Back Issue #78

COMICS’ BRONZE AGE AND BEYOND!

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Batman’s Weirdest Team-Ups • Orlando’s Weird Adventure Comics • Weird War Tales • Weird Mystery Tales Ditko’s Shade the Changing Man & Stalker • Chaykin’s Iron Wolf • Crumb’s Weirdo • Starlin & Wrightson’s The Weird

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TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.

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“Batman’s Partners!” MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS on their Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing flies solo, Man-Bat history, Commissioner Gordon, the last days of World’s Finest, Bat-Mite, the Batmobile, plus Dark Knight’s girl Robin! Featuring work by APARO, BUSIEK, DITKO, KRAFT, MILGROM, MILLER, PÉREZ, WOLFMAN, and more, with a cover by ALAN DAVIS and MARK FARMER.

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“Bronze Age Fantastic Four!” The animated FF, the FF radio show of 1975, Human Torch goes solo, Galactus villain history, FF Mego figures… and the Impossible Man! Exploring work by RICH BUCKLER, JOHN BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GEORGE PÉREZ, KEITH POLLARD, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by KEITH POLLARD and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

“‘80s Independents!” In-depth looks at PAUL CHADWICK’s Concrete, DAVE SIM’s Cerebus the Aardvark, and RICHARD AND WENDY PINI’s Elfquest! Plus see ‘80s independent comics go Hollywood, DAVID SCROGGY remembers Pacific Comics, TRINA ROBBINS’ California Girls, and DENIS KITCHEN’s star-studded horror/sci-fi anthology Death Rattle. Cover by PAUL CHADWICK!

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

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Volume 1, Number 78 February 2015 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

WEIRD logo TM & © DC Comics.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTIST Alan Craddock COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER Rob Smentek SPECIAL THANKS Mark Arnold Carol Lay Terry Austin Paul Levitz Peter Bagge Andy Mangels Dewey Cassell Scott Nickel Howard Chaykin Luigi Novi Shaun Clancy Dennis O’Neil Jon B. Cooke Gary Panter Robert Crumb Martin Pasko DC Comics Tom Powers J. M DeMatteis Sasa Rakezic Mark Evanier Bob Rozakis Mary Fleener Rac Shade Drew Friedman Steve Skeates Carl Gafford Jim Starlin Macedonio Garcia Bryan D. Stroud Mike Gold Pvt. “Lucky” Taylor Grand Comics Steven Thompson Database Carol Tyler Robert Greenberger Jim Vadeboncoeur Bill Griffith Don Vaughan Jack C. Harris www.SamuelFrench.com Heritage Comics Len Wein Auctions Jay Williams John Holmstrom Marv Wolfman Bob Kathman Dennis Worden Jim Kingman Bernie Wrightson Aline Kominsky-Crumb

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FLASHBACK: Weird Batman Team-Ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 The Caped Crusader’s out-of-the-ordinary co-stars FLASHBACK: Orlando’s Weird Adventures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 The comic-book smorgasbord that was Joe Orlando’s Adventure Comics BEYOND CAPES: Those Were Weird Times: Weird Mystery Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 From Kirby to Destiny to Eve, you never knew who or what you’d find in this DC title BEYOND CAPES: The Horrors of Combat: Weird War Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 This bizarre battle book proved that war really was hell BEYOND CAPES: IronWolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 This early Howard Chaykin swashbuckler got his start in DC’s Weird Worlds DITKO DOUBLE-SHOT: The Brief Story of Stalker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 Paul Levitz remembers the Man with the Stolen Soul DITKO DOUBLE-SHOT: Shade, the Changing Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 Steve Ditko’s editor, Jack C. Harris, discusses one of DC’s weirdest heroes PRO2PRO ROUNDTABLE: Weirdo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Robert Crumb headlines an all-star panel of underground comix artists revisiting this offbeat anthology WHAT THE--?!: Weird Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 The unusual Eclipse Comics one-shot that was also a stage musical PRO2PRO: Big-Eyed Superheroics: The Weird . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson look back at their unusual DC superhero series BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 Reader reaction

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 Alan Craddock. Batman and Deadman TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2015 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Weird Issue

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In selecting Batman’s weirdest team-ups of the Bronze Age of Comics, and by “weird” I mean tales both supernatural and out-ofthe-ordinary, one clear pattern emerged: Never judge the weirdness of a Batman team-up by its cover. More than likely, the interior story will be weirder. The strangest team-ups often make the most sense. “Normal” superhero team-ups are sprinkled with the oddest moments. Supernatural elements are treated as so matter-of-fact that “weird” need not apply. And one particular story stands apart (barely!) as uncanny because it could not have happened. So what do I know for certain? It’s sure been a lot of fun researching for discussion the weirdest of Batman’s weird team-ups during the Bronze Age! Before we get to them, though, a different kind of weirdness requires some explanation, and that is Batman’s character as interpreted by writer Bob Haney in The Brave and the Bold (B&B) scripts credited to him in this article. Batman in B&B was a strong, tough crimefighter. However, he was not always the World’s Greatest Detective, escape artist, and hand-to-hand combatant as depicted by other Bat-writers during that time, among them Denny O’Neil, Frank Robbins, Len Wein, and David V. Reed.

Haney’s Caped Crusader could be flawed to suit Haney’s stories. For example, whereas Batman could easily handle a group of attacking thugs in the pages of Batman and Detective Comics, the Batman in Brave and the Bold could just as easily be subdued by a similar group of ruffians, as long as it allowed Haney to put bob haney Batman in a dangerous situation that lent more excitement to the narrative.

Bob Rozakis, former writer, “Answer Man,” and production manager at DC, recalls, “We used to joke in the office that all these stories took place on Earth-B (for Boltinoff, Brave & Bold, Bob Haney—your choice), but editor Murray Boltinoff’s primary goal with his books was to tell entertaining stories. Sure, Bob drove the continuity train off the tracks all the time, but the stories were always interesting.”

Haney’s Batman also tended to act rashly, or inexplicably adopt an over-the-top Popeye Doyle tone to his temper, because the writer preferred his Batman reacting that way. Haney’s Batman deviated in personality from others’ interpretations, even his own, because in the end Haney’s creative concern was not about character, it was about plot—driving it, propelling it, catapulting it, taking the reader on a thrill ride from start to finish. Because of all these factors, and long after the howl-to-do over it, Haney’s Brave and the Bold stories have done something quite unexpected. They have stood the test of time. How weird, yet satisfying, is that?

So here we go. I’ve arranged almost two dozen Batman team-ups into manageable sections, basically to keep some order to the weirdness, ranging from supernatural to out of the ordinary to peculiar one-shots, all leading up to, in my humble, slightly addled opinion, THE weirdest Batman team-ups of the Bronze Age!

The Things We Do for Love Our cover stars are at odds in this offbeat Batman/ Deadman adventure. Cover to The Brave and the Bold #104 (Nov.–Dec. 1972) by Nick Cardy.

TM & © DC Comics.

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by

Jim Kingman

BATMAN’S SUPERNATURAL TEAM-UP BUDDIES Though a character grounded in reality, Batman encountered and enlisted a diversified quartet of supernatural beings on several occasions during the Bronze Age. Two of these adventures are among the best stories Haney ever wrote.

Batman and Deadman Deadman appeared with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #79 (Aug.–Sept. 1968), 86 (Oct.–Nov. 1969), 104 (Nov.–Dec. 1972), and 133 (Apr. 1977); DC Special Series #8 (The Brave and the Bold) 1978; and Detective Comics #500 (Mar. 1981).

There’s a contradiction here: Deadman, a truly supernatural character, was involved in some fairly realistic team-ups with Batman in The Brave and the Bold. I’ve reread his appearances in B&B, scouring for the “weird,” but other than Deadman himself—former circus aerialist Boston Brand, shot down before the launch of his trapeze routine and immediately resurrected as a wandering ghost by the spiritual Rama Kushna and given by her the opportunity to find his killer by possessing the bodies of the living—there’s not much weird to recap in B&B #79, 86, 104, and 133.

Case in point, B&B #104’s “Second Chance for a Deadman?” by Haney and Jim Aparo. Batman “summons” Deadman to help him infiltrate, expose, and shut down an elite Florida spa that is actually a cover for a crooked outfit that gives old, endangered criminals new identities. Deadman possesses the boyfriend of the woman who runs the operation, falls in love with her, tells her who he really is, and then murders her to save Batman, taking a message given him earlier by Rama to mean that if he kills her, she will become a ghost and the two can spend eternity together. No such luck. Instead, we get one of the most compelling, emotional, and tragic endings in B&B history.

There’s nothing supernatural about this story; it’s as brutally realistic a ghost story as can be imagined, which makes it weird in an out-ofthe-ordinary sense, and a highlight of the Haney/Aparo B&B run.

Still, Deadman’s presence in this article simply cannot end here.

He does after all share the spotlight on this magazine’s cover with Batman. Fortunately, Deadman did have one bizarre supernatural outing involving the Caped Crusader, and I will be appraising it shortly in the Batman/Sgt. Rock section.

compass and impales two soldiers working for Marshall Offal, a terrorist.

He unleashes a giant squid that devours Offal. He also transforms a terrorist to stone and encases him on a cliffside. These violent sequences are not graphic by today’s standards, but for a 1970s Comics Code Authority-approved comic book, they’re pretty harsh.

In B&B #116’s “Grasp of the Killer Cult,” members of a World War II outfit called the Dirty Dozers plowed over a sacred European cemetery and disturbed the rest of evil men, whose spirits then nested in the soldiers for decades. In 1974, the spirits awaken and possess the Dirty Dozers to murder innocents. During this story, the Spectre dissolves a pick-ax, traps a man’s arms in a tombstone, turns a gun into a spider, travels back in time, and impersonates the goddess Kali, ultimately freeing the Dozers of possession. Compared to the Spectre’s behavior in Adventure #436, the Spectre is downright civil in this team-up with Batman.

The Spectre’s encounters with Batman in B&B #180 and 199 are more of a throwback to the more fantastic character depicted in the Astral Avenger’s late-1960s series. These are grander tales, with largerthan-life villains and cosmic battles between the Spectre and his foes.

The epic scenes are depicted in large panels over several pages. It’s a visual treat, and fortunately Batman isn’t dwarfed by all the chaos.

Batman and the Spectre Batman teamed with the Spectre in The Brave and the Bold #75 (Dec. 1967–Jan. 1968), 116 (Dec. 1974–Jan. 1975), 180 (Nov. 1981), and 199 (June 1983).

The weirdest aspect of Batman’s team-ups with the Spectre in B&B during the Bronze Age is that the stories couldn’t convey the dark tone of the Spectre depicted so convincingly and controversially in the Spectre’s ten-issue run in Adventure Comics #431–440 [see this issue’s Weird Adventure Comics article following—ed.]. It is interesting that Aparo drew that Spectre series and the Batman/Spectre team-ups in B&B #116 and 180, and writer Michael Fleisher wrote the Spectre series and the Batman/Spectre team-up in B&B #180, but neither could capture the menacing essence of their Joe Orlando-edited version and transfer it to the Murray Boltinoff- and Dick Giordanoedited B&B renditions. Not that these are bad stories; far from it.

They’re just tame if you are familiar with the Spectre’s Adventure tales.

We can actually compare the Spectre’s behavior in #116, published in 1974, to his actions in Adventure Comics #436, published a month earlier, to see just how different Haney’s version was. In Adventure #436, the Spectre, an uninhibited spirit of vengeance, enlarges a nautical

Tales of the Unexpected Three odd moments in Batman team-up history, courtesy of writer Bob Haney and artist Jim Aparo: (top) Deadman in love, from The Brave and the Bold #104; (center) Sgt. Rock enlists Batman to track down Hitler, from B&B #108; and (bottom) Batman joins forces with the Joker, from B&B #111.

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Issue

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Batman and the Phantom Stranger The Phantom Stranger aided Batman in The Brave and the Bold # 89 (Apr.–May 1970), 98 (Oct.–Nov. 1971), and 145 (Dec. 1978).

B&B #98, the notorious “Batman as godfather” issue, was discussed by editor Michael Eury in BACK ISSUE #66, so I will focus instead on another weird Batman/Phantom Stranger outing, “A Choice of Dooms,”

by Haney and Aparo, published in B&B #145. Batman is determined to bust the Ice House Gang, a group of diamond smugglers operating out of Gotham City. The Caped Crusader learns from the Phantom Stranger, who uses cloud shapes to visually enhance his warnings for some unexplained reason (other than he finds them “strange and compelling”), that the Ice House Gang’s leader, Kaluu, utilizes voodoo to permanently remove all threats to his evil empire. For all of Kaluu’s needling power, and it’s pretty substantial as he’s even able to raise the dead as mindless slaves in his thrall, he is no match for Batman and the Phantom Stranger.

In fact, given how the Phantom Stranger is able to turn Kaluu’s voodoo powers fatally against him, I’d say no one is a match for the mysterious “Master of the Unknown.”

Batman and the Demon Batman first met Jack Kirby’s Demon in The Brave and the Bold #109 (Oct.–Nov. 1973), and then again in B&B #137 (Oct. 1977), which was actually a sequel to the Batman/Spectre team-up in B&B #75.

If I were to select my favorite Batman supernatural team-up of all time, “Gotham Bay, Be My Grave,” by Haney and Aparo and published in B&B #109, would be it. A volcanic creature emerges from Gotham Bay and begins a deadly rampage, viciously murdering anyone who wears the uniform of a sea captain. Enter Batman and the Demon to hopefully destroy this monster. Everything about this tale, from the creature’s origin off Krakatoa in the late 1800s, to Batman’s first encounter with the Demon, to the fine use of Jason Blood and his supporting characters, to the Batman’s valiant but futile battle with the creature, to the Demon’s discovery of how to permanently destroy it, to Aparo’s sinister depiction of the Demon himself, is outstanding.

There’s even an unexpected cameo

by TV’s Lieutenant Columbo. It is a great story, as entertaining as when I first read it at the age of 11 to my present age of 52, having reread it several times for the purpose of this article.

Guardians Gotham and Ghostly Despite having the same artist—Jim Aparo—the Spectre teaming with Batman in The Brave and the Bold was kinder and gentler than the vengeful Spectre appearing in solo tales in Adventure Comics. Stunning Aparo original art from B&B #116, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

4 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

On the flip side, I don’t suppose there is a weirder, goofier moment in Batman’s team-up history than when the Caped Crusader is transformed into a vampire bat, literally, in B&B #137. On page 13, panel 2, the evil wizard Shahn-Zi casts a mighty spell on the Caped Crusader. “You will stop play acting at being a bat…,” he commands, “and become one!” Suddenly, Batman transforms into an actual bat right before the reader’s eyes! Batman still retains his extraordinary mind, so he takes to the skies of Gotham, flapping his wings and startling the populace, all the while seeking aid to get out of this unintentionally hysterical predicament. He does, of course, at story’s end. It’s about as weird a situation as Batman’s ever been in.

BATMAN’S MAYBE SO/MAYBE NO SUPERNATURAL TEAM-UP BUDDIES The following characters were created by super-science (bio-restorative formula, chemical serum, surgically implanted device), so they are not technically supernatural beings. They obviously look supernatural, and they’ve certainly dealt with the supernatural, and I’m not denying that some unexplained factors play into their origins. But by not being completely of the supernatural, I’ve chosen to place their team-ups with Batman in their own section.

Batman and the Creeper Batman joined forces with the Creeper in The Brave and the Bold #80 (Oct.–Nov. 1968), 143 (Sept.–Oct. 1978), and 178 (Sept. 1981), and Detective Comics #418 (Dec. 1971) and 447 (May 1975).

For something a little out of the ordinary, go with B&B #143’s “Cast the First Stone,” written by Haney and Cary Burkett and illustrated by Aparo. You and I may never understand why Haney picked on Walter Cronkite. Cronkite was a well-respected broadcast journalist, a good guy. Not in Haney’s comic-book universe.

Cronkite—er, Monty Walcott, America’s most revered newsman— was revealed as the leader of a drug combine! Batman and the Creeper are each in immediate disbelief, but that doesn’t stop them from bringing Walcott down, and I guess expediting Dan Rather as his replacement.

Then, for something both weird and thoughtful, check out B&B #178, by Alan Brennert and Aparo. Relevancy as a genre in comics had been dead almost a decade, which makes “Paperchase,” a resounding critique of the Moral Majority and its social-herd mentality, pretty much a weird anomaly at the time of its publication in June of 1981. A series of apparently unconnected murders has both Batman and the Creeper in pursuit of the killer, who turns out to be a “weirdo” (as described by Creeper on the cover) made of paper. This Paper Man exists through the subconscious of a bigoted commentator patterned after the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the hatred of his listeners, the Moral Majority. (The Paper Man regenerates itself with white paper, incidentally.) As bizarre and action-packed as any Haney tale, with fine Aparo artwork, it also invited the reader to think about how the country was shifting once again in its definition of democracy.

Weird, Wild Stuff You don’t see this happening every day in a Batman comic! (left) Cover to Brave and Bold #137 (Oct. 1977), penciled

by Rich Buckler and inked by Jim Aparo. (right) Even the oddball Creeper considers this villain a “weirdo”! Cover to B&B #178 (Sept.

1981) by Buckler and Dick Giordano.

TM & © DC Comics.

Batman and Man-Bat Bronze, but it’s a great tale and deserves a quick nod.

Introduced in Detective Comics #400 as both friend and foe of Batman, In B&B #122, Swamp Thing is taken into captivity and strung up and also appearing in several subsequent appearances in ’Tec and for show on a Gotham City street. This inhuman act will ironically Batman, Man-Bat only made two Brave and the Bold appearances: lead to Swampy rescuing the city from destruction by a host of B&B #119 (June 1975) and 165 (Aug. 1980). invasive giant plants.

“Bring Back Killer Krag,” by Haney and Aparo and published in “Murray enjoyed working with me as a colorist,” remembers Carl B&B #119, is one of my favorites, although it doesn’t do much to Gafford, whose first coloring assignment was in Detective Comics #443, enhance the reputation of Gotham Natural History Museum curator a reprint of the Creeper’s first appearance in Showcase. “Either Joe Kirk Langstorm, a.k.a. Man-Bat. Orlando or Paul Levitz didn’t want B&B regular colorist Jerry Serpe Hitman Killer Krag has fled to the Caribbean island of to color the Batman and Swamp Thing team-up as Serpe was Santa Cruz, where he will remain protected by its ruler, more concerned about getting pages done fast, so I was Domingo Valdez, after successfully making a hit on suggested, as I would follow the way Swampy looked racehorse enthusiast Augie Moran, despite Batman in his own comic, colored by Tatjana Wood. Murray and Commissioner Gordon’s attempt to assure his liked my work on that story, and in the following safety. Moran’s wife offers a reward for the capture issue I colored a team-up of Batman, Plastic Man, of her husband’s killer. While Batman is in it for and Metamorpho. Murray never got the recognition justice, Man-Bat is in it for the money, and his he was due, not at DC and certainly not by fandom.” arrogance, prompting Batman to call him an “ego-mad BATMAN’S OUT-OF-THE-ORDINARY nightmare,” will cost the lives of two ex-CIA agents TEAM-UPS who also attempt to claim the bounty. This is a taut Batman and Kamandi thriller until we get to page 16, and then matters get Time travel played a necessary role in uniting Batman really weird with one swig of the vial! Batman and carl gafford with Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, in The Brave and Man-Bat have been taken captive, and are on the the Bold #120 (July 1975) and 157 (Dec. 1979). verge of execution. But Batman has become a batCaricature by Carl Gafford.

B&B #120, by Haney and Aparo, stands out. beast, startling his captors. Langstrom had secretly slipped Batman a Deep in a cave in Mount Rushmore, on a post–apocalyptic Earth where pocketed bat-gland serum which transformed the Caped Crusader after he drank it. Two man-bats are better than one in this instance, animals rule and men have become animals, a small group of trapped and the two snag Killer Krag and flee Santa Cruz via immense men and women seek help from the past to find a better future. bat-wings. Later, Batman reverts to his normal self after administering Manton, the elder, sprinkles American Indian magic powder on the image of Batman on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #118, and then an anti-bat serum. Thank goodness! This climax is too much! something very weird happens. In 1975, Batman suddenly collapses, and his spirit leaves his body and transports into the future, where he Batman and Swamp Thing Batman’s collaborations with Swamp Thing were chronicled by four becomes whole and quickly learns he is in a world no longer his own. different writers over a 24-year period: Len Wein (Swamp Thing #7, Soon after, he becomes Captain Bat, leader of a gorilla slave squad, Nov.–Dec. 1973); Bob Haney (The Brave and the Bold #122, Oct. 1975); heading the pursuit to capture “a yellow-haired animal,” more familiar Martin Pasko (The Brave and the Bold #176, July 1981, which sets the to us as Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth! Eventually Batman and stage for Swampy’s big comeback in 1982); and Alan Moore (Swamp Kamandi will team up to aid Manton and his tribe escape the mountain Thing vol. 2 #53, Oct. 1986). Moore’s entry leans more Modern than where the presidential sculptures elicit awe and reverence from the Weird Issue

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bears that patrol the area. The gorillas, led by Gorgo, don’t buy into it.

It is indeed quite an adventure, and, believe me, Batman being mistaken for a giant, thinking bat is more plausible than Manton’s bizarre method of time travel; after all, giant costumed bats roamed Kamandi’s world, as revealed in Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #9–10. Once the humans have been whisked away safely by dilapidated caboose, there’s just enough magic powder left to send Batman back to 1975!

Ripper, and Adolf Hitler. They are co-conspirators in a crazy plot to destroy Batman that involves a stolen statue of the Caped Crusader, a statue lifted from the site of the Queen of England’s 1977 jubilee by bizarrely dressed “Scottish Nationalists” who are soon pursued by Rock and the new Easy Company. It’s a statue with a curse: any harm that comes to it affects the Batman in Gotham City as well. Deadman aids Rock with clues provided to him by Sherlock Holmes. No, really.

Behind it all is Lucifer, exacting revenge on Batman for thwarting him back in B&B #108 (well, at least that’s my theory)! Now we’re talking a truly weird Batman/Deadman team-up!!

Batman and Sgt. Rock Now it’s time to pick up where I left off at the end of the Deadman section.

It is certainly strange that some of the Batman/Sgt. Rock team-ups Batman and the Joker are weirder than most of the Batman/Deadman collaborations. Rock Batman “teamed” with his greatest nemesis in The Brave and the Bold is a realistic, tough veteran of World War II in Haney’s tales (much to #111 (Feb.–Mar., 1974); 118 (Apr. 1975), also with Wildcat; 129 Sgt. Rock writer/editor Robert Kanigher’s disgust), but in B&B (Sept. 1976) and 130 (Oct. 1976), both with Two-Face, Green #108 (Aug.–Sept. 1973) he is chasing an apparently alive Arrow, and the Atom; and 191 (Oct. 1982).

Adolf Hitler around the world, while Batman practically While the Crown Prince of Crime’s team-ups with believes Hitler is the devil himself.

Batman lost its novelty as his appearances became Then there’s Batman and Rock combating terrorists more frequent, the Joker’s team-up with the Caped with a thousand machine guns in B&B #124, while Crusader in B&B #111 was then so out of the ordinary Aparo and Haney’s lives are being threatened by that it was billed on the top of the cover as “The the same terrorists in the same reality. Even editor Strangest Team-Up in History!” This was only the Boltinoff gets into the act.

Joker’s second appearance (not including reprints) Notes Rozakis: “I particularly liked the part at the since 1969, the first being six months earlier in end where Boltinoff is going to bed in his ‘heavily Batman #251 (Sept. 1973), the character’s classic mortgaged mansion.’ Murray lived in a very middlereturn-to-his-murderous-roots comeback by Denny class neighborhood on Long Island and had probably O’Neil and Neal Adams. paid off his mortgage years earlier.”

The idea of Batman teaming with the Joker is bob rozakis Deadman’s team-ups with Batman are “relevant” certainly weird, and makes for an intriguing cover by comparison (as noted above). It isn’t until Deadman (actually, all of Batman’s weird team-ups make for © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. teams with Batman and Rock in DC Special Series #8 (The Brave and intriguing covers), but making it a bona fide collaboration is another the Bold Special) that Boston finds himself in a story thriving with thing entirely. Haney certainly seems to want to in “Death Has the fellow ghosts, an immortal Sherlock Holmes, and Lucifer himself!

Last Laugh!” by creating circumstances that convince Batman that On page 17, these fellow ghosts, history’s worst villains, stand the Joker did not murder an entire family at their dinner table, thus revealed: Guy Fawkes, Nero, Benedict Arnold, Bluebeard, Jack the allowing the Caped Crusader and the Crown Prince of Crime to become partners in search of the true killer. Once it’s revealed [spoiler alert!] that it actually was the Joker who killed the family, subsequently playing a nasty game of blindside against the Batman, the team-up dissolves and a madman is once again brought to justice.

BATMAN’S NOTABLE WEIRD OUTINGS WITH FELLOW JLA MEMBERS During the Bronze Age, Batman and his teammates in the Justice League of America—notably Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, the Atom, Hawkman, and Aquaman—worked together in stories rooted in adventure and science fiction, and occasionally the supernatural. Under editor JLA Julius Schwartz, these superheroes weren’t known for behaving “out of the ordinary.” When teamed with Batman in Brave and Bold, however, Haney had no problem putting these familiar, already well-established characters through some pretty bizarre paces.

Batman and the Atom A tiny man runs through a technically dead body, striving to keep it functioning long enough so it can save the life of a

No Laughing Matter What weird circumstance could force Batman into an alliance with his most dread foe, the Joker? Detail from Jim Aparo’s cover to B&B #111 (Feb.–Mar. 1974).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Haney Wasn’t the Only One Denny O’Neil’s weird Batman team-ups: Detective #404 (Oct. 1970) and B&B #93 (Dec. 1970–Jan. 1971). Art by Neal Adams.

TM & © DC Comics.

kidnapped woman. Now that is one weird fantastic voyage, and it is exactly what happened to the Atom in The Brave and the Bold #115’s “The Corpse That Wouldn’t Die!,” by Haney and Aparo. Batman’s reckless impulsiveness gets him electrocuted outside the kidnappers’ location. Later, at the hospital where the Batman has been pronounced clinically dead, the Atom enters the Caped Crusader’s near-lifeless brain to “nudge” Batman along for one last mission. The oblongata is stirred, the cerebellum is manipulated, and a zombie Darknight Detective rises to shamble his way to an abandoned police station where the Atom frantically works Batman’s brain to get that well-honed Bat-body to tear through a boarded door, kayo a waiting guard, and fall and flip to strike down a gunman. But the strain is too much, and the Batman topples on the verge of rescuing the woman. Fortunately, the Atom bolts from Batman’s ear and knocks out the remaining gunman. But Batman is dead! However, back at the hospital, Batman inexplicably revives!

The Atom surmises that all that brain stimulation caused a miracle. And a very weird miracle at that.

Batman and the Flash The disco floor is the primary stage for a weird team-up of Batman and the Flash in The Brave and the Bold #151’s “Disco of Death,” published in 1979 with a June cover date. That’s right, it’s panic at Gotham’s Stardust Disco, chilluns, as a phantom is afoot. Two female disco revelers have died under mysterious circumstances after visiting the Stardust.

Checking out that disco scene are Bruce (Batman) Wayne with his date, and Barry (Flash) Allen with wife Iris. There, amidst many costumed dancers in attendance, they witness a bizarre regular, known only as the Phantom of the Stardust. This phantom is a real ghost, however, the spirit of a troubled man decades dead, now seeking revenge for the tragic death of his sweetheart during a marathon dance back in the 1930s when the Stardust hosted Gotham City’s big bands. He selects his unsuspecting victim, dances with her, steals her spiritual essence, and engages in a dance to the death that leaves their comatose body lifeless after 12 hours and their spirit in his possession for eternity.

The Batman and the Flash must race against the clock to denny o’neil save his latest victim. Mix in the mob, a trip into the past via the Cosmic Treadmill to take a pretty picture, and Iris Courtesy of Denny O’Neil.

Allen risking her life for an innocent girl and you have a riveting tale that’s fast on its feet and wrapped up in a, er, flash.

BATMAN’S ONE-SHOT WEIRD TEAM-UPS Batman and “Enemy Ace” Batman dares to enter … the House of Mystery In “Ghost of the Killer Skies” (Detective Comics #404, Oct. 1970) and “Red Water, Crimson Death” (The Brave and the Bold #93, Dec. 1970–Jan. 1971), Batman experiences the supernatural, but this is writer Denny O’Neil’s interpretation of the Caped Crusader, and his Batman is more skeptical of that kind of weirdness than Haney’s. Given the type of universe Batman lived in, where science fiction and time travel and the supernatural ran rampant, and where he often collaborated with fantastic beings (Deadman, the Spectre, the Demon, et al.), why did Batman have a difficult time accepting the supernatural?

The answer: he really didn’t; he just couldn’t explain it.

“We tried to keep the science fiction to a minimum,” O’Neil elaborates, “and in so doing put off limits stuff like time travel and alien invasions.

The exceptions occurred when our hero was drafted into participating in a storyline that involved those elements and incorporated the entire DC line.

But I thought that the supernatural, in small doses, wouldn’t conflict with the little universe we built for Batman to inhabit and it was thematically appropriate for a character who favored darkness.”

In the B&B story, where the supernatural elements led an exhausted Batman to believe he was going mad, Boltinoff was O’Neil’s editor. At that

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Strange Adventures (left) Batman and Flash put on their boogie shoes in B&B #151 (June 1979).

Cover by Aparo, who also drew the cover to (center) the Batman/I… Vampire team-up in issue #195 (Feb. 1983). (right) Brother Power, the Geek finally teamed with Batman in B&B vol. 3 #29 (Jan. 2010). Cover

by Jesus Saiz.

TM & © DC Comics.

time, Denny worked almost “exclusively” for Julius Schwartz. I wondered if there were major differences between the editors in developing a story. “Yes, there were differences,” O’Neil concurs. “But no two editors do the job exactly the same way. If they’ve survived in the business they’ve found what works for them and for me to survive as a freelancer, I had to accommodate them. Which is not to say that I didn’t work more easily with some than others.”

O’Neil’s “Ghost of the Killer Skies” is a tribute to another creative team’s character, Enemy Ace, by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, and “Red Water, Crimson Death” is vastly different in tone from O’Neil and Neal Adams’ other work on Batman, not to mention Green Lantern/Green Arrow. To me they almost feel like “experiments,” dabbling in aspects of the supernatural, quite a departure from their other work.

“Neal and I had no dialogue that I can recall about those ‘Killer Skies,’” explains O’Neil. “I wrote a script which Julie edited and passed on to Neal and time passed and—what do you know?—here was a comic book that I liked. As for the B&B piece, it almost had to be, in some ways, experimental, since B&B stories were told in such a different style and format than Batman stories in Batman and Detective Comics. It was a challenge and I thought we managed it. That made it fun, and one of my favorite stories.”

Batman and Plastic Man (with Metamorpho) The Brave and the Bold #123’s (Dec. 1975) “How to Make a Superhero!” opens with another day of violence in Gotham City, as outside of Gotham National Bank Batman and the Gotham Police hold their ground against armed bandits. There’s a huge difference this time: the Batman who disarms the crooks, and who is later ordered by Commissioner Gordon to bring in Bruce Wayne for fraud and murder, is not the real Batman. It’s Plastic Man, disguised as Batman at Batman’s request. It’s not exactly Plastic Man, either; he’s been brainwashed by a polymeric catalyst to believe he’s the real Batman. It’s all part of a nefarious

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scheme by billionaire Ruby Ryder to remove Bruce Wayne from a bidding war and exact revenge on Plastic Man, a desire she’s been nurturing since events in B&B #95 (Apr.–May 1971), published four years earlier.

What’s really weird about this story, expertly chronicled by Haney and Aparo, as always, is the state Plastic Man is in when Batman comes upon him in a dingy Gotham alley. During the time between B&B #95 and 123, Plastic Man has been destitute and homeless! Without even taking into consideration Plas’ deteriorated mental and physical conditions, Batman immediately enlists him as his replacement while he’s out of the country conducting business as Bruce Wayne. That is some fairly bizarre decision-making on the Caped Crusader’s part. Still, Haney knows how to intriguingly work this, and with Metamorpho’s aid Batman eventually gets his identity back and Plastic Man back on track. How back on track? Plastic Man would triumphantly return in his own book published two months later! [Editor’s note: Plas’ Bronze Age adventures were the subject of an article last issue.]

Batman and I…Vampire “Night of Blood!,” written by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Aparo and published in The Brave and the Bold #195 (Feb. 1983), teams Batman with the immortal Andrew Bennett, I…Vampire, who was then appearing in his own series in House of Mystery.

Bennett has learned that his equally immortal former lover Mary is expanding her evil vampire conspiracy of the Blood-Red Moon to Gotham City. I’ve never been a big I…Vampire fan, but the little things Barr sprinkles throughout the story are terrific: the twist on the true identities of the vampires stalking Gotham Park; Club Dracula, a disco with bite; the nod to Batman’s own vampiric situation a few months earlier in Batman and Detective Comics; and Batman’s conversation with a vampire bat as the pair soar over Gotham City. A textbook weird Batman team-up!

THE WEIRDEST BATMAN TEAM-UP OF THEM ALL! Batman and Scalphunter At last, my pick for weirdest Batman team-up of the Bronze Age, a weird Western, even: Batman and Scalphunter in The Brave and the Bold #171 (Feb. 1981).

First, a disclaimer: “A Cannon For Batman,” written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by José Luis García López, is a good story. What makes it weird, though, downright impossible as actually happening in the DC Universe, is the method of time travel Batman utilizes to travel back to the Civil War and eventually influence a historical “event.”

Plus, we get a most likely unintended glimpse of Batman’s monumental, emphasis on mental, ego.

At a Gotham City auction, Bruce Wayne bids on and wins a jewelry case that once belonged to Martha Jennings, a nurse during the Civil War who Bruce has admired since childhood. Inside the case Bruce discovers a Civil War campaign patch with a bat-symbol on it and immediately assumes that it is his bat-symbol. He can’t understand how it could appear on an item that was made almost 100 years before the Batman’s existence.

Well, gee, Bruce, maybe it’s not your bat-symbol at all, it just happens to look like your bat-symbol, and it’s history has nothing to do with you! But I digress. Seeking answers, Bruce visits an old friend, Dr. Charles Nichols, and asks him if he would use hypnosis to send him back in time to the Civil War so he can meet Martha Jennings and hopefully learn how the patch with his bat-symbol came to be.

Nichols agrees to Bruce’s request. Bruce is sent back in time to August 2, 1862. Now comes the catch to this method of time travel. Bruce thinks to himself upon arriving in the past: It (being the time travel) “is a hypnotic trance, drawing on my own subconscious knowledge of the era to fill out the details.” It’s not really happening at all. It’s only happening in Bruce’s mind. Still, if it’s “just” a hypnotic trance, and Batman doesn’t really travel back in time at all, how can he influence nurse Martha Jennings to make a Civil War campaign patch with a bat symbol on it in the reality of the DC Universe?

Batman and Scalphunter successfully aid Jennings in bringing medical supplies to Yankee soldiers, but not without some trials and tribulations, of course (including Batman strapped to a cannon by Confederate soldiers, hence the title). Batman returns to the present, out of his mind (logistically) and back into the reality of the DC Universe. Apparently he’s content with his own selfinduced deception that it was his presence in a past that he never really went to that inspired an item he had nothing to do with at all, because he’s more concerned with the fate of Scalphunter. Which brings up another matter: In their first encounter in this story, Ke-Woh-NoTay (Scalphunter’s American Indian name) is a complete stranger to Batman, and remains a mystery to the Caped Crusader throughout their adventure together.

Did Batman actually create Scalphunter within his own subconscious? Are all of Scalphunter’s appearances in Weird Western Tales and beyond really playing out only in Batman’s mind?

Or has all this weirdness I’ve read and researched just gotten to me?

THE WEIRD BATMAN TEAM-UP ROAD MISSED AND YET TO BE TRAVELED There is no way to properly conclude this article, because it is so incomplete. There are many, many more weird Batman team-ups from the Bronze Age I haven’t discussed: Batman and The Shadow, Batman and Zatanna, Batman and Superman in World’s Finest Comics (not to mention B&B #150), Batman and the Incredible Hulk, to name a few. Once we get beyond the Bronze Age

into the Modern Age, the weirdness just keeps on escalating: Batman and Grendel, Batman and Spawn (the last two panels of this Frank Miller/Todd McFarlane collaboration are crazy fun), Batman and Captain America, Batman and Brother Power the Geek (an oft-suggested team-up throughout the Bronze Age, finally coming to fruition in late 2009 in the revived Brave and the Bold #29; and as a confirmation of how much has changed, a tale more melancholy than weird). The post–Crisis Batman would also encounter new takes on Deadman, the Spectre, and the Phantom Stranger.

The list goes on, the weirdness never-ending, a weirdness I hope to elaborate on in the future.

Weird Western Tale Jim Kingman’s pick for Batman’s Weirdest Team-Up: Batman and Scalphunter in The Brave and the Bold #171 (Feb. 1981).

Cover by Jim Aparo.

TM & © DC Comics.

JIM KINGMAN purchased his first comic book, DC’s World’s Finest Comics #211, on a family road trip in March of 1972, and has been reading and collecting comic books ever since (with no end in sight).

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Adventure Comics was pretty super before it got weird.

One of DC Comics’ first titles had cover-featured at least one member of the Superman family since Superboy moved over from More Fun Comics with issue #103 in 1946.

When Joe Orlando was coaxed by DC editorial director Carmine Infantino to become a staff editor in 1968, readers immediately knew that he was there to shake things up. It was a transitional year for the company, as Jack Liebowitz sold the firm to Kinney Services and, preparing to retire, left Infantino in charge of editorial. As some of the old guard, such as Jack Schiff, also retired, Orlando’s hiring was the first of several changes Infantino made to revitalize a company he felt was stale and rapidly losing ground to Marvel Comics.

Orlando cut his teeth at the legendary EC Comics and spent the intervening years honing his skills as a storyteller, eschewing superheroics for joe orlando other genres. You could tell someone new was living in the House of Mystery Photo by Bob Rozakis. as Robby Reed [Dial H for Hero] was evicted by Cain, the new caretaker. Supernatural tales signaled a changing of the guard and over the next few years, Joe’s editorial load avoided DC’s primary-colored cast of characters.

That changed in 1970 when Mike Sekowsky was fired as an editor late that year, leaving Infantino little choice but to assign Adventure Comics, featuring Supergirl, to Orlando. At the time, Joe was being assisted

by E. Nelson Bridwell, who wound up writing an eightpager in issue #409 (Aug. 1971), signaling a shift in tone. Orlando immediately replaced Sekowsky with writer John Albano, making his superhero debut, with artists Bob Oksner and Vince Colletta (who could at least draw pretty girls).

MIXING THINGS UP Since these were the days of 25-cent/48-page books, each issue was rounded out with reprints, and Bridwell honored the title’s legacy by using Legion of SuperHeroes reprints. But incrementally, things were changing.

Albano quickly dispatched the storylines Sekowsky had been exploring and went for more offbeat tales with fewer recurring players. And as Bridwell made way for Mark Hanerfeld, a fan who was hired by DC to write some fan-oriented text pages and briefly became an assistant editor, the reprints selected also got more interesting. The Legionnaires were gone and in #412 (Nov. 1971) we saw “The Man with Animal Powers,” the first Animal Man tale from Strange Adventures a few years earlier.

Weird Stuff Winging Your Way The Joe Orlando-edited Adventure Comics bore no resemblance to its Silver Age stint as a Superman Family title. Cover to issue #425 (Dec. 1972–Jan. 1973) by Michael Kaluta.

TM & © DC Comics.

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by

Robert Greenberger

Teenaged Paul Levitz was a regular in the DC Comics halls, gathering up tidbits for The Comic Reader (which was once edited by Hanerfeld), and was therefore a witness to history.

He comments to BACK ISSUE, “There was some neat stuff going on because Mark had more influence. Joe let Mark do the new-material backups by himself, and you can see his interests in what was produced. They have Mark’s footprints all over them, while Joe was playing with the Supergirl stuff.

Superheroes were something [Joe] could never get himself patently excited about.”

Hanerfeld’s tastes as a fan could also be found in the backup features which Orlando was commissioning to round out the 15-page lead stories. This explains the arrival of Zatanna in her first solo story, from Len Wein and Gray Morrow. Wein and Hanerfeld were contemporaries, but Morrow was a veteran who first began working in the 1950s and was an infrequent contributor to DC until that time. Wein went on to write several short Supergirl stories as Orlando experimented with the book’s rhythms.

Steve Skeates, one of the newcomers editor Dick Giordano brought with him from Charlton Comics, got in on the fun with a Supergirl story in #417 (Mar. 1972), but he also co-wrote a Vigilante story with Marv Wolfman, illustrated

by Morrow. “That Vigilante tale was an easy-as-pie example of what is usually referred to as the Marvel approach to comic-book construction— in large part due to Gray Morrow doing such a great job of pictorially telling Marv’s story,” Skeates said in his lengthy TwoMorrows interview (Alter Ego #84, BACK ISSUE #33–34). He continued to contribute to Supergirl tales, including stepping in to finish another Wolfman tale in Adventure #421. “I remember well one evening when Joe and I worked late into the night, rewriting, polishing, bouncing ideas off each other, trying to transform steve skeates Mike Sekowsky’s artwork based on a waytoo fannish Marv Wolfman plot outline, trying to force that thing into somehow becoming an actual workable, downright readable story. That was a truly creative fun time, and (quite honestly) a memory I’ll treasure forever.”

Hanerfeld’s eclectic reprints included one of the few Frank Frazetta Shining Knight tales and an Enchantress story.

Over the following months we were treated to a brand-new two-part Black Canary tale from Denny O’Neil and the wonderful Alex Toth, while an unpublished Golden Age Dr. Mid-Nite story finally saw print. With Orlando now editing The Phantom Stranger title, the Stranger’s original adventures were being reprinted in Adventure.

By this point, Infantino cut back on DC’s assistant editors and Hanerfeld was out of work, although he later wound up replacing Gerda Gattel as librarian, and his reprint selections remained a fine mix. The Supergirl lead continued to shift to many hands including Sekowsky making a return to the drawing board, a situation that remained until issue #424.

Skeates describes to BI his early work with Orlando, saying, “Joe Orlando had suddenly become my main source of income at that company—mystery stories for House of Mystery and House of Secrets, humor pieces for Plop!, and all sorts of fun stuff for Adventure!

“I do believe Joe liked my dialogue and captions far more than my plots, which would explain why (subsequent to my first Supergirl story for which I did indeed provide the plot) I initially found myself Adventure-wise dialoging (that’s what it’s generally referred to, even though the so-called dialogist is also writing the captions) stories plotted by Marv Wolfman and E. Nelson Bridwell—mainly Supergirl tales,

Offbeat Superhero Stories (top) Bob Oksner’s bondage cover to Steve Skeates’ “All Men Are But Slaves,” from Adventure #417 (Mar. 1972). (This fall’s BI #84 is a Supergirl tribute, commemorating the 30th anniversary of her death in Crisis.) (below) Title page to that issue’s Vigilante backup, drawn by Gray Morrow.

© Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons.

TM & © DC Comics.

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The Meek Need Not Apply (left) Host Nelson Strong introduces readers to Adventure’s new “Adventurers’ Club” feature in issue #426 (Feb.–Mar. 1973). By Albano and Aparo. (right) Original cover artwork by Luis Dominguez from #427, depicting Mr. Carter’s attempt to join the Adventurers.

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

TM & © DC Comics.

although there was a nifty Vigilante story in there as well! I had always enjoyed writing for superheroic women while often even playing around with feminist themes, and I quite appreciated the fact that that admittedly relatively small group, women who actually read superhero comics, quite liked the feisty strength I bestowed upon such characters as Mera, Aquagirl, Wonder Girl, and Lilith. But looking at the larger portion of our audience, truth is my aforementioned initial Supergirl outing, ‘All Men Are But Slaves’ [Adventure #417]—in point of fact the only one of my Supergirl stories in which the plot is completely my own—both bothered and perplexed the male population; in fact, the letters we got from those nonplussed dudes may well provide yet another reason for Joe preferring me to work from plots supplied by others! Meanwhile, I wasn’t exactly above working on a story that headed in the exact opposite direction from the course I had charted for ‘…Slaves,’ one (that is to say) that appealed mainly to guys, seeing as it was essentially a male sex fantasy, and I’m talking here about the tale entitled ‘Demon Spawn’ [#412], a sexy adventure in which the only way Supergirl can defeat the villainess from within is by (symbolically anyway) losing her virginity—at last getting laid, complete with a nifty orgasm on the bottom of page 15!

“Though small-press reporters, when interviewing me about Supergirl, generally want to concentrate on ‘Demon Spawn’ and even tend to think that I see

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that baby as somehow being the pinnacle of my entire writing career, my actual favorite Supergirl adventure was the last one I wrote, something called ‘The Crypt of Frozen Graves’ [#424], a tale in which our heroine apparently isn’t satisfied to possess but two identities so she doubles that number—besides being Supergirl and television reporter Linda Danvers, she also assumes the undercover identity of a freeand-easy party girl, as well as that of a ghost—all of which allowed one of my all-time favorite artists, Tony DeZuniga, to give our heroine here approximately 15 costume changes within a 17-page story, each of them more fetching than the previous one! I’d love to take credit for this story’s plot, and there were a number of my ideas in there, yet most of the twists and turns in this tale were bits of business that Joe himself had devised! I particularly like the ending of this story, a scene in which our heroine finally removes herself from a job that has been for some time basically killing her spirit. In other words, she flat-out quits and basically even tells her employer to go to hell! It’s something she should have done at least a handful of issues earlier. Finally standing up for herself had (more than I realized it was gonna) just made her an even better character, one I would have definitely enjoyed writing for, but unfortunately this change in her life was all in preparation for Supergirl getting her own book, to be edited by someone other than Joe and written by someone other than me.”

SUPERGIRL FLIES AWAY Infantino had indeed decreed the Maid of Steel would gain her own title, under another editor’s guidance, leaving Orlando with a bimonthly in need of content. In an effort to declare a new era, Orlando went back in time, designing that first cover to evoke memories from when the title first debuted in 1937. The logo took up one third of the cover, with a terrific Michael Kaluta cover image, and in the letters column Joe declared, “The new Adventure Comics will be a constantly shifting creation, where we can explore the new worlds of comics … the new ideas that exist. Where will the next thought come from? Perhaps from beyond the farthest star … or beneath the endless oceans? Perhaps in the exotic plains of the African Veldt …or the asphalt jungles of our busy cities.”

Inside #425 (Dec. 1972–Jan. 1973) were noncharacter-specific stories from Alex Toth, Frank Redondo, Gil Kane, and a Caribbean pirate tale from Robert Kanigher and Alex Niño that quickly became known as Captain Fear. Shortly before his death, Orlando told Jon B. Cooke in Comic Book Artist, “Did you see that story Gil Kane drew where he made fun of Carmine and me? He put us in the story as evil editors and we thought that it was funny. We had a good time with that and they were some very funny drawings.”

The Vigilante was a surprise cover feature for #426, but it was just another leftover from Hanerfeld. The lead, though, was the first installment of “The Adventurers’ Club,” a framework that would allow different adventure stories to be told as part of its membership. The feature’s narrator and only recurring character was white-haired, eye-patched Nelson Strong, the club’s Chairman of the Board.

Under Albano and Jim Aparo’s guidance, the strip told stories that could easily have been found in the anthology titles Orlando was also editing. Strong was remembered by a few readers, including Mark Millar, who brought him back years later in Swamp Thing #144.

Rounding out the issue was Captain Fear, in what became Kanigher’s final story during his initial six-appearance cycle. The story revealed the character Fero, who was taken captive by the Spanish fleet after a raid that left his father dead.

Enslaved, Fero grew up hating the Spaniards and seeking freedom, so he eventually led a revolt, stole a galleon, and sailed the high sea, taking the name Captain Fear.

For Orlando, it was a labor of love and he considered the Philippines-born Niño a genius. “I got a lot of criticism for the series Captain Fear because I got dates wrong or something,” Orlando told Cooke. “I was interested in the Caribbean and Haiti and I wanted to create an Indian hero, because you know that the Caribe Indians in the Dominican Republic were decimated through slavery. They tried to get them to work in the sugar fields and they couldn’t. That’s when they started bringing in the Blacks from Africa. The Indians just died off, not only from disease, but also from imprisonment. Using that as a premise, I wanted to create an Indian hero and it didn’t work out too well. The script didn’t work but the art was beautiful.”

The following issue burned off Hanerfeld’s last Vigilante story; this was once more from Cary Bates, Sekowsky, and Giordano. Paul Levitz notes, “Joe bought

a fair amount of stuff and let it pile up.” Under a Luis Dominguez cover, the Adventurers’ Club and Captain Fear were back although Skeates was installed as the latter’s new writer.

“Years earlier,” Skeates says, “while working for Charlton, I was asked to supply the scripts for a dude named Captain Doom and immediately imagined a post–World War III, nuclear-powered tough guy who wore a mask and a cape, only then to discover that I’d be writing the adventures of a one-armed former Civil War captain who was roaming the Wild West while still wearing his army uniform which was probably getting quite ripe by then! I mention all of that only because here too I initially flashed upon a superhero, this time discovering I’d be writing for a pirate! A pirate who looked like a kid, looked like he was younger than he probably was, but that was too young to begin with! A pirate who didn’t wear any of the usual pirate’s regalia, in fact hardly wore anything at all, and, by the time I got there, he no longer even had a ship! What was I gonna do with this guy?

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High-Seas Adventures Title page to Adventure #426’s Captain Fear tale, lushly rendered

by Filipino great Alex Niño. Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Petal Pusher (left) Shelly Mayer’s enigmatic Black Orchid first budded in issue #428 (July–Aug. 1973).

Cover by Bob Oksner. (right) Oksner’s cover to Adventure #429.

TM & © DC Comics.

“Mainly because I could use the money, but also due to the fact that I had always loved the look of Alex Niño’s work (though, to tell the truth, I never did get a handle on how best to write for this rather quirky artist, how to provide stuff that would nicely complement what he was generally up to), I gave it a shot. But now, reading these stories over again for the first time in a long time, I get the impression that I was hardly even there, and I have no choice, therefore, but to agree with those comic-book aficionados who are surely being overly polite when they say that this wasn’t my best work! But enough with the shame-faced truth-telling, and moving right along—somehow, though his adventure was far from over, strangely, there is no Captain Fear stanza in Adventure #428 (though he does return in 429)! Instead, in its place there is a Dr. Thirteen story that, though there are no credits on the piece, I wrote—one of the many I had produced for the Phantom Stranger book but somehow

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it wound up here instead, and one of my better stories it is, too, if I do say so myself!” The Dr. Thirteen story was bumped from Phantom Stranger in lieu of the new “Spawn of Frankenstein” backup. “Plus, once again, we have ourselves another hearty dose of great Tony DeZuniga artwork,” says Skeates. “Still, why did this happen? What’s the reason for this bizarre and disconcerting interruption? Did one of us, Alex or myself, miss some sort of deadline here, or what?? Unfortunately, there’s nothing in my memory bank that will provide an answer to that one!”

A GIRL AND A GHOST

Orlando’s workload was considerable at the time and it became clear to Infantino that some assistant editors were needed, so Michael Fleisher was brought on staff in late 1972. He spent several days a week helping Orlando while spending the remainder of his time in the library taking notes for what became his The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes.

The Adventurers’ Club returned for a final bow in #427 (Apr.–May 1973), and Levitz comments, “To Joe, the Adventurers’ Club looked promising, [that] this could be something entertaining, different. He was anxious Adventure not to be a superhero book.” Two scripts remained but sheldon mayer were recycled, minus Nelson Strong, into stories that appeared in Weird TM & © DC Comics.

War Tales #28 (“Isle of Forgotten Warriors”) and 42–44 (“The Year 700 After the Bomb”).

However, Infantino sensed things were not working and told Orlando to try something else. Thankfully, legendary writer/artist/editor Sheldon Mayer had recovered from a bout of ill health and was back behind the typewriter. In Levitz’s mind, the Weird War

Tales he wrote were “some of the best stuff in Weird War for that period.” Orlando and Mayer met, and the Black Orchid was born.

Former Supergirl artist Bob Oksner was back to draw the covers, while Tony DeZuniga handled the art chores. Even though she wore a costume like a superhero, Black Orchid was anything but. A master of disguise, she entered people’s lives just when they needed help the most and then vanished, leaving everyone, including the reader, mystified. Meantime, readers were clamoring for more familiar characters to take up residence in the title. The letters column in #428 promised Arnold Drake had written some Deadman stories, but they never seemed to materialize.

“Carmine, for good and for ill, was an enormous change agent for that period,” Levitz observes. “As a result, his instincts said Black Orchid wasn’t going to cut it as a cover feature, so Orlando had to return to the drawing board. ”Orlando bought a fourth script that he found a home for in The Phantom Stranger #31, with Levitz ordering a final two-parter from Mayer, which ran in PS #35–36.

The Comic Reader #97 and 98 both noted more Black Orchid scripts were not possible as Mayer fell ill once more. [Editor’s note: See BI #52 for more on Black Orchid.]

“At about that time, Orlando’s wife Karen was mugged and he was seething, seeking an outlet for his need to see revenge,” Levitz offers.

While the mugging actually happened, Orlando, Fleisher, and artist Jim Aparo all recall events somewhat differently, but regardless, Orlando’s feeling was one growing across the population at the time, giving rise to novels like The Destroyer series and movies like Death Wish.

Fleisher, steeped in DC’s lore in ways Orlando never was, suggested the Spectre as an Adventure star after looking at a list of possible options.

A beloved figure since his introduction in More Fun Comics #52, the Spectre had been resurrected by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #60 and went on to star in his own short-lived title that was creatively uneven but never boring.

To Fleisher, and your author, his first introduction to the character was in Jules Feiffer’s 1965 ode to the Golden Age, the book The Great Comic Book Heroes. The first Spectre story, from co-creators Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily, “was really nice,” Fleisher told Peter Sanderson in an interview for the 1988 reprint series Wrath of the Spectre. “Then when I read the Spectre stories as part of my

research for my encyclopedia, I liked especially the early ones that were very scary and horrific, and I disliked the later ones that were comical a lot.”

Orlando was unfamiliar with the character, so he went home to read Fleisher’s notes from the encyclopedia project and returned enthusiastic.

At the time, he was editing The Phantom Stranger and came to realize the Stranger was a “weak sister” to the Ghostly Guardian. While Fleisher set to work on updating the character, Orlando sought an artist—although he didn’t have to go far. Even though The Comic Reader #96 reported that co-creator Bernard Baily expressed a desire to revisit his character, Orlando had other ideas. Having successfully worked with Jim Aparo on “The Adventurers’ Club” and mystery shorts in House of Mystery, including the award-winning “The Demon Within,” Orlando felt Aparo was a natural for the assignment.

Interestingly, The Comic Reader reported that Infantino wanted to apply the old Showcase formula of three- or four-issue tryouts for Adventure, and the Ghostly Guardian was eyed as the first test subject.

At some point, he changed his mind, abandoning the notion and letting Orlando keep the Spectre as the cover feature. The Fleisher/Aparo Spectre series commenced with Adventure Comics #431 (Jan.–Feb. 1974).

CUTTING-EDGE MATERIAL Police detective Jim Corrigan was a toughas-nails, no-nonsense cop who was also the physical manifestation of the Spectre. Corrigan had been killed by a gangster but resurrected by a Voice (presumably God). He was told his work on Earth was not done and was returned as the Spectre to mete out justice to the guilty. In the character’s second story, he met Gwen Sterling, whose father was a murder victim. They were attracted to one another, although it was a while before she learned he was not truly alive and their romance was doomed.

Later, Fleisher expanded the cast with the introduction of freelance journalist Earl Crawford, who connected the dots and concluded

Dripping with Suspense DC’s grim ghost, the Spectre, returns in Adventure Comics #431 (Jan.–Feb. 1974). Cover by Jim Aparo.

TM & © DC Comics.

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Ghostly Guardian Pardon us as we gush over this gorgeous Spectre page by Jim Aparo, from issue #432.

Courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

jim aparo

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some supernatural force was at work but never up repeatedly, causing a bit of a stir. After all, no one had connected him to Corrigan. seen a supposed superhero hand out such gruesome Fleisher had not been writing comics for long punishments. Levitz said in Wrath of the Spectre #3, “I when he landed this new assignment, and the think what bothered people about the Spectre was a prospects of a series were daunting. Not considering tonal quality. The Punisher and all the characters that are himself very visual, he turned to fine artist Russell derived from the old Executioner novels have a higher Carley, a friend and neighbor. “We would get together violence quotient than the Spectre, but they don’t have on a Saturday afternoon and we plotted the story a higher horror quotient. I guess the paradigm of the together,” Fleisher told Sanderson. “Then Russell Spectre is turning the guilty into a candle and lighting would take the plot and break it down into panels, and him or turning him into a log and buzzsawing him.”

I would write the script.” Carley received credit for The series quickly developed a reputation as “Script Continuity,” a unique credit that confused fans being controversial, but in the 1980s, when looking for years. The partnership worked for several years, back, the participants in its creation agreed it had more including Fleisher’s earliest issues of Weird Western to do with internal politics than an actual backlash when he took over Albano’s Jonah Hex feature. among the readers. “It was pretty much the professionals While Fleisher knew these needed to be horrifying [voicing concern],” Levitz said at the time. “The mail stories that satisfied Orlando’s craving for justice, it on the series was pretty decent, as I remember. The was Carley who came up with the visual gimmicks controversy started within the office, where some that set the series apart from all other titles from of the more fan-oriented writers and assistant DC and even Marvel. “A lot of the ideas for the editors who were in the field were very uncomfortable Spectre, like the giant scissors cutting a man in half, with the horror-based treatment the Spectre were Russell’s ideas,” Fleisher confirmed. was given.”

Each story saw an ironic turn of events: a criminal hair dresser was cut apart by his enlarged tools, or a showdown in a mill resulted in a gunman being turned into wood and put through a buzzsaw.

By the summer of 1973, Fleisher left DC for the summer and Orlando hired Levitz to fill in, only to soon learn Fleisher was not coming back to staff.

At this point, the third Spectre issue was in production and the series was michael fleisher somewhat behind DC’s rigid production schedule. While Aparo could readily Photo courtesy of David Michelinie. pencil, letter, and ink a page a day, he could not speed up between this assignment and his work on the Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold. As a result, Orlando sought a penciler for Aparo to ink in order to get ahead. He settled on the unlikely choice of Frank Thorne.

Looking back through the years, Levitz recalled he was present “relatively infrequently in the plotting conferences, but I enjoyed that. I got to listen a couple of times but was focused more on the administrative stuff: a lot of contact with artist on the work flow.

We had that beautiful job where Thorne pencilled for Aparo, talked Jim into letting the stuff get ahead.”

In 1988, Levitz told Sanderson in Wrath of the Spectre, “Thorne and Aparo was something that made no sense to me as an assistant editor when Joe proposed it. Thorne’s own style was so scratchy and associated with such a different look. Yet Joe looked through that to see the commonality in how Thorne and Aparo worked in storytelling. The Thorne/Aparo combination excited me at the time.”

Orlando recalled to Sanderson how difficult it was to sell the idea to Aparo, who had not done this sort of work before. He eventually relented and then upon seeing the finished product was delighted. Later when he needed help once more, he was far less resistant to Ernie Chan penciling two installments.

“The Nightmare Dummies and … the Spectre” from #434 (July–Aug. 1974), Thorne’s first story, was named by Fleisher as his personal highlight, while it was also named by Aparo as a personal favorite.

In those days of scattered fanzines and very few comic conventions, the Spectre was one of the topics that came

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Thorne and Aparo The Spectre splash from Adventure #434 (July–Aug. 1974), with regular artist Aparo reluctantly making way for a schedule-saving pencil job by Frank Thorne in what turned out to be a great artistic match.

TM & © DC Comics.

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For Orlando, he was having fun poking the Comics Code, finding taboos and working ways around them.

Fleisher also saw the series as black humor and never quite understood why people objected to it, calling the fuss “silly.”

Looking back, Fleisher reflected in an exclusive interview in BACK ISSUE #42, “I thought they were very good and very clever and very visual and caused a lot of controversy and I liked it, but I was never able to turn the Spectre into an ongoing character, if you know what I mean. There comes to be a sameness in that. In other words—okay, he kills the bad guys with the giant scissors and it was really nice, but if you’re really going to make a series of it, you’d have to make it more complex. And it wasn’t complex. It was visually interesting and shocking at the time and caused a lot of controversy within the business, but it didn’t hold up for a long time.”

“WEIRD” AS A BRAND With issue #433 (May–June 1974), readers found an odd-looking “Weird” title graphic pasted atop the logo.

Orlando told Cooke, “I started using the word and Carmine decided that ‘Weird’ sold anything. Weird War, Weird Western, Weird Worlds, Weird Mystery.”

Fans, though, were miffed and complained enough that in the letters column to issue #436, Levitz replied, “The use of WEIRD on the logo is one calculated to attract mystery readers to the Spectre, a mystery superhero. It is not necessarily a permanent change, and we don’t think it’s anything to get too upset about.”

Orlando-commissioned inventory continued to round out the comic such as #431’s “Is a Snerl Human?,” from Mayer and Toth, so a reader never knew what was coming issue after issue. (Levitz later included the planet Snerl as an Easter Egg in the Legion of SuperHeroes story in DC Special Series #21.)

More often than not, though, Captain Fear was matched with the Spectre. In fact, more Black Orchid was teased in the letters columns, as was a return for Aquaman by Skeates, hinting Ramona Fradon may once more pencil the Sea King. Aquaman did finally appear in issue #435 (Sept.–Oct. 1974), although a newcomer named Mike Grell drew the story instead.

“Finally, even as the Captain Fear saga was thankfully drawing to a close, I was suddenly asked if I’d like to provide some Aquaman stories for this book,” Skeates says. “It was Joe who did the asking, yet I got the distinct impression that the idea of having one member of the SAG team (that Skeates/Aparo/Giordano team that had produced such fan-favorites as Aquaman’s year-and-ahalf-long search for his kidnapped wife, the microscopic adventure inside Mera’s ring, and ‘The Creature that Devoured Detroit’) write some Aquaman backups here (even as another member of that team was illustrating the lead series) had sprung forth from the mind of that former fanboy who at that point was working as Joe’s assistant editor, someone named Paul Levitz.

Disillusioned by some of the rather bland stuff I had written lately and therefore wanting to prove (if only to myself) that I could still write worthy superhero fare, I veritably leapt at the chance! And tossing myself fullforce into the project, I veritably pulled out all the stops!

What? No Miranda Rights?

A montage of Adventure sequences depicting the Spectre’s controversial brand of justice.

TM & © DC Comics.

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The New SAG Team (top) Steve Skeates, part of the original SAG (Skeates/Aparo/ Giordano) Aquaman team, was paired with rising star Mike Grell (making SAG stand for “Skeates And Grell”?) for an Aquaman three-parter beginning in Adventure #435 (Sept.–Oct. 1974). (bottom) The lettercol from issue #437.

TM & © DC Comics.

“Within the very first panel of this first new Sea King piece of mine, for example,” Skeates continues, “there sits a quote from ancient Greek literature, as well as an in-joke about the two-and-a-half years that had passed since I’d written for Aquaman, even as our new artist Mike Grell was allowing our hero to moon our audience! Beyond that and deeper into the story, there’s one page that’s all pictures and captions, no dialogue! That plus Aquaman using scuba-gear to defeat Black Manta, then tossing the unconscious Manta at his shocked underlings like this persistent foe is naught but a rag-doll— hey, I indeed wound up with all the proof I was looking for!

“My second Aquaman backup, however, entitled ‘The King is Dead; Long Live the King,’ was, in my estimation, way too gimmicky, and though there are quite a few people whose opinions I generally respect who like that story, to me I was just there within going through the motions. Thing is, I had nothing left to prove at that point, having satisfactorily completed that mission via the previous episode. In other words, now it was time to move on to other things. Sure, three years previously, if given half a chance, I would have fought to the death to hang onto Aquaman, because I rather saw him as my character back then. Now, though, I had simply wanted to see if I could still write that sort of stuff. And, I had seen! But, lemme tell ya, working with Joe, especially on Adventure, had definitely been an experience!”

In what was to be the final issue with the ill-fitting Weird logo, #437 (Jan.–Feb. 1975), comes one of the more interest bits of lore surrounding this run of the title. As Levitz explained to Rik Offenberger in Comics Bulletin, “My first stories were actually in Weird Mystery and Ghost Castle; I only ‘graduated’ to Aquaman in Adventure thanks to Bill Finger. Bill had come in on a Friday to deliver, and was supposed to have two scripts, but only had one done. The check he wanted to pick up was for both, and although Joe [Orlando] wasn’t in, I wasn’t going to hold back a paycheck for Batman’s co-creator … even though Bill was legendary for delivering late and having excuses. But Bill never delivered that story because he died, and by the rules of the time, I was responsible for making up the pages. I asked Joe to let me do something more fun than a mystery story since I had to do it free, and he let me have the Aquaman assignment, and I got to work with Mike Grell. What fun!”

As the DC Comics offices were packed for a move from 909 Third Avenue to 75 Rockefeller Plaza, an unpublished Joe Samachson script for the Seven Soldiers of Victory was found and it was agreed to parcel it out to a variety of artists and run it in the back of Adventure as a stunt beginning in issue #437 through 443. [Editor’s note: Read all about it in BI #64.]

Orlando and Fleisher continued their fun with the Spectre, plotting out stories wherein in Gwen would be involved, deepening the doomed romance between mortal and spirit. In issue #439, Corrigan finally pleaded with the Voice for a chance at happiness and this time the Voice granted his request.

He was once more mortal and quickly proposed. However, in the next issue, criminals seeking vengeance against the cop had other ideas and conspired to kill him. Sterling answered her door one evening and Corrigan’s corpse greeted her, a note saying, “I was a pesky cop. I got what I deserved.” Once again, the Voice summoned Corrigan and told him, “No man can escape his destiny—! And your destiny is to remain earthbound … to strike at evil with the fearsome vengeance of the hereafter as the Spectre!”

ORLANDO’S ADVENTURE CREEPS TO AN END And with issue #440 (July 1975), Orlando surrendered to the inevitable.

Weak sales and some controversy around the Spectre meant a new cover feature was required, and by then, superheroes were the answer. The switch in features came abruptly enough that Fleisher was three scripts ahead of his artist. While the two-parter felt like a finale of sorts, it was never intended as such, with Crawford still trying to find out the truth about the Spectre’s existence winding up in a mental institution. Despite Weird Issue

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From Weird to Wet (left) Adventure’s short-lived “Weird” logo started with issue #433 (May–June 1974). (center) Aquaman’s first issue as the cover feature, Adventure #441 (Sept.–Oct. 1975). (right) Martin Pasko made a splash dialoguing #446’s Aquaman tale and scripting its Creeper backup. Covers

by Aparo.

TM & © DC Comics.

her inability to marry him, Sterling remained by book-length Creeper tale in 1st Issue Special, penciled Corrigan’s side, coming to his aide. by the character’s creator, Steve Ditko.

The scripts sat undrawn in Levitz’s files until the success Pasko recalls to BI, “I had written for Joe on the of Baxter paper reprints of classic series provided a golden mystery anthologies and did a few issues of Aquaman opportunity. In late 1987, Aparo’s schedule was cleared for him, and he was open to me doing a regular series so he could once more illustrate the Spectre’s war for him. Like Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, and against evil. With inks from Mike DeCarlo, the stories Denny O’Neil, Joe was ‘grooming’ a number of young finally saw print in the fourth issue of The Wrath of the writers to take over lead features when their assigned Spectre, which was an honor for this article’s writer to writers, like Mike Fleisher, David Michelinie, or Archie, edit. To put the series in perspective, I had commissioned Gerry, and Denny themselves, became too busy with Peter Sanderson to interview the principals and provide other projects and had to leave a title. So when Joe a detailed examination of the series and its place in decided to do the Creeper in the back of Adventure, he DC history. Unfortunately, subsequent reprint put out ‘feelers’ to a number of writers to see editions of those stories never reprinted who’d want to pitch a story. the supplemental interviews (and “Joe, who had taken note of my doodles Showcase Presents: The Spectre totally in story conferences and profoundly left out the three new stories). complimented me by saying he could Orlando upgraded Aquaman to the see cartooning talent in my hand, lead spot and assigned the feature to liked the story I pitched well enough,” Levitz and Aparo. However, almost Pasko continues. “But I think that immediately, Orlando’s assistant editor what he really sparked to was my was sharing the byline with others, willingness to do the ‘script’ in the beginning with David Michelinie. manner he preferred. Joe always liked Levitz explains, “Carmine was not the way Harvey Kurtzman used to write. happy with my writing. He saw the Kurtzman didn’t use a typewriter; cover design and said, ‘The kid doesn’t instead, he ‘drew out’ his stories: his martin pasko know what he’s doing, have someone scripts were rough layouts showing do a fresh dialogue pass.’ So David the page grid, with the copy to be did it in the fall of 1975. Carmine had read enough of lettered handwritten by the writer himself, in the form of my stuff and he decided I wasn’t really ready, and captions and balloons. The panel was described with a pulled me.” With a fresh lettering job by Ben Oda, the rough sketch, rather than a typewritten description, of story kicked off a resurgence of interest in Aquaman. the action. In this method, the art provided by the writer Gerry Conway and, later, Martin Pasko both was acceptable even as crude stick figures (though my pitched in to help Levitz, who was gaining experience sketches weren’t), as long as it, along with marginal as both a writer and editor during this period. notes, conveyed a sense of the image to be drawn.

Perhaps the last feature Orlando commissioned for “So I ‘wrote’ the job in this unfamiliar but fun way, Adventure before giving up the reins was a three-part with ‘thumbnails’ of the art—an odd hybrid of layout Creeper story from Pasko and Ric Estrada. Previously, and storyboard. Joe was in his element editing in this the character had been kept in the public eye thanks format (his favorite writer, John Albano, worked that way to Len Wein using him in Detective Comics, followed exclusively), because Joe could make suggestions for,

by Denny O’Neil featuring him in The Joker and and ‘corrections’ to, layout and composition in individual Super-Team Family, and Michael Fleisher handling the panels as he went along. I apparently had a strong

20 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

enough sense of comics storytelling that Ric Estrada didn’t feel the need to change much from my indications of the art, restaging only a few panels. He paid me the second head-swelling compliment I remember from that job by saying that in a few cases he was able to light-box my compositions and redraw them quickly and easily.

“Beyond that, I recall only that I was the one who got the assignment to write the first ‘story arc,’ and had been given the green light to do another.”

All these years later, Pasko cannot recall why his second story never got drawn. “I do remember starting work on developing what I thought of as a second Creeper story (I plotted them as book-lengthers with strong acts-out, with each ‘act’ being a six- or eight-page backup story installment). But then a decision was made not to continue the series—one that, I was told, had nothing to do with a qualitative reaction to the first arc.

“I began [the second] but never completed [it] because the title was relaunched under a different editor before the second arc could be scheduled, and there was no ‘home’ for the material elsewhere (unlike the many Plastic Man stories I did for the title which showed up in World’s Finest and Super Friends after Adventure stopped running original material).”

With Aquaman and the Creeper running at this point, the book was less reflective of Orlando’s interests, so when the surging sales meant the Sea King would receive his own title, it let him give up Adventure.

No surprise, the next person to run it was Levitz, who noted in his first issue, #449 (Jan.–Feb. 1977), “…to let those of you who support young blood in comics know that this issue reached your newsstand on our new Story Editor’s 20th birthday.”

Looking back, Levitz notes, “When Carmine left, [then-new DC publisher] Jenette Kahn’s bias was against the anthology titles. She had no feeling that they were the right way to go unless they were the

Dollar Comic-sized stuff. We ended up with Aquaman getting his own title.

“Creatively, the Adventure run was above average.

If you put up a wall of covers from the time, the vast majority of DC’s superhero material is, at best, a nostalgia thing if you were 12. You can’t reprint anything Murray [Boltinoff] did then and most of what Julie [Schwartz] did in that period is relatively forgettable, so the Spectre run and Aquaman run are remembered fondly. If Captain Fear doesn’t hold together as well, he was at least one of the few characters created at that point that survived.”

Hopping Mad (above) Martin Pasko takes on Steve Ditko’s Creeper, abetted by artists Ric Estrada and Joe Staton. From Adventure #447 (Sept. 1976). (left) Adventure #448, Orlando’s last issue.

ROBERT GREENBERGER is an educator, a longtime comics historian, and a former staffer at DC Comics and Marvel Comics. In recent years he has written or co-written several superhero history books. Learn more about Bob at BobGreenberger.com.

TM & © DC Comics.

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by

Steven Thompson

Back in 1972, I was 13 years old and I said the word “weird” a lot.

As I used it, it meant groovy, cool, or awesome. It also meant odd, strange, or off-putting as well as neat, super, or just plain enjoyable.

In other words, to me, “weird” was an all-purpose word. It was my own special word.

“Weird” was also a special word for DC Comics that year, with numerous titles bearing that adjective. Since 1968, Joe Orlando, the former EC, MAD, and Warren artist, had made a name for himself at DC editing its popular mystery titles. They weren’t technically “horror” titles. They weren’t allowed to be. After all, the Comics Code didn’t permit the use of the word “horror,” but it did, as DC noted, allow “Weird.” So DC put out mystery titles.

In 1971, DC’s 100-Page Super Spectacular line debuted with a one-shot entitled Weird Mystery Tales. It had a cover and a bit of new art from Berni(e) Wrightson, along with some new gag cartoons, but was overall a collection of 1950s reprints. I remember enjoying my copy immensely and being surprised many months later to see what I thought to be a second issue of Weird Mystery Tales. Only it wasn’t the same.

By 1972, both Marvel and DC were busy flooding the market in an unstated effort to drive out the competition … as well as one-up each other. Every week seemed to bring half a dozen new titles.

Marvel’s entries were mostly low-cost reprint titles of all sorts. DC had some of those, too, but also offered up some all new, non-superhero titles. The late DC publisher Carmine Infantino, in an interview with Jon B. Cooke in Comic Book Artist #1 (Spring 1998), quoted by permission, said, “…They could knock us off the stands. So I matched them book for book. I had to cover my rump.”

Paul Levitz, fan-turned-pro and himself later the president and publisher of DC, took over as assistant editor of Weird Mystery Tales starting with issue #10 (Feb.–Mar. 1974). He remembers, “At that time it wasn’t unusual for all comic-book companies to add titles in ‘hot’ genres very rapidly, then cancel them as fast when the genre grew cold.”

On his blog, News From me (sic), in 2013 (and quoted by permission), writer Mark Evanier pointed out why DC opted for more all-new mystery titles instead: “Ghost anthology titles like House of Secrets were selling decently—not great, but decently—and were making a profit. Much of that profit was due to the sudden and recent availability of comic artists in the Philippines. Because of the different standard of living betwixt there and here, it was possible to pay those guys a lot less (like a tenth) of what American artists were paid. The catch was that their work didn’t seem to lend itself to superhero comics and was most commercial in America on the ‘weird’ books.

Orlando suddenly had to ratchet up production on them.”

KIRBY IS HERE! (EXCEPT ON THE COVERS) Thus the Weird Mystery Tales name was revived and the first issue, cover-dated July–August, snuck out onto America’s newsstands in the late spring of 1972. The first three issues, though, were cut from a very different cloth than the remainder of the series. In fact, they seemed to exist solely for the purpose of burning off unused inventory stories, some from Jack Kirby’s never-published Spirit World #2 and Howard Purcell stories from, according to the third issue’s letters column, “a proposed book of supernatural tales a few years back.” Even the legally required (in order to maintain second-class mailing privileges) text pages in the first couple of issues were leftovers

Reach Out and Touch Someone Michael Wm. Kaluta’s creepy cover to Weird Mystery Tales #1 (July–Aug. 1972).

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Issue

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by Kirby’s then-sidekicks, Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman, and taken The very first story in that initial issue is more an exploration than an also from the abandoned Kirby project. actual linear, plot-driven story, in line with similar segments from the Although the tasty Spirit World leftovers had the bearded Dr. E. original Spirit World one-shot. With the unwieldy title “Horoscope Leopold Maas as their host, returning from the original black-and- Phenomenon or Witch Queen of Ancient Sumeria?” it offers brief white magazine, the comic itself was given a new overall host in the episodes featuring personified astrological symbols, all done up sweetly form of the blind, hooded, Rod Serling-like Destiny, keeper of the in what has to be some of Jack’s best art from this period. On page 9, Cosmic Log, a giant book chained to his wrist. Destiny was credited we first see Dr. Maas, Spirit World’s host (presumably replaced on page as being a Marv Wolfman/Bernie Wrightson creation and the character, 1 by Wrightson’s Destiny). The bearded character isn’t named, though, many years later, would be retconned into Neil Gaiman’s Endless in which undoubtedly confused some readers as he finished out the story. his critically acclaimed Sandman series.

The mini-masterpiece that is “Toxl, the World Killer” leads off Oddly enough, Joe Orlando wasn’t even around this title in the issue #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1972), again presenting some of Jack Kirby and beginning. Wolfman served as assistant editor on the first two issues Mike Royer’s best work—without a trace of a hint on the cover. Mark with E. Nelson Bridwell listed as editor on the first three. Those three Evanier, Kirby’s then-assistant, has stated, “It was the one time I ever issues, as I said before, each offered a Jack Kirby/Mike Royer story dialogued for Jack over his pencils. I wrote it in his style and he up front and a backup story written and drawn by Golden Age artist changed a few lines here and there.” (Mark Evanier to Jon B. Cooke, Howard Purcell and inked by Jack Abel.

Jack Kirby Collector #13, Dec. 1996. Quoted by permission.)

Kirby, of course, was a creative force behind the early Marvel These two Kirby stories, along with “The Burners” from the Universe and probably the most revered artist in the comic-book industry, following issue, were reprinted in 2012’s Spirit World compilation. A but in the early ’70s was in his fondly remembered but somewhat fourth leftover story by Kirby and Royer, “The Psychic Bloodhound,” controversial DC period. Howard Purcell is best remembered, appeared in color in DC’s Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #6 if at all, for his creation of 1940s DC character Sargon the (also July–Aug. 1972) and is, like the others, reprinted in Sorcerer and for drawing the cover of the very first issue the 2012 collection. of Green Lantern. These Weird Mystery Tales stories While the King’s stories tend to get mentioned a lot, were his last published work in comics. the Purcell and Abel stories were also quite good, with That first issue starts with a Mike Kaluta cover, the former’s ghostly Titanic cover for the second issue though, that has only a vague, coincidental (also done originally for the aforementioned abandoned connection to one panel within the book’s first project) being probably the best of the entire run story. No one could have had a clue just from and arguably one of the best of all the mystery covers looking at that cover that there was some prime of that era! The letters column in issue #4 points out Kirby art inside. If you were buying the other DC that Purcell wrote his stories as well as drew them. mystery titles, you probably picked this one up just Although he seemed shoehorned in at first—which because. If not, you probably stuck with Superman he was—Destiny made his august pronouncements or Flash that month. on most of the stories in those initial issues. In the howard purcell first letters column, it’s pointed out that Destiny’s appearance on the second issue splash of the Purcell story was actually drawn by editor Bridwell, probably his only published artwork ever! That letters column, in the third issue, continues DC’s tradition of having its mystery hosts humorously “answer” their own letters, thereby generating a particular personality for each individual title. The fact that Destiny didn’t exactly lend himself to lightheartedness or humor, however, was a bit of a drawback.

That, however, would actually play into his later use.

INTERCHANGEABLE MYSTERY TALES With the fourth issue, the inventory material ran out. Joe Orlando took the title under his wing with the rest of his mystery books and the stories immediately became completely indistinguishable from most of those in House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Witching Hour, or any of the others in his stable. In fact, in an interview for this piece, writer Steve Skeates (perhaps best known for his late-’60s run on Aquaman) confirms that there was never anything special about the individual titles as far as the types of stories they printed. “My experience with the DC mystery books is that one never knew which mag one’s contribution was gonna wind up in; I even had something I thought was gonna be in House of Mystery wind up in Plop! Or was it the other way around? Whatever! Anyway, it wasn’t only Joe. When Dick Giordano was editing the mystery books, there, too, I never knew which one of the books my tale was gonna end up in!”

Evanier adds, “Put simply, [Orlando] needed a lot of scripts to send off to the Philippines.”

The First Host Destiny, as illo’ed by Bernie Wrightson, introducing a Kirby/Evanier Spirit World carryover. From the title page of Weird Mystery Tales #1.

TM & © DC Comics.

24 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

And scripts he got. Offering scripts from a veritable One other writer represented in a few later issues who’s who of veteran US writers including Skeates, was Paul Levitz. “By the way,” he tells BACK ISSUE, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Oleck, George Kashdan, Murray “my stories in Weird Mystery Tales were my first sales as Boltinoff, John Albano, and Bob Kanigher, Weird Mystery a young writer while I was Joe’s assistant (and Tex’s Tales in particular would prove itself an excellent show- [Blaisdell], while he was editing the book).” case for the work of the Filipino illustrators.

If you were a real aficionado of this type of Jack Oleck was the most frequently credited story, you knew things had changed when writer in this series. Although never a wellthe first story in issue #4 (Jan.–Feb. 1973), known name, he had been a major although credited to Jack Oleck, bore presence in the field in the 1950s, writing a strong resemblance to Charles for the studio his brother-in-law, Joe Beaumont’s classic Twilight Zone story, Simon, ran with Jack Kirby. He was “The Howling Man.” Going forward, also a frequent, if uncredited, author for many of the stories in this series would the legendary EC Comics. Oleck would maintain that Twilight Zone feel. most likely qualify as the most prolific That issue did, however, offer a writer in all of DC’s mystery titles. creepy little unsigned two-pager from George Kashdan had been a a young Jim Starlin (his first work writer and editor for DC beginning for DC?). Inexplicably, a later letters back in the 1940s. Although he page credits this piece to Jack JACK KIRBY had long since moved to TV cartoon Sparling! Further down the line, a scripts (often for DC characters), he letter writer corrects the situation. returned to his comics alma mater with quite a few “Destiny” replies, “I must compliment you on your mystery scripts during the “Weird” heyday. astute evaluation of Sparling vs. Starlin. The two Sheldon Mayer was one of the great legends names are so similar that I made a mistake when I amongst comic-book creators. Although best known as jotted down the credits… Any further attempts to a brilliant cartoonist on kid-friendly features he created correct me will result in your doom, so beware!” like Sugar and Spike and Scribbly, he also worked on more By the way, that same letters page that miscredits adult fare including Adventure Comics’ Black Orchid and Starlin says, “No art credits are available” for another is said to have been a key man in getting Superman story in #4, which is rather obviously the work of Bill published, which jumpstarted the entire industry!

Draut, at that point a longtime DC artist.

Weird Issue

The Odd Couple (left) Howard Purcell’s Titanic cover (and interior tale) for Weird Mystery Tales #2 (Sept.–Oct. 1972) seemed mismatched with the issue’s other story, (right) the Spirit World discard “Toxl the World Killer!” by Mark Evanier, Jack Kirby, and Mike Royer.

TM & © DC Comics.

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BACK ISSUE • 25

Lurking Behind and Beneath Menacing covers by Jim Aparo and Luis Dominguez for Weird Mystery Tales #4 (Jan.–Feb. 1973) and #10 (Feb.–Mar. 1974). And in the background is Nick Cardy’s cover for issue #7.

TM & © DC Comics.

INTERNATIONAL TALENT POOL

FAMILY FEUD

Overall, the influx of new artists in that period was both disorienting and intoxicating, apparently to both readers and the DC editorial department. Many of the unfamiliar—and sometimes unpronounceable, to young US fans—names were industry veterans in their own country with work that was quite polished and often unlike anything seen in American comics. Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando had famously travelled to the Phillipines on a recruiting expedition in 1971 and it was in the gothic mystery titles where that mission bore fruit.

But it was hard to keep up. There was some nice early US work by now-well-known names such as Tony DeZuniga, Alfredo Alcala, Rico Rival, and Alex Niño, but alongside it you could also find a considerable amount of pages from less-remembered names such as Ruben Yandoc (a.k.a. Rubeny), Romy Gamboa, Ernest Patricio, Jess Jodloman, and Noly Panaligan.

Into this international mix was thrown the occasional choice art from the likes of old pros Gil Kane, Frank Robbins, and Frank Thorne.

Perhaps the most interesting and intriguing of all artists to appear in the title, though, was Lee Marrs, whose semi-underground black comedies seemed as though they would have been more at home in Plop! Known later for her own “ground-level” series, The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, Marrs was brought into the fold by Tex Blaisdell.

Veteran comics illustrator Blaisdell took over as editor of Weird Mystery Tales toward the end of 1974 starting with #15 (Dec. 1974– Jan. 1975). The latest in the line of artists given editorial positions after Carmine Infantino moved up the corporate ladder at DC in 1968, prior to this gig Tex had worked off and on for the company since the Golden Age of Comics but throughout the ’60s had mainly labored assisting on various newspaper strips. When cartoonist Harold Gray died in ’68, his venerable Little Orphan Annie was taken over by Blaisdell, who even appeared on an episode of TV’s To Tell the Truth in his capacity as Annie’s artist.

Once in power at DC, though, he didn’t really change much other than bringing in Ms. Marrs, who had assisted him on his newspaper strip. She had also done backgrounds for Tex when he was ghosting Hal Foster’s long-running Prince Valiant Sunday strip a bit earlier.

But the thing that gives Weird Mystery Tales some semblance of its own identity in the end is not its editors but its feuding hosts. With his robe and his book and his chains, Destiny offers a cool, imposing image but with a rather bland personality and repetitive shtick. On the letters pages, always written in character, he comes across as pompous and condescending. The goal seems to be to make that amusing, which it is to an extent, but only for a little while. Then it starts to become simply annoying.

Thus, with issue #9 (Dec. 1973–Jan. 1974), the old witch Eve pops up to, as she puts it, “…liven up Destiny’s mag with some GOOD stories.”

At the story’s end, squeezed into one of the tiniest panels ever seen in a mainstream comic, Eve returns to say, “Don’t think that you’re rid of me! I’ll keep coming back until I take over this mag.”

Which is exactly what occurs over the course of the next few issues.

Eve had been originally created, in her incarnation as the old crone seen in this mag, by Michael Kaluta and Gardner Fox, to host another 1972 DC title, Secrets of Sinister House. Following House of Mystery host Cain and House of Secrets host Abel, the implication was that she was their mother, the Biblical Eve. As with Destiny, she was later retconned into Gaiman’s Sandman universe, where she was given a new, svelte look.

Eve was dropped from Secrets of Sinister House with the November 1973 cover-dated issue, #15, so it was almost immediately afterwards that she popped up in Weird Mystery Tales.

Before Eve returns with another story in issue #10, however (Feb.–Mar. 1974), we are treated to a curious tale of Destiny with some absolutely stunning art from Gil Kane. Although a DC mainstay for years, Kane was mainly associated with Marvel during this period, and yet here he was, stylishly penciling as well as inking a story that the Grand Comics Database says is written by former DC editor Murray Boltinoff (working under the pen name “Bill Reily”).

In the story, “The Curse,” we meet a hooded man named “Fate.” He is not blind, nor is he chained to a book (although he is shown with one in the final panel). And yet the implication is that Fate is actually our host, Destiny. This is hinted at more when Destiny’s image introducing the second story in the issue is, in fact,

26 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

a Kane image of Fate. The idea is really driven home, however, in the issue’s letters column where Destiny replies to one letter with, “Stories featuring me are on their way, beginning with this issue’s ‘The Curse.’”

The very next letter on the page, though, has old Eve literally interrupting Destiny’s typically haughty answer to a reader to finish out the page herself. Her responses from this point appear in bold, whereas Destiny’s had been in italics. “I’m very tired of that dumb Destiny,” she writes, “and I think it’s high time that somebody funny took over this letters page so I’ve given up my job at Sinister House to cheer you poor, tired readers up! That’s right, your own darling Eve, the thousand year old witch, is here for good!”

Weird Mystery Tales #11 (Apr.–May 1974) features only two stories, the first introduced by Eve and the second by Destiny.

More telling is the letters page, though, where its standard “Cosmic Log” logo panel is X-ed out and a Kaluta image of Eve (looking very much like EC’s Old Witch) with the “Witch’s Tales” logo from the Sinister House letters page pasted or superimposed over Wrightson’s seminal Destiny image.

The whole page this time out is written in Eve’s voice and she continues to insist that she will take over the mag all for herself now that her lease on the Sinister House had expired, leaving Destiny “...out in the cold with his Cosmic Log, the eternal collection of terribly told tales.”

At the end of the page, though, is a solicitation—still in character— for readers to write in and tell Orlando which host they’d like to see running Weird Mystery Tales.

Issue #12 (June–July 1974) again offers up stories presented by both characters, but this time Destiny has regained full control of the letters page—“Restored to my rightful place once more,” he puts it. It was too early to have received any measurable reader response, so this was apparently just done on a whim. At the end of the page, once again, votes are rallied.

“I intend to keep Eve out of Weird Mystery as best I can,” writes the hooded one, “but I need all the support I can get from my readers. I may be the master of men’s fates, but editors are beyond even my power!”

More of the same was in the following issue, but the one after that, #14 (Oct.–Nov. 1974), finally revealed the solution. Eve appeared once again, usurping both the logo and the letters column itself.

“Orlando promised me,” she says, “that one of the letters in this issue would answer the question of whether Destiny or I would continue to host Weird Mystery Tales…”

After sifting through a couple of piece of standard fan mail to the comic, she runs across one particular letter that points out the obvious—”Destiny is the keeper of the Cosmic Log. His job is to know everyone’s fate! If he’s letting you take over Weird Mystery Tales, it only means that it’s your first step on the way to your fate—and you’d better watch that first step—it’s a dilly!”

Suddenly exultant, Eve asks Destiny directly and he admits that yes, this is fated to be his final issue. At the bottom of the page, though, he offers one last, uncharacteristically vengeful surprise for his replacement. “I may be going, but I’m not going alone!” he writes.

“Orlando was the one who arranged for the Cosmic Log to order me away, so I’m taking him with me!” This is where Tex Blaisdell is announced as the new editor beginning with the following issue.

In fact, in a brief introduction in the next issue, Tex credits Eve’s charm with being a major part of why he chose to take over Weird Mystery Tales in the first place! Eve herself, as one might imagine, is over the moon now that she has essentially free reign of the issue!

She also gives a brief plug for Lee Marrs’ upcoming arrival.

Eve offers up a contest in the following issue (#16, Feb.–Mar. 1975), asking readers to name her new abode after she was kicked out of Sinister House. The prize, eventually awarded in issue #23 (Oct. 1975), would be a 15-issue subscription. Of course, in retrospect, we know that the title didn’t last another 15 issues. In fact, it was canceled the following month after the winner was announced.

But back at the end of ’74 when the contest was announced it seemed likely the title still had a long future as, with the very next issue, Weird Mystery Tales actually went monthly for the remainder of its run!

Concurrently, former editor Orlando started using Destiny in his Secrets of Haunted House comic, continuing the rivalry with Eve there and even throwing in some typical kibitzing from Cain and Abel.

That didn’t mean Destiny was completely gone from the book’s pages, however. In fact, one of the stories in #17 (Apr. 1975) was presented by Eve, wearing a hooded purple cloak.

I strongly suspect it to have been Destiny originally, already penciled in by artist E. R. Cruz and retouched to be the new hostess instead! For the remainder of the series after that, however, it was all Eve’s baby.

There’s a clever one-pager starring Eve herself in #18 (May 1975), written by Paul Levitz and drawn by Ricardo Villamonte.

The reason it’s so clever is that it’s both a cute little character piece as well as a full-page ad for yet another new “gothic” title, Tales of Ghost Castle. The page introduces the host of that particular new title, the tall, skinny, owlish librarian, Lucien.

Lucien, like so many of these ’70s host characters, would become an important secondary player in Sandman nearly two decades later.

The Lunch Boat WMT covers were not boater-friendly! In the wake of issue #2’s Titanic cover came Ernie Chan’s dino-amic shocker fronting issue #18 (May 1975).

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Issue

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BACK ISSUE • 27

He’s Gone Buggy Editor Tex Blaisdell presumably directed cover artist Luis Dominguez to tone down the sexuality of this cover’s cocoon cutie. From Weird Mystery Tales #19 (June 1975). Cover preliminary and original art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

THE BEST OF WEIRD MYSTERY TALES Covers of magazines, and that includes comic books, are, of course, designed to entice the potential reader into buying the item. One could argue that the covers of DC’s mystery comics—although they often had little or nothing to do with the stories inside—developed into a separate little art form, with artists turning out some of their best work and ending up telling little single-panel horror stories (I’m sorry, “mystery” stories) right on the cover.

For Weird Mystery Tales, the initial cover artists were sometimes A-list US artists, rather than the more-often unknown names seen inside. Michael Wm. Kaluta did the first one and Purcell the second, with Jim Aparo, Nick Cardy, Jack Sparling, Bernie Wrightson, Ernie Chan, and even Joe Orlando all doing at least one. With a total of nine covers, the artist most often seen was Luis Dominguez who, in spite of his lack of name familiarity to most fans of the day, was not Filipino at all but Argentinean, and had been working, largely uncredited, in US comics since the early 1960s.

But once you have the comic in your hot little hands, it’s ultimately the stories that you care about. Presented here is a chronological rundown of a baker’s dozen of the stories in Weird Mystery Tales (starting with the post–Kirby/ Purcell issues) that I consider to be the best, creepiest, or otherwise most notable for one reason or another: Weird Mystery Tales #4 (Jan.–Feb. 1973): “To Live Forever”: Script by Steve Skeates, art by Romy Gamboa and Rico Rival. This is a surprisingly adult tale (complete with some nudity that somehow went unnoticed by the Comics Code) about a man attempting to find a way to become immortal while his young wife meets the victim of one of his experiments in her dreams. It would be even better if not for the fact that it stops cold at a pivotal point without any real ending.

Weird Mystery Tales #5 (Mar.–Apr. 1973): “Dream House”: Script by Jack Oleck, art by Alex Niño. The story is slight here, a simple ghost story, but the art

by Niño, who was then still new in American comics, is stunningly stylized.

Weird Mystery Tales #8 (Oct.–Nov. 1973): “Final Take”: Script by Kanigher (from an idea by Michael Pellowski, whose name is misspelled as Pellowsky), art by Tony DeZuniga. Variations of this story have been seen before and since. A horror movie is being made and the actors really are monsters. The fun comes from the fact that DeZuniga, arguably the best of all the imported artists of that era, illustrates it beautifully, depicting the protagonist as a Boris Karloff lookalike.

Weird Mystery Tales #9 (Dec. 1973–Jan. 1974): “Evil Power”: This was Eve’s first presentation and it’s pure and simply more amazement from Alex Niño, again scripted by his frequent collaborator, Oleck. It’s about a young man born with 28 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

The Second Host(ess) That old crone Eve, welcoming readers to Weird Mystery Tales #21 (Aug. 1975). Script by Paul Levitz, art by E. R. Cruz. Original art courtesy of Heritage. (above) Bernie Wrightson’s werewolves cover for that issue.

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Issue

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Amazing Chan Scan Courtesy of Heritage, original cover art to Weird Mystery Tales #23 (Oct. 1975), signed by artist Ernie Chan (a.k.a.

Chua). (inset) The published version.

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Mystery Tales #18 (May 1975): Lee Marrs arrives with “A Feline Feast.” It’s only two short pages, but it’s even more amusing in this age where cat lovers are everywhere on the Internet! There’s nothing the least bit amateurish about her art here but her non-mainstream style, as stated earlier, probably gave pause to the casual reader.

Weird Mystery Tales #19 (June 1975): Marrs appears again in this issue with “Flight.” It’s twice as long but more of a trifle as a young woman on the run boards a most unusual airplane to escape her crime.

Weird Mystery Tales #20 (June 1975): Mal Warwick and Reuben Yandoc serve up “The Friedman’s Monster.” Yes, it’s punctuated incorrectly in the original. This is a truly weird tale of a middleclass couple whose teen children are running wild. In flashback, we learn that they are just like their parents were in their youth until a demon appeared and made a deal to help the parents find the straight and narrow path. But in time, the parents locked the demon away. Now, he returns both to help them—and their children— and to punish them.

strange, unusual powers who turns to the dark side. Nice twist ending, too. This is powerful storytelling even today, but in 1973, the average reader was most likely overwhelmed by how different it looked compared to normal DC fare.

Weird Mystery Tales #10 (Feb.–Mar. 1974): “The Sunken Pearls of Captain Hatch”: Michael Fleisher, best remembered today for his weird (There’s that word again!) Spectre revival in Adventure Comics, scripted it, and Jess Jodlomon drew it, but it’s a testimony to the power or the art that, in spite of printing so bad it had to be apologized for in a later issue, this story of greedy treasure hunters sticks in one’s mind.

Weird Mystery Tales #14 (Oct.–Nov. 1974): “Flight Into Fright”: Script by George Kashdan, art by Ernie Chan (as Ernie Chua). This slight, silly, but scary confection reminds me of the short, tongue-incheek filler pieces on TV’s Night Gallery. The modern-day plot deals with how Count Dracula and his assistant, Quasimodo, expand their Transylvanian Tours operation.

Weird Mystery Tales #16 (Feb.–Mar. 1975): “The Curse of the Fool Moon”: Love him or hate him—and opinions differ strongly!—one can’t deny that Frank Robbins’ artwork makes you sit up and take notice. Robbins started out in a Milton Caniff style doing the great aviation newspaper strip Johnny Hazard for several decades. He turned up at DC as an editor/writer in the late ’60s and went on to do many memorable art jobs including this one, on a story written

by David Michelinie, known for his long, defining run on Marvel’s Iron Man. The story here deals with a bullied teen who uses a spell to turn himself into a werewolf in order to get revenge … only to have his mother inadvertently destroy the counter-spell!

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Weird Mystery Tales #22 (Sept. 1975): “Meet My Murderer”: Robert Kanigher, veteran editor and writer most associated with Sgt. Rock and Wonder Woman, teams with Teny (a.k.a. Tenny) Henson, one of the Filipino artists with a more familiar art style. Unlike most of the rest from the Phillipines, Henson’s style lent itself well to superheroes during his DC period. He would later end up working in animation for Filmation. This is another nicely drawn, atmospheric Twilight Zonestyle story in which an amateur ghost hunter accidentally captures her own murder on film.

Weird Mystery Tales #23 (Oct. 1975): “Fair Exchange”: With a plot credited to MAD’s Sergio Aragonés (who had done some spot cartoons in a previous issue) and a Steve Skeates script, this story is drawn by legendary EC Comics artist Wallace Wood (along with uncredited assistance from his then-studio mate Jack Abel). The story is a very reminiscent of an EC story, too, dealing as it does with a man who makes a deal with Death … or thinks he does.

Weird Mystery Tales #24 (Nov. 1975): “The Strange Ones”: Written by Jack Oleck, this is the final story in the final issue, and it is also the only straight science-fiction story to appear in the run of Weird Mystery Tales (although a few others touched on it around the edges). It is drawn, appropriately enough, by Michael Wm. Kaluta, the artist who started it all with his cover for the very first issue.

At the end of the day, Weird Mystery Tales was not that special— just another of DC’s many mystery titles that flooded the market almost as badly as Marvel’s often poor-quality reprints. But, man, there sure are some shiny gems to be found in its pages, and the discerning comics art fan will certainly enjoy the effort in finding them!

Oh, and Destiny? Don’t feel too sorry for him. He ended up getting his own Vertigo miniseries in 1997. Now, that’s just weird!

STEVEN THOMPSON, a.k.a. Booksteve, has worked behind the scenes on many pop-culture books and magazines and at any given time has at least ten blogs related to comic books, movies, and television.

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D o n Va u g h a n

In the early 1970s, as the Comics Code Authority gradually eased restrictions on horror content in comic books, things quickly got “weird” at DC Comics.

While the preceding articles in this issue cite DC editorial director Carmine Infantino’s edict that “Weird” would sell comics, Bob Rozakis observes that it may have been MAD Magazine founder William Gaines who suggested the use of the word “Weird.” He reports that Gaines was an unofficial advisor to Infantino and even had an office at DC. “Gaines may well have suggested using it, since Weird Science and Weird Fantasy had been mainstays of the EC era,” Rozakis notes.

Nonetheless, DC’s first official entry in the “Wonderful World of Weird” was DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #4, a “Weird Mystery Tales” one-shot— followed one month later by the first regularly issued “Weird” book, Weird War Tales, which premiered on July 1, 1971. While DC’s other war titles, such as Our Army at War, Star Spangled War Stories, and G.I. Combat continued to feature Nazis and other traditional foes, Weird War Tales dealt with the horrors of war in a decidedly different context.

THE WEIRDNESS BEFORE It must be noted, however, that DC was no stranger to unconventional war stories prior to the premiere of Weird War Tales. Star Spangled War Stories #90 (Apr.–May 1960), for example, introduced what quickly became known as “The War That Time Forgot,” a long-running series of stories that featured American servicemen fighting dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures on a mysterious island in the Pacific.

Eleven issues later, in Star Spangled War Stories #101 (Feb.–Mar. 1962), readers met G.I. Robot, a mechanical soldier that made occasional appearances throughout the series, and was resurrected in Weird War Tales #101 (July 1981). The first G.I. Robot, created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, was known as Joe. A second robot, named Mac, followed a few issues later. The character’s later incarnation in Weird War Tales was known as J.A.K.E. 1 (J.A.K.E. being an acronym for Jungle Automatic Killer, Experimental), and was soon followed by an improved model, J.A.K.E. 2.

Interestingly, a more contemporary G.I. Robot, created

by Lex Luthor for use by the US military, was featured in Batman Confidential #4 (May 2007).

The horribly disfigured Unknown Soldier also added an element of weirdness to DC’s war comics early in the game. Introduced in Our Army At War #168 (June 1966), with story by Robert Kanigher and art by Joe Kubert, the character didn’t make a return appearance until 1970, when he popped up in Star Spangled War Stories #151 (June–July 1970). A remarkable master of disguise, Unknown Soldier was an immediate hit and was featured in Star Spangled War Stories through #204 (Feb. 1977). With issue #205, the title

Any Time, Any Place From the collection of Shaun Clancy, a 2003 Weird War Tales commission by Ric Estrada.

Art © 2003 Ric Estrada. Weird War Tales TM & © DC Comics.

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Before Weird War Tales… …Star Spangled War Stories often was out-there with its “War That Time Forgot” series. Shown here are (left) the cover to #101 (Feb.–Mar. 1962), featuring G.I. Robot (Mach One), by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito; and (right) Russ Heath’s 2009 recreation of his cover to 1966’s SSWS #128 (courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions, www.ha.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

was changed to The Unknown Soldier and continued for another 64 issues. [Editor’s note: See BACK ISSUE #37 for more about The Unknown Soldier.]

Whereas most of DC’s war comics featured recurring characters, such as Sgt. Rock and Gunner and Sarge, Weird War Tales was initially an anthology series hosted

by Death, who was usually presented wearing some type of military garb. Though all of the stories had some sort of military theme, the horror element and frequent O. Henry-style endings made the series unique among DC’s war titles.

unprepared, the magazine was launched with its very heavy reprint content. It took Kubert several issues to get into the swing of doing new stories for this very different mag, and the output was low, although very good (as shown by the stories reprinted in this issue).

“Kubert eventually gave up all his war mags (except for his beloved Our Army at War with Sgt. Rock) and Weird War Tales came our way. The reprints were eliminated, and a monthly frequency assumed, and here we are today. Happy, except for the fact that we’ve never been able to inspire much reader comment about WWT.” IN THE BEGINNING...

Joe Kubert edited the first seven How Weird War Tales came to be is a issues of Weird War Tales before leaving bit of a saga. In a short text piece the title, and most of his other war titled “The Story Behind the Story of books, to work on Tarzan, a title DC Weird War Tales” featured in the letters had acquired after a 206-issue run at column of issue #36 (Apr. 1975), editor Dell/Gold Key. This move was underJoe Orlando offered this revelation: standable because Kubert had been a “…Few fans know it, but this die-hard fan of the fabled Ape Man marv wolfman issue really brings WWT full circle. At since childhood, when he would the beginning, Weird War Tales was immerse himself in Hal Foster’s Tarzan not going to be a magazine of its newspaper strip, and later read the Tarzan novels by own—just two issues of the Super DC Giant reprint series Edgar Rice Burroughs. When DC acquired the rights to which was then running. Editor Joe Kubert assembled Burroughs’ many characters, Kubert was ecstatic. So was a collection of classics, and added a new introduction ERB Inc., which considered Kubert the perfect writer/ and a short story relating to the cover. artist to continue Tarzan’s comic-book adventures.

“But then Super DC Giant was canceled, and WWT Marv Wolfman assisted during Kubert’s brief editorial was put on the schedule as a regular bimonthly. Caught stint on Weird War Tales. He recalls: “Kubert had me

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proof the stories, edit the scripts, and sometimes rewrite them on staff if the original script didn’t work. He’d have me follow the story through production, and make sure the work would get out on time. I would also put together the letters columns.

Plus a million other little things. I helped Joe get his passport set up so he could go to the Philippines when he started using those artists. In short, whatever was needed that Joe didn’t have the time or the inclination to do himself.”

Creepy Combat (top) Joe Kubert’s chilling cover to Weird War Tales #1 started the series with a bang, and (bottom) he provided interior art as well. Original art page 3 from issue #1, courtesy of Heritage.

CHANGES AT THE EDITOR’S DESK Joe Kubert was replaced on Weird War Tales by Joe Orlando, who was ably assisted during his reign by a number of talented individuals, including E. Nelson Bridwell, Michael Fleisher, and Paul Levitz. Observed Orlando in an interview that appeared in The Amazing World of DC Comics #6: “War is horror anyway, so I wanted to do a book that concentrated on the horror of war—to show what a nightmare the whole thing is. I combined a lot of what I learned on the mystery books into this one.”

Under Orlando’s editorship, which ran from issue #8 through 55, Weird War Tales evolved from several short stories per issue to more frequent book-length tales. “One of the books that I am most proud of is the book-length Weird War Tales that Shelly Meyer wrote, in which we took one character and paced him through three wars. [“October 30,” Weird War Tales #11, Feb. 1973],” Orlando continued. “Three parts of history—a past war, a relatively contemporary war, and a future war—and we did it with one character and a schtick that tied it in completely. joe kubert “I really think we’ve done a lot of good things in Weird War Tales … I think the book is © DC Comics. a good book, and the only reason it isn’t better is that it’s hard to get the right material for it. The single story thing that I’m doing now isn’t right for the book ... it’s an easy way to do it, but the full book concept is the right way.”

Orlando was followed on the editor’s desk by Paul Levitz, who edited Weird War Tales from issue #56 through 92. Levitz was replaced by Len Wein with #93, and Wein was replaced by Mike W. Barr with #104. Julius Schwartz, assisted by E. Nelson Bridwell, batted editorial clean-up, overseeing Weird War Tales from #109 through 124, its final issue.

TM & © DC Comics.

WEIRD WAR TAKES OFF As noted, the first few issues of Weird War Tales were a combination of reprints and shorter original stories. Issue #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1971), for example, featured a terrific Joe Kubert cover that revealed to readers exactly what they were in for as a skeleton in Nazi garb attacks a unit of terrified G.I.s. Kubert also wrote and illustrated a four-page story, “Let Me Tell You The Things I’ve Seen,” that introduced the book’s anthology concept, with Death as the narrator, and led directly to the issue’s first tale, “Fort Which Did Not Return!,” the tale of a WWII “ghost plane” written

by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Russ Heath. This story, originally titled “Secret of the Fort Which Did Not Return,” was first published in G.I. Combat #86 (Feb.–Mar. 1961).

Next up was a three-page story, again written and illustrated

by Kubert, that tells the tale “behind the cover.” The gist: A German commander is killed, along with his unit, during an attack by American forces, but his spirit doesn’t realize he is dead. He reports the incident to his commanders but they do not acknowledge or say anything to him. Believing his commanders refuse to speak because they are ashamed that he lost his men, the German commander returns to the front where, as a horrific specter, he wreaks vengeance against the Americans.

The first issue also featured “The End of the Sea Wolf,” written by Bob Haney and illustrated by Joe Kubert, which first appeared in Star Spangled War Stories #71 (July 1958); “Baker’s Dozen,” written by France Herron and illustrated by Irv Novick, first published in Star Spangled War Stories #116 (Aug.–Sept.

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Special Delivery (left) A foreboding telegram awaits Judy Crane on the chilling Kubert cover to Weird War Tales #2 (Nov.–Dec. 1971). (right) Neal Adams’ grabbin’-golem cover, WWT #8 (Nov. 1972).

TM & © DC Comics.

1964); and “You Must Go,” an original concluding tale written and illustrated by Kubert that brings the issue full circle.

Issue #2 (Nov.–Dec. 1971) confirms that Kubert was following a specific editorial structure with Weird War Tales, combining reprints with a small amount of new material. The issue begins with another introductory tale, written and illustrated by Kubert, which is followed by “Reef of No Return,” a fairly traditional war story with no overt horror written by Bob Haney and illustrated by Mort Drucker. This story was originally published in Our Fighting Forces #43 (Mar. 1959).

Following “Reef of No Return” was “The Moon Is The Murderer,” a four-page original story by Robert Kanigher and Frank Thorne about an encounter between an American soldier and a German soldier during World War I. The story is unique in that it contains no dialogue or exposition. Next up was a two-page “Behind the Cover” tale by Joe Kubert, followed by “A Promise to Joe!” by Kanigher and Novick, which originally appeared in G.I. Combat #97 (Dec. 1962–Jan. 1963); “Monsieur Gravedigger,” a new eight-pager by Jerry DeFuccio and Reed Crandall; and “The Face of a Fighter,” a six-page story by Bill Finger and Ross Andru that originally ran in Our Fighting Forces #25 (Sept. 1957).

FILLERS FULL OF FUN With issue #2, Kubert began including a bit of filler material. “Military Madness,” a humorous one-pager written and penciled by John Costanza, poked fun at drill sergeants with a Frankenstein twist (Costanza contributed several humorous one-pagers during the magazine’s early days), while “Sgt. Rock’s Battle Stations: Military Specialties of the Armed Forces,” written by Kubert and illustrated by Sam Glanzman, was a two-page examination of various weapons of war.

Reprints ran through all seven issues of Kubert’s editorial run on Weird War Tales. Some were simple war stories with a surprise twist, while others featured more horrific or sci-fi elements. In many cases, Kubert drew a new opening sequence for the older material, such as “Gypsy Girl” in Weird War Tales #4 (Mar.–Apr. 1972), a three-page intro for “Ghost Ship of Two Wars” by Kanigher and Novick that originally appeared in All-American Men of War #81 (Sept. 1960).

“Ghost Ship of Two Wars” was followed by “Time Warp” by Kanigher and Gene Colan, a dino-rich saga from the popular “War That Time Forgot” series first published in Star Spangled War Stories #123

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(Oct.–Nov. 1965). The issue concluded with a wrap-up of “Gypsy Girl” and a shock ending that is hinted on the cover.

Weird War Tales #5 contained more of the same, but was unique for including a profile of Cpl. Gerry Kisters, a real-life soldier who received a Distinguished Service Cross and a Medal of Honor for his bravery in combat during World War II. (The hook for the book is that Kisters believed himself immune to enemy fire—until he was struck seven times by a German sniper during a dangerous mission in Tunisia.) The four-page piece was written and illustrated by Norman Maurer, Kubert’s childhood friend and occasional collaborator.

Issue #6 of Weird War Tales kicked off with a stellar cover by Kubert featuring a shot-up soldier who is revealed to be a robot.

Unsurprisingly, robots were the theme of the issue. Among the highlights was a reprint of “Goliath of the Western Front” by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito, which originally appeared in Star Spangled War Stories #93 (Oct.–Nov. 1960). The 12-pager tells the story of an American G.I. who is constantly ribbed about his short stature—until he figures out how to destroy a huge Nazi robot capable of knocking planes out of the sky.

Original stories in issue #6 include brief but atmospheric introductory and concluding tales by Bob Haney and Alex Toth, and “Pawns” by Marv Wolfman and Frank Thorne. The latter is a fun little tale about robot soldiers that decide to stop fighting man’s wars because they have grown tired of the destruction.

BYE-BYE, REPRINTS! Reprints ceased for the most part when Joe Orlando took over as editor with Weird War Tales #8 (Nov. 1972). The issue featured a strong cover

by Neal Adams, who also inked Steve Harper’s pencils on “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” a World War II-set Golem story whose writer remains unknown.

The premier artist in issue #8, however, was Tony DeZuniga, who illustrated two tales penned by the always reliable Robert Kanigher: the wonderfully evocative “The Avenging Grave” and “Duel of the Dead,” an aviation story set during World War I. DeZuniga’s appearance in #8 heralded a rapid influx of illustrators from the Philippines, a previously untapped source of artistic talent that brought some new blood to DC in the mid-1970s. Indeed, Weird War Tales #9 (Dec. 1972) was a veritable

showcase for Filipino artists. “The Promise,” a centuries-spanning tale written by Kanigher and nicely illustrated by Alfredo Alcala, led the issue, and was followed by “Blood Brothers,” also penned

by Kanigher, with art by Gerry Talaoc. The issue concluded with a third Kanigher story, “The Last Battle,” illustrated by Alex Niño. These and many other extraordinary Philippine-based artists appeared in the pages of Weird War Tales throughout its run.

Weird War Tales attracted fans by featuring the words and pictures of numerous creators long revered for their work on DC’s war books. However, the series is notable, too, for featuring some of the first published works of a handful of creators who would later go on to far bigger things, most notably Frank Miller and Walter Simonson.

Miller’s first contribution to the series was “Deliver Me From D-Day,” scripted by Wyatt Gwyon, in Weird War Tales #64 (June 1978). He also illustrated two stories for Weird War Tales #68 (Oct. 1978): “The Greatest Story Never Told,” written by Paul Kupperberg, and a two-pager titled “The Day After Doomsday,” written by Roger McKenzie. Another story titled “The Day After Doomsday,” a shaggydog tale penned by Len Wein and illustrated by Jack Sparling, appeared in Weird War Tales #36 (Apr. 1975). It was a reprint from House of Secrets #86 (June–July 1970).

INTRODUCING WALT SIMONSON Simonson’s professional debut was “Cyrano’s Army,” a six-pager in Weird War Tales #10 (Jan. 1973), written by Len Wein, who would later go on to edit the series. Recalls Wein: “Walter came out and showed me his samples because he was looking to become an artist. I really liked what I saw, even though his style then was radically different from what his style evolved to over the years. I showed it Joe Orlando, who was editing Weird War Tales at that point, and Joe said, ‘It looks good. Why don’t we use him?’ So I wrote ‘Cyrano’s Army’ specifically for Walter. I was very pleased with how the story came out, especially since it was his first job.”

Relative newcomers Michael Kaluta and Frank Thorne also contributed some striking work to Weird War Tales, rivaling the best efforts of popular oldschool illustrators such as Sam Glanzman, Alex Toth, and George Evans.

Tony DeZuniga’s art for “The Avenging Grave” in Weird War Tales #8 shows well how the new breed of artists were changing the face of war comics. Beginning with the opening page, in which a single panel is divided into three, DeZuniga demonstrates a natural feel for action and characterization. His art is bold and full of life, effortlessly creating movement over several panels to demonstrate the cruelty of war and the heartless-

Weird Issue

Sword of Sorcery (left) WWT #13 DeZuniga page from Heritage. (right) Signed cover sketch for Weird War Tales #21 (Jan. 1974), by artist Luis Dominguez. From the Shaun Clancy collection. (inset) The published version.

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The Dogs of War (left) Courtesy of Terry Austin, original art from writer Jack C. Harris’ “Tales of the Great Disaster” story “Calamity from the Clyde,” from WWT #52 (Apr. 1977). Art by Marshall Rogers/Terry Austin. (right) Howard Chaykin cover to #61.

TM & © DC Comics.

ness of those who revel in it. The violence is appropriately presented, with unique layouts and panel configurations that effortlessly draw the reader’s eye as the story unfolds to its shivering climax. It’s a wonderfully presented tale and a harbinger of how the design and context of comic illustration was changing.

That’s not to say, of course, that the stories in Weird War Tales were in any way secondary to the art. While some stories were less impressive than others, the majority fulfilled their obligation to entertain. Most were very good, and some were exceptional. Robert Kanigher, who had been penning war stories for DC for many years before the debut of Weird War Tales in 1971, was one of the series’ most prolific scribes, appearing in a total of 35 issues, sometimes with multiple stories in a single issue. Bob Haney also provided some excellent tales, as did Sheldon Meyer, Arnold Drake, and Jack Oleck, among others.

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STORIES ANY TIME, ANY PLACE While the majority of DC’s war comics tended to focus on World War II, Weird War Tales featured stories across the ages—literally. Even after the series began focusing more on recurring characters such as the Creature Commandos and G.I. Robot, Weird War Tales featured shock stories set from the Stone Age to the far future and every era in between. World War II was well represented, of course, because Nazi and Japanese cruelty made for some excellent payback stories, usually ghostly and grisly in nature. But the Civil War, World War I, and even Vietnam were also common backdrops.

Weird War Tales continued its anthology format until #93 (Nov. 1980) with the introduction of the Creature Commandos. Though standalone stories still filled many pages, continuing characters became more the norm under the editorship of Len Wein.

“Sales were starting to slack off,” Wein reports. “The book was almost 100 issues old at that point, and it dawned on me that there had been a lot of cool series that Bob Kanigher had done back in the days of G.I. Combat that I, as a kid, had been a fan of. I thought, ‘Why don’t we come up with a regular series of features and see if that helps sales of the book?’ So I went to Bob Kanigher and asked him to bring back G.I. Robot and one of my all-time favorite series, ‘The War That Time Forgot.’ I used to love that series. G.I.s versus dinosaurs? You can’t beat that with a hammer.”

Wein says he also came up with the idea for the Creature Commandos. “I took over House of Mystery not long before that, and it also was having a problem with sales, and I came up with the basic premise of ‘I… Vampire’ as a regular feature in that book,” he notes. “The premise for ‘Creature Commandos’ was, ‘What if the Universal Monsters fought for our side during World War II?’ I gave both I… Vampire and the Creature Commandos to [J. M.] Marc DeMatteis and said, here, go have fun.”

WWT in WWI Title page from a World War I-set tale by David Michelinie and Walter Simonson, from Weird War Tales #72 (Feb. 1979).

TM & © DC Comics.

DeMatteis recalls the development of the Creature Commandos a little differently. “When I first broke in at DC in the late 1970s, much of my work was for Weird War Tales,” he says. “I was a hungry young writer, wracking my brain for ideas, and thought, ‘Well, they want war and they want weird. How about monsters fighting World War II?’ It was that simple.

“I was going to pitch the idea to Paul Levitz—the guy who bought my first stories and opened the door to the business for me—but then came the infamous DC Implosion and, after six months of selling stories, I was out. When work started coming back the next year, I found myself working with Len Wein. Len was looking for series ideas for Weird War Tales and House of Mystery. I dusted off the Creature Commandos pitch, Len liked it and we were off. I also created I… Vampire for House of Mystery. Len gave me the title and I built the series from there.”

THE LEN WEIN INFLUENCE DeMatteis credits Wein with helping him develop Creature Commandos and its unique characters. “I don’t recall specifics, but I valued and respected Len’s opinions,” he notes. “He was very important to me as both a trusted mentor and dear friend. I’m sure he had plenty of feedback to offer and I’m sure I listened to all of it and incorporated it into the series.

“I think Len’s biggest influence, on everything we worked on together, was helping me to really dig into the characters and make the stories matter emotionally. Those are the kinds of stories Len is best at, the kinds of stories I’m most attracted to.

You can see why we got along.”

DeMatteis scripted five of the 18 Creature Commandos stories to appear in the first incarnation of Weird War Tales. Mike W. Barr wrote “Dinosaur Convoy” for issue #100 (June 1981) and Robert Kanigher picked up the series with #109 (Mar. 1982).

• Pvt. “Lucky” Taylor, a kind-hearted Marine whose Kanigher penned a total of 12 Creature Commandos body was devastated when he stepped on a mine stories, including the very bizarre one-page story in while fighting in the Pacific Theater. The reconstruction the series’ final issue that saw the Creature Commandos process turned Taylor into a massive brute with sent into space. More on that in a moment. incredible strength, a là Frankenstein’s Monster.

The Creature Commandos is undoubtedly one He was also mute and, inexplicably, green. of the silliest ideas ever conceived for a comic-book j.m. dematteis series—and one of the most fun. What 12-year-old CREATURE COMMANDOS TAKE OFF wouldn’t love the idea of his favorite movie monsters After a brief introduction, the Creature Commandos kicking Nazi butt during World War II? are flown to France so they can destroy a German stronghold The first Creature Commandos story in Weird War Tales #93 housing Nazi-created robotic replicas of Allied leaders, including (Nov. 1980), illustrated by Pat Broderick and John Celardo, introduced Franklin Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, and Winston Churchill. After dealing the monstrous characters, who were created as part of a secret with an army of nasty Nazis, the Creature Commandos barely escape military experiment called Project M to terrorize the enemy. before blowing up the stronghold with explosives.

They include: The Creature Commandos returned in Weird War Tales #97 • Lt. Matthew Shrieve, US Army Intelligence. He is the C.O. of the (Mar. 1981), in a DeMatteis-scripted story titled “The Faceless Enemy.”

In this eight-pager, the Commandos rescue a female French scientist Creature Commandos.

• Warren Griffith, a 4F Oklahoma farm boy afflicted with lycanthropy, and accompany her to what is believed to be an abandoned village. a psychological condition that causes people to believe they are But it’s a trap—the woman isn’t who they believe her to be—and the wolves. Government scientists managed to make the condition a Germans are waiting. However, the woman has a change of heart at the physical reality, though Griffith occasionally had difficulty maintaining last moment, and dies warning Shrieve and his Creature Commandos. the change to wolfman. As a result, he often returned to human form Enraged, the monsters annihilate their attackers before moving on.

The third Creature Commandos tale, in Weird War Tales #100 at the worst possible times.

• Sgt. Vincent Velcro, who joined Project M to avoid a 30-year (June 1981), drops the Creature Commandos into the War That Time stretch in a military prison. By injecting him with experimental Forgot. “Dinosaur Convoy,” written by Mike W. Barr with art by Bob compounds and the blood of vampire bats, the scientists at Project M Hall and Jerry Ordway, transports the Creature Commandos to the successfully transformed Velcro into a real-life vampire, complete with Pacific, where they attempt to halt a Japanese convoy while battling the ability to turn into a bat. (There was, however, no explanation of an array of dinosaurs. Upon finding out that the enemy convoy has why he was always fully clothed when he returned to human form, already started, Lt. Shrieve and his men turn the huge reptiles into living or where he stored the large walking stick he always seemed to carry.) weapons that easily destroy the Japanese ships. When Shrieve reveals Weird Issue

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Creature Features (across top and opposite) Six Creature Commandos covers. (left) The splash from the Creature Commandos’ first appearance, from WWT #93 (Nov. 1980).

TM & © DC Comics.

that he took photos of the prehistoric creatures, which the War Department likely will turn into killing machines, “Lucky” Taylor grabs the camera and throws it into the sea. “You made us monsters, Shrieve, made us fight your stinking war—but that’s something we can understand,” Velcro explains. “These dinosaurs are simple creatures, living the only lives they know … and you won’t do to them what you’ve done to us. Not this time.”

The fourth Creature Commandos story, in Weird War Tales #102 (Aug. 1981), sees the Commandos duking it out with a character we are led to believe is Adolf Hitler (actually a look-alike) in a wild battle royale. Written by DeMatteis and illustrated

by Fred Carrillo, “The Children’s Crusade” pits the Creature Commandos against a group of German children driven to murder and madness by an experimental drug. The story concludes with the children turning against the Nazi scientist who created them as the Creature Commandos make their escape.

KANIGHER’S KONTRIBUTIONS Kanigher brought some new life and intriguing storylines to the Creature Commandos, and smartly added a female member to the squad in issue #110 (Apr. 1982). Dr. Myrna Rhodes was a plastic surgeon who repaired Lt. Shrieve’s face following an enemy attack. After the Creature Commandos see how the good doctor assisted their commanding officer, they beg her to return them to human form, but are informed that their conditions are irreversible. Enraged, the monsters rampage through a hospital corridor, exposing Dr. Rhodes to a mix of experimental chemicals that turn her into a real-life gorgon, complete with a headful of writhing snakes. After using her unfortunate condition to help the unit eliminate a group of Nazi soldiers, Dr. Rhodes— a.k.a. Dr. Medusa—joins the Creature Commandos for more adventures. In later issues, a new version of G.I. Robot also became a member of the unusual fighting team.

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The Creature Commandos is an unusual series, especially when revisited today. Most striking is the violence, which is excessive and often bloody. (Notably egregious is “The Children’s Crusade,” which shows extreme violence against children.) Warren Griffith, when in the form of a werewolf, is particularly savage and eager to kill. Additionally, Velcro the vampire must feast on blood to survive, and often doesn’t care where he gets it. Only the Frankenstein-like “Lucky” Taylor and Dr. Medusa demonstrate a kind heart.

Equally odd is the overall tone of the series, especially Lt. Shrieve’s relationship with the Creature Commandos. Despite his role in their creation and his need for their assistance in fighting the enemy, he treats them all quite badly, constantly referring to them as “freaks.” In “The Children’s Crusade,” when Velcro exclaims, “Oh my God!” after witnessing a particularly gruesome scene, Shrieve states: “You’re a vampire, Velcro … God doesn’t want to have anything to do with you!” This comment is especially grotesque considering that Velcro’s vampirism is man-made, and that he volunteered for the transformation.

WHAT THE…?

The Creature Commandos, G.I. Robot, and the War That Time Forgot continued through the final issues of Weird War Tales.

What happened to the Creature Commandos in the final issue, #124 (June 1983), has to be one of the strangest send-offs in comic-book history. The one-page tale, written by Robert Kanigher, finds the Creature Commandos, G.I. Robot, and, inexplicably, Kanigher himself—complete with signature pipe— sentenced to death by firing squad for “rebelliously displaying signs of humanity.” The death decree is signed by “Paul Levitz, General, Commanding.”

War is Hell Death (a cousin of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman character, perhaps?) is featured on this intro page to Weird War Tales #95 (Jan. 1981). Original Greg LaRocque/Rodin Rodriguez art courtesy of Anthony Snyder (anthonyscomicbookart.com).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Howling Commandos The Creature Commandos tackle a real-life universal monster, Adolf Hitler.

Original cover art to Weird War Tales #108 (Feb. 1982) by Joe Staton and Bruce Patterson; courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

Before the sentence can be carried out, we learn that the group has been given a final mission: to man an ICBM and hit Hitler’s Chancellery in Berlin. However, a malfunction sends the rocket and its crew into the outer reaches of space instead. “The end (or the beginning),” reads the final panel.

And so concluded Weird War Tales. Cause of death: declining sales. “With the newsstand drying up as the major venue of comics sales, titles aimed at comic shops were replacing newsstand-oriented books like Weird War Tales,” notes Paul Levitz. “It was just a matter of time.”

Oddly, while the title lasted 124 issues—a healthy run by any standard—it generated few fan letters and little excitement within mainstream fandom, especially when compared to DC’s superhero titles.

Nonetheless, Weird War Tales managed to find its niche. “I don’t know about overall sales, but I can say that Weird War Tales was one of the more popular titles I had for sale when I drove the DC Comicmobile,” reports Bob Rozakis.

“Those who liked the war books would often buy it based on the cover. (‘Wow! He’s fighting a skeleton!’)”

Adds Wein: “I think it walked the line between two entirely different genres. It attracted what war fans were still left, and it attracted fans of supernatural stories. The wonderful aspect of it was it said ‘weird war,’ not ‘weird World War II,’ so you could do stories set in any combat situation. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, cavemen, whatever you could think of. I thought that was one of the book’s advantages.”

MORE WEIRD WAR

Weird War Tales was resurrected for a fourissue revival in 1997 under DC’s Vertigo imprint. A more mature version of the initial series, it featured stories and art by some pretty big names, including Richard Corben, Brian Azzarello, Michael Kaluta, and Joe R. Lansdale, among others. In 2000 and 2010, DC issued Weird War Tales one-shot anthologies, and in 2012, the first 21 issues of the original series were collected in a thick Showcase Presents black-and-white omnibus. len wein In 2000, the Creature Commandos were brought back for an eight-issue miniseries, scripted by Tim Truman and penciled by Scot Eaton. The convoluted story, set in an unidentified future, finds the Commandos battling an inter-dimensional enemy hellbent on taking over Earth. But this isn’t the Creature Commandos from the days of yore. There are some new members, including a bogman reminiscent of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Gunner Mackey (a recurring character in Our Fighting Forces), who was killed during World War II and brought back to life as an android complete with a .50-caliber mini-cannon for a right arm. Project M also had a new leader: Capt. Lucius Hunter.

The Creature Commandos appeared in various storylines in other DC titles in the years that followed, and in early 2014, DC reprinted all of the original Creature Commandos stories from Weird War Tales in a special collected edition featuring a great Joe Kubert cover. In the summer of 2014, Creature Commandos animated shorts began airing on Cartoon Network (see inset), and the Weird War Tales tradition continued on in the New 52 with the release of the new series Star-Spangled War Stories featuring G.I. Zombie.

Weird War Tales was an unusual experiment TM & © DC Comics. that ultimately proved successful for DC, comfortably chugging along for more than a decade before finally running out of steam.

“Hopefully the series’ legacy is a bunch of stories that entertained people, and work given to talented people,” observes Paul Levitz. “I’m glad it’s remembered.”

DON VAUGHAN has had a love affair with comic books since he was 11 years old. His writing has appeared in an eclectic array of publications, including Military Officer Magazine, Nursing Spectrum, Filmfax, and The Weekly World News.

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by

Philip Schweier

When asked to be interviewed for BACK ISSUE, Howard Chaykin responded with an enthusiastic affirmative, followed by, “What’s the article about?”

“IronWolf,” I answered.

Over the phone, I could hear his eyes rolling back in his skull as he responded, “Who gives a sh*t?”

Anyone familiar with Howard’s constant self-reinvention shouldn’t be surprised. IronWolf is Chaykin’s earliest creation, its original incarnation lasting only three issues. He is content to let it rest in peace deep in the fathoms of his professional history.

IronWolf dates back to Weird Worlds #8 (Nov.–Dec. 1973). At the time, Chaykin was still somewhat new to the comic-book business.

Becoming a professional comic-book creator was all he ever wanted to do, and his career path was such that it became all he was suited to do. “I had limited skills, so I taught myself to compete,” he says.

Following apprenticeships with Gil Kane, Neal Adams, and Gray Morrow, Chaykin was part of a new generation of artists. Forty years later, Chaykin continues the tradition of mentorship. On behalf of Marvel Comics, he and artist Klaus Janson frequently conduct seminars for the benefit of new artists who might be superb draftsmen, but whose storytelling skills could use some coaching.

In one such seminar, it was said that a young comic-book artist can expect to endure a great deal of shame and embarrassment the first ten years or so, as he or she develops and perfects his or her craft. “I didn’t have the opportunity to do it in howard chaykin school,” says Chaykin, “so I have ten years of shame, but I did it in public, so I can’t disavow it.

That was my education.”

Denny O’Neil, who collaborated with Chaykin first on Sword of Sorcery and later on Weird Worlds, says the young artist seemed to have a flare for fantasy material.

“He is and was a dream to work with. He was young, he was enthusiastic, he was a real pro from the get-go. He once told me, ‘I’m in this for the long haul,’ meaning that he saw it as a job.”

O’Neil defines what a good comic artist is: “Someone who understands that what this is about is narrative. It’s his job to provide more than half of the storytelling. A comic-book story is not 125 pictures, it is 125 pictures that form a continuity and a narrative. [Artists] have to either have learned or been instinctively familiar with all the tricks that movie cinematographers use, and at the same time bear in mind this is a printed medium; it’s not a movie, and print has its own restrictions.

“All that, Howard was eager to learn, and he learned fast. By the time I got hold of him he was by any definition a working comicbook artist, and he continued to get better.”

BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR In 1972, DC Comics acquired the rights to Tarzan. Weird Worlds was later launched as a companion title featuring other Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) creations such as John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar.

As a boy, Chaykin had devoured the Edgar Rice Burroughs books.

“I read A Fighting Man of Mars, the seventh in the series, the day before

During the Conan Craze Weird Worlds #8 (Nov.–Dec. 1973), featuring the first appearance of Howard Chaykin’s IronWolf (a.k.a Iron-Wolf and Iron Wolf).

TM & © DC Comics.

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my bar mitzvah,” he recalls. “I had a fever of 102, which became 104 and the German measles, and I thought, ‘How long has this been going on?’”

Chaykin argues that the golden age of a comic-book reader is 12.

“That’s the age where you latch onto some sh*tty title with capes and masks, and no matter how sophisticated an adult you may evolve into, you always have a fondness for that God-awful crap.”

Chaykin was among the many comic-book creators inspired by the works of Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. “Gardner Fox—Adam Strange. It’s just John Carter with a different name,” Chaykin points out.

Often, the hurdle with licensed properties in the world of comic books is that the lion’s share of profits go to the owner, in this case, ERB, Inc. Tarzan proved profitable enough to both companies to sustain an ongoing series, but the other characters failed to find an audience.

As a result, the partnership between DC and ERB, Inc. was scaled back.

With the ERB material jettisoned from Weird Worlds, a void was created. Enter IronWolf.

“TALES OF FANTASTIC ADVENTURE” Chaykin had been working with Denny O’Neil on Sword of Sorcery, a fantasy title from DC Comics. In the early 1970s, the debut of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian opened the field for more fantasy-oriented material. DC’s entry starred Fafhrd the Barbarian and the Gray Mouser, a pair of swashbuckling rogues created by fantasy author Fritz Leiber.

Writer/editor Denny O’Neil had convinced DC management to publish the adventures of a seven-foot, redhaired barbarian and a pint-sized sneak thief as they brawl, steal, and gamble their way through the comic-book pages.

“Roy [Thomas] was doing good work with the Conan stuff at Marvel, and I had always liked Fritz Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery stories,” O’Neil tells BACK ISSUE. “Whoever I talked to—it might have been Carmine [Infantino, then-publisher of DC Comics]—said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

It was intended for Leiber to collaborate on the comic-book adaptation, but he was unavailable and O’Neil wrote the scripts without him. Some of the stories were entirely original.

The project appealed to Chaykin from the get-go, and he expressed his interest to O’Neil. Another artist was already the front-runner, so O’Neil asked both artists to work up some samples.

Chaykin put forth more effort in his work and won the job. Sword of Sorcery #1 debuted with a cover date of Feb.–Mar. 1973.

“I was a Fritz Leiber fan from the minute I first read him,” Chaykin said in The Art of Howard Chaykin. “I still adore his work.”

However, as the series continued, Chaykin fell behind. Neal Adams and his Continuity Associates pitched in under the collective “Crusty Bunkers” inking credit. The book never quite caught on and was canceled with Sword of Sorcery #5 (Nov.–Dec. 1973), published the same month as Weird Worlds #8, in which IronWolf first appeared.

FORGING A HERO IronWolf fit the milieu of Weird Worlds rather well, seemingly inspired by the great space-opera characters created by ERB, and those who followed in his fantasy footsteps, such as Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, and others. Add to that a certain amount of Shakespearean drama in the form of royal corruption and family betrayal, it certainly elevated the level of mid-1970s comic-book storytelling.

IronWolf is a prince of Illium, a planet on which trees grow that produce anti-gravity wood, the key component to spacecraft of the day. But Empress Erika Klein-Hernandez believes IronWolf’s service in the Empire Galaktika places the anti-gravity trees under her tight-fisted control. She tries to win IronWolf’s cooperation, but when neither love nor money will change his mind, she resorts to less agreeable means.

Caught between the empress’ allies in the vampiric Blood Legion and his own brother’s treachery, IronWolf is forced to destroy the forest of anti-gravity trees, quite literally burning away his legacy.

Eventually he is taken in by Shebaba O’Neal, leader of a band of rebels determined to oust the corrupt Empire Galaktika.

This forces IronWolf to become an outlaw against the crown, in the grand tradition of Robin Hood. The swashbuckling influences of IronWolf are obvious, owing no small part to such films as The Three Musketeers (1948). It’s easy to say that he follows a daredevil archetype, pioneered by Douglas Fairbanks and perfected by Errol Flynn.

At the time, comic books often featured letters pages, but in the case of Weird Worlds #8, letters commenting on the ERB material DC was no longer publishing seemed pointless, and, of course, there were no letters yet for IronWolf. So editor Denny O’Neil was called upon to put together a text page.

O’Neil is often credited for pioneering “relevance” in comics, thanks to his landmark run with Neal Adams on Green Lantern in the

Direct Currents (top) This full-page house ad appeared in Weird Worlds #7, the last issue to feature ERB characters; it touted the title’s new star. (bottom) This 1/3-page variation appeared in other DC titles just prior to WW #8’s release.

TM & © DC Comics.

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IronWolf Remastered Liz Berube recolored Chaykin’s Weird Worlds stories for a 1987 IronWolf one-shot deluxe-format reprint. And yes, that’s Walter Simonson’s lettering!

TM & © DC Comics.

early 1970s. So it is fitting that on the text page of Weird Worlds #8, he comments that when he, Chaykin, and Carmine Infantino were planning IronWolf, the expectation was that with all its fantasy elements, it was very far from relevant.

“As it turned out—wrong.

“For some weeks, we’ve been learning that men we trusted, men we believed in, have betrayed us. There is an almighty smell of corruption coming from places where most Americans least suspected it,” O’Neil wrote. “We’ve lost, perhaps forever, a portion of the faith we live by.”

As the Watergate scandal of the Nixon Administration unfolded, it became clear that IronWolf was in exactly the same situation.

“Consider the irony,” O’Neil continued. “A trio of comic-book makers, intending to create a wholly imaginative story, find themselves, instead, creating a parable. A Moral Tale. A piece of Relevance.”

In the next chapter, IronWolf manages to infiltrate the palace, hidden among a troop of actors. But when Lord Omikel of the Blood Legion manages to spill innocent blood, IronWolf blames himself, vowing there will be a reckoning in the wake of his failed mission.

Weird Worlds #9 (Jan.–Feb. 1974) also features the first of two bonus stories “Tales from the House of IronWolf.” They chronicle adventures from generations past, as two brothers square off against one another; one, a cowardly lord, the other, a swashbuckling brigand.

The story is attributed to Chaykin and John Warner, with art by Vincente Alcazar. However, Chaykin’s involvement was minimal at best. “I have no memory of those,” he says.

Once again in lieu of a letters page, Denny O’Neil crafted a text piece in which he explained, “The idea is anyone interested in the Lord IronWolf should also be interested in his ancestors and the events which led to his deadly struggle with the Empress and her nasty cohort Omikel. Call these stories a history—of the day after tomorrow.”

O’Neil also wrote of IronWolf’s reception around the DC offices.

“A few folk feel that Howie Chaykin has gone too far. They admire the characters he’s created and the universe he fabricated for them to inhabit, but they say everything is overly complex.”

He defended Chaykin, saying, “You’ve got to read the adventures of IronWolf. You can’t merely skim.”

It was the belief at the time among Chaykin’s supporters that audiences would respond to the sort of epic he was creating. “IronWolf is not easy to do,” O’Neil wrote. “I’ve written something like 500 comics scripts and I’ve never worked harder than I’m working now.”

Perhaps those words were too prophetic, as Weird Worlds #10 (Oct.–Nov. 1974) would not hit the stands for close to eight months.

Making this gap even more puzzling is that #10 would be the last issue, raising the question of, “Why even bother?”

According to Chaykin, “Back in those days, the production department at DC pretty much ran the show.” This supports speculation that there was an opening in the print schedule, and DC merely chose to publish a comic book—any comic book—that was completed.

According to O’Neil, the whys and hows of a canceled book were often never shared with the editors who helmed them. “If you read any of the good histories and studies of comics you realize it was a very loosey-goosey business. I don’t know what was in those guys’ heads. One of Dick Girodano’s problems with being an editor at DC when I was working for him was he didn’t have the information.

When I started editing there—well, when I was freelance editing I never saw sales figures, neither did anybody else. I know in some instances, because I had some knowledge of how the system worked, things were canceled that could not have been canceled because of sales because even estimate sales figures weren’t available for three months, and accurate sales information took about nine months. So, somebody didn’t like it, somebody had a feeling, I have no idea.”

Nevertheless, on the text page for Weird Worlds #10, O’Neil wrote, “…WW is a critical success. And sales reports indicate that it is a commercial success. Then why this abrupt end?

“In a word: Ecology.”

O’Neil’s statement, “We can’t get enough paper to publish it,” may be interpreted to mean that paper prices at the time were forcing DC Comics to concentrate its resources on proven money-makers such as Superman and Batman. But again, that is mere speculation.

O’Neil enjoyed working with Chaykin on IronWolf. “It didn’t seem to have much of an impression at the business level. I don’t know if those guys [DC management] understood the genre. It wasn’t about guys with big muscles and capes.”

In the final chapter, IronWolf flees to the outer worlds, hoping to avoid the reach of the empire for a while. There, he agrees to smuggle cargo for Shebaba’s uncle, only to learn the cargo is a highly addictive drug that turns men into monsters. Realizing the pervasiveness of corruption, the disillusioned freedom fighter is left to ponder what exactly he is fighting for.

A rebel without a cause, IronWolf becomes a hero without a home, a character whose comic book has been canceled.

IRONWOLF REDUX In the mid-1970s, Chaykin continued to perfect his craft working on various anthology titles for both DC and Marvel. In 1976, he introduced Cody Starbuck in the pages of Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach, an independently published black-and-white comic book aimed at more mature audiences.

Arguably, Cody Starbuck is little more than IronWolf recycled.

Even their ships share the same name—the Limerick Rake. But this is merely an early example of the mold from Chaykin’s heroes are made.

He cites Henry Fonda, William Holden, and James Garner as three archetypes that embody his personal concept of what heroes should look and act like. “You know, grace under pressure, common decency with a sidewinder’s sensibility,” he says. Usually, they are left-handed as well.

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Both IronWolf and Cody Starbuck capitalize on many of the same science-fiction tropes—corrupt empires, roguish rebels, and flashing blades among the laser pistols. Such story elements may have contributed to Chaykin being tapped by George Lucas to illustrate the Marvel Comics adaptation of Star Wars in 1977.

Before Han Solo made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, there was IronWolf. However, it would be unfair to previous generations of heroes to suggest Chaykin’s character was an influence on Han Solo. Nevertheless, there exist undeniable similarities. They represent archetypes—charming rogues who get by on their wits. When that fails, they are quick to pick up a weapon and let fortune favor the bold.

Despite the success of Star Wars, Chaykin remained a utility player in the world of comic books, supplementing occasional comic-book work by doing more full-color illustrations. His painted work led to Cody Starbuck appearing in the pages of Heavy Metal in 1981.

IRONWOLF REVISITED In 1983, after ten years of professional comic-book work, Chaykin became an overnight sensation when his American Flagg! was released by First Comics.

It was a critical and commercial hit, and suddenly this “new” artist was much in demand. Three years later, Chaykin left Flagg! to write and draw a four-issue miniseries for DC Comics featuring an updated Shadow. He followed it up in 1988 with a revival of Blackhawk. Both projects lead to ongoing series capitalizing on ideas originally presented by Chaykin.

In 1987, between the two projects, DC chose to reprint his original three IronWolf chapters in a single comic book. In the reprint, Chaykin cited an article in Playboy that argued, “Behind every great writer lies a ton of journeyman work.

“At any rate, it just goes to show ya—you work your fingers to a frazzle … in your apprenticeship, unnoticed and unacknowledged, managing to glean the intricacies of your chosen craft one small, clumsy, lumpen step at a time—then some grave-robbing lowlife, often a professional … with an interest in posterity (yeah, right, posterity) comes along and, with a barely sketched by-your-leave, this exhumer of your past proceeds to unearth all of the early, embryonic (some might say stillborn) efforts of an ill-spent youth.”

In this case, the grave-robber in question was Mike Gold, who had been Chaykin’s editor on American Flagg! and was now working for DC Comics.

“He was reluctant,” Gold says, pointing out that many artists have little interest in seeing their early work reprinted. But Gold cites the “integrity” of IronWolf. “What I meant was that IronWolf was one of his earliest mainstream jobs where his personal style and approach was unleashed.”

Gold believed that Chaykin’s many fans who knew his work best from American Flagg! would enjoy seeing IronWolf. “At the time of the reprint, the comparatively large base of comics retailers were baby boomers who saw Howard evolve and by and large had fond memories of the project. I was certain the book would do at least okay, particularly mike gold given the timing of the release.”

Coming in the aftermath of Chaykin’s work on American Flagg and The Shadow, marketing such early work might seem risky, but Gold disagrees. “I saw it as a moment in time,” he says.

To Gold, repackaging IronWolf was a no-brainer, pointing out it didn’t take massive sales to make a reprint profitable, describing it as a win-win for everybody. The publisher would make at least some money with minimal cost and time, and the talent gets a check. The fans that enjoy the talents’ work get a nice book, the fans who enjoyed the original series get that, too.

Gold convinced Chaykin to take a more objective look at the material.

WW Times Two (top) Denny O’Neil’s editorial from the last issue of Weird Worlds. (bottom) Chaykin returned to IronWolf for this illo in Who’s Who #11 (Jan. 1986).

TM & © DC Comics.

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Give ’Em Hell, Boy! (left) Chaykin’s cover to DC’s 1987 IronWolf reprint edition. (right) Softcover edition (1993) of the graphic novel IronWolf: Fires of the Revolution, co-written

by Chaykin and John Francis Moore and illustrated by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell.

It was originally published in hardcover a year earlier.

TM & © DC Comics.

“I’ll be damned,” Chaykin wrote in his introduction. “Certainly the work is rough in places (LOTS of places) and I cringe at what passed for graphic design under my then-unskilled hands.

But hot damn, it’s honest work—and as enthusiastic as only youth untethered can be.”

More recently, Chaykin distills the thought further, saying, “That ‘integrity’ translates to ‘youthful enthusiasm,’ because that’s about all I had going for me in those days.”

Chaykin wrote in his introduction “…unlike the other bits and pieces that all tie together to pass for a history, this book was seminal.

Nearly every idea, attitude, theme, or obsession that makes up my recent work was tossed out for your enjoyment in IronWolf.”

IRONWOLF REVIVED In 1991, Chaykin brought together DC Comics’ rich legacy of space-borne heroes for a three-part epic entitled Twilight. The story, illustrated by the incomparable José Luis García-López, featured such characters as futuristic private eye Star Hawkins and interplanetary policeman Tommy Tomorrow.

At this time in his career, Chaykin had developed a reputation for deconstructing heroes. They were no longer as pure of heart as they had been in decades past. Instead, his characters were seriously flawed, and his heroes not only had feet of clay, but shins, knees, and upper thighs as well.

Making a brief appearance in Twilight was Chaykin’s own IronWolf, whose anti-gravity wooden ships play a larger role in pivotal events. Perhaps this whetted the appetite for more.

In 1991, Chaykin collaborated with Mike Mignola on a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser miniseries for Marvel. “I love Mike,” Chaykin gushes.

“We have reputational similarities for being curmudgeonly. I’m crazy about his wife. She’s a lovely person and too good for him.”

Chaykin and Mignola reunited the following year to resurrect IronWolf for a 96-page graphic novel, Fires of the Revolution. Joining them were co-writer John Francis Moore, who had worked with Chaykin on the Flash TV series, and inker P. Craig Russell.

Like many so-called “re-imaginings,” the story more or less starts out where it had left off years before, but then proceeds to jettison

concepts that are no longer viable. It is safe to say that a roguish starship captain joining a band of rebels in its fight against an evil empire had been done already.

The story is a bit of sidebar for Chaykin’s Twilight, referencing prior events as Brian IronWolf finds a new cause and new allies, yet the same enemies.

Betrayed by an ally, IronWolf witnesses the gruesome death of Shebaba and the destruction of the Limerick Rake. Forced to abandon ship, he ends up in a coma for eight years. Upon his revival, he discovers the Empire Galaktika replaced with a commonwealth, and a former ally—the source of his destruction—conspiring with the former empress Erika Klein-Hernandez to restore the empire.

Intrigue follows as IronWolf navigates the treacherous waters of intergalactic politics, once more leading to a new revolution against an oppressive ruling class.

Despite his involvement in Fires of the Revolution, Chaykin has little memory of the project. “They told me it didn’t sell well, yet I’m always signing them at shows,” he says, dismissively.

When describing IronWolf today, Chaykin refers to the idea as “antiquarian futurist,” reinforcing it to be “anticipatory of steampunk.”

Well before science-fiction author K. W. Jeter coined that term in 1977, IronWolf piloted a starship made of polished wood and brass.

In his introduction for the IronWolf reprint of 1987, Mike Gold stated, “Until a few years ago, Chaykin had been doomed to be continuously ahead of his time. I’m glad to say we’ve all caught up with IronWolf.”

That may be true. Many of the comic-book and science-fiction conventions today feature a healthy dose of steampunk. But that doesn’t make a new IronWolf adventure any more likely. Chaykin has no desire to revisit the character, or many of the associated ideas.

“Never!” he says. “I’d rather snort paint.”

PHILIP SCHWEIER is a graphic designer and freelance writer living in Savannah, Georgia.

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The house ads in DC comics in the mid-’70s were trumpeting a slew of new titles as the fabled “DC Explosion” began in earnest. One ad in particular featured seven new titles to include Justice, Inc., showcasing pulp hero the Avenger; Claw the Unconquered; Joe Kubert’s latest incarnation of Tor; The Warlord; Beowulf, Dragon Slayer; Kong the Untamed, a literal descendant of Howard Post’s Anthro; and finally, “The Man with the Stolen Soul”: Stalker. Most of these titles didn’t see an issue #7 and Stalker itself only made it four issues, but Stalker left its mark through some particularly imaginative settings and moving, dynamic artwork that truly transported readers into another realm.

The creative team in place for this new saga of sword and sorcery was Joe Orlando as editor, Paul Levitz providing scripts, and art by the team of Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. Any comic fan worth their salt already knew that Ditko and Wood had collaborated numerous times in the past, even as early as 1966, right around the time the co-creator of Spider-Man walked away from his most well-known work. Steve did some penciling followed by Wood inks on Wallace’s own T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents title and later contributed to Witzend. The artistic team could also be found on a couple of issues of Atlas’ Destructor and even a short humor piece likely planned for an issue of Plop! but printed in issue #13 of The Amazing World of DC Comics. Wood’s lush inkwork was always a terrific embellishment to Ditko’s pencils, but as Bernie Wrightson, who also inked Steve on an Atlas title (Moorlock 2001 and the Midnight Men #3, July 1975) has observed: “Everything was there paul levitz with Ditko’s pencils. No matter who’s inking him it always comes out looking © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. like Ditko. He gives you very little to work with. It’s just kind of basic shapes and outlines and if you’re just going to ink him you just follow what he gives you and it comes out looking like Ditko. It’s that strong.”

One other notable thing about that house ad was the common factor of the majority of the characters wielding swords. Coincidence? Not according to Paul Levitz: “The success of Conan was the motivating force behind four of those titles (Kong, Beowulf, Claw, and Stalker).”

continued on page 52

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TM & © DC Comics.

THE MAN WITH THE STOLEN SOUL So, what was this new character all about? The opening page of Stalker #1 (June–July 1975) gives us a determined man climbing the turret of Castle Loranth, sword and scabbard at his side and dagger between his gritted teeth. He then begins quickly engaging a guard. The captions speak of the legends surrounding the nameless man known only as Stalker: “Damned by his own choosing, he dared challenge the lord of demons himself! Fear was his tool and death his weapon…”

For any who didn’t note the cover, it isn’t until the turn of the page that one notices there is more to Stalker than meets the eye. In fact, speaking of eyes, he bears only a crimson stare with no discernible pupils. Grimly, he forges onward until he is above a massive dining hall

TM

by

Bryan D. Stroud

This past Saturday, at this writing, my brother and our wives went to the movies to see Amazing Spider-Man 2.

My brother, a now-retired Fortune top 20 executive, has always loved Spider-Man, and the two of us had a great discussion of the history of the Web-Slinger. We loved the fact that in the credits of the movie they gave credit to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as the creators. This led me to think of Steve’s other superhero creations or cocreations: Captain Atom (Charlton), Dr. Strange (Marvel), the new Blue Beetle (Charlton), the Question (Charlton), the Creeper (DC), Hawk and Dove (DC), and last but not least, the very weird Shade, the Changing Man. DC Comics’ Shade, the Changing Man first appeared on the newsstands on March 8, 1977, its first issue cover-dated June–July 1977. Shade #1 has an ad for itself between story pages 10 and 11. This is just one more thing that makes this title weird.

DC was the dominant comic-book publisher from 1956 to the early 1970s. By the early 1970s, Marvel caught and passed DC. To reclaim that number-one position, DC, under the editorial direction of Carmine Infantino, tried two things. First, in 1970, Infantino helped bring Jack Kirby to DC. Jack’s magic at Marvel did not come over with him as he wrote his Fourth World series. After four years, Jack Kirby returned to Marvel. DC’s second attempt was a line expansion which lasted from Infantino’s tenure to the early days of his successor’s, Jenette Kahn, culminating in 1978’s page-count (and price) expansion, the DC Explosion— which quickly collapsed in the infamous DC Implosion.

One of those new titles added in the ’70s was Shade, the Changing Man, created by Steve Ditko. For most people, Shade was a weird comic and just one of the many failed titles of DC’s Bronze Age. If it had not been for the great team of Steve Ditko (pencils, inks, and story), Michael Fleisher (dialogue), and Jack C. Harris (editor), this title might have joined the likes of many of the DC Implosion titles in the bin of forgotten comic books.

Yet Shade, the Changing Man is a complete contrast to Ditko’s more straightforward late-Silver Age DC creations, Beware the Creeper and The Hawk and the Dove. You will find that Shade, the Changing Man is very much in the style of Steve’s work on Dr. Strange in Marvel’s Strange Tales.

TM

Jay Williams

THE WEIRD WORLD OF RAC SHADE

TM & © DC Comics.

by

Shade, the Changing Man saw eight issues hit the newsstands, plus a ninth issue that was published after the DC Implosion in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2. As soon as you saw the cover of issue #1, anyone who knew much about comics recognized Steve Ditko’s art. But it was not like a Spider-Man cover … it was more like a Dr. Strange cover, but a whole lot weirder. Shade covers looked like no others being published by DC. Each progressive issue’s cover seemed weirder and weirder.

One of the first things you will notice about Shade, the Changing Man is the bizarre names of almost all the characters: Rac, Mellu, Wizor, Ezak, Goens, Gola, Klugs, Xeleo, and Zokag. The main character is Rac Shade. Rac was a N-Agent (secret agent in our terms) from a dimension called the Meta-Zone. The Meta-Zone dimension was separated from the Earth-Zone Dimension by the Zero-Zone dimension. (In panel 2 of page 2 of Weird Issue

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Self-Promotion This one-page DC house ad from early 1977 appeared in, among other titles, Shade, the Changing Man #1. (inset) Shade #3.

TM & © DC Comics.

issue #1, the face of Rac looks like Peter Parker, but this similarity is not repeated on other pages.)

The other major non-villain character is Mellu Loron.

Mellu was Rac’s fiancée until he supposedly tried to kill her parents but instead injured them. That was part of an attempt to frame Rac for treason; he’s given a death sentence that is on his head for the entire series. Now Mellu hates Rac and spends six issues trying to kill him.

The nine issues of Shade contain 32 of the weirdest villains you have ever seen. Every Meta villain that arrived declared they were on Earth to conquer it.

A major oddity jumps out at us on page one of #1: Ditko just jumps into this story with no real introduction as to why Rac Shade is a criminal with a death sentence.

The story opens when the Crime Council is attacked

by Meta-Zone security forces and the Crime Council’s “Transmaterializer” is hit with a blast. Not only are the Crime Council members transported to the Zero-Zone, but also a group of criminals in the Meta-Zone prison, including Rac Shade. By page 3, the reader gets part of the backstory, but not the complete story on why Rac is a criminal. On the same page, Ditko introduces the

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means by where Rac is referred to as “the Changing Man”—the M-Vest, a Meta-Zone device that provides a force-field that protects the wearer. When activated, the force-field also changes the appearance of the wearer based on the mental state of the person looking at the wearer, so that the Shade appears to others as a weird and unrecognizable (“changing”) entity.

The people of the Meta-Zone have kept their existence a secret from the people of the Earth-Zone.

However, the Meta-Zonians have been spying on the Earth-Zone for some time. They established their headquarters in the ORC (Occult Research Center).

The outside and inside of this building bring back memories of Ditko’s art in Dr. Strange. The balance of issue #1 is spent between Rac trying to locate Lt. Emp, known on Earth as Kempo, and Zokag the Destroyer’s initial attempt to take over the Earth. Rac saves the world and quickly disappears as Mellu appears.

Michael Fleisher and Steve Ditko open issue #2 with Form escaping the Zero-Zone, saying, “I, Form, am destined to become the ruler of this puny fragile zone.” That’s two villains, in two issues, wanting to conquer the Earth!

One thing you will notice as you read Shade, the Changing Man is that Ditko often used flashbacks. This is especially true in issues #2, 3, 8, and 9.

Issue #3 opens with almost a three-page flashback that summarizes Rac and Mellu’s relationship and finally gives the reader the whole story of why Rac was sentenced to death.

Issue #5 (Feb.–Mar. 1978) has a couple of weird events.

It is divided between Mellu learning that it was Rac who helped her recover from the area of Madness in the Zero-Zone and then her helping Rac escape jail. On the last page of this issue we learn that Mira Loren, Mellu’s mother, is actually Sude, and the story closes with Sude about to destroy Rac. Issue #6 opens with Sude being beaten by Rac and Mellu. Mira Loren barely escapes without her real identity being exposed. Most of issue #7 contains a weird event. Rac is in some type of coma, barely alive.

He constantly changes colors. Flashbacks return in a big way in issue #8. Nine of the 17 pages are flashbacks.

All the flashbacks take place before issue #1’s tale.

The dialogue in Shade, the Changing Man alone was almost enough to write almost two and a half additional comics (for you numbers nuts like me, it was actually 2.49). If you look at the panel count, Ditko provided enough art with his extra panels in Shade that it was enough to make up over one and a half additional comics.

On June 22, 1978, DC Comics announced massive staff layoffs and the cancellation of 40% of its titles.

Shade, the Changing Man, along with 19 other DC series, was canceled as part of what became known as the DC Implosion. To preserve the copyrights on all the completed work, DC published Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #1 and 2, releasing these stories and some covers in black-and-white form. Shade #9 was first published in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2.

BEHIND THE SCENES OF SHADE, WITH JACK C. HARRIS

Mind-Bending Visuals

As you probably know, Steve Ditko has long avoided on-the-record interviews, allowing his work to speak for itself, and Michael Fleisher is rarely quoted. [Editor’s note: However, Michael Browning scored an exclusive interview with Michael Fleisher, which appeared in BACK ISSUE #42.] Thus, many of the “inside” details about Shade, the Changing Man are only available from Jack C. Harris, who is credited as the story editor in issues #1 through 3, and then as editor in issues #4 through 9. Harris began at DC Comics as an assistant editor in September 1974, and stayed with the company until the early 1980s, working as an editor, writer, and in publicity. As the lone accessible party connected to Shade, the Changing Man, he kindly shares his recollections about the series and its creative team with BACK ISSUE.

DC’s Shade, the Changing Man evoked the surreal imagery seen in Ditko’s Silver Age Dr. Strange at Marvel, such as (top) 1965’s Strange Tales #138. (bottom) Page 7 of Shade #4.

JAY WILLIAMS: How did you become involved with Shade, the Changing Man? JACK C. HARRIS: I was assigned the book by thenmanaging editor Joe Orlando because of my good working relationship with Steve Ditko.

WILLIAMS: How did you develop that relationship with Ditko?

HARRIS: Well, looking back, the first time Steve ever actually drew anything I wrote was the “Gods” chapter of my Wonder Woman Spectacular (DC Special Series #9, 1978), which was after I began working with him on Shade. So the “working relationship” probably was established when I first met Steve. He was hanging around the hallway of DC waiting to see Joe Orlando.

I invited him to have a seat in my office while he waited.

That’s how we met.

In the months to follow, he made it a habit of hanging out in my office while he was waiting for Joe Orlando or Paul Levitz, or whomever he was working for at the time. A little later, he would join Mike Gold and me for lunch (I remember it was at one of those lunches that Mike Gold suggested I get Steve to revive the Creeper for World’s Finest Comics, which I was editing at the time). Sometimes, I would hang out in Steve’s studio and have lunch. Many times, Steve would drop off his art in my office if he didn’t have time to wait around and I would hand it off to whichever editor he was drawing for. We hung out quite a bit, and Joe knew it, so he figured I would be a good one to work with Steve on an actual book. I was always sorry Shade didn’t grab the mainstream audience, but am proud that it’s become sort of a “cult classic.”

WILLIAMS: Whose idea was Shade, the Changing Man? HARRIS: Steve presented the concept to Joe Orlando and sold it to DC through him.

WILLIAMS: Shade’s credits read Story: Steve Ditko and Dialogue: Michael Fleisher. Can you tell us how that process worked?

HARRIS: Someone at DC (I don’t know who) was not comfortable with Steve’s dialogue, so they brought Mike in it to do the dialogue. The way it worked was that Steve would bring in the layouts (before he completed them into full, finished pencils) and go over the complete story with Mike and myself. Mike would take copious notes and then write the dialogue using photocopies of the layouts to guide him. Steve and Mike were diametrically opposed, politically, so some people were nervous about how they would get along. Mike Gold used to joke that I should have received “combat pay” for the Shade editorial sessions. However, both Steve and Mike were such professionals, I never sensed any tension between the two.

Dr. Strange TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Shade TM & © DC Comics.

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DC Implosion Aftermath (right) Shade made both Cancelled Comic Cavalcade covers (#1, art by Al Milgrom; #2, art by Alex Saviuk). (bottom) Ditko’s cover to Shade #9, which appeared in CCC #2 as well as in 2011’s Steve Ditko Omnibus vol. 1 TM & © DC Comics.

WILLIAMS: How much input did you have on the stories either before or after they were written?

HARRIS: As I stated earlier, Steve would bring in each story and go over it very carefully. I would play devil’s advocate, posing questions and asking for clarification along the way. If I felt something was unclear or confusing, Steve would offer changes to waylay my concerns. Again, very professional.

WILLIAMS: Take a minute and give the readers your jack c. harris thoughts on Steve Ditko.

HARRIS: One of the first comic books I ever bought (after Superman) was Tales of Suspense #2, which sported a wonderful Ditko cover and an interior story by him. He signed his work, so I knew and recognized his work in the early pre–hero Marvel (Atlas) comics. I first met him shortly after I began working at DC. He was in the offices frequently.

Steve illustrated a few of my mystery stories, under the editorship of others. We became pretty good friends. I would often brown-bag my lunch at DC and eat it over in Steve’s studio, where we would talk about just about everything. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we did quite a few presentations together. One of my favorites was Substance in “Spirit of Justice,” which was published in 3-D Substance by Ray Zone.

I stopped by to see Steve about a year ago when we spent about an hour and a half just sharing memories. I’ll probably stop and see him again soon since I’m back in the city weekly teaching at SVA [New York’s School of Visual Arts].

WILLIAMS: What about Michael Fleischer?

HARRIS: I haven’t had contact with Mike in a long time. Other than Shade, the only other thing we did together was the Superman: the Movie magazine in 1979 [the tabloid-sized All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-62]. Mike did all the writing for that book, the captions and the background movie info.

I edited it and Joe Orlando designed it from an original concept by me.

WILLIAMS: Looking back now, 35 years later, is there anything you could have done to help make Shade a better book and one not so weird?

HARRIS: I think I would have taken a heavier hand on Mike’s dialogue.

He was very careful to make sure the Steve’s story was being told, so the actual dialogue suffered; all the characters sounded the same. Also, Steve’s plots were so full of new concepts that there was really too 50 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

much in each issue. Looking back, there was enough story in each book for three issues of any other comic at the time. On reflection, I think I should have had him stretch out the tales.

WILLIAMS: What were the sales like on Shade, the Changing Man? HARRIS: Bad. That’s why it was discontinued.

WILLIAMS: Eight issues of Shade were published by DC, but the ninth issue was written, illustrated, and lettered. Tell us about that.

HARRIS: Issue #9 originally was published in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, a limited run two-issue photocopied book given to freelancers who worked on the unpublished material. [Shade #9] was published for the general public, uncolored, in The Steve Ditko Omnibus vol. 1, published by DC in 2011.

WILLIAMS: From an insider’s view, what caused the DC Implosion?

HARRIS: From what I remember, the corporate bosses upstairs at Warner Publishing (of which DC was a part) noticed a very poor sales period just prior to the Implosion. A bad winter and other factors had reduced comic-book buying to a point at which expansion could not be justified. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Massive cutbacks were ordered. Not only were all the new features cut, but other established titles as well.

It was a pretty rough time for freelancers and editorial staff as well, as many were laid off.

WILLIAMS: How did the DC Implosion impact your work at DC? HARRIS: I don’t recall exactly all of what was canceled at that time. I do remember that Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, which I was writing at the time, was the first book that just missed the cutoff. I was one of the lucky ones; I kept my job. Joe Orlando was concerned about the married staff members and the fact that we had families was one of the reasons we weren’t laid off at the time.

WILLIAMS: Any other parting thoughts on Shade, the Changing Man? HARRIS: I am happy that Shade has seemed to have become a “cult classic.” I like to think we were ahead of our time and the audience back then just wasn’t ready for something as innovative as Shade, the Changing Man.

SHADE KEEPS ON CHANGING

After Ditko

Shade resurfaced at DC Comics in the late 1980s, appearing in Suicide Squad.

In 1990, DC Comics launched a new Shade, the Changing Man series in its “Recommended for Mature Readers” line, which evolved into the Vertigo imprint.

It was written by Peter Milligan and ran for 70 issues, with Chris Bachalo as the original artist. Rac returns in this series as five very weird characters. The first is a redheaded Poet who is eventually killed. Rac’s sprit survives and returns as a redheaded woman who had been recently murdered. Rac gets killed again and this third time comes back as a black-haired man who is forced to return to Earth by angels to do their bidding.

The fourth time he becomes a redheaded mod. The fifth and weirdest incarnation is a Rac who has gone crazy and begins to hurt and kill innocent people.

Shade returns yet again in 2011 Flashpoint event, primarily in a spin-off miniseries written by Milligan titled Flashpoint: Secret Seven. Here Rac is portrayed similarly to the Ditko years but also with elements from the Vertigo series.

I don’t know why someone would choose to revive a character and then change everything about them but their name. If you are changing everything about the character, then, in my opinion, just create a new character.

Shades of Shade! (left) Suicide Squad #16 (Aug. 1988), (center) Shade, the Changing Man #1 (July 1990), and (right) Flashpoint: Secret Seven #1 (Aug. 2011). Suicide Squad cover by Jerry Bingham; Shade cover by Brendan McCarthy; and Secret Seven cover by George Pérez.

TM & © DC Comics.

JAY WILLIAMS is a national sales manager for a healthcare software company with a great love of history (his college major) and comics. He was born in 1953 and has been a comic collector on and off since 1961.

His love for the strange and different includes MLJ/Archie superhero comics, Charlton Comics, Richard Comely’s Captain Canuck, and Bill Black’s Paragon, Americomics, and AC Comics. Occasionally, Jay’s day job affords him the opportunity to visit comic-book shops as he travels all over the USA searching for interesting comics and talking to store owners and managers about the “good old days.”

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continued from page 46

when he lets loose with a dagger that embeds itself into the throne at the head of the table right beside the crowned female head inhabiting it. As pandemonium ensues, she remains nonplussed, vowing only that he is to be brought to her and the price will be great for his having missed. The Baroness then pulls the note from the handle of the blade to read: “Once you offered me guest right, and gave only pain, then you promised title, and gave but torture. Now I wish to pay my debt—the pain to be paid a year and a day hence, with your death!

The torture I collect whilst you wait my return! – Stalker” Time now for a backstory via flashback, when we see that the boy who eventually became Stalker had a rough go of things from the beginning, being evicted from his peasant-like home by a cruel and uncaring father, though the man denied the title. Soon the young waif is fighting for his survival, scratching out sustenance on the village streets and byways wherever he can through sheer cunning while dreaming of a more noble life, literally coveting a knighthood.

Ultimately he takes a risk, approaching that same Baroness while she is taken through the village by bearers. He offers her his life in exchange for the chance to learn to be a warrior and protector at Castle Loranth. The Baroness agrees, but has only a life of servitude in mind for the nameless boy.

Over the course of a year, he steve ditko finally acknowledges the bitter truth to himself. He’s been duped. He approaches the Baroness again, insisting on their previous bargain, but she merely orders the Slavemaster to take him away. Before he can receive his punishment, however, the plucky lad dives from a turret window into the moat and escapes his captors.

Finding himself back at the place of his birth, he enters the temple of Dgrth, demon lord of warriors.

To his astonishment, a massive creature appears from the ceremonial brazier, surrounded by flame. It is an armored demon: Dgrth himself. The huge creature offers the young man his every desire, including the power and skill of the consummate warrior with unrivaled ability in combat, mastery of every weapon, and the ability to follow any trail. Dgrth dubs him “Stalker,” and merely asks for his immortal soul in exchange, which is quickly agreed to. Then in a 2/3-page panel, somewhat reminiscent of Munch’s “The Scream,” artist Steve Ditko shows a soul being torn from the young man, leaving the ultimate warrior, but at the ultimate cost.

Back in the present, Stalker battles his way out of the castle, defeating the Slave-master, but feeling no sense of victory. His missing soul has taken with it all of his feelings, so he seeks Dgrth again, but learns from his sentinel that the master has gone to another realm and the only one who knows where can be found at World’s End Sea. Vowing to regain his humanity, Stalker mounts a horse and begins his quest for a stolen soul.

A Dynamic Combo Whopper panels like this one, from page 1 of Stalker #1, allowed the book’s glorious Ditko/Wood art to shine. Scanned from The Steve Ditko Omnibus vol. 1.

TM & © DC Comics.

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This debut issue’s lettercol, “The Sword and the Soul,” is used to introduce writer Paul Levitz and how he got his foothold at DC Comics to include his time with The Comic Reader, writing text for editor Joe Orlando, and ultimately being assigned as his assistant and writing Aquaman, The Phantom Stranger, and now, his own creation, Stalker.

“Oh, yes, about Stalker. That started one afternoon when Orlando told me we needed another magazine—go create one!

So I did, and two drafts later it turned into what you just read.” A promise is made that the next column will enlighten us about the artists on the title, and there’s a map of Stalker’s world at the bottom of the page, including a section with the foreboding notation, “Here abide dragons.”

Paul fills in a few additional details on that first issue’s genesis for BACK ISSUE readers: “Carmine [Infantino, then DC’s publisher] had come back from a budget meeting with a decision to add several new books, somewhat retroactively from a schedule point of view. Joe Orlando was asked to do two or three new sword-and-sorcery titles, and as his assistant, I asked for a shot at one. The heart of the inspiration was Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Warrior stories, which I loved, and I tried to put a fresh twist on the structure by having Stalker lose his soul while still alive.” Paul also shared that he’d created the map of Stalker’s world, “…with the production department cleaning it up.” When queried about the notion of placing Stalker in a world other than our own, Paul states simply that it was easier to make it a broad fantasy.

Issue #2 opens on an apocalyptic scene. Stalker is still astride his steed as he begins to navigate a narrow bridge adorned with skulls and bones.

He has arrived at World’s End Sea and his first encounter is with the four-armed horror depicted on the cover. The guardian will allow none to pass and the Man with the Stolen Soul will not be denied, so the battle is on. Stalker’s capabilities are as formidable as Dgrth had vowed and using acrobatic ability and a warrior’s polished skills, he triumphs, but again feels only the hollowness of his being.

Pressing ever onward, he arrives at another temple that may hold the key to his continuing quest. He then discovers a procession of demon worshippers escorting a trio of captive beauties that could only have come from the brush of Wallace (Wally) Wood. Stalker leaps from concealment to take down a straggler and dons his hooded garb in order to join in and enter the temple. His goal is to reach the high priest F’lan, but he is discovered. Despite his otherworldly talents, he is overcome by sheer force of numbers following some vicious swordplay.

Stalker is then imprisoned, but a woman approaches his cell and suggests they can help one another. She proposes helping him gain his freedom

It’s a Hard-Knock Life Origin sequence. Page 5 of Stalker #1 (June–July 1975).

By Levitz/Ditko/Wood.

TM & © DC Comics.

so that he can in turn escort her away from this awful place. She passes him a knife, which is quickly concealed, and Stalker waits until he is taken to an altar at the very edge of eternity.

Here again, the talents of our artistic team are fully showcased with an oversized panel displaying a rock outcropping with volcanolike tubes spewing flame, water falling from precipices, and priests surrounding the stone slab with a full moon incredibly close in the backdrop. Steve Ditko’s design skills are a sight to behold.

As F’lan approaches Stalker with sword in hand, the Man with the Stolen Soul comes to the realization that Dgrth won’t be coming, so he seizes the opportunity to use his concealed weapon to his advantage, taking the advantage of surprise and leaping over the edge. F’lan presumes it a suicide, but Stalker has found safe haven in a crevice, as the young woman had informed him.

Back at the temple, F’lan has discovered the young woman’s treachery and has bound her to the wheel of infinity, which will “…whirl you round ‘til the end of time—if you do not go mad first!” She gives up the information he seeks, but before he can do her further harm, Stalker arrives and it’s more combat with the high priest and his guards until the beaten F’lan gives up the next step in Stalker’s journey to reach Hell and Dgrth. He must go to the Burning Isle to seek a gate. Stalker spares his life, but lashes him to the wheel of infinity then sets fire to the bridge before sending the girl on her way with his steed, boarding a boat and continuing his quest.

The lettercol begins this time with a quick update and explanation.

“We promised you brief bios of Steve Ditko and Wally Wood, our extraordinary artists. And, as you’ve no doubt figured out by now, that’s not going to be the subject of this page. We’ve a relatively simple explanation: Steve prefers to let his work speak for him, and Wally’s been wrapped up in moving, and was unable to get us enough autobiographical material to work from. Hopefully it’ll be in the next issue.” The rest of the column proceeds with explanations of Stalker’s world and what to expect from his ongoing journey— obviously (and alluded to in the column itself) 11th-hour material, but they managed to fill the space.

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a strange beast sporting a horn and surrounded on all sides by the A SURPRISE FOURTH ISSUE living creatures of flame should be ample evidence. Inside that cover, The third installment was titled “The Freezing Flames of the Burning amidst the bones, ruins, and flames, Stalker comes face to face with Isle,” and the splash page displays Dgrth in all his malevolent glory a three-headed gatekeeper armed with sword and a whip of barbs surrounded by remarkable creatures of living flame. As the latest installment who welcomes him to the land of the damned. opens, Stalker is again in peril, this time inflicted by the elements as The Man with the Stolen Soul has grown ever more determined his small ship is thrown about in the waves by a horrific storm. Then, to meet up with Dgrth for a final showdown; therefore, this latest as if things couldn’t get any worse, a nightmare apparition arrives in challenge is quickly dispatched when he encounters a demonic-looking the form of a flying, clawed, and longhaired demon that avoids imp who hovers about and offers his services as guide through this Stalker’s blade and sends him sprawling into the unforgiving sea. netherworld. Plenty of evidence abounds of those who have gone He regains consciousness on the shore of the Burning Isle, where he before and failed, including one group that appears to be in a sort of is greeted by another Wood babe who calls herself Srani, and welcomes purgatory. It seems, however, that his new guide doesn’t necessarily him to her home. With the full-page volcanic backdrop and eerie rock have Stalker’s best interests at heart when he pops out of view and leaves formations framing them, Srani explains she’s been on the “icy inferno” him to deal with a pack of animated skeletons, and after fighting for a year now, subsisting on fruits and berries. Her stay is an exile due through them, a massive dragon seemingly formed of magma. It is then to suspicions of her being a witch. Despite her possessing a small ship, Stalker realizes his sword is not melting in the inferno and this knowledge she has been unable to depart due to sea creatures that keep her from breaks the spell cast by the imp, neutralizing the latest threat. leaving. Stalker decides to see for himself and is soon accosted by a Now standing at the entrance of Castle Carnage, he does the serpent reminiscent of the fabled Hydra. Stalker is able to defeat it unthinkable and turns about, gathering forces from the dead with his sword and gains the woman’s respect and even worship as warriors who are trapped in this place. Marshalling these unholy she suspects he is a god. He corrects her and explains he must find forces and mounting the weird steed, Stalker leads the assault on the gateway to continue his search, and she offers to be his guide.

Castle Carnage, where Dgrth unleashes the flame creatures. The Their sojourn is brief, however, when another demon attacks, this one battle is truly titanic, but Stalker breaks through the ranks and is soon resembling a sort of werewolf. Stalker is in a hand-to-hand struggle for at the throne of Dgrth for the final confrontation. life itself, finally besting the creature as Srani calmly looks on, continuing In the end, it’s an anti-climactic scene, when Dgrth tells Stalker that to refer to him as a god despite his arguments to the contrary. his soul has become part of the Demon Lord and he cannot return it until Stalker soon grows suspicious of their wanderings and comes to the his own demise, which can only happen when those who believe in him realization that everything is not as it seems. He confronts Srani, accusing and the larger notion of evil itself cease to do so any longer. He then her of being a guardian of the very gateway he seeks. She transforms back into the creature that first attacked him in his boat, pulling him aloft, but Stalker won’t go down without a fight and manages to ground the beast. Another transformation of the shape-shifter reveals a creature of living flame who taunts Stalker, pointing out the gateway he seeks, but assuring him he cannot enter. Striding boldly forward and hurling his sword, Stalker is able to open the portal and proceed onward.

This time the lettercol has some reader feedback, but also a telling note at the end: “A closing note, readers. If you cast your eyes over to your left, you’ll notice that this issue ended on a rather indefinite note.

That’s because we’re not waiting for your verdict—if you and your fellow fans have made STALKER a success, we’ll be back in two months with #4. Paul’s got his typewriter warmed up, Steve’s pencils are sharpened, and Wally’s just bought a brand-new brush—the whole team is anxious to get back into action. But it’s your decision, and you can cast your vote at your local newsstand.”

According to Paul Levitz, issue #3 was actually slated to be the swan song for the title, but a simple error salvaged it, albeit briefly: “Stalker was years before the ‘Implosion.’ It was first canceled as of the end of #3 (and you can judge for yourself my attempt to provide a neat ending), and then reprieved through #4 when the secretary who wally wood typed the production schedule accidentally listed it.” When asked if sales figures had arrived to cause the title to end so quickly, he explains, “No sales were in. Carmine had justifiable reservations about my writing at that stage, and I believe he wasn’t happy with the overall effect of the team.” Levitz also notes that he was in his teens when taking on this assignment.

“Invade the Inferno” was the final installment in Stalker’s self-titled series for issue #4 (Dec. 1975–Jan. 1976), and if Hell or a reasonable facsimile can be drawn with any accuracy, Ditko’s designs prove a formidable setting. That astonishing cover alone, with Stalker astride

He Ain’t Got No Soul Steve Ditko (with Wally Wood) show the painful removal of our hero’s spirit. From issue #1.

TM & © DC Comics

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sends Stalker away, transported from this nightmare inferno and the man is to be sent on a new quest, one which will pit him against all the followers of Dgrth.

Once again standing on the surface of the world, more determined than ever, Stalker makes a vow: “Dgrth, I accept your challenge—I shall do the impossible and banish evil from this world … my soul shall yet be mine!”

But it was not to be, and the closing comments in this issue’s lettercol give a not-so-subtle nod to the inevitable: “Just in case we’re not back here in two months, we’d like to say a short thank-you to all the people who helped put STALKER together. Besides the seven names in the credits and indicia, all of whom made this magazine possible, we’d also like to acknowledge the invaluable works of Ben Oda and Joe Letterese, letterers, Tatjana Wood, John Albano, Jr., and Carl Gafford, colorists, and the entire production department—and our hundred thousand-plus readers, whom we hope we’ve entertained!”

STALKER IN SUMMATION Stalker was a pretty bold experiment and it was indeed a talented group working on this very different title, but for my money the standout was Steve Ditko. His long history of drawing strange creatures and monsters hailing all the way back from the very beginnings of his career served him well and his seemingly limitless imagination made the scenes, particularly in the many oversized panels, come to life in a way few artists could manage. Paul Levitz comments, “I think Steve had some fun with it … he’s recalled our collaboration on it fondly in recent years.”

As to the designs, Paul offers, “Steve got the scripts and turned in full pencils, with no intermediary steps.

My scripts are off in storage and my memory isn’t good enough to recall how much detail I offered (for example) on the flame creatures, but I’m sure it was almost all him.”

Ditko has continued to produce work for decades now and better people than this writer have attempted to get him to comment on his work, but as was

mentioned before in this article and at other places and times, the artist prefers his work speak for itself.

By my count he produced no less than ten strange creatures in this short series and multiple imaginative landscapes in a weird world far different than our own.

Stalker is a worthy and unforgettable addition to the formidable body of work produced by this gifted artist. One can only imagine the directions it could have gone if not for what was perhaps a premature cancellation.

Unexpected Issue (right) As Paul Levitz explains in this article, Stalker received a fourth issue due to a clerical error. (left) Stalker is up in arms on the cover of issue #3. Covers by Ditko and Wood.

BRYAN STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages, and has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews of those classics. Beginning in 2007, Bryan seized an opportunity to begin interviewing the creators of the comics he’s loved and has been fortunate enough to conduct over 70 to date at www.thesilverlantern.com.

TM & © DC Comics.

Weird Issue

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by

Mark Arnold

R. Crumb in PG Detail from R. Crumb’s cover to The Weirdo Years: 1981–’93, released in 2013 by Last Gasp, compiling all of Robert Crumb’s material from Weirdo.

TM & © R. Crumb.

Editor’s Note: This article contains material that some readers may find offensive. Especially the heirs of Tor Johnson.

When you think of humor magazines, the obvious ones are MAD, Cracked, or National Lampoon. Thinking a little harder, you might come up with Marvel’s Crazy or even Joe Simon’s Sick.

Admittedly, most humor magazines typically do not last more than a handful of issues, but one that lasted an admirable 28 issues, despite being somewhat forgotten today, is Robert Crumb’s Weirdo.

Weirdo took its cue from MAD and Humbug, both edited by Harvey Kurtzman, by having silly images surrounding the front cover border. Kurtzman also edited Help!, and Weirdo utilized its format as well, by including photo fumettis and introducing new and younger artists to national prominence. Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam all made their national debuts in Help!

Aline Kominsky-Crumb (Robert’s wife) comments, “Quite a few great artists got their start at Weirdo, such as Joe Matt, Ted Jouflas, Julie Doucet, Dori Seda, Carol Tyler, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dennis Worden, Ace Backwards, Bruce Duncan, and many more.”

Among those who contributed to Weirdo that are no longer with us include Harvey Pekar and Spain (M. Rodriguez), and S. Clay Wilson has unfortunately been incapacitated for a long time.

Lorraine Chamberlain, who speaks for S. Clay Wilson, says, “Wilson can’t speak, but he can answer yes or no questions. Frustrating, to say the least.”

Last Gasp Publisher Ron Turner discusses how Weirdo started: “It was Robert Crumb’s idea from the start, not mine. Crumb did the first nine issues, Peter Bagge the second nine, and Aline Kominsky-Crumb the third nine, with the last one happening after Weird Issue

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Chicks Dig Weirdo

interview, called Weirdo a ‘piece of sh*t,’ I knew I was on the right track.”

Aline Kominsky-Crumb adds, “Robert decided to start a new magazine in the fall of 1981, just at the time when our darling daughter Sophie was born. [Weirdo] was inspired by Humbug and MAD, as well as earlier ‘girlie’ zines, but was also a product of the underTM & © R. Crumb. ground comics culture and it was called Weirdo. It was a good idea. Comics and the whole counterculture had gone into a decline they got to France. It ran its course. We in the 1970s, lots of low-grade derivative stuff never got complaints about Robert’s pieces. was being produced by people just to make a The audience was sophisticated enough to buck, capitalizing on the wave of success of understand what he was saying, and the voice the earlier underground movement. Robert and it was said in. The early issues sold multiple I knew lots of great artists doing original printings. We still have a few of about and wacky work and there really were four issues left.” not any good venues for publishing Robert Crumb tells BACK at that time. So why not take ISSUE, “The whole idea of on a time-consuming, Weirdo magazine came to me passionate, non-paying, stressful all at once one day in early enterprise at the exact same 1981—a sort of catch-all time that our high-strung magazine including the offlittle princess arrived into beat feeling of Harvey this world??

Kurtzman’s Humbug plus the “Robert was the editor of latest ‘new wave’ of young Weirdo for the first three and cartoonists with elements a half years. He got very of the ‘punk’ sensibility, plus little positive feedback and odd and crazy ‘outsider’ r. crumb we never knew if anybody stuff, plus some photo-funnies really got our ’zine. Then harkening back to the girlie Caricature by and © R. Crumb. when he was totally sick of editing, he mags of the 1940s/early ’50s, plus the ongoing passed that on to Peter Bagge. Peter work of the original underground comics changed the mood of Weirdo to a more artists such as myself and others. I was frustrated punk ‘zine, being a younger, more ’70s with Zap Comix as an anthology title because kinda guy, but he kept the wacky brand-X some of those artists took so long to turn out feel and published a lot of great stuff (my fave: a few pages that it was only coming out every ‘Martini Baton’). By this time we were getting couple or three years. Also, some of them a lot of submissions from unknown artists, insisted on keeping Zap Comix an exclusive including some difficult or even menacing nut club of the seven artists already involved. cases, as Weirdo started getting a reputation ‘We’re like a super-star rock band,’ S. Clay for printing really off-the-wall art. At a certain Wilson used to say. I never wanted this to point, we were getting more work than we happen to my little funny book but I couldn’t could use, partly because there were hardly fight them, so I went along. The only other any other magazines being published at the strong anthology title at the time was Raw, time and partly because we had such ‘low-brow’ edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly. taste. Raw magazine started during this bleak I envisioned Weirdo as a sort of alternative decade as well and was the ‘high-brow,’ to Raw. Raw was classy-looking, expensive, artistic alternative to Weirdo. Both publications with lots of arty European graphic work in it. had their place and there was some overlap Weirdo would be cheap, sleazy, wise-ass, of art in each. I did one of my all-time loose, nutty. When Spiegelman, in a printed

(left) Crumb and friends hawk back issues; from Weirdo #8. (above) Digging through the trash with R. Crumb in Weirdo #6.

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favorite stories for Raw: ‘The Peggy Lipton Story—Why Can’t I be Like Peggy?’ We were always proud to be the homely, brand-X product!”

Weirdo became the forum to well over 50 artists and writers. Some only made a single appearance, while many others had numerous pieces published and went on to have highly lucrative careers in other alternative and mainstream publications. Here are the memories of some of those artists and writers:

magazine Weirdo, and was for the first time making his mailing address in Winters, California, available to contributors and fans. I had no idea if Crumb liked my work or even knew who I was, but he was running comics by some newer, younger artists, so I thought it was worth a shot. I also mentioned to Crumb that the Franklin strip had just run in High Times magazine. A few weeks later he wrote me back a very enthusiastic postcard saying he had indeed been following my work and that I “was one of the best guys to come along lately.” He said that although he liked the Joe Franklin comic, “especially the artwork,” he felt that the readership of High Times might cross over into Weirdo’s readership so he preferred not

MARK ARNOLD: Tell me a bit about yourself and how you got involved with Weirdo.

PETER BAGGE: I started getting published—as well as self-publishing—back in 1980. Weirdo debuted in 1981, and I was thrilled to see that its editor, Robert Crumb, included his mailing address asking for submissions. aline kominsky-crumb I sent him samples of my work, and eventually he printed some of it. We also struck up a friendly Caricature by and correspondence that led to him asking me to act as © R. Crumb. managing editor of the magazine around 1983.

MARY FLEENER: I was always an artist, born in Los Angeles, went to college, majored in printmaking, and all the time longed to draw comics. Underground comix! Heavily influenced by Zap Comix, and the work of Robert Crumb (who wasn’t?). But the whole publishing world was a mystery to me, and it hardly seemed possible that upright walking human beings were capable of drawing the kind of stuff I saw in Zap. All I know is, they were available in every record store and head shop, and I bought them all, and studied them.

In 1984, I read an article by Matt Groening in the LA Weekly about the “new” underground comic wave, and there was a listing of comics and zines, and an address for Robert Crumb and Weirdo, so I wrote him and bought Weirdo #7, which I loved. I also started writing a lot of other people, and met people who made mini-comics, and learned how to do them, so that’s how I got to know a lot of people, by trading and ordering comics through the mail, and found out who was publishing what and how it worked.

DREW FRIEDMAN: I started drawing comics in the late 1970s when I was attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Some of my instructors included Harvey Kurtzman and Art Spiegelman, both of whom were very supportive of my work.

At that point my brother Josh was writing the scripts that I was illustrating in my “stipple” style. Spiegelman used my work in the first two issues of his new comics/graphics magazine Raw in 1980.

That’s when I decided to send a sample comic strip, a three-page comic biography of the New York TV Talk show host Joe Franklin called “The Joe Franklin Story,” written by Josh, to my favorite artist Robert Crumb, who had just started his comics anthology

Family Affair (left) A collaboration, from Weirdo #16. (above) “Don’t Go Aline!”: Bob Kathman’s cartoon letter that appeared in Weirdo’s final issue, #28. © the respective artists.

Weird Issue

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BACK ISSUE • 59

Weirdo’s Got a Brand New Bagge (top) Sampling from the first appearance of “Martini Baton”

by Peter Bagge, from Weirdo #8. (bottom) Words to the wise, from Bagge’s “The Reject” in Weirdo #10. © Peter Bagge.

to reprint it. He asked if I could submit something created specifically for Weirdo if I was at all inclined.

I got right to work, writing and drawing two one-page comics, the first, “The Day Chet Huntley Died,” showing various people’s reactions to the death of the beloved newscaster, and “Tor Johnson at Home,” a mundane day in the life of the giant, bald, Swedish wrestler/actor who specialized in playing mute lab assistants and zombies. I sent both strips off to Crumb and he wrote back instantly to say he loved them both and would run them in his next issue, Weirdo #4. He asked me to please send him anything new I did. Then he admitted that when he received the Tor Johnson comic, he had never heard of Tor Johnson before but ironically had also received a pamphlet from collector Glenn Bray that same day about the life of bad movie director Ed Wood, Jr., which also contained some photos of Tor. He sent the pamphlet on to me, which I still own.

MACEDONIO GARCIA: Before I made my debut in Weirdo, I did some eight-pagers for Clay Geerdes of Comix World, 12 total.

BILL GRIFFITH: Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky are friends—they

60 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

asked me to contribute. Before Weirdo, I was co-editor of Arcade, The Comics Revue and we used a lot of Robert’s work, as well as Aline’s.

JOHN HOLMSTROM: I have always been a huge fan of Crumb. To me, he’s one of the great artists of the 20th Century—up there with Dali, Picasso, Disney, Avery, Ditko, Kirby, and Warhol. So when he published a ’zine that basically invited underground artists to contribute? I wanted to get involved.

BOB KATHMAN: I was a longtime fan of Weirdo but came upon it about halfway through its run in the late ’80s. There was a bookstore in DC (WPA) … they had stacks of back issues, and I bought them up. Later, I was able to get them at Brainstorm Comics (in Frederick, Maryland) where Steve Blickenstaff (also published in Weirdo) and I used to go. Comic-book stores carrying non-mainstream books were hard to come by—you had to search them out (without a search engine).

I used to collect Arcade, which was like a hodge-podge of the underground cartoonists during the ’70s, edited

by Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman.

Handed down by my brother. I loved ’em (and found them at different cons or head shops). It felt like Weirdo was carrying on that tradition.

In one of the last issues of Weirdo, I remember reading “Letters to the Editor,” and these guys were really trashing on Aline Kominsky-Crumb peter bagge and I felt like they were these punks who didn’t know who she was. Then Photo by Paul R. Wade. the next-to-last issue appeared and I felt like, “Crap— I shoulda submitted a comic, and I missed out!” My response was a letter, in the form of a comic, to support keeping Weirdo going and to support Aline as the editor.

Maybe it was too little, too late, but I sent it anyway.

(Later, I read her initial debut column as editor where she challenged, even taunted, readers to write her anything, so she didn’t really need any help!)

So, lo and behold, there was a new alternative comic store coming to my town of Baltimore.

Atomic Books opened on (appropriately named) Read Street, which was (so I was told) like Haight Street in San Francisco in the ’60s. The storefront used to be a vintage clothing store called Dreamland that I’d done graphics for, so I knew it well. Steve and our comic-fan friend, Joe McGinty, were in town so we were going to check out this new store. We walked in and owner Scott Huffines was behind the

counter. I looked over on the shelf and there was the CAROL LAY: I’m a cartoonist who grew up without the brand-new Verre D’Eau, issue #28 [the last issue] of benefit of great comic books because none of my friends Weirdo. I started to leaf through it. There was some or older siblings were into them. When I went to the excellent work by some of my favorite artists, but my five-and-dime and leafed through the racks, I missed submission was not to be found.

Barks and Kurtzman and picked up lame stuff instead.

I turned page after page and I felt like a steam Underfed by the medium, I became a book reader and kettle starting to boil. Here was this issue that wasn’t didn’t find comics again until my first year in college even supposed to happen and there it was, printed and when a boyfriend exploded my brain with Zap. It was all distributed all over and I didn’t get in it. By the downhill after that. time I’d gotten to the end of the book, I was By the time Weirdo came along, I was feeling really low and then I got to the primed. I was fascinated by Crumb’s last page. And son of a gun, there genius and range, and this comic was was my letter-comic … printed on the for us: the weirdos. Raw, which inside back cover!

Spiegelman was producing in New My instant response was to yell York at pretty much the same time, a “WOOP!” and leap off the was polished and smart and ground. When I landed on the old European. Weirdo was crude and floor, the whole store shook! I’d dumbly smart and American in that it surprised everybody and, of course, was inspired by the insanity that is had to explain, apologizing to Scott, American culture and showed how it who was laughing. After that, I affected the sensitive, neurotic, creadopted the store as a second home ative cartoon loners who never carol lay and ended up doing a bunch of asked to be part of it. I did two graphics for Atomic, not to menstories for Weirdo, “Midwestern Courtesy of CarolLay.com. tion befriending Scott and his friends in the years to Wedding” [#10] and “The Prince and the Art come. I was also the unofficial chauffer for visiting Girl” [#27]. artists to Atomic Books.

The first I submitted to Crumb right before Not long after Verre D’eau came out, I was visiting he left the helm as editor. I had gone to my little Joe in New York City. There was a midtown comic brother’s wedding in Minnesota and was pummeled convention happening and Carol Lay was going to be with hardcore Baptist idiocy. I was stunned and there so I went up and got to meet her. Again, 95% of repelled by those so-called Christians’ treatment the focus was superhero-centric and although she’d of me and my kind and oblivious parents. I told done Good Girls, there weren’t many people there the story to friends many times when I got back who knew she had a weekly syndicated strip, or had to L.A. I think I had submitted some half-assed been published in Weirdo. She was very nice. fiction to Crumb before I left, or had asked him I showed her my piece in Verre D’eau and told her what I could do for the magazine—can’t remember. how surprised I’d been to see it. She asked me if I’d But he wrote back suggesting I do something been paid and I said no, I didn’t know there was pay personal. This story was personal, all right. I involved. She told me everyone should’ve been paid roughed it up and sent it in, and he accepted it. and to call Last Gasp up and see about it (although she But by that time I had drawn and inked it, Peter put it much more colorfully). So I got in touch with Bagge was in the driver’s seat. He got me to Last Gasp and they’d said my check had been mailed change a couple of panels to make it more out, but I’d never gotten it (or cashed it) so they sent coherent, and I was happy with his direction—it out a new one and that one I got (and cashed it)! came out well. I found that once I put that story on Weird Issue

Wardrobe Malfunction (left) Editor Bagge appears in Weirdo #15 to announce the Ugly Art Contest winners. (right) Crumb and Kaminsky first meet in “Origins of the Bunch” from Weirdo #10, by Aline Kaminsky-Crumb. (below) Crumb’s last issue as editor, #8. © the respective artists.

TM & © R. Crumb.

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A Buncha Weirdos (top) Robert Crumb and Sasa Rakesic at an art event in Belgrade in 2012. (bottom) This article’s writer/interviewer, Mark Arnold, with Last Gasp’s Ron Turner, from October 2013’s APE convention in San Francisco. Photos courtesy of Mark Arnold.

paper, I stopped telling people what happened. It was like purging.

Very empowering.

I was afraid my parents would see that story and be hurt by it— a long shot. So I used a pseudonym “Cora Lloyd,” which fooled no one. “Coralloid” (“Having the form or appearance of coral”) implies a passive reaction to events. But when I wrote the story I became active, not passive. That is still one of my favorite stories.

SCOTT NICKEL: I’m really just a minor footnote in Weirdo’s history (with only one published story). Feel free to focus on those who contributed more. Really. I won’t be offended.

Growing up, I was a big fan of MAD magazine (so my brain was already warped). I was exposed to underground comix—and Crumb’s work, in particular through Les Daniels’ book, Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America, when I was about ten or 11.

In my early 20s, I rediscovered the alternative comic-book scene through a Comics Journal interview with Peter Bagge and R. Crumb.

I was thunderstruck by Bagge’s work and inspired to create my own alternative comics. I picked up the Bagge-edited Weirdo issues, worked up a submission, and sent it in. By that time, Peter had moved on and Aline Kominsky-Crumb was the new editor.

Fortunately, she liked what I sent and published one of my stories.

GARY PANTER: I got known through Slash and Raw magazines and met many cartoonists including the Zap guys.

SASA RAKEZIC: My name is Sasa Rakesic and I draw comics under the pseudonym of Aleksandar Zograf. I live in Serbia, but I published my comics in books and collections in Europe and US. Since 2003, I started to work on two-page color comics for the independent weekly magazine Vreme. In the early ’90s, I started to publish outside my country, when I made contacts with publishers and cartoonists from the US. It was before the Internet, so I sent photocopies of my work around, by using snail mail. It was something new at the time, even though I lived thousands of miles away from the US. I was published by several alternative comics publishers, first at Fantagraphics Books, and slowly was making my art

62 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

visible in the country that I hadn’t even visited at that time. To make it even more obscure, it was the time when the country where I lived— then called Yugoslavia—was dissolving in a civil war.

Everything seemed to be spinning around me, while I was trying to create comics, and get published both abroad and in the country. At some point, I decided to write to Robert Crumb, who was one of my greatest inspirations. I was a little surprised when he answered me back, and so we started a correspondence.

I knew only a little about the contemporary American comics scene at the moment, and wasn’t even aware of Weirdo when Crumb sent me a letter stating that he is working on a new, “international” issue, which turned out to be #28, the last issue of the magazine. So I sent him a page, where I talked about my dream, in which my dreaming self was transposed into a hypothetical persona of Robert TM & © R. Crumb.

Crumb, when he was a child, and a boy scout! The rest of the page was about my imaginary talk with Robert Crumb—I took him to my town, we walked around and exchanged some thoughts on the state of the world we are all living in. Robert and Aline also published my letter in the same issue. It was, of course, a great honor for me, an outsider….

Funny thing is, even though we corresponded for years, I would finally meet up with Robert and Aline in 2012 when I conducted an event in Belgrade where their art was presented (together with Gilbert Shelton and Lora Fountain). So I took Robert and Aline to my hometown, Pancevo, it was basically like in that comic that I did for Weirdo.

CAROL TYLER: I’m an artist who got involved with narratives and sequence as an extension of my painting activity back in the early ’80s.

I love telling a story. I met Aline Kominsky-Crumb at a Last Gasp Burrito party and she invited me to submit. She and Robert both became ardent supporters of my work and of my becoming a cartoonist. I loved how Aline would call me up and throw out the challenge, like needing five pages by next Friday or something like that. To this day, she’s still in my mind as the driving force behind getting my work done.

DENNIS WORDEN: I hadn’t done much before I got into Weirdo.

Previously, I tried doing children’s books and single-panel cartoons, just floundering around. Nothing clicked until I discovered punk-rock fanzines and got some comics published in Flipside. Then I saw Weirdo and got excited. I loved Crumb, and Weirdo seemed open to anyone, so I sent some of the stuff I’d drawn for the punk zines. I was thrilled to death he wanted to use a couple pages of it. After that I just kept sending stuff.

ARNOLD: What is your favorite piece that you did for Weirdo?

PETER BAGGE: That’s a tough one to answer! Many of my collaborations with David Carrino (“Martini Baton,” etc.) I’m quite happy with. And I’ve always received a lot of kudos for a strip I did called “The Reject,” in Weirdo #10.

MARY FLEENER: My favorite Weirdo piece is a three-pager called “Turn Off That Jungle Music.” That was in the last issue of Weirdo: Verr D’eau [#28]. That was 1993.

DREW FRIEDMAN: I think it would be “Tor Johnson at Home.” That was the first strip where I drew Tor and he became a regular character in my work, still popping up to this day. That particular strip seemed to resonate with people who grew up watching him in schlocky ’50s

horror films and the original art was eventually purchased slick-chick named Lisa Lee. She represented, on the surface, by a Hollywood comedy writer (and friend). everything I was not at the time. Kind of a Bizarro Carol, BILL GRIFFITH: “The Rory Story” [#12]. you could say. I think she made her stink three or four JOHN HOLMSTROM: I only did one, a small parody of times. There was even a contest of some kind. But I found a TV commercial. it hard to criticize the work of others and was happy SCOTT NICKEL: I only had one piece published, in issue when she drifted off into the great “Hall of Oblivion.” #19, so I guess that’s my favorite.

DENNIS WORDEN: I’d say one of the first pages I got GARY PANTER: I think that I was only invited once in there was my fave, the “Those in Power Send Us to to do a collaborative piece with Jay Cotton. So that Hell” page [#4]. would be the one.

ARNOLD: Anything you submitted that wasn’t CAROL TYLER: I don’t know that I have a published? favorite piece. I love them all, but there PETER BAGGE: Early on, Crumb rejected are some stories that are remarkable the bulk of what I sent him. Once I because they became hits. For example, became editor that wasn’t much of “Uncovered Property.” My intent was an issue! to try and tell a story with as much ROBERT CRUMB: Everything I detail about that time in my life as “submitted” to Weirdo was published, possible, from the look of the rooms ’cause guess why? I was the editor. I to the dynamic between characters. called the shots. I was “submitting” And it had to have a punchline. It was work to myself; it was my baby. I did my first multiple-page comic. It all the covers for all 28 issues. Even miraculously pulled together and after Peter Bagge took over, and people loved it. I was so surprised by after him Aline, I was still the “editor mary fleener the positive feedback. “Blankie” was emeritus,” so to speak. Particularly another. People loved it. They loved with Aline; we made almost all editorial Courtesy of MaryFleener.com.

“Auntie Mary,” “The Return of Mrs. Kite,” “Guns: The decisions together.

American Way,” and so on.

MARY FLEENER: Oh, I submitted some stuff when I don’t know if people know this, but at one point, Peter Bagge was the editor, but my early work sucked, Aline became overwhelmed by people submitting new and I knew it. I also knew it would probably take two work and she asked me if I would help her by doing a to three years to find my style and voice, if I was lucky! comics review column. So I made up a vacuous ’80s Just like learning a musical instrument. So, I had a fair

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Playing Favorites (left) Mary Fleener’s Weirdo fave, from issue #28. (right) Bill Griffith’s personal pic, from Weirdo #12. © the respective artists.

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amount rejected! Pete published some small strips, like “Madame X from Planet Sex,” in 1986, but it wasn’t until Aline Crumb became editor that I had longer stories published, starting in 1987. I was right about that three-year “learning curve,” too!

DREW FRIEDMAN: Only the three-page Joe Franklin comic, and again, only because it had appeared elsewhere. Robert Crumb was receptive to everything I sent him, as was Peter Bagge. When Bagge took over as editor, though, I was already doing regular work for Heavy Metal and National Lampoon, both of which paid a quite bit more than Weirdo could ($50 per page), so I was a naturally less inclined to do work for Peter at that point since I had a monthly rent to pay.

JOHN HOLMSTROM: Yes, I sent his a bunch of drawings I did for my Cartoon Concert, “The Joe Show.” They depict a guy in a straitjacket going insane. I used a lot of different drawing styles and techniques.

He rejected them, and asked me why I would want to draw stuff like that. I forget his exact words. I didn’t know his family history at the time, and he didn’t know my background. I had no problem with him rejecting my work. It wasn’t a comic strip, after all.

I also did a “Bosko” comic strip with Weirdo in mind: “Perfect Day.” It was sort of inspired by the Lou Reed song, and probably the best comic strip I ever did. Basically Bosko has a great day—everything goes right. He finds money in the street, meets a girl for a date/party, plays pinball, his baseball team wins, he eats a slice of pizza, etc., etc.

Everything that is best in life. Then on his way home, there’s an incident: A horrible fire is raging at a hi-tone nightclub!

All the celebrities, models, rock stars, and famous people are being burned alive! It’s a horrible tragedy… Bosko goes home, brushes his teeth, goes to bed, and says, “Yeah, this has been a perfect day.”

I am sure Crumb would have published it, but my friend J. D. King was starting up a new humor comic book and asked me if he could publish it instead of Weirdo. Since J. D. and I had worked on Stop! together, I couldn’t turn him down. So I missed my big break.

SCOTT NICKEL: I submitted a story titled “Dave Loses His Job,” which eventually ran in a Fantagraphics anthology book.

CAROL TYLER: Yes, there was one piece about my fascination as a kid with a “red crayon meets bride coloring book.” I’m glad it was rejected by Aline. When I look back now, I see it was going off in the wrong direction. Too sentimental-ish.

DENNIS WORDEN: My favorite thing I did for Weirdo never made it into Weirdo. “Fetus of Nazareth,” how could they pass that one up?!!!

All the best stuff I drew hoping to get it into Weirdo never made it.

There was tons of stuff I submitted that wasn’t used. I published three books of it! Slur, Bongo Dick, and Pedestrian Vulgarity all contained loads of rejected Weirdo material.

Mighty Tor (bottom) Drew and Josh Allen Friedman’s first piece for Weirdo, from #4. (top) John Holmstrom art accompanying an article about his Punk magazine; from Weirdo #16. © the respective artists.

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ARNOLD: What has Weirdo done for your career?

PETER BAGGE: It raised my profile at first, since I was a nobody prior to that. It also was a real trial by fire when it came to not just editing but dealing to a wide variety of personality types.

MARY FLEENER: Weirdo didn’t affect my career, or offer opportunities, unlike Twisted Sisters, which really got me a lot of work and recognition.

What can I say? The subject matter and content in Weirdo was smart, maybe too smart for the average punters. Weirdo attracted the outsiders, and the tortured souls, and was perfectly delightful. It was what it was … WEIRD! DREW FRIEDMAN: I suppose my work was seen by underground comix fans and R. Crumb fans for the first time, so that was good in building up an audience for my work. At the time it was a total thrill for me (and other artists I’ve talked to, including Bagge and Kaz), to see my work in a magazine alongside Robert Crumb’s latest work.

That was an incredible kick. Crumb and I also started a correspondence where he’d offer me his always-welcome comments and advice. He was the first person to suggest I think about my eyesight a bit and consider loosening up on the intense stipple drawing I was doing, which I eventually did, phasing it out altogether.

BILL GRIFFITH: Nothing major—just nice exposure.

JOHN HOLMSTROM: Nothing, really. Unfortunately. It could have, if I wasn’t so stupid. But Weirdo did a lot for the underground scene of the 1980s. Crumb helped a lot of people by exposing their work, and I always respect him for that. I always felt that the underground needed to keep some “breeding grounds” alive. New talent needed to be nurtured and rewarded by being published.

Who’s On Last? (top) Drew Friedman’s “Old Bud Abbott” from Weirdo #6. (bottom) Yes, you, too, can look like Ernest Borgnine, thanks to Drew, from Weirdo #10. © Drew Friedman.

That was a lesson I got from Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, so I always tried to pay it forward. I was so happy when Crumb did the same. Likewise with Robert Williams at Juxtapoz. Too many artists take the money and run. They take advantage of the situation they are in, make a lot of money from involvement in a scene that was actually started by other people, but never help new talent. Usually, these people are insecure about their own talent (or lack thereof), so they try to suppress the younger people trying to establish their careers.

I tried to publish new artists in Punk, Comical Funnies, Stop!, and later on, at High Times. It was always an obsession for me to keep the underground spirit alive.

So when Crumb published Weirdo, to me it was just another chapter in the career of a man I consider to be the Muhammad Ali of the underground: the Greatest!

BOB KATHMAN: One of the best things to come from being in that issue was it brought about my own experience editing a comic anthology. As my comic was the last comic to be printed (in the last issue) on the inside back cover, the first comic on the inside of the front cover was a dream comic (co-starring a dream version of R. Crumb) by a Serbian cartoonist called Alekzandar Zograf.

I’d been self-publishing comics (under Plain Vain Press) and one was called Bob’s Dreamzine. I also discovered Rick Veitch’s Rarebit drew friedman Fiends dream comics at Atomic Books around then. So I wrote to this Courtesy of DrewFriedman.net.

Serbian artist and told him I’d been doing dream comics too, and that if you were to see the Verre D’eau cover printed on its own, without the guts, my comic had been printed right next to his. I added it would be fun to do such a Weirdo-like anthology, which was all about dream comics.

He wrote back (his real name is Sasa Rakezic) and replied that he’d been thinking of such a book too. We corresponded, and planned a collection of

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Pick Up Artists (top) “Imported Erotika” by Robert Armstrong from #8. (center) “Ruby the Dyke”

by S. Clay Wilson from #15. (bottom) “4 Red Brides” by Carol Tyler from Weirdo #18. © the respective artists.

comics. I’d contact some artists in North America and he’d gather some in Europe and Eastern Europe. In the end, we had a bunch and a concept for a wraparound cover, each artist drawing themselves the way they flew in their dreams. That inspired the title, Flock of Dreamers [FOD]. Denis Kitchen liked the idea, made us the co-editors, and printed it in 1998. Along with R. Crumb’s Coffee Table Art Book, FOD was one of the very last Kitchen Sink books published.

Before it was finished, I traveled to Yugoslavia and got to meet and stay with Sasa and his wife after the sanctions had been lifted because of the end to the Balkan War. We actually had a sit-down, face-to-face meeting about our book! I also met other FOD artists over the years: Jim Woodring in NYC, Thierry Guitard in Paris, Ashley Holt in Charleston, South Carolina, and Chris Lanier in San Francisco (with Sasa, who had a show at The Cartoon Art Museum). I was in a group comic show with Wostok in Vrasac (near Romania), met David Lasky at a UCLA comic-con, and met Rick Veitch at an SPX in Bethesda, Maryland.

Plus I talked with R. Crumb on the phone when I was in the South of France visiting my aunt and uncle. He and Aline were busy with a school project with their daughter Sophie, so I didn’t invade their town like I wanted to. But Sasa put together a funny jam comic (jamming with Alekzandar Zograf) we were both in and I got to be in a story with Sasa and Jim Woodring. Very exciting for a super-fan like me.

When I moved to California, I was able to participate in an anthology edited by another Weirdo alumnus, Tom Chalkley, called Street Runoff, featuring cartoonists from Baltimore. Tom had a comic strip run in The Baltimore Sun featuring rats and had taught cartooning and comics at MICA, my old art school. I’d taken his class in 1991, which kickstarted my attempt to make comics worth publishing.

ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: I was very artistically prolific during my Weirdo years. I think I can honestly say I did most of my best work during that time of stress and total craziness. I felt appreciated by many of the artists, and even nurturing and protective towards some of my “pet” Weirdo artists.

CAROL LAY: Nothing, as far as I know. I got $50 a page and some credibility in the cartooning community.

SCOTT NICKEL: Not much, actually. I don’t think many people know about it. But I’m proud to be in the same company (and listed on the same Wikipedia page) as Peter Bagge, Robert Crumb, Aline KominskyCrumb, Mary Fleener, Carol Lay, Drew Friedman, and the many, many great cartoonists who contributed to the magazine.

GARY PANTER: Not really. Cartoon-making is an obscure thing—not like a career.

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SASA RAKEZIC: It was fantastic, one of the turning points. My address was printed inside, so there were a lot of letters, and I got some assignments for more work that were published in other magazines in the US and elsewhere. Also, since it was an international issue that included some of the works by alternative cartoonists from France, it was where I saw for the first time works by JC Menu, Placid, and Caroline Wedier. Some of them I met or collaborated with when I was visiting France, where my stuff would get published

by L’Association.

CAROL TYLER: Skyrocket to fame and fortune, of course—wouldn’t that be a great answer? I guess I’ll stick with that. Weirdo was a terrific venue that allowed my work to be seen by many readers and I was so pleased to be a part of it. I only wish I could have produced more.

The other thing was that I had to master the art of the short piece, you know: say it all in the number of pages allotted. Kind of like haiku. I still use the Weirdo method today.

DENNIS WORDEN: Without the incentive and encouragement I got from that, there probably wouldn’t have been a career. And it was from being in Weirdo that I first got in contact with some other cartoonists. Before that I knew no cartoonists or artists of any kind. It was a big turning point.

ARNOLD: What was your first/last issue of Weirdo?

PETER BAGGE: I edited issues #10–17, and guest-edited issue #27.

MARY FLEENER: I was in seven issues of Weirdo. My first li’l strip was in Weirdo #13 (1986). It was a wordless Godzilla-themed comic.

I think Pete only published it ’cuz I was buggin’ him so much!

DREW FRIEDMAN: I first appeared in Weirdo #4 (1981) and I’m just not sure when my last piece appeared. I think it was an issue Aline edited.

JOHN HOLMSTROM: Can’t remember. It was just one. Somewhere in the middle.

ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: My first memories of Weirdo were Robert working at his desk, laying out pages and hand-lettering the editorial and letters pages while bouncing a shrieking Sophie on his knees in an attempt to calm her. It seemed to us new parents that she was in some kind of deep pain. In retrospect, now as grandparents, we can confidently say that she was just a colicky baby… And what was I doing while Robert was working and bouncing the baby?? I was probably trying to have a bowel movement and a shower, and in a really egocentric and sanity-preserving state, I might have been going to the gym, frantically trying to get an endorphin rush!!

CAROL LAY: “The Prince and the Art Girl” was another of those personal stories I kept sharing verbally. By the time that story presented itself to me I was better at writing and drawing, and then-editor Aline Kominsky-Crumb accepted it without any revisions. It’s nice when life hands you stories that are complete and neat. It was more of an amusing episode than an emotionally ripping event like Midwestern Wedding. It did not have as much therapeutic effect when I put it out there, but drawing it still gave me some of my mojo back.

SCOTT NICKEL: Issue #19.

GARY PANTER: I read them all and was only in one. I don’t know the issue. It had a guy freaking out on the cover.

SASA RAKEZIC: I was published in the final issue only, #28. THAT was my moment of fame.

CAROL TYLER: I’m not exactly sure, but maybe #18 was my first and the one Crumb did from France was the last. Not sure what number [#28].

DENNIS WORDEN: I think I started in issue #4, and ended in #27.

I got stuff in with all three editors, who all had different tastes.

ARNOLD: If Weirdo were published today (or something similar), would you contribute? What about MAD? PETER BAGGE: If it paid decently! Or if I was otherwise thoroughly enthused by it.

ROBERT CRUMB: I am not interested in a Weirdo revival. Come on, it ended more than 20 years ago! It’s over, dude. I shudder at the thought of having to be editor again. Forget it! Let some other poor sap take it on! I just want to do my own work and let it go at that.

MARY FLEENER: I would contribute in a second if Weirdo was ever revived. A few anthologies have continued with Weirdo’s energy, namely Hotwire and Dennis Eichhorn’s Real Stuff. I miss the real underground stuff like that. The MAD magazine of today doesn’t interest me, but it was a vital, huge influence on me in the ’60s.

Thanks for asking me to testify!!! Ha-ha!

Worden’s Finest (top) Dennis Worden’s Stickboy, from Weirdo #8. (bottom) Page from Worden’s favorite Weirdo tale, from #4. (inset) Slur, Worden’s first self-published comic. © Dennis Worden.

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them. I offended a lot of people by taking this stance. But I don’t DREW FRIEDMAN: I’ve asked Crumb over the years if he ever care. I was right. They were wrong. planned to revive Weirdo, even as a one-shot, and if so, I’d certainly Of course, I never put R. Crumb in that group. He’s always contribute, but he’s told me he has no interest in bringing it back. been something special.

I can’t think of another publication that’s similar to Weirdo ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: In addition to drawing comics, that comes out these days. I do contribute regularly to editing Weirdo, raising Sophie, and teaching aerobics, Monte Beauchamp’s excellent comics/graphics I was also drinking a lot of wine and occasionally anthology Blab!, which I think is about the closest having sordid affairs with cowboys and Hells Angels, thing around to both Weirdo and Raw. But I just while Robert wandered the country in search of don’t draw as many comics as I used to, although bigger and better butts and calves.

I do have an eight-page piece coming out later At the end of the ’80s, I got sober and that this year titled “Robert Crumb and Me” in a book catapulted me into a deep midlife crisis. And to called Masterful Marks, edited by Monte fully appreciate my warped and illogical thought Beauchamp and being published by Simon & process at that time, you hafta know that the Schuster. I worked on that particular comic for four obvious solution to soothe my existential terror was months. BTW, I’ve been a regular contributor to to schlep my family and all our collections to a MAD for the last 20 years. remote medieval village in the south of France!!

BILL GRIFFITH: I might—but I’m pretty busy bill griffith I put the last issue together in France using these days doing the daily Zippy strip and a American and French artists, with the French text graphic memoir.

Photo credit: Karen Green. translated into English. Realizing that no French person could JOHN HOLMSTROM: Tough question. If I had the opportunity to pronounce “weirdo”—they said “verdo”—I decided to call it Verre collaborate with Crumb anytime, I would do it, but I don’t think D’eau, which means “a glass of water,” and that last cover is a he likes me very much. We tried to hire him when I was an editor Humbug-esque solitary glass at High Times, but he’s so of water with an elaborate anti-drug, he was dismissive border. I love it!! of the idea. Gilbert Shelton Ah!!! I’m getting all and Paul Mavrides did a nostalgic talkin’ about those great comic strip and cover great ol’ Weirdo days…. for High Times a few years CAROL LAY: I wrote a story later. But I think Robert had after my brother killed some problems working for himself that I didn’t have past regimes…. the heart to do at the time. I I tried a few times to was too devastated. Fifteen contribute to MAD, but I years later, I could do it now, faced the same obstacles and it probably wouldn’t that every young, unproven have the impact on others talent tries to overcome: It or release for me, but who was a closed shop. They knows. I worked out a lot didn’t want to publish new of trouble in my head about talent; they wanted to print that horrible event and the same tired crap they aftermath through my always relied on. In fact, this weekly strip. The John strips is why I started Punk: When started violently, but over I tried to show my work to the years expressed love underground publishers in and acceptance. I learned the early 1970s, I was told how to get personal from the same thing over and Crumb and Weirdo. I’m over again: “Start your own grateful for that because the scene. We’re not interested ability to express myself in finding new talent. We honestly helps me shed have our formula. We don’t demons. MAD (last I looked) need new ideas.” has become a tired I always figured that was corporate-run pop-culture a death knell for any business parody vehicle and is not that is reliant on ideas and at all in the same league. creativity. Especially when it I’ve illustrated a couple of involved the hippie undercutesy pieces for them, ground, which I thought but I’m a Weirdo. was totally dedicated to SCOTT NICKEL: I would “doing your own thing,” contribute to a Weirdo-like etc. So I was only too happy book without hesitation. to start Punk and dump on As for MAD, I’ve been a those effin’ hippies. They regular contributor since rejected me, so I rejected 2007. A childhood dream come true!

GARY PANTER: I was never asked to contribute and I imagine We Love Back Issues that I wouldn’t be invited or if I was I would not have time these An ad by Bill Griffith: “The Weirdo Difference” from #20. days to work for Weirdo, but I would read it. My work would never have fit in MAD, nor did I ever aspire to being in MAD. © Bill Griffith.

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I liked it in the ’50s and ’60s. The last time I saw MAD it had that thin paper sad look of the end of magazines magazine. Computer design undesigned it.

SASA RAKEZIC: If Weirdo (or even MAD) were still around, I would do anything to get inside.

Unfortunately, today we don’t have such publications anymore, the scene is becoming less intense; people are less sensitive about magazines and comics. They are not even interested in satire or humor. The only thing that remains is this selfish, meta-consumeristic culture, with few exceptions. And that’s all, ha-ha!

CAROL TYLER: Sure, I would be happy to do more stuff for Weirdo. I don’t know if the Crumbs are up for it. As for MAD, I don’t think I’m talented enough. I’m weird but not mad.

DENNIS WORDEN: Good question. If they asked me to I probably would, even though I rarely draw comics anymore. As for MAD, I’m not good enough of a cartoonist for the sort of stuff they might use.

ARNOLD: A question for the editors: I’ve heard that there was an overabundance of submissions, which is why the editor kept changing…

PETER BAGGE: It was more like burnout for all of us. But, yes, there was a lot of material to sort through.

ROBERT CRUMB: I handed over the editor’s job to Peter Bagge after having edited the first eight issues by myself. I thought he’d make a good editor as he was full of youthful energy and enthusiasm, was an exceptionally disciplined and hard working artist, conscientious and well-organized, and had the right sensibility— not at all arty or pretentious. When I first asked him if he’d like to take on the job of editor of Weirdo, his reaction was, “Boy, would I!” I was glad he was so eager, but warned him that it was a thankless job. First of all, there

was no money in it, no pay whatsoever. And it was a lot of work, very time-consuming.

Putting together each issue, organizing the material took a lot of time, but the biggest headache was dealing with all the artists, coping with all those egos, each with their own highly individualistic problems. This includes not only the artists who were used in the magazine, but also the many artists whose work was rejected or who only got one page printed out of piles of work submitted. This process, if carried out conscientiously, involved a huge amount of correspondence back and forth, giving out editorial advice, having to explain why work was rejected, enduring anger and various types of craziness. All this for a crummy 50 bucks a page in a cockamamie little rag like Weirdo.

Eventually, Peter Bagge, too, burned out. As with me, he found that the editor’s job was cutting too seriously into his ability to get enough of his own comic work done. After eight issues, he, too, threw in the towel. That’s when Aline took it over and was editor ’til the last issue, #28. She did a good job but was less exacting than either Bagge or myself. She didn’t bother to answer a lot of the mail that came in from artists. She let the submissions, the letters, pile up. After Weirdo folded and I was going through the files I found stacks of submitted artwork and angry letters from artists that Aline hadn’t bothered to deal

Harvey’s Harangue (right) Harvey Pekar column from Weirdo #20. (bottom) “Murder on the Midway” by Kim Deitch, from #15. © the respective artists.

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Prime Time Religion (top) “TV Evangelists”

by Michael Dougan, from Weirdo #20. (bottom) From #20’s “How My Family Encouraged Me,” by Dori Seda. (right) Crumb’s problematic cover for issue #24. © the respective artists.

Weirdo TM & © R. Crumb.

with. She also had a tendency to print work because she liked the artist personally. She didn’t have a cold enough editorial eye. I didn’t agree with all her editorial decisions, but I deferred to her as editor. Still, she did the letters page just as I and Bagge had done it—all by hand and with lots of humorous comments included— a major part of putting each issue together and, I think, a big part of the magazine’s charm. Aline was excellent at that part of the job.

ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: By the time my editing stint arrived—Peter lasted for about three years—there was an avalanche of mail and submissions. I was the worst at keeping up with it—Peter and Robert were much more conscientious. I had trouble juggling the artwork and I often disappointed people by putting them in a later issue.

Something probably not known or recognized is the fact that every time I delivered a completed Weirdo to our beloved publisher Ron Turner at Last Gasp Comics, I had to turn in the original artwork and the cameraready covers, and I wouldn’t leave until I had a check for every artist. The pay was $50 a page—not much—but

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we were all poor, so it was something, and if I didn’t get the checks in person and mail them myself, the artists would never get paid. So I would be in Ron’s office and he’d take out the checkbook and start talking about something unrelated and then he’d write two checks.

And then he’d be hungry and we had to go next door and get some burritos and then back to the office. He’d have to make some phone calls while I waited and stuff would get piled up on his desk and the checkbook would get lost … but eventually he’d find it and write more checks. By the end of the afternoon, I’d have all the checks and I could drive back out to our little house in the big valley and pick Sophie up at school and go home and we’d eat some burritos for dinner….

ARNOLD: Any troubles with censorship?

PETER BAGGE: From the government, you mean? No. ROBERT CRUMB: I had trouble with censorship only once that I recall, and that was with Ron Turner, the publisher. I’d done a back cover, which was a satire on the “missing children” notices that were at that time being printed on milk cartons and paper grocery bags as well as other places. Turner objected to my satire and refused to publish it. He and his wife were very sensitive on this missing-children issue. His wife worked at the time for some agency that handled cases of abused children, I forget what exactly. I didn’t put up a big argument. The thing eventually got printed in High Times, I believe … somewhere, anyway.

Ron also had reservations about my “satanic” cover [#24]. He was worried that people would take it seriously and think that Weirdo was part of a secret satanic cult or something. I managed to persuade him to take the big bold risk and publish it anyway. There was no negative reaction afterward that I ever heard about. Zero. None.

The 1980s was kind of an awful period in America: the Reagan era, the Yuppies, the right-wing Christian “coalition,” the big AIDS hysteria. The thing is, though, in many ways it’s just gotten worse over there—a culture bereft of anything real, any authentic life among the common people. No wonder the kids just want to sit and stare at electronic devices all day!

As for the story in the last issue of Weirdo, “When the Niggers Take Over America,” which came out in 1992, after we’d already moved to France, I probably would not have done that if I’d still been living in the US. I caught hell for that strip from my pals Art Spiegelman, who called it “lame,” and Bill Griffith. They believed that such “hard” satire was too hurtful of black people, Jews, and the other minorities mentioned. An old Chicano friend—René Yanez—an activist in San Francisco, also turned against me because of that strip. I felt bad about that. And then, too, the strip was picked up by a white-supremacist neo-Nazi group and printed in their newsletter. ”See, R. Crumb has been on our side all along,” they crowed in the accompanying text.

They didn’t get the satire at all. So maybe Art and Bill were right, I don’t know. I’ll never know. Do I regret that I drew it? No. ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB: One time, I was threatened in a scary, anti-Semitic speed rap!!

ARNOLD: Were there any directions about what people could submit?

PETER BAGGE: No. No official guidelines. It was pretty open-ended.

ROBERT CRUMB: We had no set editorial policy. I operated on intuition and instinct—whatever struck my fancy. I had an indefinable idea of what I thought would work. My choices never pleased everybody.

People liked one thing but not another. No one understood why I printed the strips by Eleanore Norfluss. Also, nobody much liked the photo funnies. I admit they were a kind of self-indulgence, an opportunity for me to cavort with some cute girls. Basically, the readers were comic fans and they just wanted comics—nothing else, no photo funnies, no all-text stores … comics and more comics.

ALINE-KOMINSKY CRUMB: In the beginning Robert relied on the work of artists we already knew in addition to our own, plus obscure under-appreciated stuff we found in old magazines from the 1920s through the ’50s. We also decided to do some “photo-funnies,” inspired by “girlie” zines and Mexican foto-novellas. Like the old publications, we have flimsy and ridiculous plots, basically just an excuse to show the female form cavorting around in sexy outfits. We were totally unprofessional: We used a Brownie camera I’d bought at the Salvation Army, or we’d rely on a friend who claimed to be a professional photographer but would forget to put film in his fancy cameras. Of course, we had no budgets or salaries!! How did we live?? I don’t remember… We did own our little house and I don’t have any memories of going hungry… We ate a lot of tortillas made by our Mexican friends and a lot of rice and beans, plus we had a big vegetable garden and our neighbor had a goat (for milk)!!

“A Glass of Water” (left) Cover to Weirdo’s final issue, #28 (Summer 1993). (below) Crumb selfportrait from 1986, courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com).

TM & © R. Crumb.

In September 2013, a hardcover compilation of all of Robert Crumb’s material for Weirdo was published by Ron Turner and Last Gasp, entitled The Weirdo Years 1981–93. It includes a color section featuring all of Crumb’s cover images and occasional back-cover images. There is also a new introduction by Aline Kominsky-Crumb, which is where her comments for this article originate.

We conclude with Josh Alan Friedman’s comments done for his BlackCrackerOnline blog on December 21, 2009: Crumb’s Weirdo Weirdo was Robert Crumb’s magazine throughout the 1980s, with Peter Bagge as editor. It ran to 28 issues. A few years ago, some guy doing a retrospective approached me for an appreciation. I don’t think his piece ever came out. But here was my memory: What I miss most is the old Weirdo Building on 7th Avenue. I remember telephone booths in the lobby manned by Bud Abbott-types in fedoras, running scams and barking out bets to their bookies. You could get a racing form and a spit shoeshine from ol’ Hustis—who some claimed was the original Chantanoogie Shoeshine Boy. The offices of Weirdo itself only occupied three floors. A huge department store sat underneath.

“First floor, ladies lingerie and French parfume, second floor men’s hernia trusses,” sang out the bulbous-nosed Irish elevator men. They slid open the elevator gates while doffing their caps. And finally, you reached the 29th floor, those huge art deco doors with Weirdo International on the frosted glass.

Messrs. Crumb and Bagge took up opposite corners. Crumb, the publishing tycoon, resided behind a big oak desk, always with the calabash pipe and deerstalker cap. Large chorus girls, eyes cast down in

shame, were ushered in by Irving, the buxom blonde receptionist.

And Bagge’s office was the command center, to the right. He was the schmeichler, the two-fisted tough guy, a cigar clenched in his jaw. He assigned cartoons through a battery of phones and intercoms. In between, a sea of cartoonists at their easels lined up in military formation. It was there where I removed my hat before Chief Bagge—who accepted my first pitch: a series of scripts, to be drawn by my brother Drew, depicting the secret homosexual liaisons between Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors!

Ladies and gentlemen, that was Weirdo.

MARK ARNOLD is a comic-book and animation historian. He has written books about Harvey Comics, Cracked Magazine, Underdog, Archie Comics, The Beatles, and Walt Disney Productions as well as numerous articles for BACK ISSUE and Alter Ego. He currently is at work on a book about DePatie-Freleng (Pink Panther). Special thanks go out to Ron Turner, Lee Hester, and Dan Fogel for helping track down many of the various contributors to Weirdo.

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BACK ISSUE • 71

One finds that, over time, it is different things that bring out the “weird” in comics.

Beginning in the Golden Age, comic books were shipped by second-class mail. Publishers had to obtain a second-class permit for every title they published. If the publisher came out with a new comic-book title, they had to pay for a new second-class permit.

That is, unless the publisher simply changed the name of the comic book and continued the numbering, in which case they could use the same permit. That is how EC Comics’ Saddle Romances became Weird Science, which later became Weird Science-Fantasy.

Then, in the 1970s, DC Comics launched new titles like Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, and Weird Western Tales, and converted Adventure Comics into Weird Adventure Comics (although the name change was only on the cover). The motivation in this case was also economic—not just to avoid the cost of a mailing permit, but rather to take advantage of changes in the Comics Code.

So, in 1988, when Eclipse Comics published a comic book called Weird Romance, it was certainly economically motivated, but it also had to do with tying up loose ends.

Eclipse Enterprises was founded in 1977 by brothers Jan and Dean Mullaney. The company was an early champion of creator rights and published innovative titles such as Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, one of the first original graphic novels. In the 1980s, Dean Mullaney’s partner, catherine (cat) yronwode, became editor-inchief for Eclipse and oversaw the publication of titles like Miracleman by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman and Airboy by Chuck Dixon.

Reprint titles were more economically viable to produce than comics with new material, and Eclipse took advantage of a wealth of material. In 1985, Eclipse debuted Seduction of the Innocent, a new monthly title reprinting classic stories from Golden Age publishers. Generally speaking, the stories in Seduction of the Innocent were of the variety that would have given Fredric Wertham heartburn, hence the title of the series. The first issue, labeled “Part 1 of 3,” featured a cover by EC veteran Reed Crandall and included horror stories from Standard Comics with titles like “Alice in Terrorland” and “Hanged by the Neck,” originally published in the early 1950s. Seduction of the Innocent actually ran for six issues (not counting the two 3-D issues), reprinting stories of the same vintage, mostly from Standard, but also from Toby and Key Publications. The stories were printed essentially as originally published, but touched up and re-colored by Eclipse.

But with the end of Seduction of the Innocent, Eclipse still had unused Golden Age stories to reprint, and so they produced a series of one-shots under different titles, though all still published under the indicia of Seduction of the Innocent, as DC had done with Weird Adventure Comics. In 1987, Eclipse published Halloween Horror and Walt Kelly’s Christmas Classics. Then, in 1988, they published Weird Romance and Walt Kelly’s Springtime Tales. The two Walt Kelly titles reprinted late 1940s Four Color classics from Dell Comics by the creator of the comic strip Pogo, while the other two issues featured horror and adventure stories from publishers Chesler, Ace, Timor, Prize, and Ziff-Davis.

So, technically, Weird Romance was actually issue #9 of Seduction of the Innocent. The issue featured three vintage stories, as well as an insightful new essay by Jim Vadeboncoeur, associate editor of the original Who’s Who of American Comic Books, about the growth in popularity of romance comics and the presence of romance themes in other comic genres.

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by

Dewey Cassell

Hooked on Love Brent Anderson’s splashy cover to Weird Romance #1 (Feb. 1988). (inset) Seduction of the Innocent #1 cover

by Reed Crandall, inked by Tom Yeates. © Eclipse Comics.

Better to Stay Single (top) Dan and Sy Barry “Princess of the Sea” title page. (bottom) Lou Cameron art from “One Door from Disaster.” © Eclipse Comics.

When asked about the source material for the Seduction of the Innocent series, Vadeboncoeur says, “My recollection is that Eclipse had access to the original art for the stories from a huge warehouse of art that had been recently unearthed at the time. They [cat and Dean] chose the stories and I wrote an introduction to the issues that they were in. I was employed to lend some continuity to the series.”

It is curious that in all those years publishers were playing with the titles of their comic books, trying to save postage costs or attract new readers, no one ever tried the name Weird Romance. Perhaps they realized that not even putting “weird” in front of the title would attract boys to read romance comics (although Vadeboncoeur suggests boys probably did read them).

Ironically, as Vadeboncoeur observes, many of the horror stories of the Golden Age were actually romance comics in disguise. Think about how many EC stories were fundamentally about a jilted lover, a jealous boyfriend, a scheming couple, or a cheating husband. The only thing that set them apart from typical romance comics was that in the EC books, someone usually got stabbed, shot, carved up, or buried alive. Talk about weird romance.

The stories presented in the Eclipse comic book were entitled “One Door from Disaster,” “Lair of the Silken Doom,” and “Princess of the Sea.” The latter was the best of the lot, telling the story of a diver rescued by a mermaid princess. Reprinted in black and white, the stories featured artwork by veteran artists Dan and Sy Barry and Lou Cameron. The stories originally appeared in the early 1950s in Ace Magazines’ Web of Mystery and a series by Ziff-Davis coincidentally titled Weird Thrillers. While provocative in their day, the stories were fairly tame for the late 1980s. The artwork was attractive and the issue featured a new color cover based on “Princess of the Sea,” but Weird Romance marked the last of the horror reprints for Seduction of the Innocent.

And so that was the end of that. Unless you count jim vadeboncoeur Weird Romance, the musical. In 1992, Weird Romance: Two One-Act Musicals of Speculative Fiction debuted offBroadway. According to the website www.SamuelFrench.com, “The first [musical], The Girl Who Was Plugged In, is about a homeless bag-lady whose soul is transplanted into the body of a gorgeous female android by a company which manufactures celebrities. The second, Her Pilgrim Soul, is about a scientist who researches holographic imaging. One day a mysterious ‘living’ holograph, apparently a woman long dead, appears and changes his life forever.” The music was composed by Alan Menken, renowned for his work on Disney films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, as well as Little Shop of Horrors. The book was written by Alan Brennert, who has a comic-book connection. Brennert wrote several scripts for the 1970s television series Wonder Woman, as well as a handful of memorable Bronze Age stories for DC Comics, most of which featured Batman. While the musical Weird Romance is unrelated to the comic book of the same name, it is nonetheless an interesting footnote in the history of the “weird.”

Eclipse continued publishing comics until 1994. Among their many accomplishments, the company deserves praise for bringing Golden Age classics to a new audience, and creatively calling attention to the blending of comic-book genres that gave rise to Weird Romance.

Sincere thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur and Andy Mangels for their insight.

DEWEY CASSELL’s romance with his wife of 27 years has been wonderful, not weird, and she graciously puts up with his comic-book art obsession. Cassell is the author of over 30 articles and two books, including Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics, which was nominated for an Eisner Award. He is currently wrapping up a book about Herb Trimpe.

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BACK ISSUE • 73

TOM POWERS: How did you two first meet?

JIM STARLIN: Hard to say at this point. I imagine it was at one of the First Fridays that the Brunners used to throw. That’s where I met most of my contemporaries in the business.

BERNIE WRIGHTSON: That sounds about right. I really don’t remember. We may have met at the Bullpen at Marvel or the lunchroom at DC. Those were big gathering places back then.

POWERS: Before you worked together on The Weird, Bernie contributed two eight-page backup strips to Dreadstar,“The Interstellar Toybox,” for issues #6 (Sept. 1983) and 7 (Nov. 1983). You both later proposed the idea to Marvel for the massively successful faminerelief jam comic, Heroes for Hope (Dec. 1985), and its follow-up, Heroes Against Hunger (Aug. 1986), to DC. What are your memories of these comics?

STARLIN: “The Interstellar Toybox” was Bernie looking for something to write and draw and me needing a break from filling all the pages of a monthly (or was it a bimonthly?) book. The famine-relief books? I can’t recall if it was my or Bernie’s idea originally to propose this project. A lot of musicians were doing similar fundraisers around that time. As I recall, both Bernie and I felt we’d get a better response from the companies if we approached them about it together. Later, I was involved in another fundraiser with a number of comic publishers without Bernie’s participation, and it just fell apart and never happened.

WRIGHTSON: “Interstellar Toybox” grew out of the “Captain Sternn” story I had done for Heavy Metal a year or two earlier—funny science fiction inspired and influenced by Star Wars. Jim was in an overload situation at the time with all his projects and asked me if I’d do a backup story or two to help fill out Dreadstar. As it happened, I already had done some ideas for some short stories, so it worked out perfectly. As I recall, Heroes for Hope was initially my thought, just that—a thought. But Jim ran with it right away—how to break it down into two-page segments, each assigned to different teams of writers and inkers, all us working for free on the notion that all the writers and artists would hop on board unpaid if their workload was no more than two pages each. Jim got the ball rolling immediately.

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by

To m P o w e r s

conducted by email, Winter 2014

TM & © DC Comics.

In the creative riches of the post–Crisis DC Universe, The Weird (Apr.–July 1988), written by Jim Starlin and penciled by Bernie Wrightson, with inks by Dan Green, exists, arguably, as one of the rarer gems. A superhero comic that confidently integrates horror and science-fiction elements, this four-issue miniseries explores new territory, positing the Justice League as the well-meaning antagonists against the inevitably explosive titular character, who is struggling to understand his newfound humanity and fatherhood while trying to save Earth from the evil Macroletts. Equally interesting as the story of The Weird itself are Mr. Starlin’s and Mr. Wrightson’s memories of this thoughtful collaboration. jim starlin – Tom Powers

He called Jim Shooter right away and got the go-ahead.

We made a rough list of all the writers and artists we could think of and started making phone calls. It all happened very fast. Everyone involved got very excited about the project and couldn’t have been more enthusiastic and cooperative. We all wanted to do something to help the famine victims, and I’m very happy we were able to help, even in our small way.

POWERS: How did these professional connections lead to you working together as a writer/artist team on the Marvel Graphic Novel, The Incredible Hulk and the Thing: The Big Change (1987)?

STARLIN: I’m not sure it was the professional connections as much as the fact that we lived only a few miles away from each other and used to hang out regularly that got us working together on the Hulk/Thing Big Change. On that job, Bernie worked from just a loose plot. All our later projects I did a full script on. I think I recall Bernie felt more comfortable working in the full-script format.

WRIGHTSON: Our hanging together was, for me, the real starting point for The Big Change. Jim in person can be hysterically funny. When we started talking about this story, it was supposed to be a straightforward, serious superhero story. I can’t take superheroes completely seriously—I think they’re actually kinda silly. I’m serious about monsters. So, as the story discussion

Dynamic Duo (top) One of BI’s favorite Starlin/ Wrightson collaborations: Marvel Graphic Novel #29 (1987).

Autographed copy courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). Two peeks at Bernie Wrightson’s renditions of DC superheroes: (bottom left) page 8 of The Weird #1, and (bottom right) page 21 from issue #4.

TM & © DC Comics.

bernie wrightson

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BACK ISSUE • 75

Horrible Host The other-dimensional we know as the Weird possessed the body of ne’er-do-well Walter Langley. Starlin, Wrightson, and inker Dan Green reveal a glimpse into Langley’s psyche on this spectacular page from The Weird #3.

Original art courtesy of Heritage.

TM & © DC Comics.

went on, a switch flipped somewhere in my head, and, since we’re going to do a story starring Marvel’s two big monster characters, at some point, I suggested to Jim that the story should feature monsters only—not a human in the whole book. I think he was tickled by the idea.

From then on, our story discussion got sillier. I remember laughing a lot. Anyway, it was some of the most fun I ever had drawing a comic. I actually prefer the loose-plot “Marvel Method” over a full script. But it depends on the script. Jim’s scripts are always good. He’s a master storyteller.

Every one of his scripts that I ever read I wanted to draw.

POWERS: Following your fun collaboration on The Big Change, how did The Weird originate?

STARLIN: I believe I started that project without Bernie being involved at first. I designed the Weird’s outfit and wouldn’t have done that if Bernie were already connected to the project. There was also an awful lot of negotiating with DC Comics about which DC characters would appear in the series. Bernie would have never put up with all the nonsense those editors put me through on that project’s start. He came in on the job because he needed some fast cash, as I recall. That was why Dan Green inked the book, I think. I don’t think The Weird was a real labor of love at the start for either

76 • BACK ISSUE • Weird Issue

of us. Not sure about Bernie, but the character only really began to grow on me while working on the script and seeing Bernie’s pencils being drawn.

WRIGHTSON: I took on The Weird strictly for the money. That’s how it started, anyway. I was very broke at the time, and I asked Jim if he could whip up a story quick. He said he had just started something, but I might not be interested because it was a Justice League story, but maybe I’d like the main character. That’s what pulled me in at first: Jim’s drawing of the Weird.

POWERS: Could you please discuss your creative process for The Weird?

STARLIN: Full scripts, but I was coming by every couple of days, and I remember changing things in the script to accommodate some idea that Bernie came up with while penciling. We both tried to keep things flexible.

WRIGHTSON: I always liked Jim’s willingness to listen to ideas and suggestions. If something ever occurred to me while I was drawing, I’d run it by him. If he liked it or maybe it sparked something in his mind, he’d incorporate it into the script. If not, we’d toss it away and just move forward.

POWERS: One of the appropriate horror aspects of the book actually concerns the slightly grotesque appearance of the Weird himself. What type of thinking went into his design?

STARLIN: The big eye was something I’d used on other characters. Bernie modified my original costume design by changing my tight-fitting long gloves and boots into looser-fitting garments.

WRIGHTSON: I think I mentioned earlier that I don’t like superheroes—all those guys in tights. I was pretty much stuck with them on this job, though. Jim’s original idea had the Weird in tights just like all the rest of the Justice League. The Weird became more interesting for me to draw with all the folds and drapes in the costume. I justified it because he was the alien character in the story, the other.

Why not make his costume different from the rest?

POWERS: The book itself straddles a fine line between horror and superhero themes. How did this approach shape The Weird’s writing and art?

STARLIN: One thing I do recall from this job and later with Batman: The Cult (Aug.–Nov. 1988) was the fact that Bernie and his wife were having their kids around then. I think this gave Bernie a new sense of his own mortality and life and death in general. He kept being horrified about certain things in these two stories, and I kept wondering what aliens took over Bernie Wrightson. It was really quite funny. What I was going for with The Weird was boosting the game. There had been a lot of big battles in comics before The Weird, but the collateral damage of these battles was never mentioned, let alone examined carefully.

WRIGHTSON: Jim’s absolutely right. Nothing brings home thoughts of your own mortality like having kids.

And I think a bit of that rubbed off on Uncle Jim himself.

My boys loved him. Whenever he came over to work, he always had time to play with them. Sometimes it felt like there were three kids in the house, not just two.

POWERS: Interestingly, DC’s flagship characters, the post–Crisis Justice League, take on a supporting role in this book. How did this dynamic choice shape your collaboration on The Weird?

STARLIN: The Justice League was always part of the deal because Andy Helfer was the original editor on the project and the editor of the Justice League. The end battle was supposed to involve the Weird and Justice League taking on a possessed Superman and Captain Marvel. But someone had trouble with that, and it became

Superman and Wonder Woman. Then there was a problem with that.

As I recall, there were a couple of other Superman-and-someone possible pair-ups before we ended up with Nuklon [of Infinity, Inc.], a character neither Bernie nor I had ever heard of before then.

WRIGHTSON: I don’t have much to say about that part. I didn’t read the Justice League, and The Weird was my first and only practical encounter with them. I wasn’t involved with the editorial side of The Weird at all. Jim dealt with all that stuff himself and just left me alone to draw, for which I am still very grateful.

POWERS: What are your thoughts on transforming Superman and Nuklon into temporary villains via the horror trope of body possession?

STARLIN: Yeah, that was straight out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not much more to say about it than that.

WRIGHTSON: Possession and body snatching is always fun. Everyone likes watching familiar characters doing things they aren’t supposed to. We revisited that idea again a bit in The Cult.

POWERS: The book also provides a touching father/son-like bond between the Weird and his host body’s son, Billy. How did this emotional undercurrent shape the comic?

STARLIN: I think this had a lot to do with Bernie having his two boys. Having kids was something I never planned to do, but his boys got me thinking about the connections between one generation and the next.

Plus, Karen Berger, the book’s editor, liked the business between the Weird and his boy and pushed for more of it.

WRIGHTSON: One more thing that pulled me in and made this project fun—all the emotional levels—a bit more to it than just the usual superheroes slugging it out.

POWERS: In what ways did your experience working together on this project shape your next DC collaboration, Batman: The Cult?

STARLIN: For one thing, I learned that Bernie works best when he has someone to bounce ideas off and get feedback about his art on a regular basis. I made a point of stopping by a couple times a week to see how the series was going. After we finished The Cult, Bernie and I wanted to do a sequel to it. But DC Comics demanded that Bernie draw a Swamp Thing story with Len Wein. The trouble was, Len lived in LA, Bernie, in New York State. Bernie only got through less than half the first issue of the Swamp Thing before losing

Starlin Still Gets Weird Jim and Bernie’s offbeat cosmic character returned in the late 2000s in Starlin’s various space epics he wrote for DC. Shown here, courtesy of Heritage, are Starlin’s pencils for Mystery in Space #5 (Mar. 2007), guest-starring the Weird.

Surrounding it is the published version of that cover, plus MIS #8, Rann-Thanagar Holy War #7, and Strange Adventures #5.

TM & © DC Comics.

interest in the project and quitting it. We then took the Batman story we wanted to do over to Marvel Comics and changed it to a Punisher story, which became P.O.V. (May– July 1991).

WRIGHTSON: The Cult was lots of fun in its own way—creepy and edgy. It went pretty fast, too. Kind of a high-wire act for me. I was doing my impression of Frank Miller—not getting too fussy with the drawing, but concentrating more on the storytelling.

POWERS: Looking back on The Weird, what are your lasting impressions?

STARLIN: Looking back, I think the Weird was a much better character than I thought him to be at the time. Having written him in several other series since then, I’ve come to appreciate the Weird more, and he’s become one of my favorite characters.

WRIGHTSON: What Jim said. The Weird started out as just a commercial gig for me—a way to make some cash, but it began to grow into something I really cared about. And, in the end, it turned into something really special. But all the things I did with Jim were very special to me. He’s one of the best writers I’ve ever worked with, one of my dearest friends, and a great human being. I love ya, man.

TOM POWERS, a lecturer who teaches composition courses at Montgomery County Community College, located in Pennsylvania, is the co-author, along with Marc Schuster, of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who (McFarland 2007).

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WISH LIST

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

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TONY ISABELLA ON BLACK LIGHTNING Re: the misinformation in BACK ISSUE #73. I am the sole creator of Black Lightning as confirmed by the credits up until the day I inquired about buying out DC’s share in the not-work-for-hire partnership agreement between myself and the company. I mean no disrespect to the talented artist who drew my original stories, but he is not and never was a co-creator of the character. Everything vital to Black Lightning and Jefferson Pierce was already in place before DC and I became partners on my creation. I wish writers for magazines like BACK ISSUE would get it right and not perpetuate the many injustices DC has inflicted on me and my creation.

– Tony Isabella

Allen, the Golden and Silver Ages are the domain of our sister publication, Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego. However, Golden and Silver Age heroes in the Bronze Age (the JSA’s reboot as the Super-Squad, the Spectre, etc.) might make an interesting BI theme. What do the rest of you think?

TM & © DC Comics.

Send your comments to:

Good job on the Batman’s Partners issue of BACK ISSUE. Keep up the good work.

By the way, here are the issues I would like to see: a retro Golden Age and retro Silver Age superheroes-themed issue and a publicdomain Golden Age superheroesthemed issue.

– Allen Trembone

BOB HANEY’S PEN NAMES I was a friend of Bob Haney while he was living in San Felipe, Baja, Mexico. He was pretty tight-lipped about his past, so my desire to uncover the pseudonyms he was published under may not yield any success. I have read Bob had written some novels and hoped I could connect with someone who knew anything about them. Thanks.

– Randy Kerr I’m one of Bob Haney’s biggest fans, but am unaware of any of his pen names. If any of our readers know the answer to Mr. Kerr’s question, please email me at euryman@gmail.com and I’ll forward the information. Thank you!

TM & © DC Comics.

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TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

WHO IS SCORPIO? A few years back I wrote you a couple of emails requesting that a story be done featuring the Hobgoblin and I suggested that the real-life story might be just as interesting as the fictional one.

To my pleasant surprise, not only did both letters get printed, but BACK ISSUE featured an article that was everything I was hoping for and more.

Now I have a new request, one that might not be as big, perhaps it might be a simple answer, but which I’ve often wondered about.

Who is Scorpio?

The villain known as Scorpio first appeared as an unknown masked man in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (NFAOS) #1 (June 1968), which was both written and drawn by Jim Steranko. Steranko brought back the character in NFAOS #5, where he is unmasked by a shocked Nick Fury, but not seen by the readers. That is the last, that I’m aware of, that Steranko used the character he created.

In 1977, the character was brought back in a Defenders story arc by David Anthony Kraft and Keith Giffen (The Defenders #46–50).

In this story, before he commits suicide, Scorpio is revealed to be Nick Fury’s brother Jacob Fury, a character that was also created by Steranko (in Strange Tales #159, 1967). Although this explanation makes sense, particularly in the context that it is a character that hadn’t been used since NFAOS #5, thereby creating no continuity conflicts. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is the character that Steranko had intended Scorpio to be.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

So, again, who is Scorpio? Did Steranko intentionally leave that plot hanging or was it one that he had intended to revisit? Was Steranko even planning on NFAOS #5 to be his last issue? Did Steranko confide in Anthony Kraft and Keith Giffen or did they decide to make Jacob Fury the real identity of Scorpio on their own? I believe that now even the revelations in that Defenders story have been retconned, but my question is, who was Scorpio originally intended to be by Jim Steranko, and why did he never reveal that to us himself?

– Todd Novak Who is Scorpio, really? Who else wants to know? Anyone else interested in BI digging into this?

TM & © Todd McFarlane.

IMAGE-CONSCIOUS READER I’m Pablo and I live in Mexico (I’m from Argentina and there I became a fan of histories of anything from Marvel or DC).

I’m a reader of your publication, but as I always see articles about independents, Marvel, DC, and others, I want to ask you if in any future publication we will see articles and information about Image Comics, Comico, Epic, or any of those publishers. I especially love Epic, as those old issues are filled with tremendous quality in both art and writers.

Thanks a lot for such a terrific work.

– Pablo Doce Greetings from the USA, Pablo!

Thank you for your kind words about BACK ISSUE. I’m happy that you're a reader of our magazine.

Comico was spotlighted in BI #2, with its Maze Agency cover

by Adam Hughes. BI has also featured Comico’s Jonny Quest, Elementals, and Space Ghost series in previous issues.

Marvel’s Epic line is on my editorial to-do list; tentative plans have the Epic imprint doubling up with editor Al Milgrom’s Marvel Fanfare in an issue, but not until 2016 at the earliest, since 2015 is booked.

And eventually we’ll take a look at the earliest days of Image Comics. But before that, we plan to do issues on Archie Comics in the Bronze Age and Bronze Age magazines (the latter of which would include Marvel’s Epic Illustrated magazine), among other themes.

DOING THE BATDANCE Happy 75th for Batman, and thanks for BI mag and Michael Eury. Loved the Batman Partners issue, #73. Thank you for a milestone!

– Robert Casio, via Facebook

ANXIOUSLY AWAITING SUPER SPEC TRIBUTE Greetings from across the pond and a sweltering London!

Just a quick note to say that I love BACK ISSUE magazine, which now is one the very few comic products I buy each Captain Atom and the Ghost TM & © DC Comics.

BACK ISSUE TM TwoMorrows Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

month. Whereas once upon a time I’d buy ten to 15 comics each week, DC’s New 52 and Marvel’s endless reboots and relaunches just don’t feel like “my” comics anymore. How many more Fantastic Four #1s must we have before it becomes embarrassing?

I’ve been collecting since a wee lad of nine back in 1972, so I know what I like!

UK distribution of comics was sporadic at best back in those days, but one of the many joys to be found in our local newsagents were the glorious DC 100-Page Super Spectaculars—the Legion the JLA, especially, with their gorgeous Nick Cardy covers were just divine.

And at 15p each, where a regular-sized issue cost 9p, they represented excellent value. So, suffice it to say, I am very much looking forward to the “Giants and Reprints” edition of BACK ISSUE in 2015!

And please, count this as a “Yes” vote for a Christmas-themed issue! Every year, as Yuletide approaches, in the UK, it starts raining, I get out all my old DC Christmas Limited Collectors’ Editions, the Marvel Holiday Grab-Bags, plus all the Christmas stories that I adored growing up, JLA #110, “The Murder of Santa Claus 1973,” being a prime example. I sit with a glass of sherry, the warm glow of nostalgia and read through them with my sons aged 12 and 10—wonderful!

Keep up the GREAT work!

– Martin Downham The “Giants and Reprints” issue, a 100-page Super Spectacular itself, is BI #81, coming this summer. We’re anxious about it, too!

And November’s BACK ISSUE #85 will be themed “Christmas in Bronze,” exploring comics’ great Christmas tales of the 1970s and 1980s. As Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, would say, “Sweet Christmas!” (Well, he said that about everything.

Still, we bet Luke’ll be happy to find BI #85 stuffed in his stocking—especially when he sees its Marie Severin/Mike Esposito cover featuring Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin as Santa Claus!)

Next issue: Charlton’s Action Heroes in the Bronze Age! DAVE GIBBONS discusses the Charlton/Watchmen connection in an exclusive interview! LEN WEIN and PARIS CULLINS’ Blue Beetle, CARY BATES and PAT BRODERICK’s Captain Atom, plus Peacemaker, Peter Cannon—Thunderbolt, and a “Greatest Stories Never Told” look at Blockbuster Weekly! Featuring the work of JIM APARO, MIKE COLLINS, JOSE DELBO, STEVE DITKO, DICK GIORDANO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ALAN MOORE, PAT MORISI, and more. Re-presenting a 1975 Captain Atom vs. Ghost cover by AL MILGROM, in color for the first time! See you in sixty!

Your friendly neighborhood Euryman, Michael Eury, editor-in-chief

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WINTER 2015 AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1950s

BILL SCHELLY tackles comics of the Atomic Era of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley: EC’s TALES OF THE CRYPT, MAD, CARL BARKS’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, re-tooling the FLASH in Showcase #4, return of Timely’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, HUMAN TORCH and SUB-MARINER, FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics campaign, and more!

NOW SHIPPING! (240-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $40.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 9781605490540

1965-69

JOHN WELLS covers the transformation of MARVEL COMICS into a pop phenomenon, Wally Wood’s TOWER COMICS, CHARLTON’s Action Heroes, the BATMAN TV SHOW, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and Denny O’Neil leading a youth wave in comics, GOLD KEY digests, the Archies and Josie & the Pussycats, and more! NOW SHIPPING!

Ambitious new series of FULLCOLOR HARDCOVERS documenting each decade of comic book history!

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490557

ALSO AVAILABLE NOW:

The 1970s (NOW SHIPPING!)

JASON SACKS & KEITH DALLAS detail the emerging Bronze Age of comics: Relevance with Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’s GREEN LANTERN, Jack Kirby’s FOURTH WORLD saga, Comics Code revisions that opens the floodgates for monsters and the supernatural, Jenette Kahn’s arrival at DC and the subsequent DC IMPLOSION, the coming of Jim Shooter and the DIRECT MARKET, and more!

1960-64: (224-pages) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-045-8 1980s: (288-pages) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-046-5 COMING SOON: 1930s, 1940-44, 1945-49 and 1990s

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490564

MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1980s

DON HECK remains one of the legendary names in comics, considered an “artist’s artist,” respected by peers, and beloved by fans as the co-creator of IRON MAN, HAWKEYE, and BLACK WIDOW, and key artist on THE AVENGERS. Along with STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, and STEVE DITKO, Heck was an integral player in “The Marvel Age of Comics”, and a top-tier 1970s DC Comics artist. He finally gets his due in this heavily illustrated, full-color hardcover biography, which features meticulously researched and chronicled information on Don’s 40-year career, with personal recollections from surviving family, long-time friends, and industry legends, and rare interviews with Heck himself. It also features an unbiased analysis of sales on Don’s DC Comics titles, an extensive art gallery (including published, unpublished, and pencil artwork), a Foreword by STAN LEE, and an Afterword by BEAU SMITH. Written by JOHN COATES. (192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95

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ALTER EGO (8 issues)

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues w/Special)

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TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DON HECK: A WORK OF ART

The third volume in PIERRE COMTOIS’ heralded series covering the pop culture phenomenon on an issueby-issue basis! Following his 1960s and 1970s volumes, this new book looks at Marvel’s final historical phase, when the company moved into a darker era that has yet to run its course. It saw STAN LEE’s retreat to the West Coast, JIM SHOOTER’s rise and fall as editorin-chief, the twin triumphs of FRANK MILLER and JOHN BYRNE, the challenge of independent publishers, and the weakening hold of the COMICS CODE AUTHORITY that led to the company’s creative downfall—and ultimately the marginalization of the industry itself. Comics such as the Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-MEN, Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL, the NEW UNIVERSE, Roger Stern’s AVENGERS and SPIDER-MAN, the new wave of dark heroes such as WOLVERINE and the PUNISHER, and more are all covered, in the analytic detail—and often irreverent manner—readers have come to expect from the previous 1960s and 1970s volumes. However, the 1980s represented years of upheaval in the comics industry— with Marvel at the center of the storm—so expect a bumpy ride in the 1980s decade that marked the beginning of the end of Marvel comics as you knew them!

NEW ISSUES:

TwoMorrows.

A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Visit us on the Web at twomorrows.com

KIRBY COLLECTOR #64

BRICKJOURNAL #32

BACK ISSUE #79

BACK ISSUE #80

BACK ISSUE #81

LEGO ARTISTRY with builder/photographer CHRIS McVEIGH; mosaic builders BRIAN KORTE, DAVE WARE and DAVE SHADDIX; and sculptors SEAN KENNEY (about his nature models) and ED DIMENT (about a full-size bus stop built with LEGO bricks)!

Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, MINDSTORMS building, and more!

“Charlton Action Heroes in the Bronze Age!” DAVE GIBBONS on Charlton’s WATCHMEN connection, LEN WEIN and PARIS CULLINS’ Blue Beetle, CARY BATES and PAT BRODERICK’s Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, and a look at Blockbuster Weekly! Featuring MIKE COLLINS, GIORDANO, KUPPERBERG, ALAN MOORE, PAT MORISI, ALEX ROSS, and more. Cover by AL MILGROM.

“Flash and Green Lantern in the Bronze Age” (crossover with ALTER EGO #132)! In-depth spotlights of their 1970s and 1980s adventures, MARK WAID’s look at the Flash/GL team, and PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Lost GL Fillins. Bonus: DC’s New York Office Memories, and Green Lantern: Ganthet’s Tale by LARRY NIVEN and JOHN BYRNE. With BARR, BATES, GIBBONS, GRELL, INFANTINO, WEIN, and more. Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

“DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints!” An indepth exploration of DC’s 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULARS, plus: a history of comics giants, DC indexes galore, and a salute to “human encyclopedia” E. NELSON BRIDWELL. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, RICH BUCKLER, FRANK FRAZETTA, JOE KUBERT, BOB ROZAKIS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. Super Spec tribute cover featuring classic art by NICK CARDY.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

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(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships June 2015

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

ALTER EGO #131

ALTER EGO #132

ALTER EGO #133

SUPER-SOLDIERS! We declassify Captain America, Fighting American, Sgt. Fury, The Losers, Pvt. Strong, Boy Commandos, and a tribute to Simon & Kirby! PLUS: a Kirby interview about Captain America, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, key 1940s’50s events in Kirby’s career, unseen pencils and unused art from OMAC, SILVER STAR, CAPTAIN AMERICA (in the 1960s AND ‘70s), the LOSERS, & more! KIRBY cover!

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! Another potpourri issue with a comparison of Jack Kirby’s work vs. the design genius of ALEX TOTH, a lengthy Kirby interview, a look at Kirby’s work with WALLY WOOD, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, Jack’s COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

GERRY CONWAY interviewed about his work as star Marvel/DC writer in the early ‘70s (from the creation of The Punisher to the death of Gwen Stacy) with art by ROMITA, COLAN, KANE, PLOOG, BUSCEMA, MORROW, TUSKA, ADAMS, SEKOWSKY, the SEVERINS, and others!

Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

75 YEARS of THE FLASH and GREEN LANTERN (a crossover with BACK ISSUE #80)! INFANTINO, KANE, KUBERT, ELIAS, LAMPERT, HIBBARD, NODELL, HASEN, TOTH, REINMAN, SEKOWSKY, Golden Age JSA and Dr. Mid-Nite artist ARTHUR PEDDY’s stepson interviewed, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

Gentleman JIM MOONEY gets a featurelength spotlight, in an in-depth interview conducted by DR. JEFF McLAUGHLIN— never before published! Featuring plenty of rare and unseen MOONEY ART from Batman & Robin, Supergirl, Spider-Man, Legion of Super-Heroes, Tommy Tomorrow, and others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Now shipping!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

DRAW! #29

DRAW! #30

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre’s BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, “Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman” cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

DAVE DORMAN demonstrates his painting techniques for sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book cover, LeSEAN THOMAS (character designer and co-director of The Boondocks and Black Dynamite: The Animated Series) gives advice on today’s animation industry, new columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

We focus the radar on Daredevil artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Agents of Atlas, Batman, Avengers, Captain America) with a how-to interview, comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) talks about his creative process and his new series Winter World, columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

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