The Charlton Companion

The Fascinating Story of the Action Heroes, Ghastly Ghosts, and Fun Comics of the “All-in-One” Publisher

The Charlton Comics Story From the Action Heroes to Za Za the Mystic, from Neal Adams to Mike Zeck, The Charlton Companion is the longawaited and definitive history of the famous—and notorious— “all-in-one” publisher of Derby, Connecticut: Charlton Publications [1940–1992], once the third-largest comic book producer in America… and numero uno in the category of oddball comics.

Charlton started as a handshake deal made in jail and it endured an epic 1955 flood that engulfed the plant under nearly 18 feet of water. It also published Rhythm and Blues, likely the first U.S. publication devoted entirely to African American music, plus they exploited 1980s heavy metal mania with Hit Parader.

And Charlton was also the first national distributor of Hustler magazine. All this and more are revealed in this comprehensive retrospective of the company’s colorful, provocative, and fascinating 50-year history.

The Charlton Companion is written by Jon B. Cooke, the five-time Eisner Award-winning editor of Comic Book Artist and Comic Book Creator magazines, co-editor of The Warren Companion and Kirby100, and author of Eisner Award-nominated The Book of Weirdo.

Blue Beetle, The Question, Peacemaker TM & © DC Comics.

The Six Million Dollar Man TM & © Universal City Studios, Inc. E-Man, Nova, Michael Mauser TM & © Joe Staton/1First Comics.

All others TM & © the respective copyright holder.

ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0 $43.95 in the U.S.

Cover art by Joe Staton Cover coloring by Matt Webb Charlton Press Building illo by Mitch O’Connell

ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-111-0 54395

9 781605 491110

Printed in China

TwoMorrows Publishing

Raleigh, North Carolina

E-Man, Nova, Michael Mauser TM & © Joe Staton/1First Comics.

Along the way, that partnership forged in county jail launched Charlton Comics, which became Spider-Man co-creator and Dr. Strange creator Steve Ditko’s preferred publishing house and home to Dick Giordano’s Action Heroes—Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, and The Question—characters that inspired Alan Moore’s Watchmen. This 272-page book includes anecdotes and insight from many freelancers who contributed to Charlton, and it features a magazine index by Frank Motler, as well as essays by Stephen R. Bissette, Roger Hill, and Bill Pearson, among others.

© Jack Kirby Estate

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THE CHARLTON COMPANION a history of the derby, connecticut, publisher and its comic books

a history of the derby, connecticut, publisher and its comic books

TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina www.twomorrows.com

Charlton Press Building illo by Mitch O’Connell

by Jon B. Cooke with consultants Frank Motler, Shaun Clancy, Michael Ambrose, and Donnie Pitchford and essential contributions by Christopher Irving

THE CHARLTON COMPANION Written, edited, and designed by Jon B. Cooke Proofreading by Kevin Sharp Published by John Morrow Cover art by Joe Staton • Cover coloring by Matt Webb Consultants Frank Motler • Shaun Clancy • Michael Ambrose • Donnie Pitchford Dick Giordano & Nick Cuti dedication art by Ken Meyer, Jr. • Charlton Press Building art by Mitch O’Connell Various material compiled and written by Christopher Irving Contributions by Stephen R. Bissette • Roger Hill • Will Murray • Bill Pearson • Scott Shaw!

The Charlton Companion is dedicated to Dick Giordano and Nick Cuti, the Nice Guys of Charlton As this book was about to go to press, the author received news of the tragic passing of Michael Ambrose, who died on July 20, 2022, after an extended illness. Our deepest condolences to Mike’s family With enormous gratitude to my TwoMorrows brothers, Roy Thomas and Michael Eury, for their generous help The Charlton Companion © Jon B. Cooke • Editorial package © Jon B. Cooke & TwoMorrows Publishing Charlton Magazine Index ©2022 Frank Motler First Printing: September 2022 • Printed in China • ISBN 978-1-60549-111-0

Published by TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 USA www.twomorrows.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A History of Charlton Comics............ 6

1899–1920s 1930s

CHAPTER ONE The Boy of ’99...................................... 8 The Ties that Bind CHAPTER TWO Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle..... 12 Nights (and Days and Nights) at the Roxy; B.S.: Before Santangelo; New York Letter (1930); The Waterbury Woes of Edward G. Levy

1940s

CHAPTER THREE Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact......... 20 Building Charlton, Brick by Brick; Frank Comunale, Publisher; Charlton’s New York Office CHAPTER FOUR The Coming of Charlton Comics..... 26 Comics-Type Charlton Stuff; The Scourge of Sinners; Sheriff Slavin’s Courage Comics; Jacquet, Inc.; Charlton Goes Country; Rudy Palais by Roger Hill............... 33 Artist Spotlight: Clint Harmon........ 35 Losing His Appeal; Of Catholics and Comic Books

1950s

CHAPTER FIVE The Go-Go Fifties............................... 40 The Distribution Racket; Kinowa, Western Scourge; Charlton’s Pulp Fiction; Arrow: The Family Comic Weekly; Charlton Comics’ Haunted Things; Al Fago; Space Western Comics;

The Thing! by S.R. Bissette.............. 52 Rhythm and Blues; Charlton Comics’ Forgotten Artists; The 1954 Revival of the Blue Beetle; Creator Spotlight: Steve Ditko....... 62 CHAPTER SIX American Comic Book Factory....... 64 Furious Equus; Brief Encounter; Gabby… Gabby… Nay; You Can’t Win ’em All; Charlton Makes an Impact; Artist Spotlight: Art Gates............... 71 Never Again; Derby, Conn.: Realm of the Wolf Killer CHAPTER SEVEN The Rising Waters of 1955.............. 76 Writer Spotlight: Joe Gill................. 80

CHAPTER EIGHT Strange Tales of Unusual Comics... 82 Ed Konick Means Business; Post PhotoEngraving; Al & Vince Fago Comics Group; Kurtzman & Company’s Humbug; Playing the Numbers; Valley of the Mall; Artist Spotlight: Bill Molno............. 91 Severin’s Kid; Siegel Heroes & Shuster Ghosts; Giant, Big Book Comics and Other Double-Value Gimmicks; Crime Scene: Derby; Check Out Sid’s Epic Comics; Tales of the Mysterious Traveler; Authority Control; The Risqué Reign of Monarch Books

1960s

CHAPTER NINE The Launch of Captain Atom........ 104 The Other Captains Atom; Captain Atom;

Kaiju Comics by S.R. Bissette....... 108 Charlton’s “Good” Humor?; Artist Spotlight: Ernie Hart............ 111

1970s

CHAPTER TWELVE Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade....... 172 Artist Spotlight: Ray Dirgo............ 174 Those Cartoony Guys at Charlton; Cartoonist and the Clown; Getting Happy, Getting Together; Mr. Blondie Bumstead; Crouch in the Clutch; Artist Spotlight: Sanho Kim........... 185 Geronimo Jones; Creator Spotlight: George Wildman......................... 188 CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Plant and the Process............. 190 Popeye Gets the Job Done; Mary Slezak’s Snapshot; Creator Spotlight: Wayne Howard............................ 195

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot... 196 Primetime Primus; E-Man & Nova; Yang;

Monster Mag Mania; The Beatles and the Butterfly; Tony and Team Tallarico; The New Ways of the Old Blue Beetle; Fightin’ 5; Tarzan, the Unauthorized; Gold Star-Crossed; Charles in Charge; Charlton’s Ever-Dependable Art Teams; Sarge Steel/Secret Agent;

Artist Spotlight: Tom Sutton......... 201

Creator Spotlight: Dick Giordano... 124

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Against the Rising Tide................... 214 Spaniards in the Works;

CHAPTER TEN Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes... 126 Son of Vulcan; Captain Atom Redux; Judomaster; A. Machine is Doing the Job; From Fandom They (Mostly) Came…; Sentinels, The New Captain Atom; Nightshade; Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt; The New Blue Beetle; Artist Spotlight: Rocke Mastroserio..................... 141

Haunted Love; Day of the Magnascan 460; Lisa Robinson is With the Band; The Charlton Academy of Comics; Rog 2000; Michael Mauser; Doomsday +1; Friends of Ol’ Charlton

Artist Spotlight: Jack Sparling....... 219 Charlton’s Got Your Handle; Capital’s Hustler Hassle; Charlton’s Modern Age; Kirchner’s Commentary; My Charlton Story

by Bill Pearson................................. 227 Arnold Drake’s “Ego-Man”

1980s

The Peacemaker; The Lonely War Stories of Willy Franz; The Question; The Beatles of Britain and the Hermits of Herman; The Charlton Showcase; Edd Ashe’s Hot Rods

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Charlton Comics’ Last Stand......... 234 Heavy Metal Charlton; They Took Aim at Charlton’s Bullseye;

CHAPTER ELEVEN Meet Jonnie Love & the Hippies... 156 Man’s Combat; Scarpelli and Son; Derby Wood; All You Need is War; Packaging Ponytail; The Union Men Down Argentine Way; Never a Cross Word; The Daring and the Different at DC Comics;

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Charlton’s Lasting Legacy.............. 244 The Charlton/Watchmen Connection; The Advent of Charlton Neo; Shelton Ivany: The Heavy Metal King

Charlton Comics Gives You More!

by Scott Shaw!........................... 170

References........................................ 262

Artist Spotlight: Mitch O’Connell... 240

1986–Now

Charlton Magazine Index

by Frank Motler....................... 250 Acknowledgments/Copyrights...... 270 Thanks................................................ 271

Introduction

A History of Charlton Comics Nope, that’s a negative, people: finding zero evidence to support the rumor, Charlton Press did not print cereal boxes, though, as it was, they often did a poor enough job printing their own magazines and comics! John Korfel, maybe the only human being on planet Earth who possesses every single Charlton comic book ever published, noted that, in the year 1960, the publisher misprinted 65 issues of 35 different titles.

“These errors included contents not matching covers, blank inside covers, contents stapled upside down, and covers printed with only partial color,” Korfel reported.1 And those are what made it to the newsstands and into someone’s collection!

And the truth of the matter is, despite nasty whispers reeking of anti-Italian bigotry and given the fact he could be an intimidating, forceful guy, Charlton patriarch John Santangelo was neither a fugitive said to have killed a man back in the old country nor was he a “made” member of the Cosa Nostra—the Sicilian Mafia—who distributed pornography through his Capital Distribution company. (The last part was, in a way, part-true—though not the mobster allegation, but Capital was, indeed, the initial distributor of Larry Flynt’s Hustler, a magazine often enough accused of being porn.)

But, as you’ll find, Santangelo did make his initial, hard-earned fortune as criminal mastermind and kingpin of “bootleg” songsheets, a once-thriving illicit enterprise that wielded fabulous profits. And, during those Depression years, his business provided work for a multitude of citizens who hawked the immigrant’s “Stop! Look! Read!” song lyric magazines on street corners throughout the nation.

In a lucky happenstance, Santangelo was incarcerated in a cell-block with white-collar criminal Ed Levy while both sat out their year-long sentences in county jail and they forged a partnership that made both their fortunes. And, along the way, Charlton Comics was launched, which, in the late 1950s, was (briefly) the third-largest comics publisher in America.

To be honest—and this is putting it kindly—there wasn’t always any spark of enthusiasm in the work of the writers and artists of Charlton, many of whom toiled on-site at the sprawling Derby, Conn., plant, and paid abysmal staff wages or awful freelancer page rates. Romance, war, teen humor, quasi-horror, and kiddie comic pages were churned out by the hundreds—by the thousands!—all too often listlessly edited and printed with seemingly no quality control.

But there were flashes of brilliance here and there, and some fascinating comics were produced—a couple of them head-scratchingly wacky and more than a few simply awesome on any level—and, frequently, those bursts of creativity were due to the efforts of a select number of skillful editors of immense talent, two of whom this book is dedicated.

6

Dick Giordano, finest of the Charlton editors and who went on to a remarkable reign as an editor at DC Comics, said of his “Action Heroes” tenure, “In terms of creativity, I suppose what I did at Charlton was the most outstanding, not so much because I had control, but because I had absolutely nothing to work with. Whatever I did there, I did, where at DC I had all kinds of things available to me and people backing me up which made things easier. Although the books at DC were sharper and better produced than at Charlton, that was less due to my personal effort. I would have to say I enjoyed the work at Charlton more because I did it. It’s something I look back on with a great deal of pride, not necessarily because the results were so great, but because of the fact I was able to do it at all.”2 Just like Giordano, the other notable editors at Charlton —the team of Al and Blanche Fago, George Wildman and his assistant editors, Nick Cuti and Bill Pearson—often put in that extra effort and, as a kid, I fully appreciated the efforts of Wildman, Cuti, and Pearson, and, as a burgeoning collector, I certainly perceived Giordano’s achievements soon enough.

(The qualities of the Fago era were harder to detect, but researching this book has proven enlightening!)

The origins of The Charlton Companion were in putting together two issues of my magazine, Comic Book Artist— which were initially planned as a single number but, as with so many projects in my life, the job grew exponentially bigger —with the retrospectives split into two distinct eras: Giordano’s editorship of 1965–67 and the Wildman/Cuti years of 1971– 76. The former was legend by the time my younger brother and I started collecting comics, and we, as Spider-Man fans, assuredly snatched up copies of Steve Ditko’s Blue Beetle when we found them but, beyond scattered issues here and there, we didn’t accumulate much of the Action Heroes line.

But we were familiar with Giordano’s short but amazing DC Comics “Artist as Editor” stint from 1968 to ’71, especially due to his brilliant turnarounds of Teen Titans and Aquaman, and, as time went on, more of his gems were discovered, including Hot Wheels, All-Star Western, and The Witching Hour. (Me, I’m still waiting for the next issue of Aquaman following “The Creature That Devoured Detroit,” that classic issue which closed the fantastic “S.A.G.” run of Skeates, Aparo, and Giordano’s King of the Seven Seas!)

Andy and I felt intimately connected with Charlton during the Wildman/Cuti period, mostly because of the pair’s presence at the 1973 or ’74 New York Comic Art Convention, when the two were passing out Tyvek stickers of the new Charlton logo and enthusiastically promoting their new

1944–1986

books, E-Man and Yang. If memory serves, Nick, with his handlebar ’stache and abundant Italian “’fro,” was particularly engaging, tremendously enthusiastic, and, for a comic-book professional, a remarkably nice guy, one who looked us youngsters straight in the eye and seemed to truly listen and care about what we were saying. And, now that we took notice, his work exuded the same qualities. From that July 4th weekend on, us Cooke brothers were bona fide Charlton fans.

Bolstering our teenage devotion were the exuberant efforts of Bob Layton, Roger Stern, John Byrne, and the whole CPL/Gang, with the Charlton Portfolio one-shot and The Charlton Bullseye #1–5—not to overlook that great Comic Book Guide for the Artist, Writer, and Letterer booklet written by Cuti and illustrated by Tom Sutton, Wayne Howard, and Joe Staton!

When in college, Charlton Bullseye was one of the few regular titles I would pick up in the early ’80s, but less for the often amateur content than in recognition of the simple concept of giving newbies a showcase to develop their storytelling and place to share their ideas. It’s still a revolutionary concept and it was a notion cultivated by assistant editor Bill Pearson.

Then, upon starting Comic Book Artist in 1998, things got personal. From the first issue, I developed an enormous appreciation of—and enduring friendship with—Dick Giordano. He appeared to genuinely appreciate my forays into comics history and later greet me so warmly that I actually began to suspect the guy really was a chum! Plus Dick’s candor and insight was profound and he added so much to my understanding of DC Comics history and, of course, Charlton. Put plainly, I felt honored and able to recognize that Dick was a true mensch.

While first conceived in the early ’00s, this book was envisioned in 2015 as a joint effort of Michael Ambrose and myself. Mike had premiered his Charlton Spotlight about the same time as Comic Book Artist #9, my “Action Heroes” issue, and he produced nine issues that included outstanding interviews, heart-felt testimonials, and important scholarship, all distinct from CBA’s approach and yet still wonderfully complementary. It would have been a pairing for the ages.

Alas, life all too often has other plans and my friend had to step away from the project, but he agreed to be credited as consultant and made available the contents of all issues for my needs.

While Mike was not an active consultant, my fellow Charltonologist—who sadly passed away days before this book was sent to the printer—is certainly a major inspiration for this book.

In many ways, this book is an extension of my collaboration with Christopher Irving on our CBA #9 article, “The Charlton Empire,” up to that time the most detailed history of the company, an investigative piece that has subsequently been cited by scholars as a definitive source ever since. My vintage newshound fedora’s off to you, “Ace” Irving!

If the company had any magic ingredient, it can be distilled down to a single word: freedom.

The publisher could never adequately compensate the creators or offer high production values for their printed work, but (as you’ll hear time and again in this retrospective) artists and writers, both the veteran and the newcomer, often turned down better-paying opportunities from the outside world to stick around Derby and “do their thing” at Charlton.

In a letter to editor Ted White’s science fiction digest Fantastic responding to comments made in the June 1972 [Vol. 21 #5] issue, Dennis O’Neil, among comics’ greatest writers, wrote: “My first quibble is a personal one, a picky one. I was never ‘house hack for Charlton.’ At the time I (and Steve Skeates, and Jim Aparo, and Steve Ditko) was doing stuff for Charlton, under the editorship of Dick Giordano, I was also writing Westerns for Marvel, writing my first book, playing political commentator for a magazine called News Front, and reporting for Show. I was, as you might guess, quite hungry that season. And, in fact, I look back on some of those Charlton scripts with fondness, particular the SF tales (‘Children of Doom’ is among my favorites) and a satire Western we called ‘Wander,’ brilliantly rendered by Aparo. It was a good experience: I learned much about the craft because Dick allowed unprecedented freedom and, since I was using a pseudonym, I felt free to experiment and make mistakes.”3 It was that same freedom, of course, which repeatedly lured Charlton’s favorite son, Steve Ditko, back again and again, and, whether on staff or freelancer, the legendary artist would develop his abilities and go on to produce some of his greatest work. In fact, Ditko returned just as Charlton was shutting its doors, marshaling all of his creative skills to try and save the company.

In closing, I sincerely hope readers enjoy this in-depth look at one of the most idiosyncratic comic book publishers of all. Because Charlton was involved in far more than just comics, this history occasionally delves into their other pursuits, but I think you will appreciate the journey.

Thank you and good afternoon!

Jon B. Cooke August 2022

Introduction

7

Chapter One

The Boy of ’99 The story of Charlton Publications begins in 1899, in a small and secluded village nestled in Southern Italy’s Abruzzo region, a medieval hillside town 125 miles east of Rome and 25 miles west of the Adriatic. San Valentino was the birthplace of future publisher John Santangelo, a son of peasants destined to make his fortune in America, in the state of Connecticut’s smallest city.

THE PEASANT LIFE Entering the world on the cusp of the 20th century, Giovanni Santangelo was born on March 15, 1899, into the impoverished and overcrowded home of parents Carmine and Ersilia (née Sterbaini) Santangelo. Almost six decades later, an admiring newspaper profile of the man—adopting his more common, “Americanized” first name—began: As a kid over in Italy, John Santangelo never had enough to eat. His family lived in a one-room farmhouse and he and three of his seven brothers* slept in one bed. He had no shoes until he was 13 years old…1 The feature goes on to relate that the lad never even saw an electric light until his later teens nor had he ever stepped into a schoolhouse during his entire youth, suffering actual illiteracy into adulthood. Hunger was a constant.

During the early 1900s, life in Abruzzo was a particularly brutal existence, as it was for most of Southern Italy, where lack of work and not enough food was the shared affliction of millions of peasants. The modern country we know of today was technically less than 40 years old by the time Santangelo was ten. Previously splintered into separate kingdoms and Papal States, the newly unified country was still rife with division between the more affluent and fertile north and arid, poverty-stricken south. Peasants were overtaxed by the better-off northerners and unrepresented in government, plus there was little opportunity beyond subsistence farming.

It’s small wonder why then some two million Italians immigrated to the United States over the course of Giovanni’s first decade of life, most from the south fleeing grinding poverty. Some who went searching for work in the Americas

were “birds of passage”—those intending to return to the mother country over time—but the vast majority opted to stay permanently. Between 1880–1924, some four million countrymen traveled by sea to the U.S., and two were Giovanni’s brothers, Alberto and Panfilo, who, in 1920, had taken the train to Naples and booked passage to America.

Despite the urgency to escape to the New World, Italians typically retained a lifelong affinity for their birthplace, if not necessarily the nation as a whole. Devotion was most intense at the tier of comune (community). “This is similar to what we know as a township,” related one source. “This was the geographic level that Italians most identified with and were profoundly loyal to… Most people in a comune were related by blood. They identified strongly with their paesani (people from their town).”2 As to prove the point, John Santangelo’s philanthropy regarding beloved San Valentino would, in later years, have a significant and lasting impact on his hometown.

*Research has identified three of Giovanni’s siblings: Alberto Liberato [1903–2005] and Panfilo “Angelo” Valentino [1895–1967], who both immigrated to the United States in 1920, and brother Nunzio [1893–1957], who remained in their native country.

Above: John Santangelo’s birthplace, San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. Opposite page: Location of Santangelo’s hometown, as well as Rome, where he served in WWI, and Naples, where he likely embarked on his sea voyage to the Americas.

8

1899–1920s

Rome

San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore Naples

One: The Boy of ’99

The Ties That Bind

Upon the lifting of travel restrictions imposed by World War II, Giovanni Santangelo repeatedly returned to his birthplace, San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore, to which he remained deeply connected for the rest of his life. It was quite common, over the centuries, for peasants to remain most loyal to their hometowns, above any allegiance to the Church or state, institutions often mistrusted by common people. A lack of trust even pervaded entities nearer home, as Cultural Analysis wrote, “This local patriotism attitude arose out of a historic and mutual mistrust between Italy’s villages, towns and cities.”5

SAN VALENTINO IN ABRUZZO CITERIORE Located in Abruzzo, the region nicknamed “Italy’s rocky heart,” and ensconced in the province of Pescara, the charming town (renowned for its medieval fortress, Castello Farnese) is, as suspected, named for the patron saint of love.

San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore—officially named such to distinguish it from other Italian towns named for the saint— also boasts quaint buildings, narrow streets, and town fountains fed by mountain streams. Curiously, one of the Catholic village’s annual events is actually a ritual of its pagan past.

Every November, San Valentino is host to a celebration honoring, of all things, husbands with adulterous wives. The Festival of the Cuckolds starts at sundown in the town’s main square, where hundreds of men, accompanied by musicians and noise-makers, march through the village to the cheers and jeers of onlookers. Waiting at the end of the procession is a meal of San Martino stew, a veal dish. Many of the marchers are adorned with the horns of cows, goats, or deer.

“The procession ‘celebrates’ the country’s cuckolds,” said Omerita Ranalli, author of Abruzzo in Festa [2019]. “It begins with the last married man of the previous year who delivers to the man who took more recently a wife a cloth depicting ox horns.”3 One travel website suggested that the parade “derides or honors men with adulterous wives, depending on one’s perception.”4 Above: An Italian infantryman implores his brethren to “All do your duty!” in a WWI recruitment poster. Right: Italian soldiers—some from their “Class of ’99”—in WWI trenches.

10

RAGAZZI DEL ’99 As if being born into complete destitution and utter ignorance wasn’t tough enough, Giovanni had the luck to be among those put on the front lines of World War I merely because of his year of birth. Ragazzi del ’99—“The Boys of ’99”—was the term given to young men born in 1899 and, as they were turning 18 in 1917, they were conscripted, hastily trained, and rushed to the front in the wake of the disastrous Battle of Caporetto. While the number of casualties is unknown, the teenagers were credited with helping to turn the course of Italy’s fortunes during that “War to End All Wars,” and the Boys of ’99 are celebrated today for their bravery.

A Nov. 22, 1917, commendation lauded the draftees: “The young soldiers of the class of 1899 have had their baptism of fire. Their demeanor was magnificent… [and] our young brothers of the class of 1899 have shown they are worthy of their legacy of glory…”6 Though victorious, Italy’s participation in WWI resulted in 460,000 dead and 955,000 wounded, including an uncounted number born in ’99.

Of Giovanni’s personal war experience, little is known, but an Italian newspaper related in 1956 (translated here), “Mr. Giovanni Santangelo is a most peculiar man. Born 60 years ago in a small village in the province of Pescara, son of farmers, he was a valiant [infantryman] in WWI and later a corporal at the Carabinieri [Italy’s national gendarme] station of Ponte Milvio, in Rome.”7 Upon becoming a successful capitalist in his later years, Giovanni would attain strong enough political leanings to use his ample resources to produce anti-communist publications.

But, in his beggared early 20s, he seemed far more anxious to remain apolitical and pursue his fortunes elsewhere than join up with the growing fascist movement of those post-war years. So, as Il Duce marched his Blackshirts—and Italy—toward dictatorship, Giovanni gazed hungrily to the Atlantic.

BY BANANA BOAT TO BOSTON Two years after the Armistice and two days following Christmas 1920, Giovanni married fellow San Valentino peasant Domenica Ercolani. It proved to be a childless union and, soon enough, their co-habitation was cut short, as the husband, beckoned by the New World’s allure, prepared to leave for America. Two of his siblings had made it to the northeast U.S., as younger brother Alberto lived in Watertown, Massachusetts, and older brother Panfilo resided in South Norwich, Connecticut, with both working in building construction.

In late 1922 or early ’23, the ambitious young man left behind his beloved home as well as a new bride, off to “make his fortune in America and [he] told her that he would send for her when he had established himself.”8 Or so the 23-yearold had promised. Instead, in leaving Domenica permanently behind, he transformed her into a “vedove bianca”—“white widow”—a woman whose husband was alive but absent (though he regularly sent her money for the next ten years).

That era was a rough one for hopeful immigrants from Italy as xenophobia was hitting a crescendo in the U.S. and 1921 saw passage of the “Emergency Quota Act,” which specifically targeted Southern and Eastern Europeans, and drastically cut back on “undesirables” entering the country.

But Giovanni was nothing if not resourceful and he found a roundabout route to make it to the land of milk and honey.

The Italian Heritage website aptly described the young man’s choice of passage: “The main destination was America, almost a forced choice because of the vicinity of the ship-sailing ports (Naples, connected through the Sangritana Railway) and the cost of the voyage, which was almost free to Argentina and Brazil, since in the two countries, after the abolition of the slavery, there was a great demand of cheap labor in agriculture.”9 In fact, Giovanni did travel first to Argentina (with no evident intention of working the South American fields), as he later declared to customs officials that his prior residence was at 1725 Calle Corrientes, the famed Buenos Aires avenue otherwise known as the “street that never sleeps.” He also listed his “calling or occupation” as mechanic (though later annotated as “machinist”). At some point, he made his way from Argentina to Chile to Colón, Panama, where he booked passage on a merchant ship, the only ticketed non-U.S. citizen among four other passengers bound for Massachusetts.

The S.S. San Blas, a Panamanian steam merchant ship

Chapter One: The Boy of ’99

owned by the United Fruit Company (and, along with paying passengers, likely carrying a cargo of Central American bananas), set off on Apr. 8, 1923, from the port of Cristóbal, Panama, for a seven-day journey to Boston, arriving on Apr. 15. (Tragically, 19 years later, before dawn on June 17, 1942, after departing Galveston, Texas, and headed for Guatemala, the very same San Blas was sunk by Nazi U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico, with 30 lives lost and 14 or so survivors left adrift on rafts for 12 days before rescue.)

On the Boston “alien passengers” manifest, the newly arrived traveler vowed to immigration officials that he simply intended to visit the United States for a mere ten days as a guest in younger brother Alberto’s abode, located at 23 Berkeley Street, Watertown. And so began Giovanni Santangelo’s American stay, which would last for another 56 years.

Top: Newspaper photo of three Santangelo brothers taken in 1959. Giovanni/John is center. Below: Manifest of the S.S. San Blas, which transported Santangelo to the U.S., in 1923.

11

Chapter Two

Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle END OF THE FIRST DIASPORA Giovanni Santangelo, among the final influx of immigrants from Italy making it onto the U.S. shore before the even more draconian restrictions of the Immigration Act of 1924 were put into effect, arrived in America just as its economy started to boom. And, at the mecca of this new Golden Age, New York City, in the midst of a construction spree, there was opportunity available for unskilled immigrants eager for work, especially those from the Italian peninsula.

Having both arrived a few years earlier, brothers Alberto and Panfilo were already established in the building trades— the former as bricklayer and latter as laborer—though Giovanni, who was perhaps bouncing between his siblings for living arrangements, first found employment at a Norwalk tire company, prying old casings off rims. “At the end of the [first] day,” related a 1954 profile of the man, “his left hand was lacerated. He spent most of his first day’s pay (40¢ an hour) for medical attention and announced to his brother that he was leaving to find work in New York City. He spoke no English. His brother said he would get lost in the big city.

Santangelo left on the morning train.”1 Given that some significant events would be overlooked from biographical descriptions of John Santangelo’s life, it’s understandable for one to be somewhat wary about the complete accuracy of the few available public accounts. Common sense might support a more logical possibility as, for instance, greenhorn Giovanni may just as likely have gotten work with one of his construction-worker brothers to become acclimated to the hustle and bustle of city life in the new country. Still, given his undeniably tenacious drive, the following account, written in 1954, might just as well be totally factual: [Giovanni] wandered through the city until he came to a building under construc­tion. His questions in Italian

revealed that bricklayers earned $2.00 an hour, hodcarriers 75¢. He asked the English names of the tools, and bought a trowel, level, and overalls. Then he returned and watched all afternoon to see how the masons handled bricks. Finally, he found a place to sleep.

“I laid bricks in my mind all night,” he recalls.

Next morning, a foreman put him to work. Two young Italians helped him through his first day. After three months during which he laid bricks like fury, he was made foreman.

Soon he was in charge of a crew on a school construction job in White Plains, N.Y. He got the job finished three months before its deadline and earned a $5,000 bonus.2 By all accounts, John Santangelo was a man determined to get what he wanted and establish himself in this new homeland. And, after a decade of backbreaking labor, he struck upon an idea that would generate fabulous wealth.

This page: At top is a trio of hod carriers— brick transporters—in 1922. At left is the Manhattan skyline of 1931. Opposite page: On the right is the auditorium entrance of the grandiose Roxy Theatre, where masonry work was supervised by John Santangelo. At left is a Roxy giveaway, 1927.

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1920s–30s MEANWHILE BACK ON THE FARM… Ever since leaving the old country, Giovanni had been dutifully mailing a portion of his pay to his young wife in Abruzzo, which kept her from starvation and homelessness. He had also made a firm promise, Domenica later testified,3 to send her a visa and steamship ticket to come join him in the States.

But, in 1932, suddenly the marital support payments stopped.

That same year, on Jan. 22, Giovanni Santangelo, of 263 New Main Street, Yonkers, N.Y., was sworn in as a U.S. citizen.4 Deserted in toto by an absentee spouse, Domenica was thrust into poverty and, as a newspaper account later reported, was “obliged to work in the fields and in other menial ways to eke out a living.”5 What the spurned wife did not yet know was that her husband had found someone new—a person who would connect him to a Connecticut city, where he thereafter would be permanently linked, and a girl whose

idle request for a pal would lead to riches beyond imagining.

The new girl was Carmela “Carrie” Altorelli [b. 1915], daughter of factory worker Carmen and Mary, and she lived with her large family in the Italian enclave of Derby, Connecticut.

She was 16—a lass half his age—when first meeting Giovanni Santangelo (now known as “John”). In 1935, their firstborn, Charles, arrived and the couple was married on Jan. 2, 1937, after John secured an Oct. 1936 Reno divorce from Domenica. (That Nevada decree would, some 15 years later, result in a landmark court decision.) Carrie gave birth to daughter Elsie in 1938 and to their second son, John, in 1942. She remarried her husband on New Year’s Eve, 1951, and, after he died in Oct. 1979, the wife survived her spouse by 34 years, passing away at the age of 98, on Dec. 28, 2013. The epitaph on Carrie’s headstone in Derby’s Mt. St. Peter Cemetery, declares that she loved to travel, cook, and play pinochle.

Nights (and Days and Nights) at the Roxy By all accounts Giovanni Santangelo was an extraordinarily driven man and that dedication served him well when, in 1926, the newly-minted contractor scored a lucrative subcontract for masonry work on the interior of the magnificent 5,920-seat movie house then under construction, New York City’s extravagant Roxy Theatre.

“For 11 months,” Santangelo profiler Ralph H. Minard explained, “[Giovanni] and one helper worked and slept in the theater. Their day be­gan at 5:00 a.m. and ended at 11:00 p.m. Supper was a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine.

They ate the bread, drank the wine, and tumbled into their cots to sleep.”6 Located on West 50th Street in Manhattan, the opulent cinema palace was first conceived as the largest and finest movie house in the world. By the time of the Roxy’s demolition, in 1960, Time magazine reported, “Opening night of the Roxy in 1927 was an event that bedazzled New Yorkers. The $11 million theater was so big and luxurious that the only billing it thought fitting was ‘The Cathedral of Motion Pictures.’

As the cathedral’s doors opened, 125 special policemen held back the mobs that strained for a look at their flicker favorites… As the audience settled back in the plush mohair seats, an actor in a monk’s robe appeared on stage, spread his arms and said: ‘Let there be light.’

With his words, the audience rose [to recite] The Star-Spangled Banner.”7 Minard reported, “By the end of 1926, San­tangelo had earned money he never dreamed existed. He started a develop­ment and built homes in White

Chapter Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle

Plains.”8 Soon enough, the go-getter left construction to focus on a new venture, though he apparently was never reluctant, when the need arose, to dig out his old bricklayer overalls from storage and again make use of the skills that made Giovanni his first fortune in America.

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Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle SHUFFLE OFF TO BUFFALO The origin story of Charlton Publications is the stuff of legend, a saga told again and again and again, with just enough variation to make one suspect embellishments might have been added over time. But the possibly apocryphal yarn is utterly charming by any measure, beginning as it does with a blithe offhand request from a friend of Santangelo’s sweetheart.

The oft-told tale runs like this: Around 1931, Carrie Altorelli had a friend in Derby who had a desire to learn the lyrics of a song from the Warner Brothers’ movie musical, 42nd Street. The format for sheet music, which had been a highly profitable publishing business in decades past, was for the lyrics to be printed along with the musical composition.

But Carrie’s gal pal only wanted the words to “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” not the musical notes, so Carrie asked her beau to pick up the sheet music next time he was in New York City.

By this time, the advent of phonographs and radio had dampened sales on sheet music, with a public becoming less prone to actual playing the piano and singing in the front parlor as families did in times passed. Anyway, John came back with the sheet music and Carrie’s girlfriend was livid to learn it cost a whopping 35¢ to purchase ($7.39 in 2022 dollars), and John instantly recognized an opportunity. Thus, on his next visit to the Big Apple, John bought the sheet music to a batch of popular songs, had just the lyrics typed up, amassed said lyrics onto a single sheet, and had copies printed. Then, going shop to shop, he dropped off sheets on consignment, offering storekeepers to keep 5¢ for each copy sold for a dime, and pay him a nickel in return. Thus, goes the myth, was born the soon-to-be enormously successful songsheet business.

SONGSTER MAN One factor glaringly missing from Santangelo’s calculation was the rightful percentage owed to the actual owners of the 50 or so song lyrics he printed up on each sheet and then sold without permission. Technically it’s referred to as copyright infringement, punishable by law. Plus absent from the Charlton origin story is the fact that the songsheet business actually first began in 1929, two years prior to Santangelo’s professed start. Still, the building contractor did find a new line of work, in a realm he’d soon dominate, one making him filthy rich, and, by decade’s end, it would lead the big shot straight to jail.

B.S.: Before Santangelo

This page: 42nd Street sheet music. Opposite page: Sept.

1939 newspaper article on the scourge of bootleg songsheets.

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Despite the fact John Santangelo became, from the 1930s to the ’70s, the unrivaled king of songsheets—bootleg or legitimate— he was not, as reported, creator of the form. In fact, according to music scholar Barry Kernfeld’s authoritative Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929 [2011], “Song-sheet bootlegging was evidently going on for some months before it gained public notice. On Sept. 23, 1929, [the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers] submitted a complaint to U.S. District Attorney Charles H. Tuttle that songsheets were being sold on the street at a price of five cents per copy, that the sheets were an infringement of copyright, and that the volume of these sales was substantial enough to interfere with the sales of legitimate copyrighted copies, that is, sheet music. The New York Times reported [on Sept. 24, 1929] that there were already several different sheets, each selling for five cents each and containing lyrics to 25 or more songs. At a subsequent ASCAP meeting early in 1930, another member stated that bootlegging had threatened legitimate music publishing for almost a year.”9

Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle HARD TIMES, EASY MONEY Little remembered today, songsheet bootlegging was a lucrative criminal enterprise that, between 1929–40, quickly spanned the North American continent. Movies and radio stoked public demand for popular song lyrics—sheet music, the only legitimate source for the words was comparatively pricey at 25–35¢ (for one song) compared to the illegal 5–10¢ songsheets (with dozens of songs per sheet)—and racketeers were only too happy to oblige. With the Great Depression’s epic unemployment, there was a ready-made sales force of every conceivable type, from kids to seniors, who crowded street corners to hawk the sheets to passersby.

Songwriter associations, including ASCAP and, especially, the Music Publishers’ Protective Association, aggressively urged law enforcement to crack down on the printers, distributors, and vendors, but punishments for the misdemeanors were light—wrist slaps and suspended sentences.

But, soon enough, the MPPA was fervently lobbying federal agencies for help to squash the scourge—and that group was particularly effective in alerting the public, through endless newspaper accounts, of the scoundrels robbing publishers and songwriters blind. The Justice Department and FBI did periodi-

This page: Scranton Tribune 1936 front page photo of John Santangelo, with clippings from two other Pennsylvania papers, the Scranton Republican and Wilkes Barre Evening News.

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New York Letter (1930) Column by SAM LOVE United Press Staff Correspondent NEW YORK March 29 (UP) — The gangsters have “muscled in” on Tin Pan Alley, and the music publishers have set up a squawk that has finally reached the ears of William D. Mitchell, United States attorney-general. It has to do with the songsheet racket, in which street vendors hawk as many as a dozen of the latest popular numbers cheaply printed on a single tinted sheet for a dime.

Although there is no doubt but that the business of ignoring copyrights is dishonest to a degree, nothing of importance has been done about it so far in New York. Almost every crowded street corner boasts a songsheet vendor, and they occupy the space in the crowded subway passages formerly given over—for some reason—to the dirty-faced and frequently evil-smelling gentlemen who used the public corridors for peddling balloon Zeppelins and jumping dolls. Broadway at night is thick with the songsheet peddlers.

It is a new racket. It started in a small way last fall at Coney Island. In the six months since, the Music Publishers’ Protective Association, which is the voice of Tin Pan Alley, asserts that song writers and publishers have lost more than $5,000,000 and that the losses are continuing at the rate of more than $1,000,000 a month. Sales in Irving Berlin’s company alone are claimed to have dropped more than $6,000 a week since the sheets have been sold.

The racket is so profitable that it has passed entirely into the hands of gangsters, and the sales districts are divided among rival organizations, who jealously protect their “rights.”

So far, there has been sluggings and threats, but no machinegunnings.

After Broadway, the racket cropped up in the South. This puzzled the music publishers until they called to mind that the type of alert person who would see the advantages of a new idea in pirating songs is the same type that has a great dislike for cold weather. With the first frosts, the Coney Island pioneers moved into Dixie. The racket spread to Memphis, Atlanta, and Dallas. Then it invaded Chicago, Syracuse, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

As is usual with rackets, no brilliant mind among the gangsters, who are pretty dumb, and don’t have to be any different, gave birth to it. It grew out of the success of Henry Segal, otherwise known as the “Shakespeare of the Bowery,” a poetic vagabond with cauliflower ears and a face that enemies had altered several times. Segal’s songs, which are his own, are known to all the Bowery denizens, and he is acknowledged as its official bard. He finally gathered together a group he had written about the life of a Bowery bum and had them printed on colored paper. He titled these first songsheets, “Latest Song Hits—By Henry Segal,” having the first three words printed very large and his own name modestly inconspicuous.

To Segal’s surprise, when he offered them to the Coney Island boardwalk, they sold like orangeade. He made as much as $400 some weeks. Rivals appeared. They soon put the Bowery bard almost out of business, because they figured correctly that songs signed by Rudy Vallee and Irving Berlin would sell better.

The Music Publishers’ Protective Association is very anxious to move against the dishonest song gangsters as soon as the government can find time to assist in a big way. The association would like for the public to help by refraining from buying the sheets, but it hardly expects that because it has dealt with the public for many years.

— Santa Rosa Republican, Mar. 29, 1930.10

cally crack down on the copyright violators but, along with the minor punishment,* the profit margins were just too eye-popping to become discouraged. This newspaper description was published in 1939: “The song pirate’s printing bill, for example, runs by $4 a thousand, while he sells the finished sheets for $60 a thousand. That is, if they are to retail for a dime as they do in most cities outside of New York. If they are nickel sheets, then they sell to the distributor for $16 a thousand. It is all a strictly cash and carry business which eliminates bookkeeping and accounting.

There’s scarcely any overhead.”11 ENTER THE KINGPIN By the time Santangelo got into the songsheet game, organized crime was already deeply involved (though “Scarface” himself, Alphonse Capone, vehemently denied the accusation that the racket originated with his Chicago gangster crew and expressed support for the MPPA!). For whatever reason, Santangelo quickly rose to become the foremost “kingpin,” “brains,” and “master mind” of the entire illicit business, though the ambitious immigrant wasn’t without competition.

At the start, songsheets were literal broadsheets—tabloidsize sheets of color-tinted paper printed on one side—with lyrics of maybe 25 or so songs, but the form eventually developed into higher-end multi-page publications with each issue containing words to thousands of tunes, often with covers sporting alluring photos of popular singers and actors. For all practical purposes, they appeared to be legitimate periodicals though each were missing—for obvious reasons—publisher information, vital identifiers to find out who produced it. *Technically, though, the potential punishment for the copyright violations was positively brutal. “Evasion of copyright law is a misdemeanor, carrying with it a penalty of two years in jail and a fine of $1,000, or both,” one newspaper stated. “That is just one count, or for reprinting one song illegally. Conviction on all counts—as in the case of the ‘bootleg’ publisher who reprints hundreds of them on one sheet—could lead to jail sentences totaling 1,000 years.”12

Chapter Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle

Santangelo was publisher of the top-selling “Stop! Look!

Read!” Prosperity Book series (each with a cover credit: “Old and New World, Inc.”). It’s important to understand that, as with all illicit song lyric magazines during the bootleg years and thereafter, they importantly were available in otherwise law-abiding newsstands, cigar stores, pharmacies, and mom-and-pop candy shops, placed there by agents on consignment—a nickel for the distributor, a nickel for the proprietor—with discounts available for unsold back issues.

Santangelo’s new career as songsheet racketeer was in full swing by 1933 (though some say earlier) and, by 1936, his activities were earning him a notoriety in the press and growing reputation as crime boss. And those newspaper accounts did shed light on his operations, which were spread out in various states. During his bootleg years, Santangelo was reputed to have printing plants in four states, including This page: Above are various editions of Santangelo’s illegal songsheet mags from the 1930s. Below, Wilkes Barre Times Leader article from Dec. 5, 1936 citing Santangelo’s aliases.

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Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle

The Waterbury Woes of Edward G. Levy

By every appearance, Edward Gordon Levy, born Oct. 21, 1898, to Jewish-Russian immigrant parents, in New Haven, Conn., was headed for a charmed life.

Editor of his high school paper, glee club member, and president of the debating team, the oldest Levy sibling planned to become a surgeon, though he was undecided whether to attend Yale or Bellevue Medical School. He chose nearby Yale, and it was there where his troubles began.

At some point, Levy was dismissed from the prestigious university for cheating on exams,13 but he still passed the Connecticut Bar in 1921, and, by 1927, he was named the executive secretary of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of Connecticut organization.14 Along the way, he married Hortense Rosenblatt, of New York, and, in 1935, they had a son together, Charles J. By 1930, Levy became co-conspirator in what was

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called “Connecticut’s gravest political scandal,”15 and “the most sordid municipal scandal the country has ever seen.”16 The massive kickback scheme was hatched

by Waterbury officials, in the cellar of City Hall, and it involved public utilities. The wrongdoing ended in 1938 after entangling the mayor of Waterbury, a city north of New Haven, and 27 others.

Millions of dollars were skimmed from city vendors. A grand jury said, “The taxpayers’ money was apparently considered an inexhaustible reservoir to be drawn upon at will for the personal gain and political advancement of a few.”17 The “most flagrant”18 offender, the jury asserted, was one Edward Levy, who, from 1931–37, “received $126,707, ostensibly for a utility rate study, but turned back more than $100,000 to [conspiracy leader, city alderman, and the mayor’s executive secretary, Thomas] Kelly for distribution among members of the city administration.”19 The jury then charged that, “a few days after the investigation was started, [Kelly] paid [Levy] $8,000 in

cash ‘for the obvious purpose of insuring silence on the part of Levy.’”20 Overall, the lawyer was charged with pocketing $15,000.

Facing a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, Levy pleaded guilty and turned state’s evidence. In ratting out his corrupt fellow compatriots, his testimony, in what was deemed the longest trial in the Nutmeg State’s history, was nothing less than sensational and thus meticulously reported in area newspapers.

Due to the now disbarred lawyer’s thorough confession, the final verdict sentenced everyone to jail time (except a janitor who, under orders, burned documents). Joining 26 others behind bars, the mayor was sentenced to ten–15 years.

For helping the prosecution, Levy’s punishment was lenient. On August 21, 1939, he was sentenced to serve one year in the New Haven County Jail, where he was immediately delivered. His cellmate was a pharmacist-slash-recovering narcotics addict, and he was— “for whatever protection from other prisoners is believed necessary”21—placed in safe custody by Sheriff J. Edward Slavin.

“Levy plans to spend this year writing, he told the sheriff, but the nature of his literary efforts was not divulged.”22 In the winter of 1940, before being released early from jail in April complaining of health issues—and promising to permanently leave the state and stabilize a failing Ohio correspondence business he owned23—Levy made a life-altering friendship with a fellow in the same cell block by the name of John Santangelo.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as Connecticut. When authorities would raid one location, operations simply shifted to another. If caught, Santangelo met bail, paid any fine, and then resumed his business, though heat from law enforcement was becoming ever increasing.

In one instance, Santangelo—said to have multiple aliases, including John Amoretti, M.J. Martin, and P. Giovanni— incurred the wrath of two Pennsylvania state troopers, who, he alleged, punched his face repeatedly after he accused one officer of robbing him of $500. The troopers subsequently searched Santangelo’s jail cell and announced they discovered the hidden money.24 Pressure was mounting from music publishers (who tried to respond to the public’s appetite for songsheets by producing their own authorized periodical, but that failed as they offered retailers half the profit than did bootleggers) and the Feds were getting fed up with Santangelo’s scofflaw antics. By 1939, the net was finally closing in on the crime boss and, soon enough, the jig would be up.

In July, government revenue agents pulled over a car in South Philadelphia and, instead of the expected contraband of bootleg liquor, they found 60,000 bootleg songsheets. The confiscated evidence was traced to a small South Jersey printer, “who gave them the name of a man they believe to be a ‘kingpin’ in the bootleg songsheet racket in the East.”25 The G-men didn’t divulge the big cheese’s name to the press, but a world of hurt started bearing down on John Santangelo.

OVERSTAYING HIS WELCOME? Fifteen years into Giovanni Santangelo’s “ten-day” visit to the United States, the Feds sought to revoke a naturalization certificate he had been issued since arriving in the early ’20s, the government alleging it was fraudulently obtained. Between 1936–40, agents repeatedly annotated the 1923 S.S. San Blas arrival manifest, evidence that he was being scruThis spread: Various news clippings regarding the respective legal woes of Edward Levy and John Santangelo. Below is a page from the 1940 U.S. Census, which reveals the proximity of the future Charlton partners in the New Haven County Jail.

Chapter Two: Santangelo’s Songsheet Shuffle

tinized by authorities. The May 13, 1940, notes were made while Santangelo served time as “guest” of a local institution.

In May of 1944, in a petition endorsed by the sheriff who ran said local institution, Santangelo filed for naturalization and was granted that status on Sept. 6 of that year. And thus, Giovanni was now officially John Santangelo and finally a full-fledged citizen of the United States of America.

Back in 1939, though, by the time a federal grand jury indicted him for selling 10,000 illegal songsheets, Santangelo had become a very rich man (one 1936 estimate had him making $312,000 a year, $6.5 million in 2022 dollars!).26 And the heaviest fine given was $600. But the Internal Revenue Service was sniffing around* and, perhaps weary of all the legal intrigue and expense, never mind the exhausting running about, Santangelo was ready to face the music, pay the $300 fine, and serve out the eightmonth sentence in New Haven County Jail the court imposed on him, on January 3, 1940, “described as one of the stiffest penalties ever meted out in the country in a ‘bootleg’ songsheet case.”27 While John did his stretch—perhaps in a position of privilege, given the proximity of his jail accommodation to the living quarters of Sheriff J. Edward Slavin, as suggested by the 1940 U.S. Census—Carrie held together the couple’s brandnew homestead at 125 Atwater Avenue, in Derby, while she cared for five-year-old Charles William and little Elsie Mary, who was about to turn two. Meanwhile, an ocean away, “white widow” Domenica Santangelo, embittered that her husband of almost 20 years had abandoned her to a solitary life, worked the Abruzzo fields to earn her daily bread. Even as she may have been left to ponder whether her Giovanni was dead or alive, the incarcerated bigamist was poised to take up with an entirely new (albeit platonic) partner. *The IRS actually had dogged the “Songster mastermind” since at least 1936, when it assessed a levy against his Derby home for nonpayment of taxes in the year previous.

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Chapter Three

Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact TIME TO GET LEGIT Doubtless some of the pressure prompting John Santangelo to finally go legitimate was the fact that retail outlets selling his songsheet publications were facing civil action by the unrelenting MPPA. Just as the racketeer’s own legal reckoning was hitting a crescendo, the tireless trade association filed suit in August 1939 against four Hartford, Conn., drugstores with damages seeking a total of $55,000.1 Such tactics by the MPPA were not new; as in 1937, it targeted bigger quarry than mere mom-and-pop operations. National chain retailers Walgreens and W.T. Grant settled with the organization, and, haunting municipalities in Santangelo’s vicinity, the MPPA seized illegal songsheets by the thousands at area newsstands.2 For Santangelo, the writing was on the wall.

Plus, even while serving his eight-month-long sentence, he was compelled to make good with some New York City music publishers as his lawyers downsized a $75,000 demand by offering $3,000.3 With such persistent legal headaches, it’s no surprise why Santangelo teamed up with onetime Waterbury city lawyer Ed Levy, who fortuitously was in a nearby cell at the New Haven County Jail.

This page: A pair of Charlton’s shortlived song lyric magazines and the cover of the first issue of their flagship title, Hit Parader [Nov. 1942], which lasted until 1991.

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THE CHARLTON PUBLISHING CORPORATION The newly forged business partners both had sons named Charles and, while planning for a future outside as they strolled together in the prison yard, the men christened the association in honor of their respective five-year-olds. Though they did occasionally utilize T.W.O. Charles Company and the Charles Publishing Company (among many others), it was the name of Charlton Publishing Corporation that was featured in the fine print of their first batch of publications—Prosperity Hit Parader, Prosperity Big Book Magazine, and Radio Hit Songs—all first published in late 1941. All had a 10¢ cover price. Their most successful songsheet magazine, Hit Parader, with its three-color covers and dime price tag, would debut late the following year, cover-dated Nov. 1942.

Opposite page: One of the few known photos of John Santangelo (left) and Edward Levy together, in Stars and Stripes, Sept. 11, 1957 European edition. Photo by Merle Hunter.

©1957, 2022 Stars and Stripes, All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

1940s

Chapter Three: Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact

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Three: Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact

(The announcement of Santangelo and Levy formally incorporating T.W.O. Charles as an entity was made public in February 1944, in a Hartford Courant legal notice, one accompanied by listings of other corporations formed by the pair.4 Curiously, nine months before she died, Levy’s motherin-law, Fannie, was named president of Radio Hit Songs, Inc.) In August, 1940, the two men finished up their jail stays (presumably fulfilling their allotted sentences) and launched their 20-plus year association by formulating what would eventually become a four-pronged, one-stop enterprise: Charlton Publishing, Charlton Press, Capital Distribution, and Colonial Paper. The first order of business was to reestablish Santangelo as the leading songsheet mogul, only this time do it by the book. “To make it short,” Charles Santangelo told Christopher Irving, “my father said [to Levy], ‘If you can get me permission, I’ll get a printer, and we can put out this stuff.’ They shook hands and became partners when they came out [of jail] at the same time. Ed went to the music publishers in New York to arrange for permission and pay the royalties.”5 Hit Parader would become the longest-lasting and most successful of all of Charlton’s publications, but two of its initial roster of songsheet periodicals only made it to the mid’40s—Big Song Magazine (formerly Prosperity Big Book) and Radio Hit Songs—although Prosperity Hit Parader didn’t last beyond 1941 (albeit a portion of that failed title’s name was certainly determined to be worth keeping!).

This page: Top right is John Santangelo’s Atwater Avenue home, in Derby, Conn. Above is Charlton rival Song Hits and Santangelo and Levy’s Hit Parader (boasting a similar look).

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THE ESTEEMED COMPETITION Truth be told, not every songsheet publication in the 1930s was a copyright-infringing bootleg; some were formidable, aboveboard competitors to Santangelo’s illicit efforts and, more than likely, one in particular set the template for the “songster mastermind’s” production values. In 1934, ex-advertising execs George Engel and Jerome van Wiseman launched a legit song lyric magazine line, which included their most popular title, Song Hits. (The partnership also resulted in a short-lived line of Big Little Book knock-offs and The Big Book of Fun Comics, a compilation they distributed of landmark 1935 all-original comic book series New Fun #1–4.)

Put together by an able New York-based editorial team (which included Engel’s son, Lyle, who was installed as chief editor by the late ’30s), Song Hits was a handsomely designed monthly and, alongside its fully-authorized song lyrics, the publication contained well-written text features about the popular music scene. (By 1940, van Wiseman had left to join an insurance industry lobbying association and the senior Engel turned all control of the songsheet line over to son Lyle.)

In fact, the design and approach of Song Hits was so attractive, Charlton pretty much swiped the “look and feel” wholesale for what would become the partnership’s greatest and most enduring success. Or so accused Lyle Engel, who sued for $50,000 upon encountering, in late 1942, the first issue of Hit Parader. As Kernfeld related in his book, Pop Song Piracy, “The suit charged the Charlton group, including Santangelo, Levy, and two other men, with copying the style, type, and arrangement of Song Hits. But nothing came of the case, and rightfully so. Hit Parader was no more or less a copy of Song Hits than were other publications emanating from less potentially threatening rivals.”6 Engel must have been especially incensed with Charlton’s prominent (and cheeky) use of the phrase “Song Lyrics” on the Hit Parader covers, given Engel’s outfit had, five years beforehand, changed their corporate name from Engel-van Wiseman, Inc., to Song Lyrics, Inc. Engel, who would go on to huge success as the ’70s “novel factory” impresario of Book Creations, Inc., finally threw in the towel and sold Song Hits to Charlton in 1949. The title then boasted an impressive 40-year run, until 1990, when Charlton was poised to close.

(The third major songsheet magazine outfit was Richard Davis’s D.S. Publishing, which joined in at about the same time as Charlton, most significantly with Song Parade, which bit the dust by 1949. D.S. also published comics between 1947–51, mostly a few crime and some Western titles.)

Building Charlton, Brick by Brick During John Santangelo’s outlaw period, he used printers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Jermyn, New Jersey, as well as various Connecticut presses, places where he gained a wealth of knowledge about the entire publication production process. Reputedly, the entrepreneur would attain an intimate familiarity with each machine that he purchased. Whatever equipment he did buy as racketeer was, to his frustration and loss, often seized by law enforcement after their door-busting raids.

In 1936, at the height of his bootlegging, the city of Waterbury, some 20 or so miles up the road from Derby, was where Santangelo is said to have opened a printing facility. There, New England Printer and Lithographer stated, “He was learning about printing equipment and techniques as he went along.”7 When the entrepreneur finally went legit, that trade journal reported, “The [1930s’] struggle to distribute songsheets, fight off competitors and buck ASCAP was replaced by a new struggle, that of getting equipment for a growing plant. For six years, until the war ended, Charl­ton had to get by on rebuilt machinery. ‘Machinery I sold in 1940, I had to buy back five years later at three times the cost,’ Santangelo recalls.”8 The fate of the Waterbury printing press and any other equipment is unknown but, by the time Santangelo and Levy were released from county jail, they decided on New York City to have their earliest team efforts printed. For whatever reason, in early 1941, the initial Charlton publications were, for a few

Chapter Three: Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact

months at least, printed at 9 Barrows Street, in West Greenwich Village, New York City.

In fact, the first official address of Charlton Publishing Company was in that same location: a nine-story structure called the Hallanan Building, which was built in 1897 as a printing house. Those debut magazines included the first issues of Radio Hit Songs and Big Song Magazine (which was originally titled Prosperity Big Book for three issues).

Soon, the partners decided to move the printing closer to home. The A. Vincent Pepe and Co. Building, located at 49–53 Hawkins Street, Derby, was constructed in 1920 for millwork manufacturing, a structure routinely added onto. By the 1930s, the space fell vacant, though, in the mid-1940s, Charlton ran a printing press there. The outfit may have printed its earliest comic book titles, including Yellowjacket Comics and Zoo Funnies, in the facility (which remains standing— apparently still empty—today).

Roughly a half-mile from the redbrick 49 Hawkins address is Derby’s 17 Elizabeth Street, where a retail/office/ apartment building was built in 1928.

The location has long been associated with the Santangelo family, most recently as home to the Carrie Santangelo Realty Associates LP. The address looks to have housed Charlton editorial offices, including those of Catholic Comics in the latter 1940s (though the printing of that specific title happened in Holyoke, Mass.).

“In 1945, as soon as World War II was over and building restrictions were lifted,” New England Printer and Lithographer magazine explained, “Santangelo erected a larger plant on the outskirts of Derby. The building had 125,000 square feet of floor space, on a 29-acre site with railroad sidings.”9 His obituary in Derby newspaper The Evening Sentinel shared, “When Santangelo built his plant on Division Street, he mixed the mortar and laid the bricks himself.”10 (In his later years, the man was reported to have, time and again, donned his masonry overalls and revisited his brick-laying skills.)

The sprawling, ever-expanding facility—technically just over the city line in the adjoining town of Ansonia—was built on the edge of the Naugatuck River, at the corner of Pershing Drive and Division, until it was summarily bulldozed and demolished in 1992.

This page: Above right are photos of 49 Hawkins Street (top) and 17 Elizabeth Street, both addresses used by Charlton.

At left is the very first location cited in the outfit’s publications, 9 Barrows Street, in New York’s Greenwich Village.

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Three: Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact IN LEAGUE WITH SHERMAN BOWLES? By the mid-’40s, as they were fighting for songsheet magazine dominance in the market, Santangelo and Levy began to prowl about in search of the next profitable newsstand offering, but how precisely they chanced upon comic books appears lost to history. Yet a possible clue is found in a trade magazine profile on Santangelo Sherman Bowles published in the following decade. In a detailed November 1954 piece published in New England Printer and Lithographer, writer Ralph H. Minard tossed in an almost throwaway piece of trivia pertinent only to the informed of its professional readership. That possibly revealing nugget of info was found on page 52: “For several years Santangelo main­tained an office in New York adjoining one rented by Sherman Bowles, late pub­lisher of the Springfield, Mass., news­papers. Frequently Santangelo, coming in late, would get his paper work done to the accompaniment of snores coming from the cot in Bowle’s office.”11 In the article, that is the entirety of the mention of Bowles (who had only recently died) and no other anecdotal connection has been found between the newspaper mogul and Santangelo. But there are tantalizing bits of information that make one wonder if perhaps Bowles had suggested to Santangelo to get in on the comics publishing game and had thus been a catalyst for the formation of Charlton Comics.

Bowles was owner of the Holyoke Paper Company, located at One Appleton Street, in the mill town of Holyoke, the municipality nicknamed “Paper City.” In the 1930s,

Frank Comunale

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Frank Comunale, Publisher

Dated Nov. 1945, Zoo Funnies #101 (actually the debut issue) was long thought to be the first Charlton comic book, despite the colophon listing shell company Children’s Comics Publishers. Doubtless it was the address given in that funny animal comic—49 Hawkins Street, Derby—that tipped off scrutinizers as to the actual publisher. But eventually an observant person took note that Yellowjacket Comics #1 [Sept. ’44] also listed a possible Charlton shell company as publisher of that very same address. But just who was behind this enterprise called the Frank Comunale Publishing Company?

First, the Charlton-Comunale connection is explicit. The Hartford Courant of May 13, 1944, includes notice of a “Certificate of Organization” for the Frank Comunale Publishing Company, of Derby, listing John Santangelo as president, Frank Comunale of New York City as vice-president, and Ed Levy as secretary-treasurer, no doubt proof of another Charlton shell company.12 But who was Frank Comunale?

Facts are scarce. Comunale’s publishing outfit was located at 55 W. 42nd St., in New York City. His business involved comic book and pulp magazine publishing. He resided on Long Island, specifically at 87 So. Penataquit Ave., Bay Shore, an address that was occasionally used as his company address between 1945–50. His home was nicknamed “Villa Rita” after his wife, Rita Gigilio, who Comunale married at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, 1946, a civil ceremony announced by Long Island newspaper Newsday.13, 14 Yellowjacket Comics #1, 2, 4, and 5 listed Comunale’s company as publisher, and #6–9 cited “The Frank Publishing Company,” presumably the same outfit. Comunale’s pulps include Detective Parade, Federal Bureau Detective, Who–Dramatic Detective, and Movie Glamour. Alas, after 1950, no mention of Comunale has yet been found.

Charlton’s New York Office the newspaper scion became involved in pulp magazines, a resilient enterprise despite the Depression, by providing paper and operating credit to publishers in return for financial interest. By the early ’40s, Bowles expanded into the comic book business by launching the Holyoke Publishing Company (at the same One Appleton Street address), which acquired CatMan Comics, Captain Aero, and Blue Beetle from publishers defaulting on paying their printing bills to lender Bowles.

A U.S. government document later described, “During 1942, and prior thereto, [comics publishers Frank Z.] Temerson and [Victor A.] Fox were indebted to Holyoke Magazine Press, an unincorporated association owned and controlled by the same interests which own and control the Holyoke Publishing Company, Inc.”15 When Temerson and Fox couldn’t pay their printing bills, Holyoke became temporary publisher of their titles until profits from the comics eventually made good the amounts owed, and the titles reverted back to the original owners—Temerson in mid-’43 and Fox in early ’44.

Perhaps to mitigate the loss of those temporary Holyoke titles, Sparkling Stars was launched in spring 1944 (initially containing some back-up features intended for Holyoke’s Blue Beetle), lasting for 32 issues, until early 1948.

On April 2, 1945, the U.S. War Production Board ruled that Holyoke Publishing had wrongfully used paper quotas—over three-quarters of a million pounds of print paper!—which had been assigned to the original publishers of Cat-Man, Captain Aero, and Blue Beetle, and instead been used for Bowles’ new title, Sparkling Stars. That paper allotment of 775,772 pounds intended for three relatively popular titles seems excessive, but instead used for a single, brand-new title with no recognizable headliner.16 Is it a stretch to consider that the timing of the printing of some of Charlton’s earliest comic books was somehow connected to some agreement with Bowles for part of that paper allotment? Probably, but Bowles and Santangelo’s sharing adjoined Manhattan offices does make it an intriguing possibility. And their proximity is certainly an explicit line between Santangelo and the comic book industry (plus it might indicate a link between Blue Beetle and Charlton, a title the Derby outfit acquired in the decade to come). And, for whatever reason, Holyoke Magazine Press was likely the printer of Charlton’s Catholic Comics, given an indicia’s mention of Catholic Publications’ address as One Appleton Street.

Opposite page: Photos of Sherman Bowles and 1946 New Year’s Bay Shore newlyweds, Frank and Rita Comunale, as well as various Frank Comunale publications. This page: At top left is (possibly) the One Appleton Street location of Holyoke Publishing. Inset center is the oddball (and highly collectible) T.W.O. Charles publication, Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary [1945].

Chapter Three: Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact

Starting in their earliest years and lasting until at least the 1970s, Charlton maintained a Manhattan satellite office for editorial and advertising work. “Under the aegis of Ed Levy,” New England Printer and Lithographer reported in 1954, “the advertising, purchasing, art, and writing staff remained in New York City.”17 There was no need for print brokers to find customers as Charlton Press, as a standard, didn’t solicit outside work, singularly focusing instead on its own publications. At least once a week, the Charlton comic book editors—Dick Giordano in the ’60s, and George Wildman in the ’70s and ’80s, and maybe their predecessors—would travel to the Big Apple to confer with city-based freelancers. Writer Dennis O’Neil recalled Giordano would come to town on Thursdays and hold appointments up in “some office that they rented on (529) Fifth Avenue.”18

THE SONGSHEET MARKET NOSEDIVE Sherman Bowles wasn’t alone in running afoul of the War Production Board, as Charlton had its paper allotment curtailed by the government agency because it had used an excess tonnage of newsprint paper in 1944. “This is the first violation found by the WPB in the music biz,” reported Billboard, the industry weekly, in August 1945.19 No matter Uncle Sam’s sanction on the publisher, it was a boom time for Charlton and it certainly needed the newsprint to feed demand! (Hit Parader alone hit a circulation of 958,987, in March 1945.) And so did fellow songsheet publishers—together putting out some 15 different titles—as sales had skyrocketed. Plus, with the magazine outfits now properly paying for permission to print lyrics, Tin Pan Alley was delighted with the windfall, which was estimated at $700,000 going to music publishers, who doled out percentages to songwriters. Individual issues were sometimes selling near one million copies.

By 1947, the top three—Charlton, Engel’s Song Lyrics, Inc., and D.S. Corp.

—having by then eliminated most other competitors, were in an all-out war to sign exclusive contracts with music publishers to print their lyrics.

D.S. became the odd man out—“both D.S. mags now are left with nary a major pub’s lyrics to print”20—and, its fortunes quickly diminishing, the company turned increasingly to comics. Both top dogs raised their cover price to 15¢ just as readership began a precipitous decline.

By the end of 1947, the songsheet magazine downward trend was in freefall, with Hit Parader suffering a half-million copy circulation drop per issue compared to the salad days of ’45! 21 Thus, while they previously dabbled from time to time with other magazine types, including comics and detective pulps, as well as a men’s sexy gag cartoon title, Good Humor [1947–56] (and occasional oddity, like the Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary, published in 1945 under the T.W.O. Charles imprint), the time had come for Charlton to consolidate its songsheet dominance in the marketplace and to, especially, seek out new subjects and genres to diversify and keep afloat.

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Chapter Four

The Coming of Charlton Comics still would be, at the very least, two years before Charlton’s four-color funnybooks would be running off the Derby printing presses. And even that start proved a slow one, as Charlton pragmatically dipped its cautious toe into the already crowded waters of the comics field.

(And maybe skepticism is warranted, too, about the date of that pricey acquisition from Missouri if one believes that many of Charlton’s early comic book titles were printed in Holyoke, given the preponderance of colophons listing the address of Sherman Bowles’ Holyoke Printing Co.—One Appleton St. Still, given the lack of hard data and the fact that the first industrial space Charlton retained in Derby—at 49 Hawkins—had plenty of room for a printing press and loading dock, thus it’s conceivable they printed their own comics.)

A vital component of the Charlton equation had already been in place since Santangelo’s illegal songsheet days: distribution. As early as 1936, his operations included as many as ten trucks to distribute the printed material. In the ’40s and decades to come, while never a top player in the field, the arm of Charlton officially named Capital Distribution Co., Inc., would, into the ’80s, prove a significant source of income for the company, by distributing the material of other publishers.

THE CHARLTON WAY Right out of the gate, Charlton Publications scored with their songsheet magazines, soon giving industry leader Song Lyrics, Inc., significant competition and holding its own against that another newcomer to the law-abiding side of the business, D.S. Publishing. With the 1942 launch of Hit Parader, the publisher’s most successful periodical in the magazine game, Charlton’s status was, if not secure, impressive. Santangelo’s jump by mid-decade from outlaw bootlegger and jailbird to legitimate, formidable powerhouse was simply breathtaking.

The 1954 profile of John Santangelo mentions an important equipment acquisition that would portend to the company’s future: “A big web newspaper press, used for comic books,” reported New England Printer and Lithographer, “came from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1942 and turns out 500,000 signatures in 24 hours.”1 Despite that expensive purchase, as best as can be ascertained today, it

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THE FIRST CHARLTON COMIC BOOK The very first Charlton comic book was Yellowjacket Comics, an anthology title lasting ten issues initially published between mid- and late 1944, then put on hiatus, and subsequently restarted in late 1945 for its five remaining issues, lasting until spring 1946. Each issue was the standard 52 pages and starred the titular super-hero, who was fantastically-powered and possessed a supernatural ability to control swarms of bees—and not wasps as the name suggests (see sidebar for more tantalizing facts!). Another featured series is Diana the Huntress (who appeared in every issue, plus an appearance in Zoo Funnies #8), a depiction of the Greek goddess visiting modern-day Earth and fighting Nazis and then criminals, sometimes with fellow Olympians joining in on the fun.

Other regular Yellowjacket Comics features included the exploits of lion-tamer Danny King, the “King of the Beasts,” which sported handsome, illustration-like work by Harold DeLay, an aging artist whose final art was published posthumously in Charlton’s Catholic Comics. Then there was the “Harbor Lights” series about crime, war, and sometimes horror found in eight issues of Yellowjacket. “The Filipino Kid,” with protagonist Juan Manito, a guerrilla warrior fighting the Japanese occupiers, was also included in eight issues.

“Famous Tales of Terror,“ yet another series that ran for eight episodes, were mostly very short adaptations of Edgar

Photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

1940s

Allan Poe stories, and is particularly notable for its story host in #7, named the Ancient Witch, a character that has an uncanny resemblance to the Old Witch, host of Haunt of Fear.

The remarkable thing is that the Charlton character predated the far more familiar EC Comics character by a full four years!

The numbering of Yellowjacket was carried over to Jack-in-the-Box Comics, which sported the cover notation “Incorporating Yellowjacket Comics” beside the comic book’s logo for all of its six issues (not counting an earlier samenamed one-shot). Strips that continued included Yellowjacket and “King of the Beasts “(#11), plus “Cap’n Grim” (#12).

Previous page: Charlton’s first comic book, Yellowjacket Comics #1 [Sept. 1944]. This page: At top (from left) Ed Levy, John Santangelo, and Burt Levey attending a late 1940s Charlton holiday party. Above are various Charlton titles from the 1940s.

Inset right is comic strip from Radio Hit Songs #1 [Oct. 1941].

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

Comics-Type Charlton Stuff

Technically, one could say the first comics-type material to appear in a Charlton publication was probably the “Radio Rarities” comic panel by Dooley (seemingly used as filler), two of which appeared as full-pagers in Radio Hit Songs #1 [Oct. 1941]. The syndicated feature also appeared in newspapers in numerous states during that same year and, in 1942, it was utilized to promote local radio stations.

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Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

The Scourge of Sinners!

Forgotten Golden Age super-hero Yellowjacket was a curious character who, despite being named for a wasp genus, had supernatural control over bees, able to direct the flying insects to attack the criminals he was fighting.

In a hero history, Stacy Baugher designates him as an “orphan character.”2 His origin is

A TIMELY MYSTERY One true curiosity in the early history of Charlton is the odd inclusion of Marvel Comics material in two issues of Jack-in-the-Box Comics, #12 [Dec. 1946] and #13 [Apr. ’47]. The most glaring evidence of Charlton purchasing inventory from Marvel is certainly the best-looking: Basil Wolverton’s marvelous “Flap Flipflop” seven-pager in JITB #13, as it retains its Marvel job number, SL-847. (Could “SL” stand for the initials of Marvel editor Stan Lee?) In JITB #12, “Squat Car Squad,” itself a long-running series at Martin Goodman’s outfit, even references Marvel’s Super Rabbit in its opening panel!

(Also in JITB is Marvel’s Tubby Pig.) At right: Well before horror was all the rage in the industry, Yellowjacket Comics included a series that briefly featured an EC-like host, “The Ancient Witch.”

Yellowjacket #7. Art by Alan Mandel.

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roughly thus: Crime writer Vince Harley has a beekeeping hobby.

A hoodlum unleashes a beehive on Vince, who is a person who cannot be stung, and he decides to become costumed crimefighter.

The origin, Baugher states, “became a sort of framing sequence for the Yellowjacket stories.

Vince Harley would find himself in some sort of sticky-wicket and, as the Yellowjacket, would save the day. He would write the adventure as a fiction story, and his editor would give him a check.”3 Subsequently, Vince’s origin is modified a tad by actually having him, in fact, stung and then gaining superhuman strength. Vince is briefly made editor-in-chief of Dark Detective Magazine (certainly a title that would fit nicely with the Charlton-related pulps, such as Dramatic Detective), and the character starred in all ten issues of Yellowjacket Comics, with stories elsewhere appearing in TNT Comics #1 [Feb. ’46] and Jack-in-the-Box Comics #11 [Oct. ’46], the latter a new title taking over Yellowjacket’s numbering.

Yellowjacket TRIPLE-THREAT ’N’ TNT Two one-shots from the mid-1940s appear to have some kind of association with Charlton, if not being outright products of the outfit. Triple Threat Comics [Winter 1945], which is listed as published by Special Action Comics, Inc., 49 Hawkins Street, Derby, Conn., and printed in Holyoke, Mass. (The “Duke of Darkness” story therein—possibly written by Richard Hughes—is speculated to maybe have inspired Steve Ditko in the creation of his Marvel character, Doctor Strange.) TNT Comics [Feb. 1946], which features a Yellowjacket story, was published by the Charles Publishing Company, of 49 Hawkins Street, Derby.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC FUN Another Charlton shell company using the very same Hawkins Street, Derby, address was Children’s Comics Publishers (initially sans apostrophe), a guise only used for the second comic book series

Sheriff Slavin’s Courage Comics When precisely Ed Levy established a business arrangement with New Haven County High Sheriff John Edward Slavin, known to all as Jack, has yet to be discovered. But evidence suggests the disbarred attorney (and sometime accountant) was treated well by the sheriff during Levy’s county jail stay, where Slavin and family lived in a 14-room residential section. The 1940 U.S. Census seems to indicate favored status, as Levy is listed just below the Slavin family and their cook (and three lines below Levy’s is Santangelo’s name).

Regardless, the Charlton partners did associate with the tremendously popular elected official, as William J. Pape, II, Waterbury newspaper publisher (and onetime Eastern Color Printing executive), related when Shaun Clancy asked about Santangelo and Levy: “I’ll tell you a funny story about those guys. Levy ended up in the New Haven County sheriff’s jail. The sheriff had a sort of a boy’s camp and Levy talked the sheriff into going into publishing comic books with Santangelo promoting the boy’s camp. One day, the

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

sheriff came to [publisher James] Darcey to ask his opinion on why he wasn’t making any money with the comic books.” With a knowing chuckle, Pape concluded, “Darcey asked him who he was publishing comics with and he said Santangelo and Levy.”4 Slavin’s comic book was Courage Comics, a two-issue series from 1944 and ’45 that advocated the sheriff’s pet cause, the First Offender’s Club, a movement he had already promoted in his script for the 1939 motion picture, First Offenders. The sheriff’s campaign was to entice boys to vow to never become first offenders and thus avoid the tragic consequences of juvenile delinquency. In addition, he proposed establishing Boys Village, a home for youngsters from broken families.

More than 30,000 kids took the pledge, which earned them a nickel-plated badge, membership card (imprinted with the “First Offender Pledge”), and monthly newsletter. Doubtless, Courage Comics was another effort by Slavin to appeal to his youthful target audience.

Connecticut Explored magazine described Slavin’s comic books (the first one inexplicably numbered as #77 and likely Charlton’s second comic book publication): “The theme of the stories was courage in the face of adversity; the comics featured scenarios relating to crime, athletics, and heroism in World War II. Characters included U.S. Navy Lieutenant Chick Courage, boxer K.O. Brown, and a dog named Red Badge.

One recurring character closely resembled Slavin. ‘Sheriff Jack’ would save young offenders from a jail sentence, preventing them from being exposed to hardened criminals. He dissuaded them from pursuing a life of crime by taking them under his wing and having them join the First Offender Club.”5 Sleuth work by comics scholar Ken Quattro has determined the order in

which the comics appeared and that the two were likely packaged by Funnies, Inc., as some stories look to be the work of stalwart artists in Jacquet’s employ.6 However crude the resulting comics, Sheriff J. Edward Slavin’s cause was a gloriously noble one and the fruits of his efforts proved a positive influence on hundreds, if not thousands, of adolescent lives in the Constitution State. By the time Courage Comics #2 was printed, Slavin’s dream of a Boys Village had been realized, founded on an 82-acre plot in Milford, Conn. (the seaside town where John Santangelo had a summer home).

And the sheriff’s legacy thrives to this day as his organization, now renamed Boys & Girls Village, has become one of the state’s “leading providers of behavioral, educational, vocational, and permanency planning services for at-risk youth and their families.”7 Sheriff Slavin passed away in 1972.

This page: Hartford Courant photo of Sheriff J. Edward Slavin, taken in 1939; items from Slavin’s First Offenders Club, which launched in 1937, resulting in a Hollywood movie, national radio show, and two Charlton-printed comic books.

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Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

Jacquet, Incorporated First Funnies, Inc., was founded and initially run by Lloyd Jacquet [1899–1970], a Brooklyn-born newspaper/magazine columnist, pulp publisher, and, in 1935, editor of the first four issues of the groundbreaking comic book title, New Fun—for all practical purposes the innovative, “all-new” comic that launched DC Comics. Though its backers initially hoped it to become a publisher, Funnies, Inc. (situated at W. 45th St.), became a comics packager for other companies—supplying most of Charlton’s comics content between 1944–49.

Explained Funnies’ most celebrated artist, Bill Everett, “But we didn’t have the money or credit to publish our own books, so we became an art service. We’d put the whole book together, deliver the package to the publisher, and get paid for it.”8 Packaging had been a service initially developed by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, and carried on by the Harry “A” Chesler studio. “The model for increasing [comic book] production came from a mixture of the newspaper comics tradition of assistants ‘ghosting’ material assigned by the strips’ creators,” Paul Levitz explained, “and the factory system that Jacquet and others had used to supply the early comics publishers, with salaried artists working in just-better-than-sweatshop conditions, passing pages back and forth.”9 With a staff that included Everett, Carl Burgos, and Paul Gustavson, Funnies, Inc., scored big with Martin Goodman, as it packaged Timely’s earliest comics, notably contributing Everett’s Sub-Mariner and Bugos’s Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1. By 1940, when Goodman hired creators in-house, Funnies, Inc., signed over to Timely the aforementioned characters and Jacquet promptly dissolved the corporation. He just as promptly opened a self-named shop, continuing to package titles, which he did until 1949 or so. Historian David Saunders suggests that Lloyd Jacquet’s wife, Grace Jacquet, may have run the Lloyd Jacquet Studios in his absence as he served overseas as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.10

produced by Charlton, Zoo Funnies, a kids’ humor title. The industry’s “funny animal” comics genre had exploded by the mid-1940s, and Charlton, ever reliable to exploit an industry trend, obliged with 15 issues of Zoo Funnies (with the initial issue designated, for whatever reason, as #101). They also published seven issues, total, for their one-shot Jack-in-theBox Comics [Charles Pub., Feb. ’46] and six-issue regular series of the same name [Charlton Comics, Oct. ’46–Dec. ’47], the latter carrying on the numbering from Yellowjacket Comics—and then passing on their numbering to Cowboy Western, which passed it on to… oh, never mind! Readers will find out soon enough!

TED CHARLTON AND HIS MARVELS OF SCIENCE The Charlton comic book that would pass on its numbering to Catholic Comics was Marvels of Science, which lasted for four issues [Mar.–June 1946], and amusingly credited the name Ted Charlton as publisher, whose stated intent in #1 was “to entertainingly bring the world of science to people who are not scientists.” In other words, it was an “educational comic,” albeit with often sensationalist content, but optimistic and ambitious just the same, though heavily weighted with military themes due to the war that just ended. Marring the title is hastily drawn artwork throughout, though a pair of covers by Robert S. Pious is nice. (Material intended for MoS—and reprinted therefrom—appears in Catholic Comics.)

This page: Jack-in-the-Box #13 [Apr. ’47] includes a superb Basil Wolverton story. Right, house ad promoting Funnies, Inc.

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DOMENICA IN AMERICA Whether or not the 1948 arrival of John Santangelo’s Italian wife to New Haven was a surprise to the publisher is not known, but there were already signs of marital strife at the Derby homestead even before the “white widow” came in search of a reckoning. In March 1946, Santangelo’s American missus, Carrie, initiated divorce proceedings against her husband, though the couple soon thereafter reconciled, by January 1947. Then, in May ’48, Domenica Ercolani Santangelo arrived in the U.S.11 and sued to invalidate a Reno divorce her absent spouse had obtained in autumn 1936, before he made it “legal” with Carrie, in January 1937.

Santangelo then hurled accusations at his first wife— naming her lovers, including his nephew Dominick and two others—accusing her of adultery and desertion, saying that he had sent her funds and an immigration visa in 1932. But the court found “she had never been invited to come.”12 A newspaper account reported, “[T]he court found that her husband deserted her. Mrs. Santangelo had been obliged to work in the fields and in other menial ways to eke out a living. [The judge] observed that Santangelo’s income was $38,000 for 1948; $49,000 for 1946 and $42,000 in 1945.”13 (It was revealed that Dominica had been living rent-free over the years in an Abruzzo house owned by Santangelo.)

Then came the harsh rebuke: Domenica was awarded more than she had even requested. For alimony and support allowances, Santangelo was ordered to pay her a total amounting to $25 a month owed over the decades—$26,120, plus $3,000 for her lawyer (totaling $357,633 calculated in 2022 dollars). An unhappy Santangelo would soon appeal that decision to the highest court in the land.

This page: Top left is Good Humor #1 [July 1948], a Charlton “sexy gag” pub. At left are pics from the late ’40s of Derby’s Howard and Barber Department Store, which used Charlton comics as giveaways.

Issues identified are Cowboy Western #17 [July ’48], Zoo Funnies #15 [Jan. ’48], and Jack-in-the-Box #12 [Dec. ’46]. Right is Meriden Journal page one article clipping, Nov. 22, 1949.

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

THE BOY EDITORS Believe it or not, the two namesakes of Charlton Press—Charles W. Santangelo and Charles J. Levy—sons of the company owners, are together credited with jointly editing almost 70 individual issues of the publisher’s early comics. Their first credits are as “student editors,” noted in most issues of Zoo Funnies [Nov. 1945–Jan. ’48]. The lads, roughly the same age, would have been editing the funny animal title between ages ten–12.

The kids apparently graduated comic book school as they were listed as proper “editors” in the titles that followed, which included Western, crime, and romance comics. Their gigs ended in 1952 with the arrival of Alfred V. Fago, new managing editor of the Charlton comics line.

While his co-editor wasn’t interested in any future at Charlton, Charlie Santangelo did remain and helped run the company until 1968, when he suggested cutting the comics line from 52 to 30 titles, but was overruled by his father and younger brother, and then left the business. He subsequently opened a car wash and gas station in Derby, and, sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s, he went into retirement. (In 2000, Charles was featured in a candid and informative interview conducted

by Christopher Irving for Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000].)

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Charlton Goes Country

32

BUILDING THE CHARLTON BUILDING The 1954 New England Printer and Lithographer profile shared, “In 1945, as soon as World War II was over and building restrictions were lifted, Santangelo erected a larger plant on the outskirts of Derby. The building had 125,000 sq. ft. of floor space, on a 29-acre site with railroad sidings.

Today he is building two wings which will add another 26,000 sq. ft.”16 While legend had it that the magazine mogul erected a plant around 1936 or so—and despite the term “Charlton Building” being used in lieu of a street address in some pubs prior to the sprawling plant’s construction—it’s more likely the facility built on the corner of Pershing Drive and Division Street was Charlton Press, Inc.’s first, best, and last home.

When finished, the massive complex would contain Charlton Publishing’s executive and editorial offices, as well as most production departments; the imposing pressrooms of Charlton Printing with areas for color and b-&-w printing, trimming, and binding; gigantic rooms with massive newsprint rolls milled by in-house supplier Colonial Paper; and the inventory space and truck bays needed for Capital Distribution; plus there’d even be a marbled ballroom in the basement.

Mario DeMarco portrait courtesy of Manny Maris.

Given the ups and downs of the songsheet business in the 1940s, it’s no surprise that Charlton Publications chose to explore niche markets for new magazine subjects and shore up its position in the industry. So it was natural for the publisher to consider spinning off specialized sections already featured in their general interest songsheet publications.

Charlton’s short-lived Prosperity Hit Parader [1941]—whose name would soon be truncated and transferred to become their biggest seller—devoted a page to “Old Favorites the Cowboys Sing,” and “Cowboy Songs” was a section in Charlton’s Radio Hit Songs [1941–44], to name two examples.

The first issue of Cowboy Songs was published in 1946 and the quarterly featured song lyrics—”the greatest collection of hillbilly and western songs”—as well as photos of country western performers. The self-cover, black-&-white, newsprint mag lasted until about 1964, when the title was changed to Country Songs and Stars, which ended in 1968.

Bi-monthly Country Song Roundup, with its slick fullcolor covers, debuted in July/Aug. 1949, and it proved to be, by far, Charlton’s most successful country western music magazine, establishing the New England publisher as the preeminent publisher of country music mags the world over.

One hillbilly music website opined, “This magazine was unique in the sense that it covered the post-World War II era of country music on and through the new century. One gets drawn to this publication not for its writing, but to see from a historical standpoint how country music evolved over the years.”

The writer added, “Interesting that the longest-running country music publication would be based in a small town called Derby, Connecticut, rather than Nashville, Tennessee, as one would expect.”14 Along with Hit Parader and Song Hits, as musical tastes progressed over the years and readership interest ebbed and flowed, there was an increasing emphasis on featuring appealing, well-written content alongside the song lyrics, including reviews, interviews, and retrospectives, in addition to engaging photography. And, despite low budgets, more often than not, the country music editors delivered, sometimes exceptionally.

After John Santangelo, Jr., sold Country Song Roundup in 1991 to Perretta Media, new editor Shelton Ivany—the former longtime Charlton editor of Hit Parader and Rock and Soul—was enraptured with the Nashville scene, embracing it during his time. “Invading Nashville was a great joy for this Washington Heights punk rocker. I had a chance to meet all my writers, all my photographers.

Their checks had my name on the bottom. And the honor was all mine. I’m sure the checks came in very handy, but I needed the writers and photographers more than they needed me.”15 (Country Song Roundup ended its 40-plus year run in 2000.)

THE MARK OF DeMARCO One of the earliest regular artists at Charlton was Mario A. DeMarco [1922–2008], whose specialty was Ripley’s Believe It or Not-style comic panels of sports figures and Western movie actors, the latter produced for Charlton titles between 1948–51. He perfected Mario DeMarco that format while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, with his Navy Times feature, “The Highest in Honor.” Though the artist did an occasional short story for their Western titles, the Charlton partners, DeMarco told Michael Browning, “They were supposed to give me a big assignment, but it never came through. I was [left] waiting, so I went on to other books.”17 Indeed, Worcester, Mass., native DeMarco left Charlton and went over to Treasure Chest comics for a long period, and he subsequently self-published numerous book collections of his panel comics.

This page: Various country western music magazines published by Charlton, and Marvels of Science, crediting Ted Charlton as “publisher.”

Rudy Palais

a cordial and very animated guy to talk to about the old days of working in comics. Over the following 20 years, I called Rudy many times to talk about his long career, and eventually went to visit him in Connecticut, first in his large home in Stratford, and later at a small apartment, I first made contact with where he had downsized.

Rudy Palais back around From the day I connected 1991. I had collected late with Rudy, until his final 1940s and 1950s horror and moments in life, he loved science fiction comics since to talk about the comics I was 16 years of age and, at business, and the interesting one point, I decided I wanted part was, even in his 80s, he to locate and talk to as many of was in good health and had a Rudy Palais great memory. Rudy constantly those artists I could find still living.

This being in the pre-internet days regaled me with names of people he had of the 1980s, it wasn’t so easy to find known, and places he had worked in and them. Luckily, our local library carried a around New York City from the 1920s to pretty good selection of phone books the 1950s. I constantly took notes during from all over the country. Sometimes, visits and taped the conversations when I if the artist’s last name wasn’t too called from home. common, I could find an artist fairly easy, Rudolph Palais was born in Hobousually in the New York, New Jersey, ken, New Jersey, on March 21, 1912, or Connecticut phone books. I figured and, by the age of five, was drawing and that’s where most of those guys lived. being praised by teachers and relatives And I was right. Fortunately, Palais was to do something with his talent. And not a common last name, and his first that’s exactly what he wanted to do name wasn’t either. So I got a listing on anyway, from the time he could hold this fellow whose art I had admired for a pencil in hand. Rudy attended Peter many years and one day called him up.

Stuyvesant High School, in the Bronx, So Rudy answered the phone and, I but dropped out at the age of 14 to will say, from the very beginning he was help support the family. He went on to study at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. One of his earliest jobs was working with a crew, building theater marquee displays in New York City. Later he went to work for Warner Brothers doing movie poster work, followed by a stint at Columbia Studios working on posters and promotional press book artwork and layouts.

Bored with copying photographs of movie stars, Rudy hired into the Iger shop in 1940, after his brother, Walter, got a job there. He had never seen a comic book in his life and was astounded at the freedom and imagination that one could put into the stories. His first assignments included working on such popular heroes as The Black Condor, The Ray, Stormy Foster, and Dollman. Jerry Iger recognized Rudy’s dramatic ability for storytelling and soon had him laying out stories for other artists in the shop, including for Reed Crandall, who was fairly new to comics himself and having problems with layouts. Rudy stayed at Iger’s for eight or nine months before shifting over to Fiction House, where he

Portrait courtesy of Roger Hill.

by ROGER HILL

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

contributed stories to Planet Comics, Jungle Comics, and Fight Comics.

Not one to stay put for any length of time, Rudy left Fiction House in 1943 and began freelancing for many other publishers. He turned out Catman and Captain Aero for Continental Publishing, where he met and worked for the young art director, Lenny (L.B.) Cole. He was ready to join the military, but got excluded due to his age and a minor health concern. In 1944, he began working for Hillman doing Western, crime, and adventure stories, and, for Lev Gleason, turned out “The Claw,” “Hero of the Month,” and, later on, produced a plethora of crime stories for Charlie Biro and Bob Wood. Rudy even contributed to Charlton’s very first comic book title, Yellowjacket Comics, in 1944, drawing the “Harbor Lights” feature in #2–5.

In 1945, he began working for both Ace and Harvey Publications. At Ace, Rudy produced stories for such popular characters as Mr. Risk, Magno and Davey, Captain Courageous, Unknown Soldier, and others. For Harvey he drew the ad-

This page: Rudy Palais is misidentified in the Grand Comics Database as artist on certain Yellowjacket Comics tales, but he did draw this “Harbor Lights” episode from #5 [Jan. ’45]. Above, Palais opening page, Ghostly Tales #61 [June 1967].

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Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

34

for a lot of artists. As early as 1953, Rudy had started branching outside the comic field. One job he secured was doing cover paintings for Magazine Digest, a publication similar to Reader’s Digest.

Additionally, he provided all the interior header illustrations for the various articles that appeared inside. He showed samples at the Gilberton Company and took

home lengthy, complete-book assignments with three-month deadlines, and turned out Classics Illustrated titles, such as Crime and Punishment, Kit Carson, Men Against the Sea, The Gold Bug, and others.

Rudy freelanced for over 30 comic companies during his long career. In the 1960s, he took a job as art director for a small advertising agency and produced layouts for a number of commercial accounts, including Aetna Life Insurance, General Electric, Arnold Bakers, Pepperidge Farms, Frigitronics, and a number of toy manufacturers. He stayed with the

agency for ten years, and also installed a photo studio lab. There he became a photographer of product photos produced for an engraving firm that was linked with the agency.

In 1967, Sal Trapani, a friend of his, talked him into coming back briefly to produce a few horror, war, and Western stories for Charlton Publishing. Upon his return to comics, while working at the Derby company, Rudy developed a new approach to his art, which saved a little time in the process. He would do rough layouts in a small 4" x 7" size, then put it into an enlarger, blow it up to the size needed, transfer it to Strathmore, then tighten it up and ink. During the 1970s, he opened a printing plant and started a clip-art service for small printers and advertising firms. He had a clip-art book produced and sold copies to ad agencies, hospitals, and schools throughout the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Africa.

Even though Rudy found doing commercial art the most lucrative endeavor, he maintained a love for oil painting and watercolors, and turned out numerous mural paintings—portraits, landscapes, seascapes, and many other subjects—during his lifetime. Some of these were exhibited at various galleries and art shops over the years and are currently held in private collections throughout the country. Whether he was indoors or outdoors, a day never went by that Rudy wasn’t sketching and drawing. In recent years, he had recreated a few of his comic covers and specialty illustrations for fans and collectors. He remains one of the most celebrated horror comic artists of the Golden Age. Rudy Palais passed away in his sleep, on June 29, 2004, at the age of 92.

— R.H. This page: For some of his final comics work, Palais briefly freelanced for Charlton in their supernatural line, as well as some Western titles. This page appeared in Outlaws of the West #63 [Mar. ’67].

Essay ©2022 Roger Hill. “Big Boss” page courtesy of Roger Hill.

ventures of Captain Freedom appearing in Speed Comics and provided covers, too. Avon, National, Fox, Continental, Fawcett, Rural Home, and many others followed. Westerns, romance, superhero, or war, Rudy could do it all and make it look easy, usually working from home and turning out about two pages a day, pencils and inks.

A story here, a story there, Rudy was always restless and moving on to other companies he had not worked for. He even did a crime story for one of EC’s Pre-Trend crime titles in 1949.

When horror comics started springing up during the early 1950s, Rudy became a regular contributor for Harvey’s Black Cat Mystery, Chamber of Chills, Tomb of Terror, and Witches Tales. He always had a great imagination for drawing in the genre with his strange, twisted characters, and he soon became one of Harvey’s top talents in their horror books. His characters sweated buckets of perspiration, about which Rudy once explained, “It helped the readers identify more with the type of horrific situation the characters were placed in.”

Drops of perspiration became a trademark of any job that Rudy worked on and in many stories, backgrounds would be filled with a swirling mist or smoke emitting from an unknown source, adding another depth of horror.

Whether it was werewolves, vampires, mummies, walkingdead, or mad scientists, Rudy’s wild panel layouts were always inspired and sometimes he provided directional arrows to keep the readers on the right path as the story progressed.

By 1953, he had hooked up with Comic Media contributing memorable horror stories to Horrific and Weird Terror. Rudy would sometimes get bored working in his usual style and, impressed with fellow artist Don Heck’s thinner pen-line work, began using a thin line approach in his work, as well. When crime and horror comics came under attack in the mid-1950s, work dried up

WESTERNER, HO! The first of Charlton’s Western-themed comic book titles was overwhelmingly pedestrian in content—lamely scripted and poorly drawn—but there were some standout aspects worthy of mention. For one, Tim McCoy #16 [Oct. ’48] featured an (atrocious) adaptation of the Howard Hawks-directed movie starring John Wayne, Red River, considered one of the greatest Westerns of all time, which leads to speculation that Charlton partner Ed Levy used his contacts as once executive secretary of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of Connecticut to obtain permission. Plus, despite the young Charles boys named as such, was Levy the editor of the early Charlton comic books? After all, one 1954 article described him as “a writer with legal and bank­ing experience.”18 There’s a sense of a naif—if occasionally enthusiastic—at the helm in the issues before a seasoned managing editor would be hired early in the coming decade.

The highlight of those early Westerns was the inclusion of young and exuberant “bigfoot” cartoonist Clint Harmon, whose humor strips abound in all but five issues of Charlton’s 29 Westerns published prior to their major editorial revamp in 1952. Doubtless, the fact Harmon could write, pencil, ink, and letter on his lonesome would compensate for the fact the young man lived in faraway Oklahoma, having work delivered to Derby by mail.

esque. Francis Anthony Matera, Sr., told Jim Amash, “[I]n 1950, Chad Kelly, who later wrote our strip Mr. Holiday, and I needed some work, so we went to Charlton. They had been doing a lot of magazines, but very few comic books. Ed Levy was the guy we talked to when we started. Chad and I started doing ‘Sunset Carson’ for Charlton’s Fran Matera Cowboy Western comic. We also did some other stuff CHAD & FRAN for them, but I can’t remember what all we did… We always Another talented 20-something contributor to the Charlton turned in finished work, never needing approvals for either Westerns was Fran Matera [1924–2012], future Treasure scripts or art. Chad and I packaged the stories ourselves. But I Chest and comic strip artist, whose spectacular splash in didn’t like the operation at Charlton.”19 Finding management Cowboy Western #27 [Apr. 1950] was downright Eisnerunsavory, Matera left the publisher for other opportunities.

Clint Harmon portrait courtesy of Irene Barns.

Clint Harmon Clinton Lewis Harmon was born Mar. 20, 1924, in McPherson, Kansas, and was raised in a large family in Cushing, Oklahoma, where his father died when the boy was 16. He served in the U.S. Army 182nd Infantry during World War II, stationed in the South Pacific, where he reached the rank of corporal and was distinguished with a badge for exemplary conduct in action against the Japanese.

Back in the U.S., he went to college in Detroit, Michigan, where he studied art,

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

and then returned to his hometown to find employment.

In 1948, Clint Harmon began working for Charlton’s Western titles— mostly Cowboy Western—while simultaneously holding a day job as circulation director for The Cushing Daily Citizen, for which he occasionally drew cartoons.

Clinton created a variety of features for Charlton, including Denver Mudd & Bushey Barns, Chuck Wagon Gus, Pecos Bill, Happy Homer, and Li’l Hootie, all delightfully expressive “bigfoot” style gag strips, as well as a few “straight” assignments, that included Paul Bunyan, The Vigilantes, and Rod Kline. In some issues of CWC, Clinton would draw nearly half the content. Charlton abruptly let him go in 1952, about the same time Al Fago came on as managing editor, and Clinton went on to an advertising career, starting his own Tulsa agency in the early 1960s. In 1967, he mar-

ried Eleanor Ketch-Barns, who passed away in 1998. Clinton retired in 2000 and, to quote his obituary, “he marketed his comic strips to a number of weekly newspapers around the country.” He died on May 17, 2013, at the age of 89.

Clint Harmon

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FACING THE FIFTIES The close of the first decade of their association had John Santangelo and Ed Levy riding pretty high. Having first been conceived in a Connecticut county jail block in 1940, Charlton’s ascent to become the dominant publisher of—100% legitimate—song lyric magazines was astounding. By December 1949, Billboard reported that Lyle Engel, whose Song Lyrics, Inc., had been repeatedly hammering Charlton with lawsuits over the years, alleging the Derby company infringed on his trademarks, was giving up. The young Matera (as artist) did team with Chad Kelly (as writer) publisher, moving over to the then red-hot paperback book for Mr. Holiday, a short-lived adventure strip starring Santa game, sold Hit Parader’s chief competitor, Song Hits, and two Claus. Kelly, whose own cartoon saw print in the Saturday other mags to Charlton. Santangelo and Levy’s other main Review of Literature, in 1948, decided to stay on at Charlton rival, the battered D.S. Publishing had already cancelled Song and became an art director and editor of various magazines.

Parade, and instead focused on its comic book line, which About his own short Charlton stay in 1955, artist Marc limped along until 1951, when publisher Richard Davis Swayze recalled, “The first person I met in the Charlton quit the magazine game entirely and opened a movie offices was a young fellow named Chad Kelly… an theater. Still, the Derby-based business partners, artist, but not of comics… talented, personable, despite being victorious in their field, were not and talkative. I don’t know how long he had been about to rest easy on their laurels. with the company, but he seemed to know everyDuring the 1940s, the pair had also embarked thing about the place and everybody in it.”20 on numerous separate business ventures, for one For his part, Charles Franklin Kelly, Jr. [1922– establishing Valley Properties, a New Haven Coun1992] appears to have remained associated with ty real estate outfit, which would achieve great Charlton for decades, as he was recruiting carsuccess as a suburban housing developer, as well as toonists for the publisher’s licensed humor comics commercial builder. Soon enough the businessmen in the early ’70s. The lifelong Constitution State and their families—Santangelo’s oldest boy and Levy’s resident was employed as artist at the Bridgeport Post Chad Kelly wife were among those who helpfully signed certificates in the latter 1940s, when he also served as president of of incorporation—were involved in myriad projects, from the Cartoonists Guild and hosted talks to community groups, Santangelo Terrace to Valley Bowling to even establishing a discussing cartooning and his own Post feature, Babcock. (In 1950, Editor and Publisher mentioned that Kelly “had done a number of comic books,”21 though his five credited Cowboy Western stories might be the extent of that work.)

In-between his duties as Good Humor cartoon editor (“We want,” he told Writer’s Digest, “girly stuff, the girlier the better”)22 and art director of Playboy wanna-be, Hi Life (nicknamed the men’s “live-it-up magazine,” which was not a Charlton publication), Kelly launched his own trade journal for cartoonists, Freelancer, which was published in 1957 out of Waterbury. For 26 issues, Kelly was also listed as art director of Charlton’s Country Song Roundup. By 1975, Kelly, an antiques expert, was designing local bazaars.

Losing His Appeal…

Not all loose ends were tied up by the end of 1940s, as John Santangelo’s lawyer appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to put aside the Connecticut Superior Court’s ruling against him that supported his former Italian wife’s right to have a 1936 divorce decree invalidated. His appeal was argued on Nov. 14, 1950, and decided on January 9, 1951. (He even escorted Domenica’s alleged lover, nephew Domenico, on a KLM transatlantic flight in September 1949, to live with him in Derby, and presumably testify on the publisher’s behalf.)23 The justices found no error in the Connecticut court’s ruling and thus the appeal was denied.

In the wake of the SCOTUS decision, John and Carrie were re-married on New Year’s Eve, 1951, in a New Haven civil ceremony. Less than a year later, in December 1952, the couple established the John and Carrie Santangelo Foundation, a philanthropic organization today valued at more than one-half million dollars and managed by daughter Elsie and her son, John Scott.

36

Photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

shopping center not far from Charlton Press.

While serving his sentence in a New Haven jail cell, Santangelo had also been given five years probation by a New Jersey court after a conviction for conspiracy, a charge related to his bootleg capers. “On September 5, 1944, in requesting an Order Terminating Probation,” author Barry Kernfeld explained, “Santangelo’s probation officer wrote: ‘Subject has made a very satisfactory adjustment for a period just short of four years; he has been regularly employed; has fulfilled prohibition requirements, and is felt deserving of this consideration.’”24 As Kernfeld mused, the onetime “songlegging kingpin” hadn’t so much been vanquished by authorities, but rather assimilated to claim victory, having bested all rivals.

BURTON NORRIS LEVEY, ESQUIRE An important addition to the early Charlton years was Ed Levy’s cousin, Burt Levey, who served as the company’s general manager for over two decades before leaving in 1967 to start his real estate brokerage. Born March 22, 1917, Burton Norris Levey graduated the University of Alabama, passed the Connecticut bar in 1940, and joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Before serving in England, he married Diane Goldman, on February 20, 1943, and together the couple would have two children and settle in Woodbridge, a bedroom community just a few miles from Derby.

Diane shared, “My husband had been an attorney and had been practicing for a short time after graduating law school before he enlisted in the Air Corps. When he came home [from the war], his cousin Ed, who was just starting a publishing company with his friend John Santangelo, suggested that Burt come and join them instead of going back to

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

practicing law. And so he did [in 1945]. He was instrumental in running the business and was in a very important position and also part-owner. He ran the publishing side of the company.”25 Burt was also a vice-president of Charlton Press. He passed away in Florida, on Sept. 28, 2012, at the age of 95.

In a 2011 interview, Diane discussed a photo featuring Burt and some engravers at 49 Hawkins Street, the facility used before the Charlton Building was constructed on the outskirts of Derby. Describing it as a “small little printing factory,” she added, “I recall it very well on Hawkins Street, in Derby, and they were doing practically hand-set presses. I remember my husband learning the business from the bottom up and learning how to set the presses with the press man.”26 One question persists: was the Pepe and Co. Building, at 49 Hawkins Street, referred to as the “Charlton Building” for the period before the Division Street plant was completed?

Previous page: At top left is a 1947 editorial cartoon by Chad Kelly published in the Saturday Review of Literature [Mar. 20, 1948], commenting on an anti-comics radio show episode aired earlier that month. The caption read, “Cartoonist Chad Kelly, author of ‘The Babcocks,’ was inspired by John Mason Brown’s broadcast to produce this drawing: ‘I was so impressed by your version of the ill effects of cartoons on little children that I pictured myself as a fire-breathing dragon with pencils and pens for horns that gobbled up infants’ brain cells and left them in a state of insomnia.’” Bottom right is Billboard’s Dec. 24, 1949, announcement of Charlton’s acquisition of competitor Song Hits magazine and the cover of the Oct. 1951 edition of that mag.

This page: Likely a late ’40s pic of a rare glimpse inside Charlton’s 49 Hawkins Street printing operation, featuring general manager Burt Levey (in necktie) and three company engravers.

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Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

Of Catholics and Comic Books In 1956, the Catholic Church had conflicting views of John Santangelo—or, at least, St. Mary’s pastor Father John Quinn did. Reporting to Monsignor Wycislo of Catholic Relief Services, the Derby-based priest said he was quite familiar with the publisher, “his background and his business,” and praised the Italian immigrant for his generous charitable contributions. But Father Quinn was blunt: “Santangelo is living in a bad marriage, a divorce situation, and never goes to church; though his wife attends church daily and his children attend St. Mary’s School.”27 It’s curious that those church records uncovered for this book make zero mention of the fact that Charlton, under its Catholic Publications, Inc., imprint, laudably published 29 issues of Catholic Comics, between Oct. 1946 and July ’49. Plus, it appears Santangelo even did work for the Vatican itself. “Shortly after the war, when there was considerable fear that Italy would drift into Communism,” the publisher’s profile in New England Printer and Lithographer related, “Santangelo was commissioned to print a foreign language anti-Communist comic sheet for the Vati­can. In 1950, also in association with the Vatican, he printed the official guide for the Holy Year Jubilee pilgrims to Rome.”28 Perhaps that “foreign language anti-Communist comic sheet” was Record!

Italian author Armando Ravaglioli, editor of conservative Italian comics weekly Il Vittorioso, negotiated a deal with Santangelo to reprint portions of Catholic Comics in Record! #1–3. Alfredo Castelli reported that Carlo Peroni, who This spread: Some contents of Catholic Comics were adapted for the Italian sports comic book, Record! On this 1946 newspaper pic of a kid at a comics display at right, note the presence of Catholic Comics (along with Zoo Funnies). Next page features rare Catholic Action Comics covers, 1949 Notre Dame Scholastic pic, and the Catholic Comics letterhead.

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worked at Vittorioso at the time of Record!, told him the short-lived comic book was actually printed by Charlton in the U.S. and exported to Italy. Castelli added there is proof enough that Record! was a Charlton job: pick up an actual copy and note the similarity. “In addition to the format, it shares the same unmistakable paper, screening, coloring, printing, and characteristic smell (perfume?)” of Charlton’s comics of that era.29 (And, of course, the fact that Derby-based Catholic Publications is actually referenced in Record! is more than enough evidence.)

Catholic Comics #5 [Oct. 1946] (the title’s first issue, as numbering continued from recently cancelled Marvels of Science, #4 [June ’46]) followed the far more successful Catholic comic title, Treasure Chest of Fun & Fact, which had debuted on March 12, 1946, running until July 1972. Still, CC’s one issue shy of 30 is a good run, with vol. 3, #10, the last issue of CC proper, dated July 1949.

The credited editor of Catholic Comics was William K. Bennett, once corporate counsel for the neighboring city of Ansonia and, at that time, an attorney representing Charlton Press, with John J. Henry listed as business manager (from Arlington, Virginia, as noted on CC V.1 #7 Statement of Ownership).

Before the war, Notre Dame alumni “Jack” Henry had been program director for a Waterbury, Conn., radio station, where he met Dan Gentile and became the high school student’s mentor. After the war, Henry joined up with Catholic Publications, and Gentile (no relation to future Charlton editor Sal Gentile) freelanced for Henry while attending Notre Dame. “The feature article of each issue [of Catholic Comics] was ‘Bill Brown of Notre Dame,’ and that was Jack’s idea,” Gentile told Shaun Clancy. “He created this fictitious character named Bill Brown, a four-letter athlete, and I would write the [script] to present an anecdote of Bill Brown’s athletic prowess for each issue.

I would send him the [script]—his office was in Derby. He would forward [it] to the artist in New York City.”30 During summer break, Gentile worked on commission selling Catholic Comics subscriptions to parochial schools in the New York City vicinity, and he described the Funnies, Inc., crew working

Catholic Comics letterhead courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

on CC: “The artists were typical of the business at that time. The artists worked in one room—they called them sweatshops and I think they used to make $5 a page. They were all crammed together with drafting boards—easels.”31 An article in college news magazine Notre Dame Scholastic discussed Catholic Comics’ lead feature, “Bill Brown,” stating the series was indeed conceived at 17 Elizabeth St., Derby. “He is the creation of the editorial board of Catholic Comics, Derby, Conn., and has been nursed through his early years by three Notre Dame students.”32 The piece made passing reference to Gentile, the second scripter, and focused on first writer Jim Butz and then-current scribe Bill Leed. “‘I didn’t know quite what to do with [the character],’ confessed Butz. But then again, who would?

Who would know what to do with a 46-letter man who never drinks, smokes, or plays cards, and whose allegiance to Notre Dame ranks second only to [ND dog mascot] Clashmore Mike I?”33 The Scholastic also mentions that, unlike competitors Treasure Chest, Heroes All, or Topix, CC was also

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

distributed to newsstands and had an avid “500,000-odd” readership. It also pokes fun at the Lloyd Jacquet-linked freelancers for “horrible” visual mistakes resulting “from the fact the New York artists who turn out the strip have never been to [Notre Dame] and have to go by [reference] pictures sent them.”34 Recognizable artist names associated with Catholic Comics include Sid Greene, Sol Brodsky, Alvin Hollingsworth, Ken Battefield, Tex Blaisdell, and Blaisdell’s frequent art collaborator at the time, a quite young Guseppe Antonio Orlando—the very same Joe Orlando who also worked on another Catholic comic book title, Treasure Chest.

Aside from “Bill Brown,” in all but one issue of CC there’s “Father O’Malley,” a rather tame series about a chummy, friend-to-the-kids Catholic Youth Organization advisor at the fictional St. Cecilia’s Parish. Also featured are numerous mediocre—and some

downright awful—funny animal strips, though there’s also the presence of some truly excellent material by cartoonists Harold Delay (a reprint of Treasure Island serial adaptation in Vol. 3 #1–10) and the outstanding Robert S. Pious.

A fascinating recent find is Catholic Action Comics #35 [Mar. 1950], a digestsize, 48-page comic book that, by all indications, appears to be a continuation of CC, though Catholic Educational Features, Inc.—located at the same address as Funnies, Inc.—is listed as copyright holder and its publisher credited as Grace Mullane, the maiden name of Jacquet’s wife. The indicia numbers the issue as Vol. 4, #2 “(Whole No. 35),” making it fit snugly as CC’s successor if only a copy of Catholic Actions Comics Vol. 4 #1 (Whole No. 34) is someday found!

The Bibliography of Biography, of May, 1951, mentioned that “Catholic Action Comics has discontinued publication due to paper shortage.”35

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Chapter Five

The Go-Go Fifties LAST MAN STANDING Having peaked 1945–47, the heyday of the songsheet periodical business was in the magazine industry’s rear-view mirror, and into the new decade, after buying out Song Lyrics, Inc., and demise of D.S., Charlton was last man standing. The Derby publisher was still deriving a neat profit with their six songsheet publications, two which specialized in “hillbilly” and “cowboy”music (later collectively known as country western). And the ’50s transformed the Charlton songsheet mags themselves as, while many pages were still devoted to song lyrics, others increasingly featured profiles and articles that often contained solid writing, insight, and pertinent information instead of just hype. Plus, new genres were being visited, including the music of the much-ignored mainstream Black audience, with Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll Songs (serving an entirely new music category) debuting in 1956.

By New Year’s Day, 1950, Charlton had, by appearances, all but abandoned its comics line, publishing a mere pair of titles, Cowboy Western Comics and Pictorial Love Stories, the latter a romance series that would be defunct by spring, drowned by the “love glut” on newsstands that very same year. Comics were curtailed despite the fact that, a few years prior, the company had incorporated their Colonial Paper Company, achieving yet another goal in Charlton’s quest to have all publishing operations under one roof. At that stage, the all-in-one designation was figurative, not literal, as Colonial was off-site and much of the editorial work was being done at their satellite Fifth Avenue office, in New York City. And, though it contradicted Santangelo’s vision, the comic division’s work was still being farmed to outside contractors.

Soon enough, it would be time to bring it all home to Derby.

This page: Above is The Thing! #1 [Feb. 1952], Charlton’s particularly gruesome entry into the then exploding horror comics scene. Right is 1954 pic of John Santangelo and pressman reviewing uncut press sheet.

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1950s

Photo courtesy of Frank Romano and the Museum of Printing

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties FIRST COMES LOVE Charlton had entered the romance genre in 1949, debuting Pictorial Love Stories exactly two years after Joe Simon and Jack Kirby invented the hugely successful category with their Young Romance #1 [Sept.–Oct. 1947]. By the end of the 1950s, Charlton would produce 21 separate romance titles (a few being carry-over purchases from other publishers), ranking the outfit as the most prolific producer of love comics in the entire industry. (By the time Charlton Comics closed for good in the mid-1980s, it had released an estimated 1,428 individual romance comic books, which accounted for about one-quarter of all love comics ever published in America!)1 Their debut effort, Pictorial Love Stories #22 [Oct. 1949] (which continued the numbering of Western title Tim McCoy), improbably credited then-14-year-olds Charlie Santangelo and Charles Levy as editors, was an interesting title in its short five-issue run. It was unusual in the genre—unique even—as romance comics historian Michelle Nolan observed: the title featured series starring regularly appearing characters issue to issue, including the idiosyncratic artist and text-heavy writer Fred Bell’s “Hotel Hopeful” series, Mrs. Lucinda Michael’s—the boarders called her “Aunt

Mike”—boarding house for young ladies, whose anecdotes provided an episode’s drama; “Me–Dan Cupid,” a cute series of a winged cherub armed with (you guessed it) bow and arrow and plotting to hook up lads with lasses and vice versa; and “Catharine Carter’s Casebook,” the lovelorn advice columnist of a “famous chain of newspapers” who broke the fourth wall to directly inform us readers about the hapless advice seekers she found herself involved with.3 For those more accustomed to the relatively benign and nonviolent Comics Code-approved love comics of 1955 and thereafter, a read of the Charlton pre-Code romance titles can be an eye-popping experience. There’s a startling amount of gunplay and violence taking place in the stories—stabbings, murders, catastrophes, face-slapping, girls thrown from cars, a dame who kills to protect her man, and even the smitten Janey and Ken who kiss and make up standing over the body of a machine-gunned, bleeding-out adversary. And that’s just in the first three issues of Pictorial Love Stories!

The Distribution Racket

Above: Michelle Nolan said early issues of True Life Secrets [#1, Mar. ’51–#29, Jan. ’56] “had some of the worst art ever to appear in comics.”2 Cover to TLS #23 [Nov. ’54]. Inset top: Details of various Pictorial Love Stories continuing features.

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History will probably never reveal the precise business arrangement between retailer and distributor regarding Charlton’s comic book offerings, but rumors have abounded over the decades.

Having their own distribution network—a crucial part of Charlton’s fabled all-in-one set-up—presented the opportunity for a direct-market style arrangement. In a scathing missive to The Comics Journal in 1986, Ted White, legendary science fiction and Heavy Metal editor, shared all sorts of Charlton rumors, with one having an authentic ring: “The product was distributed in a crude but effective method,” White wrote. “News dealers were shipped large quantities of every title and told that they could keep the receipts on everything sold over a basic number. Say they sent 20 copies of a comic. After the dealer had sold ten, he could sell the remaining ten for 100 percent profit.”4 A similar rumor had it that retailers paid deliverymen upfront for Charlton’s share of half the copies upon arrival, conveniently eliminating burdensome paperwork and any follow-up, increasing cash flow and maybe creating incentive for profit-sharing truckers.

CRIME DESCENDS ON CHARLTON The boy editors continued to be credited in two new Charlton titles released with March 1951 cover dates, Crime and Justice and Lawbreakers, the first two of the publisher’s entries into the crime category, a lucrative genre pioneered

by Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay, which had premiered nearly a decade before. The Charlton offerings were relatively nondescript, with Crime and Justice containing continuing features—”Len Rawson, F.B.I.”; Thin Man knock-off “Mr. & Mrs. Curtis Chase”; “Radio Patrol,” etc.—but, try as it might with “Art Anderson, Automobile Detective” and “Sergeant Force’s Murder Mysteries,” regular characters just didn’t catch on in Lawbreakers. (To tell the truth, that title wouldn’t make it out of 1952, as it became the horror-infused Lawbreakers Suspense Stories for six issues in 1953.) Crime and Justice, which continued until #26 [Sept. 1955], when it transformed into Rookie Cop, might be best remembered for its remarkably bland covers once the Comics Code Authority stamp appeared on them. The third crime title coming out of Charlton, this one in 1952—when the publisher invested heavily in their comics line—was the longest-lasting of their “law and order” line, ending with #29 [Mar. 1958]. Racket Squad in Action—#1 [May 1952]—was actually first conceived by one of the greatest of all pulp magazine writers.

THE SHADOW OVER DERBY Walter Brown Gibson [1897–1985], best known as creator of famed fictional crimefighter The Shadow, didn’t merely scribe over 300 novel-length adventures of the pulp/radio hero and thus become a major figure in the history of pulp magazines. He was actually also an important presence in the comic book field. Historian Will Murray wrote, “Gibson’s comics career was as breathtaking in its sheer prolific sweep as it was in its astonishing anonymity. He did a little bit of everything––and a ton of certain genres––for just about everyone. He scripted Batman for Mort Weisinger. Crime and Punishment for Charles Biro. Magic comics for four different publishers. Even the lowerrent publishers like St. John and Ajax-Farrell made use of his skills… Walter Gibson was the Walter Gibson chief writer for numerous long-running comics titles for several houses, but hardly anyone ever knew it. And he scripted a ton of commercial comics.”5

In addition to his Street & Smith comics work, Gibson— also an amateur magician who once worked for the great Harry Houdini—scripted comics for a certain Derby, Conn., publisher. “After launching Racket Squad in Action for Charlton,” Murray shared, “he bailed out of their The Thing! one issue before Steve Ditko climbed on board, thus averting one of the great potential comics collaborations of all time.”6 Indeed, Gibson had started Charlton’s Racket Squad in Action, where he was credited as co-editor alongside Al Fago, and the title lasted for 29 issues, between mid-1952 and 1958. The writer told Murray, “Oh, I did one that was dandy.

That was called Racket Squad in Action. I took all kinds of rackets that I knew, that I’d done in The Bunco Book and various other things, and put them all in that book.”7 The Bunco Book, first published in 1927, was a collection of Gibson’s newspaper columns from the 1920s, a feature titled “Bunco Games to Beware of,” which was syndicated by Public Ledger Company. The book was reprinted in 1946 and ’86. (Gibson, as will be seen, remained an vital player in those early Charlton years.)

This page: Shadow creator Walter Gibson briefly edited at Charlton Comics, making use of his knowledge of scams and cheats for his Racket Squad in Action—he wrote a newspaper column on the subject (illo from one at far left), later collected in his oft-reprinted Bunco Book [1927].

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

HOT GENRES & RACING FAWCETT Whether the fact that Fawcett’s Hot Rod Comics and Charlton’s Hot Rods and Racing Cars both debuted at almost precisely the same time* is a remarkable coincidence or (ahem) a race between two publishers to come out first is yet another fascinating question whose answer is likely lost to the ages, but teenage car culture was rapidly on the rise in America at the time. In 1951, the National Hot Rod Association was born and Hot Rod magazine was a mere three-year-old. But while the niche has emerged in different permutations over time, apart from the Petersen and Millar mags (CARtoons and its ilk), Charlton Comics’ ten racing titles over the next 20 years made the publisher the genre’s irrefutable champion.

The Fawcett series—officially titled Hot Rod Comics Featuring Clint Curtis—would last only seven issues, ending in late 1952, but its lead feature would live on in Hot Rods and Racing Cars, after Charlton made its Fawcett acquisitions. Clint Curtis first appeared in that title briefly in two issues in 1954 and then, in 1959, it returned permanently—more often than not the lead feature (often with his Road Knights team), remaining until the title’s cancellation in 1973. *The Grand Comics Database estimates that Hot Rod Comics #1’s cover date would have been Nov. 1951 and Hot Rods and Racing Cars #1’s cover date was the very same month.

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Kinowa, Western Scourge!

Before switching to become the weirdly wonderful Space Western Comics, the final issue of Cowboy Western Comics [#39, Aug. 1952] contained a terrifically rendered seven-page story, “Kinowa,” which featured Hal Foster-like artwork by an Italian art trio who called themselves EsseGesse. The tale starts off with a bang as the green, horned, devil-like title character slaughters one of the Black Bison tribe. Then Red Feather, a tribe member who was adopted as a baby, is introduced. The tale ends not with a war-whoop, but a whimper, petering out in mid-story, but even as a severely shortened episode, the strip’s potential was huge!

Italian comics scholar Alberto Beccatini shared about the concept’s appeal: “The series shows an interesting and innovative fusion of genres and themes. The typically Italian Western is contaminated with a pinch of horror, while Kinowa’s mask and his virtual invulnerability are reminiscent of American super-heroes, even if totally stripped of their classic do-goodness. Later on, Kinowa finds out that his son did not die, but was adopted by the Indians and became one of them. Unaware of his origins, the son longs to kill Kinowa to avenge his new people. This clash between a son and the father he never knew has the flavor of tragedy. It may recall Shakespearean dramas or anticipate future blockbusters such as Star Wars.”8 Kinowa was created by writer Andrea Lavezzolo (as “Andrew Lawson”) and artists Giovanni Sinchetto, Dario Guzzon and Pietro Sartoris, the aforementioned “EsseGEsse” (phonetically, “S-G-S”). There were 135 weekly issues of the original series were published by Gino Casarotti’s Edizioni Mediolanum and later by Edizioni Dardo, both of Milan, from May 1, 1950–Mar. 22, 1953. Since then, the series has been occasionally revived.

Big questions remain: how did this story end up in a Charlton comic book, during a time when few, if any, Italian stories were imported? Did Santangelo obtain rights during one of his twice-annual jaunts to the old country? Did newlyarrived editor Al Fago make the selection? And why didn’t the company continue with this dynamite horror-slash-Western tale of savage revenge? Another mystery endures…

The exact identity of the credited editor for the first seven issues, one Charles W. Bishop, is unclear, but a likely candidate is Yale University class of 1930 grad Charles Wakefield Bishop [1909–2000], of New Haven. He was a renowned scholar of automobile history, who might well have became connected with Charlton co-publisher and one-time Yalie Ed Levy, and Bishop was also a contributor to Antique Automobile magazine, as well as founding member of the Society of Automotive Historians. In the early 1950s, Bishop reportedly left for Europe to study at the University of Lyons to attain a graduate degree—nicely coinciding, one imagines, with editor Bishop taking permanent leave of HR&RC in late 1952—a sabbatical that eventually resulted in his thesisturned-book, La France et l’automobile [1969].

The tone of HR&RC changed drastically with the departure of Bishop and arrival of Al Fago (joined for a few issues

by Charles J. Levy, who served as consultant between #9 and #14). Under Bishop, the comic book was informative and heavy with historical retrospection, though not without dramatic racing sequences. Fago infused the title with melodrama and pistol-wielding, more in tune with crime comics of the day.

EARLY TO RISE Roy Ald [1920–2012], former Fawcett Comics editor and the original writer and editor of Fawcett’s Negro Romance (which was resurrected in 1955 by Charlton for a single issue that reprinted #2), worked for a time at Capital Distributors. “I had no idea they did comics,” he told Shaun Clancy. “When I first went there, I met with John Santangelo, Sr. He was a partner in the business and also owned most of the town. We hit it off so well that a deal was made immediately. When he put the

Roy Ald

contract in front of me to sign, he said, ‘What time do you wake up in the morning?’ And I said, ‘Why?’—to which he then replied, ‘I want to make sure I wake up before you!’

“After that, I met his partner, Ed Levy, who wore gold chains… These guys were like characters straight out of a movie.”9 Ald worked for the distribution outfit for four years, though, he added, “I was very restless. I wanted to do something to legitimize myself with something worth doing… I just stopped working with them when I wanted to try something else.”10

Charlton’s Pulp Fiction Previous page: Hot Rods and Racing Cars #1 [Nov. ’51] and panels from Cowboy Western Comics #39 [Aug. ’52] and Italian comic Kinowa. This page: Above splash panel from HR&RC #20 [Jan. ’55], attributed to penciler Joe Shuster though more likely ghosted by Bill Molno, with Ray Osrin inks. Top right is Charlton house ad and two pulp offerings from the publishing house.

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Into the early ’50s, Charlton published a handful of crime pulps—all U.S. letter-size dimensions—under the Picture Detective Publishing Co. imprint, including Federal Crimes Detective, seen here. There’s a likely connection with these and Frank Comunale’s late pulp entry Federal Bureau Detective [1950] and the Long Islander’s earlier mags.

Fantastic Science Fiction was described by The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction website thusly: “U.S. letter-size magazine, edited by Walter B. Gibson, the prolific pulp writer and creator of The Shadow. Only two issues appeared, #1 [Aug. 1952], published by Super Science Fiction Publications and #2 [Dec. ’52], by Capitol Stories, both subsidiaries of Charlton…

This inferior magazine, whose stories featured formulaic, simplistic, and chauvinistic adventure, should not be confused with Fantastic, also begun in 1952, which for Apr. 1955–Feb. 1958 was likewise called Fantastic Science Fiction.”11

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

RISQUÉ BUSINESS Entering the new decade, Charlton continued expanding into new directions, one being the time-honored field of racy “girly” magazines. Peep Show featured black-&-white glamour shots of scantily-clad burlesque performers and short biographical text, and it was launched in Winter 1950 under the N.E.W.S. Publishing Corporation banner. It lasted for 34 issues, ending in mid-1958. Notably, Peep Show #18 [Fall ’54] featured famous pin-up model Bettie Page on the cover and in a five-page photo essay therein.

In its mid-’50s feature on John Santangelo, New England Printer and Lithographer relayed, “Some years ago, as an avid art-lover, he acquired the 86-year­old French magazine La Vie Parisienne, which so greatly aided the Yanks to maintain their morale during the war years of this century. La Vie Parisienne is still published in Paris, with its American edition, carefully edited to suit American tastes and customs—Paris Life—regularly published and distributed in this country.”12 In essence, Paris Life had much the same content as Peep Show—photo essays of curvaceous, nude young women accompanied by brief copy, albeit conveyed not without a certain continental charm, and, like its French cousin, it also contained mildly suggestive short stories. Whether Santangelo was the actual publisher of the French edition is unclear, though 1950s editions of La Vie Parisienne appear to still be the product of publisher Georges Ventillard, suggesting San-

tangelo obtained from Ventillard the license to use the name and logo (the latter which appeared beside the American logo on early issues). Paris Life #1 was cover-dated April 1951, and the last issue was #35 [Dec. 1958]. The French version, founded in 1863, shuttered its doors in 1970.

In 1956, Charlton published two issues of Pin-Up Photography, the first cover-featuring the notorious Miss Page and also spotlighting “advice from industry veteran Charles Kell on the nuances of cheesecake photography.” (Kell, by the way, lensed what has been called the rarest of all pin-ups, Bettie Page’s centerspread in Satan #2 [Apr.1957], a men’s magazine not published by Charlton.)

One May 1956 visitor to the Derby plant shared this critical observation about Charlton’s saucy offerings: I visited the printing plant where millions of copies of the most scandalous magazines and publications are produced. This printed material deals with vice, corruption, and sensational stories about theatrical stars and well-known people. The accompanying photographs were partly pornography, containing semi-nude girls in seductive and suggestive poses. I glanced through these magazines as they came off the presses: Paris Life, Hush-Hush, Top Secret, Peep Show magazine, Secret Stories,* all banned by religious organizations, Catholic and Protestant clergymen, and by many leading newsmen.13 In late May, within a few weeks of that eyewitness account of a stroll through Charlton’s press room, the company faced charges by Brooklyn District Attorney Edward S. Silver—“In our fight,” the D.A. vowed, “to stop the dissemination of obscene and lewd publications to our teenagers.”14 Charlton was among 36 persons (21 of them retailers) and nine corporations who faced accusations of disseminating dirty magazines.

But a greater threat facing the publisher probably wasn’t from the skin mags, but because of the burgeoning field of “exposé” magazines—two of them name-checked in the visitor’s quote above—yet another category Charlton had started exploiting in the ’50s. *No such title Secret Stories was apparently published by Charlton, but the visitor may refer to Secrets of Love and Marriage #1 [Aug. 1956].

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TOP SECRET AND HUSH-HUSH The genre of exposé magazines begins with its creator, Robert Harrison, who started his career at the bottom, as copy boy in the New York City newspaper game and he went out west to work on a Hollywood movie mag, and then, in the 1940s, started up his family of sometimes fetishistic “cheesecake” magazines, colorfully named Eyeful, Titter, Wink, Whisper, and Flirt. By the start of the ’50s, Harrison’s titillating publications were losing popularity and so he hit upon a formula that would develop, in two short years, into what the venerable Time magazine called “the biggest newsstand seller in the U.S.”:15 Confidential.

The author of Dish: The Inside Story of the World of Gossip describes the origin of the notorious mag: The publisher was a fan of Walter Winchell’s column; he took the gossip column format and combined it with the shocking exposé flavor of the [U.S. Senator Estes] Kefauver hearings [on mob corruption in government], and, in December 1952, began cranking out Confidential every other month. “People like to read about things they don’t dare do themselves,” Harrison said. “And if you can print these things about public figures, so much better.” The scandal magazine was born.16 Sales of Confidential proved spectacular and its success was the envy of the industry, thus Santangelo and company jumped into the brand-new “tattler” magazine realm. Charlton’s first knockoff followed, with Top Secret #1 [Fall 1953], published under their Topical Magazines imprint. Hush-Hush came next, in May ’55, and it didn’t take long for trouble to come for the newcomer. Two months later Hush-Hush’s editor, Eugene Tillinger, and Charlton were being sued by entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., to the tune of $3.5 million for a “false, defamatory, and degrading” article in #4, the September issue.17 In a glib, cynical description, the Pulp International website wrote of the blatantly racist piece: “This September 1955 issue of Hush-Hush has forgone the usual lurid photos in favor of a mostly-text presentation that makes the month’s scandalous offerings that much more glaring. So, let’s take it from the top.

Did Sammy Davis, Jr. marry his Southern belle? Short answer—no. Though he had many down-low relationships with white women, including what must have been a heavenly fling with the angel Kim Novak, the Southern belle faded into history and Sammy’s first marriage was to a woman of his own race in 1958. The whole thing was forcibly arranged by the Mafia, but, hey, no marriage is 100% perfect.”18

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

This spread: Various tacky magazines published by Charlton, including two Confidential knock-offs. Peep Show and Pin-Up Photography included photo spreads starring Bettie Page. Paris Life was the American version of La Vie Parisienne (the latter which was reportedly owned by John Santangelo, though no definitive evidence has been uncovered).

Arrow: The Family Comic Weekly was edited by Walter Gibson and printed by the Derby, Conn., publisher.

Arrow: The Family Comic Weekly Onetime Charlton editor Walter Gibson teamed with the married Jacquet team to produce a Sunday comic supplement readymade for newspaper clients. The short-lived affair published by Charlton (lasting through the fall of 1953), which originally featured “Batman and Robin” (soon dropped, perhaps due to licensing concerns), was made up of second-rate strips, one repurposed Funnies, Inc., story, a translated foreign strip, and, presumably, new material, including pulp legend Gibson’s science fiction strip, “Captain Galaxy,” plus there was a revival of Straight Arrow, the Western character from radio and comic books.

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Charlton Comics’ Haunted Things It’s no surprise that Charlton was late getting in on comics’ horror craze sweeping the field in 1951 (though one could argue their “Famous Tales of Terror” short stories in Yellowjacket Comics between 1944–46 made them an industry vanguard!), as the outfit was all too often late to the dance when it came to exploiting popular trends. But to say its take on the subject could be sublime— specifically in the pages of The Thing! [#1–17, Feb. ’52–Nov. ’54]—and even holds its own somewhat when compared with EC’s Tales from the Crypt, et al.… well, that might be stunning to hear.

[See Steve Bissette’s in-depth look for a detailed analysis.]

And what’s also surprising is that Charlton’s first honest-to-goodness managing editor—a cartoonist known primarily for his funny animal material —was so bloody good at packaging these notorious funnybooks! In fact, the Al Fago-edited material proved so infamous that the crusading Dr. Frederic Wertham in his anti-comics screed, Seduction of the Innocent, made mention of The Thing! #9’s “Mardu’s Masterpiece,” about which the good doctor describes: “A painter ties the hands of his model to the ceiling, stabs her, and uses her blood for paint. (Flowing blood is shown in six pictures.)”19

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Among the illustrations in SOTI is a panel from that same issue of The Thing!, featuring a robot in a second story, “Operation Massacre,” crushing a poor chump’s head, which is spurting blood and emitting a skull-cracking sound effect— “CRUUNCH!” Wertham’s caption reads, “Stomping on the face is a form of brutality which modern children learn early.”20 (That same panel was actually used as the cover illo of the British book, Ghastly Terror!

The Horrible Story of the Horror Comics [1999].)

In his assessment of the non-EC horror comics publishers, Lawrence WattEvans, shared about the Charlton titles in the category: “They were a bit slow to pick up on horror,” he wrote, “but when they did they went at it full-force.

“The Thing! began in 1952 and lasted 17 issues, featuring a narrator named The Thing (who was never seen clearly). Although there was an obvious EC Comics influence, the stories got wilder than anything the tightlycontrolled EC crew ever produced.

“Their other horror titles were relatively secondhand. A crime title, Lawbreakers, was transformed into Lawbreakers Suspense Stories and, as such, lasted six issues, some of them with truly bizarre covers; the one where a maniac’s holding a handful of severed tongues is particularly memorable [#11, Mar. ’53], though the woman being eaten alive by moths is also striking [#12, May ’53].

Then Charlton bought the name Strange Suspense Stories from Fawcett, and

gave it to Lawbreakers Suspense Stories for its remaining seven issues. (When the Code came in, it was retitled This Is Suspense! for four issues, then switched back to Strange Suspense Stories.)

“They bought This Magazine Is Haunted outright, continuing the numbering from the Fawcett version.”

Watt-Evans then opines, “This Magazine Is Haunted and Strange Suspense Stories lacked the over-the-top charm of The Thing! and Lawbreakers Suspense Stories; I really don’t know why.”21 Charlton horror of any consequence wouldn’t reappear until after the Code’s revision in the early 1970s.

This page: Items from the Charlton horror titles—Steve Ditko’s striking cover for This Magazine is Haunted #21 [Nov. 1954] and The Thing! #1 [Feb. 1952] title page by Albert Tyler and Bob Forgione.

HARDLY A SAINT AND SURELY NO ANGEL In California, Davis, Jr.’s lawsuit against Hush-Hush was thrown out of court and the singer’s lawyer vowed to find a more sympathetic judge on the East Coast, but that was the last heard about it. Still, threatened legal action of one kind or another was ever-present in Santangelo’s world, a place where he was lauded and yet also disparaged, all the same.

To some, his was a quintessential all-American rags-to-riches story—à la Horatio Alger—of a poor-as-dirt immigrant who became a millionaire solely due to wits and gumption. To others, the man was a shady character, a stereotypical Italian gangster-type with connections in realms both high and low. One of those possessing a particularly unpleasant (and rumor-infested) opinion was Blanche Fago, the vocal wife of Al Fago, Charlton’s managing editor between 1952–57.

“I remember that John Santangelo left Italy because he had killed someone or had been involved in it,” she audaciously declared without evidence in a 2001 interview with Jim Amash. “He came to America and worked on the subway system in New York back in the 1920s. I don’t know how he got to Connecticut, but I know he was working with all the Irish and Italians who had worked on the subway system.

There were constant fights and other stuff going on.”22 The only verifiable facts she made are his leaving Italy and entering America, and Blanche (93 at the time of the interview) was hardly alone in spreading malicious gossip.

It had long been whispered that Santangelo was a “made” member of the Mafia, was an out-and-out pornographer, and was a harsh exploiter of his immigrant workforce. (Mrs. Fago also called Santangelo an outright crook and equated him to a Benito Mussolini who lorded over his domain from the second-story balcony of his Derby home overlooking Charlton.)

Referring to the city’s parish pastor, internal Catholic Church correspondence of May 1956 related, “Father Quinn tells me that he is aware of the fact that the printing press owned by Mr. Santangelo in consort with two Jewish persons does indeed publish the pornographic type of literature so common on newsstands and in shady stores.”23 That anti-semetic slur—coming from a Catholic monsignor, no less—refers to partner Ed Levy and his cousin, Burt Levey (who served as Charlton Publishing business manager and treasurer until he departed for a real estate venture in 1967). Part of Levey’s job was to secure permissions from the various song publishers. “Fifty percent of the company was devoted to the song magazines,” he explained. “Twenty-five percent comics, and twenty-five percent for the rest of the magazines—confessions, detective, Real West, and the crossword puzzle books. Of course, this varied, but it’s an accurate ballpark figure of the business breakdown for Charlton.”24 In a letter to The Comics Journal, editor/author Ted White, who had a troubling experience with Charlton’s shortlived paperback line in the early ’60s, declared, “Charlton’s business practices were typical of mob-run companies, and it was common knowledge in the publishing industry that Charlton, Capitol, et al., were mob-owned businesses.”* White added, “Charlton stood out as the scuzziest of them all. Not only were its business practices of questionable legality, with rare exceptions its actual product was shoddy, too.”25 *In an email to the author, White subsequently clarified, “What I know is mostly, I fear, the same hearsay you’ve encountered elsewhere.”26

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

The arrival of Alfred Vincent Fago as managing editor at Charlton was a welcome event at the comics imprint, which up until then had been run by the inexperienced if ardent Ed Levy. The co-publisher would still stay somewhat involved in certain decisions, but it was Al Fago, along with valuable help from wife Blanche, who seized the reins and drove the comics line for five years, between 1952–57.

Fago was born on Jan. 19, 1905, in Naples, Italy, and he arrived with his family in the U.S. as a small child. In 1914, his more-famous brother Vincent was born and the two would eventually pursue careers as cartoonists.

By the time Vincent worked in animation Al Fago art departments, Al had long served as a designer at rug companies. Vincent later said to Jim Amash it was expected Al would slave on the assembly line, but he instead was placed in the design department because he had attended trade school and was familiar with woodwork and painting.27 Vincent was put in charge of Timely Comics “funny animals” line of titles and then became temporary editor-in-chief of all comics when Stan Lee went into the service. “[Al] came in right after I got there,” Vincent said. “He used to ink my stuff while he was at the rug company. When Al saw how much money you could make, he quit the rug business. He worked for me and also freelanced elsewhere. He suddenly blossomed into an artist and loved to work.”28 By the late 1940s, Al established Alfred V. Fago Studios and worked with other freelancers to package comic books, with one client being Charlton. Eventually, as the Derby company wanted to expand the comics line, Fago was hired as managing editor, producing titles first out of an office on West 42nd Street, in New York City; and then at his and Blanche’s Long Island home; and soon enough the couple was commuting to work in-house. At Charlton, Al, with his brother’s help, created Atomic Mouse, a mash-up of super-heroes and funny animals, and probably the cartoonist’s best known creation. After a bad falling-out with Santangelo and Levy, Al joined with Vince to establish Fago Magazines, which produced five comic book titles before folding, in 1959.

Thereafter, the couple happily set up a print shop out of their Orange, Conn., home, but Al was incapacitated with a stroke in 1964, leaving him unable to draw. Sharing that his older brother never recovered from the incident, Vincent said, “Al spoke good Italian and would get excited and argue.

That’s why he got that stroke. But he was an affable person with a good sense of humor.”29 Al died in 1975, at age 70.

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties THE COMING OF AL AND BLANCHE The early 1952 entrance of Al Fago as managing editor of the comic books at Charlton brought a refreshing—and much needed—cohesion to the imprint. While co-publisher Ed Levy, who had been (despite the credited boy editors) the de facto overseer until then, would still have a significant say in the direction of the comics line, Fago, with extensive help from new wife Blanche Gramaglia Fago, ran the show until 1957.

In the industry, the better-known Fago brother was Vincent, who was Timely Comics editor while Stan Lee was in the military during WWII, and Vince shared with Jim Amash how his brother (who was nine years Vince’s senior) got the Charlton gig: “There was a little competition between Al and me. I had been the editor at Timely and Charlton wanted to hire me because I had the reputation. But my brother and his wife had an appointment with them, and they got the job.

They were more business-type people than me.”30 And, indeed, Charlton hired the recently-married couple as a team, as Blanche explained to Amash: “They offered Al a lot of money—and me, too. I left my job [at the Research Institute of America]… He was editor-in-chief and I was in charge of buying the art. The other people at Charlton had nothing to do with the comics. We did it all. My husband would check on the art and the writing. He would also check on the lettering and the books, once they came off the press.

I would look at things, too, to make sure the books were what we wanted… We had a couple of assistant editors. One helped me with the art and the other helped Al.”31 Among those assistant editors was Dick Giordano, who later reminded interviewers that the Fagos didn’t actually set up shop in the Charlton Press building until 1953. Initially based in the Fagos’ Long Island home, Al would make his rounds by automobile, driving to freelancers’ homes to collect assignments, and then make the haul up to Derby. “Al Fago lived in Great Neck,” Giordano explained, “and he had a Chrysler, and each week, he would drive to my studio, pick up my assignment from the previous week, and hand me a new one. I didn’t even have to leave the house!”32 In 1953, along with his brother’s help, Al created his most famous property for Charlton, Atomic Mouse, which ran for 52 issues and spawned Fago’s Atomic Rabbit and Maurice Whitman’s Atom the Cat. In the anthropomorphic category—the genre for which both Al and Vincent were best known—Al also revived long-dormant Charlton title Zoo Funnies (which didn’t remain animation-style very long) and relaunched Fawcett’s Funny Animals (though dropping the “Fawcett’s” yet still picking up the old numbering). In that same year, as Charlton assembled an in-house comics department, the couple moved to nearby Orange, built a home and began the daily commute to Derby to work at Charlton Press.

Right from the start of his reign and quite possibly in collaboration with Levy, Fago developed two fascinating titles for Charlton, each developing notoriety in their own unique way. First came The Thing!—“The best Charlton title is the grisly and extreme The Thing!”33 declared author Stephen Sennitt—the inspired horror series (covered in an accompanying essay here). And there was also an innovative hybrid, one that continues to be the cause of rolled eyeballs and scratched heads the world over: genre mash-up Space Western Comics, though Walter Gibson’s recollections have it that the idea for that weird conception came from the top.

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THEY CALL THEM THE SPACE COWBOYS Space Western Comics, Gibson explained to Will Murray, “was Ed Levy’s idea… Now, the funny thing was that had been a gag. You know, it’s funny how stupid these people with the comics, how seriously they took the comics to be.

They said, ‘Oh, somebody bought—ha-ha-ha—Space Western.’ As though that was a silly, asinine thing. Well, after all, comics themselves were a little bit asinine. We might just as well face it. Anybody with a good sense of humor knew that.

They went, ‘Oh, Space Western—ha-ha-ha.’ Well, one day, we got talking about different things, space things and Westerns, and Ed said, ‘Say, we should get out a thing of Space Western stories, have the cowboys running into guys coming down in the flying saucers and things of that sort. And cowboys take off in them.’ So I started up Space Western. I did most of those for him.”34 Of the comic book itself, Mike Benton, in his Science Fiction Comics: The Illustrated History [1992], provided as good a description as any: “Science fiction was so popular in the early 1950s that not only were detectives shot off into outer space, but so were cowboys. In 1952, Charlton Comics changed its comic Cowboy Western, which featured Jesse James and Annie Oakley, into a futuristic-hybrid called Space Western [Oct.1952]. Spurs Jackson and His Space Vigilantes fought Martians and Nazis on the moon when they weren’t roping cattle on their Bar-Z Ranch in Arizona. When a flying saucer lands in his cattle corral, a nonchalant Spurs ambles up to the alien: ‘Well, well! Don’t tell me you’re from Mars!’”

Benton continued, “The Martians capture Spurs and his range

rowdies, but the aliens don’t know that the cowboy packs a six-gun which fires ‘miniature atomic bombs.’ Spur and his cowboys, however, use a conventional lariat and bullwhip to send the saucer boys packing.”35 Hardcore SF fans scoffed at the series and one actually referred to it in a “Fancyclopedia” definition (which cites a celebrated SF editor) of the term, “Space Opera”: A hack science-fiction story, a dressed-up Western; so called by analogy with “horse opera” for Western bang-bangshoot-em-up movies and “soap opera” for radio and video yellowdrama. Of course, some space operas are more crass about their nature than others; early Captain Video TVcasts were a hybrid of original space scenes and footage from old Western movies (purporting to represent a Spy Ray checking up on the Captain’s Earthly agents). Terry Carr once unearthed a publication genommen Space Western Comics, This spread: Cover imagery by both John Belfi and Stan Campbell from genre-bending Space Western Comics, one of the wackiest Charlton comic books (or from any publisher anywhere!), which starred Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes.

in which a character named Spurs Jackson adventured in a futuristic Western setting with his “space vigilantes,” and the old prewar Planet Comics intermittently ran a strip about the Fifth Martian Lancers and their struggles with rebel tribesmen.37 The title, which lasted for six issues, long enough to get a mention in Seduction of the Innocent as a favorite comic book of a juvenile arsonist. Still, however ridiculed, taken with the benefit of hindsight, the idea of mashing together the Old West and outer space isn’t that weird, at least nowadays.

After all, consider the recent movie, Nope, the Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, and Serenity TV shows, and the 2011 motion picture Cowboys & Aliens (never mind Star Trek being initially conceptualized as “Wagon Train to the Stars”!).

FAKING OUT FAGO Walter Gibson, in explaining how he connected with Charlton, explained some difficulties he had as a writer freelancing for Fago. “See, I knew Ed Levy quite well,” he said to Will Murray, “and Ed Levy got me to do various comics for him. I would go over there. He had a man… Fago was in charge of CONTINUED ON PG. 54

Space Western Comics Upon first encountering Space Western Comics, Charlton’s oddball title of 1952–53, myriad emotions come to the fore. First, bewilderment over the notion of a melding of cowboys and flying saucers; secondly, a feeling of perverse delight that any human being could even conceive of the weird melange of genres; and thirdly, astonishment at the wacky inventiveness of the whole affair.

The series lasted for six issues, born of Cowboy Western Comics and its numbering bequeathed to Cowboy Western, which lasted until 1958, with issue #67. It starred Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes and one description of that series is thus, courtesy of the Blastoff website: “The lead character is Spurs Jackson… Spurs is a cowboy: he wears six-guns, rides a horse, and wears the hat. He’s also an engineer and has a secret lab, which is mentioned only once, never shown, and more important, never explained. He

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

has invented many items, but it’s not clear what any of these are, though possibly one is a gun that fires miniature atomic bombs. “[W]hen Spurs Jackson wins, he does it with a six-gun, a whip, a fist, or a conventional (not atomic) bomb. His wins are cowboy wins, not spaceman wins. In ‘The Madmen of Mars,’ Hitler is on Mars and uses atomic bombs to destroy Paris, Moscow, Honolulu, and New York City. In retaliation, Spurs and his friends Hank and Strong Bow go to Mars with six-guns and captured machine guns take down the Nazi gang. Spurs is such a cowboy he doesn’t take machine guns and grenades with him. He doesn’t even take his atomic bomb gun.”36

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Thinking About The Charlton Comics pre-Code legacy had been left to rot until the 1980s, when authors/comics scholars Lawrence Watt-Evans38 and Will Murray began the first English-language autopsies for The Comics Buyer’s Guide of the plethora of EC’s predecessors and competitors.

(Watt-Evans serialized “Reader’s Guide to Pre-Code Horror Comics,” in his regular “Rayguns, Elves, Skin-Tight Suits” column, and Will Murray’s comprehensive “Ditko Before the Code,” Nov. 23, 1984.) In Part 15 of his “Pre-Code Guide,” Lawrence tore into the Charlton lineup: “These comics are sick. Warped.

Disgusting. I love ’em.”39 Launched from their bedrock of “Famous Tales of Terror” comics stories published in Yellowjacket Comics (beginning with #1 [Sept. 1944]), Charlton’s The Thing! ran 17 issues [Feb. 1952– Nov. ’54], borrowing its title from the 1951 hit science fiction/horror film, The Thing from Another World. The Thing! series didn’t take its title from a licensed radio program, but it presented itself as if it had; the named-but-essentially-unseen host was a definite nod to the popular radio mystery-suspense programming of the 1930s, ’40s, and early ’50s.

The Charlton pre-Code horrors were all packaged by the Al Fago Studio, and, despite the fact horror wasn’t Fago’s cup of tea, he didn’t flinch. Assembled with Charlton’s usual formula of low page-rates offset by minimal editorial restrictions or oversight—a mercantile laissez-faire—amid the mediocrity and crude work, Charlton published a lot of really quite extraordinary horror comic stories. A mad, scattershot approach to storytelling was typical of The Thing!’s first issues—manifest in #1’s “The Creature from Dimension 2-K-31,” concluding with “The Creature,” in #2— settling down by its third issue into more traditional horror comics motifs (ghosts, mummies, vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.) and comfortably linear scripts.

There’s scant evidence as to who might have scripted these stories, but both chapters of the Creature’s saga were signed by Albert Tyler and Bob Forgione,

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who continued to contribute work to the series as more familiar Charlton contributors joined in (John Belfi, Dick Giordano, Tex Blaisdell, Lou Morales, etc.). Tyler’s solo art was a noticeable cut above the Tyler/Forgione efforts (and just about every other contributor’s) until Steve Ditko’s arrival in #12 [Feb. 1954]. No longer collaborating with Tyler on art duties after #2, Forgione stayed on as the primary contributor to the title, and his bold, blunt inking and drawing style suited the title and the genre well enough.

Initially, there were lots of vengeful ghosts—and I mean lots of ghosts. From its second issue onward, The Thing! was (like all the pre-Code horrors, including EC Comics) busily plundering story material from available sources: fairy tales, folk tales, short stories, the pulps, genre radio plays, movies, etc. Sometimes the writers brought their own spin to the material, sometimes they’d just go with straightforward (albeit uncredited) adaptations. As with their competitors,

by STEPHEN R. BISSETTE vampires, zombies, and the walking dead were key ingredients of the Charlton pre-Codes. Vampires in The Thing! were typically in the traditional caped, cowled, and fanged forms, but there were some attempts at invention. A still-hungry severed vampire head was fed in the cautionary parable “Mark of Violence” in #10, and T. Collier had some fun with the Cuban sugar plantation bloodsuckers in “Haunt of the Vampire” in #7, mixing and matching capes, fangs, sombreros, bolo ties, blood-fattened bellies, bat-like faces and wings, before the final panel’s payoff of a human-headed bat-boy flying toward the reader worthy of the Weekly World News. Reanimated mummies popped up more than once, but The Thing! brought novel spins to the archetype: John Belfi crafted a partially-unwrapped female macrocephalic jumbo mummy in #12’s “The Mummy’s Curse,” while for #5’s “Curse of Karnak,” Bob Forgione drew the humanoid “living gods”—the animal-head-

ed Kanum, Sobk, and Horus—emerging from “the very walls” of the tomb of the resurrected King Mentu. Excessively bizarre extrapolations could push a story completely into demented delirium: consider the very un-Medusa-like Medusa the Gorgon John Belfi concocted for “The Gorgon’s Claw” (The Thing! #7), with a furry moth-like body randomly sprouting tendril-like serpents. Flexing its bronze talons, sporting a beak-like nose, pointed elongated ears, shortcropped black hair and sideburns, Belfi’s wingless-but-flying Medusa resembles nothing remotely like the mythical Medusa beheaded by Perseus in Greek mythology (and turns no one to stone).

Al Fago’s sole story contribution to Charlton’s horror line, “I Was a Zombie,” in The Thing! #4, remains a model preCode comic tale, despite Fago’s merely serviceable art. A science-fiction variant on the revolt of otherwise docile, easily-controlled zombie workers offered the remote-controlled robots of The Thing! #9’s “Operation Massacre,” a distillate of Czech writer Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, R.U.R. John Belfi’s climactic rendition of a robot’s spiked foot bloodily crushing its master’s screaming head was immortalized in the pages of Dr. Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent.

The most celebrated of all Thing! contributors remains Steve Ditko, and his quartet of issues [#12–15, Feb. to July 1954] remain among the most coveted collectibles of the non-EC pre-Code horror comics. These four issues provided a singular art-and-storytelling showcase in which Ditko demonstrates a staggering variety of experimental compositional, narrative, characterization, inking, and rendering techniques, all the while testing, challenging, and expanding the possibilities of every single page and panel. Coming on the heels of the work he’d completed and sold prior to joining Charlton’s freelance pool, one can not only see but feel the exuberant sense of liberation and exploration on every page, every panel. Will Murray wrote in 1984, “When Steve Ditko made his artistic debut, the super-hero was all but dead and horror was the preeminent genre…

It was a grotesque era for the field, one

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

full of excesses and so, perhaps, a fitting time for the sometimes-grotesque Ditko style to first appear. Perhaps it was the nature of comics at the time which dictated the early Ditko style… or possibly his extreme approach to faces and anatomy convinced editors his talents suited only horror.”40 Ditko’s remarkable first year with Charlton began with #12’s cover story “Cinderella,” The Thing!’s “choice selection from my volume of eerie fairy tales,” in which Cinderella uses black magic in a desperate ploy to upset the schemes of her evil vampire stepmother and stepsisters. Even more deranged was “Rumpelstiltskin,” in #14, which remains one of Ditko’s richest, most lavish preCode creations. The uncredited writer recontextualize the traditional Brothers Grimm telling as a perversely perfect fusion of Grimm fairy tale and pre-Code horror comic aesthetics, subverting the original fairy tale’s moral lesson concerning greed even as it is amplified, and the titular monster savors a happy ending!

The Thing! #13’s Ditko cover story “Library of Horror” forges a template for many Ditko stories and occult universes to come, populated by fearsome otherworld predators. The uncredited author of “Library of Horror” offers a fantasy view of a comic writer’s existence that’s

both curiously optimistic (in relatively short order, Chilling Mysteries scribe Ken Rolland graduates from writing pulp stories to “book success followed book success” fame as a novelist) and utterly desperate and despairing (it only takes a willingness to murder, feeding bodies to “The Beyond,” to accomplish, then maintain, productivity and lasting success). Here is an evocation of future Ditko genre classics, as his rendition of “The Beyond” anticipates the Silver Age netherworlds of Doctor Strange and the “nightmare dimension” inside the “Deep Ruby” [Eerie #6, Nov. 1966].

The Thing! #14 was an all-Ditko

Previous page: Just when it appeared that the character was going to remain an innovative continuing feature, the Creature from Dimension 2-K-31, appearing in The Thing! #1 and 2, disappeared from the title. This splash panel is by Al Tyler and Bob Forgione. This page: Spectacular—and terrifying—cover of The Thing! #12 [Feb. 1954] by the great Steve Ditko.

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CONTINUED FROM PG. 51

the comics for Ed Levy. That is, he got all the artists… the artists weren’t [getting] enough money, so Fago was trying to get the scripts, so they could do the scripts, too. And Ed Levy didn’t like that. He wanted me to do the scripts. Well, I would come over to… he would come down to New York every week. I’d stop over at the hotel where he was and we’d hold a conference. And immediately Fago didn’t like some of my comics, ones that I would propose. “‘Well, if you had done this.’ And the whole reason was he was trying to chisel in and get five bucks extra for the comic artists, you see, or something, by saying he could do the scripts. So I found a way to beat it. I came in with six different outlines. I

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proceeds to devour all life on Earth).

Just as the nuclear bomb test imagery in the previous issue’s “Doom in the Air” anticipated the countless atomic-bomb detonations Ditko drew for a procession of subsequent Charlton titles—including Joe Gill and Ditko’s Silver Age super-hero, Captain Atom—“The Worm Turns” paves the way for the Ditko Charlton kaiju comics to come, Konga and Gorgo.

Two more issues of The Thing! saw print, but they were a lackluster dessert after the banquet Ditko had served, almost interchangeable with the borderline-horror crime comics Charlton served up in Lawbreakers Suspense Stories. This was weak tea given all the carnage previous issues of The Thing! had reveled in. Steve Ditko delivered one more eye-catching cover for The Thing! #17, its final issue, which embraced a modest return to form before giving up the ghost. Ditko also contributed stories and covers to the pair of Charlton’s pre-Code titles acquired from Fawcett, Strange Suspense Stories and This Magazine is Haunted. The latter credited Blanche Hodges as editor, which could be extended over the entire Charlton horror stable: Blanche was Al Fago’s wife, having married Fago in 1949.

[Hodges was the surname of Blanche’s first husband.—JBC.] Even if one discounts the more obvious genre elements the pre-Code Charlton horror comics reveled in—the

ghosts, the walking dead, the shapeshifters, the monsters, the mayhem, the base malice of the characters and entire universe, the exuberant bloodshed and abundant gore—even the least of their pre-Code genre stories had a certain density, an over-abundance of morbidity and action, ripe with incident, characters, atmosphere, and narrative twists and turns. Once the Code reign began, the toothless Code-approved genre comics stripped the form to a sparse, essentially minimalist format. This went beyond implementation of the mechanisms of censorship to a more fundamental aesthetic overhaul, in which stories were distilled to a far less primal but still elemental simplicity: threadbare anecdotes, not stories, became the new norm.

In short: setup, event, non-conclusion, question mark.

In many ways, the Code-approved genre titles remaining (one could no longer call them horror comics) became much like the Brad Steiger and Frank Edwards “strange-but-true” paperbacks that proliferated in the 1960s: open-ended accounts of enigmatic “isn’t this weird?” incidents; non sequiturs without any real beginning, middle, or end; jokes without punchlines; morality plays shorn of play.

Pre-Code playtime was over.

—S.R.B.

walked in with those [scripts] and we’d started to talk about the first one, and Fago would come up with his usual, ‘Well, no, wait a minute, that’s too much like such and such a thing,’ and so forth.”

Gibson concluded, “I said, ‘Well, let’s forget that.’ And Ed Levy would be, ‘No, wait. Let’s hear it.’ I said, ‘If Fago doesn’t think it’s right, fine. I’m all for Fago.’ So we threw that out.

So I’d bring up another. Well, by that time Fago would have knocked down three of them, and he was in the hole… Ed Levy said, ‘Hey, [the ones Fago rejected] sound good. What are you trying to do here?’ So he had to take the next one. So I’d sell my two or three, and I’d have the others. I’d stop off at St. John’s and sell them on the way back!”41

Essay ©2022 Stephen R. Bissette.

extravaganza: cover art and four full stories: “Rumpelstiltskin”; gory conte cruel “The Evil Eye!”; atomic-age Western horror “Doom in the Air”; and the cover-story, “Inheritance!” Of the quartet, “The Evil Eye” offers the bloodiest carnage Ditko ever put to page, including its reprehensible protagonist having all four of his limbs gnawed to the bone by rats. “Doom in the Air” meshes then-contemporary fears associated with the ongoing testing of nuclear weapons in the American deserts with a decidedly old-fashioned Western lynch-revenge scenario: a group of outlaws bury innocent prospector Wesley Brewster alive in an abandoned mine, accusing him of a crime he didn’t commit. Decades later, a military test explosion of “the most powerful bomb ever devised” disinters “the long-forgotten Wesley Brewster, freed at last from his grotesque living tomb” as “something returned from death,” so irradiated that mere proximity to Brewster causes death. This fusion of Western tropes and atom-age dread is a deceptively simple one, but uncannily powerful. The Thing! #15 went further still, offering five complete Ditko-illustrated comics stories under the most apocalyptic of all Charlton pre-Code covers featuring the slavering titan annelid of “The Worm Turns.” The cover story lives up to the promise of that image (a scientist creates and unleashes a seemingly invincible Überwurm, which

TRANSFORMATIVE SPACE ADVENTURES The science fiction genre achieved a first taste of mainstream popularity in the early 1950s, partly due to the flying saucer phenomenon, with an advent of SF movies targeted at adult audiences, and—amongst comics readers—the emergence of EC Comics’ top-notch SF titles. Perennially late-arriving Charlton joined in with the ever-changing Space Adventures [#1 cover-dated July 1952], which lasted 21 issues in its initial incarnation, ending in August 1956. While primarily devoted to space operatics for the first dozen issues (with dynamite Steve Ditko stories and/or covers in #10–12), #13 and 14 featured the first Charlton appearance of earthly super-hero Blue Beetle, and #15–18 adapted the syndicated kids space opera TV series, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (a short-lived show sharing the same creator as My Little Margie, which itself had spawned three different Charlton My Little Margie comic book titles [1954–64]).

Space Adventures #7 [July 1953] was positively transformative with a gender-switching story first called out by Mike Benson in his book, Science Fiction Comics: The Illustrated History [1992], one that again received notice in recent years.

“Transformation,” an eight-pager drawn by an evolving and ever-improving Dick Giordano, concerns Dr. Lars Kranston

Rhythm and Blues In the early ’50s, Charlton—through its socially progressive Onyx imprint—began publishing breakthrough music mags Rhythm and Blues, Ebony Song Parade, and Rock and Roll Songs, periodicals which challenged the racial divides within the music industry.

“The first of these periodicals was Rhythm and Blues,” Don Armstrong wrote. “When it hit the newsstands in 1953, the country was at a critical juncture in race relations. Jim Crow laws and racial intolerance prevailed. Yet, certain segments of the music industry resisted, led by musicians, producers and the music press.”42 Armstrong continued, “In a sense, Rhythm and Blues was more racially inclusive than any mainstream music magazines of the time. In addition to Black musicians, it featured photos, songs, and articles related to white artists. It developed a fan base, as evidenced on its letters-to-the-editor pages.

“Thus, Rhythm and Blues crossed the color line, in a small way, [and] boosted the cause for integration by bringing together Black and white fans. This, despite the growing moral panic over R&B that masked segregationist agendas…”

(Armstrong also pointed out that R&B magazine “shattered the notion that R&B was a form of ‘race music,’ a lesser genre of pop that corrupted young people.”)

R&B lasted until the early 1960s, as Rock and Roll Songs appeared between 1956 and the late 1960s, with Ebony Song Parade surviving for about a year, 1955–56.

and his sweetheart, Betty, who, in escaping an Earth engulfed in atomic war, crash-land their rocket on Mars. The two are separated for months, each not aware of the other’s survival and, during that period, Kranston—”a little tired of being a man”—makes use of his medical knowledge to transition into a woman. The two meet again and Betty weeps upon seeing her former honey morphed into a female.

Regarding “Transformation,” blogger Mark Seifert wrote, “The transgender themes here form a subtle but complex undercurrent for most of the story.” He added, “The unspoken implication seems to be that [Kranston] could only finally do this when he was the last person left in the world.

When there is no one left to judge him for it.”43

This spread: Previous page is cover detail by Steve Ditko, The Thing! #13 [Apr. 1954]. This page is various Charlton Publication covers and the”Transformation” splash page and panels by Dick Giordano, from Space Adventures #7 [July 1953].

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Charlton Comics’ Forgotten Artists

When poring over the names of artists who produced a good chunk of Charlton Comics’ output between 1952–54, one is struck by the relative unfamiliarity of so many of those creator names: Bob Forgione, John Belfi, Frank Frollo, Lou Morales, Dennis Laugen, Albert Tyler, Stan Campbell, Ray Osrin… And a cursory glance at the Grand Comics Database makes clear that these artists seemed to have vanished from the Derby publisher’s line by mid-decade—and from the entire industry altogether!

Of course, it’s no surprise that hundreds left the field for good in the aftermath of the mid-’50s anti-comics campaign—about 900 by David Hajdu’s count44—but Charlton provided safe harbor for other (to fans, more recognizable) names of the outfit’s regular lineup: Dick Giordano, Tony Tallarico, Vince Alascia, and Sal Trapani, to specify a few.

As with those just-mentioned who stayed in comics, it is remarkable that so many of those in the Charlton fold were of Italian descent. Maybe Naples-born Al Fago had a preference for young artists with family names connected to his motherland, or maybe it’s just that a preponderance of Italian youngsters had graduated the art schools of New York City and theirs was the talent available.

We can only speculate, but, in an effort to showcase talented artists too long ignored and some sadly forgotten, what follows are biographical sketches of a select, mostly Italian group of artists:

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Bronx-born Frank Frollo [1915– 1981] is a name that goes back to the early years of comics, when he joined up with the studio of packager Harry “A” Chesler, producing strips for the Centaur line. Initially, his art evoked a certain Alex Raymond vibe, and Frank Joseph Frollo would improve over time.

He left Chesler in 1939 and joined up with the Eisner and Iger Studios. In 1940, he associated with Funnies, Inc., and 14-year-old neighbor John Belfi became his assistant. Frollo worked a day job as advertising manager of a Brooklyn corrugated paper plant until joining the U.S. Army as T/5 Corporal, where he served in Europe as the 63rd Regiment headquarters artist. Frollo returned to comics, again working for packager Funnies, Inc., as well as illustrating pulp magazines.

In 1952, he found steady work with editor Al Fago—and Walter Gibson, with whom he had collaborated on “Blackstone,” circa 1945. At Charlton, he toiled on their crime and science fiction titles.

By 1955, Frollo exited comics and established what would become a long career in advertising, first employed as art director in various firms, and eventually founding his own outfit, FAA Advertising.

In 1940, he married Emily Bongiorno and they had two sons together.

John Belfi, perhaps better known due to his interaction with fanzines, was born in Suffern, N.Y., in 1924, and, at 12, he had artwork published in a local newspaper. Upon turning 14, John William Belfi and family moved to the Bronx. Near Mint related, “There he learned that the cartoonist Frank Frollo lived some five or six blocks away. Belfi met Frollo and began assisting him after school and on weekends in Frollo’s studio.”45 Within six months, the youngster completed full pages. He then attended the School of Industrial Arts and also assisted a number of artists, including Jack Cole, Mac Raboy, Reed Crandall, Will Eisner, Lou Fine, Dan Barry, and others.

In 1943, Belfi enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, was stationed in Asia, and discharged in ’46, when he returned as art assistant, for instance inking on DC’s Green Lantern. In 1950, he joined with

penciler Joe Certa and writer Gardner Fox to produce the daily comic strip, Straight Arrow.

Between 1952–55, he worked on Charlton assignments, then left comics and “drifted” into advertising. He founded the John Belfi School John Belfi and Workshops and labored at numerous newspapers as writer and cartoonist. “Married at 19, I had three children, divorced after 30 years, remarried…”46 He died in 1995.

Belfi cousin Albert William Puglucio [1924–1983]—known as Al Tyler— lived in the Bronx and presumably entered the comics world with an assist from Frollo, whose work appears alongside Tyler’s in Centaur’s Super Spy #1 [Oct. 1940]. Despite Norman Rockwell advising him to attend the Pratt Institute, Tyler (who officially changed his name— as did his entire family—after his father died in 1947) studied at the High School of Industrial Arts and the Art Students League. His credit reappears in 1952, on work published by Charlton. Dick Giordano remembered, “I found somebody who had a studio, and they were looking to rent space. His name was Al Tyler.

(The artist who just moved out was Bob Forgione, a name you may not know, but he worked with Jerry Robinson back in those days, as Jerry’s assistant,

Lou Morales photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

and then went off on his own.) Tyler, on her uncle [Dennis] and Lou. She was Times mentioned that Forgione had sold who lived in the Bronx, was looking for an “illustrated screenplay.”50 In 1952, a 12-year-old girl and my dad and Lou somebody to move in and take Forgihe married Louise Loren, subsequently were, ‘really cool looking guys.’ They one’s place. It was a two-room office marrying Laura Catherine Carlen (1979) could draw! She had a crush on Lou. She over a supermarket. I moved in, and and finally Barbara Pittman (1987). said everybody loved Lou—nicest man before I knew it, Al Tyler moved out, and Louis Edmund Morales, of Puerto on the planet, and same thing with my I’m stuck there paying full rent! It wasn’t Rican extraction, was born in 1925, in dad. They could draw… and they drank, much, so I took on the full rent, and kept New York City, and he served in the so they were very charming. They were the place for myself until I got married.”47 U.S. Navy as a petty officer and was all heavy drinkers.”

At Charlton, Tyler produced memorable discharged in 1946. By the end of Morales passed away in 1962 work on The Thing!, as well as crime and the ’40s, Lou Morales, surbecause, according to a recollecromance material. He left comics in 1954 mised to have attended Pratt tion Geoff Laugen attributed and, within the comics realm—where Institute with friend Dennis to his mother, “[Morales] the artist left a scant impression—he was Laugen, was working in went in for gallbladder unfortunately never heard from again. the comic book industry. surgery and died on the Tyler’s frequent inker, Robert Neil Curiously, Morales’s first [operating] table.”53 Forgione [1929–1994], was born in credited work appeared in Born in the Catskills, Mount Vernon, N.Y. He attended the an EC Comics title, Modern Maurice Edward Wisotsky, Franklin Art School, in New York City, Love #3, an eight-pager a.k.a. Maurice Whitman in 1948, and later took Jerry Robinson’s that had a circuitous journey [1922–1983], moved with night classes at the New York School to print. In 1955, EC publisher family to Schenectady as a of Art. At some point, Bob Forgione Bill Gaines told interviewer Fred Lou Morales youngster and, upon his parents’ became an assistant to Robinson, who von Bernewitz that the tale, “Woman’s divorce in 1937, his last name was gushed to Steve Ringgenberg: “Terrific Treachery,” was originally done for DC changed to Whitman. Entirely selfartist. Bob was a student for several Comics. “The story, completely lettered taught, his art skills were put to use in years and really worked with great and penciled (by Lou Morales) was the U.S. Army, where he painted signs intensity and dedication. After assisting rejected by the editors at DC, who oband posters at Fort Dix, N.J. Ultimately for a number of years, we formed an jected to the interracial love element.”51 discharged because of flat feet, Reese association, a partnership, and we did a The tale, involving a romance between a worked for the Chesler comic shop, Iger lot of books together.”48 Upon becoming Native American woman and white U.S. Studio, and Funnies, Inc. In the latter government agent, was re-lettered Charlton’s managing editor, Al Fago 1940s and early ’50s, Whitman was and then inked by Johnny Craig, engaged Forgione on horror, renowned for provocative “good girl” romance, hot rod, and crime and published in EC’s shortcovers on Fiction House titles, where he comics. Through the midlived love comic. also produced a significant amount of ’50s, Forgione freelanced After marrying Mary interior work until the publisher closed, Duganis in 1952, Morales for Atlas, DC, ACG, and in 1955. Thereafter, Whitman freelanced began a short but memoraDell. Robinson said, “For for Charlton, adeptly drawing in an a good part of the period ble stint at Charlton, penastonishing array of genres, including when I was working for ciling and inking on their funny animal, war, adventure, jungle, crime, science fiction, and Stan Lee and later, on Bat science fiction, romance, mystery, horror comics, as well as on Masterson and Lassie, Bob Western, and crime, working was my assistant or partner.

Hot Rods and Racing Cars. By at the Derby locale into the ’56, he worked for Atlas Comics, We also did a lot of the advertisearly ’60s. (Whitman was Bob Forgione ing and book illustration before he disappeared and then reemerged among those airlifted off decided to go into television. Bob’s great to draw for Gilberton. In an interview the plant roof by rescue flair and ability made him an instant sucwith Shaun Clancy, Geoff Laugen, son of helicopter during the Morales friend and artist Dennis Laugen, cess in TV. Bob really learned storytelling, flooding of Hurricane I think, in the comic books, as I did. They recalled that the childless Morales couple Diane’s aftermath.) babysat his older brother. “They always never saw anybody visualize storyboards By 1964, he joined up like he did… the kind of thing he did spoiled him. He remembers every time with Russ Jones, who every day in the comics.”49 Forgione beseeing Lou, he’d end up with preswas packaging magazines ents!”52 Geoff also recalled that a cousin, came tremendously successful in adverfor Jim Warren, specifically tising as a TV commercial director, with “She remembers having a huge crush Mole People and The Horror Maurice Whitman clients that included Datsun, Freshen-Up Previous page: Left bottom is Frank Frollo illustration from Fantastic Science Fiction #1 Gum, Salem cigarettes, Westinghouse, [Aug. 1952], a pulp magazine which also contained very early work by Dick Giordano. Right and Pepsi-Cola. In 1980, he joined EUE/ bottom is a letter from fabled American painter Norman Rockwell, who shared educational Screen Gems as a director after a 12-year advice with a young “Al-Bert” Puglucio, a.k.a. Al Tyler, who, as a youngster, idolized the stint as vice president at the William Esty Saturday Evening Post cover artist. Rockwell’s missive was composed on April 8, 1941. agency. That same year, The New York

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties of the Beach Party, on which Whitman helped with production. Jones shared, “Reese was a wonderful guy… I really liked him. He was a very humorous, very animated guy, a big fellow, and he could draw. I mean, Reese could sit down and draw anything. He’d been an editor at Charlton. He had a lot of experience and was just one of those guys that was, I guess you’d call him a very skilled journeyman. He had a great personality, and was great fun to work with. But I think he was basically unhappy, but we did have a hell of a lot of fun. We even had fun doing The Mole People.”54 Rumor had it that Whitman was in a difficult marriage, which eventually ended in divorce, despite the couple having two children. “Reese was the kind of a guy that would drop by the studio and, if you were in the middle of a job, and everybody was ‘hacking and slashing’ (as Tex Blaisdell would say), Reese would just pull up a drawing board and say, ‘Throw me a page,’ and he’d sit down and break the script down.”55 Future Charlton assistant editor

Bill Pearson, who was also involved in those productions for Warren Publications, recalled that they all worked in Jones’s apartment during a very hot summer. “[Whitman] was one of the first professional cartoonists I met, and one I had admired for his outstanding stories for Fiction House comics. A fat (but not obese) Russian Jew by birth, or born in the U.S.A. with Russian parents, (and I’m not sure he told me he was a Jew), Maurice wore nondescript clothes, and

EH! IST MEH… Maybe it’s arguable that the development of Space Adventures was due to the success of the SF titles published by EC Comics (which, relating to the previous segment, had its own SF gendershifting tale with “Transition Complete,” in Weird Science #10 [Nov. 1951] though that story involved a couple basically swapping sexes to marry). But, it is without question that EC influenced the Charlton satirical comic book, Eh!, which was completely the result of the phenomenal popularity of MAD comics.

Stunningly, for once, Charlton was faster than most to jump on a hot trend, releasing their MAD swipe in the same month—December 1953—as king of comic-book knock-offs Atlas’s Crazy. The two tied for second place—behind Joe Kubert and Norm Maurer’s Whack!—as the first of an army of imitators. John Benson, in his book about the dozen-plus MAD copycats of the early 1950s, The Sincerest Form of Parody [2012], minces few words when commenting on Charlton’s wanna-be title: Eh!, one of the first three imitations [of MAD comics] to appear, lasted longer than any of them (except EC’s own Panic), running 11 issues as a comic—with a name change to From Here to Insanity at issue 8—and even continuing as a magazine under various titles. Ironically, for much of its

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was a jovial person who laughed when we spoke about Wertham’s descriptions of Whitman’s hidden nudes in his art for Fiction House Jungle Comics.”56 Pearson continued, “In addition to the Warren book, he had an assignment to do a short story for another publisher, and I got to watch over his shoulder as he created detailed panels with costumed characters, horses, etc., without any reference at all. But he wasn’t getting many freelance jobs at the time.”57 Soon thereafter, Whitman began a career in advertising, employed as art director for top advertising firm BBDO, Inc. After a short stint at DC Comics working on war and mystery titles in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Whitman opened his own gallery in the Bronx and began accepting commission assignments. The artist developed diabetes and, at 60, died of heart failure at home.

This page: Above is an ad promoting Reese Whitman’s ’80s-era New York gallery, sporting a self-caricature of the artist.

run, it was among the worst. Charlton had its own presses and its own distribution system, and could evidently continue a title with poorer sales than other publishers. The first three issues were mainly drawn by Dick Ayers, with Lou Morales and Dick Giordano also contributing to the first issue.

But then an artist named Fred Ottenheimer took over most of the art chores. Ottenheimer, who thankfully didn’t do much other work in comics, drew in an exaggerated, crude, and remarkably unfunny style. The 11th issue was taken over by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and contained as much interesting art and satiric barbs as the other issues put together.58 A CAPITOL IDEA Whether Charlton named its sub-imprint Capitol Publications because “Capitol” was a name frequently used in the Connecticut city of Milford—including the Capitol Theater—where John Santangelo had a summer abode (possibly on Capitol Avenue), hasn’t been confirmed.

But the “A Capitol Publication” branding—with its “bug” of the U.S. Capitol dome superimposed with the name—adorned the covers of at least 44 comic books over much of 1953 and an entity listed in the indicia—Capitol Stories, Inc.—was yet one more shell company name Charlton put to use.

GOOD PRESS Say what one will about Giovanni Santangelo at his peak in the 1950s, but the man certainly knew how to generate newspaper copy, much of it exceedingly positive. With enough time having passed since his problematic late 1930s and early ’40s, Charlton’s publisher* was busy making the most out of his cultivated origin story: the rags-to-riches saga of a southern European peasant who came to the U.S. with only a pair of sawbucks in his pocket and singular drive to make it to the top, and who was now living the American dream as a very, very rich man. Obviously there was more truth than not to this creation myth but, with certain facts and behaviors glossed over, reporters were more than eager to spread to all the embellished legend of John Santangelo.

One 1956 account was from as far away as the Mississippi River in a long feature in Missouri’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a piece headlined “Sweet Land of Opportunity.” Reporter Virginia Irwin opened with these evocative paragraphs: As a kid over in Italy, John Santangelo never had enough to eat. His family lived in a one-room farmhouse and he and three of his seven brothers slept in one bed. He had no shoes until he was 13 years old and never saw an electric light until he was called up for service in the Italian army. He was never inside a school house and was a grown man before he learned to write little more than his own name.

Today Santangelo is a multi-millionaire. Head of a vast publishing business at nearby Derby, Conn., that prints 12,000,000 song-lyrics, comics, and fan magazines a month, kindly, 57-year-old “Uncle John,” as his more than 450 employees call him, arrived in this country just 33 years ago with only a few dollars in his pocket.59

This page: Above is the nearly full-page feature on John Santangelo published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (where Charlton had purchased a used press) and, upper right, Santangelo makes the cover of New England Printer and Lithographer magazine.

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Much of the background Irwin describes in the 1,900word article was lifted from a laudatory (and remarkably informative) cover feature entitled “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines” that ran over 3,400 words in the trade journal, New England Printer and Lithographer [Vol. 17, #10, Nov. 1954]. Written by Hartford Times reporter and Time magazine contributor Ralph H. Minard, the piece goes into great detail about the “under-one-roof” operation and its equipment, as well as listing numerous benefits Charlton offered employees. (It also revealed that the plant had a cafeteria where, on occasion, the boss cooked for visitors—”broiling steaks, tossing salad, and fetching out bottles of fine (Italian) wine”—and that the company maintained a bowling alley for employees and owned the drive-in movie theater next door.)60 What wasn’t revealed in this effusive profile was the slightest hint of Santangelo’s criminal past or year-long incarceration in county jail, information that was readily available to any Connecticut-based journalist willing to go digging in newspaper clippings. But, as the old movie quote goes, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” and so the legend of gentle ol’ “Uncle John” saw print far and wide.

In late 1954, Santangelo must have felt some relief over the positive coverage, as he bought multiple copies and shared with others, including Catholic hierarchy. After all, the troubles of the previous spring had been very bleak indeed. *At some point, reference to Ed Levy as an equal partner in Charlton Press was diminished, as Santangelo was referred to as the only boss.

Leaving Charlton in the mid-’60s, Levy spent his retirement years in Palm Beach, Florida, and died on Jan. 16, 1990, at the age of 91.

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties DARK APRIL Trouble had been brewing for years regarding parental outrage over crime and horror comics, but simmer turned to boil in the spring of 1954, when a two-pronged assault on publishers confirmed a positively existential threat. The release of Dr. Fredric Wertham’s anti-comics broadside, Seduction of the Innocent, on April 19, and, two days later, the disastrous live testimony of speed-addled EC Comics publisher William M. Gaines before television viewers during the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings threatened to take it all down. Charlton had already felt the heat two months prior, when Connecticut’s largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant, launched its own anti-comics crusade with a four-part exposé that began on Valentine’s Day, under the headline, “Depravity for Children—10 Cents a Copy!”

“The idea for the series,” wrote Amy Kiste Nyberg, in Seal of Approval: The Origin and History of the Comics Code [1998], “came from a column by editorial writer Thomas E. Murphy, who speculated about factors contributing to juvenile delinquency in Hartford, Connecticut. When he discovered that children in troubled areas of the city spent a larger portion of their leisure time reading crime and horror comic books than other children he wrote a column asking parents, ‘Do you know what your children are reading?’”61 Actually, the title of Murphy’s Dec. 17, 1953, Courant column was an out-and-out condemnation of horror comics: “Design for Murder,” in which he specified certain comics publishers who produced “miniature manuals in depravity, degeneracy, and death.” One of those, Murphy pointed out, was from the newspaper’s own state: Here is The Thing, published

by Charlton Comics, a home product made right in Derby.

This features on its cover, for November–December, 1953, a ghoul with cleaver, a recumbent female about to be killed and eaten, a skeleton, and an idiot.62 The Thing! (of which issue #11 had been cited by Murphy) wouldn’t make it out of 1954, nor did any of Charlton’s other horror titles. Big changes were afoot.

IN COMES THE CODE, OUT GOES COLE On September 7, 1954, responding to widespread public outcry over crime and horror comics, certain comics companies, including Charlton, formed the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers, which established the Comics Code Authority, a self-regulating censorship board that bestowed its stamp of approval on comics it deemed wholesome. The industry was in near-collapse and, as other publishers folded left and right, Charlton, bolstered by the diversity of its offerings, was ready to scoop up desirable remnants of the once vibrant field.

In the meantime, after Fawcett had effectively cancelled its comics line, stalwart artist Marc Swayze came to Derby for work, where he encountered a comic book master who himself had arrived at Charlton for a little-known stint. “It was a big outfit… in its own building… offices on the ground floor, presses below… lots of employees,” Swayze shared.

“And yet, no evidence of a chain of command. Everybody, from where I sat, seemed to report to either ‘John’ or ‘Ed.’ Which was okay with me. I learned that I was to be provided with assistance, and shortly afterwards [artist] Chad Kelly introduced the newcomer. I had never heard of Jack Cole, an easy-going guy with a sense of humor. Jack seemed interested in the work of others, but rarely spoke of his own. It was Chad who told of the long Cole career of comic book accomplishments in writing and drawing. I was impressed with Jack’s tiny relief illustrations that appeared regularly on the letters pages of Playboy… neat, tasteful little nudes with long black hair and stockings. Jack Cole left after a few weeks, explaining that the regular hours interfered with his freelance work. What a nice fellow. Knowing him, even so briefly, was a highlight of my stay at Charlton.”63 Jack Cole, of course, was the fabled cartoonistcreator of Plastic Man. This page: Detail, Thomas E. Murphy’s anti-comics column mentioning Charlton’s horror comics, Hartford Courant [Dec. 17, 1953], and The Thing! #11 cover described. Within months, the Connecticut newspaper attacked comics with a multi-part “exposé” of the industry (below).

The 1954 Revival of the Blue Beetle

Galindo and Osrin photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

There’s little doubt that Atlas Comics— later known as Marvel—sensed the gathering threat regarding the war against “crime comics” and thus sought to get some distance from the horror books that had so dominated their output. Wholesome Superman adventures proved popular as a TV show, so why not revive their super-hero books and refresh a once tried-and-true genre?

Then, for a few brief months, innocuous costumed characters replaced the horrific fare on stands and, naturally, Charlton jumped (tardy yet again) into the fray.

Any overt connection between Victor Fox, whose Fox Comics had owned Blue Beetle, and John Santangelo has yet to be found—though the Charlton publisher once sharing a Manhattan office with onetime Blue Beetle publisher Sherman Bowles certainly intrigues—so why BB was chosen remains a mystery.

But, in mid-1954, revive the azure-attired character Charlton Comics did, reprinting mostly 1950 Fox exploits, unfathomably in the science fictionthemed Space Adventures #13 and 14 (with editor Al Fago literally tracing BB

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

#60’s cover for the former and yet signing his own name to the appropriation!) and—taking the numbering from cancelled horror title The Thing!—the new BB title lasted four issues, though only two contained a majority of new work.

“The Golden Age Blue Beetle was going nowhere,” Dick Giordano, who drew the covers for the character’s 1954 run, griped to Christopher Irving. “[We] were putting out something akin to the Golden Age, which had no place in the marketplace that existed.”64 In general, the reprint material was poorly drawn stuff, but the new work was quite handsome, rendered by Pratt Institute-educated Ted Galindo, whose memory of freelancing for Al Fago was hazy when discussing his Charlton days with Shaun Clancy. “The only work I did with him was with [inker and friend] Ray Osrin. We did about three or four Blue Beetle stories for him and that was about it… I only saw Al Fago maybe three or four times. If I remember correctly, it was Ray that was working with them as an inker and, once Al saw my pencils, he wanted me to work with him and have Ray ink my work, but I don’t remember how we met, but we did become good buddies, Ray and I… I think Ray would get the script and I would go over his house and talk about it. Then I would take it home and do the penciling and bring it back to Ray. So, almost all the business was done at his house.”65 In the 1950s, Theodore Louis Galindo [1927–2020] also worked out of the studio of Lone Ranger artist Tom Gill and freelanced for numerous companies, from Atlas to Prize, all the while producing a good amount for Charlton, where he also drew “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger,” in Space Adventures.

Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein blogger David Barsalou wrote of the artist, “One of Galindo’s strengths was his adept characteri-

zations. The post Comic Code Prize crime comics often included sequences of talking heads. With less talented hands, these sequences could become rather boring, but Galindo’s carefully handling of the viewing angle and his effective emotional portrayals keep his stories interesting. While Galindo could handle emotional portrayal, he was no slouch when it came to action.”66

This page: Space Adventures #13 [Nov. ’54] cover swiped Fox’s Blue Beetle #58 [Apr. ’50] cover. Ted Galindo penciled/ Ray Osrin inked Blue Beetle #21 [Aug. ’55] page. Galindo, Lea Osrin, and pal.

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Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Ascent of the Artist Named Ditko If not for Stephen John Ditko [1927– 2018], Charlton would be an even more under-appreciated comic publisher. It was the artist’s arrival at the comic book company, in the pages of their 1950s horror line, where Ditko produced his first brilliant work, thus beginning an association that prevailed for much of the next three decades.

Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Steve Ditko was attracted to comic strips and, in particular, the comic book art of Jerry Robinson (and, to a lesser extent, Will Eisner), so much so that, after a stint in the U.S. Army, he moved to New York City in 1951 to receive instruction from Robinson at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School.

His drawing talent blossomed just as horror comics were in their prime. As related by Ditko biographer Blake Bell: Ditko’s penchant for drawing graphic horror scenes was apparently driven by an unbridled work ethic and by an interest in the trends of the day: when a publisher shifted in a particular editorial direction and said, “this is what we need,” Ditko geared all his imaginative powers toward producing the best work he was able to within those parameters.67

infectious disease Ditko had contracted. Fran Matera, an artist sporadically freelancing for Charlton, revealed the ailment to Amash: “I remember watching Steve Ditko draw comics in the [Derby] office. He had tuberculosis. A woman named Angie who worked there said, ‘He’s not long for this world.’”70 But, while it took a year, Ditko did recuperate and, with his TB in remission, he came back to the tri-state region, intent on a Charlton homecoming. But the man’s plan proved ill-timed. The Derby publisher had been devastated by the Connecticut floods of 1955 and so, for the time being, it was in retrenchment.

He found work at Atlas, the company soon to become Marvel Comics, where Ditko later established his greatest legacy as one of the founding architects of the so-called “Marvel Universe.” With editor Stan Lee looking over his shoulder, Ditko would co-create Spider-Man and, on his own, originate Doctor Strange, both billion-dollar properties for Disney today.

This spread: Top is one of the few existing photos of enigmatic Steve Ditko. This snapshot was taken in the late 1950s by a studio mate. A panel from Ditko’s story in Crime and Justice #18 [May 1954]. On next page is Ditko’s horrifying cover for Strange Suspense Stories #19 [July 1954] and This Magazine is Haunted #16 [Mar. 1954] “Dr. Death” cover detail by Ditko.

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Crime and Justice #18 panel courtesy of Frank Motler.

In 1954, after a brief time on Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Black Magic title, Ditko found his longtime home.

In a letter to Mike Britt, he wrote, “I had been around to Charlton Press on my earlier rounds and now they had an opening and I went to work for them. At this point, I quit looking for work. The old Charlton Press was very good to me.

I had all the work I could handle and a free hand in any way I wanted to do the story. Since I was still going to [C&I]

school in the evenings, I figured it would be better to stick strictly with them and try to develop myself.”68 Looking over Ditko’s early Charlton work in The Thing! and This Magazine is Haunted, one is amazed at the quality of the artist’s rendering and overall sophistication in the storytelling. But, just as the excellence of his Charlton work was reaching a fever pitch, illness struck.

Blanche Fago remembered Ditko from those early days, as she told Jim Amash, “He was a very good artist. A very nice, quiet person. He didn’t want anyone to know what he did in his private life. He was ill for a while, and didn’t want anyone to come and visit him. We never knew what was wrong with him. We lost track of him when he left Charlton. I often wondered what he had done, because he had so much promise!”69 The malady Fago refers to was an

But, of course, after Charlton had regrouped, Ditko came back to the fold.

Dick Giordano, soon to become Pat Masulli’s assistant, became friendly with the returning artist who lived in New York City, but had started commuting by train to Derby. Like most freelancers, Ditko previously had delivered assignments to Charlton’s New York office, but Santangelo’s new edict for in-house artists prompted the week-long visits. Giordano shared Ditko’s routine: “He came up on Monday, stayed the week, and went home on Friday for the weekend.”71 “Ditko was all right; we were good friends,” writer Joe Gill said. “We’re not the same kind of people, but he and I were both living in the same hotel in Derby. Steve has ethics and stern beliefs, and he kept them. He wouldn’t do bad work just because he was getting bad pay. He tried to do just as well for Charlton as he was for Marvel. He is a fine guy and a good artist. He did everything ‘The Ditko Way,’ but he did a good job, and he made Spider-Man what it was.”72 “During the Christmas season one year,” Giordano revealed, “Steve would go back to New York for the weekend and draw [a single page of a] horror Santa Claus story. It was the funniest thing. By the fifth week of Christmas, everybody on Monday morning would be waiting to see it, flocking in. He would put one page up in the small hallway that led to the ladies room. By the time the fourth or fifth page came, we all knew it was coming and we’d be hanging out, waiting for Steve to come in. I don’t remember any of the details, but I remember that it was very funny, very well-drawn, in color, and that he had the whole office anticipating those pages.”73 “Steve and I cemented our friendship,” Giordano continued.

“He was suffering from a lung ailment all his life from, I think,

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

tuberculosis when he was younger.

He was younger then and needed to exercise, so Steve and I used to spend a lot of time playing ping-pong.

They had a table in the cafeteria, and we’d work up a sweat—that’s how I learned to play, with Steve—and I had to defend myself when we started. By the time we finished playing, we were fairly equal, I think, but he’d still beat me more often than not.”74 “Ditko lived in a local hotel in Derby for a while,” artist Frank McLaughlin remembered. “He was a very happygo-lucky guy with a great sense of humor at that time, and always supplied the [female] color separators with candy and other little gifts.”75 It is endlessly fascinating to ponder the inconsistencies regarding Ditko’s devotion to such a low-paying, often quality-deficient publisher. Why was this comics artist of the highest caliber, one of the greatest creators in the history of the field, so enthusiastic about Charlton?

After all, the artist has been renowned —and, all too often, excoriated—for his adherence to the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, who once said, “Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.”76 So where, pray tell, was the barometric virtue of Charlton Comics?

Blake Bell did the arithmetic that showed for comics cover-dated 1957, Ditko produced 70 published pages at Atlas and a whopping 450 pages for Charlton, at likely half the page rate as offered by Stan Lee’s outfit!77 But why?*

Maybe it was the freedom granted.

Bell said, “Charlton offered Ditko all the work he could handle and editorial freedom, but with a page rate of $6.50 for finished art (pencils and inks), Ditko would need all the work he could get.”

Still, over the years, the artist would move on to more profitable pastures for a spell—whether Marvel, Warren Publications, DC Comics, or Tower—but Ditko always did return for a Derby homecoming at Charlton Press.

Ditko also credited his friendship and creative collaboration with a close Charlton chum which helped keep him in the fold. “Joe [Gill] may have been partly responsible for my long stay at Charlton,” the artist confessed. “I know Joe’s scripts made my stay and the work enjoyable and worthwhile.”78 *Of course, 1957 was the year Atlas Comics almost collapsed, so certainly that has to account for a goodly portion of the imbalance!

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Chapter Six

American Comic Book Factory

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titles). Charlton quickly snatched up the offerings and, before the year was out, material produced by Fawcett was coming off the presses at the Derby plant. Charlton acquired at least 17 titles and numerous characters, including Ibis, Golden Arrow, Don Winslow, Nyoka, Lance O’Casey, and Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny (who, to avoid legal entanglements with DC, was ultimately renamed Happy, the Magic Bunny).

Photos courtesy of Frank Romano and the Museum of Printing.

A LETTER FROM LEVY Less than two weeks before Christmas 1954, former Fawcett Comics artist Marc Swayze received a (very tardy) missive from co-publisher of Charlton Press Ed Levy, replying to Swayze’s letter of August. Levy informed the Louisiana-based artist (co-creator of super-hero Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel’s sister) that the Connecticut company didn’t have a department devoted to comics per se, as work was farmed out to an “independent contractor”—presumably meaning Al and Blanche Fago. “However,” Levy added, “we can use a satisfactory artist of comics experience here in Derby,” suggesting Swayze send samples, references, and salary requirements.1 Swayze would take Levy up on a subsequent job offer and, into the new year, he and his family came north and settled into their new home on Roosevelt Drive, in Ansonia, and the artist started commuting the short ride to the ever-expanding Charlton plant. Swayze had freelanced for Fawcett between 1941 and ’53, and now his job wasn’t only to draw stories, but also “make presentable” inventory material Charlton had purchased from defunct comic book publishers who had abandon the business due to the anti-comics hysteria, which gave rise to the Comics Code Authority. “My responsibility was to clean up the material to conform to Code Office guidelines… replace nasty words like ‘cop’ and ‘babe’ with ‘police officer’ and ‘young lady’… and raise necklines, lower skirts, cover midriffs, and anything else that needed it.”2 In the wake of a crushing settlement with DC Comics, Fawcett, once publisher of top-selling Captain Marvel Adventures, broadsided its staff and freelancers (including Swayze) when it quite suddenly decided in fall 1954 to quit its comics line. The company immediately went about shopping its properties—sans the Marvel Family characters, which were all thrown into legal limbo—and inventory (of which there was plenty, given the abrupt cancellation of its numerous active

1950s

This spread: Letter from Charlton Comics president Ed Levy to Marc Swayze replying to the former Fawcett artist’s inquiry about a Charlton art department, as well as photos of the Derby factory published in New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954].

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Six: American Comic Book Factory Charlton selected This Magazine is Haunted, hosted by FAWCETT FALLOUT Swayze, who contributed as many as 40 stories during his Dr. Death (and, in the Charlton incarnation, an occasional substitution for Doc, The Mummy, narrator of Fawcett’s now somewhat brief mid-’50s Charlton stay, spoke about that defunct Beware! Terror Tales) and Strange Suspense Stories experience with Fawcett Collectors of America editor P.C. to join The Thing! with violent tales of the macabre. By the Hamerlinck, who shared, “I do recall that Marc told me that end of 1954, when the anti-crime comics pressure proved too (post-Fawcett) he still wanted to stay in the industry that had much and with the advent of the Code, Charlton canceled been so good to him. He believed it was [Fawcett] editor their self-made title and put the other two on hiatus. While Wendell Crowley who—shortly after the news of Fawcett not matching the native Thing!’s sheer exuberance, the shutting down their comic book line—had mentioned that Fawcett adoptees had been notable for outstanding work by some of the properties were being sold off to Charlton. The Steve Ditko, as mentioned. The other Fawcett imports—inname of the company stuck with Marc (even though he really cluding six Westerns and four romance titles (and one a mix knew nothing about them), and thus he began a correspondence with Charlton’s Ed Levy… It was the only comic of two genres, Cowboy Love)—soldiered on into ’55 when Charlton was determined to fill the void left by a book publisher he contacted post-Fawcett. He figured flood of publishers quitting the business. his long association with Fawcett would increase his employment chances with a publisher who was in INVENTORY CONTROL the process of obtaining some of Fawcett’s old comic book inventory and properties.”3 The artist Charlton’s deal with Fawcett was not only for wouldn’t stay long at the company and, leaving a ownership of the publisher’s titles and characters, but also for the ample inventory left over from the comics career behind him for good, Swayze took his family back home to Monroe, Louisiana. departing company’s sudden decision to vacate the comics industry. The actual amount of physical art The majority of the Fawcett acquisitions didn’t (and whether it was supplied as original art pages or stay active too long at Charlton either, as only seven film negatives—or some combination thereof) will likely titles survived into the 1960s, with the longest-lasting Marc Swayze never be known, but quite a bit of that material was being Romantic Story (108 issues) and Sweethearts (116 issues), both ending in 1973. Still, some titles with limitpublished, some of it altered for the Code censors, as well as for contractual obligations. ed shelf-life were solid efforts, particularly the horror comics.

Aside from Uncle Marvel and niece Freckles Marvel, Passing on four other Fawcett horror comic books, maybe the oddest member in The Marvel Family (a grouping of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel, Jr.), a team book created by Swayze and writer Otto Binder, was aforementioned Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. That “funny animal” character, who spoke the magic word, ”Shazam!” and was transformed into a super-powered rabbit, had starred in two titles through much of the ’40s and was the only Captain Marvel-related property included in Charlton’s purchase—and maybe the only acquisition with legal restrictions attached. As said, Hoppy was remade as Happy, the Magic Bunny, who uttered magic word “Alizam!” to become not a red-suited hero, but now one adorned entirely in blue.

Furious Equus

Don Markstein’s Toonpedia website put it succinctly regarding horse hero Black Fury: “[He] belonged to nobody. He was leader of a pack of wild (or, more precisely, feral) horses that roamed freely in the unsettled part of the American Southwest.

He wasn’t entirely friendly toward humans, having occasional adventures with members of our species. But when the adventure was over, he and his companions would go their separate ways.”4 Black Fury lasted over a decade for an impressive span of 57 issues [May ’55–Apr. ’66]!

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Brief Encounter

In early 1950, Fawcett editor and writer Roy Ald pitched to higher-ups the idea of a love comic targeting a specific audience: the African American readership. The result was Negro Romance, one of 17 romance titles Fawcett introduced that year (maybe why the title lasted a mere three issues). And, five years later, with an interior containing a reprint of #2, though sporting a new cover, Charlton, after purchasing the title from Fawcett, published a lone issue of Negro Romance, #4. Ald told Shaun Clancy one motivation for creating the series was due to the presence of a young Black artist then freelancing at Fawcett, a talent who had contributed to Charlton’s Catholic Comics (and, later, Danger). “It was because of [Alvin] Hollingsworth that we did the series… It may have been created between the two of us, but most likely it was because of my liberal attitude that I initially suggested it… in fact, I’m almost certain of it.”5 While working on the first three issues of Negro Romance, “Hollingsworth’s comic book career was in high gear, as he churned out artwork at the frenzied pace demanded of the industry,” wrote Ken Quattro. “He quickly became one of the most notable artists in the crime and horror genres.”6 According to Quattro, in 1957, as Hollingsworth was departing comics for greener pastures in professional illustration and fine art, Charlton was the last comic book publisher he worked for, as the artist submitted cartoons for their risqué men’s mag, Cartoon Spice. His cartoons would continue to be found in Charlton’s similar Cartoon Carnival in the 1960s.

CLINT CURTIS TAKES THE SLOW ROAD The fact Fawcett and Charlton debuted their hot rod comics* in the same month—November 1951—is curious enough, but why Charlton didn’t later snap up Fawcett’s appealing race car character Clint Curtis to produce their own in-house strips is curious. The Derby outfit did make use of two Bob Powell stories intended for Hot Rod Comics (which had been, after all, subtitled “Featuring Clint Curtis”), but that was holdover material made available by the acquisition. *These two may’ve been the first, but there were contenders racing at ’em in the rear-view mirror: Hillman Periodicals’ Hot Rod and Speedway Comics lasted five issues between 1952–53, and Ziff-Davis Publishing had two one-shots in 1952: Speed Smith and Hot Rod King.

Chapter Six: American Comic Book Factory

(Those Powell stories wound up in Hot Rods and Racing Cars #14 [Feb. ’54] and #16 [June ’54].) But honestly, upon his arrival as managing editor, Al Fago did quash the continuing “Speed Davis” feature in HR&RC, so maybe he was averse to teenage driver continuing characters. Clint Curtis did make a triumphant return with HR&RC #42 [Oct. ’59], headlining the book for 78 issues, until HR&RC’s end, #120 [June ’73].

Previous page: Charlton house ad from 1956 and Black Fury #1 [May ’55]. This page: Clockwise from below are Hoppy the Marvel/Magic Bunny panels from Atomic Mouse #18 [May ’56]; and splash, AM #14 [June ’55]; cover detail from Fawcett’s Funny Animals #27 [Mar. ’45]; splash, Hot Rods and Racing Cars #14 [Feb. ’54]; and Negro Romance #4 [May ’55].

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Six: American Comic Book Factory

SPENDING SPREE With the comics industry reduced to tatters in the aftermath of Wertham, Kefauver, et al., Charlton was in remarkably good position compared to other second- and third-tier publishers, doubtless due to not being wholly dependent on its comic book line. So the outfit was in an enviable position to go bargain hunting and find deals they did, snatching up material from St. John (“Mopsy” stories and Fightin’ Marines, the first of Charlton’s extensive line of war comics containing the abbreviated word, “Fightin’,” in their names), Toby Press (Captain Gallant, Li’l Genius, Ramar of the Jungle, Soldier and Marine, plus “Monty Hall of the U.S. Marines” stories), and Fox (Blue Beetle, and tidbits that include “Rocket Kelly” and Pete Morisi’s “Skipper Hoy”), as well as some random items from Star Publications and Ziff-Davis.

Aside from the Fawcett haul, Charlton’s marquee acquisitions were Code-worthy leftovers from Allen Hardy’s Comic Media, including “Noodnik” humor stories, Death Valley, and Pete Morisi’s tough guy, Johnny Dynamite, from Dynamite.

There also was the créme de la créme: four titles from the legendary creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

Gabby… Gabby… Nay!

“Extended, uncontradicted testimony” from two former Charlton employees confirmed to the Federal Trade Commission that (gasp!) Gabby Hayes #55 [Aug. 1955] contained a reprint of “Gabby Hayes and the Human Porcupine,” first printed in 1951 by Fawcett.

Weirdly, the FTC found Charlton committed “unfair and deceptive acts”7 for not informing buyers that stories in Gabby Hayes, Lash LaRue, Rocky Lane, and Atomic Mouse were reprints. Even stranger, the publisher’s defense was that Charlton Press, Inc., didn’t start producing comics until Aug. 1955(!), “when it purchased the assets of… Derby Color Press, of Derby, Conn.”8 The FTC didn’t agree and ruled in 1959 that Charlton had to “clearly and conspicuously” note on covers if any reprints appeared therein.

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SIMON & KIRBY GO TO DERBY In the end, Joe Simon said, “It was better than nothing.”9 Up until that time, the most popular team of comic book creators in history—with names better known to readers than even those of the creators of Superman—was, after a phenomenally successful decade-and-a-half run, on the skids.

Simon and Jack Kirby’s self-publishing enterprise, Mainline Publications, was formed in 1954, “only to find the business climate suffocating,” wrote David Hajdu in The TenCent Plague, and the historian continued: Although the titles they created… were tame, the major comics distributors declined to take them on. “We couldn’t get a decent distributor, because all the laws about selling comics had all the news dealers scared out of their wits—they were afraid to put comics on the newsstands,” said Joe Simon. “So our own choice was to go with Leader News, which was the distributor of Bill Gaines’s [EC] comic books, and with all the protests going on and the parents groups and the educational groups raising hell and the laws and the hearings and so forth, Leader News was in shambles. Our books weren’t being sold. They never even got on the newsstands.

Jack and I were pulling our hair out, and finally we couldn’t take it anymore, and we couldn’t afford to keep producing comics that never got unwrapped, and we had to pull the plug on our own company.”10 As the end arrived for Mainline, and as Simon and Kirby simultaneously partnered with Charlton to produce the ambitious Win A Prize (see sidebar), the two negotiated with the Derby publisher to print their remaining Mainline inventory.

“I met with the owner, John Santangelo, and we struck a deal,” Simon said. “As a result, the final issues of all four Mainline series [Bullseye, In Love, Foxhole, and Police Trap] were published by Charlton, at times supplemented by stories from the Charlton stable of writers and artists. The production standards weren’t what Kirby and I had maintained on our own, but at least the stories would see the light of day. And we would receive a small amount of income.”11 Calling it “the last port of call,” Simon shared some insight into the Charlton set-up: “We made frequent trips to their plant in Connecticut, where the highlight of the day was a tasty Italian lunch at the executive table of the employees’ spacious cafeteria. When the noon whistle blew, the printing

You Can’t Win ’Em All

Mark Evanier, in his book, Kirby: King of Comics [2008], quipped about Win a Prize Comics, aptly dubbing the oddball title, “a game show disguised as a comic book,”13 though the creators, Jack Kirby and partner Joe Simon, termed it with a superlative on the cover of #1 [Feb. 1955], calling the 10¢ mag, the “World’s First Giveaway Comic.”

Whatever it was, the two-issue run was one busy book… and in more ways than one!

For the first issue, the colophon stated it was officially published by “Simon and Kirby Publications,” and the team also retained copyright, but #2 named the Charlton Comics Group as publisher, as well as the copyright owner.

Just as the publisher similarly did on some Al Fago books, the fine print said the work was “Designed by Simon & Kirby Studios.”

Their ill-timed Mainline venture was on the skids—almost dead, but not exactly—so it’s interesting that S&K approached Charlton for this project. In his Kirby Museum blog, Harry Mendryk speculates as to why: “One explanation is that part of the idea behind Win a Prize was the giving away of prizes.

The cover announces ‘500 free prizes, anyone can win,’ and Joe Simon insists that they really did give away prizes. For a small company like Mainline, this could be a problem. Not only the cost of the merchandise, but the logistics of sending the prizes to the winners. But Charlton had a vertical company structure, they did everything from producing the comics, printing them and doing the distribution. They probably were the ideal outfit to handle this sort of thing. Well, except for the problem of being cheap.”14 For its short run, S&K selected themselves to be the judges of all reader submissions, doubtless no small task. And how to describe Win a Prize exactly? R. J. Vitone gave it a try: “It was an early type of interactive experience.

Readers were bribed with the promise of prizes to send in plots, answers, ideas, and short stories. It lasted (?) two issues. As usual, Jack did some nice pieces for the book. And, like it or not, the host of the comic, Uncle Giveaway, has become a part of the Kirby lexicon… The stories are light, simple, and colorful.”15

Previous page: Simon and Kirby comic books published by Charlton, which had initially been prepared for Mainline Publications, Inc., before that imprint went belly-up, in 1955; and photo cover of Gabby Hayes [#55, Aug. 1955], a title initially published in association with Toby Press. This page: Win A Prize covers—prototype, #1 [Feb. 1955], and unpublished #3 cover art—all by Simon and Kirby, and Kirby-drawn “Comet Feldmeyer” splash from From Here to Insanity #11 [Aug. 1955].

Chapter Six: American Comic Book Factory

crew, mostly Italian immigrants who spoke little or no English, gulped down a hasty sandwich, and then retired to an adjacent construction site where they picked up their masonry tools and continued putting up new buildings, a project that seemed endless. After the lunch hour, the men returned to the printing shop to resume their regular work.”12 No S&K title made it very long—at least as submitted— though, oddly, their numbering did endure, another example of Charlton’s confusing (and, for collectors, frustrating) numbering schemes. The Mainline inventory carried over the prior numbering, and Police Trap lasted two issues, #5–6, and was renamed Public Defender in Action for #7; Foxhole made it three issues, #5–7, then was renamed Never Again for #8, itself a title used less than a year prior on a one-shot; Bullseye had two issues, #6–7, then renamed Cody of the Pony Express for #8; and In Love went for two issues, #5–6, and then renamed I Love You (which lasted until #130 [May 1980]).

Jack Kirby did some solo work published by Charlton, in an issue of their satire comic book (and MAD knock-off) From Here to Insanity, #11 [Aug. 1955], in which he drew— and likely wrote much of—28 pages plus a cover featuring lively and sometimes quite funny humor work by the King.

Their Charlton association would be the end of the line for the Simon and Kirby team, storied creators of Captain America and innumerable other characters, as well as originators of romance comics, the most profitable genre in the history of the field. The partners separated and Kirby went to DC Comics and, in 1960, Simon created Sick magazine, which would many years later become a Charlton publication.

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Charlton Makes an Impact Impact #1 [Mar. 1955], the EC comic book, contains what has been called “the Citizen Kane” of comic books and “perhaps the most famous EC story of all time, it is by any definition one of the most influential, analyzed, and critically acclaimed stories ever to appear in a comic book.”16 Plotted by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines, “Master Race” was drawn by Bernie Krigstein, who delivered an eight-page tour de force, a master class (if you will) of sequential storytelling.

Why bring up this classic EC comic in a Charlton history?

Because, as is little known, Gaines actually had the Derby publisher print the initial run. But the results were disastrous.

Collectibly Mad [1995] by Grant Geissman revealed there were two printings of Impact #1, explaining, “[T]he cover of the first printing is much darker and the Impact logo is white as opposed to yellow on the second printing. Gaines said [to EC collectors Jerry Weist and Roger Hill] the book was originally printed by Charlton Press, which did such a poor job that it was reprinted by EC’s regular printer. Gaines ordered the entire first printing to be destroyed, but copies of it were distributed.”17 Hill confirmed the MAD publisher’s statement.

“This is exactly what Bill Gaines told Jerry [Weist] and I about it many years ago. I don’t recall if he said anything at that time about the print run quantity on Impact #1.”18 He added, “Copies do seem to turn up from time to time, even on eBay.” (Though certainly not up to the caliber of his EC Comics work, at roughly the same time as “Master Race,” Krigstein completed one assignment for Charlton Comics, the six-page “Jealousy on Kano,” in Space Adventures #16 [May 1955].)

PETE MORISI, DANGER MAN In the Great Remnant Sale of 1955, Charlton picked up Dynamite, the “exciting adult reading” title from defunct Comic Media. The new publisher changed the comic book’s name to that of its lead character, Johnny Dynamite (possibly because of celebrity tattle mag Dynamite being published by Charlton at that time). Naturally, to confuse the multitude, despite the book being rebooted at its new home, Charlton retained the old numbering, starting with June 1955’s #10.

The hard-boiled detective character was the creation of veteran comics writer Ken Fitch (taking his nom d’plum, William Waugh, from his mother’s maiden name, Wilhelmine Waugh) and great action artist Peter Anthony Morisi, who would become a Charlton mainstay into the 1970s. Johnny Dynamite was undoubtedly influenced by the emergence of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, albeit differentiated by the eye patch of “The Chicago Wild Man.” “His most prominent attribute was an astonishing ability to inflict and/or absorb pain,”19 wrote Toonopedia. Fitch didn’t join the transfer over to Charlton, so Brooklyn-born Pete Morisi took over writing chores, though now burdened with neutering Comics Code oversight. And, alas, Morisi, whose creativity would explode in the ’60s and ’70s, would only produce a couple of Johnny Dynamite stories before the series was retitled Foreign Intrigues. Placed into the less subtle hands of artists Bill Molno and Vince Alascia, it lasted two issues, folding in 1956.

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FRANK MERRIWELL AT YALE Few realized that Charlton co-owner Ed Levy was an avid collector of, along with numerous other items, dime novels of the 1800s and early 1900s. Among the many, many hundreds of books, etc., he donated to the Fales Library and Special Collections, Levy turned over some 243 Frank Merriwell novels featuring the perfect, near super-human athlete’s adventures.

The character, who neither smoked nor drank, first appeared in Tip Top Weekly, on Apr. 18, 1896, and later had its own comic strip, radio drama, and 1936 movie serial, as well as (you guessed it) a comic book series published by Charlton. The four issues, cover-dated from June 1955 to Jan. ’56, were titled Frank Merriwell at Yale (no doubt at the behest of Levy, a devoted Yaleophile), and though the writer remains unknown, Dick Giordano penciled all of the Merriwell exploits, with Vince Alascia providing inks.

The “Biographical Note” on the Levy Dime Novel Collection website description states that his book, manuscript, and memorabilia collection numbered some 150,000 items!20

This spread: Impact #1 version printed by Charlton; Frank Merriwell artifacts; Johnny Dynamite #10 splash by Pete Morisi; Art Gates and covers, interior art from Hillbilly Comics, reported

by Gates to have been published in partnership with Charlton.

Art Gates

each episode featuring In 1958, not long after Arthur Meredith Gates had about 1,000 words!)

The artist got freeleft the comic book induslance gigs from Funnies, try, Editor and Publisher Inc., and his work was magazine described the multi-talented gent—born purchased by various in Somerville, Mass., on July comics publishers, including Better, Novelty, Quality, 19, 1916—as having “a wee and, notably, Harvey, where stamp of Scotland in his sharp appeared his “Crash, Cork, and features,”21 and Art Gates was Art Gates the Baron” series in Speed Comics, asked for a career chronology. and at Timely, where his “Swoopy the “Beginning at the beginning,” he Fearless” was in The Human Torch. responded, “as a merchant seaman, I During World War II, Gates joined covered the globe several times, visiting the Army Air Corps, advancing to corpoports from Penang to Marseilles. When ral while based at Keesler Field, MissisI settled down a bit, I attended [night sippi, where he produced Giggy for Army classes at] Boston University [and] the Times, a weekly strip that owed a stylistic Scott Carbee School of Art, in Boston…” debt to Capp. His cartoons also appeared His New York Times obituary would in Yank and American Legion magazines. later reveal, “In 1938, at the suggestion Shipped to Okinawa, he became editor of Al Capp, the creator of Li’l Abner, he of Super-Fort, a 16-page offset Army Air came to New York from Boston after Mr. Corps newsletter.24 Capp had told him that New York was After the war, he went back to the the best place to sell cartoons.”22 Gates then attended night courses comics field—among others, for D.S. at the Art Students League, and, “In Publishing, onetime Charlton songsheet 1941,” he revealed, “I sold my first comcompetitor—and, boasting to E&P, he ic book stories and got a job writing a even sold cartoons to The New Yorker. daily newspaper serial story, ‘Girl ReportIn 1950, he married Helen Gershon, and er,’ for the Mary Doherty Syndicate…”23 had two sons, John and Arthur, Jr. (Under the pseudonym Fayette Krum, The first half of the ’50s was Gates’ heyday in the industry, as he worked the serial lasted for 137 daily chapters, for a multitude of outfits, among them ACG, Story, Trojan, Youthful, as well as Mainline, where his ability to work in different styles—whether bigfoot or dramatic—shined bright.

His most notable work, Hillbilly Comics, appeared at Charlton of

which he produced—from soup to nuts—four issues of his amusing Li’l Abner pastiche. “As a matter of fact,” Gates told E&P, “I’ve even packaged complete comic magazines, and hired the artists and writers. For a time, I was co-publisher of Hillbilly Comics.”25 After departing comics, Gates produced and marketed his own singlepanel Service Smiles, which appeared in 50 newspapers after he sold it to King Features. And, in 1958, he worked as salesman for the New York Herald Tribune. The following year he produced a comic strip for dairy companies, Malcolm the Mailman, a weekly gig lasting four years. By 1962, the National Cartoonists Society member had established his syndicate, Gates Features, Inc., selling cartoons to publications, many in his own varied styles, and styles of others.

Gates lived with family in Jackson Heights, N.Y., and, during an extended illness, he moved for health reasons to the Florida Keys, where he passed away, on Dec. 4, 1976, at the age of 60.

HILLBILLY COMICS Cartoonist Art Gates’s production of Hillbilly Comics, for all practical purposes a one-man operation by the looks of it, is a tremendous achievement and certainly one of the most amiable and odd-ball comic books to come from Charlton. As far as content, the word “unabashed” comes to mind, as the four-issue run (cover-dated Aug. 1955–July 1956) is a massive, epic swipe of Al Capp’s then-wildly popular newspaper comic strip, Li’l Abner, with Hillbilly’s Gumbo Galahad standing in for Capp’s title character. What might be most impressive about Gates’ comic book (which he insisted he co-published with Charlton) is not just his natural cartooning, but the thoughtfulness conveyed in the entire package, including the letters pages.

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Six: American Comic Book Factory

IN-HOUSE BULLPEN In March 1955, amid the company’s huge buying binge, the Charlton publisher made a sudden and unexpected announcement to the entire comic book division and outside freelancers. As Michael Eury related in the biography, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time: [John Santangelo] offered the freelancers continued employment, but only for their joining the staff in Derby, with the caveat of a reduced page-rate… from $20 to $13 per page. “He guaranteed all the work we could do, weekly paychecks, and mentioned a profit-share plan and hospitalization,” recalls Giordano. This proclamation sent shockwaves through the [freelancers].26

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FACTORY MORALE The publisher strove to keep spirits high for the vast majority of the Charlton Press workers, or so he detailed in the 1954 New England Printer and Lithographer profile: Santangelo spends a lot of time figuring out how to keep his men and women employees happy. He keeps careful pro­duction figures, but depends on them less than he does on his awareness of employee morale. His schemes to keep morale high are a mixture of job security and incentive. They include: Pensions: These are based on a point system. After 20 years service, an employee can retire with the same pay for life that he was receiving on the day he retired. If he dies, his wife gets the retirement pay as long as she lives. A man eligible for retire­ment after 20 years may stay on if he wishes.

In that case, he gets two wages, one from the retirement fund and one from the corporation.

Photo courtesy of Robert Beerbohm.

Any number of Charlton stalwarts balked, given many had hand-delivered their finished assignments to Al Fago when the managing editor showed up at their front doors while making his weekly rounds. “Only a handful of the people went up there and took staff positions,” Giordano explained to the author. “For example, Lou Morales was a friend of Fago who also lived in Great Neck, and he didn’t accept the staff position, so he stopped working for Charlton.”27 Giordano continued, “When we were in New York, there was little work, and the normal page rate at Charlton was $20 a page, $25 for a cover. When we moved to Connecticut, the page rate was dropped to $13, pencils and ink, and covers were $20, but the quantity of work increased substantially. In New York, we were just trying to get Fawcett reprint material through the Code.”

During that period, it was tough going for the young artist. “I also got married in [April] 1955, and just before I got married to Marie,” Giordano said, “we went up to Charlton, where the boss made pay cuts across the board. I remember because we had some stress in our family as a result of the reduced amount of money I was going to be making. We’re planning on getting married—we got married in April, and it must’ve been March we went up there—and the pay-cut created some problems. Marie had a decent job, so we could get by, but we had to live in the Bronx.”28 He continued, “It was a bit of a sweat for the first year or two, but she got pregnant within that first year, and then she couldn’t work forever. In those days, they didn’t let one work until the ninth month, like a woman can today. Three

months and you’re out! And her employer didn’t hold her job for her, either… the world was young. A year or two after we married, we moved to a place called Charlton. Since I was working there and commuting back and forth, carpooling with four others, my wife and I decided, driving 65 miles just to get to work and then back again was ridiculous. This was before [U.S.] Interstate 95 [highway] was completed, so the only way to get up there was by the Merritt Parkway. We made our home in Derby in ’57.” With a chuckle, he added, “Our carpool was originally five people: Pat Masulli, Jon D’Agostino (a letterer then who is now one of the top artists at Archie), Sal Trapani (my brother-in-law), Vince Alascia, and myself—sounds like a carload of Mafioso, doesn’t it?

“We started commuting right after I got back from my honeymoon. As a matter of fact, thinking back on some of the other events: I went to Florida for my honeymoon, and John Santangelo… who I’d just met at that one meeting in March… had somebody call me and say I was welcome to stay at his Florida place for free… [we were at] a motel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach… So, we spent one week at the place where we’d checked in (because Santangelo called after we got there) and then spent another two weeks courtesy of the boss, because it was free. So we stretched out the honeymoon a little bit, and then drove back, and that’s when I started going back and forth to Charlton on a regular basis.”

Bonuses: Bonuses start with $100 for one year’s service plus increases for each additional year.

Birthday Plan: Two days before an employee’s birthday, the company mails greetings and a silver dollar. Records are kept of all coin dates and once a year, certain coins are selected for surprise birthday awards. These range from $100 to $500. Nobody in the plant would dream of spending a birthday silver dollar.

Education Plan: The company’s Five Year Club, run by employees, has a fund with which to help pay the col­lege tuition of the children of any em­ployee who has been with the company a year or more.

Incentive Plan: Production records in each department are watched and weekly the shift showing the best pro­ duction is allowed to pick a card from a deck of playing cards.

The compe­tition runs for ten weeks, at the end of which time the company holds a par­ty. Each shift then shows its cards, which have been kept secret. As in poker, the best hands of cards draw the top cash awards, lesser hands get lesser prizes.

Suggestions Plan: The suggestion box for employees is a very important part of the Charlton Press operation. All ideas for instituting economies or work-simplification are signed by the employee and dropped into a locked suggestion box which Santangelo op­ens periodically. Meritorious plans are discussed with the respective de­partment heads and put into effect. The person who submitted the idea receives 50% of the first year’s resul­tant savings, as calculated by an out­side C.P.A. Entertainment Plan: The shop holds frequent parties, ranging from “re­ward” occasions to holidays. Turkeys for everybody at Thanksgiving, wines and heavier stuff at Xmas, cash at bonus meetings, etc. etc. Some years ago Santangelo purchased the only bowling alley in Derby and turned it over to the employees for their ex­clusive use. The Charlton softball teams wear company-paid uniforms and use companysupplied equipment at the city’s baseball park, which is also company-owned, but leased gratis to the Derby schools and lodges.

“I spend a lot of time thinking up new ways to keep the employees inter­ested in their jobs and in what is com­ing next,” Santangelo explains.29 Whether or not Santangelo kept up his side of the bargain on those numerous plans he outlined isn’t known, but for generations of townsfolk, it was a veritable rite of passage in Derby to work at Charlton Press. Emilio Polce, whose immediate family was employed at the company at one time or another, shared, “I think that’s the way most people felt who worked there: Charlton was community; it was family.”30 ALLAN ADAMS JOINS CAPITAL DISTRIBUTING In 1953, Allan Maynard Adams [1914–1999], then owner of the Allan Adams News Agency, of San Rafael, Calif., gave a speech at a New York Herald Tribune Forum about low-priced paperback books. Entitled “The Revolution in American Book Publishing,” the talk was about the popular paperback trade of that era and the presentation took into This spread: Bird’s eye view of the sprawling Charlton Press building, located on Division Street, Derby, Conn. Photo taken in the mid-1950s. At top right is art team Ross Andru and Mike Esposito’s anti-war comic book, Never Again [#1, Aug. 1955].

Chapter Six: American Comic Book Factory

Never Again Craig Yoe, editor of The Unknown Anti-War Comics collection,* calls Never Again, “The first comic book that had decidedly anti-war stories.”31 It was another inventory piece that Charlton purchased, this one by the creators behind the short-lived Mikeross Publications, perennial partners Mike Esposito and Ross Andru.

Esposito relayed in his book, Andru and Esposito: Partners for Life: “Ross and I went up to Charlton and met with [Charlton co-publisher] Ed Levy in his office. We had created an idea called Never Again. With an Unknown Soldier character, we wrote stories and drew the cover. I love that cover, we worked hard on it, we got a lot of detail into it. Ed Levy was always looking for new ideas and when he saw Never Again, he said, ‘I want that one.’

It was about the war to end all wars, Hitler, and the Holocaust.

‘Never Again’ was the byword of survivors of the Holocaust, and Ross and I unconsciously borrowed the phrase for our book title. We did the first page ourselves, and the rest of the book was reprints. Levy had his hands on old work from publishers who had gone bankrupt, so he was able to provide stories to fill out the book. We only did one issue, and we never got paid. I wasn’t too happy with the setup there; they were worse than Fox Periodicals.”32 Steven Heller said, in fact, the series lasted two issues, which were, “Haphazardly, quizzically (Charlton’s oft M.O.) numbered #1 and #8, and the title was immediately cancelled. Possibly the comic went defunct due to low sales, but more likely because that was all the material they had on hand and the powers-thatbe at Charlton simply moved on to something else!”33 *In fact, Yoe used Never Again tales in that very same compilation.

account his considerable 18 years or so of experience in the circulation department of Fawcett Publications, based in Greenwich, Conn., and publishers of Family Circle, Mechanix Illustrated, and its self-named comic book line that headlined Captain Marvel.34 (Allan Adams’s obituary stated that his mother was a Fawcett family member who helped start the company.)35 Given that the lecture was presented in the wake of his involvement with Fawcett’s innovative Gold Medal Books—the paperback imprint that pioneered the inclusion of original content—it was perhaps a foreshadowing of what was to come for his new employer when he Allan Adams was hired to head Capital Distribution and subsequently help create their Monarch Books paperback line.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Adams grew up in Canada and then Seattle, and he started working at Fawcett at 20 or so, being promoted over time to become circulation manager and corporate secretary of the company. In 1939, he married Mary Lou Junod, of Minnesota, and together they had two sons and one daughter. During the war, he served in the U.S. Navy, enlisting in 1942 and discharged in 1946. He left Fawcett in 1952 to start his own aforementioned California distributing business. Adams came on board at Charlton around 1955, recruited to be Capital’s general manager and as Charlton Press partner and vice-president.

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Six: American Comic Book Factory

Derby, Conn.: Realm of the Wolf Killer

Derby—smallest of Connecticut’s 21 cities—is a municipality in the southwest quadrant where, in the mid-20th century, its land and people were irrevocably connected for a time to John Santangelo and Ed Levy’s Charlton Press, Inc., and vice versa. The story of the human inhabitance of the area stretches back over 6,000 years to when the indigenous Paugussett and Potatuck tribes cultivated the land, harvested fish, and lived out peaceful lives along the banks of the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers.

At the five-and-a-half square mile area at the confluence of those two mighty waterways, the city of Derby would gradually emerge over the years, starting when European settler John Wakeman set up a trading post in 1642.

Nine years later, the first permanent European resident erected a roundhouse, at which time New Haven, a mere eight or so miles to the west, recognized it as a township (“But the residents of nearby Milford protested so vehemently that the order was rescinded and the settlement returned to Milford jurisdiction…”)36 That first resident, Edward Wooster [1622–1689], who had been granted permission to settle what was then called Paugussett, earned the nickname “Wolf Killer” for his proficiency in slaughtering

the animal, which were totally eradicated from the region. The epitaph on his gravestone at the Old Derby Uptown Burying Ground cites a Biblical passage: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”37 Derby was officially established in 1675 and, since then, Robert J. Novak related, “The town’s influence has been far-reaching. It was one of the first seaports along the Connecticut coast. Three

other town’s claim Derby’s roots, each having once been a part of the ancient, extended township.”38 The New York Times explained, “It was a thriving shipping and shipbuilding center from which sloops carried livestock and fish to the West Indies… By 1889, shipping had declined and Ansonia had been incorporated as a separate town.” The paper added, “Years earlier, [an] industrialist had built a copper mill in Derby that he had moved to Ansonia… encouraging entrepreneurs to build metal and textile mills in the region. The valley bordering the Naugatuck River from Shelton to Waterbury became a prosperous industrial area where many European immigrants found jobs.”39 The official government website shared a central appeal of Derby: “Located in the center of a triangle bordered

by New Haven on the east, Bridgeport to the south, and Waterbury to the north, Derby is the hub of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the state, yet maintains its peaceful, suburban charm.”40 By the end of the 19th century, Italians were immigrating into ConnectiThis spread: Clockwise from left, novelty map with inserted star indicating location of Derby; Postcard of Elizabeth Street, Derby, in the 1920s or ’30s; newspaper ad saluting Derby’s 300th anniversary in 1975; John Santangelo departing in 1959 on yet another trip to Italy; and Derby city sign.

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John Santangelo photo courtesy of the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

cut’s cities in ever-expanding numbers, establishing sections in New Haven, Waterbury, Bridgeport, and Hartford. As was probably inevitable, there was friction between the ruling Protestant Yankees and ambitious Catholic Southern European interlopers, though newcomer assimilation and social acceptance developed at an agonizingly slow pace over time.

By 1930 or so, Giovanni Santangelo, then in his early 30s and seemingly determined to start a family, was attracted to the city for one simple reason: he had an avid crush on Derby High School student Carrie Altorelli, teenage daughter of an Italian laborer. Apparently the couple retained an affection for the area and together they would marry and have three children, and live out their lives in Derby.

In 1950, the U.S. Census numbered the city’s inhabitants at 10,250, and, by 1960, that figure rose to 12,132. Charlton Press employed a not insignificant number of the city’s citizenry, as it was said to have given jobs, at its height, to upwards of 500 people at one time, many being Italian immigrants sponsored by Charlton’s publisher, as related elsewhere herein.

Chapter Six: American Comic Book Factory

OFF TO THE OLD COUNTRY However tough Santangelo could be—and he could be very tough!—the man was never afraid to work hard to achieve his goals. By the mid-’50s, the mogul started taking life a little easier and had initiated his twice-annual, extended vacations.

As his profile in New England Printer and Lithographer revealed, “Santangelo’s real hobby is travel. Twice each year, spring and fall, he sails off to Europe, taking one of his cars with him. He tours France, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, and Italy, frequently picking up ideas from printers. He is on friendly relations with most of Italy’s major printers. During a recent visit, he repaired some stitching [binding] machines for one of these friends. Santangelo says that years of working with antiquated equipment has taught him to put to­gether practically every machine in a publications printing plant.”41 The article continued, “His annual two trips to Europe, which total four months, usually include a visit to his hometown of San Valentino, which he has presented with a new church building and several other insti­tutions. The visit occasionally ends with 50 townsmen hauling on a rope to get his car out of San Valentino’s mud and back on the highway.”42 As the publisher embarked for yet another trip abroad, he was quite at ease in leaving the company in the able care of his managers. “I never worry about business when I’m on vacation,” he told a St. Louis newspaper with a confident smile. “This place runs just as well when I am in Europe as it does when I’m here.”43 After all, Charlton Press, now the third largest comics publisher and the world’s leading producer of song lyric magazines, had 47 new comic titles in 1955 alone, a dozen cover-dated June, all produced by an in-house staff working for a pittance. Plus, his music mags, crossword puzzle periodicals, and sundry magazines were all doing rather nicely, thank you very much. All was well, so what could possibly go wrong while he was away?

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Chapter Seven

The Rising Waters of 1955 FIRST CAME CONNIE The torrential downpour had dissipated by the time dawn broke on August 19, 1955, a few hours before the tragedy of “Connecticut’s Black Friday”1 befell denizens of the state’s western section. In fact, a whole litany of meteorological events had been in play weeks prior to that fateful morning, before a “maelstrom of malevolence”2 laid waste to the area.

The harbinger was named Connie, a Category 4 hurricane that careened northwest, sparing a direct hit on the New England state, which she just skirted on August 12–13, but up to eight inches of the tempest’s rainfall saturated southwestern Connecticut. And then, as if some awful cosmic joke, Cat 3 cyclone Diane smacked into the same region less than a week later, lashing it with high winds. But the greatest damage was caused by the storm’s drenching rain, which amounted to twice the amount of precipitation Connie had dumped on the state. The Waterbury Republican-American described the cumulative aftermath of the sister storms:

That “funnel” was a terrifying wall of water crashing down the Naugatuck River, inundating Winsted, then Waterbury, then Seymour, a catastrophic cascade roaring towards Derby. Skies were clearing above the riverfront Charlton plant as workers ended their mid-morning break.

THE AUGUST FLOOD While its violence lessened during the surge’s 50-mile southbound journey from Winsted, a town whose Main Street had been reduced to gravel due to the torrent’s onslaught, the rising waters of the Naugatuck were no less life-threatening by the time they engulfed Derby. In an essay written almost a half-century later, then Charlton newcomer Marc Swayze, while misremembering the cause as a dam break, gave a fascinating account of Charlton’s harrowing plight: “[Fellow Charlton artist Rocke Mastroserio] was reporting the conditions as seen from his favorite window. ‘The water is rising into the drive-in movie across the railroad!’ he announced.

Afternoon Aug. 19, 1955

Late Morning Aug. 19, 1955

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Photos courtesy of Robert Beerbohm.

Earlier August rains had made Western Connecticut uplands soggy. The continuous rainfall of the 18th and throughout the night into early Friday morning were too much for a sodden land and everything cascaded into the nearest valley. The Naugatuck Valley became a funnel for millions of gallons of water. And they pushed everything aside or took what stood in their way along with them.3

1950s “Then: ‘It’s a foot high on the [drive-in speaker] posts!’

He returned to his drawing momentarily, then again from the window: ‘It’s up on the [speakers]!’… It was chaotic.

First the word came to our floor that cars were being moved from the parking lot to higher ground. Then, that windows were being smashed out of them when the keys were unavailable.

“When I left the building, which was mostly evacuated by that time, I had to wade through knee-deep water near the loading dock. When a large truck came by, a hand was thrust toward me from the passenger side and I grabbed it. Then I spied [Rocke], wading toward the building. ‘I’m going back to get something to work on over the weekend!’ he shouted.”4 AN EPIC DISASTER The floodwater’s rise can be described as nothing less than Biblical, having crested to a cataclysmic height, completely submerging the factory’s lower level. “In just one hour’s time,” reported Newsdealer magazine, “the flood washed away $300,000 in paper inventory, plates, mats, original comics artwork, together with all other publishing material, and left an engraving plant and several buildings filled with Linotypes [typesetting machines] and printing presses under 18 feet of water and accumulated flood debris.”5 “During” and “after” photographs published in Newsdealer attest to the mind-boggling extent of the historic flooding, as just the tops of the electric power line poles are visible above the water, with the devastation clearly visible in the “after” pic of the same area after flooding subsided. An interior shot of the printing presses look as if a massive explosion had taken place, as if the aftermath of aerial bombing.

Newsdealer continued, “Heroic efforts by many of the company’s 400 employees, to remove and save the more than 200 motors used to drive the presses, were futile. The waters rose too fast. Vital office records were all that could be taken from the buildings and those went aloft with the last handful of employees who were evacuated by Army and Navy helicopters.”6 Swayze would later learn that Mastroserio was among those airlifted.

Chapter Seven: The Rising Waters of 1955

HELICOPTER RESCUE The dramatic rooftop rescue was what witnesses remember most clearly about that natural disaster. “When the flood came through,” Charlton general manager Burt Levey said, “we had to get on top of the building because the water was rising, and a helicopter landed on the roof and took us off—that’s how I got out of there! I watched my car float down the river.”7 In-house writer Joe Gill recalled, “The press was entirely underwater, the building was underwater. [Artist] Maurice ‘Reese’ Whitman had to be taken off the roof by helicopter. Cars were washed away.”8 On a bad day for all, folks trapped by rising waters were especially lucky to have Sikorsky Aircraft—top manufacturer of military rescue copters—headquartered a mere ten miles away from Derby. At its Trumbull factory, the Bridgeport Telegram reported, “Several types of helicopters were pressed into service. A majority them were the HSS or Navy S-58 type, which are equipped with motorized hoists which make them ideal for rescue operations.”9 One crew told the paper that they had rescued 41 workers off a factory roof in Derby.

Among those, Blanche Fago said, was Al, her managing editor spouse. “My husband was up on the roof, helping people out and getting them on helicopters so they’d be safe.”10 This spread: Clockwise from bottom left: note water level in relation to drive-in movie screen in “during and after” pics taken from atop Charlton; the Aug. 1955 hurricane paths; Hartford Courant headline; and helicopter rescue from factory rooftop.

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Six: The Rising Waters of 1955 CLEAN-UP Actually, the Naugatuck floodwaters began to recede almost immediately and, as if to mock the surrealness of the situation, by noontime the clouds parted for the late summer sun to shine brightly overhead. The big boss was on vacation at the time, having missed all of the drama.

Diana’s aftermath resulted in the most destructive flooding in Connecticut history. But, soon enough, as evidenced by a photograph* published in the Aug. 30th Hartford Courant, John, wife Carrie, and their two youngest, Ellie, 17, and John, Jr., 13 (Charles, still working at the plant, had gotten married in 1952), returned from Europe to survey the damage. Newsdealer gave a vivid description of the recovery effort:

Dick Giordano recalled that Charlton workers memorialized the floodwaters’ peak height. “When I left the company,” he said, “the waterline was still there in the plant. They later painted up to where the water topped off with white paint.”11 The artist-editor’s biography explained: Giordano recalls Hurricane Diane’s devastating effect upon the Charlton facility: “The plant was at sea level. The nearby river overflowed and hit the first floor of Charlton.

All of the comic books were turned into papier-mâché.”

More than just comics were destroyed: as-yet-unpublished original artwork, printing plates and machinery, paper, office equipment, and files were just some of the materials destroyed by the 18 feet of water that eventually filled the building. Once the waters receded, the cleanup began—and John Santangelo recruited the staff to help with the dirty work.12

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*The caption stated, in part: “Serious business ahead… There’s plenty of hard work ahead for Santangelo. His plant suffered a million dollars in damage… “ And he was informed “there had been a burglary at his home in Derby during the first week of his absence.”

Photo courtesy of Robert Beerbohm.

This page: In this photo taken inside the Charlton press room, note the catastrophic destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Diane’s flooding that occurred in Aug. 1955. It is likely that at least Danny Blaze #3 was either being prepared, on press, or in the bindery during that epic disaster, as that issue was never distributed, though this cover proof was somehow recovered.

How does a company recover from such a catastrophe in such a perishable business as publishing monthly magazines? How Capital-Charlton did it and put out Song Hits, Hit Parader, Country Song Roundup, and others, without missing an audible beat is a story of employee personal contribution which defies the imagination.

Hand-wielded picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows started it.

Bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, and graders followed. As soon as an office was cleared, the personnel of that division took over final cleaning, fumigating, and getting back into business. When a press was cleared, the crew responsible for it dropped off the pick and shovel gang and began concentrating on their own equipment. Wagers and friendly competition developed between crews, as to which press would be first to get back to normal production.

During all of this, the company maintained a full payroll, arranged for employee quarters where necessary, and kept the company doctor and nurses on hand for typhoid shots and other necessary medical treatment. It undertook any other expense necessary for a return to normal operation. With more than 50,000 other workers in the area made idle because of inundated plants, the back-to-normal drive by Capital-Charlton became a community example.

Within one week’s time the first presses were turned cautiously by band. Within 10 days paper supplied by sympathetic houses began to feed into the big equipment. Magazines emerged and were trucked to railroad cars standing on sidings where only 10 days previously roared an 18-foot hurricane flood. A recovery by a member of the publishing and distributing industry as remarkable as any could possibly be, and an outstanding example of what can be accomplished through the incentive supplied by Independent ownership and operation.13

THE ARRANGEMENT “When the smoke cleared,” Joe Gill recalled, referring to the clean-up, “Santangelo called a meeting of the artists and myself. He was an inspired speaker in his broken English, and said he was going to carry on (though, in the meanwhile, the guy had gotten umpteen dollars in flood relief from the government for free; this was an enormous boost for him), but he couldn’t continue to pay us the same ‘high rates.’ He said that we could all continue working at half of what we had been working before. I was dropped to two dollars a page [a quarter of what the major companies were paying at the time].”14 Gill continued, “John Santangelo had traits I couldn’t help but admire. One was the refusal to give up. Standing before the meeting of comic book personnel that had been called, he first described the damage. From my seat on the back row, I glanced around. As far as I could tell, it was a 100% turnout. Whatever John had in mind, there’d be plenty of help.”

Any number, though, bailed on Charlton to seek outside employment with a boss not demanding acquiescence. ”When [Santangelo] got into the part where we would all have to sacrifice,” Swayze said, “my thoughts began to stray to things like: ‘It’s only a few weeks ’til school starts in Louisiana. I’ll have to see the nice people who leased us the beautiful place over on the Housatonic…’ I quietly slid from my seat and made my way to the stairway. Halfway down, I heard a footstep behind me and turned. It was [artist] Stan Campbell. ‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy you a beer!’”15 Newsdealer described employees and Derby residents digging Charlton out of the wreckage, with the presses getting up and running in ten days. Dick Giordano didn’t recall it being “that quick.”16 Nor did Burt Levey: “It was a disaster and it took us a long time to get going again.”17 “No,” relative newcomer Ed Konick said, “it took several months to recover; we were operating, but using outside printers. It took a long time to clean up that mess.”18 Despite notice that the

company maintained “a full payroll,” there is no mention in the article of either Santangelo’s disaster federal relief money or any radical pay-cut suffered by workers.

“If I didn’t write fast, I wouldn’t be able to get along under that price structure,” Gill said. “So, we were working for those rates and the artists were only getting $13 a page.

What could you expect from an artist with a wife and child, and how much time and care could you expect him to put into a page? There was the pride of doing good work, but it was impossible to do our best work consistently over a period of time. I did a lot of garbage and some good work—not much, but some. Charlton got a helluva lot more than they paid for out of me. People who are critical of Charlton artists and writers have to remember that the price structure of the company was a big factor.”19 Giordano said the regular rate for art—pencils and inks— was $13 a page. “After the flood, it was halved to $6.50; later it went up to $10; later still [it returned] to $13.”20 SOMETHING HAPPENED Hardly two months after the Derby plant started its recovery efforts, yet another devastating flood swamped the region in the deluge of mid-October. “Severe floods again occurred in the Naugatuck River valley and in other parts of the Housatonic River basin,” explained an official U.S. Geological Survey of the 1955 floods, “but damage was less than it might have been because less remained to be damaged. At Waterbury, the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad bridge, newly restored to service, was again destroyed by the waters.

In hundreds of factories and homes mud and debris had to be removed again.”21 Charlton was among those factories hit.

For all of the positive press given to it, the company was forever changed by the destructive events of 1955 and its comic book output would thereafter almost never match the quality of top rivals DC, Marvel, and Archie (though, in its future, there were significant exceptions). Despite Charlton’s somewhat triumphant survival through the anti-comics hysteria, its ambitious expansion while others fell by the wayside, and its unique position in being an all-in-one operation—never mind emerging from a natural calamity of positively epic scope!—a mediocrity took root on the overall line. Paper quality dropped, colors were often printed embarrassingly off-register, and the books were rife with careless binding and trimming errors. And content too often seemed hacked out, perhaps due to resentful creatives being paid pauper’s wages. Despite shimmering moments of potential greatness here and there, Charlton seemed resistant to fulfilling its promise to dominate the industry. Instead, it seemed dedicated to publishing comics among the worst of its kind: dull and of little importance to an indifferent publisher.

And yet, despite the dismal rates and uninspiring management, there remained a handful of comics professionals dedicated, sometimes to the best of their abilities—some less so—to produce work of at least some merit. Though one could do little to improve the quality of the printing itself, they might have some impact on what was being printed.

This page: John Santangelo was so confident that his company could smoothly function even in his absence, he traveled to Italy for four months every year, sometimes with his family, always with his car. This pic shows the clan returning on August 30, 1955, with the publisher disembarking to direct recovery efforts.

Chapter Seven: The Rising Waters of 1955

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Six: The Rising Waters of 1955

The Prolific and Talented Mr. Joe Gill

Celebrated as one of the most prolific comic book writers of all time, Joseph Paul Gill was born on July 13, 1919, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and, at some point, he moved with family—which included only sibling Raymond—to Brooklyn, New York. In 1938, Ray had joined the fledgling comics industry, writing for packager Funnies, Inc., where the triple-threat writer/artist/editor was scribing comic book stories published in Blue Bolt and other titles. Soon thereafter, while toiling at a menial job, Joe Gill had a chance meeting with future famed crime writer and lifelong friend Mickey Spillane.

“Every kid in New York’s first job is to be at Gimbel’s or Macy’s,” the I, The Jury novelist said to Christopher Irving.

“Joe and I were working in Gimbel’s, and were there for the Christmas holidays. We stayed friends when he went to the Coast Joe Gill Guard during the war and I was in the [Army] Air Force.”22 But before Spillane joined the service, Joe—who, it needs to be said, volunteered to serve before the attack on Pearl Harbor—introduced Spillane to brother Ray,* who put the young novice writer on super-hero yarns and text stories for Timely and Novelty.

Joe served in the Coast Guard in the North Atlantic and, as Michael Ambrose explained, “was later attached to the Navy as a radioman first class, and saw action in the Pacific during World War II. As communications chief on board attack transport U.S.S. Cavalier APA 37, Joe was responsible for getting out the signal that saved his ship following a Japanese torpedo attack in January 1944.”23 His time as radioman made him a

speedy (albeit twofinger) typist. Upon returning home, Joe had no inkling to become a writer.

“When [Spillane] got out, he and my brother got together and opened a studio,” Joe told Irving. “It had to be painted and cleaned, so I helped them paint and clean it. I was going to go back to the Navy as a chief radio operator.

They said, ‘Don’t do that, you’re going to be a writer.’ I said ‘No!’ Anyway, when they got through putting the place together, there was a position for me—a table, a chair, and a typewriter—so I got started.”24 Evidently, Joe explained to Jim Amash, Spillane and Ray recognized his talent as wordsmith “because I used to write funny letters in the service, and they’d put my letters up on the bulletin board, so apparently I had a following before I even got out!”25 Joe remembered his first assignment was for an “Edison Bell” feature in Blue Bolt [V7 #4, Aug. 1946], a one-page instructional diagram drawn by his brother.

Thereafter, Joe couldn’t recall ever being rejected.26 (Interestingly, Al Fago was credited as art consultant for Blue Bolt’s sister title, 4Most, at precisely the same time as Joe’s debut, which may figure into Joe’s eventual hiring at Charlton.)

According to Joe, he and Spillane drifted from Funnies, Inc., work to be-

*Besides a single entry in Ray Gill’s Who’s Who listing as Charlton contributor (referencing him as writer of Outlaws of the West in 1967 and ’69), some rather wacky evidence suggests Joe’s older brother moonlighted for Al and Blanche Fago at Charlton in 1954, at a time he was also editing “How-To” books for Fawcett. Perhaps Ray wrote text pages, such as the one in Funny Animals #87 [Oct. ’54]. That two-page text piece was titled “Atomic Mouse in Bum-bum-bum-Bomb,” and featured not only a Times Square-based Charlton headquarters (“This was the building that housed the Al Fago Studios, the famous publication house that produced Atomic Mouse Comic Books and others”), but also included guest appearances by Al and Blanche, and also a “crew-cut, cigar-smoking, boyish-looking gentleman”—a description so beloved, it was used twice—about whom Al declared to the super-rodent, “Hey! That’s Ray Gill, one of our writers, Atomic Mouse.”27

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come writers exclusively for editor Stan Lee over at Timely. In addition to writing Westerns, occasional super-hero, and crime stories, Joe typed up required textpage fillers for their line.

During one of its periodic bouts of attrition, Timely work dried up for Joe and his pal, an arid spell prompting Spillane to write his first novel, which introduced legendary hard-nosed detective Mike Hammer, thereby launching the writer’s career as best-selling author of a wildly successful series of paperbacks.

Meanwhile, Joe found work at St. John Publishing and assignments with Funnies, Inc., where Lloyd Jacquet’s wife, Grace, was the editor. And, as it happened, she hired Joe for his first Charlton Comics work, a Western story.

This spread: Clockwise from left is Gill during his stint in the U.S. Navy, where he served as communications chief; snapshot of Gill, circa late ’50s; Steve Ditko drew this in tribute to his friend for Robin Snyder’s The Comics; and though it’s not a 100% certainty, Gill is likely referring to this page from Blue Bolt V7, #4 [Aug. 1946] as his first comic book work.

Gill told Jim Amash, “She was paying me $5 a page, which was less than DC was paying, or Timely, but as soon as I handed in a script, she gave me a check. Which was a big factor.”28 Payment upon delivery remained a “big factor” for the storyteller because, during that time, Gill was an admitted alcoholic. The writer would later say that he permanently put aside the liquor bottle beginning in 1956.

While brother Ray was drifting out of comics, as he worked as editor of Fawcett’s “How-To” line of books and joined with Stanley Morse to contribute to his publications, Joe continued working on Charlton assignments through Funnies, Inc., happily working for Grace Jacquet, whose immediate payment fueled his alcohol addiction.

Then came the opportunity to go full-time at the company. “I was hired in March, 1955, by Al Fago, who asked if I could produce 25 pages a week at $4 a page,” the writer explained to Robin Snyder. “By the second week, I was doing 50. Then the hurricane of ’55 flooded the Charlton printing plant and the owner said we could stay on only if we accepted one-half of our already incredibly low rates.”29 (It could be that brother Ray first suggested his younger

Chapter Seven: The Rising Waters of 1955

brother to the Fagos to make use of as writer.)

Faced with Santangelo’s ultimatum, “I began working for $2 per [page].

Doing 100 pages a week, then more, working under two different names so the owner wouldn’t go into shock at the amount I was making.”30 Gill actually had three nom de plumes: Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, and Jim Beam, names which offer some indication of Gill’s prior bouts of problem drinking.

Joe would come to write in every comic book genre that Charlton offered, even as he preferred Westerns and war stories over super-heroes—though he created his share, including Captain Atom and The Peacemaker (star of the recent hit HBO Max streaming series starring John Cena), to name two.

His output for Charlton was, by any measure, simply astounding and Gill is today considered a comic book writer whose voluminous output is surpassed only by two scripters as the most prolific: Paul S. Newman and Chuck Dixon. And yet, despite his enormous commitment to the Derby publisher, in the mid-’60s, he even found time to write for Dell, as part of the freelance crew gathered by Dick Giordano and Sal Trapani.

Notably, Gill scripted the “giant monster” movie adaptation titles of the early ’60s, Gorgo, Reptilicus, and Konga, gigantic creatures into which he infused an unexpected and empathetic humanity, if you will, to the gigantic creatures that readers found effective.

Later in life, he also created, with artist John Byrne, the well-regarded post-apocalyptic science fiction series, Doomsday +1. And, for a brief period in the late ’60s, new DC editor Dick Giordano tried to supply Gill with steady work (at much higher—and greatly appreciated—page rates), with assignments scripting “Jonny Double,” Hot Wheels, and Secret Six (plus, as Link Yaco recalled the writer telling him at a convention, he scripted most of Angel and the Ape #1 [Dec. ’68]),31 as well as an occasional romance story. Unfortunately, no steady assignments were offered by DC. Importantly, though as yet undocumented, Gill also edited and wrote articles extensively for Charlton’s magazine line during his 30-year stay.

Ray Gill passed away in 1984 and Joe and Mickey Spillane continued their close friendship until the celebrity novelist’s death in 2006. A year later, Joe died, on December 17, 2007.

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Chapter Eight

Strange Tales of Unusual Comics FOREVER GONE We’ll never know precisely what comic books were on the factory floor in various stages of production once the flood waters of Diane hit, but it is safe to say some titles affected were abandoned completely. For instance, Charlie Chan, the 20th Century Fox property, was star of a series for Prize and then sold to Charlton, lasting for four issues between 1955–56. The detective comic book was renamed Za Za the Mystic and, abandoning the Charlie Chan license, the remaining inventory of the Asian police detective’s stories had faces redrawn and the headliner’s name changed to “Louie Lue.” A cover proof has been found for the nonexistent third issue of the firefighter-themed series, Danny Blaze, and evidence suggests that Danger #15 is another Charlton title that went missing because of the natural disaster, as Danger switched its title to Jim Bowie, as revealed in the publisher’s statement of ownership in Jim Bowie #17 [Aug. 1956].

(No hint has been made whether any unpublished Simon and Kirby work was lost; the unused Win A Prize #3 cover remained in Simon’s files and therefore was not destroyed.)

This spread: At right is Charlton’s Rock and Roll Songs magazine and, on opposite page, covers to some of the publisher’s more enticing (and weird) offerings from the mid-1950s.

Ed Konick Means Business

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ROCK ’N’ ROLL COMES TO CHARLTON Ever in search of new music niches to exploit, Charlton jumped on the rock ’n’ roll craze sweeping the nation, debuting Rock and Roll Songs [#1, May 1956] through their Onyx Publishing imprint. Don Armstrong pointed out that Charlton continued its usual mix of song lyrics, profiles, photos, and fan features, and some items, “such as the letters-to-the-editor page, supported racial integration,” and “Photos of Black and white fans were sometimes grouped together.”2 He added: In Rock and Roll Songs, jive-laden article titles obscured the more serious content within… includ[ing] an account of how R&R was a gateway to rhythm and blues for white teens… [and] as was the case in other Charlton song-lyric magazines, many of the musician profiles provide rich biographical detail. An article might begin and end with an unashamed blurt of hype, but in between often lay a wellresearched biography including quotes.3

Portrait courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

An important addition to the Charlton Press management was Connecticut native Edward David Konick [b. 1931], who started off as a proofreader the year he graduated Yale, in 1952. Hired in part because his mother was Ed Levy’s first cousin, Ed Konick served as general manager and, after 39 years with the company, he ended up being the secondto-last person to leave Charlton Press when it closed for good in 1991. (The publisher’s secretary was last to turn out the light.)

During his remarkable nearly fourdecade span, Konick served in multiple capacities, most prominently as a writer and editor in the music magazine division, though he did edit the Famous Monsters of Filmland knock-offs of the 1960s. But mostly he was devoted to the Ed Konick music publications as song lyrics licensing director. “I was in charge of doing all the licensing and I worked with music publishers,” he told Shaun Clancy. “But, at the same time, I was in charge of Country Song Roundup.”1

1950s

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics COPYING KURTZMAN Envying Harvey Kurtzman’s success with MAD—the comic book and subsequent magazine—Charlton attempted its own satirical periodical, which tried replicating the original not only in content, but also by shifting from comic book to magazinesize—with a head-spinning number of title changes: As a comic book, Eh! lasted seven issues, ending with a cover dated Nov.–Dec. 1954; with #8 [Feb. ’55], the publication was renamed From Here to Insanity, lasting four issues as a comic book, until #11 [Aug. ’55] (which, as mentioned, included efforts by Jack Kirby), and, just after MAD went to magazine-size, so did From Here to Insanity, for one issue, #12 [Oct. ’55], before it changed its name to Crazy, Man, Crazy for two issues [Vol. 2 #1, Dec. ’55, and Vol. 2 #2, June ’56], still magazine-size. The name then reverts back to From Here to Insanity for a single ish, Vol. 3 #1 [Apr. ’57], and finished its run as This Magazine is Crazy for seven more issues, ending with Vol. 4 #8 [Mar. ’59]. (What, me confused?)

Charlton was first of the MAD magazine imitators to hit the racks, long before copycats Cracked and Sick (ultimately, the last two standing). As the imitated original was skyrocketing to a circulation peak of two million by the ’70s, over a dozen counterfeits battled for prominence on the newsstands. The first magazine-size From Here to Insanity had work by Art Gates (of Hillbilly Comics fame) and Fred Ottenheimer, brief studio mate of Harvey Kurtzman, whose work dominated Eh! (The two had crossed paths when Ottenheimer “did a children’s puzzle book called Playtime Speller for the Kunen Company, at the same time Kurtzman and visiting French artist René Goscinny did a couple of children’s story [together].”)4 Ottenheimer, by the way, was perpetrator of the notorious “brick sh*thouse” cover of Eh! #4.

Crazy, Man, Crazy featured a Jack Kirby movie spoof and three pages by Basil Wolverton, plus a Bill Draut contribution.

FHTI returned with more Art Gates and Wolverton, plus Ditko work. This Magazine is Crazy was packaged by gag cartoonist Jack O’Brien, with a spot-on MAD parody in #7 [Dec. 1956].

Post Photo-Engraving

In his frank behind-the-scenes look at comics history, The Comic Book Makers [1990], Joe Simon related that he heard about some intimidating tactics Charlton’s publisher perpetrated on vendors. Writing about the Derby company, Simon explained, “In [Charlton’s] development period, the only trade they had failed to master was the simplified color engraving technique used in comics, a highly specialized skill mastered by only a handful of companies and dominated by Post Photo-Engraving [of Clifton, New Jersey], which serviced the majority of the comic book publishers. Santangelo offered Post a deal they couldn’t refuse. He threatened to pull his sizable business out from under them or, as an alternative, they could set up a shop in his building on a partnership basis.

With trepidation, Post agreed, reasoning that half-a-loaf was better than none. Charlton’s Santangelo made sure that his men were well represented in the new engraving crew and saw to it that they learned all the skills.”5 Eventually the coup de grâce was delivered: “There came a time when Santangelo no longer needed his partner, at which time he took over the engraving business, severing the ties with Post Photo-Engraving.” ) Around this time, the in-house department called Tops Engraving was established at Charlton Press.

This page: Above right is a 1950 invoice and proof from Post Photo-Engraving, Corp., a company that serviced the comics industry and whose demise is said by Joe Simon due to Charlton’s ruse. Below are covers to Charlton’s MAD magazine knock-off, which perpetually changed titles.

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FAGO FADES OUT No specifics were shared about the reasons behind the Fagos’ break-up with Charlton, which went down in spring 1957, but it’s commonly understood to have been an acrimonious parting of the ways. Blanche, no fan (to say the least) of Santangelo or Levy, attributed the split to husband and wife learning about the criminal origins of the Charlton partners and due to some broken promises. “Because we found out about the backgrounds of the owners,” she told Jim Amash.

“And we were supposed to be building up a pension, which didn’t happen. We made some demands and they said they couldn’t meet them, so we left. But Al continued to freelance for them, because he felt he had left them in the lurch. It was like a slave market. We just couldn’t stay there.”6 And so the first noteworthy editorial regime at Charlton Comics was finished, a period marked by the eclectic—Space Western and Za Za the Mystic—and expansion of their mainstay genres—romance, Western, and war—that would prove the line’s bread-and-butter over the next 30 years.

Fago’s super-hero/funny animal mash-ups, Atomic Mouse, This page: Top right is married couple Blanche and Al Fago.

Below are covers to the short-lived Fago Publications line, launched after Al left Charlton. Note Casper knock-offs Charlton’s Timmy the Timid Ghost and Fago’s Li’l Ghost similarities.

etc., endured without his name atop their logos. (About Fago putting his name on the covers, Joe Gill said, “He thought that established his ownership. Then he and Santangelo had a grievance later, and Fago was undermined by a couple of people at Charlton, so that he became emotional, and he made it impossible for him to stay on, although they would’ve kept him, but Fago wouldn’t do it. He thought that he owned about six animated comic titles, which he intended to take with him. Levy told John Sr., ‘Go ahead and publish the titles as Charlton’s. Al will get a lawyer, but we’ll have more lawyers.’ So that’s what they did, and they just took his titles away from him.”7 Gill declined to name the scoundrels.)

CONTINUED ON PG. 88

The Al & Vince Fago Comics Group If there was any doubt that his splitting with Charlton hadn’t been hostile, Al Fago’s followup comic book endeavor dispelled all notions, as he and brother Vince teamed with minor comics publisher St. John to create their own imprint. In addition to launching Fago Publications, Al helped out St. John on their then-floundering comics line, including knocking off some Charlton books he had helmed. Li’l Rascal Twins (a teaming of Dennis the Menace-type characters Li’l Genius and Li’l Tomboy) was swiped for Double Trouble [two issues, Nov. ’57–Jan. ’58], starring Tuffy and Snuffy, a mischievous boy and girl, drawn by Frank Johnson, the Li’l Rascal Twins cover artist.

Fago also copied his own Casper counterfeit, Charlton’s Timmy, the Timid Ghost, with Li’l Ghost (featuring Fago’s script and art).

Li’l Ghost migrated over to Fago Publications for #2–3, and Fago produced two Dennis the Menace swipes, Li’l Menace and Beanie the Meanie. The Fagos also leased, borrowed, or purchased St. John’s Atom-Age Combat for a three-issue revival

of the 1952–53 title. Ken Quattro’s history of St. John touches upon the Fagos’ stint at the then-struggling outfit, which was about to give up the ghost.

“Well into its death throes,” Quattro shared, “the struggling comic book line apparently purchased the majority of its new comics material from Al Fago. Fago had broken his ties to Charlton, where he had been managing editor, and was now a comics packager. The most notable Fago connection to St. John is Do You Believe in Nightmares, a short-lived title from late 1957. The first issue is basically a one-man show for Steve Ditko, who drew the cover and all but one of the interior stories. The second issue, as well as the last story in #1, featured Dick Ayers artwork.

These comics were originally produced for Charlton, but ended up at St. John when Fago left abruptly.”8 By the time he noticed one of the Fago Publications on the magazine rack, Ayers had been struggling. He recalled to Alter Ego, “I saw one of those comics and called [Al] up.

He offered me work, so I quit the greeting card company, where I had worked for about eight or nine months. Between working for Al on Atom-Age Combat and doing Wyatt Earp for [Marvel], I had enough work to make it

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

through.”9 Fago paid Ayers $15 a page.

Do You Believe in Nightmares #2 and Atom-Age Combat #1 were published under the St. John brand, though Ayers said, “I never worked for St. John. What happened there was that Al Fago had some leftover inventory after he left Charlton and sold it to St. John. I was at the newsstand one day and saw my story in the book, which didn’t please me. I was upset that Al did that without telling me.”10 By 1959, Fago Publications was no more as St. John closed its comics line and Al Fago exited the comics industry for good.

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

Kurtzman & Company’s

To be sure, it was never an Kurtzman biographer Bill official Charlton publication.* Schelly explained, “When it It was, as the creator and became clear Kurtzman was editor put it, “[A]n artist’s looking for a printer and dismagazine: a union of tributor for a creator-owned artists to turn out their own magazine, and that he was magazine. We formed a asking Charlton to perform corporation. All of us chipped these functions on a credit in money, and we went into basis, Santangelo wasn’t the publishing business, which happy, but he agreed to give Harvey Kurtzman artists should never, never do, Kurtzman what he wanted. If for the simple reason that they lose sight the new magazine could match the sales of the practical considerations of business of MAD, Charlton stood to make a lot of survival. Art becomes everything and the money. Santangelo asked Levy to send marketplace becomes secondary. Or the Kurtzman an assignment agreement. problems of the marketplace become The costs would be secured by the assets secondary. Yeah, that was Humbug.”11 of Humbug Publishing Co., Inc., a not unusual arrangement. In the better days In his comment, Harvey Kurtzof the industry, any number of new, man neglected to mention under-capitalized comic book publishers Humbug was also a followstarted that way.”13 up to his greatest achievement, MAD—the satirInstead of going the same route ical comic book then as the dozen-plus MAD imitators by magazine—and to his formatting Humbug as magazine-size, short-lived Trump, the Kurtzman determined that the new mag lavish, slick humor mag would be slightly smaller than the comic published by Playboy’s book format (though retain full-color Hugh Hefner. cover and newsprint guts), measuring The Humbug confed6½" x 9½", with a black-&-white eration included Kurtzman interior complemented with a single, Al Jaffee and frequent collaborators lightly tinted color, either yellow or Will Elder, Jack Davis, Arnold Roth, blue. The format decision proved unwise. production whiz Harry Chester, and Al In conversation with Chester about Jaffee, whose friendship with Kurtzman Humbug’s end days, Kurtzman asked, stretched back to high school.

“Remember those trips up to ConnectiJaffee discussed Humbug’s deal with cut? We used to print Humbug at CharlCharlton with Christopher Irving. “Harton. And I’ll never forget, we went up, vey Kurtman was our fearless leader and me, Al Jaffee, Harry, Will Elder, to have a essentially Harvey operated on his own. business conference with [Santangelo].

Even though we were all investors in our And we’re sitting there, and he says, magazine, Harvey operated pretty much ‘You gotta have $6,000. You can’t do independently. He… found Charlton this thing unless you get $6,000.’ And and got them to print and distribute and I said, ‘Can’t your company advance finance our operation because, even with $6,000?’ He says, ‘Where am I going to our own investment, it was not enough get it?’ And he meant it. Because all of to cover all the expenses involved in his money was spoken for.”14 producing a magazine. So, Charlton took Jaffee recalled that meeting. “The a chance on us and they did that. Harvey only time I had any direct connection with Charlton was when we were going is the one who dealt with them and my up there before Christmas to try to get knowledge of what was going on, and them to continue the arrangement we the details of what kind of business deal had with them, where they printed the he was making with them—I have no magazine and distributed it and took knowledge of that part.”12 a percentage out of it to cover their *Though, for better or worse, Charlton did investment. Ostensibly, the trip to Derby, print (and distribute) the furshlugginer mag!

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Connecticut, was to get them to continue doing what we had been doing for the first 11 issues or so.”

Jaffee continued, “We were all at this little Christmas party in the company, which, at this time, was a huge publishing business. [The city of] Derby was almost entirely Santangelo’s. They wined us and dined us at lunch.”15 The writer/artist then shared an aside: “The trip up there, by the way, was a nightmare because it was [during] one of the worst snowstorms in the Northeast. Jack Davis had offered his station wagon, which, fortunately, was a very heavy car. With all of us, the entire staff, piled into it, we added additional weight. I believe from New York City to Derby, we were the only moving car.

Everything else was either stalled or up on the side of the road; we kept moving past one car or another that wasn’t moving, and another car here or there was

This page: Clockwise from top left is Harvey Kurtzman in the early 1950s; the paperback book collection, The Humbug Digest [1957], published by Ballantine Books (which was negotiating its own deal with Charlton at the time); and Al Jaffee in 1958, just after the Humbug affair, when he was promoting his Tall Tales daily strip.

struggling along. We were apprehensive during this luncheon anyway, because we didn’t know what we were facing on the way home. They did wine and dine us, and then Harvey, in his typically stilted speech pattern—Harvey, just a lovely guy, would show his nervousness by becoming very stilted in his speech. He made his pitch to Santangelo and Levy to have them continue with us until we caught on and started to make decent money, at which point we would not only return the money they had been advancing, but would show profit for them, as well as us.

“I’ll never forget Santangelo saying ‘All right, boys, I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m going to take over your magazine.’ That’s exactly what he said: ‘I’m gonna take over your magazine and pay each one of you a salary and you don’t have anything more to worry about. We’ll take care of everything else.’

“At which point, Harvey Kurtzman turned 15 colors of red, green, and yellow, and stood up and stiffened up and said, ‘Mr. Santangelo, we have’—I believe this was the 11th issue we had already to put out—‘we have worked 11 issues of this magazine with no one getting a penny of income.’ Incidentally, I must say that the investment Charlton was making was printing and distribution, and they weren’t paying a red cent to any of us. We all borrowed on insurance, relatives, and friends. I lived for 11 months in suburbia with a mortgage, two children (and the whole catastrophe), without a red cent coming in. I couldn’t find any other work, either, because producing Humbug took up a lot of time. In any case, even when I had free time, I didn’t have any customers.

“So Harvey got up and made this speech about how the only reason why we worked for 11 months producing the magazine, making no money, and living on nothing, was to own the magazine, and finally the creators, writers, and artists of a magazine have an ownership stake rather than just being salaried jerks watching the profit go to the publisher.

‘We won’t do that.’ He didn’t even consult us. That’s the way Harvey was.

“Later on, after Humbug had folded, Bill Gaines of MAD magazine went to Harvey and offered to take over as a financier of his magazine and make it a sister of MAD, and Harvey turned him down flat. To this day, I have no idea

what Gaines was willing to offer. Maybe he would’ve given us a percentage, because we all owned the magazine. In any case, what happened was Harvey was the head and we were all the rest of the body. He simply turned it down flat and said, ‘If we don’t own the magazine, we don’t do the magazine.’ It all ended there, and we all parted, and had an interesting journey back.”15 Humbug co-owner Arnold Roth shared his memory of the meeting with Santangelo: “At our last meeting with our distributor, he was trying to coerce us into doing what he wanted. This is a gentleman of Sicilian origins and he had hands like hams and fingers like salamis.

On each finger he had a ring. He held up his hands and said, ‘You listen to me, you get a ring on every finger. You don’t listen to me…,’ and he made a huge fist.

Harvey said [squeaks in a high voice] ‘Well, gee. We’ll talk it over.’”16 In a subsequent conversation, Jaffee told Irving, “On the way back, we all had mixed feelings; the mixed feelings were ‘Well, we gave it a good try, we worked very hard, we never made a penny, and we produced a terrific product. Now it’s over and we’ll have to go to work for somebody and start making a living.’ We hadn’t been making a living all this while; we did pick up a few freelance jobs along the way, otherwise we couldn’t have lasted for 12 months…

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

“We did not, as I recall, dwell on the collapse of our magazine and having to face life and the harsh world again…

A dream was shattered, but life goes on.

That’s the mood, I think, we were in.

Since we were all fairly confident about our professionalism, especially after producing a quality magazine like Humbug, we felt that somewhere doors would open. The mood wasn’t entirely down, but both down and up.”17 Indeed, in its short life, Humbug did last 11 glorious issues, with the final two printed magazine-size. While finally shedding its problematic shorter-thancomic-book format (which had confused newsdealers as to where to display its oddball size, whether along with the other satire mags or among the comics, where regardless, Humbug risked not being seen by potential readers), the end still had come.

This page: Above is Jack Davis’s cover art for Humbug #6 [Jan. ’58].

At left is Humbug’s rather audacious —and utterly hilarious—parody of Charlton’s Best Songs lyric magazine (authentic issue from 1956 seen below), a feature which appeared in Humbug #5 [Dec. 1957].

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics CONTINUED FROM PG. 85

ENTER PAT MASULLI Disappointed with the St. John experiment, the Fago husbandand-wife team quit comics to build a home-based business.

“Unfortunately, he lost money [at St. John],” Giordano told Michael Eury, “then he opened a small typesetting and [photostat] business that he ran until [the] time of his death.”18 Al died in 1975, at the age of 70, with Blanche (who since remarried) passing away in 2013, at the age of 103.

Waiting in the wings at Charlton was Al Fago’s assistant editor, colorist/cartoonist (and occasional writer) Patrick Joseph Masulli. Born in the Bronx on July 31, 1930, Pat Masulli had attended the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and New York City’s Phoenix School of Art, and his earliest credits in comics include work with publishers Fawcett, St. John, Star, Trojan, Youthful, and Ziff-Davis. With the latter three, he gained experience as packager, which may have enticed Fago to take him on as a full-time assistant.

The new managing editor looked in-house for help, as Eury related: “Recognizing Giordano’s artistic and production capacity, Masulli hired Dick as his assistant and put him on salary, eliminating his need to churn out pages for pay. Dick jokes that he got this promotion ‘partially because Pat was interested in my welfare, and partially because he thought, “This guy’s dangerous because he knows as much as I do and could take over the job.”’”19 Masulli’s leadership in the department would last some nine years or so, a somewhat undistinguished period for the comic book division, when the focus was on maintaining its core line of humdrum war, romance, and Western titles. Though, in truth, it was a stretch not without interesting developments, including experimentation with page-counts and bindings, an (albeit brief) attempt at a super-hero feature, and the hiring of an important young talent who would prove a vital presence at Charlton Comics.

This page: Top is Pat Masulli’s cover art for Atomic Mouse #27 [Sept. 1958]; above, War at Sea #22 [Nov. ’57] cover by Sal Gentile (pencils) and Masulli (inks); and, at right, Sam Glanzman, ’50s.

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S.J.G. That new hire was none other than Sam Glanzman, the masterful storyteller who joined Charlton in late 1957. Born at home, on Dec. 5, 1924, in Baltimore, Maryland, Samuel Joseph Glanzman was middle of the three Glanzman sons, all of whom would find work in the comic book industry at some point in their lives. The Jewish family moved to Long Island during Sam’s teen years and, in 1939, older brother Louis Samuel found work in comics, making $7.50 a page for Centaur Publications. Soon, Lew brought in 16-year-old Sam, who ghosted his brother’s assignments and produced “The Fly Man,” a super-hero strip and Sam’s first feature. World War II interrupted the brothers’ comics careers, with Sam joining the U.S. Navy where experience as a seaman on a U.S. destroyer provided fodder for his future magnum opus, A Sailor’s Story, Sam’s 1987 graphic novel.

In 1950, Sam started a family with Barbara, and he bypassed poorly-paying comic book gigs to support his growing family by working in a lumber mill, cabinet shop, boatyard, and an aircraft factory, where he drew cartoons for the company newsletter. By 1957, the couple had two kids and it was at that time when Barbara saw an ad placed by Charlton seeking artists in a New York newspaper.

“So I scooted into New York with a portfolio,” Sam (who passed away in 2017) recalled, referencing Charlton’s Manhattan office, where he met with Masulli. “There were a bunch of guys outside with portfolios, and they’d go in and come out with sad looks on their faces, something like that, I couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, I went in, I found out it was because they were paying very low, but I said, ‘I don’t care, as long as you give me a lot of work.’ I figured I’d learn Sam Glanzman comics. I didn’t know comics then; still don’t.

So Pat gave me a lot of work, and that was that.”20 During the late ’50s and into the ’60s, Glanzman, whose initials “S.J.G.” were ubiquitous in Charlton’s war books—as well inside Dell’s comics of the early ’60s—also contributed to their Westerns, hot rod titles, and back-up stories in Robin Hood and His Merry Men during these early days at the publisher. (Brother Lew would claim fame as a noted book illustrator and, for a time, as we will learn, younger brother David Charles toiled in the editorial office of Charlton Publications.)

Playing the Numbers Probably the wackiest numbering scheme in the Charlton line started with Prize Comics acquisition Charlie Chan, and ending with the science fiction series, Outer Space (which, just to confuse things further, had no sequential relationship related to Outer Space #1, a one-shot published in 1968).

Charlie Chan #1–5 published by Prize.

Charlie Chan #6 [June ’55]–#9 [Mar. ’56].

Switches to Za Za the Mystic with #10 [Apr. ’56].

Za Za the Mystic ends with #11 [Sept. ’56].

Switches to This Magazine is Haunted with #12 [July ’57].

This Magazine is Haunted ends with #16 [May ’58]. Switches to Outer Space with #17 [May ’58].

THE NUMBERS GAME In an article about the weird title numbering of certain comic book publishers—such as EC Comics—Comic Buyer’s Guide columnist Mark Evanier declared, “But the absolute worst was Charlton, which seems to have just assumed that no one would ever attempt to buy every issue of any of their books, so why bother making the numbering understandable?”21 And, boy, Evanier wasn’t kidding! Comics historians, magazine sleuths, and completists have been trying to figure out the proper lineage of particular Charlton titles for many years now, with some mysteries probably never to be solved and the fact that numerous books had numbering carried over from previous publishers only adds to the confusion.

As Evanier pointed out, likely the most extraordinary numbering scheme started with Lawbreakers #1 [Mar. ’51] which lasted until #9 [Oct. ’52], then expanded its name to Lawbreakers Suspense Stories with #10 [Jan. ’53] (which effectively transformed it from the crime genre to horror), running until #15 [Nov. ’53]. Then it was modified to Strange Suspense Stories with #16, which remained the name until after #22 [Nov. ’54], when it became This Is Suspense from #23–#26 [Feb.–Aug. ’55], then the title reverted back to Strange Suspense Stories from #27–#77 [Oct. ’55–Oct. ’65].

Finally, the comic book was renamed Captain Atom from #78–89 [Dec. ’65–Dec. ’67]. But something truly strange happened years earlier, as This is Suspense simultaneously transformed into Terry and the Pirates, though with a repeated #26 [June ’55], lasting until #28 [Oct. ’55], which then became Long John Silver and the Pirates (but with no hint of a #29!), from #30––#32 [Aug. ’56–Mar. ’57]. Weird stuff!

The winner for making the greatest genre leaps was Charlie Chan, (a title purchased from Prize, which published #1–5), as diagrammed at left. Charlton started with #6 [June ’55], then switched to Za Za the Mystic with #10 [May ’56], then This Magazine is Haunted with #12 [July ’57], and ended with Outer Space with #17 [May ’58].

“You know,” Evanier quipped, “if Charlton’s stories had been half as creative as their numbering, they’d still be around.”22 Whatever the case, the Derby publisher was certainly enthusiastic about title changes. By one count, Charlton changed titles at 64 separate intervals during the 1950s!

Valley of the Mall Outer Space ends with #25 [Dec. ’59].

No numbering connection to Outer Space #1 [Nov. ’68].

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

Quite early in their partnership, John Santangelo and Ed Levy pursued opportunities together in the real estate sector, as the pair incorporated Charlton Properties, Charlton Realties, and Valley Properties in the 1940s. In 1955, they petitioned the City of Derby to build the Valley Shopping Center, a stone’s throw from the Charlton Press Building, where anchor stores eventually included a Stop & Shop supermarket, which remains at that same location today, as well as a Bradlees department store. In 1960, ground was broken for a $600,000, 40-lane, tenpin bowling alley behind Charlton Press. Valley Bowl would close in 2010, as the Valley Independent Sentinel reported: “Hit by the recession, rising costs, and changes in the habits of bowlers, the Valley institution shut its doors…”23

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics THE ATLAS CASTAWAYS In the later ’50s, an amazing array of top-flight talent suddenly became available to Charlton because of the near-collapse of a competitor which had also weathered the war Wertham and Kefauver waged against comics. In late 1956, publisher Martin Goodman closed up his Atlas distributing arm and went all in with American News Company, which promptly shuttered its distribution division. The effect was catastrophic, with Atlas editor Stan Lee forced to fire the entire bullpen and, between January 1957 and January 1958, the line’s output dropped from 35 titles a month to eight.

At the time, Dick Giordano was editor Masulli’s assistant and he later told Dwight John Zimmerman, “I was handling most of the outside contracts then. Atlas ran into distribution problems and, for the most part, people there were out of work. Coincidentally, at Charlton Comics, we were advertising for artists and writers. We had come up with a plan for producing 40-page comics and Sol [Brodsky] came in to talk to me about that. We had a New York City office, even though Charlton was located in Connecticut. He was representing a good many of the Atlas artists. Joe Maneely, Gene Colan, and quite a few other good artists were in that group.

Acting as their agent, Sol worked out a deal where Charlton would buy a number of pages from the group. It was really an advantage for us because Sol was very easy to work with, very professional. He took care of all the payments. Instead of paying each artist and inker separately, we made one payment to Sol and he disbursed the money to the appropriate parties. He would decide who the work should go to for which strip. Our rates were terrible, but we felt we were very lucky to get people of that caliber for the money we were paying. Although I don’t think we were making the artists and writers rich, at least we were keeping them in grocery money for the few months we worked together. Though Sol never said this, it was my impression that he acted as their agent without charging any commission.”24 One particularly excellent artist, Al Williamson, turned out “workmanlike art” for “Charlton’s more uninteresting Western titles during 1958,” related Robert Strauss, who added, “While not unworthy, Al’s Charlton art, although more action-oriented than the Atlas oaters, rarely exceeds the mere competence that is all the material called for.”25 Mentioned by Giordano, Gene Colan was another artist late of Atlas who also found safe (albeit temporary) harbor at Charlton, where he drew in a variety of genres for a couple of months in 1955, and then, in 1958, on a handful of stories.

“BEGGARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS” The great John Severin must have been one late-of-Atlas artist to work directly with Charlton, as he said to Gary Groth: “We would meet in an office building, a little bitty old office.

It was mostly a waiting room and somebody behind a booth with a telephone. They’d give out scripts to the guys that were there, and you’d go home and come up and bring them in. Same thing; you’d get another script and go home. You never saw anybody who didn’t know the workings of the place. You knew darn well that they were hijacking paper from Canada. Obviously, it was a Mafia operation.”26 This page: Joe Sinnott kept meticulous records for his freelance comic book work, with this sheet detailing jobs he completed between April–July 1959 for Vinnie Colletta. (Note V.C. address.)

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Severin continued, ”And you were working for insane prices. I don’t remember the period exactly. All I can say is nobody had any work, hardly, so you grabbed any damn thing that was coming along. When you worked at Charlton, you did it as fast as you could. That meant that your work wasn’t coming out as well as it should, but this was what they expected. And this is what they got! They seemed to be reasonably happy with everything, so what the heck… They were terrible rates—atrocious. But beggars can’t be choosers.

Either that or… be a plumber.”

In looking through his Charlton work, however, one steps away with a different assessment of the artist’s effort.

By all appearances, John Severin was compelled to do nothing less than his usual best even for the publisher’s paltry rate.

“So Severin’s 1959–60 stints on Billy the Kid and Cheyenne Kid are a revelation,” John Garcia offered. “It’s not just Severin art, but good Severin, the work of a self-proclaimed hardened pro who found it almost impossible to hack it out, even when being paid the worst rates of his career. And Severin’s gritty rendering and hard-won authenticity actually made a good fit with Joe Gill’s scripts.” Regarding Severin’s period at Charlton, Garcia declared in summation, “In other words, working for the lousiest publisher, with one of the most slapdash writers, and the worst colorists and the lowest rates in the industry, Severin still managed to shine!”27 Surprisingly, Severin also contributed a few art jobs for Charlton’s romance titles where the results were equally excellent, despite the artist being of the opinion that he was ill-suited for the genre. Also little known is the fact that Joe Sinnott, renowned Marvel inker, produced pencils for over 600 Charlton romance stories during this period, freelancing for romance comics packager Vinnie Colletta. “It’s hard to believe that [number], really,” Sinnott said. Referring to his youngest son, he added, “Mark counted one day and he came up with over 2,700 pages of ‘kissin’ and cuddlin’.’ It really was a tough art form [the romance genre], but having said that, the variety was good and I emerged a better artist.”28

Baker, Colletta photos courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

INKING, INCORPORATED Vincenzo J. Colletta [1923–91] was always a hustler, able to make a quick buck and often multiply that dollar ten-fold through industry, talent, and sheer grit.

Upon being recognized for his romance work at a multitude of outfits, Vinnie Colletta established a studio in Jersey City, where he dispensed assignments to his penciling team, which included Sinnott, Hy Eisman, Dick Giordano, Matt Baker, and others. Among Colletta’s biggest clients by the late ’50s was Charlton Comics, a gig that lasted over a decade as it purchased the crew’s romance stories by the bushel, with Colletta virtually obliterating Matt Baker any discernible penciling style on every page he inked.

Eisman, as “one of Vinnie’s very many anonymous pencilers,”29 estimated that he and Colletta produced 1,500 pages of romance work for Charlton. “Handy with a camera, Colletta would also shoot photos for Charlton [detective and Baker friend and frequent inker as part of the “Bakerino” confession] mags, Eisman said. One photo spread called for team, Ray Osrin, didn’t mince words regarding his disdain Colletta to depict a crime scene—a man’s body spilling out of for Santangelo’s operation, which Osrin cited as one reason a car, with a woman standing over him, pistol in hand. Eisman he left comics. “Charlton was a disgrace to the business,” he said he played ‘the body’ in that scene,”30 wrote R.L. Byant. told Dan O’Brien. “I was invited by them to go up to Derby, Fan-favorite artist Matt Baker came into Colletta’s orbit Connecticut… The deal was that they would pay me $75 a in the later 1950s, when the African American artist’s health week and I would work five days a week in the studio for was on the decline. So, too, was Baker’s usually rich and them, grinding out pages. It was just like the old company lavish work, as his technique vanished under Colletta’s inks. store with the coal mines. If I wanted to buy a house, they “The result, it must be said, was, in most cases, a far cry from would help me get the mortgage, but I would work it off.

Baker’s one-time masterpieces,” wrote Jim Amash and Eric Anything you wanted like that, they would do, but they Nolen-Weathington, “Again, Colletta may have been largely owned you. So, I said no, and I decided to quit the business.”32 responsible for butchering Baker’s pencils, yet it seems that, at this point, Baker was only doing a routine job, without much This page: Matt Baker portrait; Vince Colletta at his drawing board, 1954; Bill Molno landscape watercolor; 1942 School of attention to detail, possibly on account of his ill health, as Industrial Arts senior portrait of Molno; and Robin Hood and His well as of the meager wages that Colletta was paying him.”31 Merry Men #35 [Jan. 1958] cover by Molno.

Baker passed away from heart disease in 1959, at age 37.

Few artists in the field dedicated himself to one company as did Bill Molno Bill Molno [1923–1998] with Charlton, for whom he labored almost exclusively over the course of two decades. William

Ewald Molno studied at the Art Students League and School of Visual Arts, where he received instruction from renowned landscape watercolorist Edgar Whitney.

For Charlton, where he started in the mid-’50s, Molno contributed pencils in a number of genres: crime, romance, hot rods, jungle heroes… but the artist was best known for his war comics.

Writer Joe Gill remembered Molno.

“He was a real character, and he was a very skilled, a very talented watercolorist, but he was only in the comics for the money. In showing an army going on foot into tall grass, all we see is bayonets above the grass, the soldiers are out of sight. And in another story, there was a destroyer, and a tagalong, and I think an LST, and they all looked the same! But he was giving Charlton what he was paid for, and he made more money than any of the other staff did, because he turned the crap out like it was crap!… I heard that Molno went to a fairly pretentious den or party in New York, I don’t know

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Bill Molno

where. There was a swimming pool there, and he jumped in the pool with his clothes on… Molno was a great guy, he had a wild sense of humor.”33 In his latter, more troubled years, Molno was called a “true ‘starving artist,’” who “sold original paintings for as little as $10 [each] to buy food for himself and his daughter.”34

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics IMMIGRATION MAN The American Committee on Italian Immigration (ACIM) was formed in 1952 at the request of the National Catholic Resettlement Council, and its initial objective was to increase the annual quota of Italians permitted to immigrate into the U.S. The organization’s efforts helped to implement the Refugee Relief Act (RRA) of 1953, legislation which eased restrictions considerably, allowing upwards of 60,000 refugees from Italy to find new homes in America. The relaxation also gave John Santangelo, a capitalist facing labor foment at his plant, a source for large numbers of unschooled, non-English speaking, non-unionized workers over whom he could command.

One such large­scale program that was initiated for the express purpose of helping Italian refugees provided immigrants with jobs at an Italian American-owned printing press in Connecticut. From 1953 to 1955, Charlton Press owner John Santangelo worked with ACIM to sponsor 209 cases (nearly one thousand people in total) under the RRA… Because Santangelo accepted immigrants without significant skill sets or a command of English, often with large families, and those without any resources to their name, ACIM used Santangelo’s sponsorship to place its most difficult refugee cases. Santangelo’s level of charity was unmatched by any other Italian American employer who provided job assurances to refugees in ACIM’s records. Most simply did not have the means to employ hundreds or even tens of new employees.35 Among Catholic institutions, Santangelo was renowned for his philanthropy, donating heavily to ACIM and, in 1957, “he followed up with a $10,000 donation to benefit various Italian institutions, including churches, parochial schools, religious orders, and civic organizations in his hometown and in other Italian cities.”36 This bout of largesse may have been a response to a crisis that erupted only the year before.

Severin’s Kid

Featuring a Western character born of whites and raised by Native Americans, Cheyenne Kid was a better than average Charlton title that sported great work by John Severin, as well as Al Williamson and Anglo Torres.

Issue #25, featuring “Arapahoe Wedding,” presumably written

by Joe Gill and drawn by Severin, was described by John Garcia as being a showcase for “Severin’s feel for John Ford-style comedy, [and] is like nothing else in ’50s B-Western comics.”37 The series debuted in Apr. 1957 and lasted for 17 years with 92 issues.

THE PADRONE OF DERBY The May 5, 1956, edition of leftist Rome newspaper Paese Sera printed an exposé, which began with these rhetorical questions: “Why is it impossible for [Santangelo] to find in America the workers he needs? Why are the workers in his establishments tied to long-term contracts and placed in bondage for long periods of time?”38 The article included a scathing account of reporter Corrado Ungari’s visit to the Derby plant, accusing the owner of ruling with an iron fist:

The response from the Church was swift and most concerned with Ungari’s descriptions of the titillating publications he saw being printed by Charlton, and Santangelo was called onto the carpet at the Catholic Relief Services office, in New York. An investigation was “quietly and prudently” instigated and Father Quinn, pastor of Derby’s St. Mary’s Church, was questioned about the morals of the magazine mogul.

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Article courtesy of the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

It is important that Mr. Santangelo’s plant is not unionized and working conditions, salaries, etc., are under his personal discretion. He settles all labor and wage disputes and his wage scale is below the standard set forth by [the] union of printers. The usual salary is $.50 per hour, although there are several instances of $1.00 per hour. None of the benefits as set forth by the American Printers Union are included.

Any protest of this method or request for union coverage was met by threatened dismissal and other dire consequences.

This is the reason why all the workers are Italian immigrants. American printers would not work under these conditions.

It is easy to see that Mr. Santangelo knew that these Italian immigrants, who were mostly farmers, were ignorant of union standards and working conditions prevailing in printing establishments. The small wage scale was satisfactory to them because they earned far less in Italy and, in spite of this abuse, preferred to slave on in order to stay in America.

When the immigrants realized the advantage that was being taken of them, they found it impossible to leave Mr. Santangelo’s employ because they were tied to him by loans, monthly installments on furniture, etc., credit gladly supplied by Mr. Santangelo.39

Articles courtesy of the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

Father Quinn described Mr. Santangelo as one of those typical paradoxical persons who can be so wrong and do so many wrong things and yet have a generous side to their nature. He has made many generous contributions to the Church and to other charitable organizations… It seems the man has a genius for making five cents into a lot of money, but that, we agreed, is easy to do when one purveys the type of product produced by Mr. Santangelo…

Strange to say, Father Quinn was concerned not so much with the people coming to work in this printing plant, but rather with the danger they face of losing the faith due to the peculiar influences surrounding the Santangelo plant and the fact that this type of person employed is generally proven to be a poor Catholic.40 For his part, Santangelo rebutted the article’s charges “made in what is publicly acknowledged to be a Communist inspired and dominated newspaper.”41 He countered that the accusations were “based upon the statement of a disgruntled former employee of mine who was obligated to return to Italy because I was constrained as an American citizen to make known his intention to flout the intent of the law under which he was permitted to entering this country.” Protesting the charge that he was a pornographer, Santangelo also denied paying workers 50¢ an hour, “herding 15 or 20 into a common dwelling,” or keeping them “in approximately a state of peonage.” (At the time, Charlton was reported to pay workers $1.50 an hour for a 40-hour work week.)

Concerned agencies worried that “adverse publicity” would arise from the newspaper article if the story were picked up by U.S. press outlets and the Catholic authorities would face accusations of “being party to the fact of supplying Mr. Santangelo with slave labor and cooperating in the production of sinful literature.”42 But, by late June, no controversy had erupted stateside and, sponsored by John Santangelo, Italian families arrived in Derby to be set up in Santangelo-built homes, financed by Santangelo-supplied mortgages, and furnished with Santangelo-leased furniture.

Blanche Fago, a caustic judge of the publisher, recalled, “When we came up to look for a place to live, we were going to build a house to live in. Santangelo said, ‘I’ll take you to a beautiful place and you can move right in.’ He took me to some places like you’d never seen in your life. In New Haven, Connecticut. He took me to some cold water flats; they had no heat, no hot water, no bathrooms, no nothing. The gas heater was in the kitchen. He wanted us to move into a flat like that, so I said, ‘Goodbye.’ But that was the kind of man he was. He had no couth. He was just a peasant who had reached a position where he had a lot of money.”43

Though rumors crept out of the executive offices, Santangelo left employees in the dark about getting any insurance money. Remember that Charlton had implemented severe pay cuts during that time. Speaking of his own domestic situation, newlywed Dick Giordano said, “Our finances were very tight. At this time, we didn’t know that John had full flood insurance—and had collected on it.”46 This spread: Articles about John Santangelo from American Committee on Italian Immigration newsletters; Cheyenne Kid #10 [Dec. 1957] cover proof with art by Steve Ditko; and yellowing clipping from left-wing Italian newspaper Paese Sera.

UMBRELLA INSURANCE Blanche Fago then sniped about her former employer and the deluge of 1955, “When we had that flood that I told you about, Santangelo had so much money in flood insurance for things that were never in that building.”44 And though the publisher would boast that his company absorbed the cost of flood damages, Charlton Press was busy suing the insurance industry to make them “liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of damages they have claimed were not covered by hurricane policies.”45 The outcome of the court proceedings are unknown, but it’s reasonable to surmise that an out-of-court settlement was made.

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics a Ferrari or a hot rod, I wanted it to look like them! To achieve this, I was a devoted racing buff.

I watched every racing event on TV, read many books and magazines, and became an expert model-builder and diecast car collector.

I judged several model-building car contests. I still collect model cars, 1/43rd scale and 1/18th. I just love cars.”

From a very young age, Keller also loved cartooning and was determined—even before comic books were invented!

—to become an artist in the field, and he had an affection for the work of Milt Caniff, Alex Raymond, and Hal Foster.

As a high school student, he produced a 12-page story— wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered—featuring his creation, a mysterious spy named The Whistler. Dell Comics purchased the spec work, which they published in War Stories #5 [Apr. 1942], and Keller was soon lured from the Keystone State to New York City, where he worked as background artist on The Spirit for legendary artist Lou Fine. Yearning to have his own car, Keller returned to Pennsylvania, set up his drawing table at home, and freelanced for numerous comics publishers until committing to Atlas and then going exclusive with Charlton.

For the Derby publisher, Keller worked on war and Western comics, as well as Hot Rod, during which time he became best friends with Masulli assistant editor Dick Giordano. Taking the two-hour drive up from Reading, Keller and his wife would meet Giordano and his wife at the Charlton Manhattan office, and they’d all go out to a restaurant together.

“The one thing I added in comic books that I don’t think any other artist was doing at the time, when I started drawing Hot Rods and Racing Cars, doing a lot of cars, my cars were good, but the hand-drawn wheels didn’t just quite suit me, so I noticed that in all these technical drawings, they were perfect, so I found out they were using templates. I invested a couple of hundred bucks in templates, and all of a sudden, my wheels became perfect! It really added to the drawings a lot, it really pleased me, I was very glad I did it, because it made them real simple to draw, then, too! All I had to do was take a ballpoint pen, and whip them around at all these different angles, and you had perfect wheels! That was probably the hardest thing to draw on a car, was to make good wheels!” He added, “To make the cars authentic, I used a lot of reference from magazines, too—Motor Trend, etc.… to get the motors and such… as close to realistic as I could.”48 CONTINUED ON PG. 97 This page: Clockwise from top left is Jack Keller in a 1964 portrait; photo of Gerald Simon and Jack Keller in Keller’s home in 1972; Hot Rods and Racing Cars #40 [May 1959] cover by Keller; and Keller at the drawing board with infant son, 1950s.

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Above photo courtesy of John A. Mozzer.

KELLER ON WHEELS Another Atlas stalwart to find refuge at Charlton was longtime car buff Jack Keller [1922–2003], then known best as artist on the Atlas/Marvel Western series, Kid Colt, Outlaw, a title he ultimately worked on for 14 years. In 1958, with few jobs coming from Stan Lee, the Reading, Pennsylvania-bred artist recalled, “I looked in the comic books and I saw these racing stories in Hot Rods and Racing Cars, and I thought, ‘You know, I think I can contribute a lot to that.’ Because, except for the work done by Dick Giordano, most of the rest of it, the artists merely drew the cars from imagination and they weren’t really correct in a lot of ways. And I felt I had something to add Jack Keller to that, so I went to Derby and I had some Kid Colt originals with me and I drew up two pages of just pencils of racing cars, in what I thought I would like to add to them.”47 Keller continued, “So, they liked my work, and they gave me some scripts right away. One of them was a racing strip about the Mexican road race, and they liked it. I was also getting Sheriff of Tombstone, Cheyenne Kid, and I did a little Billy the Kid. I did work in Fightin’ Marines, Fightin’ Army, and Fightin’ Air Force. After a little time, when Dick Giordano took over, he liked my work so much, and at that time I hadn’t been writing. I think the scripts were probably written

by Joe Gill… he was the number one writer there. I thought that I wanted to see different stories, because I was researching all these things. The scripts that had been submitted to me earlier were a bit limited in subject variation, and many of the shots I had to draw didn’t offer me the situations I wanted to draw. I wanted to make them more dramatic.

Too many shots had spectators in the foreground, and I wanted action on the cars and, unlike most of the other artists in the field that drew from memory or imagination, I researched my cars, rules, and race courses. If I drew

Siegel Heroes & Shuster Ghosts

Blanche Fago was foggy on the could take a few bucks a page and details about when the creators the artists were still happy.”50 of Superman came around Bill Monlo was the penlooking for a job, mistakenly ciler for the good number (if remembering that Jerome not all) of the stories signed Siegel [1914–1996] and

by Shuster—crime, science Joseph Shuster [1914– fiction, horror, and even hot 1992] still worked as a team rod tales—with inks usually when the once successful

by Ray Osrin. Shuster’s credpair freelanced for the Fagos ited work at Charlton didn’t in the mid-’50s. outlast the year.

“They were just the As for Jerry Siegel, his biogJoe Shuster rapher Brad Ricca writes: usual kind of ‘schmoes,” Blanche recalled to Jim Amash. “They weren’t Several subway stops away, Jerry outstanding in any way that I ever shuffled his feet in desperation. Denoticed, and I don’t think their work was termined to stay in comics, he had that outstanding. They were just trying been doing more outside work as to stay in the comic book business. And well, this time for the publishing comno one was really interested in buying pany Charlton. In 1956, he did two istheir work after Superman… It was just sues of Mr. Muscles, a comic about run-of-the-mill stuff. Whatever we had a wrestler named Brett Carson to get done was what they did. Their who gets super-strength and stuff wasn’t very good. We quit using League of Regrettable fights crime. He had a costhem after the second time they came Superheroes [2015] book. tume of red and black with in. I know they were really suffering.

During those years, a garish “M” on it. Jerry They were very mild people. It was too Shuster was reduced to also did Nature Boy, about a bad because they were not business drawing sadomasochistic guy in shorts who is grantpeople.”49 cartoons, some of which ed the powers of the four Though her impression of Siegel purportedly inspired the elements.51 and Shuster speaks to their tribulations “Brooklyn Thrill Killers,” Siegel, whose stay at of the era, Blanche was wrong about doubtless prompting the artist to Charlton was as brief as his Jerry Siegel the legendary creative team arriving retreat into despondent reclusion. former partner’s, also created a together. Shuster was first to go Hat in hand, a humiliated Siegel series at the behest of company coto the Fagos, in 1954, and, went to DC, where he wrote Superowner Ed Levy, who was enthralled with perhaps unbeknown to the man stories for tyrannical editor Mort a fortuneteller he had met. Za Za the couple, who had given him Weisinger. In the mid-’60s, using a Stan Mystic survived only two issues, as a number of assignments, Lee-inspired persona of “Jay Ess,” he did Mr. Muscles, and there were the artist’s eyesight was in would script even sillier super-heroes three for Nature Boy. Today all rapid decline and he was for the Archie Comics sub-imprint, the are ridiculed as silly, with actually incapable of “Mighty Comics Group.” the latter pair finishing penciling jobs shamed in the on his own.

Coming to his aid were a bunch of artists This page: Clockwise who worked out a deal. from left is the title charMark Evanier shared, acter from Nature Boy #3 “Dick Giordano explained [Mar. ’56], art by John this to me once: Shuster Buscema; Joe Shuster, 1947; splash page, Mr. couldn’t draw anymore, so Muscles #22 [Mar. ’56], he’d get work and then art by Bill Fraccio; Jerry have it 100% ghosted. BeSiegel, 1947; and splash cause of his fame, he got a panel, Space Adventures slightly higher rate than the #11 [May, 1954], art by artists would have gotten Bill Molno and a young on their own, so Shuster Dick Giordano.

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

Page four of the Nov. 1957 issue of Newsdealer magazine contained a breathless account of Charlton’s bold power play to upend a more than 20year tradition. Since around 1933, when Max Gaines first slapped a price sticker on a copy of Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics and watched it fly off the newsstand like a house on fire, American comic books had always had the same price: one thin dime. But suddenly the Derby publisher made its move, as reported by the trade mag under the headline, “Magazine, Books and Comics Prices and Profits Going Up!”: For some time now, comics pub-

lishers have been in a squeeze with increasing costs pushing hard and that magic 10¢ price holding fast. Early this year, Dell Comics began to test a 15¢ price in a few states. The mid-year end of the American News Company completely confused this experiment, but it is continuing now with no conclusive results revealed as yet.

The big question, of course, is…

“Will the 15¢ price deter sales and, if so, how much?” If sales hold, or losses are slight, the chances are that most comics will move to 15¢!

This month, Charlton Comics made the decisive move. About thirty

titles now sell for 15¢! Cheyenne Kid, Texas Rangers, Timmy the Timid Ghost, and other 15¢ Charlton Comics now offer 64 pages instead of 32. They’re thick side-wired and look like twice the value. More important to the retailer, they’re almost twice as profitable as the 10¢ comics. Dealer profit is 4¢ instead of 2½¢. The great significance of this penny and a half difference is this… If the sale of Charlton Comics at 15¢ holds, and if other publishers follow suit, then the roughly 600,000,000 comics sold annually will earn an extra $9,000,000 for retailers! 52

This page: At left is a promotional flyer (printed on an unbound cover for Timmy the Timid Ghost #10 [Jan. ’58]) that was sent to retailers touting that Charlton had “taken the bull by the horns” by introducing their line of (albeit short-lived) “Double Value” 15¢ comics. Top row above are three of the “Double Value” editions cover-dated 1958—note the blurbs promising all-new material within!— and the above row are the three Giant Comics editions that appeared on stands in 1957, issues which did contain some reprints.

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Timmy the Timid Ghost cover courtesy of F.Motler.

Charlton’s Giant, Big Book Comics and Other Double-Value Gimmicks

Newsdealer article courtesy of Robert Beerbohm.

CONTINUED FROM PG. 94

The first test for price and page-count increases came with three issues of Giant Comics put out in 1957, which were 25¢ for 100 pages. Then came the “Double Value” 68-pagers for 15¢, which amounted to 28 or so titles on issues with cover dates between Jan.–June ’58, with seven titles getting two issues devoted to the experimental format. Finally, perhaps as a last-ditch effort, Charlton doubled-down and released ten “Triple Value” issues of 100 pages each, with cover dates between Aug.–Oct. ’58. And then, that was that.

The experiment failed to generate sufficient sales and thus the Charlton comics line was reverted back to 36 pages for 10¢.

It would be three more years before a price-hike took place industry-wide (except for a few publishers, such as Gilbertson, whose Classics Illustrated were selling for 15¢), though the page count of 36 was retained. This time the price tag was less of a shock. In 1962, instead of a 50% jump per copy to 15¢, the industry settled on a 20% increase to 12¢, a cover price that held throughout until 1969, when 15¢ per copy became the norm (for a very short while, until inflation and other pressures constantly pushed up the average price).

ZAZA THE NOT-SO-MYSTIC Talking with Christopher Irving, writer Joe Gill discussed an oddball Charlton title, one not so easy to categorize. “We published some terrible trash,” he said. “Ed Levy, a partner of the publisher, was in a restaurant and had his fortune told by a tea-leaf reader named Zaza, so he decided she’d make a wonderful character for a comic book. Nobody gave a sh*t about somebody named Za Za, but we ran that for a couple years.” With a laugh, he added, “It was awful!”53 Za Za the Mystic actually lasted for two issues in 1956 and, while Gill recalled writing scripts, Jerry Bails’s Who’s Who indicates that Jerry Siegel also wrote the feature, and the character was indeed based—in the vaguest way, perhaps— on a real person. It appears Levy had his epiphany after encountering Gertrude Reid—a stout, middle-age woman called “combination mother confessor and future prophet to cafe society”54—known as Zaza, she told fortunes to the rich elite using her crystal ball.

(The Miami News reported, “The crystal ball which Zaza hugs so preciously is so old, historic, and valuable that it is bought each night… in an armored car and returned each night to a vault.”)55 She displayed her psychic powers at Ruby Foo’s Den in Manhattan and at Miami’s Club Bali, where she was highly regarded for her eerily accurate predictions. In California, “the plain lovable Gertrude”56 had a less public presence, meeting privately in her Hollywood home with clients such as Joan Crawford and John Barrymore.57 Once a year, she would travel to England and forecast the future for royalty and the upper crust of Great Britain.

Aside from the same exotic name, Za Za the comic book character (nicknamed “Queen of the Gypsies”) was nothing like Reid, possessing an expertise as amateur detective who solved crimes in league with boyfriend and City Detective Bob Nelson. Her fortune teller persona is a ruse, as she tells her beau, “Everybody expects a girl with gypsy blood to pretend to see in the future, so I do!”

This page: Clockwise from left, excerpt, Newsdealer [Nov. ’57]; 100-page Charltons, Attack #54 [1958] and Fightin’ Air Force #12 [Oct. ’58]; Gertrude “Zaza” Reid in 1939; Za Za the Mystic #11 [Sept. ’56]; and panel detail from Za Za the Mystic #10 [Apr. ’56].

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics A VERY STRANGE ENCHANTED BOY Though generally disparaged by comics fandom—one review called it “a shameless Captain Marvel ripoff”58—the brief run of Nature Boy, created by veteran writer Jerry Siegel and young artist John Buscema, is not without a rather quaint charm befitting the “wholesome” ’50s. The super-hero, with the powers of (you guessed it) nature, had gained his abilities from a pantheon of mythological deities—Neptune and company—who watch over him as the lad fights crime. The League of Regrettable Superheroes [2015] shared: Unusual for a super-hero, Nature Boy needed to appeal to his benefactors to deliver the tools to fight crime and injustice: lightning bolts (which he was able to ride), powerful winds, earthquakes, and so on. Pretty much the only power David seemed to have acquired on his own is the ability to change back and forth between his heroic and civilian identities, which he does in a flash (accompanied by his genuinely odd, if enthusiastic, exclamation, “Let ’er rip!”). He was, in short, one of the few super-heroes who had to ask permission to use his powers! 59 Buscema, destined to become one of Marvel’s most acclaimed artists, drew a handsome batch of stories, which included spin-off characters Nature Man and Nature Girl (maybe presaging Siegel’s Superman family stories…?). Filling out the debut issue is the final ’50s Charlton appearance of super-hero Blue Beetle, likely an eight-page leftover from the character’s self-titled, four-issue run, recently canceled.

THEY CALL HIM MR. MUSCLES Like Nature Boy, Charlton’s other foray into the super-hero genre, the equally short-lived Mr. Muscles, immediately set out to include “family” members as co-stars—in this case, Kid Muscles and Miss Muscles—in this Jerry Siegel-created series about a body-builder (”the world’s mightiest man”) and his endless encounters with folks nursing grudges against him.

(There’s speculation among comics scholars that, as Charlton purchased Ross Andru and Mike Esposito’s Never Again inventory, the Derby publisher may have also bought Mister Universe, the creative team’s 1951–52 pro wrestler character published by Stanley Morse, that lasted five issues in its same-titled comic, but, on comparing the two, that seems unlikely.)

The title character was onetime runt by the name of Brett Carson, whose devotion to physical fitness turns him into an Adonis of incredible prowess; to boot, he becomes a crime fighter. Alas, the series—both written by Siegel and drawn by Bill Fraccio (#1) and Charles Nicholas (#2)—wilted after a pair issues.

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Crime Scene: Derby

The Hartford Courant reported that police suspected an inside job when, on Dec. 17, 1954, John Santangelo secretary Geno Balsamo was accosted by a pistol-wielding thief in front of Charlton Press and the robber grabbed the Charlton payroll amounting to $7,500 from Balsamo’s car.

The armed bandit then jumped into an auto that contained two other occupants and they drove away in the direction of New Haven. Balsamo said one of the men in the vehicle was wearing a red hunting cap.60 As if Hurricane Diane swamping his factory wasn’t bad enough, John Santangelo found out his house had also been robbed! [See New York Daily News article inset left.]61 On Feb. 20, 1958, three years after the payroll robbery that nabbed, as noted in the Meriden Record Journal, about $20,000 ($13,000 more than initially reported), Santangelo secretary Balsamo was again attacked outside the Charlton Press plant, this time by a holdup man who lunged for Balsamo’s satchel after striking the victim on the head with a pistol handle. “I was stunned by the blow,” Balsamo said, “but fought him. We wrestled in the snow. He finally wrenched the briefcase and hopped into a car which had driven up beside us.” The secretary added, “They sped away over the Peter Hart Bridge and turned left toward Ansonia.”62 The thieves were likely surprised to find not the anticipated Charlton weekly payroll in the attaché case, but just the mail. Balsamo was taken to the hospital and treated for wounds to his scalp.

The prize for most money reported stolen from Charlton Press during the 1950s actually resulted from a less violent affair perpetrated some 75 miles south, in New York City’s West Village, as revealed by the Daily News, on Apr. 25, 1959, in an article under the headline, “Bank’s Good Old Al in 63G Jam”: “A trusted employee for 31 years, pudgy, bald Alfred Philip Austin, 47, assistant manager of the Greenwich Village branch of the Manufacturers Trust Company, at Sixth Ave. and Waverly Place, has been arrested on a charge of clipping the bank for ‘at least $63,000’… [he was] specifically charged with altering the books and records of the checking account of the Capital Distributing Co., Derby Conn, He allegedly made false entries showing a balance of $82,691.29 in the account.

The balance should have been $115,514.13.” Upon arraignment, Austin’s lawyer said he was “reasonably certain that an explanation of all this can be satisfactorily made.”63 Further examination of bank records revealed that the amount of money Austin embezzled actually was $181,000, and he pleaded guilty in Sept. 1959. The subsequent trial revealed the timespan of Austin’s stealing spree occurred between February 9, 1956–April 23, 1959. On July 19, 1961, the former assistant bank manager was sentenced to three years in prison.

THE “FUN WITH POP” CAMPAIGN For a good portion of 1958, Charlton participated in “Fun with Pop,” a national public service campaign that encouraged fathers and children to set aside time to play together.

Created by DCA Food Industries of New York and led by a former Campfire Girls director, the organization was dedicated to “a happier family life and a better America.”64 The Derby publisher donated five different single-page PSAs depicting dads and their kids, two respectively starring their kiddie characters Atomic Mouse and Li’l Genius. The three “serious” strips are corny to the extreme, all sporting the coda, “Your Pop is Your Pal.” The romance page, “Janice Has a Date and ‘Fun with Pop,’” features Jan’s boyfriend getting sick, so dear ol’ Dad takes Jan to her high school dance.

“Cheyenne Kid Welcomes ‘Fun with Pop’ at His Ranch,” has a glaring anachronism with the 19th century Western hero hosting a modern-day father and two children at Cheyenne’s dude ranch. And, finally, the generic “A Day of Fun with Pop,” stars a military dad who musters his son and daughter, Great Santini-style, to obediently go on a hike with him.

JACKPOTS FOR WHOM EXACTLY…?

With the “Giant-Big Book-Double Value” format experiments failing to generate hoped-for sales, the new Pat Masulli period in Charlton’s comics division ventured into 1959 with a veritable blitzkrieg of contests. With banners and starbursts exploding across covers on the entire line, breathless hyperbole beckoned kids with promises of sundry prizes and lavish jackpots—”Hurry! Act Now!”—much of it seeming too good to be true. And, of course, as with most anything hyped in the pages of comic books, it all was too good to be true.

For devoted comic book collectors, one contest promising “jackpot prizes,” is, in retrospect, downright barbaric, as kids are instructed to—horrors!—use a pair of scissors and clip the Charlton red corners sporting the CDC logo from the comic book covers. Participants are then told to send the clipping and money (no stamps!) for the chintzy prizes.

Of note are the “Win 8,000 Prizes” coloring contests featured in 56 separate titles cover-dated spring ’59, replete with “Charlton Hero” illos by staff artists, including Steve Ditko and Dick Giordano. The catch was that kids were required to buy five different Charlton titles to enter the contest!

Check Out Sid’s Epic Comics

When the artist freelanced for Charlton, Sidney Charles Check [1930–2002] never stayed for very long, but he did some interesting work in their late ’50s war comics. Comic Book Database indexer Steven Newton had a fascinating theory regarding three Civil War-themed stories drawn by Check published in Fightin’ Marines #26 [Aug. 1958] and Attack #54 [’58], the latter which contained two.65 They all share consecutive job numbers, begging the question: were they produced for an unrealized history of that conflict? (Also worthy of mention is the all-Check issue of Battlefield Action #18 [Mar. ’58], with all stories being chapters to a larger tale devoted to a single theme, “From D-Day to Victory.”)

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

This spread: Clockwise from far left, Nature Boy #5 [Feb. ’57]; “Fun with Pop” panels; Ditko “Charlton Hero” drawing; 1959 contest page; Sid Check Fightin’ Marines #26 [Aug. ’58] splash panel; embezzler A.P. Austin; and Mr. Muscles #23 [Aug. ’56].

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

Tales of the Mysterious Traveler If anyone thinks that the titular host of Charlton’s Tales of the Mysterious Traveler [13 issues, Aug. ’56–June ’59] was a swipe of DC’s Phantom Stranger [six issues, Aug. ’52–June ’53], here’s a little pop culture elucidation: Broadcast between 1943 and ’52, The Mysterious Traveler was a half-hour radio anthology program narrated by the title character and featuring suspenseful dramas in a variety of genres. Produced by the prolific creative team of Robert Arthur and David Kogan, the well-regarded, award-winning show had, like the best of its kind, a evocative opening.

“All memorable radio characters had their distinctive entrees. The Whistler came whistling out of the night; Captain Midnight zoomed down from his airplane; the Shadow was just there suddenly, knowing all evil that lurked in the hearts of man. The Mysterious Traveler came on a train.”66 The 370-episode series spawned a one-shot comic book, Mysterious Traveler Comics [Nov. ’48], featuring the art of Bob Powell and Rudy Palais, and included a reprint of a “Famous

BALLANTINE MAGAZINES In mid-1957, famed book publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine went into business with Charlton Press to form Ballantine Magazines, Inc., as well as contracting Capital to distribute the fabled Ballantine paperback line.68 The singular result of that incorporation was a short story anthology digest, Star Science Fiction Ian Ballantine Magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl and art directed by Richard Powers, itself a periodical extrapolated from the Ballantines’ Star Science Fiction Stories paperback series [#1–6, 1953–59]. Cover-dated Jan. 1958, only one issue of the pulp digest was ever published.

The relationship between the Ballantines and Charlton collapsed when the couple accused Capital of refusing to pay money owed in the amount of $175,000, resulting in a suit filed in federal court.69

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Tales of Terror” Edgar Allan Poe story that originally appeared in Charlton’s Yellowjacket Comics #6 (perhaps a hint as to how the Derby publisher was initially connected with the property).

The character’s creators were closely involved with a short-lived pulp digest that appeared for six issues, The Mysterious Traveler Magazine [Nov. ’51––Nov. ’52], all sporting cover paintings of endangered, scantily-clad women by Norman B. Saunders, listing Kogan as publisher and Arthur as managing editor.

Though the radio show had been off the air for over three years, Charlton debuted its Comics Code-friendly series, hosted by a stoic narrator, as Bill Schelly described: “Charlton’s Mysterious Traveler was different from the EC horror hosts in two ways: he was unrelentingly grim and serious (no tongue in cheek humor for him), and he more frequently narrated an entire story, not just its start and finish. He even took an active, if subsidiary, role in the action of an occasional story.”67 Most yarns were written by Joe Gill, and a Steve Ditko in prime form drew an ample number. The writer/artist team also produced stories for the less-horrific second version of This Magazine is Haunted, starring a similar host, Dr. Haunt (who had been initially called Dr. Death in the good ol’ pre-Code days).

OUTER SPACE WAR ADVENTURES Just as Atlas Comics doubled its science fiction line of comics from eight to 16 titles in 1956, Charlton dropped Space Adventures and launched two new ones: Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds [48 issues, Aug. ’56–Sept. ’65] and Out of this World [16 issues, Aug. ’56– Dec. ’59], which joined the similar Unusual Tales [49 issues, Nov. ’55–Mar. ’65]. While still retaining some SF elements, these titles were more in the vein of the quasi-SF/monster/fantasy offerings of the American Comics Group and Atlas, and an occasional DC. The launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, signaled the start of the space race between a panicked U.S. and triumphant U.S.S.R., and it also resulted in a mini-boom in science fiction comics. New Cold War-tinged titles included Charlton’s Outer Space [nine issues, May ’58–Dec. ’59] and a revived Space Adventures [36 issues, May ’58–Nov. ’64]. Space War [27 issues, Oct. Betty Ballantine ’59–Mar. ’64] followed.

COMICS CODE ANTICS Of the Comics Code Authority’s early days, Dick Giordano said, “When the Code came in, we were operating almost exclusively on Fawcett inventory, with no staff at all; [The Fagos] ran the office on 42nd Street in New York City, and not by coincidence, a couple of blocks away from the Code. I would fix up material we were publishing for Code approval.”70 David Hadju explained in The Ten-Cent Plague, “Dick Giordano, who wound up engaged full-time in the task of shuttling pages between the [Comics Magazine Association of America] office and the Charlton studios, extended his animosity to the Code staff as well as to [CMAA head Charles] Murphy. ‘The Code was restrictive to the extreme!’ said Giordano. ‘My contact was with the reviewers, who I’ve always believed were chosen for their capacity to uphold the Code by being as snotty as they felt for having the misfortune to have read comics for a living and deal with the cretins who produced them.’”71 In his memoir, Joe Simon recalled the Code’s makeup: “I used to go up to the Comics Code office with the pages.

Mostly the staff was composed of teachers, librarians, or retired people who had some literary education or experience.

Some of them were pretty spooky. I would sit with them, and it was as quiet as a library. They would go over the material panel-by-panel, page by page, and didn’t miss a thing. That was their job. Sex was taboo—any hint of sex.”72 THE WOLVES OF DIVISION STREET Back in Derby, Charlton Press owner John Santangelo, a vehemently anti-union employer, faced a reckoning by the National Labor Relations Board. His company’s eight-man composing room department had been unionized and, in February 1959, Santangelo fired the lot of them, accusing each of molesting women at the plant. “They acted like a bunch of wolves,” he said. Declaring that unsolicited pinching and tickling co-workers of the opposite sex was no big thing(!), NLRB examiner John F. Funke scoffed and ordered the boss to rehire the dismissed employees, and to pay them back wages. The Hartford Courant added, “The firm also was directed to post a notice pledging it won’t interfere with union activities.”73 (The “girl-tweaking” aspect of the conflict was reported with a smirk in newspapers all across the U.S.)

Authority Control

Softening up the content of pre-Comics Code material to meet the Authority’s approval must have been a cringeworthy experience, particularly for Marc Swayze, former Fawcett artist, who was hired by Charlton in part to “correct” acquired items. Whether he made the hapless cavemen in Whiz Comics #103 [Nov. ’48] disappear in the panel reprinted in Danger and Adventure #23 [Apr. ’55] isn’t known, but there you go!

Previously unpublished work could also be ludicrously altered, such as this story in Bullseye #6 [June ’55], where all instances of tomahawks are obliterated in Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s story—which has the word “tomahawk” in its title!

CLOSING OUT THE ’50S The 1950s had its ups and downs for John Santangelo,* yet he prospered and Charlton persevered, and the decade ended on a high note as only daughter Elsie married Ronald Scott of California, on July 11, 1959, with their reception being held in the plant’s marbled basement ballroom. Earlier, first-born Charles had made John a grandfather, though the patriarch’s mischievous youngest was having a brush with the law, as 16-year-old John, Jr., got caught stealing a stop sign in May.74 *One of the downs being, for instance, was that, in September 1956, Santangelo was hospitalized with an undisclosed—but said to be serious—illness and he had to recuperate for months in Arizona.

This spread: Clockwise from upper left are Mysterious Traveler artifacts, including Ditko cover detail; Whiz Comics #103 [Nov. ’48] censored by the Code for Charlton reprint; the Code edits out tomahawks for a Simon & Kirby Bullseye story called “Tomahawks for Two”; Space War cover; and Star Science Fiction digest.

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

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Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

The Risqué Reign of Monarch Books

It’s reasonable to presume that the hiring announced that Fell was stepping down of Allan Adams as vice president of as Monarch president “because of other sales and circulation was connected to business commitments,” though he still Charlton’s desire to expand into the retained stock ownership and served Monarch as a consultant. The article paperback market. After all, along with Roscoe Fawcett, Adams—previously continued, “Heckelmann will now act circulation manager at Fawcett Pubas chief executive officer in addition to lications—revolutionized the industry serving as editor-in-chief and production by establishing Gold Medal Books, a director of Monarch Books, Inc.”76 low-priced line of original novels, which Prior to joining Monarch, Heckelboasted sales of nine million in the first mann, who was called one of the top six months of the imprint’s existence.

Catholic writers of fiction in the U.S.,77 The genius of Adams and Fawcett’s had been the veteran editor-in-chief of invention was one born of necessity: Ned Pines’ Popular Library, “one of the “Having no previous experience with most competent and considerate editors book stores, book jobbers, department in the field”78—also known as a prolific stores, or mail-order book clubs,” writer of Westerns. He maintained an Writer’s Digest explained, “they moved office in midtown Manhattan, on Park in the only direction they knew: newsAvenue, and he resided in the Queens stands. This meant big volume, low neighborhood of Jamaica. He sold his price, colorful covers, and merchandise share of Monarch around 1964 and the that could be returned if unsold.”75 company closed for good in ’65.

Monarch Books was officially During its eight-year lifespan, established on June 5, 1958, Monarch published 521 books— founded by longtime publish150 non-fiction, 366 fiction, and five er Frederick Victor Fell miscellaneous. There were numerous [1910–2003], serving as sub-imprints, including series variously president; seasoned editor named Americana, Human Behavior, and novelist Charles Language, Movie Books, Select, Juvenile Newman Heckelmann Novels, and Suspense Specials, as well [1913–2005] as editoras a Giant series. Of their fiction, which in-chief; VP-general included crime, Western, science manager Allan Adams, fiction, romance, adventure, and and John Santangelo. war novels, Kenneth R. Johnson Frederick Fell (Ed Levy appears to reported that an astounding have not been involved with 207 novels, “slightly more Monarch, though in a few than half the fiction, are best years, he’d become partner described as ‘sleaze.’”79 in a new paperback line, If judged sleazy, the Gold Star Books.)

Monarch line certainly was Working out of his Park good-looking sleaze, as it used Avenue offices, Fell had his own some superb cover painters, self-named company publishincluding the legendary Robert Charles Heckelmann ing hardcover books (which Maguire, who painted 59 included self-help and inspirational titles). covers. Maguire said to Illustration magFather of two daughters, he was heavily azine, “Monarch Books seemed to be a involved in his Long Island community. two-man operation. They were writing The Dec. 7, 1960, edition of Variety books, as they were discussing others,

talking into a microphone. Charlie Heckelmann was the guy who ran it. He was a very good man, but it was sort of annoying, because illustrators thought these books came from serious thinkers.

Here’s this man writing them off the top of his head into a tape recorder. I never read their books. They would take subject matter which was considered a little bit socially risqué, but something which had a legitimate place to be discussed and they would believe they were doing a serious book on that subject.”80 Heckelmann not only wanted paperbacks filled with copious amounts of sexplay, as he explained to prospective contributors via Writers Digest: “Your best bet is with a skillfully plotted straight novel, with a contemporary background and—well, violence. This seems to be what buyers of paperback books want— well, many of them anyway.”81 Monarch also made use of the talThis page: Clockwise, far left, F. Fell; She Wouldn’t Surrender by Gardner Fox with Robert Maguire cover painting; Monarch letterhead; and C. Heckelmann.

Next page: Crime novelist Lawrence Block; and Block’s Monarch “quickie.”

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ents of numerous writers who employed pseudonyms, including Robert Silverberg, Donald E. Westlake, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gardner Fox, and—among many others—crime novelist Lawrence Block [b. 1938], who explained, “In 1960, Heckelmann was editor-in-chief at a low-level paperback house called Monarch Books. Monarch wasn’t in a class with Nightstand and Midwood, but it was still pretty sleazy in its own right. Heckelmann had a penchant for quickie books produced to hitch a ride on the coattails of a popular success.

He kept an eye on the headlines, too; when Elizabeth Taylor fell seriously ill, he commissioned Don Westlake to knock out a quick cut-and-paste biography of the actress. (When she pulled through he published it anyway, but I’m sure he wasn’t happy about it.)

“The first thing I did for Heckelmann was a literal piece of ghostwriting.

William Ard…had recently died young of cancer, and he’d stuck Heckelmann with a portion and outline of a mystery novel before bowing out. If I could complete the book from Ard’s Lawrence Block outline, Heckelmann would have a book to publish, Ard’s widow would pick up a couple of bucks, and I’d make some money and have one more cover for the wall.”82 Heckelmann described the breakneck procedure to make a “quickie”: “We took a wild and unusual gamble in contracting for a book by Robert Silverberg entitled First Man into Space, which dealt with the exploits of Alan Shepard, who was involved in the very early stages of America’s space program.

Silverberg wrote all the chapters of the book dealing with Shepard’s life and experience, and the detailed planning of his hazardous journey through space. The moment Shepard succeeded in his flight, our author (holed up in a hotel room) completed the last chapter of the book (the rest of the book had all ready been set in type and the jackets had already been printed by Colonial Press) and delivered it to his agent, Scott Meredith.

I picked up the manuscript pages of the chapter at Meredith’s office, copy-edited the pages, and sent them by special courier to Worcester, Mass., to be set in type. My wife and I drove to Worcester that afternoon. In the morning (it was

now Saturday—we had left New York City on Friday), we went to the typesetter. He had type proof ready. I made necessary correction and the pages were almost instantly plated and driven to Colonial Press, in Clinton, Mass., where an overtime crew was waiting to run off 100,000 copies. The printing was completed Saturday night and the binding was done on Sunday. On Monday, the books were being shipped to wholesalers all over the country and, by Tuesday, books were on newsstands in such key cities as New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and Cleveland. It took just three days from final proof okay of that last chapter to getting books on sale. This was one of the first instances of what was later to be called ‘instant book publishing.’”83 Morbidly predicting the killing of a Cuban leader, Heckelmann, hoping for another profitable “quickie,” assigned Block a book the publisher hoped to be fact by the time it saw print: Fidel Castro Assassinated. Less than a month after Block finished the assignment, the disastrous Bay of Pigs incident occurred and, no doubt to the publisher’s chagrin, Castro lived to a ripe old age.

Monarch, which was caught up in—to use Heckelmann’s description—a “rat race” with competitors, vied for attention in a very crowded marketplace with an interesting gimmick the publisher dubbed “Perfume-O-Book,” as described by a wry National Review:

Chapter Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

The worm has really turned this time. Tired of losing their sales to voracious motion picture producers, book publishers are striking back by copying Hollywood’s techniques.

Less than six months after the first Aromarama motion picture with appropriate smells, Monarch Books has announced a new line of perfumed paperbacks—covers covered with a scent “that will cling to books for many months after they are produced and put on sale.” Three Monarch books, The Enemy General, The Stranglers of Bombay, and The Brides of Dracula, will come off the press reeking of “Chanel No. 5 type perfume.”

Monarch Westerns will be swabbed with a saddle leather smell; Monarch cookbooks will waft the scent of freshmade bread and seasoning herbs. The idea has endless possibilities (political biographies could be served up redolent of creamed corn), but our Book

Review editor insists that any such book arriving in his office will be promptly deodorized—and we have reviewers who can do it, too! 84 Kenneth R. Johnson points out that (akin to the numbering complications of Charlton Comics), “Monarch Books were issued in a bewildering set of series and numerical sequences,”85 which the indexer meticulously traces in a survey, one that’s far too complex to detail here.

By 1965, Monarch was no more, but its catalog—especially the nearly pornographic movie tie-in novelizations, which include Brides of Dracula, Kongo, and Reptilicus (to be discussed at greater length elsewhere in this book)—have become highly-collectible among fans.

Of the line’s demise, editor/author Ted White, whose Invasion from 2500 (co-written with Terry Carr) was one of the last books published by Monarch, said, “Charlton owned 49%… [and] Charlton decided it wanted a majority share… and put it to Charlie: ‘Give us a majority ownership or we’ll shut you down.’ Charlton handled the printing and distribution… which gave them an iron-fisted upper hand. Hecklemann had put everything he had into Monarch, and he refused to give in. Charlton pulled the plug and killed Monarch.”86 Monarch partners Frederick Fell maintained his own publishing house (participating in reforestation efforts as early as 1974!), and Heckelmann continued as an editor and writer of Westerns.

And Lawrence Block has since become a bestselling crime novelist and winner of an impressive number of awards.

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Chapter Nine

The Launch of Captain Atom

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THE COMING OF CAPTAIN ATOM In 1960,* amid the nation’s nuclear hysteria, came Charlton’s first home-spun and enduring super-hero, Captain Atom, the gung-ho all-American character created

by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko. Literally a military officer in the U.S. Air Force, Captain Atom’s origin story, with the presence of an approving (though unnamed) President Dwight D. Eisenhower, evokes the origin story starring another super-captain, quintessential patriotic hero Captain America, whose transformation was approved by an (unnamed) President Franklin D. Roosevelt 19 years prior, in Captain America Comics #1. And as anti-Nazi as the star-spangled Marvel character was in his day, the Charlton newcomer was a rabid anticommunist, hellbent on taking the Soviet menace to task.

This U.S. patriot wasn’t the first comic book character whose name suggested the nuclear era. After all, Charlton’s own Atomic Mouse, Atomic Rabbit/Bunny, and Atom the Cat preceded him, and he was actually the third Captain Atom to have appeared in comics by that time, one found in mini-comics (which included Tony Tallarico art) and another south of the equator, in Australia. *Technically 1959, as on the Heritage website, a copy of Space Adventures #33, featuring Captain Atom’s start, includes a newsdealer’s penciled notation of “12/29,” suggesting the character’s newsstand debut was a mere two days before the advent of the 1960s.

Space Adventures #36 panel detail courtesy of Nick Caputo.

PARANOIA IN THE ATOMIC AGE “We will bury you!” Such was the threat to capitalist nations—the United States of America, in particular—hurled by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in late 1956.

Whether intended as metaphor or not, the existential fear it would become reality was a preoccupation of the West, and the following year’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles by the Russians, along with U.S.S.R.’s Sputnik satellite launch, turned the anxiety of the American public into a full-blown panic.

At the heart of the national alarm was the atomic bomb, and one federal response was to encourage citizens to, well, bury themselves by building their own fallout shelters, underground living quarters where families would wait out the ill effects of radiation after a nuclear attack. In 1959, to that end, the U.S. Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization published The Family Fallout Shelter, a 32-page booklet of blueprints and instructions for landowners to dig up the backyard and build—and thrive therein—their own subterranean dwelling.

Jazzing it up with an illustrated color cover and expanding contents to 68 pages, in 1960, Charlton reprinted the government publication at no cost to itself, sold Family Fallout Shelter for 50¢, and offered discounted copies for bulk sale. The spectacular cover sported an atomic explosion super-imposed by the outlines of a typical American family.

1960s

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom BORN OF FISSION, FUSED BY FIRE Calling Charlton’s new super-hero of the ’60s, “the symbolic Cold War-Hero of America,” Lou Mougin opined, “He epitomized the atomic might that put us one step ahead of the unspeakable Commies (at least, the editors hoped he did).

Atom’s strip combined science fiction themes with simplistic red-baiter theology not quite as unrestrained as [Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s other patriotic hero] Fighting American, but certainly more committed than the apolitical DC heroes.”1 Charlton stalwart Rocke Mastroserio drew a pair of tales, but historian Lou Mougin pointed out that the character’s main artist was worthy of distinction: “Ditko’s work for Charlton and Marvel in the very early 1960s ranks as his most technically virtuous, but it didn’t save Captain Atom from the comic-book scrap heap. The strip was removed from Space Adventures after a total of only nine issues.”2 Describing the character’s origin as “rather than being merely irradiated, was actually incinerated at the epicenter of a thermonuclear explosion in which his body was reconstructed with added super-powers,” James Wright noted that Captain Atom was a harbinger of sorts, as the character “signaled a change in how superheroes were forged. The combination of nuclear excitement and Cold War paranoia led to a host of new characters being dreamed up in the years that followed. [Marvel’s] The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Spider-Man, The Sandman, and Daredevil were all created as a result of radioactive experiments.”3

The Other Captains Atom

The first character sporting the name Captain Atom was an Australian series published by an outfit from Down Under called Atlas, debuting in Jan. 1948, and running for 64 issues, until 1954. “Drawn in a crude but fascinating style by Arthur Mather,” Aussie comics expert John Ryan wrote, “the character combined the ’magic word’ (Exenor!) gimmick from Captain Marvel and the twin brothers ploy from [Quality’s] Captain Triumph and shrouded it with the mystique of the atom bomb explosion of Bikini Atoll, still fresh in people’s minds.”4 The Captain Atom Club boasted some 75,000 Australian members.

Another sharing the same moniker— this one an American super-hero— emerged in 1950, in mini-sized issues published by Nation-Wide. “Captain Atom was a scientist-adventurer who used gadgets to investigate the unknown and fight various menaces,” writes @FKAjason on his blog.5 “His gadgets and vehicles included a uranium amplifier, a spectrascope, an atom submarine, a walkie-talkie television, atom-powered noiseless ram rocket, and an auto-gyro parachute. The stories he appeared in were written to teach kids lessons about science.” Captain Atom lasted for seven issues, ending in 1951.

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THE DITKO MYSTIQUE The final issue of Captain Atom’s maiden run, Space Adventures, #42 [Oct. 1961], would have likely shared spinner rack space with a title that launched the so-called “Marvel Age of Comics”: Fantastic Four #1 [Nov. ’61]. And perhaps it was Steve Ditko’s art on the Charlton super-hero series that ignited in Stan Lee a spark that led to the notion, a few years hence, that the artist would be a perfect match for the Amazing Spider-Man series (probably not, though). Regardless, while Ditko had been primarily known for drawing supernatural stories at both companies, he proved an intriguing and idiosyncratic choice to illustrate a super-hero book.

Ditko’s approach to super-heroics was utterly unique, with limbs twisted into odd, almost grotesque angles, bodies hurtling through the void in bizarre fashion that somehow worked. “He was a powerful draftsman,” Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs observed, “but he had an independent mind and a strange, almost baroque style—simultaneously looking back to the Golden Age and forward to some world no one had imagined yet—that was nowhere near the slick clarity that DC… demanded. He picked up a few jobs from the low-paying Martin Goodman line, but mainly had to subsist on even lower pay from Charlton. The good side to all this was that no one was trying to make him draw the ‘right’ way.”6 In furthering their study, The Comic Book Heroes authors referenced the artist’s work in Space Adventures #33: “There’s a definitive Ditko moment on Captain Atom’s very first page. It’s a six-panel page plunging us straight into the story, not the full-page ‘symbolic splash’ excerpting a highlight of the story to follow, customary at DC. The hero is trapped inside a missile as it’s about to be launched, and Ditko brings us closer, closer, closer in on him, until all we see is his eye, opened wide with horror and ringed by sweat. In a field that liked its heroes cool and preferred the objectivity of classical composition and the Hollywood medium-shot, this was a riveting focus on the individual and his most intimate reactions to a moment of crisis.”7 Simply put, Ditko was well on his way to becoming a superb, much-admired super-hero artist and one of the truly great comic-book storytellers.

MERCURY RISING… AND FALLING Only a few months after Captain Atom was dropped from Space Adventures, the title gave super-heroics another go with decidedly second-rate Mercury Man, “the Fluid Man of Metal from Outer Space,” who appeared in two issues with a pair of adventures drawn by Rocke Mastroserio. The character, sole survivor of the planet closest to our sun (Mercury), had been transformed during an experiment into a chemical element (mercury) and sprouted winged feet (and ears) like a certain Roman mythological figure (Mercury).

He was dedicated to eradicating warfare on Earth.

The writer is unknown, though as Dan Hagen wryly noted, “This super-hero was created by somebody who really knew how to underline a theme.”8 Previous spread: Family Fallout Shelter [1960] and panel details from Space Adventures. Art by Ditko. This page: Clockwise from left is Australia’s Captain Atom #1 [1948], back cover detail from Nation-Wide Publishing’s Captain Atom #1 [1950]; and cover detail from Space Adventures #44 [Feb. 1962].

Captain Atom When editor Pat Masulli and/or writer Joe Gill gave a name to the alter ego of Captain Atom, Captain Allen Adam, it was both a pun and a gentle ribbing to—and/or in honor of—Charlton’s circulation director and head of subsidiary Capital Distribution, as Allan Adams must have given consent. Beyond that, there’s no doubt that Gill alone conceived the character… and quite speedily, too, as he told Jim Amash: ”They said they needed a super-hero character. And I said, ‘Okay,’ and I went out to my typewriter and I wrote about a pageand-a-half, and brought it back in. Took me about a half-hour.”9

In a brief description shared in Robin Snyder’s newsletter, The Comics, Gill went into a little more detail and alluded to some previous published comments that credited editor Pat Masulli with the character’s creation: “To get to Captain Atom: I was writing Space Adventures when Pat Masulli asked me for a new character. So I created one (but not his costume; that was the work of the brilliant Steve Ditko) and Pat had nothing to do with Captain Atom. Never generous with praise, I don’t believe he even bothered to say the work was okay. He didn’t bother to give me a byline either. Pat was an administrator and not a creative type. Any time Charlton Publications brought forth a new character back then, it was I who birthed him. I still have the stretch marks.”10 The writer continued, “I also worked on the revival. Just one more script sandwiched between a ‘John Loves Mary’ [romance] script and one of Dr. Graves’ aberrations.” Gill added, perhaps facetiously, “Which turned out to be one of the countless mistakes I made I those years.”

In a comment in the same newsletter, one mostly giving praise to the writer, Steve Ditko noted, “As for Captain Atom, Charlton (like many companies) gave up too soon on the new feature.”11 (The artist included a marvelous tribute to Gill in the form of an illustration of the super-hero. (See page 81).

CAPER, ESCAPADE, AND GENTLEMAN In the 1950s, Charlton Press had been associated with Playboy knock-off magazines Caper and Escapade, if obliquely, but, into the new decade, the editorial location cited would clearly list the address of Charlton Press on Division Street, in Derby, making the connection all the more explicit. (Plus, Charlton executive editor Pat Masulli was often in the credits, his name, plain as day, listed as production manager!)

Though Dick Giordano would call Escapade a “really, really poor man’s Playboy,”12 that men’s mag actually featured some top-notch material, including a regular column by Jack Kerouac; stories

by Harlan Ellison; S.J. Perelman; and William Saroyan, among others; and, of note to horror fans, it printed Thomas M. Disch’s classic short story, “Roaches.”

Considering the number of lawsuits and controversies involving Caper and Escapade—some even naming John Santangelo, Ed Levy, and/or Burt Levey

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The good captain lasted for nine issues of Space Adventures (for a total of 18 stories) during his inaugural run, and it would be more than four years before readers would read a new tale.

Truth be told, it would be reprints of the 1960–61 initial stint in spring 1965 that would herald Charlton’s first age of greatness.

This page: At far left is Space Adventures #33 [Mar. ’60].

Above, vignette from SA #36 [Oct. ’60]. Below, Caper V.6 #2 [Mar. ’60].

as defendants—one has to wonder if publishing the “skin mags” was worth all the trouble. For instance, in 1962, Karen Hagler of Colorado sued Escapade for $200,000, alleging the mag, in its June 1960 issue, published without permission a photo of her being dragged through mud.13 (Alas, there’s no readily available record how the lawsuit played out.) Then there’s the time, in 1964, when the same mag was accused of printing “extremely dangerous directions… which, if followed, will definitely result in blindness and possible death.”14 (The editors insisted the instructions were intended as a joke.) And not to be overlooked is the scandal of Caper being slapped with an $18,000 fine “on a charge of using the mails to deliver allegedly obscene material.”15 The federal judge, it was reported, made “an unusual statement,” that “there was a crying need for the persecution of obscene matter in New Hampshire,” and “the public does not want questionable magazines sold in this state.”

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After the formation and enforcement of the Comics Code Authority, surviving comic book publishers found themselves essentially unable to directly exploit any viable tie-in with the 1950s monster movie cycle, which included SF/fantasy as well as horror films. Having specifically forbidden the use of vampires, the walking dead, werewolves, etc., the Code strait-jacketed publishers into ignoring the genre “boom” accelerated by the robust color Hammer film remakes and Screen Gems Shock Theater packaging of 1930s and ’40s Universal monster and horror films for TV syndication.

Adhering to Code-enforced limitations, this meant that, with the notable exception of gag guest appearances in DC’s Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Jimmy Olsen comics, the popular human-sized monsters were verboten; only Universal’s Gillman from The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1953) trilogy or imitative “fish men” made unlicensed guest appearances in Archie, Jughead, and other “safe” titles (Strange Adventures, House of Mystery, Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds, etc.). However, giant monsters weren’t forbidden by the Code, and so it came to pass that, despite the fact there were no licensed or unlicensed appearances by the official Japanese daikaijueiga characters Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, etc., kaiju came to rule the four-color comics of the Silver Age. Giant monsters graced the covers of Superman (including

Kaiju byComics STEPHEN R. BISSETTE

his own ersatz King Kong surrogate, Titano), Batman, Wonder Woman, etc., and peculiarities like DC discovering that covers featuring gorillas were sure-sellers guaranteed a steady procession of giant simians. By the early ’60s, even titles like Tomahawk and Blackhawk boosted sales with bizarre kaiju cover-cameos.

During this wave, Atlas/Marvel tirelessly exploited the giant monster movie cycle, grinding out a procession of original giant creatures dominating Tales to Astonish, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Amazing Adventures, etc. The Silver Age dinosaur cycle launched with Joe Kubert’s 1,000,000 Years Ago/Tor and Western/Dell’s Turok Son of Stone ramped up with the launch of editor/ writer Robert Kanigher’s “The War That Time Forgot” series, in Star-Spangled War Stories, with art and covers primarily by the art team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, followed by Gene Colan, Russ Heath, and Joe Kubert.

Monster movie comics were another story altogether. With the Code forbidding content that fueled the horror and monster movie boom on TV and in theaters, only Gilberton and Western Publishing/Dell—the only comics publishers who had successfully recused themselves from the CCA and the Code—were able to tap the movie monster media circus.

Gilberton did so by issuing Classics Illustrated reprints with new covers or completely new, revised adaptations of Moby Dick, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, This page: Detail from Rocke Mastroserio’s cover art for Reptilicus #1 [Aug. 1961]. Next page: Steve Ditko’s terrific cover art for Fantastic Giants #24 [Sept. ’66], reprinting Konga #1 and Gorgo #1.

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and Frankenstein, along with Jules Verne and H. G. Wells adaptations that became inadvertent “movie” comics after 1959, even as Western/Dell published official movie tie-in comics adapted from the same novels (e.g., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mysterious Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, First Men “In” the Moon, etc.).

Western/Dell included the Verne and Wells titles while publishing other “monster movie” tie-ins—The Lost World, Dinosaurus, etc.—and genre licensed popular TV series (The Twilight Zone, Thriller, etc.). After its split from Western in 1962 (Western becoming Gold Key), Dell launched its own competitors to Gold Key’s carryover monster/horror titles, including the monsteriffic Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle. Dell most aggressively jumped onto the monster express in 1963 licensing the Universal Monsters the Mummy, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man, but these hit newsstands after the Charlton licensed giant movie monster comics had begun their reign.

The Charlton Comics licensed monster movie series were a truly unique phenomenon in their time. Charlton seemed the least likely of all American comics publishers to be tapping movie studio licenses—and yet, through relatively inexpensive access to three properties that apparently didn’t interest Western/Dell, Charlton Comics Group licensed one Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer title, Gorgo (released Mar. 1961) and two American-International Pictures, Konga (released theatrically Mar. 1961), and Reptilicus (completed in 1961, though released Jan. 1963 after almost two years of legal conflict). The licensing arrangement extended beyond just the comic books, however, including movie novelizations for all three movies from Monarch, Charlton’s paperback division.

Charlton published 23 issues of Gorgo [June 1961–Sept. ’65] and three issues of Gorgo’s Revenge—retitled The Return of Gorgo with its second issue [’62–64]; 23 issues of Konga [June ’61–Nov. ’65],

Essay ©2022 Stephen R. Bissette.

capped off with #24 going to the classic Fantastic Giants [’66] reprinting Konga #1, Gorgo #1, and two all-new Ditko monster stories. The movie comic Reptilicus followed on the heels of the first issues of Gorgo and Konga, running only two issues [Aug.–Oct. ’61] before a title change to Reptisaurus the Terrible, completing its lifespan in just six issues [#3–8, Jan.–Dec. ’62]. After the conclusion of his series, Gorgo also made one unlicensed guest appearance in an unrelated Charlton comic, appearing in (but not on, as the cover shows a different monster altogether) “Monster from the Abyss,” in Fightin’ Five #41 [Jan. ’67].

These were bizarre comic book series, to say the least. They were very unusual Silver Age comics, in that the giant monsters were their heroes, the protagonists, incapable of speech (though Reptisaurus was granted thought balloons), but nevertheless very expressive and sympathetically portrayed. None of the larger American comic book publishers would attempt anything similar until Marvel licensed Godzilla from Toho Studios in the ’70s, eerily emulating Charlton right down to the number of Godzilla issues published [24, Aug. ’77–July ’79].

Joe Gill scripted all the Charlton monster comics (including Gorgo’s Fightin’ Five appearance) for editor Pat Masulli, working often with artist Steve Ditko. Gill and Ditko’s 22-page Gorgo* and Konga movie adaptations (both of the #1 issues for each respective series) remain among the greatest Silver Age movie comics ever published, right up there with the best of the Western/Dell and Gold Key Silver Age movie comics.

Gill and Ditko continued collaborating on both series, with Ditko art gracing The Return of Gorgo #2 (one of my all-time favorites of Ditko’s issues) and #3, and Gorgo #2–4, 11, 13–16, always with considerable style and an uncanny empathy for the monster protagonists.

The same was true of the Gill and *In an essay on the writer for The Comics in 1992, Steve Ditko wrote, “I read the screenplay of Gorgo. From the first reading to this day, I marvel at how well Joe adapted the character to comic books.”16

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties

Ditko issues of Konga [#1, 3–15], sparked by a delightful vein of play and humor rarely associated with Ditko’s efforts. Compared to the Ditko issues, the other artists who drew Konga brought their storytelling skills, but little of distinction to their efforts: Charles Nicholas and Sal Trapani for Konga #2, Bill Montes and Ernie Bache (the best-suited team) for #16–23.

As with the nonDitko Konga issues, precious little attention has ever been given to rest of the Gorgo artists. The comparatively competent, but unspectacular art team of Nicholas and Vince Alascia drew Gorgo’s Revenge, while Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta illustrated Gorgo #5–10 and #12, lending little personality to Gorgo or his mother.

Beginning with their terrific cover art for Gorgo #14, Montes and Bache proved to be a much better fit with the characters and the series, taking over the regular art duties from Ditko for #17–23 (except for the Dick Giordano cover art, which didn’t serve the series as well, nor did the final issue’s Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio cover) and delineating Gorgo’s unannounced return in Fightin’ Five. The least attractive or compelling art was reserved for the two-issue Reptilicus run—Bill Molno and Alascia did interiors, which hardly emulated the spectacular covers by Mastroserio and Giordano—and the beginning of the Reptisaurus relaunch, with Molno and Alascia on #3. That was followed by Sinnott and Colletta on #4 (wherein Gill launched his weird monster-sex narrative with “Reptisaurus Meets His Mate”) to #6, after which the superior teamwork of Montes and Bache brought the series

to its conclusion after #8 [Dec. ’62] with Reptisaurus Special #1 [June ’63], ending in Central America with its titular monster worshiped by surviving Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl incarnate.

As of this writing, much of the Charlton kaiju comics are back in print.

The Gill and Ditko issues of Gorgo and Konga have been reprinted repeatedly, most recently in their entirety by Yoe Books/IDW in very handsome hardcover volumes. Reptilicus/Reptisaurus has been shoddily reprinted in its entirety by Gwandanaland Comics; the only available reprint edition, however, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Also see Christopher Hayton‘s in-depth “Fantastic Giants: Charlton Comics’ Monster Movie Adaptations,” published in the online arts journal SCAN, most highly recom— S.R.B. mended.17

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom SWEET CAROLINE The news update section of National Review’s Oct. 7, 1961, issue opened with a snort of disdain: “Running the rounds in lollipop circles: a comic book on Caroline Kennedy and Jack and Jackie.”18 In reality, though formatted and printed as a comic, Charlton’s Caroline Kennedy one-shot was more scrapbook than sequential endeavor.

Louise Hughston, onetime assistant women’s editor at The Washington Post, was credited as writer, with art being provided by future comics editor Sal Gentile (layouts), and pencilers/inkers Dick Giordano and Jon D’Agostino.

Adding to the aforementioned quip in William F. Buckley’s conservative weekly, partisan rancor was lobbed at the three-and-a-half daughter of President John F. Kennedy in an Oakland Tribune letter to the editor, which called the publication an “obnoxious rag.”19 The critic said the publication was in “very poor taste” and debased the office of commander-in-chief “by depicting the family life of the incumbent in a ten-cent comic book.”

(Derby had a decided affection for the 35th U.S. President, given one of his last campaign stops as candidate in the 1960 election was to regale a crowd of 2,500 for ten minutes outside City Hall. The city returned the favor the following Tuesday by voting for Catholic JFK more than two-to-one.)

Charlton’s “Good” Humor?

Granted, Charlton’s dozen or so separate “girly cartoon” titles hardly matched the output of Abraham Goodman’s “Humorama” line of that sort of magazine. After all, the brother of Timely/Atlas/Marvel publisher Martin Goodman was cited as the largest buyer of cartoons on the planet, who “churned out scores of cheap, digest-sized magazines… that featured hackneyed jokes, cheesecake photos, and the publications’ bread and butter, single-panel pin-up cartoons.”20 But still, Charlton, offering the exact same sort of publication, proved itself a reasonably formidable competitor on the newsstand with Good Humor [1947–87], 150 New Cartoons [1962–77], Cartoon Carnival [1960–85], and others.

Good Humor editor Joseph R. Tendler, who also shared editing duties with Ed Konick on lyric magazine Songs That Will Live Forever and supervised the occasional Charlton confession publication, told freelancer trade journal The Author and Journalist of his needs: “Subtle (implied) sex, man-type stories approximately 2,000 [words]. Humorous and satirical material. Cartoons, Photographs in a series… Varying rates on prose, cartoons $5–$25, photos $100 per series.”21 The digests were awash with atrociously demeaning cartoon images of scantily-clad women, females objectified to ludicrous extreme in usually banal, clichéd situations. The periodicals, whose heyday was in the early to mid-1960s, crowded magazine racks and overflowed with single panel gags by artists of varying talents, from the lowly to the great. Despite Charlton’s poor rates, even fine practitioners of “good girl art”—Dan DeCarlo, Bill Ward, Bill Wenzel, etc.—contributed to their line-up, as did much lesser, largely forgotten talents. Good Humor and its ilk— ever pushing limits of (ahem) good taste—lasted into the 1980s.

Prolific, successful cartoonist Randy Glasbergen [1957– 2015], perhaps best known for the comic strip, The Better Half, began his career by selling material to the Derby outfit. The Observer-Dispatch shared, “In 1971, [Glasbergen] sold his first cartoon to Charlton Publications, which he describes as a publisher of ‘mild girlie cartoons.’ Because they were buying 200 cartoons every other month, ‘it was an easy place to break into,’ he says.

‘It was not the ideal place for a 15-year-old, but I’ve got eyes.’”22

THE MYSTERIOUS CONTEST Yet to be solved is the riddle of “Charlton’s Comet Contest,” which was ballyhooed with a full-page announcement in fall 1961 issues of their comics line. Promoting an American-International Pictures so-called release named Off on a Comet, the winner was to be flown to Hollywood and visit the movie set. The mystery is that—at the very same time—AIP released a movie tangentially adapting that 1887 SF novel, a film titled Valley of the Dragons (one Parents’ Magazine reviewed as “a slipshod sex and horror film based remotely on Jules Verne novel”),23 which had the same name since the beginning of its production! There never was an Off on a Comet movie or even Charlton comics adaptation of Off on a Comet or Valley of the Dragons. What in the name of Phileas Fogg happened?

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PAGING DOCTOR LOVE Steady sales continued for Charlton’s love comics line into the 1960s, and, perhaps catching wind of two strikingly similar television medical dramas premiering in the 1961–62 season, the publisher began a subgenre of heart-throb titles starring pretty nurses and handsome doctors.

First of the eight hospital-based love comics was Nurse Betsy Crane #12 [Aug. ’61]—its numbering continuing from the defunct Teen Secret Diary.

The subsequent meteoric popularity of both those TV shows, Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, leaves no doubt that it was a factor in the decision to swamp newsstands with Cynthia Doyle, Nurse in Love; Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses; Doctor Tom Brent, Young Intern; and the others, but Charlton’s efforts would end far sooner than the 1966 demise of the two programs. Flagship Nurse Betsy Crane would last the longest, taken off life support after her 16th issue, cover-dated Mar. 1964.

Previous page: Clockwise from top left is Caroline Kennedy [1961]; Good Humor #10 [Winter ’64]; and Charlton house ad [Jan. ’62]. This page: Above, Nurse Betsy Crane #23 [July ’63], The Young Doctors #1 [Jan ’63], and Career Girl Romances ##35 [Aug. ’66]. Below is Ernie Hart self-portrait, Real West [Nov. ’62], and Rocky Lane’s Black Jack #26 [Feb. 1959].

Ernie Hart

An astonishingly talented gent, Ernest Huntley Hart was born on Oct. 2, 1910, in New York City, and, during his early career, primarily lived in Connecticut. One biographical comment says his first short story was published in 1934.25 At the Art Students League, Ernie Hart studied under George Bridgeman, Ernie Hart Kimon Nicolaïdes, and Thomas Hart Benton, among others, and was employed by the Works Progress Administration federal program as muralist.

Among other locations, he produced a mural for the birthplace of the partnership that gave birth to Charlton, the New Haven County Jail.

The artist joined up with the Harry “A” Chesler shop and found work at Timely Comics, where he concentrated on funny animal stories and started a long-time acquaintance with editor Stan Lee. His greatest claim to fame may be the creation of Super Rabbit, which first

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appeared in Timely’s Comedy Comics #14 [Mar. ’43]. In the ’40s, Hart also worked for Quality, and was writing dramatic features at Atlas by the early ’50s.

Hart started working for Charlton in 1955, launching an association that lasted well into the 1960s. Charlton exec Ed Konick said, “Ernie was a writer and artist who was a brilliant guy, good in any field.”26 And Hart proved just that, editing Real West magazine and Charlton confession magazines, as well as writing and drawing the publisher’s “hero horse comics,” Black Fury and Rocky Lane’s Black Jack. (Pete Morisi said as “some sort of ‘wheel’ in Charlton’s [non-comics] stuff, [EHH] does some good writing now and then.”)27 Particularly well-regarded as an animal artist, Hart had long developed an avid interest and dedication to dogs, investing a significant chunk of his life and artistry to “man’s best friend.” Any doubters should look at his magnificent

A successor of sorts to the hospital love comics was profession-focused Career Girl Romances, which, as Michelle Nolan pointed out, lasted for 55 issues, from #24 [June ’64] through #78 [Dec. ’73]. “The title, which probably wouldn’t have made it in the more domestic 1950s,” Nolan wrote, “was the longest-running romance title started in the 1960s or ’70s. Although there were plenty of ‘career girls’ in comics of the 1950s, no title indicated such until Charlton came up with it.”24 As Nolan indicated in her Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics [2015], Charlton was a veritable force of nature in the genre during the 1960s and ’70s, having published 1,140 issues between 1960–76 besting DC’s 688 published issues between 1960–77. cover and interior work for Gilberton’s The World Around Us #1—The Illustrated Story of Dogs [Sept.

1958], which prominently featured his favorite breed, the German Shepherd Dog. In the ’60s, he came to the rescue of overburdened buddy Stan Lee at Marvel, taking on the writing for “Ant Man” (where he co-created The Wasp), “The Human Torch,” Nick Fury, and The Adventures of Pussycat, mostly using his pseudonym of E. H. Huntley.

A globetrotter once with a home in Bogata, Colombia, he was described as “one of the foremost animal artists in the world, Ernest Hart prefers to make his living as a freelance writer—and if you ask him what he considers himself to be, he might very well answer, shepherdist and breeder. The word ‘versatile’ is understatement when applied to Hart.

He has been a ranch hand, sheep herder, magazine editor, and fine artist.”28 Hart was the author/illustrator of many books on animals, and editor of a multi-volume series on dog breeds. The father of five sons and husband of Katherine moved to Stillwater, Florida, where he died on July 28, 1985, at age 74.

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Monster Mag Mania

He called Charlton’s Horror Monsters and Mad Monsters, the fan magazines of a “booming horror cult,” and part of “a social phenomenon of our time.” And he listed those black-&-white monster movie mags alongside Famous Monsters of Filmland, the Warren mag that had become a publishing sensation and spawned the entirely new genre of monster mags. The fellow who nameddropped those FMoF knock-offs from Derby? No less than chiller-thriller film producer Herman Cohen, the “goosebump peddler,” who brilliantly melded teens and monsters in 1957 with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which helped launch the kids horror craze of the 1950s/’60s.29 Cohen likely mentioned the Charlton mags over the names of any number of FMoF pretenders in his 1963 press

release, because the monster movie mogul was already doing business with the Connecticut publisher.

After all, Cohen co-wrote and produced Konga, which was adapted for a long-running Charlton series, and his Black Zoo, just then being released, was simultaneously featured in Charlton’s b-&-w “Picture-by-Picture Chiller Mag,” Horror Monsters Presents Black Zoo [Fall ’63]. In his press release—titled “The Unseen Audience”—which hit the wire services in spring ’63, Cohen promoted the growing horror market, concluding, “Horror’s becoming a gold mine.”30 No doubt recognizing the burgeoning opportunity presented by the success of Warren’s breakout FMoF hit, which had debuted in late 1957, Charlton published Horror Monsters #1 [June ’61], and—typical of a publisher usually sluggish to jump on trends—it wasn’t the first to attempt replicating the FMoF template. But HM and companion mag Mad Monsters [#1, ’61] lasted longer than one might expect, both running for ten issues and ending by ’64 and ’65, respectively. In addition to the Black Zoo tie-in, Charlton produced a one-shot, Werewolves and Vampires in 1962.

Despite an issue sporting bravura

cover art by Steve Ditko (Mad Monsters #1), most issues of Horror Monsters and MM—all reportedly edited by a pseudonymous Ed Konick—were sloppily compiled, somewhat unattractive FMoF copy-cats, and woefully short on any useful content or substance.

Curiously, Charlton produced the generically-titled Monsters exclusively for the British market, which reprinted U.S. material behind new cover art. The 1962 series lasted four issues, ending that year.

(In 1981, Charlton launched the full-color Fangoria-inspired Chiller, with its science fiction/fantasy film focus, a mag that folded after three issues.)

This page: Clockwise from bottom left is a cover detail of Hunk #3 [Dec. ’61], art by Pat Masulli; Horror Monsters #9 [Fall, ’64]; Horror Monsters Presents Black Zoo [Fall ’63]; Werewolves and Vampires [’62]; Mad Monsters #9 [Fall ’64]; and Teen Hit Parader Vol. 22 #3 [June 1963].

HUNK’S HANNA-BARBERA HEIST Though itself was a pastiche of the popular Honeymooners TV series, The Flintstones, that wildly successful primetime animated show premiering in 1960, inspired its own knockoff at Charlton. The stone age-themed Hunk was about a cave-boy, his pal Cecil, and Hunk’s nameless “horse” mixing it up in a prehistoric suburbia—that, yes, anachronistically had man and dinosaurs co-existing. Not without a smidgen of whimsy (though marred by dreadful puns), Hunk lasted for 11 issues—all poorly drawn by multiple unknown hands—from Aug. ’61–May ’63.

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CATERING TO THE TEENAGER With the frenzy surrounding Elvis Presley and rock ’n’ roll, popular music was effectively hijacked by teenage consumers, and Charlton Press, whose staple remained its music magazines, took notice of the aborning Baby Boomer market.

In Oct. 1962, Billboard announced that Hit Parader, the Derby company’s longest-running publication, was altering its name to Teen Hit Parader, as well as adding a new mag called Teen Age to its roster of periodicals.31 The name change wouldn’t outlast 1963, and Teen Age bit the dust that same year after only six issues, but Hit Parader would remain its flagship title until Charlton closed up shop nearly 30 years later.

STUDIO GIORDANO-TRAPANI Certainly a major reason Dick Giordano remained tight with artist Sal Trapani was not just because they went to art school together, but also because they were family—Dick married Sal’s sister Marie on Apr. 17, 1955—and yet another reason was, whatever the limits of his artistry, Salvadore A. Trapani [1927–1999] was a veritable dynamo.

Sal Trapani Trapani had long been a prolific inker for Charlton, initially freelancing for editor Al Fago, and often working in unison with his brother-in-law. For his part, Giordano had grown dissatisfied as Masulli’s assistant and negotiated an arrangement with Charlton to form his own studio, supplying the publisher with the finished art of contributing freelancers Jack Abel, Pete Morisi, and Don Sherwood (eventually Joe Gill and Jon D’Agostino joined in as contributors). In 1961, Trapani, who had some background in animation, left for Los Angeles to work on cartoons Space Angel and Clutch Cargo, inking Alex Toth’s work.

“And, as often happens in animation,” Giordano explained, “that gig disappeared, just went south one day.

So [Trapani] came back to Connecticut, and said he just wanted to ink. I’d do the drawing, and could we make up some samples together and he’d go around and try to get some work. I wouldn’t have to leave the studio, he would do all the hustling, delivering and picking up and so forth—this was before FedEx, so you had to pretty much show up in person. So, we made up the samples and I’d get half of the payment. The difference between penciling and inking, ladies and gentlemen, is generally 60% penciler/40% inker, but we made it 50/50, because he was doing the leg work. We got romance work at DC, we got Nukla at Dell, and, at ACG, we did some of the later books, like Forbidden Worlds.

At DC, I also did a Brave and the Bold, with The Flash and the Doom Patrol. If you look back at the book, you’ll find work in that issue that looks like Giordano and Trapani.”32

The Beatles & the Butterfly Charlton caught the Fab Four fever in early 1964 with its 16page mag, printed on tinted newsprint stock. Alternatively titled The Beatles and The Beatles Songs over the course of the publication’s seven issues, it ended in fall 1966. The Brit pop phenoms also appeared in the Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) one-shot, I am the King, dated the same as the first Charlton Beatles ish—Spring 1964. The back cover sports a gag photo of the foursome lying on the canvas, begging the champ to spare them, with the roaring boxer beating his chest. The caption trumpets, “I’m Cassius the King. I’m not a bum. Those four Beatles will fall in one.”

In 1965, Trapani wrote a piece for The Comic Reader and discussed Nukla, a Dell super-hero series: “Dick and I have hopes for the success of the character.” He then revealed that a Charlton stalwart was the creator of the title (which lasted a mere four issues). “Incidentally,” Trapani added, “if there is a slight resemblance to Nukla and Captain Atom, it is only because they both came out of the same stable. They are both sired by the same daddy”—meaning the writer Joe Gill.33 Before the team split up, Giordano and Trapani produced art for comics adapting movies and TV, including Beach Blanket Bingo, Camp Runamuck, Get Smart, and Hogan’s Heroes.

OUR BULWARK AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIKS Around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when brinkmanship between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. brought the globe precariously close to nuclear war, Charlton ran a curious anticommunist public service campaign called “Your Role in the Cold War.” Most likely written by avowed anti-Red Joe Gill with art by Rocke Mastroserio, the five one-page episodes appearing in 1962 comics extolled the virtues of American life and the necessity to be prepared to fight Russkies, with titles like, “Are You a Good Citizen?,” “Are You Physically Fit?,” and “What You Do in Your Spare Time.” The installment, “God Is Never Out of Style,” is the most overt anti-commie screed, though its not the only one to berate young folk for being lazy, disrespectful, irreligious, and being too wise-ass.

This page: Clockwise from left is a portion of “Your Role in the Cold War” one-pager from U.S. Air Force Comics #26 [Mar. 1963]; cover detail by Dick Giordano and Sal Trapani, Nukla #1 [Oct. 1965]; and a house ad promoting Charlton’s Beatles publications from their rock ’n’ roll magazines.

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

Tony and Team Tallarico

I came here,” Delbo explained,”he introduced me to Charlton Publishing.

So my first assignments in the States was for Charlton, like almost every comic book artist in the U.S.” Connecting with Say whatever you want about the drawattended the American School of Design Tallarico, “I did Billy the Kid. When the ing talent of Alfred Anthony Tallarico— and started his comics career at Hillman artist who was doing it got sick, they and, believe you me, the journeyman during World War II; the two met when gave the assignment to me. I did it for artist commonly known as Tony Tallarico was in high school, as both several years. I was working like a maTallarico [1933–2022], fairly or worked for Frank Carin, whose chine in those days! You needed to be a not, had suffered more than his studio produced the 1950 machine to make a living in those days… share of brickbats—one can’t version of Captain Atom.

I was sending the work to Tony, never argue that the diminutive Ital“We teamed up togethgot a rejection, and everything was fine. ian wasn’t driven, ambitious, er at Charlton because I And that’s the way it was.”37 In the early and in possession of a solid was getting tired of doing ’70s, Delbo drew Charlton’s Geronimo business acumen that kept complete art jobs,” Fraccio Jones and later contributed to Monster him and some close associates told Jim Amash. “I always World, a black-&-white mag edited by busy and fed through times hated to ink, anyway. Once Tallarico. After a long career working for both flush and lean.

I created the art and solved Gold Key, Dell, DC, and Marvel, Delbo is A grad of the School of all the drawing problems, I today retired and living in Florida.

Tony Tallarico didn’t want to go over it again. It Industrial Arts, Tallarico was with Nochern Yeshaya Nodel, son of a Charlton from early on. “I did some aggravated me a little bit. I was writing rabbi and known to most as Norman things… when Al Fago was the editor,” stories because of the time factor and Nodel [1922–2000], was an illusthe artist told Jamie Coville. “They were I had enough going on, so Tony trator who worked with Tallarico for Hot Rod and Racing Cars [‘Hot Rod handled the inking.”36 beginning in 1966, though he Talk,’ ’53–54]. I did a bunch of cartoon The team would continis best recalled for a copious cars, very similar to the Disney movie ue with Fraccio penciling and body of Classics Illustrated Cars. Only they were done a long time Tallarico inking into the ’70s, work. His first pro job was a nd ago… Al Fago had an office on 42 along the way producing art comic strip based on accomStreet and Broadway, right on Times for the How & Why Wonplished Jewish Americans, Square… It was very impersonal. You der Books of Science; The Lives of Our Times, which he just go up, show him what you had. If he Great Society Comic Book; produced with his brother in had a script for you, you’d take it back.

Dell’s notorious Dracula and the late 1940s.

Otherwise you’d play the game of Wolfman super-hero comics; Of their arrangement, calling him up asking for work.”34 Joe Simon’s Harvey Thriller Norman Nodel Tallarico revealed to Jim Amash, A significant Tallarico line, many—and we “[Nodel] did a lot of stuff for Charlton mean many!—coloring books; side-hustle connected with for me—romance, mystery—you name and a massive number of Charlton was 1959’s Maco it. We visited at his home; he was over Toys giveaway comic book Charlton Comics, including here with his wife, and the kids would catalog, about which, Ken war, Western, romance, and always come over when he came to deQuattro related, “cleverly (yes) surfing comics. Togethliver a job. But towards the end, he never integrated ads and product er they drew the pre-Ditko set foot in the house because he had ’60s version of Blue Beetle placement along with a such bad arthritis… I felt bad for him. I couple of stand-alone stories. and the “Son of Vulcan” would wait for him—I knew what time feature. The duo used a “Tony The comic was made available he would come—and I would go out, through full-page ads that ran in Williamsune” pen-name for and meet him at his car.”38 Indeed, for Bill Fraccio their Warren Publications horror issues of Charlton’s war comics…

Charlton, Nodel did stories in numerous To get the comic you simply sent 5¢ work and, by the mid-’70s, commercial genres: war, Western, romance, work had exhausted Fraccio, so to cover shipping and handling… Each ghost, and funny animal. By he switched to teaching at the [Maco] toy cost a designated amount of his final years, he illustrated Connecticut School of Art. red triangle corners cut off your Charlton Jewish-themed books and comic books, plus shipping. A defacing Late of the Pan Amerimagazines for children. that would bedevil future comic book can Art School, Jose Delbo After the Charlton collectors seeking unsullied copies.”35 [b. 1933] left his native assignments dried up in the A tiny notation under Tallarico’s Argentina to find comics later ’70s, Tallarico, ever on splash page credit in that Maco one-shot work in 1965, preceded the prowl for new business was “Bill-Tone Studio,” which refers to by his friend, comic book opportunities, depended on the partnership of Tallarico and William artist Luis Dominguez, who book publishing and advertisJ. Fraccio, a team that lasted into the had arrived in the United ing illustration gigs for a living.

1970s. Bill Fraccio [1920–2005] States before him. “Then, when Jose Delbo

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The New Ways of the Old Blue Beetle Unseen since the indignity of last appearing as back-up in Nature Boy #3 [Mar. 1956],* Charlton’s adopted super-hero, The Blue Beetle, was revived and refigured as a ’60s costumed character in spring 1964, with the release of his own title’s #1 [June 1964]. The blue-clad crime-fighter’s resurrection was likely prompted by the rise of the Marvel super-hero line, as well as DC and Archie’s profitable forays into the genre.

But writer Joe Gill made some tweaks to the character’s background and abilities, as author Christopher Irving related in The Blue Beetle Companion:

SUPER WESTERN HEROES Little noticed during the early ’60s, perhaps, was the fun taking place within Charlton’s lineup of Western comics. For instance, the mysterious PAM was stretching the bounds of genre in his Kid Montana assignment, a title which he effectively rebooted in #32 [Dec. 1961] with an new origin story and revised look. Within a few issues, PAM had the gunfighter encountering “The Snow Monster”—the spitting image of The Heap—and visiting a “prehistoric dawn world” populated with dinosaurs! Soon enough, the aging gunslinger was also battling Killer Apes and the Frank Frazetta-inspired Black Arrow, yet though the artist-writer gave it his all, the renamed Montana Kid was cancelled by #50 [Mar. 1965].

Another lively shoot-’em-up series was “The Gunmaster,” which embraced the super-hero trope of masked crimefighter, launching in Six-Gun Heroes #57 [June ’60]. As Don Markstein relates, “The character got even more super-heroey a few years later, with the introduction of a Robin-like sidekick, Bullet the Gun Boy. Bullet was Bob Tellub, whose name even the dullest child was probably bright enough to spell backward and thus divine the Secret Meaning.”39 The duo received their own title in the mid-’60s—twice!—with the first lasting four issues [’64–65]; the second going for six [’65–67].

Charlton’s very first incognito Western hero was Masked Raider, and his crime-fighting partner was a golden eagle named Talon. By 1960, Morisi was handling the art chores, but even his considerable talents—which lent an enthusiastic super-hero-like verve to the stories—were not enough to save the feature, one that had started with #1 [June ’55] and ended with a second series, Masked Raider #30 [June ’61].

By the mid-’60s, Westerns were on the wane at Charlton, though a few titles did survive into the next decade: Billy the Kid and Cheyenne Kid, and two barely squeaked in, Outlaws of the West and Texas Rangers in Action, both gone by 1971.

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

Rather than a patrolman, Dan Garrett (now with two “t’s,” perhaps so they could trademark his name from the possibly public domain “Garret”) was now an archaeologist who discovered a magic scarab in an Egyptian tomb. Speaking the phrase “Kaji Dha,” Garrett magically transformed into the red-goggled, super-powered Blue Beetle. This new Beetle was a far cry from his 1939 pulp counterpart. However, like the later ’40s and ’50s versions, the 1964 model was also a generic Superman with a sliding scale of super-powers. The stories were fun at their best, laughable at their worst, and a step back from even the [Ted] Galindo stories of the ’50s.40 Irving also explained that the type of adversary had changed: “Gone were the generic gangsters and racketeers of the Fox Blue Beetle—they were traded in for science-fiction oriented adventure stories that involved mad bug men and atomic red knights. Being a super character, this new Blue Beetle needed super-powered villains, such as the Giant Mummy, Magnoman, Mr. Thunderbolt, and the laughable Praying Mantis-Man (literally a green-skinned man in a mantis costume).”41 This initial fiveissue run ended with a cover-date of Mar. 1965, with all issues written by Gill and drawn by penciler Bill Fraccio and inker Tony Tallarico. Faccio told Jim Amash that he enjoyed penciling the title (and was glad his oft partner was inking). “I liked it,” he said, “be*No, consideration is not cause it had given to Israel Waldman’s Human plenty of Fly #10 [1963], reprinting B.B. tales. action.”42 This page: At top is Masked Raider #27 cover detail, by Pete Morisi, and Gunmaster from Six-Gun Heroes #57 [June ’60] by Dick Giordano, as well as two Kid Montana covers, #35 [July ’62] (top) by Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia and #36 [Sept. ’62]

by Morisi. Above, maybe penciled by Bill Fraccio, definitely inked

by Frank McLaughlin, Blue Beetle #1 [June ’64] cover detail.

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

The Fightin’ 5 It was Archer St. John’s comics publishing house which first used the appellation “Fightin’” (dropping the last letter—g) in the title of a comic book. In fact, St. John had two separate comics, Fightin’ Marines and Fightin’ Texan, a Western series, that employed the colloquialism.

But it was Charlton who let loose with the word after acquiring the war series.

By 1956, the Derby imprint had no less than four war books utilizing the g-droppin’ abbreviation for the title.

So it was natural, when Charlton wanted to add some super-hero team verve to a new title, that editor Masulli and company would select the alliterative Fightin’ 5 for the July 1964 debut.

scaled-down version of the Blackhawks, but without a membership comprised of many nations. The Fightin’ 5 was ‘America’s Super Squad,’ and its men were all U.S. citizens. Naturally, they took on Communist threats to Uncle Sam, though usually overlaid with nods to older menaces ranging from Nazis to Aztec warriors.”43 The jingoistic series, lasting 14 issues, was written by Joe Gill and drawn by the able Montes and Bache.

What exactly prompted the new book isn’t clear, but there was definitely a sense the series was a Charlton version of the classic Blackhawk team, then still being published by DC Comics. As John Wells pointed out: “With their matching blue uniforms and red [berets], the military squad was something of a

LOSS OF (QUALITY) CONTROL As John Korfel noted, the year 1960 bore witness to a startling number of printing and binding errors coming from the Derby publishing company. He wrote, “Approximately 65 issues of 36 different titles with cover dates from Mar.–Oct. 1960 were misprinted. These errors included contents not matching covers, blank inside covers, contents stapled upside down, and covers printed with only partial color. Several hundred of these error books which found their way out of the Charlton printing plant have been discovered. It is unknown how many of these titles were eventually republished without the errors, and all books over those dates are scarce to rare.”44 Evidence of such pitiful attention to detail can be seen at the Comic Book Plus website, which reproduces the guts of Secrets of Young Brides #21 [Sept. ’60] stapled over with the cover of 10 Minute Crossword Puzzle Magazine #13!45 Such a sustained collapse of quality control begs questions like: was the preponderance of outrageous mistakes due to the plant’s labor woes and worker opposition to an anti-union publisher, with disgruntled employees sabotaging the publications? Or could it have been because of an influx of poorly managed, unskilled immigrant workforce—many who couldn’t communicate in English—maybe unintentionally messing things up.

Did anybody care at all? Answers, alas, are lost to eternity.

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COVER STORIES Perhaps it was editor Masulli who introduced a frequent Charlton habit that persisted over the decades, one instituted as a cost-cutting measure yet came across to readers as frankly third-rate and cheap. Regardless of instigator, the outfit, rather than incur the expense of commissioning new cover art for certain comic titles, would instead make stats of interior artwork and cobble together a slapdash cover at no cost.

As for original covers, Dick Giordano shared, “At one point in time, I did every Charlton cover, including not only the artwork, but I wrote whatever copy there was, and [specify] the type… Some of it was as a freelancer, some of it was on staff. When Pat Masulli was in charge, I had a studio in Ansonia—the next small town over from Derby—and Charlton gave me samples of the type fonts they had, logo stats, and the finished art for each title, and I had to comp a layout for a cover, including book and/or story titles, write any copy that was needed, and the I would spec the type and send it in to them. Some were montage covers, paste-up photostat covers. I drew all the original artwork.”46 (Upon ascending to Masulli’s position, Giordano enjoined Rocke Mastroserio as main cover artist, “If you go through the entire run,” Giordano explained, “you’ll find a lot of my layouts on his covers. I did tight layouts and he finished them.”)47

Tarzan the Unauthorized Who was to blame for Charlton Press’s Tarzan debacle of 1964/65? Was it Ed Levy, Charlton founding partner and owner of subsidiary Gold Star Books, who seemed to be losing interest in publishing anyway and was eying retirement? And was onetime circulation wunderkind, Capital Distribution head and Monarch Books part-owner Allan Adams involved? Both seem to have vanished from the company by ’65 and, in December of that year, their respective paperback imprints would cease to exist.

Tarzan’s Derby, Conn., adventure started in a neighboring state, in 1962, when Manhattan used booksellers Jack Biblo and Jack Tanen were perturbed with a lack of response from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Fruitlessly, the duo had inquired about whether the company intended to keep the ERB catalog in print and, in their frustration, they decided to conduct a Library of Congress copyright search. Author Robert W. Fenton recounted their amazement at what they found: “Messrs. Biblo and Tannen said they were flabbergasted to discover that, in their opinion, the Burroughs corporation had neglected to renew the precious copyright on at least half the ERB’s total output… There has been much confusion on the copyright status of some of Burroughs’ early works. Are they or are they not in the public domain?”48

The antiquarian bookmen banked on their assumption and established Canaveral Press, and then began accepting orders for the 21 ERB books they intended to print. As word got out, Ballantine contracted with ERB, Inc., for an “authorized” series, and Ace and Dover raced to be first to release public domain editions.

Charlton Press’s newest paperback imprint, Gold Star, launched in 1963 with a series of Hank Janson novels. Kenneth R. Johnson noted, “In an industry where many shortlived paperback imprints may be described as ‘squirrelly,’ Gold Star was undoubtedly the squirrelliest.”49 But what made the imprint that way was less because of those 17 British thrillers than the 20 sex-filled books they published.

Virtually every sordid volume in Gold Star’s libidinous line was written by the husband-and-wife writing team of Peter T. and Peggy O’Neil Scott, who were contracted to scribe a new Tarzan paperback series. The two chose “Barton Werper” as their pseudonym (Werper was surname of a villain in ERB’s Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar) and they proceeded to produce five “original” novels.

At the same time, Charlton execs decided to produce a new comic book series, despite the fact that Gold Key was then currently publishing its own bi-monthly title, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes. Mainstay artist Jesse Marsh’s drawing ability was in decline by then, his 16th year since starting on the series, and ERB fans had grown bored.

Editor Pat Masulli, who drew the cover of Jungle Tales of Tarzan #1 [Dec. ’64], hinted at reader dissatisfaction when he promised a revitalization in the editorial inside: “The true flavor of Tarzan as created by Mr. Burroughs has rarely been tasted in comic books,” he shared. “We intend to change that. We intend to be as true to the original as possible. We pledge ourselves to a series of comics that will thrill and inspire, delight and entrance as did the original masterworks.”50

The comic book was based on a single Tarzan volume, sixth in the prose series and itself a collection of a dozen loosely connected short stories, Jungle Tales of Tarzan [1919], with Charlton overall adapting eight of those tales.

In The Comic-Book Book, Camille E. Cazedessus, Jr., wrote, “Jungle Tales of Tarzan lasted only four issues… but, in those four issues, it proved Masulli’s pledge, faithfully adapting stories from Burroughs’ book of the same title. The Hogarth-Foster influence on Glanzman’s artwork was obvious.”51 With Sam Glanzman, Charlton possessed no better artist in their employ equally up to the task of depicting the jungle lord. And yet he was dismissive of his own work of that era: ”My Charlton art was real crummy crap. When I see it now, I could die. Except for Hercules, which looked fairly decent. I did a Tarzan, that wasn’t so hot, either. But everybody seems to like it somewhat.”52 In fact, his creative partner for that same short run, writer Joe Gill, was thrilled with the results of their collaboration. “I enjoyed working with Sam,” he recalled, “and we did a great Tarzan together—Charlton did a Tarzan better than any other; we used a block text instead of a lot of balloons, and I tried to keep the flavor of Edgar Rice Burroughs in that, and I did. Even at the speed we worked at, I was quite proud of Tarzan.”53

This spread: Details from Fightin’ Five # 33 [July ’65] (by Rocke Mastroserio) and #36 [Jan. ’66] (by Pat Masulli and Mastroserio), and cover of #28 (by Dick Giordano). This page is Sam Glanzman’s JToT #2 [Feb. ’65] recreation and Masulli’s JToT #1 [Dec. ’64] cover.

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom JToT comics was a critical smash.

“The true virtue… is that it follows the story line of the book with only slight modifications,” writes an impressed and nameless critic in the ERB fanzine, Oparian #1 [Sept. 1965].54 “It captures the flavor of adventure and action which is inherent in Burroughs’ Tarzan series.

In this respect, Charlton’s Jungle Tales of Tarzan has succeeded in winning the support of Burroughs fans all across the world.” Another fan publication, The Gridley Wave [#15, Oct. ’64], gushed, “Comic fans are going to love the way the mag is made up… no balloons, just text, and plenty of action pix straight out of ERB’s own works.”55 Fandom was aware of the legal dispute over the character, and Ymir fanzine editor John Chambers wrote Masulli to ask the editor what was Charlton’s justification for publishing a Tarzan comic. Chambers received a two-page reply dated March 11, 1965, in which Masulli wrote, “You see, according to existing law, some of the Tarzan works are listed as public domain therefore, when the publishers instructed me to prepare a comic book based on one of those P.D. works, I felt no legal conscience pangs.

If legality was no problem, then the only existing point to consider was morality.”56 (Chambers recently shared with the author, “I was pleased with Mr. Masulli’s response. It was thoughtful and I was in agreement with his argument.”)57 The series was cut short by its fourth issue, when a February 10, 1965, decision by the U.S. Southern District Court of New York let stay a ruling that ERB, Inc., won its suit against Charlton for “falsely and fraudulently”58 deceiv-

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ing, misleading, and confusing the public with the publisher’s version of the jungle lord. In fact, fanzine ERB-dom #14 [Oct. ’65] reported the entire run of the already-printed JToT #5 was destroyed, along with the original art and script!59 At that time, ERB, Inc., had not been aware—and neither had fandom —that Masulli, Gill, and Glanzman were quietly preparing a Tarzan newspaper comic strip to compete with the authorized version, which had been in syndication since 1929. Found in SJG’s possession were five completed daily strips, some pencil-only episodes, and finished presentation art, all of which was finally revealed in The Unauthorized Tarzan [2013], which collected JToT. In his account of a June ’65 visit to ERB, Inc., Dale R. Broadhurst shared that he and a companion went to Tarzana to meet with Hulbert Burroughs, ERB’s son and executor of the estate. “I remember us talking about the successful closure of legal proceedings against Gold Star Books and Charlton Press. We all agreed that the pocket books were worse than the comics,” Broadhurst wrote.60 The lasting impact of Charlton’s attempted usurpation was to energize the Western editor to improve the legitimate if lackluster Gold Key title, which resulted in the outstanding Russ Manning being welcomed as the new Tarzan artist and for scripts to adapt ERB’s original novels —a recognition of a key component of Charlton’s critical success. (By 1967, Manning would take over the Tarzan newspaper strip, as well.)

For all of the acclaim received by Charlton’s comic book, its paperback series was universally reviled by ERB fans.

The Oparian fanzine reported, “Werper has been accused of plagiarizing ERB’s Tarzan novels, shabbily imitating Burroughs’ Tarzan, and degrading the image and destroying the characterizations of Tarzan which ERB so triumphantly built up. All of these are valid accusations.”61 Before the lawsuit shut down the Gold Star series, the husband and wife team hacked out five Tarzan books (apparently each writing their own respective volumes), with some that plagiarized passages word-for-word from ERB’s work. Still, for all the panning, latter series entries had some interesting science fiction elements added to the mix—including a visit from time-traveling mutants of the future—which received some positive, if tepid, notice.

In 1966, already departed from Charlton Press, Allan Adams accepted a position at Petersen Publishing Co., publisher of Hot Rod, Motor Trend, and CARtoons, where he was hired as the director of marketing and research.

This page: Poster image of the Lord of the Jungle and friends by Russ Manning, artist on the Gold Key published series.

Below, the unauthorized Gold Star books.

SEXY BEASTS Into the new decade, Charlton’s paperback subsidiary, Monarch Books, launched a sub-imprint devoted specifically to film tie-ins, though the final results were exceedingly more provocative than the comparatively tame movies they were based on. The initial batch of Monarch Movie paperbacks were released in spring and summer 1960, the first two being war movie adaptation The Enemy General (starring Van Johnson) and Hammer film tie-in The Stranglers of Bombay, but the next four—The Brides of Dracula, Gorgo, Konga, and Reptilicus—are typically of greater interest to Charlton fans.

In Bruce Tinkel’s Paperback Parade overview of the brief series—only eight with the Monarch Movie logo were published, ending in June ’61—he shared the major discrepancies between the celluloid and paper versions. In contrast to the usual adaptation, he wrote, “Instead the books became sleazy, introducing explicit, for the time, sex scenes by increasing the roles of female characters that have tiny or nonexistent roles and having them frequently naked.”62 In The Brides of Dracula, in contrast to the highly regarded Hammer film, the book version of the Count’s nemesis Dr. Van Helsing discovered a naked would-be vampire victim in the woods and promptly beds her. In the giant monster’s paperback depiction, Gorgo slashed a woman’s clothing with a talon (though leaving nary a flesh wound!) and the nude lady promptly engages in coitus with the hunky hero.

Even the cover painting of Konga wildly diverged from the actual movie, relating a scene not found in the film (still, aside from inserted sex scenes, the novelization was pretty faithful).

As for Reptilicus, perhaps surprisingly, “The book actually improves on the movie,” wrote Tinkel. “Since all the action is on paper, the monster is free from budgetary restrictions and can wreck all kind of havoc on Denmark.” After two crime film tie-ins, by mid-’61, Monarch Movie Books were no more.

This page: Covers of Monarch Movie books, Konga and Gorgo, and original cover painting of The Brides of Dracula (artist unknown). At right is a reprint of the Buffalo Bill Stories dime novel, one of many reprints published by Gold Star, in 1964.

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

Gold Star-Crossed

By appearances, the Gold Star paperback line looked to be Ed Levy’s answer to Monarch Books, the other Charlton book imprint co-owned by longtime Charlton partner John Santangelo. To tell the truth, there was a vanity aspect to a chunk of Gold Star’s output as a number were reprints of old turn-of-the-20th-century dime novels, a collecting passion of Levy’s.

Mostly, though, the Gold Star catalog was dominated by sex-oriented books. “The 66 published books,” Kenneth R. Johnson reported,”were comprised of 17 reprints and 49 originals. Although the dime novels were all reprints, they had not been previously paired up in these combinations, thus making the anthologies ‘original.’”63 The imprint lasted between Nov. 1963–Dec. ’65, ending at the same time as Monarch. No doubt, its unauthorized Tarzan debacle hastened the closing of Levy’s short-lived foray onto the paperback racks.

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BLUE CONFESSIONS With the heyday of Robert Harrison’s notorious celebrity gossip magazine Confidential passed (and soon, too, its Charlton knock-offs, Hush-Hush and Top Secret),* the Derby publisher focused increasingly on the tried-and-true personal confession category, launching Actual Confessions in late 1959.

As Alan Betrock pointed out, “One of Charlton’s two main forays into romance and confession magazines (the other being True Life Secrets), Actual Confessions was a bit wilder in content and illustration than most of its competitors. This one seemed geared a little more towards adults than teens, and their specially posed pictures were often pretty racy. At one time, their slogan was ‘the magazine of exclusive true case histories.’”64 Due to salacious content, Actual Confessions was targeted in ’61 by the postal service, which deemed the magazine obscene and banned it from the U.S. mail.

Vinnie Colletta was the photographer for some shoots depicting sex-fiend confessions, etc., and for one session he used handsome onetime comic artist Bob Globerman as model.

When Globerman saw Colletta’s art, he later told Shaun Clancy, “I said, ‘You’re Colletta? I’ve been modeling some of my women [drawings] after yours.’ He laughed and couldn’t have been nicer… the [confession mags] were trash…real life stories and all that junk.”65 *Both Charlton “tattle” mags would be cancelled by the end of 1964.

Charles in Charge

In the ’50s, the publisher’s oldest son and company namesake, Charles W. Santangelo [1935–2022], had a hitch in the U.S. Marines, got married, and started a family. At intervals, he worked at Charlton Press and, when the corporate lineup was suddenly in flux, the young man was ready to take his rightful position.

“In the mid-’60s,” Charles told Christopher Irving, “Ed [Levy] decided he was going to retire and didn’t want to work every day, like he had been doing. His son [Charles] wasn’t interested in the business, and I was, so Ed said, ‘John, you want to buy me out?’ So they sat down with an accountant and an attorney was there, Ed was there, and I was there… That was it, my father bought out the other half and made a deal with another handshake. They shook hands before the Charles Santangelo partnership and shook hands when they ended it; no contracts or anything.”66 As company overseer, Charles ran day-to-day operations at the Charlton plant and his father, who, by 1964, was of retirement age, increasingly relieved himself of responsibility, focusing instead on overseas projects. Though he would only work at the company until 1968, quitting after had disagreements with his father and brother, it was Charles’ decision, when Masulli was promoted to edit the magazine line, to select Dick Giordano as the comic book line’s new editor and thus he facilitated the vaunted Action Heroes era of Charlton Comics.

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PERLIN’S HARBOR A few years after leaving the U.S. Army, Brooklyn-born Donald David Perlin [b.

1929] was working full-time at the Service Folding Box Company as a packaging designer, though he yearned to get assignments in the comics industry. In the ’40s, Don Perlin had studied under Burne Hogarth and landed a few measly assignments from, among others, Timely, Hillman, and Fox, where his first piece saw print, a crime story inked by Pete Morisi. By Don Perlin 1951, Perlin was drawing full stories and, for a spell, worked for Will Eisner, penciling P*S Magazine features, and then he was drafted in ’53. Upon discharge, “I was sending off a few stories to Stan Lee, but after a while, he told me that he was sorry,”Perlin told Richard Arndt, “but that things were drying up at Atlas.”67 While working the day job, Perlin moonlighted for Charlton. He told Arndt, “[T]hey didn’t have full-time work for me at the box company. It would be full-time sometimes, part-time sometimes. They made a deal with me that I could draw comics while I worked there, whenever I had down time from them. But they would pay me my salary for the week.

So, during box work down-times, I was drawing comics for Charlton—war stories mostly, but also hot rod cars comics, romance, some Westerns.”68 A few years into the Charlton gig, editor Pat Musulli asked Perlin and Morisi if they wanted outside work. “He had a studio where they colored comics and he was able to get work from different places,” Perlin explained to the author.

“The only thing is he’d come in with seven- or eight-page stories that had to be penciled and inked the next day. I said, ‘We can’t do it.’ He said, ‘I don’t care what it looks like, you know.’’ So Pete and I sat down and we knocked out these stories. We were laughing at the way they were coming out, you know. We wouldn’t put our name on it. We used to say we were doing it, ‘To eat, man.’ Pat would run in, take the job, and he was happy as a lark with it.”69 By the ’60s, opportunity came knocking for the artist, who specialized in war stories, but also drew everything from Konga to Brides in Love. While dropping off a job at Charlton’s Manhattan office, “Sal Gentile, who was the editor there at Charlton, asked me at one point if I wanted to become an assistant editor for them,” he told Arndt. “Work up in Connecticut. I went up there and toured the company.

But they wouldn’t move me from Brooklyn to Connecticut.

I would have had to do it all on my own. The pay wouldn’t have been any better than what I’d been getting at Service Folding Box Company, so I would have actually lost money by working for them. I was already getting my Service salary and the Charlton work on the side, so I refused the offer.”70 At one point, the publishing company was asking freelancers to submit ideas for new series. One was by Perlin, “Focus: Danger,” an adventure strip that was eventually saw print in Strange Suspense Stories #3 [Sept. ’68]. “I submitted that,” Perlin told Arndt. “Dick Giordano was the editor at that time [of the request for new concepts]. He left right after that and nobody who replaced him wanted any more ‘Focus: Danger,’ especially,” he added with a laugh, “as it was written by a genius.”71 Perlin would work for Charlton until the mid-’70s, when his big break arrived at Marvel Comics.

Charlton’s Ever-Dependable Art Teams

Montes portrait courtesy of Dr. Steven Montes. Bache portrait courtesy of Alan Bache. Nicholas photo courtesy of Paul Nicholas.

There was the duo of Montes work, said, “His greatest loves and Bache, as well as partners were family, art, and working Nicholas and Alascia. hard to help others.”74 NephThroughout the 1960s, ew Michael Montes shared, Charlton could boast the “It was really cool [that he presence of those two worked in comics] and I highly dependable and used to bring [his comics] prolific art teams particto school to show off my ularly adept at producing uncle’s name.”75 hundreds of pages—more About Montes’ frequent likely thousands—that fed the art partner, Giordano said, ever-demanding appetite of the “Ernie Bache was an inker— Ernie Bache he would’ve been great today, publisher’s comic book line. And yet, perhaps because neither partnership because he loved that slick line—but he became fan-favorites, too little is known was so slow! He used to ink the stuff about these comic book veteran duos. slower than Bill Montes penciled it. I think some of his feathering he did with Of penciler Bill Montes [1928– a ruler. He was a nice guy, never made 2014], there’s been sparse info regardmuch money, about the only thing ing his presence in the historical record he did was ink over Bill’s pencils.”76 other than Dick Giordano’s recollection Bronx-born Ernest William Bache [b. that New York City-born William Albert 1922] served in the U.S. Army Corps of Montes, while moonlighting as comic Engineers during WWII and attended the book freelancer, held down a mid-level School of Industrial Art and the Carmanagement position at The New York toonists and Illustrators School, where Times during his Charlton stint spanning he became friends with Dick Ayers and approximately 1959–71. In 1951, Monfuture science fiction author Harry Harrites married Joan Tzimorotas and they son (who called Bache “an accomplished raised their five sons in Freeport, Long artist even before he came to class”),77 Island, N.Y., where Montes was involved among others. Ayers remembered, “As in community affairs. Barry Lipton, I’m going into my [C&I] class for about retired president of the Newspaper Guild the first evening, there’s a fellow and of New York, confirmed that Montes on his notebook is ‘Bache.’ Bache is my worked in the editorial art department middle name. So that made me stop of the daily, touching up photos (among and talk to him. I got more interested, other tasks), and that Montes’ father had and then I found out he worked for Joe Shuster right nearby, and then would worked in the NYT composing room. go to the school there, too ... which is Montes became involved in the Newswhat I did for quite some time. I penciled paper Guild and began as a business Funnyman.”78 Harrison also encounagent representing the union somewhere tered Bache at C&I. “The first guy I met between 1970–72, when he quit comics, was Ernie Bache, and we wound up and he retired in 1994. Of whether working together for a few years after Montes’ colleagues knew of his that.”79 Aside from his comics work with comic book work, Lipton said, Magazine Enterprises, Atlas, Youthful “We all knew it… it was Magazines, and Story Comics (where just common knowledge… he sometimes used the pseudonym Lee and I know he liked to do Bachelor), Bache had joined up with the illustrations on his own.”72 then-fledgling religious sect, Scientology, “He liked to dress very well and was, on the surface, and he served on the art department of their house publication, Ability. He very personable,” Lipton revealed.73 His son Dr. Stemarried Ursula Floer in 1951, and they ven Montes, who recalled his had four sons. Between 1952–55, Bache teamed with Ayers, whose wife, Lindy, dad moonlighting on comics Bill Montes pages after coming home from recalled him as “one of these low-key,

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easy-going people,” and, when he’d miss his train back to New York City, “I’d have to give him lunch, and he’d eat and talk to me about Scientology—he was way ahead of his time on that one.”80 In 1961, Bache joined with Montes to become an art team that worked for Charlton until his death, on Aug. 21, 1968. Dick explained, “Ernie smoked too much. We worked close together in the same room and I even got a FilterQueen to put in the room while I was working just to absorb that smoke. And one day he died in his sleep.”81 The artist was 48.

Best known as Charles Nicholas, New Jersey-born Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski [1921–1985]—”Charlie Nick” to family—was active in the Golden Age of comics and is considered the creator of the Blue Beetle, though that was once contested. “Supporting Wojtkoski’s claim is his 1946 discharge papers, provided by nephew Joe DeGuissepi,” wrote Christopher Irving in The Blue Beetle Companion PDF. “In it, Wojtkski’s description of his ‘Civilian Occupations’ includes: ‘originated and drew Blue Beetle.’”82 That same document reveals Nicholas worked in Simon and Kirby’s studio for a year, and the artist also freelanced for Will Eisner, Timely Comics, Quality, DC, Holyoke, and—for an astonishing 23-year stint—labored as the penciling half of the Nicholas and Alascia team at Charlton Comics. Giordano shared with Irving, “I met Charles Nicholas along with Charles Nicholas a few other artists when we all accepted staff jobs at Charlton Press in early 1955. We all accepted working in Derby, Conn., for very low page rates (with a promise of all the work we wanted) because freelance work was hard to come by as the industry went into one of its frequent tailspins... Whatever he was given, he would pencil four pages (I think... or it could have been three) a day, every day, no more, no less. At the rate we were getting, he had determined that he needed to do that much work to support his family. Of course, this was not the best work that Charlie could do.

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Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom Stock shots were employed to save time and one story penciled by Charlie looked pretty much the same as any other story penciled

by Charlie. But top management did not care what the art looked like, just that it was done. And Charlie, realizing that this was pretty much the last stop Vince Alascia in his career, just did what he had to do! I never heard him complain except with humor and he rarely spoke of his family or outside interests, but he smiled a lot, had an offbeat sense of humor, and seemed well adjusted to his situation. He was exceptionally easy to get along with and I never heard a cross word about or from Charlie.”83 In 1949, he married Nellie Sieroslawski and they lived in Bridgeport, Conn., and raised their three children. After Charlton shut down its comics line in ’76, his career accelerated, as illustrator of a Star Wars adaptation for Pendulum Press [’78], working for DC [’79–81], drawing The Incredible Hulk newspaper strip [’80– 82], as well as producing art for Marvel super-hero juvenile books [’84–85], just prior to his death.

Vince Alascia [1914–1998], Bronx native of Italian immigrant parents and inking half of “Nicholas Alascia,”* met future cartoonist Gill Fox at New *It likely comes as little surprise that any number of comic book readers back then believed “Nicholas Alascia” was one person. Also, during the 1950s, inker Alascia teamed with penciler Dick Giordano for about five years.

York’s Textile High School, where Vincent Amadeo Alascia was encouraged to seek a career in art. Babe Ruth autographed a sketch the boy made of the “Sultan of Swat” and no less than Jack Dempsey and U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt each sent notes of approval to him regarding his caricatures of them. After working at a weekly newspaper for three years, he joined up with Harry “A” Chesler and initiated his comics career, in 1938. “I started working with George Tuska and, as a team, we did Captain Marvel. He did the pencil[ing] and I did the inking,” Alascia told The Bridgeport Post, which described a brazen young artist: “While still working for Chesler, Vince approached Eisner and Iger, on 44th and Third Ave., showed them some samples of his work and they offered him $40 a week.

“When Chesler learned of their offer, Vince said, Chesler offered him $5 more. And what Vince did was incite a bidding war between the two publishers, until Chesler made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “‘You had to be a little sneaky to get ahead in those days,’ Vince said of his attempts to get a salary increase.”84 After that, Alascia joined Timely for about ten years, during which time wife Mary had twins, a boy and a girl. Then he freelanced for Avon, Ace, and Orbit Publications, where he worked for editor Marjorie May. He said, “She left me alone to do what I wanted to do, [and] that’s when you do your best work, when you do what you like best.”85

Later, commuting to Derby from the Bronx to work at Charlton publishers, Vince got off the Merritt Parkway one day about [1955], discovered Trumbull and moved here with his family… After his long years at Charlton, Vince noted that he and a lot of other artists were given “temporary” layoff slips in Sept. 1976.

But, while at Charlton, Vince worked on such comics as Captain Gallant, Army War Heroes, Attack, the Fightin’ series, featuring adventures of heroes of the armed forces, and plenty of hot rod, Western, and romance comics, too.86 The Post full-page article (sporting a large photo of Alascia displaying his signed Babe Ruth sketch) then seemingly alludes to the advent of then-current Modern Comics reprinting Charlton’s comics in those later ’70s: “But Vince and the other artists became victims of new marketing techniques when the publisher began to reissue the back issues of the comics, thus needing their talents no longer.”87 The article’s headline, “Cartoonist Goes Literary After Years with Comics,”refers to Alascia’s late in life reinvention when, after retiring from comics, he became an artistin-residence, of a sort, for the Trumbull Public Library. “I do the artwork for the library flyers and posters now,” he said, “and I also sometimes give ‘chalk talks’ to groups of kids in the library.”88 A list of Charlton titles Alascia worked on is simply staggering, testament to his oversize impact at the Derby imprint.

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Hy Eisman photo courtesy of Bryan Stroud.

30 bucks, alright.” And he said, ‘No, that’s the page rate.’ I ROMANCE ON A BUDGET said, ‘How many can you handle [from me]?’ And he said, I During a 2009 panel discussion with Donnie Pitchford, veteran can handle as many as you can put out. I can ink 70 pages a comic book artist Hy Eisman [b. 1927] had an anecdote he wanted to share. “It had to be circa 1962, ’63, I had just week.’ Which was true. I said, ‘In order to be able to just left Kerry Drake. I was ghosting a strip called Kerry come up with ten pages a day, how could I—?’ And he explained that you do close-ups, a lot of close-ups; Drake for Alfredo Andriola and Alfred went back and he taught me if a woman is crying, just put a to doing the strip himself or a part of it. We won’t giant eye with a tear coming out and I was able to go into the Alfred Andriola story… That’s another book. I was left without any work. It was at a time produce seven pages a day in over a period a time. I when comic books were still suffering from the guess I worked for Vinnie for about three years until something that paid money came along. But I didn’t Wertham saga and I got a call from a friend, saying sign anything. That was one of the great virtues of that an inker for Charlton was looking for pencilers that. But Vinnie collected penciled pages from some and it turned out to be Vinnie Colletta. I checked of the best names in the industry at $7 a page. And with him, he was working in Jersey City at the time, on Pavonia Avenue. those names I won’t mention because they’re stars “I went down with a portfolio and Vinnie told me he Hy Eisman today… I was working at Charlton. Through Vinnie, I was… a penciler. But this was all love comics.”89 could handle all the pencils I could produce. I remembered, (By his own calculation, Eisman told an interviewer he from my early experience, to ask, ‘Oh, yeah. What’s the price rate?’ And he said, ‘It’s seven bucks.’ I said, ‘Seven bucks per penciled in excess of 1,000 pages—another estimate has it at panel?’ I figured seven bucks a panel, six panels on a page— 1,500­—of Charlton romance work.)90

ZANY DAYS IN DERBY times than a real business. Pat was constantly trying Though Frank McLaughlin studied art at the to reel in some of these characters, but usually University of Bridgeport, “Most of what I learned to no avail… Lunchtime would often extend into about comics came from working with other mid-afternoon. There was a large, empty lot next artists—Maurice Whitman, Dick Giordano, and, of to the office part of the building where we would course, Stan Drake.” While working as a technical play softball. Pat would be hanging out the winillustrator at the Sikorsky Aircraft plant, “A college pal, dow, [yelling] at everyone to get back to work. Steve Larry Conti, had worked summers at Charlton and Ditko and Billy Anderson would duel each other with Frank McLaughlin suggested I see Pat Masulli,” McLaughlin shared. bent coat hangers (à la Zorro) while card games and “Pat hired me as his assistant after a short interview.”91 ping-pong matches became marathon events in the cafeteria.

When McLaughlin arrived, he said to Christopher Irving, Visitors were told that these ‘creative people’ needed this “Sal Gentile was the art director and Pat Masulli was the break from work to relax. The cards and ping-pong became quite out of hand, and many a deck of cards were torn to boss… Charlton had a staff of freelance artists who worked there every day. They were Rocco (Rocke) Mastroserio, Sal shreds and ping-pong paddles became lethal weapons. Joe Gill and Jon D’Agostino usually were the culprits.

Trapani, Vince Alascia, Charlie Nicholas, and Bill Molno.”92 Of the latter, McLaughlin shared, “Bill Molno was “After working on staff all day, I drove to nearby AnCharlton’s most prolific pencil artist. Bill was a pal and a sonia to freelance at Dick Giordano’s studio at night and on weekends. We shared space with Maurice Whitman, a selfreal character, always a lot of fun to be with. After a few cocktails, you could count on Bill to stagger to his feet and taught and very talented illustrator. There wasn’t anything Reese couldn’t draw, and he was one of the best, but, for entertain everyone within earshot with his full rendition of German opera. He never knew one word of German, but not whatever reason, remains virtually overlooked by today’s comic historians.” McLaughlin added, “We didn’t make only did it sound authentic, it was hilarious.” much money at Charlton, but it sure was great fun and a He continued, “The atmosphere at Charlton was unusual, to say the least. Charlton Comics was one step removed from wonderful learning experience. You could probably fill a book with some of the zany stories to be told about those days.”93 being a cottage industry, and was more like a clubhouse at

Sarge Steel/Secret Agent Sarge Steel originally began as a private eye series, conceived by Charlton’s then executive editor. “Pat [Masulli] gave me a sketch of a guy with a crew-cut and a scar on his nose, and a steel fist, so that’s how Steel was depicted,” series artist Dick Giordano explained. “From then on, I had more to do with the title than Pat did. He was out of it by then.

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

But we started listing the stories with case numbers, the first being #101, and I don’t remember where we were when we stopped.”94 The “we” Giordano refers to included series writer Joe Gill, about whose work, The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide wrote, “It would be overstating the mark to claim Joe Gill’s scripts were significantly better than his usual production-line fare, but he was having fun.”95 Max Allan Collins pointed out that the character—whose name really was Sargent Steel—was the first fictional private eye who was a Vietnam vet,96 more in the Sam Spade mode to start, but by Sarge Steel #6 [Nov. ’65], he gets the spy treatment and becomes a “special agent,” with 007-like gadgets galore.

“I hated the series when it was made into a super-secret agent series,” lamented Giordano, “because that’s not what a private eye is. Charlton tried to cash in on the Bond thing, and I think that was a mistake. He was a private eye, so let him be a private eye. Don’t try to make him be a secret agent, when he’s just a tough guy with a steel fist.”97

With #9, the title changed to Secret Agent, and that issue was drawn by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. But Giordano returned for two Judomaster back-ups and, a full year after #9, produced art for the last issue, which was written (as were the two back-ups) by Steve Skeates.

Left: Sarge Steel #2 [Feb. ’65].

Right: Detail, Sarge Steel #1 [Dec. ’64].

Art by Dick Giordano.

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“Thank You and Good Afternoon!”

The above headline? That was his trademark sign-off phrase, one he used after appropriating it from a Charlton music mag editor, a closing salutation he’d employ on his public pronouncements, starting as Charlton’s incoming comics editor in 1965 and ending with his 1993 retirement as a top executive at DC Comics.

His name was Richard Joseph Giordano, born on July 20, 1932, in New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, and he was the only child of Graziano (“Jack”) and Josephine, sweethearts since their early youth. Dick Giordano was a sickly kid—health issues would plague him all his life—and was bedridden for much of his tender years. “My father used to read me the Sunday funnies, and the week between was a long wait for me,” he said. “He happened to find Famous Funnies on the newsstand one day and brought it home. He read me that whole book for the rest of the week, instead of just on Sundays—it was the Sunday funnies all wrapped together in 64 pages. Yeah, that’s when I got started, and in fact, I started drawing from some of those issues.”98 Early on, young Dickie encountered a new comic book masked adventurer— an action hero, if you will—that made an impact. He told Michael Eury, “Batman was the character that made me think seriously about finding a way to make comics my life’s work.”99 Elsewhere he explained the character’s appeal: “One of the reasons why Batman is my favorite super-hero is because he’s not really a super-hero,”100 an apparently contradictory statement that would make sense when Giordano got the opportunity to create his own super-hero universe.

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His goal to become a professional artist became an early pursuit, one encouraged by instructors and family.

“I went to an elementary school where I had a great art teacher who impressed me,” he said. “My mother (who was a very good artist when she was younger) was delighted that I was able to draw. I think my ability was inherited. The teacher encouraged me, and when I was ready to graduate, she suggested I try getting into the School of Industrial Arts, which was a vocational high school in New York City available— free—to anybody who could get in. I took the test, passed, and spent four-and-a-half years there (the extra half-year was because I got sick with the illness that always plagues me, and lost about a half-year).”101 During that near half-decade at SIA, the young artist learned a valuable lesson about deadlines, when one particularly strict instructor brooked no excuse when an assignment was late.

“I learned something from that: that, if something’s due on Friday, it’s due on Friday. You don’t argue about whether it’s really necessary to get it in on Friday; you just do it. I learned that from him.

So that’s how I learned about making deadlines. That’s something that stands with me today, I have a reputation for making deadlines, no matter how dumb they are—I make them. Sometimes I get help, but I make deadlines. This situation was the reason why. At SIA, there were a wonderful bunch of instructors, and I learned how to be a professional from them.”102 Graduating in 1951, Giordano had attended SIA with a stellar crew of fellow future pros, including Angelo Torres, Tony Tallarico, Ernie Colón, and some guy named

Anthony Benedetto (later more commonly known as legendary crooner Tony Bennett). Giordano found work with Iger Studios, starting at the ladder’s bottom rung as a gofer, page-eraser, and delivery boy of finished work to Fiction House.

Increasingly, the nascent professional learned on the job and proved increasingly skilled with the pen and brush.

“Anyway,” Giordano said, “I enjoyed working at Iger. I started out with inking backgrounds and, in nine months, I was inking figures—just the figures— and that’s as far as you could go in nine months. Then, I heard from my father that Charlton was looking for artists. So, my dad and I, on New Year’s Day, went up to fellow cabdriver Harold Phillips’ house, where his brother-in-law Al Fago was visiting. Fago was the managing editor at Charlton. He thought I was good enough to work for them and, of course, I grabbed it, and left my staff job at Iger.”103 The year was 1952.

This spread: Clockwise from upper left is a close-up of Dick Giordano’s parents posing for their wedding portrait; Giordano illustration from Fantastic Science Fiction #1 [Aug. 1952]; charming portrait of Giordano inscribed to “Baby”; Giordano’s cover art adorns Teen Confessions #28 [May 1964]; and 1970s Batman painting credited to Bob Kane.

Giordano continued, “To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, even though the rates were terrible, Fago promised me seven pages a week to pencil and ink, at $20 a page… $140!

I was making $40 at Iger’s. You really can’t argue that. The $40 a week at Iger’s was not enough, so I was also working on weekends in a soda shop as soda jerk, which actually I enjoyed. I delivered newspapers and I loved that, because it was all outside.”

He added, “I really don’t remember what work I was doing for Charlton, but for two or three years I had the world’s best set-up: Al Fago lived in Great Neck and he had a Chrysler and, each week, he would drive to my studio, pick up my assignment from the previous week, and hand me a new one. I didn’t even have to leave the house!”104 It was the artist’s Hot Rods and Racing Cars assignments that fostered an early appreciation for automobiles.

“As a result of my working on the Hot Rod comics,” he said, “I really got into cars. I had a 1953 Dodge, which had the first V-8 engine I ever owned, and we put straight-through pipes on it, turned it into a dual exhaust, which means rbrmm brmm-brmm-brmm… instead of ssssssssssshhhh. I took all the chrome off

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom

the car, filled in the holes, and we painted it, customized it, and put skirts on the back wheels… it didn’t look like a ’53 Dodge anymore. You know… you get caught up in it.”105 Soon, Fago moved to Connecticut and grew fond of the fine young man who also joined the in-house staff. “I met Al in my 20s, and it was sort of like a father-son relationship in a lot of ways,” Giordano said. “As a matter of fact, I found out later Al had two daughters and he kind of had plans for me, when I was still single, to marry me off to one of his daughters.

I didn’t know about it until years later when his wife told me.”106 After the Fagos quit Charlton, incoming editor Pat Masulli hired newly married Giordano as an assistant and the young artist, now a Connecticut resident, learned about the editorial side of the business. By 1959, he went freelance, though remained appreciative of his overall Charlton experience.

“At the time,” he said, “to get into the business, you had to start at one of the farm clubs, so Charlton was the ideal place for me to start, because it was the minor leagues. The company wasn’t going anywhere at the time, but on the other hand, they were allowing me to experiment and learn my craft, by giving me one job after another after another. There wasn’t any slowdown in my income. I was penciling and inking everything I got in those days. So, I had what I wanted out of it.”107 As the mid-’60s approached, Giordano began to suffer an existential conundrum. “I was going through a period in my life where I was having problems working,” he said, “where I

was trying to figure out why am I here, why are we doing these things. I was dealing with my mortality, all those things, and I thought, ‘This type of staff job—the editorial position—would be better for me than to get by freelancing.

I’ve got a family to support.’ So, essentially (though not in a physical way), I kept throwing myself at John’s son and then publishing head Charlie Santangelo’s feet until he offered me the job. I had to let him know I was available, and when they decided to move Pat Masulli out of the comics and into the music business end, I was the only one they considered, and I got the job.”108 Asked if being Masulli’s assistant clinched the gig, he replied, “Not necessarily. Because I made myself available for the job, really. Because I said, ‘I don’t want to freelance anymore; I want to get a staff job and I want to run this.’”109 And run it he did. Though Dick Giordano would hold the position for only a few years, his reign would prove to be the most significant in the entire history of the Charlton Comics Group.

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Chapter Ten

Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

Above: Art drawn for a fanzine by Steve Ditko featuring his Action Hero characters. Right: One-page Pat Masulli interview, Comic Feature #3. Next page: Dick Giordano Action Heroes cover, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000]. Colors by Tom Ziuko.

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A FAN AT HEART In retrospect, what set apart the Action Heroes line—besides the undeniable quality of Ditko’s artwork—was not only Charlton’s irreverent tone and gumption to cite competitors by name in the letters pages, but there permeated a sense that its guiding hand was, at his core, a comic book fan. And, indeed, Giordano was exactly that, as well as a supremely nice guy endowed with the necessary editorial skills.

When asked by the author what made him believe he was up to the task— jumping from drawing table to editor’s desk—Giordano replied, “I got along with people. I’m sure you know that, Jon. I’m not sure why, it’s not something that I do consciously, but I know that’s the end result, people and I get along, and that I can depend on people to give me a fair degree of whatever skill level they have, just by asking for it. Because I manage things.”2 Giordano shared his simple editorial philosophy with Mike Friedrich. “I try to get the best people working for me,” he explained, “and then let them do their own thing. I figure that writing is the writer’s bag and the same for an artist. I point them in the direction I want to take, of course, and continue to guide them,

Ditko art courtesy of Roger Hill. Comic Feature #3 image courtesy of Aaron Caplan.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD By mid-decade, a new regime was falling into place at Charlton as the publishing outfit was experiencing a generational shift. John Santangelo decided to relinquish some control to oldest son Charles as the company patriarch focused on new business in the old country. And, with Gold Star Books gone bust, Ed Levy was retiring to pursue his hobbies, plus Burt Levey was contemplating going full-time on real estate ventures. While it appeared Masulli assistant Bill Anderson was set to become managing editor of the comics division, Charles Santangelo opted to take a chance on Dick Giordano, who had been begging for the editorial gig. (Anderson eventually led their line of music mags.)

After eight-plus years in the position, Masulli had perhaps grown bored as comics managing editor and, while his term was relatively uneventful, there were a few memorable facets, including the giant monster titles and his enthusiastic shepherding of ill-fated Jungle Tales of Tarzan.

Important too was Masulli recognizing that the burgeoning field of comics fandom could be used to Charlton’s benefit by tapping it as a source for talent.

Fanzine editors routinely included publishers on their comp lists and Masulli must have been delighted to read the positive notice regarding Jungle Tales of Tarzan shared by fans of both comics and Edgar Rice Burroughs (though probably less thrilled with comic fans’ seemingly endless criticism of Fraccio and Tallarico’s artwork on “Son of Vulcan” and Blue Beetle). The departing comics editor was also impressed with some of the zines themselves, especially Alter Ego, which, in a missive to editor Roy Thomas, Masulli described as “by far the best printed fanzine that there is.” Still, he was not above griping in blatant self-interest: “Fandom is guilty of being only taste-conscious and not sales-conscious… [though] you people can exert more influence and be of more value to the comics industry.”1

1960s

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes but, other than that, I leave them alone. If they produce badly, then they either do it over or stop working for me. That sounds rather harsh—it isn’t as bad as it sounds—the whole thing is a team project, really. It’s just that I believe the major work of writing should be done by the writer, and the artist should be working in his style, not someone else’s.”3 At Charlton, Giordano’s stint as editor, which started in July 1965, was among the finest of a quite august decade in the comics realm, one that boasted at least three top-notch comics editors (whom, incidentally, all had tenures enhanced with the artistry of one Stephen John Ditko). Stan Lee had appropriated the chummy, joking tone of EC Comics and—bolstered by the visionary universe-building and genius storytelling of Jack Kirby and Ditko— transformed Marvel Comics into a cultural juggernaut, morphing into a Baby Boomer icon in the process. Archie Goodwin, as editor and premier writer of the black-&-white comics magazines published by James Warren—Creepy, Eerie, Blazing Combat, and Vampirella—not only resurrected the spirit of EC, but also enlisted a breathtaking array of top-flight artists, including Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Neal Adams, and Ditko, who himself was inspired by Goodwin to produce his most bravura artwork.

Of the other two editors, Giordano’s style at Charlton— and as one of DC’s “artist-as-editors”in years that followed —was more akin to much-beloved Goodwin’s editorial approach, that of encouragement and expressed appreciation.

Son of Vulcan

As with the Blue Beetle revival, Son of Vulcan was technically an offspring of the Masulli era—as, after all, the editor co-created the series as its writer—but, while Dick Giordano recalled he was the one to come up with the phrase “Action Hero,” the cover of Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #46 [May 1965] included the same phrase in a cover blurb. The declaration read that Son of Vulcan was: “The Newest Most Thrilling Action Hero! The Power of the Roman Gods Strikes Again!” (To be fair, that issue, along with the origin of Son of Vulcan, also included a house ad trumpeting “The Greatest Action-Heroes of All Time—On Sale Now,” ad copy that could well have been written under the direction of the burgeoning line’s soon-to-be editor, Giordano.)

Despite Masulli answering an emphatic “No!”4 when asked if the character was inspired by a certain “God of Thunder” over at the competition, Son of Vulcan was clearly a swipe of Marvel’s mythology-based “Mighty Thor,” by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, with lame news professional Johnny Mann able to magically transform into a legendary figure (or, at least, an offspring!). After only five issues—the final two renamed for the character—the series ended with the first professional comic book writing by Roy Thomas, a Missouri teacher with quite a future ahead of him.

Son of Vulcan #49 [Nov. 1965] featured a costume redesign submitted by future comics legend Dave Cockrum, who was actually given a cover shout-out on the issue with a “special thanks” for his “costume ideas.”

Left: Instrumental in helping a good number of artists and writers enter the comics industry, Roy Thomas hoped to see accomplished fan artist Biljo White become a pro with a revival of Son of Vulcan that Thomas intended to write (under the guise of Gary Friedrich). Alas, the Action Heroes era was over by the time this splash penciled by White and inked by Sam Grainger was considered. Above: The cover of Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #46 [May ’65], a blurb from same, and cover detail of MOUW #47. MOUW covers by Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico.

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“Son of Vulcan” page image courtesy of Aaron Caplan.

In later years, despite Giordano’s time as executive editor during arguably DC’s most bountiful creative period —e.g., The Dark Knight Returns and Action Heroes-influenced Watchmen, two projects with which he was intimately involved—Giordano was most recognized for his art, specifically inking. All the same, in acknowledgment of his short but fruitful Charlton era, he was given the Alley Award for “Best Editor” by the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences, in 1969, beating out prior five-time recipient Stan Lee.

GETTING IN ON THE ACTION The entire notion of the Action Heroes line, Giordano said, was to engender dramatic story possibilities. “It gave us an establishing tag line for the new run of books, even though we were still using the old Blue Beetle when we started.

Charlton was also publishing Captain Atom when I got there, too. I just made that phrase up because I thought we should be distinguishable from DC or Marvel. We should publish adventures of heroes that didn’t have super-powers and, with that understanding, I accepted the position [of managing editor]. I chose Ditko’s Blue Beetle over the old one, because Steve’s added drama. The character had a stun gun and the ‘bug,’ but no real super-powers. We also cut down on Captain Atom’s powers, but we couldn’t do much but change his costume, then reduce his powers somewhat. Sarge Steel clearly didn’t have any powers, just a steel hand; the Fightin’ Five were just five fighting soldiers; Thunderbolt had that ‘I can, I will’ attitude and excelled by maximizing his human powers. So, none of the other characters—with the exception of Captain Atom—were imbued with super-powers. I accepted the responsibility for that.”5 This page: Action Heroes ad that included Tarzan, the Ape Man; Captain Atom #79 [Mar. 1966] cover detail by Steve Ditko; and Ditko’s Strange Suspense Stories #75 [June 1965] cover, which re-introduced the super-hero into Giordano’s age of Action Heroes.

Chapter Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

He continued, “I called them that for no other reason than they were action heroes and not super-heroes. That was the reasoning. They didn’t have super-powers… One of the things I always said—and still do—is that you’ll read a Superman story to see how he prevails, not if he prevails.

But that takes tension and suspense out of the story; you know at the end of that story, Superman will still be there…

Whereas the Charlton characters weren’t too important and we showed them as having many more mortal weaknesses, and it was possible they’d get hurt or they’d get dead! I mean, nothing stopped the Beetle from being shot in the arm, nothing stopped Judomaster from having a Japanese bayonet go through his arm… and none of those characters could be invulnerable to a weapon wielded by the bad guy.

So, I thought it would be a mixed element of suspense and drama. I may have been wrong, but it worked for me, and I have to admit that I haven’t been so much of a marketing expert that I can say, ‘The kids will love this.’ What I do is, I figure, ‘I’m a comic reader; I like to read comics, and I want to draw and edit comics that I would enjoy, and hope there’s enough people out there who will agree with me.’ There’s not much marketing analysis I can use, if that makes any sense. I’m not going to sit around and try to skull-out what an eight-year-old kid likes; I don’t know what he likes! There’s nothing a marketing expert can tell me that will make me know what he likes. The expert is just guessing, the same as I’d be guessing.

So I didn’t even bother, I just took my best shot. I don’t know how many other people cared about the Action Hero line, but they were all made for Dick Giordano. I was the guy, for good or ill, who made the decision, ‘Yeah, we’re going to publish that,’ or ‘No, we’re not going to publish that.’”

Captain Atom Redux

When “the first nuclear-powered man” was resurrected as a reprint series in Strange Suspense Stories [#75–77, June—Oct. ’65], one wonders if Steve Ditko was already in discussion with Charlton to return to the company as things were souring fast for the artist over at Marvel. Perhaps, too, the publisher was gauging reader interest with a preliminary “test run” of the Derby imprint’s most successful super-hero entry to date.

The three-issue prologue to an all-new revival was certainly targeting comic book collectors given its use of the irresistible word “origin” on the cover of #75—twice!—along with an outright appeal to fans, calling it a “collector’s special.” (In the late ’70s, Charlton yet again reprinted the Captain’s ’50s adventures, this time in a revived Space Adventures.)

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes THE CARRIE MARINARA CANNING COMPANY After a pretty tumultuous decade in the 1950s, John Santangelo’s notoriety had simmered down by the 1960s, and the Charlton patriarch looked to his native land for opportunity.

In early 1965, the publisher joined with Bristol, Conn., businessman Joseph P. Vetrano to propose building three canning factories in Italy. One was to be constructed near Santangelo’s old village of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. On Feb. 18, 1965, the Hartford Courant reported: The Pescara plant, near the Derby man’s birthplace, will contain 225,000 square feet and employ persons. They will process and can a new Italian style tomato sauce named Carrie, after Santangelo’s wife.

The two Connecticut entrepreneurs said they have signed contracts with two major supermarket chains in the United States to handle the exported product.

The Derby man’s son, John Santangelo, Jr., is in Italy negotiating leases of farmland and orchards… The elder Santangelo and Vetrano said the Italian government urged them to build the plants and is subsidizing the construction… Santangelo said his son John will manage the canning operation.6 In a “Name in the News” feature headlined, “Joseph P. Vetrano: Wham-Bang Broker Sells Gusto,” Santangelo’s business partner was described as looking “more like a neighborhood grocer than an international broker with fingers reaching from Bistol to Italy, Germany, and Greece,” who was Above right: Mid-February 1965 posed Hartford Courant photo of Joseph P. Vetrano (standing) and Charlton Press owner John Santangelo. The two Connecticut businessmen partnered to build canneries in Italy and sell the tomato sauce to U.S. customers.

Judomaster

Anticipating the kung fu craze of the next decade, Judomaster was originally created

by Frank McLaughlin to be a syndicated newspaper strip. And, interestingly, the setting of the story was not modern day, but rather World War II, in the South Pacific, when U.S. forces were fighting the Imperial Japanese.

The lead character was Hadley “Rip” Jagger, who learned martial arts from island natives and he subsequently gained a high-kickin’ kid sidekick by the name of Tiger.* “I had developed the character Judomaster and was anxious to leave… Charlton to work freelance exclusively,” former company art director McLaughlin said to Christopher Irving. “Charlie Santangelo was in charge of Charlton at the time. He and I played judo at the same dojo, so his interest in my character was more than a passing one… He agreed to give me a shot and publish Judomaster, and that’s when it hit the fan. Charlton’s policy was that no staff artist or writer was allowed to produce freelance work, and when *In the Action Hero universe, as an adult, Tiger is featured as Nightshade’s martial arts instructor in the heroine’s Captain Atom back-up series.

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“master-minding international business mergers and plotting Roman shopping centers.”7 And it was this seasoned liquor and beer wholesaler who had an audience with no less than Pope Paul VI, in the Vatican, where the pontiff expressed an interest in the Vetrano/Santangelo deal. After the extended papal interrogation was complete, the Pope gave Vetrano his holy blessing for the construction of the three canneries.

The partners likely became associated with one another because of Santangelo’s investment in the Ansonia shopping plaza located next door to Charlton Press, which he had only recently purchased, and the two’s long-term plans included developing shopping centers throughout Italy.

[managing editor] Pat Masulli heard about it, he hit the ceiling. Apparently he—and others, as well—had projects rejected for that reason.

Charlie remained adamant and firmly reminded Pat who the boss was. Pat and I never got along to begin with, so this matter didn’t help things very much... Judomaster became a regular title and I managed to get help from Dick [Giordano]. We also collaborated on his new feature, Sarge Steel, as well as designing and producing most of Charlton’s covers.”8 Giordano said, “Frank McLaughlin and I used to go down to the bank on Friday to cash our checks, and that’s where the next issue would be plotted. We would talk across the front seat of the car at each other until the story came into focus, and he would go off, and write and draw it.”9 The McLaughlin/Giordano connection started when they met on the company softball team. “He was a freelancer at the time,” McLaughlin said, “and then he hired me to work with him after I got through working at Charlton nine to five, and I’d go over to his studio, and then, later on, we kind of swapped jobs, because there was a change at Charlton, and I think Pat was moving up, and they offered me his job. I opted to stay

freelance and suggested Dick for the job. He became editor and I took over the studio.”10 Right: Cover detail, Judomaster #96 [Aug. ’67]. Below: Special War Series #4 [Sept. ’65]. Art by Frank McLaughlin.

A. Machine is Doing the Job

Love it or hate it (most people hated it), one unique aspect of Charlton Comics of the late ’50s and throughout the ’60s was the mechanical lettering sometimes credited to (ha-ha!) “A. Machine.” Frank McLaughlin told Christopher Irving, “Pat Masulli designed a comic typeface for a large typewriter. The comic pages would fit in the typewriter and the copy would be typed right on the artwork. The results were a complete disaster that caused many more problems than it solved. It was a typical attempt to cut corners, but the finished product suffered greatly.”13 The apparatus was likely a Vari-Typer “office type composing machine,” maybe the 610 model seen here. McLaughlin said the device was operated by Jon D’Agostino or D.C. Glanzman. But often it was the managing editor’s wife who did the compositing.

Dick Giordano told the author, “We got ‘A. Machine,’ a Royal typewriter with an 18-inch carriage—that’s when we had 12-inch paper, plus the little edges on it—and we used to type on the lettering. We had customized letters made for this Royal electric… I mean, if the carriage is that big, the machine has to be pretty big. We used to run the pages right into the machine, two-ply paper, and type right on the paper. It wasn’t pasted-up. Royal developed a special ribbon; you could only use it once… That ink might smudge. My wife ended up being the typist. The stories with lettering credited to ‘A. Machine’ are basically my wife. I got Charlton to send the machine up to my house, after we got it working and I showed her how to do it.”14

This page: Above is a Vari-Typer 610 machine, perhaps the model Charlton used for mechanical lettering, which typed directly on the original art. Below is The Comic Reader #36 [Apr. 1965] featuring Steve Ditko cover art, also seen here enlarged.

The Comic Reader #36 courtesy of Mike Friedrich.

MAKING HIS CHARLTON Because his work at Marvel was becoming more and more plentiful by the early ’60s, Steve Ditko had significantly curtailed his Charlton assignments, working only on the “giant monster” titles of Konga and Gorgo. In 1964, when he was achieving superstar artist status because of his break-through work on “Doctor Strange” and Amazing Spider-Man, Ditko’s output for the Derby publishing business was down to a single Gorgo story.

But something was amiss at the House of Ideas.

The artist had become fixated on the notions of Objectivist Ayn Rand and was feeling disrespected by his creative partner.

The crux of the problem was the “Marvel method,” which placed the onus of story plotting—the writing, as many would have it—as the artist’s responsibility, but editor Stan Lee would give himself writing credit after filling in captions and word balloons with descriptions and dialogue. And, even though Lee eventually agreed to give Ditko explicit “plotting” credit, the artist was still rankled. Blake Bell described, “Ditko’s application of Rand’s philosophy to the business of comics was simple: the issue of truth was black-&-white. Ditko was not only co-creator of Spider-Man and deserved to be credited and compensated as such, he was now the plotter of the book’s narrative arc—in reality, the writer of the series—with Lee providing dialogue only.”11 Giordano saw Ditko’s anger over the situation first-hand.

“When I went to visit Steve at his studio—I don’t remember what the context was, and maybe that’s when I was working at Charlton; maybe that’s how we got together, now that I think of it—and he came up, boiling mad,” Giordano explained. “The dispute was: he thought he was writing Spider-Man, but Stan was getting the credit. As proof, he showed to me a chart he had up on the wall that said when certain things were going to happen for the next six issues… plots, sub-plots, and how they were going to interact over that six-issue span. Clearly, he wrote that chart. (Of course, that doesn’t mean Stan couldn’t tell him that over the phone and then Steve wrote it)… And because of his new philosophy of social order, he felt it was criminal for someone to take credit for something he didn’t do. That’s what led to the break-up with Marvel and Steve Ditko.”12

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

NEW BLOOD TRANSFUSION In early 1965, Charlton editor Pat Masulli made an “astounding offer to comics fandom,” or so reported Alter Ego. It was a path for amateur writers to gain entry into the professional comic book realm. Published in numerous fanzines, Masulli’s “Special Bulletin” read, in part: All right, fans… you said you would do it… now’s the time… Over the past year, I have been besieged with pleas from you would-be comic writers. Dozens of you have claimed to have talent and New Ideas. You said that all you needed was a chance. Our overworked staff writers just haven’t the time to turn out our entire production. This means we have room for new blood. As an offer exclusive to all you fanzine readers and writers, I make the following proposal: 1.) Write a 20-page script for either Blue Beetle… Son of Vulcan… Captain Atom. (Only one to a writer!) 2.) Scripts must be typewritten and in any one of the accepted forms. (If you do not know what these forms are, get a book of plays from your library and write it like a play.) 3.) Do not ask for any criticism or comments. In all fairness, you must understand that I simply do not have the time to write to all contributors. 4.)

Code rules must be followed! Anybody can write an adventure tale with sadism and gore… but we can’t use it. If you don’t know what the Code rules are, send for them… 5.) If we can use your script, we will contact you and discuss terms…19 Masulli’s quest for new talent—limited to “the first three really good writers”20— would lead to a much-needed and profound creative infusion across mainstream comics that reverberated for years to come.

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The Comic Reader #37 image courtesy of Aaron Caplan.

Though Ditko professed only he and “no one else in this universe knew”15 why he made the decision to quit Marvel, there were hints that more than disagreements over the “Marvel Method” was involved. Stan Lee said to Blake Bell, “Much later, I asked Ditko if he would ever consider coming back to do one final Spider-Man story. To my surprise, he said, ‘Not until Goodman pays me the royalties he owes me!’ I had no idea what he was talking about, as Martin usually kept me apprised of such things.”16 (In early 1969, then fanzine editor—and now dealer/historian—Bob Beerbohm conducted a (never-printed) interview with Ditko, where the artist related that the departure was over reneged Spider-Man royalties promised by Goodman.)17 While it was around Thanksgiving 1965 when Ditko finally left Marvel, he had already started drawing new Captain Atom episodes for Charlton months before. In fact, Captain Atom #78 [Dec. ’65], first of the revival, had been on the stands for weeks by the time Ditko swung by the Marvel bullpen to drop off his final Amazing Spider-Man job.

On top of Ditko’s Charlton assignments, Nick Caputo noted the following year was a busy one for the man: “Always a prolific artist, Ditko expanded his workload considerably in 1966, including masterful wash-tone… for Warren’s black-&-white horror magazines (Creepy and Eerie); ‘NoMan,’ ‘Dynamo,’ and ‘Menthor’ stories for Wally Wood at Tower; and ‘ghosting’ stories inked by Sal Trapani, who often farmed out jobs assigned to him to others to pencil, usually anonymously (as in the case of their two stories in Strange Adventures #188–189 for DC). The Ditko-Trapani team also appeared in Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds, and Unknown Worlds for the American Comic Group, and Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes, and Nukla for Dell.”18

Steve Skeates portrait courtesy of John Schwirian.

THE WARREN SAVIN YEARS exclusive, “I simply possessed too much affection for Though an important contemporary of his did begin what I was producing for that Derby, Connecticut, company to do anything along those lines myself,” a professional career as a result of Masuilli’s call for scribes, the journey of “really good” writer Steve Skeates recalled. “I had created series I was truly Skeates [b. 1943] was a bit more circuitous. Born enjoying elaborating upon (‘The Thane of Bagarth,’ in western New York state, Skeates’ desire was to ‘The Sharpshooter’), was scripting cartoony stuff become a prose humorist (maybe inspired by his based on movie characters whose antics I had so once having a subscription to MAD comics?), and as thoroughly enjoyed as a kid (Abbott & Costello), an English Lit major at Alfred University, one publisher crafted dark, brooding, primal Western fare (Outlaws caught his interest. “You better believe that those midof the West, Gunfighters), and even contributing to Steve Skeates ’60s Marvel comics influenced me in a big way,” he told Charlton’s take on the ‘mystery’ anthology (The Many John Schwirian. “Stan was putting just enough humor into Ghosts of Doctor Graves, Strange Suspense Stories), ghostly those stories (especially Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, compilations somehow edgier, funkier, and far more fun even though the more dour ‘Iron Man’ was indeed my favorthan those produced by DC and Marvel. Furthermore, unlike ite) for me to feel that, even though there no longer seemed DC, Charlton didn’t require that I first submit a plot outline, to be any jobs extant for humorists, here was something I get it approved, and then write my story. Instead, I could could indeed write. Being about to graduate from Alfred, just suddenly turn in a finished product, on spec, a way of I immediately wrote to what I figured were the four major working I very much preferred—diving right in with the plot comic book companies in the country and wound up getting idea only sketchily there, not boxed in even by myself, but a phone call from none other than Stan Lee himself, who allowing the story to work itself out, to go where it wanted offered me a job as assistant editor. The rest is legend!”21 to go. Strangely, no one up at DC seemed to mind at all that, Actually, the recent college grad’s staff job at Marvel while working for them, I was also working for Charlton. I was not quite so legendary and hardly a lengthy stay. Skeates suppose DC simply didn’t see Charlton as being ‘the competold the author, “I kept the job for a couple of weeks and tition.’ That was Marvel; that’s who they were vying with, then I found out that being an assistant editor meant being a vis-à-vis the marketplace; that’s who they were forever trying glorified proofreader, which was fine with me, but my proofto outdo, saleswise.”25 reading wasn’t fine with them. I was just terrible. So they Alas, much as he loved doing his Charlton work—some suggested that I move over to just being a writer… Then I of which he wrote under a pseudonym, Warren Savin, one got a job doing stories for Tower Comics.”22 given to him while in college from a student editor—the writAt Tower, Skeates scripted “Lightning,” Undersea er’s stint did not outlast the Sal Gentile years to follow.

Agents, “Raven,” and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but, by 1967, that company was in jeopardy. “The rumors had started, but I stayed with Tower until the bitter end. I went to a convention during that time and I was the only person working for Tower at the con, so I was asked to appear on a panel.

[I met] Dick Giordano… on that panel and so, [later when] I had heard that Tower was folding, I called Dick and said, ‘Remember me?’ So that’s how I got work at Charlton.”23 “I liked Dick as an editor,” the writer shared. “At Charlton, he was so over-burdened with all this stuff and, as long as we didn’t go insane, he pretty much left us on our own. So that was a great learning experience because if we did something wrong that wasn’t caught, we’d be embarrassed enough not to do that again. It was an enjoyable way to learn how to do the work. Dick rarely asked for changes because he was overseeing so much. I remember one time after he probably hadn’t read any of his romance comics in about a year—he was just accepting jobs from people he thought were doing a good job—and when he finally read one he saw that the guy who was writing it had gotten so poetic that the stuff made no sense at all! Dick went through the roof and said, ‘How long has he been doing this?!’ It was probably impossible for him to read them all.”24 While Skeates did take the much better-paying DC assignments when his editor moved to DC, as far as going Previous page: Top, Pat Masulli’s call for writers in The Comic Reader #37 [May ’65]; Captain Atom #82 [Sept. ’66] letters page announcing character’s revamp to come; Son of Vulcan #50 [Jan. ’66] cover with detail blow-up announcing fan writer Roy Thomas’s work therein. This page: Splash page of Hercules #1 [Oct. ’67] back-up, “Thane of Bagarth,” by O’Neil and Aparo.

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From Fandom They (Mostly) Came…

Pat Masulli’s early 1965 call for writers says he was one of three.29 Fagan responded with Dr. Jerry Bails and sent to fanzines resulted in a pair of “Big was married to Mary Barrett became a frequent letter writer Name Fans” being selected as two of the and they had one daughter to DC editor Julius Schwartz’s “first three really good writers”26—Tom together, Deana.

Silver Age super-hero titles Fagan and Roy Thomas—who received In a letter accompanyand the early Marvel books. ing that call for writers assignments from the Charlton editor.

While an English teacher, sent to the Rocket’s Blast And the choice of Thomas, who was Thomas succeeded Bails as Comicollector editor, then a Missouri high school teacher, editor of Alter Ego, and, in Masulli wrote, “This offer is would prompt a significant infusion of spring 1965, right after he not the way to discover all of new energy into the Derby company, submitted his Son of Vulcan the talent, but perhaps it can most coming from the then exploding story (and maybe, he recalled, start one or two on the road of field of comics fandom. a Blue Beetle script requested Vermont native son Tom Fagan, being a comic pro.”30 Indeed, the Roy Thomas by Masulli), Thomas traveled from Charlton editor proved prophetic as Roy the associate editor of Batmania fanzine, Missouri to New York City after DC sold Son of Vulcan and Captain Atom Thomas [b. 1940] quickly developed editor Mort Weisinger extended an into a celebrated writer and, within a scripts to Charlton, but, with Giordano’s invitation to try out as assistant editor mere seven years after the publication of departure, his stories went unpublished. of the Superman titles. The trial period his Son of Vulcan story, “The Second With a shrug, he said in an interview, lasted all of eight days at which time Trojan War,” he became succes“Just my luck.”27 Fagan, famousStan Lee offered Thomas a job at Marvel sor to Stan Lee as editor-inly the perennial chairman of Comics. The rest, as they say, is history. chief of Marvel Comics. “I Rutland, Vermont’s HallowIn his first few weeks in the city, suspect the primary reason I een parade since 1960, also Thomas was dinner guest at the Brookdashed off a Son of Vulcan recalled that Dave Kaler had lyn home of Phil and Carole Seuling, tale was that I figured others created “action heroine” where he first met 29-year-old marketing receiving Masulli’s letter Nightshade—for Captain researcher Dave Kaler [b. 1936], who would be more likely to go Atom #82 [Sept. ’66]—on was then organizing the 1965 New York for Captain Atom and/or the weekend of the 1965 ComiCon, to be held July 31–August 1, Blue Beetle, so I might have event, while Thomas was at Manhattan’s Hotel Broadway Central, a better chance of success if painting their parade float in then only a few weeks away. Kaler I wrote a story for a hero who frigid fall temperatures. “It’s remembered he had previously correTom Fagan wouldn’t be the first choice of funny that you, Dave, and I were sponded with Dr. Bails and Thomas many others. Also, despite the decidedly the three guys on that float [dressed] as not long after becoming a primitive artwork by Fraccio and Tallarico super-heroes,” Thomas said to Fagan, late-blooming comics fan. (working, as I’d soon learn, for wages far “and the big break for all three of us had Of his first face-tolower than most other companies paid), I been writing stories for Charlton at $4 a face meeting with David liked Son of Vulcan because he smacked page! Like Sinatra sang on TV that fall, A. Kaler, Thomas shared, not only of his most obvious source, 1965 was ‘a very good year.’”28 “He and I hit it off, not Marvel’s Thor in Journey into Mystery, Even for the comic book realm, least because he had but also of Captain Marvel, once the Milton Thomson Fagan [1931–2008] tied the convention in World’s Mightiest Mortal and a childwas eccentric. Always attired, from head with the Academy of hood favorite. Maybe reporter Johnny to toe, in all-black—except on HallowComic Book Fans and een, when he was known to dress in a Mann saying, ‘Let me become the Son Collectors, a loosely-knit mix of black and gray as the Golden Age of Vulcan!’ was a few steps down from organization that Alter Billy Batson saying, ‘Shazam!’ or Don Batman—the newspaper reporter/book Ego founder Jerry Bails had Dave Kaler Blake slamming his wooden cane on editor had, since the ’50s, sported a launched from a suggestion of James Dean/Elvis-inspired ducktail hairthe ground, but Son of Vulcan had posmine a few years earlier. I was temporarcut, a style he maintained into his 70s. sibilities, and I wanted to see if I could ily ensconced at the George Washington The man’s lifelong Batman obsession dream up anything to do with him.”31 Hotel, on 23rd Street, in Manhattan, The origin of Roy William Thomas, began as an eight-year-old, when Fagan Dave lived on the Lower East Side, and read his first Batman story, Detective Jr., stretches back to when, as a fourby the time the two of us reached ‘the and-a-half-year-old, he beheld All-Star Comics #31 [Sept. 1939]—though All city’ via subway, he had invited me to in Color for a Dime, a book to which he Comics #25 [Summer 1945] and was move into his cavernous ground-floor contributed as one of fandom’s finest profoundly impressed with the Justice apartment on East 2nd Street, off Avenue writers, says it was #32—and Fagan Society of America series. An out-sized A. As Dave’s roomie, I got a bit more was thereafter transformed into Batman interest in comics continued into his involved in the three-weeks-away Comfan #1—though All in Color for a Dime college years, during which time he coriCon. But, though Fagan refers to me [in

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Dennis O’Neil portrait courtesy of John Schwirian.

Kaler’s con report, published in 1966] as ‘co-host,’ any such title was purely honorary.”32 Kaler described to Bill Schelly how he came to work for Charlton Comics: “They asked Roy to come and work with them, but, at that time, Stan Lee had found out about Roy, because he had been doing some work with Mort Weisinger, and he hired him. But once Roy was at Marvel, he could only work at Marvel. He was nice enough to recommend me to Dick Giordano. Charlton offered me a job up in Derby, Connecticut. But as I didn’t drive a car—and still don’t—it wasn’t feasible.”33 Of his efforts, Kaler said, “I did Captain Atom and I did some other things…

‘Tiffany Sinn’… and I did some love stories. I did some other characters… some racing stories… a couple of Black Furys.

I did some war stories. I only worked for Charlton for a couple of years. When Dick Giordano left, a new crew came in, and my writing assignments with them dried up. I did a few things for DC… I worked for Skywald doing a revival of ‘The Heap,’ and, after that, I was out of it. I did some editing, working with Sol Brodsky. Also, recollection is giving Steve I wrote a story for Warren, plots, but they were nothing and Jim Warren asked me like we do now; they were to work for him. But, in that two or three paragraphs. case, I wasn’t available.”34 What I didn’t know, because His East Village pad— I was young and very dumb, nicknamed “Kaler’s Kave”— was that I had lucked into one where, at night, Thomas slept on Dennis O’Neil of the best storytellers in the a mattress on the floor and then business. I still think that Ditko dressed in a business suit to report to is second to nobody in that aspect. He the Marvel bullpen every morning, soon knows how to tell a story, leave room for housed a new roommate: 26-year-old copy, and how to leave quiet moments Dennis Joseph O’Neil [1939–2020]. here and there where you can sneak in Denny O’Neil, like Thomas a your exposition.”36 native of the “Show-Me State,” had As with Skeates, and for reasons been a Missouri newspaper beat reporter neither he or Stan Lee remembered, whose articles on the comics revival O’Neil didn’t stay long in the Bullpen caught the attention of Thomas, and (nor as a roomie of Kaler and Thomas, as the two became friendly. O’Neil said, he moved out, but not before partici“About a month after he moved to New pating in a Newsday newspaper feature York, he sent me the Marvel writer’s test article on Kaler), so he hit the pavement because Stan Lee was looking for anand made the rounds looking for work. other assistant. Marvel was exploding— “Somebody told me that there was this booming!”35 O’Neil then relocated to the guy from Derby, Connecticut, who was city and succeeded Steve Skeates as the in town on Thursday mornings and you editor’s assistant, and he wrote scripts could go up to some office that they for Patsy and Hedy and Millie the Modrented on Fifth Avenue. So I went up el, as well as “Doctor Strange.” About and talked to him and came away with collaborating with the latter assignment’s an assignment. So that became one of artist, Steve Ditko, O’Neil shared, “My my regular freelance rounds on Thursday

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morning at 11:00.”37 “Somebody” was, more likely than not, Roy Thomas and “this guy” had to have been Dick Giordano, who facilitated a grand freelance experience for O’Neil.

“At that time, I received more freedom than I had ever had on a commercial job.

By that time, I had published a couple of short stories and you had considerable freedom with those, but those gigs were few and far between, and they weren’t going to feed the kid. Dick had a thing that I have run into only one or two times with editors—Weezie Simonson used to have it, too—they never gave you a direct order or told you what to do, and yet somehow they managed to get your best work. In Dick’s case, it was remarkable because the pay was laughable! I think that we were getting $4 a page at Charlton and it zoomed up to $5 before we quit. Even for the ’60s that was bad money, but we worked very hard for him. Both Skeates and I did stuff This page: This photo of David A. Kaler posing with his comic book collection illustrated a Newsday feature article on the “big name fan” in Nov. 1965. Note his prominent placement of Charltons.

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes wrote things like ‘Tears in that was as good as we were capable of At Charlton, while mainMy Malted,’ and ‘Too Fat to at the time.”38 taining a full-time professionFrug’ was another one.”41 Besides the classic Charlton Premiere al career, Grainger penciled, #2 [Nov. ’67] tale, “Children of Doom” inked, and often lettered Surreptitiously, Thomas —hailed as the best Charlton story of the “Sentinels” stories, even helped out his buddy on a all—O’Neil wrote Westerns, science dialoguing one said to be few assignments, including plotted by D.C. Glanzman. fiction, mystery, and humor stories for a romance story, and he was the company, though he employed a Fort Wayne, Indiana, planning a Son of Vulcan pseudonym, “Sergius O’Shaughnessy.” native Richard Eugene “Grass” revival that he’d ghostwrite The scribe shared his reasoning: “I was under Friedrich’s name, but the Sam Grainger Green [1939–2002] was best doing the political [anti-war] stuff and friends in high school with Ronn proposal fell through. Thomas also Foss, one-time Alter Ego editor and fan was also working for Stan. I thought helped Friedrich develop “The Sentinels,” that I’d best keep the two professional artist (it was Foss who gave Green his a very Marvel-like series in the back identities separate. I was probably overnickname) and a gracious, encouraging pages of Thunderbolt. reacting at the time, but it seemed wise letter from Jack Kirby set Green off to “I dialogued the Blue Beetle stuff and prudent to become someone else pursue an art career. Particularly adept that Ditko did,” Friedrich said. “He sent at parody, Green was suggested to when I was working for Dick Giordano.”39 me very rough outlines. Jeez, I just hated (The provenance of the Sergius Giordano by (yep!) his pal Roy Thomas working on them, because I couldn’t see O’Shaughnessy name? O’Neil chose the to draw a Plastic Man-like character what the hell was there. [The penciling] moniker of Norman Mailer’s protagonist in Charlton Premiere #1 [Sept. ’67]. was just literal chicken scratching.”42 in the novel, The Deer Park, a character “The Sentinels” was drawn by About two Charlton stories he plotted who was a novelist traumatized by war newcomer Sam Grainger [1930–1990], without credit, Thomas said, “One of them I ghosted [was] about a character and tempted by the sleaze and decaa North Carolina-based artist with a professional background in commercial called ‘The Shape’… for my artist friend dence of Hollywood.)

Yet another future comic art and animation. At this point, Grass Green. But he ended up dialoguing it, because I couldn’t take the credit book writer from Missouri it should come as no surprise anyway. I was working for Marvel, and who was lured by Roy that Samuel Ernest Grainger Thomas to the Big Apple Stan would’ve given me holy hell had was associated with Roy was Gary Friedrich Thomas. “I recommended he known I was writing anything for [1943–2018], whose him to Gary Friedrich,” Charlton at that stage.”45 Green also newspaper (which he had Thomas explained, “when drew fairy tale and super-hero take-offs run as the youngest editor I was helping Gary concoct in Go-Go and Abbott & Costello, as well in the state) had folded.

‘The Sentinels,’ based on as scripting the satirical “Sinistro Boy “Roy called in November the drawings [Grainger] had Fiend” in Charlton Premiere #3 [1965] and said, ‘Why don’t done for Alter Ego and the [Jan. ’68]. In the ’70s, Green you come to New York?’ I said, first chapter of the [Gardner Fox embarked on a long spell in Gary Friedrich ‘I’m on my way.’”40 Friedrich sword-&-sorcery novel] Warrior underground comix, where crashed at Kaler’s apartment for a few of Llarn adaptation [planned to be serialhe produced Super Soul ized in Alter Ego, though that went weeks, and then he and Thomas got an Comix, Good Jive Comix, place together at 177A Bleeker Street, unrealized]. Gary then suggested him White Whore Funnies, in Greenwich Village, where they were to Dick.”43 and various short stories. soon joined by legendary artist Bill In 1963, the Charlotte Observer Publisher Denis Kitchen Everett, who flopped there on weekdescribed the then 33-year-old, “tall, said, “He was a gregaraffable” artist thusly: days. Friedrich worked nine-to-five at a ious fellow, full of laughs record store and moonlighted for Topps and impossible to dislike. He Grainger, a past president of the Chewing Gum Company, but he wanted loved to tell stories. Many carArt Directors Club, teaches anatomy “Grass” Green to break into the comics industry, so his toonists are loners who skulk (drawing) at Central Industrial Eduroommate put in a good word. around the edge of parties, but Grass cation Center. On his office walls are Friedrich explained, “Roy had talked was invariably surrounded by a group a sampling of his little characters from directly to Dick Giordano and Dick was and in animated conversation.”46 the Martian books that [Edgar Rice] looking for some freelance writers Fagan was far more often featured Burroughs wrote over an 18-year perifor Charlton work. So I got on the in comic plots than credited as writer. od. Another experiment is with Bibliphone to Dick and hopped a train up to Thomas and O’Neil boasted long-standcal characters, which have a quaintly Derby. And Dick was looking primarily ing and exemplary comic careers, while religious look. These are in the hobby for somebody to write some romance Kaler became a comic shop owner and stage now, but he is thinking in terms comics for him. Hell, I needed to make faded from the scene. Friedrich had a of “Semi-realistic storytelling… comicsome money, so I could probably write steady career as Marvel writer, but left book style” for church or adventure romance comics. It shouldn’t be too comics in the late ’70s. Grainger was a programs with his Disney-like cremuch of a problem. And I did. I did it pro inker for years and Green maintained ations. ‘This is my type of escapism,” with a great, good sense of humor. I a regular day job in the civilian world.

44 he said.

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A GOLDEN AGE OF ROCK ’N’ ROLL After Charlton’s leading music magazine shed its modified name of Teen Hit Parader, a change that thankfully lasted only a year or so, Hit Parader was—if not exactly abandoning the appearance of a teen fan mag—becoming an important publication that advanced the quality of music journalism. And no HP staffer was more important to its refinement in the ’60s than editor Jim Delehant.

James Joseph Delehant [1940–2020], who would rise to become an influential A&R director at Atlantic Records during its most successful period, was born in Camden, Conn., and studied journalism in college. “In 1962,” he said, “I answered a newspaper ad for a music Jim Delehant editor at Charlton Publications, in Derby, Conn. I started working there right away. From that time until ’64, which was an extremely boring music scene, fake stories like ‘The Secret Life of Connie Stevens’ were published on a regular basis. The only source of information used to create these articles, at that time, came from record company bios and from publicity material. During those years, I also edited Rhythm and Blues, Country Song Roundup, Song Hits, [and] wrote for [non-Charlton pubs] Cavalier, Downbeat, and Jazz Journal. In 1964, the Beach Boys and Beatles changed everything suddenly.

Other groups were happening— Byrds, Baez, Dylan, Donovan, etc. I hooked up a tape recorder to my phone and started interviewing.

Now it was exciting!”47 Though pages were still devoted to song lyrics, now the Charlton music mags also contained insightful interviews, thoughtful criticism, and the best writing on rock music in the country during Delehant’s time as music editor, at least until the 1966 advent of rock journalism in The Village Voice and Crawdaddy.

Delehant left Charlton in 1968 and crossed over to the music industry as a successful A&R man. He retired in 1989.

The Sentinels

There’s little doubt that Charlton was trying to catch some of Marvel’s thunder with the Action Heroes line. Certainly, as one of the three major co-creators of the “Marvel universe,” the presence of artist Steve Ditko lent a Spider-Man panache to his Charlton assignments, Captain Atom and (especially) Blue Beetle. But, aside from his artwork, very little was done that actually imitated the approach of Stan Lee’s comic book imprint. Well, except for “The Sentinels,” of course!

Though his memory of its creation was hazy, writer Gary Friedrich did agree that Stan Lee was a big influence with the series, his sole super-hero

Chapter Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

FAN FAVORITE In 1967, Mike Friedrich raved about the Action Heroes line.

“Not long ago,” he wrote, “a revolution began in comicdom, one which has yet to end. One of the low-popularity, low-quality companies completely changed course and became, within two years, one of the best comic producers in the business… In past years, Charlton mags were ‘honored’ with ‘Worst Mag’ and ‘Most Needing Improvement’ Alley nominations. This year, they received a total of 13 nominations, third highest behind DC and Marvel. These include ‘Best Editor’ (Dick Giordano), ‘Best Writer’ (PAM), and ‘Best Pencil Artist’ (Steve Ditko). Not bad for an organization that boasts a mere four (now five) bi-monthly adventure/superhero mags!”48 (Alas, none would score a prize that year.)

This page: Random Hit Parader (this from 1967) from Jim Delehant’s time as editor; Steve Ditko color guide for his revitalization of the hero, Blue Beetle; and very Marvel-esque splash page from the back-up in Thunderbolt #58 [July 1967]. work at Charlton (aside from dialoguing Ditko’s Blue Beetle). He said, “I liked characterization and Stan, of course, was the master at that. And once Marvel, with real characters in the comics, hit the stands, I wasn’t interested in the DC books any more. And Stan was, of course, the major influence.

Then Roy when he started writing for them.”49 In fact, it was Thomas who came up with the concept. “I helped my old Missouri buddy Gary, recently ensconced at Charlton, make up a super-hero group called ‘The Sentinels’ as a back-up feature in Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, despite that term’s recent use for villainous robots in The X-Men.”50 About his fellow Hoosier, Friedrich recalled, “He kind of kicked it over to me and we talked about it and, of course, Roy helped me with it.”51 The writer said he dealt with artist Sam Grainger by phone.

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes STAN LEE’S ASSESSMENT In a 1968 interview with Ron Liberman, editor Stan Lee had these words about the competitors of his Marvel Comics Group: “I don’t like to sound pompous, but we really don’t feel that we have much competition.

National [DC], though, is really our only competition now. There are a few good books around, including Magnus [Robot Fighter] and Doctor Solar. Charlton had one or two books with good ideas, but they were battered out so badly, that they didn’t really ever worry us. Charlton has a deservedly bad reputation because their books are very much likes ours were about 30 years ago. All they try to do is bat them out fast; they don’t expect them to sell well, they’re not trying anything. They just turn them out and forget them. For a while, we were like Charlton, except bigger, and we turned out many more books than they did. Eventually we learned that you can’t build a fan following by not having respect for your public and just turning the books out. We

Captain Atom

HOME OF THE YOUNG In contrast to Lee’s view, some in comics fandom saw Marvel as being in debt to the Derby publisher for introducing a new generation of writers to the business. Glen Johnson opined in a 1970 fanzine, “Of all the companies, Charlton was most similar to Marvel in that they were trying to give each character his own life… and still be different. It must be noted though that Charlton gave people like Roy Thomas, Dennis O’Neil, Steve Skeates, Gary Friedrich, David Kaler, Richard Green, Pat Boyette, and others their first shot in professional writing and/or art. As you will see, most of those are the top names in the young industry today.”53 Along with the revamping of Captain Atom, Giordano, writer Dave Kaler, and artist Ditko introduced an arch-nemesis, The Ghost, as well as a sidekick—and the first female Action Hero—Nightshade, the “darling of Darkness,” described here by Lou Mougin: “Actually, Nightshade was a refreshing change from the run of the mid’60s heroines. Most distaff super-beings, at that time, deigned to zap villains with [nothing] less ladylike than hex powers or invisible force fields. Charlton’s first-line heroine took the more direct route à la Emma Peel [of the British TV series, The Avengers] and beat the bejeebers out of hardened thugs with her gloved mitts and a little karate.

No female was doing that in 1966 comics. After Nightshade, practically all super-heroines took up crash martial-arts courses. She soon won a solo series in the back of Captain Atom for three issues; Jim Aparo’s clean-lined, appealing art made her one of the first well-drawn ’60s solo heroines.”55

Dick Giordano reminisced about the overhaul of Charlton’s space-born hero: “I traveled to Charlton’s New York office every Wednesday and met with our New York freelancers, who were delivering and picking up assignments. Besides being a convenient place to distribute checks and accept vouchers for work completed, the weekly meeting also gave me an opportunity to talk comics with the guys on a regular basis. I told [Ditko] of my plans to put together a line of costumed heroes who were not super-powered, as well as the fact that I wanted to keep Captain Atom in the line, even though he was definitely super-powered. Steve said he would try to come up with something that would make the good Captain fit.

True to his word, when Steve and I met at a later date, he outlined and later plotted and drew the idea that became [CA #83]… which vastly de-powered Captain Atom and put him at center stage in the Action Hero line…

Steve designed a new costume for Captain Atom which was intended, among other things, to call attention to the changes that had occurred in the character. (As an old stick-inThis page: Giordano’s overhaul of the atomic man, the-mud, I must admit that implemented by Kaler, Ditko, and Mastroserio, culminatI liked the old costume beted in Captain Atom #83 [Nov. ’66]; Comic Comments #9 ter—but necessity called [Nov. ’66] cover by Alan Hutchinson; Captain Atom #84 for all-new, and that’s [Jan. ’67] panel detail, and C.A. #85 [Mar. ’67] cover detail. where we went.)”54

Nightshade

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Captain Atom vignette coloring by Tom Ziuko.

The New

learned pretty late in life. It was only six or seven years ago that we realized this.”52 While Giordano’s Action Hero achievements had failed to gain Marvel’s respect, a certain DC Comics “talent scout” had, by the summer of ’67, started to take notice.

P.A.M. OF THE N.Y.P.D. Some thought the work was produced by Pat Masulli, as the Charlton editor, after all, had the same first and last letter in the initials. Others were convinced similarly-styled artist George Tuska was using a pseudonym while augmenting his Marvel assignments. And a few recognized the mysterious PAM’s outstanding artistry had been gracing the pages of Charlton comics for over a decade by the time the superb Action Heroes series, Thunderbolt, struck the newsstands in late 1965.

It took entering retirement from a day job for him to finally reveal his secret in the 1970s, and the artist/writer explained the need for an acronym to Glen D. Johnson in 2000: “Actually, I worked for ten years in comics before the field started to dry up. (No work.) I was married with three kids and looked around for something steady to raise a family on, when someone mentioned that the civil service police exam was coming up. I studied, passed the written Pete Morisi test and the physical, and became a cop. During those days the police department had a ‘moonlighting’ rule about [not] holding outside jobs, and that’s when Charlton called me up and asked me to do one job for them: ‘Please.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and that one job led to 20 years of work… signed by PAM.”56 Thus Peter Anthony Morisi [1928–2003]—Pete Morisi to most everyone—worked days as dispatcher as a New York City cop and, at night, created comic book stories for Charlton. Between 1955–75, PAM drew and often wrote a number of assignments for the publisher, including a remarkable, if short run of Kid Montana [#32–39, Dec. ’61–Mar. ’63] involving dinosaurs, apes run amok, and even a Yeti. And he produced innumerable Westerns, among them a marvelous batch of “Gunmaster” adventures between ’64–65. After he left Thunderbolt—his most acclaimed creation—Morisi went on to produce significant work for the Derby company into the 1970s, when he proved to be effective on Charlton’s supernatural titles, drawing more than 100 stories.

PAM eventually purchased from Charlton the rights to his greatest creation, T-Bolt, which, over the years, had been sporadically revived by DC and by Dynamite.

This page: The mysterious P.A.M. was eventually revealed to be Pete Morisi (seen here in his N.Y.P.D. portrait, circa 1956), whose sublime creation, Thunderbolt, is seen here in a cover detail from Thunderbolt #56 [Feb. ’67]. Thunderbolt #1 [Jan. ’66] opening page referencing the other Charlton Action Heroes.

Chapter Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

Peter Cannon…

Thunderbolt

Part AmazingMan, part Golden Age Daredevil, and entirely Pete Morisi, Peter Cannon… Thunderbolt was, aside from Ditko’s Blue Beetle, the most highlyacclaimed title of the Dick Giordanoedited Action Heroes line. During a visit to the Charlton building, PAM noted that seven out of ten letters were for him or T-Bolt. And, despite suggestions to make the character more “Marvel-like,” emphasizing human foibles, “The fan mail,” Morisi declared, “likes T-Bolt the way he is (and this includes the most ‘adult’ mail that Charlton has ever gotten).”57 In a letter, PAM explained the origins of the character: “T-Bolt came into being after I bawled out Pat Masulli for not letting me do Blue Beetle. He mentioned there was an opening for a ‘one-shot’ costume hero super-type strip at Charlton. I said, ‘Okay, I’d submit ideas.’

Then came the long process of thinking. How to do a super-hero and not make him super? I knocked myself out thinking and finally came up with an origin for T-Bolt. Then the same process was repeated in figuring out a name, and once again for a costume. I created Tabu, so that T-Bolt would have someone to talk to. Sounds simple as I tell it, but it was work, work, work!”58 During those years as an incognito comic book creator, Morisi at the time explained, “Charlton’s pay is pretty bad… $25 per page… but it’s worth it to me… because it’s not my only source of income… and they leave me alone! No changes, no corrections, no big conferences, etc., etc. A simple discussion on the phone usually settles what Dick has in mind… or what I want to convey.”59 Because of his full-time commitment as a New York City policeman, meeting deadlines was a perennial problem for PAM, so much so that, after drawing eight of T-Bolt’s 11-issue run, he gave up the assignment, only to see it soon cancelled, along with all the other Action Heroes. For a brief spell, PAM drew new adventures of his “Can… Must… Will” hero in the 1980s for DC Comics, though much of that work remains unpublished.

In a 1967 fanzine retrospective, future comics writer/publisher Mike Friedrich called PAM’s character the “leading hero at Charlton,” sharing that the creator “has presented a hero with a truly original power—the ability to utilize the normally unused portions of the brain—and gave the character one of the truly unique secret [identities]. How many other heroes literally loathe becoming their costumed selves? Who also wishes he didn’t have the power he possesses?”60

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

Blue Beetle

Certainly the central character in the Charlton Action Hero universe—at the very least a formidable equal to Captain Atom—was the third incarnation of Blue Beetle, a super-hero not unlike a certain amazing Spider-Man. Ted Kord is able to jump on villains from on high, boasts a terrifically designed costume, and is, simply put, an absolutely charming creation.

In 1968, Steve Ditko, who was the man behind the revamp, described his thinking during an interview: “I was looking over the first Blue Beetle that Charlton Press put out, and it was terrible. I began thinking how it could have been handled. The ideas I had were good, so I marked them down, made sketches of the costume, gadgets, the bug, etc., and put them in an idea folder I have, and forgot about it. A year or so later, when Charlton Press was again planning to do super-heroes, I told Dick Giordano about the Blue Beetle idea I had.

He was interested in trying it, so it came out of the idea file, and into the magazine.”61 About Ditko’s revitalization of a tired, old character, Giordano wrote: “[I]n one of his Wednesday visits [to the New York City Charlton office], Steve made a presentation of his ideas for the new Blue Beetle. He substituted Ted Kord for Dan Garret, the original Beetle, and kept the character in the original continuity, but eliminated the powers that Garret derived from his scarab and substituted specialized equipment for them. (I really loved the Bug—I thought at the time it was a stroke of genius.)”62

This spread: Panel detail from Blue Beetle #2 [Aug. ’67]; Blue Beetle #1 [June ’67] cover (both by Steve Ditko); and the ridiculously wordy cover (written by none other than editor Dick Giordano) of The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #1, with cover art by Pat Boyette; and Comic Comments #10 [Dec. ’66], Ghostly Tales #55 [May ’66] covers, both by Rocke Mastroserio.

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Blue Beetle vignette coloring by Tom Ziuko.

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THE MANY VIRTUES OF DR. GRAVES One of the most enduring aspects of the Giordano years was his launching of Charlton’s supernatural line of comics, with story content not unlike the long-dormant Tales of the Mysterious Traveler, which deviated from the imprint’s recently cancelled “weird” anthologies, Strange Suspense Stories, Mysteries of Unknown Worlds, and tepidly named Unusual Tales. “[Giordano] was rewarded,” fanzine Champion #7 [1969] stated, “by watching them climb to the top of the Charlton sales charts.”63 Indeed, Ghostly Tales had 115 issues and The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves lasted for 72 issues.

Best of the two—and winner of the 1967 Alley Award for “Best Fantasy/Science Fiction/Supernatural Title,” in its debut year—was the latter, whose title character, Dr. M.T. Graves, was story host and oft protagonist (not unlike DC’s Phantom Stranger). About the mouthful of a title, Giordano said, “Ghostly Tales was selling, and we wanted to use the word ‘ghost’ in another title. Pat [Masulli] said, ‘We’ve got to come up right away with another ghost book, it’s got to have “ghost” in the title.’ So we started thinking up dozens of titles, and we ended up with ‘graves,’ which basically implies ‘ghosts.’ But somehow The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves doesn’t seem as clever as Ghostly Tales.”64 Regarding The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #1 [May ’67] cover artist Pat Boyette, the editor said, “I thought his stuff was very specialized. He couldn’t do romance, couldn’t do war, but he could do this mystery stuff. I think I gave him basically Ghostly Tales and Many Ghosts.”65

Rocke Mastroserio

Comic Comments courtesy of Mike Frfiedrich.

Rocco “Rocke” Mastroserio [1927–1968] was born on Staten Island and raised in Manhattan’s “Hell’s Kitchen.” Attending Rocco Mastroserio the School of Industrial Arts, he became friends with Joe Orlando, and Mastroserio broke into comics working for L.B. Cole and later doing staff chores for All-American Comics. Soon he was inducted into the U.S. Marines and stationed at the Corps Institute in Quantico, Virginia. After the war, he attended the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, studying under Burne Hogarth, and he rejoined the comics profession. In 1955, with the industry in recession, he started at Charlton, where he worked for the next 13 or so years.

A biographical sketch appearing in Creepy #16 [Aug. 1967] states, “Former Charlton editor Pat Masulli helped him, by giving free rein to experiment, and present editor Dick Giordano also works closely with him.”66 It was his assignment inking Steve Ditko on the revival of Captain Atom that brought Mastroserio to the attention of comics fandom, and he immediately developed a reputation as a helpful and exceedingly friendly professional.

Plus, of course, he had developed into an excellent artist, particularly effective when Charlton launched its Code-approved supernatural line of comics— Ghostly Tales, The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, Ghost Manor, etc.—where his solid storytelling and robust inking were much in evidence. His artwork was, to

put it plainly, getting better all the time.

Mastroserio also helped out newcomers at the Derby publishing house.

“Grass” Green shared, “ ’Bout the best thing—re: me working for Charlton— was meeting and becoming friends with Rocke Mastroserio, who was a source of constant encouragement. I was only over to Derby a coupla times; Rocke and I mostly wrote each other.

He thought that, with more work, I’d get better, and encouraged me to keep drawing and submitting stuff.”67 The artist joined the ranks of Warren Publishing, where he contributed exceptional artwork to the horror titles, and he also shared his talents with fandom, as is evident by his excellent cover featuring Ghostly Tales story host Mr. L Dedd for Comic Comments #10 [Nov./Dec. 1966]. Mastroserio also kept up a steady correspondence with that fanzine’s co-editor, Gary Brown, with whom he provided insider details about his Charlton work and opinions on peers.

“Incidentally,” he wrote Brown, “I’m not scheduled to ink the next Captain Atom.* I’m just too bogged down with work… If I were editor, I’d have Steve ink it for that ‘special look’ of his work. But he’s overloaded, so that’s out.

“As for Ditko, I for one can’t get over his imagination. There just isn’t anyone that I can think of who can match it. His version of Blue Beetle is a sure winner! And… he’s a very nice person.

A good Joe!”68 Good Joe Gill was effusive regarding

his pal. “Oh, Rocke, he was a great guy.

He was deaf and he loved his artwork.

He was a good artist. He and I were best friends. I talked a lot, and he didn’t hear me because he was deaf. We got along great! He loved to gamble.”69 Shockingly, Mastroserio was struck dead by a heart attack, in March 1968, a tragedy that sent shock waves through fandom. Don and Maggie Thompson’s Newfangles fanzine [#8, Mar. ’68] reported, “Mastroserio was (please pardon us for editorializing here) one of the finest comic artists in the business today and was continuing to improve. He was also a warm and gentle man who seemed honestly to have no idea how good he was… His loss is the greater because he was constantly improving.”70 *Does this refer to the uninked Captain Atom #90 that remained in inventory until John Byrne inked it for Charlton Bullseye #1–2 [’75]?

Writer Steve Skeates excelled at writing the spooky exploits of Dr. Graves, once using story ideas he intended for an issue of DC’s The Spectre, and seeing that tale, “Ghost Driver” [Many Ghosts… #11, Jan. 1969], rendered in authentic Doctor Strange style by the Mystic Arts Master’s own creator, Steve Ditko!

Another excellent Dr. Graves saga

by Skeates was #5’s “Best of All Possible Worlds,” [Jan. ’68] as John Wells explained, “wherein a comic book fan was pulled into the pages of a Charlton comic and he had decided whether to go back into the real world with his girlfriend.”71

Ghostly Tales was hosted by Mr. L. Dedd and it set the template for Charlton’s numerous supernatural anthologies to come. Given his subsequent success gathering an astonishing roster of talents for his House of Secrets and Witching Hour at DC, Giordano said, “People that I thought were so good, Charlton hadn’t anything to offer them. Alex [Toth] was one, Gil Kane was another. I knew and loved their work, but I didn’t think I had the right to even ask them.”72 Still, the considerable talents of Boyette, Ditko, Mastroserio, Jim Aparo, and newly-arrived Rudy Palais, in GT’s first few years, was hardly anything to sniff at!

Chapter Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes GROOVIN’ WITH GO-GO Charlton’s “Top Teen Comic,” Go-Go, lasted nine issues and, for a mainstream title trying to meld rock ’n’ roll music with MAD-style parody, it was not without its own neat verve.

Dick Giordano shared, “Actually, [then executive Charlton magazine editor] Pat Masulli suggested it because there was a lot of stuff available from the music department that fit in GoGo: photos, topical material—sometimes there was a photo of Sonny and Cher in the back or inside cover, for instance.

Jim Aparo did his first work for me in Go-Go—’The Wild-Life Adventures of Miss Bikini Luv.’ He’s a really good humor artist! Jim loved the humor work; he was just dying to do it. He had a syndicated newspaper strip assignment, but Jim wasn’t making any money at it, either. He was an advertising artist, primarily. He liked doing covers for Charlton.”73 Roy Thomas volunteered super-hero parody concepts he used in the fanzine Alter-Ego: “I let Gary [Friedrich] and Grass [Green] use my concepts of ‘Badman and Robber,” and ‘Bestest League of America’ in their parody ‘Stuporman.’”74 Those spoofs were among Go-Go’s highlights, as Michael Ambrose suggested, “Most memorable to comics fans are probably the linked stories ‘Bestest League of America’ and ‘The BLA vs. the Marvelous Superheroes’ in Go-Go #’s 5 and 6 [Feb., April ’67], but Grass’s series of ‘Far-Out Fairy Tales,’ such as ‘Beauty and the Blah,’ ‘Little Orphan Riding Hood,’ ‘Hansel and Gesundheit,’ ‘Snow What,’ etc., [intended for Go-Go, but mostly they emerged in Abbott & Costello] are also delightful reads to this day. Grass penciled, inked, and lettered his own work mostly, but occasionally it was finished by Anthony Ferme, Frank McLaughlin, or Ernie Bache.”75

The creators of The Peacemaker likely would have talked more about him had they had the slightest inkling of the character’s breakout success as an HBO Max streaming series debuting in 2022, but, alas, more was spoken about artist and co-creator Pat Boyette’s artwork on the Action Hero comic book series.

Writer/co-creator Joe Gill said, “Pat was a very good artist. He did one character of mine—The Peacemaker —and he did a good job, he liked working on it. He made no pretensions. He and I always worked together very well. He’d read the script and call me up, and say, ‘Can I change this and can I change that?’ I’d say, ‘Sure, change anything you want! What the hell do I care?’ Charlton would just trample all over the product anyhow, it didn’t matter. Pat had a wonderful personality.”76 In 2000, Dick Giordano said of the San Antonio-based artist, “I loved everything he did… [Peacemaker] was a stupid idea, and the writer didn’t do very much with it. But Pat did everything he possibly could… Looking through that material [recently], I was even

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Peacemaker

more impressed now with what Pat did.”77 Mike Friedrich lauded writer Gill’s work, saying he “adopted another means to excellence. He concentrates on presenting well-plotted stories. His stories have the unlikely-but-possible air to them, due to the ability to take highly unbelievable situations and characters… and making them so that the reader easily adopts ‘the willing suspension of disbelief.’”78

“Rendezvous” is copyright ©1993 by Charles Johnson and is reprinted here with the permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of Charles Johnson. Charles Johnson portrait courtesy of CRJ.

FROM GO-GO TO NATIONAL BOOK AWARD wrote, “Additionally, I would be willing to buy five (5) more Today, Charles Johnson is a novelist, essayist, literary one-page scripts in this general vein for our Go-Go title if you’d care to submit several for our consideration.”81 scholar, philosopher, cartoonist, screenwriter, and (Giordano also floated the idea that Charlton might professor emeritus at the University of Washington, request that Johnson “illustrate several of them to in Seattle. A MacArthur fellow, his novels include provide you with the opportunity to show what you the critically-acclaimed Middle Passage, for which he won the National Book Award. In 2002, he can do.”)82 Johnson promptly sent back six submissions and the editor accepted four, paying a whopreceived the Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As ping $16 for them. (Johnson distinctly recalls only one of those accepted one-pagers would appear, a teenager, Johnson was also a Charlton contributor.

“When I was an undergraduate comic artist but is fuzzy about exactly where it was published.) in the late 1960s,” he said, “I sold a few one-page In I Call Myself an Artist: Writing by and About comic strips to Charlton Comics. I adapted them from Charles Johnson [1999], Johnson discussed his early single panel gag cartoons I’d done earlier. One titled cartooning: “I had been publishing as a cartoonist/illus‘Rendezvous’ [Go-Go #7, June 1967] is actually from Charles Johnson trator for three years, but in late 1968, I was starting to a story I published in the literary section of my high school feel that my work was growing stale; the excitement and thrill newspaper, in 1965 or ’66… Their staff artist drew the singleof discovery was missing—I was only doing ‘assignments’ page comic based on scripts I sent to them.”79 for others, selling one-page scripts to Charlton Comics (they bought my high school story, ‘Rendezvous,’ and had their The celebrated author, who once aspired to work on comic books published by DC and Marvel, continued, “I have own artist illustrate it), and teaching a cartooning class at in my scrapbooks acceptance letters signed by Dick Giordano.

SIU’s ‘Free School.’ I wondered: what if I directed my drawing Charlton did one-page filler comics. I don’t recall Marvel or and everything I knew about comic art to exploring the history and culture of black America? In 1968, we had only a DC doing much of that, so I submitted my scripts to Charlton, handful of black cartoonists at work—Ollie Harrington, who which I saw as low-man on the comic book totem pole in the was then living in east Berlin; Morrie Turner, who did [the ’60s, though they published much work by the great Steve newspaper comic strip] Wee Pals; and Walt Carr, a staff artist Ditko and apparently gave Ditko lots of freedom.”80 at Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago. But no one was Giordano, in his letter of January 27, 1967, to Johnson, generating books about black cultural nationalism, slavery, or enclosed a check for $4 for the “Rendezvous” script and African American history.”83 Before his literary success, Johnson was a political cartoonist/illustrator between 1965–72.

What follows is the entirety of Johnson’s vignette as sent to Charlton’s Dick Giordano in late 1966 or early ’67: Rendezvous Dense smoke curled slowly above the still cylinders of exploding gasses, each a dull, ashen gray, pock-marked with meteors. Both had crashed violently mere yards from one another and hurled their frail occupants, swathed in spaceage shrouds, to safety on the yielding, white pumice of the soundless world, the mute moon.

Commander Jarius Langford Dillin, USAF pulls himself slowly, agonizingly toward the rem­nants of the USSR’s finest and most elaborate instrument for piercing the bleak cosmos. He stops at the still figure spread-eagled before him, helplessly drowning in its cumbersome flight hel­met and pressure-resistance suit—a woman. The woman, her Ukrainian features beaming in undis­guised joy, clutches the Commander to her as the two clumsily embrace through their bulky flight uniforms. Their two smashed vehicles finally explode in two silent, blinding blazes of white flame and then vanish moments later from the absence of oxygen.

The two figures, mocking human anatomy in their monstrous uniforms, cast their eyes earth­ward to await the rescue ships they know will eventually come. The Commander, his eyes now on the woman, quietly whispers into the radio­communicator lodged in his gleaming helmet, “Natasha, I love you, but we simply can’t go on meeting like this.”

This spread: Go-Go #1 [June ’66]; Peacemaker #1 [Mar. ’67] cover detail; Peacemaker #2 [May ’67] cover; and future National Book Award winner Charles R. Johnson’s “Rendezvous,” featured in Go-Go #7 [June ’67], with art by Jon D’Agostino.

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THE REPORTS OF CORPORAL BUSH’S DEATH… When asked about his various Charlton assignments, writer Joe Gill related an anecdote about a job in the 1960s: “We had Fightin’ Navy, Fightin’ Army, and Fightin’ Marines,” he said to Christopher Irving. “We did [a] Medal of Honor [story], and the [Charlton] partner who decided (it was a minor partner) insisted the stories be authentic, so he got a hold of a Congressional library book, published by the government, that was a history of all the Medals of Honor that were awarded. The written citation that accompanied the medal gave the bare details as to what the hero did; whether it was a Marine who threw himself on a hand grenade and gave his life to save his comrades, that was horsesh*t. “[The partner] insisted that we use their names, and I told him, ‘This is pretty stupid what you’re doing.’ I wrote the story [“Death of a Marine,” Army War Heroes #1, Dec. 1963] and I had no idea, or the time to find out, what the man looked like. Was he Nordic or was he Black? Did he have blue eyes or brown eyes? Ultimately, it wound up and… believe me, it was completely off the top of my head. I had a faculty for writing a story for comics, so the artists who liked to work with me said. This one character, a Marine, jumped on a grenade and gave his life to help his comrades. So that artist goes and draws this picture of a Barbie-doll kind of guy, and the comic book comes out, and out in Michigan there’s This page: Final page of “Death of a Marine,” in Army War Heroes #1 [Dec. ’63], which mistakenly featured the demise of Richard E. Bush, who sued Charlton for the egregious mistake.

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a guy in a basket case who has no arms or legs—he didn’t give his life to save his comrades, he survived! I didn’t read [about his fate], so he sued Charlton. Santangelo wanted me to pay a hefty award, but I backed out on that. It’s so stupid, you’d have realized that you can’t do that.”84 Actually, Kentucky native U.S. Marine Corporal Richard E. Bush’s limbs remained intact, though he lost several fingers and an eye, when the 21-year-old was a squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 6th Marine Division, during the final assault of April 16, 1945, on Okinawa’s Mount Yaetake. His Medal of Honor citation read: “Rallying his men forward with indomitable determination, Cpl. Bush boldly defied the slashing fury of concentrated Japanese artillery fire pouring down from the gun-studded mountain fortress to lead his squad up the face of the precipice, sweep over the ridge, and drive the defending troops from their deeply entrenched position. With his unit, the first to break through to the inner defense of Mount Yaetake, he fought relentlessly in the forefront of the action until seriously wounded.”85 While being treated by a medic, a hand grenade was lobbed near Bush and other wounded comrades. “Cpl. Bush, alert and courageous in extremity as in battle,” the citation continued, “unhesitatingly pulled the deadly missile to himself and absorbed the shattering violence of the exploding charge in his body, thereby saving his fellow Marine from severe injury or death despite the certain peril to his own life.”86 In April 1966, a quartercentury after being awarded the Medal of Honor by President Truman, Bush took offense when learning of the erroneous Army War Heroes story and sued Charlton Press and Charlton Publications for $200,000 in damages, citing an invasion of privacy.87 Though no subsequent reporting has been uncovered, Charlton presumably came to a settlement with Bush.

Husband, father, and longtime employee of the Veterans Administration, Bush died on June 7, 2004, at the age of 79.

In 1989, at a gathering of Medal of Honor recipients, he was quoted by the Chicago Tribune: “I wasn’t out there alone that day on Okinawa. I had Marines to my right, Marines to my left, Marine behind me, and Marines overhead. I didn’t earn this alone.

It belongs to them, too.”88

The Lonely War Stories of Willy Franz William S. Franz [b. 1950]— lived series called ‘The Devil’s otherwise known at Willie Brigade,’ about two rogue tanks Franz—was 4-F when of in North Africa. Working with draft age, in the late ’60s.

Dick Giordano was fun.”

And, along with many of For his part, Giordano peers, he was ambivalent recalled the newcomer. “A about the then ongoing young writer, 14 years old. conflict in Vietnam and he Yes, I remember Willy Franz. channeled that uncertainty I couldn’t believe that I was into “The Lonely War of talking to this kid, and buying Capt. Willy Schultz,” in the these war stories from him pages of Fightin’ Army. that read like they were written Will Franz by an adult.”90 Memorably, that series was drawn by an artist Franz first encountered Franz grew to be very keen on as a 14-year-old boy. writing comics in that period of his life.

“I met Sam Glanzman... I think I “It was very satisfying because, in a way, wrote to him sometime in 1965 or ‘66,” I was almost a celebrity, and who else at Franz said. “I used to collect the Combat 15, 16, 17 is getting published…? And series that he did for Dell, and I always my books were going to Germany, and wanted to be an artist myself, and I did this country and that. Dick Giordano was my own drawings. I sent samples of my great to work with and I have very fond work to Sam care of Dell, and he sent memories of him. Kind of quiet, very me a letter back and critiqued my drawbusiness-like, but friendly. To me, he ings, and [said he] wanted to meet me.”89 was always approachable, and that was important. I think we worked together Franz continued, “I used to make for about a year, and another editor took up my own stories, and he was imover when Dick went to DC. One of the pressed with some of what he saw, and he said Dick Giordano at Charlton advantages in Charlton was that we did was looking to start up some series and have a lot of freedom, they just wanted to make sure—from what I could gather for me to write. Sam showed me how —that I wasn’t violating the Comics he preferred a script executed—the Code. My stories got a little rough, and format—and he said, ‘Get these together they were not conventional war stories.”91 and send ’em out to Dick Giordano.’ I sent them off to Dick and he didn’t like The premise of Fightin’ Army’s them, and sent them back. He explained Capt. Willy Schultz series, Franz said, is why, and that he’d like to see more… I “an American officer in North Africa of specialized in warfare, and I put togethGerman extraction who is falsely accused er some other thing, of a battlefield murder. a horrendous little He supposedly killed Vietnam thing called his commanding officer ‘The Sniper.’ I wasn’t in battle for screwing proud of it, but, hey, everything up. The ofI put it together, Dick ficer was actually killed loved it, and he made it by a German soldier. the cover story on some Through jealousy and magazine called Charlpersonal venom, he ton Premiere [#19, July gets railroaded into a ’67], and that was it! court-martial, and is From then on, he asked convicted of murder, me to work up some and is sentenced to series ideas, and I came hang. He escapes, up with ‘The Lonely and the only place to War of Willy Schultz,’ go is the desert, and to survive, he dons ‘The Iron Corporal,’ and the uniform of a dead then a thankfully short-

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German soldier and seeks refuge in the Afrika Korps, where he learns about the German Army, and the nature of the men he’s fighting.”92 And “The Iron Corporal,” which debuted in Army War Heroes #22 [Nov. ’67]? On this series, editorial made a “rare demand,” as Richard J. Arndt and Steven Fears related: “They insisted that the lead character, Ian Heath, the ‘Iron Corporal’ of the serial, be both an American volunteer who’d joined the [Australian combat] unit before the attack on Pearl Harbor and that, since he was called the ‘Iron Corporal,’ that he actually be partly made of iron!”93 “The Lonely War of Willy Schultz” lasted for 15 installments, though the overarching tale remains unfinished to this day, and “The Iron Corporal” had 16 episodes. Soon, because his work had been perceived of as anti-war, Franz said, “I was blacklisted at Charlton because a guy had put my name and stories down as one of the reasons he registered as a conscientious objector.”94 The writer would briefly work at DC in 1972, but thereafter permanently left the business.

This page: Charlton comics featuring the debuts of two signature Will Franz creations, Fightin’ Army #76 [Oct. ’67] and Army War Heroes #22 [Nov. ’67].

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The Question

This page: Dick Giordano’s 1967 letter of recommendation for D.C. Glanzman; panel detail from and cover of Mysterious Suspense #1 [Oct. ’68], with art by Steve Ditko.

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The Question vignette coloring by Tom Ziuko.

D.C. GLANZMAN David Charles Glanzman [1928–2013] was the youngest brother of talented siblings Lew and Sam Glanzman (the latter, of course, a prolific Charlton artist), and he was looking for work in mid-summer 1965. Fortuitously, as he settled into his managing editor position at the company, Dick Giordano was in need of a production assistant and Sam suggested Dave (who was also known by his first two initials, D.C.).

Asked by Christopher Irving if he had any help in the Charlton office, Giordano replied, “I did have a secretary and one staff artist, D.C. Glanzman, who made all of the corrections. Occasionally, books had D.C. Glanzman down as a writer. That was Steve Ditko really trying hard not to explain that he did everything, but Dave and I got to be very friendly.”95 Confusion over Glanzman’s writing credits has persisted over the years, as those listed in BB and Question stories in Blue Beetle #1–5 were taken at face value, but Giordano insisted Glanzman simply agreed to allow Ditko to use, without compensation, his name as writer. “I have no idea why Steve didn’t want to take credit for it, but he didn’t,” Giordano said. “Dave Glanzman worked in the office, as a board man, making corrections, taking stories to New York for Code approval, things like that. We just asked him for permission to use his name as writer on some of Steve’s stories.”96 (Though Glanzman declined the author’s interview request in 2000, he did share his ex-boss’s letter of recommendation from 1967.)

It’s no wonder that Steve Ditko creations Mr. A and The Question (the latter an Action Hero back-up in Blue Beetle) pretty much look identical, as even the originator mixed ’em up! “The Question (and Mr. A; I can’t seem to separate the two),”97 Ditko related in a 1968 mail interview.

Mr. A, a merciless character manifesting Ditko’s Ayn Randian philosophy, was created simultaneous to The Question, who appeared first in witzend #3 [1967].

Ditko shared background on The Question: “When Blue Beetle got his own magazine, they needed a companion feature for it. I didn’t want to do Mr. A, because I didn’t think the Code would let me do the type of stories I wanted to do, so I worked up The Question, using the basic idea of a man who was motivated by basic black-&-white principles. Where other ‘heroes’ powers are based on some accidental super-element, The Question and Mr. A’s ‘power’ is deliberately knowing what is right and acting accordingly. But it is one of choice, of choosing to know what is right and choosing to act on that knowledge in all his thoughts and actions with everyone he deals with. No conflict or contradiction in his behavior in either identity.”

Ditko added, “He isn’t afraid to know or refuse to act on what is right no matter in what situation he finds himself.

Where other heroes choose to be selfmade neurotics, The Question and Mr. A choose to be psychologically and intellectually healthy. It’s a choice everyone has to make.”98 In late summer 1968, though the Action Hero line had been cancelled, Charlton released the one-shot Mysterious Suspense #1 [Oct. ’68], an issue entirely devoted to (presumably) material meant as Blue Beetle back-ups.

This page: Hercules by Sam Glanzman; Hercules #1 [Oct. ’67]; Hercules #8 [Dec. ’68], the magazine version; Time for Love #53 [Oct. ’66]; and Summer Love #46 [Oct. ’65].

THE 13 LABORS OF GILL, O’NEIL, & GLANZMAN Coming in late during the Action Heroes era and lasting well into the Sal Gentile period to follow, Hercules was a 13-issue retelling of the 12 labors of the demigod of Greco-Roman mythology. While respective scripts by Dennis O’Neil and Joe Gill fluctuated in quality, artist Sam Glanzman took up the challenge and produced visually exciting stories. “Oh yeah, and I had a free hand in it,” the artist enthused. “Boy, you guys call it experimenting, I didn’t call it that, I was just having fun with it. I was squeezing in thought words, emotional words, [drawn] around figures. Stuff like that... if you pick up some particular Hercules, you’ll find it. I was doing that, and I was having a lot of fun with the splash pages, layouts.”99 Asked by the author if he faced all of his Charlton assignments with the same approach, Glanzman replied, “No, I enjoyed Hercules more than the war stuff, as far as enjoying it… I was just doing a job, Jon. That was my problem: I

should’ve looked at it as a career or a profession, something like that, maybe I would’ve learned something. But I didn’t.

Maybe I’d be somewhere now.”100 Pre-dating Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian and DC’s “Nightmaster,” Hercules (subtitled “Adventures of the ManGod”) was a self-described sword-&-sorcery series that included the well-regarded “Thane of Bagarth” back-up serial

by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo (with the final three installments drawn by recently-arrived Korean artist Sanho Kim).

ART & COMMERCE Curiously, the letters page of Hercules #8 said Charlton was prohibited from sending out original art. Gentile wrote, “We’ve got a policy or there’s a legal snafu or something.” But Pat Masulli revealed in a Comic Feature #3 interview from 1965, “We will sell art to QUALIFIED COLLECTORS only at $25 a page,”101 though he failed to specify who met that criteria.

The Beatles of Britain and the Hermits of Herman Derby, Conn., was hardly immune from the fanatical hysteria of Beatlemania sweeping the world starting in 1964 and so Charlton’s comics, again and again, featured the Fab Four in their romance titles. The exquisite cover art was usually by Dick Giordano, who moonlighted drawing romance comics during his stint as editor.

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Probably figuring one pop boy band was as good as another, Charlton more than once featured the Manchester group led by Peter Noone— Herman’s Hermits—on its covers. In an instance of free advertising, the cover of Time for Love #53 [Oct. ’66] even replicated their latest album as drawn by Giordano! Summer Love #46 [Oct. ’65]’s cover sported Beatles heads.

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The Charlton Showcase In Michael Ambrose’s article, “Grass Green at Charlton” [Charlton Spotlight #3, Win./Spr. 2004] the writer recounts correspondence with the cartoonist just before Green passed away in 2002.

Readers learned of some hitherto unknown information about the publisher’s Showcase title of the Action Hero years, Charlton Premiere. What follows is a slightly revised portion of that piece:

SINN IN ST. LOUIS A series with an interesting pedigree— and solid potential, but definitely before its time—was “Tiffany Sinn” (with the unfortunate subtitle, “The C.I.A. Sweetheart”). Twenty-something private detective Sinn became involved with the U.S. spy agency and old friend Rex Swift for three episodes.

The first two appeared in Career Girl Romance #38–39 [Feb.–Apr. ’67], both written by Gary Friedrich with artists Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia [#38], and Luis Dominguez [#39], with the third and final episode appearing in Secret Agent #10 [Oct. ’67], scripted by Dave Kaler and handsomely rendered by Jim Aparo.

About the second episode, drawn by an Argentine artist only a few years in this country, Friedrich recalled (a memory which deviated slightly from the evidence, seen at top), “I did a female feature—this is hilarious—and the splash panel was supposed to be of the heroine climbing the [Gateway] Arch, in St. Louis, with the villain up above her. The Arch had only been completed for a couple years at that time and I envisioned them with ropes hanging off the Arch, or whatever.

Well, the artist drew the two characters with their arms and legs wrapped around the Arch, shinnying up. And hell, Dick didn’t know! It was published that way. I thought I’d freaked out. It was really funny, but I did much of that and we wound up doing ‘The Sentinels’ back-up in Thunderbolt, with Sam Grainger.”102

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As the history of Charlton Comics goes, Grass Green was among the minor players, producing fewer than 20 stories for the whole of his brief career there. But he surely played a part in the “Giordano Revolution” that briefly flowered with memorable Action Heroes, colorful new titles, and a renewed sense of excitement about Charlton Comics.

All of Grass’s stories were humor strips, including the action-hero tryout story “The Shape” in Charlton Premiere #1. His entree to Charlton came via Roy Thomas, who recommended him to editor Dick Giordano (Thomas “told Dick I was fast,” Grass said in a Nov. 2000 letter to me). As Giordano wrote in his editorial for Premiere #1, “The Shape clearly illustrates the reason for Charlton Premiere… Grass Green started working for us as a re-

sult of this job. We were so impressed with it that we’ve been using Grass’s art ever since.” Sadly, the Shape failed to catch readers’ fancies (along with the Tyro Team and the Spookman, tryouts also appearing in that issue) and never appeared anywhere else again, though Grass went on to illustrate scripts by Steve Skeates, Denny O’Neil (writing as “Sergius O’Shaugnessy”), and Gary Friedrich in Abbott & Costello and Go-Go… In a later letter, Grass recounted that he “did the logo for Charlton Premiere. As I remember it, Dick Giordano told me he wanted to do a book to intro new characters and I came up with Charlton Premiere, name and all. Was kinda disappointed that (to my knowledge) Dick never gave me credit of any kind. I never made a big deal about the non-mention, but it did hurt a little; I, even now, still consider it one of the best illos I’ve ever done. Ah, well—that was 33 years ago. Been hurt ’way worse than that across the years and am still goin’…

About the Shape—I tried to get him ‘revived’ at Charlton, but—I think it was Pat Masulli that nixed the idea.

Might’ve been George Wildman—I can’t remember…”103

Rather than using current back-up characters in starring roles, Charlton debuted entirely new features in the first issue of Charlton Premiere. And, boy, were they weird! “The Shape,” by (uncredited writer) Roy Thomas and artist Green, was a statuette brought to shape-shifting life by a mad scientist’s nephew. By story’s end, the simpleminded Shape, with powers akin to old favorite Plastic Man, sneaks back home with Kevin and his conniving uncle.

Writer Steve Skeates and artists Bill Montes and Ernie Bache’s “Tyro Team” were three college boys who put on masks to fight crime. Neither feature felt very inspired.

The real prize of that first issue was its final story, “The Spookman,” by Pat Boyette, which shows the Texan’s art style on par with Alex Toth. The Spookman character was gallery owner Aaron

Piper who, with the aid of a magical Moonstone, was turned into the pasty pale and spectral Spookman. Clad in the clothes of a Puritan, he and proper British assistant Crispin X. Crispin use the Moonstone to travel through time and hunt archaeological treasures. Despite the cover blurb of “Three New Action Hero Ideas from Charlton,” he never was an Action Hero proper and it’s a damn shame there wasn’t more than a single atmospheric adventure for Boyette’s imaginative Spookman.

For the next issue of Charlton Premiere, Boyette teamed with Denny O’Neil for the highly-praised “Children of Doom,” a precautionary tale of the world post-nuclear apocalypse—an anti-Action Hero book if ever there was one (and it’s damn pretty, too).

O’Neil shared, “There’s one thing I did called ‘Children of Doom’ that occasionally would make people’s ten best lists. That was another emergency job and it was for Charlton Premiere, which was a Showcase-like thing with something different every month. There was a psychedelic romance planned and virtually at the last minute they found out that they didn’t have rights—there was some legal reason that they couldn’t This spread: Career Girl Romance #39 [Apr. ’67] splash starring “CIA Sweetheart” Tiffany Sinn; Charlton Premiere covers—#1 [Sept. ’67], #3 [Jan. ’68], and #2 [Nov. ’67]—the latter thought by some to be Charlton’s best single comic book.

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publish it—so Dick called and said that he needed a script by Thursday and he didn’t care what it was about. It had to be 20 pages. That was the first socially relevant job that I ever did. It was an anti-war piece which by today’s standards is not radical at all, but at the time we were making a statement. Pat Boyette got the art assignment and something in it turned him on because he did work that was really good and interesting.”104 The next issue of Charlton Premiere went the complete opposite direction with “Sinistro Boy Fiend,” a parody by Green (script) and Henry Scarpelli (art) about an all-American teenager who becomes a super-villain and goes after the Charlton heroes. If Sinistro went subversive, it could’ve been something; instead, it was all-ages friendly and lacked bite.

The final Charlton Premiere showcased “Unlikely Tales” with supernatural stories all written by Steve Skeates— though one was by his then-wife, Rose.

Skeates revealed about “Race Unto Death,” the book-length story in Strange Suspense Stories #4 [Nov. ’68]:”This was originally intended for Charlton Premiere; I wrote the first half of the story, basically a hard-boiled murder mystery, leaving all sorts of threads dangling; then Denny O’Neil had to write the last half. We were subsequently going to reverse the process. However, when Gentile took over from Giordano, he published this baby with no writing credits and therefore no indication of the game we were playing here.”105 There was also a planned issue that would have revived the Tyro Team: “According to the letters page of Charlton Premiere #3, the fifth issue of that comic was to

be devoted entirely to the Tyro Team. It is unknown whether Skeates completed the script for this comic or whether Bill Montes and Ernie Bache started drawing the feature, as Charlton Premiere was canceled with issue #4.”106 There was also talk of Pete Morisi launching his hard-boiled detective series, “Pete Savage… For Hire,” in an issue of Charlton Premiere, plus a new super-hero series he was developing. ”Starting in the ’60s,” Michael T. Gilbert revealed, “Pete pitched ideas for new comics—primarily ‘Pete Savage… for Hire’ (a detective strip) and a new super-hero, ‘Boomerang!’ He never got much beyond the planning stages with the latter, but, in 1967, Charlton agreed to try ‘Savage’ in their showcase title, Charlton Premiere. Unfortunately, Pete spent too much time tinkering with ‘Savage,’ and the CP book folded before he could complete a story.”107 [Christopher Irving contributed mightily to this overview.]

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes ONE BRIEF SHINING MOMENT After a mere 18 months in existence, it was obvious there would be no happily-ever-after for King Comics as it closed down for good in late 1967 after producing 70 issues of its seven titles. The aborted line’s crown jewel was a glorious (if inconsistent) run of Flash Gordon, with issues featuring heartbreakingly beautiful artwork by Al Williamson, as well as solid efforts by an aging Reed Crandall and Archie Goodwin.

Despite such bright spots, King simply could not recover from a fatal marketing error.

Bill Harris, former Gold Key editor who edited the King Comics initial roster of six titles, explained to Richard Arndt, “We had a weird scheme for selling comics. We attempted to cut the wholesalers out of the loop in favor of selling bagged comics through rack jobbers. The scheme failed when our need to keep publishing new issues to satisfy the foreign market got ahead of our new distributors’ ability to sell the bagged comics fast enough, and they refused to stay on board. It was like the story, ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’ We found ourselves awash in new comics that we couldn’t get to market because of our stupid decision to burn all our bridges. We eventually alienated the wholesalers and we alienated everybody else.”108 King’s gambit to sell bagged sets of three comics per pack—either a trio of “funny” or “adventure” titles in each— was indeed disastrous, and owner King Features Syndicate let it be known to other publishers that their characters were once again available for licensing. Charlton executives recognized the properties’ value because of Dick Giordano.

“One of the things that I was quite proud of at Charlton, by the way, was that I had been instrumental in bringing Charlton and King Features together,” he told Jud Hurd.

“Charlton then began printing the Beetle Bailey, Popeye, and Ponytail comic books for King Features.”109 (Charlton had itself only recently experimented with selling bagged sets—with black-&-white trading cards as not very enticing bonuses—but it appears that the effort lasted only one summer and the comics sold were returns of no value to the company.)

While it would be his successor who actually launched the King Features titles—Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Jungle Jim, etc.—Giordano was still at Charlton for the outfit’s first Hanna-Barbera licensing deal, as Michael Eury conveyed: Charles Santangelo was interested in adding licensed television properties to Charlton’s comics line, and brought two possibilities to Dick: the animated version of Abbott & Costello and a brand-new ABC-TV sitcom called The Flying Nun. Convinced that Abbott & Costello would make a better comic book, Giordano selected that series (although discovering soon thereafter that The Flying Nun would score high in the ratings) and offered it to new discovery [writer Steve] Skeates, “one of the funniest people in the world.” Skeates storyboarded his A&C scripts, so riotous they left the editor “rolling on the floor.” Giordano regrets that the illustrator he assigned to the project, “competent humor artist” Henry Scarpelli, provided an interpretation that wasn’t as funny as Skeates’ storyboards.110 (Skeates, who would continue on his Abbott & Costello assignment until well after Giordano departed Charlton, revealed, “One thing of mine Charlton bought but never published was a year’s worth of the adventures of The Masque, a masked super-hero who operated out of New Orleans.”)111 This page: Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon #1 [Sept. ’66]; Jim Aparo’s Wander pin-up from The Charlton Portfolio [1974]; and Charlton’s foray into selling three-to-a-pack comics, circa 1967.

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KELLER IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT Though he had no experience as a writer, Jack Keller, who had, since the ’50s, been the primary artist on Hot Rods and Racing Cars for Charlton and Kid Colt Outlaw artist for Marvel, was looking to script his own stories for the Derby outfit. “Well, when Pat Masulli was there,” he said, “I had this urge—because there were a lot of stories that I felt I would like to draw, and I was a Formula One nut at that time, too—so I wrote a script or two and mailed it to him.

Pat at first didn’t want to do it, because they wanted everything done by a staff writer. Charlton was pretty much that way. When I first got there, they had one book called Hot Rods and Racing Cars, and then after I started illustrating, doing their scripts and all, they moved to two books, and then, when Dick Giordano got in [as managing editor], Dick dumped everything on me, and I did the covers, the writing, the stories, and it went to four books! I did all the lead features in each one, and sometimes I would do the whole book.”112 By 1967, Giordano made Keller an offer he couldn’t refuse.”[W]hen he was editor, wanted me to work exclusively for Charlton—he wanted me to do all the books and nearly all the covers. So, he made me an offer of $35 a page—that included script—and then I told Stan Lee I was going. Kid Colt was starting to get weak anyway at that time… Stan Lee made me a counter-offer and the offer was more lucrative than Giordano’s, but the thing about Giordano is he offered me more freedom, and I liked the idea of writing my own stuff. Actually, I guess, in the long run, I would’ve made similar money because of the fact that I could do my own stuff more quickly than I could do material I wasn’t familiar with. If I’d had to have done super-heroes, I would’ve been spending too much time digging for reference. It would’ve been a whole new line of business for me.”113 With reliable Hot Rods and Racing Cars still puttering along as a bi-monthly, Keller had his work cut out for him as Charlton launched Top Eliminator, Grand Prix, World of Wheels, Drag N’ Wheels, and Surf N’ Wheels—the latter two during the Sal Gentile years—which replaced titles that had began in 1963 and ’64, Teenage Hotrodders, Drag-Strip Hotrodders, and Hot Rod Racers. By 1973, when all racing-related titles were cancelled, Keller would be out at Charlton—and comics—for good.

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Edd Ashe’s Hot Rods Edmund Marlon Ashe, Jr. [1908–1986] was born in Norwalk, Conn., and the family moved to Pittsburgh by 1921.

There, Edd Ashe attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, studying under his father in the art department. During the Depression, Ashe produced murals for Edd Ashe the WPA. “These murals became what comics would become later: something to get behind him,” Bill Parker wrote. “He admitted that comics paid well and that Charlton ‘paid the mortgage!’”114 “By chance, I answered Harry Chesler’s ad and I got into doing comics,” Ashe explained. “From Chesler to Fawcett was a long path… MLJ, Fox, then Popular.

There must have been at least 30 different publishers.”115 FCA & ME editor Parker explained, “At MLJ Magazines, Edd was the first artist associated with ‘The Wizard.’ Later he did ‘The Human Torch.’”116 For Fawcett, Ashe said, “I did love stories. I did ‘Don Winslow [of the Navy].’ I started Winslow, did the first cover, did the whole damn book!”117 When Fawcett closed their comics division, he produced the strips, Guy Fortune and Mark Hunt, for the Pittsburgh Courier, the largest U.S. Black newspaper at the time. After Smith-Mann shut down, the artist relocated to Connecticut.

Returning to comics in 1961, he freelanced for American Comics Group and Dell, but went exclusive with Charlton from 1965–70, where Ashe primarily drew for their “Hot Rod Comics Group.” “Edd became immersed in community affairs and projects,” FCA & ME continued. “He was a charter member of the Northville Volunteer Fire Department, a member of the Village Fair Day Committee for several years, served on the United States Bicentennial Committee in 1976, a member and former president of the Housatonic Art League and ‘artist-in-resident’ at an historic inn. Edd had a quick and lively sense of humor, as well as a deep sense of purpose.

Even though he remarked that he had wished that he was somewhere else when he was doing WPA murals or comics, it always came through that he had a strong desire to do the job at the best of his ability.”118

This page: World of Wheels #17 [Oct. ’67], art by Jack Keller; and splash page by Edd Ashe from Grand Prix #17 [Nov. ’67].

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes FROM OUT OF THE FILING CABINET THEY CAME It’s commonly known in the trade as the “slush pile,” a batch of mail every publication accumulates: unsolicited queries and samples from hopeful contributors. In Charlton’s case, it was amassed in the filing cabinet drawers in the vacated office of Pat Masulli, and those submissions were scoured by the incoming Giordano. Asked how he discovered James Nicholas Aparo [1932– 2005], whose first comics work appeared in Go-Go #6 [Apr. 1967], the editor said, “From a letter I found in the file cabinet I inherited. Most of the new people I got at Charlton were from the mail my predecessor never read, but just stuffed into the file drawers. I called Jim up, and he came down from Hartford, Jim Aparo we talked for half-an-hour, and I said, ‘I’ve got something for you: How about “Bikini Luv”? It’s humor.

Sexy girl, closer to the Archie style, really.’

He said, ‘Well, I’ll take a shot at it.’”119 Connecticut-born, self-taught artist Jim Aparo, who had been working in a dull advertising job at the time, remembered that his introduction to Charlton took place while on summer vacation. Lacking the money to do anything during the break—Aparo had just purchased a new home and was raising three kids—the

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artist took the hour-long ride to Derby armed with a portfolio of work samples and comic-book material he produced just for his appointment with Giordano. Aparo was relieved as he stepped into the Charlton Press building having finally made a breakthrough and got a meeting with the new editor after having been rejected by former editor Pat Masulli.

“Anyway,” Aparo told Jim Amash, “when I met Dick, he was the man in charge at the time. I showed Dick what I could do. It was my own stuff that I made up. I would take comic pages that existed from books and write the copy down like a script, ignoring the artist who did it. I said, ‘Now, how would I do this if I was drawing it?’ Dick saw the possibilities were there. He liked what he saw, so he gave me a script to do.”120 The humble and reliable Aparo was a rarity in the business, as he entered the comic book industry a fully-realized, exquisitely talented artist, a dependable professional able to pencil, ink, and even letter, all in an instantly recognizable and unique style.

He had previously produced regional newspaper comic strips, one about golfing, but given his devotion to comic books as a youth, Aparo enjoyed finally breaking into the field—and he appreciated the freedom afforded

by Charlton. “I never asked to do anything,” he said. “Dick gave me what he thought I could do and I did it. That’s the kind of guy he was. He let you be your own boss. If you had trouble, give him a call. But otherwise, do it.”121 During the Action Hero years, Aparo drew romance, Western, science fiction, and supernatural stories, as well as rendering action heroine and Captain Atom chum Nightshade, “Thane of Bagarth” (a sword&-sorcery serial), “The Prankster” (starring a mischievous rebel in a dystopian future), and “Wander” (a mash-up of super-heroics, science fiction, and Westerns), as well as covers.

After Giordano quit, the pragmatic artist continued to accept Charlton assignments while also freelancing for DC, and Aparo produced his greatest Charlton work, The Phantom, during managing editor Sal Gentile’s reign of 1968–72.

Another extraordinary talent Giordano pulled from a Charlton file drawer was Pat Boyette—San Antonio native son and renaissance man Aaron Patrick Boyett, Jr. [1923– 2000]—whose eclectic, fascinating, and diverse professional life included careers as television news anchor, B-movie filmmaker, and newspaper comic strip artist, and yet, as a certain point, he still felt something was missing. As Tom Spurgeon related, “In the mid-1960s, Boyette was commiserating with a friend in San Antonio over those aspects of their careers each found unfulfilling when a shared artistic interest led them on a lark to pursue jobs drawing comic books. Following up on a Charlton comic book randomly selected by Pat Boyette the friend, Boyette called the company, made sure they were looking for artists, and sent along samples. When Charlton replied to his mailing, it was to say the company was re-structuring, and they would contact him in a year. Boyette recalled putting the thought of working for Charlton out of his mind.”122

the widespread availability of photocopying, I had a devil of a time remembering what I had drawn previously. This also happened to me on Flash Gordon and Peacemaker. Looking back on these comics, it seems I did fairly well with my visual memory.”124 (While, later at DC, the same editor did rely on the artist for a Blackhawk story virtually overnight when Reed Crandall bagged out of the assignment, he denied that “Children of Doom” was behind the eight-ball with Boyette given a very tight deadline. “No, no, no, that’s not true,” Giordano said, “It really wasn’t that fast. There are other things that happened to me that were on short deadlines, that one we had some time. Pat liked to use Zip-A-Tone and a lot of tones, and he asked me, ‘Can we publish it in black-&-white?’ I said, ‘Well, the printing has got a certain amount of show-through, but yeah, let’s give it a shot.’ If you look at them, you’ll seethrough page one to page two, and you can see-through page three to page four. But it got by.”)125 A tremendously inventive storyteller, Boyette would remain (as will be seen) a prolific creator at Charlton until the mid-’70s. A supreme example of his wild imagination is found in The Spookman, whose singular episode was in Charlton Premiere #1 with an eight-page story about an long-haired, sinister-looking albino (who Boyette originally intended to call The Sandman). Dressed in Puritan attire with cloak, witchfinder hat, and lethal-looking walking stick, Spookman, when adorned with the Moonstone Amulet, had the ability to time-travel “though a universe of vapors,” and then he was party to helping Emperor Nero set ancient Rome on fire.

In conversation with Don Mangus in 1997, Boyette spoke well of two particular Charlton writers: “Well, I think Joe Gill is some kind of magician… amazing.” He also felt that Steve Skeates produced scripts that were “good, every one!”126 So, how then did Boyette become a freelancer at the Derby publisher? “Same way as Aparo,” Giordano chuckled.

“Before me, nobody took time to read the mail! I found his letter in the file, called him up and said, ‘Oh, I found your letter from about a year ago. Are you still interested in working for Charlton?’ And he said, ‘Yes,’ in this magnificent speaking voice. Pat was a radio announcer and a TV news anchorman in Texas, and he had that mid-western drawl everybody favors, and his voice would come through with such resonance.

He was really a pleasure to listen to. We used to have weekly conversations at Charlton.”123 As was the case with Aparo, Boyette arrived at Charlton as a fully-developed, versatile comic book artist—pencils, inks, letters—though, as an added plus, he was a solid writer.

His artistry was immediately put to use on supernatural and war stories, as well as on Fightin’ Five back-up “The Peacemaker,” which he co-created with writer Joe Gill.

Besides his idiosyncratic, distinct art style, Boyette was well-regarded for his speed, and was emergency fill-in artist for editor Giordano when others missed deadlines. About the tour de force in Charlton Premiere #2, Boyette told Don Mangus, “‘The Children of Doom,’ like many Charlton strips, was on a real tight deadline; so tight, in fact, that I would do two or three pages, then mail them in. Since this was before This spread: Vignette of O’Neil and Aparo’s “Prankster” from Thunderbolt #60 [Nov. ’67]; “Nightshade” by Aparo from The Charlton Portfolio [’74]; “Peacemaker” splash from Fightin’ Five #40 [Nov. ’66] and “Spookman” art, both by Pat Boyette.

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Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes confesses. “I had been having so much fun, but that sort of ruined it for me.”

Capital Distributing, Charlton Comics’ distribution arm, lacked the muscle and the interest to ensure that their products would survive in the marketplace. In the 1960s, DC Comics employed roughly 150 “roadmen”—traveling salesmen who canvassed the country finding new venues for their comic books—while Charlton had a total of five roadmen charged with covering the entire continental U.S.A.128

THE HEROES’ FALL The fate of Giordano’s Action Heroes line was cast in early fall 1967, a little over two years since he started his experiment as editor of the line. “The day it happened,” he said, “we were all surprised. The sales reports would come in Tuesday and then, on Wednesday, we would sit down and realize that it would have to be cancelled. When I was executive editor there, I was privy to everything in the company. There weren’t that many things [that] were kept from me… The sales were not acceptable to continue. I admitted that at the time and I admit it now. I also think the lack of sales had little to do with the quality of the material.”127 Giordano’s biography shared that the problem came down to distribution: “The figures showed we had sold only 18 percent of the print run,” Dick divulges, “which meant that only 25 percent of the print run saw the light of day.” Upon further investigation, the editor learned that the remaining 75 percent of the comics remained bundled and unopened, stored in warehouses until being returned for credit. In the network of 1960s newsstand distribution, vendors filled their delivery trucks with the most popular newspapers and magazines, then, “if there was still room, threw in some comic books,” explains Giordano. This selection process favored DC’s and Marvel’s more recognizable titles like Superman, Batman, and The Amazing Spider-Man, but often kept Charlton’s books from even making it out of the gate. Giordano’s discovery of bundled and ignored Charlton comics “was painful,” he

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Captain Atom #90 cover coloring by Scott Dutton. Used with permission. Champion #7 image courtesy of Aaron Caplan.

In a 2002 letter to Russ Maheras, Steve Ditko laid out an interesting theory: “DC Comics managed to kill Charlton’s attempts in doing super-heroes. The distributor that distributed DC Comics also carried Playboy. Stores were told that if they carried Charlton’s hero[es], they won’t get Playboy.

So it was a choice of dollar or so big-seller Playboy or a ten or 15 cent comic.”129 But Ditko’s former editor was less inclined to embrace that belief, as his biography related. “Giordano discounts a conspiracy theory behind Charlton’s poor distribution that industry professionals have shared with him over the years: ‘Some people have suggested that either DC or Marvel did something to prevent those books from reaching the stands.

I’m not convinced of that. We weren’t important enough for them to do that.’ More likely, the foremost obstacle limiting the distribution of Charlton’s comic books was the company’s tight-fistedness. Dick bemoans, ‘the prevailing culture of the company became, “how can we save five dollars,” not “how can we make five dollars,”’ noting that Charlton would rather take the easy way out and collect a token sum for product returns than push its product toward profit maximization.”130 Demoralized and disappointed that his experiment was so short-lived, Giordano’s most important artist conveyed

Blue Beetle #6 cover coloring by Scott Dutton. Used with permission.

some invigorating, much-appreciated positive news. “Steve Ditko came up and told me that the people at DC were interested in talking to me about taking an editorial position.”

He also shared, “I was predisposed to accept DC’s offer to go talk to them, when it came, because I was unhappy about the Charlton Action Hero line, but I can’t remember if they had already been cancelled, just about to be, or whether the sales were just so bad that I felt I was whipping a dead horse.

Whichever way it was, it was right on the cusp.”131 OFF TO THE BIG CITY In a letter dated November 21, 1967, Pete Morisi made the bombshell announcement to frequent correspondent Glen D. Johnson, former editor of The Comic Reader: “I’ve got news (but not for publication)… Dick Giordano is leaving Charlton, and going to *DC*! Yep, as of Dec. 4, Charlton will lose Dick, who will be replaced by Sal [Gentile]… Sal has been working as Pat Masulli’s assistant as of late, and I think he did freelance comics before that.”132 Back in late 1966, with the encouragement of Morisi, Johnson had submitted a sample script—likely a “Sentinels” story—to Giordano and doubtless was now agitated by the rumor of the editor’s impending departure if only for the fact Charlton had held on to his script for so long. Johnson then fired off a letter to Derby, asking why he never heard back from Giordano and, in an apologetic reply dated November 27, 1967, the Action Hero man returned the script and made it official, declaring to Johnson: “Now I have terminated my employment with Charlton Comics Group effective December 1,” and he confirmed that Gentile would “most capably” succeed him as managing editor of the comics line.133 Dick Giordano was indeed setting up shop at DC Comics (then called National Periodical Publications), where he was joining a new and somewhat radical direction for the company, one dedicated to taking on upstart Marvel with the belief that, comics being a visual medium, artists—and not so much writers—made for the best editors. It panned out to be an artistically brilliant era for the publisher, one DC would creatively mine and profit from over the years, perhaps more than any other, though it ultimately failed to prevent Marvel from overtaking DC in market share and become industry leader.

This “Daring and Different” period for the DC, which emerged after the popularity of the Batman TV show had waned, was led by artist Carmine Infantino, who soon enough became editorial director and, later, publisher. Infantino had assembled a stable of superb comic book artists to give each their own editor’s desk: Joe Orlando, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Kubert, and Giordano—and, within a couple years, in a coup that had the Marvel Bullpen quaking in their boots— Infantino landed the “King of Comics” himself, Jack Kirby.

Giordano’s first hitch as DC editor—from January ’68 to November ’70—lasted almost a year longer than his Charlton term. And though it was unnecessarily marred by creative conflict with boss-man Infantino, Giordano excelled in his job and produced an excellent selection of titles. One significant factor was that many of his appreciative Charlton freelancers successfully followed him over to the new digs—Dennis O’Neil, Steve Skeates, and Jim Aparo (as did Pat Boyette and Joe Gill, though theirs were unsuccessful transfers). And, of course, there was the editor’s ace in the hole: Steve Ditko.

Sometime later, in a 1970 Cartoonist Profiles interview, Giordano revealed the identity of DC’s talent scout, the one

Chapter Ten: Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

who alerted Infantino that an exceptional editor was working at a third-rate competitor. “A few years ago,” he said, “I had an offer to come with National Periodical Publications and it was too good to turn down. And it gave me a chance to concentrate on editing without having to be concerned with production and all the other details that I’d been involved with a Charlton. It seems that Sheldon Mayer, whom I consider one of the greatest talents in the business, was doing a little scouting for National and, in the course of things, he had seen and liked some of the stuff being done at Charlton.

Well, he learned I’d been editing there and he mentioned my name to Carmine Infantino, the head artist at National. And, after several months of talking back and forth about my moving from Charlton to National, I finally made the switch.”134 Indeed, Mayer was not just a truly great cartoonist, storyteller, and comic book creator, but also among the finest editors in comics history, one who developed a superb eye for talent and his suggesting Giordano as a potentially beneficial asset to the company was nothing less than genius.

Giordano’s exit, the definitive end of Charlton’s most acclaimed era, resulted in the rather unadventurous Sal Gentile period of 1968–72 (a period not without bright spots), and the Derby establishment never again radiated the promise and potential of their magnificent age of the Action Heroes.

This spread: Unpublished Charlton covers—Captain Atom #90 and Blue Beetle #6—with art by Steve Ditko (added colors by Scott Dutton). Champion #7 [1969], Marty Greim cover art.

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Chapter Eleven

Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies A TIGER BY THE TAIL Some 40-plus years after he resigned as Charlton’s managing editor of their comics line—the most consequential tenure of any employee in the history of Charlton Comics—Dick Giordano still felt a twinge of disappointment about the company.

In 2009, he told a convention audience, “What happened was, because our marketing department at Charlton was not active in promoting the Action Hero line, the sales were low, and that was my real main reason for leaving there. I felt like I had worked very hard on that line and it wasn’t being backed up by anything. When I left, I don’t think they cared much, so, after I left in ’67 (something like that), they just cancelled the whole line. Sal Gentile was the editor, my replacement at the time, and Sal was a very sweet guy, but wasn’t very aggressive, and I guess he didn’t work hard enough to keep [the Action Heroes line] going.”1 Ultimately, due to its overall set-up, Giordano felt Charlton missed a great opportunity. After all, as far back as 1958, Newsdealer magazine, in an article headlined “A Capital Idea,” realized its potential, as the trade journal gushed about the all-in-one set up at Charlton: Something of a phenomenon in the world of publishing is an extraordinary one-stop shop nestled among the gentle rolling hills of central Connecticut. Here, it is not only possible, but commonplace for an idea to enter through one door and finished publications to leave from another.

What’s more, the very trucks speeding copies to various parts of the country are also owned and operated by what may be the most versatile and comprehensive publishing operation anywhere!2 In an interview with the author, Giordano said, “Well, the unique thing about Charlton, and the thing that always bothered me, was that they had a tiger by the tail, but didn’t know it. It was the only publishing operation I’ve ever heard of that was contained in one building—from concept to shipping! It took place within the same walls, within perhaps 100 yards of each other… Yeah, Charlton had it all. And that’s exactly what they had that nobody else did and, for example, if they wanted to go head-to-head with DC Comics—quality of the artwork, quality of the stories, quality of the printing and distribution—they probably could’ve done it at twothirds of the cost that DC was paying. And if they had done This spread: Above inset is the public service announcement by the creators of Jonnie Love, which appeared in the Charlton Romance Group only a month after the character’s 1968 debut.

Opposite are Charlton Comics covers from the Sal Gentile years.

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that, they really could have turned the comic book publishing business on its ear. But they chose to be junk dealers, they really did. I mean that in a literal sense: they thought they were producing junk; they thought of all of it as junk; they didn’t think it had any commercial value; they didn’t think there was any reason for them to be serious about it… the music magazines were making the money. I don’t even know why they published comics, to tell you the truth… just to keep the presses running was probably the biggest reason. And I think they felt good about somebody like me taking over and caring about the comics line, because, once I got there—this might’ve been true for [executive editor] Pat [Masulli], too, but it was much harder for him because he was also with the music business, and crossword puzzle books, and the humor books, and so forth—but once I got there, nobody

1960s

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Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies had anything to do about the comics but me. I scheduled the stuff through the plant, I made up engraver schedules, press schedules… You want to keep the press running, so such-and-such book needs to have 100,000 copies printed, this one needs 275,000 copies, and you would have another one to maybe slip in here, maybe two. Sometimes we’d print in advance in order to keep all of those slots filled until the 275,000 was finished. Then, you’d take everything off [press] and start the process all over again.”3 (For his part, Pat Masulli would also jump ship from the Derby publisher, leaving in 1972 and opting to establish his own company, Four Seasons Publishing. Working out of his Bethany, Conn., home, Masulli made use of what experience he had acquired from the Charlton music magazines and started his own successful Rock Scene magazine—edited by onetime Hit Parader editors Richard and Lisa Robinson— launching in early 1973, a fine effort that lasted until 1982.)

Expanding on Charlton’s misguided priorities, Giordano told Christopher Irving, “They were indeed in the junk business, and I mean that literally. In my walking through the plant, I realized that I was having difficulty getting from one end of the plant to the other because there were skids of plates blocking the aisles. These were used plates. I went to the boss and said, ‘We’ve got to get some of that stuff out of there. Nobody can get through the plant. Get it out of there.’

He said, ‘We’re waiting for the price of scrap metal to go up.’

That’s when I realized what sort of company I was in; we would make the plant less efficient because the price of scrap metal wasn’t high enough to make him move the plates out.”4

Man’s Combat

Just as the entire category of “men’s sweat” magazines was beginning to go on life-support, Charlton launched its own entry, Man’s Combat, which went for six issues, cover-dated June 1969 to Autumn ’70.

With typically lurid covers indistinguishable from any other “men’s adventure” magazine (and disturbingly using the word “rape” on four of its six covers), the issues’ guts were crudely produced, featuring equally as many cheesy, cheap-looking black-&white “girly” photo spreads as racy, he-man “adventure” stories.

Interestingly, a late 1967 court ruling resulted in opening “many doors previously forbidden. From 1968 on, men’s adventure publications transformed themselves into ‘skin’ magazines, predominately devoted to photos of nude women and explicit articles about sex.”5 With its mix of titillating fiction and T&A pix, Man’s Combat was an example of a genre in transition.

INVESTIGATION OF THE SAUCER MANN Though an obvious rip-off of the science fiction TV series, The Invaders, which premiered on Jan. 10, 1967, Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. #1 [Oct. ’67] still had an intriguing concept doubtless intended to become an ongoing series. The premise was Jackson County Intelligencer newspaper reporter Paul Mann finds more than he bargained for when investigating unidentified flying objects, as he learns that the “aliens” are, in fact, evolved humans from 4000 A.D. actively trying to keep the planet from suffering a nuclear war in the future.

This one-shot—edited by Giordano and written by Dennis O’Neil using his “Sergius O’Shanugnessy” pen-name—looks like an anthology, but is actually three chapters of a single overall tale, with each drawn by a different artist. The first is peculiar enough, having the appearance of an inventory story from maybe the late ’50s or early ’60s, drawn by pseudonymous “Melonius Thonk” (surmised to be Norm Nodel), which adds to its weirdness.

Pat Boyette and Jim Aparo provided art for the remaining chapters.

It took almost an entire year for the “next issue” to hit the stands as Space Adventures #2 [July ’68], as it continued Paul Mann’s exploits with the purported extraterrestrials, again written by O’Neil, with respective chapter art by Aparo, Steve Ditko, and Boyette. Alas, with the next issue, the title reverted to a typical anthology featuring unconnected short stories, and it lasted six more issues, ending with #8 [July 1969]. (Editor Gentile did release a one-shot anthology, Outer Space #1 [Nov. ’68].)

This page: At left is Jim Aparo’s splash page in Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. #60 [Oct. 1967]—actually a one-shot— and that issue’s cover by Rocke Mastroserio (above). At top is the lurid Man’s Combat #4 [Dec. 1969] cover.

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Scarpelli and Son

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH… AGAIN Dick Giordano’s departure at the end of 1967 was prelude to another shakeup at Charlton Press, as John Santangelo’s number one son exited as publisher in the next year. “I left A more ambitious and adaptive cartoonthe business in 1968,” Charles Santangelo told Christopher Irist would be hard to find when it ving in 2000. “I got tired, since I’d been in it since I was a kid. comes to Henry Scarpelli, who had In ’68, my dad was 69 and still going, but I thought worked for most of the major comic that he was going downhill. We had 52 titles, doing book publishers, including Marvel, quarterly, which was a mistake. I wanted to cut DC, Archie, Dell, and, “Then I down to 30 bi-monthlies. I was overruled, being worked for Dick Giordano, when a young guy. That eventually got me to leave he was editor at Charlton. He gave because I decided it was too much and time me the opportunity to do Abbott & to leave. We had that disagreement and I left, Costello,” Scarpelli told Cartoonist but he stayed on for another ten years, and Profiles. But the artist actually got his he gave the business to my brother. I got tired start in syndicated comic strips. of wearing a tie and answering the phone, Henry Scarpelli Henry Louis Scarpelli [1930–2010] going to meetings and meetings was born in Staten Island, and meetings. I was almost 34 and New York, and he had his wanted to do things. My old man first cartoons published in The John Santangelo, Jr. was pretty tough and didn’t want to Log, the Curtis High School do them. I said, ‘Arrivederci, I’m going.’ I left and paper. While still a teen, he opened up a car wash and gas station [in Derby], served in the Signal Corps of and did that until nine or ten years ago, when I the U.S. Army and was the leased the business and retired. I haven’t worked staff cartoonist for his Army in ten years, but I’m having a great time, and I base newspaper. have some great memories.”8 “I wanted to be a carWriter Joe Gill recalled, “Charlie was a very toonist forever,” he said. “My earthy kind of guy, he was a smart guy, but he aim was to do adventure and was also cunning. He was a likable guy, and not the big foot stuff. Milton he read better quality books than I did. But he Caniff was my idol.”6 But, didn’t like wearing a suit, and a shirt and tie, and despite his chameleon-like he wasn’t comfortable with the people he met. abilities to work in other There were some big pains in the ass in the comic artists’ styles, Scarpelli would book business. He didn’t like associating with make a career drawing in a them and pretending to speak the King’s English strictly cartoony manner. instead of the crap that we talk in the Naugatuck After the service, he Valley.…[After resigning, Charlie] took a settleattended the School of Visual ment from his father for his inheritance, and he Arts and then worked as bought some businesses and some real estate.”9 an assistant to cartoonist John Santangelo, Jr. [b. 1942] (hereafJohn Rouson. Soon Scarpelli ter referred to as “Santangelo, Jr.”) would soon launched his own long-runreplace his older brother as publisher and the ning single-panel, TV Hee-Hees. “I began to work husband of sister Elsie (and one-time head of Monarch out of my home, doing comic book work, in 1959,” Books), Ronald T. Scott [b. 1934], was promoted to he said, “My first job was penciling and inking for serve as the plant’s new general manager. Ed Konick 7 Stan Lee on Millie the Model.” Often teamed continued to work with executive editor Pat Masulli with Stan Goldberg, Scarpelli would become best on the magazine line and, succeeding Giordano, known for his work at Archie Comics, a long stint was his soft-spoken assistant, Sal Gentile, who, which earned him multiple “Shazam” awards in according to George Wildman (who would himself the early ’70s as “Best Humor Inker.” became Gentile’s assistant by ’69), had been workBetween the later ’70s and 1986, Scarpelli ing as a “boardman.” Wildman said Gentile had went on extended hiatus to manage his son’s actbeen “Staff artist in the bullpen. They had about six ing career, when Glenn Scarpelli became a bona fide guys in-house that did a lot of the art. Two of the guys child star as “Alex Handris” on the CBS TV sitcom, were strictly romance men. They were just generally, One Day at a Time. The careers of both father and son Ronald Scott good staff artists who did paste-up, touch-up.”10 Wildbecame further entwined when Henry produced a runman indicated Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia as examples ning Archie Comics feature, “Glenn Scarpelli in Hollyof Charlton in-house staff artists. wood,” which ran in various Riverdale gang titles in the mid-’80s. (Technically, though, Glenn first appeared as This page: Henry Scarpelli was cover artist on Abbott & a cartoon character in Henry’s “Cross-Eyed Pussycat” Costello #1 [Feb. 1968], the first of a cascade of Hanna-Barbera strip in DC’s teen humor comics of the early ’70s.) licensed properties Charlton absorbed into their comics line.

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Derby Wood

Wallace Allan Wood [1927–1981] didn’t create any significant amount of work for Charlton Publications, though his few submissions were (as to be expected of one of the finest artists in the industry) handsome stuff indeed. One of his efforts—actually, an effort of many—was originally intended for King Comics, but even before that, there were a pair of war comics.

In 1964, Wally Wood Wallace Wood (he preferred to be called “Woody”) produced the art (and possibly scripts) for War and Attack #1 and D-Day #2, both cover-dated Fall 1964, which were a fine set of issues.

A few years later, recalled thenaspiring comics writer Bhob Stewart, a blithe Woody announced that a deadline was approaching at light speed for the contents of an issue of Jungle Jim assigned to the artist, and Stewart took a crash course in comic scripting, though, he later said, his scripts were “terrible.”

“A few nights later,” Stewart shared in 2003, “I learned why Wood

had expressed little concern about the tight deadline: artists from all over the city converged on his two tiny rooms.

Someone sat in every available inch. In one corner, Roger Brand was penciling a story. As he completed pages, they were passed to Dom Sileo and other inkers— who were adding finishing touches to the stories penciled by Tom Palmer and Steve Ditko. Wood, at his drawing table, meticulously inked faces for a while and eventually vanished. He returned shortly with Tatjana, grinning as he showed her the white heat of activity, leading her into that maelstrom of flying brushes.”11 Stewart continued, “It was an exhilarating evening, one that Wood obviously enjoyed manipulating as much as I enjoyed seeing panel after panel of mine coming to life exactly as I had designed them. And, true to the pattern I was just beginning to observe, it was doomed. He called me one night: ‘Bhob, looks like we’re out of a job.’

King Comics decided to withdraw from comic books, passed the finished art and a lone undrawn story on to Charlton…

This page: An army of artists helped Wally Wood complete his Jungle Jim #22 [Feb. 1969] assignment (initially intended for the King Comics run). The original art page here was penciled by Steve Ditko.

and that was that. No chance to even try to escalate the quality of the stories.

The fact that we had all worked our asses off, late into the Broadway night, meant nothing in the business Scheme of Things. Wood’s cynicism about the field he worked in was not only understandable but contagious. In the weeks that followed, I heard tale after terror tale of each cul-de-sac in his career, all delivered in a sardonic monotone.”

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Wood portrait courtesy of Paul Kirchner. Gentile photo courtesy of Shelly Parker.

GENTILE, THE GENTLE GENT was in magazines. So he said, ‘You’re going to be editor.’ So Sal was… he had a good name, Gentile, gen-teel. He was a Fran Matera, who had drawn for the company’s Western nice guy, you know. He was not aggressive. He sat in his seat, comics in the late ’40s and ’50s, briefly freelanced for ’70s Charlton and he knew Salvatore Joseph Gentile [1922– knew what to do. He had learned it and learned it well. The momentum was there when Dick left and Sal kind of kept 2002]—Sal Gentile—from way back. During the ’70s, it going, okay?”13 he recalled, “[Editor] George Wildman was there, doing comics and education books for Charlton. He Pete Morisi alluded to demands put on the was editing, writing, and drawing. I also knew Sal managing editor, which also proved frustrating for Gentile, who I went to [Bridgeport, Conn.] high the freelancer. In the year before Gentile left the school with. I emphatically recall sitting in the lunch position, PAM wrote in a 1971 letter, “It’s almost room with him, watching him draw. He’d spend impossible to have a conversation with Sal— that time drawing figures, studying anatomy, trying because he says one thing—and then does the to understand how the human figure worked. I opposite. I think he’s allowing the Charlton people was in awe of him. That was the only way I knew to bury him with a million-and-one things to do… him; we were quiet friends, not close ones… As the And he’s neglecting his main job in the process. Dick years went by, sure enough, there he was: an editor at [Giordano] would never have allowed it. But that’s the Sal Gentile way it is… got to make the best of it.”14 Charlton. He worked his way up because he understood the nature of how comic books worked. I did wonder why Quitting as Charlton writer during the Gentile era, Steve he wasn’t drawing. He never did any kind of art at Charlton.

Skeates also felt the man was overwhelmed. “Sal was a I remember him as a quiet, laid-back type of guy who kept personally likable individual, one who was simply (the way I to himself.”12 see it) in a bit over his head—an amiable goof-up then, one Soon-to-be managing editor George Wildman shared whose silly decisions were not (and this I see as quite crucial) his take on his predecessor: “This is what happened, where controlled by any bloated ego, by any power-madness that Masulli’s move was lateral, but Dick’s move was out the door. was masking underlying feelings of utter inadequacy or anySo the old man [John Santangelo, Sr.] looked around and he thing like that… Sal, whom to me never seemed the least bit said, ‘Hey, Gentile. You know how to do the books.’ Masulli vicious or unthinking or presumptuous, only confused!”15

M.W. Kaluta portrait © Jackie Estrada. Used with permission.

INHERITANCE FROM THE KING In 1968, as if sweeping out any leftover inventory from the Giordano era, new managing editor Sal Gentile released a spate of one-shots—Konga’s Revenge, Mysterious Suspense, Outer Space, and War Wings—perhaps a house cleaning done in preparation for the first wave of licensed comics to come. That initial volley would consist of six titles inherited from the collapsed King Comics line, three humor titles (Blondie, Beetle Bailey, and Popeye) and three adventure titles (Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Jungle Jim).

The humor comics were very successful for the publisher, all lasting into 1976 or ’77, but only one adventure title licensed from King Features would survive 1970. The Phantom boasted a robust 45-ssue Charlton run, finally giving up the ghost in 1977, when the entire comics division went on extended hiatus. (King’s teenage humor comic strip property Ponytail was a late arrival in her own comic book to Derby, which lasted eight issues before trimmed from the line.)

Among the curiosities found in the King Comics inventory handed over to Charlton was an issue of Jungle Jim [#22, Feb. ’69] packaged by Wally Wood (featuring a host of talents who jammed with Woody to finish the material, including Steve Ditko, Roger Brand, Bhob Stewart, and Tom Palmer; as well as a Flash Gordon story drawn by Jeffrey Jones [#13, Apr. ’69], drawn during his formative years. A future studio-mate of Jones actually had his very first comics work published by the Connecticut imprint.

AN EARLY BRUSH WITH CHARLTON Michael William Kaluta [b. 1947] was incrementally improving his artistry in the comics prozines of the late ’60s and Al Williamson, who wanted to augment his own comic strip work with comic book assignments, took notice and asked the young artist to work with him on a House of Mystery assignment for DC. Williamson had previously put in a good word for Kaluta to Dick Giordano at Charlton, and, “After a couple of weeks at Al’s,” Kaluta later remembered, “the phone rang and it was Bernie [Wrightson], calling on Jeff [Jones]’s phone… He said, ‘Look, you just got a script from Charlton,’ and Al said, ‘Off you go! Off you go! Go do

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it. Send me pictures of it.’ So I went home and I drew it up. Then I got two more scripts and, by the time I was getting the third one, Giordano had left Charlton and gone back to being freelance, so I didn’t have any connection up there. They tried me out on Westerns and romance stories.

“The first story I’d done was… called ‘Great Battles of History: Shiraz’ [Flash Gordon #18, Jan. 1970], where Tamerlane was against M.W. Kaluta Shah Mansur. And I did it up. You can look at it and go, ‘What the–? It’s gotta be Kaluta’s. Nobody does that stuff except Kaluta trying to do somebody else.’ And it’s not great at all, but there’s things in there that might make you go, ‘Oh, look. This guy might eventually do something.’

I can even look at it and smile. It doesn’t haunt me like the Western and the romance stories do. Ugh! Especially the romance. That sucks.”16 Kaluta appears to have been the artist on two other Charlton assignments, both alluded to above: one a Western, “The Amazons of Reed’s Crossing,” which was featured in Billy the Kid #85 [July ’71], as well as a single romance story, “Off the Beach,” in Teen Confessions #59 [Dec. ’69].

This page: Inset left are the first half-dozen Charlton requisitions from the defunct King Comics. At top is Michael Kaluta’s splash to his four-pager published in Flash Gordon #18 [Jan. 1970]. This back-up written by little-known Raymond Marais.

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Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies a while, you feel like you’re doing the same story over and over… [T]here was always a fight scene in every story. He was not supposed to be that kind of a character. I was thinking about what was happening in the latter part of the 1960s.

He was a guitar-playing peacemaker, not a fighter.”18 Whether it was the best decision for Gentile to use an arch conservative as writer of hippie romance stories for savvy girl readers is a honest question, though John Lustig, who would purchase the rights to the Charlton romance title, First Kiss, spoke with the scribe about Gill’s love comics work: Joe Gill, who wrote most of Charlton’s romance comics, says he always felt a responsibility to keep the stories clean and moral. “I knew what I was writing was being read by young, impressionable people . . . and I didn’t want to corrupt them. You know, virtue was its own reward… and all that sh*t.”19 An amused Tallarico recalled to Jamie Coville one love comic book anecdote: “I did a romance cover one time for Charlton. You have to remember Charlton paid very low and, because of that, you had to do an awful amount of work. I did a splash page where a couple is embracing and the girl has three hands. I meant to whiten one of them out, but I never got to it. And it went all the way through! It was kind of funny. The editor didn’t think so, but hell, it was his fault too, he [had, before going to press, reviewed] it.”20 (In telling the same recollection to Jim Amash, Tallarico added, “That was the amazing part: we said, ‘Oh, we’re gonna get bombarded with mail.’ Nobody wrote.”)21

BRINGING ON THE LOVE Romance comics scholar Jacque Nodell described a flamboyant (and, for the genre, rare continuing) character at Charlton: “Jonnie Love was a roaming, long-haired quasi-hippie on a quest to find meaning after a life-changing altercation with his high school principal over his follicular indiscretions,” she wrote. “Stories featuring Jonnie appeared in 31 issues of Charlton romance comics across their various titles.”17 By all appearances, the character, said to be a teenager, looked on the cusp of turning an untrustworthy 30, as he cruised American byways on motorcycle, sometimes playing guitar-wielding troubadour, sometimes playing cupid, and always looking for romance. Jonnie Love’s groovy trip started in Teen-Age Love #61 [Nov. 1968] and his was a journey lasting over six years, ending with I Love You #113 [July ’75].

Tony Tallarico shared with Jim Amash, “I created a character named Jonnie Love with a guitar and an attitude. I told Sal that I had an idea for a character. He said, ‘Okay, let’s do it’; it was as simple as that. It was only a filler amongst four other stories in the romance book. If nobody liked it, no big deal. It wasn’t like he had his own book. I think I wrote the first one, and then Joe Gill started writing it. That’s when I got disgusted with it, because it was the same old stuff Joe always wrote. It was programmable. Joe was programming all the other stuff that he always did into ‘Jonnie Love.’ After This page: At right is “Charlton Comics Mini Poster #2,” in Teen Confessions #55 [Apr. 1969], featuring Jonnie Love. Art by Tony Tallarico. Top left is Fraccio and Tallarico’s splash page from the very first Jonnie Love story, in Teen-Age Love #61 [Nov. 1968].

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All You Need is War When Jim Amash asked him if the anecdote famed crime writer Mickey Spillane liked to tell about his best friend was true—that, one day in Brooklyn, Joe Gill sat on the chest of a communist rabble rouser and shoved a Soviet flag into the Red dupe’s pie-hole—Gill exclaimed, “Well, that’s not true! No. Good God.”22 But, if Gill’s stories in Charlton’s ’60s/’70s war comics are any indication —particularly the ones set in South Vietnam published during the thick of that conflict—the grizzled World War II vet certainly was no friend of Bolsheviks… or American-bred pinkos, for that matter.

For the most part, the 1960s comics industry had shied away from explicit war stories about Vietnam (though Dell’s Jungle War Stories and Tales of the Green Beret, as well as DC’s short-lived “Capt. Hunter” series in Our Fighting Forces, were enthusiastically in favor of U.S. involvement in the fight, while Marvel mostly steered clear). Into the closing years of the decade, any mention of the war in American comics was typically wrapped in ambivalence, more likely to focus on protesters, using the war as an incidental backdrop, and less on “in country” grunts who fought it.

In 1971, authors Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuch stated in their Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium:

The Vietnam War is much too controversial for an all-out engagement [in U.S. comics].

This came to be understood by the producers of comic books when Vietnam stories received many more refusals than acceptances. As far as comic books were concerned, the First World War and Second World War are still raging.

Heroes like Sgt. Fury and Sgt. Rock and their combat troops are almost super-heroes…23

But the Derby publisher’s comics were positively saber-rattling when it came to Vietnam and, as Bradford W. Wright wrote in Comic Book Nation, they “evoked the muscular anticommunism of the Kennedy years… Charlton’s comic books spelled out the need for ceaseless Cold War confrontation. U.S. forces triumphed endlessly over Communists on land, at sea, and in the air, on a global battlefield that stretched from Europe and the Middle East to the Caribbean and the Far East. The stories called for a flexible response to meet the Communist threat wherever and however it appeared. They explicitly endorsed increases in defense spending and training for counterinsurgency.”24 Wright continued, “When Charlton portrayed the Vietnam War, it expounded an unqualified endorsement of U.S. intervention… [and] presented the Vietnam War as many Americans at the time saw it—a battleground between the forces of good and evil, in which the United States would ultimately triumph through the nobility of its motives and might of its military power. Representing American might and humanitarianism in Vietnam was ‘the Man in the Green

Chapter Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies

Beret,’ who, in Charlton’s stories, would win the hearts and minds of the American people. Charlton aimed to boost support for U.S. escalation in Vietnam.”

Perhaps, as quoted in Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, Jules Feiffer was correct to call war comics “harmful, distorted, Pentagon manipulated and, more often than not, boring,”25 or maybe Gill was just having some wicked fun with his typewriter, as he had commies slaughtered in his Fightin’ stories. Still, Wright’s book and a chapter in Tell Me Lies about Vietnam: Cultural Battles for the Meaning of the War [1988] looked closely at a few of Gill’s stories and made some critical appraisals.

Wright zeroed in on “A Tough War” [Fightin’ Army #74, June ’67], writing that it “exemplified Charlton’s tendency to engage in straightforward propaganda.

The story opens with two young men This page: Top right is splash page from Fightin’ Army #74 [June 1967], art by Nicholas and Alascia, who also drew the War Heroes #24 [May 1967] cover, left.

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Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies who have been notified that they are eligible to serve in the U.S. Army, while the narrator laments that ‘in their world, few boys volunteer. They hang back drag their feet, do everything they can think of to avoid serving their country.’

One of these young men, wearing an untucked shirt, sideburns, and a beard, is among the draft-dodgers, but the handsome, blond Tom Smith is not. He volunteers, passes the draft physical, and undergoes intensive military training, ‘growing into manhood more quickly than he ever could back home.’ On his way to Vietnam, Tom ponders the war that he will be waging and the narrator voices Tom’s concerns. ‘It’s a war no one wants to mention. People resent it… they don’t think it’s worth being fought.

Tom isn’t so sure it makes sense either.’

In Vietnam, Tom learns what truly is at stake in this struggle. The Viet Cong ‘use terror and murder as their most effective weapons.’ They kill innocent civilians, burn crops, and ‘maintain this war that nobody wants to fight.’ As Tom sees

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the evidence of Communist brutality, his doubts about the war vanish. ‘The fools back home who burn draft cards or march in peace demonstrations are helping the Viet Cong. They too are his enemies and he knows it now.’”26 David Huxley, in his essay, “Naked Aggression: American Comic Books and the Vietnam War,” published in Tell Me Lies About Vietnam, focused on “The War Criminals” [Fightin’ Marines #77, Nov. ’67]. Accompanied by a war correspondent—”He’s Talbot Cleeves and he’s trouble… the kind of writer who thinks Americans have no business in Vietnam”—a pair of U.S. Marines appear to mow down an innocent civilian.

“Soon, it becomes evident that the ‘unarmed’ Vietnamese was in fact carrying a grenade. Cleeves remains unconvinced by this and several other incidents, including an ambush and a treacherous attempt by the Vietcong to kill him, despite the fact that Cleeves has saved the Vietcong’s life. Only on the final page of the story does Cleeves realize ‘the truth’ and this after he sees that the Vietcong have imprisoned and threatened to execute a whole village.

Cleeves changes side abruptly, kicking a gun from the hand of a Cong (‘The writer’s gettin’ a piece of the action’) and identifying himself with this new group by adopting their slang—the enemy are now ‘Charlies’… He is no longer an outsider.

But there is one final humiliation, one final expunction of guilt: Cleeves must apologize to… the squad.

‘I was a gullible fool, Lieutenant. [The officer], however, wants just one thing: he says, ‘Just write the truth about what you saw today.’ The truth is, of course, the internal truth of the Charlton comic story which has been spelt out to the reader.

“The position of Charlton comics vis-à-vis the American media’s attacks on the war is quite clear: ‘The War Criminals’ explains to the reader how false atrocity stories might start. The strange thing is that anybody should feel that such a story was necessary in 1967. Atrocities do not seem to become front page news in America until 1969 with the [My Lai] massacre. The story is therefore a ‘preemptive’ first denial which lends credence to Jules Feiffer’s comment about war comics in the late 1960s.”27 And while the national sentiment was turning against the conflict, Charlton came out with a long-running war series set in contemporary Vietnam, “Shotgun Harker and Chicken Smith,” in 31 issues of Fightin’ Marines. The series was described by The Vietnam War in Popular Culture [2017]: “Their 1968–1973 run coincided with the darkest period of the Vietnam War, a time when few publishers even risked the mention of Southeast Asia and when public support for the war had all but disappeared.”28 In his essay for that book, Bryan E. Vizzini continued that Joe Gill and artist Sam Glanzman’s feature was “a relatively serious and solid commentary on both the nature of the struggle facing the United States in Vietnam and its psychological costs.” One 1971 story actually dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This page: At top is Fightin’ Marines #78 [Jan. 1968] cover, art by Rocke Mastroserio. Left is artists Montes and Bache’s opening page to “The War Criminals,” in Fightin’ Marines #77 [Nov. 1967].

DR. GLUCK AND HIS TEEN-AGE TROUBLES on a few occasions. He was a fascinating guy. He would It’s probably best to presume that the Dr. Harold Gluck, start the class by telling everyone to remove everything Ph.D., of the Bronx who was a consulting criminolofrom the top of their desks. He said he was writing a gist/security expert/gun safety instructor/president book on Swahili. He spoke about writing the love of the International Association of Auxiliary Police, letter column for the comic books. I didn’t believe was not the same Dr. Harold Gluck, Ph.D., of the it until I actually saw the column in a comic book.

Bronx who was a fluent speaker of Swahili; high Started me thinking that maybe some of the wild school “guest teacher” (do not call him a “substithings he told us was true—like being the inventor tute teacher”!); prolific magazine feature writer (and of the skateboard. It was always fun having him as a frequent Popular Mechanics contributor, where he substitute teacher. He even taught gym class and I can just may have invented the skateboard); writer of the still see him—small in stature, wearing big glasses, and “Young Folks” syndicated newspaper feature page; and dressed is brand new-looking, snappy gym attire.”31 Dr. Harold Gluck advice columnist for heartaches and all things teenage Long-time comic book fan Eliot Wagner wrote, “Although it never happened to me, a friend told me that for angst for—you guessed it—Charlton Comics. (Though, hey, one class he just handed out his comics and told the students you never know, maybe they were the same guy!) to read them. It was not unusual for my classmates to ridicule Gluck’s connection with Charlton stretches back to 1950, when he provided text stories for Cowboy Western him out of class.” Wagner added, “At some point, in the late Comics, and his advice column, alternatively titled “Canteen ’60s, I asked Dick Giordano (Dr. Gluck’s editor at Charlton) what he could tell me about Dr. Gluck. Dick’s response was Corner” and “Teen-Age Trouble,” was a steady feature in the imprint’s romance comics from 1960 to ’74. (His credit that Dr. Gluck was man who did more things than most, but did them all poorly.”32 also appears as writer on at least two three-page comic book stories in 1967, one a Western and the other a war story, plus he penned some war comics text pages.) The association may been established because of his various writings for Catholic publications, which stretched back to the 1940s.

In 2013, Jacque Nodell revealed on her Sequential Tart The usual case for comic strip properties blog that comic book writer and editor Danny Fingeroth had being carried over into comic books has it Gluck as a substitute teacher back in his Bronx High School that the creator of said strip is more often of Science days during the ’60/’70s.29 Fingeroth said to the not involved in the funnybook version, but author, “I recall him handing out Charlton romance comics Gordon Leroy Holley [1932–2018] and the during class, probably to have us read and discuss the advice comic book rendition of his single-panel letters and responses.”30 Ponytail syndicated newspaper feature were In a comment on the same blog post, Gerard Gallucci entirely different. In fact, Lee Holley and his shared, “I was a student at the Bronx High School of Science assistants delivered the Ponytail comic book to the publisher lock, stock, and barrel! in the early 1970s and Dr. Gluck was my substitute teacher

Packaging Ponytail

Above: In 2020, Patrick Yonally posted on Instagram a clipping from a 1949 copy of Popular Mechanics, featuring Harold Gluck’s skateboard prototype, with Yonally musing whether this was the same Harold Gluck who wrote an advice column for Charlton in the ’60s and ’70s. Answer: more than likely! Gluck wrote many kid activity instruction pieces for Popular Mechanics in the 1940s.

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Ponytail was originally published by Dell Comics Lee Holley and overseen by D.J. Arneson, who shared with Jamie Coville, “Now, Ponytail was written and drawn by the creator Lee, [and] he was a very nice guy when I met him on a couple of occasions when he came to New York. That had originally been a comic strip and Dell did the comic book, I was the editor and he essentially produced the whole thing and sent it to me at Dell Publishing. That was the only comic book that was done outside of the structure that was in place, with synopsis, storyline, storyboards, pencils, inks, colorists, letterers, and so on.”33 Born is Arizona, Holley attended Chouinard Art Institute and worked in Warner Brothers animation before becoming a ghost for Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace Sunday strip. In 1960, he created the single-panel Ponytail, which was syndicated by King Features and, at its height, appeared in 300 papers. The comic book edition lasted for 12 issues at Dell [1962–65] and was restarted by Charlton for eight issues [1969–71], where Holley continued to send a completed package starring his perennially teenaged ponytail-sporting protagonist. Tragically, Holley died in an airplane crash at the age of 85.

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The Union Men Down Argentine Way

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His first work in comics, a moved to the U.S. in 1959 (when, Western, was at 13, when he a biographical sketch stated, “he was offered a permagot stiffed by fly-by-night publishers in Buenos Aires. nent job drawing comics He then worked in-house for Charlton Press”)36 and began contributing to Dell at various publishers on a variety of tasks and started Comics and Gilberton. By the early ’60s, he was a regart school at 16. “I left the comics publisher for a small ular Charlton artist, mostly advertising company and, working on Western and war stories. In the ’70s, Dominguez because it was near the school, I enjoyed more time in the city. produced art for Warren J.L. García-López Publishing’s horror mags and About a year after that, I finfor DC Comics, where he became long ished school and left the ad company and started to work freelance for Squiu, associated with Weird Western character Jonah Hex, as well as becoming recoga Catholic publisher, where I did a science fiction story; then Charlton [at nized for his evocative cover paintings.

18] through an agent and later, ColumThe precise role Luis Dominguez ba where I did most of my professional played at Union remains a question, but work in Argentina. I did not have to he was undoubtedly helpful to newlycommute at that point; I was working at arrived Argentine artists just starting in home, getting up late, and working until the U.S. scene. At least, that’s according very late, the day before a deadline, not to the most celebrated Argentinian sleeping at all.”40 import to U.S. comics, the great José Luis García-López [b. 1948].

García-López, who doesn’t recall “When I arrived here [in the U.S. any entity called Union Studio (despite in late 1974],” the artist explained his name being among those associated to Eric Nolen-Weathington, “I had a with the art agency, according to GCD) couple of phone numbers. One was for neglected to specifically name his agent, Luis Dominguez… I didn’t know [him] though García-López hinted, “He was personally, but I got [his] number from an artist himself and was working people I knew in Argentina.”37 So, after and getting work for others from British publishers and García-López couldn’t find the offices for from Charlton.”41 DC Comics, he called Dominguez, who introduced the artist to the folks at DC Before arriving in the (who are still using his talents today).

U.S., Oscar Antonio García-López, of course, had already Novelle [1920–1978] was among the earliest been contributing mightily to Charlton Argentine artists to work for years prior to 1974, most significantly to their romance line. On those stories, for Charlton, as his “PyraGarcía-López used photos from fotonmids of Giza” three-pager ovelas, “the term used in Argentina for was in Blue Beetle #53 [Dec. 1965], but after he fumettis,” to capture the likenesses of Oscar A. Novelle certain characters. “They were a great entered the U.S., in 1966, help and a good tool to learn the trade,” he worked for Western Publishing, and he told Nolen-Weathington.38 his art appeared in Ripley’s Believe It or (Perhaps, as Union Studio prepared Not, as well as The Twilight Zone, and its proposal to send to Charlton, mail other Gold Key mystery comics. which then remained unopened until Novelle was described as one of Giordano went digging through prede“‘the Boys of the ’40s,’ a group also cessor Masulli’s neglected filing cabinet, made up of Luis Angel Dominguez…

García-López’s soon-to-be agent was among others who began professionally soliciting art samples from the young artat the beginning of that decade.”42 Mike ist for that mailing. “This was in Buenos Howlett wrote that Novelle, once settled Aires around 1965, and I was working in in the States, “was a catalyst for bringing a small advertising agency.”)39 many of his fellow countrymen into the Gacia-López portrait © Kendall Whitehouse. Used with permission.

In an effort to find a way to pay his American artists a better rate, Dick Giordano sought options to cut costs in other areas and found one south of the border.

The editor shared in 1998: “I farmed out a whole mess of [assignments]—after the guys on staff got theirs—to a studio in South America which I discovered the name and address of in Pat [Masulli]’s files. These guys were great illustrators in South America—the Union Studio in Argentina—and all I had to do was send them plain English scripts—they would do the translations into their language— and they would send back finished work, but at a tremendously lower rate [than what U.S. artists got]. So I worked out a deal with my boss so that the money I saved there went to Steve Ditko and all the other freelancers I dealt with in New York, so they were getting decent—not great—but decent rates compared to what everybody else was getting.”34 Well into the ’70s, Charlton would employ the efforts of dozens of Argentine artists—the Grand Comics Database lists over 60 artists as being affiliated with Union Studio—and George Wildman, then Charlton comics editor, told this writer, “I would just send [Union] X-amount of scripts with no deadlines because they’d put it on a donkey and send it up into the hills.” With a chuckle, he added, “That was the only deadline you could get out of those guys.”35 Though limited space restricts giving adequate attention to all the stellar Argentine talents, U.K. comics scholar David Roach suggested names of some of the finest artists who contributed to Charlton and what follows is a look at seven among Union’s finest.

While precise details about the set-up of Union Studio and its agents remain murky, certain names seem associated, including Argentine-born artist Luis Luis Dominguez Angel Dominguez, [1923–2010] said to have been connected with Union between 1963–70 as a stateside representative. After a fruitful career in his native land, Dominguez

pages of American comic books.”43 In Leandro Sesarego Columba, where he was the mid-’70s, Novelle freelanced for [1929–2004] produced forced to follow the style Warren, appearing in Eerie and Creepy, of some English series that romance and war stories for and for DC Comics, contributed to “JoCharlton between 1969–72, were published in their nah Hex” and Claw the Unconquered. and his career stretched magazines such as [British Carlos R. Martinez, on the Argentine strips] Tiffany Thames and back to the 1940s, when he website luisalberto941, reported that, was protégé of Uruguayan Carol Day.”49 according to the artist’s son, Novelle Martinez added, “In cartoonist Emilio Cortinas, on “colleague and friend” Luis Domin1968, through Julio César whose comic strip Sesarego Leandro Sesarego guez helped “Novelle to return Medrano (who officiated as an assisted until the young artist to Buenos Aires after sufagent for other cartoonists [and used a started his own, Dick Malvan—at the fering a stroke as a result pen-name of “A. Martinez].”), [Avila] age of 15!—one of Argentina’s earliest of which he would die… began to [work] for the North American science fiction comic strips. The artist exwhen he was barely publisher Charlton, obviously in the celled at historical comics—including Ben 58 years old.”44 romantic genre that was his specialty.

Hur, Last Days of Pompeii, and medieval Ernesto Rudecindo Between May of that year and Decemadventures—though his masterpieces García Seijas [b. 1941] ber 1974, Avila drew… [for] Love Diary, (adhering to an almost photographic worked on his beguiling Teen Confessions, Time for Love, and degree of detail) were his war stories Charlton romance stories Grand Prix.” Avila would also produce produced in the late ’50s, for Hora Cero a series of James Bond 007 stories for between 1967–71, though Extra! magazine. it is unfortunate the Derby Chile’s Zig Zag magazine. In the early Sesarego expanded his repertoire ’90s, Avila retired from comics. by becoming an art instructor, as well Ernesto G. Seijas publisher didn’t utilize his talents on their Western Was Medrano the Union represenas magazine editor and art director, and books, as his work in that genre was tative in Argentina who had negotiated he even was selected to be president equally good. But, as García-López told with Charlton? Yes, says artist Enrique of the Association of Argentinian Nolen-Weathington, his strength was the Alcatena. “As a 17-year-old, in 1975, Cartoonists, in 1978. love stuff. “Garcia Seijas did a number of I became an assistant of Julio César Though Nestor B. Olivera romance books for British publishers; he (“Chiche”) Medrano, a well-known and contributed some perfectly fine romance was—and still is—a wonderful girl artist. established comics artist in my country, tales to Charlton, it was his stories of war Argentina. Besides working as an He was also a favorite of Dick Giordano. which contained his best material both independent artist for the great nationI’ve got a letter from Dick to our agent at the Derby company and in his native asking for Seijas’s work and mine even if al publishing houses of Columba and country, where he had combat-themed Record, he was running ‘Union Studio,’ we didn’t meet the deadlines.”45 tales published in Hora Cero and Skorpio an agency which represented Argentini(García-López was enchanted magazines. Mike Howlett called him an an artists, mainly for American publishers with his friend’s work, as he told “Argentine Joe Kubert, if you will.”47 [Charlton, Western/Gold Key, Gilberton/ Jacque Nodell, “I looked closely Olivera got into the comics Classics Illustrated, Eerie Publications]. at everything he was doing—he scene at 22 as a fully-formed When I started working there, the conwas working with the same artist, drawing the scripts of nection with American publishers was agent, so I got to see his Argentina’s legendary comics waning. If I remember correctly, it was original art… his work was writer H.G. Oesterheld. the best.”)46 Howlett continued, “Later in during ’75 that the last works were made García Seijas, inspired by the [’60s], like many of his for the U.S.: by ’76, it produced some his brother, an illustrator in peers, his art started showing work for the Italian Universo publishing advertising, became a comics up in the U.S.A., in Charlton house, and then it petered out. And not professional at the tender age Comics… he also appeared only, during its prime, did it work for of 17, contributing to Bucaneros, in a handful of the company’s Charlton, Western, etc., but also for “El Gigante de las Historietas” romance comics.

Like so many DC Comics, though that connection Néstor Olivera other Argentine artists, his talents (“The Giant of the Comics”). Exwasn’t very fluid. I myself assisted were also seen in the U.K., in Fleetcept for a brief stint as a fine arts major Medrano on a penciled job he did for and then in the Pitman Academies, he wood’s [war and girls] comics.”48 World’s Finest… and a Robin solo story was completely self-taught. From the Juan Luis Avila [b. 1944] was (presumably for Detective and inked by ’50s onward, he worked on episodes among the most stylized (and long-lastGiordano, I think). I also remember Jorge ing) Argentine artists to work at Charlton, of “The Red Notebook of Ernie Pike,” Moliterni´s beautiful work in several “Tom of the Prairie,” “Bill and Boss,” giving his romance comics work a “mod” Jonah Hex issues, and the outstanding look that perfectly encapsulated the late and “Red Boyd,” among others. pencils of Oswal (Osvaldo Viola) for an In the 1970s, in addition to free’60s and ’70s. It is telling, as Carlos R. ‘Elongated Man’ story (eventually inked lancing for Argentine publisher Columba Martinez explained, that the frustrated

by Coletta, I think). And many other and Dell Publishing, García Seijas coadvertising illustrator (unable to find artists of my country worked for the founded the Argentine weekly comics work in that field) joined one of the U.S. (mainly Charlton) through Union anthology, Skorpio, and has also created most important comics publishers in the Studio: Néstor Olivera, Gustavo Trigo, country. “In 1962, he was accepted at work for the Italian market. and Enio Leguizamón.”50

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Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies UNMASKING NORM DIPLUHM Though it was widely speculated that Steve Skeates was the actual writer hiding behind the “Norm DiPluhm” pseudonym used in Charlton humor comics, it was eventually revealed that “DiPluhm” was, in reality, Dell Comics editor-in-chief, Don Jon Arneson [1935–2018]. Moonlighting from his day job, D.J. Arneson scripted “The Wild Life and Adventures of Miss Bikini Luv,” and an ongoing parody of soap opera Peyton Place in Go-Go, as well as The Phantom, Abbott & Costello, and Ghostly Tales stories—and probably many more, as his contributions never had a credit attached. “I know I did some romance comics for Charlton.

Dr. Graves, that rings a bell,” he told Jamie Coville, “but I think that was a… there were comics, but it was also… puzzles and maybe a magic book.

There might have been magic tricks in it or something. A lot of the stuff I don’t even have copies of.

I wish I did.”51 Arneson’s first year contributing to Charlton, 1966, was a big one for the writer, as along with artists Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico, he produced The Great Society Comic Book, a super-hero satire featuring major political figures, including President Lyndon Johnson, that was a hit. Tallarico told Coville, “This was the first humorous look at politics some two years [after the assassination of John F. Kennedy].

We did it and, gee, it got on the New York Times bestseller lists. It was featured in Newsweek magazine. It was in a hundred newspapers as a news story, not as a book.

It was on radio, television, we sold foreign rights to it, did a real bang up job on it.”52 Notoriously, Arneson and that same Fraccio/Tallarico art team launched super-hero D.J. Arneson versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolfman in respective titles for Dell Comics, but the same crew can be preemptively forgiven as they were the creative forces behind Lobo, a two-issue Western series [1965–66] that featured the first African American star of a mainstream U.S. comic book.

Arneson was born in Minnesota, graduating from Mexico City College, and in 1962, when Dell Comics and Western Publishing split, Arneson answered Dell’s help wanted advert looking for an editorial assistant for L.B. Cole, their comics editor. Cole was fired soon thereafter; thus, while still in his 20s, Arneson was made editor-in-chief. “He originally intended to do little or no writing himself,” Mark Evanier shared, “but when scripts needed serious revision, there was no money in Dell’s budget to pay anyone else to do it. Arneson found himself rewriting whole issues and eventually just began writing many of the titles himself from scratch. Among the comics he wrote were Flying Saucers, The Beverly Hillbillies, F Troop, [and] The Monkees.”53 After leaving Dell, which folded its comics line subsequent to his departure, Arneson briefly freelanced for DC Comics.

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TALLARICO TACKLES THE NFL Believe it or not, the one-shot Charlton Sport Library: Professional Football [Winter ’69–Jan. ’70] was not the only athlete-focused Charlton publication artist Tony Tallarico produced for the Derby company in the 1960s. A few years earlier, there was another oneshot, All-American Sports [#1, Oct. ’67], though, in contrast to the NFL title, the baseball-themed comic featured fictional tales of coach “Chat Chatfield of Rock Ridge High,” written by Joe Gill and drawn by Tallarico (without the pencils of Bill Fraccio).

The biggest difference is that Charlton Sport Library was not an actual comic book, much as it retained a comics “look and feel.” Lloyd Smith described the publication on his Diversions of the Groovy Kind website: “While most of its 68 pages… was pretty much a pen-and-ink version of your garden variety sports almanac (pic of a player, stats, team logo—the usual stuff), what really made this comic unique (as if it needed anything else to do that!) was its recap of the 1969 Superbowl in comic book form! It’s the Colts vs. the Jets! Namath vs. Unitas! It’s Superbowl III!“54 Alas, the Tallarico experiment did not catch on.

This page: Above is a Charlton ad that appeared in a magazine distributor trade journal from the time the publisher began its line of King Features licensed comic books.

Never a Cross Word

Dick Giordano’s biography revealed one surprising source for their crossword puzzles, as Eury wrote about Charlton Publishing circa 1965: “Charlton’s comic book-sized magazine output had recently expanded with more music titles, plus horoscope and crossword puzzle periodicals (Giordano reveals that Charlton was ‘buying the puzzles from prisoners, paying them five bucks a piece,’ truly epitomizing founder John Santangelo’s frugality).”55 Giordano also revealed to the author that Tony Tallarico “designed covers for most of Charlton’s crossword magazines.”

Tallarico later told Jamie Coville he was additionally involved with other puzzle magazines at the company: “I drew word searches for them, and drew some covers. But, at that point,* my daughter had finished high school and started to go to [college] and she wanted to be a designer, an art director type.

And I turned [the assignments] over to her, and she did this—She did the covers for many years for Charlton and then for other publishers. In fact, she worked her way all through college doing eight to ten covers a month. So it worked out. I did start it, but she really did the bulk of it.”56 *Tallarico also mentioned to Jim Amash that he drew spot illustrations for those word search magazines at Charlton.57

The Daring and Different at DC Comics Though his first editorial term at the new place lasted a year or so longer than his stint as Charlton’s managing editor, Dick Giordano’s time at DC Comics was a creatively fruitful period, despite it also being tumultuous due to an arbitrary and tempestuous boss. Still, Carmine Infantino’s instinct to hire artists into his new stable of editors proved a genius move—at least creatively—as a tremendous number of characters and concepts resulted, many which still enrich their owners to this very day. And Giordano, now given a reasonable budget that made available a whole new roster of talent, made the best of his stay.

Arriving at DC in January 1968, Giordano was accompanied by a good number of creators he had worked well with at Charlton, including Steve Skeates, Dennis O’Neil, and Jim Aparo (and, not as successfully, Pat Boyette, Dave Kaler, and Joe Gill), as the new editor would join earlier arrival Steve Ditko at DC. Those creators produced excellent and memorable work for Giordano.

All told, Giordano oversaw 22 or so titles as editor during his three-year reign, in an incredible variety of genres, in all of which he had already been wellversed, including romance, Western, supernatural, teen humor, auto racing, and funny animal. (Of the last genre mentioned, Giordano gave a nod to the DC talent scout who first suggested his hiring by resurrecting Sheldon Mayer’s Three Mousketeers for a brief run.)

And, of course, there was the Action Heroes creator’s super-hero efforts with Beware the Creeper, The Hawk and the Dove, Teen Titans, Blackhawk, “Deadman,” The Spectre, and, his most celebrated title, Aquaman, where, with the inspired help of artist Neal Adams, he presided over the “S.A.G.” team of

Skeates, Aparo, and himself on an acclaimed run of the undersea character.

But maybe the editor’s finest DC achievement was his anthology title work, where he assembled a superbly talented group of freelancers, including the aforementioned Adams, Alex Toth, Gray Morrow, Gil Kane, Michael Kaluta, Nick Cardy, Bernie Wrightson, Mike Sekowsky, and even MAD magazine’s Sergio Aragonés, among others.

“I particularly like doing House of Secrets and The Witching Hour,” he told Jud Hurd in 1970, “because the subject matter is so wide-open that you can do just about anything you want with it. I have a ball with both these books—I try to put each one together as a unit. As a rule, books of this type put out by other publishers consist of two or three different stories in a book, with nothing tying them together. I’ve worked things out so there’s a general theme running through House of Secrets and The Witching Hour, held together by several pages of prologue and epilogue.”58

Beside the superlative quality he brought to the comic book interiors, Giordano’s cover designs were quite noteworthy for their innovative use of logos, striking color choices, and often minimal text, allowing for the art to appeal to prospective readers. And, beyond aesthetics, Giordano hoped readers would start recognizing his titles at first glance. For instance, he told Hurd, “On the Young Love covers, we use a plain white background each issue with two or three figures silhouetted against that background. Again, this will be the trademark—the instantly identifying feature of the book.”59 (Remarkably, during this period, Giordano worked nights and early mornings as freelance artist, with his inking—particularly on the groundbreaking pencils of Neal Adams— becoming a favorite among comic fans.)

Personality rifts and a lack of honesty coming from management caused Giordano to quit his job as DC editor, where he had been led to believe his titles were not selling well enough to avoid cancellation. “The fact is,” he said years later, “I’ve heard [since] some of my books sold really well and I might have been misinformed at the time. I’m not going to say what I suspect happened. I’ve been told by people that would know that information that Aquaman had sold well as anything else on the line.”60 Ten years would pass before DC rehired Giordano as an editor, though, in the meantime, by establishing Continuity Associates with Adams, he mentored and helped nurture many young artists.

This page: This pic of Dick Giordano was featured in Cartoonist Profiles #6 [May 1970] and below is a vast array of Giordano-edited DC titles from his stint.

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Eleven: Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies

“Charlton Comics Give You More”…

More Oddball comics, that’s what! At least, that’s how I interpret the motto printed at the top of every page in each Silver Age issue of every Charlton comic… I was lucky that Charlton Comics were distributed in San Diego, which wasn’t the case in many areas in the U.S. That may be due to the city’s local distributor of comics, magazines, and paperback books was reputedly connected to the Maf...”Maggia,”* which was also gossiped to be the case with Charlton.

One of its publishers did run the company from his prison cell due to illegally printing sheet music, y’know.

As a little kid, I read the occasional issue of Atomic Mouse or Li’l Genius, but Charlton really got my attention when the publisher acquired the rights to three cheesy monster movies—one I loved, Gorgo, one I liked, Konga, and one I considered ridiculous, Reptilicus— all released in 1961. Charlton issued three new comic book series starring the three monsters, as well as three infamous paperback novelizations with the Monarch imprint, each one featuring hardcore pornographic sequences. (I innocently bought the Gorgo novelization at the age of ten. Fortunately, I simply skipped ahead to the good stuff; namely, the mom-and-child prehistoric reptiles that leveled London.)

The comics, however, had a big effect on me, and not just because two of them were a dinosaur and a giant gorilla.

All written by Charlton’s writing workhorse, Joe Gill, many issues of Gorgo and Konga were drawn by Steve Ditko, many featuring light-hearted, slightly comedic storylines and styles. They were my first exposure to the unique cartoonist’s work and I copied a lot of Ditko’s expressive, loose-limbed leviathans, even charging to draw them on classmates’ textbook covers. Of course, I spent that pocket-change on more funnybooks to use as how-to-draw textbooks.

I began to add more Charlton titles *Thanks, Smilin’ Stan!

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to my collection. Other than Gorgo and Konga, I remain a loyal fan of Nick Cuti and Joe Staton’s E-Man, Sam Glanzman’s Hercules, Ditko’s Blue Beetle and Fantastic Giants, and Gary Friedrich and Sam Grainger’s “Sentinels” back-up series in Thunderbolt.

Charlton’s primary edict seemed to be “keep feeding our printing presses 24/7,” without the harness of qualityconscience editorial scrutiny, but it certainly produced plenty of comics to be proud of. One of the benefits from Charlton’s relentless output of funnybooks was a slew of Oddball comics.

Most of Charlton’s output were comics focused on classic genres: horror/ suspense, military, romance, Western, science fiction/fantasy, humor, automotive, funny animals, and kiddies. All of these themes were represented in multiple series, flooding the racks just like Timely/Atlas/Marvel’s business plan. Charlton rarely published comics starring original characters; instead, they provided a lot of public domain characters as well as fairly obvious imitations of existing and popular characters in comics, cartoons, and television. The majority of Charlton’s series were anthologies, easier for scheduling stories to fill issues, and to purchase unpublished stories from defunct publishers. Many of its series included mystifying title changes and illogical issue numbering.

The publisher also licensed a number of well-known (and now obscure) intellectual properties from live-action television series (The Six Million Dollar Man, The Partridge Family, Space: 1999, Hee-Haw), esoteric cowboy actors, famous personalities (David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, Caroline Kennedy), comic

by SCOTT SHAW!

strips, some including unpublished material from King Comics (Beetle Bailey, Flash Gordon, Popeye), and animated cartoons (Bullwinkle and Rocky, Underdog, Dudley Do-Right), but, most prominently, Hanna-Barbera’s library of characters and over 20(!) different series.

Although their sales were healthy in the U.S., their mostly low-quality material repelled foreign publishers, who expected material on a level with forerunner Western Publishing. This directly led to Charlton losing the H-B license to Marvel Comics. I was kinda insulted by most of ’em, but I enjoyed the more recent (at the time) Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch drawn by John Byrne and Joe Staton, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and The Great Grape Ape drawn

by Bill Williams (who earlier did a lot of great work with John Stanley), Valley of the Dinosaurs drawn by Fred Himes, Korg: 7000 B.C. drawn by Pat Boyette and the artwork in Hong Kong Phooey, Speed Buggy, Pebbles and BammBamm, and Dino.

As mentioned, I was a rabid collector of some of Charlton’s oddest Oddball series, Gorgo, Konga, and Reptilicus/ Reptisaurus (which altered its title rather than renew the license). And the formerly obscure Peacemaker is now famous, with Suicide Squad director James Gunn quoting me about how the “action hero” wears a helmet that looks like a toilet seat. Who knows, maybe Charlton’s hero-types Nature Boy (drawn by John Buscema), Mr. Muscles (co-created and written by Jerry Siegel) or Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds’ “Son of Vulcan” will someday take the stage. But there’s nothing more Oddball (or unnecessary) than the shrill Ayn Randian screed that comprised the fifth issue of Ditko’s Blue Beetle.

Some of Charlton’s best Oddball comics are entire comics created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. When their Mainline publishing company ended, they sold five different series to Charlton: Police Trap (crime), Fox Hole (military), Bullseye (Western), From Here to Insanity (MAD-inspired humor), and Win A

Essay ©2022 Scott Shaw!

But More What!?

Prize (a unique gimmick that supposedly sent prizes to kids who entered contests within the short series). Jack Kirby told me a revealing story about the day he and Joe Simon visited Derby, Connecticut, to sell this unused material. While inside the Charlton offices, they heard a loud alarm that was a signal for all of the employees to stand up and leave their stations to go outside. Jack asked one of them what was going on, and was informed that, every day, the Charlton staff worked at bricklaying a new, adjacent building!

Charlton published a plethora of comics with supernatural, fantasy, and science fiction themes, a few with Oddball aspects, including Unusual Tales (lighthearted tales with a Twilight Zone vibe), The Thing! (bizarre horror stories with some of Steve Ditko’s first comic covers and stories), Strange Suspense Stories (more of Ditko’s more surreal covers), Midnight Tales (a humorous horror anthology, hosted by a mad scientist and his daughter depicted in E.C. Comics style by Wayne Howard), and Za Za the Mystic (a fortune teller who exposes criminal schemes). And then there’s Cowboy Space Western, an Oddball hybrid of genres at opposing ends of the funnybook spectrum.

Speaking of hybrids, may I introduce Negro Romance (targeting a new audience, the progressive concept lasted four issues) and Haunted Love (a dualgenre series that mirrored the Gothic romance novel fad).

Oddball Charlton comics aimed at the young ’uns included Ronald McDonald (surprisingly not a giveaway), Hunk (a crossbreeding between Dennis the Menace and Alley Oop), and a series of Popeye vocational giveaways with the Sailor Man advising kids about careers in “Consumer and Homemaking,” “Marketing and Distribution,” and the lure of “Hospitality and Recreation”—without mangling the English language in the process. I yam disgustipated.

The publisher couldn’t resist the urge to copy MAD, with an even shorter name—Eh!—but without any judgment.

One cover evokes the word “sh*thouse.”

Classy Charlton also printed Go-Go (a hip experiment that combined articles

and photos of rock groups with humorous comic stories), Hillbilly Comics (a blatant rip-off of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip), and Hee-Haw (a jokebook-style adaptation of the popular country-Western version of Laugh-In).

Other Oddball offerings include Surf ’N’ Wheels (exploiting teenage interest, the only thing that both sports shared), Never Again (unpublished war comics anthology with a grim title), Gunmaster (a masked Old West firearms expert with a sidekick named “Bullet, the Gunboy”), and Caroline Kennedy (formatted like a comic, but illustrated bits of biographical information about “America’s First Young Lady”).

Since Charlton was owned by an Italian, it’s not surprising that he okayed the publication of Catholic Comics. And no eyebrows should lift that Charlton also was responsible for Cartoon Spice, a comic-formatted series featuring sexy gag cartoons, more risqué than pornographic, but definitely not

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spinner rack material.

It should be noted that Charlton Premiere, a try-out series combined with a receptacle series for generic stories without a series. Between its first issue—a collection of generic military stories—and its final issue—a collection of generic supernatural stories—we’re introduced to cool but never-seen-again Charlton characters, “The Shape,”

by Richard “Grass” Green, “The Tyro Team,” “The Spookman,” by Pat Boyette, and “Sinistro, Boy Fiend,” by Grass Green and Henry Scarpelli. Right in the middle is “Children of Doom,” a memorable, sober sci-fi tale of the future, written by Denny O’Neil (as “Sergius O’Shaugnessy”) and drawn

by Pat Boyette.

I suppose it’s Oddball in that Charlton Premiere #2 [Nov. 1967] probably remains as the publisher’s most respected story.

—S.S!

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Chapter Twelve

Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade LICENSED TO PRINT As the new decade dawned for Charlton, in addition to sticking with its tried and true genres of war, supernatural, hot rods, and romance comics, which were still selling in reasonable numbers, the publisher made a major foray into licensed property comics. In 1970, titles featuring characters from Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, and Gamma cartoons; King Features Syndicate comic strips; and one-off Hee Haw and Ronald McDonald properties constituted close to half the publisher’s total comic book output. (By then, Westerns were considerably less reliable sellers, with 11 titles in 1960 dwindling down to two by the end of 1970.) And to produce those 22 titles, editor Sal Gentile was in a mad scramble to find “cartoony” cartoonists to draw the material.

Ray Dirgo was one of Gentile’s best and longest-lasting discoveries, and he became well-regarded for his Flintstones work. He recalled, “The first barrage of work came in summer 1969, when Charlton Comics signed to do the Hanna-Barbera comic line. Sal assigned me to write and draw the covers for the first seven comics of that line they published. They included: The Flintstones, Magilla Gorilla, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Top Cat, and The Jetsons.”1 Dirgo continued, “In the beginning, I did most all The Jetsons, Top Cat, and Magilla Gorilla books, too. The Top Cats often required the shoehorn style of cartooning, because the scripts were constantly putting six cats and a policeman in one panel.” He added, “The flow of Hanna-Barbera work for me was incredible. Charlton imported a lot of artwork from Mexico. Maybe it’s because of extended siesta time, but they had many problems with late work. When that happened, I got more work.”

Along with Dirgo, Gentile found an array of cartoonists, including far too many anonymous hands whose work, to this day, remains uncredited (though, in truth, a chunk of the material was substandard, to the great dismay of the licensors and their overseas partners). Among the recognized artists, there was Frank Johnson, Frank Roberge, Paul Fung, Jr., Bill Yates, Phil Mendez, as well as an old hand Charlton wanted to use on a new venture involving the licenses. Tony Tallarico told Jim Amash, “I did a whole slew of coloring books for Charlton. They wanted to get into the coloring book field, and they had the license from Hanna-Barbera and a few other companies. I did all of them, and there was nobody that did a coloring book at Charlton but me.”2 This spread: Above is distributor trade journal ad promoting Charlton’s big push into licensed comics. Opposite is a heavily altered version of Hanna-Barbera Parade #10 [Dec. 1972] cover.

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WILDMAN LET LOOSE Another seasoned cartoonist, one who had worked for the Derby publisher during the Masulli years, was soon hired to be the overworked managing editor’s right-hand man.

George Wildman had his own studio supplying art to Connecticut advertising agencies when Gentile gave him a call, right after Wildman’s biggest clients had moved to the West Coast. “I got an offer from Charlton because I had done some freelance for them starting in the late ’50s for their comic book division, fill-in stories. You know, fillers. And they made me an offer: Would I take a position as assistant editor?

The advertising business, believe me, is a rat race.”3 Despite Wildman champing at the bit to work as a full-time cartoonist (especially for a publisher who had only just recently nabbed the rights to a character beloved by the longtime fan), but there was a big problem. And—no surprise here!—that problem was money.

1970s

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade Wildman described the dilemma to Donnie Pitchford: “I loved cartooning. I did a lot of cartooning for agencies, so I told Charlton I’d take it. And then I said, ‘But the price is low on the salary,’ and so they said, ‘Would you like to take the Popeye strip? King Features has called us and we need a Popeye artist. You want to submit samples?’ So I did. I submitted samples; King okayed them, so I had all systems go. With King’s money and Charlton’s meager amount, I had a living.

And that’s how I started at Charlton.”4 Wildman’s initial Popeye comic book was #94 [Feb. 1969], the first of many issues of the Sailor Man he drew, including—in a testament to his talent—Popeye stories produced after Charlton lost the license.

He told Pitchford, “Western Publishing [circa 1979] picked up the licensing that we had dropped, and they asked would I continue to do Popeye, and I jumped at it—of course I would!

And we did something like 20 books—almost two years with Western.”5

HOW FRED FLINTSTONE CAME TO DERBY Despite the two being associated since 1967, with Abbott & Costello (which was based on a H-B cartoon show), the other Hanna-Barbera comics published by Charlton didn’t launch until after the last H-B Gold Key editions of July, 1970. Mark Evanier told Mark Arnold why Gold Key/Western had lost the licensing: “Hanna-Barbera was making a lot of money selling stats overseas. Every time Gold Key had a new issue of Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera would receive stats of the material and they’d sell copies of those stats to [foreign publishers]…

[I]t was an enormously lucrative source of income for the studio. It was all pure profit with almost no investment on their part, so they kept urging Gold Key to produce more comics.

“They wanted there to be more Hanna-Barbera comics in America, of course, but they especially wanted there to be more stats of stories that Gold Key paid for so the studio could sell them to all these different countries… Gold Key kept saying no. They were having massive [distribution] problems at the time… and they felt they couldn’t sell any more H-B comics…There was this gentleman at [Hanna-Barbera’s parent company]. When Gold Key said no to publishing more H-B comics, he went around to several other comic book publishers and asked, ‘Hey, would you like to publish a whole bunch of Hanna-Barbera comics?’ and Charlton said, ‘Yes, sure.’ Charlton was willing to put out a lot of them.”6

Ray Dirgo

Ray Dirgo [b. 1908] told Cartoonist Profiles that his career as commercial artist started when, as a teenager, he made himself available to printing companies as a troubleshooting artist.

“My dad worked in one of the factories in Bridgeport and he was proud of me. He’d say, ‘Ray’s making money and he doesn’t have to work.’ He built me a Ray Dirgo studio in the basement of our house when I was still in [high] school.”7 Raymond Robert Dirgo grew up in the “circus town” of Bridgeport, Conn., and became enamored with life under the big top, where he became known as a cartoonist. Also, as guest of “King of Clowns” Felix Adler, he was welcome in “Clown Alley.” With talents well-regarded by the community, he even freelanced for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, in 1976–77. For a day job, he worked for the Bridgeport Herald as editorial and sports cartoonist.

After 38 years of marriage, wife

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Mildred Drew, mother of their only child, Raymond, Jr., passed away in early 1969, and now widowed Dirgo sought work.

“I started in at Charlton almost by accident,” he said. “I was interested in finding something new to do and my son met a fellow who cartooned for Charlton Comics. I think it was spring 1969.

“I don’t know why, but the day I

drove up there for the first time was a terrible stormy and rainy day. I was ushered in to see Sal Gentile, then editor of their comic book line. He hadn’t planned to see anybody that day, but he decided I should be seen if I was willing to travel on such a rotten day. Sal and I talked and he showed me their plant. During the tour, we ran into Joe Andrews, who used to be in the engraving department of the now defunct Bridgeport Herald, where I did a lot of cartoon work over the years. He told Sal, who’d never met me before, that he’d guarantee that I would give them super black lines and that I should be hired on the spot. I left with the script of, I think, Timmy the [Timid] Ghost to do.”8 A few years into his Charlton career—which he started as a 61-yearold!—he met Florida-based widow and amateur clown Gwen Krause, when they both were judging Bridgeport’s circus-themed Wing Ding Parade costume contest, in June ’71. The two thereafter became a prolific creative team, with Krause as writer, working together until Charlton shut down the licensed humor line, in 1977. Briefly, in the 1980s, Dirgo drew Mighty Mouse comics. The cartoonist—for many, a favorite artist on Hanna-Barbera characters—died on Christmas Eve, 2000, at the age of 92.

GETTING IN TOON While it was a few years after the Sal Gentile era when future Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco wrote a whole stack of Hanna-Barbera books for Charlton, perhaps his recollections to Michael Eury typify a writer’s experience working on the licensed titles.

“My memory is always untrustworthy,” Thomas Philip DeFalco [b. 1950] said, “but I think I started writing for them somewhere around the summer of 1974… [while on break from a regular gig at Archie Comics] I decided to reach out to Charlton and sent them some samples. I soon heard from George Wildman, who offered me eight bi-monthly titles—the biggest assignment I had ever been given.

The titles were Scooby-Doo, Wheelie and the Tom DeFalco Chopper Bunch, Flintstones, Dino, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Hong Kong Phooey, Speed Buggy, and Valley of the Dinosaurs. That’s the good news.”9 DeFalco continued, “The bad news was, they were paying about $5 per page, about a third of what I was getting at Archie. (By the way, George Wildman seemed like a great guy and a fun editor. We may have only spoken a half-dozen times while I was working for him. We had much longer conversations years later, while I was at Marvel.)”10 The writer remembered the pace of the assignments.

“I had to script one book a week for Charlton. I also had a full-time job working in Archie’s editorial department, plus I had made up with [Archie publisher] Richard [Goldwater], so I had my regular Archie scripting assignments, plus I had a few non-comic-book assignments. Yeah, crazy days, but not my craziest.”

He continued, “At that time, Archie scripts were done storyboard style—the writer would sketch out the story and add the balloons so that the artist had a visual guide for the story. (I know Harvey [Comics] also used the storyboard style.) Charlton employed full scripts—the writer would describe the action and dialogue in prose. When I first began writing for Charlton, I’d sketch out a quick storyboard and then translate it into a full script—a technique I used when I started scripting for DC Comics a few years later. I later translated those storyboards to plots when I went over to Marvel—a technique I occasionally still use today.”

DeFalco added, “I set up my schedule so that I would write my Charlton stuff on Saturdays and Sundays before the Jets game. I dealt with other assignments after the Jets game and at night during the week. Sleep was a precious commodity in those days.

“I planned to get married in the summer of 1975 and had to double my output for a few weeks so that I could take some time off for a honeymoon. I remember working like mad the day before my wedding, finishing my final Charlton script (I think it was a Hong Kong Phooey) and dropping it off at the post office on my way to my wedding rehearsal. Like I said, crazy days. I eventually had to give up my Charlton work, but still remember those days with a lot of fondness.”

This spread: Example of H-B coloring book cover; Ray Dirgo’s rendering of new Charlton logo along with Fred Flintstone cover icon; and a whole bunch of H-B comics published by Charlton.

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

Those Cartoony Guys at Charlton

Certainly, aside from its all-in-one operation, a singular great advantage Charlton Publishing had over its competition was a close proximity to the abundant cartoonist community to its west, in Connecticut’s tony Fairfield County.

Cullen Murphy, whose cartoonist father John Cullen Murphy drew Big Ben Bolt and Prince Valiant, wrote in Vanity Fair, “In the peak years of the American Century… [Fairfield County] was where most of the country’s comic-strip artists, gag cartoonists, and magazine illustrators chose to make their home.”11 And, if ever there was a mayor of Fairfield’s “Cartoonland,” it would be Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey (and numerous other strips), as, after all, he founded the first museum in the world devoted to the art form. Among the strips Walker created was Mrs. Fritz’s Flats, which he gave to studio assistant Frank Jay Roberge [1916– 1976] to draw. That was in 1958 and Frank Roberge Frank Roberge went on to produce, on his own, the moderately successful strip until King Features cancelled it in 1973. Previously, Roberge had assisted Dale Messick on Brenda Starr and helped produce Wash Tubbs. Turning to comic books, he created Noodnik for Comic Media, a humor title about an Inuit boy.

After Charlton purchased the property, Roberge provided some back-up strips starring the same character for Li’l Genius and Bo. Even before the demise of Mrs. Fritz’s Flats, Roberge was freelancing for Charlton, providing art for Hee Haw and various Flintstones titles, especially Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and Dino. In 1976, he was made editor of Sick, the humor magazine that Charlton had just acquired, for which he provided the cover paintings.

About Roberge, then Charlton freelance writer Nick Cuti told Mark Arnold, “His work was very slick and professional.

I used to write some of the text stories for the Charlton juvenile comics and Frank did several of the illustrations for my stories and liked them well enough to ask me if I would collaborate with

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him on a children’s book. I was dog, etc.”13 He also drew Abbott & Costello, Huckleberry Hound, flattered and told him I would and Dudley Do-Right be delighted to work with comic books for Charlton. him. Unfortunately, Frank Bill Crouch, Jr. (who passed away from a heart wrote scripts himself for attack before we were able Charlton during that time) to do the book. From what commented on Johnson, reI understand, he was found cipient of the 1973 National by his wife slumped on his Cartoonist Society award for drawing board in the middle “Best Humorous Comic Book” of working on a page of comart, in a Bridgeport Sunday Post ics. I hope to go the same way Frank Johnson feature article: when my time comes.”12 In the early ’70s, former Mort “I’ve always been hooked on Walker assistant Frank B. Johnson what cartoonists call ‘big foot’ hu[1931–2020] had clued into Charlton mor,” [Johnson said]… Working on work by his buddy Roberge. Johnson 10 x 15 inch originals, Mr. Johnson was born in Miami, and his family moved averages about five or six pages of a 25to Bridgeport, Conn., when he was five. page comic book per day as he pencils Active as an artist in school, Johnson the art. He needs the same amount of contributed editorial and sports cartoons time to ink the penciling.14 to three area newspapers, and received Between 1981 and 2000, Johnson advice from Ray Dirgo, the renowned was artist on the long-running Bringing Bridgeport cartoonist. After a stint in the Up Father comic strip, and he assisted Army, where he was awarded the Bronze Chance Browne on the Hi and Lois strip Star while drawing combat illustrations until 2012, when he retired. for Stars and Stripes, Johnson joined up In Old Greenwich, where with Charlton, where the cartoonist drew Tony DiPreta [1921–2010] Li’l Genius, Rock and Rollo, Tom Cat, had moved in 1960 to raise and others (as well as briefly working on a family, the cartoonist Fago Comics’ humor titles). was called a “fixture In the ’60s, while still occasionally around town”15 who freelancing for Charlton and also for volunteered his talents Treasure Chest comics, Johnson sought for various local events. a regular syndicated comic strip gig, While mostly known producing such short-lived features as as longtime artist on Miss Caroline and Einstein—though his Joe Palooka [1959–84] Beany daily strip lasted some 16 years— and Rex Morgan, M.D. and he scored a regular gig assisting [1983–99], Stamford, Conn., Mort Walker on Beetle Bailey and Hi Tony DiPreta native Anthony Louis DiPreta and Lois (helping Dik Browne on the had a long career stretching back to the latter). In ’68, though initially uncredited, Golden Age of comics, when he worked he was artist on Boner’s Ark, a steady beside a stellar creative line-up, including assignment that lasted until 2000.

Jack Cole and Lou Fine, who both visited In 1984, Johnson told Jud Hurd with their wives to attend dinners hosted that, while working for a Bridgeport ad

by DiPreta’s mother (who loved compaagency, “I happened to do an animated ny). He also was close pals with fellow TV spot with Frank Roberge, who had a comics creators Bob Fujitani and Gill Fox. friend, Chad Kelly, who was the art diBefore his success drawing syndirector at Charlton Press, in Derby, Conn. cated comic strips, DiPreta worked for Charlton provided me so much comic Quality, Hillman, Timely/Atlas, and Lev book work that I gave up my freelance Gleason. In the late ’50s, because Mort advertising that I’d been doing after I left Walker lived right around the corner, he the ad agency. At one time, I was doing drew Dell’s Beetle Bailey comic book. five titles, including Tiger (an adaptation In the 1970s, DiPreta freelanced for of Bud Blake’s Sunday pages), Under-

Charlton. “At that point in time,” he told Jim Amash, “I needed money because I was putting my daughters through school. [Frank] Jay Roberge, Mort Walker’s assistant on Beetle Bailey, told me that Charlton Press needed artists. I went to see them and started working on The Great Gazoo and Flintstones comics. I wrote and drew and maybe even lettered them. That was a money-maker for me, because it was bigfoot stuff, which I could do very easily.” He added, “My editor was George Wildman, who also did the Popeye comic books… an amiable guy who was very proud of his Popeye. I stopped doing those books because they canceled the titles.”16 Relatively near Old Greenwich and yet, in its way, light years away from suburbia, Phil Mendez [b. 1947] grew up in the city of Bridgeport and attended Central High School, where he drew a comic strip about a dog, Barber Q. Brown. The oldest of 15 children, Philip Samuel Mendez was entirely self-taught (”I got no art education at all—none, zero—I always shied away from art teachers”)17 and, after graduation, his work caught the attention of Bill Tollis, art director at the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency, who hired 19-year-old Mendez as an art director on breakfast cereal accounts.

Somehow Dick Giordano also discovered the talented cartoonist and, in 1969, the editor assigned Mendez short strips for Date with Debbi and Debbi’s Dates, Giordano’s two teen humor books at DC Comics.

Along with those jobs, which starred “Flowers” and “Teeny-Boppers,” Mendez drew impressive Sheldon Mayer-style covers for The Three Mouseketeers.

Perhaps it was Giordano who recommended that Mendez seek work at Charlton when the editor’s first DC gig ended at the end of 1970. Regardless, the young cartoonist began a brief, though steady, period freelancing for the Derby publisher. His assignments included Top Cat, Magilla Gorilla, Quick Draw McGraw, and Hanna-Barbera Phil Mendez Parade, where he included his own creation, “Lil Goodies,” putting in gags about breakfast cereal. Joe Torcivia noted: “Creator Phil Mendez contributed many unconventional looking but enjoyable fillers to the Charlton humor comics. He also did some uniquely stylized work on some of the Hanna-Barbera characters seen in Charlton.”18 His last Charlton work appeared in late 1972, when Mendez was pursuing a career in animation.

Of course, Mendez’s claim to fame was his Saturday morning cartoon series Kissyfur [1985–90] about a father bear and his cub, which was first inspired by the way Mendez’s son Christopher pronounced his own name.

The show lasted two seasons. A one-shot Kissyfur comic book was published by DC in 1989, though Foofur, based on Mendez’s same-named cartoon series [1986– 88], had a slightly more successful six-issue run at Marvel.

The Anniston Star observed, “[Mendez] never stopped to consider that he’s the first successful Black animator. He believes it’s equally important that he’s the first independent animator not backed by a studio who’s become successful in the Saturday morning field.”19

Chapter Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

THE FAVORED SON COMES HOME For a short spell in late 1967 and early ’68, Steve Ditko focused on his new account, DC Comics, rejoining old friend Dick Giordano (who the artist had recommended for the gig). The new DC editor was in charge of Ditko’s books and assigned two young writers—no strangers to the artist, as they, too, were Charlton alumni—to work with Ditko and essentially dialogue his plots. Almost immediately, likely due mostly to his increasingly stringent Objectivist philosophy, the creator clashed with liberal scribes Dennis O’Neil and (conflicting to a lesser degree with) Steve Skeates, and the writing was on the wall regarding his leaving DC and returning to Ditko’s safest—and lowest-paying—haven, Charlton Comics.

Not that Ditko ever really left Charlton; the artist had just slowed on his taking assignments while fulfilling his DC obligations—plotting, penciling, and inking a pair of bi-monthlies—but suddenly an old malady returned to plague him. Blake Bell described a disquieting turn of events: As conflicts over the two books escalated, the artist’s health took a turn for the worse; the tuberculosis that had brought him to death’s door in 1954 returned. Ditko was forced to give up his two DC titles, only able to contribute to the first 11 pages of Beware the Creeper #6 [Mar. ’69]. Ditko’s last issue of The Hawk and the Dove was #2 [Oct. ’68] (the title lasting four). Fortunately, medical science had advanced significantly since his last attack and antibiotics hastened his recuperation.20 By 1969, the Derby publisher was Ditko’s primary—and often lone—account, with the artist contributing tales of the macabre to Charlton’s increasing number of supernatural titles, as well as the dwindling science fiction anthologies, while they lasted. Ditko was perhaps most effective with the Doctor Strange lookalike character, Dr. M.T. Graves, who sometimes used his own occult powers to drub malevolent forces in The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves.

Debuting in spring 1968, Ghost Manor was a supernatural anthology featuring The Old Witch (who was replaced

by Winnie the Witch in #13, July ’70), lasting until #19 [July ’71]. For whatever reason, the title was resurrected three months later with a new #1 [Oct. ’71], now hosted by Mr. Bones.

Ghostly Haunts took over the numbering of the first edition of Ghost Manor, with #20 [Sept. ’71], emceed by Winnie the Witch. Haunted #1 launched the same month, starring Impy.

This page: This original art sheet of a Dr. Graves pin-up page by artist Steve Ditko is composed of cut-out panel pasteups. Presumably, this was put together in the mid-1980s.

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade THE SINCEREST FORM OF IMITATION While no stranger to licensing agreements—think My Little Margie, Rocky Jones, Reptilicus, etc.— for Charlton to contract to use bona fide cartoon properties was a relatively novel concept until the King Features deal. After all, almost since its inception, the Derby publisher had been in the habit of creating imitations for their kiddie comics category. As Tim Hollis related while discussing the aftermath of King Comics: The next stop for Popeye and his pals, to most observers’ way of thinking, was something like moving from a Beverly Hills mansion into the Beverly Hillbillies’ mountain shack. With decidedly inferior writing and artwork, Charlton Comics had not enjoyed the best reputation among comic book fans. Until the late 1960s, Charlton had never been home to licensed cartoon characters; instead, it had filled the gap with series that were more than a little “inspired” by established stars from various cartoon studios. It does not require much imagination to figure out where Charlton got the ideas for its original characters Atomic Mouse, Pudgy Pig, and Timmy, the Timid Ghost. Charlton’s Li’l Genius did not even attempt to camouflage the fact that it was copying Dennis the Menace and his castmates. This, then, was the tough new neighborhood into which Popeye and his fellow [King Features Syndicate] properties were moving.21

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To be accurate, Charlton’s L’il Genius was actually a rejiggering of cartoonist Harry Betancourt’s Super Brat inventory that had been purchased from Toby Press back in 1955. Super Brat was a melding of mischief-making superheroics with Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace, the super-star comic strip character who launched a thousand (or a dozen) comic book knock-offs.

School of Visual Arts and Pratt Institute grad Harold A. Betancourt [1928–2009] was only briefly in the comics industry, working mostly on Super Brat and as Toby Press art director, as well as artist on some Li’l Genius covers for Charlton. By 1960, he joined Bethlehem Steel as art director and, in ’66, he moved to San Diego, recruited by an ad agency, and soon started Betancourt Advertising & Art. He illustrated The Pollution Fighters Coloring Book [’71] and, as advertising instructor, in ’82, he wrote The Advertising Answerbook: A Guide Harry Betancourt For Business and Professional People.

Charlton’s Casper, the Friendly Ghost imposter, Timmy, the Timid Ghost, was conjured up by Al Fago back in 1956, and the title lasted for an impressive 43 issues, ending in 1966. Redesigned in 1967 by John P. D’Agostino, the rebooted apparition floated through 23 issues, ending in 1971.

Born in Italy, Jon D’Agostino [1929–2010] attended the Industrial School of Art and broke into the field as head colorist at Timely Comics, working for mentor Stan Lee. He soon progressed to penciling and inking, as well as mastering the art of lettering. Joining up with Charlton in 1955, he became one of their most prolific artists, best recalled for his work on their humor line, particularly My Little Margie, Freddy, and Atomic Mouse.

In 1965, he signed an exclusive contract with Archie Comics (though, in ’66, snuck in drawing Jon D’Agostino “Miss Bikini Luv” in Go-Go for Charlton), where “Dag” worked the next 40 years. In the 1980s, the artist was inking for Marvel Comics (where, famously, he also was “Johnny Dee,” letterer of Amazing Spider-Man #1 [Mar. ’63]).

COUNTRY BUMPKINS & CLOWNISH BURGERS Exactly how Charlton scored the licenses for Hee Haw, the surprise hit CBS TV variety series, as well the goofy fictional fast-food pitchman, Ronald McDonald, are stories probably lost to the ages, but the printed books are proof enough that the publisher was seeking out properties, high and low, to turn into comic books, be they hayseed sketch comedy series or junk food restaurant mascots.

For its seven issues, there was never an overall narrative in Hee Haw, as it consisted of any number of single-page gags and activity pages, as well as a few short stories starring the show’s cast of hicks and hillbillies. Many artist and writer credits are unknown, though Frank Roberge and Tony Tallarico are among the recognizable contributors. Despite being wildly “off-model” from the better-known character design, Ronald McDonald, by multi-talented Bill Yates, was quite a charmer over its short four-issue run.

Neither title made it past 1971 as, until the HannaBarbera contract would run its course, Charlton focused primarily on their H-B comics, amounting, all told, to 20 separate titles. And, as comics editor, Sal Gentile hardly made it to ’71 himself in the position, as George Wildman related why Gentile switched over to the magazine side of the business, when he passed the comic book baton over to his assistant: “He went South,” Wildman said. “He left. He had a lot of problems from stress and strain. He was his own person. He needed a quieter life. Sal was another quiet one, like Steve Ditko.

You know, there was nothing about him to make you stop and say, ‘Ooh, who is that?’ He looked like a million other people.”22 This spread: The first issue [Oct. 1967] of Jon D’Agostino’s revamp of Timmy the Timid Ghost, which had a modestly successful run in the late ’60s/early ’70s; a pair of virtually identical fan club promo pages [circa 1970]; and the first issues of both versions of Hee Haw—comic book [July 1970] and magazine [May 1970]—and Ronald McDonald #1 [Sept. 1970].

Chapter Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

Cartoonist and the Clown

Floyd Buford Yates [1921–2001]—commonly called Bill Yates—was a remarkably active and ambitious cartoonist who would, between 1979–89, ascend to the coveted comics editor position at King Features Syndicate. In announcing the achievement, Editor and Publisher’s Lenora Williamson said of the Professor Phumble newspaper comic strip cartoonist: The new comics editor has created, written, and drawn syndicated comic strips and panels, edited and designed magazines, compiled and edited anthologies of humor, and contributed panels to magazines. Yates has lectured on the theory and construction of humor and is one of the few cartoonists ever put under contract by the Saturday Evening Post.23

Bill Yates

The article continued, “For ten years, Yates edited three humor and one movie magazines for Dell Publications Company and subsequently was editor and art director for Hee Haw, a magazine based on the television show. He has drawn advertising art for leading corporations, including six Ronald McDonald comic books for the McDonald Corporation.”24 Indeed, the aforementioned periodicals published by Charlton were helmed by Yates, whose Westport, Conn., studio was a 20-minute or so ride from Derby. (It appears Yates had nothing to do with the Hee Haw comic book series.)

As mentioned, Yates had a long history in publications, starting when he was editor of The Texas Ranger, the University of Texas’s humor magazine and, straight out of college, he succeeded Mort “Beetle Bailey” Walker as editor of 1000 Jokes magazine. In 1960, he launched the syndicated newspaper comic strip, Professor Phumble, about a “seriously eccentric”25 scientist who experimented from out of his home.

“He had a wife, little kids, a dog, and he started out operating a laboratory in his backyard—a lab which constantly blew up,” Yates told Jud Hurd. “He was involved in launches at the Cape [Kennedy] and I got a couple of VIP tours down there as a result.”26 Yates also had his scatterbrained Professor guest-star in every issue of his thoroughly engaging Ronald McDonald comic book!

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

Getting Happy, Getting Together Blame it on “Honest Ed” Justin.* , tireless juggernaut and Screen Gems head of merchandising. Forged by his 1950s’ Howdy Doody and Rin Tin Tin successes, Justin then turned the Hanna-Barbera cartoon stable into a merchandising behemoth whose likenesses were plastered on 7,500 different items and generated more than $80 million in 1961 alone ($750 million in 2022 dollars!).

He was the same persuasive guy who nudged H-B to make Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s firstborn not a Fred, Jr., as planned, because he said girls’ toys sell better.27 (Justin later quipped, “How’s that for the tail wagging the dog?”).28 Justin was also the wizard who designed The Monkees’ guitar-shaped logo and helped turn that manufactured pop group into a marketing phenom. In 1967, after sensing a new musical act’s “total acceptability”29 by parents (some who found The Monkees threatening!) and its “clean-cut, family-type appearance,”30 Justin pounced. His Screen Gems ILAMI division—Interplanetary Licenses and Merchandising, Inc.—struck a “marriage made in heaven deal”31 with The Cowsills (literally a family musical band). The licensing contract was intended to offer “moppets and teeners up to the age of 15”32 official Cowsills comic books, paperbacks, posters, sweatshirts, dolls, toys (“including… a plastic model of their house in Rhode Island complete with plastic people in every room”),33 guitars, surfboards, and bubble gum. *A profile of Justin in Rochester, N.Y.’s Democrat and Chronicle disclosed, “The honest is crossed out because no one would trust a man who says he’s honest.”34

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The Cowsills did get their comic book—the one-shot Harvey Pop Comics #1, [Oct. 1968]—and Bernard Slade, contracted by Screen Gems to develop TV shows, hoped to build a series around the pop group. But, determining the real family didn’t fit his vision, Slade created the fictional Partridge clan of San Pueblo, Calif., and Ed Justin finally had the squeakyclean, all-American, family band he could merchandise ’til the cows came home.

The deal included Charlton Comics, ultimately resulting in three separate series—The Partridge Family, David Cassidy, and Bobby Sherman—amounting to at total of 42 issues between 1971–73, all licensed from Justin’s Screen Gems.

Examining the titles in reverse chronological order, Bobby Sherman was based on The Partridge Family spin-off show, Getting Together, a comedy series about two aspiring songwriters (reputComes the Brides [1968–70], which edly modeled on the real-world team also starred Robert Brown, who himself of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart). Tim played the titular role in Primus, a show Brooks and Earle Marsh opined, “Getting that was adapted as a Charlton comic Together would seem to have been a book for exactly the same timespan and perfect vehicle for Sherman to use in number of issues as Bobby Sherman.) launching new hits, but, in fact, his realLaunched simultaneously with life recording career was into Bobby Sherman, the David Cassomething of a slump when the sidy series ran for 14 issues and series went on the air.”35 Unwas the most notable of the fortunately, his show, which three related titles, entirely was previewed on the last due to the solid artwork of episode of Partridge FamiSururi Gümen [1920– ly’s first season, had the bad 2000], a Turkish-born artist luck to be scheduled against who was better known for CBS’s All in the Family, his comic strip work as ghost America’s top-rated program, artist (though eventually and the Sherman vehicle broke credited) on Kerry Drake, a down after only 14 episodes. detective strip purportedly by Ever-industrious Tony TallaSururi Gümen Alfred Andriola, who also used rico was in charge of the comic the talents of artists Hy Eisman, book series, which was naturally cenFran Matera, and Jerry Robinson, as well tered around Sherman, who, like David as Gümen, as ghosts.

Cassidy, was a wildly popular teen idol/ Comics historian Rick Marschall pop star singer in the late ’60s and early recalled Gümen as “a modest man, pain’70s. Though nondescript, the comic fully shy, and his name on the strip was book series had its own appeal—and not the result of a desire to hog the spoteven included an amusing appearance light. He was engaged in workmanlike of “Honest Ed Justin” in #2 [Mar. ’72], drawing for years before without fanfare crossed-out “Honest” and all! and in fact continued in like fashion for Bobby Sherman lasted for seven years after.”36 issues, ending in late summer 1972, Before arriving in the U.S., in 1955, months after the show was cancelled in Gümen, who studied at Istanbul’s State January. (An interesting coincidence is Academy of Fine Arts, had his first carthat Sherman’s earlier TV series was Here toon published in 1939, and after work-

ing for years as newspaper and magazine illustrator, his Canaba daily strip achieved widespread acclaim.

Settling in the states, Gümen worked some 20 years as Andriola’s ghost on Kerry Drake, finally receiving explicit co-credit in 1976. After being rejected by MAD and working small gigs, including the “Edge of Time” threepager in Wham-O Giant Comics [1967], he found a steady assignment in the early ’70s, as his son Murad Gümen shared: “By this time, Kerry Drake wasn’t paying the bills, and it was ‘el cheapo’ Charlton comics to the rescue! Naturally, this barrel-bottom company had its setbacks, such as the slapdash coloring and miserable reproduction. And the $12 page rate for penciling, inking, and lettering was ridiculous for even those days.

(Charlton just couldn’t afford any more, according to man-in-charge Sal Gentile… but, when my dad expressed his dissatisfaction, he got the special top rate of $14—alone among Charlton artists.)

But it was Charlton—and David Cassidy comics—that sent my sister to college.”37 While also contributing to Charlton’s supernatural and romance titles, Gümen got a big break with Cracked magazine, where, leaving Charlton behind, he worked into the mid-’80s.

Thereafter he hustled as a successful storyboard artist for New York ad agencies and co-produced the 1992 graphic album, Wonderguy, which was a thoroughly delightful adaptation of his son Murad Gümen’s “minor major motion picture” of the same name.

In his book, Can Rock & Roll Save the World?, Ian Shirley was generous in describing Charlton’s Partridge Family (21 issues), which debuted in 1971: As for The Partridge Family, their shows were wholesome entertainment, which seemed to preach the message that, ‘the family that plays together, stays together’… To be fair, the Charlton comics were pretty good. As with The Monkees [17 issues published

by Dell, 1967–69], the four or five stories in each comic featured the family as a unit or individually enjoying wholesome adventures. There were also song lyrics and, in most issues, several pages specifically devoted to the guitar playing and singing star of the family—David Cassidy.38 What author Shirley didn’t mention was the notorious background of its packager, who—just like, perhaps, Alfred Andriola—signed work that was not his. His reputation was such that former “ghost” collaborators of Don Sherwood [1930–2010] on an earlier comic strip infamously excoriated him in Creepy #1’s “The Success Story,” where Sherwood stand-in “Baldo Smudge” gets his grisly comeuppance for hogging all the credit.

George Evans described to the author, “[A]t a given point [Sherwood] had inherited a considerable amount of money for the time, and as I was told this part of it, he decided this was going to be his ‘in’ to the syndicated comics and he proceeded to invent the strip Dan Flagg and got in touch with the various people whose work suited what he wanted to do, and then he’d do only the bits that appealed to him, as I told you, the kid Al Williamson had done.

So, he was using Angelo Torres and Al Williamson as artists, Archie Goodwin for the scripts… Alden McWilliams also did work for him. Anyway, he was using all these people and signing this work with his own name, of which he was apparently doing little or nothing! He alienated a number of them… He lived in a Don Sherwood fantasy world. Actually, I think when the stuff was all finished and put

together by the rest of us, by all these people, he believed it was his creation… I got the feeling that he sort of demeaned and almost insulted some of the guys.”39 The problem with Sherwood’s Partridge Family work, which, to its credit, Don Sherwood featured spot-on likenesses of the sitcom actors, was the cartoonist’s chronic use of full-page panels to extend the page count. Editor George Wildman explained: “I had one guy one time, I’ll never forget—his name is not important, we were doing The Partridge Family and the artist would get behind. He would come in with a book, you know, once a month he’d come in. His wife would be there, his kids would be there with him. He and I would sit down, and he does a nice intro page. Then the next page is a head, a full page of a head. Six pages, a head, six pages, a head. I said, ‘You do this one more time…’ and he said, ‘No, I just thought that had a nice effect.’ I said, ‘Aw, don’t give me that.

Tell you what: you claim you wrote it this way? Next time, I’ll give you get half the book.’ ‘No, no, don’t do that to me.

George, you can’t.’ He had a copy machine. He had all kinds of sh*t who could help him crank it out, you know. But he came right around as soon as I said to him, ‘You’re going to get half the book next time.’ Oh, Christ, I thought he was going to cry. It turned him right around. I knew what was going on.”40

This spread: Top left is panel from Tony Tallarico’s “A Guide to TV?,” Bobby Sherman #2 [Mar. ’72] (cover to its right), featuring a cameo of “Honest Ed” Justin; and David Cassidy #13 [July ’73] and The Partridge Family #1 [Mar. ’71] covers.

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade THE GHOST WHO WALKS INTO DERBY The longest-lasting of the 1968 adventure title acquisitions from King Features was The Phantom, which outlived Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim by years, ending its bi-monthly run in 1976. Highlights of the series were writer D.J. Arneson and artist Jim Aparo’s stretch [#33–34, #36–38], writer Joe Gill and artist Pat Boyette’s efforts [roughly #41–59], and the magnificent end-run featuring mid-’70s newcomer Don Newton’s evocative artwork [#67–68, #70–71, and #73–74].

In 1996, the same year the movie version of The Phantom was released, George Wildman recalled to Donnie Pitchford that the creator of “The Ghost Who Walks” became a nuisance when he called upon the Charlton editor. “Lee Falk used to get down my tail every once and a while, because he expected we should run… our run on that book, let’s say, hypothetically, was 50,000. He wanted it to be a half-a-million!

I said, ‘We couldn’t sell… we can’t give ’em away.’ And that got him all upset! But I was being honest.”41 Wildman continued, “I said, ‘We have a break-even here, you know, [so] when they come back, what’re we gonna do with them?’ And he said, ‘Well, in Sweden they sell and, in South America, they sell.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, but they don’t sell here!’ He was satisfied with the work we were doing and everything else, but he just couldn’t understand why we didn’t sell ten times as many as we were… But you could not satisfy him, that’s why I’m sure he was probably driving everybody nuts on the [movie] set of The Phantom— I’m serious—because he came down hard on people.”

Mr. Blondie Bumstead Yet another stalwart cartoonist who slaved for Charlton’s dismally low page-rates came from distinguished lineage and who lived an eclectic and fascinating life was Greenwich, New York’s Paul Fung, Jr. [1923–2016], the artist for a jaw-dropping 40-year run as Blondie comic book artist.

Son of cartoonist Paul Fung—who Paul Fung, Jr. drew Dumb Dora (after creator Chic Young left to launch Blondie) and assisted Cliff Sterrett on Polly and Her Pals—the namesake son literally began his art career at the age of three, when he drew “cats and trains for Dad’s strip, Gus and Gussie,”42 or so Fung told the Post-Star of nearby Glen Falls.

As a child, he started in vaudeville and put on “a little song and dance act,”43 and, after Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight over the Atlantic, the Asian American lad was given the nickname “One Long Hop” by Robert Ripley of Believe It or Not fame.

Fung then mentioned that, at age ten, he was in the cast of Our Gang/Little Rascals movie shorts, and was heard regularly on children’s radio shows.

He also told interviewers he was a team mascot for the New York Yankees baseball team in 1935–39 and, as proof, he showed reporters autographed photos of Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Lefty Gomez inscribed to him.

Though he previously was background artist for his father’s strips, Fung’s art career didn’t start in earnest until after the war (during which he served in the Pacific in the U.S. Army Air Corps), when after a stint in advertising, he joined with King Features, where he worked for 18 years as artist in their Specials Services department. In addition to Blondie (in which he uncannily mimicked the Chic Young style), Fung drew George of the Jungle comics for Gold Key/Western, as well as Bullwinkle and Rocky, Underdog, and Hong Kong Phooey for Charlton.

This page: At left is Jim Aparo’s magnificent art graces the cover of The Phantom #38 [June 1970]; and upper right is Paul Fung, Jr.’s equally impressive Blondie #198 [May 1972] cover.

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Gentile photo courtesy of Shelly Parker. Check image, Statons pic courtesy of Joe & Hilarie Staton.

ON THE ROAD TO MYSTIC It was early spring in 1971 when newlyweds Joe Staton and Hilarie Staton made a fateful decision regarding their honeymoon travels. Discouraged that his efforts for Warren Publications wasn’t garnering more work and suffering rejection by other publishers, the young cartoonist was ready to end his quest for a spot in the comics industry. The couple recalled the April journey from Brooklyn to Derby in a 2015 interview: Jon B. Cooke: How’d you get into Charlton?

Joe Staton: Well, I recently had been thrown out, I guess, by Marvel, again. Anyway, I was without a job at that time and we got married.

Jon: [To Hilarie Staton] You married an unemployed artist?

Hilarie: I was a teacher. I could afford it.

Joe: Yeah, she could afford it. It was very nice of her. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we were just going to Connecticut for a honeymoon, to Mystic. And Charlton was on the way to Mystic, so I had my samples, we went by, and Hilarie went in with me.

Hilarie: On our honeymoon.

Joe: George Wildman said very few people showed up for job interviews with their wives. [laughter] But I had samples and George gave me work! As far as I was concerned, I was in comics! I was working for Charlton.

Hilarie: Now you have to realize, at that point, he’d just about given up on comics. He had applied to the New School to go into art restoration and had even taken a class in French to fulfill their foreign language requirement.

Joe: When I was in college, art history was my option if I didn’t work in comics. It was just by fluke we went by Charlton, so I didn’t wind up being an art restorer or being an art historian.44

The Statons found the Charlton assistant editor quite congenial. Wildman was, Staton described, “Very friendly, very accommodating. Sal Gentile was still there when we went in. I guess George was basically running things, but Sal was officially in charge, so we talked to Sal and George. Both were nice guys. George was especially friendly and accommodating. Sent us away with a [script] and some paper. They had pre-printed pages with the borders and everything to make sure you didn’t get the wrong sizes for the originals.”45

This page: Top right is cheery Sal Gentile making a color guide for Blondie #191 [May 1971] (seen inset); Hilarie and Joe Staton at the Charlton Press entrance, during their 1971 honeymoon; and above is the check for Staton’s first Charlton assignment.

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Thirteen: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

THE HORROR… THE HORROR! As Sal Gentile was plotting his exit from Charlton’s comics division, his assistant editor George Wildman began contemplating changes to the line. According to Nick Cuti, his own future assistant editor, George Wildman had become determined to overhaul the supernatural comics group.

Crouch in the Clutch

In 1967, for his senior thesis at Columbia, Bill Crouch, Jr. [1945–2011] wrote about comic art, and, as his obituary states, “This project pushed Bill in a new direction and marked the start of his lifelong passion to write about the comics and the people who created them.”50 The Fairfield County resident subsequently wrote many books on comic strips, contributed to major reference works, wrote newspaper feature articles on comics-related subjects, edited the Pogo fanzine, The Okefenokee Star, and was a Cartoonist Profiles interviewer.

The fact that William Maxwell Crouch, Jr., wrote Charlton Hanna-Barbera comics would not be known if, after his death, his filing cabinet hadn’t been found to contain his scripts for Hong Kong Phooey, et al. In Aug. 1973, Crouch also composed a major Bridgeport Post article that described Charlton and its connecBill Crouch, Jr. tion to Fairfield’s cartoonist community.51

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“He felt they weren’t keeping up with what was on television,” Cuti told Bruce Buchanan. “He wanted new characters and new concepts.”46 In the summer of 1971, Wildman’s (albeit slight) revamp included launching three new titles: Haunted [#1, Sept.], which, as mentioned, debuted ghost host Impy; Ghostly Haunts [#20, Sept.], picking up its numbering from the first edition of recently defunct Ghost Manor, and starred Winnie the Witch as narrator; and a revised Ghost Manor [#1, Oct.], this time with new caretaker Mr. Bones in charge.

The main impetus for reinvigorating their supernatural line was the liberalization of the Comics Code that had gone into effect in February 1970. Under Part B of the revised “Code for Editorial Matter: General Standards” section, “Vampires, ghouls, and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic tradition, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high caliber literary works written

by Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle, and other respected authors.”47 (Whether Gill, Skeates, Nick Cuti, and the other Charlton writers created high caliber work is open to debate.)

Bruce Buchanan gave a general description of Charlton’s supernatural-themed anthologies, which suffered from an unfortunate sameness throughout: “While published under a wide range of titles… the Charlton books were largely interchangeable in format. Each issue featured two to four short stories, generally ranging from eight–12 pages each. The stories were entirely self-contained—none of the characters in these stories had appeared before, nor would they appear later. And each title generally had a unique, otherworldly host who introduced the stories and perhaps served as a narrator.”48 Buchanan added, “Unlike the infamous EC horror comics of the 1950s, the Charlton titles were light on actual violence and gore. Instead, they relied on suspenseful setups and twist endings to deliver chills and thrills to readers.”49 By the time he was entirely in charge, Wildman’s search for something new would soon thereafter result in a pair of eclectic titles, each tremendously impressive for each their own reason: Haunted Love, a blending of romance and the supernatural genres, though more horror-themed than Gothic; and Wayne Howard’s Midnight Tales, one of the few mainstream anthology comic books ever produced specifically to showcase the talents of a single writer/artist.

Sanho Kim

Kim Chul-Soo [b. 1939]—also known as Sanho Kim—was born in Manchuria and raised in Busan, where he produced a newspaper comic strip, Mr. Manhong, as a teenager living in a post-Korean War refugee camp. He attended the Seorabeol Art College and released his first manhwa—Korean comic book—in 1958, with The Brilliant Twilight Star. The following year, he created the inspiring Lifi, the Fighter of Justice, South Korea’s first science fiction manhwa. Between 1961– 67, he produced a staggering number of comics, including his hit SF creation Rhye Pye, described as a “semi-Batman, semi-Captain America adventure strip in the super-hero vein.”52 Having raised the ire of repressive authorities ruling his native country, Kim looked across the Pacific for freedom and success, immigrating to the U.S. in 1967 to seek opportunity in New York City.

Said to work as magazine art director, he made the rounds seeking regular assignments from American comics publishers.

Ultimately, he found work at Warren, Skywald, and Marvel, though his first, biggest, and longest-lasting account was Charlton, where his art initially appeared in their war and Western titles, though he proved adaptable to virtually any genre. As Kim’s Eerie #35 [Sept. ’71] profile amusingly put it, “He is equally versatile in Eastern Westerns (samuraitype stories) and Western Westerns (the good old shoot-em-ups), romance stories, horror stories, army stories, and even humorous and children’s stories.”53 Working out of his Manhattan flat and absorbing the Bohemian culture of Greenwich Village, Kim connected with Michael Juliar, writer and Vladimir Nabokov scholar (who hereafter refers to Kim by birth name). “I met Chul-Soo in New York City in 1968, about a year after he arrived in the U.S.,” Juliar said.

“I myself had recently moved to the city

and was interested in learning about Korean culture and language.

Through a mutual acquaintance, I was introduced to Chul-Soo, who wanted to meet an American Sanho Kim through whom he could improve his already semi-fluent English. He had found work as an artist with Charlton Comics and was living in and working out of a small walk-down apartment on the Upper West Side.

We became good friends and hung out together along with other recent Korean immigrants.”54 Juliar continued, “I originally had little interest in comic books. But I did attempt to work with him on some story ideas and page layouts. In fact, I took some of the stories that Joe Gill wrote for Chul-Soo to illustrate and subjected parts of them to rewrites and re-imaginings, breaking them down into small panels of mostly wordless action. Charlton didn’t appreciate these changes, mainly because they hadn’t been vetted by the era’s Comics Code Authority. But because of deadline pressures, Charlton had to accept and publish the pages Chul-Soo submitted.”

In the early ’70s, Kim and Juliar collaborated on Sword’s Edge: The Sword and the Maiden [1973], an early (albeit

unsuccessful) graphic novel.

During that same period, Charlton took note of the hit Kung Fu TV show and Bruce Lee’s popularity, and went looking for a martial arts-themed title. Answering the call, Kim, who was then residing in Japan, created Wrong Country, a series about Korean martial artist Kahng Chull wandering the Old West. According to Roger Stern, “Somewhere between Tokyo and Derby, the postal authorities saw fit to lose all of the originals to [the first issue of] Wrong Country. And, to further complicate matters, Sanho was in the process of moving stateside at the time and couldn’t be contacted.”55 In the ensuing scramble, Charlton enlisted Gill and Warren Sattler to create Yang. (Wrong Country did see print, in Charlton Bullseye #3 [1975].)

After Charlton folded—where he had co-created House of Yang—Kim worked in the fashion industry. Eventually, he restarted manhwa work after an epiphany experienced in China, blending it with an interest in the history of his native country, resulting in his life’s greatest achievement, the monumental three-volume History of the Great Korean Empire.

This spread: Upper left is Tom Sutton’s supernatural hosts pin-up featured in The Charlton Bullseye #1 [’75]; left are Haunted #1 [Sept. ’71] and Ghost Manor #1 [Oct. ’71]; top right is Sanho Kim’s Ghost Manor #8 [Sept. ’69] cover; and right is Sword’s Edge: The Sword and the Maiden [1973], an early graphic novel by Kim and his writing collaborator, Michael Juliar.

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Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade LAUGH FACTORY WORKERS A veritable roster of Charlton freelancers had emerged from Mort Walker’s cartoonist “laugh factory” who would work on the licensed comics published by the Derby shop. Walker, of course, was the creator of Beetle Bailey, one of the world’s most popular newspaper comic strips, a property which had been spun off into its own Dell comic book by 1953. Those long-form exploits of the slothful Army private were initially written and penciled by his creator, but the soon overwhelmed cartoonist Bob Gustafson passed duties to a litany of associates: Frank Roberge, Tony DiPreta, and, by 1960, Bob Gustafson settled in for a long stay writing and penciling Beetle Bailey comic books (with inks by Walker studio stalwart Frank Johnson), even as it passed from Dell to Gold Key to King Comics and then Charlton.

A native of Brookline, Mass., Robert Dana Gustafson [1920–2001], was discharged from the military after WWII and produced a short-lived, infrequent Sunday strip, and moved on to have gag cartoons published in major magazines.

He assisted Russ Westover’s Tillie the Toiler and, by 1954, Gustafson took over the daily strip, the gig lasting until ’59. In short order, with Walker studio veteran Johnson inking, he both wrote and penciled Beetle Bailey comics. For his many years working on the series, Gustafson received three Reuben Awards from the National Cartoonists Society for “Best Humor Comic Book,” twice for the Charlton edition featuring his work.

Described by a newspaper as a local tennis and golf champ, as well as a “warm-hearted man,”56 the cartoonist explained, “I’d been doing Mort’s Beetle Bailey comic books and, in fact, won a couple of national awards for my writing those. But comic books went into decline at that time and I had to turn elsewhere.

Fortunately, Mort offered me a chance to write comic strip gags for him and I’ve been doing that ever since, along with doing promotion for his strips, helping with fan mail, and so on.”57 From his perspective, Walker was delighted with Gustafson’s rendition of his trademark character, as the cartoonist powerhouse told Craig Shutt, “Bob did a wonderful job. He was a good writer and artist. I sometimes look back now at those originals—we only sent in [photo] copies to the publisher—and, boy, there’s a lot of great stuff there.”58

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Mort’s oldest son, Greg Walker, was entering his mid20s and had already done some freelance writing for Gold Key (Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right) and Charlton (Underdog art, Barney and Betty Rubble scripts) when he got the assignment to launch Sarge Snorkel, the singular Beetle Bailey comic book spin-off (well, to be technical, aside from Hi and Lois), which he wrote and drew for all 17 issues. “Sometimes I would work more closely with my dad on the covers,” he told the author.59 By 1975, Gregory M. Walker [b.

1949] “did a few stories for the Beetle book,” Craig Shutt explained. “He took over from Gustafson completely around October 1976, he says, with some of Gustafson’s stories continuing to be used after that.”60 Greg told Shutt, “Getting the Beetle comic book was a good break for me, because I worked on it and then could move over to the [Beetle Bailey] strip later.

The comic book gave me a little more room to spread out stories and, by Greg Walker the time I went to the strip, I 61 was prepared for it.”

At Charlton, Greg dealt directly with editor George Wildman, hand-delivering the jobs (all accepted without review), which included the first dozen or so issues of Barney and Betty Rubble, the Flintstones spin-off. “I was supposed to [just] write it and Frank Johnson would draw, but he dropped out immediately,” Greg shared. “I hired others to do the art for awhile—Richard Reichart from the King Features bullpen and Chris Browne—but eventually did it all myself. I also did one or two Underdog issues with Frank.”62 About Wildman, Greg added, “Years later, I thanked George for giving me a shot and sticking with me. He commented on how I ‘stunk’ in the beginning, and I probably did, while I was experimenting with pens, etc.”63 Greg would eventually become co-writer of the Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois newspaper strips, and joined in comic strip collaborations that resulted in Rock Channel, an MTV riff that lasted a year (1984–85), as well as Betty Boop and Felix, a mash-up that went for a little over three years, between 1984–88.

This page: The character’s creator, Mort Walker, often helped son Greg on the covers of the Beetle Bailey comic books. Seen here are BB #83 [Sept. 1971] and Sarge Snorkel #1 [Oct. 1973].

Nicky Zann portrait courtesy of Mary Lou Falcone.

NICKY ZANN IN LOVE Early on, native New Yorker Nicholas T. Zann [1943–2020] embarked on a creative life, when 14-year-old Nicky Zann became a singer in a rock ’n’ roll band. After playing in such groups as the Alladins and Nicky Zann and the Electrons (as well as composing and performing the minor hit song “Southern Belle”), he gave up life on the road to embrace a new lifestyle: that of an artist.

Mary Lou Falcone, Zann’s partner of 37 years and wife for three-and-a-half, shared, “In 1964, Nicky started his career as an artist specializing in cartoons, comics, caricatures, and commercial work. He studied at the School of Visual Arts, and two of his famous teachers there—to whom he Albert Museum’s permanent “Pop Art” collection. credited with so much—were Burne Hogarth (of (It is important to note that Zann one-upped Roy Tarzan fame) and Jack Potter.”64 Potter was a hugeLichtenstein, the artist most associated with comic-book ly influential instructor who had inspired the radically Nicky Zann pop art paintings, by actually employing his own original reinvented style of The Flash-era artwork rather than relying on the notorious Lichtenstein Carmine Infantino, a friend of Zann who habit of swiping from uncompensated comics professionals.) used the young man’s talents to assist By the mid-’70s, Zann’s illustrations and cartoons— him on his Batman work in the mid ’60s. which, in particular, exhibited a superb talent for caricature, Falcone added, “Nick’s earliest inthat became “a distinctive part of Nicky’s art signature,”66 fluence, from the age of ten was mentor Falcone related—were appearing in numerous periodicals, inand life-long friend Alfred Andriola, who cluding Newsweek, The New York Times, Psychology Today, had the syndicated Kerry Drake comic Esquire, and Scholastic publications. He also worked on constrip.”65 Zann would assist on the feature cepts for MAD. Plus, the artist created mystery cover jackets and, in the early ’70s, Sal Gentile hired artwork and he designed The Answer Deck, a fortune-telling the young artist to introduce a new look card game, which sold 100,000 copies. In 1989, Zann added to the romance titles. At Charlton, Zann abstract figurative oil paintings to his portfolio and today produced a handful of stories, departing his canvasses can be found in private and public collections, in 1973, but importantly, it was that among them the permanent art collection of the Curtis Instiwork which was adapted into a fabric tute of Music. Tragically, he died of Lewy Body Dementia. design he created in 1970 entitled “Love Comic.” It was a sensation, Falcone related, appearing on a blouse worn by This page: Book jacket art by Nicky Zann [1991]; Zann’s fabric actress Marisa Berenson in the Oct. 1971 issue of Playboy, design,“Love Comic,” created while Zann freelanced for Charland, to this day, is still used on myriad items. In 1974, “Love ton; and Geronimo Jones #1 [Sept. ’71], art by Jose Delbo.

Comic” became a part of London’s prestigious Victoria and

Geronimo Jones Though Charlton had pared down their Western line considerably by mid-1971, Sal Gentile green-lighted a brand-new shoot’em-up, this one written and inked by Tony Tallarico, with pencils by José Delbo. And while it lasted a mere nine issues, Geronimo Jones was a tad more impressive than any typical series about Old West gunslingers.

One internet wit quipped, “Though the plot isn’t anything new, the character, his personality, and his look are a bit more hip and in sync with the attitudes and flicks of the [1970s] period. What [the blogger] really digs is the fact that our hero doesn’t look like your average sagebrush star.”67 It was a series also well-liked by its creator: “I enjoyed that one, though I don’t remember where the idea came from,” Tallarico told Jim Amash. Asked if characterdriven series was engaging, he replied,

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“Yes. Geronimo Jones was a good indication of that. That was fun to do. That was my favorite series at Charlton.”68 Indeed, the 17-year-old character (real first name: Horace), sporting shaggy hair and goatee, was a likable enough drifter, one on a mission to avenge his slaughtered family, as the gunfighter traversed the American West in search of the unnamed murderer—a man with one eyebrow!

(Absent the “bromance” element of the following productions, it’s pretty likely that the series was inspired by the youth-oriented, hip TV Western series, Alias Smith and Jones, which itself was a knock-off of the hit movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) The stories are decidedly (and charmingly) weird, featuring Jones encountering ancient beasts, fake nuns, pirates, an evil god, an Arabian princess, and—we kid you not— Adolf Hitler. One issue mashes together the Western with supernatural when Geronimo encounters a haunted “House of Revenge.”

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That Wildman of Charlton Comics Connecticut-born George Richard Wildman [1927–2016] attended the Whitney School of Art after serving in the U.S. Navy and, starting in 1953, he labored as a commercial artist. Looking for work, he gave Charlton a call. George Wildman told Jud Hurd, “I’d been doing the penciling and inking of a lot of the Charlton titles on a freelance basis for about five years during the middle ’50s—Atomic Mouse, Atomic Cat, etc. At this same time, I had formed my own little advertising agency and, finally, this ad business grew to the extent that I dropped my freelance comic work. Sal Gentile had been a staff artist here during the period I was freelancing for Charlton, and, by 1967, he had become comic book editor.

It so happened that when Charlton acquired the license to do the comic books featuring the King Features characters, Sal, remembering my work in years past, asked if I’d be interested in coming here to work permanently. I was interested and one of the big inducements was that I would be able to draw the Popeye comic book in addition to assisting Sal in editing and producing comic books.

You see, I’d copied and drawn Popeye since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

Incidentally, in 1971, Sal became editor of the magazine division and I became comics editor.”69 Wildman told the author, “By that time, in those two or three years [as assistant editor], I had learned a lot of it was just applying my knowledge of advertising, offset printing, the whole shtick, all that was in my background.

But now you’re learning a whole new game, though, of publishing comics: people, trips to the city, New York, and all of a sudden, I said, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad.’”70 Still, the new managing editor had dauntingly inherited some 40 titles, and This spread: Upper right is George Wildman’s illustration that accompanied his interview in The Charlton Bullseye #2 [1975]. Far right shows that the managing editor’s affection for Popeye and friends was obviously boundless, as evidenced by this page from Popeye #108 [June 1971], which featured Wildman’s self-caricature surrounded by the Thimble Theater crew.

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he soon hired Nick Cuti as assistant (and Paul Delpo was brought on as Cuti’s helper). Wildman said, “Nick was very good for me, in a sense, because Nick knew everything, you name it. He knew who was doing what or where they started or what they were planning, and he had a lot of very good insight as to our loyal competition, DC and Marvel, and what was going on overseas. I came into this role, into the comics world, at 40 years old, but Nick grew up in it.”71 His decade-and-a-half stretch made Wildman the longest-lasting Charlton comics editor and he incrementally went about refining the comics operation. “I changed things,” he shared. “I went after the pressroom and got new

presses. These things happened gradually, not overnight. But the old man [John Santangelo, Sr.] hadn’t gone over the figures. We had a staff meeting every week and would review everything. But I made enemies, too, because Masulli, who had set the system, if you will, and Gentile just carried it on, the same name, same writers, same this and that. I started looking for new writers and new artists and new styles, new techniques, new approaches, and this caused a lot of headaches. I was a real bastard to the internal people, you know, because I’d tell the regulars, ‘You’ve either got to start shaping up or—’ And I started hiring new people, got new stories, and I remember Joe Gill wasn’t too pleased.

The department was wide open on the floor. I didn’t have an office. Everything was right out on the floor.

“I lasted 16 years. I never realized it was that long. It was very exciting.

I’ll be very honest with you because I traveled, did things other editors never did. I used to go on promotional trips.

Also, I drew Popeye. I wore two or three hats, you see, and the wholesalers loved it. I’d come into St. Louis and we had [public relations] people. I hired a girl to handle my travel, airplane reservations.

She took care of all that. I did things that never would have happened before. I don’t know, it matriculated. I kept these new innovations in mind, coming in. It worked great because they loved it. They loved it because they would program it and I’d go to a city and, in the morning, we’d do the local talk show.

“Every city has a local talk show in the morning. And then I’d tell everybody I was there courtesy of ‘the so-and-so wholesalers and your local…,’ give them a big plug. You pull in all the PR while you’re on the air and I’d say, ‘Look out for me at the hospitals.’ I’d do all the children’s wards in the major hospitals in the afternoon, signing casts, drawing Popeye. So you were projecting an image for the company. I was always plugging a book of ours, the humor line.

You’re pulling in the wholesalers and we’d usually stay one or two days in the city, and I started doing a lot of that.”72 After Cuti left the staff for freelance writing, Delpo briefly held the assistant position, but was soon enough replaced

by Bill Pearson, onetime Wallace Wood studio assist, current witzend publisher, and the man who pretty much lasted with Wildman until the end. “Bill was a nice guy,” Wildman said. “He was another Nick Cuti, in a way… Bill was very quiet, a reserved kind of fellow. A good writer, organizer, and his own person.”73 During Wildman’s time as managing editor, he applied what he had learned as an ad man to help promote the line. “I designed a company logo, the Charlton bullseye. And I used that too because, again, that was part of my advertising background. I thought, ‘Our logo’s really something.’ And I also used all our fleet of trucks as—I used to call them

‘mobile billboards’ and I put giant comic figures on all the trucks. The drivers loved it because anywhere they went, everybody knew these trucks. People were talking, ‘Wow, you sell comic books and where can I get them?’ And so on. And you know, they all loved them. They got our names all over the trucks—Charlton Comics—like a billboard.”74 Wildman added, “My allegiance to Charlton will always be a warm spot in my heart. It introduced me to this world of comics. And, true, the Popeye work that I did later led Random House to contact me for work. They liked what I did and I did a bestseller for Random House on Popeye, a pop-up, and the first I ever did. And I did a mix-andmatch for them also, that goes with the Popeye movie. It got me into Western Publishing and different folks started contacting me. I don’t think it ever would have happened if I hadn’t got that exposure through good old Charlton Press over there. So, when their ship was sinking, I think, at the end, in the early 1980s… let’s see, I have a date here: October… yeah, yeah, I found this note to myself: ‘Friday, October 4, 1985,’ was my last day, when I left Charlton. Prior to that, for like four years, we had been doing nothing but reruns of old material. And all I did was hire artists to do a new cover or even take a page and blow it up, and it became the cover. You know what I mean? And so many of the guys out there knew it, too. They’d say, ‘Sheesh, this is

Chapter Twelve: Charlton’s Cartoon Cavalcade

junk you’re turning out, you know,’ or, ‘I bought this book ten years ago.’ And on and on it went. It just got worse, and the budget got tighter and tighter, and so I finally got off. I stayed as long as I could. I had too many other people on the outside asking me to do work to stay there. I was like Dick Giordano back in 1968; it was time to get out.”75 He added, “When I started at Charlton, I think we were paying $18–20 a page. And when I left, I got it up to $55. And it was nickels and dimes, literally, because I appreciated the freelance guys. I remember telling the old man, ‘They can’t live on what you’re paying them,’ and so on. ‘Well, go find someone else,’ and all that. And he’d hold up a Marvel or DC book and say, ‘Look at this.’ I said, ‘You know what they’re paying those guys?’ And it would be back and forth.”76

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The Plant and the Process

*Ronald T. Scott, Charlton Press general manager of the late ’60s and into the ’70s, shared with the author: “At its high point, Charlton Comics was the third largest comic book publisher in the world, with production of more than 6,000,000 units each month.”3

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work done in your own division, keeping all your own coordinates going—scripts going out, art coming in—coordinating the books. We had almost 50 books in our line, so I was editor, at one time, of, say, 50 comics. And it kept me going because, within comics, we had humor, we had romance, we had adventure, we had Western, and on and on. We had seven or eight categories of comics and that’s where I used a lot of good artists… Consequently, I’d go once a week into New York where we had an office, and a lot of artists would come into the city, and it was nice for them. They didn’t have to come up to Connecticut for assignments. They’d come down from Rochester or in from Chicago—not Hawaii, but anyway… And then we could have our conferences. So I would go in to New York and I would deal with King Features in person, Hanna-Barbera, and so on.”

This spread: In the ’70s, King Features devoted some of its multi-faceted educational presentation to Charlton’s soup-tonuts operation, including a slide presentation with color pix of the production process. Left, Cartoonist Profiles #20 [Dec. ’73].

All photos this spread courtesy of Donnie Pitchford.

UNDER ONE ROOF In a splashy 1973 Sunday newspaper feature celebrating the storied comic strip legacy of Connecticut, writer Bill Crouch, Jr., shifted focus from strips to the state’s all-in-one comic book outfit. “The most visible indication of Southern Connecticut’s ‘Cartoon Power,’” he wrote in The Bridgeport Post, “is Derby’s huge Charlton Publications building. Long and low, the red-brown factory has almost a sinister look as it stretches from Division Street down along Pershing Drive.”1 Encompassing an expanse of between six and nine acres (sources vary), comics editor George Wildman estimated Charlton annually printed about 70 million comic books comprised of over 40 bi-monthly titles.* For Charlton Spotlight, the editor described the usual routine for the operation: “Let’s look at a given week: you see, Charlton Press was humongous in size. It was like six acres under one roof, one floor. One part of it had two floors and we had our own ballroom for when we had a Christmas party, or when someone was getting married, the company would offer [use of] it. I don’t know how little they charged.”2 The editor continued, “Everything was under one roof.

Joe Gill was the only writer on staff. We also had a magazine division and they put out a lot of magazines. Boy, they were doing great at that. But anyway, it made it nice. We had all our engravers there, and we had our presses, and everything right out to shipping. We shipped to everywhere east of the Mississippi. Beyond that, the books went other ways.

So, in a given week, Monday morning was always a staff meeting and that involved guys from the press room, from engraving, from the comics, from magazines, and so on, and reviewing what we’re doing, what management was doing, what was coming up, and what was on the schedule then. We had our own sales force; they were in there, too. Charlton Publications handled it all from publishing to distribution, and that was it.

“Then, the rest of the week, you were pretty much on your own, getting all the

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Thirteen: The Plant and the Process

Popeye Gets the Job Done

In 1972, under the King Features imprint, Charlton produced a Popeye Career Awareness Library that included 15 separate sets of Popeye comics, posters, and description cards, all promoting employment opportunities to school students. George Wildman told Jud Hurd in 1973, “I want to mention that we’re excited about the fact we’re printing 15 Popeye specials, which King Features is publishing. As far as I know, these books—each of which shows Popeye learning about one of 15 different occupations covered in the series—are the first in the educational field to incorporate a nationally-known comics character.”4 He added, “These comic textbooks are sold as a package to school districts and boards of education and are given to the kids. They’re pitched to children at the fourth-grade level but they’ve been found to be helpful too in homes where the father may have had only a sixth-grade education, let’s say. The parent himself sometimes learns, through these books the kids bring home, of many job possibilities for himself that he wasn’t even aware of.” Titles included Popeye and Communications and Media Careers, and Popeye and Marine Science Careers, among 13 others.

THE CHARLTON ROUTINE Wildman drilled down in on the details for Cartoonist Profiles in describing his duties: “First of all, most of our 40 books are bi-monthlies—six books a year, and I always work two months ahead on each one. We do buy scripts from freelance writers, but, in many cases, I will assign the writing of a book to Joe Gill, our chief staff writer here. I may want three stories for a particular book and Joe, with his amazing versatility, will sit down and produce the scripts. I’ll then review them and send the story to one of our freelance artists with the deadline noted. When the finishes are returned to us, the artwork is picked up by a messenger service, which, twice-a-week, takes our material into the Comics Code office, in New York, where it’s thoroughly checked for spelling and grammar, adherence to the various requirements of the Code, etc. If any changes are suggested, our two staff artists here make them.

We even have our own proofreaders who double-check everything. Before we print a book, every page of artwork is stamped ‘Approved’ by the Code. Nick Cuti, our assistant comics editor, is the last to see a book before it goes to the engraving department. He wants to be sure that all changes, corrections, etc., have been completed.

“Next, a set of silverprint proofs are sent to a freelance colorist who indicates with dyes just how each page will be colored. His guides come back soon to the girls in our colorseparation department. They have received quick-proofs of each of the pages from the engraving department. These will be the key plates and will be printed in our books in black.

This page: Above is but one of the 15 different issues of Popeye, each devoted to specific vocations. At right is a photo of Valley Bowl, which housed the Charlton comics division—in the two-story portion seen at left—at some point in the 1970s.

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Next, on an acetate overlay, one of the girls will paint in—in black—all of the areas which the colorist has indicated should be on the red plate. Another overlay will then be prepared showing all of the parts of the page which should be on the yellow plate. And, finally, the same is true for the blue plate.

These proofs, with the overlays attached, then go back to engraving where they are etched on metal plates. After the books are printed, they’re automatically stitched and clipped, boxed, and then they go into our distribution network.”5 (At some point in the mid-’70s, the comic book editorial office was moved out of the main building and into a section of Santangelo’s bowling alley located a block away. “So, about one-third of [the structure],” Wildman said about a mid-1979 incident, “was comics, and two-thirds, if not more, were the bowling alleys. And then, one night, for some reason, it caught fire, but the flames and everything didn’t get into the comic division. But, through the ventilation, we filled up with smoke and soot, and, for almost ten, 15 days, we had the cleaners in there, cleaning up. We came out of it all right, but it was pretty bad for a couple or three weeks.”6 In a letter dated Nov. 5, 1979, Wildman shared news with Donnie Pitchford: “At last we’re clean—soot free that is!! Took all this time, but finally we’re back to normal.”)7 McLAUGHLIN’S REPORT Onetime 1960s Charlton art director Frank McLaughlin described to the author the set-up at Charlton: “You learned everything about comic production. I sat next to Joe [Gill], and he’d type a script, give it to Rocke [Mastroserio] or somebody to pencil, and then they’d turn around and give it to somebody to ink, and it would get colored and color separated right before your eyes, all in the same, small area.

Then the job would go to the engravers downstairs, Joe Andrews, and Tops Engraving was in the same building. In order to get there, you walked by the presses, and the bindery, and the composing room… everything was there.”8 McLaughlin shared with Christopher Irving a verbal “walk-through” of the sprawling complex: “It was a twominute walk from the front of the building, where our offices were, to the back of the plant, where the presses were located, as well as the loading dock. As you passed the bindery where the books were stapled together, you would enter the composing room where the magazines were put together.

Likable Dan Conti was in charge there… Next in line was Tops Engraving—where the plates were made, first in metal, and later with magnesium, I think. Joe Andrews, good friend and avid fisherman, ran the engravers. Both Dan and Joe were among the best in their respective businesses, especially working well under the most adverse conditions at times.

Charlton was a great place to learn about all the aspects of publishing, since everything was under one roof, including Capital Distributing next door.”9

Mary Slezak’s Snapshot After Ralph H. Manard’s remarkable look at Charlton Press in his mid-’50s New England Printer and Lithographer article, one of the company’s most fascinating studies came in the spring 1980 edition of the Journal of American Culture [Vol. 3 #1], with Mary Slezak’s study, “The History of Charlton Press, Inc., and its Song Lyric Periodicals.”10 The 11-page article was likely written around 1975 as an academic paper for Bowling Green State University, and the manuscript then languished in the Journal slush pile until selected for publication.11 While it repeats much the same whitewashed backstory as Manard’s feature (as, after all, that 1954 piece was a primary source for Slezak), “The History of Charlton Press, Inc.” remains a unique and vivid examination of Charlton’s business in the mid-’70s.

As did Manard’s work, the Slezak study benefited from an in-person visit to the Charlton Press plant, as she traveled to Derby, on Apr. 4, 1975, for a tour and interview with Charlton business manager Ed Konick, who provided the researcher with a mountain of information, though it was mostly data on non-comics periodicals.* Among her findings in the mid-’70s: “The 200,000 square foot facility houses seven printing presses and a staff of 225. Charlton is continually expanding its production ability through new equipment and machinery.

In addition to seven high-speed printing presses, modern typesetting, and binding equipment, Charlton has recently added a Cottrell V-7000 five color press, a high-speed McCain stitcher, and new trailer trucks.”12 Slezak also made mention of John Santangelo, Sr., being semi-retired, though “he still retains some influence in the company.”13 And, in describing the music magazines, she gave insight as to why Charlton decided, way back in 1952, to invest so heavily into comics, which commenced with the Al and Blanche Fago era. “Although the company began with music as its primary interest,” she wrote, “the lyric periodicals presently represent only one-quarter of the total business. This is attributed to the fact that, in 1952, phonographs and record albums became more popular. As a result, the circulation of the music periodicals went down and Charlton branched out into other fields.”14 She added, “In 1945, the Charlton Comic Group was established, which now comprises about 50% of Charlton’s total operation.”15 Her paper goes into some depth regarding the music lyric mag operation, including securing reprint permission and the fact that sometimes lyrics had to be dictated over the phone if a deadline was looming. Slezak revealed, “Charlton offers approximately $100 for the reprint rights to a popular song and between $25–50 for a country or soul song.” She also shared this nugget: “Manager Murry Wilson, father of the Beach Boys, released the reprint rights to Charlton in return for stories and photographs of the group in the magazines.”16 The writer additionally looked at the distributing arm of Charlton: “All sales are handled through Charlton’s affiliate, Capital Distributing Co., which is located in the same complex.

Unlike publishers who must contract out their printing to outside firms, Capital Distributing Co. deals directly with 600–700 wholesalers, who in turn service individual news dealers.”17 *Slezak explicitly indicates that, during the time it published Doomsday +1, Charlton was publishing 45 comics titles.18

Chapter Thirteen: The Plant and the Process

DIVISION STREET STORIES McLaughlin, who after Charlton went on to a long career at DC Comics as an inker and also hustled in the Fairfield County comic strip community, was fond of regaling folks with tales of Charlton. Among the stories he told the author: “One guy who couldn’t get in to work on time… this guy just couldn’t make it in! You had to punch a clock at Charlton, like you do in a factory. We used to call this guy, ‘Paste-Up,’ because he used to work for the magazine department doing paste-ups. So, Paste-Up would come in late every day, and so the boss called him in, and said, ‘Listen, if you’re not here on time tomorrow, I’m going to have to fire you.’ He said, ‘Look, can I come in an hour late and work an hour late?’ He said, ‘Well, okay, we’ll let you do that.’ So, guess what? Next day, he shows up late! An hour-plus late, you know? So the boss calls him in again and says, ‘If you’re not here tomorrow on time, you are fired.’ He said, ‘I promise I’ll be here.’ The next day, there he is, at five of, standing in line, waiting to punch the clock with his pajamas on. The boss calls him in and says, ‘Pack your stuff and get the hell out of here, you screwball!’

The guy actually showed up in his pajamas!”19 Then there was the Charlton incident concerning the architect of the Nazis’ “Final Solution”: McLaughlin said, “Adolf Eichmann’s son was there one time. Eichmann Sr. was a WWII war criminal, second only to Hitler himself. Junior had somehow been smuggled into the country in order to sell his father’s diary. The Eichmann family had been living in South America someplace, still being hunted down by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. As Junior was being introduced around as a native South American (with a Spanish name), Joe Gill and I looked at each other. Two minutes earlier, Joe and I were discussing a Time magazine article. The issue was sitting on his desk with Eichmann Sr.’s photo on the cover.

This guy was speaking English with a German accent! Before we were convinced of our suspicions, he was whisked away.

A moment or two later, Sammy Goldman entered the office and we told him what he had just missed. Sam was an editor with the song books and, when the name Eichmann came up, Sam blew his stack. Sam was an outstanding high school athlete a few years earlier and was not the kind of guy to mess with. Eichmann never knew that he barely escaped from Derby with his life.”20 Longtime Charlton employee Rosalie Cota recalled a far sweeter presence on the premises at some point during the 1970s. “I had a blast working there. My co-workers were great, we had lots of fun, some of us made life-long friendships. But we were upstairs in typesetting and the art department along with editors, etc. We met Dolly Parton—she actually went through the entire building to meet everyone from all the upstairs, down to the comics, and press room. As sucky as the pay was, it was one of my favorite jobs ever. I was there eight years and only left to have a baby and be a stay-athome mom.”21

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Thirteen: The Plant and the Process Overall, retired general manager Burt Levey explained, “Charlton was a very well-run ship. They took care of their employees; they were very good employers.”22 And, indeed, John Santangelo, Sr., had a reputation for occasional bouts of generosity. “He had built this huge dance hall, with all-marble floors in the basement of the plant,” Ansonia resident Mike Carpinello offered, “and Charlton would have their Christmas parties there. And he threw fabulous parties for all of the workers—it was a grand ballroom with imported marble from Italy. Santangelo used to help everybody out.”23

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This page: Above is the spine-view of one of Charlton and Xerox Education Publications joint efforts from 1974, this one featuring the science-fiction property. Below are pages from instruction material accompanying the King Features’ People at Work slide/tape presentation explaining comic production.

People at Work images courtesy of Donnie Pitchford.

POLCE FAMILY AFFAIR Generations of Derby and Ansonia residents would find employment at the company, often at the same time, making work, for some, a veritable family affair. Emilio Polce, who was employed at Charlton Press in the later ’70s and into the ’80s (in-between going on hiatus to attend college) worked under the same roof as his father, Valentino, who had been photographed trimming plates for the Cartoonist Profiles feature back in 1973. And Polce’s mother, three brothers, and sister all had jobs in the plant, as well. “I started out as a jogger on the Cottrell press, that was in an air conditioned room, and then on the really big comic book press—two stories; you had to go up a ladder to get to the top part—and I worked my way up and, my senior year in high school, I became a pressman.”24 Polce eventually was named fulfillment manager in the shipping department.

Polce, whose grandmother had dated Santangelo, Sr., back in the old country, and whose father was a personal friend of the magazine mogul and his sons, continued, “For the most part, the workers were all Italians, so my dad worked in plate-making department and the photography department, where they would shoot the negatives, and those were all English-speaking people… During the daytime, most of the joggers and roll men were Italian-speaking, though the comic-book pressmen were more English-speaking. My dad learned to speak English much better than my mom, who worked in the bindery, and those workers were all Italian-speaking.”25 Polce especially recalled that ballroom downstairs. “You came to a section where you could either go [upstairs or] downstairs, where the cafeteria and ballroom was, because John used to shut the factory down and have a Christmas party down there every year, where Santa Claus would come in and all of the employees could bring their kids—I remember getting a fire truck once, and I was so excited— and we’d all get presents from Santa… or they would rent the hall out for weddings. It was nice.

There were some great memories.

The ballroom was the size of maybe three basketball courts; you could fit hundreds in there, no problem, and have a wedding—because there were many wedding receptions there.”26 In 1988, Polce’s father finally retired from Charlton after 33 years working at the Derby facility.

TEACHING KIDS A LESSON OR TWO Charlton general manager Ronald T. Scott shared about the company’s public service work with the author. “Charlton entered into an agreement with Hearst to create and manufacture two series of educational comics: one series on careers in selected areas; and a second to promote English literacy by using two balloons in each panel: one in English and a second in Spanish. Further, Charlton entered into an agreement with a division of Xerox to create and produce a series of paperback books using its licensed characters and the comic book art format. Xerox marketed these books through its educational division, which was similar to Scholastic Books.”27 Released in 1973–74, the oddball—and, today, scarce— Xerox Education Publications were digests of apparently newly-drawn content starring Hanna-Barbera, Warner Brothers, and other animated characters clumsily compiled into three-panel (often awful) gags per page—though the Space: 1999 books had text stories with typically two illos per page.

Additionally, as part of its foray into educational material, Charlton’s all-under-one-roof operation was the subject of a King Features educational slide/tape presentation, People at Work, which specifically examined all aspects, in photos and text, of Charlton’s process of making comic books, from concept to distribution. The kit included a pamphlet with many color pix, about which Donnie Pitchford said, “That mag is the only place aside from the filmstrip that I’ve seen color images shot inside the Charlton plant.”28

Wayne Howard photo courtesy of John Benson. Euphoria cover courtesy of Miron Murcury.

Wayne Howard

Carol Howard, the wife of Charlton Wayne depicts himself on the cover, artist/writer Wayne Howard, shared at his drawing board, surrounded by about her husband, who passed away in Howard characters, and his trademark 2007. “Wayne grew up loving comics, signature is tucked in the bottom corner. and often did school reports in comicShe continued, “Euphoria was crebook style. Wayne felt that science, ated, written and drawn by Wayne. history, and English reports, done When Wayne went to Charlton in the comic style format, were Comics to promote Mida more pleasant and interestnight Tales, he showed the ing way for providing infororiginal pages of Euphoria mation. In his mid-teens, to George Wildman, Sal Wayne produced a book Gentile, Joe Gill, and others entitled Adventures of the … Everyone was greatly Beaver Patrol. The setting impressed, and loved him for the story was summer and his excellent work.” camp, inspired by Wayne’s Carol actually first met attendance at summer camp her future husband at the when he was a pre-teen. This company, when she was briefly Wayne Howard book’s pages and story were employed in the magazine laydone in comic-book style. It was a 176out department. “I worked at Charlton page, mimeographed book, partially at the time,” she explained. “Wayne in color, and it took seven-and-a-half brought his Euphoria originals there. He months to complete! He also bound, by was pleasant, confident, and relaxed. We hand, each copy, which was a clothchatted sometimes, and I perceived him covered, hardcover book! to be interesting and nice. He was very “In college, Wayne majored in art intelligent and knowledgeable, spontaand philosophy. Wayne’s senior thesis, neous and fun. On an early date with Euphoria, was written and drawn in him, we had a bit of a picnic and, at one comic-book style.”29 point, he suddenly sang a fun song from the Music Man musical.”30 Carol described Wayne’s connection with Wallace Wood: “As a teenager, Wayne contacted Woody, who lived in the New York City area, and they developed a friendship based on their mutual interest in comics. After high school, when Wayne attended Wesleyan University, in Connecticut, he often spent weekends at Woody’s, working on comics, learning from Woody. Wayne loved Woody’s artwork and had a casual apprenticeship with him. Later, as an established artist, Wayne encouraged Woody to move to Connecticut. With another friend, we helped Woody move his stuff from a tiny apartment in New York City to a more spacious apartment in West Haven. I drove a large U-Haul truck full of Woody’s belongings because I was the only one of all of us who This page: Top right is Wayne Howard’s drove standard shift vehicles. Eventually, cover art for Midnight Tales #1 [Dec. Woody decided to move to Derby.”

1972], featuring his trademark: a hu“Wayne, totally on his own, created morous vignette as subject. Above is the Midnight Tales,” Carol explained. cover to his senior thesis in college, an “Wayne wanted Charlton Press to publish 8½" x 11" comb-bound book, completely it as a monthly comic book and they done in comic-book style throughout. agreed to do so. Wayne wrote the ma-

Chapter Thirteen: The Plant and the Process

jority of the stories, and did all of the artwork for Midnight Tales. Nick Cuti was an editor at Charlton at the time Wayne began his relationship with the publisher. He collaborated with Nick on some of the story content, and Nick wrote some stories for Midnight Tales. Wayne had his characteristic signature on the cover of every issue—usually ‘Created

by Wayne Howard’*—and sometimes featured himself on the cover. The covers always told a little story—leaving the storyline to the imagination of each reader. (My favorite is the cover showing a fire-breathing dragon being used to heat the castle, and Arachne says to her Uncle Cyrus (the professor), ‘Look, Uncle! I’ve always wondered how they heated these old castles!’)… All of these covers were unique and had interesting nuances in them; they are unique in comics, and are among the most brilliant comic book covers ever created. His Midnight Tales was brilliant, entertaining and original.

Of course, he was proud of it.”

At some point, she shared, “Wayne quit doing comic books. He did freelance artwork after Charlton. He still had opportunities to use his comic-book style and to be creative.”

In a final assessment, Carol observed, “Wayne’s Midnight Tales stories and covers were brilliant and unique in comics. And Wayne was a kind and helpful person. Remember him—and honor him—for these things.”31 *Wayne Howard may very well be the first American series creator to be explicitly credited as such on a comic book cover.

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Chapter Fourteen

Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

Primetime Primus

Joe Staton described his first regular Charlton series: “Primus was a licensed character from Ivan Tors (the producer of Sea Hunt) and it starred Robert Brown (who starred in Here Come the Brides). It was another skin-diver TV show, set in Florida, and there was a lot of international intrigue and stuff.

It had a lot of potential, but it was shot so cheaply that there wasn’t a lot on the screen, really. Joe Gill wrote the comic, and he would throw in all kinds of stuff: Lots of spies, drug smuggling… It was before the Code allowed drug stories.”4 Of its seven issues, Primus had only two covers drawn by Staton. The artist said, “Sal liked to do photo-covers, he’d get carried away with them and spend days cutting up photos and making stills, collages. Somebody remarked how Sal would get lost for hours, putting those covers together.”

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had been the editor at Charlton, was being bumped up to magazines, and his assistant, George Wildman, had taken over as the editor of comics.

And George was looking for an assistant, and Tony said, ‘Why don’t you apply?’ So I thought, ‘Yeah, sure. The opportunity to be working as an assistant editor at a comic book company? Sure.’ So I called up George Wildman and he offered to interview me in New York City. And I drove down to New York City, and I arrived at the city 20 minutes early for our appointment, and I thought, ‘Oh boy, no problem.’ Well, I got stuck in traffic and the traffic locked me in so that I was moving at about a half-hour to drive one block. So, I arrived [for] the appointment that I was originally 20 minutes early. I wound up being two hours late.

George waited for me, interviewed me, and I was hired.”1 For receiving $200 every payday, ten times the weekly salary he’d been getting from Woody, Cuti proved an excellent editor and fine writer, though his duties could be routine.

“Myself and another guy by the name of Frank Bravo,” Cuti said, “the two of us were the production department… which meant that when artists would send in completed stories, we would look over the artwork, proofread it, and, if there were any spelling mistakes, we corrected them. And if there were any pieces of artwork that had to be corrected for one reason or another, we would do that.”2 Cuti continued, “At the time, the Comics Code was very strong, and so we would send our artwork to the Comics Code for approval by [administrator] Len Darvin. And then it would come back and they would sometimes ask for changes. It was up to the production department—Frank Bravo and myself—to make all the changes… Mostly, [the Code’s objections] had to do with bikinis being too brief or certain scenes being too frightening for children because we did a lot of horror comics. Or war comics that were a little bit too graphic for kids. And too bloody, or something like that. So we would change that sort of thing… We sent some very angry letters to Len about that, but I have a feeling that Darvin looked upon Marvel Comics as being more for the older kids and Charlton being for the younger kids. And that was the reason we were more heavily censored, I guess.”3 This spread: At left is Primus #1, based on a little-remembered TV series; opposite is Joe Staton’s cover art for Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], starring Charlton’s horror hosts and friends.

Sticker image courtesy of Joe Staton. Opposite page coloring by Tom Ziuko.

THE COMING OF CUTI Amidst a rough-and-tumble Brooklyn upbringing, Nicola Cuti [1944–2020], developed a lifelong affection for space opera science fiction.

It was after college and while in the U.S. Air Force when Nick Cuti encountered Creepy magazine and subsequently contributed to Warren’s horror mags as writer. After the service, he became an assistant to artistic idol Wallace Wood and, as cartoonist, Cuti created his underground comix character, Moonchild.

About coming on board at Charlton, Cuti explained, “Well, what happened was, I had always been connectNick Cuti ed with Warren, right up until its demise. I was working with Woody at the studio and I discovered I really couldn’t live on $20 a week. So, there was an artist who used to come down to the studio to visit by the name of Tony Tallarico. And he was attached to Charlton. And, one day, he came into the studio, and said, ‘Nick, you know, they’re looking for an assistant editor at Charlton.’ Sal Gentile, who

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Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot A GUY JUST NAMED JOE Not long after Staton came on board, while the In the grand scheme of things, Joe (not “Joseph”) artist was drawing supernatural short stories and the Thomas Staton [b. 1948] will probably be most occasional romance (and after Staton’s short-lived remembered as Nick Cuti’s finest collaborator (and assignment, Primus, had been cancelled), George vice versa) as together they created E-Man, an Wildman persuaded publisher John Santangelo, effervescent super-hero in the vein of the classic Jr., to reenter the super-hero realm, though this Plastic Man stories by Jack Cole, and certainly one time with an all-new batch of characters, includof the most entertaining properties ever to emerge ing one notion simmering in assistant Cuti’s from Charlton. Artist and self-professed “Southern fevered imagination. Staton revealed, “I heard Boy” Joe Staton grew up in western Tennessee about E-Man when Nick called me one day and and was into Western and Superboy comics as a asked if I liked the idea that he had for this character kid. After Staton’s art appeared in numerous science who was caught in an explosion, a mishap, at an Joe Staton fiction fanzines, his first pro work was featured in the Ted atomic plant and becomes an atomic character. I told White-edited digests, Amazing and Fantastic. While an assishim, ‘No. Nick. That just sounds like redoing Captain Atom.’ tant to artist Gil Kane, Staton and his new bride, Hilarie, went He says, ‘Oh, okay. I’ll think of something better.’ So he calls to Charlton during their honeymoon and he got work. back and says, ‘There’s this character who’s an energy being from a supernova.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, that sounds cool.’ So that was my input into the creation of E-Man.”5 Staton added, “The funny thing about Nova: Hilarie came in from work and I’d gotten the script in the mail during the day and I was telling her about the script. I says, ‘And then there’s the girlfriend and her name is Nova Kane.’

The utterly charming E-Man comic series, I’d never said it out loud before! She started giggling and I though lasting only ten issues between realized, ‘Ohh, “Novocain”—“Nova Kane”… I get it!’”6 1973–75, was an all-too-brief return to the The artist measured his growth as a comics storyteller super-hero genre for Charlton, only this time while at the outfit: “Well, when I started with Charlton, I did creators Nick Cuti and Joe Staton infused the series with an element too often missing from very conservative breakdowns, very conservative panels on a the Action Heroes crew: humor. The writer, page, and I remember there was a certain day when I got Joe referring to E-Man (a.k.a. Alec Tronn) sidekick Gill’s script that I realized that I did need to emphasize things Nova Kane (real name Katrinka Colchnzski), differently. I think there was a hidden city or something, so I revealed to newspaper columnist Andrew A. managed to rearrange the panels, so I had some small panels Smith, the special formula inside his stories: and I had this one huge panel of a big hidden city. So, I real“I’ve always tried writing [E-Man] so ized with what the writer was giving me I could manipulate that the basic storyline was serious in tone what was in front of me to make the story work better. But I and the humor came off of how E-Man and Nova reacted to the situations,” Cuti said. “Othervery seldom would make any real changes.”7 wise, he would come off as silly. The secret After E-Man #2, the Charlton Comics line went on exis just the right balance of humor or comedy tended hiatus due to a paper shortage and the entire crew of and tragedy.”9 contributors had to scramble and find outside assignments; in The “Captain Comics” columnist offered that meantime, Staton produced Johnny Achziger’s spechis own theory on what made the title tacular, tabloid-sized Gods of Mount Olympus comics. a classic: “E-Man always put the The Charlton line restarted and Staton continued with ‘funny’ in funnybooks for me. Cuti E-Man—and the “Michael Mauser” back-up series—until says he was inspired by Jack Cole’s ‘Plastic Man,’ which is mid-1975, when the title was cancelled and the artist evident in all the stretchy sight moved on to draw a couple issues of the Space: 1999 gags and puns that pop up comic book and paint some covers. But, soon enough, in the books, as E-Man—who his Charlton work caught the notice of Roy Thomas at can look like anything he wants Marvel; thus Staton became inker on The Incredible Hulk. to—stretches and shape-shifts and “George Wildman and I tried to remember if I Silly Putties all over the place. had I ever actually quit Charlton,” Staton said, “and we “I also thought E-Man was a smarter couldn’t remember that I had ever actually quit, so I may book than most, with more accurate science than many comics. For example, E-Man’s have still been working there. You know, doing The Hulk and chest symbol is Einstein’s famous equation, such, it just got harder and harder to fit in the Charlton stuff. which happens to be the foundation of The Marvel stuff paid so much more than Charlton. But doing E-Man’s powers. How many comic books The Hulk, I was feeling boxed in just inking and I was asking teach you that energy equals mass times to do an occasional pencil job just to keep my hand in. I was the speed of light squared? feeling kind of frustrated with the Marvel stuff and then, out “And finally, E-Man was also a of the blue, [DC talent scout] Paul Levitz called up.”8 pretty clever satire most of the time.

E-Man & Nova

Like Flaming Carrot, E-Man chooses super-heroing because of comic books—which we were always warned would rot our brains.”10

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This spread: E-Man and Nova specialty drawing; covers of E-Man #1 [Oct. ’73], Yang #1 [Nov. ’73], and Just Married #93 [Mar. ’73]; cover detail by Warren Sattler, Yang #9 [Sept. ’75].

SATTLER IN THE SADDLE Connecticut native Warren Sattler [b. 1934] decided to become a cartoonist when he was 11 years old, in the last year his idol Milton Caniff was drawing Terry and the Pirates. In the ’50s, as an avid comics aficionado, he was admiring the work of Alex Toth and Joe Kubert, and, by 1962, he worked with Harvey Kurtzman on the first few installments of Playboy’s “Little Annie Fanny” series. By 1964, he had his own syndicated newspaper strip, Grubby, and he later assisted on The Jackson Twins strip.

“When I ended The Jackson Twins deal,” Sattler told the author, “I had to find work, and Derby, Connecticut—where Charlton was—was close by, so I went over there and talked to George Wildman.

He gave me a Nick Cuti script, a war script, and I did it, and he said, ‘Yeah, go ahead [and ink it],’ and he kept me there doing stuff. I kept begging him for Western stuff, and that took a while. Once I even wrote a story for Haunted, a Western ghost story. Then George started liking my Westerns, so he Warren Sattler gave me Billy the Kid, and, later on, Yang… I had a lot of fun there. They were very easy to work with, no changes. I worked mainly with Joe Gill, and Joe let you do anything. The thing is, he wrote for five panels all the time, and I would break it down to seven if I wanted to, or three, whatever I wanted, as long as the story flowed. I would change the balloons if they were too wordy, add a line or two here, and Joe never cared.”11 On a rushed deadline, Sattler co-created Yang with Gill, drawing the entire 13-issue run, ending in early 1976. He also produced material for Charlton’s martial arts magazines. “[‘Powers’] was a three-page feature in a karate magazine,” he explained, and it was a challenge, because there was a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a lot of action in-between dealing with karate. That lasted about five issues.”12 He also drew material for Charlton’s CB Times, a magazine devoted to citizens band radio (a big fad in the ’70s), with one comics feature starring no less than George Wildman— whose CB handle was (what else?): “Popeye”! In 2003, Sattler was inducted into the Meriden (Conn.) Hall of Fame.

MIXED MARRIAGE Following the lead of CBS TV sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie, which premiered on September 16, 1972, depicting an interfaith union between Catholic Bridget and Jewish Bernie, Charlton featured a nine-part serial featuring an interfaith union between Catholic Eileen and Jewish David. The saga was featured in Just Married #93 [Mar. ’73]—#101 [July ’74], about which one commentator opined, “Some of the stuff is really well handled, surprisingly well considering some of the other stories printed in these issues. There are some really good issues where they both consider converting to the other’s religion or have difficulties over deciding whether or not to celebrate Christmas, etc. It’s a stark contrast with the other stories appearing in these issues.”13

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

Yang

Of the adventure series Charlton debuted in the 1970s, the longestlasting featuring new material was Yang, co-created by writer Joe Gill and artist Warren Sattler, and, curiously it was the result of last-minute scrambling because the debut issue of Charlton’s first planned Kung Fu-inspired series was waylaid in the international mail.

“They were going to do Wrong Country with Sanho Kim,” Sattler explained, “but the work got lost in the mail, or something happened. They wanted a Kung Fu-type of book, and then Joe came up with Yang, and he called me up and said, ‘Draw this character.’ I designed Yang, but I had him with hair, and Joe said, ‘No, make him bald.’ That was the extent of the change. That’s all I know, Joe did the writing.”14 Jay Williams wrote, “Sattler loved working with Gill. He believed that Gill did his best work on Yang, as the prolific writer, who famously churned out reams of script pages for Charlton’s titles, seemed to put more effort into the character of Yang than he did other characters.”15 For his part, Gill barely ever mentioned the series in interviews. “[The setting] was in a different time,” he told Jim Amash, “the time of the Old West, and rigged ships. I liked the ships story. I think I had read the yin-yang bit about the Chinese somewhere around that time, and it seemed like a good idea.”16 Asked if the popular David Carradine TV series had been an influence, Gill said, “I don’t know. I was aware, probably, of Kung Fu at the time.”

Gill also scripted all six issues of House of Yang.

PLOTTING BY POOLSIDE Ultimately better known on the business end of comics as (retired) senior vice president of sales at DC Comics, Bob Wayne [b. 1954] had his first professional gig in the industry with a story published in Scary Tales #5 [Apr. ’76].

“Child’s Play,” with art by Sururi Gümen, was, Wayne said, “My first published work. I was trying to sell scripts to various publishers in the mid-’70s. [That] was the one that Charlton’s Nick Cuti finally accepted. It was a collaboration between myself and my high school friend, Tim King. We plotted it sitting around the pool at the apartment complex where I was living at the time. I think I bought up all the copies in Fort Worth when it hit the stands, in January of 1976.”17 Wayne added, “I was a big Charlton fan from the time of Dick Giordano’s editorial reign.

Bob Wayne They were difficult to find in Fort Worth, because they were primarily sold only at retailers with two spinner racks. I ended up getting subscriptions to most of their titles, which arrived flat in manila envelopes. Much better than those folded subscription copies that DC used to send.”

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Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

This page: Photo from Charlton exhibition at the 1974 Comic Art Convention, with George Wildman reviewing an artist’s portfolio; poster art by Ray Dirgo touting the new branding for the Charlton Comics; and spread from the 1973 Comic Art Con souvenir book (that didn’t account for the perfect binding).

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Photo by John A. Mozzer. Used with permission.

NUMBER 4 WITH A BULLET It was likely only George Wildman and Nick Cuti who cared deeply about the comics division at Charlton, and the two did their best to promote the line, including rebranding the covers with their new “bullseye” company logo, and making Charlton’s first presence at a comic con—the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention—where the two greeted fans, handed out logo stickers, and had a gallery of original art on display. The publisher also sprung for a double-page ad in that Phil Seuling con’s souvenir book, trumpeting their “From Horror to Heroes” line-up and imploring convention attendees to “Check Out Charlton!”

Cuti shared the story behind the new company brand. “The [old] Charlton logo was pretty dull,” he told the author. “It was just a little box with a ‘C’ in it. And George Wildman was the one who redesigned it. George had come up with a lot of great ideas for Charlton. We had visited a plant, a distributing plant, and he saw all these cardboard boxes. And some of them were magazines, some of them were comics. And he came up with the idea that if you printed the Charlton logo on the box itself, it would immediately tell everyone who was looking for comic books

where the comics were. And they would tend to sort of gravitate towards Charlton comics because they knew where to grab some comics. And that was exclusively his idea. And then he redesigned the Charlton logo and he came up with a bullseye. And he showed it to me and he said, ‘Nick, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘Wow. That’s really great. Can I make a suggestion?’ And he said, ‘Go ahead.’ And I said, ‘If you put a little black arrow in the Charlton bullseye, it would cut the bullseye into a “C C,” which could stand for “Charlton Comics.”’ And he said, ‘Great idea.’ And he incorporated that little black triangle. So the Charlton bullseye was George’s idea and the black triangle was mine… George is, by far, an extremely talented man, there’s no two ways about it. He came up with a lot of really innovative ideas at Charlton comics and I really credit him with reviving the whole Charlton line. Single-handedly, just about.”18 Available records indicate Charlton was a distant fourth in rankings for top comics publisher (as, in 1969, their bestseller, The Phantom, was number 37 in overall sales). While Archie had the top-selling single title, industry leader DC Comics would soon be overtaken by Marvel in overall sales, and Charlton and Gold Key duked it out for the number four slot, with Archie Publications securely in third place.

Mary Slezak, in her “History of Charlton Press” academic survey published in the Journal of American Culture, described the comics—and overall periodical—selection procedure: “When a particular field or subject area becomes popular, a publishing committee decides whether or not a new magazine should be established. Three or four new titles are usually dropped or added every year.

Since it requires three or four months before the sales figures can be determined for the first issue, three or four issues have to be printed before deciding whether the new title should be continued.”19 Cuti had a different take. When asked if, once committed, it was hard for Charlton to stop and take a title off the schedule. “I’ll tell you right now, it had nothing to do with ‘hard to stop.’ Charlton just didn’t care. Their comic book line was there specifically to keep the machines

Tom Sutton

It’s probably no surprise, given the artist’s particularly atmospheric and gruesome supernatural stories he did for Charlton (so often infused with a Lovecraftian ambiance), that Thomas Francis Sutton [1937–2002] loved the EC horror comics as a kid growing up in a western Massachusetts mill town. The surprise, maybe, is how long it took for Tom Sutton to join up with the Derby publisher after a half-decade working for Warren Publications and Marvel Comics.

“I didn’t know they existed,” he told the author, “but there’s a lot of things I don’t know—I’m a very provincial person. I went to New York to make contact with two or three companies and that was it! I came home and did stuff for Marvel and Mr. Warren, and there were these people in Derby, Connecticut. I think it had something to do with the fact that Nick Cuti had been an editor at Warren, and I did know him, and that’s how I got to Charlton. They published weird stuff, and I have always been fascinated by weird stuff, and the weirder the better. Underground comix fascinated me, but I knew there was no way in there; it was a closed society…

I make these assumptions. You saw the same people—in those days—over and over again in The New Yorker, you don’t try for The New Yorker… But Charlton was receptive… All the time I was doing Marvel, DCs, these Warrens, and the jobs were all on different art tables in my place. I would work on these things, some here, some there, over there do some of that. It’ll drive other people crazy. In other words, you’re doing three things at the same time. So, when Charlton showed up, there was a fourth table!”20 The artist told Gary Groth, “I did the Marvel or DC stuff during the day, and I took a nap, which is my habit. About seven o’clock I’d start on the Charlton stuff.”* Sutton was stunned to learn *The artist told the author, “I always left Charlton for night, so I’d work until three or four o’clock in the morning—that is the time to do Lovecraftian machinations.”21 This page: Tom Sutton’s favorite among his many covers for Charlton, the decidedly Lovecraftian—and spectacularly rendered—Ghostly Haunts #38 [May 1974].

their rate. “Cuti was at Charlton. He called me up. I said, okay.

I couldn’t believe the price. ‘Come again?’ And Nick said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s all there is.

But they’re very loose about things here.’ That meant, to him, at least, that Tom Sutton the deadlines were flexible. If you want to paint covers, you could paint covers.”22 And Sutton was grateful for the freedom, he said to the author. “I do owe a certain amount to Charlton, because they allowed me to write a lot of ditties of my own, to paint a lot of horrible covers, and they never, ever, ever remarked on my technique…

George Wildman would call on the phone, and say, ‘Tom! Can you do a weirdo by Wednesday?’ ‘Sure enough, George!’ ‘Great, Tom! See ya!’… and I could experiment with techniques that just wouldn’t happen with Marvel or DC. I could do things in reverse—negative things, whole black&-white sections!…

I kept telling people they ran out of color.“23 He continued, “I was living in Mystic, Conn., at that time, drove down to Derby—60 miles— and we kept driving around Derby, looking for the Charlton building! And all we were doing was circling the building, it was the only large building in Derby! It was horrible! I think there were train tracks in the back of it. Yeah. I wondered what they needed a loading ramp for.

We went in, and [Tom’s wife] Donna kept saying, ‘It’s filthy. This is really filthy’… I met with Nick, because he was

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

my conduit to many, many things, and a very good friend. He was editor there and much more. He managed to take care of things. One of the big problems we had with Charlton—if you can believe this, you can believe anything!— they were not in the habit of returning artwork… Nick would get a lot of my stuff back to me, but some stuff he couldn’t get back—I don’t know why, I never pestered him about. He didn’t live very far from there, either.”24 The artist told Groth, “You just went ahead and you did basically what they had assigned you. But you could change it around the way you wanted it. And you never heard about it.” Because they could not have cared less? the interviewer asked. “You could put it that way. I like to think of it as being flexible.”25 In that same interview, Sutton said, “To me, it was another place where I could do as much stuff as I could possibly accommodate myself to. It could be as zany as you wanted it to be, and nobody was leaning on you… It was hokey, but it was a fine way to spend an evening.”26

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Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot going. They had to keep their presses going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They only stopped their presses twice a year to clean them. And that was it. Otherwise, they had to keep the presses going. They were huge presses and if they ever stopped them, it was very costly to break down, and very costly to start up again. So, to them, the comics were just a way of keeping the presses going. They could care less about the titles. The people who cared about the titles were the people in the editorial department. So unless a title did very badly, Charlton could care less about what they were printing. And I’m talking about the top publishers, not the people in the editorial division. So that’s why Haunted Love lasted as long as it did, because of the fact that it really wasn’t selling from the very beginning. Our first few issues had very low sales runs. We probably would have dropped them after three issues. We just kept them going, hoping they would eventually catch on, which they never did, of course.”27 HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE CHARLTON WAY In 1973, Cuti came up with the notion of what turned out to be a Charlton subscription premium that actually was useful for wannabe comic book creators that included “much valuable information for the neophyte.”28 The idea was The Comic Book Guide for the Artist, Writer, and Letterer. He explained, “I wrote the booklet because we were getting

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portfolios from people at a rate of about two a day. Most of them were awful, but occasionally we’d get portfolios from very talented people who just didn’t know the mechanics of comic book art. So we decided to do the booklet as a quick way to help those artists. Later, we thought they might be used as a gimmick to boost our subscriptions.”29 The resulting 7" x 5", 40-page booklet featured amusing, full-color cover art by Tom Sutton and work especially prepared for the premium by artist Wayne Howard and Charlton house letterer Frank Bravo.

Perhaps related to this fan-friendly item is the fact that, while E-Man was said to have suffered abysmal sales on the newsstand, which, Cuti said, “is understandable because he was going up against Spider-Man, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—you know, really great super-heroes, the kings of the industry—but he became Charlton’s number one subscription, so we did have a fan following. It outsold all the other comics, as far as subscriptions go. But it wasn’t enough. By #10, I got the word from John Santangelo [Jr.], saying, ‘Nick, we know it’s your comic and, you know, out of respect for you, we kept it going. But it’s a disaster. We’d like you to drop it.’”30 This page: The cover and sample pages (featuring illustrations

by Tom Sutton, cover artist; Charlton letterer Frank Bravo; and stalwart renderer Wayne Howard) from The Comic Book Guide for the Artist, Writer, and Letterer [1973], written by Nick Cuti.

HIMES’ 57 VARIETIES OF STYLE It was fellow Texan Pat Boyette (whose TV station was across the street from his workplace) who introduced Fred Himes [1930–2000], San Antonio newspaper ad executive, to Charlton Comics, where he proved himself a cartoonist of amazing versatility. What is particularly astonishing is the artist of innumerable war stories, Westerns, supernatural tales, animated-style humor, children’s adventure, and romances, was entirely self-taught. He admitted, “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a comic book artist,”31 though his first comics work appeared in 1969, when the man was pushing 40 years old. “Himes was still a hobbyist in the late ’60s, when a friend urged him to mail in some of his material to Charlton,” a newspaper feature article revealed. “He sent The Cobra, a super-hero [comic strip proposal]. They said, ‘It looks interesting—maybe later.’ Later came in about four months, when he was assigned to do Western comics. He created ‘Apache Red,’ a half-Irish, half-Indian adventurer.

‘The Wanderer,’ a cowboy comic book hero, was handed down to him.”32 The San Antonio Express continued:

Haunted Love

Charlton assistant editor Nick Cuti explained the genesis of romance-supernatural combo Haunted Love: “We had two genres: the ghost genre, which almost had 100% boy readership; and we had the love comics, almost 99% girl readership. And I don’t recall who it was… George Wildman, our publisher, or whoever…who said, ‘You know, Gothic romances are real big right now. So why don’t we combine our two genres, ghosts and romance, and come up with a sort of Gothic romance title?’ And so we came up with Haunted Love. As it turned out, instead of combining our two audiences, we wound up alienating both audiences. So the boys wouldn’t touch it because of the romance aspect and the girls wouldn’t touch it because of the horror aspect. Just goes to show you: don’t combine genres like Westerns and science fiction or whatever because there’s a specific group for each and there’s a reason for the segregation. We learned the hard way. It died a miserable death… They were all very well-done issues. I wrote some of my best stories for the title and I know some of the artists did some of their best artwork. It was just the whole idea that you can’t always combine genres and expect to combine audiences… Our first few issues had very low sales runs. We probably would have dropped them after three issues. We just kept them going, hoping they would eventually catch on, which they never did, of course.”37

“I really hated The Wanderer,” recalls Himes, as if he were speaking of an Fred Himes obnoxious neighbor. “I thought he was stupid.”

He went on to apply his hand to comic books on everything to ghouls to war to goopy teenage romance.

Himes seems to prefer the “light-hearted adventure” of Valley of the Dinosaurs and the modernistic foibles of Barney and Betty Rubble to the harder-hitting stuff.33 Himes was exceptional in any genre, as his Valley of the Dinosaurs, which he wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered—all on nights and weekends, moonlighting while maintaining a full-time day job!—was designed with panache, and his Barney and Betty Rubble stories were lauded for his perfect instinct for comedic exaggeration. Joe Torcivia opined, “Fred Himes would work on the Barney and Betty Rubble title from #10 [Nov. ’74] through #18 [Feb. ’76], and produced some of the best Hanna-Barbera art ever seen in Charlton Comics!”34 An article stated, “After that publisher lost the rights, a Hanna-Barbera agent called and said he was looking for artists to do comic books for Europe. Fred and a friend, Pat Boyette, agreed to take the job and began sending Jabberjaw, Scooby Doo, Captain Caveman, and Teen Angels to the continent.”35 “He loved working for Charlton,” son Fred Himes, Jr., said of father Frederick Henry Himes, Sr. “Charlton was great because they gave him leeway to do what he wanted and he basically had free rein… That was a really good gig that he liked a lot. [They had] a good working relationship.”36

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THE PAPER CHASE Late 1973 saw the global paper shortage finally plaguing the comic book industry as World Color Press, which printed almost all newsstand comic books in the U.S., had to cut newsprint allotment by 20%. WCP vice president D.F. Curran announced to Inside Comics, “[O]ur motivation obviously was to live with a condition where there was no paper in the warehouse, none on the track, and very little en route.”38 “The shortage—both of regular newsprint and slick-coated cover stock—was caused by two factors,” the reporter explained. “Canada’s major paper producing mills went on strike in late spring [1973] and most did not settle until late September… [and] the major Canadian freight railroads struck July 26th and were out of operation for nine weeks…”39 The Inside Comics article also revealed that U.S. publishers received 95% of their paper supply from their northern neighbor, a reality that hit Charlton hard: Although they do not print their titles at World Color, Charlton was the most severely affected company; they were forced to close down operations during November and December.

Operating from Derby, Connecticut, Charlton is the only comic book company producing their complete package. Not only do they write, edit, and draw their own comics, they also print and distribute the books.

When the paper crunch came, however, all of their suppliers ran out of paper. When the strike came, they were forced to close operations since they had no paper on hand.

“The shutdown is only temporary,” Charlton assistant managing editor Nicola Cuti told us last November. “We have been forced to shut down for two months, but we will be back in January.”

Apparently unable to convince anyone, however, Cuti This page: Charlton’s ad for 1974 New York Comic Art Convention souvenir book was a vast improvement over the previous year, with copy that alludes to the ten-week or so Charlton shutdown between Nov. 1973–Jan. 1974 due to a paper shortage.

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was forced to issue a press release last November 29th.

“Word has reached us that Charlton is dead, killed off by the paper shortage. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, I can only say that ‘The reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.’”

While the company was closed and not printing new comics, they asked wholesalers to redistribute unsold copies of existing issues. Cuti said besides keeping Charlton books on the newsstands, he hoped redistribution would “cause a temporary increase in our circulation, hopefully bringing in new readers.”

Charlton finally reopened in early January and Cuti said that new Charlton magazines would be appearing in “early February.” The first titles will be Beetle Bailey and Ghostly Haunts.

“We’re going to be adding some super-heroes to the lines as soon as we can,” he said. “The prime factors, however, are when and how much news[print] stock will be forthcoming.”40 The hiatus had an impact on the entire Charlton operation—Joe Staton, for instance, had to find temporary outside jobs to maintain a steady income41 and Valentino Polce, who worked the plate-making department, waited out the lay-off at home42—but, soon enough (ten weeks by Wildman’s estimate),43 the presses were rolling again. Still, it was an ominous sign that, in 1974, for the first time since 1948, Charlton Press released not a single new comic book title in a calendar year, portending turbulent seas on the horizon.

Day of the Magnascan 460

Make no mistake: the introduction of Crosfield Electronics’ Magnascan 450 in 1969 was a big deal for newspaper and magazine publishing the world over, and next-generation 460 was the electronic drum scanner that enabled one Derby, Conn., publisher to print high-quality painted covers for their comics.

Bill Klise, who in 1971 had started B-K Graphics, a San Antonio, Texas, outfit serving the print industry, purchased his first Magnascan 460 and showed off its amazing capabilities to pal Pat Boyette. The artist instantly realized its potential for Charlton. The machine “had the software capability to adjust the size, form, color, and hue such that the printed image was of the finest quality anywhere.”44 Charlton was persuaded about the process and the imprint’s era of painted covers began. Klise got so busy supplying Charlton with color seps, he had to buy a second 460 to keep up!45 (Reportedly a first generation Magnascan was selling for $115,000 a pop.)

Robinson is with the Band

In her autobiography, There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll, legendary rock journalist Lisa Robinson included exactly two mentions of Hit Parader—the magazine which launched her writing career and where she importantly worked with love of her life and future husband Richard Robinson—and both comments were only to say in passing that she’d edited the mag by 1973. Upper West Side Lisa Mehlman became Richard’s assistant in 1969, filing for him a few hours a week, because she enjoyed his disc jockeying on the radio. Soon enough, by 1970, she was the credited features editor for Hit Parader during Richard’s stint as editor, and the pair were soon married.

With her ingratiating personality, perpetual drive, and quality of writing, Lisa forged friendships with rock ’n’ roll royalty, including Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and David Bowie. Photos of her

by Annie Liebowitz and by Bob Gruen are evidence of Lisa’s close relationships with the rich, the talented, and the famous.

In 1973, onetime comics editor Pat Masulli left Charlton, started his Four Seasons publishing company, and, with the Robinsons, launched Rock Scene, a magazine its editor, Richard, half-kiddingly described as a “grafting of Rolling Stone, Hit Parader, Popular Mechanics, and Women’s Wear Daily.”46 The Buffalo News said of Lisa’s career as rock journalist, “She documented rock’s transition from throwaway pop pleasure, to seminal cultural and musical force, and back again.”47

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

THE HORROR… THE HORROR 2 The spring of 1975 had Charlton launching a new—and especially ambitious—wave of supernatural titles, some more character-driven than the usual fare, with an occasional fulllength story featuring a host’s adventures. “George Wildman was trying to give a new look to the horror line,” Nick Cuti said, “and he suggested we come up with some new hosts.

Joe [Gill] came up with a few. He came up with Countess Bluud. And then I came up with Colonel Whiteshroud, the Monster Hunter. (At the time, Darren McGavin was on TV playing Kolchak, the Night Stalker, and that was very popular, and I thought, ‘Hey, let’s do something like that.’) And then I came up with Baron Weirwulf… Baron Weirwulf’s Haunted Library.”48 Some titles focused, more or less, on specific themes, such as Scary Tales (starring alabasterskinned Countess Von Bludd designed by Joe Staton) devoted to vampire yarns; Haunted, showcasing stories involving werewolves (hosted by the aforementioned Baron, who was visualized by Don Newton); and Monster Hunters, which actually sported exploits (originally rendered

by Staton) often starring host Colonel Whiteshroud tracking down fearsome beasties.

Creepy Things, professing to feature “supernatural with an occasional science fiction yarn,”49 seemed more a showcase for Tom Sutton, down to the title logo (which certainly looks to be his design). Host Mr. Dee Mun didn’t resemble the usual host though. “He gave off the aura of a mafioso,” one blogger wrote, “with his fine tailored pinstripe suit, neatly trimmed devil beard, and tinted cop shades.”50 Beyond the Grave’s Mortimer Tishin was more traditional, an emcee with rotting flesh and skeletal appearance (created by Sanho Kim).

This page: Annie Liebowitz photo appearing in newspapers across the U.S. in 1976 with rock journalist and Hit Parader/ Rock Scene editor Lisa Robinson and pal Mick Jagger, evidence of just how far one can get while editing a Charlton music mag!

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The Charlton Academy of Comics

For all of the dismissive comments endured by Charlton from artists and writers about its low rates and poor production values, one nearly universal sentiment expressed by its freelancers was to praise the Derby publisher for the freedom it gave to print their work without editorial interference, almost sight unseen. Plus it was a welcoming venue for neophyte creators to sharpen their skills and learn on the job. Some among them who would thereafter achieve legendary status in the comics realm.

Before he was acclaimed as exceptional X-Men artist, Canadian John Lindley Byrne [b. 1950] received his first professional work at Charlton, and he singled out editor George Wildman and writer Joe Gill for their assist. John Byrne told the author, “I’m very grateful for the start they helped me get— especially Joe, who told me I was free to rewrite as John Byrne much or as little of his scripts as I wanted when I drew and lettered them. That gave me a good opportunity to practice form and content.”51 Byrne added, “After about six months, I was making $50 a page for pencils, inks, and lettering at Charlton, which was their top rate. This was in the days when I was also working as a designer for Hook Signs, an outdoor advertising company, in Calgary, my hometown. When I started getting work at Marvel, at $35 a page for pencils alone, I was able to leave Hook—and ultimately Charlton—and concentrate on comics full-time.”

The artist had no illusions about the lowly status of the company. “Charlton comics were, at that time, only a couple of steps above fanzines. They had poor printing and terrible distribution, and they allowed me to hone my craft off in a corner where very few people really noticed. (To this day, I find that my greatest curse is that the best work I do is the work I know no one is ever going to see. For years I have maintained sketchbooks specifically to this end, drawing anything and everything,

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“I think it was sometime after never letting anyone see them—I that convention trip, but I did destroy them when they are full—and hoping that the visit Derby prior to making a move north. In 1976, I think. developments and growth I stayed with Nick, got a tour which occur there will evenof Charlton, and discovered tually slop over into the the ‘everything under one published work. Which it roof’ concept of comics usually does.) At Charlton, publishing. That was pretty I got paid to mess around amazing to be able to walk in and experiment, and I’m the front door where the execvery grateful to them for that utive offices were, pass through opportunity. I very much doubt Mike Zeck I would be the artist I am today, editorial, enter the printing and binding area, and end up at the docks had I not had that fairly loose foundation at the rear end of the building, where upon which to build.”52 the distribution trucks were loaded. The Mike Zeck was also appreciative comics offices were separate from the for his start at Charlton. Before success main Charlton building. They had quite a as the artist of Secret Wars, Michael John bit of space and must have housed quite Zeck [b. 1949] attended the Ringling a few people at one time, but now that School of Art, in Sarasota, Florida, and the comics were winding down, it was he sent out a package of impressive just George Wildman, Bill Pearson, and samples to the major comics publishers, Helen, who did color separations. I think Charlton included. And, at an early ’70s Nick had already left to freelance at that Comic Art Convention, in New York point. Just those few people and a bunch City, “It was the Charlton table where I of empty drawing tables.”54 got my warmest reception,” he told the author. “Those guys actually rememArizona-based artist Don Newton bered receiving my samples and liking had made a tremendous impression them. I met Nick Cuti, Bill Pearson, and contributing to comics fanzines before George Wildman. (I didn’t realize at the submitting to Charlton. In a 1979 time that I had basically met the entire interview, Donald Lee Newton Charlton comics staff). And, yeah, Nick [1934–1984] shared with was super-nice and super-supportive.

George Huneryager that, I think meeting the guys helped and while an elementary prompted them to look for something school teacher, “I sent I could do. Shortly after the con, I got some material to Charlan offer to do some spot illustrations for ton in 1973, I think, the two-page text stories that appeared and it was fortunate, at in their animated titles. That was all that that time, they wanted was available at the time… Shortly after artists, so I did weird stuff that, I started doing some horror stories for them for a while. And for them. They would send a script and then they needed an artist expect me to send back print-ready art, on The Phantom because Don Newton penciled, inked, and lettered. For all Lee Falk was unhappy with the [then-current] artist. So Lee wanted me three disciplines, I was paid a total of $41 [a page], something like $22 for pencils, to try it even though I knew it would $16 for inks and $3 for lettering. It was be difficult because of my teaching. But I decided it was a chance to get some about this time that I realized that comics recognition, so I took a shot at it, and I artists were some of the lowest-paid artended up doing it.”55 ists in the world, not highest. Even with Among the “weird stuff” was Newthat realization, I was happy to be doing ton’s visualization of Baron Weirwulf, a comics for print. I was in the ‘biz’!… I new host for Haunted. Nick Cuti recalled was definitely lucky to get the Charlton when he first encountered Newton: work. I needed the training and experi“Don sent in some Xeroxes of Captain ence and Charlton was one of the only America, I believe it was, and I liked places back then to get that training.”53

Boxell and Larson photos © & by Clay Geerdes. Courtesy of David Miller and the Geerdes estate.

them immediately.”56 In the obituary for the artist, who tragically died at 49 from a massive heart attack, The Comics Journal related, “After working on [The Phantom] for a short while, Newton revealed to his editor that he could paint, and then he began to paint covers for The Phantom.”57 Perhaps better known Tim Boxell for his film work and underground comix, Tim Boxell was the inking half of the Larson/Boxell art team who worked for Charlton in the mid1970s. Early on, Timothy Charles Boxell [b. 1950] fell in with, he said, adding a wink, “some evil fanzine people who could write and not draw, so I picked up my drawing skills from servicing them.”58 A scene in his underground comix story, “Defiled,” in Death Rattle #1 [June 1972], was inspiration for the “facehugger/chest-burster” sequence in the movie, Alien. He also created and edited comix anthologies Commies from Mars and No Ducks. “When I hooked up with [Rich] Larson, it was a dream come true,” Boxell told the author, “because he’s such a great brain and great draftsman. We lived in the same place, under the same roof, in a number of different cities, though [the loose partnership] eventually fell apart. It was great fun.”59 For Charlton, the pair worked on the supernatural line, with Larson penciling—sometimes from Boxell’s scripts—and Boxell providing inks and, if cover art, coloring. “It was never really a formal thing,” Boxell said of the team, “but I worked with Rich for a lot of years in television, movies, and comic books.

He is absolutely brilliant, a good writer on top of being a great pencil artist…

I really learned a lot from him.”60 After Boxell toiled in public television, the pair worked on Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff from “day one,” when “the stars crossed,” and, creating storyboards for the motion picture, “We were on that movie for the better part of three years.”61 One Boxell Charlton script, a threepager called “The Snatcher” that was illustrated by Larson and appeared in Scary Tales #6 [July 1976], was later adapted as segment for the horror anthology movie, CreepTales, starring Tom Kenny (who is no less than the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants).

That off-and-on partner of Boxell, been contributing to fanzines Rich Larson [b. 1952] described to the for quite some time before author his initial contact with the indusbriefly drawing for the Derby comics company. try: “The first stuff I got to do professionally was for Charlton, around 1976…

Mike Vosburg said, If memory serves, a local fan and writer “My first Charlton named Charlie Smith had written some story was ‘The Arena of stories he wanted to submit to Charlton.

Lost Souls’ [The Many I may have just drawn up one of his Ghosts of Dr. Graves stories and just sent it in cold. And it was #45, May ’74]. I was accepted! It was a pretty neat time-travel working for DC or Marvel story about an old scientist with a heart at the time and they kept Mike Vosburg condition who builds himself a time me fairly busy penciling, machine… Back then, Charlton was but they never let me ink the work. Al actually publishing fully painted covers.

Milgrom, (who very kindly always let me Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, and other artists stay at his place when I was in New York did some. So we did some, too. I would City) and I took the train up to Connectipencil the cover, Tim would ink them cut to meet with Nick Cuti, who was and finish it off in water color. I think we the editor then… [and] always a great did about a half-dozen of those.”62 guy. We also met George Wildman, who Larson continued, “The Charlton looked over our work. I think we both experience was fun… contact was got a couple scripts to work on. The through the mail, so I would get a bunch attraction for me was that I could ink the of scripts by guys like Joe Gill from him work myself…As a result, the Charlton every two or three months. Nick Cuti stories I did and the Star*Reach stories might’ve been there, but [George] Wildwere my favorite stuff from that period man was the guy we were dealing with.” of my career.

Ruminating on his Charlton efforts, “I did a total of four horror stories, “Some of the watercolor covers turned two romance stories, and two covers out nice,” he said. “I wasn’t particularly and three separate one-page fillers [for accomplished on the interior work I did, Charlton]. I also did the one war story. I so those were less satisfying to do. was (and still am) very anti-war and not Probably, altogether, I must have very enthused about doing the war done ten to 15 stories for those story. I think Nick asked me to do guys over a period of a couple it as a favor. I wound up doing of years. I was trying to do a the entire job with swipes page a day back then—penfrom Joe Kubert’s ‘Sgt. Rock cils, inks, and letters—for ‘stuff, so at least it had $30–35 a page.”63 some appeal.

Larson agreed that “The horror stories Charlton was a training were always great… The ground. “They pretty much last horror job was certainly let you do whatever you my best effort. I remember wanted to do,” he explained. the late Grass Green [lettered “They never asked for re-dos. the job and ghosted] some of Rich Larson They basically sent you a script the pencils… and the story was and left you alone. It was perfect to learn appropriately titled, ‘The Grass is Always the craft. Ideal for a guy just starting out.

Greener’ [Creepy Things #3, Dec. ’75].

There were no fixed deadlines as I recall; When I was doing the romance stuff, I I just had to turn the stories around in a was very much influenced by Frazetta’s reasonable amount of time. It was fun to ‘Untamed Love’ stories and a Spanish work at Charlton. Ditko was one of my cartoonist named Carlos Jimenez, a more heroes, so to be doing work at the same unlikely combination you couldn’t imagcompany as he was an enormous rush.”64 ine. The Frazetta stuff was so rendered Thereafter, Larson partnered up and realistic and Jiminez’s work was with airbrush artist Steve Fastner, whom always so cartoony and stylized. he met in 1976, and the two produced “My other Charlton memories are print portfolios for publisher Sal Quartucdesigning a character (a woman with a cio. The successful art team continues to short shag haircut, abbreviated leather produce artwork together today. outfit and whip) for a strip Nick was Michael Vosburg [b. 1947] had planning.”65

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

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Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

COULDA BEEN… SHOULDA BEEN Roger Stern, who had been writing letters to the Arizonabased artist, said that Don Newton hoped to establish a worthy nemesis for the Phantom, a character Stern was hoping to script regularly. “I’d been corresponding with Don Newton,” he said, “and he’d encouraged me to submit ideas for The Phantom… Don was just bubbling over with great ideas for The Phantom, ideas that the readers never got to see. He wanted to develop a regular antagonist for the Phantom, a real opposite number that Don had tentatively called the Red Spectre. As I recall, that particular idea was shot down as being ‘too much like Marvel.’ Since Marvel was—at the time—beating the pants off everyone in sales, I could never figure out why Charlton was so reluctant.

Maybe they were getting flak from King Features. Like I said, it was a shame, because Don’s Phantom was so good, but it could have been really great.”66 Nick Cuti had a character he was developing with the very same artist. He revealed to the author, “I even created a super-hero that I wanted to do with Don [Newton], Mastermind, which he did some rough sketches for, and it never came about. His power was that he could use his mind, sort of like Mandrake the Magician without hypnotism. He could use his mind to sort of create all kinds of strange things, and was from another dimension, where mental powers were very common, and now he’s trapped in our dimension in which no one had developed mental powers, but he did.”67

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A BOUNTY OF BACK-UPS Under editor George Wildman’s mandate to develop new super-hero-type characters, Nick Cuti utilized the back pages of E-Man to work out some ideas, a few that were interesting and a couple, well… maybe not so much.

The Knight, Agent of C.H.E.S.S.—otherwise known as bleached-haired Link Chain of the spy agency Command for the Hindrance of Espionage, Sabotage, and Subversion—filled out E-Man #1, with an eight-page saga of Chain and cohorts Marko Tulsa and Mari Halliday called, “Operation: Rotten Apple,” written by Cuti and rather hastily rendered by a seemingly distracted Tom Sutton. This was the singular appearance of the chess-themed spy team.

Killjoy was a comedic Steve Ditko creation, a wacky and absurdist series lasting two episodes in the rear section of E-Man [#2 and 4], featuring a two-fisted, red-clad, Speedo-clad crime-fighter punching out aggrieved, crybaby criminals and super-villains, who bitched and moaned that their rights as wrong-doers were being violated. Though somewhat single-note, the costumed hero was a… umm… joy to behold.

Time-traveling youngster Travis, who appeared in a single eight-page adventure [E-Man #3], looked to be a character specifically created for artist Wayne Howard to render, as writer Cuti threw in a dinosaur and a medieval setting (replete with damsel in distress) to be depicted by Howard. One very neat detail is Travis’s “steed,” a totally Wally Wood-esque rocket-propelled vehicle named Anachrom.

Maybe the only not-ironic commie-basher to appear in a 1974 comic book, Liberty Belle was a super-heroine created

by Joe Gill and Ditko for E-Man #5, described as “a lady who wants to please.” The one-shots ended, as the superb Rog2000 by Cuti and Byrne backed-up E-Man #6, 7, 9, and 10.

Rog-2000

John Byrne confessed that his Rog2000 robot character started off as a throwaway sketch. “I was doing a lot of spot illos for zines, mostly for [Roger] Stern’s and [Bob] Layton’s CPL [Contemporary Pictorial Literature]. One of the doodles I sent in was a robot with his arm blown off. Layton and Stern turned this into an editorial gag illo, and, since there were several Rogers involved in CPL at the time, Layton named him Rog-2000. Then they asked for more drawings of the same robot. Since I had no access to a Xerox machine, I did not have a copy of the original drawing, so I recreated the character as best I could from memory. Later, Stern wrote a Rog-2000 story for CPL, which I illustrated. It was on the strength of this that Nick Cuti asked if I would like to do Rog for a back-up feature in E-Man, which he would write.”68

Michael Mauser

Nick Cuti, as he explained, lobbied to spinoff a character from E-Man. “I love science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all. SF is my favorite genre. But I always had a love for the private eye genre. The heart, the film noir. And so when Joe Gill came up with Vengeance Squad, I had asked to do a little feature in the back and they let me do it, and that was ‘Mike Mauser, Private Eye,’ which I got [character co-creator] Joe Staton to illustrate. And, to this day, the Mike Mauser stories have always been my favorite stories of all the stories I’ve written. I don’t think I’ve done anything better than Mike Mauser.”72 The artist said that Cuti envisioned nebbishy actor Arnold Stang for Mauser’s appearance, but Staton couldn’t find visual reference, so he opted to base the detective’s look on Dustin Hoffman in Papillon, a film in release at that time. Staton reasoned, “Well, he’s not Arnold Stang, but he’s close enough.”73

BOLLE OF VENGEANCE “Some detective stories”69 is partly how Frank Bolle recalled his few jobs for Charlton Comics in the early to mid-’70s. The tales he’s referencing were for Vengeance Squad, Joe Gill’s creation about a trio of security guards, and Bolle actually only drew the first issue. He told Jim Amash, “George Wildman was the editor.

A very nice guy; he loved everything I did.

I did The Phantom and some detective stories… Yeah, they didn’t pay great,… the thing is, they weren’t that far away… and it took me 20 minutes to get there. George Wildman was such a nice guy that I said, ‘Sure.’ You know, they gave me carte blanche.

Frank Bolle I could do whatever I wanted. They just gave me the script and left me alone.”70 In his own words, Frank William Bolle [1924–2020] came from a “very meager”71 Brooklyn upbringing, or so he told the author, though as a youngster he found solace in drawing and reveling in his favorite comic strip, Terry and the Pirates. It was at the High School of Music and Art where he first began his lifelong friendship with future cartoonist great Leonard Starr. After six months at Pratt Institute, Bolle was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps, serving in the Pacific.

Back in the States, Bolle started his career in comics and the comic strip business, prominently drawing for Magazine Enterprises, Western, and Marvel. In the early ’70s, the artist contributed to Charlton’s romance line and, around the same time as Vengeance Squad #1 [July ’75], he also nicely drew a couple of stories and batch of covers for The Phantom.

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

PAM’S DAILY GRIND By the ’70s, Pete Morisi—still disguising his identity in print by using just his initials, P.A.M.—was living a grueling existence. He told Glen Johnson of the relentless grind of his daily routine.

“Work for the N.Y.P.D. for eight hours, draw comic books for eight hours, and sleep for eight hours. Only, the ‘sleep for eight hours’ never got realized. Interruptions, family problems, and the stress of working eight-to-four/four-to-midnight/and 12-to-eight, week after week, took a heavy toll.”74 Still, the veteran artist was happy about the assignments he was getting from Charlton. “I enjoyed doing horror stories, and romance stories were a nice change of pace. Joe Gill kept his scripts simple and uncomplicated, a very rare talent indeed, these days.” And, when asked about a title that Gill had created, which he was assigned after Frank Bolle left after the first issue, Morisi answered, “Sure, I remember doing Vengeance Squad. George Wildman was a piece of cake as an editor. He never complained, and that made me try all the harder to give him good stuff.”75 That was in 1975, when Morisi was preparing for a big life event coming the following year. “I worked for 20 years (and some odd months) for the New York Police Department before I retired from ‘the job’ [in 1976]. It provided me and my family the security and medical attention (doctors, dentists, etc.) that I wanted, a life I would have been hardpressed to afford as a freelance comic book artist.”76 Vengeance Squad was, Morisi recalled to Johnson, “a strip that ‘started slow,’ but was getting better with each issue. Joe Gill was really getting into it by issue #6, but that’s when Charlton went under. It could have been a good one.”77 This spread: Mastermind proposal by Don Newton; Killjoy panel by Ditko; detail from John Byrne’s The Complete Rog2000 cover [1982]; Byrne’s cover art for The Comics Reader [Jan. ’75]; and Michael Mauser panel details by Joe Staton.

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Doomsday +1

The dystopian science fiction series, Doomsday +1, perhaps Charlton’s most critically successful title of the 1970s, was the brainchild of writer Joe Gill and nascent comics pro, Canuck artist John Byrne, who would subsequently attain superstar status in the comics industry for his blockbuster work on The X-Men. Byrne recalled the book’s origins to the author: “They simply wanted to do a post-Armageddon book, one of those ‘barbarians riding giant grasshoppers’ kinds of things. And, as it evolved in script form, it became Doomsday +1 as we saw it. Joe Staton was originally set to draw the first issue, with me coming on with #2, but George [Wildman] decided that was kind of silly, and had me do Doomsday +1 from the get-go. Joe very kindly re-wrote some of the first issue script to include some Canadian references.”78

The writer approved of the series. “I thought that was good,”79 Joe Gill told Jim Amash and, when asked about collaborating with the artist newcomer, he said, “I spoke to him many, many times on the phone. There was another character: Byrne became a huge success. He started working on Doomsday +1, and he did a great job, but after he did about three, he started complaining to the editor he could write better stories than I could. That’s not a pleasant thing to hear, because I was helpful to him in the beginning. We talked quite often, and he was way the hell up in Canada. But Byrne made it big.”80 According to assistant editor Nick Cuti, it was Gill who initially asked for Byrne as artist on the series. Cuti told the author, “And Joe Gill, especially, loved John Byrne’s work and he came up with the concept of Doomsday +1, he asked to have John Byrne be the illustrator for it.”81 Years later, Byrne remembered being fond of the comic, which lasted for six all-new issues (with one Gill/Byrne unpublished tales,

KORG: NINE B.C. (AS IN BOYETTE COMICS) In the second wave of Hanna-Barbera licensed comics, Charlton assigned Pat Boyette as writer and artist of Korg: 70,000 B.C., H-B’s Saturday morning half-hour, live-action series featuring the perils of a caveman and his family.

In an interview with David Spurlock, the Texas-based freelancer was still enthusiastic 20 years after his nine-issue stint on the series (which outlasted the actual single-season TV show [1974–75] by over a year-and-a-half). “Korg!,” he exclaimed, “Korg and his family were Neanderthals… When I adapted it, I punched up the conflicts that may have occurred between Korg and emerging Cro-Magnon. I never tired of that book.” The series was called “some of writer/artist Pat Boyette’s best ever comics work. The subject matter really suited Boyette’s rugged style.”83 One particularly impressive aspect of Korg was Boyette’s vividly painted covers, which had become a new thing for Charlton, and one which the artist had initially introduced to the publisher. He told Kenneth Smith, “Charlton was interested in getting away from line art on the cover. But they couldn’t afford paintings. So we decided to try a new black-&-white wash drawing and then running process color over it, which is a regular comic book cover color over it…

With Zip-A-Tone. And printed right over the black-&-white half-tone key plate. And that didn’t work to anybody’s satisfactions, but it was okay. And then a friend of mine… got this new scanner.”84 [See page 204.] On a magazine cover with Boyette art, the scanner produced “sensational” results. “Really, really great,” Boyette continued. “So I called Sal Gentile and said, ‘We have this thing and it’s affordable, what do you think?… So we sent him some samples of color separations.

He liked it and we tried it. My friend who owned the color separator put on his cowboy hat and cowboy boots, and took off for Derby, Connecticut. He said, ‘If they expect to see a cowboy, they’re going to see one!’ He signed an agreement with them, and that’s how Charlton got into color covers.”85

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This page: The Doomsday +1 pin-up by Neal Adams graced the back cover of The Charlton Bullseye #5 [1976]; and Pat Boyette’s original cover art for Korg: 70,000 B.C. #1 [May 1975], a HannaBarbera title that lasted for nine issues.

which eventually saw print in the CPL edition of Charlton Bullseye, #3–5 [Apr. and Sept.

1976]). “I really liked Doomsday +1,” Byrne told the author. “My sort of awareness of where I was going to end up in funny-books was much lower than where I actually ended up. I used to think that, if I was really lucky, I would end up as the number one guy of the second tier. And the way I saw that in my mind was I’d be penciling Iron Man. Somehow I figured that was as high as I would ever get, I would be penciling Iron Man. And, in fact, when Howard Mackie got me to write a few issues of Iron Man a few years ago, I said, ‘Well, I finally made it!’ It was one of those weird things where, ‘That’s as high as I’m ever gonna get.’

“So, over here at Charlton, they were letting me do all kinds of stuff. Wow, that’s really cool! And they’re not really watching me all that closely. And Joe Gill, who was the writer on Doomsday, I asked him if I could rewrite a couple of little things along the way because I was lettering it as well. And he said,

‘Oh, rewrite whatever you like.’ Okay! So, from that point on, I was rewriting the whole thing. I mean, I wrote most of those issues after the second… And Joe sort of gave me permission. And I would take the framework of his story and just try to turn it into a Marvel book, basically.”82 Two years after being cancelled, Doomsday +1 was revived for six issues as a reprint title, in 1978–79, and, anticipating solid sales on the series, Wildman commissioned a new story. “The Secret City,” with story and art by Tom Sutton, originally intended as Doomsday +1 #13 [July 1979], but it wouldn’t see print for another 35 years. Charlton Spotlight editor Michael Ambrose purchased the 15-page plus cover Sutton story and he enlisted Nick Cuti to recreate the lost script, Bill Pearson to letter the tale, and Donnie Pitchford to color, and the final effort was published in Charlton Spotlight #8 [Winter 2014].

In 1986, Fantagraphics repackaged the series, renamed The Doomsday Squad, reprints with new covers by Byrne and Gil Kane.

TOTH AND CONSEQUENCES The connection between Charlton and Alex Toth [1928– 2006], one of comics’ most revered artists, stretched back to 1972 when Sal Gentile contacted the Hollywood-based cartoonist to request he produce cover art for Real West magazine. “I was happy to try—and did—in mixed media, I did—enjoyed it very much,” Toth wrote.86 Indeed, two Real West Toth covers appeared in late ’72 and early ’73.

A few years later, Charlton Bullseye #2 [Spring ’75] dropped the bombshell news that Toth, “noted artist and one of comics’ guiding lights,”87 was to regularly contribute to Charlton’s varied genre titles.

His first effort was the My Only Love #3 [Nov. ’75] nine-pager, “The Loveliest of All,” a job the notoriously self-critical creative genius Toth ”chose to ink ‘brush only’—but very heavy-handedly—badly—really lousy—even the title logo—an awful wormy/very lousy scrawl—a total failure on my part.”88 An often contentious freelancer, Toth shared, “Nick Cuti’s ‘Bookworm’ [six-pager] was next—I Alex Toth had a good time with it—brush/ marker-inked—it went nicely—it would be payback/apologia for that awful messy romance set, I hoped—but Wildman and I got into some dispute over the phone/letters, too, mebbe—so the ‘Bookworm’ story set done, ready to wrap, didn’t travel—I returned the Cuti script to George, said, ‘Sorry/Sayonara.’”89 And, with that, the brilliant cartoonist left Charlton for good.

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

This page: Alex Toth’s cover art for Real West [Dec. 1972], one of two he rendered for the Charlton mag; and Toth’s magnificent splash page of his My Only Love #3 [Nov. 1975] submission.

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Friends of Ol’ Charlton

One might say it was some guy named Everett Eugene Vohland who set things in motion that would result in The Charlton Bullseye, But it’s more accurate to focus on Mr. Robert B. Layton and his adzine-turned-fanzine called CPL. Starting out as a cruddy little catalog to sell his comic book collection, Bob Layton had christened it with a fancified name, Contemporary Pictorial Literature, and, after he advertised it in The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom, he attracted the notice of fellow Indiana-based fans.

Hoosiers Roger Stern, Roger Slifer, and aforementioned “Duffy” Vohland became involved and CPL morphed into a high-quality fanzine with great illustrations and solid content. (Ken Meyer, Jr., opined about CPL: “It was the perfect combination of incredible art and entertaining/ enlightening articles/interBob Layton views from some of the best fan artists (many verging on, if not pros already) and writers.”)90 Enterprising young Layton would send out batches of CPL to the major companies (including Charlton), and, in the mix, Vohland, who was working for Marvel by the time, caught wind that Charlton was sitting on a treasure trove of unpublished Action Heroes material and alerted the Indianapolis crew.

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“Stern gave us a call from Duffy saying that I should talk to somebody up at Charlton, and how would we like to publish the unpublished material they had leftover from the Dick Giordano days,” Layton told the author. “And of course, we lost our minds! Even at the possibility of it!”91 George Wildman remembered Layton’s call. “lt was his idea. He was an artist, and he and Nick—boy, you talk about hitting it off! Those two were—wow… He had all kind of ideas, was going to lick the world, and did in many ways. He was a great guy. And he was the one who said we should have a house organ. So he and Nick got on it and everything else. And I agree with him. Everybody else had one and we didn’t, and it was cheap for us. We could print it on scrap, you know.”92 Actually, as Layton observed, first came The Charlton Portfolio.”Originally we just made a deal with Charlton where we could use this material one time, they had an unpublished Blue Beetle story, fully done by Steve Ditko, originally slated for Blue Beetle #6, so I forget how Duffy finagled the deal with them or whatever, but we got it pretty much with no strings attached… It was like, ‘Can we use this?’ I mean, they had the stuff sitting around on big old metal shelves in the back room of the bowling alley there, for a decade or better! They had no use for it! It never occurred to them to actually publish it themselves,

you know? It was kind of like, ‘What harm would it do?’ They were trying to relaunch the Charlton characters, they felt that any sort of attention they got was good…

They were really trying to relaunch the Charlton line Roger Stern with E-Man and Yang, and those kind of things, and I’m presuming they felt that any attention they got at the time would be good. We promised to be real nice and all that kind of stuff. It was a one-time thing that we put together this Charlton Portfolio. So, we really weren’t looking ahead to doing anything else at the time; it was just kind of interesting, try to do a bigger, slicker thing than we did with the usual bi-monthly CPL.”93 (In fact, it’s technically part of the run of his fanzine, officially titled, CPL Special Double Issue #9 & 10… Presents the Charlton Portfolio.)

Printed on thick, glossy stock and priced at the then-exorbitant price of $2.50 (Playboy, at that time, was $1.25), the impressive 48-page pro-zine features the Ditko story, as well as Action Hero retrospectives and a number of pin-ups, including two exceptional Jim Aparo pages created especially for the zine.

Though lasting only two more issues, CPL left on a high note as the socalled CPL/Gang—which included John Byrne, whose Rog-2000 was zine mascot—went on to produce The Charlton Bullseye, with the penultimate CPL issue featuring perhaps the finest cover ever drawn for a fan publication, Alex Toth’s visually stunning design for #11 [1974].

The Charlton Portfolio debuted at Phil Seuling’s 1974 Comic Art Convention and, “In fact,” Stern explained, “it was at that convention that Nick Cuti saw the art for the first ‘Rog-2000’ strip. And that led to John getting work at Charlton.”94 After that con, Layton went up to visit Charlton and, despite the fact the CPL/Gang “lost our shirts money-wise” on the Portfolio, Wildman pitched an idea to Layton. “[The Portfolio] was real expensive,” Layton recalled, “and it was a huge financial loss. But there’s a silver lining to all that, you know, in the sense that Charlton came back, very impressed with the effort we’d tried to do, and also it was the time of fanzines, the other companies

had discovered there was a market out there for fan magazines, and you had The Amazing World of DC Comics… and Marvel had their FOOM magazine at the time, and both of them were doing fairly well, I understand. I think it was George Wildman who said, ‘I’d like to have something like this.’ Something where the fans could get updates on what they were doing, and just generate some excitement.”95 The Charlton Bullseye premiered at the 1975 Comic Art Con. “We really tried to do something that was highly entertaining and slick,” Layton said, “something that would really draw attention to Charlton. We would swap ads; the deal we’d made with George was we’d run subscription ads in Charlton Bullseye, and he would run ads for Charlton Bullseye in the comics. So, we’d cross-promote the thing. It was a good thing, it worked out well for us.”96 What guaranteed relative longevity for Bullseye was a surprise overture from a convention impresario suggesting the next issue have color covers and who made an offer on how to finance that additional expense. “I wound up with Phil Seuling,” Layton said, “and at the time, he and [West Coast dealer] Bud Plant were really just starting to get the direct market thing together, and Phil made a deal with me that he and Bud would put the money up front, and buy X-amount of copies, and pay up front, This spread: The Charlton Bullseye covers and Alex Toth’s breathtakingly beautiful cover art for Bob Layton’s Contemporary Pictorial Literature fanzine, #11 [1974].

Chapter Fourteen: Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot

that would help me finance the issues.

So, before I went to press, I let them know how many copies that we expected to print, how many they would buy, and I’d bill them in advance, basically, and use the money to publish the book.

So, we really didn’t have to worry at that point about sales too terribly much, they were pretty much in charge of selling the magazine, it was just get the money, publish the thing, ship it off to them.

So, it started working out pretty well, and it took off from there, with Phil and Bud, who were great guys, and savvy businessmen, and they were pretty much able to sell the magazine for us.”97 Providing a living for Layton, the prozine lasted for five issues,* highlighted by a previously unpublished Captain Atom story with Steve Ditko art; interviews with Cuti, Wildman, and Don Newton; Sanho Kim’s Wrong Country #1 24-pager; previously unpubbed E-Man and Doomsday +1 stories; and—the pièce de résistance, Alex Toth’s eightpage story starring The Question.

The prozine may have outlasted Charlton’s super-hero revival, but not professional aspirations. “[Bullseye] lasted a little over a year,” Layton said.

“It didn’t really fade… what happened was, we all went pro! It was like, ‘Who wants to publish fanzines when we could be doing comic books?’”98 Of course, Bob Layton, Roger Stern, and John Byrne did transition into long and successful careers at Marvel Comics… and beyond! *Layton said there was a sixth, unpublished issue of Bullseye, with a focus on Charlton’s female characters behind a Dick Giordano cover and it maybe included a Nightshade story.

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Against the Rising Tide DERBY: 1975 Oldtime Star Trek fans may deny it today, but, in September 1975, there was tremendously eager anticipation for a new syndicated science fiction series set to debut on American TV. British producer Gerry Anderson, renowned for his SF-infused “Supermarionation” kids shows Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, etc., had again teamed with frequent partner, U.K. media mogul and Incorporated Television Company (ITC) head Lew Grade—The Prisoner, The Muppet Show, etc.—to make a live action series set in a high-tech, fantastical future.

Featuring Anderson’s fab futuristic models and outstanding special effects, and combined with the talents of renowned actors, Space: 1999 was poised to capture the enthusiasm and viewership of an audience that included Trekkie fandom.

Such buzz was bound to attract licensing interest and ITC hired Hanna-Barbera to court American manufacturers. “‘Space: 1999 is a merchandiser’s delight, with all the hardware and gadgets and vehicles,’ Gail Munn, director of licensing at Hanna-Barbera Enterprises, said. Apparently, it is also the delight of toy companies.”1 Munn, who would go on to become a licensing executive at Marvel Entertainment and then Filmation, made sure to invite H-B’s comic-book partner.

“I’ll never forget the time I sent Nick [Cuti] to New York, to see this new show coming up called Space: 1999,” George Wildman shared. “I said, ‘When you get done, tell me if this is as good as—or equal to—Star Trek.’ He comes back, ‘Oh man, it was off the wall. It was wonderful,’ and so on.”2 Cuti was indeed excited about Charlton getting the license because, he said, “[It] gave me an opportunity to write [science fiction]. Space opera is my favorite form of SF… I go way back to Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, Space Patrol, and Captain Video!”3 And also eager were a couple of Charlton stalwarts who went to the screening. “We all went to an ITC presentation promoting Space: 1999,” Joe Staton told Rocco Nigro, “and they gave us a nice preview of the first episode, and Joe Gill was there, and anytime something was about to happen (and Joe had never seen the episode before), he’d say, ‘Okay, now he’s going to do such-and-so,’ and then the guy would do exactly what Joe said! And then he’d say, ‘Okay, now she’s got to say…’ and the gal would do it! Joe had all these plots in his head, and he could tell you which ones they were using, click, click, click!… and he would figure it out…’Plot number 84-B, whoops, there it goes!’”4 This spread: Upper right is Gray Morrow’s cover art for Space: 1999 #1 [Nov. 1975] and, opposite, Neal Adams’ dynamic painting for The Six Million Dollar Man #1 [July 1976], sporting a nice likeness to television actor Lee Majors as Steve Austin.

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CHARLTON’S SPACE SHOT A daring decision was made at Charlton to pursue distinct readerships for the newly acquired property. One target was the mature reader with a black-&-white magazine. “Basically, [that was] to try and reach a more adult audience,” Cuti explained. “At the time, the comic books were reaching college students. The biggest buyers of comics were not the kids anymore, but college students. Kids, people who grew up with comics and were now in college. And they were buying Spider-Man and Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and all those comics… Charlton had marketing groups that used to tell us all these things.”5 And, of course, Charlton, the printer of comics as well as magazines, was the perfect outfit to make real their two-pronged strategy.

“George and I were discussing who we’d like to get to be the artists on the comic,” Cuti said. “We had a comic book and a black-&-white magazine, and George suggested, ‘How about Joe Staton? Joe would be perfect for the comic book.’”6

1970s

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

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Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide THE MATTER OF GRAY Thus Joe Staton was selected as artist for the comic book edition of Space: 1999. “But, for the magazine,” Cuti said, “we wanted someone who had more of an illustrator’s style, ’cause, you know, Joe has a very unique style, which wasn’t an illustrator’s style. So I had suggested Gray Morrow.”7 As Cuti was obviously aware, Dwight Graydon Morrow [1934–2001] was the perfect selection for the gig, as he was expertly suited for cover paintings and lush black-&-white interior work (of which he had proven capable while contributing both to Warren Publications). Plus, as an art director, he was intimately connected with a community of exceptional artists who would gather when called and produce beautiful work for him, often at pitiful rates.

Morrow grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he clued into comics early, as well as cartooning and illustration. He attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and, upon moving to New York City in 1955, he met up with Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, and Wallace Wood. After stints with Toby, EC, and Gilberton, Gray Morrow the artist shined at Warren, painting covers and drawing toned, monochromatic stories for the horror line.

Bouncing between companies, he also worked as comic strip ghost artist, science fiction digest illustrator, and, famously, as cover painter of the Perry Rhodan paperback book series.

Cuti explained, “I left Gray to do it all on his own, and whatever he couldn’t handle himself, if there was too much work, he would hand it to some other artist who was also very, very good. None of the other artists who worked on Space: 1999 were bad at all. They were all extremely talented and the work came out really beautiful.”8 While the attitude of Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s Continuity Associates would prove a tad different, Morrow, when approached with an offer to be art director of the b&w edition of Space: 1999, played a bit hard to get. The artist mentioned to the author, “Charlton called me up about this Space: 1999 project. George Wildman made me an offer, which I refused, but, much to my surprise, they got back to me and met my price. They furnished a lot of reference material—movie stills—and I have no idea how well the magazine did, but I guess I did a half-dozen issues. I was strictly an artist for hire and I would deliver the entire package. I enjoyed the assignment very much and wished it had gone on longer—I always enjoyed working in the medium of black-&-white.”9 Curiously, appearing at a 1982 convention devoted to Space: 1999, Morrow recalled getting the assignment differently. “I was contacted by Gail Munn, who was the agent for ITC, to come for a private screening of this fabulous new series that was going to appear on television here in the States. She wouldn’t tell me at the time what my part in it was supposed to be; she wanted to build up a little suspense.

I went and met the English representative and watched what I thought was a pretty damn good show, which I guess was the first episode. Then they asked me if I’d be interested in doing a Space: 1999 comic book, and we went from that.

When you’re working with a two-dimensional medium and you’re trying to compete with a three-dimensional one, your best shot is to make the stories wilder or further out. In other words, attempt to do something they couldn’t do on film, at least not inexpensively. I don’t know how successful we were.

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Spaniards in the Works

Maybe surprisingly for such a soft-spoken, humble gentleman —Neal Adams called him, “very casual and quiet, good-looking, but not maniacally good-looking”10— Gray Morrow was a quintessential “artist’s artist,” one possessing a reserved charisma and extraordinary talent that captured the admiration of other artists. It was at Adams and Giordano’s Continuity Associates studio where he first encountered some foreign-born artists who would become essential to Morrow’s short-though-sweet reign as comics packager extraordinaire, first at Archie Comics on its Red Circle mystery line and then at Charlton on Space:1999 magazine, both periods which featured the work of Morrow’s Spanish compadre.

Comics were one of the few portals to enchanted lands of imagination for Madrid-born Vicente Alcazár [b. 1944]. “I could find relief from the crudeness of the difficult post-Civil War days in Spain,” he told the author. “I consider myself as self-taught through the contact with my peers and the enjoyment that came from so much practice… My first work appeared in 1966, at Fleetway Publications, a British publisher. I drew World War II stories, which I much enjoyed illustrating.”11 Around 1974, Alcazár explained, “During my second trip to New York, I met Neal Adams Vicente Alcázar through our mutual friend, Al Williamson. I showed Neal my published work and he put me in contact with Archie Goodwin, who assigned a short six-page war story for me to do in G.I. Combat, which Archie was editing at the time… For me, Neal was the key to start working in the U.S. Not only did he introduce me to Archie Goodwin, but he also let me rent some space in his offices at 48th St., in Manhattan… Neal’s recognition of my work gave me the opportunity to establish a career in the United States.”12 Adams also facilitated another important connection for Alcazár.

“I met Gray at Continuity Studios shortly after I met Neal,” Alcazár said. “Gray and his wife would drop by every Friday evening and we’d go downstairs to enjoy Rick Morane’s ‘Happy Hour.’ Later, when Gray took to editing the Red Circle titles, he asked me to do some of the stories for the magazine. With Gray, it was friendship at first sight, and I would spend long weekends with him and his wife, first while he was living in Queens and then when he moved to New Jersey.”13 Calling the work he did with Morrow “fun,” Alcazár, who frequently traveled between his work in New York City and his family in Venezuela, said, “Gray gave me freedom to approach those stories whichever way I felt and I experimented with techniques of every kind. Working with Gray as an editor was like working with an ally. He would always trust and support your decisions as an artist.”14 Alcazár then volunteered: “An anecdote: Once one of the artists working for him did not meet the deadline for publication and he asked me to fill in with less than 24 hours before going to print. I did the four pages of the story in that one night and we decided to invent an alias to sign for the

work. That was the first ‘V. Hack’ work that appeared in the magazine and we kept the joke for another issue.”

An early creative partner of Alcazár was Carlo Pino [b. 1940], also from Madrid, who told 2000 AD, “I liked comics from an early age, I suppose like most children of the time.”15 Pino’s first work was published in children’s weekly Pumby and, by the late 1950s, he worked on stories for Spanish titles Duwarin and Three Amigos. In the early 1960s, with Carlos Pino friends Juan Manuel Cicuendez and Almusan, he established the Sagitario art agency. While still in his 20s, Pino met Alcazár and they forged a partnership under the pen-name of Carvic, working together on war stories for the Spanish and British markets. Importantly, they also drew Star Trek serials for TV Century 21, the British weekly. Pino explained, “It seemed that what the British publishers needed in those days were comic artists, and Vicente and I drew ‘Star Trek’ for TV 21, as well as ‘The Saint,’ ‘Department S,’ and some other series that I don’t remember now… We drew [‘Star Trek’] using photos of the characters and backgrounds that the publisher sent through to our agency, as well as watching the show on television when we could. After one of the Royal Mail [postal] strikes, some pages were lost and as we didn’t know how long the strike was going to go on for, we decided to move to England and draw it from there.”16 By 1974, Stephen Jewell wrote, Alcazár and Pino amicably dissolved the partnership and both went to New York City, “where they met the artist Gray Morrow, who worked as an editor on Archie’s Red Circle [imprint] between 1974 and 1975 before shifting to Charlton in 1976. Morrow secured the pair work on titles like Red Circle Sorcery and other Archie books like Super Cops… and Madhouse, as well as Mavel’s Monsters Unleashed,”17 and Charlton’s Space: 1999.

Pino explained, “Neal Adams let us base ourselves at the Continuity Comics studio on 42nd Street, where we shared a studio with artists like Larry Hama, Dick Giordano, and Bob Brown. It was a great experience, and we returned to Madrid with lots of assignments, although I already had a lot of work in the U.K.”18 While Alcazár remained working on U.S. commitments, drawing Jonah Hex and Moon Knight, Pino concentrated on British clients, a market he continues to work for to this day.

Little-known Adolfo Buylla [1927– 1998] was the third Spanish artist associated with Space: 1999, though his excellent work was first encountered by a U.S. audience with his parody strip, “Flash Gordon?,” in the prozine, Heritage #1B [1972] (with the original art owned by Al Williamson!). Primarily perceived as a science fiction artist, he broke into the American market Adolfo Buylla in DC anthology books and Gold Key mystery comics of the ’70s. Also active in British publications, he is probably most widely recognized for illustrating Alan Moore’s “The Pandora Effect” script, in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Monthly #151 [Nov. 1981].

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

I knew the writer Nick Cuti was very enthusiastic and worked very hard on making them as entertaining as possible.”19 Somewhere in all of this, the Charlton assistant editor had recommended Morrow for the gig. “Before Charlton, Gray had gotten me a job at Krantz Animation Studios,” Cuti told the author. “Ralph Bakshi was the director and Gray knew Ralph Bakshi. And we had met over at Bill Pearson’s apartment and he got me that job. And I felt I owed him quite a bit and so, when it came time to decide on who would do the b-&-w magazine of Space: 1999, I recommended Gray Morrow to do it. I was a great admirer of his artwork anyway, and it was no stretch for me because he had a real knack for nailing people’s likenesses. So I owed Gray a big favor. His style was perfect, very illustrative.”20 Morrow proved more than capable at gathering artists to work on a single publication, including Vicente Alacazár, who enlisted other Spanish artists, Carlos Pino and Adolfo Buylla, to help. However short-lived the assignment, Morrow had, after all, only recently completed an exceptional stretch as art director on Archie Comics’ Red Circle sub-imprint, superbly editing Red Circle Sorcery, Madhouse, and The Super Cops one-shot (all to which Alcazár and Pino also contributed).

MAKING THE CUTI CONNECTION Into his teenage years, Brooklyn-raised Paul Kupperberg [b. 1955] was a committed comic book fan. “I was reading everything. I was buying off the stands. I was collecting back issues,” he said to the author. “I was all in. I was doing APAs, going to cons, doing the whole fan conclave thing…” And, with classmate Paul Levitz, he produced The Comic Reader and Etcetera fanzines, with a circulation eventually reaching into the thousands. On the hunt for news, Kupperberg became acquainted with Charlton assistant editor Nick Cuti. “Nick understood fandom—he came from there— and he was always willing to cooperate with us in giving us whatever news he could, plus, in the broadest sense, he was always looking for fan talent, young artists willing to work cheap and not caring [about the rate].”21 Kupperberg had always had a desire to write.

Paul Kupperberg “I wanted to write comic books,” he said, “but I always really wanted to grow up to be Norman Mailer.” And to scratch that itch, he made use of a contact he had made. “After the fanzines and stuff,” he said, “I sold my first professional stories to Charlton in ’75. I called up Nick and said, ‘I’m going to send you a bunch of stories. Would you look at them please?’ And he said, ‘Sure!’”

The young writer then sold five or so scripts to the Derby comics shop. “They were your basic horror five-, six-, eightpagers, whatever,” he explained, “where you try to put in a twist ending. The first was called ‘Distress’ [Scary Tales #3, Dec. 1975], and it was drawn by another newbie at the time, Mike Zeck. That was a five-pager for which I earned the magnificent sum of $25—hey, I got paid, man! Yeah, it was a bunch of that stuff: this bad guy does this thing and the ironic—choke-gasp!—twist ending—all fairly straight forward.”

Thus began Kupperberg’s professional career, though his Charlton stint proved a brief one. “Once I started writing for DC a few months later, I never went back to Charlton to continue writing for them.” He added with a chuckle, “It might have helped to have established any broader client base.”

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Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide PELLOWSKI MAKES THE CHARLTON TEAM Besides Joe Gill and Nick Cuti, Mike Pellowski wrote the Space: 1999 adventures. Born into a hard-scrabble life in New Jersey, Michael Joseph Pellowski [b. 1949] was a young consumer of Batman and Superman comics and, he shared, “When I reached fourth grade, I already knew I wanted to be a writer and/or an artist.”22 After almost falling into juvenile delinquency, Pellowski discovered books and sports, the latter of which propelled him to success on the gridiron. After trials with professional football teams, “I played two years with top semi-pro teams before deciding to take a teaching job. I Mike Pellowski then re-focused on a writing/cartooning career.”

Pellowski found writing gigs with editor Joe Orlando at DC, and, “In 1974, I broke into the Charlton Comics family.

Editor George Wildman sent me a note saying he wanted to buy one of my scripts for Charlton’s horror/mystery line… I sent George more scripts, which he and assistant Nick Cuti both liked.” Soon, he was selling material for the war and romance books, as well as supernatural tales. “I loved working with George and Nick at Charlton because there was a wide variety of titles you could script for—horror, mystery, war, romance, Western, cartoon, and adventure. Plus George Wildman was a great editor. He was never heavy on edits and almost always placed a story with the perfect artist for the job. I found myself frequently paired with Steve Ditko (who I greatly admired; I adored his unique style), Pat Boyette and, later on, Mike Zeck.”23 Pellowski explained, “I never went to Derby, but met with George several times in New York City. Our first meeting was to attend a special private screening of Space: 1999… I stopped working for DC when Charlton offered me an additional job.

George Wildman wanted to do illustrated text pages (one page of three panel art with a short story of 750–1,000 words) instead of letters [pages] for every comic book title in the line… Of course, I accepted. Doing the texts with other script work made me a full-time freelance writer. The text art always gave budding comic artists a chance to showcase their talent. That group included John Byrne and Zeck.”

For the b-&-w mags, the writer shared, “Nick, Joe Gill, and I handled the stories, taking turns writing the leads. The Six Million Dollar Man was fun to work on since the TV show was a hit. Emergency was tough. Luckily, in college I’d had some pre-med courses, so I had some medical background. I had to brush up on medic/firemen facts. There was no room for mistakes. Space: 1999 was exciting to script.

Yes, the concept was out of this world… I was on board from issues #1 with Six Million and Emergency… Sometimes my art directions were very demanding and Neal Adams never complained or skimped. His panels knocked me out!”

Pellowski added, “Unfortunately, I never visited Charlton at Derby or the art studio of Continuity Associates. The plague of the paper shortage ended my association with Charlton, but did not kill my full-time writing career.”

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BRINGING IN THE BIG GUNS As Pellowski made mention of, not long after scoring the Space: 1999 license, Charlton took the identical notion to simultaneously release both comic book and magNeal Adams azine of the same property when, upon signing a contract with Universal Studios, they nabbed rights to TV shows Emergency! and The Six Million Dollar Man. While Morrow was attending to Space: 1999, an outfit run by two of comics’ greatest legends became packagers of the new arrivals.

“Well, what happened was,” Cuti said, “strangely, Continuity [Associates] came to us. Neal Adams [1941–2022] and Dick Giordano saw that we were doing these magazines, and Neal Adams, I think, was intrigued about the possibility of working for a company that he had almost a complete free rein with. Because, you know, I suppose that DC probably put a lot of restrictions on him. I got the impression that Neal kind of liked the idea of working for Charlton because it was a black-&-white [magazine], so his stuff wouldn’t be colored.

And I think he liked that idea. And, also, we used painted covers and that gave him an opportunity to do paintings.”24 This spread: This page is Emergency! #1 [July ’76] cover by Neal Adams; interior page by Adams and Continuity Associates.

Next page top is Jack Sparling’s Six Million Dollar Man #5 [Oct. ’77]; Adams’ cover pencils and final, SMDM #2 [Sept. ’76].

Jack Sparling

Born in Winnipeg, John Edmond Sparling [1916– 1997] (a.k.a. Jack Sparling) studied at the Arts and Craft Club in New Orleans and the Corcoran School of Art. While a cartoonist for the New Orleans Item-Tribune, in 1937, “He modeled in clay a caricature of President [Franklin D.] Jack Sparling Roosevelt in fishing togs.

The president saw a picture of it and expressed a desire to have the original.”25 At only 22, Sparling was flown to D.C., gifted his sculpture to FDR in person and promptly decided to remain in the nation’s capital. The cartoonist got a staff job at the Washington Herald, contributing editorial cartoons and “Who’s Who in Washington” caricature sketches.

Within two years, Sparling’s skill at capturing likenesses caught the eye of columnist Drew Pearson and his writing partner, and they hired him to draw the Hap Hopper comic strip, “a humorous continuity strip about a fictional young newspaperman amid the glamor and

comedy of the nation’s capital.”26 Sparling left that strip in 1943 (succeeded by his friend, Al Plastino, with whom he shared a studio alongside Nick Cardy) and drew PM newspaper strip Claire Voyant until the New York paper closed, in 1948. In the early ’40s, he had started comic book work for Parents Magazine Press and drew the “Nyoka, The Jungle Girl” feature for Fawcett.

Throughout a long career, during which he jumped in and out of syndicated strip work, Sparling was renowned for his speed as an artist and worked for virtually every major comics publisher, including DC in the late ’60s (notably on Secret Six, Bomba, and Green Lantern).

His friend Frank Springer shared one of Sparling’s “secrets of speed”27: Sparling worked on boards not much larger than the dimensions of the printed page.

“He did it nine inches wide,” Springer explained. “Just tiny. And you can cover a page in much shorter time.”28 While taking on a few Charlton jobs over the years, he didn’t freelance for them with any frequency until the mid-’70s, when, after the sudden death of Frank Roberge, Sparling took over the editorial reins of Sick magazine. Lasting in that job from 1977–80, the man had previously contributed to the humor magazine as far back as the 1960s. By

In an interview with Jerry Boyd, Adams explained the agreement with Charlton. “We contacted them by phone and they paid us well,” he said. “We let them know it was a top priority job for us and that we’d please them with the project and the finished work. It was a lucrative project, probably because it was studio-generated.

Charlton paid ‘double-normal.’ We got $100 a page for that magazine. I believe our artists got $50 a page and $50 went into the company. We had the two things—Six Million Dollar Man and Emergency! There were about 55 pages [per issue] and we knocked our butts off to do a very good job. These were, as you know, hot properties.”31 Indeed, Cuti was delighted with the results, which included the work of not just Adams and Giordano, but Continuity’s deep bench of talent. “There were a lot of young artists who were working at the studio and,” Cuti said, “very often, they would get the opportunity to do illustrations for the different books, along with Neal. And they did great jobs, by the way. I don’t ever recall being dissatisfied with

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1976, at the suggestion of his friend Gray Morrow, Sparling was handed art chores on The Six Million Dollar Man, Emergency!, and The Bionic Woman.

Whether the arrangement was formal or not, Sparling organized his own studio, of a sort, a group which included Win Mortimer and Sparling’s son, Jack Sparling, Jr., who became Sick art director.

Writing for Sick, Michael Pellowski sensed that what he thought was funny just didn’t jibe with Sparling. “His art on my scripts was okay, but as an editor… eh! He was rather unfriendly. He used to call me very late at night so his long distance phone calls cost less.”29 Sparling was renowned for his epic beard, which he sported at least since the ’60s, when one newspaper columnist likened it to that of Schweppes Tonic spokesman Commander Whitehead!30

anything that came out of Continuity, even when they handed it to a young artist who was still, you know, feeling his oats, just trying out, they handed it to some really talented young artists. So everything that came out of Continuity was quality stuff.”32 George Wildman (who actually recalled that he contacted Dick Giordano first to see if Continuity might be interested in the job) remembered an incident that involved Santangelo, Sr. He shared, “After an issue or two [of The Six Million Dollar Man and Emergency!], I called Dick and got Neal and I told him, ‘Hey, Neal, everything’s fine and everything, but we’d like to get some samples of the artwork and have it on display for a promotional event. The old man has personally asked for it.’ And he said, ‘You tell the old man, if he wants it, he can pay for it. $200 a page.’ I said, ‘Forget it!’ And the old man says, ‘Who does he think he is?’ And all that. Next thing you know, he said, ‘Screw them. Get two other artists.’ That’s right. So I got Jack Sparling… Everything, all the time, was always money, money, money.”33

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Charlton’s Got Your Handle

Never hesitant to exploit a fad, Charlton jumped into the citizen’s band radio craze with CB Times, a bi-monthly subtitled, “The magazine written for and by CBers.” Cover subjects included then-First Lady Betty Ford (whose CB handle was—you guessed it—“First Mama”) and Claude Akins of the TV series, B.J. and the Bear. One cover was a hilarious painting by Earl Norem.

Calling CB Times the pioneer in the field of “CB fiction,” editor John E. Bartimole told Writer’s Market 1979, he was looking for submissions of “Any type of article which would interest CBers. In other words, nothing to do with CBs is out of bounds. In fact, some of our most popular articles have been extremely offbeat. We pride ourselves in being the only CB magazine which devotes itself primarily to the ‘human’ side of CB.”34 Artist Warren Sattler revealed that he produced comic-book art for Charlton’s magazine, including a “CB Sagas” multi-pager, written by George Wildman (who also starred in the strip!), which was featured in CB Times (though originally conceived as its own comic book). “Yeah, that was a short-lived book,” Sattler told the author. “When that was the craze, Charlton decided to capitalize on it, and George gave me the first story, which he wrote. There’s a picture down in the corner there of George himself.”35 Around that time, the Yang artist also contributed to Defense Combat magazine, with his work illustrating a story about a Japanese soldier hiding out in a South Pacific jungle 30 years after the end of WWII.

The Continuity partner and former Charlton managing editor recalled how the licensing gig went south. Giordano explained, “We said, ‘We’d have to get the artwork back.’

We didn’t pay the freelancers $100 a page because we had to make some money on it; we were dealing with younger artists who would welcome a chance to work, but we were checking every thing they’d do—Neal or I went over every page in pencil, every page in ink, trying to make it as close as we could to the house style at Continuity. George found out (I’d say after two months, and two or three issues into the run) that Charlton’s contract with Universal, which he’d just gotten a copy of, prohibited him from giving us back the artwork. He let us know immediately, because he knew that he was reneging on his part of the deal. And we just stopped right there, cancelled the agreement, and sent him back the reference material. Right in the middle of whatever job we were on!… We were certainly doing the art and lettering, and the tones, because we knew that was in black-&-white.

Most of it was Zip-A-Tone work, but I think one or two stories might’ve been done with halftone. Charlton was never very good with halftones [reproduction], so we never tried to do too much with halftones.”36 Adams shared his overall opinion of the whole affair.

“I thought they were good projects for the studio—our studio—but I don’t know how profitable it was for Charlton,” he said. “Our freelance assistant guys were making income beyond their regular projects. Art-wise, it was good for them.

These were their first jobs and their samples, really. They could show copies of these finished pages around as their work, so from that standpoint, I was happy for them that they’d done these books.”37 PALACE INTRIGUE Comic industry gadfly Joe Brancatelli reported on the 1976– 77 (almost) demise of Charlton Comics in his column, “The Comic Books,” in Creepy #85 [Jan. 1977], and he referenced disorder in the front office at Charlton Press that made mention of a possible power-play involving the boss’s son-in-law and general manager, Ronald T. Scott. “As for Charlton’s comic operation itself,” Brancatelli wrote, “it appeared that the company would remain in the comic business even after a corporate shake-up—which resulted in publisher John Santangelo wresting control from a now-deposed young executive who had married into the family. As late as Wednesday, Sept. 15 [1976], Charlton had decided to continue publishing 19 titles—mostly ghost and love books—and discontinue only those magazines using characters licensed from King Features. But, by Friday the 17th, the word had gone out that Santangelo had decided to gut comics production altogether.”38 The shutdown would last for about seven months.

(The muckraking piece also included this description of the company: “Charlton was, analysts will eventually write, one of the few general-interest periodical publishers to maintain long-term interest in comic books. Even today, it remains a small but powerful force in the consumer market, buoyed by its perennial best-seller, Hit Parader, a horde of crossword puzzle books, a number of ‘hot’ citizens-band radio magazines, and just enough fad titles to keep roiling along.”)39 This page: CB Times [May 1977] with Earl Norem cover painting and Warren Sattler CB Sagas page starring George Wildman!

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Capital’s Hustler Hassle

Say what you will, but Larry Flynt’s Hustler was one of the greatest success stories in American magazine publishing during the 1970s.

Whatever its virtue or its vice, like Playboy in the 1950s (and beyond), Flynt’s “skin mag” constantly pushed the boundaries of what was—and what wasn’t—determined to be pornography.

And Hustler was a saga that started with a million-dollar advance from John Santangelo, Sr., whose Capital Distributing boasted, at the time, it had a network of 700 wholesale distributors.40 Capital’s vice president and Santangelo son-in-law, Ronald T. Scott recalled it was either February or March 1974, when he met with Ohio-based nightclub owner/entrepreneur Flynt and Ronald L. Fenton, former publisher of Gallery magazine, to discuss combining forces and starting a new men’s periodical.41 “Capital Distributing wasn’t exactly a giant in the business,” Flynt wrote in his memoir. “It handled titles like Country Song Roundup, Hit Parader, and a few comic books. But they were aggressive and on the lookout for a magazine with mass appeal. Capital had contacted Fenton when Gallery went belly-up and encouraged him to start a new publicaThis page: Hustler #1 [July 1974], Larry Flynt’s “skin” magazine initially distributed by Capital Distribution; Jan. 1980 issue of Eros, the mag Charlton launched to compete with Hustler; and report of Flynt prevailing over Charlton, from the Cincinnati Enquirer, Nov. 27, 1980.

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tion. Fenton said he had no money but knew someone who did—me. Fenton and I went to Derby and were greeted

by Capital’s vice-president, Ron Scott. I told Scott that I was ready to invest in a national men’s magazine, and he said, ‘Fine! Fenton has it, and it’s going to be called Pleasure.’ ‘I’d like to see it called Hustler,’ I replied. Scott didn’t like the name. He thought it had bad connotations and said, ‘You know, it sounds like somebody ‘“hustling” some­body else, or maybe a magazine about hookers.’ We argued for a while. Scott kept holding out for the name Pleasure, and I kept insisting on Hustler. Finally I stood up, looked at him across the desk, and said, ‘If it’s named Hustler, I’ll put up the money. If it’s Pleasure, good-bye!’ He caved in.

‘Okay, okay.’”42 The agreement signed was to advance Flynt $1 million to get the ball rolling on the magazine’s production, and for Capital to pay 65¢ a copy for the magazine, which was to have a retail price tag of $1.25. Over its first 11 issues, Hustler magazine grossed $11.5 million from sales. Flynt later confessed that he finally realized he and Hustler were successes when he deposited a $1.2 million check from Capital.43 The process worked like this: wholesalers collected the money for copies sold, deducted their commissions, and sent the balance to Capital. Capital then deducted its freight and postage expenses—and commission—and sent the balance to the magazine.

(Flynt would brag that, when Hustler was $1.75, he personally made 96¢ from each copy sold.)44 “Hustler was on the road to success,” Flynt shared in his autobiography, “but it was a rocky one… Capital Distributing was nervous all the time and wanted to review the contents of each issue before shipping it to wholesalers.

I found myself flying the paste-ups and layouts to meetings with Capital people every month. It was a constant pain in the ass.”45 Soon, Flynt determined that middlemen such as Capital were “making too much money and that they were taking too much time to pay for the copies…

‘I didn’t like the old rules, so I decided to change them a bit.’”46 The newspaper account continued, “Flynt formed his own national distribution network to handle Hustler… [and] demanded that wholesalers distributing Hustler pay for their copies in advance, and told retail merchant that Capital would no longer distribute his magazines. He also sued Capital for breach of contract.”47 Flynt was demanding $4.5 million from the Derby publisher.

In answer to the loss of distributing Hustler, Charlton produced its own skin mag in the form of Eros, “the magazine of decadent sophistication,” which lasted from 1978 to at least the mid-1980s.

An Ohio newspaper reported about the trial in U.S. District Court. “‘Capital controlled all of our money,’ Flynt testified, noting that the magazine received most of its income through newsstand sales rather than advertising. ‘If they didn’t pay on time… it affected the entire method of the way we did our business.”48 The federal court agreed with Flynt and Capital was ordered to pay the skin magazine mogul $3.7 million for the money owed, plus six percent interest.49

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Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide LAST HURRAH WITH HANNA-BARBERA Michael Ambrose put it nicely describing the Derby publisher’s Hanna-Barbera comics: “Undoubtedly both Charlton and King made lots of dough from all the licensed comics, however despised they might have been by true fans, collectors, or foreign publishers. They put out tons of them for almost a decade and they’re still plentiful on the back-issue market—and rare to find in non-beat-up condition, which, if nothing else, indicates they were read and reread by lots of kids.”57 A second—and final —wave of H-B comics came in late Winter 1975 when six new titles were released: Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Valley of the Dinosaurs, Hong Kong Phooey, Korg: 70,000 B.C., Speed Buggy, and Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch. Of those series, the one to later receive the most fan notice was John Byrne’s work on Wheelie after he became a big name artist at Marvel,* but knowledgeable cartoonists rave about the work of Alfred Owen Williams [1918–1986]—Bill Williams—who memorably drew Scooby Doo, Speed Buggy, and The Great Grape Ape (the latter arriving in ’76). The artist, raised in Battle Creek, Mich., was hired as animator by Walt Disney Studios, and he worked on Fantasia, Dumbo, and The Reluctant Dragon. After serving in the U.S. Army Bill Williams Air Corps, he went to New York and established a multi-faceted career in advertising and children’s books, as well as comics, notably with writer John Stanley on a stretch of Henry Aldrich. Williams had his own single-panel strip, Dolly [1965–71], worked for agency Johnstone Cushing (“Pee-Wee Harris,” in Boy’s Life, from 1960–63), and contributed to Dennis the Menace comics in the 1970s. (Also worth noting is his wonderful beatnik title, Kookie [Dell, 1962].) His brief Charlton stint produced charming material— Scott Shaw! called it, “outstanding cartooning”58—but, with Charlton soon on hiatus, the H-B license moved to Marvel. *Byrne shared with the author, “Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch is what I consider my first ‘full book’—entire issues with nothing but my work on the main pages. It was the most work Charlton was able to offer at the time (a short while before Doomsday +1), and I took it with the intended approach that, if I was going to do a book like this, then I would be the Carl Barks of Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch!

Unfortunately, H-B thought my drawings were too ‘scary’ (they were published unchanged in my first issues, so judge for yourself), and insisted that Charlton order me to tone it down. That kinda sucked the fun out of the book, and I became very robotic in my approach, just drawing the pictures and not really putting anything into them. I found myself unable to work that way and quit the book to concentrate full-time on Doomsday, which was in the offing by then.”59

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LICENSE TO FAIL In Dec. 1977, when Donnie Pitchford made mention during a telephone conversation that Marvel now held the H-B license, George Wildman ruminated on how comics were becoming a losing proposition for Charlton. “We’re a one-man outfit…

Santangelo… he owns the whole operation,” the managing editor said about his then-78-year-old boss, “and one of his first steps, because we’d lost considerable amounts of money on comics, was to curtail all licensed properties, that’s the first thing we jettisoned or dumped.”60 But, at that same time, Charlton was still publishing titles licensed from Universal, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Referring to the extended 1976–77 hiatus when the publisher stopped producing comics, Wildman said, “Yeah, we just held the rights to those, even though we didn’t publish for seven months, Universal couldn’t go anywhere else. And then, when we did come back, we talked again with Universal and they said, ‘Okay, fine, go ahead.’ Of all the licensed properties, those are the only two that’s left… they do well for us.”61 Wildman then revealed the King Features licensing of the late ’60s/early ’70s wasn’t, in fact, all that profitable. “I’ll tell you, [Santangelo] is very sour on paying royalties and licensing. We suffered terribly on all the King stuff. When we went downhill, it just seemed like the roof fell in on everything.

But, at that same time, Marvel and DC and Warren were rerunning a lot of reprint material, whereas we held our heads high, we never did, and we slowly died. Just due to costs. I was always very proud of our line of books, but if you have 40 odd titles and only two of them are making money, you don’t have to be very bright to see what happens.”62 DERBY’S SICK DAYS Sick was the MAD magazine knock-off created by comics great Joe Simon in 1960, and, in his memoir, Simon explained the event that brought his creation to Charlton: “We sold Sick magazine to Pyramid, and they kept me on as packager.

After a few years, I stepped aside, and my son Jim took over with Jerry Grandenetti as his art director. Then the owner of Pyramid dropped dead on the golf course. The company was acquired by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a highbrow book publisher who decided they didn’t want to be in the magazine business. They sold the title Sick to Charlton in 1976.”63 Charlton’s Sick barely outlasted the decade, ending after 26 issues with their Fall 1980 edition, plus a couple of Sick Specials. It is perhaps telling that Simon mentions that only the Sick name was sold, having no comment regarding the actual contents of the prior 108 issues and innumerable specials.

Former Beetle Bailey assistant Frank Roberge edited the first few Charlton issues of Sick before dropping dead while at his drawing board, and then Jim Simon was credited as editor for the next two or three issues, and finally Jack Sparling, better known as a comic book artist, edited the remainder of the run.

“STOP COMICS!” For the artist known as PAM, the 1976 shutdown of Charlton Comics was a particularly ironic event. After 20 years in the New York Police Department, he put in for retirement from his uniformed dispatcher job. So, with his career on the force behind him, the cartoonist was primed to dedicate himself full-time to comics and, importantly, now able to tell the world of fandom not just his initials, but his real name. Peter Anthony Morisi was all set to get back into the game… with a vengeance. But suddenly Charlton made a disheartening announcement. Discussing the irony with him 25 years later, an interviewer found an ambivalent ex-cop.

Glen D. Johnson: Your retirement and Charlton’s closing down its operation came about the same time. This must have been an upsetting time for you when you had looked forward to devoting your time to writing and drawing comics and suddenly having all the time you wanted but no outlet for your work. Did this frustrate you?

Pete Morisi: Uh-huh, but them’s the breaks. Looking back, I’m happy that I was able to produce stuff with a reasonable amount of quality, given my NYPD work schedule.50 In Morisi’s memory, “I was working on one script and had three more back-up scripts ready to go. When the call came, I sent everything back.”51 But Wildman said, “When we stopped, artists who had assignments, I didn’t curtail their assignments, they were allowed to finished, so, in about a two- or three-month period, I built up a lot of inventory. It just kept coming in, even though we weren’t publishing.”52 Asked who was it that called with the bad news, Morisi answered, “A Charlton associate editor named Pearson.”53 William E. Pearson [b. 1938] had been hired only months before the stoppage, and the former Wallace Wood assistant and publisher of the top-notch prozine, witzend, replaced an assistant editor who just didn’t make the grade. Nick Cuti explained, “What happened was there was so much work at Charlton. We had gotten Space: 1999, a comic book, and it was a black-&-white magazine, as well. We had gotten The Six Million Dollar Man. We had a whole batch of things to write, and it was more than Joe Gill could handle—even the great Joe Gill—which was surprising. I was writing more and more stories, and finally I told George, ‘Look George, where do you need me more: as your assistant or as a freelance writer?’ So he says, ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Nick, I really need another freelance writer.’ So I said, ‘Fine! What I’ll do is leave the post of assistant editor.’ I already had an assistant [“Barbara somebody”], and they hired another fellow by the name of Paul Delpo, and he became the assistant editor.”54 Cuti continued, “Paul Delpo didn’t quite work out, and George was looking for someone to replace Paul, and I recommended Bill Pearson. Bill was a good friend of mine and he was a close friend of Wally Wood’s, and he was looking for work. So I recommended Bill, and George interviewed him and liked Bill, so he hired Bill as assistant editor.”

In an essay written for Bhob Stewart’s Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, Pearson shared, “A few months after I was employed by Charlton, the still feisty 80-yearold founder of the company, John Santangelo, Sr., who had turned over most of the administration of the company to others, discovered the over-extended comics department was losing a lot of money. His order: ‘Stop comics!’ No review, no adjustment, no maneuvering to minimize losses. Just ‘Stop comics!’ The entire staff (except George) was terminated that

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

day. The presses were stopped in mid-run, the bindery closed down, trucks unloaded, titles abandoned at whatever stage of production they were at, without exception. John Santangelo was not a man noted for subtlety.”55 Pearson returned to work with Woody (who not long beforehand had moved to Derby at the urging of Wayne Howard) and Cuti went to the big city to look for work. Joe Gill sidled over to the magazines, joined by Wildman who was regulated to designing magazine covers. Pearson visited on occasion, he said, “to see George, who sat alone in the large, open room filled with desks, files, and drawing boards that about 20 people had previously occupied.”56 The Comic Reader #136 [Oct. 1976] ran a death notice for Charlton’s comics division, but it proved premature, as the line was restarted when Modern times came to Derby.

This page: Clipping from The Comic Reader #136 [Oct. 1976] with ominous (and premature) news of the death of Charlton Comics, an event which wouldn’t actually occur until ten years later, though the line was seriously curtailed from hereon.

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Charlton’s Modern Age

One of comics’ weirder curiosities happened in the late ’70s with the sudden appearance of Modern Comics, an unfamiliar comics imprint. Strangely, the publications themselves were less than modern, as they were, except for new ads, all-reprint—virtually page for page, including even the letters pages—of 60 different Charlton comic books from the ’60s and ’70s—including a stack of Action Heroes issues. Before the end of 1978, Modern Comics just as quickly vanished and, if fandom was a mite slow in recognizing its brief existence, that’s to be forgiven as none of the six million or so printed copies ever made it to a newsstand—at least not by original intent.

Charlton’s first deal with Modern Promotions, a New York City wholesale publishing outfit­, were the “Giant Comic Albums” of 1972, which Charlton compiled and printed for Modern. The nine different titles, each featuring a King Features property (including Flash Gordon), were formatted at 11" x 14", amounting to 52 pages, with cardboard covers, black-&-white interiors comprising reprinted newspaper strips, and cover-priced at 59¢. They were presumably jobbed out to retailers to sell at a discount or for promotional purposes.

In the spring of 1977, with the division at a standstill (after the “old man” ordered, “Stop comics!”), the president of Modern Promotions came to Derby to strike a deal. In Charlton Comics assistant editor Bill Pearson’s memory, the comics division was still in

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the main plant when Ronald Gold visited Charlton to make a business proposition to Santangelo, Sr., with George Wildman sitting in on negotiations. Pearson was instructed mid-meeting to find the stats and negatives for 30 different, randomly selected comics stored in the archives.

After an agreement was signed, Pearson created a logo for “Modern Comics” to print on the covers in place of the original Charlton logo, and to be emblazoned on shipping/storage boxes to distinguish the two comics lines.

Overall, Modern had contracted the Derby company to produce 20 sets of Modern “Pak of 3 Comics,” with each copy’s colophon crediting Modern Promotions as publisher and identifying it as being a division of Unisystems, Inc. Oddly, all the comics were copyrighted to Charlton’s own in-house department, Tops Photo Engraving Corporation.

In a phone chat seven months or so after the deal was made, Wildman told Donnie Pitchford the press runs were significant and resulted in the comics division being resurrected, as he shared, “You’ll notice, if you ever see any of these, they’ll be sold probably in discount stores by the pack, maybe three in a bag. A jobber out of New York came to us back along in May. That’s the first thing that really got us going. We started up our press again, I hired the crew back, and he purchased 30 titles outright, one-shot deals, and we ran 100,000 [of each], we ran three million [total] for him. He drummed up a name, Modern Comics, I took [the] Charlton [logo] off—stripped them, on the cover particularly, of anything Charlton—and we ran ’em, we ran three million of them, and that got us going again, and when that order was finished, we decided, ‘Well, let’s stay in it, now,’ and we came out with this new format. And that’s where we are.”64 Wildman told the author it was a win-win for Charlton as there were no returns. “It was a merchandising type thing. They would sell them to department stores—Caldor, Wal-Mart, name any chain stores you could think of. And our people didn’t have to worry about distribution on these. They tried it, but I don’t think it worked. You buy them

outright. Here’s how it worked: J.C. Penney would buy 100,000 from us and they could then advertise, ‘Buy a T-shirt and get three comics for free.’ The comics were used for merchandising.”65 The deal with Modern was redoubled by 1978 with another 30 titles printed, amounting to ten new bagged sets. “When I started working there,” employee Emilio Polce said, “they started a new thing, packaging three comic books together into this bag… They were trying to be new. And they had contracts to distribute other [publishers’] stuff, so they were trying to stay relevant and keep business coming in.”66 As an entity, Modern had began with Edward Lampert, who found success in his building supply business, then decided to get into publishing. “In 1956,” the Boston Globe explained, “he co-founded Unisystems, a New York-based publishing company. From that grew Modern Promotions, a book distribution firm that, in the same year, 1956, helped establish book departments in discount stores, a new concept at the time.”67 The company was eventually renamed Modern Publishing and, by 1993, it released 30–40 “different series of children’s books each year and then packages each series as a display unit. As Lawrence Steinberg, Modern’s president, points out: one book gets lost in the midst of many other books, but six books make a display and, hence, are much more visible.”68 In 2012, Steinberg sold Modern to Kappa Books,69 though the imprint continues today as a division of Kappa, a children’s book publisher.70

Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide KEEPING AFLOAT Pearson was called back to work in early 1977 just in time to help with the Modern Comics project. “When the department was reactivated seven months later,” he said, “George was authorized to rehire three staff people; his secretary, Greta; Helen, [the color separator supervisor], and me.”71 Comics historian Bhob Stewart (also a former Wood assistant and a scripter for King Comics) went to visit friend Pearson in the late ’70s. “They had a skeleton staff, and I went into the editorial production room and I was stunned.

Here was this giant room with a sea of drawing boards, and there were only four people working there. There was Bill Pearson, assistant editor; George Wildman, managing editor, who sat at this round desk at the front of the room; a woman colorist; and staff writer Joe Gill. George’s desk was fascinating because people from all sides could put stuff on it; it was obviously created with the idea that tremendous production would be going on, with things going in different directions.

I talked with Joe and he said, ‘It looks like things are slowing down here, Bhob, and I think I have to get out of here. I should get connected to do work for other companies.”72 Things would never be the same for Charlton, as Pearson related. “When we went back into production, there were several unpublished stories sitting on the shelves; those were used up quickly once the schedule was established, and management was firmly opposed to spending anything for

Kirchner’s Commentary

New Haven native Paul Emile Kirchner [b. 1952] attended Cooper Union School of Art in 1970, where future letterer Janice Chiang introduced Paul Kirchner to comics artist/writer/editor Larry Hama, and soon the burgeoning artist was acquainted with pros Neal Adams, Ralph Reese, and Tex Blaisdell, who took on the young man as assistant on the Little Orphan Annie daily strip. After that gig ended, Kirchner met Wallace Wood through Reese and became Woody’s assistant. He said, “One day, when I was working with Wood, Wayne Howard dropped over.

[He] had made a fruitless visit to DC and Marvel to try to pick up some work… I hit it off immediately with Paul KIrchner Wayne and we became good friends.”76 Kirchner added, “Wood had two friends in the area besides Wayne and me. Nick Cuti and Bill Pearson were old friends, both of whom worked at Charlton. Nick would occasionally go shooting with Wayne, Woody, and I, a weekly outing for us. Nick had only one gun, an 1896 Mauser ‘Broomhandle’ pistol, a real curio. It inspired a detective character he created, Michael Mauser.

“I sometimes helped Wayne with Midnight Tales stories and took a couple of assignments from Charlton myself. Charlton paid abysmally and I am not proud of the work I did for them—admittedly, I hacked it out. Wayne did his best, but he too understood it was a low-rent operation. Once he called to see if I were finished doing backgrounds on some pages for him. Still not entirely confident with my inking, I said, ‘Yes, I hope they’re good enough.’

Wayne asked, ‘Are they done?’ I said ‘Yes.’ Wayne said, ‘Then they’re as good as they need to be.’”77 Kirchner, who later worked for Heavy Metal and High Times, added, “I wrote dialogue for my story, ‘The Valley of Death,’ inked it, and sold it to Charlton in Scary Tales, the only Charlton work on which I would have a writing credit, if I remember correctly.”78

new material. So we suggested running one reprint story per issue to help stretch the available material. Big mistake.

The idea of reprinting stories had not occurred to anyone in management. Once the idea was presented, however, it was embraced wholeheartedly. Soon, of course, Charlton was all-reprint, and we managed to bring in a small profit thereafter—enough to keep our small staff of four and a few freelancers on the payroll.”73 CHEAPER WITH A DOZEN George Wildman had been tardy in keeping up a steady correspondence with Donnie Pitchford, though the editor intended to tell his fellow Popeye fan that he was, on the sly, drawing the famous Sailor Man for Western Publishing (with Pearson scripting the adventures). “I meant to write that to you in one of my letters,” Wildman said in a Dec. ’77 phone chat, “but then things got rather hectic the last year-and-ahalf up there at the plant, you know.” But he assured his penpal that Charlton was cautiously clawing its way back into the comics game. “I’m still there, but we’re back with a very small schedule. We have 12 books… What we’re doing is putting together those books out of old material, to be very honest. You look in the indicia and you’ll see it’s all reprints.”74 “CHAPS O’KEEFE” AT CHARLTON Keith Chapman was already wellacquainted with comics—albeit of the British variety—by the time he wrote for Charlton in the mid-’70s, having replaced Michael Moorcock as an editorial assistant at Fleetway House, and later working for Brit comics imprints Micron and Odhams, writing Keith Chapman for weeklies and annuals. In 1967, he moved to New Zealand, working in magazines and newspapers, along the way sending scripts for Charlton’s supernatural titles for a spell. In 1992, long after Charlton, he started writing Western novels under his clever pen name, “Chaps O’Keefe.”

Chapman had the misfortune to engage Charlton during a downturn, having five or so tales published (though he probably sold some never drawn). “I would have liked to have written more,” the British author shared, “but Charlton’s fortunes were already in serious decline. In Dec. 1975, executive editor George Wildman, who had accepted every one of my ‘great’ stories for his ghost comics, wrote, ‘At present I have more than enough scripts on file. Try me much later.’ The following June, managing editor Paul Delpo wrote, ‘We are again cutting back on comic titles and inventory. As a result, freelance scripts are being curtailed and we will only have enough work for our regular staff. As to how long this policy will remain in effect, I don’t know.’ By then, I was established in New Zealand as the chief sub-editor of a women’s magazine and had a young family to support. So, basically, it was goodbye to comic books, since the Kiwis [New Zealanders] published none of their own. A few years later, Transworld Feature Syndicate of New York, who’d sold a story of mine to a ‘confessions’ magazine, offered George another ghost script. He returned it to me, writing, ‘I am sorry to say that at the present time we are not accepting any outside material due to our small production schedule of only 12 titles. We are using up inventory on hand plus reprinting old material.’”75 CONTINUED ON PG. 233

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My Charlton Story

by Bill Pearson What follows are my own memories and second-hand anecdotes from fellow workers, relatives, and acquaintances of the people mentioned, all from a half-century ago. I make no guarantee of authenticity of any part. It’s just as I remember it…

DESTINATION DERBY I had the odd feeling that I was Captain Easy, dropping off the side of an empty railroad car, slowing at the edge of a small town, in the dead of night, in the year 1935. Anything was possible. I might meet a beautiful young woman in trouble, or a frightened boy who had a secret he could tell only to the stranger he’d just met, or— Well, it was actually 1975, and I’d arrived in my old Chevy from metropolitan Phoenix, already hired, sight unseen, at the small Connecticut town where Charlton Comics was located. I was a bachelor, open to new acquaintances, confident I would fit in easily as the new assistant editor. Nick Cuti, an old buddy who I’d taught how to write comic book stories, was quitting that job to write fulltime. Charlton was expanding, having taken on the King Features and HannaBarbera franchises to produce new comics, and Nick could write almost as fast as the in-house dynamo, Joe Gill. He could make a lot more money as a freelancer and knew I was barely scraping by at the time trying to make a living as a freelance commercial artist back in Arizona.

He had convinced George Wildman, the editor, that I was fully qualified to take his place on staff.

The perception that Derby and the Charlton company were stuck back in 1935 persisted from the beginning. I had a frame of reference. I’d toiled for years in the Big Apple, New York, New York, in modern art studios including Wallace Wood’s grungy uptown studios.

The comparisons to this town and place were remarkable. Ninety percent of the This page: Bill Pearson’s witzend #12 [’82] was published (with help from one of the Charles behind Charlton’s name) while at the company. Art by George Bush.

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population were Italian Americans, Roman Catholics, and religion was very important in all areas of their lives. It was only an hour or so from there to Manhattan by train or car, but few ever made the trip. It might as well have been across the ocean.

Dennis Janke, new to the area, who later made a fortune illustrating the “Death of Superman,” often joined me for breakfast in a restaurant close to the Charlton building. He was crazy enamored with a young Italian girl who’d just been hired as a waitress. All young Italian girls are incredibly beautiful, which I’d observed with pleasure for years, but I warned him, “Dennis, that girl has been bred to have babies, many babies, and if you get close enough to give her a kiss, you’ll be the father of those babies.” I knew the guy had ambitions for a career in art, unencumbered by a large family, and he knew it too, so he cooled off. He did get married a few years later, so I hadn’t discouraged him totally.

The typewriters in use at the Capital Distribution offices, occupying close to a quarter of the Charlton building, as well as in the editorial offices, were of that 1930s vintage, in a time when computers were starting to appear in almost every business in the country. The owner of the company was a superficially amiable man who could turn into a tyrant in an instant if provoked. John Santangelo, a crafty old curmudgeon of about 80 years of age, didn’t want anyone more intelligent than he was working for him, and would fire anyone he suspected was. He kept a large operation going for decades, but could have built that operation many

times over if he’d had the self-confidence to hire more talented people. But, in his mind, anyone smarter than he was would attempt to take over and throw him out! And, after all, he would! Just my opinion.

WORKING WITH WILDMAN Wildman and I got along right from the start. I respected him as my superior, but he didn’t try to force his authority unless crossed, so I didn’t question anything he instructed me to do. George had a very friendly and cheerful demeanor, and was fast with quips and conversation with anyone who turned up, other staff people, or strangers from outside the company. He was a natural manager of a small staff, and our little gang produced a new comic book every weekday. Five new comic books every week. A previous editor had demanded kickbacks, a dollar or two from every assignment he gave freelancers, but George was a cartoonist himself for years before he got this job, and wouldn’t have done anything like that. Freelancers were coming and going all the time, sometimes bringing along fellow cartoonists looking for work. I met many I’d admired for years in my youth.

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Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide We were a busy little factory!

There were about 20 people on staff in the office every day, including about ten middle-aged women who did the color separations, based on shorthand color guides, for the engravers. Their supervisor was a woman named Helen Popowski, who I made a connection with immediately when I told her my mother was also named Helen, which was the truth. There was Greta Klimas, Wildman’s secretary, and a novice secretary, a cute, curvy blond too young for me, alas.

There were a couple of young production people below editor status, who sat just behind me, and three characters I’ll try to describe in more detail a few paragraphs below, after offering a wider description of where we were and what had come before I turned up.

There was a basic chain of command, but being the legitimate boss of any particular department meant little.

The actual boss of any department in the production areas was the toughest guy there. If anyone had a complaint, they took it right to the top man. When George Wildman, my boss, made a suggestion about shipping, the old man put George right on the line with the lowest, least respected members of his company to try it out. I know because I was right there next to him. In the old tiger’s mind, everyone working for him had exactly the same status, someone who could be fired instantly for any or no reason. I saw it happen. He fired a longtime employee for walking too slow, for example. When I met Mr. Santangelo walking in the hall, I would say “Good morning, sir,” but nothing else, hoping he wouldn’t find something about me he didn’t like.

The sprawling Charlton building didn’t have a sign on it anywhere to boast the name. Santangelo himself had built the main structure, laying the millions of bricks and spending months of intensive labor to complete it. That must have been around the mid-’30s.

Additions were made over the years.

A second floor, an immense basement.

It was a complex warren full of giant machinery and the largest rolls of paper I’d ever seen. The biggest press filled an entire room, the size of a dinosaur, which turned out comics on both sides simultaneously in a steady stream at a fantastic speed. Someone told me it had been purchased from DC Comics when that company upgraded to more modern presses, but I doubt if that’s really true.

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Someone else told me it was made in Germany.

There were doors on every side of the building, or three sides I was aware of. One side had railroad tracks running along next to it. I don’t think Charlton ever distributed their magazines by rail, but they might have in the early years. I was curious and stuck my nose in every corner. The employees were suspicious of me, figuring I was checking to see if they were working or goofing off. For years after I’d left, I often dreamed about wandering through that building.

Our building, a block away, was part of a modern complex, a photography studio on one side and a bowling alley on the other. There was a big bold “Charlton Comics” sign above the door.

It was far more impressive than the old gray brick building where she was expected, but Dolly Parton swept in one day with just one attendant trying to keep up with her, and asked for a drink of water after George told her where she was supposed to go. I later saw several candid snapshots of poor Dolly, squashed in the crowded magazine room, trying to look pleased at her fans who had featured her on the cover and interior pages of a special magazine devoted to her.

MEETING THE CREW I believe it was the second day of my employment that I circled the room and introduced myself to the other staff members, since George had simply pointed to the desk I was assigned the day before without telling anyone else who I was or what I was supposed to do.

Just before starting a regular schedule of comics, around 1950, with an oversized bottle of wine on the table, Santangelo had assembled several comics pros known by his new editor, probably Al Fago, and promised he’d keep them busy and pay promptly for their work as long as the company lasted, but that pay would be half what they regularly received from other publishers.

He knew, apparently from that same editor, that comics work was irregularly available and pay either late or never made. Three of those sitting in at that original meeting were still there on staff in the 1970s, but paid as freelancers at little more than the same rate they had agreed to at the beginning. That’s the main reason Joe Gill had achieved a reputation as the most prolific writer in the

industry. He wrote most of Charlton’s titles for years, and was not happy that Nick Cuti was now writing more stories until George convinced him that his own output would not be diminished, since the number of their titles had just about doubled. Joe sat in the very back, his typewriter usually chattering as background noise until early afternoon, when he left for the day.

I got to know Joe fairly well, and he was a definite character, worthy of a biography that never happened.

Before Charlton, Joe had walked into the small office he shared with a fellow comic book writer, a guy named Mickey Spillane, and scoffed at the drivel Mickey was turning out. “You’re wasting your time,” Joe groaned, “That will never sell.” Why Gill didn’t try writing novels himself after Spillane scored with I, The Jury remains a mystery.

Joe had an invalid wife, and she was very demanding. He couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night, and told me he’d read every book in every library in the state over the years he’d lived there.

He was a serious gambler and sometimes came in bragging about a big sum he’d won at one sport or another. But he never confided how much he’d lost the other days. He’d had a serious heart attack, but recovered beyond the recommended therapy, and played handball competitively with much younger men. Early one morning he got a phone call from the police. The cop very indelicately said, “Someone just shot off half the top of your son’s head.” I’d met the handsome young man, who was probably killed in a drug deal gone bad.

One day, Joe’s typewriter stopped, he stood up, put on his hat, and walked toward the front door. As he passed the partition separating Wildman from the rest of us, I heard George say, “Joe, I need a six-page Billy the Kid.” Joe turned around, took off his hat, and within a minute or two, his typewriter was again in action. No more than 20 minutes later, he stood up, put on his hat, and tossed a six-page Billy the Kid script over the partition onto Wildman’s desk on his way out the door.

The other two remaining from that original meeting with the boss were Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia. Both had been at the edges of the comics industry for years, technicians without original ideas, who were satisfied to have steady employment and comfort-

able spots to anchor their desks. They were best with romance stories. Joe could dream up infinite ways for two young people to meet, fall in love, part angrily, and reunite in eight pages. When the company stopped publishing new material, I found a two-foot high stack of original Gill authored Nicholas/Alascia pages in the basement, hundreds of stories that would never see print. He was cheap, beyond frugal, but the old man was as good as his word. He kept those three men employed to the very end.

Nicholas could draw, but his work had been bland for a long time, and Alascia’s inking was what I’d call rudimentary. Together they were adequate, certainly professional, equal to many of the Charlton artists. Charlie had a big cigar in his mouth continuously all day, a big ash at the end always on the verge of falling. He spent a lot of time telling off-color jokes to the color separation ladies. When I first came to Alascia’s desk to say hello, his pen splattered. He looked up at me, perspiring profusely, and said “I’m just breaking in a new nib.” The poor guy was afraid I, who’d just been hired the day before, was going to fire him and toss him with his drawing board out onto the street.

When people showed up with their samples to see if they could get work, or sent samples in the mail, I was the one who decided if they could handle professional assignments or were amateurs who I’d try to steer back to art school or on to another profession. We received many submissions. When Dennis Janke first showed up in person, I told him he was too good for Charlton, which would pay him for his work, but that he was good enough for my magazine, witzend, which wouldn’t pay him anything. He never did any work for Charlton, but he contributed a terrific story and a cover to witzend, and went on to ink hundreds of DC comics.

Mike Zeck was another cartoonist who came to the company about the same time I did. He was okay at first, but improved more and more with every assignment. I can’t prove it, but I think Mike would agree that it was a full-page drawing of a dodo—yes, a dodo—that appeared in witzend that got him into Marvel Comics, and his work at Marvel that got him into DC, where he really soared. A truly fabulous artist.

Not long after I was getting adjusted to my duties, a bossy middle-aged

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

woman, whose name I’ve forgotten (I’ll call her Helga) showed up one day with a contract from King Features to produce a series of educational comics describing various occupations using the King Features characters, which Charlton was to produce. I never knew the arrangement between King and Charlton. She’d done considerable research, scanning early to recent comics to find stories that could be reformatted to go along with her scripting. This was a little more complicated than our usual routine, but we managed to work with her without too much aggravation.

Helga’s only previous association with comics was having worked with a Golden Age comic book cover artist, L.B. Cole, who she very much admired.

She had apparently produced several school textbooks, and obviously considered this project a step below her usual hardcover publications.

I was amused to discover that the Flash Gordon comic she’d selected was an issue I’d written years before for King Comics. The reason she picked this issue was because it was a two-part booklength story. In the first part, Dale saved Flash, in the second part Flash saved Dale. Helga only used the first half. I’d written it for the same reason she’d chosen it. I wanted to show that females could be as brave and industrious as males.

For a person heavily involved in producing serious textbooks, this female had a private life far different from those of most citizens, according to the tales she told George and me, expecting laughter and awe. Around the same time I’d written that Flash Gordon comic, approaching the most promising time of her monthly cycle,

Helga took a plane to Ireland, scouted a few likely rambunctious bars, selected the studliest Irishman she spotted at one of them, and was successful in getting him into bed with her. After numerous copulations, she was sure she’d achieved her ambition. Helga was not interested in finding a husband, but she wanted a child. The Irish stud was forgotten as soon as she was on the plane back to the U.S.A. The child, a girl, was the pride of her life.

CHARLIE I never had a one-on-one conversation with the head man or with his secondoldest son, also named John, to whom he was gradually turning over the business. John Junior was mainly interested in the Hustler imitator, Eros magazine, published in Canada, at a plant owned This page: Don Newton’s smashing cover painting for The Phantom #73 [Oct. 1976], which was scripted by the artist’s fellow Arizonian Bill Pearson.

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by Santangelo, distributed in the States

by Capital. But I had many close conversations with his eldest son, Charlie, who wore what little hair he had on his head at the back in a ribboned ponytail, and walked around with a confident swagger most of the time. For a slightly paunchy, middle-aged man, he was certainly virile, claiming that at one time he had a child in every grade in high school and a few in the lower grades, as well. Everyone seemed to be afraid of Charlie.

People would cross the street if they saw him walking straight ahead in their direction. I found out why later on.

Charlie had been given a chance at running the company before I came along, but his father wasn’t happy with the way things were going, and fired him.

But there were all those grandchildren to worry about, so Charlie was given a car wash business, a reliable moneymaker, close to the Charlton building… Shortly before I started working for the company, Charlie almost killed a man, beating him with a metal pipe. He told me all about it a few years later.

I didn’t draw a large salary at Charlton, but there were several reasons why I stayed with the company for about seven years. At first I thought I could do enough freelance work to supplement my income. That idea died when I turned in three invoices for writing, lettering, and coloring a Phantom issue illustrated by Don Newton. I can just imagine the reaction of whoever made out the checks at the company, because I probably made more money that week than that executive person. A notice came down from on high that salaried employees could no longer do any freelance work for the company.

I’d been there less than a year when Santangelo yelled, “Stop comics!”

Sales had finally dipped below breakeven, and everyone was out of a job except George, who was kept on to take care of lingering business concerning the comics division. At every stage of production, comics halfway through the giant presses, comics being packed for shipping, comics on the road in one of the 18-wheeler trucks with “Charlton Comics” boldly lettered on their sides, at every stage, stopped cold. Charlton’s decades-long comics run was over.

But the old man had not thought it through. For years he’d slipped out to the back dock where his trucks had been filled with comics coming and going…

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the returns were as voluminous as the sales. Tax-free, the returns were sold to scalpers for cash, Santangelo’s pocket money. What a bummer for him if that all dried up forever.

MODERN TIMES I can’t recall the exact sequence of events, but we were still in the original building when a guy named Ronald Gold showed up with a proposition for Santangelo. He was one of the scalpers, a sharp Jewish promoter who obviously started scheming between the time comics were stopped, before eventually being revived. George was summoned to sit in on the negotiations. He later told me it was an amazing back-and-forth between the young deal-maker and the cunning old Italian wizard. During the meeting, George phoned and told me to find 30 different comics from the envelopes at the back of the room, quick!

Any I could find! I ran to the shelves, started through the envelopes and pulled a comic from any that had one.

Any comic at all, until they numbered 30. Greta refiled the envelopes as fast as I could grasp them from every shelf I could reach without using a ladder to reach the top tiers. Then I hustled them to Santangelo’s office, got a quick glance at the three of them, and left.

Well, those 30 comics were the exact 30 titles that made up the original run of Modern Comics. Older and newer, without any similarity or relative quality. Big business. The figures were firmly established when Santangelo said, “Of course, you’ll have to pay for storage.” and got either another quarter or half-apenny for every copy to be printed.

When George returned to our office, marveling at the old man’s performance, he ordered me to produce a logo. It took me only a few minutes to design and render the Modern Comics logo. It was needed immediately because large boxes would have to be imprinted with that logo to separate them from our regular comics. We got them into production a day or two later, and soon Modern Comics were filling up corners all over the plant.

It didn’t take long after that for the boss to realize that, if reprints could be put together with a skeleton staff, no payment for new material, Charlton could continue printing comics for years.

And his pocket money would be back as before.

By that time, George was alone. I’d been doing a few little jobs for Wallace Wood, unsure about what I should do next, when George called and hired me back. From then on it was George; his secretary, Greta; and me. It didn’t make sense for the three of us to occupy that huge building, which had been filled with about 20 people previously, most of them the ladies who did the color separations, so we were moved into the main building.

Try to imagine this: we were put in a corner, with just a shoulder high partition to separate us from the hall, at the point where the main hall from the front door made a 90-degree turn that continued all the way through to the Capital Distribution offices. Santangelo’s personal offices were on the opposite side of the hall from us, the first doors inside the building. There was an empty office just across from us. On our side, a few feet, maybe a dozen, just before that corner, a flight of stairs led upstairs to the magazine division and other offices. This was the busiest corner of the entire building!

George and I could do all that was required of us in a couple hours, but we had to be there all day because things turned up occasionally when we were needed. George was out one day when the phone rang and Greta, giggling, whispered, “Somebody who says he’s Lash LaRue wants to talk to the editor.”

She thought he was joking. Most of our Western characters were either fictional or had been dead at least a hundred years, but I knew Lash LaRue was a real person who had seen the fresh editions of Lash LaRue comics that I’d put together, and wanted to know why he hadn’t received any royalties. I had to think fast to placate the man.

Meanwhile, Gold Key comics had begun publishing the King Features characters again, including Popeye, hiring George to do the artwork and me to write the scripts and letter them. Nick Cuti had written a few Charlton issues, but Joe Gill had written most of them, and both men had knocked out very short stories, more like movie cartoons, rather than attempting more complex plots. I had loved Bud Sagendorf’s very well-crafted comic book stories I’d read as a child, and wanted to try that route.

George had done dozens of Popeye comics with a thick brush technique for Charlton, respecting the material just

about the same as his writers, but he knew, when we began the Gold Key series, that he’d have to improve his art.

He began rendering the comic with pens and did improve, dramatically.

CLOSE BUT NO SEGAR Please forgive this aside, but I’m more pleased with the Popeye stories George and I did than any other comics I wrote over the years, and would like to tell the world (the few people among the billions on earth who are reading this article) how we did them. First, I’d start writing the script and feed the pages to George as fast as I could, because he could pencil real fast! Sometimes I was well into the story without knowing how it would end! Then I’d start lettering the penciled pages as fast as I could, because he was usually ready to start inking before I’d finished the lettering! Sometimes George hadn’t drawn a panel or a sequence the way I wanted him to. I had two options.

I could rewrite my script to fit what he’d drawn, or ask him to join me in the basement of the building, where nobody was. We didn’t want to have loud arguments in front of other people because, after all, he was my boss, and I was asking him to make changes. So I altered the script here and there, and he made a few changes, until ultimately we and our editors at Gold Key were all happy with the end result.

We were very careful at first to conceal that we were working on Popeye most of the day, because we never knew when somebody passing by would decide to lean over the partition to chat. My drawing board was right up against the partition. They might glance at what I was working on, but we soon discovered that if it was “comics,” that was all they perceived, most of them not knowing or caring which comics Charlton published, that this was the comics department, and all was right with the world. Eventually we scarcely bothered to hide anything and did all of our freelance work for Gold Key and others on Charlton’s time.

Fortunately, all of Charlton’s output had been gathered for years, the actual comics assembled and bound in hardcover books, making a complete library of the comics. Whoever started this in the 1950s, when it seemed nobody in the company thought they were producing anything of value, is unknown, but there had to be at least one person who real-

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

ized it was the right thing to do.

Also, from the beginning, the photography department would put the negatives (of both the black-&-white from the original art, and color negatives, too) and sometimes a couple printed copies of the comic in an envelope, and save it. The original art was thrown in a huge bin along with vast amounts of excess paper from the giant rolls to be sold as mush, I guess, at $10 a ton. These envelopes were now piled on floor-to-ceiling shelves at the rear of our office, having been removed from the business building downtown where they’d been stored for years, scarcely in any order at all.

It was up to George and me to find an old comic and either revise the cover art and attach new cover copy or find a good interior panel that would make a fresh cover. Ditko was good for this, as was John Severin, who’d done some exceptional Western comics. I enjoyed expanding a Ditko panel into a cover, and did many of them, which had to be newly colored, of course. We had to look at the cover proofs and order changes, if necessary, but this took only a few minutes. Altogether, it was a soft occupation. I was content. And I was still working on my own magazine, witzend, in my spare time.

You can’t get a lot done all alone.

You need contacts with skills or knowledge or access beyond your own when you want to accomplish things. I made friends with people in the production department and upstairs in the magazine division. The head man in magazines was an ice skating fan, and so was I. I got lucky, in that the guy who did all the photostats was a Wallace Wood fan, so I got all the production stats I needed for Wood’s books and mine, for free. I didn’t particularly appreciate the photostat guy’s part-time job. He would sit in the

middle of a big Billy Graham assembly, or crusade, until Graham would call for a sinner to approach, seeking to accept God and change his evil ways. Photostat guy would leap to his feet, rush down the stairs onto the stage, and have Graham’s hand rest on his shoulder. This act would, of course, prompt sinners of every age and disposition to follow his lead. The guy didn’t make any money for this job, but he was a true believer and that was enough for him.

Every year there was a big Christmas party in the basement. Hundreds of people would be there. One year, a couple of truck drivers stayed at the bar too long, and too loud, after the old man had started his annual speech. He fired them on the spot and had them ejected. It was a bit of a downer for a few minutes, until he got to the part in his oration most were waiting for.

“Management, two percent” he said without preamble, “everybody else, five percent.” There was a loud cheer, and he left the stage.

This page: Pearson enticed young artist Mike Zeck to contribute his considerable talents to witzend #10 [1976] resulting in Zeck’s amazing work in “The Avenging Dodo,” scripted by Pearson.

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Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide Even those Christmas parties were like time-traveling experiences. The people who were all stone cold sober on the job were the most critically insane in their own unique ways after a few drinks. I wouldn’t miss those parties, even driving through snowstorms every other year, it seemed, to attend.

A LITTLE HELP Charlie Santangelo needed an office of his own. The car wash simply didn’t suffice to occupy him. He moved into the vacant office just across from us, and George was aghast. He’d heard all about the man and tried his best not to speak to him any more than he had to. Charlie was gregarious, made phone calls, and read the newspaper. I’d had experiences in life with bullies and outsiders and knew how to handle them. I became their friend. Charlie and I discussed the news of the day and shared other small talk of common interest. One day I sidled up to him and whispered in his ear, “Charlie, I’m in trouble.”

“What is it? A gambling debt? Have you knocked up some girl?”

“I’ve got a beautiful magazine ready to print and no money to do it.” It was a long-shot, but I knew Charlie had some impulse as a would-be publisher, and enjoyed different projects. And he had plenty of money. The magazine was witzend #12, with a beautiful painted

cover of Humphrey Bogart as his character in The Treasure of Sierra Madre.

Wonder of wonders, Charlie agreed to put up the money, several thousand dollars, to receive half of the 5,000-copy run. I’d found a quality printer whose prices weren’t too outrageous in another state, a couple hundred miles away.

Can’t remember how that happened, but it did. I was surprised when Charlie said he wanted to go with me to give the original material to the printer and go over a few details.

I was nervous, but we set out in my car one early Saturday morning, and got into a more personal conversation on that trip than ever before. He was carrying a gun, so I was trying my best not to say anything to annoy him. Despite my hesitant attitude, he decided to tell me about the incident with the metal pipe. It came down to this: he’d been in Italy for weeks, returned home late at night, let himself in with his key, and was attacked by the guy who’d been sleeping with his wife, who thought Charlie was an intruder. Charlie knew where that metal pipe was, and he didn’t stop swinging until the guy was unconscious. Curious about whether he stuck with his wife after the trial, but happy to change the subject, I didn’t ask for details. Charlie was declared innocent of a crime. After all, it was his house.

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Could any of this actually be true?

Or was I a character in a convoluted Roy Crane Story, not as Captain Easy but Wash Tubbs, a short little guy trying to get along in the world of the big people, whoever they were? In a world where fiction is processed equally as facts these days, it’s up to you to believe it or not.

This page: At left is onetime Wallace Wood assistant Richard Bassford’s cover art for Bill Pearsons’s novel, Dancing Partners [2021], about a lost Fred Astaire movie musical. Top is Popeye #166 [Feb. 1982], one of many written by Pearson and drawn by George Wildman.

Essay ©2022 William E. Pearson.

THE OLD MAN The most elaborate rumor I heard back then was that old man Santangelo could get an audience with the Pope any time he wanted. He was a hero back in his little hometown in Italy where he returned every few years for a short visit.

The townspeople would throw flowers in his path. He would take a few men back with him to Canada, where he had some kind of operation. It was easier to get immigrants into Canada than the United States, so long as there was a guaranteed job waiting for them there. Then, when any of these men showed a little initiative, and learned enough English to get by, Santangelo would move them down to Connecticut to work in the Derby factory. These men were destitute in Italy so were happy to receive the low wages their benefactor paid them in the New World. All I know is that many of the production guys I spoke to were close to illiterate in the English language.

Santangelo, Sr., died while I worked there, and the company slowly but

steadily deteriorated under the lax guidance of John, Jr. I might have hung on even longer, but Bruce Hamilton was establishing a new comics company and hired me long distance to return to Phoenix as his art director.

The Charlton building was torn down a few years later, and I felt a pang of regret for all that had transpired there, not only for the comics, but the many magazines, too, and the diverse people who made it happen. Many of those people, and I, too, I suppose, weren’t experts at anything, just capable in one area of the work that turned out a vast amount of popular art, genre amusements, products of casual interest to millions of people. That it all came together under the irregular rule of a classless itinerant bricklayer from Italy was a positive miracle.

CONTINUED FROM PG. 226

DEATH OF A SELF-MADE MAN Empire-builder Giovanni “John” Santangelo, Sr., was back in the old country when he died suddenly, on Oct. 15, 1979,* at the age of 80.79 While, understandably, given his age, in gradual physical decline, he had remained engaged with his publishing and distribution companies as a consultant, as well as tending to other various business enterprises, which included a successful shopping mall and a number of local businesses.

Despite having made his initial fortune as songsheet pirate trying to keep two steps ahead of law enforcement and the copyright lawyers, by his latter years, Santangelo had gained a milder reputation. Thus, as a Derby city elder (and multi-millionaire), he was now bestowed honors by the powers-that-be. Perhaps due to his philanthropy—which, for instance, included establishing the Boys Town of Italy—or maybe because of his donations to political candidates, Santangelo was named to the United Nations Day Committee, by U.S. Representative Ronald A. Sarasin, on April 23, 1975.

Entered into the U.S. Congressional Record, the Connecticut officeholder extolled the magazine magnate: “[Santangelo] is a citizen of the world through his philanthropy to charities and causes as far as Cheiti, Italy. He represents the ideals of America and symbolizes the commitment of the United Nations to world peace and brotherhood.”80 Alas, even before its remarkable founder’s death, Charlton Press was in its own steady decline, though the outfit managed to limp along for another 12 years after his passing.

Arnold Drake’s “Ego-Man”

Asked by the author what nickname did Marvel’s Stan “The Man” Lee give to him, writer Arnold Drake [1924–2007] replied, “Well, it varied depending upon the story. ‘Artful Arnie’ or ‘Awful Arnie,’ you know. It depended upon what story I was writing at the time. I got my revenge, in a fashion. Many years later, I did a take-off on Stan in a magazine called Sick and it was pretty funny. One of the things I remember about it is that the writers and the artists in this strip, in this thing, which was called ‘Ego-Man’… worked for a clear caricature of Stan Lee and were all kept in a playpen. They sat in a playpen and did their work that way, sucking their thumb… what have you. And Stan had a very obvious toupee, so I took advantage of that by deciding that Stan had a secret telephone that would call him into action, like Batman’s signal. And the telephone was hidden under his toupee and, every time it rang, the toupee would fly in the air. So, that was my dig at him. He gets his [just] deserts. I don’t know how long it ran, four or five issues, I think. He gets his deserts, because, what happened is, all of these old cartoon characters—Mutt and Jeff, the Katzenjammer Kids, Moon Mullins, and so forth… come off the posters on the wall to kill Stan because Stan took all the comedy out of comics. There’s no fun in the comics anymore. There’s all this grim sh*t. And Stan is finally killed by all these cartoon characters. That was how I ended it.”81 The oddball Ego-Man stories that ran in Charlton’s Sick #120–124 [Apr.–Dec. 1978] were more than just a jab at the Marvel Comics publisher. The tales—all drawn by Sick editor Jack Sparling, who expertly caricatured any number of comics pros therein—were brutal takedowns of the entire industry. On his personal blog, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort opined, “It was anything but a loving parody of the field and those in it, in particular Stan, and I have no idea who it might have been aimed at apart from industry insiders.”82

*His mausoleum is said to cite his death occurring on Oct. 8, 1979.

Chapter Fifteen: Against the Rising Tide

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Chapter Sixteen

Charlton Comics: The Last Stand

This spread: Two unpublished Charlton Bullseye covers, one real and one fake. Above is Gary Wray’s rendition, which illustrated the letters column of Scary Tales #37 [Mar. ’83]; and opposite is Ian Chase Nichols’ 2022 imaginary version.

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young buck who had worked for the company for years at a job I can only describe as one of the sweetest rackets outside of government or the law. This scalawag had three duties. He made deliveries to Charlton’s New York City office by car, twice a week. He disposed of the original drawings after the engravers had photographed them by throwing them into the shredding machine ($5 a ton for wastepaper).

And he was the ‘Lord of the Files.’

In other words, when the engravers were through with the negatives, he put them somewhere. And when we needed something, we had to ask him to retrieve them for us. Usually this took several days.

Sometimes he couldn’t find what we needed at all. Later we discovered why. Most of the time he sat around writing bad song lyrics and entertaining the color separators with lewd jokes.”4 When Charlton higher-ups mandated that the outfit go all-reprint, Pearson explained, “This meant that George and I would have to locate and inventory many years accumulation of negatives and paper proofs. We didn’t even know where they were kept. Turns out they were kept in an unrented office in a large building owned by Santangelo, a few miles away, in the center of Derby.”5 Once they gained access, “What we found was a mess—mounds of large gray envelopes filled the room, piled haphazardly on shelves to the ceiling, scattered about the floor, decorated with odd chunks of broken glass from a shattered window.

It took several weeks to cart everything back to our office, which now had ample space to accommodate everything, since most of the staff had departed.”* *The gist of Pearson’s Against the Grain piece was about discovering Wallace Wood’s original art for Jungle Jim in that messy office with Pearson relating the “second-story” caper perpetrated by Woody and himself to “liberate” said material. Out-of-print Against the Grain has been refigured as a two-volume Fantagraphics set, The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood [2017], and Pearson’s “Second-Story Man” reminiscence is in volume two.

The Charlton Bullseye #5 faux cover by Ian Chase Nichols. Used with permission.

TREASURE HUNT After the demise of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman titles, from mid-1978 and into the new decade, Charlton decided to go all-reprint across their entire comics line, though maybe any prior reluctance to reprint material stemmed from 1959. That was the year the company was slapped with a Federal Trade Commission order “to cease selling comic books consisting largely of material previously published by others without conspicuously disclosing on the front cover the fact of such previous publication.”1 Regardless, Charlton now reprinted with complete abandon and editor Wildman expressed zero regrets.

“Then, when the decision came that we would come back with 12 titles,” Wildman told Donnie Pitchford, “we decided to use inventory and we would start where we’d never done it before, but start reprint[ing] material.

And I don’t feel too bad about it, because we held out as long as we could with new material. And that’s what we’re doing now to keep our ‘break-even.’ Break-even means you have to sell a certain number of books. Let’s say if you run 100 books, you gotta sell at least 20 or 30 books to make money. If you sell 15, you’re losing money. So, say break-even is, like, 26. We lowered our break-even way down and now we’re making money, and management’s happy, and I have a four [employees]—actually, my secretary, one bullpen artist, and one color separator. Where I had a staff of close to 20, I now have three. But that’s all I need.”2 Bill Pearson—who Wildman called his “one-man staff”3 —shared an anecdote in Against the Grain that pertained to the company’s archives: “Among those not called back [rehired when Charlton restarted the comics line] was a

1980s

Chapter Sixteen: Charlton Comics: The Last Stand

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Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand DAN REED’S RADICAL OFFER By 1980, sales of Charlton’s all-reprint comics were okay. “Well, it’s slow,” Wildman told Pitchford. “Our sales are holding very nice, and we’re into our best period… of course, the summer is any comic book publisher’s best season. We’re into that, and I wouldn’t really be able to tell you until next October or November, when we get into fall, and you start to see how we’re gonna survive the winter. Winter doesn’t help our sales, you know. But I will say, coming Dan Reed into spring and summer we’ve been doing fine.…

[We’re reprinting] war and ghost, and one or two Westerns, and like that. We find, because we constantly watch sales analysis, and so on, on a monthly—and weekly basis even— but I see it about once a month, or once every six weeks. War is doing real well right now. Our war books seem to be doing very, very well.”6 Around this time, it was a fledgling comic book artist from Massachusetts who nudged the publisher to print at least some new material and, with his offer, Dan Reed helped create a project that would be remarkable for any mainstream comics publisher. Daniel A. Reed [b. 1960] shared, “I was doing some fan stuff and had said, ‘Jeez, I’d love to get published.’ I’d sent samples over to both Marvel and DC, which would keep getting sent back with nice notes, like ‘Not quite ready yet.’ I thought, ‘What about Charlton?’

At the time, this was after their last gasp with all the great stuff by Don Newton, Mike Zeck, and Joe Staton. They were just doing reprints at the time. I went up and proposed the idea to George Wildman and Bill Pearson that they could put my work in. They said, ‘Well, we can’t really do that, because we don’t have any budget.’ I said, ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to pay me. Slip it into one of your magazines that you’re doing now, and I would get the exposure and see what it looks like in print, and you would get free, new material.’ They thought that was a good idea. Charlton Bullseye was born.”7

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THE GRAND EXPERIMENT While, for Reed, “The idea was that I would get enough published work to prove that I could start getting paying work,” the Charlton editors saw it as a way to break into the emerging direct sales market, get noticed by the fan press, and (of course) obtain free content for their showcase title. First, Pearson had to get the word out about their new Charlton Bullseye and, on August 12, 1980, a press release was issued.

Under the headline, “Charlton to Publish Aspiring Pros’ Work for Free,” The Comics Journal #59 [Oct. ’80] reported that the outfit announced “a new unique policy for a massmarket comics publisher: the company will begin publishing stories and artwork, sent in by non-professional writers and artists; these contributors, however, will be paid only in free copies of the comics their work appears in.”8 The press release read, in part: We will consider publishing professional quality, Code acceptable material under these provisions: 1) Original art will be returned after one printing.

2) The creators will retain the copyright on their own original characters. (Stories featuring Charlton characters remain the copyright property of Charlton.)

3) Each contributor will receive 50 copies of the comic in which their material appears.9 Pearson commented to The Comics Journal, “We don’t expect to discover a new Neal Adams or Jack Kirby, because, if they’re that good, Marvel will pay them! We really see this as a try-out title, a training ground for novices. We don’t expect to sell more copies than the reprints, but hope we manage to sell as many for a while.”10 TCJ then mused: “Basically, then, Charlton is offering young artists a chance to receive the exposure and professional experience that might lead to paid work for the two companies, Marvel and DC.”11 The magazine then took note that Charlton Bullseye, using the same name as the ’70s prozine, would print the publisher’s first new material since 1978.

“Get in the Ring” lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group.

Heavy Metal Charlton

Hit Parader editor-in-chief Shelton Ivany said Andy Secher had “the knack of becoming good friends with rockers,”12 and so was hired to be his assistant editor in 1979. Ivany had appreciated Secher’s N.Y. Daily News interview with AC/DC, and soon Secher became the music mag’s full-fledged editor. “My first cover was Van Halen,” Secher told Steven Ward, “and we were the first magazine in the world to focus exAndy Secher clusively on hard rock/heavy metal. We were a bit lucky in that the new wave of British heavy metal (with Priest and Maiden) was just kicking in, and the West Coast metal explosion (Mötley Crüe, etc.) was about to launch. Our timing was very good. We’ve stayed loyal to hard rock throughout the years because that’s where my interest remains. Trends, bands and fans have come and gone, but hard rock has stayed strong.”13 Secher declared, “Hit Parader isn’t The New York Times...it’s a frikkin’ fanzine, and proud to be exactly that.

Our target demographic is some 17-yearold kid in Iowa, not a socialite in Manhattan”14 He had replaced Manhattan socialite Lisa Robinson as editor and soon made Hit Parader a runaway success by abandoning new wave/punk rock coverage to focus on heavy metal.

Secher was an idea machine, Ivany said. “I didn’t create brilliant ideas that he always did with Hit Parader, like releasing tons of special issues, creating a 900 phone number, or starting our very own record company [Titanium Records].”15 Secher also conceived of the USA Network mid-’80s show, Night Flight, segment, Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Heroes.

“We knew,” editor-in-chief Ivany said, referring to Secher and himself, “the sales figures were earning big profits.

Ad money was flying in. We had uncovered a gold mine. Our creation made the Santangelos rich, very rich.”16 The alchemy behind Hit Parader’s success? Secher explained: “We are geared for a young, male demographic. That audience may not want to read detailed critiques or lengthy analysis. They want short, pithy interviews and features— along with big color photos. The formula is fairly basic.”17 At one point, Secher and Ivany got mired in a controversy involving Guns N’ Roses, when the magazine editors fabricated interviews with the rockers. “For Hit Parader to get an interview with them was impossible,” Ivany said, “even though we covered Guns N’ Roses when they were wandering Hollywood Boulevard searching for cheap weed. So we created our own interviews. It wasn’t tough. They all said the same things. I hope the lead singer, Axl Rose, doesn’t still hate my guts. Please forgive me, Axl.”18 While Ivany was not himself name-checked, his fellow editor was called out along with other rock journalists, in the G&R song, “Get in the Ring,” with these classy lyrics:

And that goes for all of you punks in the press That want to start sh*t by printing lies instead of the things we said That means you, Andy Secher at Hit Parader, Circus magazine Mick Wall at Kerrang, Bob Guccione, Jr., at Spin What pissed you off, ’cause your daddy gets more p*ssy than you?

F*ck you! Suck my f*ckin’ d*ck!

Chapter Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand

NOT THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD Charlton Bullseye #1, featuring Dan Reed’s take on Blue Beetle and The Question, hit the spinner racks on March 5, 1981, and, aside from the resurrection of the Action Heroes and the title’s innovative concept, notable was its remarkably candid editorial in #1 [June ’81]. Bill Pearson said of Florida-based Reed’s super-hero saga, “No, it isn’t the Greatest Story Ever Told, but they delivered a pretty good job, against all odds…

The editors thought the story was dumb and made a lot of changes on the penciled pages. The crew down in Miami thought the editors were too dense to change their socks, much less words on a page, so they changed the editors’ changes! And so it goes.”19 Such candor must have appealed to self-aware amateurs contemplating submissions.

TCJ critic Dale Luciano’s review, titled “Manic Energy,” was pretty impressed. “Charlton’s vaguely embarrassed go at publishing fan-produced stories and art without offering monetary compensation finally sees the light of day… The first issue features a silly, overheated story… but I found it hopelessly endearing. It’s like a prolonged glimpse inside the mind of a die-hard four-color comic book junkie… I’m happy Charlton has sponsored this project.”20 For Reed, who would follow-up with a Captain Atom revival in Charlton Bullseye #7 [May ’82], it was mission accomplished, as he subsequently got work at DC and Marvel.

This spread: Though new material was used sparingly in the ’80s, Haunted #59 [Jan. 1982] included a recently completed story rendered by Dan Reed and John Beatty. Top is Bill Pearson’s letter to Mitch O’Connell criticizing a submission’s gory finale.

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Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand

They Took Aim at Charlton’s Bullseye

even started taking professional son saw the pages, he smiled from Charlton assistant editor Bill Pearson rejazz-dance classes. This had ear to ear. Of all the entries cently told the author, “Charlton Bulleye nothing at all to do with ‘northey received for Charlton was my idea. We got so many submismal’ comics, but… I paid no Bullseye, our ‘Duel In The sions, mostly very amateur, but a few on attention to reality. Without Stars’ was the only strip the cusp of becoming professionals. even pausing, I decided to that arrived ready to go to Bill Black sent in finished covers, shoehorn my two obsesprint, once it was colored. It which I used on some of the sions—comics and musical required no additional work Western titles. He didn’t dance theatre—together whatsoever. Pearson related want pay; just to see his into one package… God only this to us after the story had work in print. I remember knows what the Charlton peobeen published [in Bullseye #3, the fellow who did ‘Neil ple thought when they received Sept. 1981].” The Charlton assisthe Horse,’ which I the story. In later years, as I created Gary Kato tant editor subsequently asked the thought was quite imagimy very own Neil the Horse comic Fortier/Kato team for another submission native and amusing.” book title [#1–15, 1982–88), and even (which Fortier discusses in some detail That “fellow”—now more so now, when Neil is discussed in on pg. 241, and Kato talks of below). a Canadian female named retrospect, my work is almost always Gary Kato [b. 1949] recalled the Katherine Collins—was Arn Arn Saba Saba [b. 1947], who today described as ‘The World’s Only Musical publisher’s output: “They had a decent Comic Book.’ I guess that’s true. distribution on the newsstands here remembered the Charlton Bullseye #2 “It was a huge thrill to see my work in Honolulu. My general impression [July 1981] appearance of her happy, printed on cheap newsprint [in Bullseye of them was that the stories were, in singing, and dancing cartoon steed. She #2, July 1981] and with the worst general, well-written. Unfortunately, the said, “I don’t recall how I found out, in printing job I have ever seen anywhere, artwork was pretty mediocre. Of course, 1981, that Charlton was offering to pubbar none. (And I have seen me some.) there were exceptions.” Kato then lish stories by just about anybody (with It is kind of a trophy, that abominable described how the creative team first no pay)… but I jumped at the chance to production. It was a big step for me and got together. “Ron saw my artwork in have a Neil the Horse appearance in an gave me validation and the confidence some fanzine. I’m guessing it was Marty actual comic book, to be distributed to to continue further on the path to my Greim’s Comic Crusader. Anyway, he actual newsstands.”21 Imbued with a “huge ambition” misguided life. Thank you, Charlton.” contacted me. Initially, we collaborated and vowing nothing would stand in the When Ron Fortier [b. 1946] heard on his text stories. I was the illustrator.” cartoonist’s way, “I was prepared to about the Bullseye deal—no money, but The artist detailed the first Charlton work my dingus off and inject myself 50 free copies of the printed comic— collaboration: “I’d heard about Charlinto any opportunity I saw to ”I liked the idea immediately,” the ton’s Bullseye project. Ron contacted become a real, by-gosh profesNew Hampshire resident shared. me with a finished script, ‘Duel in the sional comics creator. There “The logic of breaking into Stars.’ I did up the art and mailed it in really was nothing else in one of the smaller publishto Charlton. Bill Pearson liked it and said the world that I wanted to ers made sense. One could we were the first to respond to their do and very little else that I conceivably spend a lifetime announcement. Did we have any other was able to do.”22 banging on Marvel or DC’s comic book stories?”25 Saba’s first attempt The writer-artist team decided to door and never make a with Neil had been as a work something up. Fortier wrote, Kato dent.”23 Fortier then contactnewspaper comic strip. ed his Hawaii-based buddy, shared, “Saying, since the first script “Strips were dying, but I was artist Gary Kato. was his idea, did I have any ideas? My in denial, and strips were what Kato had also heard about answer to him was that I’d been toying Ron Fortier Bullseye and, Fortier said, “He was I tried first, selling daily-size Neil with the idea of a comical super-hero cartoons to [weekly newspapers]… I was only too eager to do a comic strip with strip about a hero whose super-power me. How fast could I get it written and hoping that this would, somehow, lead was an ability to dismember himself, to my penning a funny-animal adventure off to him? I told him I’d have it off in while still having full control over his varstrip, like Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse. the mail to him within a few days. ious body parts. The thing was I couldn’t This was precisely not what anybody was “I kept that promise. The story I figure a logical way for him to gain this looking for.” wrote was a seven-page space opera I ridiculous power. Within a week or two, I She continued, “When the Charlton called ‘Duel In The Stars,’ and it tells of a received a full script in the mail containproject came along, I was also in the intergalactic battle between two spaceing Mr. Jigsaw’s hilarious origin story.” ships from warring empires; the humans midst of my prolonged and hugely avid Alas, after they submitted the tale, infatuation with Fred Astaire and musical and a race of humanoid cat-people.”24 Fortier and Kato got the bad news that comedy. Unable to contain myself, I had The writer continued, “When PearCharlton Bullseye was cancelled. “But

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Growing up in Southern Sounded great to me! I knew Bill Pearson said he’d liked the story so no writers in comics, so I California, future animator much that he’d like to hold on to it and Larry Houston sometimes sat down to do it myself.” possibly publish it in another Charlton found it wasn’t easy to Reinhold wrote and penciled title.” Soon enough, Scary Tales #38 always locate the comics a ten-page science fiction [May 1983] featured their oddball story and submitted it to from Derby, Conn. “I read super-hero. The two have sporadically Charlton off and on in the editor Bill Pearson, who, revived the “Man of a Thousand Parts,” ’60s–’70s when I could find Reinhold explained, “said he recently in issues of Charlton Neo’s them. Distribution in the really liked it and to go ahead Charlton Arrow anthology comic book. poorer parts of Los Angeles was and finish. So I then lettered and “Just as I was getting started in Larry Houston not good and I was too young to inked the story, all while still in art comics,” cartoonist Gary Wray [b. figure it out. Comic book stores were not school. But, by the time I finished, they 1948] shared, “one day in 1980, my plentiful at all. Drugstores with spinner had quit publishing the series, so instead, comic art collaborator, Brian Riedel, came racks were where I found them.”27 they decided to publish it in Scary Tales to me and said that Charlton The artist submitted his full-length #37, in late 1982. I was very happy about was taking new submisCharlton Bullseye contribution, which this as that was one of their regular sions from known and was published in #4 [Nov. 1981]. “The long-running series. I was asked to draw unknown artists under Vanguards were created to be freedom the cover and I asked Mitch to ink it. the title, Bullseye. We fighters who happen to have super-pow“Lastly, the funny thing is, I showed were thrilled. My style ers,” he said. “I had made them up Jim Shooter that same Charlton story is Wolvertonish to start sometime in high school, in the midand he said he thought I was better for with, and I came up 70s.” Houston confided, “Trivia: I had Heavy Metal magazine and not with ‘Cavern of the Brain to change my lead character’s original Marvel Comics. Probably Eaters’ [Charlton Bullsname from Electra to Celestra after best Marvel didn’t hire me eye #3, Sept. 1981], kinda Marvel published their [Daredevil then. I may have never using ideas from the movie, character] Elektra, in 1981.” drawn Mike Baron’s The Alien… so I got that one Gary Wray The Bullseye deal was for creators Badger for First Comics, under my belt. I complained to be compensated with 50 copies of where Iater Mike and I about the coloring, but I was told that the comic book featuring their work. went on to do The Puntheir colorist was under a lot of pressure Houston recently explained, “I shared isher series for Marvel, and it wasn’t that bad. Then Brian came them with family and friends. I only have may have never met my up with ‘We are the Synthazoids,’ which a few left, I think. I didn’t have to use wife, Linda Lessmann, he penciled and I inked.”26 them to get work, though. I was already Wray continued, “George Wildman etc. I always tell young working as a storyboard artist at Marvel and Bill Pearson really liked our work artists to get published anyMarty Greim Productions with Stan Lee on Spiderand it seemed like Brian and I would get where. It doesn’t have to be Man and his Amazing Friends, G.I. Joe, more stories printed in the upcoming the biggest publishers. You never know Transformers, He-Man mini-comics, issues, but that wasn’t the case. Evenwhere it will lead.”29 Dungeons & Dragons, and Teenage tually, Bullseye started having financial The most frequent character Mutant Ninja Turtles storyboards.” difficulties and there were delays, and appearing in Charlton Bullseye was Overall, Houston had a pleasant ‘Synthazoids’ never got published. We Thunderbunny by Marty Greim [1942– experience with Wildman and Pearson. also did two nice covers for them that 2017], with the super-rodent in #6 [Mar. “My relationship with the Charlton ediwere never used. I also did another solo ’82] and #10 [Dec. ’82], the last issue. tors was good. No real problems except story, a three-page horror tale called “Number 10 was a very fun issue,” ‘Meteoroid,’ but it was rejected, deemed they did remove my ‘TM’ off my logo for Greim told Bradley S. Cobb, and he too intense for the kids, plus there was some reason. Never found out why.“28 also remembered, “I enjoyed doing the too much dark cross hatching for their Bill Reinhold [b. 1955] had been Archie super-heroes, but Thunderbunpresses to handle on cheap newsprint. jamming with artist Mitch O’Connell on ny was—and still is—what I got the But, at the end, they just said that Comics Buyer’s Guide covers while most enjoyment out of. The one hero things didn’t work out and they attending art school. “In, I think, I both wrote and drew also ranks right were closing down.

1980, I had heard that Charlton up there: Atomic Mouse was that hero.

“George and Bill were Comics, who at that time was Right before Charlton folded, I wrote the best, really. We loved only publishing reprints, was and drew an Atomic Mouse story. The them and they loved us. going to do a new color folks at Charlton didn’t want to publish it It’s just too bad that Brian comic book series titled until they saw the art, then they changed and I weren’t able to get Charlton Bullseye, same their minds. It was all set to go and I’d more artwork published title as their older fanzine. even done a cover for the book, but by them.”

They were generally looking time caught up with Charlton and the Wray’s unpublished for newcomers work who company folded. The story did see print ‘Synthazoids’ cover appeared though. Bill Black purchased the invenwere just starting to break into in the letters column of Scary comics. Payment would be 50 tory of stories Charlton had and Atomic Bill Reinhold copies of your published book.

Tales #37 [Mar. 1983].

Mouse saw the light of day.”30

Chapter Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand

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Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand MYSTERY MAN FROM MZANTSI Among the more intriguing Charlton Bullseye participants is South Africa’s mysterious Johan Roux, whose Dragon Force, a wacky, exuberant super-hero team adventure, fills all of Scary Tales #40 [Sept. ’83]. However amateur the art—drawn in a kinetic style—a clue to cartoonist Roux’s real-life job is in the competent script and the premise’s potential. A search for the creator resulted in finding South African comics historian George van der Riet’s description of Roux as advertising copywriter from Johannesburg, as well as “a well-known illustrator and comics fan.”31 Van der Reit believed he had heard of Roux’s vocation from fanzine editor Ed Harmse, who included Roux’s article, “What Happened to Old Weirdo?,” in his fanzine Comics News.32 When Harmse reprinted the piece in 1990, he noted the Scary Tales story—“a first for [South Africa]!”—and reported, “Sadly, Johan is no longer involved in drawing comic strips, but no doubt is still a great comics fan!”33

MAKING THE BEST OF IT Definitely worth mentioning is assistant editor Bill Pearson’s fine selection of reprints, some consolation during that period for the scant original material being offered by Charlton. As an example, take Charlton Classics, which ran for nine issues between 1980–81: the series reprinted the first nine issues of the memorable Hercules title by Joe Gill/Dennis O’Neil/Sam Glanzman. What’s impressive is Pearson’s thoughtfulness in choosing what short back-up strips to include and fill out each issue. The writer/editor doubtless scoured the bound volumes of the publisher’s supernatural titles to find short stories that somehow related to mythology. Pearson’s effort did not go unnoticed by readers.

Maybe responding to the success of TV soap opera General Hospital, Charlton also reprinted the “David and Eileen” serial and some “Nurse Crane” book-lengthers for Soap Opera Love and Soap Opera Romances.

Mitch O’Connell

Mitch O’Connell [b. 1961] wasn’t picky about his choice of reading material back in the day. “I had interest in all comics as a youth and even though Mitch O’Connell kids usually got Charlton comics as a last resort after they had purchased/read everything else and only Charlton remained, I had a bunch in my stacks and stacks of funny books. The quality always seemed cheaper and a little off (colors, paper, etc.), but some of the titles became among my favorites, like Blue Beetle, E-Man and, of course, anything horror!”34 O’Connell was one of a handful of new talent to contribute to the Derby publisher, prompted by the campaign for Charlton Bullseye submissions. “In the early ’80s,” the artist explained, “while I was at the American Academy of Art, in Chicago, Charlton put out a ‘who wants to be a comic book artist?’ call. I don’t remember if I was told personally after I had mailed out unsolicited samples or if the word was just spreading around the comic-inclined students at the AAofA,

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but either way, I was 100% on board!

“Charlton, or more specifically, Bill Pearson, would send off the blank cover templates and I would just draw, as best I could, whatever I thought would look cool. And, if they liked the results, it would be slapped on a real live comic book! The pot of gold was seeing your work in print, because there was no actual pot of gold. I was paid in contributor copies… I would’ve kept going for years doing comp covers, but the thrill only lasted for a brief period. (When you’re a company that starts looking to kids in school to do free art, that might be a sign that business isn’t going well.)”

O’Connell teamed with fellow art student Bill Reinhold and they “would often ink each other’s work. Bill and I did a handful of Comic Buyer’s Guide covers together at the same time.” Their magnificent jam graces the cover of Scary Tales #37 [Mar. 1983], and they subsequently worked together on Justice Machine, plus O’Connell helped out “a little here and there with The Badger.”

Chicago resident Mitch O’Connell has since established a successful career that includes magazine illustration, tattoo design, advertising art, album covers, an occasional comic cover, and much more.

This Page: At top is South African artist/ writer Johan Roux’s cover, Scary Tales #40 [Sept. 1983]. Above is Mitch O’Connell’s Ghostly Tales #158 [Dec. 1982] cover art.

GETTING JIGGY WITH IT Writer Ron Fortier and artist Gary Kato contributed a story to Charlton Bullseye #3 [Sept. ’81], “Duel in the Stars,” which impressed Pearson and Wildman so much that they asked the team to come up with something new.

Fortier recalled his pal saying, “Gee, Ron, I’d like to do a comedy superhero. You know, with the ability to break apart like a jigsaw puzzle and then put himself back together again.”35 Fortier thought about it and decided, “If we were going to do a comedy super-hero, the odds were 50-50 we could create something endearing or something totally silly and stupid.”36 Thus, holding up his end as writer, Fortier devised, on the spot, a name and tagline. “I instantly recalled how the great silent film actor Lon Chaney had been dubbed ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces.’ The leap in my brain followed suit. ‘Mr. Jigsaw, Man of a Thousand Parts,’ I blurted out.”37 After they finished and sent in the 12-page origin tale, “Gary and I both received letters from Pearson in which he explained Bullseye’s demise and then added our strip was one of a few he and Wildman still wanted to use. Thus they would publish Mr. Jigsaw in a forthcoming issue of their title, Scary Tales. Note, by this time, most of these anthology series were only reprinting previously published stories. Charlton was in an economic bind and trying to get by as cheaply as they could.” Fortier added, “Still, these guys were so taken with Jiggy (the nickname our lovable hero would eventually earn) that they decided to give him the cover spot and asked Gary to come up with the appropriate image. Thus, several months later, Scary Tales #38 [May ’83] hit the comic shops.”38 ACTION HEROES FOR HIRE Even before the division’s permanent shutdown, Charlton Comics was letting it be known the company’s IP assets could be purchased for the right price, as it hired Robin Snyder, comic book editor and writer (as well as close associate of Steve Ditko), as agent to handle inquiries from potential buyers. But, in 1983, the most valuable characters had already left the building, when DC Comics vice president Paul Levitz purchased the Action Heroes line—though Thunderbolt was creator Pete Morisi’s property. Soon enough, Ed Konick presided as Charlton negotiator to a steady stream of folks hoping to buy a slice of the Derby publisher’s legacy.

LET’S TRY FUNNY Apparently in an effort to try just about anything to reverse the collapse of their comics line, Wildman launched three funny animal titles, all revivals and each one all-reprint—Atomic Mouse, Funny Animals, and Zoo Funnies—and despite a brief glimmer of hope when direct sales numbers were positive, awaiting the results of newsstand sales prompted the publisher to suspend the entire division. Wildman quit as a result and, upon reopening, only Atomic Mouse returned.

This page: Eventually published in Americomics #3 [Aug. ’83], a fight between new and old Blue Beetle was intended for Charlton Bullseye. Unpublished cover art by Rik Levins. The decidedly unscary Mr. Jigsaw debuted in Scary Tales #38 [May ’83].

Chapter Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand

THE SALVATION GAMBITS According to newly-arrived editor John Wren, Charlton was pursuing two different avenues to keep afloat. “First,” The Comics Journal explained, “Charlton was, for a time, negotiating to buy the Harvey [Comics] line of characters, which includes Casper the Ghost and Richie Rich. Plans eventually went nowhere, Wren said, and the publisher began looking at another way to enter the marketplace successfully—this time by riding the coattails of the largest comics publisher of all: Marvel Comics.”39 Charlton was hoping to become a sub-imprint of Marvel to be called Whiz-Bang Comics, though the Derby comics line, unfathomably, would have remained the same and thus instantly recognizable as Charlton Comics. Failed negotiations did bear some fruit for the company, as Marvel’s suggestion to focus on characters rather than anthologies resulted in the 1985–86 Charlton releases, Atomic Mouse, Capt. Willy Schultz, Dr. Graves, Professor Coffin, The Iron Corporal, and Tales of the Mysterious Traveler. But sales proved dismal on that new line, as well. Plus, as The Comics Journal reported: Aside from not having strong characters to hang its books on, Charlton’s books suffered from other problems, Wren said. One of these, and possibly the hardest to break down, was the popular perception of Charlton as a reprint house that was periodically suspending its entire line, which allowed for little faith among readers.40

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Sixteen: Charlton Comics—The Last Stand

LAST COURSE OF ACTION Though Charlton Action was no more, it was not the end for its featured super-hero. As Ditko had retained ownership of all of his Static material, the third issue of unpublished Charlton Action saw the light of day as Ditko’s World Featuring Static #1 [May 1986], a title published by Renegade Press and lasting three issues.

Particularly disappointing for readers cheering on Charlton’s survival was the failure of the enthusiastic—if last-ditch— push for direct-sales exposure to seize momentum. Too little, too late perhaps, and those wishing that Ditko, Snyder, and Wren, who were giving the effort everything they had, would save Charlton Comics was a desperate hope utterly dashed.

This page: To invigorate a dying Charlton Comics, Steve Ditko returned to the fold with creator-owned Static. He also designed a company mascot and drew an illustration for a poster intended for comic shops, but the line folded before that was produced.

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Static poster image courtesy of Robin Snyder.

DITKO’S BITTERSWEET HOMECOMING Coming back to Charlton for what proved to be a final return, Steve Ditko, now paired with editor Robin Snyder (who would be a close collaborator—and Ditko’s publisher—until the end of the artist’s life), spared little in his earnest attempt to inject life into the company’s line and gave his all for the team.

With participation from both Snyder as editor and Charlton’s new assistant editor/art director John Wren, Ditko created a new title, Charlton Action, to star his creator-owned super-hero, Static, who was originally featured in Eclipse Monthly (published by independent comics imprint Eclipse) before being yanked by Ditko due to editorial differences.

Ditko also formulated with Snyder and Wren a veritable marketing campaign for this latest (and albeit last) revival attempt, which included its own cheerful mascot, Charlton Action Kid—”C.A.” to the reader—and the artist creating a striking poster of Static and numerous other characters from the company. The imprint even started a “Marvel Bullpen Bulletins”-like promotional page, “Charlton Communique,” but all was for naught as, after only two issues, Charlton Action—and the entire line—was cancelled, and the poster, intended to be sent gratis to comic shops, was never printed.

FINAL DAYS Coming some five years after the comics division shut down and Hit Parader had been sold to a New Jersey publisher, the end of Charlton Press was an ignominious affair. Ed Konick, general manager from 1975–91, shared his final judgment with Christopher Irving. “The original strength of the company—being all-in-one—turned out to be the weakness that brought down Charlton,” he said. “We had everything— and I mean everything—under one roof; editorial, art, typesetting, photo-engraving, printing, railroad siding, fleet of trucks, our own circulation company (one in the U.S. and another in Canada). In the beginning, that was a great boon and we had great savings. We could operate quickly and efficiently, but printing equipment becomes outmoded after awhile. As time went by, obsolete equipment became more and more the case because people kept coming up with new concepts for printing presses, improving the speed and quality, but we were there stuck with these old presses from year one. Towards the end, we just couldn’t keep the quality or speed up to compete. For the first 35 years, we thrived, but, in the last 15, we went downhill. At our height, we had 80 publications and employed about 250 people; at the end, we were down to two magazines, Hit Parader and Country Song RoundUp, and eight people. We officially closed in March 1991.”41

An employee of some eight years commented on Facebook, “The closing of Charlton was so sad and so horrible…

Everyone upstairs—editors, cameraman, etc.—lost their pensions. The place closed down and they got nothing. It destroyed some of them… I know of at least two guys who just broke. They were never the same after that. One of them had worked there over 20 years and couldn’t hold a job more than a year at a time after that.”42 In April 1991, after nearly four decades with the outfit, Konick was followed out of the building by Santangelo, Jr.’s secretary, the last person to turn out the light and lock the door. Charlton was now history.

Today, there’s a strip mall where the sprawling, multi-acre Charlton Press complex once stood. It was reduced to concrete rubble and dust by a wrecking crew in 1992.

Before the plant was demolished, Ansonia resident Mike Carpinello visited the site. He said, “When the wreckers started their work, a guy said, ‘Downstairs there is some old comic books and stuff; go down and help yourself.’ So we went down there and found all these nudie magazines Charlton had printed called Eros. There was also all of this original art of Archie-type comic stories. But we never took them and they must of been destroyed. I believe they just cemented the whole basement in, covering up a gold mine down there.

They just didn’t know what they had.”43

This page: Top, Steve Ditko promoting Ditko on a Charlton ad for the direct market. Above is The Comics Journal #103 [Nov. ’85] news item about Charlton’s demise. That same issue included this ad, right, drawn by Ditko, appealing for new readers.

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Chapter Seventeen

The Lasting Legacy of Charlton

*After reading Giordano’s account in Comic Book Artist #9, former Charlton general manager Ed Konick phoned the author to submit a clarification. Konick took exception to DC’s purchase of the trademarks characterized as being bought for “peanuts.” Konick retorted, “We made a certain amount for licensing and were paid royalties between 1982 (when the contract was signed) and 1990, amounting to over three times the amount Dick said. Charlton earned pretty close to $100,000 on the deal, hardly ‘peanuts,’ by my thinking.”4

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Giordano said he had a lot of fun with the characters at Charlton, but, he admitted, “At DC, things are a little bit more conventional, and I had marching orders and I didn’t have the freedom I had at Charlton. But, I thought, ‘You know, maybe you can go home again.’ As it turned out, I never did anything with them to speak of. We parceled them out and somebody decided to make Blue Beetle into a clown with Booster Gold, the Blue and Gold, and then they moved This spread: John Higgins-painted poster promoting the Charlton Action Heroes being integrated into the DC universe in 1986; and Watchmen promotional illustration by Dave Gibbons used as the cover of Amazing Heroes #97 [June 15, 1986].

“Look Who’s New” poster image courtesy of Terry Doyle.

THE “GIFT” Paul Levitz, then vice president of operations at DC Comics, recently explained to the author the purchase of the Charlton Action Heroes back in 1983. “You’re in the early ’80s. The comic-shop market is becoming the center of the comics publishing universe for a while and DC is expanding. We’re developing new stuff; some of the new stuff is wonderful (and some of the stuff we thought might be wonderful, wasn’t). We brought back every character that we owned— and anybody with a straight face can come up with a passable idea for—so we’re kind of looking around for what the other opportunities are. In some fashion I no longer remember, we become aware that Charlton is not only shut down, but had no plans to get back into the game, and we called up, and said, ‘Hey, you’re not using that old car in the garage. Can I give you a coupla bucks and take it out?’”1 Dick Giordano remembered, “Paul Levitz bought me the Action Hero Line characters as a gift. He acquired the rights from Ed Konick at Charlton.… Paul told me he was going to do it… He paid $5,000 a character and a royalty whenever they were used, but a modest number. We bought the characters for peanuts*… I think we bought titles, not characters, but I don’t remember how many, but yeah, piece of cake. Paul said, ‘Have a lot of fun! Do whatever you want with them!’” With a laugh, Giordano added, “I bought Son of Vulcan for Roy Thomas, the first strip he ever wrote.”2 Did Levitz buy the Charlton Action Heroes as a present for the former Charlton managing editor? “You hear that phrase [‘gift’] used and I probably used a line like that or something in telling him when the deal closed. It was a reasonable acquisition for DC. It didn’t cost very much and there were characters there that had some potential, a couple of good names, little bit of the material that you could reprint.

Making back the money that we invested certainly seemed like a very reasonable bet and, of course, with Dick there, we had someone who had a feeling for them. So, hopefully that would improve the odds that we could do something with it.” Though hesitant to share the purchase price of the acquisition, Levitz did offer, “It was not a lot of money by my standards [and] not by DC standards.”3

1986–Now

Chapter Seventeen: The Lasting Legacy of Charlton

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Seventeen: The Lasting Legacy of Charlton

The Charlton/Watchmen Connection As a young comic book reader in the latter ’60s, Alan Moore had grown an affinity for the characters featured in Charlton comics. “There were some very good little strips,” he told the author, “and then, of course, there was that big Charlton revamp where we got the new Blue Beetle, the new Captain Atom, and so forth, which was a shot in the arm. All of these things contributed in pushing Charlton higher up my league title of which comics to buy first. They never quite ousted Marvel or DC, but, during that golden period, Charlton was up there with the best of them.”5 Still, when the writer first began contemplating what eventually became his critically-acclaimed DC limited series, he initially envisioned the Mighty Heroes of Archie Comics as protagonists. “That was the initial idea of Watchmen—and this is nothing like what Watchmen turned out to be—was it was very simple: wouldn’t it be nice if I had an entire line, a universe, a continuity, a world full of super-heroes—preferably from some line that has been discontinued and no longer publishing—whom I could then just treat in a different way. You have to remember this was very soon after I’d done some similar stuff, if you like, with Marvelman, where I’d used a preexisting character, and applied a grimmer, perhaps more realistic kind of world view to that character and the milieu he existed in. So I’d just started thinking about using the MLJ characters—the Archie super-heroes—just because they weren’t being published at that time, and, for all I knew, they might’ve been up for grabs.

The initial concept would’ve had the 1960s–’70s rather lame version of the Shield being found dead in the harbor, and then you’d probably have various other characters, including Jack Kirby’s Private Strong, being drafted back in, and a murder mystery unfolding. I suppose I was just thinking, ‘That’d be a good way to start a comic book: have a famous super-hero found dead.’ As the mystery unraveled, we would be lead deeper and deeper into the real heart of this super-hero’s world, and show a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero. So, that was the idea.”6

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Dick Giordano said, “Alan Moore never does anything in one page, and he used Thunderbolt and all of the other characters by name; he said, ‘I want two things: First of all, in the very first issue, we’re killing off one of the super-heroes DC just bought for $5,000’… So I said to Alan, ‘You can make this the best, the most fantastic story in the world, and you’re not going to own it. What you’ve got to do is change the names of these people and retain the same concept’…

I said, ‘Why don’t you just create new characters, and I’ll do everything I can to promote and help it along, and do what needs to be done.’ So, he agreed…

I think he might’ve reluctantly agreed.

Frankly, right now, I’m not sure I was right… I think it might’ve been a good idea to let him play with the Charlton characters and they’d still be alive and well, instead of dead and buried!”7 Paul Levitz, then vice-president of DC, recalled, “Alan ran off and… put an immense amount of thought into it, and came back with a proposal a dozen pages long maybe for a maxi-series, lands on Dick’s desk, he reads it, thinks it’s really interesting and really well-written, but from his judgment, the ending of it destroys any potential use of the characters thereafter, and he hates that.

‘We just got these! I wanna have a Blue Beetle book, I wanna have a Captain Atom book. What can we do?’ And he’s talking to [DC publisher] Jenette [Kahn] and me—we were probably all in the same room at the same time, maybe

not—explaining his dilemma and I make the suggestion to Dick, ‘Why don’t you suggest to the guys that they just flip it around enough to make it an original cast of characters. There’s a lot in the story that’s unique and different from the Charlton characters and that’ll help because then we can do a little bit better deal for them.’ And that’s how we got Watchmen.”8 Moore refigured the Charlton Action Hero characters into wholly original Moore/Dave Gibbons creations: The Question became Rorschach; Captain Atom became Dr. Manhattan; Blue Beetle became Nite-Owl; Nightshade became The Silk Spectre; Thunderbolt became Ozymandias; and The Peacemaker became The Comedian. (For his part, Gibbons never even contemplated the Charlton characters when designing Watchmen, as he told the author that the very day he received the proposal in the mail, Moore called to say that DC had nixed the use of the Action Heroes in Watchmen; thus they would create entirely new characters.)

Moore said, “These characters started out like [Charlton knock-offs], to fill gaps in the story that had been left by the Charlton heroes, but we didn’t have to strictly stick to that Charlton formula.

In some places, we stuck to it more closely, and in some places, we didn’t.”9 This page: This Watchmen image by Dave Gibbons was originally used for a French portfolio signature plate.

them into Justice League; they turned Sarge Steel into the head of a secret service controlled by the government, which I don’t think Sarge Steel would ever do in his whole life—the character I knew wouldn’t be interested in being a cog in a large machine that’s controlled by the president, or even shadowy operatives of the president. It just wouldn’t happen.

But, since I couldn’t do what I wanted with these characters, I didn’t much care. After we’d got them, I was just too busy with other projects.”10 T.C. FORD AND THE CHARLTON RUSE Tye “T.C.” Ford was an apprentice artist at Frank McLaughlin and Giordano’s studio when he heard about Charlton Bullseye’s call for submissions, and he had a one-pager selected for #4 [Nov. ’81]. A few years later—and just prior to Charlton shutting down its comics line—Ford launched his Total Comics Group imprint and sought Charlton’s permission to use remaining characters that had not been purchased by DC. Then an unnamed Charlton exec suggested Ford make a proposal for a comic book series featuring available properties —Vengeance Squad and Doomsday +1, to name two—and Ford, his proposition accepted, organized three projects: Charlton Bullseye Special, Return of the Vengeance Squad (drawn by then neophyte artist Amanda Connor), and FORCE and the Hero Network, a super-hero team book.

Rumors of double-dealing them circulated as other parties were said to have purchased Charlton’s IP, characters that Ford had already made an agreement to use. “Eventually, I approached the gentleman at the Charlton offices, who indicated the [rumor] was true,” Ford explained. “I resigned on the spot, since I didn’t want to produce new material for characters that may be purchased away as soon as they were published.”11 Ford soon found out a Canadian publisher named Roger Broughton had bought a mountain of artwork, negatives, and color separations from the Derby publisher.

GIVING BROUGHTON THE BUSINESS “I heard through the grapevine that the material was for sale,” Broughton of America’s Comic Group recalled to Christopher Irving in 2001. “I ended up buying a few things.

The first purchase was Atomic Mouse and ‘The Lonely War

of Willie Schultz.’ There were some interesting properties there. They weren’t selling the super-hero stuff, but there was kind of a moratorium put on them for a short time. Part of it was the fact that I was having problems getting information back [from Charlton] because I was going through this third party. I think that, after about a month, I ended up calling John Santangelo, Jr., and saying bluntly, ‘What are your plans and are you planning on selling the material or not?’ He said, ‘Sure, why not?’ I said, ‘How about this: why don’t we set up a meeting and I’ll come down.’ Basically, I drove down from Montreal to Connecticut and sat down with everybody. We had a deal and, in a couple of hours, it was done.”12 According to Broughton, his purchase entailed most every Charlton title save for the Action Heroes and a few other exceptions. “I purchased pretty much everything, with the exclusion of the super-hero material,” he said. “That was pretty much it. I discovered afterwards that there were some backdoor deals done that I don’t think Charlton knew about.

We’ve always had these little things that have been plaguing us for the last ten or 12 years.”13 Whether Broughton owned the actual intellectual property has long been a bone of contention. Former Charlton general manager Ed Konick told Christopher Irving, “We didn’t license [Broughton] any formalized licensing where we sold him formal copyrights on anything. He just bought artwork. It may be that, at that point in time, we owned all of those titles that he picked up. It was mostly romance titles, because we had sold the super-heroes, and when you limit those two, I don’t know what other categories would be left over… We could have sold him the copyrights if we wanted to, I suppose, but I don’t recall any formalization of selling Roger Broughton copyrights. I know he picked up artwork and he paid us, but I don’t recall how much. It was just like a housecleaning operation. He drove down in his car from Canada, loaded his trunk, and drove back.”14 The day after the interview, Konick said to Irving that he had reviewed his records and verified he had not sold Broughton the copyrights to any Charlton properties.15

This page: At top is Roger Broughton’s reprinting of Doomsday +1 #1; left is Amanda Connor’s cover for T.C. Ford’s unrealized Charlton heroes revival; above is P. Hamlin’s cartoon depiction of Roger Broughton hauling away his Charlton acquisitions.

Chapter Seventeen: The Lasting Legacy of Charlton

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Seventeen: The Lasting Legacy of Charlton THE LEFTOVERS Bill Black, a friend and associate of Bill Pearson, was drawing new Western covers during Charlton’s final years when he made a commitment to his pal to publish some 250 pages of leftover Charlton Bullseye material. Black also obtained temporary permission to use Action Hero characters for his AC Comics Americomics title (and he also purchased the rights to Nyoka, the Jungle Girl).

Among the other deals Charlton made regarding their comics material: contractually, Joe Simon retained all rights to the Simon and Kirby material.

On behalf of Steve Ditko and himself, Robin Snyder bought Killjoy, Konga, and over 50 Ditko stories. John Lustig snagged rights to First Kiss, and also obtained available art.

Comic shop owner Ron Church scooped up High School Confidential and Steve Sibra bought undisclosed items, though he did specify purchasing file copies of certain titles, including Registered Nurse.

The Advent of Charlton Neo

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*Tragically, Mike Ambrose died just as this book was going to press, and plans for a last issue—Charlton Spotlight #10—are now on hold.

Charlton Neo flyer courtesy of Mort Todd.

In 2017, cartoonist and editor Mort Todd described the rise of Charlton Neo: “In spring of 2013, The Charlton Arrow started as a Facebook fan page about Charlton Comics by a character called ‘Fester Faceplant.’ He’s a musician and amusing fellow named Mark Knox, and he was inspired to do a Charlton tribute page by a friend, the late comic collector Steve Cohen. Fester immediately began inviting people who shared his love for Charlton, including myself and other fans and comic professionals. The page snowballed, as others saw all the fun going on there! It’s quite entertaining with a lot of interaction between the creators and readers…

Before long, Fester conceived the idea of doing a Charlton Arrow fanzine, which would’ve been a black-&-white magazine with articles about Charlton and some comics… After some time, Fester was having trouble publishing it, so I offered to produce it and we reformatted it as a color comic.”16 Dubbing the imprint Charlton Neo, Todd and company have published nine impressive issues of Charlton Arrow to date, along with at least 18 other anthologies featuring public domain or creator-owned characters, as well as stories in various genres, including Westerns, romance, supernatural, crime, and science fiction, some reprints and some new. (Particularly impressive is the wild Ditko-influenced character, Mr. Mixit, by Roger McKenzie and Steven Butler.)

CHARLTONOLOGY 101 A virtual cottage industry was created in the year 2000 with the simultaneous—and coincidental—appearance of two publications dedicated to the history of Charlton Comics: Michael Ambrose’s prozine, Charlton Spotlight,* and the ninth issue of the author’s Comic Book Artist magazine [Aug. 2000], which was devoted to “The Charlton Comics Story.”

Charlton Spotlight has had nine issues published thus far, the latest released in 2015, and CBA #12 [Mar. 2001] followed the ’60s issue with a sequel, “Charlton Comics of the 1970s.”

Ambrose’s effort exuded an intimate and welcoming tone, with the editor’s chatty presence and his tribute issues of Charlton contributors then recently passed—Pat Boyette and Tom Sutton—that featured lengthy testimonials from peers. Also vital are the issues devoted to in-depth, long interviews with major players, including Nick Cuti, George Wildman, Will Franz, and—in an especially comprehensive and informative interview conducted by Jim Amash—Joe Gill.

Perhaps most integral to history buffs is Dan Stevenson’s sixpart, utterly exhaustive Charlton Comics checklist [CS #1–6].

The Spotlight editor confessed one of his major motivations to publish the prozine was to put Stevenson’s research into print, data which revealed that Charlton had published, in all, 5,959 comic books and 61 “comic-type” magazines.

John Korfel, the collector who professes to own every single Charlton comic book published, said he has over 6,300 different issues and he listed Charlton’s rarest comic books in Spotlight #9. (Ambrose also published Charlton Spotlight Comics, a one-shot featuring George Wildman work and a Bill Pearson story originally intended for Charlton Bullseye.)

CHARLTON: THE MOTION PICTURE In 2014, filmmaker Keith Larsen had an epiphany while at his kitchen sink. The previous day, he’d attended ComiCONN 2014, when, hoping to merely rest his feet, he sat in the audience at a panel on Charlton Comics. One day after hearing fascinating anecdotes from Frank McLaughlin, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Layton, etc., as he washed dishes, Larsen realized that the Derby publisher was a perfect subject for a documentary.

And thus was born Charlton Comics: The Movie.

Larsen teamed up with make-up artist Jackie Zbuska and director/cinematographer Dennis Peters, and they went about interviewing many Charlton contributors, including Neal Adams, John Byrne, George Wildman, Nick Cuti, McLaughlin, O’Neil, Joe Staton, Layton, Paul Kupperberg, Roy Thomas, and others. They launched a crowdfunding campaign and have since been working to secure financing to complete the production, though the Covid-19 pandemic has hindered recent efforts to finish.

Asked to recite an elevator pitch on the production, Zbuska offered, “Charlton is a story of success, but not in the traditional sense.

It comes with the mantra that good things come to those who wait. It’s been called the three-legged dog of comics, and the scrappy, street-fighting cousin of Marvel and DC, and even hailed as the comic book equivalent of Roger Corman and American International Pictures. Maybe you’ve heard of it?… Probably not. But you do know the industry legends that called it home. This is Charlton Comics.”17 Asked for his summary, Larsen said, “As Bob Layton points out in our trailer, ‘They were the three-legged dog of comics.’ Charlton is like an onion that you keep peeling away layers of and, when you get to the core, you realize that the overarching notion is that this is a company that basically had it all and didn’t know it. They had amazing talents in the comics division doing groundbreaking stuff and didn’t seem to notice or care. They had a soup-to-nuts facility that was one-of-a-kind and let it slip away.”18 Zbuska recently gave an update on Charlton Comics: The Movie. “Progress has slowly returned,” she said, “but since what I’m writing will be months old when you read it, I can’t wait to see what’s happened between then and now.

One thing is certain: We could’ve slapped something together and it could’ve been done years ago, but that’s not the movie anyone wants. Charlton deserves better…”19

This spread: Americomics #3 [Aug. 1983]; 1970s promo piece

by Joe Staton used by Charlton Neo; Nick Cuti painting graces Charlton Spotlight’s Joe Gill issue [#5, Fall 2006] cover; and Neal Adams during his Charlton Comics: The Movie interview.

Chapter Seventeen: The Lasting Legacy of Charlton

Ivany, the Heavy Metal King John Shelton Ivany [b. 1943], who likes to call himself “the last Jew born in Harlem,”20 came of age in Brooklyn during the dawn of rock ’n’ roll and he eventually found himself working as an editor for sleaze-meister Myron Fass’s magazine empire. In 1978, Ivany left Fass and became founding editor of Grooves, a short-lived pop music magazine.

“After two years,” Ivany said, “my days at Grooves were coming to an end, but I had made a name for myself. The record companies, press agents, writers, photographers, etc., knew me and I had developed a fine reputation—straight, honest, respectable—and, as Grooves was dying, it turns out Shelton Ivany that the Santangelo family were ready to say farewell to Lisa Robinson, Hit Parader’s editor. Her connections with artists like Elton John, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, etc., had failed at Hit Parader. And her interest in Rock and Soul artists was minimal.

So I met Edward Konick and Bill Anderson, John Santagelo’s righthand men, at the Plaza Hotel, in New York City. And, as the saying goes, they gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”21 Ivany continued, “So, I started putting rock acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, the Eagles, etc., on the cover of Hit Parader, and we went nowhere. Luckily, I went to Howard Bloom for advice. Howard was an amazing press agent, representing acts like Bob Marley, Billy Idol, and many more. He suggested strongly that I place a poll in Hit Parader and find out what rock fans wanted. The results were Judas Priest, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Ozzy, etc. Hit Parader became a metal magazine. And metal acts loved the press. Getting interviews with them was a phone call away. And we became the only kids on the block.” With Ivany as editor-in-chief, circulation soared.

About Charlton, he said, “My memory of the Charlton building, in Derby, was spectacular. Somehow they fit all those desks and people in a huge space. All the people seemed to know each other and nobody knew me, ‘a strange rock ’n’ roller from New York City, a snob, better than us. He hung out with rockers.

He probably had Black and Latin friends. We don’t.’ I had no idea that a comics division existed, although I saw tons of comics around. John Santangelo never mentioned comics, although, for some mysterious reason, Bill Anderson… always had tons of magazines on his desk, comics, and many more.”22 Ivany said, “Hit Parader, as a pure metal magazine, was a tremendous success. John Santangelo, [Jr.] owner of Charlton and Hit Parader, was making serious money. And, for the first time in my life, I was, too, with covers of AC/DC, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Mötley Crüe, Van Halen… Even a boring band like Iron Maiden, with no inner turmoil, no drugs, no groupies, no pretty boys, was a big hit. Even Circus magazine… went metal.

“Even though we didn’t get along, Andy [Secher] had a great idea every month. We would publish annual editions, yearbooks, and specials like ‘Guitar Gods,’ ‘Bands of the Year,’ ‘Pretty Boys,’ ‘Awards’… We used material from old interviews, and, of course, new photos. Everybody was making money from us. And what a joy it was for me to write out checks. The way it worked was for me to call John and tell him about a new special and what it would cost; for him to send a check to my corporation, Frozen Fire (a title I stole from The Cars), and for us to create the special, and mail [the pasted-up magazine layouts] to him.”

Just before Charlton shut its doors for good, Hit Parader was sold and Ivany (who was also tremendously proud of his editorship of another Charlton music mag, Rock and Soul) later went on to edit Country Song Roundup, which had been recently sold by Charlton, a gig which proved to be “pure pleasure, great joy.”23

249

Charlton Magazine Index Section One: Magazines Published by Charlton

Publication name Issue numbers 10-Minute Crossword(s) Puzzles v1#1?–#33?

99 Simple Crosswords v1#1?–?

100 Easy Crosswords Magazine v1#1?–?

101 Ways to Update Your Home #30 150 Hit Songs (Hit Songs and Stars) v1#25 150 New Cartoons #1–v16#76

Compiled by Frank Motler

This original reference work was researched and presented in this form by the indexer.

It lists all known magazines published by Charlton and associated companies, with first and last issues, plus known title continuity. It does not include Charlton’s comic books, as that data is readily available at the Grand Comics Database (www.comics. org). Where possible, data was confirmed from two or more sources. Last issues/dates are most difficult to ascertain and should be treated with caution. First issues are not extrapolated unless there’s a good expectation one exists. In the particular case of the song magazines, there were frequent changes of title and many suspected one-shots.

Charlton Magazine Index ©2022 Frank Motler.

(Publisher imprint) remarks (T.V. Reporter) comic-sized, v3#18=Jan.’58; Jane Bacon, editor; see note 12 (T.V. Reporter) others? see note 12 (T.V. Reporter) #32=Sept.’60; comic-sized; see note 12 (Bruce-Royal) Richard Carol, editor; How-To Books #30, see note 17 (Charlton Publishing) one-shot? see also: Songs and Stars (Charlton Publications) comics magazine, part-color; #1–2, year-dated 1962 only, v1#3=Spr.’63; to: 175 New Cartoons 150 Quick ‘n’ Easy Crosswords v1#1?–#136 1960?–Nov.’86 (Charlton Publications) v19#90=Mar.’79; see note 12 160 Simple To Do Crosswords (More Than) ?–?

1970s–86?

(Charlton Publications) from? others? see note 12 175 New Cartoons v16#77–v18#83 Oct.’77–Feb.’79 (Charlton Publications) comics magazine, 6.75 x10.25in; from: 150 New Cartoons 175 Easy to Solve Crosswords (EZ) v1#1?–v24#126 1961?–Aug.’85 (Charlton Publications) see note 12 911 Detective v1#1–v3#11 Aug.’79–July ’81 (Charlton Publications) v3#10=May ’81; 11 issues; Joe Gill, editor, v1#2; see note 10 Actual Confessions v1#2–v?

Feb.’60–Nov.’72 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; v14#18=Mar.’72; see note 26 All-Star Baseball #10 Spr.’65 (Topical Magazines) Pro-Amateur Sports Library #10; see note 18 America’s Favorite Homes ? c 1959 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? 68 pgs., see note 22 American (Movie) Beauties v1#1–v1#4 Nov.’52–Fall’53 (Capitol Stories) v1#3=Apr./May ’53, to: Top Secret? see notes 5, 13 American Indian (Native American) See: Great Indians, Indian Wars, Real West Presents, True Saga of, Wars of, see notes 3, 4 Americana Library v1#1–v1#11 Win.’63/4–Fall ’67 (Charlton Publications) #1 as Special Collector’s Edition? see note 4 Annals of War v1#1–v1#3 Sept.’87–Jan.’88 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; military, historical/factual, three issues; see note 16 Antique Airplanes Quarterly v1#1–v1#5 1961–Sum.’63 (Sharon Publishing) v1#4=Win.’62; five issues; Douglas Allen, editor Arrow, The Family Comic Weekly nn–nn 1952–Dec.’53 (Colony Publications) Sunday Comics supplement, see note 12 Auto Portfolio nn?

Win.’63 (Bruce-Royal) Special Collector’s Edition Beatlemania v1#1 Win.’78 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? non-Charlton versions also, 1964 on The Beatles/Beatles Songs v1#1–v1#7 Spr.’64–Fall ’66 (Charlton Pub. Corp./Charlton Press) newspaper, 16 pgs.; see also: Charlton Lyric Library #7 Beauty Digest See: Daytime TV Games Beauty Ideas v1#1-v1#8 ??–1968–Win.’70 (Charlton Publications) v1#3=Spr.’69; earlier series from Fawcett Best New Cartoons (magazine) #1–#11 Spr.’60–Win.’64/65 (Charlton Publications) part-color inside Best Of Good Humor 104(1) c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #104, comic-sized; see note 22 Best Of Good Humor #2 c1958 (Charlton Press), 100-pg. one-shot; see also: Collection of Good Humor, Good Humor, note 22 Best Songs v5#3-v31#49?

Apr.’45–Aug.’72 (Charlton Publishing) v24#9=Nov.’65; v25#35=Apr.’70; v31#46=Feb.’72; others? newspaper, 16 pgs.; from: Big Song Magazine?

(Charlton Pub Corp.) 9.5x13in; v1#5=July ’41, v4#12=Jan.’45; v5#1=Feb.’45; others? to: Best Songs?

Big Song Magazine v1#1-v5#2 1941–Mar.’45 Bill Hamilton’s Lens Magic See: Exciting Photography Made Easy Black Zoo See: Horror Monsters Presents: Black Zoo Boats You Can Build #34 Spr.’64 (Bruce-Royal) by Bea Danville, How-To Books #34; see note 17 Body Builder (Bodybuilder) v1#1–v2#6 Nov.’79–Sept.’80 (Charlton) bi-monthly; six issues, to: Muscle and Bodybuilder, see note 16 Buying Used Cars See: Charlton’s (1975) Used… and Official Guide To Buying Used…

Calypso Songs v1#1 July ’57 (Charlton Publishing) one-shot, Harry Belafonte cover; rival titles exist Campus Humor v1#1–v1#3 Sum.’57–Win.’57/58 (Humor Magazines, Inc.) quarterly; v1#2=Fall ’57 Cartoon Carnival (1) #1–v15#81 Win.’62–July ’78 (Charlton Publications) comics format; v1#3=Win.’63 Cartoon Carnival (2) v15#82–v23#118 Sept.’78–Nov.’85 (Charlton Publications) magazine; v22#112=Nov.’84; to: Comedy Capers Cartoon Spice v1#1–v1#5 Spr.’57–Spr.’58 (Humor Magazines) comic-sized magazine, some color Cassius Clay (I Am The King) v1#1 Spr.1964 (Sharon Publishing) newspaper, 8.5x11in, one-shot CB Jokes (Citizen’s Band) v1#1 1977 (Charlton Press/Xerox Education) 6.75 x 7.75in; see note 20 CB Times v1#1–v4#23 June ’76–Sept.’79 (Charlton Publications, Inc.) monthly to v1#6=Nov.1976; bi-monthly; Dale Strzelec, editor, v2#14= Jan.’78; v4#22, May ’79; see note 23 Charlton Book #101–#115 1956–57?

(Charlton Publications) comic-sized, 68 pgs., one-shot series; see note 22 Charlton Comics Group (Bulletin) nn–nn 1965–66 (Charlton Press, Inc.) typed newsletters from comics editor Pat Masulli; see note 12 Charlton Companies Salute Derby’s 300th nn 1975 (Charlton) Derby tercentennial commemorative giveaway, May 31–June 8, 1975 Charlton Consumer Library See: Charlton’s (1976) New Car Prices Charlton Leisure Library See: note 4 Charlton Lyric Library Book #1–#7 Spr.’67–Spr.’68 (Charlton Publishing) #4=Fall ’67; #7= Beatles to Monkees; newspaper 8x11in, 16 pgs., 20¢ (Official Monkees Songs) Charlton Science Library See: Easy TV Repair Guide, 1966 Charlton’s 1975 New Car Prices v1#1 Sum./Fall ’75 (Charlton Publications, Inc.) one-shot? 5.25 x 8in, 146 pgs.; others?

Charlton’s 1976 New Car Prices v2#2?–v2#3 Spr.’76–Sum/Fall ’76 (Charlton) two issues? 5.25 x 8in; others? v2#3=ninth issue of: Charlton Consumer Library Charlton’s 1975 Used Car Prices v1#1–v1#2?

Sum./Fall ’75–1975 (Charlton Publications, Inc.) quarterly; two issues? 5.25 x 8in, 146 pgs.; others? see also: Official Guide to Buying Used Cars Charlton’s 1976 Used Car Prices v?

Spr.’76 (Charlton Publications, Inc.) others? 5.25 x 8in; others?

Charlton’s 1975 Used Motorcycle Prices v1#1?

1975 (Charlton Publications, Inc.) one-shot? 5.25 x 8in; others?

Chic Miss #1 Sum.’64 (Sharon Publishing) women’s fashion; one-shot?

Chief Detective v1#1–v1#3 May ’50–Oct.’50 (Frank Comunale) v1#2=Sept.’50; see note 10 Children’s Songs Games and Carols nn 1950 (Charlton College) one-shot? copyright Amsco Music Sales Co., NYC. -10 x 12.75inches; see note 19 Chillers v1#1–v1#3 July ’81–Nov.’81 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; v1#2=Sept.’81, horror/movie monster Collection of Good Humor #112 1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #112, comic-sized; see note 22 Coloring Book (various) #501–#549 1971–72 (Charlton Publications) mostly in conjunction with Hanna-Barbera or Xerox; see notes 20, 25 Combat Karate nn–nn Spr.’67–Spr.’68 (Avant Publishing) two issues; Avant Leisure Library; see note 16

250

Cover dates 1955?–c1986?

1955–86?

1955–86?

Spr.’64 Sum.’64 1962–Aug.’77

Publication name Combat Ready Comedy Capers

(Publisher imprint) remarks (Charlton Publications) para-military, war; others? See note 16 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, from: Cartoon Carnival (Sloane, pg. 52); also, a column in Cowboy Songs by Bud Moore, 1955–56 Comic Book Guide #1 1973–76 (Charlton Publications) 5 x 6.5in, 36-page digest by Nick Cuti, Tom Sutton; George Wildman, for the Artist–Writer–Letterer editor; full–color cover; 1976 all b&w revision, from original Commando v1#1–v2#3?

Dec.’81–Apr.’82 (Charlton Pubs) bi-monthly, v2#2=Feb.’82; Keith Deutsch, editorial director; para–military, war; others? see note 16 Complete Book of Isometric Exercises #46 Fall ’64 (Bruce-Royal) by Larry Sanders, How-To Books #46; see note 17 Complete Guide to Short–Wave and #49 Spr.’65 (Topical Magazines) by Michael Kurland, Topical Book #49; see also: CB Jokes, CB Times, notes 17, 23 Citizen’s Band Radio Complete Horoscope v1#1–v3#12 Sept/Oct’55–July/Aug’57 (Modern Living Council/T.V. Reporter Inc.) bi-monthly, others? see note 29 Cooking For Men #103? c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #103? comic–size, see note 22 Country and Western Hit Parade v14#43–v19#74 Apr.’67–July ’72 (Charlton Publications) from: Hillbilly and Country Hit Parade Country Hits nn?–nn?

Sum.’80–Win.’87?

(Charlton Publications) quarterly, 31 issues? from: Country Hits of the Seventies Country Hits of the Seventies (‘70’s) nn?–nn?

Sum.’76–Spr.’80 (Charlton Publications) quarterly; Win.’80=nn. to: Country Hits Country Music Association’s #16 Win.’85 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? 16th edition of: Country Song Roundup Award Winning Songs Country Music Hits v1#1–v2#11 Sum.’69–Autumn’71 (Charlton Publications) quarterly, 11 issues; others?

Country Song Roundup v1#1–v43#383 July/Aug.’49–June’91 (American Folk/Charlton) Charlton series; see note 11 v43#384–v50#452? July ’91–July 2000? (Country Song Roundup) post–Charlton, series ends; see notes 11, 28 Country Song Roundup Country Song Roundup Annual #1?–?

1964–Win.’84 (Charlton Publishing) annual, 21 issues? #5=1967 Country Song Roundup Special #14–#14 1980–Fall ’86 (Charlton Publishing) annual, not 1982? six issues? 14th edition of regular series Country Song Roundup (Official) Year Book #1 1957 (American Folk Publications) one-shot? First Charlton magazine annual?

Country Song Roundup Yearbook ?–#13?

1966–Sum.’86 (Charlton Publishing) annual, 1966=two different; 22 issues?

Country Songs and Stars v15#76–v19#93? Dec.’64–Mar.’68 (American Folk Pub) v19#92=Jan.’68. from: Cowboy Songs (2), see Songs and Stars Cowboy Songs (1) v1#1 1946 (Charlton Publishing) 32-page newspaper; Gene Autry cover; one-shot?

Cowboy Songs (2) v1#2–v15#75 Win.’48–Sept.’64 (Charlton/American Folk Publications) series, newspaper; v1#2=Win.’48, v13#70=Win.’62/3; #41, June ’55, first Elvis article/photo; to: Country Songs & Stars; see Comedy Capers Crazy, Man, Crazy v2#1–v2#2 Dec.’55–June ’56 (Humor Magazines) comics magazine, two issues; see note 8 Creedence Clearwater (Revival) #15 Sum.’71 (Charlton Publications) one-shot; 15th issue of Hit Parader of that year Dave Clark Five 5 v1#1–v1#2 Fall ’64–Win.’64?

(Charlton Publications) quarterly; others? 16 pgs., newspaper Daytime TV Games (plus Beauty Digest) v1#1?–v2#4?

Dec.’72?–May ’73? (Charlton Publications) monthly, digest; v2#3=Apr.’73, four issues? Joyce Judith Becker, editor Dead Sea Scrolls and What They Mean #108 1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #108, comic-sized; see note 22 to Protestant, Catholic and Jew

Detective Diary v1#1–v3#11 Sept.’79–Oct.’81 (Charlton Publications) v3#10=June ’81; 11 issues; William Thomas, executive editor; Rocco J. Giovanni, editor; see note 10 Detective Parade v1#1 1945 (Frank Comunale) one-shot. over-size, pulp; see note 10 (Picture Detective Pub. Co.) over-size. v1#3=Spr.’48; v1#4=July ’48. from Good Humor #1? [1947], District Attorneys Detective v1#2?–v1#12 Jan.’48?–June ’50 see notes 10, 14 Doctor Graves’ Haunted Puzzlers nn 1978 (Charlton Press/Xerox Education) 6.75 x 7.75in; see note 20 Doctor Graves Magic Book nn 1977 (Charlton Press/Xerox Education) 6.75 x 7.75in; see note 20 The Doctors’ Diet Book #? c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #?, comic–size, see note 22 Dramatic Detective v1#2–v1#3?

Dec.’45–Nov.’46 (Frank Comunale) from: Who-Dramatic Detective; see note 10 Dynamite v1#1–v1#2 June ’55–Jan.’56 (Modern Living Council) celebrity tattle, series ends; see note 29 Easy Guide Library #133–#139 Win.’70–Autumn ’70 (Charlton Pubs.) Easy TV Repair Guide #133, Home Repairs Made Easy #139, known; others? see note 12 Easy Guide to Stereo Hi–Fi #45 Win.’64 (Topical Magazines) by Herbert Reid; Topical Book #45; see note 17 Easy–To–Build Furniture #50 Spr.’65 (Bruce-Royal) by Herbert Reid, How-To Books #50; see note 17 Easy TV Repair Guide #1–#11 1961–Win.’72 (Charlton Publications) ann; 5x7–inch, digest; Win.’70=Easy Guide Library (Charlton Science Library/Americana Library/Leisure Library) #133; see notes 4, 12 Ebony Song Parade v1#1–v1#9 June ’55–Oct.’56 (Onyx Publishing) bi-monthly, uncommon; Marvin Shnayer, editor Elton Britt’s Song Book nn 1950 (Capitol Stories) one-shot; Elton Britt’s Collection of Famous Recorded Songs, 1943 (Bob Miller, Inc.) also exists; see note 19 Elvis Presley See: Cowboy Songs, Hit Parader, Official Elvis, Song Hits, Songs & Stars, This Magazine is Crazy v3#2 Emergency (Magazine) v1#1–v2#4 July ’76–Jan.’77 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, four issues; comics series also; see note 7 Everybody’s Archery Guide #51 Sum.’65 (Topical Magazines) by Maury Delman, Topical Book #51; see note 17 Everybody’s Crosswords (Magazine) v1#1?–?

1955?–86?

(T.V. Reporter) see note 12 Everybody’s Horoscope v1#1–v4#16 1950s–Apr./May ’58 (T.V. Reporter Inc.) continued as: True Horoscope; see note 12 Exciting Photography Made Easy #27 1963 (Bruce-Royal) Bill Hamilton, as told to Marv Karp; How-To Books #27, see note 17 (Bill Hamilton’s Lens Magic) Exclusive Picture Detective v1#1–v1#4 Sept./Oct.’52–Mar.’53 (Picture Detective Publishing) four issues? over-size; to: Top Secret? see note 10 Experimental Photography #55 1965 (Topical Magazines) by Paul Duckworth, Topical Book #55; see note 17 Eye Opener v1#1–v1#4 Spr.’57–Win.’57 (Humor Magazines) four issues, 68 pgs.; humor, Bill Ward art Family Camping Guide #?

1964 (Topical Magazines) Topical Book #? see note 17 Family Fallout Shelter nn 1960 (Charlton Press, Inc.) comic-sized; U.S. Civil Defense reprints; see note 22 Famous Lawmen of the West #5 Fall ’65 (Charlton Pubs.) Americana Library #5, see also: Real West presents Famous Lawmen; notes 3, 4 Famous Outlaws of the West #2 Fall ’64 (Charlton Publications) Americana Library #2, see notes 3, 4 Fantastic Science Fiction #1 Aug.’52 (Super Science Fiction Publications) over-size, illustrated; Walter Gibson, editor Fantastic Science Fiction #2 Dec.’52 (Capitol Stories) over-size, illustrated; final issue 1957 (Charlton Publications) © 1957, magazine; one-shot?

Farm and Home Almanac (1958 issue) nn Fast ‘N’ Easy Crosswords Magazine ?–?

1955?–80s?

(T.V. Reporter) see note 12 Federal Crimes Detective v1#1–v1#10 Apr.’48–Mar.’50 (Picture Detective Publishing) over-size, see note 10 Federal Detective Bureau v1#1–v1#3 May ’50–Oct.’50 (Frank Comunale) incorrectly as: Federal Bureau Detective; v1#2=Sept.’50; see note 10 Female Figure Photography (Ed Alexander’s)#25 1962 (Bruce-Royal) How-To Books #25; Galaxy International, photography; see notes 14, 17 Fight Game #4 Sum.’64 (Topical Magazines) Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali v Sonny Liston boxing Find–A–Word v1#1?–#177 1955?–Oct.’87 (Charlton) puzzle magazine, annuals also exist; others? see note 12 Folk and Country Songs v1#1–v4#19 July ’56–Dec.’59 (American Folk Publications) v2#3=May ’57, v3#13=Dec.’58; others?

Charlton Magazine Index

Issue numbers v1#1–v2#5 #119–v25#125

Cover dates Nov.’81–Nov.’82 Jan.’86–Mar.’87

251

Publication name Issue numbers From Here to Insanity (1) v1#12 From Here to Insanity (2) v3#1 Fun and Profit With Pencil Drawing #101 Fun Cross–words Magazine ?–?

Girl Spies v1#1 Glamorous Starlets v1#3–v1#3 Good Buddy Association (CB Times) ?–?

Good Humor (1) v1#1

(Publisher imprint) remarks (Humor Magazines) comics magazine, formerly a Charlton comics series; see notes 8, 22 (Humor Magazines) comic-sized magazine, some color (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #101, comic-sized, see note 22 (T.V. Reporter) Fun Crosswords; see note 12 (Ellimac Publishing) one-shot; see note 5 (Modern Living Council) celebrity tattle; from Personal Story; series ends; see note 29 (Charlton) Newsletters, CB Dictionary, etc., see note 23 (Picture Detective) over-size one-shot? risqué humor, to: District Attorneys Detective? see Best of Good Humor, A Collection of Good Humor and note 10 Good Humor (2) v1#1–v2#40 Sum.(July)’48–Sept.’56 (Capitol Stories, Inc.) over-size, v1#2=Fall ’48, risqué humor Good Humor (3) v3#1–v3#3 Feb.’57–Nov.’57 (Humor Magazines) three issues, v3#3=Dec. cover, Satire For Sophisticates Good Humor (4) v4#4 Mar.’58 (Humor Magazines) one issue; Satire For Sophisticates Good Humor (5) v4#5–v4#6 July ’58–Oct.’58 (Humor Magazines) two issues, adult magazine, see note 13 (Charlton) risqué gag, comic-sized, then magazine, ’78–on; some interior color, erratic dating early issues Good Humor (6) v1#1–v21#130 1962–Feb.’87 Good Humor Cartoon Annual (1960) (7) nn?

1960?

(Charlton) comic-sized, one-shot? date?

Gospel Music Jubilee v1#1–v1#3?

Jan.’71–May ’71 (Charlton Pubs.) bi-monthly, executive editor Pat Masulli; editor Mrs. Georgia Chellman, three issues? see note 24 Great American Adventure Series See: Skyjack Guide to Guns and Hunting #36 1963 (Topical Magazines) Louis Wm. Steinwedel, editor; Topical Book #36; see notes 16, 17 Gun Journal v1#1–v1#6?

Jan.’81–Nov.’81 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, v1#4=July ’81; six issues? see note 16 Gung–Ho v1#1–v9#70 Apr.’81–Oct.’89 (Charlton Publications) monthly/various; v4#39=June ’84, v7#60=Dec. 1987; Jim Shults, editor; series ends; 1995 post–Charlton series also, see note 16 Gung–Ho Annual #7–?

Win.’85–Win.’87 (Charlton Publications) ann, #10=Win.’86; three issues? see note 16 Gung–Ho (First) Special Purpose #1 Win.’85 (Charlton Publications) one-shot, to: Gung-Ho Special; see note 16 Weapons Ammunition and Tactics (Annual) Gung–Ho Special #2–#10 1985–Sum.’87 (Charlton Publications) nine issues; see note 16 Gung–Ho Yearbook #7?–#?

Fall ’85–Fall ’87 (Charlton Publications) annual, sum.’86 also, three issues? see note 16 Hair Styling v1#1?–v2#1 Fall ’63–Win.’63/64 (Topical Magazines) Two issues? Mary Ann Patrick, editor Heavy Metal Heroes v3#10?–v5#34? Oct.’85–Sept.’88 (Charlton) monthly, v5#28=Mar.’88; from: Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Heroes; see also: Metal Madness, Power Metal Heavy Metal Heroes Yearbook ?–?

1987 (Charlton) advertised in: Heavy Metal Heroes #7 Hee Haw v1#1–v2#11 May ’70–Nov.’71 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, 11 issues; TV spin-off; comic series also Hee Haw v4#12 Sept.’74 (Charlton Publications) Tony Tallarico, editor; final issue Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary nn 1945 (T.W.O. Charles) by Lou Shelly, digest, 52 pgs., 25¢; see note 5 Hercules (Advs of the Man–God) #8 Dec.’68 (Charlton Press) one-shot, b&w comics magazine; comics series also Hillbilly and Country Hit Parade v12#36–v13#42 Spr.’65–Feb.’67 (Charlton Pubs). from: Hillbilly and Cowboy Hit Parade; to: Country & Western Hit Parade Hillbilly and Cowboy Hit Parade v1#1–v12#35 Spr.’53–Win.’64/65 (Capitol Stories/Charlton) to: Hillbilly and Country Hit Parade Hillbilly Hit Parade #1–#8?

1951–52 (Capitol Stories) earlier series from Peer International, see note 15 Hillbilly Hit Songs nn 1949 (Capitol Stories) one-shot; see note 19 Hillbilly Western Songs #1–#3 1949–50 (Capitol Stories) Others?

History of the Charlton Song Magazines nn–nn c1980–c1980 (Charlton) JoAnn Sardo, four-page publicity release (info, Mike Ambrose) Hit Parade Country and Western See: Country and Western Hit Parade Hit Parader (1) v1#1–v22#1 Nov.’42–Jan/Feb.’63 (Charlton Publishing) to: Teen Hit Parader; see Credence Clearwater, Heavy Metal Heroes, Power Metal, Prosperity Hit Parader and note 11 Hit Parader (2) v22#8–v31#104 Dec.’63–Mar.’73 (Charlton Publishing) from: Teen Hit Parader; to: Hit Parader Songs and Stories v33#118–v50#321 May ’74–June ’91 (Charlton Publications) from: Hit Parader Songs and Stories Hit Parader (3) Hit Parader (4) v50#322–v51#522 July ’91–Oct./Nov.’09 (Hit Parader Publications) post–Charlton; series ends; see notes 11, 28 Hit Parader Annual ?–?

1972–Fall ’90 (Charlton) part of regular series. #15=Win.’79 edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader Heavy Metal Rules! (Special) #13 Fall ’83 (Charlton) one-shot; 13th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader Heavy Metal Stars #19 Spr.’90 (Charlton) from: Hit Parader’s Hot Metal Stars; 19th Hit Parader edition of that year Hit Parader Interview Magazine #14 Win.’77 (Charlton Publication) two issues; both as 14th issue of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader Presents 20 Years #13 Sum.’88 (Charlton Publications) Anniversary Special, 13th edition of Hit Parader of that year of Heavy Metal (1968–1988) Hit Parader Presents Metal of the 80’s #19 Spr.’90 (Hit Parader) one-shot; 19th issue of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader Presents #102 Sum.’78 (Charlton) one-shot; part of regular series?

The Immortal Elvis Hit Parader Records See also: Song Hits Records Hit Parader Songs and Stories v31#105–v33#117 Apr.’73–Apr.’74 (Charlton) from/to: Hit Parader; see also: Songs and Stars Hit Parader Yearbook #6–?

1967–Spr.’90 (Charlton?) annual, #6=1967 Hit Parader’s Guitar Gods #15–#15 Win.’84–Fall ’87 (Charlton) two issues? non-Charlton series from 1988 Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Awards #14–?

Spr.’85–Spr.’87 (Charlton) annual, three issues? Spr.’86=16th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Calendar 1987–1991 1986–90 (Charlton) annual, five issues (1992 calendar, came free with Nov.’91 Hit Parader magazine) Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Hall of Fame #14 Win.’86 (Charlton) one-shot? 14th issue of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Heroes v1#1–v3#9 Nov.’84–Sept.’85 (Charlton) monthly; with 2x color fold-out posters; to: Heavy Metal Heroes Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Hot Shots #13 Fall ’84 (Charlton) one-shot; 13th issue of Hit Parader Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Hot Shots v1#1–v?

Sept.’85–June ’91 (Charlton) regular series; v6#33=Aug.’90 Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Photo Album ?–?

Fall ’87–Sum.’88 (Charlton) quarterly, four issues? Spr.’88=13th edition of Hit Parader of that year; Win.’88=18th ed.

Hit Parader’s Heavy Metal Sex Stars ?

Fall ’89 (Charlton) one-shot?

Hit Parader’s Hot Metal Stars nn(#16)-nn(#19) Win.’89–Sum.’90 (Charlton) three issues? to: Hot Metal Stars Hit Parader’s Legends of Heavy Metal #18 Win.’89 (Charlton) one-shot; 18th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Metal Superstars ?-?

Spr.’89–Sum.’90 (Charlton) quarterly, six issues?

Hit Parader’s Metal of The 80’s See: Hit Parader Presents Metal of the 80’s Hit Parader’s Top 100 Metal Albums #13 Spr.’89 (Charlton) one-shot? 13th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Top 100 Metal Songs #13 Sum.’91 (Charlton?) one-shot? 13th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Top 100 Metal Stars #15 Fall ’90 (Charlton) one-shot? 15th edition of Hit Parader of that year Hit Parader’s Vocal Gods ?

Sum.’88 (Charlton Publication) one-shot?

252

Cover dates Oct.’55 Apr.’57 c1956 1958?–61?

Jan.’58 July ’56–Aug.’56 1976–79 Fall ’47

Publication name Issue numbers Cover dates Hit Songs and Stars Home Lighting Indoors & Outdoors #56 1965 Home Repairs Made Easy #139 Autumn ’70 Hootenanny Songs and Stars v1#1 Win.’64

(Publisher imprint) remarks See: 150 Hit Songs (Bruce-Royal) How-To Books #56; see note 17 (Charlton Publication) Easy Guide Library #139; see note 12 (Charlton Publishing) one-shot? photo features from: ABC TV’s Hoot’nanny Show and Hootenanny Hoot movie; see also: Songs and Stars Horoscope of the Stars v1–v2?

Spr.’70–Sum.’70 (Garnet Publications) quarterly, two issues? no management details supplied; see note 12 Horror Monsters #1–#10 1961–1964 (Charlton Publications) #2, 1961 (no month); see note 21 Horror Monsters Presents: Black Zoo v1#1 Fall ’63 (Charlton) one-shot; see note 21 Hot Cars nn Spr.’64 (Bruce-Royal) ‘first edition,’ Topical Sports Library Book, cover only; see note 18 Hot Metal Stars ?–?

Fall ’90–Win.’90 (Charlton) quarterly, two issues? from: Hit Parader’s Hot Metal Stars How-To be a Glamour Photographer #26 Sum.’63 (Bruce-Royal) Al Weiss, editor; How-To Books #26; see note 17 How-To Books #25–#56 1962–Spr.’65 (Bruce-Royal/Topical Magazines) one-shot series, 7.75 x 9.75in; see also: Topical Book, note 17 How-To Collect Coins For Profit #42 1964 (Topical Magazines) by Gail Madonia, Topical Book #42; see note 17 How-To Draw From Photos #33 Sum.’64 (Bruce-Royal) by Bob O’Connor, How-To Book #33; see note 17 How-To Ski #29 Win.’63/64 (Bruce-Royal) by Janet Wagner, How-To Book #29; see note 17 Humbug #1–#9 Aug.’57–May ’58 (Humbug Publishing) comic-sized, 15¢ cover; see note 22 Humbug #10–#11 June ’58–Aug./Oct.’58 (Humbug Publishing) 25¢ magazine format, series ends Humbug (bound volume) nn= 1958–59 (Humbug Publishing) two bound volumes containing #1–9 and #10–11; rare Hush-Hush v1#1–v?#49 May ’55–Jan.’65 (Picture Detective/Hush-Hush, #2 on) see notes 5, 10 Hypnotism, Reincarnation & Bridey Murphy #106 1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #106 by Ansul H. G. Wohl; 8.25x10in; see note 22 Ideas for Outdoor Living #37 1963 (Topical Magazines) Richard Carol, editor; Topical Book #37; see note 17 Indian Wars #9 Fall ’66 (Charlton Publications) Americana Library #9, see note 4 Inexpensive Vacation Homes #52 Spr.’65 (Topical Magazines) Robert Mayfield, editor; How-To Books #52; see note 17 Inland Game Fishing #2 1964 (Topical Magazines) Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book #2; see note 18 Jiffy Crosswords Magazine ?–?

1958?–Jan.’61 (T.V. Reporter) See note 12 Karate #40 Win.’63/64 (Topical Magazines) Bruce Arthur, editor; Galaxy International, photography; see also Combat Karate, Official Karate, notes 14, 16, 17 Karate and Judo #12 Fall ’65 (Topical Magazines) Pro-Amateur Sports Library #12; see note 18 The (New) Kinsey Report on Women #? c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #?, comic-sized, see note 22 Know Your Automobile #41 Spr.’64 (Bruce-Royal) Topical Book #41; see note 17 Latest Popular Song Hits Folio See: Song Hits Latest Popular Songs v4#3–v6#3 July ’45–Feb.’47 (Acme Music/Cottage Publishing/Charlton) from: Radio Hit Songs? to: Songs That Will Live Forever?; see Part Four comments Latest Song Hits (Liberty) #34?–#81?

1933?–38?

(Charlton Publications) Latest Hit Songs/Engel also exists Latin American Hits Songs nn–nn 1949–1949 (Capitol Stories) Earlier series from Peer International; see note 19 Laugh Out (Gals and Gags) #1–#2 Spr.’69–Sum.’69 (Charlton) 5x7in, conflict with Archie’s TV Laugh Out? Lawn and Garden Ideas #32 Sum.’64 (Bruce-Royal) by Bea Danville, How-to Book #32; see note 17 See: Americana, Charlton Lyric Library, Easy Guide Library, Pro-Amateur Sports, Topical Sports; see note 4 Leisure Library/Library Lost Gold and Hidden Treasure v1#1 Sum.’64 (Charlton) Real West Special Collector’s Edition, see notes 3, 4 Love and Emotion in Marriage #? c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #?, comic-sized, see note 22 Love Stories v4#8?–V4#10 Mar.’73–July ’73 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; others? continued by Mayfair; see note 26 Mad Monsters #1–#10 1961–1965 (Charlton Publications Inc.) no month stated; see note 21 The Male and Female Body #39 1963 (Topical Magazines) by Carli Laklan, Topical Book #39; see note 17 Man’s Combat v1#1 June ’69 (Charlton Publications) men’s adventures; continued by: Garnet Man’s Combat v1#2–v2#6 Aug.’69–Autumn ’70 (Garnet Publications) v2#5=Mar.’70; five issues; men’s adventures; no management details supplied Man’s Combat v1#1 c 1970 (Garnet Publications?) U.K. edition, new cover and contents?

Mario Casilli’s Hollywood Models #38 Win.’63 (Topical Magazines) 6.5 x 9.25in; Bruce Arthur, editor; Topical Book #38; see note 17 Martial Arts Illustrated v1#1–v1#3 Jan.’72–May ’72 (Charlton Publications) three issues? Post-Charlton series also; see note 16 Mobile Homes #43 1964 (Topical Magazines) by Carli Laklan, Topical Book #43; see note 17 Model Car Racing #9 Spr.’65 (Topical Magazines) one-shot; Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book #9; see note 18 The Monkees (Songs) See: Charlton Lyric Library Book Monsters #1–#4 c 1962–c 1962 (no publisher, U.K.) Horror Monsters and Mad Monsters reprints, with new covers; see note 21 More Than 1000 Ideas… Handyman #35 1963 (Topical Magazines) Topical Book #35; see note 17 More Than 1000 Hints… Homemaker#?

1964 (Topical Magazines) by Carli Laklan, Topical Book? See note 17 More Than 1000 Painting…Ideas #31 1964 (Bruce-Royal) by Christi Squire, How-To Book #31; see note 17 Movie Glamour v1#1–v1#2 Jan.’45–1945 (Frank Comunale) two issues? No distributor indicated, see note 10 Movie TV Spotlight v1#1–v2#11?

Feb.’70–Oct.’71 (Garnet Publications) bi-monthly; v2#10=Aug.’71; 11 issues? Judith Felice, editor Muscle and Bodybuilder v2#7–v7#23 Nov.’80–July ’84 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; 17 issues; from: Body Builder Muscle and Bodybuilder v6#24–v7#28 Win.’80–Win.’85 (Charlton Publications) quarterly, last five issues; see note 16 Muscle Up v1#1–v6#31 Oct.’79–Oct.’84 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; 31 issues, see note 16 Muscle Up v7#32–v7#34 Spr.’85–Fall 1985 (Charlton Publications) quarterly, last three issues; see note 16 Muscle World v1#1–v3#11 Sept.’80–May ’82 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly; 11 issues, see note 16 Naked Truth of History #5–#5 Spr.’65–Spr.’65 (Sharon Publishing) Photo Caption Book #5; see note 14 Nashville Sound v1#1–v2?#9 Sept.’75–Jan.’77 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, nine issues; v2#8=Nov.’76; others?

Needles and Thread v1#1?–v3?#12? July ’71–May ’73 (Charlton) bi-monthly, others? Mar. and May ’73=Featuring Arts & Crafts New Sounds v1#1–v1#9 Jan.’84–Nov.’84 (Charlton Publications) Rolling Stone format, 32 pgs., music–paper New York Journal American v1#1?–?

Feb.’60–’62?

(T.V. Reporter) 7x10.5in; see note 12 Crosswords Magazine Nightbeat v1#1 Dec.’57 (Ellimac Publishing) call-girls, crime, one-shot; see note 5 Nurse Stories v1#1–v1#1?

1964?–64?

(Charlton Publications) Ernest Hart, editor; see note 26 Official Elvis Presley Album nn 1956 (Charlton Press) 8.5x11in, 52 pgs., advertised in Nov.’56 Song Hits; mail order copies supplied with glossy Elvis photo. Note: 1990s EPE reprint also exists Official Guide To Buying Used Cars #28 Win.’63 (Bruce-Royal) by Arthur Liebers; How-To Books #28, see note 17 Official Karate v1#1–v19#143 June ’69–Jan.’87 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly/monthly; 143 issues; non-Charlton series, 1990 on; see Combat Karate, Karate; see note 16 Official Karate Annual nn?–nn?

Fall ’73–Spr.’86 (Charlton Publications) annual except 1978, 13 issues; see note 16

Charlton Magazine Index

253

Publication name Issue numbers Cover dates Official Karate’s Defense Combat v1#1–v2#9 Aug.’75–Dec.’76 Official Karate Movie Special #7 Sum.’83 Official Karate Special nn?–nn?

1981–Sum.’87 Official Karate Special v1#1–v4#13 Sum.’74–Feb.’77 Fighting Champions Official Karate Yearbook nn?–nn?

Sum.’73–Sum.’86 Official Monkees Songs Official Wrestling v1#1–v2#10 May ’83–Nov.’84 Over 50 Songs and Stars Over 100 All–Time Song Hits #4–#7 Sum.’65–Spr.’66 Painting And Refinishing Ideas Paris Life #1–#35 Apr.’51–Dec.’58 Partridge Family Song Special #1–#3 Sum.’71–Spr.’72

(Publisher imprint) remarks (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, nine issues? See note 16 (Charlton Publications) one-shot, with poster; see note 16 (Charlton Publications) bi–annual; 11 issues? see note 16 (Charlton Publications) quarterly; then bi-monthly, 13 issues; see note 16

(Charlton Publications) annual, 14 issues; see note 16 See: Charlton Lyric Library #1–197 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, Lew Eskin, editor; other series exist See: Songs and Stars (Charlton Publications) two issues; Americana Library #4, #7; see note 4 See: More Than 1000 Painting And Refinishing Ideas (Paris Life) #1 over-size; v3#33=June ’58, see notes 5, 13 (Charlton) #2=Win.’71; three issues? 18th edition of Song Hits for that year; 1971–73 Partridge Family comic book series published by Charlton also exists Peep Show v1#1–#34 Win.’50–May ’58 (Capitol Stories/N–E–W–S Publishing) v1#2=Mar.’51; see note 13 Personal Story v1#1–v1#2 June ’55–Mar.’56 (Modern Living Council) celebrity tattle; editor Eugene Tillinger and art director Clyde Prettyman; to Glamorous Starlets v1#3; see note 29 Photo Caption Book #1–#5 Fall ’64–Spr.’65 (Bruce-Royal/Sharon Publishing) landscape format series; see note 14 Pin–Up Photography v1#1–v1#2 Spr.’56–Sum.’56 (Charlton Publications) by Charles Kell, Bettie Page cover #1; see note 13 Plans for American Homes v1#1–#4 Apr.’56–1958 (Charlton Publications) four issues? 68 pgs., 35¢; see note 22 Police Record Detective v1#1–#25?

Nov.’47–Win.’54 (Picture Detective Publishing) 10.5x13.5in; then 9.75x12.5in; v1#7, Oct.’49; #12=Win’51; #24=Fall ’53; see note 10 Political Capers #2 Fall 1964 (Sharon Publishing) Photo Caption Book #2, letterbox 10x7in; see note 14 Popular Needlecraft v1#1–?

1970–Aug.’72 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, others?

Popular Songs v4#2–v8#5 Feb.’49–May ’53 (Charlton Publishing) from: Screen Songs; others? 1934 Dell series also Power Metal v1#1–v4#15?

Dec.’87–June ’90 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, pull-out poster; v3#14=Apr.’90; others?

Pro-Amateur Sports Library #1–#12 Spr.’64–Fall 1965 (Topical Magazines, Inc.) ‘Topical Sports Library’ covers, see note 18 Pro Basketball ’64 #1 1964 (Topical Magazines Inc.) Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book #1 Pro Basketball ’65 #7 1965 (Topical Magazines Inc.) Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book #7; see note 18 Prosperity Book #1?–#130?

1930s–1930s?

(Old and New World Inc./International Music Publishing Co.) Prosperity Big Book (2) v1#1–v1#3?

1941–May ’41?

(Charlton Publications) second series?

Prosperity Hit Parader #1–#2?

1941–42 (Charlton?) Two issues? see also: Hit Parader Psychic Dimensions v1#1–v2#7 May ’73–July ’74 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, Tony Tallarico, editor; seven issues?

The Psychic Journal v1#1–v2#3 Oct.’87–Feb.’88 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, Valerie Ridenour, editor; three issues?

Radio Hit Songs (Latest Popular) v1#1–v3#6 Oct.’41–Jun/July’44 (Charlton Publishing) monthly? 9.25x12in magazine Radio Hit Songs (Latest Songs) v3#7–v3#9 Aug.’44–Oct.’44?

(Charlton Pub.) final issues as folded newspaper, four pgs., 18x24in; to: Latest Popular Songs?

Ranch Houses, Homes and Cottages v1#1 1956 (Charlton Pub.) one-shot, 68 pgs., 35¢; see note 22 Rappin’ v1#1–v2#8?

Jan.’90–Mar.’91 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, eight issues? v1#6=Nov.’90, pull–out poster; Hadley D. Murrell, editor-in-chief; hip-hop music Real West v1#1–v31#221 Oct.’57–Oct.’88 (Charlton) historical/factual, American West; see also: American Indian (Native American), notes 3, 4 Real West Annual –#2 Spr.’67 (Charlton Publications) Leisure Library #2, see notes 3, 4 Real West Annual #8–#11?

Spr.’66–1986?

(Charlton Publications) see Americana Library #8 and notes 3, 4 Real West Annual #8 1968 (Charlton Publications) Leisure Library #8, see notes 3, 4 Real West presents Famous Lawmen #14 Fall 1973 (Charlton Publications) one-shot, Americana Library; see notes 3, 4 Real West presents Great Indians… #13 Spr.’72 (Charlton Publications) Special Collector’s Edition; see notes 3, 4 Real West presents Pioneers… #?

Sum.’73 (Charlton Publications) one-shot, Americana Library; see notes 3, 4 Real West presents Saga…Amer. Indian #13 Win.’70’71 (Charlton Publications) one-shot; see notes 3, 4 Real West Special ?–?

1981–Spr.’86 (Charlton Publications) six issues? see notes 3, 4 Real West Special Collector’s Issue See: Americana Library #2 and Lost Gold, also notes 3, 4 Real West Yearbook #?–#?

1974?–Win.’86 (Charlton Publications) annual; see notes 3, 4 Reel Soul (Academy Awards Special) #7(1) Sum.’73 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? Black movie stars Reel Soul nn(#2)–v4#15? Apr.’74–June ’76 (Charlton Publications) bi-monthly, #6=Dec.’74; v3#11=Oct.’75, others?

Revealed v1#1–v2#3?

July ’57–Apr.’58 (Hampshire Publishing) #1=Aug cover, v1#2=Dec.’57; see note 6 Rhythm and Blues (Stories & Photos) v1#1–v5#67 Aug.’52–Feb.’65 (Onyx Publishing) v1#7=Aug.’53, v9#48=Oct.’60; others?

Rock and Roll Songs v1#1–v13#61 May ’56–Nov.’68?

(Onyx Publishing) v4#20=Nov.’59, to: Rock and Soul Songs Rock and Soul Songs (1) v14?#62–v27#172 Jan.’69?–Mar.’84 (Charlton Pub.) bi-monthly, v14#64=May ’69, from: Rock and Roll Songs; to: Rock and Soul Rock and Soul (2) v28#173–v31#211 Apr.’84–Aug.’87 (Charlton Publications) monthly; “Songs” on cover to Mar.’84 Rock and Soul (Songs) Annual ?–?

Spr.’75–Sum.’86 (Charlton Publications) do 1978? 1982–83? 1985 exist? seven issues?

Rock and Soul Awards ?–?

Spr.’85–Sum.’87 (Charlton Publications) two issues?

Rock and Soul Presents Super Soul Stars #14 Win.’84 (Charlton) one-shot; Michael Jackson Rock and Soul (Songs) Yearbook #7–?

Autumn ’70–Win.’85 (Charlton Publications) do 1972–73? 1975–77? 1981 exist? ten issues?

Rock Folk Pop Blues Song Folio #5 Spr.’67 (Onyx Publishing) last? from: Rock Folk Song Folio Rock Folk Song Folio v1#1–v1#4 Spr.’66–Win.’66 (Onyx Publishing) quarterly; to: Rock Folk Pop Blues Song Folio Rock Folk Songs #7 Win.’65 (Onyx Publishing) one-shot; seventh issue of Rock and Roll Songs. Newspaper format Rock Superstars See: Song Hits Presents Rock Superstars Screen Songs (1) ?–v3#6 Jan.’45?–Nov.’45 (Charlton Publications) two issues?

Screen Songs (2) v1#1–v3#11?

Jan.’46–Nov.’48 (Charlton Publishing) monthly; second series; v2#1=Feb.’47, to: Popular Songs Secret Life Confessions v1#1 Dec.’59 (Charlton Pub) one-shot? conflict w/St. John’s Secret Life or Goodman’s Life Confessions? See note 26 Seek–A–Word v1#1?–?

1955?–1987?

(Charlton) 7.5x10in, v14#143=Jan.’85; puzzle magazine; Annuals, Best of, and Specials also exist; see also: Find–A–Word; note 12 Sewing and Knitting for Teens v1#1 Spr.’64 (Sharon Publishing) one-shot? Kay Morrissey, editor; see note 17 Sewing Basket v1#1–v?#?

Dec.’70–Sept.’76?

(Charlton Publications) bi-monthly/monthly; v3#12=July ’72, others?

Sex ‘n Spice and the Single Girl #3 Fall ’64 (Sharon Publishing) by Galaxy International, Photo Caption Book #3, see note 14 Sex, Spice and the Single Man #1 1963 (Bruce-Royal) Photo Caption Book #1, letterbox, note 14 Shape Up v1#1–#2 1963–Win.’63 (Bruce-Royal) two issues? advertisement on back cover: Teen Hairdos v1#1, 1963 edition Shocking Confessions V2#9–V2#10 June ’80–Aug. ’80 (Charlton Publications) Gloria Hayes, editor; others?

254

Publication name Sick Sick Special Six Million Dollar Man SkyJack

Issue numbers Cover dates (Publisher imprint) remarks #109–#134 Apr.’76–Fall ’80 (Charlton) final 26 issues, formerly Pyramid Publications #1–#2 1980 (Charlton) two issues? Note: #126, #131, and #134 also tagged “Special” v1#1–v2#7 July ’76–Nov.’77 (Charlton) seven issues; comics magazine, comics series also published by Charlton; see note 7 v1#1–v1#1 Win.’72/73–Win.’72/73 (Charlton Publications) ‘Great American Adventure Series’ 100 pgs; airplane hi-jacks, photos; edited, illustrated, and text by Tony Tallarico Smash Hits v1#1–v?

May ’81–May ’85 (Charlton Publications) v1#2=July ’81; v2#5=Jan.’82; v3#11=June ’83; v4#21=Aug.’84; separate U.K. title also exists, 1978–2006 Snappy Crosswords Magazine ?–?

1958?–1973?

(T.V. Reporter, Inc.) see note 12 Song Hits (1) v1#1–v13#8 Apr.’37–Jan.’50 (Song Lyrics) Engel series, Kable distribution; continued by Charlton, see note 9 Song Hits (2) v13#9–v54#277 Apr.’50–Nov.’90 (Song Lyrics/Song Hits/Charlton) Charlton issues commence; to: Song Hits’ Heartbreakers; see also: Partridge Family Song Special, Super Song Hits, and note 11 Song Hits Annual ?–?

Win.’73/74–Spr.’87 (Charlton Publications) annual, others?

Song Hits’ Heartbreakers v55#278–v55#279?

Feb.’91–Apr.’91 (Charlton Publications) two issues? from: Song Hits (2); series ends Song Hits Magazine Presents Elvis ?–?

Win.’79–Win.’87 (Charlton Publications) annual, not 1986? eight issues; Win.’81=#9 Song Hits Magazine Presents ?

1978 (Charlton Publications) one-shot; to: Song Hits Magazine Presents Elvis Memories of the King (Elvis Presley) Song Hits Magazine ?

Spr.’87 (Charlton Publications) Bruce Springsteen, one-shot? see also: Song Hits’ Superstars Presents Rock Superstars Song Hits Magazine’s Tribute to Elvis #101 Win.’77 (Charlton Publications) Elvis Presley memorial issue Song Hits of the Fabulous Fifties #14 Spr.’73 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? 14th edition of Song Hits of that year Song Hits of the Swingin’ 60’s #15 Fall 1973 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? see also: Song Hits Presents the Super ’60s and Song Hits of the Fabulous Fifties Song Hits of the Super Seventies nn(1)–v7#23?

Sum.’74–Spr.’80 (Charlton Pubs) quarterly; Sum.’74=Collector’s Edition; v6#21=sum.’79; to: Super Song Hits Song Hits presents Rock Superstars ?

Spr.’87 (Charlton Publications) Bruce Springsteen; one-shot?

Song Hits presents the Super ’60s v1#1–v1#3 June ’87–Nov.’87 (Charlton) #1=The Monkees, #2=The Beatles, #3=The Rolling Stones Song Hits Review of ‘62 ?

Dec./Jan.’63 (Charlton Publications) one-shot Song Hits Special ?–?

1980–Fall ’86 (Charlton Publications) annual; others?

Song Hits’ Superstars ?–?

Fall ’90–Spr.’91 (Charlton Publications) three issues? New Kids on the Block, Madonna, and Janet Jackson Song Hits Tribute to John Lennon #13 1981 (Charlton Publications) memorial issue; 13th issue of Song Hits of that year Song Hits Yearbook ?–?

Win.’70–Fall ’88 (Charlton Publications) annual, 19 issues? others?

Song Master v1#1?–v3#5 Nov.’41?–May ’43 (Charlton Publishing) v2#5=Mar.’42; v2#8, Aug.’42; newspaper 16 pgs.

Songs and Stars (1) v14#1–v14#5? Nov.’57–Aug.’58 (Charlton Publication) Marvin Shnayer, editor; five issues? magazine, 56 pgs., from: Songs That Will Live Forever?

Songs and Stars (2) v1#1?–v6#24 cFeb.’65–July ’70 (Charlton) newspaper, 8x11in. v1#6=Dec.’65; v2#11=Feb.’67. See also: Country Songs and (Over 50 Songs and Stars) Stars, Heavy Metal Songs and Stories, Hit Songs and Stars, Hootenanny Songs and Stars.

(TV Song Stars 1954, non-Charlton also exists) Songs and Stars (Elvis Presley) #7 Fall 1965 (Charlton) newspaper. “Elvis Presley” on cover, indicia reads, “ELVIS PRESLEY, Fall, 1965, Is the 7th issue of SONGS AND STARS” Songs That Live Forever v22#1–v23#2 Spr.’63–Win.’64/65 (Charlton Publishing) three issues?

Songs That Will Live Forever v6#6–v13#4 Fall ’47–Aug.’57 (Charlton Publishing) v13#3=May ’57; from? to: Songs and Stars(1)?

Songs You’ll Love to Sing ?–?

1959 (Charlton Publishing) (worldcat, exist?)

Soul Hits v1#1–v2?#8?

Win.’84–Fall ’86 (Charlton Publications) quarterly, v2#2=Spr.’85; JoAnn Sardo, editor; eight issues?

(Charlton) v2#2=Jan.’76, comics magazine, comics series published by Charlton also; see notes 7, 12 Space: 1999 v1#1–v2#8 Nov.’75–Oct.’76 Space: 1999 nn 1976 (Charlton Press/Xerox Education) 6.75 x 7.75in; see note 20 Special/Special Collector’s Edition See: Americana Library (note 4), Auto Portfolio, Great Indians, Gung-Ho, Hit Parader, Lost Gold, Official Karate, Partridge Family, Real West, Sick, Song Hits, True Saga… American Indian Sports Car Pictorial v1#1–v1#2 Spr.’56–Sum.’56 (Charlton Publications) quarterly; two issues; John Kingdon, editor #1; Robert Milford, editor #2; non-Charlton continuation (Charlton Pubs) quarterly; v11#38=Win.’84, v13#48=Fall ’86; from: Song Hits of the Super Seventies Super Song Hits v7#24–v13#49? Sum.’80–Win.’87 Super/Superstars See: Rock and Soul Presents, Song Hits (various), TV Record Superstars Tales of Terror v1#1 Sum.’64 (Charlton) one-shot, illustrated; Pat Masulli, editor; see note 21 Teen Age v1#1–v1#6 Mar.’63?–Nov.’63 (Charlton) v1#3=July ’63; others? promotion in Oct 27, 1962, Billboard, with Teen Hit Parader Teen Fever (1) v1#1–v1#6?

Feb.’79–Dec.’79 (Charlton?) bi-monthly, v1#2=Apr.’79; others; pre-Charlton series, 1977–78 Teen Fever (2) v1#1–v2#2 Win.’84–Feb.’85 (Eros Publications) giant poster magazine; two issues? see note 27 Teen Hairdos (A teen–age publication) v1#1–v1#2 1963–Win.’63 (Bruce-Royal?) Two issues? see also: Shape Up v1#1, 1963 Teen Hit Parader v22#2–v22#7 Mar.’63–Oct.’63 (Charlton Publishing) six issues, to/from: Hit Parader Teen Tunes and Pin–Ups v1#1–v?

July ’67–Nov.’68?

(Song Hits, Inc.) v1#3=Nov.’67; #6?=Jan.’68; others?

Teen Tunes and Pin–Ups v?–v?

Oct.’69–Oct.’69?

(Charlton Publications) reprints first issue?

Teens Now! v1#1–#?

May ’72–Oct.’75?

(Garnet Publications/Charlton) bi-monthly; v3#15=Oct.’74; Judith Felice, editor Teens Now! Yearbook #7 Sum.’73 (Garnet Publications) Seventh issue of Teens Now! for that year; one-shot?

Ten Ways to Peace of Mind #? c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #? comic-sized, see note 22 This Magazine Is Crazy (1) v3#2 July ’57 (Humor Magazines) comic-sized, Elvis Presley spoof cover; see note 8 This Magazine Is Crazy (2) v3#3–v4#8 Nov.’57–Mar.’59 (Humor Magazines) six issues; comics magazine; see note 8 Those French Cartoons #115 c1957 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #115; see note 22 Those Were the Days v1#1–v1#3 Feb.’72–June ’72 (Garnet Publications) bi-monthly, nostalgia; three issues? Pat Masulli or Edward LeBlanc, editors Today’s Horoscope v4#17–v4#18 May/June ’58, Aug./Sept.’58 (T.V. Reporter Inc.) Ruth H. Oliver, editor; Clyde Prettyman, art director; from: Everybody’s Horoscope; see note 12 Top Secret v1#5(1)–v13#62 Fall 1953–Feb.’65 (Picture Detective/Top Secret) from: Exclusive Picture Detective? see notes 5, 10 A Topical Book #25–#56?

1963?–65?

(Bruce-Royal/Topical Magazines) series, also as: How-To Book; 6.75x9.75in; see note 17 Topical Sports Library Book #1–#12 Spr.’64–1965 (Topical Magazine) cover flash for: Pro-Amateur Sports Library series; see note 18 True Horoscope ?

1950s (T.V. Reporter, Inc.) see note 12 (Charlton) previously a comic series, #1–29 (’51–56); v2#36=Mar.’58, v12#73=July ’65; date gap?

True Life Secrets v1#30(1)–v12#76 Feb.’56–Apr.’66 True Life Secrets v13#1–?

Oct.’68–June ’80 (Charlton Publications) series renumbered; v25#47=July ’79 See note 26 True Nurse Confessions v1#1–v2#2 Dec.’63–June ’64 (Charlton Publications) Two issues? See note 26 True Saga of the American Indian v1#1 Win.’63/64 (Charlton Publications) Special Collector’s Edition; see notes 3, 4 True Saga of the American Indian #6 Win.’66 (Charlton Publications) Americana Library #6 Special Collector’s Edition; see notes 3, 4 True Space Secrets v1#1 Apr.’58 (Ellimac Publishing) one-shot; see note 5

Charlton Magazine Index

255

Publication name Issue numbers TV Movie Backstage v1#1–v4#16 TV Record Superstars v1#1–v?#?

TV Record Superstars v?#7?

T.V. Reporter v1#1–v1#7 TV Scandals v1#1–v2#3 Upland Game Hunting #?

Valor v1#1–v2#3 Van Buyers Guide v1#1?

Veri–Best Crosswords Magazine ?–?

War Story v1#1 War Story v1#2–v4#8 Wars of the American Indian #3 Water Fun Illustrated #?

Werewolves and Vampires #1 Western Digest v1#1–v1#5 Who–Dramatic Detective nn(#1)–nn(#1) Who’s Who In Football #5 Who’s Who in Hockey #8 Wild, Seductive and Single #4 The Woman’s Complete Workbasket #110 Words and Music nn Xerox Book Club (series) nn–nn Your Astrology v1#1?–?

Cover dates (Publisher imprint) remarks July ’69–Jan.’72 (Garnet Publications) bi-monthly, 16 issues; v3#13=July ’71; Pat Masulli, editor Apr.’70–Apr.’71 (Garnet Publications) bi-monthly, Pat Masulli, executive director Apr.’74 (Garnet Publications) date gap, final issue?

Apr. 24’53–June 5,’53 (T.V. Reporter, Inc.) weekly TV listings digest, others? see note 12 Aug.’57–Apr.’58 (Hampshire Publishing) three issues; #1=July cover, v1#2=Dec.’57, see note 6 1964 (Topical Magazines?) Pro-Amateur Sports Library #? See note 18 Nov.’68–Mar.’69 (Charlton Pubs.) adult color section in each, three issues; v2#2=Jan.’69 Sum.’76 (Charlton Publications) one-shot? continued by: Petersen, 1977 1958?–73?

(T.V. Reporter) see note 12 July ’57 (Selected Publications, Inc.) see note 8 Dec.’57–Feb.’60 (Charlton Publications) new publisher; v2#6=Sept.’58; v3#7=Feb.’59; seven issues Win.’64/65 (Charlton Publications) Americana Library #3, see notes 3, 4 1964 (Topical Magazines?) Pro-Amateur Sports Library #? see note 18 1962 (Charlton Publications) one-shot, U.K. overprint known; see note 21 Mar.’69–Nov.’69 (Charlton) bi-monthly, historical/factual, digest, 128 pgs., five issues? See notes 3, 4 Aug.’45–Aug.’45 (Frank Comunale) Arthur Kass, editor; to: Dramatic Detective; see note 10 Fall 1964 (Topical Magazines) Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book #5, see note 18 Win.’65 (Topical Magazines) Pro-Amateur Sports Library #8, see note 18 1965 (Sharon Publishing) Photo Caption Book #4, see note 14 c1956 (Charlton Publications) Charlton Book #110; part-color; see note 22 1949 (Capitol Stories) 10.5x13in, 35¢, one-shot; see note 19 1972–77 (Xerox Education/Charlton Press) various, see notes 20, 25 1961–86?

(Charlton) sporadically from 1945? v6#42=Win.’77; v8#52=#Sum.’79

Publication name Avant Library Book Best Cartoons from Caper Best Cartoons from Escapade Best Cartoons from Escapade Best of Eros Black Lace Bruce-Royal Library Book Campus Dolls Campus Dolls Annual

Cover dates (Publisher imprint) remarks Autumn ’67–Sum.’68 See: Best Cartoons From Escapade #8–10, and Combat Karate Fall 1964 (Topical Magazines) Best of Caper Cartoons, cover; one-shot?

Fall ’63–Win.’66 (Bruce-Royal) seven issues? #4=Sum.’64, v2#4=Win.’65/66; does #7 exist?

Fall ’67–Sum.’68 (Avant Publishing) three issues; #10=Avant Leisure Library, see note 4 (Avant Library Book) 1978–86 (Eros Publications) adult, annual; others? see note 27 Sum.’64 (Bruce-Royal) one-shot? earlier series from: Rilgac Publishing 1965–66 See: Campus Dolls, Escapade Year Book, For Men, Gentleman Annual, Gentleman Year Book Sum.’65 (Bruce-Royal) Bruce-Royal Library Book #4, one-shot?

Spr.’64 (Bruce-Royal) seventh edition of Gentleman; one-shot; Monarch Books #485 [1964] Campus Doll by Edwin West also exists Oct.’56–Mar.’58 (Dee Publishing) v1#12=Jan.’58 non-Charlton, info only, title suspended Nov.’58–Nov.’58 (Sharon Publishing) Derby, CT restart, vol. 4 does not exist; no CDC tag Jan.’59–Nov.’61 (Humor Magazines) 18 issues, Douglas Allen, editor; v5#1, v5#2=no CDC tag Jan.’62–Dec.’66 (Topical Magazines) bi-monthly; 30 issues; Douglas Allen, editor, 1959–63 Feb.’67–Nov.’67 (Avant Publishing) five issues, CDC distribution; continued by Kable News 1960–65 (Humor/Topical) annual, six issues; Charlton, CDC distribution 1966–68 (Avant Publishing) annual, three issues; CDC distribution, reprints 1959 (Sharon Publishing) one-shot? no CDC code. reprints. Does 1960 exist?

1961–68 (Topical Magazines/Avant?) annual reprints, eight issues? CDC distribution 1959 (Humor Magazine, Inc.) one-shot? no CDC coding Sum.’64–Sum.’65 (Bruce-Royal) two issues? Sum.’64=seventh issue of Escapade?

July ’77–Mar.’86 (Eastway Enterprises/Eros Publications) 35 issues; see note 27 1982–Feb.’83 (Eros Publications?) #4=Nov.’82; U.K. edition? see note 27 1981?–83 (Eros Publications) three issues? nn=14th edition of Eros for that year; see note 27 1983–Apr.’85 (Eros Publications) six issues? v1#2–1984; see note 27 Oct.’55–June ’57 (Dee Publishing Co) non-Charlton, info only July ’57–July ’57 (Dee Publishing Co) CDC distribution Nov.’57–Aug.’60 (Bruce Publishing) 17 issues; bi-monthly Oct.’60–June ’66 (Bruce-Royal) bi-monthly to v12#3 then monthly; Douglas Allen editor, 1961–63 Sept.’66–July ’68 (Avant Publishing) CDC, 17 issues; to See Magazines/non-CDC 1963–67 (Bruce-Royal/Avant) annual; five issues 1956 (Dee Publishing) one-shot; non-Charlton, reprints; info only 1960–67 (Bruce-Royal) annual, reprints, #8=1965; CDC distribution?

1957 (Dee Publishing) one-shot? non-Charlton, info only c1959–61 (Bruce-Royal?) two issues? 1959, no CDC code?

Fall 1956 (Dee Publishing) one-shot, reprints; non-Charlton, info only. Several copies exist with “England Edition” overstamp 1957 (Bruce-Royal) reprints, one-shot; no CDC tag 1962–66 (Bruce-Royal) CDC; reprints; 1966 = Bruce-Royal Library Book #?

1967–Win.’67–’68 (Avant Publishing) two issues; CDC distribution, reprints Spr.’65 (Bruce-Royal) one-shot? a Bruce-Royal Library Book Win.’60–Win.’60 (Royal Publications) #1, Bruce Arthur, editor; Derby CT; CDC tag, #2 on Sept.’60–Dec.’65 (Bruce-Royal) 30 issues; v5#4=June ’65, Douglas Allen, editor 1961–63; series ends; incorporated with Escapade 1962–64 (Bruce-Royal) annual, three issues, reprints Sum.’65–Sum.’65 (Bruce-Royal) Bruce-Royal Library Book #5 (seventh edition of Gentleman) 1963–Spr.’66 (Bruce-Royal) Charlton, reprints; four issues? 1965 edition as: Bruce-Royal Library Book #?

1967 (Avant Publishing) CDC distribution, last?

Fall 1963 (Bruce-Royal) one-shot? to: Glamorous Girls?

Win.’63 (Bruce-Royal) reprints, one-shot? from: Girls Girls Girls?

Section Two: Adult Magazines Published by Charlton Index Issue numbers #8–#10 #1 nn(#1)–v3#6 #8–#10 #1–#8 #1 various #4 v1#1

Escapade’s Choicest Escapade(’s) Year Book Escapade Yearbook For Men: The Year’s Sexiest Best Gentleman (1) Gentleman (2)

#3 nn?–nn? nn?–nn? #1 v1#1–v1#1 v1#2–v5#5

Gentleman Annual (1) Gentleman Annual (2) Gentleman’s Year Book (1) Gentleman’s Yearbook (2) Girls! Girls! Girls!

Glamorous Girls

nn?–nn? #5–#5 nn?–#10 nn? nn? v2#2

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Charlton Adult Magazine Index ©2022 Frank Motler.

Caper (1) v1#1–v2#1 Caper (2) v3#1–v3#1 Caper (3) v5#1–v7#6 Caper (4) v8#1–v12#6 Caper (5) v13#1–v13#5 Caper Annual (1) nn?–nn?

Caper Annual (2) nn?–nn?

Caper’s Choicest Readers’ Selection nn?

Caper’s Choicest nn?–nn?

Caper’s Treasure Chest nn?

Date Mates (Collector’s Edition) #7–#3 Eros v1#3–v9#37 Eros Album #?–#?

Eros Porn Stars nn(#14)–#3 Eros Sex Stars v1#1–v1#6 Escapade (1) v1#1–v2#8 Escapade (2) v2#9–v2#9 Escapade (3) v3#1–v5#5 Escapade (4) v5#6–v11#4 Escapade (incorporating Gentleman) v11#5–v13#6 Escapade Calendar 1964–1968 Escapade’s Annual (1) #1 Escapade’s Annual (2) nn?–#3 Escapade’s Best #1 Escapade’s Carnival nn?–nn?

Escapade’s Choicest nn?

Publication name Party Play Gals Peek–A–Boo Play Dates Play–Things Stallion

Issue numbers nn? nn? nn?–#2 v1#1 v1#1–v6#7

Cover dates Sum.’63 Win.’64 Win.’63–Spr.’65 Fall 1964 Apr.’82–Jan.’88

Stallion Studs (Special) Women of Italy Women of the Orient Women of the World (Gentlemans)

#1(13)–#2(13) v1#1 v1#2 v1#1

1983–84 1960 1960 1960

(Publisher imprint) remarks (Bruce-Royal) “collector’s edition” reprints. one-shot?

(Bruce-Royal) reprints, one-shot? reuses cover from May ’60 Caper (Bruce-Royal) Spr.’64 also, three issues? reprints from Caper (Bruce-Royal) one-shot? reprints from Caper (Stallion Publications) monthly, bi-monthly Mar.’86 on; gay interest, male nudity; new series by Flynt/FDC, v1#1, Mar.’88 on; see note 27 (Stallion Publications) two issues, adult; both, 13th issue of Stallion for that year (Bruce-Royal) Women of the World series, first issue (Bruce-Royal) Women of the World series, second issue (Bruce-Royal?) UK reprint of Women of Italy

Charlton Publisher Imprint Names, Indexer Comments ©2022 Frank Motler.

Section Three: Charlton Publisher Imprint Names

Acme Music Corporation, Derby CT: Latest Popular Songs American Folk Publications: Country Song Roundup (and Year Book), Country Songs and Stars, Cowboy Songs, and Folk and Country Songs Avant Publishing: (note 13) Best Cartoons From Escapade, Caper, Caper Annual, Combat Karate, Escapade, Escapade Yearbook, Gentleman’s Yearbook Bruce Publishing Corporation: (note 13) Escapade Bruce-Royal Publishing Corporation: (notes 13, 14) Auto Portfolio, Best Cartoons from Escapade, Black Lace, Campus Dolls, Date Mates, Escapade (and specials), For Men, Gentleman (and specials), Girls! Girls! Girls!, Glamorous Girls, Hot Cars, How-To-Books, Party Play Gals, Peek-A-Boo, Photo Caption Book, Play Dates, Play-Things, Teen Hairdos? Topical Book, Women of Italy, Women of the Orient Capitol Stories, Inc.: (note 19) American Beauties, Elton Britt’s Song Book, Fantastic Science Fiction [#2], Good Humor [#2], Hillbilly and Cowboy Hit Parade, Hillbilly Hit Parade, Hillbilly Hit Songs, Hillbilly Western Songs, Latin American Hits Songs, Peep Show [#1-7?], Words and Music Charlton College Songbooks, Inc.: (note 19) Children’s Songs Games and Carols Charlton Press, Inc.: The Beatles, Best Of Good Humor, Charlton Comics Group (newsletters), Hercules, Official Elvis Presley Album, Xerox Book (series, note 20) Charlton Publications, Inc.: various (as Section 1a) Charlton Publishing Corp./Corporation: various (as Section 1a) Colony Publications: (note 12) Arrow The Family Comics Weekly Comunale Publishing: (see: Frank Comunale Publishing) Cottage Publishing, Derby, CT: Latest Popular Songs Country Song Roundup: Country Song Roundup [1991–2000] Eastway Enterprises Ltd.: see: Eros Publications, Inc. Ellimac Publishing Corp.: Girls Spies, Nightbeat, True Space Secrets Eros Publications, Inc.: (note 27) Best of Eros, Eros, Eros Album, Eros Porn Stars, Eros Sex Stars, Teen Fever [#2] Film Story Publishing Corp.: (note 10) no known titles Frank Comunale Publishing Company, N.Y.: (note 10) Chief Detective, Detective Parade, Dramatic Detective, Federal Detective Bureau, Movie Glamour, WhoDramatic Detective Galaxy International, Inc.: (note 14) How-To Book #25, Photo Caption Book, Topical Book #40 Garnet Publications, Inc., Derby, CT: Horoscope of the Stars, Man’s Combat, Movie TV Spotlight, Teens Now!, Teens Now Yearbook, Those Were The Days, TV Movie Backstage, TV Record Superstars

Hampshire Publishing Corp.: (note 6) Revealed, TV Scandals Hit Parader Publications, Inc.: Hit Parader [1991–2009] Humbug Publishing, Inc. (Harvey Kurtzman): Humbug Humor Magazines, Inc.: (note 13) Campus Humor, Caper, Caper Annual, Caper’s Treasure Chest, Cartoon Spice, Crazy Man Crazy, Eye Opener, From Here to Insanity, Good Humor [#3–5], This Magazine Is Crazy Hush-Hush Magazine Co./Inc.: (notes 5, 10) Hush-Hush [#3, 1955 on?]

Modern Living Council of Conn., Inc.: (note 29) Complete Horoscope, Dynamite, Glamorous Starlets, Personal Story N-E-W-S Publishing Corporation: Peep Show [#8–#34] Old and New World Inc.: Prosperity Book Onyx Publishing Company: Ebony Song Parade, Rhythm and Blues, Rock and Roll Songs, Rock Folk Pop Blues Song Folio, Rock Folk Song Folio, Rock Folk Songs Paris Life, Inc.: Paris Life The Picture Detective Publishing Co.: (note 10) District Attorneys Detective, Exclusive Picture Detective, Federal Crimes Detective, Good Humor [1947], Good Humor (2), Hush-Hush [#1–2?], Police Record Detective, Top Secret [#5–14?]

Royal Publications: (note 13) Gentleman [v1#1] Selected Publications, Inc.: War Story [v1#1] Sharon Publishing Co./Corporation: (note 13) Antique Airplanes, Caper, Caper’s Choicest Readers Selection, Cassius Clay, Chic Miss, Knitting For Teens, Photo Caption Book (note 14) Song Hits, Inc.: Song Hits, Teen Tunes and Pin-Ups Song Lyrics, Inc./Publications, Inc.: (notes 13, 14) Song Hits Stallion Publications, Inc.: (note 27) Stallion, Stallion Studs Super Science Fiction Publications: Fantastic Science Fiction [#1] Top Secret Publishing Co.: (notes 5, 10) Top Secret (circa 1956 on) Topical Magazines, Inc.: (notes 13, 17, 18) Antique Airplanes, Caper, Caper Annual, Hair Styling, How-to Book, Pro-Amateur Sports Library (Topical Sports Library), Topical Book T.V. Reporter, Inc.: (note 12) 10-Minute Crosswords, 99 Simple Crosswords, 100 Easy Crosswords, 150 Quick ‘n’ Easy Crosswords, 175 Easy to Solve Crosswords, Complete Horoscope, Everybody’s Crosswords, Everybody’s Horoscope, Fast ‘n’ Easy Crosswords Magazine, Fun Crosswords Magazine, Jiffy Crosswords Magazine, New York Journal American Crosswords, Snappy Crosswords Magazine, T.V. Reporter, Veri-Best Crosswords T.W.O. Charles Co.: Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary

Section Four: Indexer Comments

Company, which is believed to have been established between 1947–48. Prior to that date, Who-Dramatic Detective [Aug.’45] was distributed by Fawcett (FDC), while Children’s Songs Games and Carols, Elton Britt’s Song Book, Hillbilly Hit Songs, Latin American Hits Songs; and Words and Music were distributed

by ICD/Hearst (note 19). Unusually, some editions of Chief Detective #1 [May ’50] have codes for both PDC and Kable, with the remainder Kable only. Good Humor, Hillbilly Hit Parade, and Police Record Detective were distributed by LNC/Leader News Co. [1948–52], with the remainder distributed by Fawcett (FDC, later FPI) [1946–55]. Despite the formation of CDC in the late ’40s, there is early coding (SDC or SCDC) on the 1945–46 Charlton comics: Courage #2, Yellowjacket #8 and 10 (not #9), Zoo Funnies #3, #4 (first), and Latest Popular Songs v4 #6 magazine (Dec.’45) are known. The 16-page song paper, Cowboy Songs (later Country Songs and Stars) was CDC-coded from the outset (1948), but it was mid-1953 before Capital was carrying all of Charlton’s comics. The transfer of magazines to CDC was not completed until March 1955, when all Charlton titles were incorporated. CDC continued after the demise of Charlton Press, when CDC was acquired by Kable News in August 1993 (part of AMREP Corp., since 1969) although CDC tagging remained visible until 1994 (on Hit Parader and Country Song Roundup). From the 1970s, some Charlton magazines were distributed in U.K., and these carried the U.K. price (45p) in addition to U.S. pricing. 911 Detective, Detective Diary, and Valor are known.—FM.

This completely original index was researched and presented in this form by indexer Frank Motler. It lists all known magazines published by Charlton and associated companies, together with first/last issues, plus known title continuity.

It excludes Charlton’s comic books, the Monarch and later Gold Star in-house paperback ranges (see note 4). Charlton also released a range of recordings on seven-inch vinyl records (see note 16). The known Xerox Book Club titles are listed in note 20. This Index is divided into several sections as follows: Section One: Main listing of Charlton magazines; Section Two: Adult magazine titles published by Charlton related: Bruce, Royal, Bruce-Royal, Dee Publishing, Sharon Publishing, etc. (note 13); Section Three: Charlton publisher imprint names; Section Four: Indexer Comments; Section Five: Notes; and Section Six: Indexer references.

From 1966–67 for comic books and 1971–72 for magazines, Charlton gave all distributed titles a discrete five-digit code (initially, three digits). This was appended to the CDC (Capital Distributing Company) code on the cover near the bar-code after the UPC’s introduction [1978]. This code can be employed to track title continuity in some cases, as it often carried over from one title to another.

From the 1960s, Charlton introduced supplementary annuals, yearbooks, and special editions to their established titles. It is possible these were additions to the regular series, as several were numbered in the #12 to 15, or #100 range.

This would have allowed their carriage through the USPS postal system as previously classified items.

Of course, Charlton Press had a distribution arm, Capital Distributing

Charlton Magazine Index

[Author’s comment: Frank Motler did produce an exhaustive listing of all publications not produced by Charlton yet were distributed and/or printed by CDC/ Charlton, but space constraints prevented this remarkable list’s inclusion.]—JBC.]

257

Section Five: Notes

Known Charlton Leisure Library issues:

1/ Acknowledgements: This index has been in progress since 2006 and was based on an initial list of titles (from: Who’s Who in Independent Distribution, 1969 edition) supplied by ace researcher Michael Feldman. Mike also shared initial information about Arrow Weekly, Ballantine Books, Daily Dope, Flynt Publications, Perretta Group, Toby Press, Engel-van Wiseman, and their respective connections to Charlton/Capital Distribution Co. I am also grateful for initial data on Charlton magazines supplied by Charlton Spotlight ’s Michael Ambrose. I also consulted several Ayer & Son Directories [1956–83], Who’s Who in Interdependent Distribution [1973] and Who’s Who in Magazine Distribution [1960 plus supplement], American Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals [1987], and the Shake Books publications of Alan Betrock held here. Thanks also to Mike Scott for information about the British edition of Monster magazine [note 21]; to Randall Barlow for spotting Ranch Houses, Homes and Cottages; and Kent Akselsen for identifying the first issue of Detective Diary. Thanks also to Jon B. Cooke for editorial guidance, whilst I updated this reference and made it suitable for publication. Finally, thanks to eBay, Galactic Central, Worldcat, and other specialist websites which list U.S. magazines (see section 6). All rights to its usage/reproduction are reserved.

2/ USPS and mailing rights: The following Charlton related titles are known to have been scrutinized and, in several cases, had their mailing rights revoked: 10 Minute Crossword Puzzle, 100 Easy Crosswords, Actual Confessions [note 26], Backstage Follies [note 36], Classic Photography, Everybody’s Crosswords, Fast ‘N’ Easy Crossword, Gusto, Man’s Exploits, New York Journal American Crosswords, and Rage.

3/ Real West magazine was published by Charlton, after the failure of giant distributor American News Co. (ANC). The editor for the Oct. 1957 first issue was Theodore S. Hecht, who was soon superseded by Philip R. Rand, with Ernest H. Hart, executive editor, and Clyde Prettyman, art director. The title generated a number of one-shots and related items. Among the known examples are the Americana Library series (note 4), Great Indians of the West, Lost Gold Hidden Treasure of the West, and Real West presents Saga of the American Indian. ’79], #11 [1982], [Spr. ’83], [’84], [’86] Real West annuals, specials, etc: #8 [1966, Americana Library], #1 [Sum. Specials: [Spr. ’82], [1983], [1985], Special Collector’s Issue #2 [Fall ’64, ’66], #2 [Sum. ’67], #8 [Sum. ’68], Americana Library] V1#12 [Sum. ’70], [Sum. ’72] Yearbooks: [Spr. ’74], [Fall ’83], [Fall ’84], Real West presents Pioneers of the [Fall ’85] West [Sum. ’73], [Win. ’77–78], [Win. There was also Western Digest (All-True Stories), a factual digest from Mar.’69 [v1#1], with five bi-monthly issues known.

These Monarch paperbacks may also be of interest: The Nez Perce Indian War [1964, MA473] Outlaw Queen (Belle Starr) [1963, MA303] The Sioux Indian Wars [1964, MA324] The Texas Rangers [1963, MA333]

4/ Americana Library appeared on top left corner of several Charlton magazines, often accompanied by “Special Collectors Edition” or “Charlton Leisure Library.”

Known issues: True Saga of the American Indian? or Lost Gold Hidden Treasure of the West [#1, both Win. 1963/64] Famous Outlaws of the West [#2, Fall 1964] Wars of the American Indian [#3, Win. 1964/65] Over 100 All-Time Song Hits [#4, Sum. 1965] Famous Lawmen of the West [#5, Fall 1965]

258

True Saga of the American Indian [#6, Win.’66] (1963/64 edition also exists) Over 100 All-Time Song Hits [#7, Spr. 1966] Real West Annual [#8, Spr. 1966] Indian Wars [#9, Fall 1966] Easy TV Repair Guide [#11, Spr. 1967] (note 12); with two later issues, Real West presents Famous Lawmen [Spr. 1973] and Real West presents Pioneers of the West [Sum 1973].

Known: Best Cartoons from Escapade: nn [#1, Fall ’63], [#4 (#2), Sum.’64], [v1#3, Sum.’65], [v2#4, Win.’65], [v3#5, Sum.’66], [v4#6, Win.’66/67], [#8, Fall ’67], [v5#9, Win.’69]; [#10 Sum.’68] (Avant Library Edition).

5/ Ellimac Publishing Corp. (Camille, backwards) published three one-shot magazines, all CDC distributed. True Space Secrets [v1#1, Apr.’58], with publisher/editor Eugene Tillinger [1908–1966]; art director Clyde Prettyman [1886–1982] (who supplied the cover art for the 1945 Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary—see note 4), managing editor John Lewis Carver, and screenwriter/journalist Ladislas Farago as editorial consultant. Publication address was Division Street, Derby, with 147 West 42nd Street, New York City, editorial address. Like Hampshire Publishing (note 6), advertising was Publishers Representatives. Ellimac’s other titles were the vice-oriented Nightbeat [Dec.’57] and Girl Spies [Jan.’58]. Jointly, Tillinger and Prettyman were involved with American Beauties [1952–53], HushHush, Personal Story, Paris Life, Top Secret, and individually on other Derby magazines.

6/ Revealed and TV Scandals—both celebrity exposé [1957–58]—are the only known magazines from Hampshire Publishing Corp., Charlton Building, Derby, Conn. Each had three issues, all #1 issues dated August on the covers and July on inside indicias. Publishers Representatives were Ellimac’s advertisers, quoting the same 1472 Broadway, New York, address as T.V. Reporter, Inc. (note 12).

7/ Continuity Studios: Emergency and Six Million Dollar Man comics were mostly packaged by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s Continuity Studios [1975–77]. Each had an associated magazine title. Space 1999 was also a Xerox Book Club edition (note 20). (After Charlton had a falling out with Continuity, Jack Sparling was selected as packager.) Gray Morrow oversaw the magazine edition of Space: 1999, though Charlton editorial handled the comic-book version.

8/ EH!/From Here To Insanity: The title continuity is as follows (all issues are 8.5 x 11in, b&w magazines, unless otherwise noted): EH! #1-7/From Here To Insanity #8-11 (four-color comics, Dec.’53–Aug.’55; not listed above); From Here To Insanity v1#12 [Oct.’55]; Crazy, Man, Crazy v2#1, v2#2 [Dec.’55, June ’56]; From Here To Insanity v3 #1 [Apr.’57, comic-sized magazine, some color], This Magazine Is Crazy v3 #2 [July ’57, comic-sized magazine, some color], v3 #3 [Nov.1957]), v3 #4 [Feb.’58], v4 #5 [June ’58], v4 #6 [Sept.’58], v4 #7 [Dec.’58], and v4 #8 [Dec.’59], the final issue.

9/ Engel-van Wiseman: was an established, New York-based company, originally owned by George Engel and Jerome van Wiseman, with George’s son Lyle Kenyon Engel [1915–1986] their successor. They were in business from the early 1930s with numerous song magazines to their credit, which included Song Hits magazine, from 1937. EvW maintained a committed rivalry against Charlton, with several legal claims resulting. However, as the Dec. 24, 1949, Variety announced Charlton won out, acquiring the prized Song Hits magazine with v13#9 [Apr.’50].

Following the dissolution of EvW, Lyle Engel became a successful editor and paperback packager.

10/ Comunale/True Crime magazines: The Frank Comunale Publishing Company (sometimes misspelled as Communale), was N.Y.C.-based and produced a handful of crime and movie glamour magazines between 1945–50 (listed above), plus Yellowjacket Comics. Picture Detective Publishing and Film Story Publishing Corp were listed as new incorporations in the Nov. 3, 1945, issue of Box Office (pg. 116); although no titles have yet been found for the latter.

Picture Detective Publishing Co., was also the imprint for the first version of Good Humor [v1#1, Fall ’47], which is thought to evolve into District Attorneys Detective around the second or third issue. District Attorneys Detective and Federal Crimes Detective ceased mid-1950, with Police Record Detective continuing until at least #24. Picture Detective Publishing Co. persisted, when Hush-Hush and Top Secret were launched into the burgeoning celebrity scandal magazine sector. Sometime later, both were given title-related publishers (Hush-Hush Magazine Company, Inc., and Top Secret Publishing Co.). Charlton made another foray into crime, when 911 Detective and Detective Diary were launched in 1979; with both surviving until 1981. An unknown issue of the latter was censured by the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission into Pornography, better known as the Meese Report, published July 9, 1986. Charlton’s only other involvement with crime magazines was the distribution of Ellimac’s Nightbeat, Crime Police Cases, Organized Crime: Secrets of the Mafia, Vice Squad, and the distribution of Skye’s true crime titles.

Charlton Magazine Index Notes ©2022 Frank Motler.

The Apache Wars [1961, MA309] The Cheyenne Wars [1964, MA402] The Comanche Wars [1963, MA357] Famous Figures of the Old West [1965, MA553] The Indian Wars of the U. S. Army (1776-1865) [1962, MA447]

Real West Annual [#2, Sum. 1967] Real West Annual [#8, Spr. 1968] Best Cartoons from Escapade [#10, Sum 1968]

11/ The Big Three song magazines: Song Hits was an Engel-van Wiseman (EvW) title from their Song Lyrics, Inc. imprint, first issue dated Apr.’37 (see note 9). Song Hits is often misconstrued as a Charlton title from its outset. It overlapped EvW’s Song Hit Folio [1934–38] and Charlton’s pirate sheet of the same name. As late as Apr.’49 (v12 #11), Lyle K. Engel was listed as president (publisher). After the last Kable-distributed issue [Jan.’50, v13 #8], there was a brief hiatus before it emerged as v13 #9, dated Apr.’50, displaying Fawcett’s FPI coding and an “Exclusive” cover flash. This is the first Charlton issue and the start of a wide-ranging distribution deal with Fawcett for Song Hits, plus many other Charlton magazines and comics. FPI distribution continued until 1955 (most likely, a five-year deal), when the title switched to in-house CDC. “A Charlton Magazine” appeared on the covers from May ’57. Song Hits used discrete volume numbering until v31 #1 [Feb.’66], when continuous numbering started.

Estimating the total, vols. 1–29, as 334 issues, vol. 30 until Nov.’90 (the last known) as 279 issues, giving a total of 613 issues published by Engel/Charlton (see also note 28).

Hit Parader premiered in Nov.’42, published by the Charlton Publishing Company. By 1943, it was carrying “A Charlton Publication” cover notice and Derby address inside. Before 1945, it carried no other indication, until FDC (Fawcett Distribution) appeared. This became FPI (also Fawcett) from Apr.’47, until supplanted by CDC in 1955. Like Song Hits, it used discrete numbering until v22#1 [Jan./Feb.’63] issue. The frequency becomes erratic from Jan.’61 and became Teen Hit Parader for six issues [v22 #2–#7, Mar.–Oct.’63], with a brief-lived companion, Teen Age [v1 #1–#6, 1963]. The Dec.’63 issue witnessed a return to the original name. Estimated total publications is: vols. 1–22, approximately 230 issues and, vol. 23 until Mar.’91, a further 320, giving a total of around 550 issues during the Charlton era. Whilst both titles underwent stylist changes in 1962, Hit Parader was more imaginative visually from then on. In 1979, Hit Parader switched interest to heavy metal music, followed by many associated titles, many as one-shots.

Country Song Roundup was published on Charlton’s American Folk Publications imprint (v1#1, July/Aug.’49) with FPI distribution until the switch to CDC in 1955. It used continuous numbering throughout, with approximately 383 issues in the Charlton period. Charlton also released a number of ‘covers’ (imitations) of popular songs on seven-inch vinyl. While the song and music authors are listed, cover performers who sang or played were not. Both Hit Parader and Song Hits imprints were used, distributed by CDC. In the U.K., retailer F.W. Woolworth also had a similar line on “Embassy Records,” with “Music For Pleasure” (see note 28).

12/ Puzzle Magazines, Horoscopes, TV Repair Guides, and Supplements: Puzzle publications are among the most difficult items to track, as they tend to be used then discarded. Horoscope titles are similar. In the case of Charlton, their obscurity is compounded as information is scant elsewhere. As with other publishers, Charlton would create new titles and cease them when sales fell short of expectation or if in conflict with an extant title from a competitor. What is known: Charlton formed ‘Charlton Crossword Group,’ in 1955. Jan Bacon was an early editor, succeeded by John Cofrancesco, Jr. The publisher imprint initially was T.V. Reporter, Inc., 1472 Broadway, New York (Division Street, Derby, Conn.; note 7) and early issues were comic-sized. Several titles were subject to scrutiny by the USPS, regarding suitability for mailing rights, with Charles Heckelmann speaking on behalf of the publisher (note 2). The digest-sized TV Reporter was one of several broadcast listings guides that appeared in the early 1950s (before TV Guide subsumed the market) and carried an ANC distribution tag; with seven weekly issues known. Arrow, The Family Comic Weekly (Colony Publications), which appeared during 1953 (issues from Sept. 7, 1953–Dec. 17, 1953, have been documented by Jeffrey Lindenblatt). It was packaged for Charlton by Walter Gibson (also editor of Fantastic Science Fiction) and Lloyd Jacquet. The strips include Batman and Robin, Bronc Saddler, Bruce Gentry, Captain Galaxy, Debbie Dean, Gulliver’s Travels, Son of the Buccaneer, and Straight Arrow. Batman and Robin is owned by National Periodicals Publications (DC Comics), so it seems unlikely this permission was sought or obtained. Very few copies are thought to survive. From executive editor Pat Masulli, Charlton also released a three-page “Bulletin/Newsletter” asking for a Blue Beetle script submission. There may be other editions in circulation. Easy TV Repair Guide was a self-help title from Charlton, released annually from 1961 through 1972 at least, with early issues written by Edward DeMott. They were digest-sized (5 x 7-inches) approximately 100 pages, with illustrations, charts, and diagrams. The indicias or covers of several indicate they were part of larger Charlton Library series.

Known subtitles:

Charlton Magazine Index

Spr.’66=Charlton Science Library v2#6 Spr.’67=Americana Library Book #11 Win.’70 (10th year)=Easy Guide Library #133 (previously published as: Leisure Library #6, cover; originally published as: Americana Leisure

Library #11, indicia) Win.’72=originally published as: Leisure Library #6 (cover).

Easy Guide Library was listed under CDC, 1969.

Only the above [#133] and Home Repairs Made Easy [#139] are currently known.

13/ Adult Magazines: Caper, Escapade, Gentleman were male interest/nude pin-up magazines (section 1b). The first two titles were published initially by David Zentner’s [1917–2002] Dee Publishing Company, San Diego, Calif. In the May 6, 1957, edition of Advertising Age, Caper was named under the headline: “Indecent… ‘Confidential’ 6 other books indicted in N.J.” Guilty parties were “punishable by up to three years in a state prison and a $1,000 fine.” Caper was suspended with v2 #1 [Mar.’58], until printing and distribution was taken over later that year (along with Escapade), by Charlton/CDC by one of several new Derby, Conn., imprints—Bruce, Bruce-Royal, and Humor Magazines. Caper and Escapade continued until Nov.’67 and Dec.’68, respectively, by Avant Publishing, New York and Derby, still distributed by CDC. Caper was revived in Nov.’68

by See Magazines, New York (Kable distribution), while Escapade continued without interruption, when it switched there in Feb.’69. The above trio produced several compilation titles, plus a few calendars (envelopes carrying CDC coding). There was also a Best Cartoons from Escapade magazine series and Famous Cartoons from Escapade [Monarch paperback #176, 1960]. Gentleman was a winter 1959/60 one-shot on Royal Publications, Derby, before switching to Bruce-Royal until 1965, when the title ceased. From June ’66, Escapade bore the cover flash “incorporating Gentleman.” Royal Publications, Royal Publishing Co, also Magnum-Royal, of New York, were a large publishing group, thought unrelated to Charlton. Of their adult magazine titles (including Harlequin/H.Q/ Dapper, Sportsman, Swank, Swingle), only Gentleman was distributed by CDC. The frequent switching of companies indicated above is a classic ploy with adult titles, designed to evade official scrutiny. Capital also distributed Belmont/ Midwood/Tower paperbacks of Harry Shorten [c1972–81] (per section 4, intro).

Both outfits were using same address (185 Madison Ave., N.Y.) and there is a possibility of some business connection between them. Charlton also handled Flynt’s Hustler [1974–77] and Charlton’s own Eros (note 27). In the early 1950s, they published their own pin-up titles (with b&w interiors): American Beauties [four issues, 1952–53] (American Movie Beauties on covers to v1#3 and v1#4); Glamorous Starlets [one issue, 1956]; Good Humor vol.4 [two issues, 1958]; Paris Life [34 issues, 1951–58]; Peep Show [34 issues, 1950–58]; Photo Caption Books [five issues, 1963–65] (note 14); and Pin-Up Photography, [two issues, 1956]. For complete Peep Show index, see Betrock’s Bikinis & Lingerie, Shake Books, [’98].

14/ Photo Caption Books: were a photo fumetti series, in landscape format (8.5 x 5.25in) from Bruce-Royal [#1] or Sharon Publishing with five known issues: Sex, Spice and the Single Man [#1, 1963] (photographed and captioned by William Rotsler); Political Capers [#2, Fall ’64]; Sex ‘n Spice and the Single Girl [#3, Fall ’64]; Wild, Seductive and Single (by Maurice C. Forrester) [#4, Spr.’65]; and Naked Truth of History [#5, Spr.’65]. Galaxy International supplied the photography for #2 and #3, plus How-To Book #25 and Topical Book #40 (note 17).

15/ Hillbilly Hit Parade: was also a year-dated series (e.g., “of 1940,” “of 1941,” etc.) from Peers International Corp. and Southern Music Publishing Co. [1940–57].

16/ Fitness/Military/Muscle/Self-Defense: Official Karate was a long-running series [143 issues, 1969–87] with a number of spin-off titles. It was preceded by the Topical Magazine/Karate [1964], Karate and Judo [1965], and the Avantpublished Combat Karate duo [1967–68].

The following Official Karate spin-offs are known: Annual [13 issues, Fall ’73–Spr.’86 ] Defense Combat Yearbook [Nine issues, Aug.’75–Dec.’76] [14 issues, Sum.’73–Sum.’86] Special [11 issues, 1981–87] Movie Special [one-shot, Sum.’83] Special Fighting Champions (movie overview) [13 issues, Sum.’74–Feb.’77] Gung-Ho [70 issues, 1981–89] also produced three annuals, three yearbooks, and a number of specials. Known issues: Special Purpose Weapons Ammunition Official Weapons Handbook (different from #3), [#7, Fall ’86] & Tactics [#1, annual, Win.’85] Terrorism [#8, 1986] Airborne [#2, 1985] Official Weapons Handbook [#3, 1985] Elite Units [#9, 1987] Pararescue: Iron Men of the Air Force, U.S. Navy SEALS [#4, 1985] [#10, 1987] Recon/Force Recon [#5, 1985] Custom Knife Handbook [#6, 1986]

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See also Gung-Ho [v4#43], Ranger Special [Oct.’84], and Gun Special [v8#65, Win.’88]. Please see Muscle Memory website for a complete listing of Charlton’s Bodybuilder/Muscle and Bodybuilder, Muscle Up, and Muscle World magazines, published between 1979–85. See: Iron Game History PDF file for overview.

Charlton also published Annals of War, Cassius Clay, Combat Ready, Commando (For Civilians In Action), Fight Game, Guide to Guns and Hunting, Gun Journal, Martial Arts Illustrated. A non-Charlton, Gun Journal and Mercenary Guide [1984], also exists.

17/ How-To Books/A Topical Book: Several publishers had series of self-help magazines. Charlton had How-To Books, which overlapped with: A Topical Book and a common numbering sequence; #25–56 known [1962–65]. BruceRoyal or Topical Magazines, Inc. imprints; 75¢ covers, approx. 7 x 9.5in, 128 pgs.

Douglas Allen, editorial director (who was also involved editorially with Antique Airplanes, Caper, Escapade, Gentleman, Pro-Amateur Sports Library, Rex, Sewing and Knitting for Teens, and Avant Publishing, as president).

How-To Books: More Than 1000 Painting and Female Figure Photography (Ed Refinishing Ideas [#31, 1964] Alexander’s) [#25, 1962] Lawn & Garden Ideas [#32, Sum.’64] How-To Be A Glamour Photographer How-To Draw from Photos [#33, Sum.’64] [#26, 1963] Exciting Photography Made Easy (Bill Boats You Can Build [#34, Spr.’64] Complete Book of Isometric Exercises Hamilton’s Lens Magic) [#27, 1963] [#46, 1964] Official Guide To Buying Used Cars Easy-To-Build Furniture [#50, Spr.’65] [#28, 1963] Inexpensive Vacation Homes [#52, How-To Ski [#29, 1963] Spr.’65] 101 Ways to Update Your Home [#30, Home Lighting Indoors and Outdoors Spr.’64] [#56, 1965].

Topical Books: More Than 1000 Ideas for the Handyman [#35, 1964] Guide to Guns and Hunting [#36, 1963] Ideas for Outdoor Living [#37, 1963] Mario Casilli’s Hollywood Models [#38, Win.’63] The Male and Female Body [#39, 1963] Karate [#40, 1964] Know Your Automobile [#41, Spr.’64] How-To Collect Coins for Profit [#42, ’64]

Mobile Homes [#43, 1964] Everybody’s Archery Guide [#51, Sum.’65] Experimental Photography [#55, 1965] Unknown: More Than 1000 Hints for the Homemaker [1964]; and Family Camping Guide [1965] (both listed in Experimental Photography/Topical Book #55.

18/ Pro-Amateur Sports Library Book: was a one-shot series on the Topical Magazines, Inc., imprint, with editorial director Douglas Allen. All issues carried a small “Topical Sports Library Book” cover tag. The exception was Hot Cars [Bruce-Royal, Spr.’64], which only carried the cover tag.

Known editions: Pro-Basketball ’64 [#1, Win.’64] Inland Game Fishing [#2, 1964] Fight Game [#4, Sum.’64] Who’s Who In Football [#5, Fall ’64] Pro-Basketball ’65 [#7, 1965]

Who’s Who in Hockey [#8, Win.’65] Model Car Racing [#9, Spr.’65] All-Star Baseball [#10, Spr.’65] Karate and Judo [#12, Fall ’65]

Also advertised: Upland Game Hunting and Water Fun Illustrated. Charlton Sport Library #1 [Win.’69/70] comic book also exists.

19/ Over-size song books (1949–50): Elton Britt’s Song Book, Hillbilly Hit Songs, Latin American Hits Songs, and Words and Music look to be part of a one-shot series. All are over-size (approx. 10.5 x 13in), 36 pages, saddle-stitched, with 35¢ cover price, with Capitol Stories, Inc., Derby, imprint and distributed by ICD/ Hearst. A fifth title, Children’s Songs, Games, and Carols, was otherwise similar, but published by Charlton College Songbooks, Inc., Derby; the only known title on this imprint. Due to their age, size, and flimsy structure, available copies are often worn, chipped, or split.

20/ Xerox Education Publications: Xerox was located in Middletown, Conn., renowned for inventing the Xerox photocopier. Between 1972–78, there were several collaborations with their Charlton neighbor. All were slim paperbacks, thought to be 68 pgs., aimed at children, with color covers and b&w interiors.

Mostly, these were cobbled together from previous Charlton comic strip material. Cover information was restricted to title (as part of the artwork) and they were unpriced, with occasional variant priced at 60¢ or 75¢. They were printed by Charlton Press, but likely sold via the Xerox network, rather than

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CDC. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not uncommon, but are often found colored-in or written upon. Known Xerox Book Club/Charlton Press, Inc. collaborations (price noted in brackets; 0=unpriced): Barney and Betty [75¢, 1974] CB Jokes (D.J. Arneson and Tony Tallarico) [0, 1977] Dino [75¢, 1974] Doctor Graves’ Haunted Puzzlers [0, ’78] Doctor Graves Magic Book [0, 1977] The Flintstones [60¢, 1972]

The Flintstones Book of Laughs (D.J. Arneson) [0, 1978] The Jetsons [0, 60¢, 1973) Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm [0, 60¢, ’73] Scooby Doo… Where Are You! [0, ’76] Space: 1999 [0, 1976] Yogi Bear [0, 60¢, 75¢, 1972]

A later edition of Scooby Doo exists from Ottenheimer Publishers (often a partner with Modern Promotions). Three non-Charlton Xerox editions also exist, all 1971: Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, and Tweety and Sylvester.

21/ Monster/Horror magazines: Charlton published several horror/monsterrelated titles: Horror Monsters Presents Black Zoo [one-shot, Fall ’63], Chillers [three issues, 1981], Horror Monsters [10 issues, 1961–64], Mad Monsters [10 issues, 1962–65], and Werewolves and Vampires [one-shot, 1962]. My Movie Monsters website is offering contemporary reprints of Mad Monsters, Horror Monsters, and Werewolves and Vampires. Thanks to Mike Scott for the following information about the U.K. reprint series, Monsters: “Got a hold of somebody who has the U.K. Monsters issues. He says that the contents are identical to four of the U.S. mags, but with new covers. The other three… covers [inside front, etc.] are either blank or have adverts on them. Here’s the breakdown: U.K. Monsters #1 reprints Mad Monsters #6; #2 reprints Horror Monsters #6; #3 reprints Black Zoo; and #4 reprints the interior of Mad Monsters #5.” Tales of Terror was a 1964 one-shot magazine, with 15 short stories and b&w spot illustrations. Its cover reused the Ralph Brillhart-painted cover originally from the 1962 Monarch paperback, Witch House [MB264]. Capital also distributed several Mayfair Publications’ monster titles.

22/ Charlton Book: an uncommon series, 1956–circa 1957, comic-sized (7 x 10in), with part-color covers, 68 pgs., mostly all b&w inside. They were designated Charlton Book #101–#115 on the top left of each front cover, but only the general title was indicated inside. (Note: coverless copies are known to exist.)

Known issues: Fun & Profit With Pencil Drawing (Vincent Fodera illos) [#101, 1956] The Best of Good Humor [#104, 1956] Hypnotism, Reincarnation and Bridey Murphy (by Dr. Ansul H. G. Wohl) [#106, 1956]

The Dead Sea Scrolls and What They Mean to Protestant, Catholic and Jew (Arthur Whitman) [#108, 1956] The Woman’s Complete Workbasket Book [#110, 1956] A Collection of Good Humor (part color inside) [#112, 1956] Those French Cartoons [#115, 1957]

Numbers currently unknown for: Cooking For Men [#103?], The Doctors’ Diet Book, The (New) Kinsey Report on Women (by Max Lerner; Mannie Banks, illustrations) [1956], Love and Emotion in Marriage, and Ten Ways to Peace of Mind (Drs. David Harold Fink, Robert Goldenson, et al).

In similar format, see also the comic-sized: puzzle magazines (note 12), The Best of Good Humor #2, Campus Humor, Cartoon Spice, Eye Opener, From Here To Insanity v3 #2, Good Humor (6); Humbug #1-9, This Magazine is Crazy v3 #1.

Charlton’s Family Fallout Shelter was also comic-sized and featured technical plans for building a fallout shelter at home, plus other survival information, in the event of a nuclear attack. It has a stark full-color cover (artist unknown) with interior extracts in partial color, from such official U.S. Government Civil Defense (CD) pamphlets as: Clay Masonry Family Fallout Shelter [1960], Facts About Fallout Protection [1958], Family Fallout Shelter [1959], and Defense Against Radioactive Fallout on the Farm [1958]. The original CD pamphlets were part of an array of governmental paperwork of the period and otherwise unrelated to Charlton. For the budding homebuilder, Charlton also published full-size 68-page magazines [1956–59]: America’s Favorite Homes, Plans For American Homes, Ranch Houses, and Homes and Cottages are known. The former may have continued from Plans For American Homes (which ran at least four editions), as both carried a “You Can Build Complete Homes From These Plans” cover flash.

The architect for some of these was Jan Reiner, who produced sleek and stylish publications elsewhere.

23/ CB Times: was a dedicated magazine [June ’76–Sept. ’79 known], with executive editor William Anderson, editor-in-chief John E. Bartimole, and editor Dale Strzelec. America’s then-First Lady, Betty Ford, is featured in the third issue

[Aug. ’76]. Known issues contain “CB Sagas” comic stories by artist Warren Sattler and written by George Wildman, which were originally intended as a CB Sagas comic book but cancelled before release. There was a “Good Buddy Association” CB Times fan club (which one could join for a $10 fee), offering CB Times bumper stickers, CB dictionary, T-shirt, “C-Bee” membership card, newsletters, etc., which was advertised in various Charlton magazines. From Ezra Brooks, there was a decorative CB Times whiskey flagon [1976] with “CB radio control” style lid, and CB codes explained on the back. It was preceded

by Michael Kurland’s Complete Guide to Short-Wave and Citizen’s Band Radio [Topical Book #49, Spr.’65], note 17). There was a rival magazine, CB Times Journal, from Greamly Press Ltd., Nashville, Tenn. [1976].

24/ Gospel Music Jubilee: Per announcement in the Nashville Tennessean newspaper [June 33, 1970] under the headline, “New Magazine Names Editor”: “Mrs. Georgia Chellman, president of the Nashville advertising firm of Veeson International, has been named editor of Gospel Music Jubilee, a new magazine to be published by Charlton Publications. Winner of several local and national advertising awards, Mrs. Chellman will have charge of all editorial responsibilities for the magazine and will oversee the Nashville office for the new 48-page song lyric and feature article publication. The publication will cover both white and black gospel music groups.” Gospel Music Jubilee lasted three issues [Jan.–May ’71].

25/ Charlton Coloring Books/Fun To Color Books: several publishing companies produced these over the decades; Whitman, Saalfield, and Rand-McNally being the most notable. Similarly, the Charlton versions were magazine-size with the same color image front and back. Contents of all were b&w inside.

Collectors know used copies are frequently found colored-in. Issue number is top right of front cover (and in the range #500–550), but not inside. Most Charlton issues copyrighted Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., but a few generic Charlton only issues were released, probably after the Hanna-Barbera licenses lapsed.

For several issues, cover proofs or copyright data has also been found for issues not seen. All issues are 68 pages and from 1971–72.

Known issues as follows (all Hanna-Barbera unless otherwise noted and all include the words “Coloring Book” in respective titles but omitted below): Rainy Day [#?]

Around the World with the Jetsons (Charlton original) [#509] Someday I Want to Be… [#548] Barney and Betty Rubble [nn] (Charlton original) The Flintstones [#501] A Swinging Vacation with Teenage The Flintstones [#537] Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm [#510] The Flintstones and Pebbles [#501] Teen-age Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm The Flintstones and Pebbles ABC [#504] (cover artwork only, different [#507] from below) The Flintstones and Pebbles [#535] Teen-age Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Flintstones and Pebbles [#540] [#536] The Flintstones featuring the Great Teen-age Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Gazoo [#544 ] Stone Age [#?]

Hanna Barbera All Star [#553] Top Cat [#505] Hanna Barbera Parade [#502 ] Hanna Barbera Parade of Stars [#538] Top Cat [#542] (cover artwork only; see also: Pirates and Treasure) Hanna-Barbera The Flintstones Top Cat in the Alley [#543] Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm [#? ] A Visit to the Zoo with Top Cat [#511] Huckleberry Hound [#508] A Year of Fun with Yogi Bear [#512] The Jetsons [#503] Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo [#539] Jetsons in Space [#546] Yogi Bear [#506] More Flintstones [#545] Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Stone Age Yogi Bear on TV [#552] Yogi in Yellowstone Park [#544] [#540] (Tallarico) Pirates and Treasure [#542] (Charlton The Zoo and You [#547] (Charlton original) original; see also: Top Cat [#542]) 26/ Romance/confession magazines: Charlton had five known titles, with True Life Secrets the most successful, which continued the numbering of the comics series [#1–29, 1950–56], before restarting at v13#1 [1968]. The last known issue was dated Oct. 1980. From the 1960s on, an Australian edition from Transpacific Publications (under license from U.S. publisher Dauntless Books) has been in print, which seems unrelated. The 1959 title, Secret Life Confessions, had only one known issue and could have conflicted with either St. John’s Secret Life or Martin Goodman’s Life Confessions magazines extant at the time. Then Charlton released Actual Confessions, with v1#2, Feb.’60 as first known, which may have been a continuation of Secret Life Confessions. Charlton’s Actual Confessions has an interesting history:

Charlton Magazine Index

There was a previous Actual Confessions series from rival publisher Goodman/Atlas, 1953–54. Almost immediately, the Charlton version was subject to scrutiny and censure from the USPS during 1961 [Docket #1/287 refers].

The USPS called the publication “obscene” and even listed individual story titles in demonstration from the Apr., June, Aug., Oct., and Dec.’60, plus Feb.’61 (v2#8, at that time the most recent issue) issues. The Apr.’60 issue contained such stories as: “I was a Victim of a Strip Party,” “I Had to Have Them Both,” “Anybody’s Plaything,” and “My Introduction to Sex.” After adjudication, Actual Confessions was considered “non-mailable” under postal regulations. The title was also criticized by USPS General Counsel Louis J. Doyle during testimony in a Congressional investigation, on Nov. 21, 1961 (regarding “Obscene matter sent through the mail”). Notwithstanding these condemnations, the title prevailed until, at least, 1972. The title skipped numbers during its run. Here is a list of known numbered issues: Feb.’60=v1#2; Feb.’61=v2#8; Aug.’61=v2#11; Dec.’61=v2#13; Oct.’62=v4#2; June ’65=v6#29; Sept.’65=v6#30, Mar.’71=v13#12; and Mar.’72=v14#18. (Shocking Confessions, “stop press” find, 2 known issues.)

Love Stories [1973] was listed as a Charlton magazine, with two known issues. In a crowded sector, it may have conflicted with established titles named similarly. In 1974, it was being published by Stanley Morse’s Mayfair Publications imprint. True Nurse Confessions was one of several magazines with a medical-romance slant. It looks to have struggled to find a niche for itself with only two issues known, some eight months apart. A possible fifth title, Nurse Stories, was solicited by editor Ernest Hart in the Aug.’64 Author and Journalist trade magazine, but no copies have been sighted. It was preceded by Real Nurse Stories [1962–63] from KMR/Lopez group (Kable distribution).

27/ Eros magazine: following CDC’s loss of Larry Flynt’s Hustler caused by an acrimonious rift with CDC, which resulted in a $4.5 million claim lodged by Flynt over payment in arrears, not resolved until 1978. A new adult title, Eros—initially on Eastway Enterprises Ltd. imprint—was launched. The first two issues were distributed by Parliament News (PN), with CDC taking over with the third issue [July 1977] until its demise [Mar.’86]. The Eastway issues quote a Wilmington, Del., address before a switch to Derby during 1978, when the imprint changed to Eros Publications, Inc. There is also a contemporaneous Eros Publishing, also Wilmington, Delaware, which may be a related company, but with no known CDC releases. Eros had several spin-offs, plus a Canadian version, all distributed

by CDC. Eros titles of the ’90s are unrelated. There was also an earlier unrelated four-issue series from Eros Magazine, Inc. [1962] which led to the prosecution of publisher Ralph Ginzburg [1929-2006], for sending obscene literature through the mail, a federal crime. In 1982, Charlton published Stallion, a gay interest glossy magazine with explicit nudity, which lasted until 1988. A second series continued almost immediately by Larry Flynt. Eros Publications also produced Teen Fever fold-out poster magazine [1984–85], which featured Michael Jackson and Prince.

28/ Charlton magazines, 1986 on: The last Charlton comics appeared early 1986, still quoting the Division Street address. Their magazines, however, flourished with new titles added until 1989. Charlton ceased operations in early 1991.

The final Song Hits’ Heartbreakers was dated Apr.’91. Ownership of Country Song Roundup and Hit Parader were transferred to Perretta Media/Magna Publishing, on Feb. 27, 1991, now on Country Song Roundup, Inc. and Hit Parader Publications, Inc., imprints with their July 1991-dated issues. Their final known issues were July 2000 and Oct/Nov. 2009, respectively. At least until Oct.’94, the CDC distributor code remained on these two survivors.

29/ Toby Press, Inc.: was co-owned by Elliot Caplin and, in 1954, it entered into a co-operative deal with Charlton Press. The arrangement included the comic book titles, Soldier and Marine and Gabby Hayes Adventures, under the Toby Press of Conn., Inc., imprint. For the magazines, another Toby imprint was used: Modern Living Council (of Conn., Inc.). The celebrity tattle duo, Dynamite and Personal Story emerged [1955–56], with the latter renamed Glamorous Starlets for the third and final issue. The disastrous Derby flood of August 19, 1955, may have affected the arrangement, as only five issues resulted. The release of Dynamite magazine probably accounted for the renaming of the former Comic Media Dynamite comic book to Johnny Dynamite, which Charlton also published. Complete Horoscope v1#1 was dated Sept./Oct.’55, and it was the subject of a legal dispute, when Dell Publishing claimed Complete Horoscope infringed their own title, due to a similarity of cover design (Dell Pub. Co. v.

Modern Living Council of Conn., 136 (95) NYLJ (11-16-56) 7, Col. 6F). The case was dismissed in Toby’s favor and the title was continued by Charlton, under the T.V. Reporter, Inc. imprint.

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Section Six: Index References

Alter Ego v3 #34 [Mar. 2004], “The Last Quality Editor,” Al Grenet interview conducted by Jim Amash, TwoMorrows.

Alter Ego v3 #39–40, 42–43 [Aug.–Dec. 2004] “…And Then There Were None: Charlton & the Remnants of the Comic Empire” (parts one to three, index) by Frank Motler, edited

by Roy Thomas and P.C. Hamerlinck, TwoMorrows.

Alter Ego v3 #49, [June 2005] “American News Company,”

by Michael Feldman, TwoMorrows.

Alter Ego v3 #52 [Sept. 2005], “…And Then There Were None: The Corrections,” by Frank Motler, edited by Roy Thomas and P.C. Hamerlinck, TwoMorrows.

American Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals [1987], edited by David E. E. Sloane, Greenwood Press.

Bikinis and Lingerie [1998], by Alan Betrock, Shake Books.

(Information on several pin-up titles of the 1950s and Peep Show index.)

CB Times/CB Times Journal (PDF file), https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0126/76018444.pdf.

“Charlton Acquires Engel’s Lyric Mags, Marking End of An Era.” Billboard v61 #52 [Dec 24, 1949], Billboard Pub. Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], “Charles Santangelo Interview” by Christopher Irving; “The Charlton Empire”

by Jon B. Cooke and Christopher Irving; “A Capital Idea” (Newsdealer article from 1958 reprint,) TwoMorrows.

Comic Book Marketplace #79 [June 2000], “The Magazine Connection” by Alan Betrock, Gemstone.

“Flynt Gets Into Magazine Distributing,” Washington Post [Nov. 17, 1977], https://www.washingtonpost.com.

Foreign Car Guide Listing, http://www.thesamba.com/vw/ archives/lit/foreigncarguide.php.

Heavy metal publications, https://www.famousfix.com/list/ heavy-metal-publications.

References

Introduction 1 John Korfel, “Charlton’s Rarest Comic Books,” Charlton Spotlight #9 [Win./Spr. 2016], pg. 57.

2 Dick Giordano, “For Fun or Fortune,” interviewed by Jerry E. Durrwachter, Whizzard #14 [Winter 1981], pg. 16.

3 Dennis O’Neil, letter to the editor, Fantastic, Vol. 22 #1 [Oct. 1972], pg. 122.

Chapter One 1 Virginia Irwin, “Sweet Land of Opportunity,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch [May 20, 1956], pg. 3-J. 2 “Genealogy: 26 million Italians immigrated to U.S.,” Tribune-Star [Indiana] website [Sept. 15, 2019], https://www.tribstar.com/ community/genealogy-26-million-italians-immigrated-to-u-s/article_8d8f4b5cc195-5583-9047-95993966b5b6.html.

3 Omerita Ranalli, “Abruzzo In Festa,” Life In Abruzzo website, https://lifeinabruzzo. com/abruzzo-in-festa/.

4 “Places to Visit in San Valentino—The Hill Town in Abruzzo Italy,” Abruzzo Villas website [Oct. 7, 2019], https//www.abruzzo-villas.com/san-valentino.

5 “Italian Culture,” Cultural Analysis website, https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/italian-culture/italian-culture-core-concepts.

6 “Ragazzi del ’99,” entry, Wikipedia (translated from Italian by Google translate), https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragazzi_ del_%2799.

7 “Hollywood Stars are Threatened by Yellow Journalism,” clipping, Paese Sera [undated Italian newspaper], page

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Hillbilly music, http://www.hillbilly-music.com/publications/ index.php.

“History of the Charlton Song Magazines,” by JoAnn Sardo, Charlton Press [post-1980].

Hit Parader magazine, http://www.hitparader.com/.

Hogan’s Alley #12 [2004], Paul Murry article by Germund Silvegren, Bull Moose Publishing.

The Illustrated Price Guide to Cult Magazines 1945–1969 [1994], by Alan Betrock, Shake Books.

Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine [2010], by Anthony Slide; University Press of Mississippi.

Iron Game History, by Jan Todd, Joe Roark, and Terry Todd (muscle magazines, PDF file), https://starkcenter.org/ research-2/iron-game-history/.

The Journal of American Culture v3 #1 [Spring 1980], “The History of Charlton Press, Inc., and Its Song Lyric Periodicals,” by Mary Slezak.

Karate magazines, https://ma-mags.com/showmag.php?CatCde=OK. Magazine data file (Galactic Central), by Phil StephensenPayne, http://www.philsp.com/index.html.

Magazine Empire (adult magazines), https://magazine-empire.com.

Movie Mags, https://www.moviemags.com.

Muscle Memory website (muscle magazines gallery), http:// www.musclememory.com/mags.php.

Muzzleloader, http://www.muzzleloadermag.com/.

My Movie Monsters (Charlton monster magazine reprints), < https://www.mymoviemonsters.com.

New England Printer and Lithographer [Nov. 1954], “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines,” by Ralph H. Minard.

New York Review of Books (index), https://www.nybooks. com/issues/1970/.

unknown. (Translated from Italian by Alberto Beccatini.)

8 Supreme Court of Connecticut, “Santangelo v. Santangelo,” Case #137 Conn. 403 (1951).

9 “The Exodus,” The Prehistory of Emigration website [2002], https:// www.italyheritage.com/magazine/2002_01/0201_c.htm.

Chapter Two 1 Ralph H. Minard, “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines,” New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954], pg. 51.

2 Ibid.

3 Supreme Court of Connecticut, “Santangelo v. Santangelo,” Case #137 Conn. 403 (1951).

4 “Lion’s Work for new citizens acclaimed as 121 ask papers,” Yonkers Statesman [Jan. 23, ’32], pg. 22.

5 Supreme Court of Conn.

6 Minard, pg. 51.

7 “Curtains for the Roxy,” Time Vol. 75, #9 [Feb. 29, 1960], pg. 108.

8 Minard, pg. 51.

9 Barry Kernfeld, Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution since 1929 [2011], pgs. 26–27.

10 Sam Love, “New York Letter,” Santa Rosa Republican [Mar. 29, 1930], pg. 10.

11 “Back of This 10¢ Song Sheet Sale a $5,000,000 Racket,” The Gaffney (South Carolina) Ledger [Sept. 23, 1939], pg. 7.

12 Ibid.

13 “Levy Dismissed From Yale For Cheating In Exams,” Hartford Courant [Feb. 4, 1939], pg. 4.

14 “Amazing Testimony of Lawyer Levy in Waterbury Conspiracy Trial Wednesday,”

Nightbeat (1957 magazine), https://www.pulpinternational. com/pulp/keyword/Nightbeat.html.

The Onyx Story, by Don Armstrong, https://www.music-journalism-history.com/2019/04/27/the-onyx-story-how-anoverlooked-magazine-publisher-shaped-the-reception-ofrhythm-and-blues-and-rock-and-roll/ (parts two through four follow).

Powder Magazine, website (for individual covers): www. powder.com/search/?search=deep+tracks.

Powder Magazine, index, http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/ref/powder.html.

Smash Hits (U.S./Charlton version), https://www.famousfix. com/topic/smash-hits-magazine-united-states.

True crime detective magazines, http://www.pofoz.com/ magazines/true-crime/index.html.

U.S. Automobile Magazine Covers, http://99wspeedshop. com.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/menu07.html.

Vintage Muscle Magazines, http://vintagemusclemags.com/ mags.php.

Voices West (catalog of Western songsheets), http://www. cowboysong.com.

Who’s Who in Independent Distribution [1969], published by Roger Damio, North American Publishing.

Who’s Who in Interdependent Distribution [1973], published

by Roger Damio, North American Publishing.

Who’s Who in Magazine Distribution [1960] (supplemented with a 60-page softcover appendix [Oct-1960]), Ziff-Davis.

Worldcat (The World’s Largest Library Catalog), https://www. worldcat.org/.

Hartford Courant [Feb. 2, 1939], pg. 6.

15 “Hayes, Leary, Mackenzie, Williamson

Accused, Waterbury Defrauded of Millions,” Hartford Courant [May 20, 1938], pg. 1.

16 Hugh M. Alcorn, “Orders Hayes, 21 Others Imprisoned,” Hartford Courant [Aug. 22, 1939], pg. 1.

17 “27 Accused in Jury Report,” Hartford Courant [May 20, ’38], pg. 15.

18 “27 Men Accused in Bench Warrant,” Meriden Record-Journal [May 20, 1938], pg. 10.

19 “Summary of Jury Report Indicting ‘Corrupt’ Regime,” Meriden RecordJournal [May 20, ’38], pg. 10.

20 Ibid.

21 “‘Feel Great’ Mackenzie Says In Jail,” Hartford Courant [Aug. 23, 1939], pg. 1.

22 Ibid.

23 “Edward G. Levy, Neuritis Sufferer, Freed From Jail,” Meriden Journal [Apr. 27, 1940], pg. 1.

24 “Plot to Frame Cop Charged,” Scranton Tribune [Dec. 5, ’36], pg. 1.

25 “Bootleg Song Ring is Uncovered by Liquor Agents,” Philadelphia Inquirer, [July 23, 1939], pg. 2.

26 Scranton Tribune [Dec. 5, ’36], pg. 3.

27 “Derby Man Sentenced for Sale of Songsheets,” Hartford Courant [Jan. 10, 1940], pg. 12.

Chapter Three 1 “Local Stores Defendants in Suits for $55,000,” Hartford Courant [Aug. 12, 1939], pg. 3.

2 Barry Kernfeld, Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution since 1929 [2011], pg. 40.

3 “Sought $75,000 But Take $3,000” Meriden

Journal [Mar. 11, 1940], pg. 1.

Certificates of Organization, Hartford Courant [Feb. 26, 1944], pg. 8.

5 Charles Santangelo, “The Half-Dollar Man,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 12.

6 Kernfeld, pg. 50.

7 Ralph H. Minard, “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines,” New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954], pg. 51.

8 Minard, pg. 52.

9 Ibid.

10 “Santangelo dies, was industrialist,” Ansonia Evening Sentinel [Oct. 8, 1979], pg. 1.

11 Minard, pg. 52.

12 “Certificate of Organization,” Hartford Courant [May 13, 1944], pg. 12.

13 “Suffolk Gives ’46 Gay Welcome,” Newsday (Suffolk ed.) [Jan. 2, 1946], pg. 3.

14 “Publisher Takes Bride,” Newsday (Suffolk ed.) [Jan. 2, 1946], pg. 15.

15 Title 32—National Defense, Chapter IX—War Production Board, Part 1010— Suspension Order [Suspension Order S-750], Holyoke Publishing Co., Inc., Federal Register [Apr. 4, 1945], pg. 3608.

16 Ibid.

17 Minard, pg. 52.

18 Dennis O’Neil, “Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Scribe,” interviewed by author, CBA #9, pg. 53.

19 “Song Mags Hit for Exceeding Paper Quota for 1944,” Billboard [Aug. 25, 1945], pg. 16.

20 “Lyric Mags Leveled Off, New Circ Figures Reveal,” Billboard [Feb. 8, 1947], pg. 15.

21 Ibid.

4

Chapter Four 1 Ralph H. Minard, “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines,” New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954], pg. 52.

2 Stacy W. Baugher, Yellowjacket, hero history, Major Spoilers website [May 9, 2008], https://majorspoilers.com/2008/05/09/ hero-history-yellowjacket/.

3 Ibid.

4 William J. Pape II, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [undated].

5 Michael C. Dooling, “First Offender Club,” Connecticut Explored Vol. 14 #4 [Fall 2016], pg. 44.

6 Ken Quattro, untitled post, Comics History Exchange Facebook group [Apr. 6, 2020], https://www.facebook. com/groups/434373846709130/ posts/2082928385186993.

7 “About,” Boys & Girls Village website, https://www.bgvillage.org/about/.

8 Bill Everett, “Super Double Feature,” History of Comics Vol. 1 [1970], pg. 59.

9 Paul Levitz, 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Myth-Making [2010], pg. 48.

10 David Saunders, “Lloyd Jacquet,” entry, Pulp Artists website, https://www.pulpartists.com/Jacquet-P.html.

11 New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, S.S. Marine Perch [May 21, 1948], https://www.ancestry.com/ imageviewer/collections/7488/images/ NYT715_7600-0273.

12 “McCarthy v. Santangelo,” 137 Conn. 410 (1951), Supreme Court of Connecticut decision [Jan. 9, 1951], https://law. justia.com/cases/connecticut/supremecourt/1951/137-conn-410-1.html.

13 “Reno Divorce Derby Man Won 13 Years Ago Is Held Invalid,” Meriden Journal [Nov. 22, 1949], pg. 1.

14 “Country Song Roundup,” Publications entry, Hillbilly-Music Dawt Com website, http://www.hillbilly-music.com/publications/story/index.php?pub=9010.

15 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Mar. 31, 2021].

16 Minard, pg. 52.

17 Mario DeMarco, interviewed by Michael Browning [undated].

18 Minard, pg. 52.

19 Fran Matera, “It Only Took 40 Years… To Be the Steve Roper Artist,” interviewed

by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #59 [June 2006], pgs. 53–54.

20 Marc Swayze, “We Didn’t Know It Was the Golden Age,” column, Alter Ego #9 [July 2001], pg. 42.

21 Jane McMaster, “Comic Strip Turnover is Slight During Year,” Editor & Publisher Vol. 83 #32 [Aug. 5, 1950], pg. 34.

22 Chad Kelly, “Cartoonist Cues,” Writer’s Digest Vol. 34 #3 [Feb. 1954], pg. 57.

23 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight KL-631 air passenger manifest [Sept. 23, 1949].

24 Barry Kernfeld, Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution since 1929 [2011], pg. 51.

25 Diane Levey, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [undated].

26 Ibid.

27 Monsignor Aloysius J. Wycislo, letter to Monsignor Andrew P. Landi [May 17, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, ACIM–National.

References

28 Minard, pg. 56.

29 Alfredo Castelli, “Record!: ‘Fumetti

Cattolici’ E Mysteri, Di Alfredo Castelli,” Cartoonist globale blog, il sole 24 ore website [May 13, 2014], https://lucaboschi. nova100.ilsole24ore.com/2013/05/14/ record-e-fumetti-cattolici-di-alfredo-castelli/?refresh_ce=1. (Translated from Italian by Alberto Beccatini.)

30 Dan Gentile, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [undated].

31 Ibid.

32 Greg Halpin, “Bill Brown Can Do Anything,” Notre Dame Scholastic Vol. 90 #24 [Apr. 29, 1949], pg. 14.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Albert H. Davis, “Magazine Notes,” Bulletin of Bibliography Vol. 20 #5 [May– Aug. 1951], pg. 107.

Chapter Five 1 Michelle Nolan, Love on the Racks [2008], pg. 184.

2 Nolan, pg. 178.

3 Nolan, pg. 75.

4 Ted White, “Cereal Boxes?,” letter of comment, The Comics Journal #112 [Nov. 1986], pgs. 23–24.

5 Will Murray, “Walter Gibson, Comics Scripter,” manuscript.

6 Ibid.

7 Walter Gibson, interviewed by Will Murray [1985].

8 Alberto Beccatini, email to author [Dec. 11, 2021].

9 Roy Ald, “Is This What I Want to Do for the Rest of My Life?,” interviewed by Shaun Clancy, Alter Ego #108 [Apr. 2012], pg. 79.

10 Ibid.

11 “Fantastic Science Fiction,” entry, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction website [Apr. 9, 2015], https://sf-encylopedia.com/ entry/fantastic_science_fiction.

12 Ralph H. Minard, “World’s Largest Publisher of Song Magazines,” New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954], pg. 56.

13 Corrado Ungari, “Bitter America,” translation of Paese Sera article [May 5, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, American Committee on Italian Migration–National Office, New York City Records, Center for Migration Studies.

14 Edward S. Silver, “Jury Indicts Publishers of ‘Art Magazines,’” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle [May 30, 1956], pg. 3.

15 “Success in the Sewer,” Time Vol. 66, #2 [July 11, 1955], pg. 90.

16 Jeannette Walls, Dish: The Inside Story of the World of Gossip [2000], pg. 13.

17 “Sammy Davis Jr. Sues Hush-Hush for Huge Sum,” San Bernadino County Sun [July 22, 1955], pg. 8.

18 “Swine Crew,” Pulp International website [Sept. 16, 2009], https://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/keyword/Hush-Hush. html?next=10.

19 Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent [1954], pg. 388.

20 Ibid.

21 Lawrence Watt-Evans, “The Other Guys: Pre-Code Horror,” The Scream Factory #19 [Summer 1997], pg. 16.

22 Blanche Fago, “We’ll Just Get It Done,”

interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #66 [Mar. 2007], pg. 75.

23 Monsignor Aloysius J. Wycislo, letter to Monsignor Andrew P. Landi [May 17, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, ACIM–National.

24 Burt Levey, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 16.

25 White, pgs. 23–24.

26 Ted White, email to author [June 19, 2000].

27 Vince Fago, “I Let People Do Their Jobs,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #11 [Nov. 2001], pg. 8.

28 Vince Fago, pg. 20.

29 Vince Fago, pg. 24.

30 Ibid.

31 Blanche Fago, pg. 75.

32 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 32.

33 Stephen Sennitt, “Charlton,” listing, Ghastly Terror: The Horrible Story of the Horror Comics [1999], pg. 204.

34 Gibson interview.

35 Mike Benton, “Flying Saucers and Strange Adventures,” Science Fiction Comics: The Illustrated History [1992], pgs.

58–59.

36 D. Jason Cooper, “Space Western Comics,” Blastoff website [Jan. 29, 2013], http://www.blastoffcomics.com/2013/01/ space-western-comics/.

37 Bob Tucker, “space opera,” entry, Fancyclopedia II [1959], pg. 154.

38 Lawrence Watt-Evans, his column “Rayguns, Elves, & Skin-Tight Suits” for The Comics Buyer’s Guide, “A Reader’s Guide to Pre-Code Horror” in 20 serialized installments in various issues, Aug. 1983– Mar. 1, 1985. Watts-Evans extensively revised and condensed his historic overview for The Scream Factory #19 [Sum. 1997], and that version was republished in Alter Ego #97 [Oct. 2010], and was also used, in yet another revised form, as the two-part introduction for PS Artbook’s two-volume collection of The Thing!

[2013]. Watts-Evans’ current definitive final text is archived on his website/blog at http://www.watt-evans.com/theotherguys.shtml.

39 Lawrence Watt-Evans, “Reader’s Guide to Pre-Code Horror Comics: Part 15,” Comics Buyer’s Guide [Dec. 14, 1984], pg. 24.

40 Will Murray, “Ditko Before the Code,” Comics Buyer’s Guide [Nov. 23, 1984], pg.

58.

41 Gibson interview.

42 Don Armstrong, “The Onyx Story: How an Upstart Music Publisher Advanced the First Rhythm and Blues Aesthetic Part 1,” Music Journalism History website [Apr. 27, 2019], https://www.donaldearmstrong. com/2019/04/27/the-onyx-story-how-anoverlooked-magazine-publisher-shapedthe-reception-of-rhythm-and-blues-androck-and-roll/.

43 Mark Seifert, “The Surprising TransThemed Story in Space Adventures #7 from 1953,” Bleeding Cool website [Sept.

12, 2019], https://bleedingcool.com/ comics/trans-themed-story-space-adventures-7-1953/.

44 David Hajdu, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America [2009], pgs. 335–351.

45 “John Belfi,” Near Mint #25 [Oct. 1982], no

numbered pages.

46 John Belfi, “John Belfi,” Alter Ego #11

[Nov. 2001] pg. B-5.

47 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,”

interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 32.

48 Jerry Robinson, “Jerry Robinson,” inter-

viewed by Steve Ringgenberg, Comics Interview #58 [1988], pgs. 40–41.

49 Ibid.

50 Philip H. Dougherty, “New Star for TV-Ad Company,” column, The New York Times [Mar. 3, 1980], sec. B, pg. 6.

51 Fred von Bernewitz and Grant Geissmann, “The Pre-Trend Comics,” Modern Love #3 note, Tales of Terror [2000], pg. 98.

52 Geoff Laugen, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [date unknown].

53 Ibid.

54 Russ Jones, “A Man Called Jones,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #14 [July 2001], pg. 81.

55 Ibid.

56 Bill Pearson, email to author [Jan. 24, 2022].

57 Ibid.

58 John Benson, “Notes,” The Sincerest Form of Parody [2011], pgs. 172–173.

59 Virginia Irwin, “Sweet Land of Opportunity,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch [May 20, 1956], pg. 3-J. 60 Minard, pg. 53.

61 Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code [1998], pg. 28.

62 Thomas E. Murphy, “Design for Murder,” column, Hartford Courant [Dec. 17, 1953], pg. 18.

63 Marc Swayze, “We Didn’t Know It Was the Golden Age,” column, Alter Ego #9 [July 2001], pg. 42.

64 Dick Giordano, The Blue Beetle Companion [2006], pg. 79.

65 Ted Galindo, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [date unknown].

66 David Barsalou, “Roy Lichtenstein Swipes Ted Galindo,” Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein photostream [Sept. 5, 2000], https://www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/15953707485.

67 Blake Bell, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 [2014], pg. 9.

68 Steve Ditko, letter to Mike Britt [Nov. 10, 1959].

69 Blanche Fago, pg. 77.

70 Fran Matera, “It Only Took 40 Years… to Be the Steve Roper Artist,” interviewed

by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #59 [June 2006], pg. 55.

71 Dick Giordano, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 42.

72 Joe Gill, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 18.

73 Dick Giordano, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 18.

74 Ibid.

75 Frank McLaughlin, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 18.

76 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged [1957].

77 Blake Bell, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko [2008], pg. 37.

78 Steve Ditko, “Captain Atom,” Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics V3, #2 [Feb. 1992], pg. 31.

263

Chapter Six 1 Edward Levy, letter to Marc Swayze [Dec. 13, 1954].

2 Marc Swayze, “We Didn’t Know It Was the Golden Age,” column, Alter Ego #9 [July 2001], pg. 42.

3 P.C. Hamerlinck, email to author [Dec 28, 2021].

4 Don Markstein, “Black Fury,” Toonpedia website, http://www.toonopedia.com/ blakfury.htm.

5 Roy Ald, “Is This What I Want To Do For The Rest Of My Life?” interviewed by Shaun Clancy, Alter Ego #105 [Oct. 2011], pg. 79.

6 Ken Quattro, Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books [2020] pg. 157.

7 William L. Pack, “In the Matter of Charlton Press, Inc., et al.,” decision, Federal Trade Commission Decisions Vol. 55 [1960], pg.

1082.

8 Ibid.

9 Joe Simon, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics [2011], pg. 196.

10 David Hadju, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America [2009], pg. 315.

11 Joe Simon, The Comic Book Makers [1990], pg. 185.

12 Ibid.

13 Mark Evanier, Kirby: King of the Comics [2008], pg. 87.

14 Harry Mendriyk,”The End of Simon & Kirby, Chapter 3, Unlikely Port in the Storm,” blog posting, Kirby Museum website [May 18, 2006], https://kirbymuseum. org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/64.

15 R.J. Vitone, “Simon & Kirby’s Early Humor,” The Jack Kirby Collector #10 [Apr. 1996], pg. 20.

16 John Freeman, “As relevant today as it was in 1955: why the EC story ‘Master Race’ still resonates,” Down the Tubes website [Oct. 29, 2018], https://downthetubes.net/as-relevant-today-as-it-was-in1955-why-the-ec-story-master-race-stillresonates/.

17 Grant Geissman, “Impact #1,” Collectibly Mad: The Mad and EC Collectibles Guide [1995], pg. 109.

18 Roger Hill, email to author [Dec. 15, 2020].

19 Don Markstein, “Johnny Dynamite,” entry, Toonpedia website, http://www.toonopedia.com/dynamite.htm.

20 “Biographical note,” Guide to Levy Dime Novel Collection: 1821–1968, The Fales Library and Special Collections finding aid web page [Jan. 13, 2016], http://dlib. nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/levydime/ bioghist.html.

21 Art Gates, “Gates’ Career,” Editor and Publisher Vol. 91, #50 [Dec. 6, 1958], pg. 62.

22 “Arthur M. Gates, 60, Cartoonist; Drawings Ran in 280 Newspapers,” The New York Times [Dec. 7, 1976], pg. 44.

23 Editor and Publisher.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Michael Eury, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 18.

27 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 33.

28 Ibid.

29 Ralph H. Minard, “World’s Largest

264

Publisher of Song Magazines,” New England Printer and Lithographer Vol. 17, #10 [Nov. 1954], pg. 53.

30 Emilio Polce, interviewed by author [Oct. 15, 2020].

31 Craig Yoe, “Peace Comics,” The Unknown Anti-War Comics [2018], pg. 13.

32 Mike Esposito, Andru and Esposito: Partners for Life [2006], pg. 59.

33 Steven Heller, “Anti-War Comics Were No Laughing Matter,” Design Observer website [Jan. 30, 2019], https://designobserver. com/feature/anti-war-comics-were-nolaughing-matter/40013.

34 “Marin Book Distributor on New York Panel,” San Rafael Daily Independent Journal [Oct. 12, ’53], pg. 3.

35 Gary Nelson, “Publisher, SOU friend Adams dies,” Mail Tribune website [Apr. 30, 1999], https://www.mailtribune.com/ archive/1999/04/30/publisher-sou-friendadams-dies/.

36 “The Town of Derby: Town Information,” Town USA Connecticut website, http:// www.town-usa.com/connecticut/ newhaven/derby.html.

37 Isaiah 35:1, King James Bible.

38 Robert J. Novak, Jr., “Foreword,” Images of America: Derby [1999], pg. 7.

39 Eleanor Charles, “If You’re Thinking of Living in: Ansonia/Derby,” The New York Times [Oct. 25, 1987], Sec. 8, pg. 11.

40 “History of Derby,” City of Derby website, https://www.derbyct.gov/history-of-derby.

41 Minard, pg. 53.

42 Minard, pg. 56.

43 Virginia Irwin, “Sweet Land of Opportunity,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch [May 20, 1956], pg. 3-J. Chapter Seven 1 “Connecticut’s Black Friday,” Western Connecticut’s Great Flood Disaster [1955], nn pg.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Marc Swayze, “We Didn’t Know It Was the Golden Age,” column, Alter Ego #9 [July 2001], pg. 43.

5 “Flood! Suddenly Disaster Strikes… But Independent Distribution Strikes Back,” Newsdealer Vol. 10, #8 [Oct. 1955], pg. 12.

6 Ibid.

7 Burton Levey, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 15.

8 Joe Gill, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 15.

9 “Sikorsky Sends ’Copters To Aid Flood Rescues,” Bridgeport Telegram [Aug. 19, 1955], pg. 94.

10 Blanche Fago, “We’ll Just Get It Done,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #66 [Mar. 2007], pg. 73.

11 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 36.

12 Dick Giordano, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 22.

13 Newsdealer, pgs. 12–13.

14 Joe Gill, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 15.

15 Swayze, pg. 43.

16 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 15.

17 Levey, CBA #9, pg. 15.

18 Ed Konick, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 15.

19 Joe Gill, “The Charlton Empire,” CBA, pg. 15.

20 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 15.

21 “Floods of October 16,” Floods of August–

October 1955 New England to North Carolina, Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 1420 [1960], pg. 43.

22 Mickey Spillane, “Mickey Spillane on Joe Gill,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 24.

23 Michael Ambrose, “Joe Gill (1919–2006),” obituary, Alter Ego #67 [Apr. 2007], pg. 69.

24 Joe Gill, interviewed by Christopher Irving [undated].

25 Joe Gill, interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pg. 3.

26 Ibid.

27 Ray Gill, “Atomic Mouse in Bum-bumbum-Bomb,” Funny Animals #87 [Oct. ’54], nn pages.

28 Gill, Spotlight, pgs. 4–5.

29 Joe Gill, “Captain Atom,” Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics V3, #2 [Feb. 1992], pg. 31.

30 Ibid.

31 Joe Gill, according to Link Yaco email to author [Nov. 2000].

Chapter Eight 1 Ed Konick, interviewed by Shaun Clancy [undated].

2 Don Armstrong, “Rip It Up: How the 1950s R&R Press Shredded Pop Music Norms,” blog post, Music Journalism History website [May 25, 2019], https://www. music-journalism-history.com/2019/05/25/ rip-it-up-how-the-1950s-rr-press-shredded-pop-music-norms/.

3 Ibid.

4 Ger Apeldoorn, “What Hath Kurtzman Wrought?,” Alter Ego #86 [June. ’09], pg. 45.

5 Joe Simon, The Comic Book Makers [1990], pg. 185.

6 Blanche Fago, “We’ll Just Get It Done,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #66 [Mar. 2007], pg. 77.

7 Joe Gill, “The Joe Gill Interview,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pg. 10.

8 Ken Quattro, “The Gospel According To Archer St. John,” Alter Ego #77 [May 2008], pg. 51.

9 Dick Ayers, “To Keep Busy as a Freelancer, You Should Have Three Accounts,” interviewed by Roy Thomas and Jim Amash, Alter Ego #31 [Dec. 2003], pg. 15.

10 Ibid.

11 Harvey Kurtzman, “Hey Look! An Interview with Harvey Kurtzman,” interviewed by J.P.C. James, Rogue #86 [Dec. 1965], pgs. 74, 76.

12 Al Jaffee, interviewed by Christopher Irving [undated].

13 Bill Schelly, Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America [2015], pg. 362.

14 Harvey Kurtzman, “A Conversation with Harvey Kurtzman & Harry Chester,” interviewed by John Benson, Squa Tront #12 [Summer 2007], pg. 42.

15 Jaffee.

16 Arnold Roth, “Take Five,” interviewed

by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #142 [June 1991], pg. 68.

17 Al Jaffee, interviewed by Christopher Irving [undated].

18 Dick Giordano, Dick Giordano: Changing

Comics, One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 26.

19 Michael Eury, Dick Giordano: Changing

Comics, One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 26.

20 Sam Glanzman, “Glanzman’s Derby

Days,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 90.

21 Mark Evanier, “By the Numbers…,” Wertham Was Right: Another Collection of POV Columns [2003], pgs. 38, 40.

22 Evanier, pg. 41.

23 Jodie Mozdzer Gil, “Goodbye, Valley Bowl,” Valley Independent Sentinel website [July 15, 2010], https://valley. newhavenindependent.org/article/ whats_up_with_valley_bowl/.

24 Dick Giordano, “Sol Brodsky Remembered,” Marvel Age #22 [Jan. 1985], pg. 17.

25 Robert Strauss, “Flourishing with the Genre,” The Art of Al Williamson [1983], pg. 12.

26 John Severin, “John Severin, Part the Second,” interviewed by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #216 [Oct. 1999], pg. 143.

27 John Garcia, “All in a Day’s Work,” Squa Tront #11 [Spr. 2005], pg. 16.

28 Joe Sinnott, interviewed by Tim Lasiuta, Brushstrokes with Greatness: The Life & Art of Joe Sinnott [2007], pg. 26.

29 Hy Eisman, quoted by Robert L. Bryant, The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker [2010], pg. 33.

30 Robert L. Bryant, The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker [2010], pg. 33.

31 Jim Amash and Eric Nolen-Weathington, Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour [2012], pgs. 64–65.

32 Ray Osrin, email to Shaun Clancy [undated].

33 Joe Gill, interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pgs.

12–13.

34 JoeGordon1, comment, “Branford Arts and Cultural Commission Proposed,” Branford Seven website [Mar. 8, 2014], https://www.branfordseven.com/news/ local/branford-arts-and-culture-commission-proposed/article_978e2a56-a61911e3-951e-001a4bcf6878.html.

35 Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome: Italian Americans and Immigration Reform, 1945-1965 [2019], pgs.

132, 134.

36 Battisti, pg. 134.

37 Garcia, pg. 16.

38 Corrado Ungari, “Bitter America,” translation of Paese Sera article [May 5, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, American Committee on Italian Migration–National Office, New York City Records, Center for Migration Studies (hereafter ACIM–National).

39 Ibid.

40 Monsignor Aloysius J. Wycislo, letter to Monsignor Andrew P. Landi [May 17, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, ACIM–National.

41 John Santangelo, letter to Msgr. Aloysius J. Wycislo [June 28, 1956], Box E51, folder John Santangelo, ACIM–National.

42 Wycislo.

43 Blanche Fago, pg. 76.

44 Ibid.

45 “Conn. Printers Testing Flood Insurance

Issue,” Berkshire Eagle (Mass.) [Aug. 30, 1955], pg. 9.

46 Giordano, Changing Comics, pg. 22.

47 Jack Keller, “Jack Keller on Wheels,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 80.

48 Keller, pg. 82.

49 Blanche Fago, pgs. 74–75.

50 Mark Evanier, comment, “Carl Memling at Charlton—Who Knew?,” Who Created the Comic Books? website [Oct. 30, 2014], http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/2014/10/ carl-memling-at-charlton-who-knew.html.

51 Brad Ricca, Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster [2013], pg. 243.

52 “Magazine, Books and Comics Prices and Profits Going Up,” Newsdealer [July 1958], pg. 4.

53 Joe Gill, “Joe ‘Mr. Prolific’ Gill,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 23.

54 “Soothsayer from Eire,” Miami News [Aug. 11, 1943], pg. 14.

55 Maybelle Manning, “Talk of the Tower,” Miami News [Mar. 7, 1941], pg. 10.

56 “Soothsayer.”

57 Helen Welshimer, “What the Future Holds for Brenda,” Miami Herald [May 14, 1939], pg. 55.

58 Nigel Fletcher, “Nature Boy” entry, The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide second edition [2003], pg. 453.

59 Jon Morris, “Nature Boy” entry, The League of Regrettable Superheroes [2015], pg. 92.

60 “Armed Robbery Seizes Payroll of Derby Firm,” Hartford Courant [Dec. 18, 1954], pg. 2.

61 “Flood Victim Robbed, Too,” N.Y. Daily News [Aug. 30, 1955], pg. 31.

62 “Payroll Robbery Flops in Derby,” Meriden Record [Feb. 21, ’58], pg. 1.

63 “Bank’s Good Old Al in 63G Jam,” New York Daily News [Apr. 25, 1959], pg. 4.

64 “Fun with Pop, Inc. Grows on Broadcast Time Barter Deals,” Advertising Age Vol. 32 #10 [Mar. 6, 1961], pg. 42.

65 Steven Newton, indexer notes, Fightin’ Marines #26 entry, Grand Comics Database website, https:///www.comics. org/issue/14546/#118539.

66 John Dunning, Tune into Yesterday: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio 1925–1976 [1976], pgs. 431–432.

67 Bill Schelly, American Comic Book Chronicles: 1950s [2013], pg. 179.

68 “Certificates of Incorporation,” Bridgeport Post [Aug. 14, 1957], pg. 44.

69 Lumbard, Moore, and Hays, Ballantine Books, Inc. v. Capital Distrib. Co., 302 F.2d 17 (2nd Cir. 1962) [Apr. 11, 1962].

70 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 33.

71 David Hajdu, The Ten-Cent Plague [2008], pg. 309.

72 Joe Simon, My Life in Comics [2011], pgs.

193, 195.

73 “Derby Employer is Loser in ‘GirlTweaking’ Case,” Hartford Courant [July 31, 1959], pg. 33.

74 “Stop Sign Thief,” Bridgeport Telegram [May 18, 1959], pg. 4.

75 “Gold Medal Now Buying 7 Books a Month,” Writer’s Digest Vol. 31, #10 [Oct.

References

1951], pg. 15.

76 “Heckelmann Becomes Prez,” Variety

[Dec. 7, 1960], pg. 84.

77 “Spotlight Alumnus: Charles N.

Heckelmann, ’34,” Notre Dame Alumnus Vol. 33 #1 [Jan.–Feb. 1955], pg. 34.

78 Pauline Bloom, “New York Market Letter,” Writer’s Digest Vol. 38 #9 [Sept. ’58], pg. 78.

79 Kenneth R. Johnson, “Monarch Books,” monograph [2021], pg. 5.

80 Robert Maguire, “The Magic of Robert Maguire,”interviewed by Gary Lovisi, Illustration #3 [Apr. 2002], pg. 12.

81 Monarch Books Looking for Violence,” Writer’s Digest Vol. 39 #4 [Apr. ’59], pg. 38.

82 Lawrence Block, A Writer Prepares (Master Document), unpublished manuscript, [Mar. 3, 2020], pg. 101.

83 Charles N. Heckelmann, “An Interview with Charles N. Heckelmann, Part 2,” interviewed by Gary Lovisi, Paperback Parade #35 [Aug. 1993], pg. 20.

84 “The Week,” National Review Vol. 8, #21 [May 25, 1960], pg. 317.

85 Johnson, pg. 2.

86 Ted White, “Cereal Boxes?,” letter of comment, The Comics Journal #112 [Nov. 1986], pg. 24.

Chapter Nine 1 Lou Mougin, “Action Heroes? We’ve Got ’Em!,” column, The Comic Reader #198 [Dec. 1981], pg. 7.

2 Ibid.

3 James Wright, “Atomic Comics,” Little White Lies #28 [Mar. 2010], pg. 64.

4 John Ryan, Panel by Panel: An Illustrated History of Australian Comics [1979], pg.

190.

5 “Golden Age Captain Atom,” Splitting Atoms blog, splittingatomsblog. wordpress.com/know-your-captain-atom/ golden-age-captain-atom/ 6 Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, The Comic Book Heroes, second edition [1997], pgs.

41–42.

7 Ibid.

8 Dan Hagen, “Notes,” Comic Book Plus website, Space Adventures #44 [June 16, 2020], https://comicbookplus. com/?dlid=12678.

9 Joe Gill, “The Joe Gill Interview,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pg. 11–12.

10 Joe Gill, “Captain Atom,” Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics Vol. 3 #2 [Feb. 1992], pg. 31.

11 Steve Ditko, “First Choice,” Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics Vol. 3 #2 [Feb. 1992], pg. 31.

12 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 34.

13 “Two Sue Derby Magazine Over Photo of Girl with Mud,” Bridgeport Telegram [May 3, 1962], pg. 39.

14 “Wood Alcohol Pitch Still on Stands Here,” Atlanta Constitution [May 16, 1964], pg. 14.

15 “Derby Firm Gets Fine of $18,000,” Bridgeport Post [Apr. 10, 1962], pg. 48.

16 Steve Ditko, “First Choice.”

17 Referencing Christopher Hayton, “Fantastic Giants: Charlton Comics’ Monster Movie Adaptations,” SCAN Journal of Media Arts Culture website,

http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display. php?journal_id=131.

18 “The Week,” National Review, Vol. 11 #14 [Oct. 7, 1961], pg. 219.

19 N.M. McKenzie, “Obnoxious,” letter to the editor, Oakland Tribune [Oct. 15, 1961], pg.

85.

20 Fantagraphics, Pin-Up Art of Humorama, promotional text [June 2011], www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/JUN111099.

21 “Men’s Magazines” listings, Author and Journalist Vol. 44 #1 [Jan. 1959], pg. 28.

22 Marj Patrick, “A Sketch in Time is Gold Mine for Freelance Cartoonist, 21” (reprinted from the Observer-Dispatch, of Utica N.Y.), Cartoonist Profiles #40 [Dec. 1978], pg. 37.

23 “Theater Clock: Reviews by Parents’ Magazine,” Press-Courier (Oxnard, Calif.), Dec. 9, 1961 , pg. 10.

24 Michelle Nolan, Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics [2008], pg. 185.

25 Anonymous, back cover text, This is the German Shepherd [1955].

26 Ed Konick, telephone conversation with author [Fall 2000].

27 Pete Morisi, “The PAM Papers–Part 4,” Alter Ego #158 [May 2019], pg. 58.

28 This is the German Shepherd, back cover.

29 R.H. Gardner, “Horror Cult—Straight Out of This World,” Baltimore Sun [Apr. 28, 1963], pg. 12.

30 Ibid.

31 “Hit Parader Magazine Makes Shift,” Billboard Vol. 74 #43 [Oct. 27, 1962], pg. 8.

32 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 38.

33 Sal Trapani, “Comments from Sal Trapani, Artist of Nukla,” The Comic Reader #41 [Sept. 1965].

34 Tony Tallarico, “Tony Tallarico Interview,” interviewed by Jamie Coville, Coville Clubhouse website [2006], http://www. collectortimes.com/2006_08/Clubhouse. html.

35 Ken Quattro, “Maco Toys,” Facebook posting [Dec. 20, 2020], https:// www.facebook.com/ken.quattro/ posts/2842876659317083.

36 Bill Fraccio, “Doing Comics was a Fun Learning Experience,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #29 [Oct. 2003], pg. 32.

37 Jose Delbo, “Delbo’s Authentic Artistry,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #23 [Dec. 2002], pg. 80.

38 Tony Tallarico, “I Absolutely Love What I’m Doing,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #109, pg. 43.

39 Don Markenstein, “Gunmaster” entry, Toonpedia website, http://www.toonopedia.com/gunmastr.htm.

40 Christopher Irving, The Blue Beetle Companion [2007], pg. 81.

41 Ibid. pg. 82.

42 Fraccio, pg. 33.

43 John Wells, American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960–64 [2012], pgs. 187–188.

44 John Korfel, “Charlton’s Rarest Comic Books,” Charlton Spotlight #9 [Winter 2016], pg. 57.

45 Secrets of Young Brides #2, Comic Book Plus website, https://comicbookplus. com/?dlid=70969 46 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 36.

47 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 45.

48 Robert W. Fenton, Edgar Rice Burroughs

and Tarzan: A Biography of author and His Creation [2015], pg. 11.

49 “Gold Star Books,” monograph, Kenneth R. Johnson [2020], pg. 1.

50 Pat Masulli, editorial, Jungle Tales of Tarzan #1 [Dec. 1964], inside front cover.

51 Camille E. Cazedessus, Jr., “Lords of the Jungle,” The Comic-Book Book [1974], pg.

280.

52 Sam Glanzman, “Glanzman’s Derby Days,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 91.

53 Joe Gill, “Joe ‘Mr. Prolific’ Gill,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pgs. 23.

54 “The Jungle Tales of Tarzan Comic,” Oparian #1 [Sept. 1965], pgs. 42–43.

55 “New ‘Unauthorized’ Tarz,” The Gridley Wave #15 [Oct. ’64], pg. 1.

56 Pat Masulli, letter to John Chambers [Mar. 11, 1965].

57 Johnny Chambers, letter to author [May 16, 2022].

58 Judge Sidney Sugarman, “Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. v. Charlton Publications, Inc.,” 243 F. Supp. 731 (S.D.N.Y. 1965).

59 “House of Info,” news briefs, ERB-dom #14 [Oct. 1965], pg. 18.

60 Dale R. Broadhurst, “Tarzana Thrills,” Barsoomian #10 [Jan. 1966], pg. 6.

61 “Tarzan and the Barton Werper,” Oparian #1 [Sept. 1965], pgs. 40.

62 Bruce Tinkel, “Monarch Movie Books,” Paperback Parade #108 [Aug. 2020], pgs.

44, 53.

63 Kenneth R. Johnson, “Monarch Books” monograph [2020], pg. 1.

64 Alan Betrock, Unseen America: The Greatest Exploitation Magazines 1950– 1966 [1990], pg. 25.

65 Bob Globerman, interviewed by Shaun Clancy.

66 Charles Santangelo, “The Half-Dollar Man,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 200], pg. 13.

67 Don Perlin, “Drawing Comics Was in My Heart,” interviewed by Rich Arndt, Alter Ego #177 [Sept. 2022], pg. 7.

68 Perlin, Alter Ego #177, pg. 8.

69 Don Perlin, “Perlin’s Wisdom,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #13 [May 2001], pg. 91.

70 Perlin, Alter Ego #177, pg. 8.

71 Perlin, Alter Ego #177, pg. 9.

72 Barry Lipton, interview with author [Jan. 20, 2022].

73 Ibid.

74 Dr. Steven Montes, email to author [Aug. 1, 2022].

75 Michael Montes, interview with author [Feb. 11, 2022].

76 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 45.

77 Harry Harrison, Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison! It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: A Memoir [2014], pg. 69.

78 Dick Ayers, “A Conversation with Dick Ayers,” interviewed by Shaun Clancy, The Comics Journal website [May 21, 2014], https://www.tcj.com/a-conversation-withdick-ayers/.

79 Harrison.

80 Lindy Ayers, interviewed by Blake Bell, I Have to Live With This Guy [2002], pg. 48.

81 Dick Ayers, tcj.com.

82 Christopher Irving, The Blue Beetle Companion PDF [2007], pg. 16.

265

83 Dick Giordano, The Blue Beetle

13 McLaughlin, “A Piece…,” pg 27.

49 G. Friedrich, CBA # #13, pgs. 76–77.

Companion [2007], pgs. 14–15.

84 James Ventrilio, “Cartoonist Goes Literary After Years with Comics,” Bridgeport Post [Oct. 9, 1977], pg. E-5.

85 Vince Alascia, Bridgeport Post [Oct. 9, 1977], pg. E-5.

86 Ventrillo.

87 Ibid.

88 Alascia.

89 Hy Eisman, “A conversation with George Wildman… and Hy Eisman, too,” interviewed by Donnie Pitchford, Charlton Spotlight #7 [Winter 2012], pg. 4.

90 “Getting Hy on Comics: A Profile of Hy Eisman,” interviewed by Mark Squirek, Hogan’s Alley #15 [2007], pg. 48.

91 Frank McLaughlin, “The McLaughlin Report,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 84.

92 Frank McLaughlin, interviewed by Christopher Irving [circa 2000].

93 Ibid.

94 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 47.

95 David Roach, “Sarge Steel” entry, Slings & Arrows Comic Guide [2003], pg. 552.

96 Max Allan Collins, The Fine Art of Murder: The Mystery Reader’s Indispensable Companion [1993], pg. 333.

97 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 47.

98 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 30.

99 Giordano, One Day…, pg. 9.

100 Dick Giordano, “Along Came Giordano,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist Vol. 1, #1 [Spring 1998], pg. 31.

101 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 30.

102 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 31.

103 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 32.

104 Ibid.

105 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 35.

106 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 33.

107 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 35.

108 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 39.

109 Ibid.

14 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 37.

50 Roy Thomas, “Make Mine Charlton,”

Chapter Ten 1 Pat Masulli, letter of comment, Alter Ego Vol. 1 #9 [May–Aug. 1965], pg. 43.

2 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 39.

3 Dick Giordano, “From Over the Fence,” interviewed by Mike Friedrich, Voice of Comicdom #15 [1969], nn pg.

4 Pat Masulli, interviewed by Larry Walczak, Comic Feature #3 [June–July, 1965], nn pg.

5 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 39–40.

6 “Two State Men in $8 Million Project to Build 3 Tomato Canneries in Italy,” Hartford Courant [Feb. 18, 1965], pg. 23.

7 Gerald Ryan, “Joseph P. Vetrano: WhamBang Broker Sells Gusto,” Name in the News feature, Hartford Courant [Aug. 9, 1965], pg. 11.

8 Frank McLaughlin, “A Piece of the Action,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 27.

9 Dick Giordano, “A Piece of the Action,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 27.

10 Frank McLaughlin, “The McLaughlin Report,” interviewed by author, CBA #9, pg. 85.

11 Blake Bell, The World of Steve Ditko [2008], pg. 89.

12 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 42.

266

15 Steve Ditko, “A Mini-History,” The Comics

Vol. 12 #5 [May 2001], pg. 35.

16 Stan Lee, The World of Steve Ditko [2008], pg. 95.

17 Chapter 6 endnotes, The World of Steve Ditko [2008], nn pg.

18 Nick Caputo, “Steve Ditko: A Life in Comics,” Alter Ego #160 [Sept. 2019], pg.

13.

19 Pat Masulli, “Special Bulletin,” On the Drawing Board item, The Comic Reader #37 [May 6, 1965], nn pg.

20 Ibid.

21 Steve Skeates, “The Silver Skeates,” interviewed by John Schwirian, Alter Ego #84 [Mar. 2009], pg. 4.

22 Steve Skeates, “Skeating on Thin Ice,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #5 [Summer 1999], pg. 70.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Steve Skeates, “Graves Acting Strangely,” Charlton Spotlight # 5 [Fall 2006], pg. 49.

26 Pat Masulli, “Special Bulletin,” On the Drawing Board item, The Comic Reader #37 [May 6, 1965], nn pg.

27 Tom Fagan, “Hi! I’m Your Host, Tom Fagan,” Alter Ego V2 #3 pg. 23.

28 Roy Thomas, “Hi! I’m Your Host, Tom Fagan,” Alter Ego V2 #3 pg. 23.

29 “One on All and All on One,” introduction, All in Color for a Dime [1970], pg. 148.

30 Pat Masulli, “Editor’s Note,” Rocket’s Blast/ComiCollector #39 [June ’65], nn pg.

31 Roy Thomas, “Make Mine Charlton,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 54.

32 Roy Thomas, “It was a Very Good Year,” editorial, Alter Ego #20 [Jan. ’03], pg. B-2.

33 Dave Kaler, “Chatting with Dave Kaler,” interviewed by Bill Schelly, Alter Ego #20 [Jan. 2003], pgs. 41–42.

34 Ibid.

35 Dennis O’Neil, “Shadows of Reality,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #5 [Sum. 1999], pg. 56.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Dennis O’Neil, “Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Scribe,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 53.

39 Ibid.

40 Gary Friedrich, “Groovy Gary and the Marvel Years,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 76.

41 G. Friedrich, CBA #12, pg. 77.

42 G. Friedrich, CBA #12, pg. 79.

43 Roy Thomas, email to author [Jan. 8, 2022].

44 Harriet Doar, “He ‘Thinks Little… and Fast’,” Charlotte Observer [Nov. 17, 1963], pg. 38.

45 Roy Thomas, “The Silver Age of Charlton,” panel transcript, Alter Ego #106 [Dec. 2011], pg. 6.

46 Denis Kitchen, “Pioneering Underground Cartoonist Grass Green Passes Away at Age 63,” The Comics Journal #247 [Oct. 2002], pg. 32.

47 Jim Delehant, Rock’s Back Pages Library website, www.rocksbackpages.com/ Library/writer/jimdelehant 48 Mike Friedrich, “A Revolution,” Heroes’ Hangout #5 [1967], pg. 10.

Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 58.

51 G. Friedrich, CBA #13, pg. 77.

52 Stan Lee, “Interview: Stan Lee,” inter-

viewed by Ron Liberman, Marvel Tribune #9 [Jan. 1969], pg. 6.

53 Glen D. Johnson, “The Charlton Story,” Gremlin #2 [1970], nn pg.

54 Dick Giordano, “Foreword,” The Action Heroes Archives Vol. 2 [2007], nn pg.

55 Lou Mougin, “Action Heroes? We’ve Got ’Em!,” column, The Comic Reader #198 [Dec. 1981], pg. 15.

56 Pete Morisi, “PAM, Man of Thunderbolt,” interviewed by Glen D. Johnson, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 67.

57 Pete Morisi, “In Praise of PAM,” 1967 letter, Alter Ego #150 [July 2019], pg. 19.

58 Morisi, A/E #150, pg. 17.

59 Morisi, A/E #150, pg. 27.

60 M. Friedrich, Hero’s Hangout #5, pg. 10.

61 Steve Ditko, “An Interview with the Man of Mystery,” interviewed by Mike and Rich Howell and Mark Canterbury, Marvel Main #4 [Oct.–Nov. 1968], pgs. 3, 6.

62 Giordano, Action Heroes Archives, nn pg.

63 “Dick Giordano,” profile, Champion #7 [1969], pg. 5.

64 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 43.

65 Ibid.

66 Rocke Mastroserio biographical sketch, “The Creepy Fan Club,” Creepy #16 [July 1968], pg. 44.

67 Grass Green, “Grass Green at Charlton,”

by Michael Ambrose, Charlton Spotlight #3 [Spr. 2004], pg. 63.

68 Rocco Mastroserio, “Rocke Speaks,” correspondence to Gary Brown, Alter Ego #41 [Oct. 2004], pg. 18-B. 69 Joe Gill, “The Joe Gill interview,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotllight #5 [Fall 2006], pg 13.

70 Don and Maggie Thompson, Newfangles #8 [Mar. 1968], pg. 1.

71 John Wells, American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965–69 [2014], pg. 228.

72 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 43.

73 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 45.

74 Thomas, CBA #9, pg. 58.

75 Michael Ambrose, “Grass Green at Charlton, remembrance, Charlton Spotlight #3 [Win. 2004], pg. 63.

76 Gill, Charlton Spotlight #5, pg. 17.

77 Dick Giordano, “Pat Boyette Dies at 77,” obituary by Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Journal #221 [Mar. 2000], pg. 30.

78 M. Friedrich, Heroes’ Hangout #5, pg. 11.

79 Charles R. Johnson, email to author, Feb. 11, 2022.

80 Ibid.

81 Dick Giordano, letter to Charles R. Johnson [Jan. 27, 1967].

82 Dick Giordano, letter to Charles R. Johnson [Mar. 16, 1967].

83 Charles R. Johnson, I Call Myself an Artist, Writing by and About Charles Johnson [1999], pg. 19.

84 Joe Gill, “Joe ‘Mr. Prolific’ Gill,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pgs. 23–24.

85 “Richard E. Bush, 79: Was Honored for WWII Acts,” Obituary, Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2004, pg. B-10.

86 Ibid.

87 “Files Suit,” Naugatuck Daily News

(Conn.) [Apr. 20, 1966] pg. 16.

88 Chicago Tribune quoted, Richard E. Bush

obituary, Albuquerque Tribune [June 15, 2004], pg. D-5.

89 Will Franz, “The Lonely War of Will Franz,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 96.

90 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 42.

91 Franz, CBA #9, pg. 98.

92 Franz, CBA #9, pg. 94.

93 Richard J. Arndt and Steven Fears, Our Artists at War: The Best of the Best American War Comics [2021], pg. 71.

94 Will Franz, “The Will Franz Interview,” interviewed by Richard Arndt, Charlton Spotlight #9 [Spr. 2016], pg. 9.

95 Dick Giordano, interviewed by Christopher Irving [circa 2000].

96 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 45.

97 Ditko, Marvel Main #4, pg. 3.

98 Ditko, Marvel Main #4, pg. 6.

99 Sam Glanzman, “Glanzman’s Derby Days,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pgs. 90–91.

100 Glanzman, CBA #9, pg. 92.

101 Masulli, Comic Feature.

102 G. Friedrich, CBA #13 [May 2001], pg. 7.

103 Ambrose, Spotlight #3, pg. 63.

104 Dennis O’Neil, CBA #9, pg. 53.

105 Steve Skeates, “Strange Suspense Stories #4” entry, Steve Skeates: Unmerciful Storyteller, commentary [’97] nn pg.

106 “Tyro Team” entry, Steve Skeates: Unmerciful Storyteller, index commentary [1997], nn pg.

107 Michael T. Gilbert, “In Praise of PAM,” Alter Ego #159, pg. 7.

108 Bill Harris, “From Dell—To Gold Key— To King—With the New York Times Inbetween,” interview by Richard Arndt, Alter Ego #144 [Jan. 2017], pgs. 38.

109 Dick Giordano, “Comic Book Editor,”interview, Cartoonist Profiles #6 [May 1970], pg. 48.

110 Eury, pgs. 36–37.

111 Steve Skeates, “Appendix One/ Unpublished Scripts,” Steve Skeates: Unmerciful Storyteller, index commentary [1997], nn pg.

112 Jack Keller, “Jack Keller on Wheels,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 81.

113 Keller, CBA #12, pgs. 81–82.

114 Bill Parker, “Edd Ashe,” FCA & ME #37 [Fall, 1986], pg. 6.

115 Edd Ashe, “Edd Ashe,” FCA & ME #37 [Fall, 1986], pg. 6.

116 Parker.

117 Ashe.

118 Parker, FCA & ME #37, pg. 8.

119 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 45.

120 Jim Aparo, “The Aparo Approach,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 70.

121 Aparo, CBA #9, pg. 73.

122 Spurgeon, TCJ #221, pg. 30.

123 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 46.

124 Pat Boyette, “The Boyette Brilliance,” interviewed by Don Mangus, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 82.

125 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 46.

126 Boyette, CBA #9, p. 82.

127 Dick Giordano, “For Fun or Fortune,” interview, Whizzard #14 [Win. 1981], pg. 13.

128 Eury, pg. 42.

129 Steve Ditko, letter to Russ Maheras,

Heritage Auctions website [June 6, 2002], https://comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/ steve-ditko-correspondence-group-ofapproximately-150-1973-2017-total-150items-/a/7246-94249.s?ic4=GalleryViewThumbnail-071515.

130 Eury, pg. 42.

131 Dick Giordano, “Along Came Giordano,” interview conducted by author, Comic Book Artist Vol. 1, #1 [Spring 1998], pg. 31.

132 Morisi, Alter Ego #150, pg. 31.

133 Dick Giordano, letter to Glen D. Johnson [Nov. 27, 1967].

134 Dick Giordano, “Comic Book Editor,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #6 [May 1970], pgs. 46–47.

Chapter Eleven 1 Dick Giordano, “The Silver Age of Charlton,” Alter Ego #106 [Dec. 2011], pg. 16.

2 “A Capital Idea,” Newsdealer Vol. 13, #8 [July 1958].

3 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pgs. 34–35.

4 Dick Giordano, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 16.

5 Steven Heller, “Blood, Sweat, and Tits,” essay, Men’s Adventure Magazines in Postwar America [2008], pg. 21.

6 Henry Scarpelli, “Her Son the Cartoonist,” interviewed by Jim and Gerry Ruth, Cartoonist Profiles #14 [June 1972], pg. 46.

7 Scarpelli, pg. 47.

8 Charles Santangelo, “The Half-Dollar Man,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 13.

9 Joe Gill, “The Joe Gill Interview,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pg. 21.

10 George Wildman, “Wildman Times at Charlton,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 19.

11 Bhob Stewart, Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood [2003], pg. 294.

12 Fran Matera, “It Only Took 40 Years… to Be the Steve Roper Artist,” interviewed

by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #59 [June 2006], pgs. 55–56.

13 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 19.

14 Pete Morisi, “The PAM Papers,” Alter Ego #148 [Sept. 2017], pg. 72.

15 Steve Skeates, “Hercules #5” listing, Steve Skeates: Unmerciful Storyteller, index commentary, [1997], nn pg.

16 Michael W. Kaluta, “Michael W. Kaluta: The Studio, the Shadow, the Outstanding Artistry,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Creator #13 [Summer 2016], pg. 60.

17 Jacque Nodell, “Romance Comic Book PSA—Charlton’s Jonnie Love Speaks Out on Narcotics,” Sequential Crush website [Oct. 2, 2013], https://www.sequentialcrush.com/blog/2013/10/romance-comicbook-psa-charltons-jonnie.

18 Tony Tallarico, “I’m Responsible For What I’ve Done,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #108 [Apr. 2012], pg. 40.

19 John Lustig, “The Terrible, Tragic (>Sob!<) Death of Romance (Comics),” Back Issue #13 [Dec. 2005], pg. 19.

20 Tony Tallarico, “Tony Tallarico Interview,” interviewed by Jamie Coville, Coville’s Clubhouse website [Aug. 2006], http:// www.collectortimes.com/2006_08/ Clubhouse.html.

References

21 Tony Tallarico, “You’re Going Into a

47 Howlett, pg. 243.

16 Tony DiPreta, “We Were a Very Happy

Business That Requires People To Be Dressed With Ties,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #107 [Feb. 2012], pg. 42.

22 Gill, Spotlight #5, pg. 6.

23 Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuch, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium [1971], pg. 93.

24 Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America, pg. 194.

25 Reitberger and Fuch.

26 Wright, pg. 195.

27 David Huxley, “Naked Aggression: American Comic Books and the Vietnam War,” Tell Me Lies About Vietnam: Cultural Battles for the Meaning of the War [1988], edited by Alf Louvre and Jeffrey Walsh, pg. 99.

28 Bryan E. Vizzini, “When (Comic) Art Imitates Life: American Exceptionalism and the Comic Book Industry in the Vietnam War Era,” The Vietnam War in Popular Culture: The Influence of America’s Most Controversial War on Everyday Life Vol. 1 [2017], pg. 371.

29 Jacque Nodell, “A Big Thank You + The Identity of Dr. Harold Gluck Revealed,” Sequential Crush website [Oct. 21, 2013], https://www.sequentialcrush.com/ blog/2013/10/a-big-thank-you-identity-ofdr-harold.

30 Danny Fingeroth, email to author, Apr. 12, 2022.

31 Gerard Gallucci, “A Big Thank You…,” blogpost comment.

32 Eliot Wagner, “A Big Thank You…,” blogpost comment.

33 D.J. Arneson, “Lobo Creators Interview— DJ Arneson & Tony Tallarico,” interviewed by Jamie Coville, Jamie Coville website [Aug. 17, 2016], http://jamiecoville. com/blog/blog/2016/08/17/lobo-creators-interview-dj-arneson-tony-tallarico/.

34 Dick Giordano, “For Fun or Fortune,” interview, Whizzard #14 [Win. 1981], pg. 13.

35 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 23.

36 “Artist’s Profile: Luis Dominguez,” Eerie #44 [Dec. 1972], pg. 64.

37 José Luis García-López, Modern Masters Vol. Five: J.L. García-López [2005], pg. 20.

38 García-López, Modern Masters, pg. 10.

39 José Luis García-López, “Interview with Charlton Romance Comic Book Artist, José Luis García-López,” interviewed

by Jacque Nodell, Sequential Crush website [Nov. 5, 2010], https://www. sequentialcrush.com/blog/2010/11/interview-with-charlton-romance-comic.

40 García-López, Modern Masters, pg. 8.

41 García-López, Sequential Crush.

42 Carlos R. Martinez, “A Review of the Work of Oscar Novelle (1st Part),” Top-Comics website [July 11, 2015], https://luisalberto941.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/8791/ [translated from Spanish].

43 Mike Howlett, The Weird World of Eerie Publications [2010], pg. 224.

44 Carlos R. Martinez, “A Review of the Work of Oscar Novelle (Final part),” TopComics website [July 19, 2015], https:// luisalberto941.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/ un-repaso-a-la-obra-de-oscar-novelle2da-parte/ [translated from Spanish].

45 García-López, Modern Masters, pg. 10.

46 García-López, Sequential Crush.

48 Howlett, pg. 242.

Group,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #60 [July 2006], pg. 59.

17 Jerry Buck, “Animator’s book for son turns into cartoon empire,” Pensacola News Journal [Aug. 13, 1986], pg. 5-C. 18 Joe Torcivia, The Jetsons #6 page, “Fadboy and Bobbin” entry, indexer notes, Grand Comics Database website, https:// www.comics.org/issue/170251/#522116.

19 Randy Hall, “…Like sitting inside my head,” column by Randy Hall, Anniston [Alabama] Star [May 2, 1981], pg. 6-B. 20 Blake Bell, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko [2008], pg. 118.

21 Tim Hollis, Toons in Toyland: The Story of Cartoon Character Merchandise [2015], pg. 59.

22 George Wildman, “Wildman Times at Charlton,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 25.

23 Lenora Williamson, “King Features names Yates comics editor,” Editor and Publisher Vol. 112, #1 [Jan. 6, ’79], pg. 64.

24 Ibid.

25 Don Markstein, “Professor Phumble” entry, Toonpedia website, http://www. toonopedia.com/phumble.htm.

26 Bill Yates, “Comics Editor/King Features,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #67 [Sept. 1985], pg. 14.

27 Joseph Barbera, My Life in ’Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century [1994], pg. 139–140.

28 Ed Justin, “The Artifacts of Adulation,” The Reporter Vol. 30 #4 [Feb. 13, ’64], pg. 43.

29 “Cowsills: Product Tie-ins Start To Roll,” Cash Box Vol. 29, #38 [Apr. 20, ’68], pg. 50.

30 Ibid.

31 “Eddie and the Golden Trick Bag,” Superteen section, ’Teen, Vol. 12 #8 [Aug. 1968], pg. 101.

32 Cash Box. 33 ’Teen.

34 Megan Rosenfeld, “How America Became Blessed with Fred Flintstone Vitamins, (Rochester) Democrat and Chronicle [Feb. 18, 1973], pg. Show-2.

35 Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, “Getting Together” entry, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Fourth Edition [1988], pg. 295.

36 Rick Marschall, introduction, Wonderguy [1992], inside front cover.

37 Murad Gumen, “My Dad, Sururi Gumen,” Wonderguy [1992], nn pg.

38 Ian Shirley, Can Rock & Roll Save the World?: An Illustrated History of Music and Comics [2005], pg. 88.

39 George Evans, “George Evans: The Ace Artist,” interviewed by author, The Warren Companion [2001], pg. 48.

40 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 24.

41 George Wildman, interviewed by Donnie Pitchford [July 3, 1996].

42 Paul Fung, Jr., “Blondie Comic Books Creation of Area Man,” by Robert H. Mellon, (Glen Falls) Post-Star [Feb. 8, ’67], pg. 3.

43 Ibid.

44 Joe and Hilarie Staton, “The Energizing Art of Joe Staton,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Creator #9 [Sum. 2015], pg. 48.

45 Joe Staton, “The Energizing Art of Joe Staton,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Creator #9 [Summer 2015], pg. 49.

46 Nick Cuti “The Many Mystery Comics of

49 Carlos R. Martinez, “Avila, Juan Luis,”

biographical sketch, A Thousand Pen of the Argentine Cartoon website [Feb. 22, 2013], https://mipluminesargentinos. wordpress.com/category/avila-juan-luis/ [translated from Spanish].

50 Enrique Alcatena, email to the author [May 27, 2022].

51 Arneson, Jamie Coville website.

52 Tallarico, Alter Ego #108, pg. 35.

53 Mark Evanier, “Don J. Arneson, R.I.P.,” News from ME website [Mar. 21, 2018], https://www.newsfromme. com/2018/03/21/don-j-arneson-r-i-p/.

54 Lloyd Smith, “The Boys from Derby: Super Bowl Special! 1969 Super Bowl in Comics Form by Tony Tallarico,” Diversions of the Groovy Kind website [Feb. 11, 2011], http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot. com/2011/02/boys-from-derby-superbowl-special-1969.html.

55 Michael Eury, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time [2003], pg. 35.

56 Tallarico, Coville’s Clubhouse.

57 Tony Tallarico, “I Absolutely Love What I’m Doing,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #109 [May 2012], pg. 39.

58 Dick Giordano, “Comic Book Editor,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #6 [May ’70], pg. 43.

59 Giordano, Cartoonist Profiles, pg. 50.

60 Giordano, Whizzard, pg. 13.

Chapter Twelve 1 Ray Dirgo, “Circus Cartoonist,” interview, Cartoonist Profiles #36 [Dec. 1977], pg. 40.

2 Tony Tallarico, ““You’re Going Into A Business That Requires People To Be Dressed With Ties,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #107 [Feb. 2012], pg. 39.

3 George Wildman, “A Conversation with George Wildman… and Hy Eisman, too,” interviewed by Donnie Pitchford, Charlton Spotlight #7 [Winter 2011], pg. 6.

4 George Wildman, interviewed by Donnie Pitchford [Sept. 10, 1994].

5 Ibid.

6 Mark Evanier, “Evanier, Spiegle, and a Dog Named Scooby Doo,” interviewed by Mark Arnold, Back Issue #52 [Oct. 2011], pgs. 74–75.

7 Dirgo, Cartoonist Profiles, pg. 41.

8 Dirgo, Cartoonist Profiles, pg. 40.

9 Tom Defalco, “The Bronz-Tastic World of Hanna-Barbera Comics,” Back Issue #129 [Aug. 2021], pgs. 30.

10 Defalco, Back Issue, pgs. 30–31.

11 Cullen Murphy, “When Fairfield County was the Comic-Strip Capital of the World,” Vanity Fair #685 [Sept. 2017], pg.

161.

12 Nick Cuti, “Hong Kong Phooey,” Back Issue #105 [July 2018], pg. 53.

13 Frank Johnson, “Frank Johnson,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #62 [June 1984], pg. 23.

14 Bill Crouch, Jr., “Southern Connecticut Cartoon Capital,” Bridgeport Sunday Post [Aug. 19, 1973], pg. E-1.

15 Lisa Chamoff, “Greenwich comic strip artist Tony DiPreta dies at 88,” CTPost website [June 4, 2010], http://www.ctpost. com/news/article/Greenwich-comic-stripartist-Tony-DiPreta-dies-at-512175.php.

267

Charlton Pubs,” Back Issue #52 [Oct. 2011], pg. 67.

47 Comics Code 1971, Comics Magazine Association of America, Code for Editorial Matter, General Standards.

48 Bruce Buchanan, “The Many Mystery Comics of Charlton Pubs,” Back Issue #52 [Oct. 2011], pg. 67.

49 Buchanan, pg. 66.

50 “William M. ‘Bill’ Crouch Jr.,” obit., Find a Grave website [2011], https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91162409/william-m-crouch.

51 Bill Crouch, Jr., “Southern Connecticut Cartoon Capital of the World,” Bridgeport Sunday Post [Aug. 19, 1973], pgs. E1–E2.

52 “New Staff Artist: Sanho Kim,” Eerie #35 [Sept. ’71], pg. 50.

53 Ibid.

54 Michael Juliar, email to author [Sept. 29, 2020].

55 Roger Stern, “There Be Dragons in Derby,” The Charlton Bullseye #3 [1975], pgs. 8, 10.

56 Jim Mones, “Mort Walker & Co.,” (Port Chester) Daily Item [June 5, 1977], pg. G5.

57 Bob Gustafson, “Gustafson,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #43 [Sept.

1979], pg. 52.

58 Mort Walker, “Beetle Bailey’s Secret Comic-Book Life,” Hogan’s Alley #12 [2004], pg. 45.

59 Greg Walker, email to author [Apr. 24, 2022].

60 Craig Shutt, “Beetle Bailey’s Secret Comic-Book Life,” Hogan’s Alley #12 [2004], pg. 44.

61 Greg Walker, “Beetle Bailey’s Secret Comic-Book Life,” Hogan’s Alley #12 [2004], pg. 45.

62 G. Walker, email.

63 Ibid.

64 Mary Lou Falcone, interviewed by author [Apr. 11, 2022].

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Lloyd Smith, “If You Blinked You Missed: Geronimo Jones,” Diversions of the Groovy Kind website [Feb. 7, 2010], http:// diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-you-blinkedyou-missed-geronimo.html.

68 Tony Tallarico, “I’m Responsible For What I’ve Done,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #108 [Apr. 2012], pg. 44.

69 George Wildman, “Charlton Comics,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #20 [Dec. 1973], pg. 6.

70 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 20.

71 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 21.

72 Ibid.

73 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 22.

74 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 23.

75 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 22.

76 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 25.

268

Chapter Thirteen 1 Bill Couch, Jr., “Southern Connecticut Cartoon Capital of the World, Bridgeport Post [Aug. 19, 1973], pg. E-2.

2 George Wildman, “A Conversation with George Wildman… and Hy Eisman, Too,” Charlton Spotlight #7 [Winter 2012], pg. 11.

3 Ronald T. Scott, facsimile transmission to author [May 8, 2000].

4 George Wildman, “Charlton Comics,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #20 [Dec. 1973], pgs. 6–7.

5 Wildman, Cartoonist Profiles, pg. 7.

6 Wildman, Charlton Spotlight, pg. 8.

7 George Wildman, letter to Donnie Pitchford [Nov. 5, 1979].

8 Frank McLaughlin, “The McLaughlin Report,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 87.

9 Frank McLaughlin, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 13.

10 Mary Slezak, “The History of Charlton Press, Inc., and its Song Lyric Periodicals,” Journal of American Culture Vol. 3 #1 [Spr. 1980], pgs. 184–194.

11 Slezak’s paper was first published in Dorothy (Dorey) Schmidt’s graduate dissertation, “Magazines in American Culture: An Anthology” [Aug. 1979], Bowling Green State University.

12 Slezak, pg. 186.

13 Ibid.

14 Slezak, pg. 187.

15 Ibid.

16 Slezak, pg. 189.

17 Slezak, pg. 192.

18 Slezak, pg. 187.

19 McLaughlin Report, pg. 87.

20 McLaughlin Report, pg. 88.

21 Rosalie Cota, Facebook post [Jan. 24, 2021].

22 Burt Levey, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 17.

23 Mike Carpinello , “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 17.

24 Emilio Polce, interviewed by author [Oct. 15, 2020].

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Scott.

28 Donnie Pitchford, email to author [Mar. 13, 2022].

29 Carol Howard, interviewed by author [May 12, 2022].

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

Chapter Fourteen 1 Nick Cuti, “Cuti of the Cosmos,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg.

30.

2 Ibid.

3 Cuti, CBA #12, pgs. 30–31.

4 Joe Staton, “Joe Staton, Man of

Energy,” interviewed by Rocco Nigro, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pgs. 48–49.

5 Joe Staton, “The Energizing Art of Joe Staton,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Creator #9 [Sum. 2015], pg. 51.

6 Ibid.

7 Staton, CBC #9, pg. 54.

8 Staton, CBC #9, pg. 58.

9 Nick Cuti, “E-Man displays ability to keep bouncing back,” Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph [Sept.

10, 2006], pg. E-12.

10 Andrew A. Smith, “E-Man displays ability to keep bouncing back,” Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph [Sept. 10, 2006], pg. E-12.

11 Warren Sattler, “Sattler in the Saddle,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 89.

12 Ibid.

13 “Crimebuster” posting, Charlton Romance message board [May 29, 2018], https://www. cgccomics.com/boards/topic/428891-charlton-romance/ page/4/.

14 Sattler, CBA #12, pg. 89.

15 Jay Williams, “The World of Yang,” Back Issue #105 [July 2018], pg. 22.

16 Joe Gill, “The Joe Gill Interview,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Charlton Spotlight #5 [Fall 2006], pg. 16.

17 Bob Wayne, email to author [Sept. 3, 2020].

18 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 37.

19 Mary Slezak, “The History of Charlton Press, Inc., and its Song Lyric Periodicals,” Journal of American Culture Vol. 3 #1 [Spr. 1980], pgs. 187–188.

20 Tom Sutton, “Sutton’s Lovecraftian Horrors,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pgs.

67–68.

21 Sutton, CBA #12, pg. 69.

22 Tom Sutton, “Tom Sutton,” interviewed by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #230 [Feb. 2001], pgs. 86–87.

23 Sutton, CBA #12, pg. 68.

24 Sutton, CBA #12, pg. 68–69.

25 Sutton, TCJ #230, pg. 87.

26 Ibid.

27 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 33.

28 Nick Cuti, “Charlton Comics,” interviewed by Jud Hurd, Cartoonist Profiles #20 [Dec. 1973], pg. 8.

29 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 40.

30 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 36.

31 Fred Himes, “This Cartoonist is No Killer,” San Antonio Express Sunday Magazine, [Nov. 17, 1974], pg. 6.

32 Jack Handey, “This Cartoonist is No Killer,” San Antonio Express Sunday Magazine, [Nov. 17, 1974], pg. 6.

33 Handey.

34 Joe Torcivia, “I’m Not an

Artist, But… An Appreciation of ‘Squash and Stretch,’” Joe Torcivia’s The Issue at Hand blog [July 10, 2019], http:// tiahblog.blogspot.com/2019/07/ im-not-artist-but-appreciation-of.html.

35 “Texas family business more than drawing cartoons,” New Braunfels (Texas) HeraldZeitung [Apr. 22, 1987], pg. 12B. 36 Fred Himes, Jr., interviewed by author [Apr. 20, 2000].

37 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 33.

38 Joe Brancatelli, “The Comic Report,” Inside Comics Vol. 1, #1 [Spr. 1974], pg. 10.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Staton, CBA #12, pg. 52.

42 Emilio Polce, interviewed by author [Oct. 15, 2020].

43 George Wildman, interviewed

by Donnie Pitchford [Sept. 30, 1974].

44 Kevin R. Donley, “John Crosfield (1915–2012): Printing Press automation,” Multimediaman blog [May 31, 2015], https://multimediaman.blog/tag/magnascan/.

45 “B.K. Graphics expands,” San Antonio Express [Sept. 7, 1975], pg. 8-K. 46 Richard Robinson, “Media Exploitations,” editorial, Rock Scene #1 [Mar. 1973], pg. 4.

47 “Lisa Robinson looks back…”

Buffalo News website [Apr. 20, 2014], https://buffalonews. com/lifestyles/lisa-robinsonlooks-back-with-anger-wistfulfondness-in-there-goes-gravity/ article_d8290dc5-90f5-5760896e-d2913fd2b7b9.html.

48 Cuti, CBA #12, pgs. 33–34.

49 “Creepy Mail,” text page, Creepy Things #1 [July 1975].

50 Mike Apichella, “Beyond Human Conjecture”: Charlton Comics’ ‘Creepy Things,’” We Are Mutants website [Mar. 21, 2021], https://wearethemutants. com/2021/03/24/beyond-humanconjecture-charlton-comicscreepy-things/.

51 John Byrne, “Byrne’s Robotics,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. ’01], pg. 55.

52 Ibid.

53 Mike Zeck, “Zeck in the House,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12, pgs. 72–73.

54 Zeck, CBA #12, pg. 74.

55 Don Newton, interviewed by George Huneryager [c. Dec. ’79].

56 Nick Cuti, “Don Newton, artist on Batman, The Phantom, and Infinity, Inc., dead at 49,” The Comics Journal #93 [Sept. 1984], pg. 14.

57 Tom Heintjes, “Don Newton… dead at 49,” The Comics Journal #93 [Sept. ’84], pg. 14.

58 Tim Boxell, interviewed by author [Aug. 21, 2020].

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Rich Larson, “Rich Larson,

Charlton Cover Guy,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 101.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid.

65 Mike Vosburg, “Days at Charlton,” interviewed by “C.S.,” Vozwords website [Mar. 9, 2012], https://vozwords.blogspot. com/2012/03/days-at-charlton.html.

66 Roger Stern, “Rog-2001: Sterno Speaks,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pgs. 98–99.

67 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 44.

68 Byrne, CBA #12, pg. 54.

69 Frank Bolle, “I’m Just Glad To Have Been An Artist,” interviewed by Jim Amash, Alter Ego #87 [July 2009], pg. 52.

70 Ibid.

71 Frank Bolle, “Frank Bolle, Artist of Solar,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist Bullpen #2 [Jan. 2004], pg. 4.

72 Nick Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 40.

73 Staton, CBC #9, pg. 55.

74 Pete Morisi, “PAM: Artist with a Vengeance,” interviewed by Glen D. Johnson, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 84.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Byrne, CBA #12, pg. 55.

79 Gill, Spotlight, pg. 11.

80 Gill, Spotlight, pg. 19.

81 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 40.

82 John Byrne, interviewed by author [Mar. 28, 2003].

83 Pat Boyette, “Patrick Aaron Boyette: Interview 7-18-96/1015-98,” interviewed by David Spurlock, The Nightstand Chillers [2003], nn pg.

84 Pat Boyette, “Pat Boyette,” interviewed by Kenneth Smith, Comics Journal #221 [Mar. 2000], pg. 78.

85 Ibid.

86 Alex Toth, “Alex Toth—Before I Forget,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 16.

87 “Toth Joins the Charlton Team,” news brief, The Charlton Bullseye #2 [1975], pg. 5.

88 Toth, CBA #12, pg. 16.

89 Ibid.

90 Ken Meyer, Jr., Inkstains 154: CPL 7 post, Ink Stains website [May 1, 2022], https://comicattack.net/ink-stains-154-cpl-7/.

91 Bob Layton, “Layton and the CPL/Gangsters,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 93.

92 Wildman, CBA #12, pgs. 21–22.

93 Layton, CBA #12, pg. 94.

94 Stern, CBA #12, pg. 99.

95 Layton, CBA #12, pg. 94.

96 Layton, CBA #12, pg. 95.

97 Layton, CBA #12, pg. 94–95.

98 Layton, CBA #12, pg. 95.

Chapter Fifteen 1 “A Toy Trek,” Newsday [Aug. 31, 1975], part II-5.

2 George Wildman, “Wildman Times at Charlton,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 21.

3 Nick Cuti, “Cuti of the Cosmos,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. ’01], pg. 38.

4 Joe Staton, “Joe Staton, Man of Energy,” interviewed by Rocco Nigro, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 50.

5 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 39.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Gray Morrow, interviewed by author [Jan. 11, 2001].

10 Neal Adams, “This was a Man,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book Artist #17 [Jan. 2002], pg. 52.

11 Vicente Alcazár, “Sorcery Supreme,” interviewed by author, The MLJ Companion [2016], pgs. 162–163.

12 Alcazár, pg. 163.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Carlos Pino, “Dispatches from the Front, Interrogation: Carlos Pino,” interviewed by Stephen Jewell, 2000 AD #2212 [Dec. 16, 2020], pg. 14.

16 Pino, pg. 28.

17 Stephen Jewell, “Dispatches from the Front, Interrogation: Carlos Pino,” 2000 AD #2212 [Dec. 16, 2020], pg. 28.

18 Pino, pg. 28.

19 Gray Morrow, “Black & White Comic (Charlton Comics),” note, The Catacombs website, https:// catacombs.space1999.net/main/ merc/vmccharlton.html.

20 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 39.

21 Paul Kupperberg, interviewed by author [July 20, 2020].

22 Mike Pellowski, interviewed by author [Sept. 10, 2020].

23 Ibid.

24 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 39.

25 “Hap Hopper is New Comic Starting in Press on Friday,” Sheboygan Press [Feb. 8, 1940], pg. 17.

26 “Pearson-Allen Comic Strip,” Syndicates column, Editor and Publisher Vol. 72 #52 [Dec. 30, 1939], pg. 46.

27 Frank Springer, “An Interview with Frank Springer, Silver Age Illustrator for Dell, DC, & Marvel,” interviewed by Bryan Stroud, Nerd Team 30 website [Feb. 28, 2018], https://www. nerdteam30.com/creator-conversations-retro/an-interviewwith-frank-springer-silver-ageillustrator-for-dell-dc-marvel.

28 Ibid.

29 Pellowski.

30 Norton Mockridge, “She’s Still a Dreamboat,” “A Funny Thing…”

References

column, Helena IndependentRecord [Sept. 18, 1966], pg. 4.

31 Neal Adams, “Neal Adams Discusses Charlton, Dick Giordano, and Continuity Studios,” Back Issue #88 [May 2016], pg. 53.

32 Cuti, CBA #12, pg. 39.

33 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 23.

34 John E. Bartimole, CB Times listing, Writer’s Market 1979 [1978], pg. 246.

35 Warren Sattler, “Sattler in the Saddle,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 90.

36 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 48.

37 Adams, Back Issue #88, pg. 53.

38 Joe Brancatelli, “One Down…,” The Comic Books column, Creepy #85 [Jan. 1977], pg. 13.

39 Ibid.

40 Wes Hills, “Hustler’s Chief Reaping Riches,” Dayton Daily News [June 13, 1976], pg. 17.

41 Hal Metzger, “Hustler Brings a Million a Month,” Cincinnati Post [Jan. 26, 1977], pg. 2.

42 Larry Flynt, An Unseemly Man: My Life as Pornographer, Pundit, and Social Outcast [1996], pg. 87–88.

43 Flynt, Unseemly Man, pg. 103.

44 Hills.

45 Flynt, Unseemly Man, pg. 96.

46 Larry Flynt, “Squabble Develops on Distribution of Hustler Magazine,” St. Louis PostDispatch [Jan. 18, 1977], pg. 15.

47 Ibid.

48 “Flynt Finds Less Notoriety in LA,” Newark (Ohio) Advocate [May 22, 1979], pg. 7.

49 “Hustler Wins $3.7 Million in Lawsuit,” Cincinnati Enquirer [Nov. 27, 1980], pg. 5.

50 Pete Morisi, “PAM: Artist with a Vengeance,” interviewed by Glen D. Johnson, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 85.

51 Ibid.

52 George Wildman, interviewed by Donnie Pitchford [Dec. 15, 1977].

53 Morisi, CBA #12, pg. 85.

54 Nick Cuti, “The Nicola Cuti Interview,” interviewed by Donnie Pitchford,” Charlton Spotlight #8 [Win. 2013], pg. 8.

55 Bill Pearson, Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood [2003], pg. 255.

56 Ibid.

57 Michael Ambrose, Toons in Toyland: The Story of Cartoon Character Merchandise [2015], pgs. 62, 65.

58 Scott Shaw!, “Scott Shaw! on Charlton’s Hanna-Barbera Comics,” Back Issue #129 [Aug. 2021], pg. 35.

59 John Byrne, “Byrne’s Robotics,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. ’01], pg. 55.

60 Wildman [Dec. 15, 1977].

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 Joe Simon, My Life in Comics,

pg. 217.

64 Wildman [Dec. 15, 1977].

65 Wildman, CBA #12, pg. 24.

66 Emilio Polce, interviewed by

author [Oct. 15, 2020].

67 Edward Lampert obituary,

Boston Globe [July 1, ’81], pg. 77.

68 John Kremer, 1001 Ways to

Market your Books [’93], pg. 36.

69 Andrew Steinberg (president

of Kappa’s Modern Publishing division), email to author [Aug. 14, 2020].

70 “Kappa Books Publishers Announces Acquisition of Business and Intellectual Property of Modern Publishing,” press release [Jan. 27, 2012].

71 Pearson, Against the Grain, pg. 255.

72 Bhob Stewart, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 20.

73 Pearson, Against the Grain, pg. 256.

74 Wildman [Dec. 15, 1977].

75 Keith Chapman, “The Archive’s Sunday Comics—Strange Possessions,” The Tainted Archive website [June 26, 2011], https://tainted-archive.blogspot. com/2011/06/archives-sundaycomics-strange.html.

76 Paul Kirchner, interviewed by author [May 26, 2022].

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 “Santangelo dies, was industrialist,” (Ansonia) Evening Sentinel [Oct. 15, 1979], pg. 1.

80 Ronald A. Sarasin, “John Santangelo Named to United Nations Day Committee,” Extensions of Remarks, U.S. Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 94th Congress, First Session, Vol. 121, Part 9 [Apr. 23, 1975], pg. 11,586.

81 Arnold Drake, interviewed by author [Oct. 23, 2003].

82 Tom Brevoort, “Brand Echh—Sick #123—Ego-Man,” blog post, The Tom Brevoort Experience website [Jan. 26, 2020], https://tombrevoort. com/2020/01/26/sick-123-ego-man/.

Chapter Sixteen 1 William L. Pack, “In the Matter of Charlton Press, Inc., et al.,” decision, Federal Trade Commission Decisions Vol. 55 [1960], pg. 1082.

2 George Wildman, interviewed by Donnie Pitchford [Dec. 15, 1977].

3 Ibid.

4 Bill Pearson, Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood [2003], pg. 256.

5 Ibid.

6 George Wildman, interviewed by Donnie Pitchford [Aug. 20, 1980].

7 Dan Reed, “An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse,” interviewed by Christopher Irving, Comic Book

Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 102.

“Charlton to Publish Aspiring Pros’ Work for Free,” The Comics Journal #59 [Oct. 1980], pg. 14.

9 Ibid.

10 Bill Pearson, “Charlton to Publish Aspiring Pros’ Work for Free,” The Comics Journal #59 [Oct. 1980], pg. 14.

11 “Charlton to Publish Aspiring Pros’ Work for Free,”The Comics Journal #59 [Oct. 1980], pg. 14.

12 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Apr. 18, 2021].

13 Andy Secher, “Andy Secher, Hit Parader,” Rock Critics website [Nov. 2003], https://rockcritics. com/2014/04/03/from-the-archives-andy-secher-2003/.

14 Secher, Rock Critics.

15 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Mar. 31, 2021].

16 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Nov. 18, 2020].

17 Secher, Rock Critics.

18 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Mar. 29, 2021].

19 Bill Pearson, “What’s Coming Next?,” editorial, Charlton Bullseye #1 [June 1981], nn pg.

20 Dale Luciano, “Manic Energy,” review, The Comics Journal #64 [July ’81], pg. 51.

21 Katherine Collins, “My Charlton Comics Adventure,” unpublished essay [June 20, 2022].

22 Ibid.

23 Ron Fortier, My Life in Comics (A Memoir) [2019], pg. 16.

24 Fortier, pg. 17.

25 Gary Kato, interviewed by author [June 3, 2022].

26 Gary Wray, email to author [June 25, 2022].

27 Larry Houston, interviewed by author [June 16, 2022].

28 Ibid.

29 Bill Reinhold, interviewed by author [June 9, 2022] 30 Marty Greim, “Martin Greim Interview,” interviewed by Bradley S. Cobb, Mighty Crusaders website, https://www. mightycrusaders.net/martin-greim-interview/.

31 George van der Riet, “Edmund Harmse Tribute,” South African Comic Books website [May 11, 2011], http://southafricancomicbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/ edmund-harmse-tribute.html.

32 George van der Riet, email to author [May 29, 2022].

33 Edmund L. Harmes, editorial, Comic News #3 [June ’90], pg. 1.

34 Mitch O’Connell, email to author [May 28, 2022].

35 Fortier, pg. 22.

36 Fortier, pg. 23.

37 Ibid.

38 Fortier, pg. 24.

39 Tom Heintjes, “Charlton goes down for the count,” news article, The Comics Journal #103 8

[Nov. 1985], pg. 11.

40 Ibid.

41 Ed Konick, “The Charlton

Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 21.

42 Rosalie Cota, Facebook posting [Jan. 24, 2021].

43 Mark Carpinello, “The Charlton Empire,” Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 21.

Chapter Seventeen 1 Paul Levitz, interviewed by author [Aug. 13, 2020].

2 Dick Giordano, “The Action Hero Man,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 49.

3 Levitz.

4 Ed Konick, telephone conversation with author [Fall 2000].

5 Alan Moore, “Toasting Absent Heroes,” interviewed by author, Comic Book Artist #9 [Aug. 2000], pg. 104.

6 Moore, pg. 105.

7 Giordano, CBA #9, pg. 50 8 Levitz.

9 Moore, pg. 107.

10 Giordano, CBA #12, pg. 49.

11 T.C. Ford, “A False Start at Charlton Comics,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 106.

12 Roger Broughton, “Charlton Twilight & Afterlife,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 107.

13 Ibid.

14 Ed Konick, “Charlton Twilight & Afterlife,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 108.

15 Christopher Irving, “Charlton Twilight & Afterlife,” Comic Book Artist #12 [Mar. 2001], pg. 108.

16 Mort Todd, “Mort Todd talks about The Charlton Arrow,” interviewed by Rik Offenberger, First Comics News website [June 23, 2017], https://www. firstcomicsnews.com/mort-toddtalks-about-the-charlton-arrow/.

17 Jackie Zbuska, “Charlton Comics: The Movie—Taking a Closer Look at the ‘ThreeLegged Dog of Comics,’” interviewed by Ellen Fleischer, Indyfest website [Dec. 4, 2015], https://mag.indyfestusa. com/91-charlton-comics-movie/.

18 Keith Larsen, “Charlton Comics: The Movie—Taking a Closer Look at the ‘Three-Legged Dog of Comics,’” interviewed by Ellen Fleischer, Indyfest website [Dec. 4, 2015], https://mag.indyfestusa. com/91-charlton-comics-movie/.

19 Jackie Zbuska, email to author [June 2, 2022].

20 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Nov. 5, 2020].

21 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Oct. 25, 2020].

22 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Nov. 8, 2020].

23 Shelton Ivany, email to author [Nov. 15, 2020].

269

Acknowledgments/Copyrights

Abbott and Costello, Barney and Betty Rubble, Dino, The Flintstones, Grape Ape, Great Gazoo, Hong Kong Phooey, Huckleberry Hound, The Jetsons, Korg: 70,000 B.C., Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Scooby Doo… Where Are You?, Speed Buggy, Top Cat, Yogi Bear, TM & © Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. Actual Confessions, American Beauties, Army War Heroes, Arrow: the Family Comic Weekly, Atom-Age Combat, Atomic Mouse, Attack, Best Songs, Beyond the Grave, Black Fury, Bullet Boy, Caper, Career Girl Romances, Caroline Kennedy, Catholic Action Comics, Catholic Comics, CB Sagas, CB Times, Charlton Action, Charlton Bullseye, Charlton Premiere, Cheyenne Kid, Children of Doom, Clint Curtis, The Comic Reader, Country Song Roundup, Courage Comics, Cowboy Songs, Crazy Man Crazy, The Creature, Creepy Things, Danny Blaze, Don Winslow of the Navy, Doomsday +1, Do You Believe in Nightmares, Ego-Man, Eh!, Eros, Fantastic Giants, Fightin’ Air Force, Fightin’ Army, Fightin’ Marines, Frank Merriwell, From Here to insanity, Gabby Hayes, Geronimo Jones, Ghostly Haunts, Ghostly Tales, Ghost Manor, Go-Go, Good Humor, Gorgo, Gumbo Galahad, Gunmaster, Harbor Lights, Haunted, Haunted Love, Hee Haw, Hercules, Hillbilly and Cowboy Hit Parade, Hillbilly Comics, Hoppy the Magic Bunny, Horror Monsters, Hot Rods and Racing Cars, Hunk, Hush-Hush, Jonnie Love, Jungle Jim, Just Married, Kid Montana, Kinowa, Konga, La Vie Parisenne, Li’l Ghost, Mad Monsters, Man’s Combat, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, Marvels of Science, Midnight Tales, Monster Hunters, Mr. Muscles, Mysterious Suspense, Mysterious Traveler, Nature Boy, Negro Romance, Never Again, Nurse Betsy Crane, Outer Space, Paris Life, Peep Show, Pin-Up Photography, The Prankster, Primus, Professor Coffin, Racket Squad in Action, Real West, Rhythm and Blues, Song Hits, Robin Hood and His Merry Men, Rock and Roll Songs, Rocky Jones, Rocky Lane’s Black Jack, Scary Tales, The Sentinels, The Shape, Sick, Sinistro Boy Fiend, Space Adventures, Space War, Space Western Comics, The Spookman, Spurs Jackson and His Space Vigilantes, Star Science Fiction, Strange Suspense Stories, Summer Love, Tales of the Mysterious Traveler, Teen-Age Love, Teen Confessions, Teen Hit Parader, Thane of Bagarth, The Thing!, This Magazine is Crazy, This Magazine is Haunted, Tiffany Sinn, Time for Love, Timmy the Timid Ghost, Top Secret, True Life Secrets, The Tyro Team, Vengeance Squad, Wander, War at Sea, War Heroes, War Wings, Werewolves and Vampires, World of Wheels, Yang, Yellowjacket, Yellowjacket Comics, The Young Doctors, and Zaza the Mystic TM & © the respective copyright holders.

All-Star Western, Aquaman, Batman, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, The Creeper, Deadman, El Diablo, Fightin’ Five, The Hawk and the Dove, Judomaster, Nightshade, Outlaw, The Peacemaker, The Question, Sarge Steel, Showcase, Son of Vulcan, Strange Adventures, Teen Titans, The Watchmen, Whiz Comics, The Witching Hour, Wonder Girl, and Young Love TM & © DC Comics.

The Avenging Dodo © William Pearson & Michael Zeck.

Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Ponytail, Popeye, Sarge Snorkel, Snuffy Smith, Tiger, Valley of the Dinosaurs TM & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. The Bionic Woman, Emergency!, The Six Million Dollar Man TM & © Universal City Studios, Inc. Bullwinkle and Rocky, Dudley Do-Right TM & © Ward Productions, Inc. Charlie Chan TM & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Charlton Spotlight TM & © Michael Ambrose.

Comic Book Artist TM & © Jon B. Cooke.

Comic Comments TM & © Gary Brown.

CPL/Contemporary Pictorial Literature TM & © Robert Layton.

Dancing Partners, Witzend TM & © William E. Pearson.

Dragon Force TM & © Johan Roux.

E-Man, Nova, Michael Mauser TM and © Joe Staton.

Euphoria TM & © the estate of Wayne Howard.

Flap Flipflop TM & © the estate of Basil Wolverton.

Foxhole, In Love, Police Trap, Bulls Eye, Win A Prize TM & © Joe Simon?

Hit Parader TM & © LLS Media Corp.

Humbug, The Comics Journal TM & © Fantagrahics, Inc. Hustler TM & © LFP, LLC. Impact TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc. Johnny Dynamite TM & © Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.

Mastermind TM & © estates of Nicola Cuti and Don Newton.

Mr. Jigsaw TM & © Ron Fortier and Gary Kato.

Newsweek TM & © Newsweek LLC. The Partridge Family TM & © Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Peter Cannon—Thunderbolt TM & © the estate of Pete Morisi. ”Rendezvous” © Charles R. Johnson.

Rock Scene TM & © Four Seasons Publishing, Inc. Rog-2000 TM & © John Byrne.

Ronald McDonald TM & © McDonald’s Corporation.

Space: 1999 TM & © ITC Entertainment Group Limited.

Static TM & © the estate of Steve Ditko.

Sunset Carson TM & © Sunset Carson Productions.

Sword’s Edge TM & © Sanho Kim. Tarzan, Jungle Tales of Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Underdog TM & © Classic Media, LLC.

Addendum: Charlton Comics Publisher Imprint Names

Capitol Stories, Inc.: [1948–56] Atomic Mouse #1–4, Cowboy Western Comics #46, Crime and Justice #11–15, Hot Rods and Racing Cars #7–12, Lawbreakers Suspense Stories #10–14, Peter Paul’s 4 in 1 Jumbo Comic Book, Racket Squad in Action #34–38, Space Adventures #3–8, Space Western #41–45, The Thing! #5–10, True Life Secrets #11–14, Zoo Funnies (2) #1–2.

Catholic Educational Features, Inc.: [1950] Catholic Action Comics #1(34)–#2(35) Catholic Publications, Inc.: [1946–49] Catholic Comics #5–33, Record #1–3 Charlton Comics (Inc.), Charlton Comics Group (Grp.), Charlton Press, Inc., Charlton Publications, Inc.: [1954–86] 5,741 issues Charlton Royal Comics, Inc.: [1957–60] Cowboy Western #65–67, Lash La Rue Western #66–79, My Little Margie #18–27, #29–31, My Little Margie’s Boy Friends #9–11, My Little Margie’s Fashions #1–5, Rocky Lane Western #78–87, Rocky Lane’s Black Jack #20–30, Six-Gun Heroes #45–58, Tex Ritter Western #38–46, Wild Bill Hickok and Jingles #68–75

270

Children’s/Childrens’ Comics Publishers, Inc.: [1945–46] Zoo Funnies #1 (101)–#5 Humor Magazines, Inc.: [1955–59] Crazy, Man, Crazy V2 #1–2, From Here to Insanity #12, V3 #1, This Magazine Is Crazy V3 #2–4, V4 #5–8 Law and Order Magazines, Inc.: [1951–52] Crime and Justice #1–10, Lawbreakers #1–9, Racket Squad in Action #1–3 Motor Magazines, Inc.: [1951–52] Hot Rods and Racing Cars #1–6 Outstanding Comics, Inc.: [1952] The Thing! #3–4 Romantic Love Stories, Inc.: [1951–52] True Life Secrets #1–10 Simon and Kirby Publications, Inc.: [1955] Win a Prize Comics #1 Song Hits, Inc.: [1952] The Thing! #1–2 Frank Comunale (Publishing) Company: [1944–46] Yellowjacket Comics #1–2, 5–9 Toby Press of Conn., Inc.: [1954–55] Gabby Hayes #51–52, Soldier and Marine Comics #11–12

All data derived and adapted by the author from the Grand Comics Database website (www.comics.org) pursuant to the conditions of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Cooke portrait by Drew Friedman. Irving pic by Christian Guzman.

The Story of The Charlton Companion

Before this very book was published, the most comprehensive history of Charlton Comics to date was found in the ninth and twelfth issues of the author’s magazine, Comic Book Artist (respectively cover-dated August 2000 and March 2001), which were well-received and became a source for some subsequent studies of Charlton-related stuff, including Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929.

Much of the success of those issues was due to the efforts and dogged reporting of CBA associate editor Christopher Irving, who gained exclusive access to Charlton executives and bullpenners, with the young historian imbued with a tenacity that earned him the sobriquet, “Irving on the Inside.”

Jon B. Cooke Since that achievement—which helped establish him as a notable comics historian —Irving has authored books, including The Blue Beetle Companion and Leaping Tall Buildings: The Origins of American Comics, and is currently assistant professor in Communication Arts, at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts.

For his CBA, author Jon B. Cooke was five-time recipient of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for “Best Comic-Related Periodical,” and he is today editor of Comic Book Creator magazine, published by TwoMorrows. He’s also author of Eisner-nominated The Book of Weirdo, co-author of John Severin: TwoFisted Comic Book Artist, and writer/producer of the feature-length film documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. He is also co-editor of The Warren Companion, Swampmen, Kirby100, and a forthcoming history of Heavy Metal, Métal Hurlant, and those types of 1970s–’80s magazines.

For even more on Charlton Comics, please seek out the CBA issues mentioned above, which contain many extensive interviews with Charlton creators, available as PDF downloads for purchase at www.twomorrows.com.

Seek out the nine issues of Charlton Spotlight [2000–15] at amazon.com and eBay. Some issues of Charlton Arrow have material devoted to the company’s Christopher Irving history, so please go to www.morttodd.com/charlton.html for more details.

Thanks!

Kudos to those whose work and/or assist was appreciated in the compiling of this book: Enrique Alcatena, Jim Amash, Ger Apeldoorn, Richard J. This is neither adequate Arndt, Mark Arnold, Roberto space or the proper words to Lionel Barreiro, Alberto extend the author’s profound Beccatini, Robert Beerbohm, appreciation and thanks to all Blake Bell, John Benson, Gary who—whether unwittingly or Brown, Michael Browning, not—made vital contributions Aaron Caplan, Nick Caputo, to this Charlton Comics history.

Bruce Chrislip, Jamie Coville, Joe DeGuissepi, Most of all, appreciation to Jackie Estrada, Michael my excellent collaborators Eury & Back Issue, Mark Michael Ambrose, Evanier, Dan Fogel, Brent Shaun Clancy, Frankenhoff, Mike Friedrich, Christopher Irving, S. Clay Geerdes, Michael T. Ken Meyer, Jr., Gilbert, Paul Gravett, Robert Frank Motler, Greenberger, P.C. Hamerlinck, Mitch O’Connell, Tom Heintjes, Héctor Donnie Pitchford, Fernández L’Hoeste, Mike and Joe Staton Howlett, Greg Huneryager, Jud Hurd, Glen D. Johnson, Gratitude to those who George Khoury, Nakho Kim, actively participated John Korfel, John Lustig, Don Stephen R. Bissette, Mangus, Manny Maris, Don Scott Dutton, Roger Hill, Markstein, Ken Meyer, Jr., Rob Imes, Shelton Ivany, David Miller, Bill Morrison, Will Murray, Ian Nichols, John Morrow, Lou Mougin, Bill Pearson, Scott Shaw!, John A. Mozzer, Miron Matt Webb, Jay Willson, Murcury, Steven Newton, and Tom Ziuko Paul Nicholas, Rocco Nigro, Jacque Nodell, Michelle

The Story of The Charlton Companion/Thanks!

Nolan, Peter Normanton, Dan O’Brien, Michele Parker, Sal Quartuccio, Ken Quatrro, David A. Roach, Greg Sandowski, David Saunders, Bill Schelly, Ramon Schenk, John Schwirian, Joe Simon, Mark Simonson, Robin Snyder, Andrew Steinberg, Bob Stevenson, Bryan Stroud, Hugh Surratt, Marc Svensson, Roy Thomas & Alter Ego, Maggie Thompson, Mort Todd, Joe Torcivia, Pablo Turnes, George Van Der Reit, John Wells, Ted White, Link Yaco, Jackie Zbuska, and Eddy Zeno Thanks to all who agreed to be interviewed by the author or his associates, as well as those who shared their memories: Vicente Alcazár, Jim Aparo, Bill Black, Frank Bolle, Tim Boxell, Pat Boyette, Roger Broughton, John Byrne, Mike Carpinello, Johnny Chambers, Katherine (Arn Saba) Collins, Rosalie Cota, Nick Cuti, Tom Defalco, Jose Delbo, Mario DeMarco, Arnold Drake, George Evans, Mary Lou Falcone, Danny

Fingeroth, T.C. Ford, Ron Fortier, Will Franz, Gary Friedrich, José Luis GarcíaLópez, Dan Gentile, Walter Gibson, Joe Gill, Dick Giordano, Sam Glanzman, Bob Globerman, Fred Himes, Jr., Larry Houston, Carol Howard, Shelton Ivany, Al Jaffee, Charles R. Johnson, Michael Juliar, Michael W. Kaluta, Gary Kato, Jack Keller, Paul Kirchner, Ed Konick, Paul Kupperberg, Rich Larson, Bob Layton, Paul Levitz, Burt Levey, Diane Levey, Barry Lipton, Frank McLaughlin, Michael Montes, Dr. Steven Montes, Alan Moore, Pete Morisi, Gray Morrow, Mitch O’Connell, Dennis O’Neil, William J. Pape II, Michael Pellowski, Emilio Polce, Dan Reed, Bill Reinhold, Brian Riedel, Charles Santangelo, Warren Sattler, Ronald T. Scott, Steve Skeates, Mickey Spillane, Hilarie & Joe Staton, Roger Stern, Bhob Stewart, Tom Sutton, Tony Tallarico, Roy Thomas, Alex Toth, Greg Walker, Bob Wayne, Ted White, George Wildman, Gary Wray, and Michael Zeck

Enormous thanks to those generous (and some unwitting) souls from outside the comics realm who helped: Don Armstrong, Lawrence Block, Mary Brown/Center for Migration Studies, Derby Historical Society, The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center/Boston University, Virginia Irwin, John Kenyon/ iCopy, Barry Kernfeld, Joel Minor/Washington University Libraries, Jenny Robb/Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, and Frank Romano/ Museum of Printing With humble appreciation to the two who, in essence, wrote the initial drafts of the history of Charlton Press: Ralph Minard & Mary Slezak and, finally, a snappy salute to

Dick Giordano and

Steve Ditko

without whom there would have been little Charlton history worth writing about!

271

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The Fascinating Story of the Action Heroes, Ghastly Ghosts, and Fun Comics of the “All-in-One” Publisher

The Charlton Comics Story From the Action Heroes to Za Za the Mystic, from Neal Adams to Mike Zeck, The Charlton Companion is the longawaited and definitive history of the famous—and notorious— “all-in-one” publisher of Derby, Connecticut: Charlton Publications [1940–1992], once the third-largest comic book producer in America… and numero uno in the category of oddball comics.

Charlton started as a handshake deal made in jail and it endured an epic 1955 flood that engulfed the plant under nearly 18 feet of water. It also published Rhythm and Blues, likely the first U.S. publication devoted entirely to African American music, plus they exploited 1980s heavy metal mania with Hit Parader.

And Charlton was also the first national distributor of Hustler magazine. All this and more are revealed in this comprehensive retrospective of the company’s colorful, provocative, and fascinating 50-year history.

The Charlton Companion is written by Jon B. Cooke, the five-time Eisner Award-winning editor of Comic Book Artist and Comic Book Creator magazines, co-editor of The Warren Companion and Kirby100, and author of Eisner Award-nominated The Book of Weirdo.

Blue Beetle, The Question, Peacemaker TM & © DC Comics.

The Six Million Dollar Man TM & © Universal City Studios, Inc. E-Man, Nova, Michael Mauser TM & © Joe Staton/1First Comics.

All others TM & © the respective copyright holder.

ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0 $43.95 in the U.S.

Cover art by Joe Staton Cover coloring by Matt Webb Charlton Press Building illo by Mitch O’Connell

ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-111-0 54395

9 781605 491110

Printed in China

TwoMorrows Publishing

Raleigh, North Carolina

E-Man, Nova, Michael Mauser TM & © Joe Staton/1First Comics.

Along the way, that partnership forged in county jail launched Charlton Comics, which became Spider-Man co-creator and Dr. Strange creator Steve Ditko’s preferred publishing house and home to Dick Giordano’s Action Heroes—Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, and The Question—characters that inspired Alan Moore’s Watchmen. This 272-page book includes anecdotes and insight from many freelancers who contributed to Charlton, and it features a magazine index by Frank Motler, as well as essays by Stephen R. Bissette, Roger Hill, and Bill Pearson, among others.