Mac Raboy: Master of the Comics

ROY THOMAS

Introduction by

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Portrait by Drew Friedman

MASTER OF THE COMICS

by Roger Hill TwoMorrows Publishing

Raleigh, North Carolina

MAC RABOY

Master of the Comics Written by Roger Hill Design, Production, and Editorial Consultation by Jon B. Cooke Proofreading by John Morrow & Eric Nolen-Weathington • Published by John Morrow Cover art by Mac Raboy • Cover colors by Glenn Whitmore Editor’s note: Main cover image reproduced from Master Comics #27 (June 1942) original cover art

Portions of this book originally appeared in altered forms in Alter Ego Vol. 3, #6 and #7 and are featured here with the blessing of A/E editor Roy Thomas.

Dedicated to the family and descendants of Mac Raboy.

Editorial package © 2019 Roger Hill and TwoMorrows Publishing. Text © 2019 Roger Hill.

Introduction © 2019 Roy Thomas.

Special thanks to Drew Friedman, Keif Fromm, Shaun Clancy, and Ronn Sutton.

Copyrights & Trademarks Mac Raboy portrait frontispiece © 2019 Drew Friedman.

Drew Friedman’s portrait originally appeared in his 2014 book The Heroes of Comics, published by Fantagraphic Books.

The Black Condor, Bulletgirl, Bulletman, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Captain Nazi, Freddy Freeman, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, Ibis the Invincible, The Marvel Family, Mary Marvel, Master Comics, Minute Man, Mr. Scarlet, More Fun Comics, Phantom Eagle, The Ray, Shazam!, The Spectre, Spy Smasher, Whiz Comics, Wow Comics TM & © DC Comics. Tuk Caveboy TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Flash Gordon TM & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. Alter Ego TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas. Atoman, Banner Mysteries, Dr. Voodoo, Double Detective, Dynamic Comics, The Golden Lad, Green Lama, Love Diary, Morak the Mighty, Stars and Stripes Comics, Super-Magic Comics, Toytown Comics, Wanted, The Westerner Comics, Zoro the Mystery Man TM & © the respective copyright holders.

Hopalong Cassidy © & TM U.S. Television Office, Inc.

TwoMorrows Publishing

10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 USA www.twomorrows.com • email: twomorrow@aol.com

First Printing • August 2019 • Printed in China Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-090-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION by ROY THOMAS Raboy Ruminations — 6 FOREWORD by ROGER HILL Now the Story Shall be Told — 10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 14 CHAPTER ONE Origins & Upbringing — 15 CHAPTER TWO The Sidewalks—and Sweatshops—of New York — 18 CHAPTER THREE Early Days at Fawcett — 21 CHAPTER FOUR Little Boy Blue — 26 CHAPTER FIVE Helping Hands — 34 ASSOCIATE INTERVIEW Bob Rogers/Rubin Zubofsky — 40 CHAPTER SIX Mac Raboy Makes Three — 60 SPOTLIGHT BEHIND THE SCENES The Style of Mac Raboy — 66 Fawcett’s Capt. Marvel Jr. Guidelines — 78 ASSOCIATE INTERVIEW Gene McDonald — 81

ASSOCIATE INTERVIEW Marc Swayze — 92

CHAPTER SEVEN A Spark of Green — 98 CLOSER LOOK Ken Crossen and the Comics of Spark Publications — 102 CHAPTER EIGHT A Flash of Gold — 116 ASSOCIATE INTERVIEW Bob Rogers/Rubin Zubofsky — 119 CHAPTER NINE Life in Goldens Bridge, NY — 134 CHAPTER TEN The Final Chapter — 136 EPILOGUE David Raboy: The Son of Mac Raboy Speaks — 138 REFERENCE Mac Raboy Cover Index — 159

Introduction

by Roy Thomas

Roy Ruminates About Raboy I had Grit.

No, not True Grit like in a well-known novel and a couple of film adaptations—but Grit, the “Family Newspaper” of an earlier day. It was a big fat tabloid-style publication, must’ve been 60 pages or more, that was sold door-to-door back in the 1940s and ’50s… maybe for some time after that.

There were lots of ads in comic books advertising for boys to sell it. The idea was that each week the company delivered the papers, and the salesboy (I One constant of covers starring Captain Marvel Jr. is the character’s participation in the war effort of that period. Here is Mac Raboy’s rendition of a beaming lad and a brooding Adolph Hitler. Captain Marvel Jr. #10 [Aug. 1943].

don’t think girls were allowed to apply, at least not back in my time) was expected to peddle them house to house. For all I know, he had to pay for the issues up front and was on the hook for any unsold copies.

Many’s the Saturday in the late ’40s and early ’50s, I remember, when my mother, if she had to run an errand, would point to a shiny dime sitting atop the family radio console, and say, “That dime’s for if the Grit boy comes by.” He usually did, and for that we got a weekly tabloid full of lots of text and pictures, some of which was aimed at the general public, and some specifically at kids. Something for everyone, that was the idea.

But you know what? The only, sole specific thing I recall about all the Grits I perused, week in and week out, for at least the larger part of a decade—was the weekly, Sunday-style, black-&-white-printed Flash Gordon comic strip drawn by Mac Raboy.

I don’t recall the stories, but they had a distinct sciencefiction, space-opera look, with sleek-style space suits and jazzy rockets and beautiful women and strange, alien worlds of ice, fire, or whatever. And that was the province of the artist, whom

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I was naturally encountering for the first time.

Little did I know that the high heyday of Flash Gordon was already in

Mac Raboy’s inaugural Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip, from Aug. 1, 1948, the first of his 19-year run as artist on the weekly feature.

the past, coming to an end when original artist Alex Raymond went into the Army during World War II—and came back out with no use for rayguns or rockets, proceeding to draw a beautifully dull private detective strip for the rest of his too-brief life. The idea, though, that there had been an even more spectacular artist on Flash Gordon before the guy who signed his name “Mac Raboy” would definitely not have been believable to me at the time.

Nor was I aware, until years later, that Raboy himself had reached perhaps the apex of his style and influence several years before I first encountered him in Grit—when he was drawing “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories in the pages of Fawcett Publications’ Master Comics.

I do recall seeing an old (meaning, early-1940s, maybe four or five years old when I first ran across it) issue of Captain Marvel Jr. at my grandparents’ farmhouse in Old Appleton, Missouri… and those circa-1942 stories looked pretty good to me, and not unlike the romantic realism (not that I’d have

On the next page is Mac Raboy’s striking cover for Bulletman #2 (Fall 1941), published by Fawcett Comics Group.

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of years later I had no way of knowing that there was any connection between the Green Lama and Flash Gordon artists.

Once I learned about Raboy’s eminent presence in the early Master Comics, though—first on “Bulletman,” then on “Captain Marvel Jr.,” I was eager to see more. I never really collected those mags the way I did, say, AllStar Comics or Flash Comics or even Captain Marvel Adventures (where the stories seemed stronger and more inventive than in the tales of the Junior Marvel)… and besides, the Raboy Masters from the beginning fetched higher prices on the dealers’ market than the average comic, and I was already having trouble coming up with enough money to complete my collection of AllStar… but I did own a few of them.

And, after I got to New York in 1965 and soon began playing poker most Friday nights at future comicsconvention entrepreneur Phil Seuling’s Coney Island used that term then) that Raboy was giving the same

apartment, I rarely missed a chance to look over the

feature over in the also-monthly Master. But the CMJr

early issues of Master that he kept, all in alphabetical

stories, it would turn out, were basically people trying to

order, in the wonderful little room filled with the comics

closely imitate, if not downright trace, the pace-setting

he was buying and selling.

work of Raboy over in the anthology title.

It may have been the early 1960s and the beginning

Later, I suppose a bit of luster wore off when I realized how much of that great Raboy work was actually

of “organized” comics fandom when I first encountered

composed of Raboy-directed tracings and photostats

a Raboy-drawn “Captain Marvel Jr.” or “Bulletman”

(done by his assistants under his direction), rather than

story… no, wait, I take that back! Actually, even before

original art—but at least that explained why it was that

I was poring over Flash Gordon in the pages of Grit,

I kept seeing some of the same Captain Marvel Jr. poses

somewhere around 1945 or so, when I was just turning

over and over again, especially that one of him flying

five, I must’ve walked into one of the local drugstores in

straight at the reader, his grasping hands stretched out

Jackson, Missouri, and walked out with an exquisitely

before him ready to grab the unwary reader. But, truth to

illustrated issue of The Green Lama, a comic that

tell, at least he and his assistants were swiping the best—

featured a Raboy cover and lead story about a hooded,

himself!—and was that really all that much different

caped super-hero. But the art wasn’t signed, so a couple

from “Joe Shuster” or “Bob Kane” drawing very, very

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similar poses of Superman and Batman from issue to issue?

I tend to muse, from time to time, about the great comic book artists and writers and even editors I never got a chance to meet, even though they were still alive when I entered the field in the mid-1960s. One was Mac Raboy, although he passed away in 1967, less than two years after I hit town—and besides, by then, his comic book days were long behind him.

I don’t know all that much about his later years—I would like to imagine that they were primarily happy ones, though I wouldn’t bet on it. His early

Below is a mash-up of the Mac Raboy-drawn figure from the cover of Captain Marvel Jr. #21 (July 1, 1944) displaying the issue of Alter Ego from whence a portion of this book was derived, Vol. 3, #6 (Sept. 2000).

years were full of such wonder, such promise… his realization of what was surely a goal, to draw an already-fabled newspaper comic strip as the anointed successor to Alex Raymond… that, in advance of reading his life’s story, I have to wonder if his later life lived up, especially in his own eyes, to what he had hoped and envisioned for his future back in the days when he was the future—the artist of Flash Gordon, the greatest science-fiction strip of them all!

There’s probably no one on this beleaguered planet who’s better positioned to tell us Mac Raboy’s story than my comics-history colleague Roger Hill. Way back in the early days of the TwoMorrows incarnation of my magazine Alter Ego, he scribed a masterful (pun intended) short career biography of Raboy, backed by transcribed interviews with his longtime assistant Rubin Zubofsky, and with the son of the legendary artist.

Now, utilizing all that material and so much more that he has amassed in a nigh-lifetime of study of the illustrator, Roger has given us what is, and will probably remain, the definitive portrait of Mac Raboy—one of the true greats of the Golden Age of Comics, both in comic books and comic strips.

— Roy Thomas May 2019 Roy Thomas has been a comics fan—books, strips, whatever—since the age of four. But he’s never had a chance to write, or even edit, a comic book starring Flash Gordon. Well, at least he got a crack a time or two at Captain Marvel Jr.

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Foreword

by Roger Hill

Now the Story Shall Be Told Next page: Raboy’s original cover art for Master Comics #27 (June 1942), acknowledged as one of the most iconic, patriotic World War II covers ever created. Saved from oblivion by fellow artist/Fawcett employee Pete Costanza, the cover art is reproduced here for the first time, with paste-overs removed, showing the pure, overall beauty of an uncluttered Raboy masterpiece. Hand-written notes in the borders are from the editor and colorist. The dimensions of this incredible piece are 10" x 14". Below: The only photo known to exist of Mac Raboy, taken in the Fawcett offices in 1942, courtesy of Bob Rogers, a.k.a. Rubin Zubofsky, who assisted on Captain Marvel Jr. backgrounds in that year.

Mac Raboy’s artistic abilities and accomplishments in the four-color medium have already been well recognized and acknowledged in many of the history books that have come out over the past 40 years. A little over two decades ago, when I first decided to write an article on Mac Raboy for an issue of the CFA-APA (Comic and Fantasy Art Amateur Press Association), I quickly discovered that since the second volume of Jim Steranko’s History of the Comics had been published in 1972, nothing new had been presented about this amazing artist. It struck me rather odd that, as popular as Raboy’s work has always been for comic aficionados, that no one had apparently pursued further research on him, let alone publish it. Luckily, around that time, I had run across a copy of the 1949 King Features Syndicate promotional booklet titled Famous Artists & Writers. This publication, featuring biographical

Photo © 2019 Roger Hill & EC Fan-Addict Productions.

entries on 67 artists and 28 writers who worked for the syndicate, preserved quite the historical record for historians and collectors.

This excellent source of information is somewhat rare and not easily accessible to the folks most interested in learning about these early pioneers of newspaper strip 10

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art. This booklet is invaluable with its numerous biographies of writers and artists, accompanied by photographs of each. Even though the information is dated 1949, the two-page biography on Raboy does supply some good, general information, and presents the first published photo of the man the public ever saw. As I soon discovered, photos of Mac Raboy are very rare and hard to find.

Bob Rogers, assistant to Mac during the early days of Captain Marvel Jr. work, came to the rescue with a photo he took of Mac while working in the Fawcett comic art department, in 1942. Bob gave me that photo, which I am proud to add to my collection until the day comes when I donate the entirety of my historical files and archives to Columbia University, in New York City.

Mac Raboy will always be most remembered for his accomplishments on the Captain Marvel Jr. artwork he illustrated for Fawcett Publications between 1941 and ’45. While my own appreciation of Raboy’s CMJr art has grown steadily over the years, it was his Flash Gordon newspaper Sunday strip that initially caught my eye when I was 16 years old. I discovered this in Wichita, Kansas, while cleaning out a school teacher’s attic of Sunday newspaper sections she had saved. Our local paper carried the strip from around 1951 to ’63 and I found myself with a run of Sunday pages covering Raboy’s masthead design used early on for his Flash Gordon Sunday page, which he drew for nearly two decades, between 1948–67.

those years.

I was immediately drawn to Raboy’s incredible fine-line work. I thought he drew beautiful, “leggy” women; muscular, handsome men; and rocket ships that, while simple in design, were sleek and just “pulpish” enough to travel the galaxies with ease. The stories themselves… well, they left a lot to be desired. But Mac didn’t write the stories; he just drew them. His tenure on the strip ran from August 1, 1948 until December 17, 1967, turning out close to one thousand Sunday pages. That, in itself, is quite an accomplishment for any artist.

At the outset of any research or writing project I undertake, my goal is to always try and add something new to the history of comics. Otherwise I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels. Back in the late 1990s, when I tackled Mac Raboy, I knew the challenge for new information would be difficult and timeconsuming. I wanted to know what his personal feelings about art were. I also hoped to bring into focus a clear understanding of what drove him to do what

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he did for so many years. Who were his influences? Who exactly was Mac Raboy and what made him tick? I also wanted to know what ended his life and career so abruptly in 1967. Even in Steranko’s wonderful history books, Raboy’s exact date of passing was not noted.

It is unfortunate that Mac Raboy died so early, before anyone had the chance to interview him. Not that Mac would have agreed to be interviewed since, during the course of my research, I learned that he was not a very outgoing or talkative person. He also was not exactly thrilled with the job of working on the Flash Gordon strip.

Raboy was an extremely quiet, sensitive artist, who kept to himself a lot and just wanted to sit and draw for hours on end, without interruption.

Since he was very meticulous about his art and one of the slowest artists to work for Fawcett Publications, deadlines on the Captain Marvel Jr. work were constantly a problem. Therefore, a number of assistants were used

Notice of Mac Raboy’s death on Dec. 22, 1967, from the Christmas Eve edition of The New York Times of two days later. His stellar comic book work receives no mention.

during his tenure there to help out. I knew at the outset of my research that the only hope I had of truly learning something new about Raboy would have to come from his co-workers and assistants who might still be around to talk with. Thankfully, a few of them were, when I started my research in the 1990s. Most of them were already in their seventies or eighties and are now gone. These were the people I went searching for and, luckily, found and interviewed early on.

Back in 2000, editor Roy Thomas published some of my research findings in a series of Raboy articles presented in the sixth and seventh issues of his popular Alter Ego magazine. A lot of the unused material was saved for this book and, since then, even more new discoveries of visual material and information have been added about Mac Raboy. It is all presented here, together, in this volume.

— Roger Hill February 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book would not exist today if not for the

artists and, thankfully, he shares his opinions and

remembrances and information given me by the

knowledge with me whenever I ask. I appreciate the

following men:

efforts of Paul Hamerlinck, who is probably the most

Raboy assistant Bob Rogers (a.k.a. Rubin

knowledgeable Fawcett expert on the planet, and

Zubofsky) who, with the assistance of son-in-law Dan

who always gave me his advice about Raboy’s art and

Johnson, helped immensely by nailing down exact

career.

dates on Bob’s work with Raboy in comics. They also

I will not forget the original art collectors who

provided several vintage, Raboy-Fawcett photostats

shared some of the beautiful Mac Raboy art you see

of original art for this book. Gene McDonald, who

in this book. First and foremost is Keif Fromm, who

assisted Raboy at Fawcett on Captain Marvel Jr. art,

provided the classic Master Comics #27 cover, and

had plenty to share with me about those days long

other great pieces seen here. Keif always kept pushing

ago. One of Raboy’s closest friends at Fawcett was

me to get this project finished, and that definitely

a fellow by the name of Marc Swayze, who readily

helped speed up the process. Jack and Carole Bender,

shared info about Mac. In my struggle to learn more

Ike Wilson, and Jim Halperin all provided me with

about the personal side of the artist, his son David

good clean scans of original art in their collections

Raboy came to my rescue and filled in the blanks.

and, for that, we can all be thankful. José Villarrubia,

These gentlemen all knew Mac Raboy well and

creator of the Lou Fine and Mac Raboy Facebook

shared their knowledge with me. Had they not taken

pages, keeps the internet buzzing at a rapid pace

the time and been so generous, most pages in this

with lively discussions to help educate the masses on

book would evaporate before your eyes. Luckily, that

these talented artists. José also helped me with the

won’t happen. These memories, these anecdotes,

Raboy cover checklist presented here, as did Paul

these factual notations of history, will not be lost to

Hamerlinck.

the ages, like so many others have been within this industry.

And there were others who helped out on this project, too. My hardy thanks goes to Roy Thomas who, many years ago, first gave me space in his Alter

My thanks also to John Morrow for publishing this book and to Jon B. Cooke, whose artistic touch with layouts and arrangements always nicely complement my written words.

Hopefully, you’ll agree that the efforts of all these

Ego magazine to share some of my Raboy information,

sharing individuals have helped to paint a final,

and later on, did me a big favor in regards to this

very clear picture-portrait of this truly amazing artist.

book project. Historian Jim Steranko has always

Enjoy!

been receptive to my questions about Golden Age 14

— R.H.

Chapter One

Origins & Upbringing Manuel Raboy was born in New York City on April 9, 1914, to parents Isaac and Sarah Raboy. Isaac and two brothers had immigrated to the United States from Bessarabaka, Romania in 1904, and settled temporarily in New York City. While passing through the receiving areas of Ellis Island, Isaac’s original last name—spelled “Raboi”—became anglicized to “Raboy.”

Isaac secured a job working in a hat factory and, during evening hours, he wrote poetry and political essays.

He also attended the Jewish Agricultural School in Woodbine, New Jersey, and moved to North Dakota after graduation. On a horse ranch located just

Woodcut engraving produced by Mac Raboy for the WPA during the mid- to late 1930s. This one is titled “Family on a Barge.”

outside Gladstone, North Dakota, he became a horse-handler and ferrier (blacksmith). He eventually wrote several books. One of these, The Jewish Cowboy, detailed some of his experiences in North Dakota.

At his father’s request, Isaac returned to the East Coast, where he took on the job of managing the family dairy farm in Connecticut. At the same time he worked in New York City and continued writing books. After marrying, Issac and Sarah Raboy eventually moved into a home located at 3451 Giles Place, in the Bronx, New York. This is where young Manuel Raboy grew up and developed an intensive passion for drawing. Even as a child, he would render with great detail just about anything he set his mind to.

ORIGINS & UPBRINGING

15

Manuel attended P.S. 44 in the city and DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. The institution was an all-boys school at that time, and students were mixed both ethnically and racially. It was here that Manuel —or “Mac,” as family and friends referred to him—first took an interest in making art his career.

Luckily he had an art teacher at DeWitt who gave him some guidance and encouragement in the arts.

This teacher also conducted Works Progress Administration (WPA) art classes which Mac attended regularly. Through them, he became familiar with the art of wood engraving and print making, a slow and painstaking The above photo was taken from a mid-1930s yearbook, a photo of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York, which Mac Raboy attended as a boy. At inset right is a dust jacket design, using Mac Raboy’s portrait of his father Issac, for the English-translated edition of his father’s book Nine Brothers, published by Yiddisher Kultur Farband, April 1968.

Below is a print of a penciled piece with original Raboy signature, possibly drawn during his WPA years (during the Great Depression) or later.

form of art.

Raboy, it appears, mastered this artistic process and upon graduation went to work for the Roosevelt Administration’s WPA and Federal Arts Project (FAP). At this time, only people on relief could be recruited by the FAP for government-sponsored work. At its height, FAP employed about 5,000 artists. Between December 1935 and August 1939, Raboy turned out a total of 14 engraved prints for FAP. He decided to make a visual interpretation and record of Americana, falling under the heading of The Index of American Design.

Raboy’s prints were striking, with a lush, fine-line approach to the depiction of Depression-era America.

Some of these show agricultural images of people at work. All were quite good.

Through this program, many

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Chapter One

artists were encouraged to do work at home rather than concentrate on the art market in New York. The government also sponsored traveling exhibitions that would expose culturally deprived areas of the country to the work of American artists. Raboy’s prints were shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1937, then at the National Academy of Design in 1938. A few examples even found their way to exhibition at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Since the 1943 demise of FAP, the importance of governmental funding of the arts has been continually disputed. Even though critics say FAP resulted in bad work, there can be no doubt that it saved a generation of American artists from dire poverty. In the case of Mac Raboy and many other young artists, it proved to be the encouragement they needed to further their careers.

Several of Raboy’s wood engravings from this era reside today in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. During the time he worked for the FAP, Raboy also studied art at the New York School of Industrial Art, the Pratt Institute, and Cooper Union. In 1935, he married a young lady named Lulu Belle Morris. The two had met while summering in upstate New York, in a little town called Goldens Bridge. Lulu Belle had, at one time, been an accomplished dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Subsequently, the Raboy newlyweds set up housekeeping in a little apartment in the Bronx.

At top right is a close-up detail of Raboy’s portrait of his father, Isaac Raboy, used on the Nine Brothers book cover. At right is one of many engravings that Mac Raboy created while working for the WPA during the 1930s. Titled “Barricade,” this is one of the few he made with color.

ORIGINS & UPBRINGING

17

Chapter Two

The Sidewalks—and Sweatshops—of New York After leaving the WPA, Raboy decided to try his hand working in the commercial art field. He secured a job with a small art company, where he became adept at lettering and paste-ups, among other chores. In his own words, his duties consisted of “all kinds of the usual dirty work.” In 1940, after seeing a newspaper ad, he applied for work and was hired at once as a staff artist with the Harry “A” Chesler comics shop in New York City.

Chesler’s outfit, located at 23rd Street, just west of Eighth Avenue, was one of the earliest “sweatshops” responsible for packaging comic books for publishers.

More than likely, Chesler foreman Jack Binder also had a say in Raboy’s hiring. Binder had been employed by Chesler in early 1937 to take charge of a staff of artists that included Charlie Biro, Jack Cole, Lou Fine, Gill Fox, Fred Guardineer, Robert McCay Jr., Mort Meskin, Guspano Ricca, Charlie The Green Lama, created by Ken Crossen, made his debut in the pulp magazine Double Detective, in April 1940, published by the Frank A. Munsey Company. Above is the cover of Vol. 5, #5 (Apr. 1940). Inset right is the cover of Prize Comics Vol. 1 #8 (Jan. 1941), headlining the Green Lama, now featured as a comic-book hero. Below is an early panel by Raboy depicting the cloaked portrait of the Green Lama, uttering the power-giving prayer—“Om! Ma-ni pad-me hum!”—from that same issue.

The next page is also from Prize #8. This early work clearly shows an emerging talent.

Sultan, George Tuska, and many others who would eventually move on to greater fame in the comic book industry.

Mac Raboy was now surrounded by a team of talented artists, inkers, and writers who, under Binder’s supervision, would crank out completed comic art for some of the largest comic book publishing companies of the day. This included Centaur, National/DC, Fawcett, Quality, and Timely/Marvel, all of

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Chapter Two

THE SIDEWALKS—AND SWEATSHOPS—OF NEW YORK

19

whom were pioneers of a budding new industry.

Raboy was fascinated by the storytelling aspects of comic books and was about to learn the business working from the bottom up.

Inset right is a single panel, starring the Green Lama and drawn by a young Mac Raboy, from Prize Comics Vol. 1, #8 (Jan. 1941).

One of Mac’s first assignments was a back-up feature in Prize Comics called “The Green Lama.” This mysterious, green-hooded crimefighter originated deep in the wilds of Tibet. Well-versed in the strange secrets of Eastern holy men, he devoted his life to fighting criminals the law could not reach. The Green Lama was the brainchild of writer Ken Crossen and had originally debuted in the pulp magazine, Double Detective, in 1940. Within two years, Crossen would go on to become an assistant editor at Fawcett Publications and eventually started his own comic publishing company.

Two-page spread from Prize Comics Vol. 1, #8 (Jan. 1941) sporting Mac Raboy’s early efforts as nascent comic book professional.

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Though Raboy couldn’t have known it at the time, he himself would be involved in Crossen’s later ventures and once again with the Green Lama.

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Early Days at Fawcett While Mac Raboy’s early efforts on various back-up features produced in the Chesler shop were competent, his style had a ways to go yet before he would become recognized as someone of special talents. The Chesler shop also provided Fawcett with a lot of their early art needs. Therefore, Raboy was kept very busy working on such notable back-up strips as “Ibis the Invincible,” “Mr. Scarlet,” and “Zoro, the Mystery Man.” Working with other Chesler shop personnel, Raboy began illustrating the adventures of “Dr. Voodoo” with Whiz Comics #9 (October 1940). This back-ofthe-book adventure series, featuring a non-costumed, swashbuckling semi-super-hero, would eventually show Raboy’s transitional growth to a higher plateau of artistic excellence. Unlike most of the other Fawcett Publications features, the “Dr. Voodoo” stories eventually came to utilize narrative captions rather than the standard word balloons, and Raboy’s style grew more mature—and more noticeable to the men in charge at Fawcett.

By the end of 1940, Mac was drawing Bulletman covers for Master

Above is Mac Raboy’s energetic cover for Bulletman #1 (Jan. 14, 1942).

Comics; shortly after that, he became the chief artist of that hero’s stories inside. Bulletman, who had debuted in the pages of Fawcett’s Nickel Comics in the spring of 1940, was a crimefighter who wore a bullet-shaped “GravityRegulator Helmet” in order to fly. Eventually he was joined by Bulletgirl and the pair’s adventures continued ’til the late ’40s. When the hero was assigned

EARLY DAYS AT FAWCETT

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Next page: Raboy’s “Dr. Voodoo” original art, Whiz Comics #11 (Dec. 1940).

his own comic title in the summer of 1941, Raboy was assigned to do the covers. By this time Mac had left the Chesler shop and had become a permanent member of the Fawcett art staff, working on salary.

No doubt Raboy, like many others before and after him, left Chesler’s employment to secure a position closer to the source of income. This move may have come about also at the urging of Fawcett’s comics editor Ed Herron, whose employment at Fawcett had begun in October 1940. Herron had previously sold scripts to Chesler and probably met Mac there. Fawcett Publications was one of the largest publishers of magazines and comic books. Their offices consisted of four entire floors occupying part of the Paramount Building, located at 43rd Street and Broadway, in Manhattan, the very heart of New York City.

Below are a pair of “Tuk Cave Boy” pages by Raboy, produced in the Harry A. Chesler Production Shop and published in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941). It is the only known job the artist ever did for Timely (later known as Marvel Comics).

Two beautiful examples of Raboy’s early work on “Dr. Voodoo.”

His first effort, at top, is from Whiz Comics #9 (Oct. 1940) and below, Whiz Comics #16 (Apr. 1941).

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Chapter Three

EARLY DAYS AT FAWCETT

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Zoro the Mystery Man, a Mandrake the Magician knock-off, as drawn by Mac Raboy for Fawcett’s Master Comics. At left is from Master #19 (Oct. 1941) splash. Above is the splash (featuring Zoro’s faithful pet, Cheeta) from Master #15 (June 1941).

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Chapter Two

“Morak the Mighty” was a “Tarzan” knock-off produced in the Chesler production shop. Raboy only provided this one story, which showed up in a Street and Smith “one-shot” publication titled Super-Magic Comics #1, dated May 1941.

THE SIDEWALKS—AND SWEATSHOPS—OF NEW YORK

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Chapter Four

Little Boy Blue Ed Herron had come to Fawcett with a successful track record of writing and creating comic book characters that had gone on to greater popularity, including work on the earliest stories of Timely’s colorful Captain America— and his kid sidekick Bucky. It was during the fall of 1941 that Herron came up with the idea of a new addition to the Fawcett family. With Captain

Explosive is the best way to describe this iconic, colorful cover (on opposite page) by Mac Raboy, whose renditions of a teen-age super-hero with a realistic physique was nothing less than perfect. Captain Marvel Jr. #4, (Feb. 19, 1943). Inset bottom is Raboy’s first cover for Fawcett and the first of the CMJr origin trilogy, Master Comics #21 (Dec. 1941). Below is a vignette derived from Raboy’s cover art for Captain Marvel Jr. #26 (Jan. 1, 1945).

Marvel sales increasing dramatically since his debut in February 1940, Fawcett management figured a teenage version of the “Big Red Cheese” would only increase their profits. Herron liked Raboy’s art very much, and wanted a more illustrative style for the new addition, as opposed to the C. C. Beck or Pete Costanza simplified approach on Captain Marvel.

The new boy-hero was ably dubbed Captain Marvel Jr., and it was Mac Raboy who was given the job of visualizing him for the very first time. Jr.’s basic attire was blue, with a red cape. His boots, sash, and trim, were the same as Captain Marvel’s: gold!

A brilliant costume of color if ever there was—and with Raboy’s superb draftsmanship, coupled with stories written by Otto Binder, Joe Millard, Manly Wade Wellman, and Bill Woolfolk, a sure-fire success on the newsstands was in order.

LITTLE BOY BLUE

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Above: two pages from Raboy’s magnificent work in Master Comics #21 (Dec. 1941), featuring Captain Marvel and the first appearance of Captain Nazi, “the World’s Worst Villain.”

Below: C. C. Beck’s cover of Whiz Comics #25 (Dec. 12, 1941), part two of CMJ’s origin.

With direction from Ed Herron, Raboy started working on an origin trilogy (evidently written by Bill Woolfolk) that began in 1941 and ended the year following, crossing over between two Fawcett titles in the process.

The three-part tale begins in Master Comics #21 (December 1941), wherein Captain Marvel—a guest star for the issue—teams up with the title’s regular lead, Bulletman, to take on a new super-villain called Captain Nazi. The second part of the story picks up in Whiz Comics #25 (December 1941), with Captain Marvel saving the life of a young teenage boy named Freddy Freeman, whom the treacherous Captain Nazi has severely injured and left to drown. With the lad near death, Captain Marvel takes him to the underground hall where the sorcerer Shazam gives him magic words (“Captain Marvel!” rather than “Shazam!”) and Marvel powers.

Both C. C. Beck and Mac Raboy worked on this second installment of Captain Marvel Jr.’s origin story. Beck, the artist most closely associated with Captain Marvel during that time, maintained a tight unofficial control over the scripts and art produced for the good Captain’s adventures. His

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assistance on this story was for that reason, and may have also been required in order to keep things moving for slow, meticulous Raboy.

The third and final installment of this origin takes place in Master Comics #22 (January 1942), where Bulletman and Captain Marvel Jr. join forces to defeat Captain Nazi and deranged anti-American Dr. Eternity.

From this point on, “Captain Marvel Jr.” appeared regularly as the lead feature in Master, as well as a Previous page: One of Mac Raboy’s most explosive covers, Master Comics #22 (January 1942)—printed version this page, inset upper right—played an important part at the end of the three-part origin story of Captain Marvel Jr., where the young hero and Bulletman defeat Dr. Eternity and Captain Nazi in a story written by William Woolfolk and titled, “The Wax Death.”

Captain Nazi would become one of Jr.’s most dreaded foes and return on numerous occasions during the war. This is Raboy’s first cover depiction of Captain Marvel Jr. Reproduced here from the original art, gifted to fellow Fawcett artist and friend, Marcus Swayze in 1942.

This page above is a page drawn by Mac Raboy from the same issue of Master. At right is a row of CMJr figurines that were individually offered by manufacturer R.W. Kerr in the 1940s.

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permanent fixture on the covers.

Raboy’s streamlined style of drawing the human figure was quite different from the usual assortment of muscleman super-heroes glutting the newsstands. Even when Freddy Freeman spoke the magic words, “Captain

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Marvel,” and transformed into Cap Jr., his physique remained that of a young teenage boy. Mac was capable of drawing flying sequences that were realistic and unlike anything that had been seen in comics up to that point. It was amazing! His figures, whether they were leaping, flying, swimming, fighting, or just standing around, were always drawn to perfection. Second-best wasn’t good enough for Raboy, who was known to be one of the more sensitive, self-disciplined artists working at Fawcett, and who, at the drop of a hat, would erase an entire panel of pencils he Clockwise from above are vignettes of Captain Nazi by artist Mac Raboy from Master Comics #21 (Dec. 1941); a CMJr button from that era; and two pages from the Raboy-penciled (and C. C. Beck-inked!)

CMJr origin sequence that appeared in color in Whiz Comics #25 (Dec. 12, 1941). On next page is Raboy work from Master Comics #22 (Jan. 1942).

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had just spent most of the day drawing, and start over. On another occasion, an editor’s critical comment sent Raboy into a frenzy that resulted in a Captain Marvel Jr. page being ripped to pieces. Mac was an emotional guy, as co-workers attest.

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Chapter Five

Helping Hands Even though he was the slowest artist working for Fawcett in those days, the company obviously thought a lot of his work. They especially loved his covers, which were always well-designed and attractive. In 1941 and ’42, Mac produced some classic cover images for other Fawcett titles besides Master, including America’s Greatest Comics, Bulletman, Captain Midnight, Spy Smasher, and Xmas Comics. With the increased workload it became obvious to the Fawcett editors that Mac would never be able to keep up with the growing amount of work. The decision was made to hire someone who could give Mac some help on backgrounds.

That help came almost immediately from a young man by the name of Rubin Zubofsky, who at age nineteen came knocking at Fawcett’s door in January of 1942. Zubofsky was interviewed by editor Herron Above house ad from Fawcett touting the massive semi-regular annual Xmas Comics, which consisted of 324 pages and sold for 50¢! The first issue’s cover (seen here, from 1941) was illustrated by Mac Raboy.

Inset right is a Mighty Midget Comic edition— this one, Bulletman (#11)—which are 5" x 4" miniature reprint comics sold in sets of four by publisher Samuel E. Lowe & Co., in 1942.

Next page is Mac Raboy’s work on the cover of America’s Greatest Comics #1 (Fall 1941), a 100-page quarterly, demonstrating Raboy’s special talent for drawing the human figure.

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and co-editor John Beardsley, who, during the course of the interview, requested him to produce a drawing in their presence. After completing it, he was hired at a salary of $35 a week as an assistant to Mac Raboy.

This meant providing pencils and inks on backgrounds for Raboy’s covers or stories.

Chapter Five

HELPING HANDS

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Working side by side, using HB lead pencils and #3 Winsor & Newton brushes, Raboy and Zubofsky became a working team dynamo for Fawcett, constantly trying to meet deadlines on “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories. Between the two artists, they barely managed to turn out one story a month for Master Comics. They sat at the front of the art department, with Raboy (a southpaw) facing the other men in the room, and Zubofsky facing the front.

This allowed the pair to easily pass work back and forth between them.

Zubofsky, who had previously worked with Lou Fine throughout most of 1941, had developed a “chameleon” technique of emulating or matching any artist’s style of work on backgrounds. Usually “Ruby” (as his co-workers came to call him) would ink his own pencils on backgrounds. Occasionally Mac would ask him to finish off the inking of a figure, as well. He and Mac

In order to have other Fawcett artists and Raboy assistants maintain the “Raboy mystique” of drawing faces on Captain Marvel Jr., a production guide was prepared using photostats made up from previous-published Raboy faces.

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Chapter Five

got along well together and, when required, would work late to try to meet deadlines. It was this work, over the next eleven months, that remains popular today as some of the very finest “Captain Marvel Jr.” artwork ever produced.

When deadlines got too close for comfort, Raboy would oversee the use of photostats of previously drawn panels or figures, on whatever new story they were currently producing. He would go through the back-issue file copies of the comics and indicate to Ruby which figures he wanted. Ruby would then go to Fawcett’s morgue library to pull up the original art pages, size the figures through a projector to the size needed to fit the new panels,

Patriotism ran high with Raboy and Fawcett editors during World War II as the cover of Master Comics #40 (July 1943) clearly projects (seen on previous page). On this page below is a rather jingoistic and (literal) flag-waving cover by Raboy for Master Comics #30 (Sept. 1942).

and order photostats to be made.

Raboy himself usually cut the figures out and placed them exactly where he wanted them on the pages.

It was also in early 1942 that Fawcett management initiated a size change in the cover art that Mac Raboy (and probably others) were producing. Up to this point all cover art and interior page art had been drawn twice-up in size. The new size allowed Raboy and Zubofsky to save time by drawing covers “one-andone-half-up” in size. Mac took great pains to produce covers that were “posteresque” in design and patriotic in theme. From 1942 to 1943 he produced some of the finest Golden Age patriotic covers ever printed in the four-color medium.

It was fortunate for Mac that comics editor Ed Herron and art director Al Allard recognized his need for additional time in order

HELPING HANDS

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to render the realistic art style he had adopted. In September of 1942, when Rod Reed was hired as Fawcett’s new comics editor (replacing Herron), he continued the same consideration.

It was Reed who eventually became one of Raboy’s closest friends and was instrumental in getting Mac out of a personality shell into which he had fallen.

One of the most prolific writers at Fawcett was science-fiction author Otto Binder. Between 1941 and 1953, when Fawcett Comics closed its doors, Binder wrote 161 “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories. He, Raboy, and Zubofsky would have occasional meetings to confer about plots and ideas on the tales. In a 1973 interview Binder recalled the experience: “Mac Raboy—there was a prima donna! Impossible to work with.

He always complained that there were too many action scenes. Mac didn’t care about plot, about conflict. He wanted Above is Raboy’s striking cover for Master Comics #32, dated Nov. 4, 1942, while on the next page is a shot of the black and white original art. Raboy’s figure work was first defined in all their glory in James Steranko’s The Steranko History of the Comics, published in 1972. Steranko wrote: “The youthful vitality of the characters came through like few others ever would, primarily due to Raboy’s light, sensitive treatment. Like Alex Raymond, he was never prone to utilize heavy blacks, consequently, the strip had a vivacity and spirit totally appropriate for the comics’ first super-successful superboy. Of special note are Raboy’s flying figures which are unusually buoyant and light.”

beautiful, fairyland scenes for Captain Marvel Jr. to float through.”

When Rubin Zubofsky was drafted in November 1942, Fawcett put out the word that positions were open for new assistants to Mac Raboy. Shortly afterward, Irwin Wile, who worked for Fawcett’s magazine layout department, brought in two acquaintances he had met while attending night classes at the Grand Central School of Art. Their names were Gene McDonald and Hugh “Red” Mohler, and both were hired at salaries of $60 a week apiece to assist Raboy on “Captain Marvel Jr.” Due to the overwhelming popularity of their teenage super-hero, Fawcett had decided it was time to give the boy in blue his own comic magazine.

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Chapter Five

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Associate Interview

Bob Rogers/Rubin Zubofsky, Man in the Background AUTHOR’S NOTE Bob Rogers was born Rubin L. Zubofsky in Brooklyn, New York, on January 15, 1923.

Raised in that borough, he attended the High School of Music & Art, from where he graduated in 1941. That summer, quite by chance, he was introduced to artist Myron Strauss (1917–99) by a girlfriend he was dating. Rubin, who was anxious to get into an art business of any kind, began working with Strauss on a feature called “Liberty Scouts” for the Comic Corporation of America, also known as Centaur Publications. His first collaborative efforts with Strauss, penciling and inking backgrounds, showed up in Liberty Scouts #3, dated Aug. 1941. Strauss was renting studio space at a photostat firm and, right after Pearl Harbor, received his Army draft notice from Uncle Sam. Rubin—going by the nick name of “Ruby”— finished his last job with Strauss, assisting on Stars and Stripes Comics #5 (Nov. 1941).

Strauss left for military duty on Jan. 1, 1942, and, a month or so before leaving, introduced Ruby to Lou Fine, a good friend of Strauss, who was also in need of a background man.

Fine was already familiar with Ruby’s work for Strauss and hired him right away, without reviewing his samples.

At that time, Fine’s studio was located in a high-rise residential building in Manhattan, called Tudor City, where Ruby began assisting on features such as “Uncle Sam,” “The Ray,” “Hercules,” and “Black Condor.” Within months, the young assistant had moved on to Fawcett Publications, where he was hired to specifically work with Mac Raboy on backgrounds. From then on, it was a mad dash to keep up with deadlines turning out Captain Marvel Jr. stories and covers, with Mac directing the action. This frantic pace continued until Ruby was also drafted in the Army, in late 1942. After his discharge from military service in Sept. 1945, he anglicized his last name to Rogers, following family wishes, and changed his first name to Bob. He and his brother Hank opened a photography store for a short period of time. By November of that year, Bob was back at Fawcett doing background work, only now for Bud Thompson who had taken over the majority of art chores on Captain Marvel Jr. following Raboy’s departure.

ROGER HILL: I can’t tell you just how surprised and happy I was to find out that you are, or were, the original Rubin Zubofsky. I was looking for you two years ago, at the beginning of my research on this whole Raboy project, and couldn’t find any Zubofsky listed anywhere! After what I had read in Steranko’s History of the Comics about you, and from a letter by [Fawcett editor] Wendell Crowley [published in Alter Ego Vol. 1, #8], I knew you were one of the key figures in the scheme of things.

BOB ROGERS: Rubin Zubofsky… nicknamed Ruby! That is my real name. During the war, my parents anglicized it. At some point, my mother wrote and told me they had changed the name to Rogers, and I thought, “Gee whiz, I’d like to go along with the family.” But I decided not to do it until after I got out of the service or I’d screw up my records. So I waited until after the war.

RH: You were using the nickname “Ruby” at Fawcett, right? You know, it was originally believed that Mac Raboy had changed his name from Rabinowitz to Raboy.

ROGERS: I guess a lot of erroneous data gets thrown around out there. It’s funny how little bits and pieces have come back into my recollection that I had forgotten about. I only recently remembered that I had shortened my name to “Zubof” for Fawcett! [laughs] I even went out and got myself a separate Social Security card, which said “Rubin Zubof,” which was legal then.

RH: We’ve been discussing by email the “mystery artist” who helped you get started in the comic book business as his apprentice; but so far we haven’t been able to come up with a name, right? You seem to think it was someone called Myron. And your son-in-law Dan and I suggested to you that it might have been

Continued on next page

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Associate Interview

an artist by the name of Myron Strauss.

ROGERS: I tell you, this has been the damnedest thing. My memory at this stage is not what it used to be—and unfortunately, during those years when I first started, and up until the time I came back from the service, I never kept any records. That’s because I was on salary.

It wasn’t until I started freelancing that I worked up a portfolio and actually started saving a bunch of this stuff which originally meant nothing to me. Matter of fact, the first thing I did after I came back from the war was, I found this huge pile of mint comic books that I had brought home in quantities when I worked at Fawcett—and I threw them the hell out! [laughter] RH: Don’t feel bad, Bob. A lot of the other guys who worked in comics back then did the same thing.

ROGERS: You know, Roger, the only thing I have that this “mystery artist” and myself worked on is one comic. The comic was Stars and Stripes #5, dated December 1941. The feature inside that we did was called “Liberty Scouts.”

RH: And you assisted him on this work?

ROGERS: Oh yeah. I drew the backgrounds. We also did the cover. I saved a copy of it. Well, actually, I excerpted it. I destroyed it, and just saved the cover and the feature we did. I saved dozens of books—not the books, just the work that I did. I kept them in a portfolio so I could have samples of my work to show around.

RH: How did you actually meet this “mystery artist”?

ROGERS: Well, it’s a funny thing. I went to the High School of Music and Art, and that’s where I graduated from. I was dating a very lovely girl and she said a friend of hers was in the business of doing something called “comic books” and he was looking for an assistant. And I wanted to get into the field very, very badly, so I jumped at it.

RH: You wanted to get into the comic book field?

ROGERS: I wanted to get into the art field. Whatever aspect it was. So that opened the door for me. I became a combination background man, cleanup artist, and gofer. That was around 1941, so that date we’ve got for sure.

RH: And how long after your graduation do you think it was before you started assisting this fellow?

BOB ROGERS

Above is Rubin Zubofsky (later Bob Rogers) working on the last page of the Captain Marvel Jr. story, “The Case of the Jolly Roger,” for Master Comics #35 (Feb. 1943). The photo was taken in late 1942, just before Bob left for military service. On the page opposite is the cover of Stars and Stripes #5 (Nov. 1941), published by Centaur, on which Bob Rogers assisted credited artist Myron Strauss, for whom Rogers served as apprentice when first toiling in the comic book field.

Continued from previous page Bob briefly left Fawcett to work with Mac on the Flash Gordon strip from Jan.–Oct. 1949, at which time he returned to Fawcett working as an inker on various types of stories, and providing backgrounds for Bud Thompson on the “Captain Marvel Jr.” feature. He finished out his comic book career in the early 1950s working in a studio with other artists producing stories for Rae Herman at Toytown Publications. After that, Bob worked in the auto parts business which eventually led him into the antiquarian business. During the 1980s, Bob and his wife, Leatie, opened an antique shop, in New Jersey, where they bought and sold antiques of all kinds and Bob did restoration work until their retirement in the 1990s.

At the time this interview was conducted with Bob Rogers, in Sept. 1999, much of his timeline information had yet to be locked down.

Unfortunately, some of it is still unknown.

With what we know about Mac Raboy, Bob Rogers, Gene McDonald, Red Mohler, Bud Thompson, and the other numerous supporting cast members that came and went during the Raboy years of working on “Captain Marvel Jr.,” we think the historical picture is much more clearer. That’s the best we can hope for at this very late date.

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ROGERS: Don’t know. So now we have from January until the end of 1941, and around that time I went to Fawcett. Now, what transpired here was that this “mystery artist” got his draft notice. So he said that a friend of his also needed an assistant, and he thought I would be able to get a salary there. And that’s how I got hooked up with Lou Fine.

RH: So you began working with Lou Fine on some Quality Comics features?

ROGERS: Yes. I made the enormous salary of $20 a week. I worked on a whole series of pages and stories with Lou. This was before Pearl Harbor.

RH: Was this at the time after Lou left Iger and Eisner [comics shop]?

ROGERS: Yes. He was no longer with them. He was now set up in his own studio apartment in Tudor City, Manhattan. It’s a big complex, and there was just the two of us. That’s why I never met any of the other people.

It was just a little studio room with a little kitchenette behind the door and a little sleeper couch. That was it.

RH: Do you remember specific comic titles that you were working on with Lou? ROGERS: Hit Comics!

RH: Right. And what about Crack Comics?

ROGERS: Yes. I have lots of the “Black Condor” stories that I worked on.

RH: Did you do the inking on these jobs with Lou?

Before becoming Mac Raboy’s primary (and likely preferred) background artist, Bob Rogers worked as such for another extraordinarily talented artist, the great Louis K. Fine, whose super-hero renditions over at Quality Comics during the late ’30s and early ’40s were quickly becoming favorites of tasteful and discriminate comic book aficionados and the envy of virtually every one of Fine’s peers. At top is original Fine artwork from Crack Comics #17 (Oct. 1941).

Above is detail from Fine’s excellent work in Smash Comics #15 (Oct. 1940).

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ROGERS: I did the drawing for all the backgrounds. In other words, that’s where the technique I developed started. The artist would draw the figures and then he would indicate to me with a few hen scratches what he wanted in the background. He might indicate something like a street scene behind this figure.

Of course, the script might indicate a scene with a car coming or Nazis coming down the road in a jeep. So he might show me where the jeep is supposed to be.

I’d put in the jeep and he’d put in the Nazis. The main figure would be at the front of the panel, and I’d have to fill in the rest.

RH: Now, what I’m curious about is the penciling and inking stages of this progression. Was there a set order about who did what first?

ROGERS: It could go either way. Either they would just outline where they were going to put figures in—in a sense, working against my backgrounds—or they would do the figures first, which they felt were more important. And then I would

Associate Interview

put the backgrounds behind them. They would ink the figures and I would ink the backgrounds.

You see, all of my artwork, from the time I started in this business, until the time I finished, was my own work. Nobody ever inked mine; I inked theirs. Lots of times I had to do figure inking when we were trying to meet a tight deadline, but nobody ever inked my backgrounds.

RH: Okay, but wouldn’t there be times when the pages would come back to you after it was completely penciled and you would wind up inking the whole page?

ROGERS; No. No, I never inked entire pages or any of the lead features I worked on. The only time I ever did was for things like love stories for Fawcett, much later on.

Although, I just came across a negative photostat that I had kept of an early “Captain Marvel Jr.” page that Mac Raboy and I worked on. And for the first time, after all of these many years, I was just looking at this thing, trying to identify what I did on it and I suddenly realized there was penciled lettering by Mac Raboy at the top of the page. And it said, “Ruby, put in capes and robes on neck.

Finish old man and officer,” etc. So apparently we were behind schedule again and I needed to finish it off.

Then I found another negative of a splash page which had a huge blank panel, and you can barely make out what appears to be pencil scratchings on it.

Up at the top you can just barely make out some pencil notations that say, “Bob, ignore this first panel.” And right next to it is another notation that says, “I wish I could.” [laughs]

Above top is Bob Rogers and comic book editor John Beardsley in the Fawcett offices, 1942.

Immediate above is a self-portrait Rogers sent to his wife while he served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Below is the cover of Master Comics #24 (Mar. 1942), which features Mac Raboy figure work and Bob Rogers’ background artistry.

RH: Getting back to your work with Lou Fine, do you recall just how long you worked with him at Tudor City?

ROGERS: That’s what I’ve been trying to determine. I know it can’t exceed a year. I would say something like eight months. I’ve been trying to nail it down.

RH: What was it that brought an end to that working relationship?

ROGERS: The time came when I felt—and Lou agreed—that I needed a raise. So I approached the publisher for a raise and he turned me down.

RH: That must have been “Busy” Arnold, publisher of Quality Comics. I’ve got to tell you, Bob, that most of the older artists I’ve talked to about Arnold over the years thought he was one of the most generous publishers around in those days. He always paid bonuses to his people, and he always put on the most lavish Christmas parties every year.

BOB ROGERS

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After Bob Rogers returned from military service, he produced these two sample pages to show prospective publishers to help get back into comic work. The influence of Mac Raboy on his work is very obvious in these pages, along with his magnificent talent using a brush.

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ROGERS: That’s amazing. He wouldn’t give me $5 for my raise.

RH: So you talked to Arnold and he turned you down?

ROGERS: No, I don’t remember how it came about. Whether Lou spoke up for me or someone approached him for me, I didn’t actually do it myself, so Lou said, “Well, I don’t blame you, you’re well worth it.” He told me that what I should do is see if I could pick up some extra work.

So I got together a few examples of what I had done. I wish I still had them. You know, the books where I had done “The Ray” and “The Spirit,” and all the others. I took these samples around, and one of the places I went to was Fawcett. A fellow there by the name of [comics editor/writer] Ed Herron interviewed me, and he looked at the Display signage—featuring C. C. Beck art— promoting the R. W. Kerr plastic figurines of Fawcett “Marvel Family” super-hero characters, Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

These statuettes from 1946 measured 6½" tall and were hand-painted. They were included in packages featuring Beck artwork.

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work I showed him, and he said, “Wait here.”

He went inside and another fellow came out and said, “How’d you like to work for Fawcett?” He said, “How much are you earning?” And I was real sharp and said, “$20 a week.” Then he offered what was almost double that. $35 a week! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! I mean, I was looking for a $5 raise. Thirtyfive… holy smoke, now I could get married! [laughs] So the guy says, “Would you mind coming inside and drawing something for us?” I said, “No, not at all.” And so, they took me into the art department, which was quite large, with artists all lined up with their tables. They sat me down at a table and gave me something to draw, and I don’t remember what the hell it was, but I drew it. Then they talked a little bit among themselves and said, “You’re hired.” So that’s how that came to pass.

RH: I believe Ed Herron was Fawcett’s first comics editor. Another guy around there was Otto Binder, one of the greatest and most prolific writers who worked in comics.

Associate Interview

ROGERS: Otto was a fixture around that office. He was a hell of a nice guy.

RH: And you must’ve met his brother Jack, though I know you never actually worked with Jack.

At that time he would have been running his own sweatshop studio over in New Jersey, supplying Fawcett with artwork. So what happened next, after your interview and success at landing a job at Fawcett?

ROGERS: I went back to Lou and told him what happened, and Lou wished me the best of luck, and off I went. I think I started the following week.

RH: Tell me about your first day working at Fawcett. What do you remember?

ROGERS: Well, I’d already met Mac and he was very nice to me.

RH: Oh, so they had called in Mac and introduced you to him after they decided to hire you?

ROGERS: Oh, sure. I’m sure I was introduced to many people during that first day or week, but it was all kind of a whirl, you know? But I was only focused on this one artist I was to work with and hoping we’d get along. And Mac was as charming as can be.

His art table was next to the window but… and now this is where my memory is playing tricks on me. At one time—I don’t remember how it came to be—we were working in the editorial office. Just the two of us, with our tables in there. It was just around the corner from the art department.

We actually started off working in the main art department. I remember that the art department looked like a long rectangle, with everybody facing forward, and we were at the head of this room. I was facing the wall and Mac was facing the room, because he was left-handed. So the sun, the light, was always coming in over his shoulder. His back was to the wall, facing the roomful of artists. We were in rows; we were in the very front row.

RH: What kind of a working process did you have with Mac? ROGERS: We would discuss the script and then we’d go to work on it. I would lay out the pages, which is to say, I’d render the outline of the page. Then Mac would break that down into panels, working with the script. Then we’d proceed from there. Now, if there was a panel to be done that was mostly background, I’d get that done first. Then Mac would put his drawings in after that. He would do only the figures.

BOB ROGERS

This flyer, featuring a reproduction of the cover of Captain Marvel Jr. #1 (Nov. 18, 1942) and a handwritten note from Captain Marvel Sr. on the reverse, was sent to members of the Big Red Cheese’s fan club, urging them to buy the new title which had just hit the comic book racks of America.

REED ON RABOY I “We who worked in those vineyards didn’t know it was a Golden Age or we’d have made notes. One thing I do remember is that during my tenure [as Fawcett Comics editor on the Captain Marvel comics], we never copied Superman. One time somebody had a character in a funny filler saying, ‘Is it a boid. Is it a plane?’

The top brass said this was a no-no and made us take it out. It was stressed that there should not be even a kidding reference to anything Supermanly. On the other hand, artist Mac Raboy showed me a Superman newspaper strip where Supes’ figure was copied so exactly from Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr., that it could have been a photostat. Mac said it wasn’t the first time he’d noted such swipes.”

Excerpt, Fawcett editor Rod Reed interview, conducted by John Pierce, Comics Interview #18 (Dec. 1984).

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RH: I know from talking with others who were there that Fawcett had available photostats of Captain Marvel Jr. figures for you guys to use where needed to paste in and save a lot of time. Tell me about that, if you would.

ROGERS: What happened was that we would get notoriously late—I mean, notoriously—and without Mac’s figures, I was helpless. Without figures in your panel, your background can go blow a horn. So what we would do is: Mac would say, “Bring me up such-and-such pages, from such-and-such stories,” which I’d then go get from the library. The art pages.

And he would select figures from these pages and I would go dashing down to the photostat department. And then, using a pantograph, I would get the figures to the size we needed for placement in the panels. Then I’d tell them I needed the photostats shot to this exact size.

Now we’d cut out the photostat and glue it onto the page, and then Mac would draw around it. [laughs] In other words, if it was a horse—[laughs] I remember one panel had a horse in it, and it was in about six pieces, with drawing in between, because he didn’t have time to draw the whole horse. [laughs] RH: Did the photostat department shoot these stats for you quickly or did it take some time to have them processed?

ROGERS: Well, this was an in-house set-up. As I recall, Fawcett occupied four floors there in the Paramount Building. And one of them, besides being a very large library—or morgue, as we used to call it—was the photostat department.

And that was their main purpose.

RH: Would your photostats usually come toward the tail end of the story? In other words, as you and Mac progressed through the work, and the deadline got closer and closer, did you usually wind up only using stats on the last few pages that you were trying to finish up?

ROGERS: Okay, let’s say it was a ten-page story. If we were to fall behind, it could start from the first page on; it could be anywhere. Toward the end of the work, the last pages were practically 50% photostats!

RH: And was this work procedure happening quite a bit?

ROGERS: Quite often.

RH: It was only you and Mac, right? No other artists?

ROGERS: No, just us.

The page opposite shows the final page of a CMJr story published in Master Comics #27 (June 1942). Close examination of the original art reveals that most figure drawings (as shown) are photostat paste-overs. Even the figure of CMJr giving the “V for victory” sign was taken from the same issue’s cover. Only the (brilliant) likenesses of Winston Churchill are new drawings by Mac Raboy, with backgrounds provided by Bob Rogers.

BOB ROGERS

RH: What about a fellow by the name of Al McLean? Do you remember him working on “Junior” at all?

ROGERS: No, doesn’t ring a bell with me.

RH: So there was nobody else there who the company could turn to and say, “Go help these guys out”?

ROGERS: No. The two of us quite often worked overtime to try and meet a

49

deadline. We were on salary and we got free dinners, too. We’d call down and ask for dinner to be sent up. We couldn’t take the time to go get it. [laughs] It was a riot. It was a panic. And they were as liberal as could be… the Fawcetts. They were one of the finest companies I ever worked for. I remember Al Allard saying to me, “Look, you don’t have to ever ask me for time off. If your work is up to date, just go.”

RH: Yes, Al Allard was the art director there, so he was the man you and Mac answered to. And did he report to Will Lieberson, or…?

ROGERS: Either to Will, or upstairs to the Fawcett brothers themselves.

RH: Let’s go back to Otto Binder for a minute. Wasn’t he writing most of the “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories?

ROGERS: He wrote quite a few of them, yes.

RH: Did he come in and talk to you guys about the stories?

ROGERS: Oh, sure. I’d hear all of the literary conversations, you know, especially for that brief period of time when Mac and I worked in the editorial office itself.

RH: Did you guys have weekly meetings to discuss details of 50

the stories or characters, or in general about the way things were going?

ROGERS: On a regular basis, no. On an irregular basis, yes.

RH: And would these meetings involve more than just you, Mac, and Otto?

ROGERS: No. Just us. Or Mac and I, and whoever the other writer was. There were lots of other writers.

RH: Did anybody in the Fawcett management structure ever give you and Mac any feedback on how well the comics were selling?

ROGERS: It would be common talk on the floor. You know, we’d constantly hear how this title or that title was doing.

Shop talk.

RH: Where were C. C. Beck and his immediate art staff located in relation to you and Mac in this big art room?

ROGERS: I’ve often thought about that. I have an unclear memory about that. It seems to me that some of his people worked in the art department. Then I seem to feel that he had his own office, his own department. I just have that feeling. Beck was there every day. He was a workaholic just like the rest of us. [laughs]

Associate Interview

RH: You and Mac got along pretty well together working at Fawcett, didn’t you?

During the Captain Marvel heyday, Fawcett comics included “Comix Cards” on their titles’ back covers. The Captain Marvel Jr. card was featured in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec. 11, 1942).

ROGERS: Right.

ROGERS: I don’t know. This was a guy I became pretty friendly with and yet he always stood away a bit. You could go just so far with him, and then he’d shut down.

RH: Did you ever work on any of the “Dr. Voodoo” stories with him?

ROGERS: No, never. As a matter of fact, recently, while I was digging through some of the materials I saved over the years, I came across a bunch of photostats of “Dr. Voodoo” panels. Full-size panels with the lettering.

RH: Did Mac Raboy ever discuss influences that other artists had on him or his work over the years?

ROGERS: No, never a word.

RH: Did he ever talk about the comics or newspaper strips?

About someday wanting to do a syndicated strip of his own, or of wanting to take over the Flash Gordon strip some day?

ROGERS: No. RH: It’s amazing to me that Mac never discussed his interest in art with you or apparently anyone else I’ve ever talked to. Maybe it was just a job with him, a way to earn money…?

BOB ROGERS

RH: Tell me, Bob, did you ever meet a man working at Fawcett by the name of Bernard Baily?

ROGERS: Bernie Baily? I sure did. Isn’t he the guy that had the sweatshop? Jerry Iger had a shop, too. You know how they worked them, don’t you? They would hire these kids right out of high school and pay them peanuts. As soon as the kid would get to the point where he started asking for more money, they would pull out the record books and show them to him. They’d say, “We’re not making any money. We’re just barely breaking even.” They had two sets of books. Then, if the kid insisted on getting more money, they would kick him out and get another kid.

RH: When you were working with Mac, did he ever discuss “Captain Marvel Jr.” with you—perhaps where he might have been getting bored with working on the same character all the time? Did he ever act like he wanted to do something different? Did he ever talk about become a “fine artist” and trying to get away from the constant deadline 51

pressure of comics?

Winsor & Newton brushes. If you really want to know what size, I’ll run downstairs and tell you. I still have my brushes!

ROGERS: No. No, he never complained about that. I think he was very content, in a way, with what he was doing. We would discuss very actively as to what the work was at the time or what the scenario should be. Or we discussed what kind of setting we should put these characters into and with a degree of enthusiasm.

I enjoyed my stay up there and I felt he did, too. He was not unhappy at all. He was very pleased when a job was done, and he would just sit there for a moment and look at it, with that cigarette burning his fingers, you know.

He’d smoke them right down to the skin.

RH: You still have the original brushes? I’ll wait!

[Bob leaves the phone and returns in very short time.]

ROGERS: Now let me see here. Okay, we have a number 3, and some that are a little smaller. Lots of number 3s here. Yes, so I was using a number 3, and Mac was sort of… I remember sometimes I would take the brush out of his hand, or he would take the brush out of mine, and he’d show me a certain way to do something. So it was sort of like we were using the same brushes.

RH: Would Mac’s wife come into the art department now and then?

RH: Did Mac show you certain tricks that you could use when inking his pencils?

ROGERS: I never met his wife at that time.

RH: Did he ever talk about the war or about his political beliefs while you guys worked together at Fawcett?

ROGERS: No. I never knew that he had any sort of feelings about it until later when we worked on Flash Gordon together. It never came up before then.

RH: What kind of pencils did you and Mac draw with?

ROGERS: HBs. That’s the medium type of lead.

RH: I assume you guys were using Winsor & Newton brushes on your work. What size brushes did you and Mac utilize for your inking?

ROGERS: I probably remember more about what I inked with while working with Lou Fine than when I worked with Mac. But when I started with Mac, I was already using the 52

Photostatted “Dr. Voodoo” panels by Mac Raboy, found in the files of Bob Rogers.

The feature ran in Whiz Comics, 1940–42.

ROGERS: Oh, sure. I bowed to his talents and I made no bones about it. And he was very satisfied with my work. When I worked with Lou Fine, I did a great deal of work with shadows.

I love shadows! And I always had one light source in my head. And all the shadows always went in one direction.

So then I came to work with Mac and Mac looked at my work and—of course I’m paraphrasing here—and he would say something like, “You know, that’s very nice, but did you ever stop to think that when you look at an object, it isn’t all in shadows and it isn’t all in light? Shadows don’t always fall the same way. You’ll have a play of light and shadow on the same surface, with the same light source, because you’re getting reflected light off of other objects.” And so I began

Associate Interview

to use that technique where I’d have a varied play of light. This would help to create a mood. So it was all a learning experience.

That’s how I eventually got to where I could duplicate Mac’s style. It was also from Mac that I learned the technique of holding up a mirror.

You’ve got your artwork there in front of you. Now you reverse your body. You turn around and look at the opposite side, and you hold the mirror up so that now you’re looking at the work backwards. The mistakes will jump out at you.

RH: So Mac taught you how to do this?

ROGERS: He taught it to me, but, as I’ve learned since, it’s an old technique. And it’s an amazing thing, so I always had a mirror. Sometimes I’d say to myself, “Oh, that’s what’s been troubling me. It’s right there. I’ve got to fix that.” Your eyes become so accustomed to what you do as you work on the thing, that when you reverse it, you’re looking at a whole strange new picture.

RH: Did you or Mac ever get any kind of help on “Captain Marvel Jr.” from any of the other artists working there at Fawcett?

ROGERS: There was a fellow there who helped out for just a short period of time, by the name of Al Jetter. He became my assistant. He basically got the menial job of erasing pages and doing the white-out. He was very agreeable to whatever had to be done and we got along just fine. That was for a period of time up until I went into the service. He went on to become an art editor at Fawcett. His name appeared later in the credits of Captain Video comics that Fawcett published.

RH: Yes, I have the run of them in my collection; I believe it only ran for six issues. So Jetter started out as a clean-up artist for you and Mac? ROGERS: Right. I think Fawcett initially took him on because of his capabilities, but in the meantime they had him helping us out as my assistant. Anything to get Mac and me a little closer to that deadline. We’d burn the midnight oil when we had to. We’d work until around 9:00 at night. I’d go home to Brooklyn and Mac was living in the Bronx at the time.

You know, I just remembered that, within the first two weeks I worked there, I became somewhat of a gopher for him.

RH: You mean because you were running back and forth to the Fawcett library and morgue for him?

ROGERS: Oh, no. No, I had to run up to the police department in the Bronx to pay a traffic ticket for him.

BOB ROGERS

Two Captain Midnight covers by Mac Raboy. At top is from #13 (Oct. 1943), and above from #17 (Feb. 1944).

53

ROGERS: Well, I had other people say that to me, but not the people I worked for. I think they were so happy to get someone that they had an affinity for and whom they were pleased with, that they didn’t want to lose me.

If I had gone into figure work, I wouldn’t have been working for them anymore. They’d have had to find somebody else!

Besides, let me put it this way, Roger: Figures were not my strong point. In other words, I went to art school, of course, but if I had gone to the Juilliard School or one of those types, after the war, and worked at it, I guess I could have gotten better at it. But circumstances being what they were, I signed up, but I didn’t go—you know, on the G.I. Bill. There were other priorities at the time and I never went through with it. As a result, my weak point was always my figures. With all the work that I did, sketching and everything else on the side, I never had any trouble with anything except figures.

RH: So he had you running those kinds of errands for him so he could stay at the drawing board?

ROGERS: [laughs] Exactly!

RH: Did Al Allard, the art director there at Fawcett, ever put the pressure on you guys to get the work done?

ROGERS: I can only answer that from my own experience. He never put any pressure on me whatsoever.

He was always fine with me. Now, if he put pressure on Mac, which is a possibility, I never saw it. Mac would gripe sometimes about us not being able to meet a deadline or from the point of view of being late. But I don’t remember him ever saying that Al was after him or anything like that.

RH: When you were doing backgrounds for Lou Fine, and later on Mac Raboy, did either of those artists ever try to push you to do figures?

ROGERS: Nope.

RH: They never said, “Bob, you ought to try your hand at this a little—you might be good at it”?

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RH: I know that, while you were assisting Mac during those early days at Fawcett, you must have seen him draw the figure of Captain Marvel Jr. many times. So my question is this: Did Mac have a certain approach to drawing that figure? I mean, would he start by sketching in one of those things where elongated ovals are used for the various parts of the body? Did he have a system of how he drew human proportions so correctly?

ROGERS: As I remember it, he would sit down and very systematically start drawing. He had a nice studious approach. He was very much into what he was doing. He didn’t do much talking while he was doing it. He would have to stop and put his pencil or brush down in order to have a conversation. He already had the figures visualized in his head and he would then go ahead and do it.

RH: Okay, but what I mean is, did he have to lay in a stick figure first? Or did he just start sketching in the figure?

ROGERS: He would just draw it. He’d start working on the head and he already knew how the rest of the figure would lay in. He just went from there.

RH: I was curious because Mac has this incredible reputation among not only his peers, but collectors and fans all over, as an artist who really knew how to draw the human figure. He was so good at drawing the figure in motion or flight. I figured he must’ve had a special trick

Associate Interview

when it came to doing it so well.

ROGERS: From the very beginning, when I used to watch Mac draw, it always reminded me of what I knew about Burne Hogarth’s work [on the Tarzan newspaper strip].

You’ve seen the curves in his work. His figures would just flow, like those continuous lines that he would put into drapery and flying capes and waves. Everything had a sort of art nouveau look about it in that regard. He always had these continuous flowing lines and that came into Mac’s work. His figures were not stilted. They moved, they jumped, they leaped.

RH: Yes, I think I see the similarities there. From the time you started drawing with Mac up until the time you left, did he ever do any backgrounds on the stories you were working on with him?

ROGERS: Well, let’s see now… I was hired as a background artist to assist Mac and, as far as my memory serves me, the backgrounds were usually left for me to do. Of course, he would explain to me what kind of background he had in mind. I’m sure Mac did backgrounds on his own prior to my coming there. We always discussed things as we worked together. It was a team effort.

RH: You said earlier that sometimes your background work might be done and Mac would still be struggling with the figures and, of course, that’s when you would have to run to the stat machine. I assume you guys kept working together until a job was finished?

ROGERS: Absolutely! If he was still working on it, I was still working on it. There was never any such thing as him going home and leaving me there to finish anything up. It was the both of us together, having to complete the thing. I couldn’t do the doggone backgrounds anyway, if he was still working on the figures.

RH: From what we’ve all heard, Mac was probably the slowest comic book artist working there in the Fawcett bullpen.

ROGERS: Well, I guess by now I don’t have to tell you that Mac was a super-perfectionist. I worshiped him from afar when I worked at Fawcett. I thought he was a marvelous artist. Then one day he drew a head of Captain Nazi or someone. All day, he worked on this one head in one panel. And at the end of the day—and mind you,

BOB ROGERS

On previous page and this page, iconic Mac Raboy covers. Master Comics #43 (Oct. 1943) and Ibis #1 (1943).

we’re working against a deadline—he says to me, “I want you to look at this and tell me what you think.”

I went over there and I looked over his shoulder and it was a beautiful piece of work. I said it looked great! So I went back over and sat down where I was working and I looked back over at Mac. He picked up an eraser and rubbed it all out! This was just a pencil drawing! The whole day’s work!

And so then the next thing I knew, it was back to the photostat machine! [laughs] RH: Do you remember ever seeing any guide sheets that Mac drew up to show other artists how to draw Captain Marvel Jr.?

ROGERS: No, not during my time there. I think that would’ve had to have been done later on, after 1942.

Because, before that, he had just started on the “Junior” feature. He’d been doing “Bulletman” and things like that.

I did some of the “Bulletman” stuff with him.

55

Who knows, Mac may have done guide sheets as part of an agreement with Fawcett because he was leaving. And I never saw them.

When I came back to Fawcett after the war, the scuttlebutt I heard was that, when I left Mac and Fawcett in 1942, they hired two assistants to do what I was doing. I don’t know who they were because I never met them.

RH: During the time you worked at Fawcett, you also worked on covers with Mac, right?

ROGERS: Oh, yeah. Let me check my chronology here. Oh, here it is. I have it exactly. I went into the service in November 1942. I was there at Fawcett from January up until November.

RH: Right. And, knowing that the lead time between the creation of the art to the actual publishing of the art usually ran three to four months, it’s pretty certain that some of your last work with Mac came out in early 1943.

C. C. Beck, the primary artist on Captain Marvel, illustrated this oversized “good-bye” card for Raboy assistant Bob Rogers, who was leaving the Fawcett Comics bullpen and entering the U. S. military service to join the war effort.

ROGERS: Yes, that’s probably right. Here’s a preliminary list of the titles I worked on. Let’s see: there’s Bulletman, Master Comics, Whiz Comics, and Ibis the Invincible.

RH: Your son-in-law, Dan Johnson, sent me a reproduction of the Bulletman #3 cover, which is from January 1942. He mentioned that you had found the negative for it in your files.

ROGERS: Right. I worked on that cover.

RH: You did? Well, it’s a wonderful cover and probably one of the more identified and popular covers with Golden Age comic collectors. There wasn’t a whole lot of background on this particular cover, though.

ROGERS: Yes, well, sometimes I was out of the picture there.

C. C. Beck during his Fawcett Comics years.

RH: But the cover does have these clouds in the background. So you did the clouds?

ROGERS: That’s right.

RH: I guess it surprises me that, in instances where a simple background like this was required, Mac didn’t just go ahead and do it himself.

ROGERS: Well, sometimes he would. Sometimes he’d do little bits and pieces here and there, but the rest of the time he’d just want me to do it. Here again, we were always trying to meet that deadline.

RH: Do you remember what size Mac and you were doing the covers at?

Didn’t Fawcett have you guys working at a size that was just a little bigger than the published comic book size, in order to save even more time?

ROGERS: I think we only worked in one size. As I recall it, the covers were

56

Associate Interview

the same size as the pages. I’m picturing in my mind the cover where Captain Marvel Jr. is cracking a huge swastika.

RH: Oh yes, that’s the cover of Master Comics #33, dated December 1942. What a classic!

ROGERS: And I remember that one being the same size as a regular full page.

RH: Did Fawcett used to save all their original artwork?

ROGERS: It’s interesting, because some of it got recycled. I sent my son-in-law, Dan, a page torn out of another comic book where that very same Captain Marvel Jr. image had been used again later as a promo ad for Master Comics. All they did was put fresh copy on it.

That was not an uncommon thing for them to do.

RH: Do you remember the Master Comics cover that had this huge “V for Victory” image behind the figure of Captain Marvel Jr., who is standing there giving the “V for Victory” hand sign?

ROGERS: Yes, I remember that one. I have a small black-&-white comic book version of that in my portfolio.

RH: That must be the “miniature comics” version Fawcett did later on.

ROGERS: Yes, it’s in black-&-white and the cover, I think, has just a tint of red to it.

RH: So on that particular cover you would have done the giant “V” in the background?

ROGERS: That’s right. I did a portion of that cover.

RH: I wanted to ask you about a fellow who used to work at Fawcett and who eventually lured Raboy to come over to his new comics company. His name was Ken Crossen.

Signatures of Fawcett bullpen well-wishers, including Mac Raboy, adorn the inside of Beck’s large farewell card. Above is a photo of Bob Rogers taken in his senior years.

Mac Raboy’s Master Comics #33 (Dec. 2, 1942) cover, which included the handiwork of background artist Bob Rogers, presumably on the concrete swastika.

ROGERS: I knew Ken Crossen.

RH: I know some of the history of that, but I’m still a little confused on parts of it. I know that Mac Raboy got in with his company, Spark Publications….

ROGERS: And got burned just like everybody else.

RH: Is that what happened?

ROGERS: Yes. What happened, as it was repeated to me by Mac and plenty of others, is that they took lower page rates for a piece of the action. A percentage. And this looked very good when it first began.

But then one day Ken threw a big party for everyone. He invited all his artists and writers in for this party and at the end of the meal he stood up and said, “Okay, fellows, one more last round of drinks.” And they all stood up.

And he held up his glass and said, “Drink up, because, fellows, this is it. I’m

BOB ROGERS

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Publications, and when Mac and other people were working for him, did he have a studio there in Manhattan for these guys to work at?

ROGERS: I don’t know. What had happened… well, you have to go back to my chronology now. When I came back from the war, Mac was no longer doing “Captain Marvel Jr.” for Fawcett. I came back in September of 1945. I had gone in in January of 1942.

So I sat in the art director’s office—Al Allard’s office—and Al said to me, “You can have a choice. You can either go on salary or you can go freelance and work with this new artist, Bud Thompson, who is now doing Captain Marvel Jr.” So, whichever way I wanted to go, he gave me that option. And I chose to go freelance.

RH: Which meant that you now got a page rate.

ROGERS: Yes, I got a page rate. Don’t ask me how much it was. That I do not remember. I know that later when I was there it came up to $30 a page.

quitting.” And he went bankrupt.

And then he skipped town.

The next time I came across Ken was at a movie theatre or somewhere, and his name came up in the credits. So somehow he was involved in the entertainment field, and that was the last time I ever heard of Ken Crossen.

I remember Ken when I was saying goodbye and they were having a farewell party [at Fawcett] for me when I went into the service. Ken put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Ruby, I envy you young guys.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because nothing’s going to touch you.” And I looked at him and I said, “Really?” And I didn’t know what the hell he meant. [laughs] RH: Was Crossen an older guy than the rest of you fellows?

ROGERS: Yes, he was. Not much older. Just older. He had come on later and was one of the editors there at Fawcett. I think he had joined right before the war started.

RH: When Crossen left Fawcett to start Spark 58

RH: That seems like a pretty good page rate, compared to some I’ve heard from other artists over the years. When you had this conversation with Al Allard, did you ask him why Mac had left? Or do you think it was just to get a piece of the action with Crossen?

ROGERS: I really don’t remember much about that conversation, Roger. What I heard was that they [Fawcett] had had some kind of personality differences with him. As I was told, at one point he sent his wife to deliver a job to the office, and they opened the portfolio and found the pages were blank. Something like that.

RH: Perhaps that was when he quit. Maybe he just sent the pages back and said, “I’m not doing this anymore.”

ROGERS: Yes, something along those lines. But he used his wife as a ploy.

[Bob Rogers’ interview regarding his Flash Gordon work with Raboy can be found on page 119.]

Certainly one of the best-remembered Mac Raboy covers is his “V is for Victory” Captain Marvel Jr. illustration, which graced the cover of Master Comics #27 (June 1942), seen above left, as well as the cover for this very book. On the next page are examples of the reuse of Mac Raboy figures utilized in the CMJr stories of the 1940s. At top is a photostat taken from the original art of Mac’s panel in Master Comics #25 (Apr. 1942), with the printed version directly below, alongside a panel of the reused art in Master #35 (Jan. 27, 1943) and, at bottom, same (though with the image mirrored) in Captain Marvel Jr. #17 (Mar. 1, 1944).

Associate Interview

59

Chapter Six

Mac Raboy Makes Three Captain Marvel Jr. was introduced in Master Comics in late 1941. A year later, due to reader popularity, was given his own title, with the first issue sporting this grand Raboy cover.

In November of 1942, Captain Marvel Jr. #1 hit the newsstands of America. Raboy’s cover showed a leaping figure of the young hero, set against a brilliant yellow moon in the background, surrounded by black.

A simple design, yet most effective as an eye-catcher for kids browsing the racks. Inside the book… not one page of Raboy’s art was to be found!

The work was very similar to his, but was entirely provided by assistants.

This style of art, produced mostly by McDonald, Mohler, or others, would cause some confusion to comic book historians and collectors for the next 50 years.

Under Mac’s personal guidance, Mohler and McDonald provided most of the art for the new title and also assisted Mac, as required, on stories he was drawing for Master.

To maintain the special “Raboy mystique” in their work on the “CMJr” stories, Gene and Red were shown a new time-saving device for emulating Raboy’s style of art: a projection camera! In the past,

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Chapter Six

photostats had been cut out and pasted down to make new panels.

Now, a group of photostats—showing every imaginable figure drawing of Captain Marvel Jr. that Raboy had ever done—were kept nearby so all the assistants had easy access to them. The artist could leaf through the figures, pick out the appropriate one, size it through the projector onto the new panel where it was needed, and simply trace it off. By this method Fawcett editors were able to insure that Raboy’s style of art remained visible throughout the work. Fawcett readers identified with this style and expected it to be there from month to month.

In early 1943, the comic art staff at Fawcett converted mostly to a freelance status. Comics editor Rod Reed left in June and was replaced

by Will Lieberson. Mac Raboy had moved into a studio space located on 42nd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Occasionally Red Mohler and his wife, Duffy (a letterer), would share this space, working on the “CMJr” feature with Mac. Gene McDonald began doing work on his own, and other freelance artists started drawing “Junior” stories for Fawcett, as

The spirit of his “family patriarchs,” Captain Marvel Sr. and the old wizard Shazam loom about a ready-for-action Captain Marvel Jr. on the cover of Master Comics #23 (Feb. 1942), which featured the second appearance of the super-hero in the title. CMJr would headline the comic book until its demise, in late winter, 1953, with issue #133.

well. Dick Krause became executive editor on Master and Captain Marvel Jr., answering to Lieberson. Bernard Baily, the artist who, with Jerry Siegel, in 1940, had co-created the Spectre for National/DC, also began producing “CMJr” stories around this time. This opportunity probably resulted when Raboy and Baily formed their own commercial art studio together sometime during the early ’40s. Commercial accounts paid much better than comic

MAC RABOY MAKES THREE

Bernard Baily became a studio partner and close friend with Mac Raboy during the 1940s.

Years earlier, while working with writer Jerry Siegel (best known as co-creator of Superman), he originated The Spectre, who made his debut in More Fun Comics. Seen below is Baily’s cover for issue #62 (Dec. 1940). At center is a photo of Baily taken in the ’70s.

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BERNARD BAILY: MAN OF MANY HATS Bernard Baily was born in New York City, on April 5, 1916. His father was in the printing business and that’s where the youngster caught an itch to follow that lead, plus took an interest in art along the way. He began cartooning as a child, winning first prize in a New York Journal drawing contest. As a self-taught artist who continued to practice his craft, he eventually became the staff artist on his high school newspaper. When Action Comics #1 came out in June 1938, besides featuring “Superman” by Siegel and Shuster, it also had a western strip called “Tex Thompson,” drawn by Bernard Baily.

While working for National/DC Comics, he drew “Americommando,” “The Buccaneer,” and, in 1940, working with Jerry Siegel, co-created what some refer to as his greatest achievement in comics: The Spectre.

This spiritual, costumed hero debuted in More Fun Comics #52, and then, shortly after, working with writer Ken Fitch, Baily co-created Hourman for DC’s Adventure Comics.

According to a “proposed rate change” list dated March 29, 1943, found in the Will Lieberson estate files after his passing, Bernard Baily was providing Captain Marvel Jr. and Spy Smasher stories for $14.99 a page, with a new raise to $17 per page. Raboy was being paid $30 for interior pages and $40 per cover, with no increase shown on this list. Either in late June or early July, Fawcett made the decision to close down their in-house comic art staff in the Paramount Building, forcing the artists to go freelance. This included Raboy, who then needed a place to move his art table to so he could continue working in the city.

He and Baily struck a deal to rent studio space together and soon found it in a three-story walk-up at 275 W. 13th Street. Since Baily had firsthand knowledge of the printing business and was able to secure a paper allotment, he decided to go into business for himself. He incorporated under the name of the Baily Publishing Company, and began packaging comic books for himself and other companies using the name of Baily Art Studios.

During the next three years a variety of artists would come and go through the shop, working on various projects, as freelance artists, doing whatever was required to keep busy. Baily was already working on stories for Fawcett, and one of his other early clients was Prize Comics. Gene McDonald and Red Mohler joined Raboy at the Baily studio to continue assisting him on the CMJr stories. As far as is known, Mac produced the covers on his own for Master Comics and Captain Marvel Jr. Later on, the Baily shop moved to a corner building, with an elevator, located at 276 W. 43rd Street and rented space on the fourth floor. Gene and Red continued to assist on CMJr stories. A lady friend of Red’s, who was a good letterer, also joined them in the studio.

According to an interview this author conducted with Marc Swayze in Dec. 1998, the artist revealed, ”I returned to New York City sometime in 1944, following my military service and Mac insisted that I use his studio on 42nd Street. Gene McDonald and Red Mohler were there at the time. Mac told me there was space as he was doing most of his art at home anyway and said to go ahead and use his drawing board. He insisted on it.”

Indeed, Mac was working at home most of the time, penciling pages for John Belfi to pick up at the Baily shop and take home to finish.

Belfi’s job was to finish up the penciling and inking of backgrounds and secondary characters and assist with any photostat paste-ups needed.

In April of 1944, Belfi reported for military service. At that time, Raboy was back in the shop more often working with McDonald and Mohler. Other artists were also becoming involved with CMJr stories, including Mort Lawrence and Marvin Levy. These artists would do a light page layout and then pass the page to Mac, who would pencil the figures of Junior. When finished, the pages would circulate back to other artists who would finish the secondary characters and backgrounds.

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Raboy couldn’t have returned to the Baily shop for very long before Ken Crossen hired him to begin work on the new Green Lama comic title for newly-formed Spark Publications. Once that happened, Mac was moving his art table to Crossen headquarters, at 501 Madison Ave. His days of drawing Captain Marvel Jr. had finally come to an end.

Mac’s last Junior covers were published on Master Comics #51 (June 1944) and Captain Marvel Jr. #28 (Mar. 1, 1945). Photostats were used and other artists continued to copy Raboy’s figure work, on covers and interiors, for years following his departure.

During the coming years, Baily continued his shop work producing mostly art for other clients. He also worked on several syndicated daily newspaper strips. An important historical side note here is that in 1944, Baily published a one-shot called Tally-Ho Comics (featuring “The Snowman,” the work of 16-year-old Frank Frazetta, then working with John Giunta) to American comic book readers. Baily is credited today for giving many comic artists their first break into the business, including Gil Kane and Carmine Infantino. Baily disbanded his studio in 1946, but stayed in the comics field for many years to follow. He also got involved in producing commercial comics, advertising art, and television work.

During the 1950s, he wrote and directed the Bobby Benson radio program and worked with Shari Lewis on the For Kids Only TV show.

From the 1950s to the ’70s, Baily stayed busy producing stories and covers for various publishers turning out crime, horror, humor, and romance comics. Some of his last work was created for DC’s horror titles during the 1970s and, by ’76, he was working up a new comic character of his own called “Bogeyman,” and publishing a magazine about fishing. He passed away on Jan. 19, 1996, at the age of 79.

Chapter Six

work and provided a little bit of a break in the monotony of panel illustrating.

According to a listing of Fawcett freelance artist page rates discovered in the files of Will Lieberson in 1995, Baily worked on “Captain Marvel Jr.” and “Spy Smasher” stories, for which he was paid $14 a page for pencils and inks; later the rate was raised to $17 a page. Other freelance artists were assigned to the “Junior” stories, including Albert J. Carreno, who had started out at Fawcett in 1940 working on “Dan Dare” and other features. Carreno would do complete books of “CMJr” art, which at $16 a page (later raised to $20) added up to a healthy lump sum payment. Phil Bard, who had been doing the “Minute Man” and “Mr. Scarlet” features for Fawcett, also began working on “Junior” stories around this time.

Mac Raboy, now working on a freelance basis and being paid piecemeal for his art, was one of Fawcett’s highest paid artists.

According to the Lieberson listing, Raboy was earning $30 a page for interior art and $40 per cover. It must be assumed that, at this point, any artists who directly assisted Raboy on the “CMJr” stories would have been paid out of Raboy’s pocket, not by Fawcett.

BUILDING CHARACTER “In 1943, Otto Binder was asked to develop a fuller background to the Captain Marvel Junior series. Herron’s creation was beautifully rendered by Mac Raboy, but hadn’t been fleshed out story-wise. Where did Freddy Freeman live? Thus far, he’d only been seen standing on a convenient corner hawking

MAC RABOY MAKES THREE

papers. He needed supporting characters who would lend themselves to story ideas, and create continuity. Binder established that Freddy has a room in a house owned by Mrs. Wagner.

He put Freddy in a specific neighborhood, and at an established newsstand at the corner of Oak and Main. This development did the trick, and certainly insured Junior’s longevity. Like

Steranko’s History of Comics Vol. 2 revealed an interesting anecdote regarding Mac Raboy: “Fawcett editor Rod Reed recalled another side of Raboy’s personality. ‘Besides being a super artist, he was a fellow who had concern for the underdog. An editor looking at some panels Mac had just completed for Captain Marvel Jr. noticed a little colored boy among youngsters attending a birthday party for Freddy Freeman.

‘The editor said, “You’ll have to take him out of there. I’m not prejudiced, but we’ve got circulation in the South. Down there, they won’t appreciate a Negro at a white birthday party.”

The editor thought Raboy had agreed to the deletion, but when the issue was printed, there was a little colored chap among all those young honkies enjoying the party just as if he were created equal.

‘Reaction, if any, in the South was so slight it was forgotten. And Mac may have been the very first to strike a subtle blow for civil rights in the Hero World.’”

Reed must be referring to the CMJr story in Master Comics #25 (Apr. 1942), where—while not specifically a birthday party for the handicapped newsboy alter-ego of the hero—there was a black attendee in the story, “The Case of the Face in the Dark.”The youngster was actually costumed as—you guessed it—Cap Jr.!

The panels are reproduced at top.

Inset left is the cover of Master Comics #45 (Dec. 1943) drawn by Mac Raboy.

Cap, he was able to carry two titles (Captain Marvel Jr. and Master Comics) through his entire life in comics, battling foes like Captain Nazi, Mr. Macabre, Sabbac, Captain Nippon and the Acrobat.”

Excerpt from Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary,

by Bill Schelly [2016, North Atlantic Books].

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As discussed in this chapter, and found in the files of Fawcett Editor Will Lieberson after his passing, shown here are the various page rates paid by Fawcett to their freelance comic artists, in 1943. Despite his heavy usage of photostats of previous drawn CMJr figures, Raboy received the highest cover and page rates. Upper left is vignette from Raboy’s cover art for Master Comics #26 (May 1942). Above is detail from a Fawcett house ad that appeared in Spy Smasher #7 (Oct. 28, 1942).

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Chapter Six

THE SPY SMASHER PREMIUM Fellow Fawcett artist alumni C. C. Beck confirmed many years ago to Fawcett historian P. C. Hamerlinck that Raboy painted the Spy Smasher premium created for the 12-chapter Spy Smasher serial, released by Republic Studios in 1942.

This premium, pictured in the film’s promotional pressbook, is described as a “Four Color Autographed Fan Photo,” made available to theater managers at a cost of $2.25 per thousand or $2 per thousand in lots of 3,000 or more. It is considered one of the rarest Fawcett premiums ever created.

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Spotlight

The Style of Mac Raboy

(or Who Did What on Captain Marvel Jr.?)

One of the greatest challenges in today’s world of collecting Mac Raboy comic books is knowing enough about the artist’s work to properly identify which stories and covers he actually worked on. As we all know, Raboy had a definitive, unique style of art. But that style can easily be mistaken when we look at Captain Marvel Jr. art that had assistants helping out, trying their hardest to emulate the Raboy style. Some of these assistants were instructed to “draw like Raboy,” when they were hired at Fawcett. It turns out they did it well enough to fool most of the comic reading public at that time. In those days, most kids buying those comics really couldn’t tell much of a difference, nor did they care.

But, in today’s world of high-priced Golden Age comic books and with comic historians trying to document who actually did what during that Golden period of four-color history, Fawcett interoffice memo from the files of Will Lieberson lists the status of Captain Marvel Jr. assignments, circa 1944, issued at a time when Raboy was leaving Fawcett.

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it’s important to try and nail down

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accuracy in identifying the artists behind the work.

A major obstacle to the identification is that Fawcett management

Above two pages from Captain Marvel Jr. #16 (Feb. 1, 1944), drawn by Al Carreno. Otto Binder most likely provided the story.

did not care for the artists signing their own work. However, there were exceptions. Occasionally, for reasons unknown to this writer, sometimes an artist’s name would appear, set in type, in the margin area just below the splash page. Why certain exceptions were made like this, we don’t know.

Raboy’s name did appear several times on Fawcett stories, but there was no consistency to the process. Leaving names off stories and covers was the norm. Any number of comic artists in those days thought working in that industry was a low occupation. Some were embarrassed, hoping for the day when they could break out of comics and graduate to the higher incomes that accompanied professional illustration work. That’s where greater respect (and greater financial reward) awaited.

So to begin to tackle this problem of who did what with Raboy, first we need to know who the assistants were. Most of these names have been known

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AL CARRENO Al Carreno (1905–1964) came to the U.S. in the mid-1920s from his home country of Mexico. In 1935 he was working for United Theater Advertisers, creating movie advertising posters.

Following this he took on the syndicated Ted Strong western newspaper strip for the George Matthew Adams Service. After this short-lived venture he drifted into the world of comic books working first for the Chesler and Iger Shops. After becoming a freelance artist on his own, Carreno worked for various publishers, including Fox, Marvel, National, Pines, Prize and Ziff-Davis.

In 1942 he began working for Fawcett on a variety of characters such as Ibis the Invincible, Red Goucho, Dan Dare, and Fawcett’s favorite boy in blue, Captain Marvel Jr. We have no proof that Carreno ever collaborated directly with Mac Raboy on Captain Marvel Jr. stories, but he certainly would have known him. In the 1950s he became active in the National Cartoonists Society where he eventually was an NCS membership chairman.

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Even though Phil Bard copied Raboy figure work into his Fawcett CMJr stories, his style of art was too cartoony to fool the fans. This example is from Captain Marvel Jr. #15 (Jan. 1944).

to the general collecting community for many years now and are listed

PHILIP BARD

are Rubin Zubofsky (Bob Rogers), John Belfi, Gene McDonald, Red Mohler,

Of all the artists who worked on “Captain Marvel Jr.” during the early 1940s, the least information is known about Philip Bard (1912–1966). Oddly enough, he also did the least amount of work on the character, turning in only two stories, published in Captain Marvel Jr. #12 (Oct. 1943) and #15 (Jan. 1944). For those entries, he gets a mention within this book. We know he hired in at Fawcett sometime in 1941 when he was around the age of 29.

He was born in New York City and eventually married a lady named Aza, who was a professional dancer and worked in the theater. Bard did most of his work on the “Minute Man” and “Mr. Scarlet” series between 1942 to 1944.

After that he seems to have disappeared from Fawcett and comics completely. We suspect Fawcett didn’t utilize him more on the CMJr stories due to his very different style of art.

We also believe he was strictly freelance while working for Fawcett, where he earned $17.00 to $18.00 per page for art.

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throughout the online resource, the Grand Comics Database. Most of these Raboy assistants or style emulators are mentioned in this book as well. There

Phil Bard, Bernard Baily, and Al Carreno. We know these men worked either with Raboy or toiled on Captain Marvel Jr. stories or covers, during the time Mac worked at Fawcett. Here we’re not concerned with those artists who came later, including Bud Thompson, Kurt Schaffenberger, and others, because, by the time they worked on Jr. stories, they had stopped imitating Raboy’s style. Instead, those artists gave CMJr their own distinctive look.

First off, we needn’t be too concerned with early assistants Zubofsky/ Rogers or Belfi. Rogers’ work at Fawcett during his employment there from January to November 1942, was strictly on backgrounds. He had the experience and talent to precisely emulate Raboy’s style. Rogers’ background contributions all appeared in Master Comics #24 through #35. Before he left

Spotlight

Fortunately for Mac Raboy, Fawcett maintained a camera-ready photography and photostat morgue on-site, where all forms of reference could be found and production-copying could be made on short notice. Due to Raboy’s speed (lack there of)—sometimes spending a full day on one panel—and constant approaching deadlines, he could go to this depart-

THE STYLE OF MAC RABOY

ment and order up copies of anything he had drawn from past issues.

Within a few minutes, he or various assistants could utilize the stats for cutting and pasting into panels where needed. All of the photostat CMJr figures shown here were saved for many years and made available to this author by Raboy assistant Gene McDonald.

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RED MOHLER

Fawcett, management had already made the decision to start Captain Marvel

William “Red” Mohler was born in Perry, Ohio on April 27, 1922. Nothing is known about his early life or his interests in art, but in December of 1942, he was at the offices of Fawcett Publications seeking employment. He and Gene McDonald were hired on the say day, following the departure of Mac Raboy assistant Rubin Zubofsky, on a six-month trial basis. Their job was as “inkers” for Mac Raboy, working on Captain Marvel Jr. stories. Neither Gene nor Red were very thrilled about drawing comic books, but at the salary of sixty dollars a week, it was easy money and hard to turn down.

They soon began working with Raboy and in an interview conducted with Mohler by John Pierce during the mid-1970s (published in Alter Ego #120, Sept. 2013), he recalled: “At Fawcett, there were 15–18 people in a room, doing paste-ups on True and other magazines. Mac, Gene, and I were in a corner. We did relatively few scripts, perhaps one per month. Mac got $35 and later $50 per page for his work. He did a page a day. Mac was a quiet, gentle, kind, neurotic, lovely man. Though he was a well-liked person, he was not a very happy person, and kept to himself. I liked Mac’s work.”

Continued on next page

Captain Marvel Jr. #19 (May 1, 1944) featured Red Mohler’s artwork on this Cap Jr. story.

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Jr. in its own title. After Rogers’ departure, Belfi was hired by Mac outside the Fawcett offices to do most of the inking for him. Belfi worked at home on CMJr stories—though not covers—for Master Comics from about #36 through possibly #42. His inking of these stories basically upheld a strong Mac Raboy look to the final art. And don’t forget: during the work of these two assistants, they both used plenty of photostats of previously published CMJr Raboy figures to meet deadlines. Therefore, most of the early stories, published in Master Comics between early 1942 through the end of 1943 will have a strong Raboy look about them. As best can be determined, the last CMJr story in Master Comics that Raboy worked on, appeared in #42, dated September 1943. Raboy kept doing covers for Master Comics for a few more issues, but no more interior stories.

The Captain Marvel Jr. comic title is a whole different matter. This is where things get really confusing. While Raboy did produce most of the covers on this title between #1–28, we can’t be certain of how many stories

Spotlight

he worked on for the title. Gene McDonald and Red Mohler were hired specifically to start work on the new Captain Marvel Jr. comic book, cover dated November 18, 1942. The Grand Comics Database also credits Al Carreno and Phil Bard for working on the Jr. title.

Because most of these artists were trying to emulate Raboy’s style of art, how can we tell who worked on what?

Fortunately, we now have a solution that might help set the record straight, or at least assist a little in understanding who did the work. This is made possible due to a Fawcett “Inter Office Memorandum” dated September 21, 1943, found in the archives of Fawcett Editor Will Lieberson many years ago and provided to this author by his son Richard.

The memo, reproduced here for the first time, sent from Dick Kraus, editor of Master Comics, to editor Will Lieberson, presented an inventory of Captain Marvel Jr. stories currently completed and “connected with the

Continued from previous page

When asked about his working conditions there, Red responded with: “Gene and I were supposed to be learning to draw like Mac, but there was no way! I admired Mac’s work. He had a photographic memory, and thus started copying himself. He would do similar poses over and over. It got a little static after awhile.

Mac could draw an arm without reference. He made me want to sit down and draw and draw.

He was in a beautiful rut. Photostats were used a lot on Captain Marvel Junior figures. In penciling, I would read a script several times before starting on it.”

Upon being asked if Raboy was influenced by Alex Raymond, Red revealed, “Alex Raymond was a take-off point for Mac’s work. But he had pride in his own ability and had no need to copy from Raymond. It was probably an unconscious influence, at best. He also admired Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs, especially the placement of blacks and design. It was lovely.”

After working with Mac Raboy, Mohler freelanced for awhile, doing crime and adventure for Lev Gleason Publishing. He left New York City in 1946 and moved to Canada. In 1953 he returned to Ohio, where he had started out from in his youth and became a freelance ad artist. He passed away on January 21, 1999.

Captain Marvel Jr. book.” Notice the memo does not address stories for Master Comics. The great thing about this document is that it identifies the titles of the stories and the artists who drew them. It also gives us a list of script titles that had been assigned to specific artists, that were not yet completed. It goes on to mention the names of scripts on hand, that had not been assigned to an artist yet. Because of this memo, we can now be certain of who worked on the 14 stories listed here, drawn for the CMJr title. All of these stories wound up published in CMJr issues #15, 16, 17, 18, 30, and one as late as #63, two years later. Another interesting thing about this list is it shows a story completed by Bernard Baily, titled “Once Upon a Time.” Yes, this is the same Bernard Baily who co-created the Spectre and the Hourman characters for DC Comics during the early 1940s. And the same Baily who Raboy decided to share a studio with, beginning sometime during the summer of 1943, after Inset top is from Raboy’s cover for Master Comics #24 (Mar. 1942). At right is page one from a CMJr story in Captain Marvel Jr. #17 (Mar. 1, 1944) describing the young hero as growing up and finally retiring in the far-off year of… 2019!

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At left is John Belfi CMJr drawing from 1966, seen in Alter Ego #102. At right is Belfi’s splash page from Wham Comics #1 (Nov. 1940).

JOHN BELFI John Belfi (1924–1995) started working in the comic book field when he was 14 years old. The year was 1938 when he heard that another comic artist lived only five blocks from his home. The artist’s name was Frank Frollo, a man who had been working in comics since 1936. Belfi visited Frollo and showed samples of his work. As Belfi remembered in his comments published in Hero’s Hangout #6 (Aug. 1969), “My vision of a cartoonist’s studio was shattered. The studio was a small corner of a bedroom, typical of most studios in those days, an old beaten-up table, books, magazines, art supplies, swipes, et al., were all about. Here and there a few uncompleted comic book pages stared at me. Crude as my drawings were, he quickly accepted their merit and offered me an opportunity to be his assistant. No words can fully explain the excitement that ran through me.”

Belfi’s first assignments were cleaning up finished art work, cleaning up the studio, putting files in order, and getting hot coffee.

Within a few months he began helping out with inking backgrounds, then figures, then penciling and inking. This eventually led to doing complete stories on his own by 1940. As noted in an article he wrote for the Voice of Comic-

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dom #6, dated February 1966, “Two years later, in 1942, I met Mac Raboy and I began a two-year stint on Captain Marvel Jr. for the Fawcett group. One day by chance I visited the studio of Bernard Baily and Mac Raboy. Mac asked me if I would like to assist him. ‘Captain Marvel Jr.’ was one of the top strips of the moment and this was a wonderful opportunity.

During the following year, I penciled and inked many Marvel Jr.’s. My style was quite different but in those days it didn’t matter as much as today. Mac was a stickler for detail and this was my first experience in minute details. I learned eagerly.”

Belfi would pick up his pages at the Baily studio and take them home to the Bronx to do the work. Very often Mac and he would utilize stats of heads or figures to speed up the process. Years later, in another short bio published in a local newspaper, Belfi remembered where he was on December 7, 1941: “I was a young cartoonist at the age of 18, sitting at a drafting table in my parents’ home in the Bronx, New York. At that time I was illustrating Captain Marvel Jr. for Fawcett Publications. As always, I was listening to a radio near me. The music was interrupted with the announcement of the shocking news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All through that day came

continuing updated reports. The story I was working on was about Egypt, showing the Pyramids with Captain Marvel Jr. flying over them to capture a villain.”

During that period when Belfi was inking for Raboy, it is also known that he penciled and inked at least one Captain Marvel Jr. story on his own (as yet unidentified). At the same time he was attending the School of Industrial Art from where he graduated in 1943. Belfi was called into service in April of 1944 and after doing basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, was shipped off to Biloxi, Mississippi, to take up artist duties in Special Services. After the war, he returned home and went on to illustrate over 800 more comic books and five daily and Sunday newspaper strips. From 1977 to 1983, he taught art at the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Arts, in New Jersey.

During his lengthy career, Belfi worked with some of the top men in the field, including Reed Crandall on Blackhawk and Doll Man, Lou Fine and Will Eisner on The Spirit, Jack Cole on Plastic Man, Paul Gustavson on “The Human Bomb” and “Midnight,” Irwin Hasen on Green Lantern, Dan Barry on “The Heap,” Airboy, Gang Busters, and many others. He passed away on October 2, 1995.

Spotlight

BUD THOMPSON Bernard (Bud) H. Thompson was born in Birmingham, England, on May 24, 1905. His parents immigrated the family to the United States in 1911 and became naturalized citizens by 1918. Bernard graduated from the University of Minnesota, in 1928, with an art degree and, three years later, hooked up with Capt. Rosco Fawcett to draw the daily comic-panel newspaper strip called Screen Oddities. Working in both a realistic and humorous style, Thompson rendered the top stars of Hollywood, similar to Feg Murray’s Seein’ Stars feature. He also provided gag cartoons to Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine, signing with a pseudonym, Charles Bruno. In 1938, Thompson took over the writing on Screen Oddities, and by 1940, had moved to Los Angeles and changed the single panel strip’s name to Star Flashes. The feature ended on March 13, 1943. By then, Thompson had already relocated back to the East Coast, taking up work in the Beck and Costanza comic production shop, in New York City.

Fawcett decided to shut down their in-house art staff leaving most of their comic artists to supply art on a freelance basis. After a thorough search, and not finding that story title in the Grand Comics Database CMJr archives, it

When Mac Raboy discontinued work on the Captain Marvel Jr. character, in 1944, Thompson, along with other Fawcett artists, was assigned to work on both the Master Comics and Captain Marvel Jr. titles. Unlike the many artists who followed in Raboy’s footsteps, Thompson preferred to draw the hero’s adventures using his own unique style of art and never deviated. His tenure on the character lasted from 1944 until ’53, at which time Fawcett discontinued the CMJr titles, when it got out of the super-hero game. At that time, the artist was re-assigned to produce horror stories for Fawcett’s This Magazine is Haunted title. He also contributed to Tex Ritter Western, and from 1954–55, freelanced Gene Autry, Red Ryder and Wild Bill Elliott stories for Dell Publications. At the tail end of 1953, he joined the staff of the Famous Artist’s School, in Westport, Connecticut. He continued working for Fawcett on the side and became their chief illustrator for the companies “one-shots” and “how-to” publications. In his spare time, he drew gag-cartoons for national magazines.

Thompson passed away in 1980.

was finally determined the title was changed to “Captain Marvel Jr. Meets Himself in the Future,” and was published in CMJr #17, dated March 1944.

So, the real value of this memo, now 76 years later, is it helps us to know for sure who these other CMJr artists were, and possibly help identify some of their work. Making this a little more difficult is that in some instances, where the memo shows Raboy being assigned to three stories, the question Above character sheet depicting the “World’s Mightiest Boy” has long been mis-identified as being drawn by Mac Raboy, co-creator of Captain Marvel Jr. Opinions vary, but it is the conjecture of this author and Fawcett historian P. C. Hamerlinck that this is the work of British-born artist Bud Thompson, who took on the majority of work on the CMJr feature upon his return to Fawcett in 1944. Some of this logic is based on Bob Rogers’ observation that Raboy never really drew figures using a clinical, proportional method as demonstrated here. So why would he create a guide for others using that method? Also, the CMJr faces at the bottom right are similar to Bud Thompson faces. At right is Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr. #37 cover from April 1946.

THE STYLE OF MAC RABOY

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becomes, how can we be sure he did the work? The problem is that both Red Mohler and Gene McDonald also worked for awhile in the Baily Shop, helping Raboy on stories. So how do we know whether Raboy worked on these particular stories for sure? We don’t. He could have drawn one panel, or not even that, and just turned it over to an assistant to do. Take for instance the story shown on the memo titled “Butcher Boy Platt (Music Hall).” This story, under the “completed Art Work” listing, shows that Raboy did the job. The title was changed to “Mayhem in the Music Hall,” and appeared in CMJr #16, February 1944. Yet, when we look at this story, it has very little resemblance to anything Mac Raboy ever drew. Other than one or two panels, it mostly looks like McDonald or Mohler’s work. Confusing, eh?

Therefore, the final picture of who did what gets distorted.

Above is artist Bud Thompson’s cover for Captain Marvel Jr. #31 (July 1945), based on his design submitted to Fawcett editors seen on next page. The preliminary sketch was originally thought to be the work of Mac Raboy. Logical research says Raboy never had time to do preliminary cover sketches, nor would it have been required. Most likely the prelim is by Bud Thompson, who drew the final cover.

Next two pages are samples of Bud Thompson’s work in Captain Marvel Jr. #78 (Oct. 1949), reproduced from the reprint hardback collection Shazam from the Forties to the Seventies (1977).

Inset right is detail from Captain Marvel Jr. #103 (Nov. 1951) cover by Bud Thompson.

Below is a 1940s portrait of suave Bud Thompson, who produced the syndicated comic strip panel Seein’ Stars prior to joining the Fawcett staff.

The most perfect picture we can have of Raboy’s artistic abilities in comics is the early Captain Marvel Jr. stories published in Master Comics in 1942. This was the year when Bob Rogers helped on backgrounds emulating Raboy’s style perfectly and where Mac drew the figures or used stats of figures he had previously drawn. No other hands interfered or distorted Raboy’s creative figure-work or beautiful ink brush rendering during that year. But, from early 1943 on, things become convoluted and complex.

Scattered through this article are several examples of Captain Marvel Jr. artwork, created by five Captain Marvel Jr. artists, or Raboy assistants, many of whom used swipes or stats of Raboy figures.

Each artist is represented by a splash page and an interior page from a story to help familiarize you with their work. These are stories we know a particular artist worked on, identified in the memo. And just as an added bonus, for educational purposes, we are also including two pages of a Bud Thompson CMJr story, shot from the original art, published originally in Captain Marvel Jr. #78, from October 1949 [see pgs. 74–75].

We hope these examples help to educate Raboy fans world-wide on understanding who did what on CMJr, during his tenure, and after Raboy’s departure.

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THE STYLE OF MAC RABOY

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Behind the Scenes

Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. Editorial Guidelines [The following directives were found in the files of Fawcett Editor Will Lieberson and have been retyped for this book.—R.H.]

CODE OF ETHICS - FAWCETT COMICS MAGAZINES 1. Policemen, judges, officials, and respected institutions must not be portrayed as stupid or ineffective in such a way as to weaken respect

CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. FAWCETT GUIDELINES

for established authority. Crimes against the law

FAWCETT SCRIPT REQUIREMENTS:

shall never be presented in such a way as to throw

Writers should query editors and submit a complete

sympathy with the crime as against law and justice

synopsis before completion of material. Scripts must be

or to inspire others with the desire for imitation.

typewritten. A stamped self-addressed envelope must

2. No comic shall show a male or female indecently or

be included in order that submitted material may be

unduly exposed, and in any event not more revealing

returned if found unacceptable. All submissions are on a

than in a bathing suit commonly worn in the U.S.A.

speculative basis.

Wanton, sexy drawings are not to be presented under

SET-UP OF COMICS SCRIPTS

any circumstances.

The first four panels usually is devoted to the title splash (a large scene which ties in with plot of story, showing hero or heroine in good action pose). Below should appear a brief legend which should interest reader at start of story.

Each panel contains, (a) description of scene to artist, (b) caption (used only where necessary to enlighten the reader as to the action involved) (c) dialogue of individuals.

3. No scenes of actual sadistic torture may be shown.

4. No comics which ridicule or attack any religious groups are permitted.

5. Vulgar language shall not be used. Slang is permitted only when essential to the story.

6. Comics shall not give divorce a humorous or glamorous treatment.

7. No comic shall use dialects and devices in a way to indicate ridicule or intolerance of racial groups.

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Behind the Scenes

CAPTAIN MARVEL JUNIOR WHO IS HE…WHAT HE DOES This character first appeared as a strip in WHIZ COMICS, Dec. 26, 1941 issue. His next appearance was in #22 MASTER COMICS, Jan. 1942 issue in conjunction with the Bulletman strip. He next appeared in $22 MASTER COMICS, February 1942, in his own strip.

From this period on, he appeared as a special feature in this particular publication. He was also featured in a book of his own effective November 18, 1942.

FREDDY FREEMAN is a crippled boy of about 14 years of age. He is an orphan and lives in a shabby attic room somewhere in the city. He sells newspapers for a living, and it is usually while selling them that dastardly things come to his attention which lead to the story.

Freddy’s diary usually starts and /or ends the story.

In the diary, he starts --- “Dear Diary” --- and then gives what amounts to a title caption for the story.

Just as Billy Batson yells “SHAZAM” to become

This is a tricky point in that the first two words of

Captain Marvel, Freddy Freeman yells CAPTAIN

Captain Marvel Jr.’s name are the very two magic words

MARVEL! to become Captain Marvel Jr. The same boom

that cause them to switch back and forth. For instance,

and lightning flash result from his cry as from Billy’s.

if someone asks Freddy Freeman who chased the villain

(The origin of Capt. Marvel Jr. was as follows -- During a

away, Freddy can’t say -- “Why, it was Capt. Marvel Jr.,”

Marvel story, Captain Nazi ruthlessly killed an old man

because he would instantly change on the spot to Junior,

and crippled his grandson for life. Captain Marvel took

giving himself away. So in such a case he would say --

the dying boy down to old SHAZAM, the wizard who gave

“Why it was a strange boy in a blue costume.”

Billy Batson his powers, and asked SHAZAM to save his

There are two continued villains who periodically

life. Old SHAZAM then gave Freddy Freeman the power

bob up in Junior stories, being his special bane. One is

to become Captain Marvel Jr. simply by shouting the

CAPTAIN NAZI, who is the WORLD’S WORST VILLAIN,

name of the great hero, Captain Marvel).

and has tremendous strength and power. He can make

NOTE -- It is necessary that Capt. Marvel Jr. and

great leaps but can’t fly. The second villain is Mr.

Freddy Freeman never speak the name CAPT. MARVEL

Macabre, a criminal master mind with a green face who

JR. aloud...that is, when no change of character is

always eludes Junior at the end of the story somehow,

wanted. They can only think the name, in such cases.

after Junior has broken up his latest devilish doings.

FAWCETT’S CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

79

In character, Captain Marvel Junior is a rather

NOTE --- Absolutely no one knows that Freddy

serious boy hero. He doesn’t make wise cracks, although

Freeman is Capt. Marvel Jr. He has no confidant at all.

he can say clever things. He shouldn’t be cheapened,

This is an important point, because it typifies Junior as a

however, by making a lot of corny cracks when batting

lone wolf, confiding in no one and figuring things out for

thugs around. In such cases, let him either say exactly

himself in all cases.

what he means, or nothing at all. He frequently returns

As in the Captain Marvel stories, it isn’t necessary

to the role of Freddy Freeman to solve his problems, as

for Freddy to sneak carefully behind buildings or

Freddy is a pretty clever boy himself, though a cripple.

something to shout CAPTAIN MARVEL and change to Jr.

For instance, if the presence of Capt. Marvel Jr. would

Where the action requires a quick appearance of Junior,

warn the villains in advance, it is little lame Freddy

Freddy simply yells it out, and the succeeding lightning

Freeman who hobbles up and waits for the propitious

flash usually confuses things enough for any characters

moment to change to Marvel Jr. and finish up.

nearby so that they don’t know where Jr. has come from,

Freddy Freeman is a strongly sympathetic character

or where Freddy has gone to. And vice versa when Jr.

in his own right. Being a cripple, he is sensitive to other

changes back to Freddy. Good dialogue and captions can

people’s hardships and troubles. The stories should

cover a multitude of sins here.

deal in general with strong human interest plots, rather

The panels per page should run to six and seven,

than just a gang of Nazis or thugs spilling blood right

with more sixes than sevens. Somewhere in the story

and left, and periodically fighting with their Nemesis,

can be a page with as low as 3 to 5 panels, allowing

Capt. Marvel Jr. That is, have a story within a story

room for one big splash of some climactic scene or

wherever possible, where Junior and Freddy together

action. There should be at least 3 spots of

solve some person’s problem or difficulty. In

action in a story. They should be built up.

general, it might be said that the tear-jerker

The final action scene a real riot.

type of story is best suited to this character.

In the captions, shorten the name

Fantasy lends itself to Junior stories,

to CAPT. MARVEL JR. to save

but it should be a more serious type

space. He must not be called

of fantasy than the light whimsical

Marvel Jr. or Junior, although of course

kind found in Captain Marvel.

he can be referred to as a “flying blue

The boy angle should be

form,” or “the mighty boy in blue” and

played up wherever possible. That is, the people

such indirect terms for variety. And once in every

he helps and rescues can often be children rather

story, a caption should use his tag-line -- “and

than grownups.

then the WORLD’S MOST SENSATIONAL boy

The weird type of story goes well with Junior…

leaped and --- “ etc. (Marvel Jr. is the World’s

anything eerie and mysterious that brings the

Most Sensational Boy, just as Capt. Marvel is the

goose-pimples up.

World’s Mightiest Mortal).

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Behind the Scenes

Associate Interview

Gene McDonald: In the Presence of Greatness ROGER HILL: How did you come to work for Fawcett Publications, Gene?

GENE McDONALD: I was going to the Grand Central Art School, attending Harvey Dunn’s night class. There was a fellow there in the class named Irwin Wile who was what they called a layout man. He was doing layouts on some magazine over at Fawcett. Irwin got me and Red Mohler jobs there working with Mac Raboy. You know, word of mouth, in other words.

RH: Do you remember who interviewed you at Fawcett to get the job?

McDONALD: I don’t remember any interviews. As far as I know, we just went in, said hello to Mac and sat down to work. I don’t remember any interview.

We all worked in the bullpen there in the old Paramount Building at 43rd Street and Broadway. They took that building down a long time ago to put up a new high-rise. I don’t know whether they destroyed the old Astor Hotel or not, but I suppose they did. I haven’t been there since a very long time ago. I ought to go back and look around sometime.

RH: Didn’t you hire in at Fawcett around 1943 or 1944?

McDONALD: No, it was before that. It must of been 1942, because I remember it was right after the war started. In fact, I was amazed at the time that they were getting ready to produce that comic book on such short notice. The war had just started.

RH: You’re referring to when Fawcett decided to give Captain Marvel Jr. his own comic title? That first issue came out dated November 1942.

McDONALD: Yeah, that’s right.

RH: And were you hired there just to work specifically on Captain Marvel Jr.?

McDONALD: Yes, just as an assistant to Mac. RH: Mac was a very slow artist from what I understand.

McDONALD: Oh, yeah. Mac was very slow, but he did beautiful work. That’s why he was slow.

RH: Right. He had a beautiful brush style too. Do you

GENE McDONALD

AUTHOR’S NOTE Gene McDonald was born on June 17, 1918 in Macon, Georgia. When he was six months old, his family moved to Alliance, Nebraska.

At the age of five, Gene and the family moved to Omaha, then back to Alliance, where he finished school. When he was 20, he set out for New York City. The year was 1938 and he secured a job working for the A. C. Hielson Company preparing sales charts for merchandisers in the food and drug business. He worked there until the opportunity arose to work for Fawcett Publications in 1942. He began as an assistant to Mac Raboy, working on the Captain Marvel Jr. comic book. When most of the artists on the Fawcett comic art staff went freelance in 1943, Gene stayed with Raboy, continuing to assist him on Captain Marvel Jr. and, later on, the Flash Gordon newspaper strip.

Gene was 81 years old when I first contacted him and, although I never met him in person, he was an interesting fellow to talk with on the phone. I was surprised to learn that, since his days of working in the comics, Gene had held on to many of the original photostats of Captain Marvel Jr. figures, drawn by Raboy, which they used to cut up and paste-in to panels trying to meet deadlines. He was nice enough to loan those to me for copying and use throughout this book. A tip of the hat goes to my friend Joe Desris for putting me in touch with Gene. Unfortunately, Gene passed away on Jan. 8, 2000.

Below is sample of the Fawcett Publications letterhead from the 1940s.

remember what size brush he used?

McDONALD: I think it was probably a number 2 Winsor & Newton.

RH: Now when you say you were hired to assist Mac, did that mean just on backgrounds or what?

McDONALD: No, we did backgrounds and figures.

RH: And were you told to emulate Raboy’s style?

McDONALD: Yes. Well, we had a machine in the corner there that we used. It was called an opaque projector.

RH: Sure, I’ve heard of them.

McDONALD: And we would get a photostat of Captain Marvel Jr. in the right pose that we wanted and put it in that projector. Then we’d trace it off. We had to do that because they wanted to hurry things up. It was supposed to be a production line sort of thing, you see. I mean, we could sit down and copy one of Mac’s drawings freehand if we had to, but why do that if you have a machine?

RH: Right, that’s why comic collectors and historians have been confused as to what exactly Mac did on the Captain Marvel Jr. comic book ever since they were published. I’m sure, using those methods you described, it saved a lot of time and effort. Had you had any pen-&-ink experience before coming to Fawcett?

McDONALD: No. I hadn’t had any. [laughter] None at all. The only thing I had done up to that point was pitch hay to a bunch of stupid cattle out in the Northern Plains. And that was backbreaking labor.

Above are photos of Gene McDonald taken in years after his Fawcett tenure. Below is Captain Marvel Jr. #30 (May 1945) cover probably by Bud Thompson.

RH: So, working for Fawcett: you had to learn how to hold and use a brush, I take it.

McDONALD: Yes, everything. It was murder. To go from pitching hay to handling those delicate brushes and making fine lines with them.

RH: Okay, so you were assisting Mac on his work. And did the editors there also let you do some stories on your own?

McDONALD: Well, yes, later on. I think Mac had left by then. Mac had left and started working in an office over on 42nd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenue.

RH: This was probably the Bernard Baily shop where Mac leased space?

McDONALD: Yes, that rings a bell. Me and Red Mohler were doing things on our own for Fawcett. I did a few stories for them, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I really didn’t want to be drawing comics.

RH: Why is that, Gene?

McDONALD: It was just too awkward for me. I felt like I was doing something I wasn’t trained for or qualified for. That’s why I drank a lot back in those days.

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Associate Interview

RH: Okay, so what about the space that Mac had on 42nd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenue?

Above are two samples of the Fawcett Comics Group stationery embellished with characters from their publication line.

McDONALD: Yes, I don’t remember the number exactly. He had rented office space with a couple of other guys. Mac had one table and I had one.

RH: So, you had a table there too?

McDONALD: Wait a minute. I’m trying to remember now. He changed offices somewhere along in there. He left that place and got a different office space on 42nd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

RH: So you were working with Mac after he had left Fawcett? Were you still working on the Captain Marvel Jr. title?

McDONALD: Could be. I’m not really sure. I remember I had moved to a furnished room in uptown Manhattan and I was doing the last of the Junior work myself. Let’s see now, what was that editor’s name? Oh yes, Kraus.

RH: That would of been Dick Kraus.

McDONALD: Yes, he was one of the editors at Fawcett and I was doing some work through him on Captain Marvel Jr. It was about that time I handed in the last story. I didn’t say anything after that. I just left and

GENE McDONALD

No doubt this letterhead was used for correspondence relating to Captain Marvel’s fan club by the Fawcett Comics Group in the ’40s.

never went back for any more work. And that last story was a real lousy one. I was fed up with it and to me… it was just crap. So I got rid of it.

RH: Was Red Mohler still around at that time, or working with you?

McDONALD: No, I hadn’t seen Red for a long time. He was long gone.

RH: I’ve heard stories that Mac was kind of a quiet guy. Is that true?

McDONALD: Oh man, yes, very quiet. He was the greatest guy on earth though. He was like a father to me. Just a great guy.

RH: Did he ever show you some of the tricks of the trade as far as doing the art? You know, brush techniques, or anything?

McDONALD: No, he didn’t do anything like that.

He never gave me any tips or instructions. He just left me on my own more or less. It was up to me, I guess, to do the job.

RH: Well, you apparently must have done a pretty good job of it or they wouldn’t have kept you around, right?

One of many photostat images of Captain Marvel Jr. figures, drawn by Mac Raboy, and saved by Gene McDonald. These were used

by Gene and other Raboy assistants, or even Raboy himself, to cutup and paste into panels, or on covers, where needed, some poses being reprinted ad nauseam.

McDONALD: Well, Mac was a good guy. I told him many times, “My God, Mac, you ought to fire me. I’m not doing a good job here.”

He just kept saying, “No, you’re doing alright. Just stay with it.” [laughter] RH: Well, that’s great. Did Raboy have any kind of ego about him? You know how some artists can be I’m sure.

McDONALD: Oh, no, not Mac.

MAC RABOY, STAT MAN Upon being asked about Mac Raboy during a fanzine interview, Jack Binder suddenly jumped up from his chair, announcing, “Just a minute! I have some pages of Raboy’s. I’ll show you.”

“Jack soon returned, pages in hand. Interspersed with patches of Raboy’s precise brush work were photostats of previous work. Indeed, almost every panel was a total, or partial stat.

Jack told us that Raboy did all the paste-ups himself, refusing to let anyone else touch his page.”

Excerpt from Comic Crusader #15 (no date), interview by Martin Greim, Al Bradford, and Bob Cosgrove,

84

RH: Tell me more about the bullpen there at Fawcett. Were you all in one room working together?

McDONALD: Yes, one huge room. I think there must have been something like 15 guys in there. The room was about 60 feet long and about 30 feet wide. It was a huge room.

RH: Were all the people in there working on comic books?

McDONALD: No. No, most of it was magazine layout people and some color separation workers.

RH: Did they ever let you work on Captain Marvel Jr. covers with Mac? McDONALD: No. Mac did the covers.

Associate Interview

RH: Do you remember much about the writers there or the scripts you were given to work from?

McDONALD: I think Mac always handled that. I don’t think I ever saw a script.

RH: But how would you know how to layout your panels and stories if you didn’t have a script?

McDONALD: Mac would tell us what to do and we’d do it.

RH: Did Mac do rough layouts for you guys to follow?

McDONALD: You know, I’m not sure now exactly how that worked.

RH: But Mac was pretty much in charge of that?

McDONALD: Absolutely.

RH: What about reference material there at Fawcett? Did they have files with photos and reference that you guys could go and pull when you needed reference on an airplane or a tank or something like that?

McDONALD: I don’t think so. I don’t remember anything

GENE McDONALD

like that. My memory is kind of hazy about those days. Certain things stick out and other things are lost completely.

RH: After you guys penciled a page, did you have to get it approved by anyone before it got inked?

McDONALD: Mac would okay it and we’d go ahead.

RH: And what about the lettering? Do you remember who was lettering your pages?

McDONALD: No. I don’t remember who did that. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever saw the finished page, now that you mention it. I think Mac took care of that. He handed it in and I don’t think I saw the finished product.

RH: What was your basic work routine like at Fawcett? For instance, what time would you guys start working in the morning?

McDONALD: It was nine o’clock for me and Red. Sometimes Mac was there before us, and other times, not. We got an hour for lunches. We’d knock off work around five. Mac

85

would still be there working when we’d leave.

RH: Did the editors there ever give you a hard time about making deadlines?

McDONALD: No, never.

On previous page are samples of Gene McDonald’s work from Captain Marvel Jr. #30 (May 1, 1945). This page top right is the back cover of Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec. 11, 1942), which contains two “Comix Cards.” At right and below are late 1940s “Comix Cards” featured in the Fawcett comics line.

RH: I’ve got a Fawcett memo in my files that show all of the page rates that a lot of the Fawcett artists were getting paid for their work in 1943.

McDONALD: Well, Red and I were paid a weekly salary. We weren’t paid by piecemeal.

RH: What was that weekly amount, Gene, if you don’t mind me asking?

McDONALD: We got a weekly salary of around $60 each. That was a lot of money back then.

RH: That was a fortune back then! The Fawcett memo that I have shows that Mac was getting $30 per interior page, and $40 for a cover.

McDONALD: I wouldn’t be surprised. I think later on, when I worked for DC Comics, I got paid $20 a page, just for inking, and $40 for both penciling

86

Associate Interview

and inking. But I was only an inker there and so I got $20 a page.

RH: At Fawcett, the page size you guys worked on was about twice-up wasn’t it?

McDONALD: Yes. RH: And the covers were done smaller, I believe.

McDONALD: Yes. RH: You said earlier that you and Red Mohler had been friends while you were attending Grand Central Art School.

Tell me more about that.

McDONALD: Yes, we each had a studio in a building on East 34th Street. He had a studio on the front and I had one on the back. They were both skylight studios. It was between Lexington and Third Avenue.

for other companies while you were living there?

McDONALD: No. RH: Was Red married?

McDONALD: Yes, he was married to a Chinese girl. And it wasn’t anytime at all before they were fighting like cats and dogs. She made life miserable for him. Eventually she sicced a lawyer on him. I had moved to an apartment on East 53rd Street, and Red came over and he was in a lot of trouble. He wanted me to sign some papers. I had to co-sign his divorce papers.

RH: Why was that?

McDONALD: I don’t really remember all the details, but it was the only way he could get out of his troubles. That was the last I saw of him. He moved out of town after that. He

RH: Did you fellows work on comic art in these studios?

McDONALD: No, we did all the comic book work in the office. These apartments were just nice places to live.

RH: Did you and Red do any other comic jobs

GENE McDONALD

87

moved down to… I forget the state… Delaware or somewhere like that, maybe.

Then, as soon as he got loose from that gal, he married a girl with three kids. I got a letter from him and he wanted to borrow some money. I sent him some and I never heard from him again.

RH: I think the Who’s Who of American Comics says there was a Duffy Mohler who was a letterer working in comics at one time. Could that of been his wife?

McDONALD: That was her. I don’t know why they didn’t get along.

RH: Was Red a pretty good artist?

McDONALD: Yes, he was okay. And he was a darn good guy. He was my best friend. I always liked Red. I always missed him after he left. He was a tall, redheaded guy.

RH: I know people called him Red, but do you remember what his real first name was?

Previous page is a paper toy produced by Reed and Associates featuring the “World’s Mightiest Boy” in Ski Jump, the “sensational action toy.”

It costs a mere dime and the die-cut, full-color cardboard figure (above right) came in a 7" x 10" envelope (at left and bottom right).

This above cover for Master Comics #31 (Oct. 1942) was the type of cover that could be thrown together quickly by using previously published Raboy figures or swipes, in a new pasted-up design.

REED ON RABOY II “Mac Raboy, the nicest guy you could meet, was never satisfied with any Marvel Junior script, though we gave him the best writers available short of William Shakespeare and Ring Lardner, Sr. “It was a little hard to get past the reserve of this shy genius, but it was worth the trouble, for he became a warm and valued friend. He was ‘anti-establishment’ before that became fashionable and I’m sure at first he distrusted me merely because I was an editor and therefore a tool of the management. He had the talent to become an arty artist, but the need to make a living pushed him into commercial work. A loss to museums perhaps, but certainly a terrific (and maybe undeserved) break for comic readers. Mac Raboy was tops as a limner* and a human being. His untimely death was a great loss.”

Excerpt, Fawcett editor Rod Reed interview, conducted by Matt Lage, Fawcett Collectors of America #5 (Oct. 1974). * l imner: archaic word for painter (especially of portraits or miniatures).

88

McDONALD: His first name was William. Bill Mohler. It was a German name.

RH: You said earlier that Red came to Fawcett at the same time when you did, right?

McDONALD: Yes, the same time.

RH: Did you ever get to know or work with any of the artists who worked at the Jack Binder Shop, over in New Jersey?

McDONALD: No, I’m not familiar with that name or place.

RH: Okay. Did you ever meet any of the following artists who worked for Fawcett: Al Carreno, Phil Bard, Rudy Zubofsky, Bernard Baily, August Frolich, Bernard (Bud) Thomson, Nick Zuraw, or Joe Certa?

McDONALD: Nope. None of those names ring a bell with me.

RH: So, basically it was just you and Red helping Mac on Captain Marvel Jr.?

McDONALD: Yes. RH: Now, of course you must have known Clarence Beck, right?

McDONALD: Oh yeah, he was next door working on Captain Marvel.

RH: You mean, next door, in a separate room there at Fawcett?

McDONALD: Yes. RH: Was there a guy by the name of Pete Costanza over there working with him?

McDONALD: Probably, but I don’t really remember him either. I do remember one guy who worked for Beck. His name was Al McLean. He did a lot of work for Beck and I knew him very well. He used to have a place on Third Avenue. He was married and I think he left Fawcett around the same time I did. The whole shebang seem to fold up around the same time.

Associate Interview

RH: And was that when Raboy left, too?

McDONALD: Yes, it wasn’t long after that when Mac took over the Flash Gordon strip.

Above is another Reed and Associates paper novelty offered to kids in the mid-1940s, this one for a quarter. “The Three Famous Flying Marvels”—featuring the Captain, his Junior, and Mary—are described by Heritage Auctions as “a cross between paper dolls and paper airplanes.” Pages measure 9.25" x 12".

RH: Did Mac ever talk about Alex Raymond? You know, in regards to him being an influence on his work?

McDONALD: Oh, absolutely.

RH: What about other newspaper strips or artists who influenced him?

McDONALD: No, I tell you, Mac didn’t hardly talk at all. Well, you know, there’s doers and there’s talkers, and Mac was a doer. He would just sit there. I tell you, it used to drive me crazy because I was a young healthy guy who was restless.

And I had to sit there with him and, long about three in the afternoon, I just wanted to scream and jump out the window.

Captain Marvel Jr. “Mighty Midget Comic,” published in 1942, by Samuel Lowe Co. The mini-comic measured 5" x 4" and contained 34 pages of reprints in black, white, and red. The cover, naturally, is a reprint of Master Comics #27 cover by Mac Raboy.

RH: Was Red Mohler sitting there with you guys, too?

McDONALD: Yes. RH: Didn’t you and Red talk a little bit just to break up the quietness a little?

McDONALD: Yes, but we didn’t talk shop. We didn’t talk about the work, except to complain about it. [laughter] But we just didn’t talk that much while working there at Fawcett. Later on after work, we would talk. We had side-by-side studios on 34th Street and so we lived right next door to each other. We were good buddies back in those days. He was the best friend I ever had.

RH: I heard from Joe Desris that Raboy and you had a big argument one time and you told him off. Is that true?

McDONALD: Well, I got drunk one night and made a horse’s ass out of myself.

GENE McDONALD

89

Above is a pair of Raboy CMJr photostats, saved by Gene McDonald and provided for this book. These feature Captain Marvel Jr.’s alias, Freddy Freeman, lame newsboy.

MAC RABOY, PRIMA DONNA In a fanzine interview, Otto Binder was asked about Mac Raboy, and the writer exclaimed: “There was a prima donna! Impossible to work with. He always complained that there were too many action scenes. Mac didn’t care about the plot, about conflict. He wanted beautiful, fairyland scenes for Captain Marvel Jr. to float through.”

Excerpt from Comic Crusader #15 (no date), interview by Martin Greim, Al Bradford, and Bob Cosgrove, This 4" x 5", 24-page mini-comic, containing a reprint of Captain Marvel Jr. #13’s “Case of the Poison Press,” was part of a Wheaties giveaway set offered in cereal boxes in 1946.

This was at Mac’s house. He invited me and my wife over, and he had some liquor there, which was a big mistake. In those days, I was a heavy drinker. One sip and I had to kill the whole bottle. You know, one of those things. And I got too much that night and… this is something I’ve been sorry for my whole life, because I would never hurt Mac for anything in the world. I thought the world of him. I really worshiped the guy.

RH: So what happened, Gene? What brought it on?

McDONALD: I grew up in the cow country of western Nebraska and it was always customary in those days for cowhands to go to town on Saturday night and get liquored up. I had taken that habit with me to New York. You can get away with it out in the cow-country, but they don’t understand it in New York at all. So it took me a long time to get rid of that habit.

RH: So what happened after you had that blow-out with Mac? McDONALD: He fired me!

RH: Did that happen right away that night or later on?

McDONALD: Well, it was later on, two or three months later. I was working directly for him at the time. He paid me off. He had separated from Fawcett by then. We weren’t doing Captain Marvel Jr. any longer. We were working on Flash Gordon.

RH: Oh, so you were helping him on the Sunday page?

McDONALD: Yes. RH: Was this in his studio?

McDONALD: No, we were working at his home in the Bronx. I just did a little on the backgrounds, that’s all.

RH: Was anyone else helping him at this time?

90

Associate Interview

McDONALD: No, just me. Red had left already.

RH: Do you remember if you worked with him on the beginning of the strip or later on?

McDONALD: I just remember working on it, but I’m not sure when. It might not of been the original beginning. It may have been samples. It could’ve been samples.

Hey, did you ever get a line on those woodcuts Mac did? The ones that were bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art? RH: Yes, I sure did. I know this was during the 1930s, long before you met Mac, but what can you tell me about them? Did Mac ever discuss those?

McDONALD: Well, I never saw them, but I’ve heard about them. I knew he had done them and I remember thinking at the time that it was highly unusual because the Met doesn’t buy any artist’s work unless he’s dead. They had something to do with the WPA, didn’t they?

RH: Yes, that’s right.

McDONALD: Mac never talked about that work, but I’ve heard the stuff is really marvelous. That guy was an absolute master. He was like the old time engravers. You know, the guys who make the plates for the currency. He’d of been darn good at making counterfeit money. [laughter] RH: Yeah, you’re right. It’s amazing that a guy like Mac Raboy ever got into the comics field. He should’ve been a famous painter or something. But, you know, the same thing happened to a lot of other guys who could’ve been famous painters, but got sidetracked into the comics.

McDONALD: Mac never went in for painting, that I know of. Why, I don’t know. No, he never bothered with the pigments. I guess it was a matter of what he got into when he went to school. Line drawings never did much for me. My whole training there was with the pigments. Line drawing was something completely foreign to me.

GENE McDONALD

RH: My final question is this, Gene: How would you describe Mac Raboy back in those days?

McDONALD: He was just an average guy. If you saw him on the street you would never believe he was doing that beautiful artwork.

He was a very plain-looking guy.

His facial features were kind of rugged. He was not what you would call a handsome man. He was about my size and I’m fivefoot tall. He was a sullen guy and he didn’t laugh much.

RH: Did he ever tell you what he thought about working in the comics?

McDONALD: Well, the only thing I can say about it is… I think he loved it. Because he would come to work around eight or nine in the morning there in the bullpen and he would sit down at the drawing board and he’d light up a cigar and go to work. And the cigar would go out and he’d just sit there and, if you didn’t see his hand move, you’d have thought he was asleep. And he would just sit there and sit there, and coffee break time would come and go, and he was still sitting there. Then lunch time would come and go, and he was still there. He never moved.

And, honest to God, if his wife didn’t come in and drag him out to dinner, he’d have still been sitting there. He loved it. He was totally lost in it, you know? He was completely absorbed in his work.

RH: Wow, that’s great to hear, Gene. Thanks for taking the time to discuss those long ago days of working with Mac Raboy and Red Mohler. I appreciate your contribution and so will those comic historians out there who are always looking for answers to one of the greatest periods of American comic books… the Golden Age! McDONALD: It was a pleasure, Roger.

Inset top: This “Epilogue” flyer was found in the files of Fawcett editor Will Lieberson after his passing and is assumed to have been distributed among Fawcett employees after the Captain Marvel Jr. titles were cancelled in early 1953. Circulation figures were blamed for bringing an end to CMJr, but part of the blame goes to National/DC Comics, who was suing Fawcett in the courts.

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Associate Interview

Marc Swayze Remembers Fellow Artist Mac Raboy ROGER HILL: So tell me a little about Mac Raboy if you will.

MARC SWAYZE: Mac Raboy was a member of the Fawcett art staff when I joined it early in 1941. So were C. C. Beck and Pete Costanza, as well as I can recall. The rest of the art staff, under Al Allard, was made up of non-comics artists doing layout work on the various Fawcett magazines. These totaled around 25 to 30 guys. Mac was very fortunate in having had Eddie Herron as his comic’s editor. Eddie and Al Allard recognized that, in order to render the art style Mac had adopted, time had to be allowed. This same consideration was also shown him by Rod Reed, who became editor after Herron’s departure.

So, when I hired in, Beck, Costanza, Raboy, and myself were the only ones working in their offices doing comic books.

Other comic book work was being farmed out to guys doing freelance work. That was early 1941. Mac reported to Al Allard who was the art director and Mac, along with the rest of us, was on salary. Others began to be added as time went on, such as Eddie Robbins and Al Fagaly. Al later on got into syndicate work.

RH: Did Fagaly work on Captain Marvel, too?

1942 pic of Marc Swayze. Note the Bulletman #3 cover art by Mac Raboy in the foreground.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Marc Swayze (1913-2012) hired in at Fawcett Publications in early 1941 specifically to work on the Captain Marvel Adventures comic book. The first issue had been launched with a cover date of March that same year and Fawcett was gearing up its staff in order to go monthly with the title by the beginning of 1942.

This was right at the time when Mac Raboy was being taken off the “Dr. Voodoo” feature and just beginning his work on “Captain Marvel Jr.” for Master Comics. While at Fawcett,

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SWAYZE: Yes, I believe he and Eddie Robbins both worked on Captain Marvel. At first, there was not as much freedom working on Captain Swayze wrote Captain Marvel stories and contributed art for covers and stories in the Captain Marvel titles. He was also co-creator of Mary Marvel, who joined the Marvel family of characters. Swayze, along with Rod Reed, was responsible for forming the Fawcett baseball team, which included Mac Raboy playing sometimes in the outfield. Swayze was drafted in late 1942 and served in the Army during World War II where he continued writing stories for Captain Marvel and mailing them in.

After his discharge from military service in

1944, Swayze returned to Fawcett where he drew the “Phantom Eagle” feature for Wow Comics and took on the syndicated Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip. After Wow Comics ended, Swayze continued working for Fawcett’s line of romance comics for awhile and then later went to Charlton Publications where he finished out his comics career in the mid 1950s. He eventually wrote numerous articles detailing his lengthy comics career for Alter Ego magazine.

This interview by the author took place on December 28, 1998.

Associate Interview

Marvel. Matter of fact, nobody was drawing the figure of Captain Marvel but Beck and myself. And that’s the way it was until after I left. Mac had drawn a couple of covers for Captain Marvel, which you probably know about.

RH: Right, that would be for America’s Greatest Comics.

SWAYZE: Yes. The rest of the covers, from 1941 to 1942, were done either by Beck or me. And, the more Beck had to get into forming this team of his, the more work on Captain Marvel fell over on me. And I wound up doing the type of work I didn’t like to do. I was doing the main figures complete and having to hand-off the other work, like doing secondary characters and backgrounds and so on to other people. And, as more of these people came in, this procedure increased. Eddie Robbins was a good artist and Al Fagaly was a good cartoon man. Then there was a couple of guys who came from Pratt institute. Bob Boyajian was one and his buddy was… Oh, I can’t think of his name right now. Beck was grooming him to draw Captain Marvel when my draft number came up. The other fellow I can’t remember, but I think his name was Ray. RH: Gene McDonald told me that Mac was a pretty quiet fellow in those days. He told me Mac hardly said a word at work.

SWAYZE: Mac never hardly said a word and was a difficult guy to get to know.

Rod Reed could draw him out and was actually instrumental in getting Mac out of a personality shell. I learned later on from Rod that, because I was from the South, Mac assumed I was a bigot. But, in time, he became one of my best friends. I like to think we shared a mutual professional respect. Rod could draw anybody out. He was just a marvelous sort of guy. I had a bunch of great friends there and Rod was one of them. Wendell Crowley was a good friend too.

RH: Wendell Crowley was a great guy and I’ve only heard good things about him.

SWAYZE: You’ll never hear anything but good things about him. He was just a wonderful guy.

RH: Do you know if Mac ever took his work home with him while working at Fawcett?

SWAYZE: I don’t know about that but I remember that during the 1941 to 1942 period, when I was working right there on staff with him, Mac had an illness of some kind. And this is kind of mysterious. I never knew what it was and, of course, I didn’t pry, but I remember that he had to go out of state for months because of this illness. This was after he had taken over, or rather after Captain Marvel Jr. had been developed. And he kept doing Captain Marvel Jr. as best he could from out of state. I think Ruby Zuboff was probably there doing

MARC SWAYZE

Top: Wow Comics #10 (Feb. 10, 1943) by Marc Swayze. Above: Marc Swayze Mary Marvel painting created in 1999.

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MAC RABOY, ALL-STAR “On weekends, or during lunch time when Jack [Binder]’s shop was in its heyday, someone would find an empty lot or field and a baseball game would be played. It was a great way to blow off steam after meeting a tough deadline. Otto [Binder] recounted, ‘Mac Raboy was our star fielder. You wouldn’t expect that seemingly ungainly, rather morose, totally un-athletic art high-brow to handle a ball and bat, let alone play well. But out on the field he was supremely graceful and could run like a deer after a fly ball. We began to hate him.

What a ball hawk!’”

Excerpt from Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary,

by Bill Schelly [2016, North Atlantic Books].

backgrounds, or at least somebody was there putting the stuff together for him.

And I remember someone shipping Mac an x-number of photostats because he had to use a lot of them. He was a sick man… really, that could keep it going better than having anybody else try to do it for him. And, by the way, the only assistant of Mac’s that I can recall was Ruby Zuboff.

RH: Did Mac get along okay with the other Fawcett staff members there?

SWAYZE: Well, he got along with them, but not to the extent that some did. Mac was not the sort of back-slapping type of guy. He was very quiet… he was an individualist. Most of us respected him and let him go on his quiet way. Beck wasn’t very fond of Mac’s work. He thought it was a bit too static. I don’t want to bring up any bitterness because there wasn’t much bitterness around in those days that I saw.

RH: Did Mac ever talk about artists in general that he liked? You know, artists who may have had a strong influence on him?

SWAYZE: I used to talk to Mac about everything. I’m probably one of the only guys up at Fawcett, outside of maybe Red Mohler or Gene McDonald, that ever went out to his house for dinner.

RH: It’s been said in many articles about Mac Raboy that his biggest influence was Alex Raymond. Did Mac ever mention or discuss Raymond with you?

SWAYZE: No, he never did.

RH: What about big illustrator’s names such as Rockwell or Leyendecker?

SWAYZE: No, he never mentioned any of them. We didn’t talk along those lines much.

RH: I assume you knew that Mac eventually moved out of New York City and built a big house in upstate New York, right?

SWAYZE: Mac? No, I didn’t know that!

RH: Yes, he eventually moved up to a little town known as Goldens Bridge.

SWAYZE: What year did Mac die?

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Associate Interview

RH: He passed away in 1967. By the way, had you ever heard that Mac worked for Walt Disney before getting into the comics game?

SWAYZE: No! RH: Did Mac ever discuss working for the Harry Chesler Shop before coming to Fawcett?

SWAYZE: No, he never talked about that.

RH: Would you say that Mac was a faster penciller or inker while there at Fawcett?

SWAYZE: Oh, I couldn’t say for sure. I don’t think he was faster at anything.

RH: Would you say Mac was a confident artist in his work?

SWAYZE: Sure. Absolutely. Hell, he knew he was good.

But he never bragged about it.

RH: Did you ever see a finished page after Mac had penciled it?

SWAYZE: I can’t recall. I’m sure I must have. We worked there together for about a couple of years. All I remember is that he was very meticulous. He was also left-handed. Some people penciled very tightly and others penciled very loosely, leaving it up to the inker. I don’t know of any occasion where he penciled for anyone else to ink. His inking was too much a characteristic of his work.

I’ll say this: Mac was so much slower than the rest of us, and Fawcett Publications was very patient with him. Mac would do one story a month, when the rest of us were doing two or three. And nobody resented it. He did take his time and they respected the fact that Captain Marvel Jr. sold just on the art itself, you might say.

RH: You don’t happen to remember what size brush Mac used to ink with, do you? I already got Gene McDonald’s opinion and so I wanted yours, too, if you remember.

SWAYZE: I think it was either a number 5 or 7, Winsor & Newton. What did Gene say?

RH: Gene said he thought it was either a number 2 or 3, and Bob Rogers said it was a number 2 or 3.

SWAYZE: Oh boy. Well, I think Mac always knew that it wasn’t so much the size of the brush, but more importantly the point. We all understood that if you used one of those little brushes, you’d have to load it up 50 times. And Mac, I can remember this scrap sheet of paper on his drawing board, you know, where you

MARC SWAYZE

Above is Marc Swayze’s imaging of an aging Captain Marvel reminiscing about the Golden Age of his comic book adventures… and the “motley crew” who envisioned said exploits.

This painting was produced in the 1990s.

On previous page: C. C. Beck-painted cover for Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec. 11, 1942).

EVER WONDER WHAT BECAME OF FAWCETT’S ORIGINAL ARTWORK? In a letter to the Fawcett Colllectors of America fanzine, Daniel Meyerowitz, of Jerusalem, Israel, wrote: “Ever wonder what happened to a lot of Fawcett’s early original art? Well, after the war vast quantities of it were shipped to England for the use of Miller & Co., the British publisher of Fawcett material. Miller closed their doors for good a couple of years ago, and a friend of mine acquired some 70-odd pages from 1940 and 1941. The art is all from early editions of Whiz, Master, and Slam Bang.”

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could practice your brush strokes, before putting the point to paper.

RH: When you came back from your stint in the military in 1944, Mac was not working in the Fawcett offices anymore, right?

SWAYZE: I returned to New York City sometime in 1944, following my military service, and Mac insisted that I use his studio on 42nd Street. Gene McDonald and Red Mohler were there at the time. Mac told me there was space as he was doing most of his art at home anyway and said to go ahead and use his drawing board.

He insisted on it.

Below is the cover of the debut issue of the Shazam Girl’s solo title, which sported a cover date of December 1945.

Art by Jack Binder.

RH: Do you remember what Gene and Red were working on at the time?

SWAYZE: Roger, I cannot say specifically, but I do recall there was an attractive young lady who came in occasionally and did some lettering. I can’t recall her name, but I remember she and Red seemed to be friends.

RH: That would have been a lady who had the nickname of Duffy. Gene McDonald told me that Red and she got married at some point. I’m not sure of her original maiden name.

SWAYZE: I do remember hearing later on that he had married a girl of that persuasion. Incidentally, this period where I was working in Mac’s studio was rather brief, and I only stayed there for a short time. I wanted to come back South, which I eventually did. I was only up there a few months and not all of that time was in Mac’s studio. Before that I worked briefly in Beck’s studio. By this time, Beck had moved from the Paramount Building offices to the Continental Building, in midtown New York, and formed his own shop, which would now provide Captain Marvel art to Fawcett. I worked in Beck’s studio a couple of weeks before I got out. Beck and I kind of split up at that time. When Mac heard about it, he said, “Whatever you do, don’t go rent a place.” He told me to come on out to his house for dinner. His wife’s name was Lulu Belle.

She was an ex-dancer, you know. She was a very nice, low-key little lady.

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Associate Interview

RH: That’s what I’ve heard. Do you remember a fellow by the name of Bernard Baily? I understand that Mac worked there for a period of time, too.

SWAYZE: No, doesn’t ring a bell.

RH: From 1944 to 1946, Mac worked on a comic book called The Green Lama.

SWAYZE: That was the one that Ken Crossen got him involved with.

RH: Right.

SWAYZE: Mac may have been doing The Green Lama when I was there in 1944. I really don’t recall what he was doing at that time. He may have still been doing Captain Marvel Jr. RH: Yes, from what we know, after Fawcett closed out their comic book art department in the Paramount Building, Mac continued for a year or so producing some Captain Marvel Jr. work for them.

SWAYZE: Let me just add that Mac, during those years, knew I was interested in a syndicate contract and arranged for me an introduction and presentation with King Features Syndicate’s Sylvan Byke. He was the feature editor there at the time. This may have been later on, after Mac started doing the Flash Gordon strip. I’m not exactly sure of the time frame here.

RH: Mac started on the Flash Gordon strip in late 1948.

SWAYZE: You know, it could’ve been 1948 when he arranged that for me. I try to be very accurate here with these dates because there has been so many wrong things said in interviews about this period called the Golden Age. Incidentally, Rod Reed was also over there doing work for King Features and he was in on that arrangement for me to talk to them. After Rod left Fawcett, he became editor of a music magazine called Downbeat. While working for the magazine, he freelanced writing to King Features. I think The Phantom was one of the first ones he did. And then,

MARC SWAYZE

at some point, he took over Rusty Riley which was drawn by a famous pen-&-ink illustrator by the name of Frank Godwin.

RH: Oh yes, I’m familiar with Frank Godwin. I’d love to own one of his originals. And that brings me to this final question Marc. I wanted to ask you about the original art.

SWAYZE: Sure, go ahead.

RH: Any idea of what happened to all those original comic book covers and interior stories produced for Fawcett Publications during the Golden Age of comics? By that I mean, what was the company’s policy concerning the art, after it was published?

SWAYZE: You know, the night before I left to go into the military, Beck handed me one of his original covers, and Mac came up and handed me a cover, too. I still have those originals. As far as I know, these are the only two Fawcett Publications original cover drawings that I have ever seen, after they had gone to production. They must have got them through Al Allard or somebody. I don’t think anybody knows where all those originals went. The printing was done in Louisville, Kentucky.

RH: Well, that’s it this time around. Thanks very much for your time talking with me about Mac Raboy. I do appreciate it, Marc.

SWAYZE: My pleasure, Roger. Anytime.

Top inset is a lovely rendition from 1996 of the “World’s Mightiest Girl” by her co-creator, artist Marc Swayze, who included an aerial shot of his Munroe, Louisiana, home in the background. On the next page is a Mac Raboy self-portrait drawn in the sketchbook of fellow Spark Publications artist George “Inky” Roussos. The penciled image, drawn in the mid 1940s with the world still engulfed in war, shows the disheveled artist busy at work on his then-new project, the Green Lama comic book series, published by Ken Crossen (creator of the character whose adventures first appeared in pulp magazines). Though short-lived—Green Lama lasted a mere eight issues—the run contained some of Raboy’s finest super-hero work.

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98

Chapter Seven

A Spark of Green In mid-1944, assistant editor Ken Crossen left Fawcett to start his own comic book publishing company. He decided to resurrect the Green Lama character he had created in 1940 as a pulp-magazine hero and had later adapted into a comic book series for Prize Publications. He convinced Raboy that the artist should quit Fawcett to join him at his new publishing company, to be known as Spark Publications, promising more than just a page rate.

Crossen offered a percentage of the profits, which, in 1944, was almost unheard of for any comic artist. He also offered Mac the prestigious title of art editor. It proved an offer Raboy could not refuse. With a half-dozen capable artists now providing the bulk of the Captain Marvel Jr. artwork anyway, Fawcett editors bade farewell to Mac Raboy. He left with an agreement that, if time permitted, he would still occasionally provide a cover illustration for Captain Marvel Jr., which he did until mid-1945.

Oddly enough, in May 1944 a beautiful Raboy drawing appeared on the cover of Dynamic Comics #9.

This comic, originally produced by one of Raboy’s first employers, Harry “A” Chesler, had run three issues between 1941 and 1942, before having its plug pulled due to paper quota cutbacks at the outset of World War II. As discussed here, the cover for Dynamic Comics #9 (possibly Raboy’s very first cover) was drawn while working in the Harry A. Chesler shop in 1941 or ’42. For reasons unknown, the art laid in limbo until the issue was published, in 1944. The original art, still in existence today, was inspected by this author in 2005. It is executed with pen and ink, with charcoal pencil shading on pebble board.

A SPARK OF GREEN

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Most likely Raboy had drawn this cover while working in the Chesler shop in early 1941 and it sat in inventory until Chesler revived the title in May 1944 and printed it as the cover on Dynamic #9. For reasons still unknown, Dynamic Comics skipped five issues in the Above: executive vice president Ken Crossen (third from left) with other founding officers of the Mystery Writers of America, organized in 1945. Their slogan: “Crime Does Not Pay—Enough!” Below: Raboy Green Lama panel.

numbering process between 1942 and ’44.

At Crossen, Raboy provided the covers and lead stories for each issue of the new Green Lama title. The first issue debuted with a cover date of December 1944, with a cover design once again utilizing the idea of a single figure in front of a full moon, surrounded by black—in this case, a graceful, almost floating figure of the hooded Tibetan crimefighter in green. Mac’s work on the new version of the hero was just as impeccable as anything he had ever produced for Fawcett. Working with writer Joseph Greene (who became editor with #3), Raboy and company succeeded in capturing a small but loyal audience who followed the adventures of the Green Lama on the newsstands.

Although its sales were no match for Captain Marvel Jr., by early 1945 the Green Lama series was doing well enough that Crossen decided it was time to add another title to his publishing roster. He brought in Mort Meskin, an accomplished artist and idea man who, like Raboy, had started out working in the Chesler shop and, by this time, had gained considerable experience in the field. Meskin and Crossen, under Raboy’s art direction, put together a new hero-comic called The Golden Lad. Earlier in the year, Crossen had started another branch of publishing that he called Fact And

The Green Lama was a shortlived CBS radio show, lasting 11 episodes between spring and summer 1949, with scripts by Ken Crossen and William Froug (who would go on to become a producer for The Twilight Zone) and the titular hero was voiced by Paul Frees. Only four episodes are known to exist today.

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Fiction Publications. Under that banner Crossen had issued two digest-sized paperbacks as part of a new “Banner Mysteries” series. Raboy provided cover illustrations for both volumes in this series, which came out in March and April of 1945, respectively. The new Golden Lad comic made its debut in

Chapter Seven

July 1945, from Fact and Fiction Publications.

Raboy took extra pains to make the Green Lama one of the finest series ever. For the seventh issue (December 1946), he drew a nine-page Christmas story that remains one of the finest endeavors of his career. “The Turn Of The Scrooge” was drawn on Duo-Tone art paper. This is a method that allows the artist to capture different tones of shading in his work by applying special chemicals onto a specially prepared sheet of art paper. One chemical brings out a line pattern printed into the paper, while another chemical brings out a different line pattern going in the opposite direction, thus creating a darker shade of lines to appear. Using this process, Raboy was able to literally paint in shades of grey tones. When the final color was added, the work took on an even higher quality of richness, and became much more effective than straight pen-&-ink work created in black-&white. The final results are stunning, to say the least. As if this weren’t enough, Raboy also turned in a special painted Christmas cover for the issue, a portrait of a smiling Green Lama wrapped up as a holiday present. Without doubt, the whole issue represents one of Raboy’s most inspired contributions to Spark Publications.

But trouble was in the air, and Raboy, Meskin, and others probably saw it coming. By January 1946, the curtains were beginning to close on Crossen’s publishing venture. The Green Lama and Golden Lad series had failed to gain the momentum necessary to keep them financially afloat, and, adding insult to injury, the comic book market was enduring a postwar glut that afflicted the entire industry.

Crossen put on a big dinner party for all the company’s employees, writers, and artists, and, at the end of the evening, announced that his outfit was going out of business. He filed bankruptcy shortly thereafter and left town owing people money. It is not certain just how well Raboy was treated financially during his two-year stay with Crossen, but the published

Top: Technically, the first glimpse that comic book readers saw of the Green Lama character was ads like this one for Double Detective pulp magazine, from the inside front cover of Prize Comics #2 (Apr. 1940). Below ad—found on the internet—was reportedly featured in Red Ryder #3 (Aug. 1941), though it may have appeared earlier.

work on Green Lama remains highly coveted by fans of the Golden Age.

A SPARK OF GREEN

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Closer Look

Ken Crossen and the Comics of Spark Publications Kendell Foster Crossen was born on July 25, 1910, in Albany, Ohio. After graduating high school there, he attended Rio Grande College and wound up working for The Gallipolis Tribune. During his formative years, his favorite hobbies were magic, model trains, and chess. After college, Crossen worked at a variety of jobs, including that of tallyman for steel mills, an electric truckman in an auto plant, a gas station attendant, straight man in tent and medicine shows, and, for a while, he was even half-owner of a bootleg operation. Aside from these interesting jobs, in his spare time he was also an amateur boxer. In 1935, Crossen moved to New York City, where he found employment as a writer in the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and, for a short time, he became an insurance investigator.

In 1937, after answering an ad for the Munsey Publishing Co., Crossen Above is a photo from 1960 of Green Lama creator Ken Crossen and friend. On this page and next are various pulp covers starring GL.

was hired as an assistant editor for Detective Fiction Weekly, a pulp magazine devoted to mystery stories. At this time, he started writing stories using the names Richard Foster, Bennett Barlay, Kent Richards, and several others (including his own). Between 1937–40, he edited other magazines, including Baffling Detective, Detective Cases, Keyhole Detective Cases, Stirring Detective Cases, Movie Play, and other pulp magazine titles. He also wrote his first Green Lama story, which appeared in the April 1940 issue of Double Detective Magazine. Writing in 1976, Crossen recalled, “The character was created because the publisher, the Frank A. Munsey Company, wanted a competitor for The Shadow, published by a rival publishing company.”

The Green Lama was originally a crime-fighting Buddhist hero whose powers emerged upon reciting a Tibetan mantra, “Om mani padme hum.”

These stories are often considered to be science-fiction or supernatural fantasy due to the Lama and other characters possessing super-human

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Closer Look

powers, fantastic super-weapons of science, and

Comics title. The Lama made its four-color debut in #7,

possessing the ability to fly. The Green Lama was the

dated December 1940. The art was by nascent comics

alias of Jethro Dumont, wealthy resident of New York

artist Mac Raboy, who, at that time, was employed at

City. While attending college at Harvard, his millionaire

the Harry Chesler shop, located at 163 W. 23rd Street.

parents were killed in a car accident, leaving Dumont an

Harry Chesler was in charge of one of the earliest comic

inheritance of some ten million dollars. He then moved

production companies, having produced Star Comics, in

to Tibet, where he spent a decade studying and acquiring

February 1937. Employing a staff of writers and artists,

mystical powers to become a lama, a Buddhist spiritual

Chesler eventually branched out to produce comic

teacher. Upon his return to America to spread the

material for a number of rival publishers, including

word of Tibetan Buddhism, he soon instead turned to

Detective Comics (DC), Fawcett, Fox, MLJ (Archie),

fighting crime.

Street & Smith, Timely (Marvel), Fiction House,

Crossen wrote 14 novel-length Green Lama stories for Double Detective, all published between April 1940–

and others.

Mac provided three Green Lama stories for Prize

March 1943, and by Fall 1940 he had struck a deal with

before being replaced by fellow Chesler shop artist

Feature Publications (also known as Prize Publications)

Charles Sultan. The character would continue through

to write Green Lama comic book stories for their Prize

Prize #34 (September 1943). By that time, Crossen had

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

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started selling scripts to Fawcett Publications for a variety of their successful super-hero comic titles. At the same time, he hooked up with another pulpmagazine writer by the name of Horace L. Gold.

Gold, born on April 26, 1914, had a past similar to Crossen in that he was also a jack of all trades during the 1920s and into the ’30s, including as a writer for pulp anthologies. In 1934, he sold his first science-fiction story to Street and Smith’s Astounding Science Fiction Stories, but thereafter ventured from one job to another, trying his hand at selling shoes, upholstering furniture, floor scraping, and as a door-to-door salesman. He began selling short stories in 1938 and then took an assistant editor’s job with the Standard chain of magazines that lasted from 1939 to ’41. At the same time, he was pulled into the rapidly growing field of comic book scripting as it came easy for him and pay was decent. Crossen and Gold became acquainted during this time period and began collaborating on comic book scripts. Two of their better accounts were with National/DC Comics, providing scripts for the Superman and Batman series. They also were very prolific writing Captain Marvel stories for Fawcett.

This likeness of Horace Gold, by Bill Nelson, was given as a birthday gift in 1971.

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During the summer of 1944, Crossen and Gold decided they could make more money by publishing comics themselves and formed Spark Publications, also known as Ken Crossen Associates.

Closer Look

Crossen leased extremely cramped editorial office space at 501 Madison Avenue, and began hiring freelance

Armed Forces Radio.

The first issue of Green Lama hit the comic racks

writers and artists to produce three comic book titles;

cover dated December 1944, listed on the indicia as

the most important showcasing his own Green Lama

a bi-monthly. Raboy’s art on that debut issue—and

character. Remembering Raboy’s detailed style of art

throughout the run—proved to be as beautiful as

from the early Prize Comics and Captain Marvel Jr.

anything he had ever created for Fawcett. Where the

work, Crossen wanted the artist to render the return

early Lama stories had the hero wearing a traditional

of the Green Lama. To do this, he offered Raboy a page

monk’s robe, the new Raboy/Spark version transformed

rate increase far and above what Raboy was earning

the character’s look into a hooded super-hero, complete

at Fawcett, as well as a percentage of the profits.

with shorts, gloves, cape and boots. Raboy’s first 12-

Additionally, he promised Mac the title of “art editor.”

page story, written under Crossen’s ghost name, Richard

Mac found himself working in a space a little

Foster, introduced the character in a tale titled “The

bigger than a closet to produce the Green Lama

Court of Crime.” The story picks up with Jethro Dumont

stories. Crossen and his assistant editor, Vera Cerruti,

(the Green Lama) returning to America aboard ship,

shared another tiny office with a window. Naturally,

with faithful servant Tsarong, after ten years of study

Crossen wrote all the stories for Green Lama. Horace

in far-off Tibet. His mission in life is now to teach his

Gold provided scripts for back-up feature “Lieutenant

countrymen the “peaceful ideas of Lamaism.” After the

Hercules.” The outfit was unexpectedly caught short

ship docks in New York and passengers debarked, bullets

when Gold received a draft notice from Uncle Sam.

spray from a gangster’s machine gun, accidentally killing

Entrusting the reins of the company to Crossen, Gold

an innocent child, who dies in his mother’s arms.

left for the Army and wound up stationed overseas as

Later on, reading the report in the newspaper,

a combat engineer. Later on, he wrote scripts for the

Dumont realizes that, instead of trying to spread the

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

105

Top left: Crossen and Raboy take on antisemetism in Green Lama #6 (Aug. 1945) and include themselves in the opening page.

Below: Inside cover for that issue was very similar to the actual cover on this issue, and may have been Raboy’s first attempt.

light of Lamaism here, perhaps he could use his powers to wage a war against crime. After uttering the words, “Om mani padme hum,” Dumont transforms into “the man of strength—The Green Lama!” The story proceeds with Dumont going undercover to fall in with a crime ring that is setting up a “navy of crime” aboard a ship at sea. Once he turns into the Green Lama, Dumont wraps up the case fairly quickly and turns the criminals over to the police.

The writing is rather lackluster for an introductory story to young readers, but Raboy’s beautiful renderings more than make up for the shortcomings. Unfortunately, even on this first Spark effort, Raboy had problems meeting his deadline. The last four pages of the story are not drawn by Raboy at all, but by another artist—Mort Lawrence—who was hired to be Raboy’s assistant. Unfortunately, Lawrence’s style of art is so drastically different from Raboy’s that it stands out like a sore thumb. At the end of the tale, readers are offered the chance to join the Green Lama

106

Closer Look

Club “and learn to do the tricks that THE MAN OF STRENGTH performs.” For 10¢, members would receive a membership card and a “Magic Green Lama Card, that enables you to perform baffling tricks.”

Beginning with #2 (Feb. 1945), the name Richard Foster disappears from the credits, now replaced by “Ken Crossen, editor.” Mac is listed as “Art Editor,” followed by “Layout by Al Jetter.” Mac’s cover art for #2 would prove to be one of his most patriotic depictions of World War II, with the Green Lama flying right out toward the reader, backed up by a sky full of planes above and a caravan of planes, trains, and tanks below.

A banner across the bottom reads “FORWARD TO VICTORY IN 1945.” Out of the entire run, #3 (Mar. 1945) has probably the weakest cover and yet sports a “Mac Raboy” signature in the lower right.

Joseph Greene came aboard as editor at Spark for the third issue, which surprisingly sports a cover with a full “Mac Raboy” signature in the lower right (the only one he ever signed!). Greene would continue as editor for the duration of the run. The sixth issue (Aug.

Above is the opening page for Green Lama #5 (May 1945), which features the masthead for Sparks Publications published by Ken Crossen.

Note that Mac Raboy is listed as “art editor.”

1945) is rather unique in that Crossen provided a story

Spark. The cover, depicting a large beautiful portrait

that begins in the offices of “the Green Lama comics

of Green Lama, appears to be a painting rather than

magazine,” with the mailman delivering mail to editor

traditional line work. For the interiors of the GL story,

Greene. Three panels of this story depict Mac Raboy

Mac employed the use of Craftint art paper (also known

(looking nothing like the artist) at his drawing table, as

as chemical paper). This special—and more expensive—

the editor brings a letter to his attention concerning the

art paper came with a line-pattern embedded within the

“equal rights of America.” Mac drew himself wearing a

threads of the paper. Two chemicals could be applied

white shirt, tie and vest which, according to others who

with a brush or pen to bring out a light or dark gray

worked there, was nothing resembling what Mac would

pattern in the paper, giving the art a shaded effect. This

normally wear. This would be the only time Raboy ever

process allowed Raboy to literally paint with shades of

drew himself in a comic book story.

gray to capture more of a three-dimensional depth to the

Many Raboy aficionados conclude that his Green Lama story for #7 (Jan. 1946) is his tour de force for

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

art. Unfortunately, after color is applied, the final printed image became somewhat muddied. Nevertheless, the

107

drawing is spectacular and this

Suspense, then went to NBC,

book is considered a Golden

helping them to set up the

Age classic and among Raboy’s

Dimension X radio series. He

best work.

wrote hundreds of radio scripts

During Mac’s time at

for various programs. In 1949,

Spark, he produced two cover

he sold CBS on producing 11

illustrations for Crossen’s “Banner

half-hour radio episodes of The

Mysteries” series of digest-

Green Lama, airing from June–

paperbacks. The Sunday Pigeon

August 1949. During the 1950s

Murders, by Craig Rice, was

he went back to writing mystery

issued in March 1945, and Death

stories and science-fiction

Goes to School, by Q. Patrick,

novels. He passed away in Los

a month later. Reportedly, due

Angeles on November 29, 1981.

to distribution problems, comic

Horace Gold returned from

sales were not profitable on any

service overseas and worked in

of the Spark titles and, in early

the comic book market, writing

1946, Crossen abruptly declared

professionally for many years

he was filing for bankruptcy.

following, best known as H. L.

During its short lifetime,

Gold. He eventually became the

Spark published eight issues

first editor of Galaxy Science

of Green Lama, five issues of

Fiction magazine and held that

Golden Lad (a super-hero title

position from 1950–1961 before

drawn by comics legend Mort

health problems forced him to

Meskin), and two issues of

turn the magazine over to author

Atoman (another super-hero,

Frederik Pohl. At that time, Gold

this one rendered by the great

went into seclusion for pretty

Jerry Robinson). After Spark

much the rest of his life, writing

Publications folded, Crossen

only a few short stories and guest

moved to California and

editorials through the 1980s.

started a new career writing for

Horace Gold passed away, in

mystery radio shows. He became a consulting editor for

Laguna Beach, California on February 21, 1996.

Above are Mac Raboy’s beautiful cover illustrations for Ken Crossen’s Banner Mysteries line of paperbacks, which wound up being this lone pair of books. The Sunday Pigeon Murders, Vol. 1, #1, is dated March 1945, followed by Death Goes to School, Vol. 1, #2, dated April 1945.

The indicia lists Fact and Fiction Publications as publisher. On the pages that follow: First, two pages devoted to all eight covers of the Green Lama comic book series are showcased, each by Mac Raboy. On pages

111 through 115 is a reproduction of one of the finest comic book stories from the Golden Age—and any other age, for that matter—the Christmas story titled “The Turn of the Scrooge,” featured in the penultimate issue of Green Lama #7 (Jan. 1946). Raboy’s use of Craftint/ Duo-tone art boards give the tale a singular quality of depth and detail rarely seen in newsstand comic books, then or now. This nine-page story is credited to writer Ken Crossen.

108

Closer Look

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

109

110

Closer Look

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

111

112

Closer Look

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

113

114

Closer Look

KEN CROSSEN AND THE COMICS OF SPARK PUBLICATIONS

115

Chapter Eight

A Flash of Gold For the next couple of years, Raboy’s work was not to be found in the comics. He continued to establish and work on commercial accounts.

Sometime between 1945–47, he landed an account providing beautiful full-page illustrations advertising The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.

These detailed renderings depicted daily commerce of 18th century Colonial Philadelphia establishments, and were exquisitely executed with pen-&-ink on scratchboard. Each one of these, which appeared in Fortune magazine, was signed by the artist.

This work reflected Mac’s personal interests in U.S. history (though he was especially keen on the Civil War).

Then, in spring 1948, King Features Syndicate hired Raboy to take over the Flash Gordon Sunday page from departing Austin Briggs, who had been drawing the strip since creator Alex Raymond’s exit in 1943.

Raboy, who had idolized Raymond’s style of art for many years, decided he was ready to take it on. His first Sunday page appeared on August 1, 1948, beginning a new story with 116

Chapter Eight

Flash taking off in an atom-jet rocket, headed for adventure on Mongo’s second moon, in an episode titled “Visitor From Space.” No credits were allowed on the strip for the first two months. Finally, on September 26, the names of Mac Raboy and writer Don Moore appeared on the masthead.

As an artist following in the formidable footsteps of the legendary Alex Raymond, Raboy doubtless felt pressure from King Features as to how he approached working on one of the greatest adventure strips of all time. From August through December of 1948 the artist’s work was absolutely stunning.

Since Mac only needed to produce five to six panels a week for each strip, his attention to detail and precision inking were flawless in execution. His anatomy on Flash, Dale Arden, and other characters never looked better; and because his figure work was so well done, it seems he delighted in filling up the panels with them. During the first few months of the strip, each Sunday page contained, on average, some 24 figures.

Raboy was making top money now, with King Features paying $300 for

A FLASH OF GOLD

Previous page is a panel vignette from Mac Raboy’s first Flash Gordon Sunday strip (Aug. 1, 1948) and his Philadelphia Inquirer ad (Nov. 1946), one of a series that saw print in Fortune magazine. This page is, top, Raboy Flash Gordon strip (Aug. 8, 1948), and, above, vignette from the cover of Flash Gordon #7 (Aug. 1967), published by King Comics. The image was flipped horizontally here.

117

one Sunday strip per week. This was a small fortune in

After the war ended, the government had a surplus

1948, when the average working stiff was lucky to bring

of prefabricated Army barracks available for $600 each.

home a $40 paycheck. For a long time, Mac had dreamed

Mac had one installed upon a concrete foundation and

of getting away from the Bronx. In 1947 he had put into

hired carpenters to finish and add three wings. One wing

motion a plan to build a home of his own design in the

served as an art studio and had below it a pottery room

little colony known as Goldens Bridge, located in West-

for Lulu. From time to time, Mac sculpted items out of

chester County, just north of the city. Mac and Lulu had

clay and was reportedly very good at it. He also built a

children now: Son David was born in 1941, followed by

barn in back, which sat very close to a heavily wooded

daughter Miriam in 1943. Mac hated big city noises and

forest area. He enjoyed walking through the woods and

growing pollution problems and wanted to flee as soon as

had a great appreciation of plants and animals.

the house could be built.

Once Mac had moved up to Goldens Bridge, he rarely cared to go to the city. He went to great lengths to avoid any trip and used his kids, wife, or friends in the community to deliver the Flash Gordon strip to King Features once a week. For this, he provided the cost of a round-trip train ticket to Manhattan and an extra $10 for the courier (no matter who it was). He never delivered any package and never attended King Features parties or socialized in any way with people who worked there.

At left is a fascinating oddity: In its June 1948 issue, Fortune magazine included an ad touting Puck, the Comic Weekly, originally a humor magazine which evolved into a Sunday section included in Hearst newspapers that featured King Syndicate comics. In that full-page advert, Mac Raboy created an exclusive Flash Gordon episode that ventures the notion that the science-fiction strip is a fashion trend-setter where the “beauties” who surround the “mighty” titular star are “probably the most influential mannequins in history!” Who knew?

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Chapter Eight

Associate Interview

Bob Rogers and His Nine Months on Flash Gordon ROGER HILL: How is it you wound up working with Mac on the Flash Gordon strip when he lived up in Goldens Bridge, New York?

BOB ROGERS: I was working for a firm in New York City doing camera repair work. I couldn’t find any work in the comics business, at that point. So I came home one night and my wife says, “Guess who called?” And I said, “Oh, come on, I don’t have any patience for this stuff.” Then she said, “Mac Raboy.”

Now, the funny thing is, I had bumped into Mac in the city some time before this and Mac had told me that one of these days we were going to work together again. And I said, “Oh sure, oh yeah, all right.” And that was the last I saw of him.

So here he had called, and I called him back, and I took the train to Goldens Bridge so we could talk. He’d decided he wanted me back as his employee. He couldn’t remember where I was, but he knew I’d changed my name, so he’d started calling all the “Rogers” residents in the Queens phone book, and then he started going through the Brooklyn phone book, ’til he finally came across my wife. So that’s how we got back together.

RH: What year was this, Bob? ROGERS: Let’s see. I recently did a chronology of my years in the business. Yes, here it is… 1949. Now this was for

AUTHOR’S NOTE The Flash Gordon newspaper comic strip made its debut in newspapers across America on January 7, 1934, scripted by Don Moore and illustrated by Alexander Raymond. Up to this point, the newspaper-reading public had been mostly exposed to the science-fiction adventures of Buck Rogers and Brick Bradford.

Leading characters in the new strip were handsome polo player and Yale University graduate Flash Gordon, his beautiful heroine Dale Arden, and mad scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov. The strip received wide distribution and, by the late 1930s, was published in 130 newspapers and reportedly being read by 50 million people in eight foreign languages worldwide. The feature became so successful, it eventually spawned a radio show in 1935, followed by three movie serials starring Buster Crabbe, released in 1936, 1938, and 1940. During the strip’s most popular years, numerous books, comic books, coloring books, toys, puzzles, posters, and many other promotional products were licensed and issued sporting the property.

A daily strip was introduced in 1941 drawn

by Austin Briggs. This lasted until 1944, at which time Briggs took over the Sunday page, following Raymond’s departure to join the service. Continuing to work on the Sunday page for the next four years, Briggs drew his last episode, which appeared in newspapers on July 25, 1948. A week later, on Aug. 1, a new segment of Flash Gordon started, this one titled “Visitor From Space,” drawn by Mac Raboy.

Followers of the strip could tell right away a new artist was drawing the feature, but it would be eight more Sundays before the names of Mac Raboy and writer Don Moore actually appeared on the masthead, alongside a smiling portrait of Flash himself. Artists were allowed to sign their strips inside the borders of the art if they elected to, but Mac Raboy never signed any of his Sunday pages until much later in life, when he took the time to pencil in his signature, usually in the last panel or the lower border area. This first became evident when Raboy’s family began selling Sunday pages from their holdings, a decade after Raboy’s passing.

Continued on next page

119

Continued from previous page Taking on the Flash Gordon strip in 1948 was a huge responsibility for Mac Raboy, who up until this point usually had help from assistants or photostats to meet deadlines. It is doubtful that Mac ever resorted to the use of stats on his Flash Gordon work, assuming King Features would have frowned on such shortcut methods since they were paying him the princely sum of $300 a week. In 1948, the average working man’s weekly paycheck was between $40–50. So, when Mac took over the strip, he had to turn in a five- to six-panel Sunday page every week. While employed at Fawcett and due to his rigid standards of perfection, at times Raboy reportedly turned in only one panel a day. Thus, even with a minimum work-goal of one panel per day, Mac shouldn’t have had any problems meeting the Flash Gordon deadline.

According to Fawcett assistant Gene McDonald, he helped Mac during the early days of the strip. Fawcett background assistant Bob Rogers worked on Flash Gordon from Jan.–Oct. 1949. Beyond that time frame, we have no evidence that anyone else helped on the strip. Sometime in 1947, Raboy relocated to Goldens Bridge, a small colony, in Westchester County, New York.

Mac’s first story arc for the strip ran eight Sunday installments and gave him the chance to fully draw the main cast members in several different poses. Here he proved that he was a master of anatomy and could render handsome, gallant men and beautiful, sexy women.

Mac had already drawn every imaginable figure during his days working for Fawcett and especially on Captain Marvel Jr. Now it was just a matter of changing faces and costuming a little here and there and adapting to the new format.

His incredible inking and line work, always smooth and delicate, continued throughout his run on the strip. Raboy’s last Flash Gordon Sunday strip appeared on Dec. 17, 1967, five days before his death on Dec. 22.

the Journal-American. It was for the Flash Gordon strip… King Features Syndicate.

RH: Did you start commuting up to Goldens Bridge every day to work with Mac? ROGERS: Oh, yes. It was about two-and-one-half hours each way. But then, finally, I got stuck in a snowstorm one day and I said the heck with it, so I moved up there, just down the road from Mac. It was within walking distance. I worked with Mac in his house… Strictly backgrounds, penciling and inking. When I say backgrounds, that’s start-to-finish.

RH: I don’t think anyone really knew that Mac had help on that strip. It always had such a consistency and looked like his work.

ROGERS: Well, I had developed a talent for imitating the artist’s techniques so that the work blended in. If I worked for one fellow, I’d do his style, and so on and so forth. With Mac—especially with Mac—I was already familiar with his style, so it was easier. He would indicate what he wanted. He’d say, “I want you to—” (he loved swirls), “I want you to put these swirls in here on these waves,” or whatever the hell it was. And he’d leave it up to me to finish up.

RH: Mac loved to put those swirling lines into his work, eh? The kind we’d see in underwater scenes or in outer space. He had these beautiful brush strokes.

ROGERS: Yes. He loved that rhythmic-motion sort of thing. It gave it a personality that no other strip had. You could say, he put his own stamp on it.

RH: So were you and Mac known as the local comic artists in the community of Goldens Bridge?

ROGERS: It was a very esoteric crowd. We had a publisher of The Daily Worker living there. That was a Communist newspaper. [laughs] There was another guy who was a musician. He had perfect pitch; he was a sound engineer for a recording studio. And we had a couple of writers there. There was a “summer colony.”

There was only this cadre of people who lived there all year round… only a handful. But, during the summer, the place was jumping and full of people. The eight or nine buildings they had were permanently occupied, all year round.

RH: Once Mac received the scripts in the mail, who would actually do the panel layout on the drawing paper?

ROGERS: Mac would do the layouts. He would take the board and lay out the panel outline. First he would determine the shape of the panels. Then I would do the mechanical part of it, actually putting in the borders of these blank panels.

The work would be a back-and-forth process. We had two drawing tables; we faced each other because Mac was left-handed. That made it easier for him.

RH: Can you tell me what your working routine might be like?

ROGERS: Well, when I was first driving up from Brooklyn every day, I’d get there fairly early, around nine or ten. We’d have some coffee or breakfast, then we’d go to work. We’d discuss what we were going to do with the script. I would lay out

Alex Raymond.

120

Associate Interview

the outline of the border around the perimeter of the page and then Mac would outline the panels as he wanted them. Then he’d start laying it out the way he wanted it inside the panels. He would sketch. We’d both sketch, and I did a lot of erasing, [laughs] until it got down to where it was suitable for him. We’d usually work until around four o’clock. Then I had a two-and-a-half hour drive back to Brooklyn. It was quite a trip, in those days before the turnpike and it got to be very exciting when the roads were icy. I got snowed in a couple of times up there and I just stayed over. Once I had to stay three or four days.

RH: Did Mac’s wife or kids come into the studio much while you guys were working there?

ROGERS: I remember having a good deal of contact with her, but I don’t recall ever seeing the kids.

RH: Did you and Mac socialize much?

ROGERS: Well, back in the good old days, we had a hell of a lot of fun. When we lived up in Goldens Bridge, we’d socialize. He had his quiet times and I could respect that. And then there were other times when he’d be very loquacious.

He’d joke or tell me stories about Ken Crossen and how he took a bath on that deal… stuff like that.

RH: Getting back to the work routine, were the panels cut apart at some point

BOB ROGERS

Shown above is the original art for Mac Raboy’s seventh Flash Gordon Sunday page, dated Sept. 12, 1948. This is known as one of the earliest surviving examples of his syndicated strip work. Mac drew the strip in this half-page format, usually consisting of five to six panels, on heavy illustration board. By 1949, while working with assistant Bob Rogers, Raboy started utilizing three-ply Strathmore paper, which could be cut up and passed back and forth between their respective art tables to save time. The sections were then taped back together so the final Sunday page could be rolled up and hand-carried to King Features in New York City. As newspaper sizes began to shrink during the 1950s, Mac was required to start drawing a three-tier Sunday page, increasing the panel count to between seven and nine. The script—as did the new art format by Mac—allowed a certain number of panels to be dropped (without hurting the story flow) and ran in a smaller one-third or one-fourth page format by newspapers.

On page 119 is seen a stack of Sunday comics sections with Flash Gordon episodes from 1949, with the Jan. 1 edition on top. Raboy’s Sunday strips started out in this larger halfpage format.

121

so that it would be easier to pass stuff back and forth?

ROGERS: No, we worked on the same page.

He’d work a little on it, then I’d work a little on it, and we’d just go back and forth that way. Also, he had some commercial accounts. The only one I remember was a job we did for one of the airlines. We would do it on scratchboard. It would be different scenes… for instance, a garden with trees or whatever it was. Mac would lay it all out, then I would laboriously work at it, because he’d have all these details in there. I remember drawing so many damned leaves that I thought I was going to go blind! And he wanted detailed leaves put in… not just an impression. He wanted leaves… with veins! So I’d be sitting there scratching all this stuff in. [laughs] RH: That kind of detail scratchboard could drive a guy crazy. I remember using it in high school and it was something you could easily get carried away with.

Where this Pan Am advertisement appeared is unknown, but it is doubtless an example of what Raboy assistant Bob Rogers called exceptionally detailed advertising work on which he helped, circa 1949. Below is a rare 1944 minicomic premium given away by a New York dairy.

ROGERS: I tell you, I hated doing that stuff so much, I think I’ve washed it out of my memory. You need good glasses to do it, too.

RH: Did you keep any proof copies or tear sheets of any of this commercial work?

ROGERS: No. I was never that interested. It was so laborious and boring to do and I got no pleasure out of doing it. So he’d be working on the strip and I’d be working on that commercial stuff. And we’d go back and forth with it.

RH: And the Flash Gordon panels never got cut up?

ROGERS: Yes, they did. Later on. That’s after we had our falling out.

RH: I know that on originals I’ve seen from the early 1950s, the panels had been cut apart and reassembled and glued down on boards. Mac may have had other assistants after you quit. You mentioned you and he eventually had a falling out.

What happened, if you don’t mind talking about it?

Next page: Sketches of background elements were first executed by assistant Bob Rogers to obtain Mac Raboy’s approval for final rendering.

122

ROGERS: I worked for Mac from January of 1949 through October. Somewhere around July or August, my wife and I were invited to a party along with Mac. It had something to do with ten prisoners being held on Ellis Island. This was during the Communist hearings that were going on in Congress.

RH: You mean the McCarthy hearings?

Associate Interview

ROGERS: Right. And there were ten individuals who were prisoners on Ellis Island. Well, it turned out this party we went to was a political fundraiser for them. Mac asked me to contribute money. I told him I’d rather not and he took offense at that. And, although it didn’t show right away, Mac soon became very quiet. All of a sudden, this fellow who used to communicate back and forth with me quite a bit had nothing to say to me.

RH: How did you handle that?

ROGERS: I finally confronted him and said, “Let’s get it out in the open.” And so we went back and forth with words. Then we started working with cut-out panels. And, at this point, I stopped working at his house and started working at mine. I’d go back and forth on the road, just delivering and picking up.

This page features more of Raboy’s WPA woodcut work Nequibus magnate nderit, id ellis velit, solorporem volorum velitatur, quid esseque

RH: It definitely sounds like the beginning of the end.

BOB ROGERS

123

Above is the original art for Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon Sunday newspaper strip of Mar. 25, 1962. In 2016, this sold at auction for $900.

ROGERS: Oh, yes. So, because of this situation, I had to give him sketches of what he wanted me to do. And I might have to go back and forth a couple of times until he okayed a particular sketch. Then I’d go back and heavy-pencil the back of it and trace it off on art paper. At first, I worked on onion-skin paper, then onto the final art paper. Then I’d take it back to Mac for a final approval.

He’d accept it and glue the panel onto the final art board.

RH: That certainly must have been a frustrating process to endure.

Above: Queen Menta extends her gratitude to the hero in this panel from Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon Sunday strip of Jan. 1, 1952.

124

ROGERS: It was. The whole thing was just so bizarre. It was a foolish and unhappy turn of events, until finally, I left. The frustration just got to be too much. I remember this so vividly: Since normally I would sit all day in a chair and just move my right arm back and forth a little bit making lines on a piece of paper, I decided that, in the evening, I needed something more vigorous to do. So I started making furniture as a hobby, after work, in my spare time. So there I was, during mid-summer out on my porch, sanding or doing something on a piece of furniture, and he drove by. He called to me in great anger, and said, “Why aren’t you working?” I said, “This is my own free time.” He said, “Well, you know we’re late in the schedule,” blah, blah, blah. I said, “Mac, you know you never have to tell me to get my work in on time.” And that did it. I said, “This is not right.”

And so I gave my notice and that was the end of our relationship.

RH: And did you ever hear from Mac Raboy again?

Associate Interview

ROGERS: No. That was the last time I ever had contact with him.

The funny thing is, we never got into political discussions, until this happened.

RH: Did other artists ever come up and visit you or Mac while you were in Goldens Bridge?

ROGERS: Never saw anybody come up there. The only way I saw them was if I went down to the city.

RH: How soon after you quit working for Mac did you move back to Brooklyn?

RH: When you were working with Mac in Goldens Bridge, did you ever notice him getting his original artwork back from the King Features Syndicate?

ROGERS: Within the month. Just as soon as I could make preparations to have someone move my stuff. Because there was nothing else to keep me up there.

ROGERS: No. Remember, we worked in his home. I don’t recall any art stacking up around there.

Once the art went out, that was the last I saw of it.

RH: Did you ever hear of any other Fawcett artists or acquaintances going up to work with Mac after you left?

ROGERS: No. I never heard of any other contact where I could report even hearsay or rumors. That closed a chapter for me on part of my life.

Inset top: Early on most Fawcett artists were required to draw their cover art twice-up, double the dimensions of a printed comic book page. This allowed the linework to tighten up and look slick (professional) when reduced in size. This photostat diagram, found in the archives of Fawcett editor Will Lieberson, was

BOB ROGERS

RH: When you and Mac were working on the Flash Gordon strip, what did you guys use for reference? I mean, did Mac have a file or a morgue to use for reference?

handed out to artists, including Mac Raboy, who were then allowed to save time working one-and-a-half up in size. Above: These two illustrations were drawn by Rubin Zubofsky/ Bob Rogers during his time in the military while working as a camera repairman attached to the Army Air Force 783rd Bombardment Squadron. Note the beautiful line work background

shading is an inking technique he picked up from working with Lou Fine. On the next page, top left, is Rubin/Bob strumming a guitar while stationed overseas during World War II, sometime around 1943 (according to Marc Swayze, who shared the photo with FCA editor P. C. Hamerlinck). On page 127 is Raboy’s Flash Gordon Sunday from Aug. 29, 1948.

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say, “Well, how about if you did this?” And he’d say, “Yes, that looks good.” It was that sort of a set-up.

RH: Did Mac ever talk about science-fiction? After all, he was doing the leading science-fiction newspaper strip in the country.

ROGERS: Not in the slightest.

RH: Did he ever talk about Alex Raymond [originator of Flash Gordon], who has been called Mac’s idol and inspiration?

ROGERS: Maybe in passing, but never anything in depth about him.

RH: Did he keep Flash Gordon newspaper pages by Raymond lying around?

ROGERS: Never saw any.

ROGERS: No, not at all.

RH: I understand from your son-in-law that you were a big fan of science-fiction back in those days, so you were reading the pulps. Was Mac into that sort of thing at all?

ROGERS: Not to my knowledge.

RH: So you guys were just making up all of the space ships and gadgetry as you went along?

ROGERS: Yes, it was kind of a joint effort. He would draw something and say, “What do you think of that?” And I’d

THE TROUBLE WITH RABOY “Sometimes writers can visualize a scene properly and then the artist has the right to beef. I can’t recall any difficulties with any other artists, with the sole exception of Mac Raboy. He continually complained to all the writers that there was too much action or too many balloons, thus robbing him of a chance to do his pretty scenes. Editors always stuck up for the writers and told Raboy how to do it or else! Poor guy, he must have felt like a pariah.

“Raboy was indeed moody and introspective.

He couldn’t seem to communicate with editors

126

RH: When did you get into reading science-fiction, Bob? ROGERS: When I was a child, I was always interested in things that took a lot of imagination. I used to haunt the public libraries and go every Saturday morning for the Fairytale Hour. I’d sit there fascinated and my mind would just go and go. Then, as I got older, I moved more into fantasy. This intrigued me, along with horror stories, like the Edgar Allan Poe stuff, where they didn’t draw the picture for you. They let you do it in your mind. So my mind was always working. I was a very prolific reader.

and writers. He would sometimes mumble to me how he didn’t like a particular Captain Marvel Jr. script I had done, but never made clear what he wanted—except less action and more beautiful scenes. He loved to make artistic ‘paintings’ out of each panel, but hell, they don’t tell a story!

Rod Reed used to bawl him out constantly for neglecting to play up the action sequences, yet somehow Captain Marvel Jr. did come out good and sold well. All the artists swiped from him and his photostats were often pasted into Jr. stories by other artists whenever they fit, such as in a flying sequence. Oddly enough,

although he looked thin and awkward, Raboy turned out to be a terrific ballhawk during our Fawcett party baseball games. He loped along like an antelope and never missed a fly ball.

At one of the parties, at my home (we took turns), he had a heart attack and scared the hell out of us all. But he recovered nicely, but I guess he was marked for an early death, as happened. His work for Flash Gordon, I guess, was good in his latter days. I never met him again after he left Fawcett.”

Excerpt, Fawcett writer Otto Binder interview, conducted by Matt Lage, Fawcett Collectors of America #5 (Oct. 1974).

Associate Interview

RH: Any favorite authors back in those days?

ROGERS: Well, I remember one called Eando Binder. It took me a long time to find out what the “E” and “O” meant. I was into these fantasy stories for so many years. I finally gave my whole collection of books to Dan, my sonin-law.

RH: Did Mac ever complain to you about the storylines or scripts he was getting? At that time, a fellow by the name of Don Moore was writing the strip.

ROGERS: I remember the name, but I never met the gentleman. I do remember that Mac would grumble from time to time over very specific things that were requested in the strip… or the handling of it or the politics behind the script.

That sort of thing.

RH: As far as you know, Mac never wrote any scripts for the strip?

ROGERS: Not during the time I was with him.

RH: I’m curious about whether you guys were able to make

BOB ROGERS

a change here and there occasionally in the script dialogue if you felt something was out of line.

ROGERS: We had that privilege at Fawcett, as I remember.

Don’t forget, at Fawcett we had an immediacy. All we had to do was step around the corner and we were in the editorial office, with an editor. With the Flash Gordon strip, you would’ve had to get on the phone and get into a discussion, I suppose. I can’t recall that ever happening.

RH: How much was Mac paying you to assist him on the strip?

ROGERS: A hundred dollars a week. That wasn’t bad money back then. We had to negotiate that. [laughs] When he originally contacted me by phone, I went up there and we had a long discussion about the work and about the pay. And he offered me less and I said no. I told him I’d only consider coming there, making the change, for $100 a week. He said, “I can’t afford to pay that. Sorry.” We shook hands and parted company very agreeably. Later that day, my wife, who has a sixth sense about things, told me, “He’s going to call you.” I told her no, forget it. So I went about my busi127

THAT WAS THE VOODOO MAN ness and then, one day, inside of a week, I came home and she said, “Guess who “C. C. Beck handed me a magazine with an airplane illustration in it and asked if I would copy it for a panel, but, he said, tilt it so it would be in a dive. Planes were a strong point of mine, I thought, and I would have liked to do it my way, but the man said copy it, so that’s what I set out to do. Then I felt that someone had eased up behind me and was peering over my shoulder. It was the quiet guy who sat over next to the windows. ‘Why don’t you just cut it out of the magazine and paste it in?’ he said, rather gruffly, I thought.

“How dumb. I began to explain to him that to do so would be illegal, un-ethical and… then I realized the guy was pulling my leg, making fun of me. As he donned his hat and left the room, I turned to Beck: ‘Who the hell was that?’

“Mac Raboy,” said Beck. “He draws Dr. Voodoo.”

Excerpt, Marc Swayze, Fawcett Collectors of America #54 (Winter, 1996).

“Oddly enough, in the drawing of Captain Marvel my only problem was in the switch from pen to brush. Upon arrival at the Fawcett facilities I was surprised to see that the comic book artists were inking with the pointed watercolor brush #5 or 7, or thereabouts, for everything... outlining, feathering and filling in blacks. I never told anyone, but in inking the samples I had mailed in for my interview, in order to achieve the bold Captain Marvel outline, I had used a Speedball lettering pen!

“I experimented with the watercolor brush for a while then eased over to where Mac Raboy was working. I didn’t know it, but Mac didn’t trust me. Rod Reed explained a few years later that at the outset Mac was suspicious of my accent. Southern drawls, said Rod, were all over Manhattan, particularly up and down Broadway… and most of them faked. Mac, who despised pretentiousness, thought I was a phony.

On his drawing board, to the upper left…

Mac was left-handed… was a dirty piece of illustration board with something like a million brush strokes on it. Methodically dipping his brush in ink, he pointed it away from him, resting the sables at an angle on the illustration board. Then he drew the brush towards him, rolling it in one direction by twisting his fingers.

After testing the fine point carefully on the board he resumed his work. All in all, he must have spoken at least four words during the entire demonstration, perhaps a day’s record for that quiet man. In time, Mac Raboy became one of my best friends.

Of the very early Captain Marvel covers, a couple were possibly done on the outside and two or three in the unmistakable style of Mac Raboy.”

Excerpt, Marc Swayze, Fawcett Collectors of America #57 (1996).

called?”

RH: How much had he originally offered you to work with him?

ROGERS: Maybe $50. But that’s how much I was already earning at the time.

RH: I’m trying to get a feel here for how quickly you guys were able to turn out the work. Would you say you were able to turn out two Sunday pages a week, or more?

ROGERS: Tough question. All I remember is that the strips were done with complete art. There were no photostats used. So, under that sort of gun, we just had to get the thing done. We didn’t really have that problem so much on the Flash Gordon strip. Don’t get me wrong, though: We would occasionally get stuck on a problem and then we’d burn the midnight oil to catch up. But the darn thing always got out on time.

RH: Do you know how much Mac was getting paid for doing the Flash Gordon Sunday page?

ROGERS: I have no idea.

RH: How does $300 a week sound?

ROGERS: Pretty good, for those times. So he was giving me a third of his salary?

RH: Did the lettering come after you guys had penciled the page or before?

ROGERS: We started with a blank page, and then we’d sketch it out, so the lettering had to be done afterward.

RH: So you guys just left space for the word balloons, and someone at the syndicate lettered them in. Any idea, Bob, who worked up the color guides for the strip? Mac never did any of them, did he?

ROGERS: No. The syndicate took care of that. It wasn’t like when we were at Fawcett. Then the stuff would come back and we’d see the color prints of it.

RH: Do you remember Harry Anderson or Rod Reed and his wife, Kentuck, coming up to visit Mac while you were working in Goldens Bridge?

ROGERS: Nope. Of course, I remember Rod well. He bought me my first gun.

When I got married, we moved to a posh apartment in Brooklyn, with a doorman and an inner compound. But we had mice! And I figured I was just going to pop these little guys off… with a gun. I investigated and found out it was illegal to own a handgun in New York. So I went to Rod, who lived up in Connecticut, and he said, “Sure, I can get it for you.” And he did! It was a Benjamin, pump, one-shot pistol, and I knocked off three mice. Right there in the apartment. I was going to put notches on the gun, but I never did.

RH: Wasn’t that kind of loud?

ROGERS: It didn’t make that kind of a noise. It was an air pistol.

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Associate Interview

RH: So, after your experience with Mac, where did you go next?

ROGERS: Well, I went back up to Fawcett and asked if I could have my old job back. And he said, “No, we can’t do that, Bob.” But what he did do was he got me hooked up with an editor there named Roy Ald, who was able to throw some work my way. And so I started doing some inking.

RH: That’s interesting. Which titles or characters did you start inking for them?

ROGERS: I used to have a book where I kept a record of all my freelance work I did in comics. I had all the names of the stories that I inked. I had the names of the publishing companies and the amount of pages and the amount of money I got paid for doing the work.

But I guess after I left the business I didn’t need it anymore and threw it out. I didn’t want it around to remind me of it.

RH: I know what you mean. I’ve heard that from other artists who worked in comics. But, okay, let’s go back to Roy

Ald for a moment: So you began inking all kinds of different jobs at Fawcett. Do you recall what subjects you were drawing in these stories?

ROGERS: The only thing I’ve got down here in my chronology I’ve recently put together is romance, and then there’s a few Captain Video jobs, too. I don’t really know who the pencillers were on these stories except that on one of the comics it has the indicia up at the top of the splash page and shows the names of Will Lieberson, Roy Ald, and Al Jetter.

RH: So, according to your chronology, what was the last year you worked at Fawcett?

ROGERS: I think it was around 1951 or 1952. I ended up getting another job. I went to work for a repair shop because of my experience in the service. I took one job or another just to put food on the table. Then I went back to doing comics.

RH: Okay, how did that happen?

ROGERS: Somehow I got hooked up with Rae Herman.

On this page are a handful of covers from the Toytown Comics line run by Ruth Rae Herman, publisher/editor/writer/penciler/inker, whose outfit was also known as Orbit Publications, Our Publishing Co., and Wanted Comics Group, among others. The two top right covers are by Mort Lawrence.

BOB ROGERS

129

There were a lot of other artists working for her, too.

RH: This must have been during the time she started her own company called Toytown Publications.

ROGERS: Right. There were all sorts of lead feature artists there and I started doing their backgrounds. The three that I remember, that I did enormous amounts of work for were Mort Leav [rhymes with Bev], Mort Lawrence, and Syd Shores.

RH: Wow, that’s a pretty impressive line-up of talented artists to be working with.

ROGERS: Yes, it was. Somebody told me recently that Mort was still around. I had tried through the internet to locate all of these people, but I got no results at all. Mort Leav and I always met in the city to exchange art we were working together on. I actually socialized a bit with Syd Shores and Mort Lawrence.

RH: Okay, so tell me about Mort Lawrence. I’m a big fan of his work.

ROGERS: Mort Lawrence lived one town away from me and we socialized a great deal. At the time, we were living on Long Island. We’d get together with our wives and go out, you know. Mort and I worked together, so we’d travel together too, commuting into the city back and forth. Mort was a very prolific artist. The stuff he did… at one time, I had a list of the stories that he worked on. You name it and he did it… crime, western, romance… He didn’t do any horror stuff and neither did I. I don’t remember him doing any science-fiction either.

RH: Rae Herman ran the whole show at Toytown, didn’t she?

ROGERS: She sure did. Oh yeah.

RH: Did you and Mort work in a studio together?

ROGERS: We worked at home for awhile at first, then later on a gang of us got together and we took an office off of Eighth Avenue. It was up a number of floors and, as a matter of fact, you could look out the window and see the Essex Hotel sign right there. We were all comic book artists and we all shared the rent.

RH: Who all was in the studio, Bob?

Mort Leav and Mort Lawrence were there. We all ran the place, more or less. And it gave us a form of discipline, you know. You’d get up in the morning and you’d go to work. It was so easy in that business to goof off. One of my unpleasant memories of that business was the guys who would go to the beach or go to the mountains or just go on a trip somewhere and then they’d call me at three o’clock in the morning and say, “Bob, I got a problem. I’ve got this story that’s due and I gotta get it out and I need your help.” And I’d say “how many pages?” And he’d say, “Nine pages.” And then I’d say, “When is it due?” And he’d say, “Tomorrow morning.” [laughter] RH: Yeah, I could see where that would get old real quick.

ROGERS: So, when you’re looking through some of these old comic books, and you see stories where there’s a simple line in the background, perhaps with a little touch of black… well, those were the panels that we had to fake in order to get it done. I always tried to do enough drawing there so that it would look okay overall. But then, in between, there were panels where I just went swisshhhhhh! I had to do so much of that because of last minute deadlines. You have no idea. Mort Lawrence used to do this to me. I do remember now that during one of those times when the comic business crashed, the two of us went into the landscaping business. I kid you not. We bought a rototiller and a couple of lawnmowers.

RH: That’s amazing! Did you guys know anything about landscaping?

ROGERS: Not a damn thing. [laughter] I’m not sure how long that lasted. We eventually had a disagreement and we went our separate ways. We didn’t stop being friends. We just stopped being in business together. So, then I went and bought my own lawnmower or whatever it was, and I went into business for myself. [laughter] I became a landscaper.

RH: You said Syd Shores was in that studio, too. Were you guys working on the comics where there was a crime host introducing the stories? He wore a top hat I believe.

ROGERS: Yes, that was all with Mort Leav. He did most of the crime stories for Rae Herman. Her publishing company had several names you know. Let’s see… there was Toytown and Our Publishing Company. She had one more and I can’t think of it at the moment.

ROGERS: Let’s see: There was Syd Shores and I think both 130

Associate Interview

RH: I think it was Orbit Publications. Did Mort Levi pay you out of his pocket or did Rae Herman pay you for your work?

ROGERS: I was paid by whatever artist I did the job with.

RH: Well, Bob, I would say you’ve had a very eclectic career working with some of the greatest names during the Golden Age of comics. Two final questions for you: Would you say working with Mac Raboy was basically a good experience, and do you think Mac was proud of the work he did on Captain Marvel Jr. and the Flash Gordon strip?

ROGERS: Well, it’s the darnedest thing and I think about it sometimes… Matter of fact, I’m kind of

Photocopies of Bob Rogers background preliminary sketches rendered for Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon Sunday strips, circa 1949. The above right “wave” drawing is a prime example of Raboy’s fondness for swirling, curvaceous design elements, similar to some of Alex Raymond’s

BOB ROGERS

down about the whole thing. But, the fact is that, during the entire time Mac and I knew each other, we got along famously, until that episode I told you about. And I sometimes wonder if there wasn’t something else behind it all.

I can say with certainty that he truly enjoyed his work.

He was proud of what he was doing, in his own way. He wouldn’t accept second-best. It had to suit him.

RH: Thank you, Bob, for sharing your memories of working with Mac and about your career working in the comics field.

It was most interesting.

ROGERS: You’re very welcome.

previous work on the strip. On the next two-page spread is Raboy’s biographical entry in the Famous Artists and Writers promotional spiralbound book (cover at bottom left overlay), issued by King Features Syndicate in 1949, and featuring a very rare photo of the artist.

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132

133

Chapter Nine

Life in Goldens Bridge, NY Goldens Bridge is a hamlet in the town of Lewisboro, located in eastern Westchester County, in the Hudson Valley region of New York State.

Boasting a population of 1,630 (as of the last census), it is situated approximately 30 miles north of New York City.

Mac Raboy’s father, Issac, had contracted tuberculosis and died in 1943, leaving only Mac’s mother living in the Bronx. They would occasionally visit her, though Mac was not fond of traveling into the city. Old pal and ex-Fawcett editor Rod Reed and his wife, Kentuck, would visit from time to time.

In 1945, the Reeds had bought a beautiful two-story country home up in the mountains of Pinebush, New York. Reed was a freelance writer now, supplying scripts for King Features’ Phantom strip. Years later, he also scripted Frank Godwin’s Rusty Riley feature.

Another artist friend of whom Mac and Lulu and the kids were quite fond was Harry Anderson, who had been working as a commercial artist since the 1930s. Anderson worked in the Jack Binder shop during 1942–43 and later became a freelance artist working directly for Fawcett on various features. At some point, Mac and Anderson had become very good friends and everyone at the Raboy homestead loved to see Harry and his wife Peggy arrive from New York City, driving their little MG sports car. Poker games around the large oak kitchen table (built by Mac) were a favorite pastime when “Andy” and Peg came to visit.

In early 1949, Mac decided he needed help on Flash Gordon. He contacted Ruby Zubofsky who, after the war, had changed his name to Robert (Bob) Rogers. Upon his return from Army duty, Rogers had gone back to Fawcett for a period, assisting Bud Thomson on the Captain Marvel Jr. comic book.

At the time Raboy contacted him, Rogers was out of the comics business and was working at a camera shop in Manhattan. He drove up to Goldens Bridge and met with Raboy. A deal was negotiated, with Raboy paying Rogers $100

Maps courtesy of Westchester County Geographic Information Systems and David Benbennick.

134

a week. Initially, Bob commuted up to Goldens Bridge every day, but, after the winter weather became a problem, he and his wife eventually moved to

Chapter Nine

the neighborhood, into an apartment located just a stroll away from the Raboy homestead.

From January–October 1949, Rogers did backgrounds on the strip. He also assisted Raboy on a number of commercial accounts, which required detailed scratchboard work. They worked in Mac’s studio every day from about nine a.m. to around four p.m., passing the work back and forth between their two art tables. Rogers eventually quit over a dispute with Raboy and moved to Brooklyn in October 1949. It is not known if Raboy subsequently employed any other artists to assist him on Flash Gordon.

He did eventually teach his daughter, Miriam, to letter the strip, for which he paid her $10 a week. Miriam had inherited some of her father’s artistic abilities, but never really pursued that interest as a career.

In the 1950s, Mac routinely worked on the strip about three hours each day. In his off-hours, he would pursue other interests and hobbies, such as woodworking and sculpting with clay. To some degree, Raboy was an insomniac and often could not fall asleep until the early morning hours. He would read anything he could find on the U.S. Civil War and loved to watch baseball games on TV. He and Lulu together enjoyed jumping into the car on a moment’s notice and taking long drives through Westchester County. They also took vacations to historical Civil War sites, including the battlefield at Gettysburg.

When Lulu got involved as a director of summer stock theatre in Goldens Bridge, Mac designed the stage

on which he was asked to assist. He loved solving engi-

sets. He enjoyed building and painting the sets, but had

neering and building problems for the local community

difficulty accepting any applause or praise offered by

or neighbors that came to him for help, and would never

the audience. He was nowhere to be found on open-

charge them for his services.

ing nights. He would also help out on any planning or

Photos of Mac Raboy’s Goldens Bridge, New York, home, built from a pre-fabricated, surplus Army barracks, purchased for $600 after the war ended. Three wings were added later. Since wood-working and wood-carving were some of Raboy’s favorite hobbies, he also made most of his home’s furniture.

technical designing of public buildings or other projects

LIFE IN GOLDENS BRIDGE, NY

135

Chapter Ten

The Final Chapter In mid-1967, Mac was diagnosed with cancer. He sought remedy at Memorial Hospital and the Sloan Ketering Institute, the top cancer treatment facility in the country. Unfortunately, doctors concluded there was little to be done for him, and a few weeks later he was moved to the Mount Kisco Hospital. Here he could be closer to family and home. Attendants tried to make him as comfortable as possible during his final hours.

Manuel Raboy passed away on December 22, 1967 at the age of 53. His wife, Lulu, eventually sold the house and moved to Florida, where she died in 1975.

Mac was a unique individual, maybe the slowest artist ever to find steady employment in comics. Although speed can be beneficial for any person working in the comics field, it isn’t always the determining factor for one getting hired. Raboy was undoubtedly a true artist at heart, one who had found the kind of work he enjoyed doing in life. Basically, he was a storyteller… a man who loved the idea of being able to tell stories through a series of narrative panels put in sequence on a page. There was only one way to draw pictures… his way. It may have been slow and meticulous, but he accomplished what he wanted and made a good living doing it. And he affected the people around him in different ways.

An obvious question to ask about Raboy is: “Why didn’t he go into the fine arts field?”

Today, as we look back over his published efforts in the work he did over a 32-year period, it is easy to see that Raboy did indeed have the overwhelming talent to have made it in the fine arts world. But he lacked one very important thing: He didn’t have the personality required for such an endeavor. No, Mac Raboy was the quiet one—the fellow who sat over in 136

Chapter Ten

the corner of the room and quietly puffed away on his cigarette and drew beautiful pictures for hours on end.

Mac Raboy was also the sensitive one—someone who, reportedly, ripped up an entire page of art he had drawn because of an editor’s negative

Scan of original art of the last Flash Gordon Sunday installment drawn by Mac Raboy, dated Dec. 17, 1967. Note the signature in the lower border of the last panel. Some time before Mac became ill, he decided to sign a number of his originals, many of which had been returned to him by King Features and stored in a closet in his home in Goldens Bridge, New York.

comment. On the other hand, he was also the fellow who could not easily accept compliments from those around him. He might have been a strange

Below is an Italian album of Flash Gordon.

guy, perhaps, but definitely a talent to behold.

He was a person who had strong political feelings about what was happening in a world filled with darkness and uncertainty and he apparently kept those feelings repressed inside for most of his life. He was many different things to many different people who came and went.

To us, the collectors and aficionados who save and appreciate the old, yellowing, tattered comics of the 1940s and ’50s, Mac Raboy will always be one of our heroes. Without a doubt, he was an artist who envisioned a special way of drawing comics, quite unlike any other person has done it since. That Mac Raboy, he was truly unique!

THE FINAL CHAPTER

137

Epilogue

David Raboy: The Son of Mac Raboy Speaks ROGER HILL: David, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me about your father. I have to ask you right off—was his last name originally “Rabinowitz”?

DAVID RABOY: No. My great grandfather’s Ellis Island papers show the name was “Raboi.” These were the papers he brought with him. My grandfather preceded my great grandfather and, when he came over, he departed Ellis Island with the name spelled “Raboy.” So I’m guessing that “i” became “y” on Ellis Island. It got “Anglofied.”

My grandfather came with one or two other brothers when they were quite young. There were nine brothers altogether, and after they had established themselves with jobs and so on, they brought the other brothers and my great grandfather across.

RH: And the name “Raboi” originates from where?

RABOY: Bessarabka.

RH: Do you know how to spell that?

David Raboy.

AUTHOR’S NOTE David Raboy has worked as a zoo director in various locations in the United States, including Syracuse, New York and Waco, Texas.

He retired in 2004, after 11 years at the helm of the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

While growing up in the woods of Goldens Bridge, New York, David learned much from his father about building things. Mac Raboy had a love for animals, a passion for conservation and science, and an awareness of all things that played into that. David developed similar interests during those years and eventually earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Animal Science and Animal Behavior.

He has worked as a zoo director, which entailed the planning and building of new zoos to replace old ones. David has loaned his abilities to the development of zoo facilities all over the United States, including the building of new zoos in Syracuse, New York; Waco, Texas; and New Bedford, Massachusetts.

138

RABOY: [Laughs] No. All I know is that it is somewhere in eastern Romania.

RH: Was your dad’s name Emanuel or Manuel?

RABOY: Manuel. But all of my life, when he was alive, I never once heard him referred to as Manuel. No one ever called him anything but Mac. RH: I understand your grandfather’s name was Isaac, and that he worked in a hat factory and wrote several books.

RABOY: And essays, poetry, and political polemics, and so on.

RH: I believe he eventually moved to the Midwest later on, didn’t he?

RABOY: He moved to North Dakota, which is probably a little further than what most people think of as the Midwest. He was a horse-handler on a horse ranch just outside of Gladstone, North Dakota. He wrote a couple of books about that experience.

All his books were written in Jewish [Hebrew]. I don’t read Jewish. Two of them, however, were translated into English. The Nine Brothers is about him and his brothers coming to this country, and The Jewish Cowboy was more

Epilogue

specifically about experiences in North Dakota.

He was there for just a year or a couple of years. The other brothers and their father had a fairly large dairy farm in Connecticut, and my grandfather had graduated from an agricultural college in New Jersey. So he was asked by my great grandfather to return to Connecticut to manage the family dairy farm—which he did… I think, probably, to his regret, but that’s beside the point.

So he managed the dairy farm for a while, and worked in New York City, both in a hat factory and as a furrier. As his fame grew as a writer, he ultimately ceased factory work. He contracted TB and died around 1944, when I was about three. I have just a couple of recollections of him.

RH: So where was Mac born? I’ve heard both New York City and the Bronx.

RABOY: The Bronx is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City.

Whether or not he was born in the Bronx, I honestly don’t know. He was born in New York City, somewhere.

RH: I heard that Mac was a graduate of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Yet, when a friend of mine tried to locate a picture of him in the high school yearbook records there, he couldn’t be found.

RABOY: The only thing I can tell you is my understanding that he graduated from DeWitt Clinton. We would drive by it when we drove into the city to visit his mother, who was my grandmother. I can’t account for why there is no yearbook picture. Knowing my father as I do, I’m not surprised.

RH: Yes, from what I’ve learned so far, he was a little camera shy.

RABOY: [Laughs] That’s being charitable. My dad also went to the Cooper Union School and the Pratt Institute.

RH: Both are highly respected institutions for artists.

RABOY: I’m not aware that he graduated or received any kind of degree from either of them, but I suspect not.

THE STORY BEHIND THE ABOVE PAINTING Mac Raboy created two paintings while working for Fawcett Publications during the 1940s.

One was a gouche painting portrait of Captain Marvel Jr. The painting was an unknown piece of art until it showed up on eBay in 2005. It was being sold by a collector who had bought it from comic art dealer Joe Parente years earlier, after it had been consigned by Mac’s wife Lulu, along with a Green Lama page of original art.

On the next page is the handwritten note from Mrs. Raboy that accompanied the piece when consigned to Parente.

As stated in her letter, Lulu Raboy identified this original painting being created for the cover of the first Captain Marvel Jr. comic book. Since the art was not used for any Fawcett cover, other theories have been put forth over the years, including one that the painting might have been intended as a photo-premium to be given away through the Captain Marvel Fan Club or other Fawcett promotions. After being purchased Continued on next page

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

139

RH: It’s very typical for artists to do a year or so at those schools and then move on quickly because of needing work and an income.

RABOY: I think that’s pretty much what he did. He was born in 1914, so he would have gone to those schools around 1932 or 1934.

RH: Are you aware of the wood engravings Mac did for the WPA back during the Depression?

RABOY: I am aware of them. I saw them many years ago at the Met [the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City]. I went up there.

RH: Did Mac ever discuss these prints with you or the family?

RABOY: Not at any great length. My mother was more willing to discuss them than he was. She was proud of the fact that they were there in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan. When I visited the museum they were not on exhibit, but I inquired and was shown them. They were very typical of his work during that period.

RH: Any idea how Mac and your mother met?

Continued from previous page on eBay, the new owner immediately made it available to the author for use on the cover of Alter Ego #6 [Autumn 2000], where it made its first public debut along with the author’s first article on Mac Raboy. For this writer, it remains one of the very special images in this book. It is small in size, with an image area measuring 43/8" x 5". Raboy drew the decorative pencil line border trim on the mat surrounding the piece too, which makes one wonder if he had it framed at one time.

In Mrs. Raboy’s cursive handwriting, the letter states: Dear Mr. Parente: Please forgive me for taking so long to do what should have been done long ago.

Under separate cover, I’m sending the original painting (for the cover of the first Captain Marvel Jr. comic book) and some of Mac’s work on the Green Lama. I hope they’ll be of value.

Please initial the contracts where I did and return one to me.

Good luck (for both of us) Sincerely,

Lulu Raboy Next page: Illustrations for a true story of a U.S. Navy pilot—created with ink-wash by Raboy and appearing in True magazine, Mar. 1944.

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RABOY: Not a clue.

RH: Your mom’s name was Lulu Belle…?

RABOY: Morris. Lulu Belle Morris. Morris was her maiden name.

RH: Was she from Goldens Bridge?

RABOY: No, but they had friends in the area before they bought land and built the house. They summered up there. They got married during one of those summers in Goldens Bridge.

I recollect a family album on my mother’s side that involved my mother when she was younger and a dancer. She danced for the Martha Graham Company for many years. There was a scrapbook album of her, with some playbills and things like that mounted in. The Martha Graham Dance Company was probably the most famous modern dance company in the United States at that time. I do recall one photo that my sister has of my mother during that time, and she was quite an attractive young lady.

RH: Did your mother ever dance or perform for you kids?

RABOY: No. No, at some point she stopped dancing. She took up theatre directing.

RH: What else can you tell me about the early years of when your father went

Epilogue

into the profession of being an artist?

RABOY: He worked for Walt Disney, at one point. There was a guy who worked with him named Phil Wolfe. He’s long since dead.

RH: I had not heard anything about Mac Raboy working for Disney. This wasn’t in California, so perhaps it was in a Disney East Coast branch studio…?

RABOY: It could have been. I’m not sure, but before everything that you know occurred, he worked for Disney. Hated him.

RH: Hated him?

RABOY: Oh yeah. I guess Disney was cheap, and he was a real taskmaster. So my father hated him.

I can’t tell you specifically what he worked on—which characters or which films. He never spoke in any great detail about them. He made rather disparaging remarks about Disney as an employer. That’s all I really know.

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

RH: The 1949 King Features promotional booklet write-up on Mac—of which I sent you a copy—mentions Mac starting out in a small commercial art service where he did “all kinds of dirty work, etc.” Any knowledge of what art service this refers to?

RABOY: I don’t know anything about that. The whole article, as it related to him, once the house was established, frankly reads like bull. [laughs] You can quote me on that, if you want. It’s marketing crap. It was common in the later 1940s or 1950s. It doesn’t bear any more resemblance to my father than my cat does.

RH: Did your dad ever mention working at the Harry Chesler [comics] shop?

RABOY: The name was mentioned, but I have no real recollection of the context or substance, or whether it was my father or mother.

RH: Did Mac ever show you or your sister some of the Captain Marvel Jr. comic book work he had done earlier,

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perceive it that way.

I have some of his artwork and my sister has considerably more, because she was actually living with my mother up to the point of my mother’s death, and my mother still had this collection. So my sister kind of took over the responsibility of caring for it. At my sister’s request, we’ve gone through it and picked out things that I happened to like, and these things are now in my collection.

RH: And is any of this art comic book work?

RABOY: No, it’s serious art. The comic book stuff was not of great interest to us. We had all the originals from Flash Gordon, for instance. My sister sold them off or we gave them away as gifts over the years. They weren’t of great interest to my father, either, quite frankly. It was just his way of making a living.

RH: I’ve interviewed a number of artists over the years who felt the same way. It was just a job, a way of earning a living to support their family. So I’m curious about this “serious” art that you’re talking about. In Mac’s spare time, would he play around with pen and inks or watercolors?

RABOY: He didn’t do watercolors. Well, on rare occasions he did play around with them. Pen-&-ink, oils… none of which have survived. We saw them in progress, and we saw them when they were completed. They were destroyed. before starting on Flash Gordon?

RABOY: Oh, yeah. We’d seen it.

RH: Was he the kind of artist who saved copies of everything he did?

RH: Oh, no! And they were good, in your opinion?

RABOY: [Laughs] Yes. They were quite excellent.

RH: What kind of subject matter had he painted, David?

RABOY: No, but my mother did. She was the family archivist, I guess you could call her. She would save whatever work of his she could get her hands on. He had a habit of destroying his work, so it was hard to get it, sometimes.

RABOY: Well, we used to spend long periods of time loafing on Cape Cod during the summer, so these paintings showed things like sand dunes, derelict boats up on the beaches, and so on. And they really were quite fine. I wish I had them today. I’m an ocean person, you know. But I have a lot of stuff he did during the early days of the WPA… the prints and so on.

RH: You mean, Mac would be dissatisfied with something he had drawn and he would just tear it up?

RH: Do you have the actual wood engravings that he carved to make the prints?

RABOY: Yeah, nothing was ever good enough. Therefore it couldn’t be seen by anyone because it would reflect poorly on him. This was irrespective of the fact that, in many instances, what he did was quite excellent. But he didn’t

RABOY: No. Those were burned. I don’t know whether he burned them or if it was government policy to burn them, or whether they burned them to heat the house. Back in those [Depression] days, there was plenty of that going on.

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So what we have left is what my mother managed to salvage in the way of prints. I’ve given pieces to my children, both prints and pen and inks. They are quite striking. There’s kind of a starkness, a despair, in the work.

Much of it focuses on downtrodden farmers, miners, and so on. You know, the Depression era and social consciences of art.

RH: Let’s talk a little about your dad’s work on Flash Gordon. This may be a bit too personal, but I’m curious how much your dad was being paid to draw the Flash Gordon strip.

RABOY: [laughs] I know exactly what he was paid and I know exactly when he got a raise, and what that was, too.

When I was old enough to become aware of it, which was in the early 1950s, he was being paid $300 a week.

RH: Wow! Three hundred for one Sunday page a week?

RABOY: You got it.

RH: That was an incredible sum of money back then!

RABOY: That was at a time when a brand new Cadillac was $6,000 and a brand-new Volkswagen was $1,500.

RH: Man, you’ve got a good memory of this stuff.

RABOY: Well, we bought them both. So I know very well what they cost. My father had a two-door black El Dorado that pulled a 19-foot Airstream [trailer]. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was a big son-of-a-gun that was the length of an ocean liner. It had the long, low kind of fin that didn’t rise, but just continued out beyond the trunk.

He also had a Chrysler Imperial for a while. It was huge. I remember taking it once, with a friend, to go to the Newport Folk Festival and I was doing about 85 miles an hour on the Connecticut Turnpike. [laughs] Of course, I didn’t tell him that. It was a very powerful car, and had power-everything. Then, in about the mid-1950s, I wanna say around 1954 or 1956, he asked for a raise from King Features and he went to $325 per Sunday page.

RH: Did King Features squawk about that?

RABOY: I don’t know. All I remember is our mother telling us that he had asked for it and they apparently agreed, because she was quite pleased that he went from $300 to $325, at a time when my allowance was about two dollars a week. Beyond that, I went off to college and started my own

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

life, so I can’t tell you.

RH: Did your father seem happy drawing Flash Gordon?

RABOY: He hated it!

RH: That seems strange to me. I mean, a lot of the artists who started in comic books back in those days thought it was the supreme opportunity to get a respected newspaper strip, or any newspaper strip, for that matter. In Mac’s case, he was able to take on one of the most famous adventure strips of all time and was able to follow in the footsteps of the great Alex Raymond.

RABOY: He hated it.

RH: Did you ever see any other artists working with your father on Flash Gordon? Any assistants at all?

RABOY: [Laughs] You want the truth? The truth is that the only one I ever saw touch it during all those years, that I know about, was the person who printed the words in the 143

balloons. My sister did it and got $10 a week to do it. That was back when she was a young girl. I wanted nothing to do with it and I couldn’t have blockprinted neatly enough anyway. But she used to enjoy doing it. She had his talent, and she’s never done anything with it. She did this during the 1950s.

RH: So far as you know, nobody else ever penciled or inked the strip?

RABOY: No, no. Nobody could even go into his studio when he was working.

He worked on that strip two or three hours a day, and you didn’t go in there when he was working.

RH: Two or three hours every day?

RABOY: I won’t say every day, but his habit was two or three hours a day.

RH: Early or late?

RABOY: Well, he never did anything early. It would be intermittent and it would not be a set time.

RH: Did he seem happy or appreciative that he got his originals back from King Features?

RABOY: I don’t know that there was ever a reaction. I’m not aware that he really cared one way or another.

Above: C. C. Beck’s 1975 recreation of Mac Raboy’s original 1942 cover for Master Comics #22, done with watercolors over ink on illustration board. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Pages 142–143 exhibit Raboy’s love for detail in his advertising work that no doubt appealed to consumers. These ad pages for Budweiser ran in newspapers around the country, exact year unknown. According to Google, there was never any beer shortage in the U.S.

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RH: And I don’t suppose he ever talked about selling these originals?

RABOY: No. That would never even have been a consideration. They were put into the closet and they were not shown to anybody, and they were not available to anybody. Only after his death could they be given away as gifts. Until that point, they gathered dust in a closet.

RH: Mac never gifted any Sunday page originals to anybody?

RABOY: No. Absolutely not. When you originally contacted me and wanted to talk about my father… you see, there’s a lot that you don’t know that is very personal within the family. There was and still is a reluctance about all of this.

Even in the stuff that I’m telling you, it’s not the whole picture, if you know what I mean.

Epilogue

RH: I understand. Yes, I do get that feeling that there is more going on here, and—well, okay, let’s move on. What do you remember about the scripts that Mac worked from? Did you ever hear the name Don Moore?

RABOY: I don’t remember that name.

Frankly, there was another name, and I don’t recall it now, but I remember another name as being the writer for a long time. It wasn’t Don Moore and I know that for sure. But the scripts arrived on a weekly basis in the mail.

RH: And did Mac immediately read it?

RABOY: Oh, I don’t know that he would immediately read it. [laughs] They were about 11 weeks ahead of publication.

It varied, nine to 11 weeks ahead. He would get the script and he’d lay it out.

I mean, at some point he would identify the number of scenes that he was going to use. I never once, in the entire time, read a script. If I looked at the panels he was doing, it would be having gone in to talk with him about something else, and he would be working. And you didn’t do that too often, believe me. So I would glance at what he was doing. I had no real interest in it, and he never encouraged any interest in it. If the script was late, there would be some annoyance at that. I recall one time the script not arriving at all, so my father simply sat down and wrote that week’s sequence.

RH: Is that the only time he ever wrote anything on the feature?

RABOY: As far as I know. And he wasn’t real pleased at having to do it, but he had to get the work in and that was the only thing he could do.

RH: And what did he do in cases where he and the family wanted to vacation for a few days at the Cape?

RABOY: If it was a brief vacation, what he would do is get ahead a couple of weeks, or he would take the work with

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

him. Basically it was a drawing board that he would rest in his lap against any desk or table. He didn’t use one of those artist’s drafting tables.

RH: Not even at home in his studio?

RABOY: No, not at all. He never used that sort of thing at home. What he used earlier or in the commercial houses, I don’t know. He also had one of those two-foot-long fluorescent lights that was pretty bright. This drawing board was basically a hard wood—I want to say, something like a cutting-board. But it was maybe three feet, 32" wide by maybe 40" long. It was just a hardwood laminated board.

This page and next depict an incredible two-page, 16-panel, true story of a WWII bombing mission. Published in the Oct. 19, 1943 edition of Look magazine. The art is pure, unadulterated Raboy, rendered with brush and ink-wash.

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146

And that’s what the strips were done on. So he could sit almost anywhere and do it.

RH: Since you mentioned that Mac disliked doing Flash Gordon, I take it he did not read or keep up with science-fiction or the U.S. space program?

RABOY: Well, he died before there really was a space program. He didn’t read science-fiction. He read history.

He was very much taken with Abraham Lincoln and the events surrounding the Civil War. He read Carl Sandberg’s five-volume history, as well as many others. He collected Civil War-era weapons.

RH: He did? I guess, back in those days, a person could still find and afford to buy those sorts of things.

RABOY: Oh, yes. I remember he bought an 1863 Springfield rifle that had been used to shoot Union soldiers. It was an original and had the initials carved into it of the original owner. It was an original long-rifle, not a carbine. I think he paid about $40 or $45 for it, which again, for that time, was a fair amount of change. It was in almost mint condition, too. It had been used in battle but, you know, it had not been reconditioned or retooled or modernized. All of the parts were original Remington parts. My mother and he made trips together to Gettysburg and elsewhere. They enjoyed visiting historic places like that.

RH: Did he ever fire the rifle?

RABOY: No. It went up over the fireplace. He was not big on firing guns. I began acquiring guns at a pretty young age and he would occasionally walk with me through the woods carrying a .22 rifle. In theory we were hunting, but I can’t recall that we ever killed anything. But it was fun walking through the woods.

RH: That was up in Goldens Bridge, New York, I assume, where Mac designed and built an enormous house…? Tell me about it, if you don’t mind.

RABOY: The house was built around 1947 to 1948. It was a combination of things. It began after the war. They were selling prefabricated boxed-up Army barracks for about This and the next six pages present the exquisite and little-seen fullpage ad-work Mac Raboy did for a Philadelphia Inquirer advertising campaign published in national business magazine Fortune between Sept. 1945 and Nov. 1946.

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

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$600 apiece. So he bought one of those and had it set up on a foundation. He then employed a couple of carpenters, and with them working for him, they finished the barracks which ultimately became the living room, then added three wings onto the house. It’s a very large house.

RH: It’s still standing, I assume?

RABOY: Oh, yeah. One wing was a studio with a pottery room below it. Another wing was a combination bedroom and bath, kitchen, and dining room. The third wing was a series of three bedrooms, two of which my sister and I occupied.

RH: So your dad liked carpentry work?

RABOY: Oh, yes. He built many, many—well, mostly furniture. He had a shop with all kinds of power tools.

He made a number of tables and benches, you know. He made coffee tables of various kinds. They’re distributed among the family.

Woodworking was a hobby for him. But he would never sell anything like that. He would give stuff away. I remember my cousin got married about 40 years ago and he gave them a pair of heavy pine end tables. They’re still in the family and are held as family heirlooms. He did woodcarving and sculpture, too.

RH: You said your mother was a potter. So Mac played around with it, too?

RABOY: My father potted also, but the pottery room was essentially for my mother. She had a potter’s wheel and a kiln and all that kind of stuff. My father built my mom her potter wheel.

RH: What kinds of things would Mac sculpt from clay?

RABOY: Oh… heads, torsos.

RH: Are any of these items still around?

RABOY: Yes. RH: Are these heads of just anybody, or of famous people?

RABOY: Some are of just very stylized women. Several of us have castings of the head of Lincoln that he did.

They’re quite impressive, actually.

That was what he did, I would say, as a hobby. The work was never sold. In the best-case scenario, if you got his work, it was as a gift. Also, my mother directed 148

Epilogue

summer stock theatre for many years there, in Goldens Bridge. She directed, and my father would design and build the sets.

RH: Wow. You must have attended some of these plays…?

RABOY: I not only attended them, I acted in them. [laughs] RH: Sounds like the whole family got involved there. How old were you then?

RABOY: I was already off in college. This was something they were doing for many years, and if there was a small bit part, I would sometimes get it. This was in the middle 1950s, for a period of, oh, 10 or 15 years.

RH: This was all volunteer work, which they did because they enjoyed it?

RABOY: Money that was raised from the sale of tickets went back into the social activities for improvements, etc.

I would say my parents did this up until about five or six years before my father died. The theatre was located there in the Goldens Bridge community. It was actually created out of a huge old dairy barn.

The sets were built right there out of very light pine and thin plywood. In terms of structure, they would be fairly flimsy. They were essentially visual backdrops to the play. But they were done very well and the finished product looked really quite stunning.

He liked to do it. He would watch rehearsals and he would do the sets, construct them and set them up and everything, but he would never be present when the performance was going on.

When the curtain would go up, the first thing that would happen would be applause for the set. That applause might go on for several minutes. And then the play would begin. And that’s why my father was never present. He could not handle the recognition. Everybody in the community knew who did the sets, and the applause was for what he had done. And my mother would convey that back to him, but he could never be present to receive it himself.

RH: What kind of plays did they do there?

RABOY: They did things like Twelve Angry Men, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. Those are three that I recall right off. In Twelve Angry Men, I played the part of

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149

the reporter, who reported the events of the play.

In Twelve Angry Men, it was the courtroom that my father designed and built. There was another one where you were looking inside a butcher shop. I mean, it was just so realistic. You know, he painted the big meat cases, butcher block table, etc.

RH: So people in the community were very aware that your father was an artist?

RABOY: Oh, yeah. This was a community that was not made up of wealthy people, so my father was a local legend there. He was not an architect or engineer, but whenever there was design work needed for building or renovation of community buildings, he would do that.

That is, he would direct the work. He was the general contractor. He hired the carpenters, the masons, the plumbers, and so on, and they did what he told them to.

The house he built is not only still standing, but it’s one of the houses in the community. I think he was doing architectural work that was substantially better than what architects were designing at the time.

RH: You know, David, it sounds to me like Mac may have been a frustrated architect.

RABOY: I don’t know if he was frustrated or not. He worked at a level that he enjoyed. If he had wanted to do that or make a living by it, he could have switched over and would have been grabbed up. There were plenty of people who would have liked to have gotten him.

RH: It’s strange to me that he took great pride in his woodworking, sculpting, and set-designing abilities, and yet he just didn’t have it for his pen and ink work on Flash Gordon.

RABOY: No, it was just—you have to understand. He had no use for King Features. He had no use for newspapers.

RH: But they paid him good money.

RABOY: Well, that’s how he supported his family, but he didn’t admire them. He didn’t respect what he was doing.

I told you he hated Flash Gordon and detested what he was doing.

RH: You mentioned that your mother had been the caretaker of Mac’s published work. Did this include comic books?

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Epilogue

RABOY: Everything. Everything from income tax returns to maintaining the things that he would allow to be kept.

She balanced the checkbook. She was the business agent.

RH: Did Mac ever talk about his days working for comic books?

RABOY: Only in terms that were rather derogatory. I think he took some pride in having helped create Captain Marvel Jr. I do think he felt good about that.

RH: Do you think he felt some resentment toward publishers who got most of the money from his creative efforts?

RABOY: There was a lot of resentment. And a lot of it was based on a class consciousness. You know, the wealthy newspaper owners versus the artists and others who were not making the kind of living they should have been. So working for King Features was never a source of pride for him. So don’t write the kind of thing that King Features wrote for their promotional booklet, because that’s not who he was.

RH: I’ll keep it honest and straightforward. So was this house located in town, or out in the country a little?

RABOY: More than a little. You had to walk a mile on a dirt road to get to the tar road where we used to pick up a school bus. At that point it was a very rural area up in Westchester [County]. Our garden was plowed by a dairy farmer using draft horses.

RH: Did Mac read any other kind of literature? Any fiction at all?

RABOY: No, he wasn’t really big on fiction. I would say his interests were non-fiction. Historical or political.

RH: So he did have an interest in talking about politics?

RABOY: More than a little bit. It was one of his favorite topics. He had strong feelings and he had no qualms about expressing those feelings in the house. He was not politically active in the community about environmental issues or any political issues, but he held strong views.

RH: Did he ever try to get you into something else or to go into art?

RABOY: No. No, there was never an effort to have any of us, my sister or myself, go into art. He recognized, as did

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all of us, that my sister had inherited his talents and he encouraged her, but it never materialized. I don’t think he ever went overboard in pushing her or anything like that.

RH: Can you tell me what a typical day might have been like for Mac Raboy in the late 1940s or early 1950s?

RABOY: [Laughs] He would get up, if it was early, about 10:00 a.m. If it was typical, closer to noon. He would engage, during the course of the day, in projects or hobbies that he was involved in. He would first eat breakfast, eggs typically, toast, that sort of thing. He liked poached eggs, as a matter of fact. He would put in, during the course of a day, about three hours on Flash Gordon.

It might be in one sitting, it might be a couple of sittings.

Rarely did he exceed three hours. In the evenings he’d do a lot of reading. He’d go out walking in the woods occasionally. He was involved in building projects for the community. He did design work on a variety of things. He did the design work in his studio, and then if someone else was actually building, he would be there directing workers and contractors. He was an insomniac to some degree. He couldn’t really fall asleep.

RH: How did Mac’s finished Flash Gordon strips get delivered?

RABOY: We delivered the pages to King Features Syndicate. We would go by train. We all did it—my sister, my mother, myself, or even a courier, because there were people who lived in the area he would occasionally have do it. He would pay anyone who did it, obviously. The pay was [laughs] pretty generous for the time: Ten bucks, plus the cost of the train tickets.

It was basically a one-hour train ride, or thereabouts, into Grand Central Station. You’d walk about three blocks east, off to Lexington. You had to go by a doorman. You’d tell him you were delivering the Mac Raboy strip to King Features. Then to the elevator and up to the second floor, where you’d deliver it. You got a receipt for it and then you went home.

RH: To whom did you actually hand over the strip?

RABOY: A girl at a desk is all I remember. You’ve got to understand, I was maybe 10 or 12 years old at the time.

And because I made the trip, I was entitled to go see a movie at the theatre there in Grand Central, buy a lunch, and then get on the train and come home. It was quite an 152

Epilogue

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153

outing. It was an adventure, when you consider that this was a 12-year-old who could go into New York City.

RH: I guess back in those days things weren’t nearly so bad as they are now.

RABOY: As a child, you could go almost anywhere and you were entirely safe because everybody would go out of their way to protect a child. It was a very different world then.

RH: Did Mac have a portfolio carrier for you to carry the page to King Features?

RABOY: No. Once he finished the strip, that was it. He never touched it or looked at it again. My mother would roll it up. Whoever was elected to deliver it got careful instructions on how to handle it, and where to go. She told us not to ever put it down anywhere. There was never a mishap with it.

RH: And for this he received $300 a week, later $325.

RABOY: Back then I used to think to myself, “My God, I’ll never make the kind of money my father’s making!”

RH: Did he ever go into the city and deliver the page to King Features himself?

Excellent and evocative advertising illustration

by Raboy for the National Cash Register Company, published in Fortune, June 1946.

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RABOY: No, he never did. I can’t remember him ever going in to King Features.

Not once. He didn’t go to the Christmas parties. They knew he was a hermit.

That’s why, when I read that copy of the write-up from the promotional booklet

Epilogue

you sent me, I thought, “God, what a crock of bull!”

RH: I’ve heard from other people who worked with Mac that he was a very quiet person. He just didn’t speak much at all.

RABOY: Yeah. He kept to himself a lot. That’s why he left New York City and built a house as he did and where he did.

RH: I take it he had no love lost for that city whatsoever?

RABOY: No. Even when he had to drive in, or we drove in as a family to visit his mother or other family, this was not something he relished or looked forward to.

My mother would really have to get on him to do something like that. I mean, half the time he wouldn’t even take phone calls from his mom.

William Gropper print (above) and portrait (right).

WILLIAM GROPPER William Gropper (1897-1977) was born in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents and grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He began drawing cowboys and Indians on the streets at six and, at 13, he studied under George Bellows and Robert Henri, at the Ferrer School. After graduation from elementary school in 1913 and earning a medal in art, he won a scholarship to The National Academy of Design. Refusing to conform to their curriculum, Gropper was expelled. Unable to afford high school and pressured to help support the family, Gropper worked in a clothing store for $5 a week. In 1915, he earned a scholarship to the New York School of Fine and Applied Art where, during his two-year tenure there, he won more awards and gained greater recognition.

In 1917, Gropper went to work for The New York Tribune, where he drew illustrations for the Sunday edition. His radical political views brought him into contact with the left-wing,

monthly publication The Masses. Due to its anti-military leanings, the paper was banned from the U.S. mail in 1917, and Gropper moved on to The Liberator, where he met and became exposed to the work of such artists as Hugo Gellert, Maurice Becker, and Art Young.

He became involved with the Communist movement, working in Moscow as a staff artist for Pravda, the official party newspaper. He went on to work for The Revolutionary Age and The Rebel Worker. In 1927, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Gropper toured the U.S.S.R. with Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser, and he later wrote a book featuring 56 drawings from the trip.

In 1936, he created an international crisis between the United States and Japan by lampooning Emperor Hirohito hauling the Nobel Peace Prize in a cart by way of Vanity Fair magazine. The following year, he won the Guggenheim Award of $2,000 for “Most Outstanding Art Work of 1937.” During his lengthy career,

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

the artist painted numerous murals in New York and Washington.

By 1939, in spite of Gropper’s standing as a radical, which some considered a handicap, he was one of the busiest cartoonists. The year before, he had become involved in the Works Projects Administration (WPA). The WPA provided jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. Mac Raboy became involved with the WPA and this is most likely where Gropper and Raboy first met and became friends.

In 1924 Gropper built a nine-room stone house in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Years later Raboy built his home in nearby Goldens Bridge, New York. Though Gropper nor Raboy were never formal members of the Communist Party, they shared a strong artistic interest and had similar radical views about politics. They also were apathetic toward capitalism. The two remained friends for the rest of their lives.

155

RH: Maybe he didn’t like talking on the phone?

RABOY: No, he just didn’t like his mother. [laughs] RH: So Mac basically only went into the city to visit family or close friends.

RABOY: Yes. And mostly the people that were close to my father and mother— you had to have at least come across the name of Harry Anderson. We called him Andy.

RH: Well, if it’s the Harry Anderson I’m familiar with, he worked in comics for many different comic publishing houses during the 1940s to 1950s. He also worked at Fawcett Publications when your father did.

Nobody working in comics could match Raboy’s knack for capturing the most hated man in history, Adolph Hitler. This illustration, featuring Der Führer and his gang of henchmen, accompanied the true-story report by Frenchman Pierre J. Huss, about how flowers played an important part in the French Resistance. Published in the Oct. 19, 1943 Look magazine.

RABOY: We were all very fond of him. His wife’s name was Peggy. I have fond memories of them coming up. Harry drove an MG. They would use any excuse to get out of the city and come up and spend the weekend at our place. I don’t know the details of his relationship with my father when they were younger, but they had obviously worked together in at least one, perhaps more, places and had grown very close to each other.

RH: I seem to recall that Anderson may have also worked in the Chesler shop around the time your father first started out. That’s probably the connection.

RABOY: I’m not sure, but I have memories of long nature walks in the woods with Harry, sometimes sitting on his shoulders. Also of going to the beach at a nearby lake with him. There was another fellow by the name of Rod; I don’t remember his last name.

RH: That would have to be Rod Reed, who worked as a writer at Fawcett during the early 1940s.

RABOY: His wife’s name was Kentuck.

They lived on a farm even further north than us. It was people like that that my father was fond of. We had multiple beds in the house, so it was never any problem to put people up for the weekend.

RH: On these occasions when Harry Anderson came up to visit, did he and Mac spend time in the studio talking about art?

RABOY: Not that I’m aware of. If they did, it was certainly not a main focus

156

Epilogue

or something that dominated conversation or time. They used to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers together. We had a brand new Philco television—you know, one of those things the size of a dresser that had an eight-inch screen.

We also used to watch the Friday night fights quite regularly.

I remember that he gave me a Louisville Slugger that was his. It’s long since gone, but I do recollect his fondness for baseball.

RH: Did you ever get a chance to see any of Harry Anderson’s art?

RABOY: Not that I can recollect. He and my father had a variety of ties that bounded them together that did not include commercial art. Harry was also a commercial artist, I understand.

You said Rod Reed was a writer. Well, that may be. I don’t know. I do know his wife, Kentuck, was one tough lady. Boy, you didn’t misbehave in that house, let me tell you! If you went into that house, as an eight- and tenyear-old, as my sister and I did, you behaved.

Because she was a huge woman and she didn’t put up with any sh*t at all. [laughs] They lived a country ride further out into the country from where we were. It was a country house on kind of an offbeat dirt road. There was a barn and there may have been chickens. A very rural setting.

Then there was another artist that my father was friends with, a guy by the name of Bill Gropper. Gropper was an artist, but I don’t know that he did commercial art, although he may have. He did more fine art. I have a print hanging here on my wall of the steel driver John Henry. It’s an original and it’s signed by Gropper.

Above: An original printer’s cover proof for Green Lama #3 (Mar. 1945) which is the only cover Raboy ever signed while working for Spark Publications. Below is his whimsical cover for Captain Marvel Jr. #5 (Mar. 19, 1943) and next page is his evocative take for CMJr #7 (May 19, 1943). At bottom inset is detail from the Master Comics #42 (Sept. 1943) cover

by Mac Raboy.

RH: What kind of a medium is this done in?

RABOY: It’s a black-&-white, done on kind of a heavy, almost beige-colored paper.

And it’s fairly stylized. It’s a huge, very muscular, bald black man swinging a tremendous sledgehammer on a railroad track. It’s a very nice drawing. It was a possession of the family. Actually, there were several of them by Gropper, and my sister and I have them now.

RH: What else did Harry Anderson and Mac do when they came up?

RABOY: There were dinners and family things going on. Poker games. My parents were both poker players, and we had a circle of friends and other couples who were poker players. My father built a kitchen table that was round and about

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

157

morphine. So he wasn’t really lucid. He was in and out of consciousness, and that sort of thing. From diagnosis to death, it was about six months, perhaps only slightly less.

He went into Sloan Kettering, a cancer hospital in New York City. And then they moved him up to Mount Kisco Hospital. Mount Kisco is a town that’s about nine miles from Goldens Bridge. It was closer to home for him. I think at that point, it had spread and they were just managing the pain. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do.

RH: I’ve heard that he used to smoke cigars quite a bit.

RABOY: I never saw my father with a cigar in his mouth. He was a two-pack-a-day Kent cigarette smoker. But it wasn’t lung cancer that got him.

RH: What did your mom do after Mac passed away?

RABOY: My mother, at this point, sold the house and moved to Florida with my sister. Florida is where my mother died.

She had a retirement income, so it wasn’t all that tough for her in her later years.

RH: Was he buried up in Goldens Bridge?

seven feet in diameter, out of heavy oak. So that was a gathering point and that’s where the poker games were held.

I was never allowed to play because I was a youth. But I certainly spent a lot of time watching and learned a lot of bad jokes, as well. [laughs] But it was nickel-&-dime poker. It wasn’t any serious gambling. It was more of a sociable nature. And Harry and Peggy participated in that.

RH: What happened to your father, David? How did he die?

RABOY: It was cancer.

RH: I hope it wasn’t a lengthy illness.

RABOY: It only took six months and he was gone.

RH: When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1967, did he think he could beat it? I mean, did he have an attitude about beating this thing?

RABOY: No. There was no service, and my father was cremated. My father was an atheist, as was my mother. So there would not have been any ceremony of any kind. I too am an atheist and would not engage in ceremonies of that kind.

RH: David, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me. It’s been most enlightening to learn about the more personal side of your father and his career of working in the comics. Without a doubt, he was an interesting fellow and a heck of a great artist. He’s got a lot of fans out there who remember his work, collect it, and appreciate it. Thanks.

RABOY: You’re welcome, Roger. It was good of you to care enough to call me about it.

RABOY: I don’t think he anticipated beating it. I think he was resigned to the inevitable. As it came on, and it came on pretty quickly, they used morphine. Then more 158

Epilogue

Reference

Mac Raboy Cover Checklist America’s Greatest Comics 1, 2*, 3*, 5*, 8* Bulletman 2, 3, 5, Captain Marvel Jr. 1, 2*, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21*, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31*, 59*, 67* Captain Midnight 9, 10, 11, 13*, 17, 18, 22, 23 Dynamic Comics 9 Flash Gordon 7 Green Lama 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Ibis 1 Master Comics 19, 20, 21, 22*, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27+, 28+, 29, 30, 31*, 32, 33+, 34, 35, 36+, 37*, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43*(w/ Sidney Hamburg), 44, 45, 46, 47, 48*, 49*, 51, 52*, 56*, 57*, 58*, 68*, 69*

Minute Man 2 Spy Smasher 2, 7* Xmas Comics 1

DAVID RABOY: THE SON OF MAC RABOY SPEAKS

+ Background by Bob Rogers * Captain Marvel Jr. figures or other characters are stats or swipes from previously published Raboy images.

Checklist by: Roger Hill, Paul Hamerlinck, Jose Villarrubia, the Grand Comics Database

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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During his short foray in the field of American comic books, Mac Raboy (1914–1967) established himself as an “expert technician with pen and brush, and his lush colors are some of the most unusually beautiful to ever grace comic books” (Drew Friedman). Raboy’s Captain Marvel Jr. was immediately the definitive version, a graceful, bouyant hero with a normal physique and angelic features. This biography is the most complete story of the enigmatic artist’s life and career ever written, and it includes interviews with friends, assistants, and ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-090-8 ISBN-10: 1-60549-090-3 53995

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his son. Included too are rare photos, original art, and fascinating insights in the amazing artists many of his peers called one of the greatest of them all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Roger Hill discovered the art of Mac Raboy at the age of 17, when he helped a local retired school art teacher clean out her attic full of old newspapers. For doing the work, she paid him off with all the Sunday funnies, which just happened to include the Flash Gordon feature from 1951 to 1965. As he later discovered, the history books had plenty of info about Raboy’s art, but very little about the man himself.

That’s when he went on a relentless search to rectify that historical oversight and set the record straight. He is currently working on books on E.C. Comics artists Johnny Craig and Graham Ingels.