Comic Book Creator #35

ALSO: Celebrating Arnold Drake at 100!

A TwoMorrows Publication

All characters TM & © DC Comics.

No. 35, Summer 2024

Cover art by Mike Sekowsky, Neal Adams, and Dick Giordano

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #2

CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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Summer 2024 • The Denny O’Neil Issue • Number 35

T A DENNY O’NEIL Portrait by KEN MEYER, JR.

©2024 Ken Meyer, Jr.

About Our Cover Cover art by MIKE SEKOWSKY & NEAL ADAMS, Pencils DICK GIORDANO & NEAL ADAMS, Inks Cover colors by GLEN WHITMORE

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Ye Ed’s Rant: Yours truly confesses to an endless ’70s comics obsession and loving it!..... 2 COMICS CHATTER Incorrect: The Tragic Saga of George Caragonne: Bob Levin investigates the sad story of the Penthouse Comix creator/editor from his humble start to spectacular end . 3 Arnold Drake at 100: The late, great author in part one of his career-spanning talk....... 12 Once Upon Long Ago: Steve Thompson on his admiration for Harvey Kurtzman............ 27 The Super Hero’s Journey: Patrick “Mutts” McDonnell on his “love letter” to comics.... 30 Tim Hensley: A conversation with the alternative cartoonist on his smart, fun comics..... 34 Mr. Butterworth: And we assumed Jack just wrote a bunch of Warren stories! Zounds!.38 Incoming: We empty our overflowing mailbag and suffer the slings and arrows............. 46 Cooke’s Column: Horrors! Jay Stephens gets terrifyingly cute with Dwellings!............... 49

Superman, associated characters TM & © DC Comics.

Comics in the Library: Richard Arndt speaks of John Law, Will Eisner’s Lawman............ 51 Ten Questions: Darrick Patrick gets the scoop from writer W. Maxwell Prince.................. 52 Hembeck’s Dateline: Zatanna is telling Fred that Magicman is full of “Yekralam!”........ 53 THE MAIN EVENT

Above: We combine penciler Mike Sekowsky and inker Dick Giordano’s Wonder Woman #191 [Dec. 1970] cover figure with Green Lantern #76 [Apr. ’70] and Justice League of America #79 [Mar. ’70], both sporting pencils and inks by Neal Adams.

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Denny O’Neil: Saving the World, One Story at a Time With a focus on his 1960s/early ’70s comic book scripts, Bob Brodsky, onetime editor of fanzine The O’Neil Observer, takes a close examination — with Ye Editor — of the ground-breaking, topical work and life of Dennis Joseph O’Neil [1939–2020], the most important writer of his time in American comics. His collaborations with Neal Adams on Green Lantern/Green Arrow injected real life into the super-hero as none before him, launching an age of relevancy into the art form. Also included are “Ten from Den,” Brodsky’s picks for the best of O’Neil’s work from that era............. 54 BACK MATTER Creators at the Con: Kendall Whitehouse clix pix at the NYCC Ghost Machine panel..... 78 Coming Attractions: Greg Biga compiles an epic tribute to the late Tom Palmer............ 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Tom Z. shares rarely-seen George Pérez art..... 80 EDITOR’S NOTE: We intended to include an article on "Studio Zero," the circa 1974 Berkeley studio shared by Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, and others, but that is postponed to a future issue. Also note that some images in this issue have been enhanced with software.

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Right: There’s minor digital manipulation in this detail of Green Lantern #83 [May 1971] cover. Art by Neal Adams.

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

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All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2024 Jon B. Cooke/ TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

This issue is dedicated to the memories of IAN GIBSON, JOHN M. BURNS, TERRY BISSON, and JOSÉ DELBO ™

My Seventies Mania JON B. COOKE

Editor & Designer

JOHN MORROW

Publisher & Consulting Editor

GREG BIGA

Associate Editor

MIKE SEKOWSKY & NEAL ADAMS Cover Pencilers

DICK GIORDANO & NEAL ADAMS Cover Inkers

GLEN WHITMORE Cover Colorist

RICHARD J. ARNDT TOM ZIUKO STEVEN THOMPSON Contributing Editors

J.D. KING

CBC Cartoonist Emeritus

TOM ZIUKO

CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON

CBC Illustrator

KEN MEYER, JR. ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

GREG PRESTON

CBC Contributing Photographer

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE

CBC Convention Photographer

RICHARD ARNDT FRED HEMBECK DARRICK PATRICK STEVEN THOMPSON TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists

Contact CBC: jonbcooke@aol.com J. Cooke, PO Box 601, W Kingston, RI 02892 2

Okay, okay, I admit it. I have an I go back quite a few years with Bob abiding fixation with 1970s comBrodsky, who was slated to write the O’Neil ics. And you wouldn’t be wrong to feature herein. In fact, my buddy was part of assume it’s because that was my the second issue of my first comics-related Golden Age of Comics, but it’s remagazine, Comic Book Artist, contributing ally not just navel-gazing, I swear. an interview with Steve Englehart. Bob I arrived on the comics scene as a produced a very cool fanzine, The O’Neil Obfan (as opposed to “reader,” someserver, around the same period as CBA vol. thing I was even before I could 1, entirely devoted to comics writers, most read!) starting in late 1970, when primarily the titular scribe. So BB knows of 11 going on 12. I had picked up what he writes! Alas, circumstances develJimmy Olsen #133 and Superman oped that prevented Bob from completing #233, somehow, when my mother, his assignment, but rest assured what he little brother, and I were on a yeardid scribe is the heart of our cover feature. long European visit, and suddenly One of the best projects I’ve worked on there was a tsunami of comics during COVID and days thereafter was with “stuff” for brother Andy and I. another pal, Boston area-based Marc SvensI still marvel how quickly it son, mapping out a three-part feature about all happened, this massive wave. another great comics writer. I’d venture that We returned to the U.S. in late Marc would agree that our mutual friend summer 1971, just in time to Arnold Drake was a remarkable talent and start school. The first comic book truly engaging human being. Speaking for we bought? The DC 100-Page myself, I hit it off with the legendary scribe Super Spectacular [#6] starring first by communicating through email after the “World’s Greatest Super-Hehe had made a forceful speech pushing for roes!” In less than a year, we were a Bill Finger award at the 1999 San Diego attending our first comic book conComic-Con. I asked him to paraphrase that vention, the 1972 New York Comic public declaration for improved treatment Art Convention, where I shook Jack of the industry’s writers and his suggestion Kirby’s hand, watched Neal Adams Denny O’Neil by Ronn Sutton to create an award in Finger’s honor. He draw, beheld Jim Steranko, and sat at shared in Comic Book Artist #7 [Mar. 2000]. a table with Bernie Wrightson and Michael W. Kaluta.

“At an annual dinner,” he proposed, “the award would go to Amid this, there was discovering Marvel Comics, Warren someone who has contributed to the cause of creators’ rights.”

Publications, underground comix, Les Daniels and The Mad Somehow, credit for the 2005 creation of the “Bill Finger Peck’s Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, All in Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing,” now an ongoing Color for a Dime, National Lampoon, The Comic Reader, the once-a-year presentation taking place at the Eisner Awards Ballantine paperback reprints of MAD comics, Barry Smith, Gil banquet, was bestowed upon Jerry Robinson. But I imagine Kane, Hogarth’s Tarzan, Kubert’s Tarzan… ! And this list doesn’t Arnold — who passed away at 83, in 2007 — shrugged off not even begin to convey how vast and ever-growing comic book being acknowledged, especially given as he was the first living culture was spreading at that time, whether in slick magazines recipient of the trophy! Still, he’d been overlooked far too and newspapers, in bookstores and even on record album many times in the past and I hoped to give him his due with a covers. It was mind-boggling and, with reprints coming from wide-ranging, comprehensive interview, which he gave to me all directions and the history of the form being put to paper, it in October of 2003. So, with Marc’s help, I’m serializing the was, in all honesty, kinda hard to catch one’s breath! conversation over this and the next two issues, as us two are A huge aspect of that time period for yours truly was the intent to do our part to celebrate the centenary of Arnold Jack injection of relevancy into mainstream comics, something I Druckman’s birth, in Manhattan, on March 1, 1924. recognized back in Europe, when I read Steve Skeates and Also, I’m very happy to finally be working with author Jim Aparo’s masterpiece in Aquaman #56 [Apr. 1971], “The Bob Levin, whose piece begins opposite, a writer I’ve long Creature That Devoured Detroit,” which featured talk show admired, whether for his long run of insightful essays in The guest “Neal Dennis,” a caricature of one Dennis Joseph O’Neil, Comics Journal or his history of the Air Pirates, The Pirates and my first hint of the then hot writer/Young Turk whose mission the Mouse. We also go back a ways and I’m delighted to say of that era was no less than to save the freakin’ planet!

Bob is already working on an epic investigative piece for CBC!

cbc contributors

Jack Butterworth Arnold Drake Shaun Clancy Pamela Drake Chris Anthony Diaz Dave Elliott Luis Dominguez Jackie Estrada

Clay Geerdes Daniel Green Dan Greenfield Tim Hensley

Walt Jaschek Manny Maris Sam Maronie David Miller

— Y e Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Karen O’Connell Arlen Schumer Cory Sedlmeier Ken Steinhoff

Jay Stephens Ronn Sutton Marc Svensson Marv Wolfman

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Denny O’Neil portrait © 2024 Ronn Sutton. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

CBC Color Portrait Artist

On staying welcome in the reader’s abode and other stuff

Incorrect

by BOB LEVIN

Photo courtesy of Dave Elliott. Penthouse Comix TM & © General Media Communications, Inc. Thor TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

[Preliminary Note: None of the four individuals to whom I wrote, emailed and/or phoned, having reasonably determined them related to my subject, George Caragonne, responded, leaving me short of details of his childhood and adolescence. Plus, by most accounts, Caragonne didn’t like to talk about himself. Perhaps he didn’t want people to know about him. Perhaps they would believe him cooler than he was.

Little in the way of contemporary written accounts about Caragonne exist. Many people who worked or socialized with him as an adult did not wish to revisit those years. When people did speak to me, often at length and with great generosity, I was hearing recollections of 30-year-old memories. If two people had knowledge of an event, I was likely to hear two versions of it. If three had knowledge, I would hear three.

Keep this is mind as you go through this article — and life.

— B.L.] If it is true, as Shakespeare has Malcolm say of Cawdor in Macbeth, “Nothing in his life quite became him as his leaving it,” it is equally true that nothing so distorted George Caragonne’s as his exiting his.

On Thursday, July 20, 1995, the 29-year-old, six-foot-four, 450-pound Texan, who had edited the X-rated, bi-monthly Penthouse Comix since its inception shortly over a year before, asked a bellhop at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, in Times Square, for its height. Forty-five stories, he was told. After being assured that it was the tallest building in the area, Caragonne entered an elevator.

He was casually dressed. He carried a bag containing two stereo speakers connected to a Walkman playing themes from James Bond movies. (He, it should be noted, identified with the villains,

up front The strange, tragic, and terrible story of George Caragonne, Penthouse Comix editor

not Bond.) He got off on the top floor, where an atrium provided a direct view of a food court 500 feet below, where dozens of tourists congregated. He climbed over a railing.

“Get off!” a maid called.

He jumped, tumbling, striking a glass elevator shaft of his way down, his speed nearly 180 miles-per-hour when he landed.

One spectator described a “thud, louder than a shotgun blast.” It seemed, another said, “The ceiling was coming down.” Glass shattered; debris flew. The staff shepherded people outside and spread blankets to block the scene from view. “He didn’t just die,” one person put it. “He exploded.”

A conventioneer in town from Tucson told the Daily News, “They handled it pretty professionally. On the West Coast, everybody would have freaked out. But here, this being New York, they asked people to move along so business could continue as usual.” One person was taken to a hospital for shock. Others, including children, it has been said, were in therapy for months, if not years.

The death would have been unimaginable by anyone who had only known the Caragonne of a few years before. But not those who had been around him the preceding months. Mark Evanier, a comics writer and friend of Caragonne’s for a decade, told The Comics Journal shortly after his death that he would have been more surprised if Caragonne had killed himself “in a small, quiet way… It was not unprecedented for George to do something big and immensely messy.” He speculated Caragonne may have even timed his death to make it the talk of the upcoming San Diego Comics Con.

This page: Above is George Caragonne during his time at Penthouse Comix. Inset left, the first issue [June 1994]. Below is caricature of the editor from the New York Observer. Bottom is George’s favorite comic book, Thor #126 [Mar. 1966].

I.

George Caragonne was born September 16, 1965, in San Antonio, Texas. His father, an architect, left the family when George was young. He was disdainful of — and disrespectful toward — his son, who would grow up determined to impress him.

Caragonne’s mother, a Jehovah’s Witness, was tiny — fivefeet-tall, 100-pounds — and rigidly devout. She made sure her son went to church every Sunday. He was a choirboy until he was 18. He passed out leaflets door-to-door. He neither smoked nor drank. But his behavior grew so beyond her control that, when he was 13, she set him up in his own apartment and ordered him from the house. Or so he claimed. Some believe this a representative Caragonne exaggeration, designed to increase his outlaw image. Even if it was a fantasized expulsion, it provides an instructive glimpse into his feelings about himself.

His passion was comic books. This passion ran deep and unswerving. In adulthood, if asked his favorite, Caragonne would exclaim, “Thor 126,” recite all the words of “Thor vs.

Hercules,” including cover copy, and act out all the action. (Or so one person recollects. Others say he would recite no more than three panels containing, perhaps, nine word balloons.)

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

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“A big, goofy, friendly guy,” says Buzz Dixon, who became a consulting editor (or, depending on the masthead, über-editor), at Comix late in Caragonne’s tenure, when describing him in the late 1980s.

“A big kid, billowing with energy and excitement,” says Eliot Brown, the magazine’s technical/science editor, recalling a young Caragonne, in blue suit and red tie, coming into Marvel Comics’ offices, asking the size of Daredevil’s apartment for a role-playing game he was designing. “A sweet, young soul.”

“A sweet, little guy. Well, not little,” says Evanier of the Caragonne he met at meetings of the L.A.-based Comic Arts Professional Society, a rookie thrilled to be among seniors This page: Above is George’s he admired.

“A bombastic, big hearted, larger than life person,” says 1982 senior class portrait, Alamo Heights High School, San Antonio, Dave Elliott, Comix art editor, “He always seemed happy. He Texas. Below is a caricature of the could have played Santa Claus. A loud one. A loud Texan one.”

Drugs, Dixon says, turned him “from Santa into Satan.” man from his Star Comics days,

which appeared in Care Bears #15 [Mar. ’88], illustrating biographical bullet points for the "Starry-Eyed Purveyor of Fancy and Fantasy (i.e., writer)." At bottom are covers to Masters of the Universe #10 [Nov. ’87] and Game Boy #1 [1990].

II.

Between Marvel and Valiant, Caragonne had too much work to leave New York but was not earning enough to live there. While scrambling to make it in comics, he found employment as a salesclerk with Big Apple Comics, at 92nd and Broadway, eventually becoming a “day-to-day” manager. He

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III.

Stories differ as to how Caragonne got to Penthouse. One is that, while trying to start his own publishing company, Constant Developments, Inc., he had acquired the rights to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a super-hero comic, created in the mid’60s by Len Brown and Wally Wood, which had passed through several hands since, and tried to interest Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse in it. Another is that Caragonne and a partner (or partners) had an idea for a new line of super-hero comics which they presented as a package to several publishers and, after being roundly rejected, drew up an R-rated version to pitch to Guccione. A third, Tim Pilcher in Erotic Comics [2008], has Caragonne compiling a list “of every magazine published in America… [and] offering to create a comic book version of [it].”

Only Guccione arranged a meet.

The 64-year-old, Brooklyn native, who had once worked as a newspaper and greeting card cartoonist, loved comics. He had begun Penthouse in London, in 1965 and brought it to the United States four years later. By combining photos of full-frontal nudity with a commitment to investigative journalistic that won him national awards, he had created a publication more attuned to the increasingly edgy times than, say, Playboy and become worth in excess of $400 million. He had produced the widely banned but ultimately profitable feature film, Caligula, starring Malcolm McDowell, and published Viva, an erotic magazine for women, and Omni, a science/sci-fi mag.

He owned “The Willows,” a 2,000-acre ranch in Staatsburg, New York, whose trees and shrubs had been shaped to resemble those of an English lord’s manor. Peacocks and Russian wolfhounds roamed free, and the main house housed the art of a Medici prince.

Guccione had spent enough years in Europe to be accustomed to the idea of telling adult stories in graphic form.

Some sources say Guccione had already offered several comics industry veterans the chance to run a section of erotic comics within Penthouse, but they had declined. Now he offered the job to Carragone. Wikipedia says that, after a several month trial, Guccione decided a stand-alone comic magazine would work. But others say it was not a “trial,” but a “preview,” and that Guccione had always planned on a magazine.

Still others think the idea originated with Caragonne. Kathy Keeton, once one of London’s highest paid exotic dancers and Guccione’s companion since 1965, was vice-chairman and COO

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Thor, Hercules TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Masters of the Universe TM & © Mattel, Inc. Game Boy TM & © Nintendo of America, Inc.

In terms of professional comics, Caragonne’s “origin” story begins with him sending an unsolicited story to Marvel Comics, in 1984. Over the next four years, he freelanced scripts for its ancillary books, like Masters of the Universe, Planet Terry, and Thundercats, under the mentoring of Jim Shooter, the company’s editor-in-chief. In 1988, after being fired by Marvel, Shooter launched Valiant Comics, in New York City, and, unasked, Caragonne drove cross-country and offered to work for him. Stan Lee, Marvel’s head, had been a god to Caragonne, and Shooter had supplanted him.

Shooter gave him work on Captain N, The Legend of Zelda, and Punch-Out!! and, Caragonne told friends, promised him the job of writing the more prestigious Magnus, Robot Fighter once he acquired the license. Shooter got the license, but Caragonne did not get the book. (Shooter neither confirms nor denies this promise.) If it happened, it was a “betrayal” Caragonne never got over.

was knowledgeable and likable, with a need to impress. Pete Koch, the store’s owner, recalls, “He had strong opinions about things that didn’t require strong opinions.”

He was also still so straight that when he joined Koch and some comic industry people visiting from England for a night out, it was Caragonne’s first time in a bar. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he’d said. “You bet,” they’d answered.

“Isn’t sobriety to be valued?” he asked, ordering a Diet Coke. “Not at all,” they replied.

“Well, you wouldn’t do drugs, would you?” he went on.

“Massive quantities,” they answered.

“George’s eyes rolled up into his head,” says Scott Dunbier, then a dealer in comic art. “These were his friends and he could not believe friends of his did drugs.”

Caragonne was so sober he became the person trusted to keep Big Apple open on Christmas. (It helped since, as a Jehovah’s Witness, it was not a real holiday.)

He had begun smoking though.

of his company, General Media Communications; and Eliot Brown says, “[She] was the office mover-and-shaker, and George could sweet talk her into anything.” Caragonne had envisioned this particular “anything” only as a comic, with which, he later wrote, he hoped “to impress a woman”; but once presented the idea, Guccione insisted on a full-size, glossy magazine on high quality paper like the others in his stable.

The idea of a “quality” comic and the allure of an association with Penthouse must have hit Caragonne like a full-page KA-POW!!! He had once been considered, he would say, “The biggest loser in comics.” Now he would be in charge of a conveyance which could transform the industry. He would prove his worth and pay back those who had misjudged and mistreated him. They would beg him for work.

Penthouse, Penthouse Comix, all characters TM & © General Media Communications, Inc.

IV.

Penthouse Comix debuted with a May/June 1994 issue. Its masthead designated Caragonne as “Editor-in-Chief/Creator/ Head Writer.” In its mission statement, Caragonne promised “a real men’s magazine… drawn by the best artists in comics... expressing the principles of Real Men… [with the] power to spit in the eye of Feminist Thought Police that… [will earn me] the title ‘the world’s most politically incorrect Comic Book Editor.’”

He accompanied this statement with an idealized sketch of himself: black cowboy hat, sculpted beard, skull-clasp bolo tie, dark shirt and tie, black cowboy boots, beefy but not obese, an “I dare you” glint in his eyes.

Caragonne hired the magazine’s in-house staff and negotiated the contracts of its for-hire writers, pencilers, inkers, and colorists. He acquired contributions from top illustrators in America (Richard Corben, Frank Frazetta) and Europe (Milo Manera and Moebius). If someone, whose contribution he desired, refused him, he raised his offer. Some staffers had six-figure contracts. Artists received $800-a-page, the highest rate in the field. But this was not as generous as it seemed, says Kevin Nowlan, who contributed to several issues. Pages had to be double-sized, because Guccione, who “considered himself an art connoisseur,” wanted 20-inch-by-30-inch originals, which meant artists had to work twice as hard to fill them. “It was a healthy pay rate, but you had to meet a hard and fast deadline; and, if you missed, your check was cut in half.”

Caragonne also laid out each issue, including word balloon and dialogue placement. Occasionally, he took on other corporate projects, like touching up a film script written by Guccione’s son Nick, which went nowhere and existed primarily to keep some Russian animators on retainer. And when the company decided to set up a 900-number, Caragonne hired the actors and sound technicians, secured studio space, and wrote scripts describing the most salacious sex scenes he could imagine. The longer they held the caller on the line, at $4.90-a-minute, the more the company made.

But his primary job was writing for Comix. He wrote or co-wrote, usually with Tom Thornton, its story editor, and, as “Melissa Cleary,” author of a line of mass market crime paperbacks, five or six stories in each of the first nine issues. Working, Caragonne estimated, 130-hour weeks, they averaged about 50 pages per issue. In #10, published after Caragonne’s death, their work filled all 70 pages. (In alternate months, Caragonne wrote stories for Penthouse Men’s Adventure Comix and/or Omni Comix.)

Singly, or with Thornton, he created ten multi-chapter stories: “Young Captain Adventure,” a tongue-in-cheek spoof (with tongue-in-cheek sex-and-violence) about super-heroes more focused on sales figures, merchandise and tie-ins than

combating crime, one of whom, Emily Feldman, had been transformed from a mere mortal Emily Feldman into the formidable (voluptuous) Hericane through the ejaculate of YCA’s father; “Scion,” in which super-powered mutants, genetically altered through chemicals and radiation exposure, struggle to avoid elimination in the post-break-up U.S.S.R.; “Bethlehem Steele,” set in outer space in 2294, centered around the travails of a (voluptuous) “woman” android, programmed for uninhibited sexual response”; “Doctor Dare,” a WW II-era (voluptuous) woman doctor, super-powered through exposure to serum extracted from insects, fights Nazis in Africa, the Pacific, and a lost out-post of the Roman empire; “Backlash,” where a futuristic “United States of Femerica,” is ruled by whip-wielding, man-hating (voluptuous) lesbians, scantily-clad but for skin-tight, thigh-high leather boots, and men serve only for female sexual gratification; and “Hot Stories,” a satire of National Enquirer-type tales, in which a (voluptuous) female reporter pursues stories in which (a) Princess Di is abducted by aliens and (b) Elvis and other died-too-young celebrities — Jimi Hendrix, Grace Kelly, John Belushi — fake their deaths to be kept youthful, through a blend of rare herbs and defoliants in a

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

This page: Above is a poster

by Adam Hughes depicting the women characters in Penthouse Comix and Men's Adventure Comix. Below is the first issue of Penthouse's U.S. edition [Sept.

1969] (though the mag started in the U.K. in March 1965), Playboy’s first significant rival in men’s mags.

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South American hideaway. Other stories – “Hot Blood,” “Action Figures,” “Generation Sex,” and “Team Supreme” — had too few installments to merit elaboration; but you get the idea. We are not talking Phillip Roth. Even Irving Wallace.

V.

Above: Penthouse mogul Bob Guccione in a coy pose. Below: Artist depiction of George that appeared in Penthouse Comix, a pose doubtless swiped from a staff photo of the Comix team, as seen on page eight herein. Note the inscription at bottom of George being “The World’s Most Politically Incorrect Comic Book Editor.”

The variety of the story lines, in time as well as geography, allowed the visual artists to engage with the cosmos and the future, 1940s North Africa and contemporary New York, Belarus and the Ukraine. Tropical islands drew their imaginations, as did prehistoric beasts and warriors, from gladiator to robot, and the weaponry they wielded There was no house style to which to conform. There were few requests for corrections of or additions to submitted work. Caragonne did not detail the sexual acts (or organs) to be depicted — though bestiality and child sexual abuse seem to have been off limits. Otherwise he left things up to the artists and the creative kinks and corners of their fantasies.

“This was not an Alan Moore script,” says Nowlan, “with every detail specified.”

The books’ texts often demonstrated a giggle-worthy sense of humor. Super-heroes based themselves in Manhattan because of the plentitude of skyscrapers to swing from. One spoke “a language only criminals understand… [which made] it hard for waitresses to take his order.” Another had “guns as big as Frigidaires” and the “chrome of a ’58 Pontiac.” Hitler, one associate reassured another, “may be a drug-addled, manicdepressive with delusions of godhood, but he is not unreasonable.”

The stories also demonstrated an awareness of popular culture and current events. References occurred to land deals in Southern states leading to the deaths of White House lawyers (think Whitewater) and the nefarious conduct of the L.A. police (think Rodney King). The major league baseball strike drew a nod. So did the Sandanistas, AIDs, and Lorena Bobbitt. (Hericane once employed a “Bobbitt grip,” via her vaginal muscles, to render harmless an arch-enemy.)

Figures from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon made appearances. So did Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia and Humphrey Bogart in both The African Queen and Casablanca.

The Antioch College Code of Conduct, designed in 1990 to regulate campus sexual behavior, seems to have smoldered within Caragonne so that, four years later, it flared into a society where it was a “gyno-crime against humanity” to say “history” not “herstory” and “fat chick” instead of “lean body mass-challenged” woman.

the female figure,” but eschewed mentioning the context these renderings served. Narrative substance was notable for its absence. For instance, after “Bethlehem Steele”’s initial episode, raised the worthy plot-point of liberating a “jelly” that could feed millions from the monopolistic grip of an inter-galactic tyrant, the subject was never mentioned again, and the story shifted to a cavalcade of female sexual indignities and abuse.

Penthouse’s readership was 70% male, between the ages of 18 and 34, so it is unsurprising that the universally acclaimed old in-and-out would triumph over more potentially divisive content. But prose authors, like Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski, had delivered work that combined the X-rated with literary significance. “Phoebe Zeit-Geist” had brought sexual high jinx in comic form — combined with satiric brilliance — into prestigious literary quarterlies, and any number of underground cartoonists had delivered books with graphic depictions of the two-backed beast while blasting away at matters of substance. And, do not forget, Penthouse itself had won honors for the reportage its pubic hair decorated.

Comix, though, became notable for its negative attitude toward women. It seemed both furious at and fearful of them.

No female writer or artist, who might have tempered these attitudes, contributed to the magazine, and the extent of Caragonne’s involvement with actual women is murky. He wanted a relationship, Mark Evanier says, but was “clueless” about how to go about establishing one. (Cragonne asked questions of friends about women that were so embarrassing to him that, even 40 years after his death, I was asked not to repeat them.)

He would talk about relationships with different women, but whether they existed outside his imagination is an enduring question.

A few people recall Caragonne having referred to a particular woman within the comic industry as his “fiancée.” (Another insists there was nothing between them but “friendship.) He was so infatuated with her, it is agreed, that he lost 150 pounds to make himself more attractive. (Diet and exercise, says one friend. Wired his jaws shut, says a second. Stapled his stomach, offers a third.) What happened between them is also unclear.

Buzz Dixon recalls him coming into the office “in a big blustery way and saying ‘I dodged that bullet,’” claiming he broke off the engagement. But others say she ended things, supposedly declaring herself a lesbian to cushion the blow, leaving Caragonne “devastated” when, not much later, she announced her engagement to another fellow.

He gained the weight back, plus more.

6

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Bob Guccione photo courtesy of Dave Elliott.

In every issue, women, no matter how powerful, were — usually while naked — bound, gagged, handcuffed, whipped, When Comix began, Caragonne’s goal was “quality erot- suspended upside down above bear traps, threatened by icism” with “coherent stories and fine artwork.” (This goal phallic steel pincers, collared in steel spikes, serviced orally by had its limits. For example, he announced there would be cats, and/or strapped to carts, bits in their mouth, to pull riders “no homo-eroticism, ever.”) Even the most mainstream racing in carts. The essence of this attitude was distilled in of comics — well maybe not Daisy Duck, but Betty and Vespecial “Damsels in Distress” issues, which featured solo pages ronica certainly — had an element of eroticism; and while by individual artists in which they subjected the nude and Caragonne fully intended to depict explicit sex, he couched voluptuous to abuses the text had not afforded them. Women this as an elevation of “story and art in adult comix.” They were crucified, crushed by boa constrictors, menaced by octopi, will be, he promised, “so good… you will need to read them tied to anchors and sunk. with both hands.”

This content was so over-the-top it could seem satiric. But While his final product was indisputably a cut above Tijua- Caragonne was “absolutely totally fine with it,” Dave Elliott na bibles, it can be fairly said that Caragonne’s aspirations – says. “Women had to be put in their place.” For Caragonne, the certainly the “story” part — were unmet. Chloe Moreal, writing misogyny of the deliberately offensive comedian Andrew Dice in 2021 for The Gutter Review, honored the magazine’s Clay was a model to be emulated as much as the Ten Precepts “beautifully rendered nude women” and “appreciation for of Taoism. Caragonne wrote in one of his editorials that the

“Equity Feminism” of Camille Paglia and Keeton — Caragonne knew where his bread was buttered, also frequently praising Guccione for his defense of First Amendment freedoms — was to be applauded but the “Gender Feminism” of Andrea Dworkin and Hillary Rodham (sic) was to be attacked, no holds barred.

VI.

Penthouse Comix, all characters TM & © General Media Communications, Inc.

Caragonne told Elliott that, in addition to his $80,000 salary, he billed $1,000 for each page he edited, including covers and advertisements. He may also have billed $1,000 per page for each story he wrote. He claimed meals, entertainment, and office furnishings as business expenses. He wrote off sex toys and guns he purchased as reference material for his artists. He bought tapes they could watch to learn knot-tying techniques for use in bondage stories. He had Elliott purchase a VHS double-deck to make a compilation reel of intriguing sex acts from X-rated films to stimulate creative imagination and a $1,400 Sony Video Printer to make a book of kinky stills which panels could be constructed around.

Caragonne basically lived in the office. He ate, slept, and showered there. (He had an apartment on E. 82nd Street to which he went no more than once or twice a week — and may have claimed its rent as providing him an extra “office.”) He normally worked from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., seven days a week. He

might wake during the day, shuffle around in his dressing gown, grab a bite, put in some more work hours — and then go back to sleep. The pace and demands were exhausting.

At some point, it has been alleged, Tom Thornton suggested that cocaine would provide a helpful energy boost. He knew a Broadway guy who knew a guy, and Caragonne soon had a $300-to-400-a day habit. “A fine, white dust was over his office, everywhere,” Buzz Dixon recalls. After not having seen Caragonne for a few years, Elliot paid him a visit while in New York from London. “There was a line of cocaine on the desk, a balloon of nitrous oxide beside it, a full glass of bourbon, and a lit joint in the ashtray. George did it all before he said, ‘Hello.’”

By issue #7, the company moved from 1965 Broadway to 277 Park Avenue and consolidated its operation onto the fifth floor, which Comix shared with the Penthouse staff and the organization’s production department. Individual offices were composed of cubicles, separated by partitions that did not reach the ceiling. The Comix people were to the rear and their hours more nocturnal than the others, perhaps, it has been suggested, to keep some of the drug use under wraps.

Our office, Dixon says, “was a party that just happened to get work done.” Editors walked about in undershorts.

Music played. Movies screened. Furniture smashed. Guns blasted holes in a wall. Caragonne’s German shepherd visited, off-leash. Marijuana was so ubiquitous that Caragonne had foam sheets installed around his department’s cubicles to block the smoke from reaching the others. “‘Come to the fifth floor and follow the noise’ were the directions we gave visitors,” Dixon added.

Caragonne did everything to extremes. He once bundled staff into a van for a trip to New Jersey to try out an amusement park’s new Batman ride. He ordered breakfasts brought into the office from McDonald’s for everyone, five or six of everything.

If he took people out to dinner, he would order huge steaks all around, with add side orders of sausage, kidney, and fries for himself. If he found a new food he liked, he had it every day. When Dixon deflected Caragonne’s efforts to push drugs upon him by insisting he was a “juicer,” Caragonne stocked a bar of liquor for him. When Mark Evanier visited from L.A. and said that Peter Lugar’s Steak House was his favorite restaurant, Caragonne promised him a dinner there.

But he failed to make a reservation, so Evanier told him another place, Carmine’s in Times Square, would be fine. Caragonne invited five or six others — and ordered enough food for 25. Before it arrived, afraid of disappointing Evanier, he called Peter Lugar’s and secured a table by offering the head waiter $500. Evanier had to plead to convince him he was happy where they were. “I learned to be very careful,” he says, “If I said I wanted something, George would buy it for me.”

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

This page: Say whatcha will about the non-stop sexcapades taking place in its glossy pages, but the artistry gracing Penthouse Comix was gorgeously rendered by some of the comic book industry's finest artists, including Adam Hughes, who drew the super-hero characters, Hericane (left, with #2 cover inset by AH!) and Young Captain Adventure (above), and Kevin Nowlan, artist of Scion (below).

Cover art from #5 [Feb. ’95]

by Nowlan.

7

comics, magazines, even, once, the original shooting script of Frankenstein for an office library, all of which he would justify as “research” expenses. If he wasn’t using the company credit card, he would pass it to someone else. “You can write off all kinds of stuff in this business,” Elliott says, “and George marched to the edge and sometimes over it — but Bob kept paying.”

Why wouldn’t he? He loved comics and the magazine made money. While the comics industry was experiencing a precipitous sales drop, Penthouse Comix doubled its circulation in a year. At 100,000 copies an issue, it was the best-selling adult comic in America. It was translated into six languages, and reprinted in a dozen countries. Its unsold back issues brought good prices. It licensed or issued trading cards, autograph cards, promotional cards. HBO was interested in developing a TV series based it. There were those who believed the magazine had the potential, if channeled properly, to broaden the comic audience by presenting quality material to an adult audience

This page: The staff of Penthouse Comix is above, circa 1995. George is the dude with cowboy hat and dangling cigarette. Below is a photo of Bob Guccione, George, and academic/social critic Camille Paglia during a Penthouse event, along with a comic strip that was gifted to her that same night, written by George and drawn by Bill Vallely, Comix night editor.

But the more corporate types wanted the comic people gone and the magazine killed. They had been with Guccione since England, and they considered Caragonne and his crew ill-bred interlopers who hadn’t earned their place in the ranks.

He was equally extravagant with the magazine. He comThey disliked Caragonne personally and didn’t think he knew missioned work he never used. He continually conceived of new characters he wanted developed. He had three more books the first thing about putting out a magazine. They thought comics belonged on revolving racks for kids. They wanted the he had in mind. Then five. Then six. He hired friends simply company publishing golf and tennis mags. They may have to be present as sounding boards or to keep him company or been single guys when they started with Penthouse, but now do drugs with. If they expressed reservations about being in they had wives and kids and homes in the suburbs. They were the office (and around Caragonne), he offered, besides a large more comfortable with men in suits and ties than in dressing salary, an arrangement where they worked two weeks in-office gowns or underwear in the middle of the day. That Guccione and two weeks out. After Elliot took over as editor-in-chief, he supported Caragonne made the executives resent him more, found 14 people on staff, when only four were necessary. and Guccione and Keeton, who had grown uncomfortable with Caragonne would go on shopping sprees, loading up on the executives, absented themselves from the office more and more, leaving them unexposed to the excesses on display.

The executives took revenge by cutting Caragonne’s budget and delaying reimbursement of his invoices for expenses. They stood outside the cubicles of the comics staff and made easily heard nasty remarks about him. “They cut the ventilation off at night to freeze us out,” Dixon says, “or made it so hot we couldn’t work.”

8

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Adventures of Camille Paglia strip, photos courtesy of Dave Elliott and © the respective copyright holder

As Caragonne’s drug use deepened, his conduct became more bizarre. His eyes took on a paranoid look. His speech became more rapid-fire. He became more dictatorial. He fired people who had been with his magazine since its beginning.

His continued acquisition of guns raised questions of what or whom he would shoot. More and more problems arose; more and more rumors circulated: the magazine was over budget; funds were unaccounted for; CD players and TVs were purchased — and disappeared. The rumors grew. Caragonne was embezzling from the company; he was spending its funds on his drugs; he was slipping money to friends and family. Story lines meandered, became tangled, seemed made up on the fly. They ran into blind alleys the writers had trouble working their way out of. The visual art became problematic, too. “In the beginning, it had been like a Marvel comic with nudity,” Elliott says. “Then the degradation of women took over.” Bondage was not just in one story, but all of them. “The stories,” Dixon says, “became weirder and more deranged.”

The magazine began issuing late, which, in the direct market, subjected the company to substantial penalties. A female staffer sued it for sexual harassment. When Nick Guccione had to go into drug rehab — not for the first time — substance abuse

being was so common, the company had a rehab hospital on retainer — Caragonne was blamed. Drug use became so open people feared a police raid and everyone’s arrest. When staff members found a tin foil-wrapped ball of cocaine under the driver’s seat of a company car they had been driving, they confronted Caragonne about his having exposed them to a felony. He replied that he expected anyone arrested to say the drugs were theirs, since that would leave him free to find them lawyers. (After Caragonne’s death, drug-sniffing dogs found drugs hidden drugs not just in the comics area, but throughout the entire space.)

Penthouse Comix TM & © General Media Communications, Inc Harleywood photo courtesy of Dave Elliott and © the respective copyright holder..

VII.

Things came to a head the second weekend of July.

Guccione planned to move the Comix offices into a hunting lodge on his ranch. It had facilities for eating, sleeping — and hanging deer carcasses. Relocating the offices there would lessen conflict with the rest of the staff — and let him keep an eye on Caragonne. A half-dozen people had come up, including Caragonne, who had flown in on a helicopter with a voice actress, hired for a CD-ROM version of the magazine, with whom he and Nick had previously partied.

On Sunday, she and he returned from a car ride, and either she called a cab herself, or he called one for her, and she abruptly left. If Caragonne had not raped her, it was whispered, he had certainly assaulted her. Eliot Brown says she did not appear upset and probably she simply felt out of place and wanted to get back to New York. But Dixon says, “Something happened. Her arms were across her chest. She wasn’t talking like before, and George was in an ugly mood. He loomed over her and said something along the lines of, ‘I hope this didn’t upset you,’ with a threatening vibe.” Guccione then called Caragonne into the mansion, ostensibly for an editorial discussion but, perhaps, to see if he was on drugs.

Later that evening or early the next morning, Dixon confronted a “clearly coked to the gills” Caragonne and said that,

if he did not enter rehab, Dixon would quit. They went around and around for 20 or 30 minutes, with Caragonne insisting everyone was against him and that he had no need to change his behavior in any manner. Dixon decided he was done. Someone, he’d concluded, was going to end up in the morgue or jail, and it would not be him.

Mark McClellan, the magazine’s executive editor and Caragonne’s designated “Second-in-Command,” and Bill Vallely, the night editor, drove Dixon to the airport. After he returned to L.A., they kept in contact through phone and e-mail, and Dixon learned that Guccione wanted to get Caragonne clean and sober before deciding the future of the magazine. After Dixon’s departure, Guccione’d had Keegon go to the lodge to see how Caragonne was doing. He angrily yelled at her, which she reported back to Guccione. At that point, a wall went up between Caragonne and Keeton, who was already fighting breast cancer and could not tolerate the stress of dealing with him.

McClellan and Vallely began arranging with the rehab hospital to accept Caragonne.

They set up a preliminary intervention with him at the lodge, in which Guccione, who would be away at a conference, would participate by phone. The magazine would go on hiatus until its future was decided. Checks were issued and staff and artists were told to cash them at once and stop work on whatever they were doing. One of these people tipped Caragonne to the planned intervention, enabling him to dodge it.

Guccione had told Caragonne to stay at the

This page: Above is portrait of George’s German shepherd; below is George astride a Harley David motorcycle, and bottom is Penthouse Comix #13 [June ’96], with art by Garry Leach.

Dave Elliot on Penthouse Comix Penthouse Comix was a very interesting title at a very interesting point in time. It was a very successful erotic comic that faced many obstacles, including an increasingly conservative country, but the one that undid it was the company itself and its adversarial approach to the magazine’s creator, George Caragonne.

I remember the first time I met George, he was working in Big Apple Comics on Broadway, in New York City. A friend said to ask George what his favorite comic was, so i did. George then acted out and recited Thor #126 in the middle of the store. He was a true comic book fan and his dearest wish was to work for Marvel with Stan Lee and Jim Shooter.

How strange that we both ended up at Penthouse. It wasn’t on my radar when George reached out to help him. I had bought the first issue, but working on it never occurred to me.

Not until George called me offering inking work and then, on a later call, when I’d delivered a few jobs, he asked if I’d help editorially.

I initially said no, but he did me a favor and then offered me a silly amount of money COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

just to work for three months so he could prove this would be a good fit for me.

I did the three months and turned down a position with the company when I saw how much George was struggling with some issues that I knew weren’t going away. I flew back to the U.K. and then he committed suicide the following week, on my daughter’s birthday.

Little did I know that this would lead to my moving to the U.S. running Penthouse Comix and becoming the humor editor of Penthouse magazine. Also got to work on Omni a little, which was a favorite magazine of mine growing up.

Working with General Media’s management was a constant struggle, but my time on the magazine with the team I had with me was still very enjoyable. The core team was small and very talented, Eliot R. Brown, Robert “Merv” Garretson, John Green, and Tim Blithe, along with myself. We managed to have a lot of fun and worked with some wonderful creators in the middle of this crazy f’ed company that was spiraling around the plughole. — D.E. 9

lodge, but, accompanied by Thornton, he returned to New York City. Security had been instructed not to let them into the office, but they gained entry.

The building’s access code had not been changed, and a single security guard patrolled the entire fifth floor. (The office’s only other protection was an electronic screening device, installed after the Unibomber showed an interest in Penthouse.) Caragonne and Thornton were found asleep the next morning and escorted from the building by guards.

There is, of course, another version.

On August 15, 1995, the New York Observer ran a story by Daniel Green that relied heavily on Tom Thornton. Thornton described Caragonne as no more than a social drug user, who, if he abused anything, abused only Diet Mountain Dew. Caragonne had been — or so he believed — the victim of McClellan and Vallely, who had spread lies about his drug habit and theft of company funds to discredit and “steal Penthouse Comix” from him.

Thornton’s account of the Rhinebeck weekend mentions neither Caragonne’s date nor efforts to get him into rehab. It has Caragonne learning of the magazine’s hiatus a few days before others say it was planned. Thornton says he and Caragonne returned to Manhattan after Caragonne learned his company credit card had been cancelled and that McClellan had stripped his bank account of funds. Their purpose was “to smooth out matters at Penthouse,” though Thornton does not dispute that Guccione and Keeton, its principals, remained upstate.

This page: Penthouse also launched the short-lived slick comics magazines, Penthouse Men’s Adventure Comix, Omni Comix, and Penthouse Max Comics. Adventure last ed for seven issues, the other two only three issues apiece..

10

After Caragonne learned he was under investigation and was unable to reach anyone within the company to discuss it, he left Thornton a note. He lacked, he wrote, the “strength to fight… and clear my good name.”

I was unable to locate Tom Thornton. Mark McClellan is deceased. Bill Vallely did not reply to repeated requests to speak. Those to whom I did speak denied anyone had plotted to steal anything from Caragonne.

VIII.

“He was,” says Dave Elliott, “a 6-foot 4, 400 pound kid, and comics was his playground. They were fun and he could do what he wanted. He could be happy sitting in his office writing comics, and he stayed there because he didn’t feel safe in the world.”

Why Bob Guccione believed someone who had never edited anything was a good choice to edit his magazine is a mystery. (Tim Pilcher believes that Guccione, having been warned off Caragonne “by a powerful financial expert,” took this as a tribute to his “character.”) He had never edited anything.

He may have never even worked in an office.

Caragonne had a fertile mind. He had an engaging personality. He could create intriguing characters and set them in appealing stories. But producing, month after month after month, a magazine…?

Caragonne had found himself handed an authority without brakes upon his impulses. “Our appetites are hard-wired into us at birth,” Buzz Dixon says. “The only change is how they manifest.

When George was placed in a position of power, all the constraints came off.” “George had an addictive personality,” Scott Dunbier says. “Not just drugs and food, but when he got an idea, he would be fanatic about it. His life couched in some kind of addictive shell.”

One can not escape the sound of that final locked door. Did its “click” signal parental rejection — Bob and Kathy this time — again? Was a 13-year-old being barred again from home? How might his retribution reverberate forever?

BOB LEVIN is a retired attorney living in Berkeley with his wife, Adele, and is author of several comicsrelated books, including The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Counterculture [2003]. #35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Penthouse Comix, Men's Adventure Comix, Penthouse Max, Omni Comix TM & © General Media Comm., Inc. Mr. Monster TM & © Michael T. Gilbert. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © the respective copyright holder.

At some point, within the next couple days, McClellan, fearing he was going to be blamed for the magazine’s financial mess, went to corporate executives to detail Caragonne’s excesses. In the past, no matter how much Caragonne spent, he and McClellan had been able to cover it within a few months; but Caragonne had been so out of control, leaving so much money unaccounted for, that had become impossible. McClellan gave the executives data to support his revelations.

According to Mark Evanier, Caragonne returned to the office on Friday and found himself locked out. Evanier and other friends spent hours on the phone over the weekend with him, urging him to go into rehab, reassuring him that, no matter what happened with Penthouse, he would find work in the business.

On Saturday night, at about 10 p.m. California time, Caragonne called Evanier. They talked for an hour. Carragone spoke of revenge for his lock-out.

He knew everyone who had embezzled from the company. Everyone who’d stolen. He could prove it.

He didn’t need help. He didn’t need doctors.

Evanier and Caragonne did not speak again.

How he spent the days, before entering the Marriott is unknown.

In a curious twist of fate, while working on this feature, we learned that Penthouse Comix is being revived this year by the Behemoth Comics founders, with #1 set for Valentine's Day release.

Cover art by Stimograph.

the drake dossier

The Druckman Cometh!

Celebrating the centennial of writer Arnold Drake's birth with a three-part in-depth interview

Who is Arnold Drake?

The Manhattan native is the recipient of the very first Bill Finger Award, in 2005, and is renowned as the creator of The Doom Patrol, Deadman, and The Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as co-author of the graphic novel widely considered the first of its kind, It Rhymes with Lust [1950]. Before his passing, Arnold proofed this interview and added some commentary throughout. — JBC. This page: Below is a portrait of Arnold Drake and his creation, The Doom Patrol by artist Luis Dominguez, commissioned by Marc Svensson. (The scribe is supposed to be holding a typewriter but, well… long story!).

[Editor's Note: I've been talking with my pal Marc Svensson, fabled San Diego Comic-Con videographer, for quite some time about doing this project, as my buddy — a dear friend of the late writer Arnold Drake (who died at 83, in 2007) sent me binders filled with Drake-related material over the course of the pandemic and my Massachusetts-based chum volunteered to help present this centenary feature over the next three issues of Comic Book Creator. We both were intent on having all the portions of my 2003 career-spanning interview with the scribe appear during this 100th year since his birth, so here's part one.

Marc had interviewed the man at length — check out Alter Ego Vol. 3, #17 [Sept. 2002] for his superb achievement — and he's been an enormous assist throughout, including supplying footnotes for this Q-&-A. So three cheers for Svensson! — Y.E.]

Comic Book Creator: Where are you originally from?

Arnold Drake: Manhattan. Born and bred in New York City. Grew up on the West Side.

CBC: When were you born?

Arnold: March 1, 1924.

CBC: What’s your background, ethnically?

Arnold: Well, my folks were from Romania. They met here, but they were born in Romania. They came here as kids. My dad landed in New Orleans when he was about 16 and got himself a job with the New Orleans Power and Gas, or something; a very early electric generating plant. Since nobody knew anything about electricity, being a greenhorn didn’t cost him anything. By the time he was 17 or 18, he had become an amateur boxer, a semi-pro. He got $5 a fight, and proudly boasted that they never broke his nose.

CBC: Was he a big guy?

Arnold: Not particularly, he was about 5'8". And before he married my mother, he had been quite slim. But the winter before he married her, they were engaged. And he knew that in those days you were judged by the amount of meat on your bones. So he drank cod liver oil all that winter and put on 25 pounds so that he’d look like a proper husband. [laughs] CBC: Your mom was an immigrant to this country?

Arnold: She came here at about nine- or ten-years-old.

CBC: Did she have a job of her own?

Arnold: I think she started working when she was about ten-years-old, sweeping out stores and that kind of thing.

But she went to night school and did a lot of self-education.

She wound up speaking five languages pretty well: English, Romanian, German, Yiddish, and French. As I said, with a lot of self-educating. She was something of a writer, herself. When the movie industry started in New York, out on Long Island, she wrote one or two scripts that were made into films. And my brother Milton, some 12 years older than I (and still has all of his marbles), acted in one of those when he was six or eight years old. [Since this was taped, Milton died at 94.— A.D.] CBC: Do you remember the subject matter or the title or anything?

Arnold: She told me a story that she had worked on. It was about the white slave trade. It was pretty commonplace then, and is not uncommon today. Kidnapping young girls out of their countries, and throwing them into whorehouses. They offered her a contract or some kind of oral agreement, but my dad wouldn’t let her sign it, because the world would think that he couldn’t support his wife. It was a common attitude at that time toward the wife working.

CBC: Did he stick with the electric company?

Arnold: No. He came up to New York and joined his brother Jake (two years older), and they got into the mattress business.

They bought a horse and wagon and they sold mattresses from it. And then they began manufacturing mattresses in Brooklyn.

From that, they got into furniture, and they became pretty prominent in the wholesale furniture business in New York City.

CBC: What was the name of their company?

Arnold: Well, in the end there were four brothers, and they #35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Doom Patrol TM & © DC Comics. Commission art courtesy of Marc Svensson.

12

Conducted by JON B. COOKE

It Rhymes with Lust TM & © the respective copyright holder. Young Arnold photo courtesy of Pamela Drake.

had four independent operations, each named for themselves.

My dad was Max Druckman, the original family name. It was an old German name probably going back to the 13th century. (“Ein drucker” means a printer.) At any rate, Dad joined his brother Jacob and they were in business together for many years. And then their brother Ruben and their brother Irving came over, and they put them in the same business. They started what was then called the New York Furniture Exchange, which is now The Design Center, on Lexington and 32nd Street.

CBC: Did he do well?

Arnold: Right up until 1929. Famous story. Lost most of what he had in ’29, but managed to hang on through the Depression.

CBC: Did you have to move?

Arnold: Quite a number of times.

CBC: You were five-years-old?

Arnold: In ‘29, I was five, yeah. We were then living at Riverside Drive and 157th Street, in a magnificent apartment house.

Then we moved downtown and were still relatively well-to-do, because, if I recall correctly, Babe Ruth lived in that building. Of course, the Babe was not making the kind of money that ball

players make today, but he was still pretty well off.

CBC: Were you cognizant of the crash at the time?

Arnold: Oh, yeah. I saw them pick up the remains of the father of a friend of mine who had jumped into the courtyard of a big building on 157th Street. That was somewhere around 1931 or ’32. They didn’t all jump in ’29. A lot of them hung in there for a few years and then jumped, when they decided they were worth more dead than alive.

CBC: Were you read to a lot as a child?

Arnold: I don’t recall. I was a pretty early reader, myself.

I think my sister may have. I have two brothers and a sister, Milton, Ervin, and Beatrice.

CBC: Were your parents literate?

Arnold: My mom was a big reader. My dad read mostly newspapers. But Mom read fiction and non-fiction, and she was involved with the social movements of the time. She joined

the Henry George movement.

I don’t know if you know anything about that.

CBC: No. Arnold: It was an interesting development in the late ’20s, early ’30s, I guess. It was a single-tax system based on the notion that the only thing that had true value was land, so all the taxes were to be on land and anything built on it.

And the Henry George School was founded here in New York City. It was quite prominent during the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s. While the Marxists believed that labor was the base of all value, the Henry Georgeists thought that land was.

Mom believed in it largely because she just knew that there were a lot of bad things going on economically and that we needed some change.

CBC: Did she come from a socially progressive family?

Arnold: Her dad was a self-made man. This guy hadn’t any proper schooling, but again, he was pretty well self-taught.

He wound up being a paint contractor in Bucharest and did things like painted government bridges and palaces, and stuff like that, so he did pretty well there. But he decided that the air was freer in this country, so he packed up his family and brought them here.

CBC: So he came here in the 1890s or thereabout?

Arnold: Yeah, roughly.

CBC: Was it you who changed your last name?

Arnold: My brother Milton was the first one to do it. Both of my brothers were and are songwriters, and Milton wrote one of the better-known ditties of our times, “Mairzy Doats.”*

This page: Above is It Rhymes with Lust [1950], written by Drake and Leslie Waller and drawn by Matt Baker. Below: Drake pen-&ink portrait by Dominguez. Inset left: A very young Arnold Druckman, courtesy of his daughter Pamela.

* “Mairzy Doats” was first published in 1943. Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston are credited as composers.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

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Above: Sheet music cover to the novelty ditty that amused — and drove nuts! — a nation in 1944 , “Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats,” a pop song written by Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston, and Arnold’s brother Milton Drake. Legend has it that songwriter Milton heard his then four-year-old daughter, Niela Bonni Drake, skipping around the house chanting the phrase, “Mares eat oats,” and Milton became inspired and, with his collaborators, scribed what became an immensely popular tune. Below: Dad and daughter (here at six) in a nationally distributed newspaper photo from early 1944).

Arnold: Well, depending on how young… I read a lot of Doctor Dolittle when I was about seven- or eight-years-old. I was very fond of that.

CBC: Did you read the entire series?

Arnold: Yeah. And I read The Wizard of Oz and several of the Oz books.

CBC: These books were profusely illustrated. Were you attracted to the art, as well?

Arnold: Very early. Yeah, I liked writing and drawing — both.

I had scarlet fever when I was about, I don’t know, somewhere between 10 and 12 years of age. And my mother said, “You’re going to be in bed for a week or so. What would you like to do?”

So I said, “I’d like to draw. Get me some paper and pencils.” So she brought me the most easily attainable paper in the house, which were bridge pads. She liked contract bridge. So she brought the scoring pads from contract bridge, which, if you turn them on their side, are shaped like comic strips, almost. So that’s what I did, I turned them on their side. And I wrote a strip that ran, I recall, 26 pages. It was funny. It was about a mutiny on a luxury liner. Nobody had told me that there were no mutinies on luxury liners or that mutinies were on cargo ships, on oilers, and freighters, but not on luxury liners. [laughs] But the interesting thing to me, I don’t know if I discovered it right then and there or if I did it a couple of years later, but what I noticed and it loves me.”* was, as I drew this, the balloons kept getting bigger and bigger, CBC: That could work today! [laughs] and the pictures were getting smaller and smaller. I think that Arnold: Well, that record’s been popular off and on for 50 was when I said I would rather write than draw. years.

CBC: It was the Golden Age of adventure strips. Were you CBC: So was an entrepreneurial spirit pretty much always looking at them at the time? running with your siblings and your family?

Arnold: Oh, sure.

Arnold: Oh, yes.

CBC: What newspapers did you have coming in the house?

CBC: Were both your parents Jewish?

Arnold: That’s interesting, too. My dad started with the Arnold: Yes. conservative press, which would be the New York American, the CBC: How was that, growing up? Did you think you had a New York Journal, New York World… pretty average growing-up in New York City?

CBC: The Hearst papers?

Arnold: [Pauses] It wasn’t all that average, no. There was a Arnold: Yeah, those were Hearst papers and Scripps-Howlot going on in our family. Milton was involved with radio when ard papers, the New York World and the New York Telegram. radio was in its infancy. He built his first receiver when he was Those were all right-wing sheets. And slowly, under pressure about 16 years old. At one point, he had his own radio program from his kids, he moved over and he wound up reading the on a local station.

New York Post and the New York Times. That pressure continued.

CBC: What was the content, what was it about?

Of course, he was also pressured by the world itself, by what Arnold: Well, he and a guy named Walter Kent, who wrote a had happened to the economy. Y’know, he had his faith shaken, few big songs, also. One was as so many people did at that time. a song called “Bluebirds Over CBC: Was your mother socialist by nature? the White Cliffs of Dover,” and Arnold: She was socially-oriented. She was not a sociala few others. He and Walter ist, she was socially-oriented. The boys, her sons, were more had a show in which they — socially-oriented than she was, because they had her as a kind well, it was banter and some of platform to jump off. It was hard from where she started. songs. They would write a CBC: Where do you stand among your siblings? new song every week.

Arnold: Ervin is five years older than I am, lives out in Great CBC: Was it a national Neck. He wrote [sings:] “I believe for every drop of rain that network? falls, a flower grows.”** And he wrote, “When I was 17, it was a Arnold: No, it was a local very good year.”† So he’s kept himself busy. station.

CBC: Wasn’t that in a show?

CBC: What were you Arnold: No, but Sinatra used it a lot. It was almost a theme reading as a precocious young song for him. Ervin did write a show, a musical based on What child?

Makes Sammy Run.† † It was kind of successful, with Steve Lawrence and Sally Ann Howes, and a couple of other people. * “The song “Java Jive” was first CBC: The same title? made famous by the Ink Spots Arnold: Yeah, it was called What Makes Sammy Run. It had in 1940, it was later covered by CBC: What year was that?

Arnold: Nineteen forty-three, I think.

CBC: That was a very popular song, was it not? Even I recognize it.

Arnold: Yes, real big. Everybody wanted to sing that…

Burns and Allen sang it, W.C. Fields sang it… Crosby and Hope… Everybody wanted to do his version of “Mairzy Doats.”

CBC: It’s one of those cursed songs that gets stuck in your head, right? [laughs] Arnold: Yeah. He wrote another one called the “Java Jive,” which was pretty popular at that time.

CBC: Java as in coffee?

Arnold: Yeah, Java as in coffee. [singing] “I love coffee, I love tea, I love the Java Jive,

the Manhattan Transfer in the 1980s. Arnold’s brother Milton and Ben Oakland are credited as songwriters.]

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** “I Believe” is credited to Ervin Drake, Irvin Graham, Jimmy Shiri, and Al Stillman. It was hugely popular. † “It Was a Very Good Year” is solely credited to Ervin Drake. † † “What Makes Sammy Run?” was not Ervin’s only Broadway musical.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Ervin Drake portrait, What Makes Sammy Run? cast photo TM & © the respective copyright holders. Pearl and Max Druckman photo courtesy of Pamela Drake.

some pretty good songs. One of my favorites is called “A Room Without Windows,” which is where the hero invites the heroine to go.

CBC: Was music in your house a lot?

Arnold: Yeah, Mother was very fond of it. She was a pretty good singer, but she was yanked off the stage by her father when she was perhaps 18- or 19-years-old. He didn’t want a daughter of his on the stage because the stage was just for prostitutes.

CBC: Could you perceive any frustration in your mother? I know it was — Arnold: She was thwarted a couple of times, but she found outlets. She and her sister-in-law… My dad’s brother Jacob married a woman named Rochelle, and Rochelle and my mother, whose name was Pearl, founded an organization to help poor Jews on the Lower East Side of New York. And Mother used to write a monthly bulletin for them. She enjoyed doing that very much, spent a lot of time doing it.

CBC: Was it a newspaper or mimeograph?

Arnold: It was a newsletter, a four-page newsletter.

CBC: Full of inspirational stories?

Arnold: Yeah, the latest news, and who they had helped, and how they had helped them, that kind of thing.

CBC: So were you going to movie serials as well, and listening to dramatic radio?

Arnold: Yeah, I was very much into movies very early, and I was into dramatic radio as well.

CBC: Was it the Warner Brothers movies or was there any particular genre that appealed to you?

Arnold: I was into all of them very early, including the foreign films. I think by the time I was 12-years-old. There was a theater near the house we were then living in called the Thalia, one of the few theaters in New York where you could see foreign films. And it was only a few blocks away from us.

So I was able to see a lot of the early French films and Russian films. Not the Italian, they really hadn’t come to the American market yet, that didn’t happen until after Mussolini and World War II. There’s an irony. Mussolini built Cinecittà, the Italian Hollywood, but its first great hit was anti-fascist, about the fall of Rome in World War II. CBC: How about Fritz Lang?

Arnold: Yeah, oh, sure. I saw Metropolis and I saw M, and all of that very early on, probably by 1936 or so.

CBC: For your age, that was pretty sophisticated viewing, eh?

Arnold: Well, I was surrounded by older people and their friends, who were older, as well, so I fed on that stuff.

CBC: How about the more juvenile material? Did you get into movie serials at all?

Arnold: Yeah. Up until probably the age of 11 or 12, I was into that.

CBC: Did any of the adventure serials appeal to you, particularly? Any titles?

Arnold: Not really. I just saw what was around at the time. I didn’t like Westerns; I never liked Westerns, but I liked science fiction and adventure… and comedy. I was very big on comedy. I was early into the Marx Brothers. When other kids my age were knocking themselves out on Laurel and Hardy, I was knocking myself out on the Marx Brothers. Physical humor didn’t appeal to me at that time. Later on, I became very fond of their work, but when I was a kid I thought the physical humor was lowbrow. So I blissed out on Groucho and Chico and Harpo.

CBC: Did you ever go to the theater?

Arnold: Yeah. Also when I was pretty young, there was a WPA theater program at that time, so you could go to legitimate

theater for 25¢, and I made that one of my activities. I saw Horse Eats Hat, an Italian farce directed by and starring 22-yearold Orson Welles. I wanted very much to go, but I didn’t get to go, to that now-famous production of The Cradle will Rock.

My sister and brother-in-law went to see that. You know that production?

CBC: I believe I heard about it.

Arnold: Yeah, they had to carry a piano through the streets and so forth, because they had been thrown out of the theater, and they wound up with the actors, forced to work from the audience.

CBC: What did you hear, what were the feelings about what was going on in Europe with the rise in fascism? Was that a constant source of concern?

Arnold: It was to us. It was, very early, to us. In fact, in ’37, I was bar-mitzvahed. And I was not a very religious lad, so I informed my parents that I would absolutely be bar-mitzvahed but only if I were permitted to do my own bar mitzvah speech, not repeat something that the rabbis had written for 120 other kids before me. And so they agree to that, and my bar mitzvah speech in 1937 was a call to combat fascism and, in particular, Nazism.

CBC: And this is prior to the Spanish Civil War? Arnold: It was about the year that Franco marched in from North Africa to Spain, about the same year, roughly. What it is prior to is the Munich Pact. With the Munich Pact, an awful lot of Jews woke up and decided that something very serious was happening. It was prior to that.

CBC: Did you hear about Kristallnacht when it happened?

Arnold: Yeah, yeah. I’m

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Arnold’s brother Ervin became a renowned songwriter (as did their sibling, Milton), writing “It Was a Very Good Year” and “I Believe,” among others. He also wrote the music and lyrics for the musical, What Makes Sammy Run? The 1964 original cast members, Sally Ann Howes, Steve Lawrence, and Robert Alda, are seen at top.

Below: At far left and far right are Arnold’s parents vacationing in Europe, circa 1900.

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Above: While much of the United States remained oblivious to the plight of Jews in Europe in the 1930s with the rise of Nazism, as a teenager, Arnold was made aware of the coming storm through a “Jewish network” that kept them informed. Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” occurred throughout Germany on November 9–10, 1938, and that series of antisemitic attacks did not go unnoticed in the Drake household. This smashed shop has “On holiday to Dachau” painted on it, referring to the proprietors being deported to the concentration camp. Below: Arnold’s father, Max Druckman, was a founder of the New York Furniture Exchange, located at 200 Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan, with some 16 stories of showrooms. Before launching his writing career, Arnold worked at his dad’s business, which was eventually renamed the New York Design Center, a business still thriving today at the same address.

Arnold: Yeah.

CBC: I think they were successful in showing how long it took and how cold it was.

Arnold: Oh, God. That’s what you remember, perhaps, more than anything: the cold! It was one of the coldest winters in recorded history in Western Europe.

CBC: If we can get back to your growing up. Was it a creative household? Were you encouraged to… Did you show those strips you drew when sick, for instance, to your mother?

Arnold: Oh, sure. We were all into it. Beatrice was probably the best poet in my house, but she never published. She just didn’t have the drive that it takes in a very difficult field. But she may have been the best poet in the family. Milton showed his talent quite early. He had plenty of drive.

CBC: So you were encouraged to be creative?

Arnold: Yeah, as I said, the atmosphere in the house for telling you, we were very tuned in. years was a creative one.

CBC: Now, was the nation at all tuned in?

CBC: Did you have any literary heroes or anyone you looked Arnold: No, uh-uh. up to and aspired to be like?

CBC: So was it word of mouth?

Arnold: A number of them, in very, very widely-ranging Arnold: Yeah, it was. There was a Jewish network, because heroes. Dashiell Hammett was one. But, on the other hand, our people were being killed and we knew it, so a lot of news George Bernard Shaw. Pretty big distance between those two. filtered out through the Jewish network. And my dad and his CBC: Did you read pulps? brothers succeeded in freeing most of their family. But they Arnold: Yes, I read pulps and a lot of adventure novels. couldn’t get their mother out in time.

Most of H.G. Wells, I guess, and most of Jules Verne. I read CBC: Obviously, that was a dramatic thing to say at your bar much of Conan Doyle, not just the Sherlock Holmes stuff, but mitzvah. Did you have any political aspirations? also the Professor Challenger series, which I enjoyed very much.

Arnold: I just knew that I wanted to see Hitler in his grave.

I discovered, early on, that Sherlock Holmes was actually ProfesThat’s what disturbed me most of all. So, when the time came, I sor Challenger in drag. The same character, it’s just that one was volunteered for service. I wound up in a unit that captured Hitinto the criminology and the other scientific technology. It was ler’s birthplace, a town called Braunau, Austria. I was in the 13th essentially the same character, both convinced that they were Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army. We wound up on the geniuses both looking down their noses at society.

Inn River, which is the border between Germany and Austria.

CBC: How about comics? Did you read comics in the early We crossed the Inn River and captured Braunau. days?

CBC: What month was that?

Arnold: Oh yeah, I did indeed. I liked most of the stuff Arnold: That would have been February of ’45. that was successful at that time, and a few things that are not CBC: Did you have to go through the Bulge at all? remembered at all. One of my very favorites, which almost no Arnold: Oh, yeah. I spent six or eight weeks at the Bulge. one remembers, was called The Bungle Family. It was a very People think of the Bulge as having happened in a matter of funny strip and it was very wild. The reason it was wild is that days. It took two months to clean up that mess. the writer/cartoonist was schizophrenic and wound up in an CBC: Wow. Did you ever see that [Band of Brothers] mini-seinstitution. The last year — before they put him away — was the ries that was on HBO a couple of years ago, following a unit from wildest stuff I’d ever seen.

D-Day all the way through?

CBC: How did you know he ended up in an institution?

Arnold: I heard about it. I don’t recall who told me, but I heard that he finally was institutionalized.* CBC: And was that in the ’30s?

Arnold: That would have been late ’30s. I was about 16.

CBC: Was it regular continuity or a single panel?

Arnold: No, it was a strip. It had a certain degree of continuity to it. But it was crazy.

CBC: Humor, obviously, right?

Arnold: Yeah, and I loved Krazy Kat. I have most of the

16

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos © the respective copyright holders.

* Harry J. Tuhill was the creator and artist of The Bungle Family. It was incredibly popular in its day and made Tuhill very wealthy. Arnold would talk about The Bungles over the years and repeat this statement about Tuhill’s ultimate institutionalization. He did bring it up in the 1999 Drake interview in Alter Ego #17. However, this statement is not verified. There are plenty of citations of Tuhill ending the strip in 1942 due to disputes with the McNaught Syndicate, bringing it back in 1943 only to retire in 1945 with no reference to his mental state. There are mentions of Tuhill’s erratic behavior. In a 1991 interview by John Province with Disney and MGM animation artist Walter Clinton, who worked for Tuhill at the beginning of Walter’s career, labels Tuhill “a real screwball” citing Tuhill’s propensity to walk around the studio and his property naked during working hours.

The Bungle Family TM & © the respective copyright holder. Krazy Kat TM & © Hearst Holdings, Inc.

reprints and I still go back to it every now and then. When the world gets too much to bear, I go back to Krazy Kat and he helps me.* CBC: Was it pretty unpretentious growing up? You were into pop culture as well as reading some serious stuff, you were going to foreign films and things like that. Did you discriminate or get snobbish at all?

Arnold: No, I didn’t. I was reading one with the left hand and one with the right. It didn’t seem to make a hell of a lot of difference. I know in my junior high graduation book (eighth grade, that would be), I said that my favorite writers were Owen Wister and George Bernard Shaw. One guy who was writing very commercial novels about the West, and the other who was writing social critiques in a very funny, very high-class form. But I was reading them at the same time and enjoying them both.

CBC: Did you go to public school?

Arnold: Yup, I sure did. I went to George Washington High School. Two years ahead of me was a guy named Henry Kissinger and in my class was Henry’s brother, Walter. Henry had his deep, guttural accent, and Walter sounded like an American.

That’s when I learned the law that says, “If you get to a country before you’re 13-years-old, you will lose your accent. If you arrive after, you will never lose it.” There was only two years’ difference between Henry and Walter.

CBC: Did you know him at all?

Arnold: I didn’t know Henry; I knew Walter, briefly. I’m convinced Henry has a tutor come in and help him to restore his accent.

CBC: [Chuckles] Were you a Democrat family? Was FDR revered?

Arnold: I think my father may have been a Republican before the ’30s but, with the Depression, he became a Democrat. My mother was either a Democrat or an Independent. The Depression affected everyone, politically — almost everyone.

CBC: Did you personally look up to FDR? Arnold: Well, I had questions about him, because I had questioned the whole system. The system was betraying us. I knew he was a part of the system, but I did believe that he was the best that we could get. What I remember is that, in ’37, he went somewhere to make a speech. The war in Spain had already begun. And the speech, in effect — Well, it came to be known as the “quarantine the aggressor” speech. That’s what he called for. He said, “There is trouble rising in Europe, and we have got to distinguish between those who are perpetrating the atrocities and their victims,” and he asked the country to begin to “quarantine the aggressors.” And the next day, Colonel McCormick in Chicago printed an editorial in which he said that Roosevelt was leading us down the path to war. At that point, Roosevelt pulled back and decided it was probably not too good a political move. But he still knew where it was at, and that’s why he got involved with the Lend-Lease program, finding ways around Congress, because Congress was dragging its feet about any involvement with the rest of the world.

CBC: And were you attracted at all to the American Communist movement or socialism?

Arnold: I was attracted to the left-wing, and the left-wing cut a broad swath through society at that time. It included socialists and Social Democrats and Communists and Trotskyites and… “technocrat” is a word you hardly hear anymore, but technocrats were popular in that day and age. It was kind of a fascist concept of society run by technicians. “Science would save us

* Arnold’s wife Lillian was also a big fan of Krazy Kat, and it was a subject that came up in the A/E #17 interview. We discussed Krazy Kat and its creator George Herriman several times over the years.

from ourselves,” was what technocracy was about, apparently.

So yeah, in general, I was attracted to that area because they saw that there was something rotten that had to be ferreted out.

CBC: Were you creative in high school, contributing to the school newspaper or the yearbook?

Arnold: Yeah. In fact, I had my own little penny sheet in high school, which I put out in… I guess I must have been about 15. I got out of high school when I was 16, but when I was about 15, I started to print this penny sheet. I don’t think I have any copies of it.

CBC: What was it called?

Arnold: That’s a good question. Something having to do with George Washington, I’m sure.

The official paper was called The Cherry Tree, and I’m sure that I did something to make fun of that. The Hatchet or something.

I’m just not sure what the hell it was. [laughs] CBC: Were you a natural humorist? Did you like poking fun?

Arnold: Yeah, I was always into humor.

CBC: What was the process? Did you just hand that out?

Arnold: I sold them.

CBC: Were they literally a penny?

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Above: One of Arnold’s favorite newspaper comic strips was The Bungle Family, Harry Tuthill’s domestic gag-a-day feature that ran between 1924–45. Art Spiegelman wrote of it in American Heritage, “Visually deadpan, genuinely hilarious once you tune into its frequency, with a great ear for dialogue and unsurpassed sense of character, The Bungle Family grows on the reader like a fungus…”

Below: Another fave of Arnold’s was Krazy Kat

by George Herriman.

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Above: Arnold Druckman’s draft card, which indicates the young man was working ast his father’s business when he registered.

Below: That’s Arnold with pipe on the left, posing with two Army chums diuring their tour in the European Theater during WWII. He enlisted on September 11, 1942.

Arnold: Yeah. It may have been 2¢, I’m not sure. But then, you have to realize that the New York Times was a nickel and the Daily News was 3¢.

CBC: So you were actually expensive? [laughs] Arnold: Yeah, I was pretty expensive.

CBC: How many of these would you print up, generally?

Arnold: About 200, I think.

CBC: Wow. So what were your aspirations upon graduation?

Arnold: I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to write. But there was a problem about getting into

school, because… For two reasons: first, I had not been a great student during the last two years. I was not dedicated to my books, so the marks weren’t very good. And the other problem was that I had graduated quite young and some of the schools said, “Get at the end of the line.” So I didn’t know what the hell to do. I went to work for my dad for a while, contacting furniture stores around the city and selling them desks and bedroom sets, and so on. (They called them suites, bedroom suites.) And I did that for a while. But I always knew that I wanted to write. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to get started, what form it was going to take, but I knew I was going to put words together.

And then the war came along and I volunteered, and I did three-and-a-half years. So I started putting my words together in the Army, I guess.

CBC: So you had an outlet there for it?

Arnold: Yeah, I did a couple of shows. I put a show on the boards within two or three weeks after the war ended in Europe. I went to my commanding officer and said, “Look, rather than just sit around doing nothing, I’d like to try to put a show together for them.” And he said, “Be my guest.” So we did. We played it in a tiny theater in this little German town on the Inn River. I don’t think the theater held more than 150 people, but there were less than 300 in our company, so that was no problem. Within two or three shows, we had shown it to the entire company. But then the word got around, and our regimental commander asked us to do it for them. And then the divisional commander asked us to do it for them. So we wound up playing to maybe 10,000 or 12,000 guys in a big open field at night, using Jeep headlights as house lights.

CBC: What was the name of the show?

Arnold: “The New World Revue.” It had a couple of funny songs in it, which I recall very clearly. I sang one as a G.I., to one of the gay members of our company. There were like eight or so gay guys in our outfit of 250, eight outwardly gay guys willing to show it. I used one of them in drag. He was only too happy.

So he dressed as a Fraulein and he sang: Ven der Wehrimacht vas here All der Lieutenants called me dear Tell me vot’s der reason I’m not pleasin’ you Und der S.S. voted me “Miss Atrocity of ’43” Tell me vot’s der reason I’m not pleasin’ you I’m so handy ’round der kitchen Und keep house mit out a shpot In der vinter ve von’t need fuel ’Cause I’ll always keep something hot — And I don’t mean your zupper!

Why not give it just one try?

You could sample before you buy Tell me vot’s der reason I’m not pleasin’ you.

And then I sang back:

[Jon laughs] Eisenhower had just issued an edict from his 18

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Army photo courtesy of Pamela Drake

Every time you sashay bye, M.P.s dig me with one eye Baby, that’s the reason you’re not pleasin’ me And in Eisenhower’s eyes, it’s a crime to fraternize Baby, that’s the reason you’re not pleasin’ me It would be so nice to cuddle and I know you’re kinda cute But then, you might be a werewolf, and I might be kaput (Don’t want no posthumous medals) If my C.O. ever hears, it will cost me four more years Baby, that’s the reason you’re not pleasin’ me!

Smashing Detective Stories courtesy of Marc Svensson. Druckman photo courtesy of Pamela Drake.

London headquarters, and if you were caught with German women, they could stick you back in uniform for another four years. So that’s why I wrote that. And then I wrote one for three guys who played prisoners of war, three Germans we had just captured. I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember the chorus. They would sing:

CBC: So super-heroes weren’t necessarily appealing?

Arnold: I really was more interested in science fiction comics than I was in the super-hero, even though the super-hero involved some elPeace, peace, peace on you ements of science fiction. So, We’re all just a bunch of victims of a madman and his crew if I read anything during the La-dee-ya-dah! war, it was probably science fiction comics.

CBC: Were you attracted to musical theater as a vocation?

CBC: And did you read Arnold: Well, I liked song and I liked theater, I liked them Amazing and the science both, so I was attracted in that sense. I wrote a number of pop fiction pulps? tunes. I met a guy named Jimmy Osmun in the Army, a very Arnold: Oh, sure. I read good jazz pianist and musicologist. He wound up heading the Blue Book and I read a lot of music department of the Passaic, New Jersey, school system. the pulps. Blue Book was its So he and I wrote a number of things in the Army. And wrote a own title; Argosy was another. few things here, we got a couple of recordings, but nothing very I read the pulps. I wrote inspiring. And I wasn’t very devoted to it. I was devoted to the a couple of the last pulps idea of writing… Well, the graphic form attracted me, definite- published, something I regret ly, so I wanted to do movies, and comic books were the road to to say I no longer possess. We that. I understood comic books were really movies on paper, so had a fire in one of our apartthat attracted me to that. ments, and I lost a lot of my CBC: Just a side question, was there any impact of the musivery early writing. And to this cal, Oklahoma!, was that revelatory? day, I’ve not been able to loArnold: Sure. But I have a theory about that. Oklahoma! cate it. There were two stories was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Now, Rodgers had in a magazine called Smashing Detective.* I really wish I had been doing a lot of very light comedy during the ’20s and those issues today. One of them’s of particular interest because ’30s, with Hart. They wrote a lot of lovely light comedy scores. it was about two generations of the Mafia, father and son.

Hammerstein hadn’t been into that. Hammerstein had been CBC: Oh, Mario Puzo. [laughs] into a much more serious kind of playwriting, and with Edna Arnold: Yeah, and all these years later, The Sopranos rings Ferber, he wrote Showboat, you may recall. He was pointing that bell. But that’s what it was all about, and the disappointthe way to a higher level of American theater in ’28. But with ment the father has because the son simply wants to be a the Depression, there was no room for serious musicals. Just gangster. The son thinks the father’s gone soft, and the son slapstick dialogue, pretty girls, and lovely songs. But, with wants to go back to the grandfather’s time, and it winds up with WWII, everybody realizes they’ve got to put their heads back in the father having to kill the son. It was quite a few years before the world. That’s when Hammerstein could go back to writing we’d begin to handle things like that about the gangster world, what he wanted to write. It isn’t as if he didn’t work at all in the about the families within the ’30s; he did, with Jerome Kern and a couple of other marvelous gangster world. melodicians. He did keep busy during the ’30s, he just wasn’t CBC: So you were aware of doing what he wanted to do. And then, with the war in the ’40s, the Cosa Nostra? he got the chance… Oklahoma!, The King and I, etc. One or two Arnold: Yeah. other guys who came along immediately after him, encouraged CBC: So you enjoyed crime by him, changed the theater. fiction as well?

CBC: I think you mentioned that while you were in the Arnold: Yeah, Hammett. service, you were pulling your writing together? What were you Chandler, and McDonald and pulling together?

Leonard later on.

Arnold: Well, I was doing those shows that I mentioned to CBC: So when were you you. I did one here before I went overseas and I did one over discharged? there. I was writing sketches, comedy, parodies, and that sort of Arnold: January of ’46, if I thing. That’s what I was pulling together. I was one of the seven recall correctly. million guys who wrote a song called “Hubba Hubba.”

CBC: Couldn’t get that copyright, huh? [laughter] Comics * Smashing Detective Stories was published by Columbia Publiobviously were huge in the ’40s, during the war. Servicemen cations, lasting for 33 issues, would read them all the time. Did you? dated between March 1951– Arnold: Yeah, though I didn’t read too much of them by November 1956. The following that time. I had been reading them when I was 15 or 16. I was Arnold Drake stories appeared into Famous Funnies and that begins when… around ’32? So in Smashing Detective: “The I was into Famous Funnies when I as about eight-years-old, I Lady and The Lawyer” in the isguess. And I followed it right up to I guess the creation of Susue dated May 1955, “Too Nice perman and Batman, which is 1938 and ’39, and then I kind of To Live”, dated September 1955. lost interest in it as reading matter. But everybody in the outfits It is likely Arnold is referring to “Too Nice To Live.” that I served in read that stuff.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Arnold’s prose story, “The Lady and the Lawyer,” appeared in the pulp magazine, Smashing Detective Stories, Vol. 3, #6 [May 1955].

Below: Max and Pearl Druckman recreate their poses from their circa 1900 visit to Europe (seen on page 15) as the couple cheerfully accommodate the pigeons again.

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Above: Arnold recalls contributing to these short-lived “naughty” digests published by “Red” Kirby (whose name may have been “John,” Arnold said). Bold Stories, dated March 1950, famously includes an early Wally Wooddrawn story, “The Ogre of Paris,” and Candid Tales from April 1950, includes Wood’s “Doctor Killmore” story. Below: Totally gratuitous San Francisco travel poster image from the late ’40s.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All items TM & © the respective copyright holders.

20

CBC: How did you receive the news, when you were in the service, about the concentration camps and the Final Solution?

Arnold: Well, actually, our unit helped to free a couple of the camps, so I got a lot of it firsthand. I didn’t free any camps, myself. But I did free some POWs, a couple of Brits, and a couple of Australian and New Zealanders, who traveled with my unit for a bit. I was running around Europe in a half-track. There were five guys in our unit. We ran ahead of the infantry. Our job was to call in artillery targets and maintain liaison with the air and ground.

CBC: That was rather risky, wasn’t it?

Arnold: Yeah. There were three units in our outfit. We had about 250 men, as I’ve said. There were two very risky units, Combat A, Combat B. And there were five of us in each of those units. And, interestingly enough, most of the guys in the units were Jewish. This is despite the fact there were only about 10 Jews in the whole outfit. I found that interesting and I think it was pretty clear that the commanding officer had decided to put the Jews in the combat units. He didn’t do it until about a month before we went overseas.

CBC: Was that a distinct antisemitic decision?

Arnold: Oh yeah. There was plenty of that.

CBC: Were you shocked and surprised by the extent of Hitler’s oppression and destruction?

Arnold: As contradictory as this sounds, you could say I was not surprised, but I was shocked. Because I did understand what he had intended to do. Though I think I believed that he was going to use the Jews as hostages, not actually destroy them. So that was the shocking element.

CBC: And how did that affect you?

Arnold: It made me angry, but I was angry from the time I got into uniform. I was angry from the time I was bar-mitzvahed. So I just got angrier.

CBC: Were you Zionist? Were you supportive of the founding of Israel?

Arnold: I was not a religious Zionist, but I recognized the need on the part of the refugees. I understood what their need was. I never thought of living in Israel myself, but I understood

their need not only for a place to live in, but also for a sense of real security, of belonging.

CBC: Okay, you were discharged in ’46…?

Arnold: In California.

CBC: You were out in California?

Arnold: Yeah, we were supposed to go to Japan. They shipped us right from Europe over to California.

CBC: In the summer?

Arnold: That would have been around July. So we were sitting there waiting to be shipped over.

We were told we were going to be in the first wave. “Hooray!” The reason they were sending us is because we enjoyed the dubious distinction of having a fair amount of combat experience without taking an enormous number of losses. So that made us very good stuff.

CBC: [Laughs] Because you were good at your job?

Arnold: Yeah, right. We knew the job and we hadn’t been killed yet.

CBC: What was your reaction to the dropping of the bomb?

Arnold: I don’t think there was a man — [pauses] Yes, there was. There was one man in the whole organization of 250 men who said, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” He was a lay minister from Missouri and he really believed that, but nobody else in the unit gave it two thoughts. As far as we were concerned, we just had our asses saved. And that was about the only thing that we thought about.

CBC: How do you think of it in retrospect?

Arnold: Well, it wasn’t long after that I began to ask why did we have to do that to two major cities? Why couldn’t we have just blown up one of their military islands, an island that had nothing but soldiers on it? And their answer was that the Japanese people wouldn’t have known of it because the government wouldn’t have let them know and therefore it would have been wasted.

CBC: So you were in California. Where were you, San Diego?

Arnold: I was stationed down near Los Angeles and, when the war ended, they had a system of dismissing you from the service based on points. Well, I had a lot of points because I had been in for three-and-a-half years (or close to it), but I didn’t have enough, because I wasn’t married and had no kids. So, had I been married, and in particular, if I had been married with a kid, I would have been suddenly dismissed. But I wasn’t, so they said, “Look, you’re going to have to serve another few months. What do you want to do?” So I said, “I would like to serve in an Army hospital, preferably in a psychiatric ward.” So they sent me up to a place called Stillman General, up near San Francisco. And that’s where I spent my last couple of months, working in a psychiatric ward.

CBC: Why did you choose to work in a psychiatric ward?

Arnold: Always from an early age, I was interested in psychology. And I also understood that we had an awful lot of what we called “combat fatigue,” previously called “shell-shock.” So I knew that was going to be a very busy department.

CBC: Was it a traumatic experience?

Arnold: Yes, it was. I worked with people who tried to kill

All items TM & © the respective copyright holders.

themselves. There was a fair amount of violence. Yeah, it was traumatic. It was not exclusively psychiatric. It was a general hospital, but it had a rather large psychiatric department.

When I got there, they didn’t stick me right in the psychiatric department, because the guy I was replacing had not yet been dismissed, so they stuck me in a ward with about 30-minutes training. I was sticking guys in the arm with a needle. After about 30 minutes of training, I inoculated 200 guys in a period of a couple of hours. That was a bit traumatic.

CBC: Experience their fear or having to poke someone?

Arnold: Poking them. I remember the one guy, I had to chase around the place and finally was able to get him into a closet, literally. He was inoculated in the closet.

CBC: You were there until January?

Arnold: Yeah, I was discharged in January.

CBC: Did you get a chance to visit San Francisco and take in the life there?

Arnold: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did, indeed. I enjoyed that very much. I liked San Francisco, even considered moving there, but I didn’t.

CBC: So did you come directly back to New York?

Arnold: I did. I was discharged from Fort Dix, New Jersey, I guess.

CBC: Did you go live with your parents?

Arnold: Yes, I did, for a while. Until I could get on my feet, which took me longer than I thought it would have. It took me about two years to really shake it off.

CBC: What was your mental state? That was a lot to go through.

Arnold: Yeah. I was shook. I had a couple of episodes.

CBC: Would you characterize them as breakdowns?

Arnold: Well, kind of. Let me tell you how it really started. It started during the Battle of the Bulge. We had been on the road for about six weeks without any chance to change our clothes.

Our feet were soaking wet for that six weeks. I came away with frostbite in my legs as a result of it. Anyway, the actual combat began to wind down at that point, so with a couple of buddies, I decided to take a walk. It was the first chance we had to stretch our legs in six or eight weeks. So we got out of the vehicle and we went for a walk, came to a bridge, walked across the bridge, and entered a small town. And as we walked through the town, I whispered to one of the guys, “Did you notice that there are no flags here? There are no American flags, there are no German flags.”

And there’s nobody in the streets, there’s nobody anyplace. So we went to the largest building. We walked in there, and it turned out to be a factory. I don’t think that’s how it started life, but that’s how it wound up, as a factory manufacturing knives for the S.S. And the workers were all prisoners of war, women prisoners of war, who’d been captured in Hungary and Poland, and had been shipped to Germany to work in places like this. The joint was run by

a German, who immediately announced to us that we had nothing to worry about, because he was really a Communist. So I said to myself, “In the next two weeks, he’ll figure out that that’s the wrong answer.” [Jon laughs] “He’ll be voting Democrat in about two weeks.” So we spent the night in that place. The third guy went back to get M.G. [military government] to come and take the town, because the town had not fallen, it had just been left there. So we sent this guy back to get help. It had taken us 30 minutes to get there, we figured it couldn’t take him more than two or three hours to get back. Well, he didn’t get back until the next morning, and military government didn’t show up until about 8 or 9 a.m. So we had spent the night alone there. When I saluted the officer who was taking over and gave him my report, I noticed that I had that problem, having trouble getting the words out. So we gave him the town, and I went back to my vehicle. And I slept around the clock on the floor of the vehicle. When I awoke, I was still suffering from this problem of the thought process not connecting too well, aphasia.

And the aphasia lifted after three or four days. But when I got back to the States, I had another attack of it sometime later. So I was pretty shook up for a while.

CBC: What did you see that shook you up? Was it the prisoners of war or their treatment?

Arnold: Well, I think the immediate cause of the aphasia was spending the night with 200 strange people in this place, with one other American, and my carbine in my lap.

CBC: So fear of the Nazis coming at any minute?

Arnold: Yeah! As I said, the town had not really been taken and we didn’t know what the Nazis plans were.

CBC: Was this before Christmas?

Arnold: This was after. It would have been in January.

CBC: I know it was a big Army, but did you ever meet or see Patton?

Arnold: Yeah. He addressed us. He stood on the hood of a jeep. We had just… entered combat; we had been opposed by

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Completely shameless use of a mid-20th century post card detail of the Empire State Building is included here to graphically balance out our page design and visually depict the city of Arnold’s birth and success, New York City.

Below: Arnold did not specify what Western stories he and Leslie wrote together for Ziff-Davis’s comic book line, but during the period when the writers collaborated, it appears Z-D published only two titles in that genre, Kid Cowboy [10 issues, 1950–52] and The Hawk [three issues, 1951–52].

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[Allen Hardy?] was putting out pocket-sized comic books with little sexy ladies running around in them in their underwear.

CBC: Were they stories or were they gags?

Arnold: Stories. We wrote a bunch of those. At about the same time, I came up with the notion for a picture novel. I got up one night. I knew we were going to make a presentation to Archer St. John, who had made his fame — Well, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t yet become famous, it was the 3-Ds that made him famous. But he had a going comics operation, and he was doing offbeat things, and we thought that he’d probably be the guy to aim Picture Novels at. So the night before we went in to pitch him, I sat up most of the night. I took a comic book and I folded it in half and I pasted up a cover illustration for a book that I titled “One Man Too Many.” And then I unfolded it and pasted up a two-page spread inside, with about eight panels in there. So when we went to pitch it to him, I could show him pretty much what it was going to look like. And I think it was that very hastily, rather crudely-done layout that sold it. So he published the first graphic novel, which we called Picture Novels.* CBC: And who was the illustrator on it?

Arnold: Matt Baker.

CBC: There’s a name. Had you met Matt?

Arnold: The first Black in mainstream comics.

CBC: That’s right. Had you met him?

Arnold: Yeah, a couple of times. A nice-looking guy, one of the best dressers I ever saw in my life. God, he was sharp.** CBC: So he was freelancing for Archer as well as doing work for Fiction House?

Arnold: Yeah, he spent a couple of years with St. John. I think St. John was able to get him cheaply because he was the first Black. And also, St. John respected his work. He clearly drew some of the prettiest women in comics, which is why he was so good for our book, because our book was about two ** Arnold would not just talk about Matt Baker impressive dressing style, there were other details like Matt’s impeccable sports car he drove around in. Arnold’s respect for Matt Baker was enormous.

* Arnold led off with the story of It Rhymes with Lust in the A/E #17 interview. He was holding his copy at the beginning of the interview. In that interview Arnold tells of the publisher, Archer St. John, overdosing a couple of years after publication. The New York Times reported Archer St. John was found dead in a friend’s penthouse apartment on August 13, 1955. St. John was 54 years old.

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#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Waller portrait courtesy of Shaun Clancy. It Rhymes with Lust TM & © the respective copyright holder.

This spread: Clockwise, from above, Leslie Waller, who partnered with Arnold early in their respective writing careers, in comics and, famously, co-writing It Rhymes with Lust under the pair’s pen name, Waller Drake; penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin, the Lust art team, at a 1947 Christmas party; detail from Lust; Arnold’s impromptu roughs for a proposed graphic novel; back cover of Lust with the graphic novel’s cast of characters; and a panel detail of Rust Masson, the name that rhymes wit the book’s title. All art

by Matt Baker (except art roughs

by Arnold Drake).

an S.S. division and we had kicked the shit out of them.

Patton got up on the hood of this vehicle and he made his famous, “Your job is not to die for your country, your job is to make the other son-of-a-bitch die for his.” He made that statement, which I think he probably made a hundred times. And the other thing that he said to us was, “You just went up against the S.S. Well, I’ll tell you something. If that’s the elite, they’re up shit creek.” That was his statement to us.

CBC: Was George C. Scott’s portrayal reminiscent? Was it pretty much on the money, in the movie?

Arnold: Well, I didn’t really know Patton, I didn’t get within a hundred feet of him. The guys did not like him. There were a couple of generals they preferred. Bradley was one; he was quite popular.

And Clark was another who was quite popular. They did not like Patton. They used to say, “It’s our blood and his guts.”

We got into trouble at the very tail end of the Battle of the Bulge. Why did we get into trouble? Because Patton apparently decided that he was going into the Guinness Book of Records as having crossed more miles in combat in one week than any other commander had ever done. Well, that was fine, except that what it meant was we outran our supply lines. So when we got to the Inn River, we were out of most of our ammunition, we were out of gasoline, we were just about out of food. We were in quite a bit of trouble. That’s why the guys didn’t like him, because we felt that he was creating history on our backs.

CBC: So you get back on your feet in New York. Were you submitting to any outlets during that time of recovery?

Arnold: No, not at the beginning. I didn’t start doing that for about three years. Then I went back to school.

CBC: On the G.I. Bill?

Arnold: Kind of got my act together and went… Under the G.I. Bill, yeah. And I knew that I had to add some income to the G.I. Bill, you couldn’t live on that. So I began writing pulps. I met up with a guy named Leslie Waller, who has become a pretty successful American novelist. Leslie was going to Columbia, I was going to New York University, and we joined forces and we started writing some stuff together. The first thing that we noticed was this new market. We saw that the pulps were going under and that what was replacing them — Well, there were two things. One was the paperback. That was quite new, obviously.

And the other was the comic book. So we decided to go after the comic book. And we sold a couple of stories to… I think it was Fawcett, I’m not sure. A couple of Westerns. And then we sold a couple of what I call “naughty” comics. A guy named

Baker and Osrin photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy. It Rhymes with Lust TM & © the respective copyright holder. One Man Too Many © the estate of Arnold Drake.

beautiful women, among other things.

CBC: What was the plot?

Arnold: It was about a corrupt company town, a mining town that is owned and operated by a woman who married an old man who owned the town, then buried him and took over.

And it was about her relationship with the newspaper editor.

And it was essentially a Joan Crawford movie, a pretty good B film on paper. Including gangsters and a fair amount of action and romance. Our intent was, we thought that there were a lot of people who were dumping comics at that point because they had outgrown them, but who had never read a novel before, and we thought this was a bridge. This would bring them from comics to the novel. That’s what we intended, and that’s why we wrote it like a Joan Crawford movie.

CBC: Now, was this simultaneous with the rise of the romance comics? Because that seemed to be another way of trying to recapture a drifting audience.

Arnold: Yeah, it was about the same time.

CBC: What was the size of the thing? Roughly the size of a Dell paperback?

Arnold: There were some full-page illustrations, but mostly it was three and four panels to the page.

CBC: The novel quality, was it text opposing the illustration, or was it integrated?

Arnold: It was real traditional. We used balloons and captions… very, very traditional. We didn’t want to completely break with the form. I think eventually, if it had succeeded, we probably would have experimented on the next book. But we thought, if you’re trying to create a bridge, you’d better make it as comfortable for the reader as you can. So we went with balloons and quite a few captions.

CBC: Obviously, Joe Kubert had a very fortuitous relationship with the advent of 3-D comics. He and Norm Maurer had worked out a nice deal with Archer. Did you seek out a good deal with profit sharing at all?

Arnold: No, we just had a straight deal at that point. I don’t think we were smart enough to know that we might be able to push for more than that.

CBC: Did you have a name for the type of format you were doing?

Arnold: Yeah, they were called Picture Novels. The logo was a paintbrush crossing a pencil and the letters “PN.” CBC: Do you know who distributed it?

Arnold: No. Eventually, when St. John gave up on it, he turned it over to [Alfred] Harvey, because Harvey had his little naughty comics,* which were the same size. So they figured they would find enough room for these in the areas where he was tucking his little comics. And that didn’t work. If that’s what they had planned from the beginning and we’d been aware of it, we would have written a sexy picture novel. We didn’t write a sexy picture novel. [laughs] CBC: How much were they apiece?

Arnold: Twenty-five cents.

CBC: Were they perfect bound or were they saddle-stitched?

Arnold: They were perfect bound, as I recall.

CBC: Over 100 pages?

Arnold: I think 96. I’m not sure about that.

CBC: Painting on the cover?

Arnold: Yeah.

CBC: Did Matt do the cover?

Arnold: Yes. If I recall correctly, he did.

CBC: Did you confer with Matt at all?

Arnold: Well, I didn’t do much conferring with him, but I did turn over a number of sketches. I often accompanied my work with sketches.

CBC: For clarification? Was it staging, or to simplify the direction?

Arnold: It was for layout purposes, trying to indicate where the emphasis should be, that kind of thing.

CBC: Did he have any interplay with you in return, for clarification?

Arnold: No, he showed me some of the stuff he was doing, and I was very impressed with it.

CBC: How old was he, roughly, would you think? Was he a young man?

Arnold: Late 20s, I would say.

* Our fearless editor found the answer here where I missed it.

Harvey put out Hello Buddies, a joke book with gag cartoons, from 1942 to 1960. This must be what Arnold is referring to.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

23

Above: Dapper Archer St. John, look suave in his double-breasted suit at his 1947 Christmas party. St. John was, of course, the publisher of It Rhymes with Lust, whom Arnold called, “A very cool cat.”

Below: A newspaper photo of the notorious Bob Kane from the Miami Herald, March 25, 1955, around the time Arnold scripted some Batman stories for him.

he discussed briefly that I thought was going to cost him an arm and a leg and would fail. I think he wanted to reprint best sellers in digested form, which the Reader’s Digest was already into. I had a girlfriend who was working for Time magazine at that time, and she had told me that she understood that Reader’s Digest was in trouble with that notion, digested bestsellers, and I tried to convey that to Archer. But that never stopped him.

I think he did get into it and lost a lot of money on it.

CBC: What was the dynamic of you working with Leslie? Was that a stepping-stone of getting your sh*t together, getting your act together, pretty much?

Arnold: Yeah, I think so. Part of it was a time issue. We were both going to school, so we didn’t have a great deal of time.

And part of it was encouraging each other.

CBC: Did you maintain a friendship with him over a period?

Arnold: Yeah, we remained friendly for quite a few years after that. His wife hated me. He dumped her about two years later. I’ve been in touch with him again recently, but we’ve lost contact for a number of years.

CBC: Was he a New York boy like you?

Arnold: He was from Chicago, originally. Then he came here to live. I think he lived in Italy during the ’70s. Now he’s down in Florida. On the Gulf Coast of Florida, you’ve got a number of areas where a lot of artists and writers have gone. Sort of a bohemian burial ground.

CBC: [Laughs] How long were you guys partners?

Arnold: About two years.

CBC: And did you write a lot of comics material?

Arnold: No, we didn’t write a heck of a lot. But I became interested, and that was about the time that I met Bob Kane.

Bob was a neighbor of my brother Milton. Bob asked me to write a script with him, which I did, kind of a cute takeoff on Dick Tracy. It was a comic private-eye thing. And it might have worked, except… Bob had succeeded so early in life, he’d been so young when he’d had his huge success, that he could not take the smallest kind of rejection. And when one syndicate, out of 10 or 12, when one syndicate turned us down, he rolled up the pages, put it on the top shelf of his closet, and forgot it.

But, in the process, he introduced me to Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger over at DC. CBC: Did you go over to Kane’s studio?

Arnold: I worked with him in his apartment up in Riverdale.

CBC: I take it that it was a pretty high class place?

Arnold: Yeah, it was very nice.

CBC: Did you know Lew Sayre Schwartz at all?

Arnold: No, I didn’t.

CBC: Simultaneously he was working as Kane’s assistant. I just did an interview with him very recently. He had great insight into the personality of… Not only did Bob have a problem with rejection, but perhaps just not sharing any credit whatsoever.

Arnold: Oh, yeah. Back in June of this year, I was honored at the Rockland County Community College. They honored me for my early work in comics, for creating the first graphic novel, etc.

And the next day, the local Gannett newspaper referred to me as being the creator of Batman.

CBC: Oops! [laughs] Arnold: So I managed to get word to them that they misread the notes in my biography, and that I did write a lot of early Batman stories, but the true creator of Batman was a guy named Bill Finger. And I said he was as much the true creator of Batman as Bob Kane was, although Bob Kane would never admit that until Bill died. Once he was dead, Bob was willing to say that Bill had made a major contribution. So I said, “If Bob had lived to see you credit me as being the originator of

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

St. John photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

24

CBC: Did you have conversations with him?

Arnold: Yeah, very brief. I don’t think St. John (like most of the publishers at that time) liked the idea of his talents being too close together.

CBC: Did you see Matt as — What were your feelings about race at the time? Were you progressive?

Arnold: Yeah. I was very happy with the fact that we had the first Black artist. I liked that.

CBC: What is it that rhymes with lust, Arnold?

Arnold: That was it, that was the Joan Crawford movie. And the thing that rhymed with Lust was the heroine, named Rust — a red-headed broad named Rust.

CBC: Do you have any copies of that?

Arnold: Yes. CBC: Is that in the process of being reprinted?

Arnold: So I’m told. I’ve tried to be in contact with the publisher who had said he was going to republish it, but I have not heard from him. [Dark Horse will issue a very special edition in March ’07, celebrating this first true “graphic novel” 55 years after its birth. — A.D.] CBC: Did you find out in short order that it was not successful?

Where was it placed on the stands?

Arnold: The big problem was, it should not have been released by itself. St. John should have released I’d say a minimum of four different titles at the same time, to create a real market niche. I think it would have been better received by the storekeepers and the newsstand owners. Secondly, it would have attracted the attention of the prospective buyers. But by itself, it just got lost.

CBC: What kind of guy was Archer?

Arnold: Very cool, a very cool cat. I’ve since learned that he was into drugs, but I kind of guessed it at that time. He was just too cool.

CBC: So was he just into comics, or did he have other things on the side, as far as business goes?

Arnold: Yeah, he was interested in doing a number of different things. I’m trying to remember, he had a project that

“The Short Winter” TM & © the respective copyright holder. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Batman, he would have been climbing the walls. So I don’t look upon what you did as an editorial error, but rather as Bill Finger’s revenge.” [laughter] CBC: Did you like Bob? Arnold: No. I don’t know anybody who really liked Bob. Including his wife. Maybe his daughter, perhaps.

CBC: Was he just too self-possessed?

Arnold: Yeah, he was too involved with himself.

CBC: How long was your association with Bob? Arnold: Perhaps a year. Not much more than that.

CBC: In that time you wrote a number of Batman tales?

Arnold: Yeah.

CBC: Any memorable stories?

Arnold: Well, Batman met Jules Verne in a story that I wrote. That was pretty memorable. Batman goes back in time to get Verne to come back to our time to address a problem in our own time. And then as a parting gift, Batman takes him to see a lot of things that he predicted 100 years before, or 80 years before, whatever. So that was kind of fun. He referred to him as Mister Tomorrow.* CBC: Who illustrated your stories, do you know? Was it Dick Sprang?

Arnold: I’m trying to remember. That may have been a Sprang. I’m not sure. [It was drawn by Dick Sprang. — M.S.] CBC: Probably Lew Sayre Schwartz did a number of them, too.

Arnold: Could be.

CBC: Was it in the late ’40s?

Arnold: This would have been in the early ’50s. This would have been around ’53, something like that.

CBC: How long was your association with St. John?

Arnold: It didn’t last any length of time, because he had given up on Picture Novels, and that was our primary interest in doing business with him. I immediately switched to DC, worked there for a while with Weisinger, and then decided that it really was going to cost me my mental health to continue working with him. He himself was a psychological basket case.

For example, he enjoyed, or got some satisfaction, out of telling terrible stories about himself. Very self-revealing stories that nobody in his right mind would want to tell about himself.

CBC: Do you have a for-instance? Or a paraphrase?

Arnold: Okay. When he was in the Army, he wound up being a second cook, which meant that he stood behind the counter and shoveled mashed potatoes onto your tray. But he wrote his folks that he was an air cadet and was planning to become a pilot. Well, one day, Mort put potatoes on the tray of a guy from his home block. Mort said, “Meet me outside, I have to talk to you about something.” So he met the guy outside the mess hall and told him what he had done, and he said, “Please don’t tell anybody back home that I’m a second cook.” Well, that’s a story that he need not have told about himself, and probably no one would have been aware of that except for the guy on the mess line, but something made him tell it. And that may be the least-damaging story that he ever told me about himself. He said, at some point — I think this is the key to his

character. He said, “Don’t think that I don’t know that when I die, all you guys are gonna be dancing on my grave.”

CBC: There are legendary stories that I’ve heard repeatedly and would love if you could confirm or deny. Mort had a way of dealing with his writers. John Broome, for instance, would come in with a story idea and he’d just piss on it or whateverArnold: And give it to another writer.

CBC: Yeah, immediately afterwards.

Arnold: Oh, yeah. That was one of his things. Another thing that I caught onto very early was that he would reject all your storylines. He didn’t like to buy a storyline, he liked to give a storyline. So, if he got one that was worth writing, he saved that for another writer, and gave it to him as his. And then the writer who had contributed that idea was told nothing that he had was any good, “But here’s an idea,” and Mort would then

Above: Header for Arnold’s single-page text story that appeared in Willie the Penguin #1 [Apr. 1951], published by Pines/Standard Comics/Animated Cartoons, Inc. Below: Arnold’s first Batman story appeared in #98 [Mar. 1956], “The Return of Mister Future,” an eight-pager that the GCD identifies as the first six being written by Arnold and the last two by Bill Finger. The story was drawn by Dick Sprang (pencils) and Charles Paris (inks).

* “The Return of Mr. Future” (not Tomorrow, although Batman’s last line in the story is “The man who foresaw tomorrow!” So that may have influenced Arnold’s memory) was published in Batman #98 [March 1956]. Interestingly, thanks to the research of comics historian Martin O’Hearn, Bill Finger is given assisting credit on the Grand Comics Database on the last two pages of this story. (This means Finger would have written the “tomorrow” line, not Arnold!?!) The credit listing, as was standard on all Batman comics, was “by Bob Kane.” Kane neither wrote nor drew any story in this comic, which was also the standard for most Batman comics.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

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House of Mystery TM & © DC Comics.

dressed as Abe Lincoln, and that apparently this is a bad dream that he is having. But they grab him and they stick him on a gurney bed or whatever. And he keeps saying, “This is a frigging dream. I’m gonna be out of it any minute now.” But he isn’t.

And the payoff is that he had a breakdown and came out of it in the middle of a production that he was working in, and he was not aware that he had been playing Lincoln in that production.

So that was “The Second Death of Abraham Lincoln.”

CBC: You had mentioned It Rhymes with Lust being a Joan Crawford B-kind of movie, and that you worked with Schiff to get some television offer. Was that really where you wanted to go?

Did you really want to go into television or film?

Arnold: Yeah, I did. I wound up writing a couple of films and producing one. So it was where my heart was, but I did not live on the coast, and was not about to go out there unless somebody gave me a contract. Nobody was giving me a contract, so I remained here, and I worked within the film industry here, doing whatever I could. There wasn’t much of an industry here at the time, so there wasn’t a heck of a lot of work to do.

CBC: Was Paddy Chayefsky and other teleplay writers… Rod Serling… was that pretty much out on the West Coast or was that taking place in New York City?

Arnold: No, a lot of that was here. Reggie Rose and Chayefsky were working right here. I was unable to get the kind of agent that they had. I had an agent, but he was not quite that good. Or maybe he says the same thing of me. [laughter] CBC: Now, Jack Schiff was obviously working as an editor at the same time, right, so this was a moonlighting kind of thing, when you were working with him? What kind of man was Jack?

Arnold: A very decent man. As indecent and totally self-involved as Weisinger was, Schiff was equally decent and objective.

CBC: Was he socially progressive?

Arnold: Yes, he was. He and Mort had a lot of fights about that. There was a Progressive Party at that time, which had been the party that ran Henry Wallace during the Truman campaign.

When they had to put up a candidate the next time around, they put up a very prominent West Coast attorney named Hallinan. When Schiff announced that he was supporting that ticket, Weisinger would crow, “A vote for Hallinan is a vote for Stalin-nan!” That was about the level of his humor, incidentally.

Above: Arnold’s first assignment spit out whatever piece of crap was on his mind. I learned to for DC Comics editor Mort Weising- watch TV the night before I had an appointment with Weisinger, [laughter] CBC: Did he go through, as far as you know, a mental breaker was the cover-featured “Second because he was going to give you one of the plots that was on down in the late ’50s?

Death of Abraham Lincoln,” House that night. So I learned to prepare myself.

Arnold: I’m not sure what happened to him. of Mystery #51 [June 1956]. Both CBC: [Laughs] Get ready beforehand and turn on the tube!

CBC: Did he disappear for a while? the story and cover were drawn by Arnold: Yeah.

Arnold: I don’t know. There was a running problem at DC, legendary cartoonist Leonard Starr. CBC: When did you work under him, so to speak?

Arnold: On Batman. which you probably are aware of. They could not make up their CBC: So that was in the mid-’50s? minds about who was the editor-in-chief.

Arnold: Yup. CBC: Why, because Whitney Ellsworth was out West?

CBC: And were these wild science fiction-kind of stories that Arnold: Whitney was producing the [Adventures of] Superman TV series on the coast. But he remained editor-in-chief on COMING NEXT ISSUE: Jack Schiff had… ?

In part two, Arnold discusses Arnold: Yeah, they were mostly science fiction. The first sto- the masthead--which solved a knotty problem. [Jack] Liebowitz himself said to me, “If I appoint Weisinger, Schiff will leave creating The Doom Patrol — ry that I did for Weisinger was not a Batman. It was a House of us, and if I appoint Schiff, Weisinger will leave us.” And, smart with some previously unseen Mystery, I believe. And it was a nice, offbeat idea, which is why DP art! — and talks about DP he bought it and didn’t give it to some other writer. It was called ass that I was, I said to him, “Then bring in somebody from the outside.” And he said, “Who would I bring in?” And again — co-creator Bruno Premiani, “The Second Death of Abraham Lincoln.”* It’s about an actor smart ass that I am — I said, “Why don’t you get a vice president the Italian cartoonist. Arnold who’s in the middle of a nervous breakdown. His agent tells from Time/Life?” And he said, revealing his feelings about his also shares about his humor him to take some time off. So he does and, one day, he sudtrade, “What vice president of Time/Life would come to be the work for DC’s Jerry Lewis denly finds himself sitting in a theater box when a guy jumps and Stanley and His Monster into the box and fires a blank shot at him and then jumps onto editor-in-chief of a comic book house?” Which is kind of ironic, considering where DC wound up a subsidiary of Time-Warner. (which the scribe created with the stage, yells “Sic Tyrannus,” etc. And he realizes that he has Win Mortimer), and his jump * “The Second Death of Abraham Lincoln” was the cover feature of TO BE CONTINUED to Marvel in the mid-’60s. House of Mystery #51, dated June, 1956

once upon a long ago

Kurtzman and Me

A first encounter with Harvey’s MAD Comics comes courtesy of Ballantine paperbacks

MAD TM & © E.C. Publications, Inc.

by STEVEN THOMPSON My sense of humor has a lot of influences — from the classic radio comics like Benny and Allen, Benchley and his literate silliness, the dry delivery of such comedians as Newhart and Pat Paulsen, the animated stories of Bill Cosby, the back-&forth banter of Nichols and May, the genius of Stan Freberg, the wordplay of Carlin, and many others. But the cherry on top is the sense of Jewish absurdity that I picked up from Harvey Kurtzman and the early MAD. The first time I ever saw an issue of MAD was when I pulled one out from between couch cushions at a friend’s house in 1966. I was seven-years-old and, while it looked funny, it was mostly over my head. Even though I’d see that goofy kid grinning on the covers of later issues, I never really looked at a copy again. Well, later, but…

One day around 1969, though, now age 10, I was shopping with my mother at a dime store (Remember dime stores?) in downtown Cincinnati, when that same goofy-looking fella caught my eye on the cover of a mass-market paperback — The MAD Reader. Being the late psychedelic era, this was the edition with the hippie cover. I would later discover that there were multiple editions of The MAD Reader, both before and after “my” version.

I remembered the MAD mag I had looked at but I had trouble reconciling this as the same thing. This had more comic book-like stories. Well, they were comics, poking fun at comics and TV shows, like Gasoline Alley, The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, What’s My Line?, Flash Gordon, and, best of all, Superman and Archie!

I actually had just discovered Archie comics then, and “Starchie” was a devastating skewering of the wholesome Riverdale crew! “Superduperman” was even better, offering a funny slugfest between a goofy version of the Man of Steel and a silly Captain Marvel — a hero I had yet to meet at all!

While the former was signed

by Will Elder, an artist I had never even heard of, the latter was drawn by Wallace Wood, already a favorite of mine from T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Captain Action, and back issues of Daredevil I picked up for a nickel in junk shops. I knew it was him because this was where the famous saying, “When better drawrings (sic) are drawrn (sic), they’ll be drawrn (sic) by Wood. He’s real gone!” came from.

At first, it never occurred to me there would be more paperbacks like that one but there were. I found out that for all the more grown-up MAD paperbacks from Signet, there were a handful from Ballantine that consisted of black-&-white

reprints from the color issues of MAD… not that I yet knew there had ever been color issues of MAD. I’m not sure if I even knew Harvey Kurtzman’s name yet as he wasn’t credited in those fershlugginer MAD stories. As I discovered EC and comics fandom, though, I came to know him. I also found 10¢ used paperbacks of something called Help! and something called The Jungle Book.

I began to hear tell of something called “Little Annie Fanny,” as well. They said it was a dirty, funny strip in Playboy. They said every panel was painted and it was the most expensive comic strip ever!

They also said it was by my new heroes, Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder! So that’s what had happened to them! I never really bought an issue of Playboy until I was 18. Fanny was long past her prime when I finally saw her and, to be honest, by that time so were Kurtzman and Elder.

In time, I backtracked and found Trump (pardon the expression), Humbug, and bought the Russ Cochran box set of those original MAD comic books. The magazine just kept going and I learned to appreciate it, as well, but it never just cracked me up like “Shermlock Shomes,” “Melvin of the Apes,” or Harvey and Will’s insane one-off, “Mole!”

Kurtzman’s solo “Hey, Look!” is easily one of the cleverest uses of the comics format ever and I cherish the 1980s collection of that feature!

By the ’70s, Kurtzman and Elder were doing TV Guide ads, movie posters, and later even returned to MAD as freelancers.

That was how they made a living. But turns out that scores of talented young cartoonists were influenced, just like me, by those early MAD issues, and Kurtzman became known as the godfather of underground comix! Potrzebie forever!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

This page: Like so many like him, before and after, our fearless columnist had his mind blown when he first encountered Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD comics via the Ballantine paperback reprints.

Above is the 1969 edition that started it all. Inset left is HK’s devastating Archie parody, “Starchie,” MAD #12 [June ’54] and, below, the satirist takes on Superman with “Superduperman” [#4, May ’53].

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WARP examined! Massive PETER BAGGE retrospective! It’s a double focus on the Broadway sci-fi epic, with a comprehensive feature including art director NEAL ADAMS and director STUART (Reanimator) GORDON, plus cast and crew! Also a career-spanning conversation with the man of HATE! and NEAT STUFF on the real story behind Buddy Bradley! Plus the revival of MIRACLEMAN, Captain Marvel’s 75th birthday, and more!

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Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a feature-length, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career.

A look at 75 years of Archie Comics’ characters and titles, from Archie and his pals ‘n gals to the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and today’s “Dark Circle”! Also: Careerspanning interviews with The Fox’s DEAN HASPIEL and Kevin Keller’s cartoonist DAN PARENT, who both jam on our exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Plus our usual features, including the hilarious FRED HEMBECK!

Career-spanning discussion with STEVE “THE DUDE” RUDE, as he shares his reallife psychological struggles, the challenges of freelance subsistence, and his creative aspirations. Also: The jungle art of NEAL ADAMS, MARY FLEENER on her forthcoming graphic novel Billie the Bee and her comix career, RICH BUCKLER interview Part Three, Golden Age artist FRANK BORTH, HEMBECK and more!

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NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOES! Interview with JOSEPH MICHAEL LINSNER (CRY FOR DAWN, VAMPIRELLA), a chat with JOE SINNOTT about his Marvel years inking Jack Kirby and work at TREASURE CHEST, JOE JUSKO discusses the Marvel Age of Comics and his fabulous “Corner Box Collection,” plus the artists behind the Topps bubble gum BAZOOKA JOE comic strips, CRAIG YOE, and more!

ERIC POWELL celebrates 20 years of THE GOON! with a career-spanning interview and a gallery of rare artwork. Plus CBC editor and author JON B. COOKE on his new retrospective THE BOOK OF WEIRDO, a new interview with R. CRUMB about his work on that legendary humor comics anthology, JOHN ROMITA SR. on his admiration for the work of MILTON CANIFF, and more!

P. CRAIG RUSSELL career-spanning interview (complete with photos and art gallery), an almost completely unknown work by FRANK QUITELY (artist on All-Star Superman and The Authority), DERF BACKDERF’s forthcoming graphic novel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, CAROL TYLER shares her prolific career, JOE SINNOTT discusses his Treasure Chest work, CRAIG YOE, and more!

WENDY PINI discusses her days as Red Sonja cosplayer, & 40+ years of ELFQUEST! Plus RICHARD PINI on their 48-year marriage and creative partnership! Plus: We have the final installment of our CRAIG YOE interview! GIL KANE’s business partner LARRY KOSTER talks about their adventures together! PABLO MARCOS on his Marvel horror work, HEMBECK, and more!

Cover by WENDY PINI.

TIMOTHY TRUMAN discusses his start at the Kubert School, Grimjack with writer JOHN OSTRANDER, and current collaborations with son Benjamin. SCOTT SHAW! talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot, and Flintstones work! Also PATRICK McDONNELL’s favorite MUTTS comic book pastiches, letterer JANICE CHIANG profiled, HEMBECK, and more! TIM TRUMAN cover.

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BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH discusses his new graphic novel MONSTERS, its origin as a 1980s Hulk story, and its evolution into his 300-page magnum opus (includes a gallery of outtakes). Plus part two of our SCOTT SHAW! interview about HannaBarbera licensing material and work with ROY THOMAS on Captain Carrot, KEN MEYER, JR. looks at the great fanzines of 40 years ago, HEMBECK, and more!

Career-spanning interview with TERRY DODSON, and Terry’s wife (and go-to inker) RACHEL DODSON! Plus 1970s/’80s portfolio producer SAL QUARTUCCIO talks about his achievements with Phase and Hot Stuf’, R. CRUMB and DENIS KITCHEN discuss the history of underground comix character Pro Junior, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his wife, HEMBECK, and more!

Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground comix retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

STEVE BISSETTE career-spanning interview, from his Joe Kubert School days, Swamp Thing stint, publisher of Taboo and Tyrant, creator rights crusader, and more. Also, Part One of our MIKE GOLD interview on his Chicago youth, start in underground comix, and arrival at DC Comics, right in time for the implosion! Plus BUD PLANT on his publishing days, comic shop owner, and start in mail order—and all the usual fun stuff!

DON McGREGOR retrospective, from early ’70s Warren Publications scripter to his breakout work at Marvel Comics on BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, SABRE, DETECTIVES INC., RAGAMUFFINS, and others. Plus ROBERT MENZIES looks at HERB TRIMPE’s mid-’70s UK visit to work on Marvel’s British comics weeklies, MIKE GOLD Part Two, and CARtoons cartoonist SHAWN KERRIE! SANDY PLUNKETT cover!

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Canadian comic book artist, illustrator, and graphic novelist MICHAEL CHO in a career-spanning interview and art gallery, a 1974 look at JACK ADLER and the DC Comics production department’s process of reprinting Golden Age material, color newspaper tabloid THE FUNNY PAGES examined in depth by its editor RON BARRETT, plus CBC’s usual columns and features, including HEMBECK! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

Career-spanning interview with Bane’s co-creator GRAHAM NOLAN! Plus, STAN LEE’s Carnegie Hall debacle of 1972, the Golden Age Quality Comics’ work of FRANK BORTH (Phantom Lady, Spider Widow), and GREG BIGA talks with ex-DC Comics co-publisher DAN DIDIO on his current career as writer/creator on the FRANK MILLER PRESENTS comics line, as well as that new comics line’s publisher!

WILLIAM STOUT is interviewed about his illustration and comics work, as well as his association with DINOSAURS publisher BYRON PREISS, the visionary packager/ publisher who is also celebrated in this double-header issue. Included is the only comprehensive interview ever conducted with PREISS, plus a huge biographical essay.

Also MIKE DEODATO on his early years and FRANK BORTH on Treasure Chest!

STEVE GERBER biographical essay and collaborator insights, MARY SKRENES on co-creating Omega the Unknown, helping develop Howard the Duck, VAL MAYERIK cover and interview, ROY THOMAS reveals STAN LEE’s unseen EXCELSIOR! COMICS line, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of early hardcover super-hero collections), more with MIKE DEODATO, and the concluding segment on FRANK BORTH!

DAN JURGENS talks about Superman, Sun Devils, creating Booster Gold, developing the “Doomsday scenario” with the demise of the Man of Steel, and more! Traverse DON GLUT’s “Glutverse” continuity across Gold Key, Marvel, and DC! Plus RICK ALTERGOTT, we conclude our profiles of MIKE DEODATO, JR. and FRANK BORTH, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of DC/Marvel hardcover super-hero collections), & more!

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CBA BULLPEN COLLECTING THE UNKNOWN ISSUES OF COMIC BOOK ARTIST! COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN collects all seven issues of the little-seen labor of love fanzine published in the early 2000s by JON B. COOKE (editor of today’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine), just after the original CBA ended its TwoMorrows run. Featured are in-depth interviews with some of comics’ major league players, including GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY BEATTY, and FRANK BOLLE—and an amazing all-star tribute to Silver Age great JACK ABEL by the Marvel Comics Bullpen and others. That previously unpublished all-comics Abel appreciation (assembled by RICK PARKER) includes strips by JOE KUBERT, WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE SEVERIN, GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many more! Plus a new bonus feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960s baseball card art, and a 16-page bonus full-color section, all behind a Jack Kirby cover!

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 • NOW SHIPPING!

ALSO AVAILABLE: DIGITAL EDITIONS OF ALL 25 ISSUES OF CBA Vol. 1 TwoMorrows also offers Digital Editions of Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST Vol. 2 (the “Top Shelf” issues)

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NEAL ADAMS/ALEX ROSS cover and interviews with both, history of “Arcade, The Comics Revue” with underground legends CRUMB, SPIEGELMAN, and GRIFFITH, MICHAEL MOORCOCK on comic book adaptations of his work, CRAIG THOMPSON sketchbook, and more!

Exhaustive FRANK CHO interview and sketchbook gallery, ALEX ROSS sketchbook section of never-before-seen pencils, MIKE FRIEDRICH on the history of Star*Reach, plus animator J.J. SEDELMAIER on his Ambiguously Gay Duo and The X-Presidents cartoons for Saturday Night Live.

Interview with DARWYN COOKE and a gallery of rarely-seen and unpublished artwork, a chat with DC Comics art director MARK CHIARELLO, an exploration of The Adventures of Little Archie with creator BOB BOLLING and artist DEXTER TAYLOR, new JAY STEPHENS sketchbook section, and more!

ALEX NIÑO’s first ever full-length interview and huge gallery of his artwork, interview with BYRON PREISS on his career in publishing, plus the most comprehensive look ever at the great Filipino comic book artists (NESTOR REDONDO, ALFREDO ALCALA, and others), a STEVE RUDE sketchbook, and more!

HOWARD CHAYKIN interview and gallery of unpublished artwork, a look at the ’70s black-&-white mags published by Skywald, tribute to Psycho and Nightmare writer/editor ALAN HEWETSON, LEAH MOORE & JOHN REPPION on Wild Girl, a SONNY LIEW sketchbook section, and more!

Double-sized tribute to WILL EISNER! Over 200 comics luminaries celebrate his career and impact: SPIEGELMAN, FEIFFER & McCLOUD on their friendships with Eisner, testimonials

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memories of a mutts man

McDonnell’s Marvel Mania

The Mutts cartoonist’s loving tribute to the age of Lee, Kirby, and Ditko super-hero comics

by JON B. COOKE

This page: Patrick McDonnell’s celebrated comic strip, Mutts, stars Mooch the cat and Earl the dog, best friends whose antics appear in 700 newspapers (and distributed by email, so sign up at mutts.com!). Inset right is the cover to Patrick’s “love letter” to ’60s Marvel, The Super Hero’s Journey [Abrams ComicArts], a book that incorporates Kirby and Ditko artwork alongside Patrick’s cartooning, as seen in page below.

Inset bottom right is proof of his lifelong affection for the comics.

when I was 13 years old and I didn’t know what to say to him either. I had him sign the first issue of The New Gods and — if you can believe it — a Charlie Chan comic (and I’m probably the only person who has a copy of that signed by Jack Kirby!)”

At the New York Comic Art Convention of 1972, I asked the King to sign Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #141 (“Don’t Ask! Just Buy It!”) and my favorite super-hero comic book from the House of Ideas, Sgt. Fury #13 [Dec. 1964], which I purchased at the con and it guest-starred (naturally) my fave Marvel character. Patrick could relate to my enthusiasm for that story based in war-torn Europe. “I have two brothers and we all collected comics together and, boy, when that Captain America with Sgt. Fury came out — oh, my God! — that was one of the greatest comics ever for us!” He added with a chuckle, “After that, all we did was play World War II in our backyard.”

Patrick was eight when Kirby drew that issue of Sgt. Fury, but he didn’t necessarily recognize who the artist was behind the work. “I don’t think I knew his name when I was that young, but his comics were always my favorites.”

JACK To begin, we discussed our mutual love for the work of Jack Kirby and, when I shared with Patrick that I had met the man at a Phil Seuling con when I was 13 and pretty speechless, he exclaimed, “I met Kirby at the same place 30

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Mutts, illustrations of Patrick McDonnell © Patrick McDonnell. All else TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Don’t tell Bill Griffith or Wayno, but the one comic strip I subscribe to is Patrick McDonnell’s Mutts, which arrives in my email in-box, without fail and to my endless delight, every morning promptly at 6:00. The charm of the newspaper comic strip, warmth of its characters, and quaint, throw-back art style has made it my favorite comic strip since Calvin and Hobbes left the scene in 1995. And I had already encountered the cartoonist’s work eight years before starting his beloved dog-&-cat daily feature, though it was as co-author of Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman, a wonderful oversize art book on the arguably greatest of all comic strips, published by Abrams, in 1986.

I was to later learn it was around that same time when Patrick and wife Karen were neighbors of Peter Bagge and his wife, Joanne, in Hoboken, New Jersey. And this was pertinent to me because…? Welp, Pete had been editor of Weirdo magazine between 1984–87 and I was putting together The Book of Weirdo [2019], so I called up Patrick to ask him about neighbor Bagge during that period, and I got to know the man a tad and we got along — well, it’s impossible not to get along with the gent, a truly kind and compassionate fellow. Back during the pandemic, Patrick wrote a piece for CBC #24 [Fall 2020] about his comic-book pastiches in Mutts, so it was natural for me to jump at the chance to focus on his latest endeavor, The Super Hero’s Journey, a memoir of a sort about a boy’s love of Marvel Comics in the 1960s. But there was a problem.

Anything I feature in this mag has to be timed at least six months in advance, but by the time I learned of his 112page love letter to the Marvel Age of Stan, Jack, and Steve, it was September 2023 and the book was about to come out!

So, with the help of Abrams ComicArts editor Charlie Kochman, Patrick and I confabbed at Baltimore Con, and he was quite happy to participate in this piece coming a half-year after the book’s release! So two weeks later, I conducted an interview and now you’re caught up, so away we go!

Photo and artifacts courtesy of Patrick McDonnell. Folder © Patrick McDonnell. X-Men, Captain America, Red Skull, Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

THE SUPER HERO’S JOURNEY Responding to my observation that, throughout his book, the spirit and heart of Kirby permeated every page of The Super Hero’s Journey, Patrick enthused, “He was everything! The inspiration for the book were the two quotes that start it and end it. When I first read those in The Jack Kirby Collector, I thought, especially for the final quote, that I had to do something with them.

“How the book happened was that Charlie Kochman, my editor and friend, approached me one day and asked if I’d be interested [in doing a book]… Abrams Books had a deal with Marvel to use their characters… and it only took me a second to say yes to that! That was a dream come true.”

It took some pondering for the cartoonist to map out precisely what he envisioned. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do,” he said, “but those quotes pointed me in the right direction. And I didn’t plan to have autobiographical memoir stuff in there, but in revisiting Marvel Comics, I couldn’t help but recall my childhood. So that just slipped in and the whole story starting gelling.”

The book opens with: “Jack Kirby was once asked, ‘If you could have one superpower, what would it be?’ His answer: ‘Love.’” And it proceeds into a comic-book story prologue of a McDonnell family ritual in 1966: visiting Mell’s Drugs after church, drinking cherry colas, and “worship at [the] altar” of the Marvel Comics racked in the back of the store. This was where the young McDonnell brothers, “We became True Believers.”

Throughout, Patrick creates a narrative that, the book’s jacket copy explains, “is the synthesis of McDonnell’s positive, inspirational sensibility and Marvel’s blockbuster brand.” By integrating story pages from 1960s issues of Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Thor, Amazing Spider-Man, and others, mixed with his own cartoon storytelling, Patrick finds expression to show the appeal and poignancy in his take on the Marvel Age, going light years beyond the violence and soap operatics of the typical four-color slug-fests. In the process, with tremendous charm and keen insight of a man who obviously has never lost that childlike sense of wonder, Patrick reveals that, at the core of Jack Kirby’s cosmic view, the pure essence is a simple one that is rarely mentioned when folks talk about fantastically-powered super-folk: it is love at the center of Jack’s super-hero universe.

PATRICK’S SOJOURN The cartoonist described his own background regarding funny books. “As soon as I could read, I was a newspaper comic strip fan. Peanuts was the reason I became a cartoonist. My first love was Charles Schulz’s masterpiece.

“When we were young, I bought those Little Archie comics. Anything! I have an older brother and he bought our first Marvel comic, probably an early Avengers issue, and then we all just went nuts for Marvel. It’s funny, he was the one to tell my younger brother and me what we were ‘allowed’ to collect.

"He gave me The X-Men, so I became a big X-Men fan. So, it’s crazy, but if you were to tell me I had a chance to work with the Marvel characters, I would have thought for sure I would do an X-Men book, but the team didn’t make it in the book except for the last page… My older brother let us read his comics, so I was aware of

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This page: Above is the cartoonist himself in a recent pic. Inset left is 10-year-old Patrick’s work folder from elementary school, circa 1966, featuring some of the characters his older brother “allowed” young Pat to collect, The X-Men! Though the review copy of The Super Hero’s Journey was in transit when Ye Ed met with Patrick at Baltimore Comic-Con, your CBC helmsman actually spent his own mullah to buy a copy and the author drew JBC’s fave hero with an inscription!

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BOOKMAKING One interesting aspect of the book are full-page, apparently half-finished pastiches of Kirby panels, part-collage and partly colored. Patrick revealed that these pages actually were finished before the book was planned. “I had quite a few large paintings based on Marvel characters, mostly the Avengers fighting each other, which really worked with the storyline I did for The Super Hero’s Journey. So about six or seven paintings made it into the book.”

He explained the genesis of including the canvasses. “I have a little painting studio in my backyard and,” he said, “during Covid, I started doing these big, abstract paintings because when you draw a little pen-&-ink comic strip all day, it’s all very tight and very small, so I just wanted to get sloppy and have some fun painting. Then I added Nancy and Sluggo to them, and then some other old comic characters but, after a while, I started doing some Jack Kirby Marvel paintings. And the ones in the book were actually done before the book, but were able to be a part of the story, part of the narrative. The canvasses are like six-feet high.” Of his backyard retreat, Patrick says, “It was like a little oasis in my studio to just paint and not have to think about all the crazy things going on.”

No spoilers here though suffice to say there are some genuine twists in the story. “When I show people the book,” the author admits, “I skip so many pages, because one of the fun things about the book is it has a lot of surprises.

“My original idea for Mr. Fantastic was to have him visit all the old comic book ads. I really wanted him to meet the Sea Monkeys, but legally we just couldn’t make it happen. I didn’t know what to do. It was going to be a big part of the book. So I decided to replace the ads with Marvel love comics from the ’60s, which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book.”

Above: The times, they are a’ clobbering in this full-page colored image featuring the Marvel characters drawn by Patrick McDonnell in his The Super Hero’s Journey.

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Artwork, Mutts © Patrick McDonnell. Marvel characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Below: Talk about audacious!

Two days before Ye Ed spoke with the author, Patrick featured this brazen plug for his book being released that day. Three cheers for McDonnell’s chutzpah!

everything that was going on [in Marvel continuity]. We pretty much bought them all.”

Patrick would expand his choice of comics into his teen years, following the King over to the Distinguished Competition. He confessed, “I think the highlight of comic reading for me was in junior high, when Kirby went to DC. The Fourth World is still, to this day, my favorite comics.” Then it was on to the undergrounds and alternative comics. During Patrick’s first year at the School of Visual Arts, Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s RAW made its debut. Truth to tell, nowadays the cartoonist doesn’t visit comic book shops with much frequency — the darker stuff, he says, is off-putting, but an appreciation for the comics of his youth remains strong.

RECEPTION When we spoke last September, The Super Hero’s Journey was just then being released into bookstores, but the advance notice was already good. “It just came out Tuesday,” Patrick said, “but, boy, all the reviews have really nice. As you know, it’s a different type of book and a little strange, so I wasn’t sure how it would be received… Actually, I was very happy and pleased that Marvel agreed to do it… and the response has been that people get it, the response I was hoping for. People enjoy its uniqueness. It’s a love letter to comics and to Jack Kirby in particular. So, I think, comic fans really relate to that.” He then confided that CBC’s readership was exactly one he hoped to reach. “Your audience is the audience that would enjoy this book, so hopefully people will give it a try.”

In fact, Patrick also reached out to his Mutts readership to suggest they check out his Marvel homage. In an audacious move, the cartoonist made a baldfaced sales pitch the day of the book’s release in his strip, with Earl raving about the book and Mooch wondering, “Can you do a blatant plug in a comic strip?” Earl then quips, “I just did.” After giving my kudos to the cartoonist for such a brazenly self-serving act, Patrick said, “I sent that strip to the syndicate with my fingers crossed. I wasn’t sure, but no one said anything. It’s nice that they allowed it to be

Mutts TM & © Patrick McDonnell. Marvel characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

printed.” Then he added, “This Sunday’s title panel is a tribute to my book, so there’s another blatant plug coming up.” (See above for the strip to which Patrick refers.)

THE KING OF HEART Indeed, the “Super Arf” Sunday strip of October 1, 2023, expresses the same sentiment as does Patrick’s book, with Earl wishing his super-power was nothing less than unconditional love. Our conversation then turned once again to Jack Kirby as I mentioned the hardship the comic book artist endured at times in his life — and episodes of true horror, as well — yet he retained an innate optimism. Coming of age in the East Side during a savagely violent childhood, young Jacob Kurtzberg literally had to use his fists to go about daily life. Then, of course, Jack was drafted into the service during World War II, a participant in the Battle of the Bulge, before getting frostbite on his lower extremities. But the Army private also survived a truly horrific experience involving S.S. troops. And, I added, maybe the most perfect example in his work is Scott Free escaping Apokolips — literal Hell — to find… love. And that, I offered, was really the essence of Kirby: in spite of a world of hate and violence, the answer is always love.

“And that’s the opening quote of the book!” Patrick exclaimed. “What super-power would he want? He said, ‘Love.’

That’s powerful. In the interviews I have read with Jack, he was a very spiritual person. He had that strong connection… He drew gods! Think about that! And that is what I get from him and why his work still resonates today.

“That’s what I tried to capture in the book, that kind of cosmic spirituality, and also the joy and love that was in those early comics and the wonder and joy I had from reading them.

So that was my goal, and it’s nice to hear you say that.”

Sometimes, I ventured, Jack seemed to be speaking an alien tongue, his words and ideas sometimes hard to decipher.

“I think it’s in his art, too,” Patrick replied. “I think he just took stuff in, and put things together that most people wouldn’t put together, to come up with something new. He was definitely one with the universe, for sure! Channeling all this stuff and putting out his version. He’s amazing. To think about the amount of work he did — the amount of concepts, and costumes, and characters — he did the work of a hundred artists

in his lifetime. He’s just amazing.”

During the time of our chat, Patrick was having a ball.

“Oh my God, I never had so much fun doing a book. At the Baltimore Comic-Con, when we saw each other, I’d ask anyone who bought the book who their favorite Marvel character was and I would doodle that character. That night, I told my wife, ‘I just spent the day sitting around doodling Marvel super-heroes. It’s been one of the most fun days of my life!’”

UNCHAINED Since that conversation last fall, Patrick has gained a good amount of media attention with the multi-week “Guard Dog” story arc in his daily strip, which advocated that pets not be tethered out in the elements and should be freed from such heartless cruelty. It’s worth noting that for much of his adult life, Patrick has been a passionate animal activist, today professing a vegan diet, and he’s served on humane society boards. Patrick calls his late, beloved dog, Earl, a life-changing influence, and not just because the pooch helped inspire the award-winning Mutts strip. “He reminded me every day,” the cartoonist told an interviewer, “that all life is sacred and deserving of compassion and respect. To quote my friend, poet Daniel Ladinsky, ‘Love is respecting the beings who can’t speak, and treating them as if they could.’”

The Guard Dog unshackled saga was a seven-week storyline which featured the canine’s cruel owner abandoning the pooch to starvation while chained to a stake in the backyard. It concludes with his eventual rescue by a neighborhood youngster, whose family adopts him as their pet.

An Associated Press article of November 30, 2023, reported, “Fans of Guard Dog would regularly plead with McDonnell to free the mutt, but the artist was also lobbied by animal welfare groups to keep the dog chained as a way to increase the spotlight on the issue. “‘I always felt that if I inspired even one family to bring the dog in the house, it was worth doing.” I know it was tough on the readers and it was tough on Guard Dog,’ he said. ‘You know, whenever I drew him in my sketchbooks or if I did a talk, I always drew Guard Dog free.’”

Doozy, the little neighborhood girl rescuer has since renamed her new pet, “Sparky” (the lifelong nickname of Patrick’s idol, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz).

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This page: Above is the Sunday installment of Mutts that Patrick refers to in the interview that relates to the release of the cartoonist’s book homage to the Marvel super-heroes created by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Stan Lee. Inset left is Ye Ed and Patrick at the 2023 Baltimore Comic-Con, where the cartoonist signed copies of The Super Hero’s Journey, inscribing each copy with a drawing of the purchaser’s fave Marvel hero! Below, Guard Dog (now named Sparky) and Doozy, stars of Patrick’s other major event of 2023, the Mutts “Guard Dog Unchained” saga.

Special Thanks:

To CHARLIE KOCHMAN of Abrams ComicArts and to Patrick’s wife (and person who runs the Mutts show) KAREN O’CONNELL for their helping to facilitate this wonderful feature article.

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iconoclastic cartoonist dept.

Tim Hensley’s 275 Panels

The Sir Alfred cartoonist on his whimsical, clever, odd, and funny comic-book lovin’ comics

by JON B. COOKE

Portrait by Chris Anthony Diaz 34

* “Sort-of” is a phrase one is compelled to employ frequently when describing Tim’s work!

hardback comics album, à lá Tintin, with endpapers, as well as opening and closing pages, add-ons all cleverly composed.

(Tim excels at these seemingly extraneous details, very often “filler” material produced to meet publishing necessities, whether adding pages or conforming to a template. Some of his funniest stuff comes from these additions — for instance, Tim creating a hilarious two-page autobiographical vignette portraying himself as a Frankenstein monster just to fulfill a French publisher’s need to expand a translation of his work.)

Sir Alfred #3 [2015], an oversize sort-of pastiche of The Adventures of Bob Hope as drawn by Owen Fitzgerald, is a litany of anecdotes about film director Alfred Hitchcock, vignettes whether true or apocryphal. Like Gropius, there’s a variety of story formats — full- and half-pagers, faux strips both Sunday and daily, even a double-page splash (of movie set personnel all in agony over a gleeful Hitch spouting atrocious puns). But the content is based on Tim’s revealing, deep research into the iconic filmmaker (and associated folks, from wife Alma Reville on down the production chain), rendered on the page in styles reminiscent of Milt Gross and others, with Hitch drawn throughout to look like a grown-up Tubby from Little Lulu.

Another oversize production, Detention #2 [2022], is Tim’s latest, and it’s a wild — and yet still faithful — adaptation of Stephen Crane’s 1893 novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, This page: Above left is panel detail of the title character from Tim Hensley’s first graphic novel, Wally Gropius [2010]. Above is the cover of his latest, “drawn during the Plague Years” (says the indicia), Detention No. 2, a Classics Illustrated pastiche adapting Stephen Crane’s novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. At left is Chris Diaz’s photo of Tim at the 2012 Alternative Press Expo.

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Wally Gropius, Detention TM & © Tim Hensley. Photo of Tim Hensley © and courtesy of Chris Anthony Diaz.

That Tim Hensley, he’s on a pretty unique journey in the comics realm. The cartoonist might have no recognizable style to call his own, at least thus far to readers of his graphic novels, but his ability to (sort-of)* mimic the stylings of other cartoonists is remarkable and it lends an entirely different dimension to his work not exactly easy to describe. While neither sentimental or overly reverent, there’s a profound thoughtfulness he lends to his drawing goofy satires and yet disturbing homages incorporating the approaches of an array of sometimes obscure comics of the ’50s and ’60s. It’s mesmerizing and deliciously appealing, an approach that is partly born of an uncollated(!) collection of random comic books that his dad kept in the garage when Tim was a kid.

“My father was a pretty big comic collector, in the EC fan club in the ’50s,” Tim recently shared. “So there were always comics around. I used to go with him to the comic book store about once a week and buy comics. He mostly bought Marvel and I bought DC at that point.” Also scattered around the house were copies of RAW magazine, Heavy Metal, and the comics in National Lampoon. “My dad had a lot of stuff.”

Those longboxes in the garage, Tim said, “would have comics — not in any real order — that were not organized and not separated by genre. It was just all together and that’s the way I experienced it. It was just like: here it all is!”

“It” would translate into inspiration for most of Tim’s published work to date: three graphic novels, each which took (give or take) the cartoonist five years to complete: Wally Gropius [2010], the “Umpteen Millionaire,” is visually a sort-of/kind-of amalgamation of Richie Rich’s “poor rich kid” premise, the high school tableau of Archie Andrews, adding in a dash of Beetle Bailey, and all resembling a generous slice of John Stanley’s teenager comics. And the story, about a cruel and “flush bobby soxer” on the prowl for a wife (a requirement of Daddy’s will), is told in a linear continuity broken up into often short episodes, including singleand half-pagers (some which quite likely contain comics allusions and tropes I’m just not familiar with). It’s all compiled to resemble a French

Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood, The Adventures of Bob Hope TM & © DC Comics. Sir Alfred, “The Employees of Classics Illustrated” © Tim Hensely. Tubby TM & © Classic Media, LLC.

done as if a Classics Illustrated production, circa 1960. The source material is as unlikely a subject for a children's comic book as can be, given it deals with 1890s slum life, domestic violence, alcoholism, and prostitution, though the veneer of wacky comics-shenanigans, characters all drawn in a plethora of styles — Bil Keane, the aforementioned Gross, Tezuka, and even Don Martin — beckon us into an otherwise dismal saga.

What exactly Tim is pulling off with his work, referential as it is of old comics (both books and strips), evades easy definition. Not necessarily pastiche or homage but simultaneously reverential and yet mocking… overall, it’s complex. “Obviously there was that R. Sikoryak stuff in RAW, where he was combining literature and different comics in unusual juxtapositions,” Tim said, “and even in MAD magazine, they would draw the comic strips but having the characters doing different things — ‘Starchie’ and whatever — but I don’t know how I ended up coming at it that way. It could be a lack of confidence in my own ability to just draw something out of my head. Because with some things I can come up with my own character and some things I make an association where it’s, ‘That reminds me of this comic I had seen.’ A lot of times I just follow that.”

Back in the ’90s, Tim had short stories in Duplex Planet Illustrated and, by the ’00s, was having his work in The Comics Journal Special Edition, when he was approached to contribute to a new publication. “I was asked to be in MOME [2005–10], this Fantagraphics anthology, and what was unusual about it was to have the same cast of artists every issue. And they invited me. At first I thought, ‘I can do short pieces while I’m working on a longer one, so there was maybe a one-pager in issue #2 of MOME, but I just couldn’t do both at the same time. So, while MOME was being released, I was going to the library after work. I guess I just thought about, ‘I guess I’ll do a teenager kind of story, kind of a romance thing,’ and, yeah, the idea was to collect it, but it had to be something that could go into MOME in portions and still make it self-contained. Also, Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth both encouraged me to do something longer form, because the stuff I had done before were all shorter comics that appeared in pretty obscure places.”

Tim’s piecemeal approach in MOME resulted in that longer work, Wally Gropius.* “As far as where did the idea come from,

I just wanted to do a wacky, teenager strip and the idea of him being a teen millionaire was just to make the character unusual, I guess.” He added, “If you had to do an elevator pitch, I suppose you could say it was Archie by way of Richie Rich and Dunc & Loo.” That last mention, of a short-lived, little remembered Dell comic, Around the Block with Dunc & Loo, is indicative of the cartoonist’s eclectic, varied taste of his comic book influences, many nurtured in youth by rifling through Dad’s garage collection. (In truth, Dunc & Loo is undeservedly obscure, a very funny eight-issue teenage series [1961–63] written by John Stanley with art by Bill Williams.)

Equally esoteric was Tim deciding on the forgotten DC comic, Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood — of which he sought out every one of its nine-issue run [1949–50] — to use as reference for his follow-up, Sir Alfred, as it captured the ambiance of Tinseltown of that period. (Naturally, he knew of the title because one lone issue was found in his father’s archive.)

Of course, early issues of The Adventures of Bob Hope [1950–68] were also emulated in Sir Alfred and that series did help spark the whole idea of a famous Hollywood director having his own (albeit faux) title as if it were published by DC Comics. “I’m just surprised he never had a comic book. That’s what I was trying to do: ‘If there had been an Alfred Hitchcock comic book, what would it look like?’ So, if DC had been doing

Above: The two DC Comics titles on the left were used as reference for the Tim Hensley comic on right, 2015’s Sir Alfred, about, yep, the film director, who Tim designed to look like Little Lulu’s Tubby.

Bottom: Factual “filler” in Tim’s Detention [2022].

* The first gag in the graphic novel is the title character’s name, derived from the founder of the Bauhaus movement in modern architecture.

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Above: Unspecified Star Wars Tales page by Mike, shared by the artist. Below: Ye Ed first became acquainted with Mike’s artistry with his awesome run on The Incredible Hulk with brilliant writer Bruce Jones, back in the early 2000s.

Above: Nicely done back cover from Wally Gropius [2010], depicting episodes that do not take place within the book, which overall is designed like a French comics album, hardback and all!

* In that autobio strip beefing up the French album, Tim mentions Beuenaventura’s 2016 suicide just prior to the late publisher’s Pigeon Press releasing Sir Alfred, depicting him performing yoga and saying, “I actually faked my own death to live on a mountaintop in Tibet, where no one speaks about comics or what they’re worth.”

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Wally Gropius TM & © Tim Hensley. MOME © Fantagraphics.

Below: Wally Gropius started as a series of short episodes in MOME, the Eric Reynolds-edited comics anthology published by Fantagraphics between 2005–10.

Cover art for #5 [Fall ’06] by Tim.

it, it probably would have looked like the [The Adventures of] Jerry Lewis or Bob Hope titles. But instead of fictional stories, it would tell about actual events of his life in comic book form.

And that was the challenge of it: figuring out how to do that.”

Tim now believes, “When I look back on it, I really should have done Bob Hope’s biography using the Bob Hope comics but, the thing is, I don’t like Bob Hope’s movies and don’t think he’s that funny. I like the golf car he has, that looks like his head. But that would have been a lot tougher.” (The “cowardly,” wise-cracking comedian does make a cameo in a one-page parody of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in Sir Alfred.)

As for the subject he finally did settle on, Tim said, “I grew up watching Hitchcock movies and the whole idea of auteur was something that sunk in when I was growing up. They re-released four of his movies at a certain point that had been out of circulation for many years. This was in the ’80s or ’90s.

It was Vertigo, Rear Window, The Trouble with Harry, and one other one — maybe Rope — but I remember seeing those.”

On his Hitchcock project, the cartoonist would spend long stretches reading before putting ink to paper. “Because I

needed to find all the anecdotes for Sir Alfred,” Tim explained.

“I just read through the biographies and, if I came across an anecdote that might work as a comic page, I would make a thumbnail of it in a little spiral-bound book and then, eventually, it got to the point where I was trying to find more books about Hitchcock, so I would go downtown to the library.

“At first, I started drawing the daily strips (that are now about three-quarters of the way into the book) because [alternative publisher] Alvin Buenaventura* was [curating] a comic page in The Believer magazine and he asked me to do a strip, and I did the one about Marnie first, and I just kept doing those. So Sir Alfred wasn’t necessarily written in advance, but I would have many, many pieces thumbnailed and be thinking, ‘Which one am I going to work on next?’ So I was just trying to get through the ones I thought would work.”

Of course, to work as a Tim Hensley comic book, elements influenced by old funnybooks simply had to come into play.

“While I was doing this, I was also thinking how are movies represented in comics — trying to think of as many things as I could — so, by that time, I was tracking down the eight or nine issues of Miss Beverly Hills of Hollywood.”

Tim was actually mapping out his next project awhile working on the Hitchcock book, which was first published by Buenaventura’s Pigeon Press and later reprinted by Fantagraphics. “At the same time I was thumbnailing Sir Alfred, I was thumbnailing Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, based in part on this book called Picture [1952], by Lillian Ross. She was a New Yorker columnist who wrote a book about [director] John Huston making The Red Badge of Courage for MGM. It was the story of him trying to make the movie, and the studio botches it and ruins what he had intended. Originally, I thought of making Detention about Alfred Hitchcock making Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. So that was the initial idea in 2010 or ’11, when I was thumbnailing stuff. I had read Maggie a couple of years before that and it was probably the only time I read something and thought, ‘This would make a good comic,’ I could totally see it. Then I thought, ‘Maybe I could do it!’”

He continued, “It wasn’t like Sir Alfred, where I was jumping around from anecdote to anecdote; this one was all planned out, and I went and did what I had done with Wally Gropius, which was to letter the entire thing first and then start drawing it. But I ended adding stuff to it when I got closer to the end, to give it more unity than I thought it had originally.”

Despite the visually cartoony, often slapstick approach, Tim faithfully adapts Crane’s work. “Every line of dialogue is from the story,” he said, as well as some of the novella’s actual prose (which is relayed in character thought balloons). Also retained is the merciless, depressing fate of the titular character. But, however authentic the translation to comics, it’s the add-ons required to pump up the page count that enhance the effort to a sublime level, most especially for those with knowledge of those comic books of yesteryear. While Tim might be said to be slow in preparing and executing his projects, it’s under the exigencies of readying his graphic novels for press that often result in some of their most entertaining components.

For Detention’s extra features, Tim recalled his college English studies, and also pondered the artifact he was mimicking. “I found I had to add stuff, so I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll do a chronology of the author’s life, which is done in literature books,’ so I did that. Looked up a little bit of information about Classics Illustrated and about Jacob Riis, the photographer…

Like a Norton Critical Edition might have, ‘Here’s a letter that Stephen Crane wrote to so-and-so.’” But for his one-and-a-half page biography of Crane, Tim plumbed deep into his appreci-

All items TM & © Tim Hensley.

ation for the absurd by illustrating a year-by-year synopsis of the scribe’s life, depicting him as both a truck equipped with a crane and a member of the actual bird species of that same name, and the narrative ridiculously morphs into a bio of Hart Crane… a joke conceived because Tim found books on the latter writer shelved beside the Maggie author’s biographies.

Ultimately, Tim’s creative approach is… well… meta.

“When I was taking literature class in college, they would be talking about T.S. Eliot and there would be these poems that would reference all of these other poems. You would think, ‘How am I supposed to read all of these poems before I can read his poem?’ To me, it didn’t seem all that different to be thinking in comics in that way. What if you did a comic that held references to other comics, but wasn’t necessarily a pastiche, but just accepted them as meaningful?”

Worthy of mention is the fact that Sir Alfred and Maggie are, in comic collector parlance, “treasury edition”-size. Tim explained, “The format is a reference to RAW magazine, of course, and also a lot of ’90s alternative comics. When I started getting interested in comics again, there was Eightball #23, Acme Novelty Library Big Book of Jokes, or Ivan Brunetti’s Schizo #4, and he had a comic in there about Cat People director Val Lewton, and that was also an influence in doing biographical, one-page strips, and I was thinking, ‘What if these were about the same person?’ But I do think my work looks better at that size.” He added, “I think also because my stuff is so infrequent that the size kinda makes it a little bit larger than life. If I only came out with two comics that were normal-size over the course of ten years, that wouldn’t be as impressive.”

Then, with exasperation, he chuckled, “I don’t know!”

And what’s this arbitrary numbering of Sir Alfred as #3 and Detention as #2 all about, Tim, so frustrating to the anal-retentive number-obsessives among us comics fans? Taking the Hitchcock book as a for-instance, he replied, “I don’t cover every single thing in Hitchcock’s life, and I wanted it to be one of the issues of [an imaginary series], so I didn’t want to make it #1. What happens to me is I come across a random number of a back issue, it doesn’t occur to me that I need to get all the previous issues of Tippy Teen, for example. (Though I did need to get every issue of Miss Beverly Hills!) So Sir Alfred was #3 and, for Detention, I felt, ‘Well, originally it was this whole big thing about Hitchcock directing a film version of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, so that will be #1, and this will be #2.’ So, in a way, there’s a logic to it, but there’s not supposed to be. But I do kind of like how it blows the collector’s mind — ‘There’s no number one! What am I going to do?’ (I did read a bad review that said, ‘Are you ever going to do something that doesn’t have the wrong number on it?’) It’s a reflection of how I experienced comics from the start: as comics to read rather than collect.”

A curious Hensley factoid is Tim's comics aficionado father was the tour keyboard player for Neil Diamond for some three decades (who has a cameo in, "maybe the worst movie ever made," the 1980 remake of The Jazz Singer). Tom Hensley is supportive of his son's effort, but perplexed as to the small monetary return. "Everything I’ve done," Tim admits, "I might be lucky if I sell a thousand copies, so sometimes it’s hard for him to understand. I have a normal job to do this in my spare time.” Today the cartoonist works a remote gig as "documents assistant.” Essentially, he said, “I open mail.”

About creating comics as a part-time effort, Tim revealed, “I’m always working on comics in my spare time and I feel

Above: Mike shared his cartoons drawn for family in this Kickstarter book from 2014, still available on Amazon. Below and bottom: Deo worked with writer Jeff Lemire on a Thanos run in 2017, as well as the four-issue Berserker Unbound, for Dark Horse, in 2019.

like, during the time when I have a job, ‘How am I ever going to finish this comic I’m working on?’ But, most of the time, something happens. The last case was the pandemic, when I had a solid year to work just on comics exclusively.”

(Unmentioned thus far is Ticket Stub [2012], compiling Tim’s mini-comics work of the ’90s and ’00s, inspired by his then day-job as a closed-caption editor of movies and TV shows. The small trade paperback is published by Yam Books.)

What’s next for the cartoonist? “All I can say is I’m working on something else. I don’t know how long it is going to take, but I can’t imagine it’s going to take less time than on what I’ve done before. Everything is about 275 panels. That seems like a good enough reading experience so, when I get to that number, it’s about what it should be. I don’t have a lot of time.

And I’m getting older, so it gets harder.”

Though he teased us with a painting snippet (best as I can tell depicting that Eight is Enough redhead dressed in a Napoleonic uniform), Tim would only say how far along he was with the book: page six as of our interview and he’s now on page 12 or 13 as this issue goes to press. How many panels that is from hitting 275, I’m not quite sure.

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Above: Tim’s two-page “bio” strip was used as “filler” in the French album made of his Sir Alfred.

The cartoonist kindly shared the English language version for this, the first page. Alas, we censored the curse word therein. Inset left: Recent pic of Tim snapped by his missus. Below: Tim teased us with this fragment of a painting to appear in his next graphic novel.

Inset left: Mike did his own series for Image Comics in the 1990s, Jade Warriors, which (of course) emphasized his expertise at depicting exaggerated female figures. He recently revived the concept and launched a Kickstarter campaign for an Absolute Edition.

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jack of all trades

The Diverse Mr. Butterworth

Ye Ed talks with horror storyteller Jack Butterworth about his eclectic comics-related careers Colgate Maroon, about Superman and Spider-Man, comparing them, and saying that it looked like Superboy might be running [We’ve been meaning to connect for, like, forever since Jack But- out of super-conversation. And then, to describe Spider-Man, terworth introduced himself at San Diego Comic-Con, in 2004.

I came up with the line, “If Charlie Brown wore a skin-tight If and when a new edition of The Warren Companion would be costume and fought crime, he would be Spider-Man.” And I in the works, he agreed to talk about his days as a scripter for thought, you know, that’s a pretty good description. Well, it Creepy and Eerie. And, while Jack was always there in the dark turned out, first of all, they quoted it in an article in the New recesses of my noggin, I discovered he was far more than a writ- York Herald Tribune Sunday magazine that was devoted to er of horror stories (good as he was!). He was among the first to comics, with an eight-page “Spirit” story by Will Eisner about showcase Marvel’s appeal to college students, chronicler of the the Spirit becoming involved with the 1966 mayoral election. history of Warren in the ’70s, writer for Steve Bissette’s Taboo, CBC: Can we just back up a bit? Were you an only child? premier comic art expert and comics dealer, Classics Illustrated Jack: I was. Having not much in the way of other kids in the historian, and even a (sort-of) guest in Tomb of Dracula! — so house, usually I had a lot of free time.

I just had to interview him for a forthcoming new history of CBC: Did your parents read?

Warren Publications and for CBC! That chat occurred via phone Jack: Not that much. I remember my father looking at a list in 2022 and, last December, I visited his Massachusetts digs of stuff I wanted for Christmas and he said, “This is all books.” to meet in person, take some pix, and admire his amazing art He read paperback Western novels when he had to take a collection! Fair warning to everyone that I will not be including plane somewhere. They were fairly short and fairly simple, and here much talk about Warren, as I’m saving that for the book, weren’t that challenging, as far as plot twists. which will include a stunning amount of memos and related CBC: What was his job? paperwork he saved, plus Jack’s vivid account of the fabled ban- Jack: He was a shoe salesman. quet hosted by James Warren that celebrated Rich Corben, Will CBC: Did he serve in World War II? Eisner, and Archie Goodwin. That’s enough from me… — Ye Ed.] Jack: No. He was looking into getting into one of the branches of the service toward the end, but he never did. I was born Comic Book Creator: If you don’t mind, we can just go November 12, 1941. I was his draft deferment. chronologically. You were born in Boston, Jack?

CBC: Did your mom have any creative bent?

Jack Butterworth: Yes. I grew up in Belmont, which is Jack: My mother tried painting for a while in the 1950s. a suburb. If I can do a quick Basically, she went to a painting class and painted copies of resume: 1951, I read my first greeting card artwork, landscapes… And I still have all of those issue of Tales from the Crypt paintings. My wife, Lyssa Andersson, really had a wonderful on a newsstand, flipping relationship with my mother. She loved the paintings. They through it quickly before stayed with us. somebody yelled, “Hey, kid, CBC: So did you show a predilection to write as a youngster? this ain’t a library!” And just Jack: Yes, I did. The first story that really impressed me, got totally hooked from the although I was an EC fan — their stuff was really adult and beginning. I became an EC it was beyond my ability to comprehend — I found myself Fan-Addict. The Comics Code entranced by Stan Lee’s stories in the Atlas horror comics, and came along, comic books got there was this one story, in Strange Tales [#20, July 1953] called really bland really fast, and I “Wilbur.” It’s a story about this guy who’s trying to inherit his switched to being a science uncle’s wealth. His uncle has come back from Africa and has fiction fan in the mid-’50s. left everything to someone named Wilbur. The nephew doesn’t And then, in 1961, I got back know who this is, but he will inherit everything if Wilbur dies. to comics again because The guy has a knife and goes downstairs in the basement in the of Marvel. Stan Lee looked dark, looking for Wilbur. Then there are screams and we can’t at super-heroes and asked see what’s going on, but the last panel reveals that Wilbur is himself what I think is the a lion and the guy’s been eaten. And this really impressed me basic question for any writer: as something I could maybe recreate. So I did a story about a “What if this stuff happened kid that had a pet lion named Wilbur. A friend did four or five to real people in a real world? illustrations. We were in fifth or sixth grade. That was my first What would that be like?” And attempt at a short story. he looked at super-heroes that CBC: A total swipe! way and it was revolutionary.

Jack: Absolutely. We call it “un hommage.” You know, if you In 1963, I was a total say it in French, it sounds so much nicer… Oh, that sentence Marvel fan. I wrote an article about “Charlie Brown fighting crime,” that wound up on the for my college newspaper, The back cover of the first Spider-Man story collection, published as Conducted by JON B. COOKE

Above: Jack Butterworth’s first published piece, a one-page requiem for EC Comics, appeared when he was a young teen, in the fanzine, International Youngfan #1, circa 1957. Below: This photo of a 30-something Jack appeared in the Warren Publications “Vampi’s Vault” profile, Vampirella #30 [Jan. 1974]. (See pg. 41.) The pic was taken by Jack’s first wife, Karin Wells, sometime in 1973.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photo by Karin Wells and appears courtesy of Jack Butterworth.

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Spider-Man, Human Torch TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

a paperback by Lancer [Spider-Man Collector’s Album, 1966]. I saw this paperback on the rack. “Oh, great Spider-Man stories!

I want this.” And then I looked at the back cover and there was my line! It was attributed to The Colgate Maroon because everybody had heard of Colgate, and certainly nobody had ever heard of John Butterworth. But that was really amazing, very encouraging, when I saw that.

CBC: That article has got to be one of the earliest mentions outside fanzines of the Marvel super-heroes. Certainly of Spider-Man. This was even before the assassination of JFK. Jack: Yes. And it was in mass media, in the Herald Tribune. I met Eisner later on and we were laughing about having been in that same issue, because the Herald Tribune folded within a year of that appearance. And Eisner said, “Well, we killed the Herald Tribune, didn’t we?”

CBC: Yeah. And you had a letter in the letter column in the earliest issue of Amazing Spider-Man that I own, #15 [Aug. ’64].

Jack: Right, the first appearance of Kraven the Hunter. I have to write to Colgate, to their alumni magazine, at some point and say that we were the first college to try to recruit Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man, or at least suggested…

CBC: Did you write in school? When you wrote that short story, “Wilbur,” how old were you?

Jack: I was in fifth grade, so 11, probably.

CBC: Did you continue writing? Did your teachers encourage…

Jack: They liked it. I wrote a tall tale that was about six paragraphs that was published in the local weekly newspaper, something that we did for a library book club group. I was listening to Suspense radio shows and watching the Alfred Hitchcock Presents program and seeing how the stories were constructed. What really surprised and scared me in a TV story was “The Gentleman from America” episode on Alfred Hitchcock

Presents, one of the first things I found that really was scary as far as a ghost story. I realized that basically what scared me was not necessarily a twist ending, the way EC twist endings would shock me, but a “twist middle,” where this twist was in the middle of the story, and then you’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. That kind of thing.

CBC: Did you consider writing for a living at all?

Jack: I thought, “Gee, I really like telling stories. I want to try to be a writer.” But my parents, of course, responded the way middle-class parents would. They said, “Well, that’s wonderful, dear, and maybe you could teach.” Have a day job, basically, is what they were concerned about. They were afraid of having me living in their basement in my 20s trying to sell stories.

CBC: Did you collect ECs when you first picked one up?

Jack: Well, no. The “new trend” ECs published after the Comics Code took hold, I bought some of those — Impact, Valor, and Psychoanalysis, of course, which was totally mind-bending and people are still talking about that title. They actually did a comic book about people seeing a psychiatrist… Wow!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Clipping from the college paper by Jack, The Colgate Maroon, from November 13, 1963, a very early article about the burgeoning Marvel Age. Below: Jack poses with the paper during Ye Ed.’s December 2023 visit.

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This spread: Above is Jack’s letter to the editor in Amazing Spider-Man #15 [Aug. 1964], which made mention of The Colgate Maroon article. Opposite page is the creator’s profile in Vampirella #30 [Jan. 1974], with his first wife’s portrait of the writer. Below is the Lancer paperback collection — the Spider-Man Collector’s Album [Apr. 1966] — which featured reprints of early Spidey tales and also sported a blurb by Jack on its back cover, delighting the man to no end.

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All items TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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CBC: So just to back up a little, you related in the letter to Stan, you said that you were passing copies of Marvel Comics around the fraternity. Was that actually the case?

Jack: Yes, it was. Tau Kappa Epsilon.

CBC: And what was the response of your brothers?

Jack: They were impressed, actually. They were kind of fun.

I’d point out stuff that was really funny about, you know, about what Stan and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were doing, and people were impressed by the fact that, you know, comics had grown up a little when we weren’t looking.

CBC: Back then, Marvel was stoking interest with — or vice versa — university students. Esquire magazine had a huge section devoted to colleges that found Marvel comics to be hip. Do you CBC: And it was good! think you might have been the first instance of a college student Jack: Yeah! Well, they always had decent stories. alerting Stan that there was interest beyond just kids?

CBC: Right. Did you develop an interest more than just as a Jack: I don’t know for sure. I actually met Stan Lee a few reader in the comics? Would you characterize yourself as a fan at years ago, and I didn’t think to ask him that question. But I was all back in the ’50s? certainly one of the first. The Herald Tribune article also quoted Jack: Oh, yeah. I was an EC Fan-Addict. a young woman talking about “Hark! The Hulk hurtles into your CBC: Really? You mailed away and… heart,” and I’m not sure what year she had that published.

Jack: [Proudly] Number 2715! (I have a sneaking suspiCBC: Could that be the Village Voice article? cion that they started the numbering at 2000.) I still have my Jack: I’m not sure. I just remember that was the title and she certificate and the four or five bulletins that they put out, which was a young woman who had written it. included news about artists. Every new bulletin that came out, CBC: Were you a reporter for The Colgate Maroon? they’d say, “Al Williamson just broke his 12th engagement…

Jack: I wasn’t a reporter, but I did two articles and an editoriHe’s so fickle.” And the next issue, “Al Williamson just broke his al cartoon for them. My roommate, Steve Conn, was the editor 14th engagement… He’s so fickle.” You know, they’re ragging that year, so that was kind of fortuitous, I guess, that I got to do on him, obviously. that. It was a perfect storm or whatever…

CBC: As you say, comics were pretty dull by the late ‘50s. So it CBC: So you’re an artist yourself? was Stan and Jack and Ditko who got you back in…?

Jack: Not really. The editorial cartoon was really crude. It was Jack: I was in the service for a while, and then I had a series a fishing line with a hook on it, and the hook was through a of three different jobs that I tried and didn’t really like, and hand or whatever. And it was talking about fraternity rushing. wound up getting a job as a newspaper reporter, which I had The handshake was the bait to try to get freshmen. never really thought about before.

CBC: When you got out of the service, were you were looking CBC: When did you did you go in the service? for work?

Jack: I went into the service in 1964. I got out in ’67.

Jack: Yes. I got a job writing instructions for people who CBC: You missed going over to Southeast Asia or did you go? made transistors at an electronics company. Then I got a job edJack: I did miss out on that. I was in the Marine Corps and iting books at a company that published textbooks. Then I was wound up spending time in North Carolina. And then a yeartech writing again about computers… I was doing a newspaper and-a-half or so in California. column for the Lynn Jaycees, in a newspaper called The Lynn CBC: Were you a part of the counter-culture of the time?

Item, and I contacted the editor and asked, “Do you have any Jack: I was “visiting” when I was in the Marine Corps. I would work that I might be able to do at the paper?” He liked what I go to a coffeehouse locally in Monterey just to see what was go- was doing with the column and said, “Call me Monday.” I was ing on, and I went to a Joan Baez concert where she was talking living in a town called Nahant, which is a peninsula basically about how “Girls say yes to boys who say no to the draft.” The connected to Lynn. And, over that weekend, he fired his Nahant counter-culture was a little late for me, unfortunately. But the correspondent and offered the job to me for $50 a week. I said, Joan Baez concert was incredible. She had this ranch house that “Yeah, I can do that.” And I got another job distributing newswas right on a point of land overlooking the ocean and across papers that paid about $100 a week. So I wasn’t taking any hit the road from Big Sur. There were these huge cliffs, and when on salary basically, and within six months I had a full time job she sang (she must have understood this), she would sing a writing for The Item. lyric, and then pause and, during the pause, her voice would CBC: So you were going to town hall meetings and that kind echo back to us from the cliffs. What an incredible sound! of stuff?

CBC: What a beautiful voice.

Jack: Yeah. And I’d never done that before, so I had to figure Jack: And Phil Ochs was there singing and she had the out how the heck do you do this. Well, you just write everything Chambers Brothers. After the service, I was busy just trying to down, the people say, and then you try to make sense out of it find a job. to tell people what they’re trying to do. That was basically it. And I was I fairly organized. I could go to a meeting where there was a lot of discussion and make sense out of what the people were saying and doing and what their basic decision was, and say, write a two or three-page story about what they had done. And that was that was basically my education in newspaper work.

CBC: So did you settle in or did you do any moonlighting writing? Did you have any aspirations for creative writing?

Jack: I still wanted to be a writer, a magazine writer, a fiction

“Vampi’s Vault” TM & © Dynamic Forces, Inc.

writer, and I wasn’t having any luck getting anything published. I went through a number of different ideas. And finally I decided that I was 29 and I had not succeeded in getting anything picked up by a magazine. No science fiction stories were getting anywhere, and I’d been doing those since high school, occasionally. And I decided that I would try anything that came along and if I hadn’t gotten something accepted by the time I was 30, that I would give it a rest.

Sure enough, I sent a story that I’d written in college about a “hand of glory,” a prose story to Creepy, just to see what they might say. I had no idea how comic book stories were put together. John Cochrane, the editor at Creepy, sent me back a printed rejection slip. But, at the bottom of the rejection slip, he typed, “Was this intended for fan fiction? It’s way too long. And for our horror stories, we have a certain format that we follow.”

My first wife was an artist and we sat down and put together what a comic book script format would look like: describe what was in the panel and then whatever dialogue would take place. So I sat down, rewrote my story as a comic book script and sent it back. Cochrane said,”You know, this isn’t bad, but we just accepted a story about a hand of glory.” It was illustrated by Mike Ploog, of all people. They didn’t want to do another one.

So I went back through my files. In 1971, I’d clipped a story from the Boston Globe about a mortician who kept the first embalmed, dead body his family had ever created. He wound up keeping the body just to show people what embalming would look like. And then he really had apparently never thought about burying it.

So it just sat in the back of the funeral home, in a closet or wherever. And finally he took it out and gave it a formal burial. So I did a one-page story about that for Creepy’s “Loathsome Lore” and Cochrane had me revise it twice, but it finally got accepted a month or so before my 30th birthday. I made my self-imposed deadline.

So, at that point, I was hooked. I was going to start writing comic book stories for Creepy. So there you go.

CBC: Wow! [Note: Alas, talk about his Warren work will have to wait for my new Warren history in the works, though it’s important to share Jack became acquainted with Marv Wolfman during the latter’s short reign as editor at the publishing company.— Y.E.] Jack: A young fellow named Stephen King came to Warren’s offices one day to talk to [Warren editor] Bill DuBay, because Warren comics were a market for people that wrote horror stories at that time. And Stephen King did an article for Writer’s Digest [Vol. 53, #11] published in November of 1973, “The Horror COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Market Writer and the Ten Bears.” One of the things he mentioned in the article was to see how good the form can be when it’s really working. “See ‘Dead Man’s Race’ script by Jack Butterworth, art by Martin Salvador, in Creepy #54, in 1973.” I would never have had any idea that had happened, but a friend of mine who was trying to break in as a prose science fiction writer was reading Writer’s Digest, and he called me from New York one night and said, “Hey, there’s an article in a magazine that mentions you.” And I said, “What?!” And he explained what it was. And this is Stephen King in 1973, which predates [King’s first novel, the bestseller] Carrie! Thank you, Stephen King!

In 1974, a number of things happened.

Writing for comics was starting to get old. I would write stuff for Warren and they could reprint it in Europe if they wanted, which they did. I’m finding out now. I keep looking myself up on the Grand Comics Database, and I find story titles in German or Spanish that, you know, that are attributed to me. I know enough of the language to realize that they’re reprints of stories that I’d had published at Warren and I was only getting paid once. I was starting to ask myself, “There’s got to be something better along the way. And, by the end of 1974, I had bought some stuff that I could resell, and I became a comic book dealer. At the time, I was a comic book dealer and comic book writer.

My last story was published in Vampirella in 1975, “The Time Eater,” with art by Paul Neary, a science fiction story into which I’d really put some thought. I was starting to make some money. And, along the way, I realized that there was original art from comics out there that you could buy. And I just got that bug.

I found out that the EC artists after EC story stuff folded, the ones that didn’t fit into MAD magazine, had moved over to Gilberton, and they’d been doing historical stories for The World Around Us series and the Classics Illustrated specials. Gilberton did not subscribe to the Comics Code because they were doing stuff that was either based on classic novels — the Classics Illustrated series — or they were doing historical material. And in history, things happen and they’re real, and you don’t try to soften them or censor them to suit the whims of Leonard Darvin and the Comics Code, which means that occasionally there is stuff that was published in the Classics Illustrated historical comics that could not have been published in any other comic book medium in that year.

In 1962, I think, they did a large comic called Prehistoric World, which was partly about dinosaurs and partly about cavemen, and they mentioned in just one panel, but they mentioned cannibalism. And there’s a portrait of two, or a picture. Evans and Crandall drew the story of these two cavemen sitting beside a fire, and one is rubbing his stomach and he says, “To eat the heart of a brave enemy is to gain his 41

Above: Before his achieving best-selling author status with his horror novel, Carrie [1974], Stephen King wrote an article in Writer’s Digest [Vol. 53, #11, November 1973,] “The Horror Market Writer and the Ten Bears,” which singled out Jack’s story for Creepy #54 [July 1973] as an example of how good the form can be. Below: Classics Illustrated Special Issue #167A [July 1962] was titled “Prehistoric World,” and it contained stories drawn by EC Comics alumni, including Angelo Torres, Reed Crandall, and George Evans. The panel here depicts a cannibal post-feast in a Crandall/ Evans panel that would not have made it in Code-approved titles.

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Writer’s Digest TM & © Active Interest Media Holdco, Inc. Classics Illustrated TM & © First Classics, Inc.

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to The Song of Hiawatha, which I’ve since sold, and I bought a ton of The World Around Us books. Mike started calling me because I bought enough material to make it worth his while on a regular basis, when he would come up with stuff from the warehouse to sell. And then, of course, artwork turned up from DC, Marvel, Whitman books, Dell, and Gold Key, and I would buy stuff from those.

CBC: Where did you get the money to be to be doing all this investing, all this buying or you were dealing?

Jack: I was selling artwork in order to finance my purchases and make some money on the side. I managed to do pretty well. I had several thousand pieces in my art collection by the time I stopped, and I would sell pieces occasionally.

I still collect things. At the last Boskone Science Fiction Convention in Boston this February, I came across courage.” Whoa! a couple of prints from Rich Corben from maybe the early Yeah, Leonard Darvin would have choked on his sandwich if he saw that in the ’80s and there were notes on the back describing the process that he used in creating his color artwork, which was really script. But, wow. You know, that’s incredible.

CBC: So did that spark your interest in the Gilberton artwork? interesting. I bought one of those. I try not to buy a lot now, because I am basically trying to sell off the stuff I’ve collected.

Jack: I started buying World Around Us books that featured CBC: So what was the most coveted piece? What do you think art by Graham Ingels, Reed Crandall, George Evans, Angelo would be the “Tiffany” piece you can brag about?

Torres ,and Gray Morrow.

Jack: In the early 1980s, I contacted Stanley Morse, who CBC: How did you obtain the artwork? published comics under the imprints Aragon, Stanmore, Key Jack: Well, there was one guy who had made friends with Publications, Gillmore — a whole series of companies puba guy named Mike Kanter. When Classics finally folded, Mike lishing Mister Mystery, Weird Mystery, Weird Chills… various was the surviving Kanter brother and he was in charge of the pre-Code horror comics and other titles. He was publishing a warehouse, so he had tons of material there, original artwork crossword puzzle magazine or two by the 1980s. from all the Classics Illustrated books, The World Around Us, I wrote to crossword puzzle magazines, thinking that they and the Classics Illustrated Specials. So he was selling them off through a New York comic book dealer who loved Classics, and, were probably the last vestige of companies that may have at one time, they actually came up with a bunch of unpublished published comic books at one time. And I got a letter back from pages from a period in the 1940s, when Classics Illustrated cut Stanley and eventually we worked out a deal where he sold me the artwork that he had left for a dollar a page. It came to their books by three or four pages per issue because of paper about $600 total, I think, for maybe 650 pages. And there were shortages. And there’s all sorts of material there. some covers in there for the magazines that he had done in The dealer had bought the 1970s, the really bad taste covers. And there was one cover all of the original art to the there from one of the weird comics that was a skull, a huge Classics Illustrated versions skull with a bayonet through one eye socket, and an ant with of Frankenstein and various a man’s head drooling standing alongside it, and this weird other comics. But there were some that were still available. house in the background. And I owned that for years and years.

I bought the complete artwork Held on to it. Sent it to Heritage during the first round of comic book art that I sent them and that wound up going for $30,000. The bidding was intense. I know who bought it. I found out it was a New York publishing house guy or — excuse me — comic book store guy.

So, yeah, I’m impressed. I hope he sells it for even more money someday. Good for him. I appreciate the contribution to my welfare. And wow, by the way, the cover art was done by a guy, who did a lot of the cover art at Stanley’s horror comics, Bernard Baily.

CBC: Ahh, Bernie Baily!

Jack: Who co-created The Spectre at DC in 1939 or 1940. And he went on, as a self-taught artist, to do a lot of the war and other comic book stories that were published after the industry switched to a more sophisticated Dan Barry style art in 1948 or ’49. He had signed the cover and, when they reused it as a cover for one of their reprint magazines, they blacked out his signature.

CBC: Did you sell through Comic Buyer’s Guide?

Jack: Originally I was selling stuff through the Comic Buyer’s Guide. And, after that bit the dust, I

Taboo TM & © Stephen R. Bissette. Weird Mysteries TM & © the respective copyright holder.

held on to things for a while. And then, through Jerry Weist, I sold some pieces on eBay over a period of a couple of years, and people at Heritage had seen my stuff. When Jerry died in 2010, I was at his funeral, and I met one of the people who were influential at Heritage, and we talked for a while, and I wound up sending a list of stuff I was interested in consigning and they took it all.

CBC: Did you go to New Con in the ’70s? Did you know Don Phelps? Did you attend the Boston comic shows?

Jack: Oh, yes. I was a dealer at the early Boston comic cons.

I was there, at New Con, the year they had Carl Barks and John Stanley. I don’t think Stanley ever went to another comic book convention. He seemed a little stressed when I met him and told him that I always thought of him as one of the earliest feminist writers on Little Lulu, because she always solved problems based on, you know, thinking. And Tubby, on the other hand, would take the last comic book he read and spin some fantastic plot about an evil villain clouding their parents’ minds so their parents made them go to bed at 8:00 at night or whatever. And Tubby was totally unrealistic. And Lulu was totally the realist.

Stanley looked at me for a moment and said, “Well, I always gave Tubby the worst of it.” And that was all he could think of to say. He hadn’t really thought about his stuff, you know, he was there to entertain people. And as he said in an interview, when he was at Dell in the late 1940s, if he could get Walt Kelly to laugh, he knew he had a good script.

CBC: Wow, what a great story! So how did you did you meet Steve Bissette?

Jack: Well, his first wife was from Lynn, where she grew up. So Steve used to hang out at a comic book store that was basically across the street from The Lynn Item, where I worked.

And I’d go to Tim Cole’s store once or twice a month, at least.

And one of the times I was there, he introduced me to Steve Bissette, and Steve was impressed that I worked at Warren, and he we started talking and we became friends. He published three of my stories in Taboo. The first issue and then… let’s see…

CBC: Six and seven, I believe.

Jack: Right. There was one in 1988, then 1992, and then 1995. The last comic book story I had published (or graphic sto-

ry, I should say, since it’s Taboo) was illustrated by Greg Capullo.

A young Greg. It was one of those stories that I had actually sat down and written sometime in the 1980s… Steve was probably a really sympathetic guy for me to wind up with. My stories were closer to the 1950s comics than he might have wanted to go with but, thanks to him, my work was published in the same issues with Alan Moore, Charles Burns, and Neil Gaiman, and some people who have gone on to create incredible work in comics.

Eclipse and Cat Yronwode published a couple of my scripts in 1987. A story called “Headset” about bikers and decapitation, and a bet on how long a severed head will keep moving its lips after you cut it off. (Somebody once said of Alfred Hitchcock that he sounded so reasonable and so thoughtful while he’d be telling you these horrible things.) And my other story was illustrated by John Ridgway for their science fiction book, Alien Encounters. And it brought back Buster Crabbe as a comic book character, which was kind of interesting. It was a simulated image of Buster Crabbe that actually could still hit people.

And it was kind of fun. I liked Buster and I always wanted to do something with that. You know, the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials he did were absolutely the height of the movie COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Jack spent less than $1 on this Bernard Baily original art. In 2013, Heritage auctioned the piece for $33,460. Below is the printed version appearing on Weird Mysteries #4 [Apr. 1953].

Inset left: Taboo #1 [Fall 1988].

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know them and talk to them about stuff they were doing. That I am of some interest to a historian like yourself is gratifying…

CBC: Well, I regret not interviewing you for The Warren Companion because you’re such an astute observer, but I’ll make up for it, Jack!

Jack: Another thing that I wound up doing was the third edition of Jerry Weist’s Original Comic Art Price Guide. I did about half the work on that book. Jerry had cancer during the time he was doing it, and he died about six or eight months before it was ready to be published. I went to see him the next to last day at the hospital, and he told me, “It’s yours now.” And I said, “I’ll take good care of it. Don’t worry.” And I did as far as I could. It was an interesting project, certainly being able to suggest artists to be included who had not been listed before.

I thought, “Well, this is a third edition. We may not get back to these guys in the fourth edition, but they’re worth mentioning once anyhow.” It was quite a project.

CBC: I see you’ve spoken about the House of Seven Gables…

Jack: They did a series of talks about The House of Seven Gables, various aspects. One of the things, there was a local woman who has written about graphic novels and comics coming in to do a talk on comics because The House of Seven Gables has been featured in various comic book stories. Of course, Classics Illustrated did two versions, one by a guy named Harley Griffith.

(I have a page from that, an unused page from that version.)

And the other was redrawn by a guy named George Woodbridge, one of the less familiar names from MAD magazine and from comics in the ’50s. When I saw they had someone scheduled, I asked if they would be interested in having a talk by me. I had artwork from the original Classics Illustrated story, and I had known the people who were at Classics Illustrated when those particular stories were done.

I met Jerry Iger and L.B. Cole at comic book conventions in the 1970s. Iger was a kind of a combative guy. He was short, slight. He looked perfect bantamweight boxer shape. And he if you asked him about his former partner, Will Eisner, he’d have said something negative. Basically, he was jealous, but he came

44

serial’s heyday.

CBC: How did you come to do work for Cat Yronwode?

Jack: Well, Steve Bissette mentioned to me that they were taking scripts and I just sent her a couple of plot outlines and she liked them, so they took the stories. “Headset” was more masculine. It was about toxic masculinity, which is something that I think she appreciated (although the actual phrase hadn’t been invented at that point).

CBC: Who was the artist on that, Flint Henry?

Jack: Flint Henry was a good artist. I actually met him in Boston a few years later and we were joking back and forth. He was a very funny guy. He said that he got back the pages for that story, and he would have gladly given them to me, but a biker came in and bought them all. He did some comics.

CBC: I’ll look him up. It’s an odd name.

Jack: I only wrote 19 comic scripts, all in all — 14 for Warren — over a period of something like 23 years. My career ranges from small to dinky depending on how you want to describe it.

But, at the same time, I got to meet so many people and got to #35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Taboo TM & © Stephen R. Bissette. Tomb of Dracula TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Above: Around Halloween 1988, Jack wrote a piece for his employer, The Lynn Item, about writing for Steve Bissette’s Taboo anthology. Inset right: Jack shared that a character in Tomb of Dracula #43 [Apr. ’76] — Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s splash seen here — was connected to an aborted Kolchak: The Night Stalker comic adaptation Marv Wolfman was supposed to write. Marv was an editor at Warren when Jack contributed. Jack said, “I told him I was a newspaper reporter… When he came up with a name for the Night Staker (one letter shy of a copyright problem) he called the [TOD] reporter Paul Butterworth.”

Classics Illustrated TM & © First Classics, Inc.

that coloring out because it was obvious those were blood vessels. I imagine they had some comments from parents and decided that the better part of valor was to white out the blood vessels stuff.

CBC: You know, I found an odd reference for you at the Library of Congress. You donated a collection of silent film cues…?

Jack: Yes. The music cues for silent films, I donated those to the Library of Congress and with just one request, that they be known as the Jack Butterworth Collection. I thought, well, that’s something I can do to help keep the Butterworth name alive.

CBC: What are silent film cues?

Jack: You may never have seen these, but when they did music for the silent films, starting around 1925 or so, instead of having the pianist or the organist just kind of doodle away at by his feelings honestly, because he was overlooked in terms of the keys, they actually proposed music, little portions of songs comics history. He ran the Iger Art shop, which produced 99% of or classical pieces that would fit the particular scene. I believe the artwork at Fiction House and two or three other companies this relates to those placards that they would insert into si— Superior, I think, and maybe Ajax — and he had done all of lent movies… “And that night, this, and yet Will Eisner was the guy that was credited with something strange happened creating Sheena when that was a joint thing. He told me that at the old homestead”… you basically they came up with this idea for a jungle woman, and know, so you had the setting the publisher said, “What are we going to call her?” And Jerry and the time, and then they Iger said, “Well, there was this racist name for Jewish people back in the 1930s, ‘sheenie.’ And I said to myself, ‘I’m going to do that movie scene that what whatever would happen, they ram that name right down their throat.’” And he came up with would refer to that placard or Sheena. That’s how Sheena got her name, according to Jerry.

Iger knew so many artists. You know, it’s a shame that peo- that description of the scene ple did not try to do more interviews with him about the artists and show what music you like Matt Baker, Lou Fine, and other people he had worked with. played when that particular placard came up, and you’d He really could have given some remarkable insight. Anyhow, play that until another placard one just didn’t ask him a lot of questions about Eisner. and another piece of music.

CBC: You’re a news reporter, Jack. Did you interview Mike They printed them to Kanter or any of these guys on the record? distribute to movie theaters Jack: No, I had conversations with them. I remember what across the country. I went some of the conversations were. One of the first things I asked to this estate sale where a about was, “Do you have the original artwork for ‘Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman,’ the original version?” And woman’s grandmother (who Mike said, “No, there was a flood at the warehouse and the stuff perhaps had played the organ that was on the bottom shelf, which was all of the first ten or 15 at movie theaters for silent Classic Illustrated comics and artwork were soaked, got ruined, film) and she had a whole stack of these music cues and we had to toss it, which is a shame.” for that lost Lon Chaney, Sr., A couple of things about Classics Illustrated, they pubfilm, London After Midnight. lished the first graphic novels in comics — 48-page or 42-page That was the key to me to the adaptations of actual novels. Plus they published some of the whole thing. first horror comics. In America, most people credit the Doctor CBC: Thank you so much, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comic with a cover showing Mister Hyde Jack. This has been wonderful. with fangs. But I go back to the Headless Horseman in Rip Van You have a good one and let’s Winkle [Classic Comics #12, June 1943]. The splash page for be in touch very soon. the Headless Horseman shows Ichabod Crane kneeling before Jack: Right. You’re this display that is topped by a severed head, and the severed welcome, Jon. Take head has things hanging down from it that were colored red in the original comic and in the subsequent reprints, they took care. Bye-bye.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Look who signed young Master Butterworth’s request!

Inset left: Splash from Classic Comics #12 [June 1943]. Below: Jack poses with Jerry Weist’s book, which he finished when the renowned collector was ailing.

45

incoming

Catching Up With the Mailbag

Specters, Sky Pilots, Excelsior, Borth, and Preiss, plus Joe Frank asks an awful lot of questions!

Sandi Mendelson

tious artists and writers an opening to the comic-book industry.

But mostly, I wanted to tell you that, as a life-long journalist, I was pleased and impressed with the amount of research and digging into the company, especially the early years. You were detailed in your research and put it all together in a superb way.

I’m sure the facts of Giovanni Santangelo’s roller coaster life have meaning to a small subset of the comic-book publishing history, much less those interested in Charlton Comics. But I Jeff Deischer was fascinated by it and so glad you did it.

Just read it and enjoyed it. CBC #33 was my first issue. I really Regarding CBC #33: while it was your typical terrific bought the issue for one reason: To read Mary Skrenes’ explainformation-packed issue, I was fascinated with the interview nation of Omega’s back story. Honestly. Now, I didn’t expect to with Mary Skrenes. I knew the name, but not much about her. read it. I hoped to. I don’t understand her silence. What has she But reading about her journey through the comics industry and got to lose by telling all of us what was really going on. Very disher writings and attachment to successful projects throughout appointing. It makes me wonder if she and Steve were winging the years. She certainly sounds like an interesting person who it and there was no master plan. Do you have this feeling? wasn’t beating down the doors to become a comics profession(Without looking it up, I’m fairly certain Las Vegas’ populaal, but just found her way whenever doors opened. tion is not “28,000,000,” as Mary inserted into her comments.)

Thanks for this and the rest of the issue. Keep them coming!

[My typo! Sorry, Mary. — Y.E.] [Well, shucks, Gary! Thanks very much! We’ve been interI was surprised to see no letter col. I don’t know if it was acting since the CBA days and I’ve long admired your fanzine pushed out due to lack of space or there’s never been one. efforts, with items always of great interest! — Y.E.] [Thanks for checking us out and hope you continue reading CBC, Jeff! I reckon whether to reveal the Omega the Unknown Ron Harris ending is Mary’s prerogative, and I know her decision is based on an understanding she had with Omega co-creator Steve Ger- I just received the Stout/Preiss issue of CBC [#32]. I found it a ber. And, actually, there is a letter col in #33, pgs. 14–16. — Y.E.] very interesting read, despite my coming across as the villain of the [Byron Preiss] piece. Our youthful indiscretions do come back to haunt us.

Gary Brown The whole issue was quite good. I’d like to single out the This is a letter of comment that has been a long time coming. piece on Frank Borth. Along with artists like Lloyd Ostendorf Almost each issue of Comic Book Creator I get, I tell myself, and Fran Matera, he produced a large body of fine work that “I need to send Jon an email about this and that.” But I sadly has been largely overlooked because Pflaum books didn’t keep pushing it back until it no longer is relevant. As someone appear on the newsstands. It’s nice to learn more about Borth’s who has been doing fanzines for almost 60 years now, I should long and varied career. know better. Every letter or email I’ve gotten on my zines are Parenthetically, I had wondered about the term “sky pilot” always appreciated. too until my dad said it was a old nickname for a clergyman.

A few months ago, I ordered The Charlton Companion and Apparently it was frequently used by sailors. Being me, I had to have been reading it since. Jon, it’s a terrific book. Charlton has research the term. It seems to date back to the late 19th century, been for a long time a sort of “step-child” of the comic book when a “pilot” steered a ship. Presumably the “sky pilot” industry. Publishing some low-grade comics (and magazines) steered your course to heaven. I wonder if 1950 kids underwith low-grade paper and printing, Charlton kept plugging stood the reference. [Thanks, Ron! You’re a hero to me! — Y.E.] along for decades. I clearly remember in the early 1960s looking on a spinner rack of comics and I pulled out one of Jeff Gelb their Western titles with the intention of purchasing it. But, You continue to do an outstanding job with CBC. I bought the when I put my hand on the cover, it felt like someone had put sand in the ink, leaving tiny grains of something on the paper. I latest issue [#30] because of the cover feature on Michael Cho, opened it and the entire issue had been short-cut on the sides. who is uncommonly talented. But imagine my delighted surprise when I opened it up to an article about Norman Goldfind.

I put it back.

And therein lies a story: But I kept looking at their offerings and, when Dick Back in the early 1980s, I was in love with the writing of Giordano became editor, the product became more interesting.

Stephen King and decided to try to write my own Stephen King Hell, there were even some memorable comics along the way: horror novel.

It took two years, but I came up with something Captain Atom, E-Man, some of their horror titles, “Children of called Specters, and, without an agent, started peddling it to all Doom,” Thunderbolt, and Peacemaker. I’m especially please you wrote about Sanho Kim, who I became a fan of his artwork. And the publishers myself. No luck. But that was an era when there were a lot of independent paperback book publishers to try, the line’s alumni was as good as Marvel, DC, Dell, or Gold Key. Sure, the pay rates were cheap, but it gave a lot of young, ambi- and I finally found Bart Books, owned and operated by Norman.

I wanted to let you know that the issue on Byron is extraordinary. I am totally blown away… Thank you again for your hard work. We will treasure it forever.

[Thank you. I hoped to please you and your daughters most of all. Sandi is the wife of the late Byron Preiss. — Ye Ed.]

Above: For our letters column this ish, some big name comics fans share some missives, including Jeff Gelb, who edited the fanzine Men of Mystery back in the day and worked for decades in the music industry. The cover of his one novel, Specters [19988], is shown here. Below: Lifelong newspaperman Gary Brown was active in the fanzine universe with his titles, Gremlins and Comic Comments, and he contributed to many others. Here’s covers of two of ’em, drawn by comics pros.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All TM & © the respective copyright holders.

46

Treasure Chest TM & © the respective copyright holder.

He bought Specters for a grand total of $700 as an advance against royalties, which he assured me I would make first time around. The book was published in 1988 and, sure enough, six months later he gave me a phone call. He said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is your book would’ve made royalties. The bad news is, we’re going bankrupt.” So I never saw another dime from my book. And that was the last novel I ever attempted to write!

The irony was that at the time I was working with him, and even met him once for lunch in New York, I did not know he was the publisher of Will Eisner‘s groundbreaking graphic novel, A Contract with God. I wish I had known that. It would’ve given us so much to talk about. But Norman was a super-nice guy and it’s great to see that he is still alive and well. So thanks for running this!

[Jeff, of course, helped with his Chrissie Hynde remembrance in CBC #33! Thanks, buddy! — Y.E.]

dating Jeanie on trips back to St. Louis, because her parents didn’t want her to date me. He was quite a guy, and while a lot of what he wrote in comics wasn’t my own personal cup of tea, I always felt, and still do, that Marvel was and is by far the better for his having passed through its doors and tarried there a while. [As always, Roy, thanks for your comments. — Y.E.]

Joe Frank

[CBC #31 was] a different sort of issue with shorter features; some of them quite intriguing. I’d heard the name Graham Nolan previously but, honestly, didn’t know too much about the guy. So, your interview brought me up to speed. Didn’t realize his career extended back so long. But that tended to explore another common comics-related topic: assignments drying up eventually. Yet, from the sound of it, with his Compass Comics imprint, he’s not waiting idly for the majors to toss him breadcrumbs, but striking out on his own, with different, non-super-hero material. Good for him! Only in comics is a long Roy Thomas resume seen as a horrendous detriment.

With Frank Borth, you were right. Hadn’t heard of him. But Enjoyed the coverage of Stan’s aborted Excelsior line in CBC as many of the art samples printed were from 1942, no surprise #33. An exemplary job, with these caveats: there. Before my time. Still, I knew of his chum, Reed Crandall, Since so much Zarlock material was available — even a whose career extended to Warren and Tower, so it wasn’t commake-ready of the first issue — I was truly surprised and sorry plete strangers. Really liked the detailed linework illustration that a bit more of that series wasn’t shown in the article… of the man and mermaid. Do you know what assignment was which is basically my way of saying that I feel the Excelsior experiment deserved more pages than it received. But perhaps for? So meticulous and beautiful. Curious to see where this biography will go, in the next two chapters, as he was never on that will simply give me the excuse sometime to feature more my radar. of that artwork in Alter Ego… although I really don’t have a lot The DC production department article was terrific. Lots of to say about the line than what was quoted in your article. nostalgic old photos and behind-the-scenes information. One I do regret a couple of phrases of mine (correctly quoted thing puzzled me though: what was this “nostalgia wave” they — no complaints there) that might make it seems as if I was unhappy to be working with Sal Buscema. I was simply attempt- referenced? The reprints in the back of the ’71-’72 titles were more to fill pages and raise the cover price. Was it fan demand ing to point out that Zarlock was the only one of the four titles that had — perhaps deliberately on Stan’s part, I don’t know — a or editorial convenience? Maybe Famous First Editions, the oversized reprints of valuable old issues? Otherwise, offhand, late 1960s/1970s look and feel. Sal was and is a consummate I must’ve missed the sudden mid-’70s outcry for old stories. I pro, and I was proud to be associated with him again, having scripted his very first submitted art pages in late ’60s Avengers. mean, DC had 80-page reprints all through the ’60s. Plus, The Great Comic Book Heroes was 1965. So, it seemed more of the I do have to point out one almost inexplicable error in the article, however. The footnote on page 10 indicates that Tom same, rather than a sudden impulse direction.

DeFalco worked “Marvel style” on Vandal, while Kurt Busiek The highlight of the issue, personally, was the super-deand I “worked full-script.” I’ve no idea how Kurt wrote his scripts tailed look at the Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall show from early ’72. for the Excelsior line, but all of mine — and I wrote dialogue Sounds like attendees and reviewers must’ve gone through a for at least two issues, and Marvel-style plots for one, maybe thesaurus looking for synonyms for “embarrassing.” two more. Not sure what I might have said that gave you the The four big problems: Reading comics doesn’t automatiimpression that I wrote full script on Zarlock. To the best of my cally translate into a stage show. Not enough conception or rerecollection, the only Marvel-related work I ever did in full-script hearsal time. Proficiency or talent in one area — such as writing mode were the 18 years of the Spider-Man newspaper strip or drawing — doesn’t make one an actor or rock star. The desire I wrote for Stan (not directly for Marvel) and, I believe, the to stage the performance seemed to override an objective look single page in the Marvel 1000 publication that dealt with at what it would be. the creation of Wolverine. In fact, I believe the only other pro Ironically, comic pros attending conventions have more comics I ever wrote a full-script for were when I adapted for of a real connection. They can talk to, or interact with, the Topps Comics the first 14 episodes of the X-Files TV series for audience and focus on the process, not poetry, songs or magic the X-Files: Season One series (of which eight were published tricks. Turn it around. How good of a comic book would it be before Topps dropped the series at least partly because of the if rock musicians, with no experience in the area, were told to difficulty of dealing with the TV people). immediately write one and that the presses were waiting? Even Love what I’ve read of the Steve Gerber coverage, too. His if portions of the show were okay, does that compensate for the account of how he appealed to me for a Marvel job in the early dubious overall experience? So ironic that the Bullpen Bulletins ’70s is pretty spot-on. His letter, as I have always paraphrased had a more flattering review than any of the less-than-flattering it (not far from words he himself used, as quoted in the article), independent views expressed. basically said, “Help! I’m going crazy working in advertising What I disliked seeing, from that era, were the lopsided in St. Louis!” As Jeanie (who liked Steve as much as I did) once solo credits favoring Stan. Steve Lemberg said “his [Stan’s] quipped, “What he didn’t tell us was that his craziness wasn’t Silver Surfer,” despite it originating with Jack Kirby. And the Spia work-related condition.” I’m only sorry he didn’t mention in der-Man rock album had this credit line: “Based on characters passing how he once acted as the “beard” for me when I was created by Stan Lee.” Yet, Stan, in a letter to Jerry Bails, credited COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

This page: Much to the disappointment of those who wish for me to make a buck or two — I see you shaking your head, Rob! — on the side I am working on the definitive (only?) history ever compiled on the Catholic school comic book, Treasure Chest, published between 1946–72. Why? Because so many wonderful artists worked on the bi-weekly-during-the-school-year series, including the great Graham Hunter, whose utterly charming, crowded TC covers I’m including above. Graham was last seen doing equally crowded full-pagers for Marvel’s Pizzazz in the ’70s.

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Steve Ditko as introducing Doctor Strange : “’Twas Steve’s idea.”

Stan has said he considers the first sayer or the one with the idea as the creator. Yet, in cases where that favors Jack or Steve, no, somehow, it’s still him.

Instead of fair or accurate credits, such grabs have necessitated any retelling of his history or biography with an awkward, repellent concession that his collaborators had great contention with how they were short-changed credit-wise. All unnecessary.

The current co-creator credits, which he so avoided, acknowledge both parties and don’t arbitrarily sideline a vital collaborator. How is reality so objectionable?.

[Frank’s son, Steve, has no idea what that Borth mermaid piece was done for, though it is simply gorgeous! — Y.E.]

Above: Found in a 1947 issue of Editor & Publisher, here’s a short piece on Frank Borth as he started his (sadly short-lived) syndicated newspaper comic strip, Ken Stuart.

Below: Here is the Ditko-rendered Spider-Man figure from the inside cover of Americana in Four Colors that perplexed letter writer Joe Frank. Bottom: Greg Ketter is certain the blond fellow is Arthur Byron Cover in this 1977 SDCC pic by Jackie Estrada.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Photo © Jackie Estrada.

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as a relative newcomer, yet later, seemed more of a friend and contemporary to him. Stout moved up in the comic art and commercial art biz. He expanded to better paying assignments outside of comics. So he never became trapped in the industry.

It didn’t define all he could do or contribute. It was just a viable option, should the assignment intrigue him.

The Byron Preiss article had an added level of appreciation.

You were able to go into such great detail because you thought ahead and interviewed him earlier, when you had the opportunity. He tragically passed unexpectedly, but you already had made the time and connection with him. That’s to be admired.

Like several others in the comics industry, he started young.

But it was more a matter of him being open to new ideas, formats, possibilities, and connections. He wasn’t looking to Greg Ketter duplicate or fit in with what comics fans already had. He developed other ideas which are both surprising and welcome. That’s I was just perusing the new issue of CBC and there’s a photo how, in spite of itself, the industry changes and grows. of Steranko, Byron Preiss, and two others. The one on the right The people he chose to work with him had no end of greats: with long blond hair looks to be Arthur Byron Cover who wrote Jim Steranko, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, Ralph Reese, Terry stories for Preiss. I can’t tell who the other fellow is I’m afraid.

Austin, Will Eisner, and many others. They believed in him, and he believed in himself. If, in the ‘70s, industry insiders John Workman feared comics weren’t selling, Preiss’ approach was to find other I read your really wonderful article on Byron, and really enjoyed formats, content and outlets where they would. it. I always liked talking to him, and I realized that I had pretty That’s why this issue was important: to remind people. I much lost contact with him after the Heavy Metal days, though don’t know how long comics readers stick around these days.

I seem to have some memories of bumping into him at some Years ago, the thought was perhaps three years. So, Byron, gone New York comic conventions.

18 years, would be like six comics generations past. He should I checked my copy of More Than Human and, while the be remembered. He did contribute. He attempted and encournumber 13 came to mind when I was telling you about it, the aged new things. That sort of legacy shouldn’t be forgotten or actual number of pages for which I drew layouts for Alex Niño overlooked. was nine… the final nine pages in the book. I was surprised Can’t overlook where you noted Gil Kane dictated 200,000 way back when upon seeing that Alex had stuck incredibly close words, in the ’70s, about the comics industry up to that time. to what I’d roughed out. My memory is dim after all these years, Would that be available to excerpt or publish in full? but I remember Byron giving me the script for those pages and [Good question, Joe! I’ll ask Denis Kitchen, curator of the asking me to lay the pages out. I took it home to our apartment Kurtzman estate, and John Benson, Kane’s interviewer for that on Staten Island and did the work on a few hours, basing the marathon session! — Y.E.] characters on what was on copies of the finished pages that Alex had done. The next day in my HM office, I handed the Joe Frank layouts to Byron.

[Thanks, John. Mr. Workman was art director of Heavy Metal Even with the long wait for the Gerber issue – from the moment in its early (and greatest) years. — Y.E.] I saw it on TwoMorrows’ website — it was more than worth it. An abundance of cool stuff, both Gerber-related and not.

Joe Frank You asked, point blank, if you should use more vintage radio interviews. My response would be yes, assuming the Lots to like about CBC #32! Even in your short chapter about subject is no longer around to interview yourself. I mean, even Frank Borth, I loved the idea that when he and his wife moved answering radio callers, we get a closer glimpse of the talent away, the townspeople wanted them back. How often does under scrutiny. He even made me laugh, when Caller Six noted something like that rate newspaper coverage? Or the cover there had been a Howard the Duck movie, some years back, of Ken Stuart #1 with the selling point, “Clean Comics For and Steve replied, “Yes, I know. Go ahead.”… Wish they would Everyone.” have asked him more about Thundarr, but the callers seem too But the biggest surprise and challenge was the cover to preoccupied burping or screaming.

Americana in Four Colors. I recognized the Kirby Thor imThe Mary Skrenes interview, naturally, mentioned Steve, mediately, from the cover to Journey into Mystery #89. But, but was so much more than that. In addition, she gave us a tour to my surprise, the source of the Ditko Spider-Man eluded of the DC editorial staff in the ‘70s, the artists and writers she me. It seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Eventually, I did. It must’ve been an original rendering that was knew and a look at her own career and preferences.

Of the editors, only Dick Giordano and Archie Goodwin changed, afterwards, into the 1965 six-foot Spider-Man poster. came across as supportive and pleasant. The rest, unfortunately, One leg was pulled in and the webbed arm was altered into a fist. I recognized the one open hand and the two feet. So, if true, seemed decidedly negative, with either passive/aggressive that explains where the art originated and why it was doctored or overtly hostile games-playing. Why was that even needed, much less tolerated? Makes the creative process that much to make it more rectangular and narrower. more difficult. Who’s going to do their best work under those I liked how William Stout was thoughtful to Jack Kirby in conditions? forgoing the Mattel assignment, which paid well, and giving it That a writer would need to submit her work through to him, instead. How many people would do that? another writer – in this case, Steve Skeates – is just nonsense.

Also intriguing: he worked for Harvey Kurtzman, early on,

Dwelling Upon Jay’s Dwellings

Murder, mayhem, and madness prevail in Jay Stephens’ series, drawn à lá Harvey Comics!

Dwellings TM & © Jay Stephens. Hot Stuff TM & © Classic Media, LLC. The Beyond TM & © the respective copyright holder. Last Gasp icon TM & © Last Gasp of San Francisco.

by JON B. COOKE As I said to Patrick McDonnell this ish, it seems like I’m always late to the party when it comes to cool stuff, so when groovin’ new projects hit the scene, I can be gob-smacked when seeing ’em on the stands! Jay Stephens’ Dwellings is the most current example. I’ve been a huge aficionado of Jay’s work for decades now, simply loving his Atomic City Tales, Jetcat, and Tutenstein, as his art style and storytelling verve are hugely appealing. To be candid, I love his latest effort partly due to my love for the art of Warren Kremer (creator of Richie Rich and Hot Stuff) as well as the overall design of the Harvey Comics of my childhood, which is captured so expertly in Jay’s new series.

So I asked the Canadian cartoonist his thoughts about Dwellings and here’s what he shared: “Dwellings is a pandemic-era experiment that indulges my passions for the art house horror films and vintage kids comics I grew up with. Weaponized nostalgia. Nostalgia can be a terrible kind of curse… an inescapable possession. Forever looking backwards is an emotionally unhealthy kind of horror, and I’m as guilty as anyone else of trying to recapture lost joys, haunting the past like a wailing ghost. But Dwellings goes beyond a simple, wistful, gaze backwards into some entirely fresh Hell.

The town of Elwich where these stories all unfold is like my personal Twin Peaks or ’Salem’s Lot, a nightmare version of where I grew up and continue to dwell. Southern Ontario towns are full of ghost stories and gruesome tales of murder that folks would rather stayed buried. But those graves are shallow.”

I then inquired about any connection to Harvey Comics in the creator’s approach, given the look and feel of Dwellings, which resembles any 25¢ Richie Rich or Wendy, the Good Little Witch giants of the ’60s: “I collected all kinds of comics as a kid, but the Harvey books were some of my favourites. Yes, I said it!

The designs of Casper, the Friendly Ghost, and Hot Stuff were uncannily irresistible to me, and I’ve always striven to recreate some of that magic in my own work. And then there was that hint of the supernatural in those comics… ghosts, witches, devils… my whole life I’ve tried to reconcile the conflicting messages of Hot Stuff, the Little Devil, and The Exorcist that I was exposed to back in 1980, when that film first aired on TV.

This is why Dwellings comics look cute, but get all bloody.”

I confessed to Jay, who had contributed to my old magazine, Comic Book Artist, back in the early ’00s, “I’ve always called Warren Kremer the ‘Jack Kirby of kiddie comics’ and, despite any scoffing by non-believers, I remain steadfast in that assessment.” Then I asked, “Are you influenced by the legendary children’s comics storyteller?”

The cartoonist replied, alluding to Kremer’s ’50s horror comics work, “Well, you nailed that one, Jon. Guilty as charged!

I’m a Howie Post fan, too, but Warren Kremer is one of my cartooning heroes, and the fact that he could rock Casper for years with that crisp brush-line and also be the artist of some of the most horrific and controversial pre-code horror covers has always fascinated me.”

Finally, Jay shared about the future of Dwellings and the reception it has so far received. “I’ve never had a soldout, in-demand comic book series before! The reception to Dwellings has been at least as shocking as the content of the comics, especially so late in my so-called ‘career.’ It’s thrilling to see people reacting positively to something so personal and experimental… Dwellings was a cathartic project for me, and I’m delighted it has resonated with readers. There will be more of these from Oni Press as soon as I wrap up some other fun commitments. (Sometimes, a guy needs a break from horror for a minute.”)

Above: Covers of Dwellings #1–3

by Jay Stephens, a series to be compiled into a hardback collection by Oni Press in the spring of 2024.

Below: Detail of Hot Stuff #77 [Apr. 1967] and The Beyond #1 [Nov. 1950].

Believe it or not, both are by Warren Kremer!

It’s what’s on the page that should be judged, not the personalities or office politics. Is the writer creative and skilled? If so, encourage her or, at the very least, leave her alone to do her work. Sounds like she got along far better with her fellow writer and artist friends.

[Joe then asks a string of questions…] Which years were she and Steve a couple? In New York? Vegas? Is she the reason he moved to Las Vegas? Or maybe he just wanted to be away from New York? Other than gender, how was Bev like her? What qualities? Val Mayerik, in his 2003 interview, said he and Steve might be doing Howard again, so what happened? Is anyone doing a biography of Steve Gerber?

To me, even though Don McGregor and Mary are writers, the interviews are just as entertaining and informative as with artists. Still storytelling, just from a different viewpoint. This one seemed especially fun and informative.

Finally, in a non-Gerber supplement, I enjoyed the look at the proposed Excelsior line. Hard to judge something that

wasn’t published. But it was intriguing to read assessments or incidents from the people involved. I’m always struck by excessive rewriting at the end. Why not spell it out, in detail, at the start? No time for a script, but plenty of time for corrections?

Or Stan wanting creator credit. Easy way to get it: do the entire first book. Put the time and effort in. Establish and develop the characters. He and Bill Everett did it with Daredevil.

Stan had complained that, for decades, he had to do comics which pleased his publisher. Then, when he actually had creative freedom – later at Marvel, Stan Lee Media and POW – we didn’t see particularly memorable characters. Maybe a plot or outline delegated to others. Why’s that, for someone so creative? [So many questions, Joe! To be honest, readers, I had to truncate Joe’s letters and ask his forgiveness and indulgence for my edits, as I want to include as much as can fit. Always grateful for your comments, J.F.… but what “long wait”? It was your comments, pal, that prompted me to stick to a strict, quarterly, punctual schedule! I’m trying!— Y.E.]

Below: This Greg Irons icon for Last Gasp of San Francisco appears here to share that Ye Ed. is currently at work on a history of Baba Ron Turner’s pioneering underground comix imprint. Look for Mind Candy from the Turners soon!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

49

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comics in the library

Eisner Lawman John Law

The long, ever-morphing journey of Will Eisner’s one-eyed detective and bootblack Nubbin ing off with six titles delving into the genres that were most popular in 1948, such as sports, cute family fare, pirates, crime, Hi, folks! This is, again, a continuation from the columns from and the like. The first two, and only, titles published by Will Comic Book Creator # 33–34 and revolves around three graphic Eisner Publications were Kewpie and Baseball Comics. The third stories that had a long gestation period between first being was likely to have been John Law, Detective, which had been published and finally reaching rightful completion decades completed and featured three John Law stories — “Sand Blue,” later. Our first example, from CBC #33, was Dracula, by Roy “The Half Dead Mr. Lox,” and an eight-page story entitled “Ratt Thomas and Dick Giordano, which took 30 years from first pub- Gutt.” The sales on the first two titles were dismal and the entire lication to its completed storyline. The second was The Lonely line was cancelled.

War of Capt. Willie Schultz, by Willi Franz and Sam Glanzman, Still, even after canceling the John Law title, Eisner certainly which took 56 years(!) from start to finish. While discussing recognized the quality of “Sand Blue.” That 11-page story is our second story, we were, once again, interrupted by the simply a stunning achievement, combining a strong crime story constraints of word count for this column. We will now resume with an equally strong, if doomed, romance story that may well our regular commentary… have been as acclaimed over the years as the later Spirit version This time we focus on a character that took 35 years from has become — or then again, maybe not. The Spirit Section had conception to publication, then another 21 years to see a a large following built in. There was no guarantee that John brand-new story appear. This one is Will Eisner’s John Law, DeLaw, Detective would have met with any success whatsoever tective, and its pathway to publication is even more convoluted in the bulging swamp of over-produced Western, crime, and than our previous two examples. romance genres.

In 1946, Will Eisner had taken back control of the Spirit Eisner cut his losses and recast the three John Law stories Section, rejuvenating the book after nearly three-and-a-half as Spirit tales. The 11-page ‘Sand Blue’ became a two-episode, years of decently written and drawn, but increasing pedestrian 14-page Spirit story by writing and drawing three new pages crime stories. By early 1946, the Spirit was re-presenting itself for part one, whiting out Law’s pipe and eye patch, (except they in all its pre-war glory and then some. Eisner’s work in both art missed the eye patch on panel two, page 13, of the two-parter), and stories had improved greatly over the time he’s spent in drawing in the Spirit’s mask on all 11 pages of the original the military and he packed the Spirit’s stories with examples of story and moving the original splash page to the second part of both. the saga. It was now entitled “Sand Saref” and “Bring in Sand He’d also come back with the ambition to expand his Saref” and would become the most-fondly remembered Spirit business. One of the ideas he had was for a newspaper strip story ever, following its publication on January 8–15, 1950. that would present a male version of Little Orphan Annie and The original John Law cover appeared as the splash page of revolve around a shoeshine boy named Nubbin Butts. That first “The Jewel,” on March 12, 1950, and “Ratt Gutt” became “Ratt effort, in 1946, didn’t get much farther than a few strips, entiTrap,” and appeared as a Spirit story on January 29, 1950. “The tled Nubbin, before Eisner changed his mind, and transformed Half-Dead Mr. Lox” got an extra page and appeared on February the idea into another 16-page Sunday insert book, entitled Will 19, 1950.

Eisner’s Sunday Comics, in the same vein as the Spirit Section.

And that was it. The original stories were put in a box, along With that in mind, he came up with a six-page Nubbin story — with other items from the aborted comics line and forgotten “The Half Dead Mr. Lox” — that not only featured Nubbin living until Cat Yronwode, doing an inventory of Eisner’s stored work, in a town called Crossroad City, but his one-eyed cop buddy, came across the box. Since she was a co-publisher of Eclipse named John Law, as a supporting character.

Comics, along with Dean Mullaney, they published the original With the story completed, likely in 1947 or early ’48, Eisner John Law, Detective #1, in 1983, along with Baseball Comics, again rethought the idea, realizing that John Law was a better the only two completed titles of the aborted comic- book line lead character than Nubbin, and switched gears. John Law’s that Eisner actually did work on. character combined aspects of two characters from the Spirit In 2004, with Eisner’s blessing, Australian writer-artist strip. Physically, he was a dead ringer for the Spirit, except for Gary Chaloner wrote and drew a new 50-page John Law tale, the eye patch, which played something of the role of the Spirit’s entitled “Dead Man Walking,” accompanied by the original mask, and he smoked a pipe, just like the Spirit’s Commissioner stories, which was initially published in a limited edition of 500 Dolan. Eisner set about creating a seven-page lead-off story, hardcover copies. entitled “Sand Blue,” that would provide an origin for John Law. While browsing eBay, I came across a copy of Chaloner’s efThat lead-off story would be accompanied by the Nubbin story, fort for only $6.38 and brought it for the library, only to discover and likely a three-page story from another creator. However, that it’s not only a really good story, but co-starred Mr. Mystic the lead-off story ended up totaling 11 pages, too long for a and Lady Luck, both originally back-up features for the Spirit Sunday insert book, if the Nubbin story was to be the back-up.

Section, with a tipped-in book-plate (#70 of 500) autographed In 1948, Eisner switched gears yet again. He was now

by Eisner. I didn’t have anything autographed by Eisner thinking of launching his own comic book company — starthimself, so I kept the book. Say what you will.

John Law, Nubbin TM & © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

by RICHARD J. ARNDT

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Above: Detail from the never-published Will Eisner’s Sunday Comics cover featuring John Law, Detective and shoeshine boy Nubbin. Both features were re-purposed and altered for the creator’s then ongoing Spirit Section in the late ’40s.

51

darrick patrick’s ten questions

Daydreaming in Pajamas

Mr. 10 Queries gets the scoop from Ice Cream Man creator and scribe W. Maxwell Prince This page: Inset right is the cover of the first Ice Cream Man trade paperback [June 2018], a reprint from the first issue [Jan. 2018], with art by Martin Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran. Below: Detail from Martin Morazzo and Mat Lopes’ cover of Art Brut #1 [Dec. 2022]. Bottom is portrait of the writer, W. Maxwell Prince.

by DARRICK PATRICK [Cribbing a bit from his biographical blurb at the Image Comics website, we learn that W. Maxwell Prince, resident of Brooklyn, is a professional writer whose comic book work includes Ice Cream Man, Swan Songs, Art Brut, Haha, One Week in the Library, Judas: The Last Days, The Electric Sublime, and more.

Married with a wife, daughter, and two cats (named Mischief and Mayhem), “When not writing,” says imagecomics.com, “he tries to render all of human experience in chart form.” — D.P.]

52

disparate parts that pull in various directions through a series of storms and recurring disasters. The fact that he continues to curate and release the best books in the industry, month after month after month, really says something about his character.

I’m also a big fan of Deniz Camp, author of 20th Century Men. Deniz is the best writer working in comics. All of his new stuff is going to blow people away.

Darrick: Outside of creating stories, what are your other interests?

W. Maxwell: I’m trying to become better at braiding my daughter’s hair. Also, power-lifting, woodworking, and making charts.

Darrick: What is your oldest memory?

W. Maxwell: From a past life, the smell of steam and smoke as the train approaches my body. Turns out I was tied to the tracks and that was the end of my life.

Darrick: Tell us something about you that most people don’t know.

W. Maxwell: I don’t like horror, so I don’t really watch horror movies or read horror books. My baseline level of fear is already high — I’m not trying to add to it.

Darrick: When you’re no longer amongst the living, how would you most like to be remembered?

W. Maxwell: As a man who was never tied to the tracks and run over by a steam engine. I’d also like people to think I was fundamentally kind.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Ice Cream Man, Art Brut TM & © W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo. Photo courtesy of W. Maxwell Prince.

Darrick Patrick: What was the journey that led you to working professionally within comic books?

W. Maxwell Prince: I imagine mine is probably the same as most other comic book writers. I was an avid comic book reader my whole life. At some point, a little voice in my head started whispering (urgently), “Maybe you should try to make one of your own.”

Darrick: Who are some of the people that greatly influenced you while growing up?

W. Maxwell: In no particular order: my mom, Rod Serling, Robin Williams, and the EMT volunteers in my hometown.

Darrick: Do you have any words of advice for other individuals looking to make a career with their writing abilities?

W. Maxwell: Write, write, write. It’s the only way.

Darrick: How do you spend your time on a typical workday?

W. Maxwell: Being a writer is great.

You can do it in your pajamas, and most of the time you’re just daydreaming.

Darrick: For new readers who may not be familiar with your work, what are some projects of yours that you would recommend to begin with?

W. Maxwell: Ice Cream Man has been running for over six years and we’re about to hit issue #40. We’re biased, but we think there’s something special about the book. It’s the central artistic project of my adulthood — and probably my entire life.

Darrick: Who are a few of the people in the comics industry that you hold a high deal of respect for?

W. Maxwell: Eric Stephenson, publisher of Image Comics, steers (figuratively, natch) a giant ship made of

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

53

Zatanna TM & © DC Comics. Magicman TM & © the respective copyright holder. Dateline Hembeck TM & © Fred Hembeck. COLORS BY: GLENN WHITMORE.

DENNY O’NEIL

Saving the World, One Story at a Time

Dennis O’Neil portrait © Ken Meyer, Jr.

54

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Justice League of America TM & © DC Comics.

FROM THE EDITOR: In the spirit of Comic

to the Missouri-born wordsmith, toiled on this issue’s

Book Creator’s increased focus on writers as of late,

main feature into the new year, but he became side-

plans were set in motion last summer to devote an

lined before it was due. Thus yours truly has promptly

issue to Bob Brodsky’s favorite scribe, Dennis Joseph

jumped in to complete the section, doing my best to

O’Neil [1939–2020], one of the finest talents in the

retain Bob’s rightfully — and righteously! — biased

history of American comics. Bob, whose fanzine from

opinion regarding his idol’s abilities. So offer all bou-

1999–2004, The O’Neil Observer, was mostly devoted

quets to B.B. and save any brickbats for — YE ED.

Denny O’Neil was comics’ first truly great modern writer.

The scribe was passionate about his work, erudite, and articulate, and his best stories employed a journalist’s feel for telling tales in ways that enlighten as well as entertain.

And while the field’s best scribes, including superb creators Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Garth Ennis, have perhaps crafted stories and concepts beyond Denny’s scope, none of their work would have happened without his groundbreaking influence.

In popular music, Bob Dylan’s songs bequeathed a new way of songwriting, breaking free from, the “moon and June” rules of the craft skillfully practiced by classic Tin Pan Alley contributors to the “Great American Songbook,” like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin.

While Dylan’s work, beginning in the early 1960s, was very different from that of great songwriters to come, e.g., Pete Townshend, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits, it was Dylan who kicked down the walls, and bushwacked the conventions, of what popular song could express and convey.

Dylan gave songwriters the freedom to follow their own creative path. Townshend’s songs are nothing like Dylan’s, but he needed Bob for permission, if you will, to write them.

The Dylan analogy works for Denny O’Neil and the great comic book writers to follow.

“Kryptonite Nevermore,” indeed.

In an industry where the artists tend to get more recognition, Denny’s best work stands as testament to the power of great comic book writing. He broadened and deepened the parameters of what a good comic book could be.

Denny’s work at DC of that period — especially on the sagas of Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern/Green Arrow — elevated comics to new, unprecedented levels of creativity, and gave his readers (with and without oft-creative partner Neal Adams’ superb artwork) some of the greatest stories in the history of comics.

Denny’s best work was intelligent and well-crafted, with a tight narrative, and rich dialogue, and characterization.

There is also a nth element that’s harder to pin down — an elegance, really, in the way the man writes a story.

Denny’s best work taught and inspired not only Moore, Gaiman, and Ellis, but also the great young writers immediately following him in the early 1970s, such as Steve Englehart, Don McGregor, and Steve Gerber.

To this day, the astonishing early 1970s work of Denny and Jack Kirby’s Fourth World stand as the twin pillars of the DC Universe (Multiverse?).

While Kirby was surely comics’ most exciting, important, and influential artist, O’Neil’s work, primarily at DC during the “relevance years’” from roughly 1967 to 1973, continues to influence, impress, and inspire new generations.

One goal here is to revisit those amazing late ’60s/early ’70s years when Denny’s characters and stories often meshed with the times in which they were created. Whenever possible, you will hear Denny in his own voice.

Walk into any comic-book store today, and you will see evidence of O’Neil’s importance on the “new this week” racks. Though often mutated beyond original conception, Denny’s characters and concepts continue to entertain and engage 21st Century comic book fans.

Denny was the adult in the room, the professional who broke the rules, replaced them with something better, and elevated comic book writing to a more creative and expressive place. During his peak creative years of roughly 1968–73, his work influenced, awed, and inspired both his contemporaries and the creators to come.

by Bob Brodsky COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

with Jon B. Cooke Portrait by Ken Meyer, Jr. 55

His passing on July 11, 2020, followed by the death of his most important collaborator, Neal Adams, in the spring of 2022, was an unfathomable loss for comics and popular culture while remaining stark reminders of their impact on generations of readers.

Denny was a master craftsman. His finest work stands with the greatest writers from any medium. His stories had grace, elegance, and, yes, beauty. Always a true professional, Denny approached comic book writing from an “outside looking in” perception.

Unlike the next generation of great comic book writers like Englehart, who worked from an “inside looking out” vantagepoint, Denny kept a professional distance from his work. If Denny was Bob Dylan, then Steve was Neil Young. Englehart could tell you who inked one of his stories back in 1973, while Denny maintained a different perspective on his work.

Partly F. Scott Fitzgerald, with a dash of Chandler and a touch of Tom Wolfe, Denny was all about respect for both his characters and his readers. He was a professional writer, who met his deadlines, understood his obligation to his readers and editors, and created amazing work within those confines.

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* Affectionately abbreviated by fans as O’NO. — Y.E.

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Wonder Woman, Bat Lash TM & © DC Comics. Bat Lash colors by Glenn Whitmore.

Without Denny, there would be no return to Batman’s dark avenger roots, no Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Ra’s al Ghul, Talia, Damon Wayne, Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, “New” Wonder Woman, homicidal Joker, Leslie Hopkins, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Santa Prisca, Crime Alley, or Lazarus Planet, not to mention “Matches” Malone!

At his peak, Denny’s skill as a writer was unsurpassed in the field. His gift for characterization and ability to make his characters real was beyond that of most of his contemporaries, except perhaps Stan Lee. Denny took characters drawn flat on a page and stuffed them with humanity. His captions were elegant Haiku, his dialogue could be as dramatic or conversational as needed. Denny’s best work stretched the boundaries of what a comic book story could express and convey.

This quiet and private man turned bland, perennial second banana Green Arrow into a fiery orator for social justice, while bringing Batman’s conflicted and tragedy-induced personality to prominence.

Denny’s best stories were always ambitious. With the eye of the journalist and the skill of a novelist, his stories and characters were truly “real” in ways rarely portrayed in comic books.

AN AGE OF RELEVANCE Denny O’Neil was, if you will, the Stan Lee of DC Comics and, while his creations were canonical, his recreations were even more important, whether the “New” Wonder Woman, his “Sandman series” in Superman, the return of The Batman, reappearance of The Joker as an insane killer, and, of course, his and Neal Adams’ magnificent Green Lantern/Green Arrow run of the early 1970s, which ushered in a new epoch.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Denny reconstructed decadesold characters and made them real. In the scribe’s work, his “universe” continues to be a pivot-point for today’s comic book creators.

Like Dylan going electric, Denny stood at the center of a firestorm that elevated an oft-ridiculed medium to a place where even The New York Times and Newsweek paid attention.

In fact, decades later, the Times’ respective obituaries for Denny and Neal were detailed and reverential, acknowledging their contribution to popular culture beyond comics.

Tagged to their time, DC’s and (to a lesser extent) Marvel’s “relevant” stories of the late ’60s and early ’70s became a genre onto itself. Of course, like all genres, the good and bad co-existed, as lesser creative hands took their shot at the trend. “Relevance” turned out to be also a fad of sorts, with quality ranging from the sublime to the not-so-hot, with most “relevant” comics falling in between. (In truth, while Denny and Neal were the main conveyors of the best of the relevance era, other creators, and creations, played a role in the movement’s development, success, and failure, and they deserve our recognition, as well.)

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, I had the privilege of editing The O’Neil Observer,* a fanzine “dedicated to the storytelling of Denny O’Neil and the craft of comic book writing.”

This article incorporates material from The O’Neil Observer’s five issue run [1998–2004], as well as a feature piece on Denny

by Kevin Hanley and myself that was published in Comic Book Marketplace #56 [Feb. 1998]. Except when noted, all interviews were conducted by me (and a few by Ye Ed.) and, whenever possible, you will hear Denny in his own voice.

In addition are a few excerpts from a 1970 group interview with Denny taped by then 15-year-old fan Walt Jaschek. Walt was a member of the Graphic Fantasy Society of St. Louis (“GARFAN”), a comic book club located in Denny’s hometown.

Superman, The Creeper TM & © DC Comics.

The writer, then somewhat new to comics, chatted with club members regarding his work at DC, and other related topics. At that time, Denny was on a creative high and his discussion with the club shows his insights, wit, and honesty.* On a personal note, getting to know a writer whose work meant so much to me since childhood and discovering what great people he and his second wife, Marifran, who passed away in 2017, are among the great joys of my life.

“Relevance,” in relation to comics anyway, meant more than covering the super-charged issues of the late ’60s and early ’70s in graphic form, no matter how dramatic or important. Like all genres, relevance was a genre unto itself, as mentioned, and quality varied from book to book and story to story.

In many ways, as the newspaper headlines that fueled it faded from collective memory, relevance proved to be a fad, with quality ranging from the sublime to the mundane — Hal and Ollie: meet Brother Power, the Geek.

I suppose the closest comparison in Top 40 music was the “Great Pop Protest Craze of 1965.” For every great song like the Byrds’ #1 hit version of Pete Seeger’s adaptation of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 “Turn, Turn, Turn,” there were 10 cheap knockoffs like Barry McGuire’s so bad, it’s good, “Eve of Destruction.”

Denny’s work during the relevant years fused his liberal beliefs and Catholic Worker background with his experience as a writer, combining his talent for fiction, including characterization, dialogue, and plotting, with the skills of a journalist, especially his excellent diction and eye for detail. And his finest stories could also be quite cinematic. Like his peer, the great writer/editor, Archie Goodwin, he often drew thumbnail sketches on his scripts for the artist to follow. Though not an artist, Denny always remembered that comics were a visual medium.

THE GOOD CATHOLIC BOY Denny grew up “a good Catholic kid” in St. Louis, Missouri.

“As a kid I was a devoted comic book reader,” Denny told me during our first interview for CBM, in 1997. “A little ritual after Sunday Mass: my father would stop at the local store and he would get milk and eggs, and what we needed for breakfast, and he would usually buy me a comic book. Later, my grandfather did something similar, so I was a stone fan before there were such things.

“I have very pleasant memories of being sprawled out on the front porch reading comics on a summer afternoon. I just loved the stuff. I didn’t know I loved it, but looking back I can see I was a stone comics lover. I remem­ber Batman and Superman, but I also remember loving the Vigilante and Green Arrow. But then, as I went into high school, there were a lot of other things to claim my attention.

“Also, I now know that comics just weren’t around to be bought anymore. The little stores, like the one that my father and I stopped at, went out of business after the end of the war.

The stores that survived found that, if they used their space for paperback books instead of comic books, they would make a lot more money per sale.”

(In a Comics Journal talk with fellow writer Matt Fraction, Denny said his was, “Not a terrible childhood — nobody beat me — but the nun did lock me in the convent basement every night in eighth grade. It was not a great environment for someone * The full conversation between Denny and the members of GARFAN, along with a copy of Denny’s script for the book-length Green Lantern adventure “This is the Way the World Ends,” #63 [Sept. 1968], and more, are collected in his one-of-a-kind book, The Denny O’Neil Tapes [WALTNOW Studios, 2023]. The book is available in hard copy as well as PDF at amazon.com. It comes highly recommended. — B.B.

with my limitations and someone with my proclivities and, dare I use the word, talent.

The arts were not encouraged, even less so when I went to a Christian military high school — talk about bad casting!”)

Denny graduated from St. Louis University, in 1961, with an English literature major and minors in creative writing and philosophy. He served two years in the U.S. Navy, getting “some practical handson journalistic experience, and a lot of experience mopping floors.” He also participated in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October, 1962.

“I came out of the Navy, taught school for a year and decided that I want­ed to write in some way.” Denny answered

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in the Marvel writer’s test. He had moved to New York, worked with Mort for about two weeks, and then took a job with Stan Lee. “I got this test and ‘why not?’ — it was four pages of Fantastic Four without copy and it seemed like an amusing thing to do for 20 minutes. So I did it, sent it to Roy, and, about a week after that, a whole lot of things happened in one afternoon, the culmination of which was that I accepted an offer to come to New York and be Stan Lee’s second assistant.”

Anything seemed possible in 1965 and now, in his mid20s, married and father of a young son, Denny moved his new family to the center of comic book publishing, New York City, and joined the Marvel Bullpen.

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an ad for a beat reporter from a newspaper in Cape Girardeau, a Mississippi River port town located near St. Louis. As a smalltown journalist, he would, according to a colleague at The Southeast Missourian, participate in story ideas, sometimes outof-this-world story ideas — including covering the “Buck Nelson Flying Saucer Convention” out in the wilds of the Ozarks — and sometimes hip (for 1965) ideas, such as having a photographer gauge a teen audience’s reaction while watching the Beatles’ movie, Help! Or so remembered fellow Missourian reporter Ken Steinhoff, who called Denny, “One of the most talented writers I ever worked with,” and who replaced him as “district news editor” when Denny left town in a hurry. What prompted that sudden departure was the result of the ambitious scribe making a connection that altered the trajectory of his career.

“As a reporter,” Denny said, ”I was on the road a lot — spending time in bus stations and drug stores — and I noticed comics were back. I suddenly realized that I had­n’t seen these things in about 10 years, so I bought some and found I really enjoyed them. I then did some rudimentary reporting and found that comics were, in fact, in the middle of a renaissance. I did two articles on the return of comic books, and then Roy Thomas got in touch with me — his parents subscribed to the paper.” This was all happening in May of 1965.

Thomas, then an English teacher at Fox High School outside of St. Louis, had already accepted an offer to go to New York and join the professional comics realm to become editor Mort Weisinger’s assistant on the Superman line of comic books.

“So I did a third arti­cle, [this one] on Roy. I went over to his apartment on a Sunday afternoon and bored my girlfriend silly as I sat and talked with Roy. I was really turned on by the conversation and the chance to write the piece.

“About a month later, I got a call from Roy asking if I would be interested

occurred well outside comics.

“I wrote a book on presidential elections that first couple of years. It was a coffee table book called Contest For Power [Year, Inc., 1968], and I’m sure it’s totally unavailable now. It was not a bad project and it got my wife, infant child, and me through a summer that would have been virtually penniless without it.”

(Alas, Denny was correct as I’ve not been able to find a single copy of his book.) [But Ye Ed did! See pic at left. — Y.E.] During his first stint at Marvel in 1965 and ’66 — he would return in the early 1980s as an important senior writer/editor — Denny wrote assorted humor and Western stories, including Two-Gun Kid, Millie the Model, and five or so issues of the “Doctor Strange” strip, in Strange Tales.

“My assignment on ‘Doc Strange’ came about because

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Photo by and © Ken Steinhoff. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission. Fantastic Four TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Above: Discovered at onetime Southeast Missourian photographer Ken Steinhoff’s website devoted to Cape Girardeau, a photo of Denny O’Neil and fellow staffers at a co-worker’s apartment. Page 55: Cover art of Justice League of America #79 [Mar. ’70] graces the cover of Earth Times #2 [May ’70], a San Francisco-based ecology tabloid monthly. Previous spread: Covers of Wonder Woman #178 [Oct. ’68] and Superman #233 [Jan. ’71], and Bat Lash illo by Nick Cardy and Beware the Creeper #2 [Aug. ’68] cover detail. Inset right: Marvel writer’s test sheet, an unlettered page, Fantastic Four Annual #2 [Oct. ’64]. Opposite page: Denny’s first article on comics, Southeast Missourian, May 17, 1965. Below: Contest for Power [’68] spread, an assignment that got Denny through 1967.

THE HOUSE OF STAN “It was mostly too goofy a thing not to do. I thought I’ll certainly give this a year, I’ll get some stories to tell and then I’ll probably come back to what I con­sidered to be my real profession, which was small town journalism. I some­how never got back to that paper.”

Replacing fellow writer Steve Skeates (who, by his own admission, was let go due to poor proofreading skills), O’Neil worked as a Marvel staffer for about six months before giving up a steady check for the star-crossed life of freelance writer.

One of his major projects during those early years in New York

Marvel was in the process of exploding and Stan, who had written everything, could not keep up with it all. Roy was already kind of full up, so neither of them, for whatever reason, wanted to do ‘Doc Strange,’ and I was the other warm body in the office.

“My job was simple, I had to imitate Stan Lee. Success was judged by how indistinguishable my work was from his and I do not have one word of complaint about that now.

Lee’s style was unique, and it was what was making Marvel happen.

“I think every young writer starting out with a new craft must imitate somebody — whether consciously or unconsciously. Well, for me, it was all nicely spelled out: ‘Imitate Stan Lee.’ “Which I did and, of course, there were things I might have done differ­ ently… but I’m very grateful for the fact that, those first six months, I knew what I was supposed to do and, if I did it with reasonable competence, I was successful. That’s a much bigger break than most writers get starting out.”

Stan Lee aside, O’Neil’s brief “Doctor Strange” run, in Strange Tales [#145–149, June– October 1966] holds up well on its own. Reading them today, one can sense a new talent feeling his way. Still, we’d have to wait a few more months for Denny to write a more traditional super-hero title.

Ironically, Denny’s most important story during his first tenure at Marvel is not well-remembered today: Daredevil #18 [July 1966], “There Shall Come a Gladiator.”

Denny completed the last 13 pages of the story for a vacationing Stan Lee — talk about putting on the pressure!

Penciled by the late, great John Romita, Sr., and inked by Frank Giacoia, Denny seamlessly completes a sequence started

by Stan, featuring Daredevil hitching a ride on a helicopter by hanging on a rope from the outside, tailing Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, who are passengers in a New York taxicab.

The issue also marks the debut of the Gladiator, a frustrated tailor (we don’t even get to learn his name), who makes copies of super-hero and super-villain costumes for the masses. He’s mad-angry at the world, and especially the costumed crowd, for getting the glory that should be his and… well, you know the rest. Actually, the Gladiator is close to being Marvel’s

version of “tailor to super-villains” Paul Gambi, who was largely developed by future Denny editor Julius Schwartz.

The issue is notable for being the scribe’s debut on a superhero title, as well as for his flawless imitation of Stan’s writing style. The book certainly has some historical value, making it one to be read. And that’s about it, except that Romita and Giacoia’s artwork remains unbeatable.

I suppose the Daredevil tale was an audition of sorts for Denny but, regardless, he left Marvel Comics soon after his one-shot issue. Denny’s brief original stint at the House of Ideas demonstrated his ability to write well in several genres, a talent

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The Roy Thomas Connection

A veritable Missouri School of Professional Comic Book Writing arose in the mid1960s because of fellow TwoMorrows editor Roy “Alter Ego” Thomas’s roots in the Show Me State, as through association with the former Marvel editor-in-chief and Stan Lee right-hand man, tops scribes from the Baby Boom generation were top creators into the 1970s. First, there was fellow townie “Groovy” Gary Friedrich, who was in a rock ’n’ roll band with the “Rascally One” and, when upon learning Roy had secured a gig at the House of Ideas, jumped at the invitation to come east and write funnybooks. Then there was Steve “Baby” Gerber, born of St. Louis, who met Roy through the comic book letters columns, establishing

a fanzine connection and, when Steve was desperately bored working in advertising, Roy gave him a break and took him on staff, which led to scripting. And, of course, “Dandy” Denny O’Neil, who interviewed “Roy the Boy” even before the fanzine editor went off to soon work for “Stan the Man,” and the Southeast Missourian beat reporter became fascinated with the rise of “new” comicdom, enough so to throw caution to the wind and move his wife and newborn son to the Big Apple and join the mighty Marvel bullpen.

Two of three articles Denny wrote for the Cape Girardeau newspaper are below, along with some comics-related items from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Venus, Fantastic Four TM & ©Marvel Characters, Inc. All Star Comics TM & © DC Comics. Sunday Pictures images courtesy of Sam Maronie.

This page: Denny’s articles on the ’60s comics renaissance from the Southeast Missourian [May 24 and 29, 1965], with pic of Roy Thomas from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch [May 17, ’65], as well as the cover and graphic from the Post-Dispatch of Feb. 1, ’76, which included a charming four-page feature article by CBC contributor Sam Maronie about the Missourian comics scribes and their work.

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Daredevil, Doctor Strange TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

displayed throughout his career.

Sean Howe related an odd incident in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story involving Denny: “Within weeks [of arriving at Marvel], one of the [Magazine Management] editors tried to enlist O’Neil in a scheme to dose Stan Lee with LSD. ‘He was going to supply a sugar cube of acid,’ said O’Neil. ‘My mission, should I have chosen to accept it, would have been to drop it into his coffee.’ O’Neil, a self-described ‘hippie liberal rebel,’ who had been lectured by Lee for wearing a T-shirt depicting a cannabis plant in the office, nonetheless declined.”

Though common wisdom suggests Denny left Marvel for the second-rate Derby publisher due to a lack of work, I’ve never been comfortable with that explanation. After all, he was on staff and, one assumes, put on the payroll. Perhaps working a job with a major requirement to forever “write like Stan Lee,” was not the way he envisioned his career. (Asked by Ye Ed., Roy Thomas recently shared, “Stan fired Denny from his staff job after several months because he was less than thrilled by his writing but, even more, he felt Denny wasn’t pulling his weight on staff. I disagreed with that decision, but I wasn’t informed except after the fact. Denny was allowed to keep some Western and Millie-type writing… I sent Denny over to Charlton, he met Dick Giordano maybe a year before Dick got his DC job offer, and the rest was (Denny’s) history.”)

Denny told Abraham Riesman, author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, “I came in one morning and was called into Stan’s office and he fired me, then and there, for no reason I am able to articulate. So I was with a non-working wife and a two-month-old baby and no money and without a job.”

Worth mentioning here, as it speaks to Denny and Stan Lee talking past one another, is an incident that occurred during the “Age of Relevancy”: In a 1998 interview with Ye Ed., Roy Thomas shared a memory which involves the (sort-of) “Blaxploitation” story, “Black Brother,” an 11-pager drawn by Gene Colan and Bill Everett that appeared in Savage Tales #1 [May 1971], a time when Denny’s star had already dawned at DC Comics: “That was a story… that was the result of the strangest episode I ever got into with Stan,” Roy said. “Stan had this idea for ‘M’Tumbu the Mighty,’ which was set in Africa with a Black hero. I couldn’t relate to it too well, but I said, ‘The guy who should do this is Denny O’Neil.’

“Now, somehow Stan and Denny were never even on the same plane when Denny had worked there briefly in 1965.

Denny and I weren’t close friends or anything, but I always wanted to get him and Stan back together because I felt that these were two talented guys who are just different kind of writers. Maybe this project was something where Denny could do what he liked to do, and Stan would like it because he was looking for something different in Savage Tales. So the three of us got together to discuss this — I was there mostly as an observer — and Stan starts by telling his idea of M’Tumbu.

Then Denny said, ‘That’s right, Stan, but the real trouble with Africa is that white people keep going there and screwing it up.’ Then Stan would say what he wants, and then Denny would say what he was going to do, and I’m sitting there watching a ping pong game! The conversation ends, they shake hands, and Denny leaves.

“Fast forward a few weeks, the [‘Black Brother’] pages by Gene Colan arrive and Stan doesn’t like the story. Maybe it looked kind of tame and Denny didn’t use the name M’Tumbu, but I told Stan, ‘Denny sat right there and told you exactly what he was going to do.’ Stan shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, but when I tell a guy what I want him to do, if he wants to talk awhile, that’s okay with me.’ So obviously, the problem with these guys work-

Top: Located in the “rich-artand-design-community” of the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design was where young Dan Jurgens attended between 1977 and ’81.

The artist focused on a future career as graphic designer, “playing with the comics stuff on the side.” This main building was built in 1974.

Above: The institution’s logo, of a more recent vintage.

Below: Dan vividly recalls this seminal issue of Batman [#156, June 1963]. Bottom: The Batman TV show of 1966–68 made an enormous impact on Dan.

ing together was they each said what they wanted to do, but neither one paid attention to the other. Yet again, I was trying to get Stan and Denny together, but they were on such different levels that they just didn’t communicate. “‘Black Brother’ was published, but it was changed a lot and it was quietly decided that this character would never appear again. I don’t think that Denny was too happy about it in the long run. It’s the only thing from Savage Tales #1 that was never reprinted.”

MAKE MINE CHARLTON Sometime after he was ushered out of the House of Ideas, Denny had joined up with Year, Inc., a publishing company which produced News Front, and, in addition to freelance writing for that magazine serving a managerial readership, he took on the formidable Top: Note the “Frantic Footnote” blurb on this splash page of Daredevil #18 [July 1966], which makes mention of Denny finishing the writing duties to cover for a vacationing editor-in-chief.

Art by John Romita, Sr., and Frank Giacoia. Right: Panel detail from the Doc Strange tale in Strange Tales #146 [July ’66], with art by Steve Ditko.

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turned to bullfighting (which, of course he did!). Certainly not Mailer’s finest literary moment, but it was absolutely one hell of a name, which Denny purloined to tack on some assignments during his early years at DC Comics, on jobs he was less keen to attach a real name or as a lark.

During the late ’60s, Denny was living a meager existence in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and became active with his first wife in liberal causes through the Catholic Worker, all the while working hard as sole breadwinner to support his family.

Remember, this was the supercharged 1960s and, though maybe a little too weathered to be called hippie — Denny was always more of a 1950s “beat” guy — he embraced the best the decade’s counter-culture had to offer, be it in music, film, or literature. The movement engaged in many issues, but the main source for generational dissent was aimed at the war in Vietnam, which, as a pacifist, Denny vehemently opposed.

During this period of pounding the pavement, Denny made a career-changing connection. “I don’t remember who told me that this guy from Derby, Connecticut — Dick Giordano — was in town once a week interviewing prospective writers and artists,” he recalled. “I went to see Dick… he would come in on a Thursday, they had rented a one-room office on Fifth Avenue somewhere. So I went up and saw him and came away with an assignment. I fell into a rhythm of going up there every Thursday morning and being given a job.”

Like during his short tenure at Marvel, Denny wrote teenage humor and Westerns at Charlton, but he also added science fiction and more super-hero work to his portfolio. And, though usually restricted to back-up and fill-in work, O’Neil’s stories during Giordano’s “Action Heroes” reign are remembered by many Charlton fans for being often superior to the lead features of any given title.

Among work for the “all-in-one” publisher was his continuing saga of Paul Mann, rural beat reporter who encounters flying saucers, in Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. [#60, Oct. 1967], perhaps influenced by once rural beat reporter Denny O’Neil’s findings at a certain ufology gathering in the Ozarks.

Above: In mid-1981, Dan attended a personal appearance

by Mike Grell, at a Twin Cities comic book shop, a meeting which resulted in the young man getting the Warlord art assignment, which started his professional career in comics. This is a pic of Dan and Mike posing with broad smiles, at a comic convention in 2022.

Below: Very early Dan Jurgens water-color rendering of Travis Morgan, the Warlord. Heritage attributes the work to having been done in the 1980s, though we’re betting it’s from the late ’70s. Still, it could have been one of the illos Mike Grell requested from Dan.

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All TM & © the respective copyright holder.

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task of editing the 249-page hardcover book, Contest For Power — which was exhaustingly subtitled (take a breath): The Exciting Pictorial Story of the American Presidential Elections, the Personalities, the Issues, the Turning Points in U.S. Political History, from 1778 to the Present. The heavily illustrated Year, Inc., tome was being readied for release in time for the 1968 U.S. Presidential election and it was an assignment, as aforementioned, that kept Denny and his family fed and sheltered during a lean season. (The writer would continue to freelance for News Front, “The Picture News Magazine for Management,” into the mid-’70s, during which, for a spell, he also served as the monthly’s editor.)

By mid-1967, dwindling comic book assignments or not, Denny found work at Charlton Comics, under the unusual pen name, “Sergius O’Shaugnessy,” the same nom de plume he would use for Savage Tales’ “Black Brother,” in 1971. The moniker is, by the way, the name of the protagonist in Norman Mailer’s “blistering” 1955 novel, The Deer Park.

The character is a veteran Air Force fighter pilot and struggling novelist whose goal is to make it big in Hollywood. His big break never happens, and as Mailer’s story ends, O’Shaugnessy

Denny, Dorothy, & the Catholic Worker

Logo © The Catholic Worker. Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. TM & © the respective copyright holder.

In an interview with Dan Greenfield of the 13th Dimension website about his legendary Batman story, “There is No Hope in Crime Alley” [Detective Comics #457, Mar. ’76], Denny explained that his first wife, Anne, had been a Catholic Worker. What impressed him about that activist organization included its co-founder, a renowned Catholic radical and advocate for social change.

“The Catholic Worker was a group started by Dorothy Day and a guy named Peter [Maurin in 1933],” Denny explained.

“Dorothy was an extraordinary woman. By reputation, she was the only woman in the Village who could drink Eugene O’Neill under the table… She was always an activist. It depends on who you talk to, but she became, either by conviction or because it furthered her activism — toss a coin, I don’t know which version is right — but she started The Catholic Worker [newspaper] with Peter [Maurin], who was a kind of street philosopher, and Dorothy’s credo was, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s… and, by the way, Caesar doesn’t deserve anything.” So she was getting arrested during World War II and especially during the ‘50s for not obeying the air raid sirens.

She walked down the middle of Fifth Avenue. That did not make her popular with the conservative Catholic hierarchy.

“The other thing she did — and it continues to be done in her name — was to shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, feed the hungry. My first wedding was at the Catholic Worker headquarters, on Chrystie Street, on the Lower HIS FIRST MASTERPIECE? The quirky “Children of Doom,” from Charlton Premiere #2 [Nov. 1967], is widely lauded as the first significant work by Denny and it also captures some of Charlton’s rambunctious late ’60s spirit under the guidance of masterful editor Dick Giordano.

The book-length story is an apocalypse take that gives an early example of the writer’s ability to apply science fiction to further his own character-driven, socially conscious agenda.

Texas artist Pat Boyette’s visuals work well within Denny’s story, which is also aided by the sequences — born of necessity, we later find — left in stark black-&-white. The total effect is both somber, comical, and absurd, i.e., Boyette’s often blank-faced characters look like escapees from some forgotten ’50s b-&-w cartoon. In fact, in the story, pages loosely alternate from a sort of charcoal-gray to dark (heavily Zip-A-Toned) and dreary color. Perhaps only Steve Ditko could have done a better job of depicting Denny’s slightly “off” apocalypse script.

It is also important to know that Denny was still transitioning from Marvel to Charlton, while growing as a writer. Transitions often lead to uneven, but bold works. Equally important is that many of fans of the Silver Age cite “Children of Doom” as one of their favorites.

The story behind the tale makes the story’s effectiveness even more impressive, given that it was, Denny revealed to Ye Ed., “another emergency job,” after “a psychedelic romance [was] planned and, virtually at the last minute, they found out they didn’t have the rights… so Dick called and said he needed a script by Thursday and he didn’t care what it was about…

That was the first socially relevant job that I ever did. It was an anti-war piece which, by today’s standards, is not radical at all, but at the time we were making a statement.”

Well remembered today, “Children of Doom’s” claim as one of the first “relevant” comics is due to its spin on the then raging Cold and Vietnam Wars, and the dreaded perpetual fear of

East Side. So it’s very hard if you’re an archbishop to knock somebody who is out putting her life on the line every day.

“Then they started a farm up across the river from Bard College, which is where drunks could go to dry out. Dorothy was tough. She was the godmother of one of my oldest friends. She was an extraordinary woman.”

In a one-on-one chat with fellow comics writer Matt Fraction, Denny discussed how he connected with the activist group. “Well, I had run into some of the Catholic radicals while I was still in college and the Catholic Workers — I guess they’re still publishing — and it cost a penny a copy. I somehow got hold of some copies of that and I was sympathetic, but I thought, ‘These people are impractical and if we don’t stop the Communists in Southeast Asia, they’ll be camping on my mother’s front lawn,’ the whole ridiculous thing that the whole country was buying. I was possibly the worst sailor in the history of the U.S. Navy, so that was another bad fit. I’ve worn three different uniforms in my life and none of them really fit. But I got out and fell in with the civil-rights and peace movement in St. Louis and suddenly, I began to have sources of information that weren’t Establishment.

“By the time I moved to New York, where a lot of my social life was Catholic Worker and I was married to a woman who had been raised on a Catholic Worker farm, I was completely convinced — as I remain — that the guys in the brown suits and the ties who claim to know what they’re doing, don’t.

a nuclear midnight for mankind. But “Children” is a hard story to get one’s head around and can be as enigmatic as history’s most well-known end-times tale, John of Patmos’ “Book of Revelation,” from the Bible. (“Revelation,” incidentally, is the only book that dwells on the future in the New Testament canon.)

“Children of Doom” is not quite as mysterious or violent as “Revelation,” but the one-shot tale does share a similar murkiness and lack of definition … almost as if James Joyce and Pablo Picasso pumped out a comic book story in two days over a case of beer. Ultimately, “Children” fails to be either allegoric or entertaining. Aside from being surprisingly absurd, Denny’s script also lacks a required Twilight Zone-style “gotcha” ending.

Thus, despite its prominence in many discussions regarding Denny’s early work, “Children” is, at best, full-length filler.

Still, given the circumstances in which it was created, it is a notable moment in Denny’s career. “It didn’t make any difference whether Pat Boyette and I succeeded or failed,” he told me. “What we had to do was get it done and that may have been a very liberating experience.”

This wouldn’t be the last time a “liberating experience,” resulted in Denny and his cohorts creating unique “back against the wall” stories, though his later work would be greatly improved. It’s also important to consider that Denny was still morphing creatively from Marvel to Charlton, and thus developing as a comic book writer, occasional growing pains included. Such things can often lead to uneven, yet still bold work. Regardless, “Children” is still very much a fan favorite. (“Children” also gets special mention for, what I believe, is Denny’s first use of the time-honored phrase, “Can it!” Which Joe says to Jeff, on page six, panel five, of the tale. And, yes, the expression is right up there in the Urban Dictionary: “Can it” means to shut up, to be quiet. Must be a St. Louis thing!)

One of Denny’s best stories during his short tenure at Charlton involved his first super-hero creation, The Prankster

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Previous page: Splash page for “Children of Doom,” Charlton Premiere #2 [Nov. ’67], written by Denny, art by Pat Boyette. Panel detail of the Prankster, with art by Jim Aparo, Thunderbolt #60 [Nov. ’67]; and “Wander” splash, art by Aparo, Cheyenne Kid #67 [July ’68]. Above: Photo of Dorothy Day and her activist organization’s logo (rendered by Ade Bethune, who drew many covers for Treasure Chest comics). Below: An interesting Charlton serial that never quite (ahem) launched was Denny’s saga of a rural newspaper investigative reporter encountering extraterrestrial flying saucers. The chapters were collected in Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. #60 [Oct. ’67].

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— how did DC’s attorneys miss this one? — a well-illustrated (as always) tale by the great, too often underrated Jim Aparo, featuring a character making his one-shot appear­ance as a seven-page back-up in the final issue of Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt [#60, Nov. 1967].

The Prankster was an entertaining anti­-hero in training and the only super-hero I know who quoted Lord Byron! Even at this early stage, Denny was bringing his literary background to the forefront. There would be a longer-lived Charlton character who also employed Old English, an Earth-locked alien cowboy named Wander, a quirky space cowboy who hit Terrain trails in the back pages of The Cheyenne Kid from #66–87 [May ’68–Nov. ’71]. This time, O’Neil and Aparo’s hero was a native of the planet Sirus V, who crash-landed in the old West. Though he looked like a cowboy, Wander spoke like Hamlet.

What inspired Denny to co-create Wander? “Oh, I have no idea. I just needed to come up with eight pages a month. It didn’t get much more complicated than that. I was living poor on the Lower East Side, somebody offered me a chance for another eight pages a month and, by God, you find a way to get it.”

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All TM & © DC Comics.

THE DISTINGUISHED COMPETITION While the trademark lawyers at National Periodical Publications were apparently oblivious to any doings over at Charlton, one DC consultant was definitely paying attention, as legendary editor Sheldon Mayer recognized “Action Heroes” editor Dick Giordano’s achievements and Shelly suggested that the House of Superman entice Dick over to join a newly revitalized editorial team. (Steve Ditko, the Spider-Man co-creator who had left Marvel in disgust, had recently arrived at DC and, as a major contributor to the brief Charlton renaissance, he also urged DC editorial director Carmine Infantino to recruit Dick.)

It was a brilliant decision, as Dick not only brought along his superb editorial abilities, he also came with a murderers’ row of creative dynamos who would enhance that era of DC’s “the Daring and the Different.” Those key freelancers included Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo, Frank McLaughlin, Pat Boyette, Joe Gill, and a young, hungry writer by the name of O’Neil.

Denny well recalled Dick’s recruitment pitch. “We were getting four bucks a page at Charlton and DC was offering $12 a page. Dick said something like, ‘How would you like to do exactly what you’re doing now, but at three times the money?’

It didn’t sound like a bad deal at all… This forbidding comic book giant — and suddenly I was there,” Denny remembered.

He added, “Coming in with long hair and jeans and so on, we were not exactly welcomed. Comic books were very respectable. I think because the form was considered not respectable, people and the offices had to look very straight. I can remember at least once being told not to walk down the corridor past the president’s office dressed like that.

“It was an odd place,” he continued, “because I think the guys who were in charge had no interest in what they were publishing at all, and they were tight on the purse strings.”

Of the millionaire owners of DC, who were about to sell their company for a considerable profit, Denny said, “It was hard to buy protestations of poverty from a guy who arrived in a chauffeur-driven limousine every morning, and the chauffeur hung around, doing nothing, until it was time to take the guy home at five o’clock. But they couldn’t afford to help out the freelance writers and artists with health insurance.”

Until the late 1980s, Denny knew nothing about the labor upheaval at DC, most likely brought on by a reasonable request for health insurance and some form of retirement benefit made

Top photo © and courtesy of Walt Jaschek. Bottom photo © and courtesy of Sam Maronie.

by a group of longtime freelance writers, led by Arnold Drake.

What began as an awkward discussion between the writers and DC management ended in a full-blown purge as well-respected pros, including Drake, Gardner Fox, John Broome, and Bill Finger, saw their regular assignments vanish. “It would have been a little problem for me [to have known about the expulsion],” Denny remarked, with an edge in his voice. “I did have a non-working wife and son, and I really needed the money. On the other hand… my God, a scab! I’m glad that I wasn’t forced to make a decision at the time.”

The DC writers purge resulted in the influx of an entirely new generation of storytellers who could replicate Stan Lee’s hip dialogue and instill a contemporary point-of-view appealing to a young readership increasingly attracted to the Marvel Comics Group over the offerings of DC (disparaged as “Dead Comics” by some wags). Almost all the new arrivals had been comic book fans involved in the fanzine scene, among them, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and Mike Friedrich, who were entering the profession at an extraordinarily creative time at DC, the age of “Artist as Editor,” when a flood of innovative characters and concepts roared out of the company in a passionate effort to reverse their rival’s ever-rising circulation numbers.

Almost 30 years old when he arrived at the company then called National Periodical Publications, Denny was a bit older than those fannish scribes and, despite his increasingly problematic drinking, the man’s writing was improving by leaps and bounds in those early DC years, though he had his share of mediocre assignments at the start. His first two jobs at DC were unusual and well under the radar: dialoguing Beware the Creeper and scripting the final two issues of Bomba the Jungle Boy, as well as curating editor Julie Schwartz’s letter pages, primarily those in the editor’s Batman titles.

bunch of collaborators on a title still considered one of the most entertaining of that fruitful period: Bat Lash.

For the first time, Denny worked as part of a creative team with overlapping roles.

Bat Lash was created by a “committee” inside DC composed of Infantino, editor Joe Orlando, artist Nick Cardy, and, most importantly, the great Sergio Aragonés, best known for his decades-long tenure as the hilarious “Marginal Artist” at MAD magazine.

Bat Lash was a thinking person’s Western, eons ahead of its time. Originally written by the Mexican-by-way-ofSpain cartoonist (whose ear for English dialogue proved less than ideal), Denny came to the character early in its run and added his touch to one of the best titles of the late ’60s. It proved a great book for Denny to imbibe his background in philosophy and literature, with the adventures, and the character himself, interwoven, complex, and unique in the comic book realm. Plus he wrote breezy, appealing dialogue.

“I came in at the end of the creative process,” Denny explained. “The first bunch of stories were written by Sergio, THE FIRST DC GIGS and I would get Nick’s art, which was beautiful — I think it was Beware the Creeper reunited Denny — now employing his his high point — and add the copy at the last minute… Bat Lash actual given name in the credits — with artist-creator Ditko and was a wonderful book to work editor Giordano. The book was one of several innovative titles on and I think it was 20 years launched in early 1968, designed to compete with Marvel, and ahead of its time. He was the probably the most “Charlton-like” comic ever produced by DC. most flawed guy in comics — Ditko drew his quirky creation in a style smacking of his anti-hero is not too strong great Spider-Man work — like Spidey, a wisecracking, roof-jump- a word. Bat Lash felt bad ing hero with all too human worries. Denny authored the mawhen he was about to screw niacal character’s brief run in his own title [#1–6, June ’68–Apr. somebody over, but he did ’69], later lamenting, “Without meaning to do it, I think I rained it anyway.” on Steve’s parade, because that was probably his creation. I Denny told the GRAFANs, didn’t write the first story; I have no idea who did. I started “It was Infantino’s baby. He playing the Creeper a little satirically in that he was thinking to kept it alive three issues after himself — ’I’m really bullsh*tting,’ he was aware of the artifice. the business office told him I think that probably goes contrary to what Steve had intended. he had to absolutely stop Again, I didn’t mean to do anything that would offend, upset, publishing it… That’s the only or hurt him, and I wouldn’t to this day. But that was the way I case I can think of where too could make the character make sense for me.” (Still, the writer many cooks didn’t spoil the clearly had affection for the character, guest-starring the Creep- broth. Infantino sent Sergio a er with both Batman, in Detective Comics #418 [Dec. ’71] and in plot idea, and Sergio laid it out Justice League of America #70 [Mar. ’69], to mixed results.) on typing paper with sketches Denny’s take on Bomba was mercifully short. He came very similar to the sketches he aboard for #6–7 [Aug.–Nov. ’68] , with Giordano again editing, does for MAD magazine in the which explains Denny’s involvement with the character, while margins. That was sent to Nick journeyman artist Jack Sparling handled both pencils and inks. Cardy, who did the polished “What an unlikely gig for me to get stuck with,” Denny told artwork, then given to me me while laughing. “But it was a job. The series mercifully to put in the dialogue and ended, and we went on to other things. It was a non-objection- captions. Then it was given able assignment.” back to Nick or whoever was Far more enticing was Denny’s chance to work on with a inking to finish it up.”

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Below: From the back cover of Booster Gold: The Big Fall, a hardcover collection of Booster Gold #1–12 [1986–87] , these panels, by penciler Dan Jurgens and inker Mike DeCarlo, originally appeared (with slightly different wordage) in the second issue of Booster Gold [Mar. 1986].

Above: Photo of Denny by Walt Jaschek, taken in 1970. Opposite page: DC house items promoting the O’Neil/Adams’ GL/GA. All art by Neal Adams. Below: Sam Maronie photo of the writer at the 1971 New York Comic Art Convention.

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Above: Neal’s wraparound cover for Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-51 [Aug. ’77], compiling tales in the Ra’s al Ghul story arc by Denny, Neal, and Dick Giordano. Opposite page: At top is a custom piece by Neal featuring Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance; and bottom is commissioned C.C. Beck painting of the original Captain Marvel, whose revival was initially scripted by Denny. Below: Panel detail by Neal of Bruce Wayne and Talia from Batman #244 [Sept. ’72].

ASCENDING STAR Still, regardless of lackluster sales, the Western title served as a career boost for Denny inside DC editorial, as he worked under editor Joe Orlando, his second editor at the company. Though his material for Joe would be rare, connecting with the artist/ editor set a precedent, and he would soon establish important working relationships with other editors, Jack Miller, Murray Boltinoff, and, especially, longtime veteran Julie Schwartz.

Jack Miller had been editor of DC’s romance titles since 1964, though his purview expanded into humor and science fiction titles, and, with the DC revamp, Jack was given Metal Men and the languishing flagship title, Wonder Woman. Denny was selected to write a radical makeover of Diana Prince, one that transformed the Amazonian Princess into a judo-chopping, exquisitely coiffed, boutique-owning, globe-trotting, and fashionably attired modern woman — think Emma Peel from British TV action series The Avengers and then some.

After Denny returned from a hiatus on the series, a worldrenowned feminist took notice that a beloved super-hero from her childhood had been stripped of supernatural abilities and turned into an espionage agent. “I was attacked by Gloria Steinem for the changes,” Denny said, “and, right now, see her point. I didn’t at the time. I thought I was serving the cause

of feminism by making her not dependent on a male god. I also thought I would update the char­acter and make her a hip young woman of the ’60s. Steinem’s point was that you take the one super-powered female character in comics and take away her powers. I now see what she means.”

After Jack Miller was incapable of working due to illness (which proved terminal), Denny admitted to Ye Ed., “Then it devolved to me as an editor. I saw nothing of Mike Sekowsky except seeing him in the office once in a while. I didn’t know the guy. I became aware after a while that I wasn’t writing it anymore after Mike became editor though I was never officially told that. It was just when I realized that I hadn’t gotten a Wonder Woman assignment in three months, asked about it, and that’s when I learned that I was no longer on the job.”

Asked if he retained any fondness for the “mod” Wonder Woman series — among Ye Ed. and Ye Pub.’s all-time faves! — Denny offered, “I thought that it was an interesting one to do and bear in mind that I was still struggling to support a family, so the loss of an assignment was a loss of money that you have to find somewhere else.” He added, “The most interesting thing I did in my tenure as [WW] editor was to give a couple of issues to [science fiction author] Samuel R. Delaney to write. I had read a couple of his novels, was knocked out by his writing, and ran into him at a convention. We discovered that we lived a block apart. He got interested in comic books. I remember, a couple of times, he would bring over a bottle of bourbon, which would keep me occupied for the evening and he would read through my collection of comic books.”

“Chip” Delaney would, for his friend Denny, go on to write an introduction for the first Green Lantern/Green Arrow paperback collection, which reprinted the seminal stories written by Denny and drawn by his most important collaborator.

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Batman, Ra’s al Ghul, Talia, Robin TM & © DC Comics.

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Bat Lash may have been boldly creative, but it was also a Western comic book in an era of declining reader interest of any titles outside the super-hero genre. Denny recalled the book’s demise with perception: “People are afraid to try what they’re not familiar with. It’s still a problem to this day. I remember getting the most literate fan mail I’d ever seen on that book, and a lot of it. We never saw sales figures and we were never privy to the reasons decisions were made.“

JULIE SCHWARTZ Friction had developed between Carmine Infantino and Dick Giordano, as the editor sensed the editorial director was being duplicitous, and thus Dick resigned to focus on his freelance career as artist and leave behind volatile office backbiting.

For his part, Denny found a simpatico editor in Julius Schwartz, longtime DC native veteran native of the Bronx who, despite his button-down conservative appearance, found it invigorating to work with a new generation of writers.

Aside from Neal, Julie proved to be Denny’s other most productive collaborator during those first DC years and, before the scribe was given the team book, Justice League of America, as a regular assignment, the editor let the young man have a go at scripting an issue of Green Lantern, who audaciously deviated from the agreed-upon plot and added clever, creative touches that didn’t infuriate the editor but instead delighted him.

Denny told Ye Ed. that transitioning from working with Dick’s light touch to the heavy hand of Julie was: “Easy as pie.

If I’d known that I was going to work for this living legend, it might have been hard, but he was this kind of guy who didn’t warm to me first because I had this long hair and was wearing a pirate shirt or something into his office. Julie was very much a suit-and-tie guy, but he did give me the one job and he later said that he didn’t need to do the panel-by-panel plotting with us young guys.”

Whether because of his long-held liberal beliefs, thenimpoverished status in Lower East Side with an apartment-bound wife and infant son, or just absorbing the radical zeitgeist of the period, Denny became determined to get real.

Green Arrow, Black Canary, Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

NEAL ADAMS The creative partnership that most defined Denny’s work in that age of relevancy was his collaboration with an artist a few years younger than he, New York-born Neal Adams, the comics artist superstar of the day. Neal was then taking the mainstream comic book world by storm with his amazingly dynamic, realistic artistry, and he was universally admired for his exquisite stylings by fan and pro alike.

Neal had become DC’s main cover artist since arriving at DC in mid-’67, after his syndicated Ben Casey comic strip gig was cancelled. The artist would often say he and contemporary innovator Jim Steranko over at Marvel were the first significant hires of their generation by mainstream comics during the 1960s.

Though not responsible for recruiting Neal, Carmine recognized how exceptional an artist he was. In fact, DC’s finest covers from 1967–72 were penciled (and most often inked) mainly by Adams, with occasional layouts and design work underneath those pencils sketched out by Carmine himself. In those early years, Neal was most utilized by old guard DC editor Mort Weisinger, who was on the cusp of retiring, to dress up Mort’s mostly moribund Superman family of titles.

It was a natural fit for Carmine to bring together the two young creators, though the pair’s first work together was over at Marvel Comics, on Neal’s last issue of X-Men, #65 [Feb. 1970].

That collaboration was not what would became their usual routine, as the artist had plotted and penciled the story (which featured the resurrection of team leader Professor Xavier) , which editor Roy Thomas gave to Denny to dialogue. Only a few weeks later, the pair joined up to create their magnum opus.

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adding depth to staid characters like Arrow and Manhunter.

Did handling so many diverse heroes pose a problem for the writer? “It was very difficult — especially since there were some arbitrary rules. A certain percentage of them had to be on stage in every issue, and you were supposed to at least try to give them all equal time in the spotlight. It was impossible to do, but you were aware that was what you were supposed to do,” Denny remembered. “The main problem though is, Jesus, you’ve got three versions of God — Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman at one end of the spectrum , and then you’ve got the Atom, who can make himself real little, and Batman who’s real smart, at the other end. So how do you come up with an antagonist that answers the needs of all of those diverse characters?”

By early 1970, Denny had expanded the stakes and given a preview of his work about to debut in another title edited by Julie, with a two-part story that pitted the super-team against aliens bent on destruction of the Earth’s environment [#78–79, Feb.–Mar. ’70]. The tale concluded with the scribe’s somber reminder that, though the JLA may have saved the Earth this time, even they could not protect the planet from any fate resulting from mankind’s continuous polluting ways.

Ironically, the greatest legacy of O’Neil‘s work on an ensemble of charac­ters that included headliner heroes, Superman and Batman, was his remaking of the motiva­tion and personality of a previously third-rate persona, Green Arrow. Neal’s visual remake of the archer into a goatee’d, modern-day Robin Hood occurred two months earlier, in a Bob Haney-authored Batman team-up, in The Brave and the Bold [#85 Sept. ’69]. With JLA #75 [Nov. ’69], it was Denny who stripped Arrow alter ego Oliver Queen of his wealth and thrust him out into the “real world.” Suddenly, this perpetually minor character was replaced by a passionate man who spoke out in the tenor of his time.

(Notably, it was also Denny who introduced the Black Canary into modern DC continuity and… umm… made her an actual widow and thus available for Ollie’s amorous advances.)

In the end, Denny told Michael Eury, “[JLA] was one of the few assignments that I walked out of. I’ve been fired off of any number of them, but that and Superman, I walked away from.

Real hubris for someone who was as new at the game as I was, just because of the technical difficulties writing it.”

This page: Denny touched upon social and environmental issues during his runs on Justice League of America (above, #79 [Mar. ’70] and World’s Finest Comics (below, #204 [Aug. ’71]). Covers by Neal.

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Justice League of America, World’s Finest Comics TM & © DC Comics.

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SOCIAL JUSTICE LEAGUERS A glimmer of the socially relevant comics to come could be found in Denny’s JLA run [#66–83, Nov. ’68–Sept. ’70], along with Wonder Woman, his first regular assignment, if mostly because of characterization he instilled into team members and specific developments made to some heroes’ lives. In his first year as scripter, Wonder Woman quits, Black Canary joins, Snapper Carr turns traitor, they get a new, off-planet headquar­ ters, and the absence of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is resolved. But these changes are minor in comparison to the historic revision of Green Arrow in JLA #75 [Nov. ’69].

Some readers felt that previous JLA writer Gardner Fox’s stories had become formulaic, making the title less relevant by late ’60s standards. Further, many wanted more characterization… while Gardner put more emphasis on story and plot. “I don’t think I was ever aware that I wanted to shake things up for the sake of shaking them up,” Denny said. “Certain things about the series weren’t working for me, didn’t make sense to me.” Under Julie’s assured guidance, Denny’s JLA work was beginning to show flashes of future brilliance. Part-satire, part-social commentary, he seemed to be having fun, while

GREEN DAYS When Michael Eury suggested to Denny that he imbued godlike JLA members with human characteristics, he replied, “I think I probably imported that from my year/year-and-a-half of working with Stan. Sometimes his plots were fairly rudimentary, but people talked differently and they had interpersonal conflicts. Stan Lee taught us that characterization can be more important than plot; his first, I think, huge contribution.”

With all due respect to Stan’s “hero with hang-ups” motif, while assuredly a master of characterization, Denny added a new dimension to the super-hero comic book. Call it “realism,” or “relevance,” his characters thrived against a consistent backdrop that made sense. The authentic context he created would include people, places, motivations, dialogue, and conflict. Be it “Square” John Stewart, Ollie Queen, or Diana Prince, his best characters began to operate within a consistent set of rules. And nowhere is there a better example than in his and Neal’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow series, where the two top comics creators of the late ’60s found common ground, deploying their considerable artistic abilities to make great comic books designed to mirror the turbulent times and, in the process, compose a truly important American graphic novel, chapter by chapter.

“Getting real” was the core essence of Marvel’s success in

Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics.

the ’60s — Spider-Man’s home was in Queens and he worked in Manhattan, Iron Man’s origin happened in Vietnam, the X-Men were schooled in Westchester — but any talk of the politics of the period tended to be superficial and vaguely reactionary, despite token nods to Black power, environmental concerns, and women’s liberation (though, tellingly, the war in Southeast Asia was almost never central to any story.).

“I was peripherally involved in those issues, a non-distinction I shared with millions of liberal, vaguely well-meaning people of middle-class origin,” Denny wrote in an introduction to a 1983 reprinting of his and Neal’s Green Lantern issues. “I signed petitions. I went on marches. I argued against the war and supported Martin Luther King. I subscribed to Ramparts and The Catholic Worker. I lived in the East Village and consorted with some of the headline makers — David Miller, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Paul Krassner — and, I would have insisted, I shared their aspirations. But I was not like them.

I lacked their capacity for involvement. I was not a leader. I had the charisma of library paste. I was skinny, shy, self-effacing, with some killer shark personal problems I had yet to recognize.

However, I was getting published, every month, in comic books. And suddenly, I was being asked to revamp Green Lantern. It was an opportunity to stop lurking at the edges of the social movements I admired and participate by dramatizing their concerns.”

The revamp was do or die, Denny recalled. “My understanding was that they were going to cancel the book, that the book had no place to go but up… So I came in one day and Julie said, ‘Do you have any ideas for this character? Is there anything you’d like to do with Green Lantern?’ I thought, ‘Well, I’d done a couple of stories that had vaguely socially relevant themes.’

‘Children of Doom’ was one. It was an anti-war book, which was unheard of at the time.”

He continued, “I was still doing journalism [for News Front], and I was involved in the peace movement, and the civil rights movement — not much involved, I went on a few marches and I fed people occasionally — but it was a chance to maybe take a shot at combining my two professional identities, as a journalist and as a comic book writer. We were aware that we were pushing the envelope, doing things stuff that had not exactly ever been done before.”

Denny explained, “I think it was at that point that Neal and I were both getting very confident in what we could do. We spoke the language of comics well by that time. The other thing is that those stories were about something, and that had very impact was huge and it remains a unique artifact of a mainoften not been true. I think about that a lot now. Mostly there stream corporate entity trying to make a sincere and authentic was no real heart and soul to a lot of comic book stories.” difference during tremendously polarized times.

As Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs wrote in their history, The PRODUCT OF ITS TIME Comic Book Heroes: “Where DC outdid Marvel was not in Green Lantern #76 was put on sale in late February, 1970, the introducing social relevance or even an open political bias — same month when Jack Kirby, the backbone of the Marvel Age although O’Neil did advertise his liberalism in bigger neon of Comics, signed a contract with DC Comics, a coup of epic pro- letters than anyone at Marvel — but in making them the portions in the publisher’s fight to hold back the growing threat conscious focus of the entire series. Although action and adof Stan Lee and company gaining market share. But ever more venture were still the bulk of every story, the point of the story important than the creative renaissance at DC were the real-life was the political message. [Steve Englehart’s] Captain America events of that period. That issue was cover-dated April 1970, the might broaden the scope of super-hero adventures, but Green actual month U.S. President Nixon announced the nation had Lantern/Green Arrow suggested a fundamental new approach expanded the war in Southeast Asia by invading Cambodia. The to them. Even Steve Ditko hadn’t tried such ripped-from-thesubsequent protest resulted in Ohio National Guardsmen killheadlines topicality. Here was a comic that would have to press ing four unarmed students at Kent State, a watershed event in the medium into a radical self-appraisal, a reevaluation of its turning the tide of public sentiment against the Vietnam War. purposes, just as the old man’s ‘How come?’ had pressed Green The “Hard-Traveling Heroes” saga may have lasted for less Lantern. It seemed inescapable now that the comics community than three years and 13 issues of Green Lantern (plus a three— and the world at large — would have to grapple with the full part back-up serial in The Flash), its contemporaneous cultural potential of the medium.”

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This page: The original art for the game-changing cover of Green Lantern #76 [Apr. ’70] by Neal Adams was auctioned, with his blessing, for an eye-popping $442,150 in 2015.

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This spread: Across the top are the covers of the 1983–84 “Baxter” reprintings of Denny and Neal’s classic GL/GA series, with #5 and 7 being virtual line-for-line recreations of #85 and 89’s covers.

Below: Photo of writer Denny O’Neil, circa 1970. Courtesy of Sam Maronie, who wrote an article about comic creators from Missouri for a St. Louis newspaper in 1976.

ON THE ROAD Referring to the industry’s collective memory of the ’50s era of Seduction of the Innocent, when American comics were being repressed 70

by authorities, Denny said, “I think the Comics Code and the Kefauver Commission spooked everybody, and they were afraid to do anything for a long time that had content. I was, except for the Harpies story, a citizen, and a father, genuinely concerned about the issues we wrote about. But more than that, it was a chance to really write about something in a comic book.”

Harpies aside (and I should have pressed Denny about the “Harpies issue” [GL #82, Mar ’71] remark), Denny and Neal certainly had the skill and passion to address topics they felt strongly about in ways that thrilled and informed the reader.

(Re: Harpies. “There are two GL/GA stories that I think were compromised,” Denny told Ye Ed. “There’s one that I think is an atrocity… That was my women’s lib story — and Chip Delaney’s favorite in the run… go figure — and I remember thinking, as a good liberal, that that was a story that I ought to be writing and I also now know that emotionally I was at least five years away from being able to accept that. I was basically a shanty Irish kid from north St. Louis and my understanding of what women’s lib was all about was woefully inadequate. Basically, my paradigm of womanhood was house dress, kitchen, bedroom, take care of the kids, and have dinner waiting. Only because I felt that I ought to be espousing it, did I do so. I felt that that story just failed all over the place because the writer was just not up to dealing with the material.”)

Other controversial issues (more or less successfully) dealt with in the series included labor exploitation, cults, Native American rights, judicial injustice,* overpopulation, brainwashing, drug addiction, racism, poverty and urban violence (albeit these concerns examined by writer Elliot S. Maggin), and environmental activism. The historic run ended to minimal fanfare with a three-parter that focused on Ollie Queen’s crisis of confidence after an unintended killing, a character-driven arc.

While, in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel had beaten DC to the punch regarding any mainstream comics mention of recreational drug addiction, Green Lantern #85–86 [Sept.–Nov. ’71] made the scourge central to the plot, as onetime Arrow sidekick Speedy had become a heroin junkie. The two-parter resulted in massive media attention. * Mike Gold, who would toil for repeated stints at DC starting in the mid-’70s, discussed the GL/GA series in an Oct. 5, 1970, feature on relevancy in comics for The Seed, Chicago’s underground newspaper, making note of a satire on the Chicago Seven trial, where defendants were gagged by Judge Julius Hoffman. “The comic book made a heavier point than most of the one-dimensional accounts I read of the Conspiracy trial.” Adding weight to that assessment was the fact Mike had been the media coordinator for the accused! — Y.E.

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Green Lantern/Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics.

THE THREE GREATEST PANELS IN COMICS HISTORY The “old man” and his question mentioned in The Comic Book Heroes refers to an emotional crescendo in GL #76, when an elderly Black man confronts the titular super-hero to ask why he hadn’t flown to the aid of the African American community in the past. The nameless man demands, “Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!” Lantern’s feeble reply: “I… can’t…”

The three-panel sequence, confronting (if but for a moment) this country’s “original sin” of racism, would become one of the most quoted in the history of American comics, as news outlets seized upon the wave of socially relevant storylines that resulted. The writer hadn’t the slightest notion that tier of panels would result in so much attention. “That scene came out of the need to humble Hal at that point,” Denny explained.

“You know, we needed a story break at that point, because there were ads [interrupting the story]; we had to write for that. Now I would probably conceive it in terms of a three-act structure, but I didn’t know about that at the time. I knew that we had to set up the rest of the series, though we had only a vague idea of what it was going to be at the time.

“It was pretty much all-instinctive. I knew that we had to set up the rest of the series, though we had only a vague idea of what it was going to be at the time, and we needed to bring about this humbling of Green Lantern and beyond that… I have no idea.” Denny then conceded, “A lot to the credit goes to Neal, because I think I said in the shot direction something like, ’This has to be a great face,’ and he certainly did give me a great face.”

Green Lantern, Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics.

When Y.E. asked if Green Lantern was at risk of becoming an “Issue of the Month” comic book at the time, the writer replied, “The women’s lib issue was the only one that I did not feel passionately concerned about as a citizen and as a father. We did two stories about the environment and it’s still an issue I give the most to. And racial equality, which is just survival — we have to clean up that act. The American Indian thing I was not close to emotionally, but I think that we got lucky and the story works anyway.

Basically that stuff was the same material I would have covered if I were writing magazine articles or novels rather than comic books, because I was honestly, genuinely concerned about those issues.”

Pushing the envelope with the Comics Code Authority as an iconoclast wasn’t much of a concern to the writer, despite his work, in part, being an impetus for a subsequent major rewrite of its rules. Still, the duo drew creative energy by playing “kick the can” with the Comics Code: “I was a freelance writer, and it was the editor who had to worry about the Code. But not the Code so much, as just, I think, because people were spooked by what happened in the ’50s. They were afraid to tackle anything real, emotional, social, psychological, whatever, and suddenly we were allowed to do that… Green Lantern/Green Arrow was the occasion, but I think it really had as much to do with the fact that the stories were really about something, rather than a fabricated conflict. That, I think, tended to draw out the best efforts of all concerned.”

And, according to Denny, credit was also due to his and Neal’s editor on Green Lantern. “Julie was certainly one of the greatest editors that comics ever had,” Denny professed. “And Neal and I both benefited from that.”

In retrospect (to again interject my personal opinion), GL/ GA was not really about the 1960s. The series focused more on the bad mojo that was happening as the ’60s slipped into the ’70s. In those chapters, the two heroes, often with Black Canary, confronted a myriad of social concerns. Never preachy or “in your face” topicality, these tales expanded the range of what a comic book — and comic book characters — could be.

Denny seemed more concerned about developing character, making Hal and Ollie real people, than the social issue component. Both drove the series, but building his characters to be “real” (in a comic booky sense, of course) was more important to him as the series went on: “Ollie was never a surrogate for me. I think, right along, I was more sympathetic to Hal than maybe people thought. I mean, my politics were basically Ollie’s, but I always thought of him as a hothead, a guy who leapt a helluva lot more often than he looked; and was probably overemotional.”

He continued, “The three-part story we did in the back of The Flash’s book after GL/GA had been cancelled struck me, in some ways, as the strongest story of the lot. We had just about exhausted the list of social causes that any of us were generally interested in and yet, at that point, we had succeeded in maybe adding more character and depth to these characters, these heroes, rather, than was common in comics. So we had that going for us. The story was not about a social issue ,but was about the consequences of accidentally taking a life.

“The last story, as I said, was a pure character piece, and I

guess it might have gone in that direction. The danger would have been ‘Cause of the Month’ comics, which would have become boring and banal after a little while… In some ways, maybe the series… ended when it should have. We had a good

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Below: Photostat signed by Neal of the cover art for Green Lantern #86 [Nov. ’71], representing the tragedy of drug addiction.

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Above: One of the team’s final collaborations — if not the last — was Denny and Neal’s Superman vs. Muhammad Ali “collectors’ edition” [#C-56, Mar. ’78], a true tour de force of comics storytelling.

Below: In their effort to take on the Marvel usurpers, DC head honcho Carmine Infantino was determined to modernize the company’s headline characters, including Superman, whose revamping was announced in this DC house ad at the end of 1970.

* Asked about the end of his first reign as DC editor in 1972, Denny told Ye Ed., “That was edging into my bad year so Lord knows [what happened]. My ex-wife, who has her moments of genuine wit, says that for a time I was distinguishable from a Bowery bum only by address.”

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#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

already quit the JLA book because of its omnipotent members.

Julie recollected, “I asked Denny to do Superman and he turned me down. I asked him why, and he said he doesn’t like to write super-heroes. I told him to just do it for a year. I’ll work out the whole plot with you and there wouldn’t be any difficulty.”

Denny remembered that reticence to write the character from Krypton. “My problems with Superman were more that he was just too powerful. It was hard to get a conflict going. You’d have to contrive some reason why he did­n’t solve the problem immediately. And he was a little too goody-two-shoes. He was a little too ‘white bread’ somehow.”

Hesitant or not, Denny’s brief (less than a year) run on Superman [#233–242, Jan.–Sept. ’71] succeeded in reviving and expanding the character jointly through the editor and writer’s bold innovations on the title, including Clark Kent’s switch from newspaper to television reporter, the eradication of Kryptonite as a threat (replaced by magic), and introduction of the wellremembered Sand Creature, all tied into (albeit tangentially) Jack Kirby’s unfolding Fourth World epic of that period.

Nicely supported by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson’s crisp artwork, Denny‘s Superman work remains seriously run. We dealt with the issues that we were generally concerned underrated. Together, his Superman stories work as one piece, with, and maybe it was time to get off the stage. That’s not why each new issue building upon previous ones, as O’Neil laid we did it. We did it because the book was cancelled. But looking down the tale of a legendary hero’s conflict dealing with his back, I don’t much regret that it didn’t go on longer than it did.” own super-powers. By making the character more interesting for the writer’s own purpose, Denny did the same for the reader, SUPERMAN EVERMORE perceiving that the reduction of the Man of Steel’s powers was Perhaps a little beyond the scope of this “relevancy in comics” both a way to “come up with an interesting story and also to discussion of the writer’s work, it is still vital to recognize make him manageable.”

Julie Schwartz’s soaring confidence in the scribe, even as The scribe explained, “‘Faster than a speeding bullet, more Denny’s spiraling despair due to his alcoholism was becoming powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a sinall-consuming.* In the wake of tyrannical Superman group gle bound,’ that should be enough for anybody, I thought. And editor Mort Weisinger’s retirement, Julie was given the task to we didn’t take him down quite that far. We left X-ray vision and boldly revamp the Man of Steel’s namesake title and he chose we left flight. But, at one point, Superman [had] extinguished his “best writer,” who expressed reluctance as he, after all, had the sun by blowing on it like a birthday candle. A guy who can do that is God. And how do you put somebody in conflict with God 12 times a year?

Mort Weisinger, in the ’50s, solved the problem partially by doing a lot of double-identity stories and a lot of stories that were intentionally silly.

That didn’t seem like a good way for us to go in the ‘70s.”

Of his favorite editor, Denny said, “Julie was a real straight arrow guy then. It was a joke around the offices that nobody ever saw him in anything other than a white shirt and tie. And he kept absolutely regular hours. You could literally set your watch by the time he came in and

left, and the time he called his wife, and the time he went to lunch. And I was just, you know, a kind of frizzy-haired weirdo from the Lower East Side. But, very early on, there was trust, and I think I felt a responsibility not to mess up his life or make his life difficult in any way. And, in exchange for that, he gave me a great deal of freedom.”

The writer continued, “If I came in with a blank slate, I would leave with an idea for a story. If I came in with something pretty much all worked out in my head, he’d sit there and listen to it for 15 minutes and say, ‘Fine, I’ll see ya next week.’ Julie was just exactly the kind of editor I needed at that time.”*

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

RETURN OF THE BATMAN The resurrection of the solitary, wrathful vigilante of the late 1930s had already begun before Denny O’Neil got his mitts on Batman, at least in a visual sense, as Neal Adams had been redesigning the character’s appearance during his run as artist on The Brave and the Bold. But with the writer’s arrival on the series, the Caped Crusader shed any connection to the campy TV show depiction and he returned the hero to its original Bob Kane/Bill Finger depiction as a terrifying creature of the night.

Considering the intensity of Green Lantern/Green Arrow and that series’ social consciousness, “With Batman, it was almost a relief,” Denny said. “It was pure storytelling. It was pure pulp. Just make up a story about this obsessed dark character.

[It was] probably more fun doing Batman than the other stuff.”

He continued, “Once I read a piece by [science fiction author] Alfred Bester talking about how much fun it is to write obsessed characters, and that sort of focused it for me. I think, at that point, I began to understand what that guy was about.” Denny continued, “I mean, nobody had ever quite explained it in those terms before. Nobody tried to give him very much psychology at all beyond the inspiration that Finger and Kane had of the origin. But, you stop to think, ‘Of course, he’d be obsessed,’ and then with that as a starting place, a lot of the rest of it falls into line.”

As much as Neal had given the character’s image a dynamic realism, Denny succeeded in transforming a one-dimensional comic-book super-hero into a fully realized, complex, and driven human being. The Batman mythos expanded to include exciting new adversaries, a seductive new love interest, and dramatic reinventions in his rogues gallery of villains.

* It’s important to acknowledge that Denny, in addition to his ongoing comics and News Front work, was also writing mystery and science fiction short stories, as well as articles for slick consumer periodicals during that era.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

No Batman story arc was more thrilling than the saga of Ra’s al Ghul, who instantly became a top member of Batman’s roster of enemies, a pulp baddie if ever there was one (though Denny said of the sensationalistic fiction mags, “I didn’t read pulp maga­zines until after they stopped being published. Now that, in turn, had a strong influence on radio drama, and I was as devoted to that as I was to comics.”)

Still, Denny’s Dark Detective wasn’t all pulpish fare. A startlingly relevant story was “Night of the Reaper,” Batman #237 [Dec. ’71], by Denny and Neal, which not only was set within the real-world Rutland Halloween Parade (featuring a gang of their comics creating peers as story participants), but also dealt with the Holocaust at the center of the story’s plot and propelling character motivation.

This page: Post-camp TV show, DC finally recognized the dramatic appeal of the Darknight Detective as obsessed vigilante, a resurrection of The Batman by Denny and Neal. Above is Batman #227 [Dec. ’70] cover. Inset left is cover detail of Batman #238 [Jan. ’72]. Below is Detective Comics #31 [Sept. ’39].

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Above: Spectacular Zero Hour: Crisis in Time piece by Dan and Jerry rendered for the cover of the July, 1994, edition of the Advance Comics distribution catalog.

Previous page: Inset center is penciler Dan Jurgens and inker Jerry Ordway cover for the Zero Hour: Crisis in Time Collection [1994].

The same art team produced the cover, prominently featuring Hal Jordan as Parallax, for a 2018 reprinting of the mini-series.

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JUST A MAN Of course, there were other achievements made by the writer during the early to mid-’70s, some more nostalgia-oriented — arguably a reaction to the relevancy era — when he scripted revivals of the original Captain Marvel in Shazam! and pulp heroes The Shadow and The Avenger (the latter in Justice, Inc.) — as well indulging in genre gigs — Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, in Sword of Sorcery.

And there were others (including a stint on World’s Finest, then a Superman team-up title). But it was his early success with GL/ GA that had established his reputation as among the industry’s top writers, a reality that would intimidate the troubled writer.

Speaking of Neal and himself, Denny said to Ye Ed., “We believed after a while that we were doing something new, different, and interesting especially after GL/GA. Neal and I started to get invited to universities. It’s no secret that I went through a real bad five or six years, and I think that I was well-suited for failure and didn’t at all know how to handle

THE AGENDA In 1998, Ye Ed. asked Denny if Green Lantern #76 (written when he was 31) had any “real-world” impact in his estimation. “It’s now a quarter-century later and I can now give a qualified yes to that,” the writer said. “At the time, if I had an agenda, it was this: I saw the world in really sorry shape and thought that I am really too old to think of creative solutions to these problems, but maybe if we got kids to start thinking about the problems early enough and give them an awareness of these problems, maybe they will be able to come up with the answers. In #35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Green Lantern/Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. The Denny O’Neil Tapes ©Walt Now Studios, LLC. Photo courtesy of Christopher Irving.

Top: Production art that was rejected as cover of the (Byron Preiss-suggested) reprinting of GL/GA, published

by New Library, Warner’s paperback imprint. Basically, the printed version flipped the front and back covers that are seen here. Above: Like the calvary coming to save the day, Walt Jaschek sent — just in the nick of time — his recently published book, The Denny O’Neil Tapes, which includes a transcript of a 1970 roundtable discussion between the writer and St. Louis-based comics fans that transpired while he was producing his relevant comics. Thanks, Walt!

Below: Denny and Neal, 2012, after an event on their collaborations.

success. I was drinking and engaging in various other sorts of disreputable behavior.

I lost a marriage, I lost my staff position at DC after a year, and I made a pretty thorough mess of things. It was not all [due to] that success, but I think that that was a contributing factor.”

While his work would never again receive the accolades as it did in the early ’70s, Denny did find sobriety by the mid-’70s and he continued with a notable writing career through the rest of his life.

At Marvel and DC, he would become a renowned editor — notably on Daredevil during Frank Miller’s legendary run and as group editor on the Batman titles through the ’80s and ’90s — and he has the distinction of having named Autobots leader Optimus Prime in Transformers mythology. And, in terms of a cultural impact, perhaps the most significant was having a portion of Denny’s Ra’s al Ghul mythos be featured in the recent Batman movie trilogy.

Of his most famous collaboration, Denny wrote in his GL/ GA Collection intro, “I felt confident that Neal would be there for me. Neal would deliver. And Neal did, on Green Lantern/ Green Arrow as well as the Ra’s al Ghul and Talia saga we did for the Batman and Detective titles. He is an immensely gifted individual, with his own approach to comic art… We were vastly different people, Neal Adams and I. A few years ago, we were together in Chicago on a public relations junket, and after a full day in Neal’s company, I began to realize we agreed on nothing, zero, zip… While we were actually collaborating, though, we hummed in unison like tuning forks, our psyches were twins. Only the best marriages approximate the closeness of such an artistic pairing. As marriages have an alarming tendency to culminate in divorce, close collaborations generate jealousy, rivalry, and pettiness. Neal and I never became actively hostile, but the relationship did get strained and edgy toward the end.”

(Memorably, though outside the parameters of our late ’60s/early ’70s focus, the two joined to produce maybe Neal’s finest effort, the All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56 [Mar. ’78], better known as Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, a “treasurysized” comic book that featured the very real heavyweight boxing champion of the world in the ring against the Earth’s first super-hero. It was, I declare, a thing of absolute beauty!)

Comic Book Marketplace © Gemstone Publishing. The Shadow, The Avenger TM & © Condé Nast. Green Lantern, Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. The O’Neil Observer TM & © Bob Brodsky.

none of those books, did we ever present any solutions to the problems. We felt that the story was in the conflict with the characters and not in solving the big problems. I don’t have solutions and I’m not sure a comic book would be the place to present them if I did. We weren’t so egotistical as to think that we could solve anything.

“We were very careful to deliver super-hero stories. They had all of the stuff that you bought super-heroes for. I used the basic structure that I now call the ‘three-X structure’: set up to major action plot point, to act two where the conflict is developed, to the second major plot point leading to conclusion.

There were the requisite action scenes and nobody talked for more than a few panels. I was aware that this thing had to keep moving as this was about action and not deep cogitation. We were always careful to deliver a solid super-hero story.”

In July 1970, in the middle of his GL/GA run, Denny responded to a GRAFAN member’s question: “Wouldn’t you agree the average kid does not want to be lectured to in a comic book?” He replied, “Well, if we ever come off as lecturing, then we’ve failed in our basic primary doing, which is to be a medium of entertainment. Those socially conscious book are such that, if you look at it, you will find we structure it like a comic-book story very carefully. Anybody who likes action and villains getting whapped is going to get it in those things. As

for the social consciousness: I’m reacting. We’re all reacting.

I’m desperately worried about pollution. I’ve got a four-year-old son who might not live to be my age, unless we do something about this. If I were working in the movies or some other medium, I would be reacting similarly. I don’t know that it’s [that] we want to ‘preach.’ There has been, of course, a qualified change. There used to be a time when comics never got into anything at all. The difference now is that, if you can still make it an entertaining comic book, you can do it. The only restrictions are that of the Comics Code and certain editors’ hang-ups.”

Despite being cancelled early in its run (perhaps due to poor newsstand sales or “affidavit returns” — a long story! — or maybe even the result of interoffice politics in DC editorial), the superb Green Lantern series by Denny and Neal have since, over the decades, been collected and reprinted as trade paperbacks and hardbound compilations. The societal issues the brilliant young creators grappled with through the prism of comics storytelling remain of serious concern across the globe into the present day, more urgent than ever. And both deployed their great talent and great energy to tell stories that both informed and entertained, which is the key to a successful “relevant” story in any medium and at any time. Denny’s dialogue alone was beyond most writers in other mediums. To us who revere his fine work, Denny O’Neil will be remembered.

Above: The vast majority of Denny O’Neil quotes herein were derived from interviews with the writer conducted by Bob Brodsky for Comic Book Marketplace #56 [Feb. 1998] and Bob’s ’zine, The O’Neil Observer, which had five issues from Summer ’99–Spring ’04. The second issue, by the way, appeared within the pages of CBM #83 [Nov. ’00] and #4 had O’NO combine with the CAPA-Alpha fanzine, Destination Cool, edited by John Wells, a frequent Back Issue contributor.

COMING THIS FALL

Bob Brodsky says: “Watch Out, AARP, Here Comes Senior Coffee! For the Older Comic Book/Pop Culture Fan!” Please email Bob Brodsky at brodskybob12@gmail.com for details.”

Ten from the Den: Best of O’Neil 1966–’71 Daredevil #18 [July ’66] “There Shall Come a Gladiator,” co-scripted with Stan Lee with art by Gene Colan & Bill Everett

Detective Comics #395 [Jan. ’70] “The Secret of the Waiting Graves,” with art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Batman #232 [June 1971 “Daughter of the Demon,” with art by Adams & Giordano

Charlton Premiere #2 [Nov. ’67] “Children of Doom,” with art by Pat Boyette

Green Lantern #76 [Apr. ’70] “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight,” with art by Neal Adams

Green Lantern #86 [Nov. 1971] “They Say It’ll Kill Me… But They Won’t Say When,” with art by Adams & Giordano

Superman #233 [Jan. ’71], “Kryptonite Nevermore,” with art by Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson

HONORABLE MENTION

Wonder Woman #179 [Nov. ’68] “Wonder Woman’s Last Battle,” with art by Mike Sekowsky & Dick Giordano Justice League of America #75 [Nov. ’69] “In Each Man There is a Demon,” with art by Dick Dillin & Joe Giella.

The Brave and the Bold #93 [Jan. 1971] “Red Water, Crimson Death,” with art by Adams

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

Bat Lash #7 [Nov. 1969] “Bat Lash,” plotted by Sergio Aragonés, with art by Nick Cardy [Top ten selections in chronological order.]

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BACK ISSUE #155

ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

BRICKJOURNAL #86

comics heroes (Kaänga, Ka-Zar, Sheena, Rulah, Jo-Jo/Congo King, Thun’da, Tarzan) with art by LOU FINE, WILL EISNER, FRANK FRAZETTA, MATT BAKER, BOB POWELL, ALEX SCHOMBURG, and others! Plus: the comicbook career of reallife jungle explorers MARTIN AND OSA JOHNSON, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

LEGO LANDSCAPING! A detailed look at how to create realistic stone and foliage from bricks: ANU PEHRSON’s White Wall from Game of Thrones, and JOEL and JONATHAN NEUBER’s (working!) Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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BACK ISSUE #156

BACK ISSUE #157

KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

THIS ISSUE IS HAUNTED! House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Unexpected, Marvel’s failed horror anthologies, Haunted Tank, Eerie Publications, House II adaptation, Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more wth NEAL ADAMS, MIKE W. BARR, DICK GIORDANO, SAM GLANZMAN, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOE ORLANDO, STERANKO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and others. Unused cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ & WRIGHTSON.

BRONZE AGE GRAPHIC NOVELS! 1980s GNs from Marvel, DC, and First Comics, Conan GNs, and DC’s Sci-Fi GN series!

With BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, JACK KIRBY, DON MCGREGOR, BOB McLEOD, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. WRIGHTSON cover.

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others!

With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!

IN THE NEWS! Rare newspaper interviews with Jack, 1973 San Diego panel with Jack and NEAL ADAMS discussing DC’s coloring, strips Kirby ghosted for others, unused strip concepts, collages, a never-reprinted Headline Comics tale, Jimmy Olsen pencil art gallery, 2024 WonderCon Kirby panel (featuring DAVID SCHWARTZ, GLEN GOLD, and RAY WYMAN), and more!

Cover inked by DAVID REDDICK!

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage!

Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #37

RETROFAN #35

RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assisting on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp!

The start of a multi-part look at the life and career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service comics produced by students at the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

STEVE ENGLEHART is spotlighted in a career-spanning interview, former DC Comics’ romance editor BARBARA FRIEDLANDER redeems the late DC editor JACK MILLER, DAN DIDIO discusses going from DC exec to co-publisher, we conclude our 100th birthday celebration for ARNOLD DRAKE, take a look at the 1970s underground comix oddity THE FUNNY PAGES, and more, including HEMBECK!

Saturday morning super-hero Space Ghost, plus The Beatles, The Jackson 5ive, and other real rockers in animation! Also: The Addams Family’s JOHN ASTIN, Mighty Isis co-stars JOANNA PANG and BRIAN CUTLER, TV’s The Name of the Game, on the set of Evil Dead II, classic coffee ads, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Fall 2024

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Oct. 2024

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creators at the con

NYCC 2023: Ghost Machine Materializes!

Ghost Machine, a creator-owned imprint of Image Comics, launched at New York Comic Con 2023 with a star-studded panel of comics creators.

Gary Frank

Bryan Hitch

Geoff Johns

Brad Meltzer

Peter J. Tomasi, Brad Anderson

Jason Fabok

Francis Manapul, Lamont Magee

Rob Leigh, Maytal Zchut

Photography by Kendall Whitehouse

Gary Frank 78

Geoff Johns

Bryan Hitch

Rob Leigh

Jason Fabok

Francis Manapul

Maytal Zchut

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All photos © Kendall Whitehouse.

Back row: [l–r] B. Anderson, M. Zchut, R. Leigh, P. J. Tomasi, B. Hitch, G. Johns, and J. Fabok. Front row: B. Meltzer, F. Manapul, L. Magee, and G. Frank.

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Back Issue • Comic Book Creator Alter Ego • Jack Kirby Collector: Back cover or inside cover: $800 ($700 for two or more) Full-page interior: $600 ($500 for two or more) Half-page interior: $300 ($250 for two or more) Quarter-page interior: $150 ($125 for two or more) AD SIZES: COVERS & FULL-PAGE: 8.375” wide x 10.875” tall trim size, add 1/8” bleed. (7.625” x 10.125” live area.)

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coming attractions: cbc #36 in the fall

All characters TM & © DC Comics.

Remembering the Great Tom Palmer The life, art, and legacy of TOM PALMER is the cover feature of CBC #36, celebrated with a thorough retrospective that includes a career-spanning interview with the late inker extraordinaire, as well as tributes from an array of comics pros, all compiled by Greg Biga.

We also chat with great cartoonist LEE MARRS, from her start assisting on Little Orphan Annie to hilarious work for DC’s Plop! to breaking into the underground with Pudge, Girl Blimp, as well as forging her own path in the comics scene. In addition, we begin a twopart look at the life and career of DAN DiDIO, one-time co-publisher of DC Comics and current Frank Miller Presents publisher, talking with him about his eclectic writing work for television and rise as renowned comics scribe. There’s also the second part of an indepth talk with the late writer ARNOLD DRAKE, this about his DC Comics work, whether The Doom Patrol or Stanley and His Monster, plus his foray at Marvel Comics, where he co-created the Guardians of the Galaxy. Then we spotlight the fascinating public service comics produced by the students of the CENTER FOR CARTOON STUDIES. All this and our usual gang of contributors, including the legendary HEMBECK. Full-color, 84 pages, $10.95

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2024 • #35

79

a picture is worth a thousand words

from the archives of Tom Ziuko During the prehistoric preinternet days, DC Comics would promote upcoming projects with slide-show presentations at comic book conventions. I would frequently hand color this one of a kind art — which was never intended for publication.

This George Perez/Jerry Ordway art would ultimately see print as a cover — and there was also some talk of printing it as a standalone poster, but since Superman isn’t wearing his full costume, the only remnant of it being his cape, it was decided that the illustration wasn’t recognizably commercial enough.

Here is my original coloring sans logo and text — executed with waterbased dyes and colored pencils on Strathmore paper — digital coloring had not yet been created.

— TZ Superman TM & © DC Comics

80

#35 • Summer 2024 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

19942024 UPDATE #2

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ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE

by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others.

Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 NOW SHIPPING!

MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

by PIERRE COMTOIS This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement!

(224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4 SHIPS AUGUST 2024!

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS

NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #188

ALTER EGO #189

BACK ISSUE #152

BACK ISSUE #153

BACK ISSUE #154

JOHN ROMITA tribute issue! Podcast recollections recorded shortly after the Jazzy One’s passing by JOHN ROMITA JR., JIM STARLIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, BRIAN PULIDO, ROY THOMAS, JAIME JAMESON, JOHN CIMINO, STEVE HOUSTON, & NILE SCALA; DAVID ARMSTRONG’s mini-interview with Romita; John Romita’s ten greatest hits; plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, & more!

MARVELMANIA ISSUE! SAL BUSCEMA’s Avengers, FABIAN NICIEZA’s Captain America, and KURT BUSIEK and ALEX ROSS’s Marvels turns 30! Plus: Marvelmania International, Marvel Age, Marvel Classics, PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Marvel Novels, and Marvel Value Stamps.

Featuring JACK KIRBY, KEVIN MAGUIRE, ROY THOMAS, and more! SAL BUSCEMA cover.

BIG BABY ISSUE! X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, FF’s Franklin Richards, Superbaby vs. Luthor, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel and Harvey kid humor comics, & more! With ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, SCOTT LOBDELL, SHELDON MAYER, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and other grownup creators. Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS.

BRONZE AGE NOT-READY-FORPRIMETIME DC HEROES! Black Canary, Elongated Man, Lilith, Metamorpho, Nubia, Odd Man, Ultraa of Earth-Prime, Vartox, and Jimmy Olsen as Mr. Action! Plus: Jason’s Quest! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE DITKO, BOB HANEY, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MARK WAID, and more ready-for-primetime talent. Retro cover by NICK CARDY.

(160-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $9.99 • Now shipping!

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Aug. 2023

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

DOUBLE-SIZE ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! The Marvel side includes mini-interviews with JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, JIM MOONEY, and GEORGE TUSKA—plus “STAN LEE’S Dinner with ALAIN RESNAIS” annotated by SEAN HOWE! On the DC side: talks with CARMINE INFANTINO, JOHN BROOME, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JOE KUBERT, & MURPHY ANDERSON—plus a GARDNER FOX photo-feature, and more!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

BRICKJOURNAL #85

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more!

Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

LEGO MINIFIGURES! Customized minifigs by fans, designing the Disney minifigures from LEGO House, spotlight on minifig fan artist ROBERT8, and more! Plus, all our regular features: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #90

WHAT IF KIRBY... hadn’t been stopped by his rejected Spider-Man presentation?

DC’s abandonment of the Fourth World?

The ill-fated Speak-Out Series? FREDRIC WERTHAM’s anti-comics crusade? The CIA’s involvement with the Lord of Light?

Plus a rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other columnists, a classic Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, & more!

Cover inks by DAMIAN PICKADOR ZAJKO!