Charlton Companion Preview

Comics.Staton/1FirstJoe©&TMMauserMichaelNova,E-Man,

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

First Printing: September 2022 • Printed in China • ISBN 978-1-60549-111-0

Charlton Magazine Index ©2022 Frank Motler

Written, edited, and designed by Jon B. Cooke

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

Proofreading by Kevin Sharp Published by John Morrow Cover art by Joe Staton • Cover coloring by Matt Webb Frank Motler Shaun Clancy • Michael Ambrose • Donnie Pitchford

Various material compiled and written by Christopher Irving 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

Contributions

The Charlton Companion © Jon B. Cooke • Editorial package © Jon B. Cooke & TwoMorrows Publishing

THE CHARLTON COMPANION

10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 USA www.twomorrows.com

Consultants

Dick Giordano & Nick Cuti dedication art by Ken Meyer, Jr. • Charlton Press Building art by Mitch O’Connell

Published by TwoMorrows Publishing

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 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 FOURTEEN Charlton Takes Its Next Best Shot 196 Primetime Primus; E-Man & Nova; Yang; Artist Spotlight: Tom Sutton 201 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

CHAPTER SEVEN The Rising Waters of 1955 76 Writer Spotlight: Joe Gill 80

A

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Charlton Comics’ Last Stand 234 Heavy Metal Charlton; They Took Aim at Charlton’s Bullseye; Artist Spotlight: Mitch O’Connell .. 240

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 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 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

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; Charlton Comics Gives You More! by Scott Shaw! 170

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

CHAPTER THREE Charlton’s Jailhouse Compact 20 Building Charlton, Brick by Brick; Frank Comunale, Publisher; Charlton’s New York Office

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

1986–Now

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

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Charlton’s Lasting Legacy 244 The Charlton/Watchmen Connection; The Advent of Charlton Neo; Shelton Ivany: The Heavy Metal King Charlton Magazine Index by Frank Motler 250 References 262 Acknowledgments/Copyrights 270 Thanks ............................................... 271

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 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; Creator Spotlight: Dick Giordano 124

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

1980s1970s1960s TABLE OF CONTENTS1899–1920s1930s1940s1950s

INTRODUCTION History of Charlton Comics

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Plant and the Process 190 Popeye Gets the Job Done; Mary Slezak’s Snapshot; Creator Spotlight: Wayne Howard 195

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

*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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Chapter One The Boy of ’99

12

Chapter

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 com plete 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 acclimat ed 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 construc tion job in White Plains, N.Y. He got the job finished three months before its deadline and earned a $5,000 bonus.2

Santangelo’sTwo Shuffle

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 1931.Manhattan1922.transporters—inAtleftistheskylineof Opposite page: On the right is the audi torium entrance of the grandiose Roxy Theatre, where masonry work was supervised by John Santangelo. At left is a Roxy giveaway, 1927.

Songsheet

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 reckon ing 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 CountytheinfortuitouslyEdburyonetimeteamedSantangeloupwithWatercitylawyerLevy,whowasanearbycellatNewHavenJail.

Chapter

TIME TO GET LEGIT

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.

Charlton’sThreeJailhouse

Compact

THE CHARLTON PUBLISHING CORPORATION

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

“Famous Tales of Terror,“ yet another series that ran for eight episodes, were mostly very short adaptations of Edgar 26

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 FIRST CHARLTON COMIC BOOK

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 posthu mously in Charlton’s Catholic Comics. Then there was the “Harbor Lights” series about crime, war, and sometimes hor ror 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.

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.

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 Lithogra pher, “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 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 load ing dock, thus it’s conceivable they printed their own comics.)

Chapter Four The Coming of Charlton Comics

A vital component of the Charlton equation had already been in place since Santangelo’s illegal songsheet days: distri bution. 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.

Technically, one could say the first comics-type material to appear in a Charlton publication was probably the “Radio Rarities” comic panel by Dooley (seem ingly 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.

Clancy.ShaunofcourtesyPhoto

1940s

Previous page: Charlton’s first comic book, Yellowjacket Com ics #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.

Chapter Four: The Coming of Charlton Comics

Allan Poe stories, and is particularly notable for its story host in #7, named the Ancient Witch, a character that has an un canny 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).

1940s27

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

Comics-Type Charlton Stuff

LAST MAN STANDING

Go-Go Fifties

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 collec tively 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) debut ing inBy1956.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 figu rative, 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.

40 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.

Chapter Five The

Five: The Go-Go Fifties

42 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 idio syncratic 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 Car ter’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

The Distribution Racket History will probably never reveal the precise business arrange ment 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 Charl ton’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 ru mor 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.

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!

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.

In late May, within a few weeks of that eyewitness ac count 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 ob scene 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.

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-year old French magazine La Vie Parisienne, which so greatly aided the Yanks to main tain 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

46 RISQUÉ BUSINESS

In essence, Paris Life had much the same content as Peep Show—photo essays of curvaceous, nude young wom en 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 Santan gelo 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.

*No such title Secret Stories was apparently published by Charlton, but the visitor may refer to Secrets of Love and Marriage #1 [Aug. 1956].

Five: The Go-Go Fifties

In 1956, Charlton published two issues of Pin-Up Pho tography, 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

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 reg ular “Rayguns, Elves, Skin-Tight Suits” column, and Will Murray’s compre hensive “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 (be ginning 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, zom bies, 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, who continued to contribute work to the series as more familiar Charlton contribu tors 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 Dit ko’s arrival in #12 [Feb. 1954]. No longer collaborating with Tyler on art duties af ter #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 mate rial 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, 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 macroce phalic jumbo mummy in #12’s “The Mummy’s Curse,” while for #5’s “Curse of Karnak,” Bob Forgione drew the hu manoid “living gods”—the animal-head

Five: The Go-Go

ThinkingFifties About

by STEPHEN R. BISSETTE

52

The Fifties

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 stu dio.”45 Within six months, the youngster completed full pages. He then attended the School of Industrial Arts and also as sisted a number of artists, including Jack Cole, Mac Raboy, Reed Crandall, Will Eisner, Lou Fine, Dan Barry, and others.

John Belfi

Five:56

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 atandedintocomicsassignments,Charltonthenleftand“drifted”advertising.HefoundtheJohnBelfiSchoolWorkshopsandlaborednumerousnewspapersas writer and cartoonist. “Married at 19, I had three children, divorced after 30 years, remar ried…”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 along side 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 Gior dano 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,

Go-Go

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 Der by 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 recogniz able) 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: 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 cor rugated paper plant until joining the U.S. Army as T/5 Corporal, where he served in Europe as the 63rd Regiment head quarters 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 “Black stone,” circa 1945. At Charlton, he toiled on their crime and science fiction titles. By 1955, Frollo exited comics and estab lished 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.

The 1954 Revival of the Blue Beetle

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Any overt connection between Vic tor 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.

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.

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 adven tures 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.

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 #60’s cover for the former and yet sign ing his own name to the appropriation!) and—taking the numbering from can celled 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 SpaceDeconstructingAdventures.

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

Chapter Five: The Go-Go Fifties 61

62

But, while it took a year, Ditko did recuperate and, with his TB in remission, he came back to the tri-state region, in tent 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.

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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 sophis tication 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!”69Themalady Fago refers to was an infectious disease Ditko had contract ed. Fran Matera, an artist sporadically freelancing for Charlton, revealed the ail ment 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

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 Car toonists 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 par ticular editorial direction and said, “this is what we need,” Ditko geared all his imaginative powers toward pro ducing the best work he was able to within those parameters.67 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

This spread: Top is one of the few exist ing 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.

Five: The Go-Go

AscentFiftiesof the Artist Named Ditko

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 depart ment 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 satis factory 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 set tled into their new home on Roosevelt Drive, in Ansonia, and the artist started commuting the short ride to the ever-ex panding 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 Charl ton 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 responsi bility 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 Adven tures, 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 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). 64

Chapter AmericanSix

Comic Book Factory

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Six: American Comic Book Factory

68Gabby…

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 Porcu pine,” 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 produc ing 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.

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 acqui sitions 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

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 hear ings and so forth, Leader News was in shambles. Our books weren’t being sold. They never even got on the newsstands.

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 phenome nally successful decade-and-a-half run, on the skids.

SIMON & KIRBY GO TO DERBY

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

SPENDING SPREE

As the end arrived for Mainline, and as Simon and Kirby simultaneously partnered with Charlton to produce the ambi tious 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

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:

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

FIRST CAME CONNIE

While its violence lessened during the surge’s 50-mile south bound 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 condi tions as seen from his favorite window. ‘The water is rising into the drive-in movie across the railroad!’ he announced. 19, Aug.Afternoon19,1955

1955

The Rising Waters of 1955

THE AUGUST FLOOD

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 hur ricane 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: 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 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.

Chapter Seven

76 Late Morning Aug.

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Kurtzman & Company’s

Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

It was, as the creator and editor put it, “[A]n artist’s magazine: a union of artists to turn out their own magazine. We formed a corporation. All of us chipped in money, and we went into the publishing business, which artists should never, never do, for the simple reason that they lose sight of the practical considerations of business survival. Art becomes everything and the marketplace becomes secondary. Or the problems of the marketplace become secondary. Yeah, that was Humbug.”11 In his comment, Harvey Kurtz man neglected to mention Humbug was also a followup to his greatest achieve ment, MAD—the satir ical comic book short-livedmagazine—andthentohis

To be sure, it was never an official Charlton publication.*

Kurtzman biographer Bill Schelly explained, “When it became clear Kurtzman was looking for a printer and dis tributor for a creator-owned magazine, and that he was asking Charlton to perform these functions on a credit basis, Santangelo wasn’t happy, but he agreed to give Kurtzman what he wanted. If the new magazine could match the sales of MAD, Charlton stood to make a lot of money. Santangelo asked Levy to send Kurtzman an assignment agreement. The costs would be secured by the assets of Humbug Publishing Co., Inc., a not unusual arrangement. In the better days of the industry, any number of new, under-capitalized comic book publishers started that way.”13 Instead of going the same route as the dozen-plus MAD imitators by formatting Humbug as magazine-size, Kurtzman determined that the new mag would be slightly smaller than the comic book format (though retain full-color cover and newsprint guts), measuring 6½" x 9½", with a black-&-white interior complemented with a single, lightly tinted color, either yellow or blue. The format decision proved unwise. In conversation with Chester about Humbug’s end days, Kurtzman asked, “Remember those trips up to Connecti cut? We used to print Humbug at Charl ton. And I’ll never forget, we went up, me, Al Jaffee, Harry, Will Elder, to have a business conference with [Santangelo]. And we’re sitting there, and he says, ‘You gotta have $6,000. You can’t do this thing unless you get $6,000.’ And I said, ‘Can’t your company advance $6,000?’ He says, ‘Where am I going to get it?’ And he meant it. Because all of his money was spoken for.”14 Jaffee recalled that meeting. “The only time I had any direct connection with Charlton was when we were going up there before Christmas to try to get them to continue the arrangement we had with them, where they printed the magazine and distributed it and took a percentage out of it to cover their investment. Ostensibly, the trip to Derby, Connecticut, was to get them to contin ue doing what we had been doing for the first 11 issues or so.”

Harvey Kurtzman Al Jaffee

Trump, the lavish, slick humor mag published by Playboy’s HughTheHefner.Humbug confed eration included Kurtzman and frequent collaborators Will Elder, Jack Davis, Arnold Roth, production whiz Harry Chester, and Al Jaffee, whose friendship with Kurtzman stretched back to high school. Jaffee discussed Humbug’s deal with Charlton with Christopher Irving. “Har vey Kurtman was our fearless leader and essentially Harvey operated on his own. Even though we were all investors in our magazine, Harvey operated pretty much independently. He… found Charlton and got them to print and distribute and finance our operation because, even with our own investment, it was not enough to cover all the expenses involved in producing a magazine. So, Charlton took a chance on us and they did that. Harvey is the one who dealt with them and my knowledge of what was going on, and the details of what kind of business deal he was making with them—I have no knowledge of that part.”12

Jaffee continued, “We were all at this little Christmas party in the com pany, 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 mov ing, and another car here or there was 86

*Though, for better or worse, Charlton did print (and distribute) the furshlugginer mag!

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.

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 cov er-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.

Giant, Big Book Comicsand Other Double-Value Gimmicks

Charlton’s96

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 Carni val of Comics and watched it fly off the newsstand like a house on fire, Amer ican 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 in creasing 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 pub lishers follow suit, then the roughly 600,000,000 comics sold annually will earn an extra $9,000,000 for re tailers! 52

Eight: Strange Tales of Unusual Comics

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Chapter Nine

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 intercon tinental 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 re sponse was to encourage citizens to, well, bury themselves by building their own fall out 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 instruc tions 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.

THE COMING OF CAPTAIN ATOM

*Technically 1959, as on the Heritage website, a copy of Space Ad ventures #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.

In 1960,* amid the nation’s nuclear hyste ria, 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 mil itary 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, quint essential 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. 104

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The Launch of Captain Atom

The New Ways of

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.

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.

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 Mark stein relates, “The character got even more super-heroey a few years later, with the introduction of a Robin-like side kick, 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].

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.

the Old Blue Beetle

SUPER WESTERN HEROES

*No, consideration is not given to Israel Waldman’s Human Fly #10 [1963], reprinting B.B. tales.

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].

Chapter Nine: The Launch of Captain Atom 115

Irving also explained that the type of ad versary 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 mantisThiscostume).”initialfiveissue 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 cause it had plenty action.”of42

But writer Joe Gill made some tweaks to the character’s background and abilities, as author Christopher Irving related in The Blue Beetle Companion: 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 scar ab in an Egyptian tomb. Speaking the phrase “Kaji Dha,” Garrett magically transformed into the red-gog gled, 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 mod el 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.

124

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 Hos pital, 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.”98Early 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.” where 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,”100anapparentlycontradictorystatementthatwouldmakesensewhenGiordanogottheopportunitytocreatehisownsuper-herouniverse.

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 Duringhalf-year).”101thatnearhalf-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 situa tion was the reason why. At SIA, there were a wonder ful bunch of instructors, and I learned how to be a professional from them.”102Graduating in 1951, Giordano had attended SIA with a stellar crew of fellow future guyColón,Tallarico,Torres,includingpros,AngeloTonyErnieandsomenamed

“Anyway,” Giordano said, “I en joyed 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.

Nine: The Launch

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 Confes sions #28 [May 1964]; and 1970s Batman painting credited to Bob Kane. of Atom

Anthony Benedetto (later more com monly 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 increas ingly skilled with the pen and brush.

Captain

“Thank You and Good Afternoon!”

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,

Chapter Ten

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

A FAN AT HEART

Caplan.Aaronofcourtesyimage#3

126 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.

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 relin quish 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 com ics managing editor and, while his term was relatively uneventful, there were a few memorable facets, including the giant monster titles and his enthusiastic shep herding 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 Thom as, Masulli described as “by far the best printed fanzine that there is.” Still, he was not above griping in blatant self-in terest: “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

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 ex actly 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 re sult, 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

Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

Hill.RogerofcourtesyartDitko FeatureComic

Rise & Fall of the Action Heroes

Ten:138

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 profes sional writing and/or art. As you will see, most of those are the top names in the young industry today.”53

Captain Atom Nightshade

This page: Giordano’s overhaul of the atomic man, implemented by Kaler, Ditko, and Mastroserio, culminated in Captain Atom #83 [Nov. ’66]; Comic Comments #9 [Nov. ’66] cover by Alan Hutchinson; Captain Atom #84 [Jan. ’67] panel detail, and C.A. #85 [Mar. ’67] cover detail.

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 bat tered 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 learned pretty late in life. It was only six or seven years ago that we realizedWhilethis.”52Giordano’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.

Ziuko.TombycoloringvignetteAtomCaptain

The New

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-pow ered. 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-inthe-mud, I must admit that I liked the old costume bet ter—but necessity called for all-new, and that’s where we went.)” 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 The Avengers] and beat the bejeebers out of hardened thugs with her gloved mitts and a little karate. female was doing that in 1966 comics. After Nightshade, practically all super-heroines took up crash martial-arts cours es. 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

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 Mys terious 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.

THE MANY VIRTUES OF DR. GRAVES

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], Ghost ly Tales #55 [May ’66] covers, both by Rocke Mastroserio.

Ziuko.TombycoloringvignetteBeetleBlue

The BlueNewBeetle

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 im plies ‘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.”65 140 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.”61AboutDitko’s revitalization of a tired, old character, Giordano wrote: “[I]n one of his Wednes day 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 continui ty, but eliminated the powers that Garret derived from his scarab and substituted specialized equip ment for them. (I really loved the Bug—I thought at the time it was a stroke of genius.)”62

152 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, 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

Ten: Rise

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 su per-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 televi sion 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 com miserating 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 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 & Fall of the Heroes Pat Boyette

“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

Action

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.

Jim Aparo

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

Chapter Eleven

A TIGER BY THE TAIL

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 Charl ton 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 opera tion 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 ship ping! 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 that, they really could have turned the comic book publishing business on its ear. But they chose to be junk dealers, they re ally 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

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 Gior dano still felt a twinge of disappointment about the company.

156 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.

Meet Jonnie Love and the Hippies

172 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.

Charlton’sTwelveCartoon Cavalcade

WILDMAN LET LOOSE

Chapter

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 Con necticut 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.

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 in cluded: 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 moreAlongwork.”withDirgo, 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 oth er companies. I did all of them, and there was nobody that did a coloring book at Charlton but me.”2

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 ball room 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. Be yond 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 work done in your own division, keeping all your own coordi nates 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.

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190 *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

Chapter Thirteen The Plant and the Process

Left, Cartoonist Profiles #20 [Dec. ’73].

THE CHARLTON COMPANION

Its Next Best Shot

For receiving $200 every payday, ten times the weekly salary he’d been getting from Woody, Cuti proved an excel lent editor and fine writer, though his duties could be routine.

THE COMING OF CUTI

Chapter

Nick Cuti

Primetime Primus

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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 sub sequently 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 connect 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 had been the editor at Charlton, was being bumped up to magazines, and his assistant, George Wild man, 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 ar rived 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

196 This spread: At left is Primus #1, based on a little-remembered TV series; opposite is Joe Staton’s cover art for Comic Book Art ist #12 [Mar. 2001], starring Charlton’s horror hosts and friends.

Ziuko.TombycoloringpageOppositeStaton.JoeofcourtesyimageSticker

CharltonFourteenTakes

“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.”

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 chang es. It was up to the production department—Frank Bravo and myself—to make all the changes… Mostly, [the Code’s objec tions] 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

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Joe Staton described his first regular Charl ton 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 pho to-covers, he’d get carried away with them and spend days cut ting up photos and making stills, collages. Somebody remarked how Sal would get lost for hours, putting those covers together.”