argo Press were limited to just Diamond for distribution and found their circulation drastically cut back. Although half of #12 was already penciled, it would never be released.

“The three of us would have to part ways for other work,” Eldred posted. “But we lived a great dream during the two years we worked on Star Blazers, and we will always remember it with fondness.”

STAR BLAZERS REBORN (2005–present)

Crisis on Infinite Argos (top) This panel from Chapter 12 of the Star Blazers Reborn webcomic

by Tim Eldred. (above) Early Tim Eldred design for Miyuki Wildstar, the daughter of Derek Wildstar and Nova, from Reborn. © 2012 Voyager Entertainment.

which bridges the gap between the two movies. “I was more than ready to tackle an original Star Blazers story by the time pre-production for #6 rolled around,” Lewis posted on www.starblazers.com. “I had been rolling … stories around in my head since 1979, and the chance to convert my fan fiction ideas into … canonical parts of the Blazers oeuvre was a dream come true.” The story focused on Sasha and her coming of age. Iscandarians age more rapidly than humans, so Sasha had grown into a teenager in a matter of months and was making the painful transition to adulthood. Alex Wildstar left Sasha in the care of his old friend, Sandor, who was in charge of repairing Yamato, which was concealed inside an asteroid base called “Icarus.” According to Lewis, “[Sasha] was also my favorite character, and the opportunity to introduce her to the Star Blazers universe was irresistible.”

Afterwards, #9 was a one-part “Be Forever Yamato Prelude,” written by Lewis and Eldred with art by Eldred. The story introduces Captain Yamanami, who would take command of Yamato in Be Forever. It also reveals how the Cosmo DNA brought Captain Avatar back to life, foreshadowing his return in Final Yamato. Earth becomes complacent and replaces its space battleships with robot-controlled ships in order to cut back on expenses. The adaptation of Be Forever began in #10 with story and layouts by Lewis and finished art by Eldred. The Dark Nebula Empire attacks, taking Earth by surprise and making short work of its robot defense fleet. A giant “Hyperon Bomb” lands on Earth, which is capable of destroying all life, forcing mankind to surrender. The Star Force rushes to an escape ship that will take them to Icarus and Yamato. However, Nova is shot before she can reach the ship and must be left behind. In #11, Alex Wildstar sacrifices himself to help Earth Defense Commander Singleton escape capture,

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However, Eldred wouldn’t be gone for too long, as Voyager hired him to work on their DVD releases in 1999. Voyager launched its Star Blazers website in 2002, and Eldred has been writing for it ever since. In 1994, producer Nishizaki announced a new animated movie to be called Space Battleship Yamato Rebirth, which would take place 25 years after Yamato’s last mission and feature an older crew reuniting to protect Earth from an approaching black hole. However, the bankruptcy of West Cape Company delayed the project for years.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Blazers, Eldred decided to create his own version of the movie.

“The Star Blazers continuity differed from Yamato and offered different storytelling opportunities,” Eldred posted.

Yamato went back to being called the “Argo” in the webcomics. “That’s the ship’s name when we’re under the Star Blazers umbrella,” Eldred said. “We called it ‘Yamato’ in some of the comics as a form of youthful rebellion, but it turned out not to be of any real value.”

From 2005–2007, the serialized comic strip ran online for 18 chapters. In 2009, the animated movie was finally released under the name Yamato Resurrection. “I got to take the story one way and they took it another,” Eldred said. “The planet’s big enough for the both of us.”

A live-action Yamato film was also released in 2010.

Starting in 2009, Eldred began a new webcomic based on the Bolar Wars. Poor ratings resulted in the animated series being cut back from 50 episodes to 25, so many of the planned stories were never produced.

Eldred had originally pitched the idea of an extended Bolar Wars adaptation to Comico in 1991. So once again, he was getting a chance to fulfill a longtime dream by producing The Bolar Wars: Extended for www.starblazers.com. Based on existing scripts and notes for the unproduced episodes, the webcomic is planned for 12 chapters and is expected to conclude sometime in 2013. According to Eldred, “The website is the nexus point for history, news, and various projects like the webcomics, and we’ve got a pretty solid reader base there.”

Whether you call it “Yamato” or “Argo,” between the webcomics and an upcoming new Japanese animated series remaking the Quest for Iscandar saga, the Star Force will continue to head “off to outer space, protecting mother Earth.”

DANIEL DeANGELO is a freelance writer/artist in Florida. He would like to thank Tim Eldred, Michael Eury, Phil Foglio, Doug Rice, and Voyager Entertainment for their assistance with this article.

Email: euryman@gmail.com (subject: BACK ISSUE) Postal mail: Michael Eury, Editor • BACK ISSUE 118 Edgewood Ave. NE • Concord, NC 28025

Find BACK ISSUE on

VIBE BREAKDANCES ON DC NATION! As a coda to last issue’s coverage of Justice League Detroit, we want to share with you that Cartoon Network’s DC Nation aired an animated short starring the JLA’s Vibe on Saturday, May 19th. And you thought you’d seen the last of this breakdancing crimebuster…

COCKRUM ART REPURPOSED! Just received the latest BACK ISSUE. Excellent read as always. In fact, I placed my order for #56 this afternoon as soon as I’d finished the current issue.

Reading the John Carter at Marvel article reminded me of this rather odd sighting I made a while back—the 2007 UK edition of A Princess of Mars as published

by Penguin features a rather familiar Dave Cockrum cover (see inset).

It was odd to see this ’70s artwork get a second life like that, but I was pleased to see how vibrant it still looks 30 years after it first saw print.

Presumably it’s owned by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate rather than Marvel, hence its reappearance. Anyway, I thought you (and other readers?) might be interested.

Keep up the excellent work. Looking forward to the Tabloid Special at the end of the year.

– Rik Hoskin Thanks for the heads up about that cover, Rik. We’ll always grab an opportunity to show some Dave Cockrum art in BI. – M.E.

TM & © DC Comics.

SWORDS OF MARS IN COMICS

ERB ARTICLE A SLEEPER HIT Another fine issue of BI [BACK ISSUE #55, “Licensed Comics].

The high point for me was Jim Kingman’s in-depth article on the Edgar Rice Burroughs franchises. My father is a huge ERB fan, and I remember a bookshelf in my childhood home filled with the author’s paperbacks. I was fascinated by the photorealistic Frazetta cover art. But it wasn’t until my teenage years that I discovered the stories under those covers, in comics form, thanks to DC’s wonderful backups in Tarzan and Korak. When I read these stories, I thought, “Ah, so this is what Dad’s been so crazy about all these years!” and began reading the original books. I was especially intrigued by the concept of Pellucidar and Burroughs’ descriptions of what a world thriving on the inside surface of a sphere would actually look like (i.e., no horizon).

Has DC ever reprinted these backup stories in trade paperback form, or even as a Showcase Presents edition? I don’t know the ins and outs of licensing; I imagine it would be difficult to reprint them now, since the rights are elsewhere. But that would be a nice book to have, for the stories and for the beautiful art.

I love the all-color, squarebound format. Keep doing what you’re doing; I can’t wait for the Avengers issue.

– Michal Jacot

I really enjoyed Jim Kingman’s article on the Edgar Rice Burroughs second-tier characters produced by DC. At the end of the article, Mr. Kingman indicated that DC’s plans to adapt Swords of Mars was never published by DC. The story was eventually published in Edgar Rice Burroughs News Dateline #37 (February 1990). Only the first part of the Swords of Mars story was completed and saw print in this issue, with credit to Nicola Cuti as writer and the Redondo Studio providing the art. However, it appears that Mike Grell may have contributed at least one panel. The scanned page is the page two of ten, the splash page for the story.

Again, thanks for your continued work on BI. I look forward to reading it every time it comes out. Any chance of making it monthly?

– Bruce Penn We appreciate the scan from that story, Bruce, which we’ve included on the following page.

In the past I’ve cringed at the idea of making BACK ISSUE monthly, since it’s one of multiple projects I manage. I’ve also feared that 12 issues a year might be “too much of a good thing” and potentially weaken the quality of the magazine in order to maintain an accelerated production schedule (our designers and I have day jobs). But our sales remain consistent (with occasional spikes) and I may have some wiggle room in my schedule before long, so I’ll reconsider a monthly BI if there’s sufficient demand.

What do the rest of you think? Monthly, or leave it as-is at eight issues a year?

– M.E.

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© 2012 ERB.

Send your comments to:

We love the all-color, squarebound format, too, Michal!

Unless I’m mistaken, those DC Burroughs backups have never been reprinted. Since Marvel produced the John Carter, Warlord of Mars Omnibus last year, in anticipation of Disney’s big-budget John Carter film, and since Dark Horse has previously published three volumes of archive editions of Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years, reprint rights for this material can be obtained if there is sufficient demand. However, the poor box-office performance of Disney’s John Carter might not bode well for a non-Tarzan ERB collected edition any time soon…

– M.E.

TWENTY YEARS OF STAR WARS AT DARK HORSE COMICS I think Tom Powers’ piece on Star Wars at Dark Horse does a great job of telling readers what they need to know when they need to know it, and then going on to offer insights about the various issues of the comics in question from those involved in creating them. The writer also knows when to blend into the background and avoid drawing attention to himself (i.e., all the time, at least in a piece like this one). In any case, great work on the article!

– Marc Schuster Marc, we agree that it’s a skill for a writer to step aside and let others tell the story. Tom Powers did indeed do a great job on our Star Wars feature.

(BTW, Mark Schuster is the co-author, along with Tom Powers, of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who, McFarland Publishing, 2007.)

– M.E.

STAR WARS LIGHT Hello, Michael. Thank you for the Dark Horse Star Wars issue.

AMAZING! Loved the John Carter piece also.

– Robert Casio @ Facebook You’re welcome, Robert.

Incidentally, we received very little mail about our Dark Horse Star Wars feature and our orders for BI #55 dropped slightly.

The issue’s more contemporary cover was a departure from our retro, mainstream-superhero norm, as well as an attempt to attract a different reader demographic to the fold. This tepid reaction gives ye ed pause about trying such an experiment again.

– M.E.

A NO-PRIZE FOR THIS READER! Just dropping you a line to let you know that I’ve persuaded my local comic shop owner to order in more copies of BACK ISSUE #63, the British Invasion issue, so that other customers can purchase your fantastic magazine and hopefully they will continue to buy it after this issue.

Thank you for all the wonderful memories BACK ISSUE brings me.

– Ian Walker That’s great, Ian! While I can’t send you an actual Marvel No-Prize, despite the header above, I can offer you my sincere gratitude for “walking the talk” and persuading your shop owner to carry the magazine—especially an issue that will appeal to readers in your vicinity like the British Invasion one.

– M.E.

AVENGERS MOVIE FUN BUT STILL FLAWED: A REVIEW

© 2012 ERB.

If you’ve checked out fan reaction to The Avengers movie on IMDB you’ll find almost everyone gushing over Marvel’s mega-blockbuster that opened in early May of 2012. Many comic-book fanboys and fangirls are even calling it the greatest superhero film ever made.

But is it?

Yes, the movie has many good points with strong action sequences and stunning special effects. But it’s far from a perfect movie, as you’ll see by this review.

Like millions of moviegoers around the country, I had been anxiously awaiting the opening of The Avengers for the past few months. Add to this that I’m still a passionate comic-book “fanboy” at heart— with Avengers as one of my personal favorites—and my excitement level was sky high as I entered the gigantic Imax 3D theater on May 4.

However, my feverish anticipation was somewhat dimmed with a sluggish opening sequence (compare this to The Dark Knight’s slam-bam start). We see

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HANNA-BARBERA AT CHARLTON COMICS Comics issue to pass without at least a nod to that Derby, Connecticut, comic company’s H-B titles, which included some very-’70s series in addition to ’60s classics.

TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions.

This issue’s article on Marvel Comics’ Hanna-Barbera line certainly doesn’t sing the praises of Charlton Comics’ earlier H-B publications. Still, we didn’t want this Toon

through his performance with not a care in the world. Just before he “Hulks out” during the climatic battle scene, Banner states, “I’m always angry.” But how can we believe him when he’s shown no emotion during the film?

As mentioned before, Captain America seems somewhat out of place with the other Avengers. Steve Rogers is from a different era, after all, and blending in with the new guys doesn’t prove easy.

Another hero fighting for screen time is Hawkeye, the sharpshooting archer played by Jeremy Renner. But Hawkeye takes a back seat to the big guns, as he should.

© 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc./Marvel Studios.

ultra-serious colonel Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson with an eye-patch) brooding around a military base when the bad guy enters the scene via a space portal. It’s none other than the Asgardian trickster Loki, the accursed half-brother of Thor. Loki’s out for not only revenge on Thor, but he wants to become the new dictator of Earth. He’s assembling an army of alien conquerors to invade our planet.

Before we can get to all the cool battle scenes, though, we have to sit through a slow setup of the heroes. First we watch the lovely but deadly Black Widow (a red-headed Scarlett Johansson in a tight jumpsuit) kick around some thugs.

Later we see World War II legend Captain America (Chris Evans) look completely lost and out of place in modern-day Manhattan.

Finally, the emergence of the big hitters Iron Man and Thor.

Before they can become a team, though, there has to be some conflict. The fight between the mighty Thunderer with his invincible hammer and the Armored Avenger is awesome. Thor is certainly stronger, but Iron Man puts up a valiant fight.

Perhaps the most anticipated appearance of this eclectic group of Avengers doesn’t come until late in the movie. But when the Hulk breaks out, he really goes berserk! It’s up to the Avengers to not only stop him, but somehow get the Green Goliath to join their ranks.

Only Thor has the power and might to match the Hulk and it’s a fanboy’s dream to watch this short but memorable slugfest between the two strongest players in the Marvel Universe.

As usual, Chris Hemsworth does a strong job portraying Thor on the big screen. He looks the part and even sounds like Thor— with that dramatic Shakespearean way of speaking.

But Mark Ruffalo in the part of the Hulk’s puny alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner, doesn’t fare as well. It’s amazing to me how so many critics loved Ruffalo in The Avengers.

Although he doesn’t get many lines, the weakest part of the film for me is Ruffalo’s quiet, dull performance as Banner. Instead of acting neurotic and hunted as Banner is so often depicted in the comics and other forms of media (check out Edward Norton’s perfect portrayal in The Incredible Hulk), Ruffalo seems to be sleepwalking

Toon Comics Issue

•

BACK ISSUE • 79

Black Widow is the only female member of the group.

The Russian beauty and former super-spy has expert training in martial arts and uses her speed and agility—and cunning.

Robert Downey, Jr. is his usual smirking, smart-aleck self in reprising his role as billionaire playboy Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man).

Stark again rattles off witty one-liners and doesn’t take himself too seriously, even when the world is in peril.

In fact, director/screenwriter Joss Whedon seems determined to get as many laughs as he can in this superhero-comedy.

Personally, I had my doubts about Whedon taking on such a massive project like The Avengers. After all, this guy is best known for creating the campy TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Still, the action scenes are great with fantastic special effects.

They managed to make the Hulk look pretty convincing and certainly a force of nature that’s almost impossible to stop.

Iron Man looks cool, too, and who doesn’t love seeing the Armored Avenger soaring through the skies or fending off foes with his famous “repulsor rays.”

As for the main villain, Loki, I didn’t feel he was formidable enough to take on a super-powered team led by Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man and others. Maybe they should have added more major villains from the Marvel Universe.

While I have several quibbles, much of The Avengers is entertaining and fun. But I can’t help think it was just too long at almost 2 1/2 hours. Surely much of the lengthy opening setup could have been cut down. And Robert Downey’s constant sarcasm and attempts at humor is getting to be a bit too much.

But there’s always next time—and I can’t wait to see what the new lineup will be for Avengers 2.

The Vision has always been one of my favorites.

And there needs to be more female members like the Scarlet Witch and Wasp.

Besides the new lineup, hopefully a new director and writer will be leading “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

– Jason Strangis Jason, yours is indeed a minority view. The Avengers’ second week of release in the US is drawing to a close as I write this, and the movie has grossed $1,024,713,047 worldwide. Wow! Also, while you voice some valid criticims, I was enchanted by Ruffalo’s portrayal of Banner. He seemed conflicted, yet in control. Were the Marvel Universe real, I’d rather see that type of Banner

harnessing the Hulk rather than a hair-trigger, neurotic Don Knotts–type as the gamma-irradiated man.

Thanks for sharing your review, though.

– M.E.

GIVING CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE DEPT. Thanks for the comp of BI #56 [Avengers issue]. I seem to be all over it, but even more than you know.

Page 53: I, of course, inked the Mockingbird figure from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Cindy Martin drew it.

Page 77: I inked the ROM figure over Frank Miller.

Page 27: I reworked that entire issue [Avengers #254, featuring Bob Hall breakdowns] over inker Joe DelBeato as well.

I also helped out Brett Breeding on every issue of the Hawkeye mini, but on none of the pages you reprinted.

– Josef Rubinstein Joe, thanks for that info! (And fans of Mr. Rubinstein’s art will get an eyeful next May when he, with penciler Mike Grell, offers the cover to BACK ISSUE #64—themed “Backup Series”—featuring Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Black Canary.)

Next issue: “Halloween Heroes and Villains,” cover-spotlighting a look back at JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE’s villain-packed chiller Batman: The Long Halloween. Also: the Scarecrow (both the DC villain and Marvel hero), Solomon Grundy, Man-Wolf, Lord Pumpkin, Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween parades (featuring a photo album of pros and fans as your favorite comics characters), a “Prince Street News” cartoon by KARL HEITMUELLER visiting the (great) pumpkin patch, and … the Korvac Saga’s Dead Avengers!

With commentary from and/or art

by GERRY CONWAY, ALAN DAVIS, GIL KANE, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT, AARON LOPRESTI, DOUG MOENCH, GEORGE PÉREZ, JAMES ROBINSON, DAN SLOTT, ROY THOMAS, DAVE WENZEL, RON WILSON, and more. With a Batman vs. Scarecrow cover by Tim Sale! Don’t ask—just BI it! See you in thirty!

Michael Eury, editor-in-chief Batman and Scarecrow TM & © DC Comics.

BACK ISSUE TM & © TwoMorrows.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES BACK ISSUE is on the lookout for the following comics-related material from the 1970s through the 1990s: • • • • • • •

Unpublished artwork and covers Commissions (color or B&W) and professional-quality specialty drawings 1970s–1990s creator and convention photographs Character designs and model sheets Original art: covers and significant interior pages Little-seen fanzine material Other rarities

If you have any of the above materials, please query the editor via email prior to submission. Art contributors will be acknowledged in print and receive a complimentary copy of the issue.

80 • BACK ISSUE • Toon Comics Issue

Since BI is a full-color publication, preference is given to color artwork.

Random convention sketches and “quick sketches” that do not reflect an artist’s best work and were not intended for print will no longer be considered for publication.

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BACK ISSUE does not read or consider unsolicited manuscripts. However, we routinely welcome new writers to our magazine, and have done so since day one!

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“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!

PATRICK OLIFFE interview and demo, career of AL WILLIAMSON examined by ANGELO TORRES, BRET BLEVINS, MARK SCHULTZ, TOM YEATES, ALEX ROSS, RICK VEITCH, and others, 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!

LEGO SUPERHEROES! Behind-the-scenes of the DC and Marvel Comics sets, plus a feature on GREG HYLAND, the artist of the superhero comic books in each box! Also, other superhero work by ALEX SCHRANZ and our cover artist OLIVIER CURTO. Plus, JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customization, building tips, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!

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JENETTE KAHN interviewed by ROBERT GREENBERGER, DC’s Dollar Comics and unrealized kids’ line (featuring an aborted Sugar and Spike revival), the Wonder Woman Foundation, and the early days of the Vertigo imprint. Exploring the talents of ROSS ANDRU, KAREN BERGER, STEVE BISSETTE, JIM ENGEL, GARTH ENNIS, NEIL GAIMAN, SHELLY MAYER, ALAN MOORE, GRANT MORRISON, and more!

“JLA in the Bronze Age”! The “Satellite Years” of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, with BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, PÉREZ, and WEIN, salute to DICK DILLIN, the Justice League “Detroit” team, with CONWAY, PATTON, McDONNELL, plus CONWAY and GEOFF JOHNS go “Pro2Pro” on writing the JLA, unofficial JLA/Avengers crossovers, and Marvel’s JLA, the Squadron Supreme. Cover

by McDONNELL and BILL WRAY!

“Toon Comics!” History of Space Ghost in comics, Comico’s Jonny Quest and Star Blazers, Marvel’s Hanna-Barbera line and Dennis the Menace, behind the scenes at Marvel Productions, Ltd., and a look at the unpublished Plastic Man comic strip.

Art/comments by EVANIER, FOGLIO, HEMPEL and WHEATLEY, MARRS, RUDE, TOTH, WILDEY, and more. All-new painted Space Ghost cover by STEVE RUDE!

“Halloween Heroes and Villains”! JEPH LOEB and TIM SALE’s chiller Batman: The Long Halloween, the Scarecrow (both the DC and Marvel versions), Solomon Grundy, Man-Wolf, Lord Pumpkin, Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween parades, and… the Korvac Saga’s Dead Avengers! With commentary from and/or art by CONWAY, GIL KANE, LOPRESTI, MOENCH, PÉREZ, DAVE WENZEL, and more. Cover by TIM SALE!

“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more.

Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

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GOLDEN AGE NEDOR super-heroes are spotlighted, with MIKE NOLAN’s Nedor Index, and art by MORT MESKIN, JERRY ROBINSON, GEORGE TUSKA, RUBEN MOIRERA, ALEX SHOMBURG, and others!

Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and part II of JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age artist LEONARD STARR! Cover by SHANE FOLEY!

SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARV WOLFMAN talks to RICHARD ARNDT about his first decade in comics on Tomb of Dracula, Teen Titans, Captain Marvel, John Carter, Daredevil, Nova, Batman, etc., behind a GENE COLAN cover! Art by COLAN, ANDERSON, CARDY, BORING, MOONEY, and more!

Plus: the conclusion of our LEONARD STARR interview by JIM AMASH, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art

by KIRBY, AVISON, SHORES, ROMITA, SEVERIN, TUSKA, ALLEN BELLMAN, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by BELLMAN and MITCH BREITWEISER!

3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (get out those glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

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An exhaustive look at a prolific Golden Age publisher!

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• Reprints—in FULL-COLOR—nine complete original stories from the 1940s from such rare collector’s items as FEATURE COMICS, SMASH COMICS, POLICE COMICS, NATIONAL COMICS, and CRACK COMICS! • Features Golden Age art by LOU FINE, REED CRANDALL, JACK COLE, WILL EISNER, JIM MOONEY, and others!

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THE STAN LEE UNIVERSE features interviews with and mementos about Marvel Comics’ fearless leader, direct from Stan’s own archives! Co-edited by ROY THOMAS and DANNY FINGEROTH, it includes:

• RARE PHOTOS, SAMPLE SCRIPTS AND PLOTS, and PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE! • Transcripts of 1960s RADIO INTERVIEWS with Stan (one co-featuring JACK KIRBY, and one with Stan debating Dr. Fredric Wertham’s partner in psychological innovation and hating comics)!

• Rarely seen art by legends including KIRBY, JOHN ROMITA SR. and JOE MANEELY! • Plot, script, and balloon placements from the 1978 SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, with comprehensive notes from Lee and Kirby about the story, plus pages from a SILVER SURFER screenplay done by Stan for ROGER CORMAN! • Notes by RICHARD CORBEN and WILL EISNER for Marvel projects that never came to be, and more!

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Modern Masters spotlights ERIC POWELL!

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MARIE SEVERIN colored the legendary EC Comics line, and spent thirty years working for Marvel Comics, doing everything from production and coloring to penciling, inking, and art direction. She is renowned for her sense of humor, which earned her the nickname “Mirthful Marie” from Stan Lee. This loving tribute contains insights from her close friends and her brother JOHN SEVERIN, as well as STAN LEE, AL FELDSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, JOHN ROMITA, JACK DAVIS, JACK KAMEN, TONY ISABELLA, GENE COLAN, JIM MOONEY, JOE SINNOTT, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus extensive commentary by MARIE herself. Complementing the text are photographs, plus rare and unpublished artwork, including a color gallery, showing her mastery with a painter’s pallette!

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