Alter Ego #30 by TwoMorrows Publishing

No. 30

November 2003

5.95

In In the the USA USA

ALEX ROSS ON THE 1960s-70s JLA!

DICK DILLIN

REDISCOVERED! Plus Rare Art & Artifacts By:

OTTO BINDER PAUL CHADWICK REED CRANDALL JOE CERTA WILL EISNER MICHAEL T. GILBERT DICK GIORDANO SCOTT GOODELL WALT GROGAN GIL KANE TOM MANDRAKE MORT MESKIN JOSH NEUFELD MICHELLE NOLAN GEORGE PÉ REZ BILL SCHELLY MIKE SEKOWSKY ROY THOMAS ALEX TOTH SAL VELLUTO WALLY WOOD & MORE!!

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DRAW! #22

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, GIORDANO cover, and more!

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! SHEL DORF interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art! DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, ANDRU, TUSKA, CELARDO, & LUBBERS, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

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LEE & KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS (KIRBY COLLECTOR #58)

Special double-size book examines the first decade of the FANTASTIC FOUR, and the events that put into motion the Marvel Age of Comics! New interviews with STAN LEE, FLO STEINBERG, MARK EVANIER, JOE SINNOTT, and others, with a wealth of historical information and Kirby artwork!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #59

BRICKJOURNAL #17

BRICKJOURNAL #18

BRICKJOURNAL #19

“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ‘69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!

LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!

Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!

LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!

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Vol. 3, No. 30/November 2003

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Production Assistant Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Alex Ross Steve Rude

Section

Contents

Writer/Editorial: Just a League of Their Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Liberty and Justice: The Alex Ross Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Walt Grogan interviews the acclaimed artist on his newest epic, JLA: Liberty and Justice.

Cover Colorists Alex Ross Solid! Colors

And Special Thanks to: Kim Aamodt Ger Apeldoorn Gary Arlington Mark Arnold Dick Ayers Brian H. Baile Leslie Dillin Battista Allen Bellman Bill Black Lee Boyett Mike Brown R. Dewey Cassell Paul Chadwick Dick Cole Jon B. Cooke Craig Delich Mrs. Dick (Estella) Dillin Richard Dillin, Jr. Shel Dorf Frank Doscher Terry Dillin Doscher Martin Downham Michael Feldman Carl Gafford Paul Gambaccini Walter Geier Janet Gilbert Mark Glidden Scott Goodell Walt Grogan Mrs. Howard Keltner Bob Klein Scott Koblish

“Just A League Of Their Own”

David Anthony Kraft Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier Tom Mandrake Andy Mangels Don Marquez Peter Meskin John Moores Josh Neufeld Michelle Nolan David Olsen Jake Oster Linda Rahm-Crites Larry Rippee Paul Rivoche David Roach Trina Robbins Alex Ross Steve R. Rowe Steve Rude Alex Ross Steve Skeates Robin Snyder Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Sal Velluto Murray Ward Lynn Woolley Eddy Zeno Mike Zeno

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Dick Dillin & Warren Kremer

Remembering Dick Dillin: “The Top Man in the Country!” . . . . 14 A family remembers a husband, father, and longtime penciler of Justice League. How Green Was My Martian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Michelle Nolan on J’onn J’onzz and other anomalies of the early-1960s JLA. The Schwartzian Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Roy Thomas unveils a long-lost JLA-related artifact—in the 53rd century. “What Can You Get for a Nickel, Nowadays? Nothin’!! ”. . . 31 Michael T. Gilbert checks some books out of the notorious 1970s Nickel Library. A Visit with Otto Binder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Bill Schelly excerpts his new biography of Captain Marvel’s most inventive scribe. re: [comments & corrections on A/E #24] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The French Connection Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: The first-ever view most folks had of the Justice League of America in late 1959—the cover scene of The Brave and the Bold #28, only seen here from the P.O.V. of Starro the Conqueror. More about artist Alex Ross’ newest tabloid-size painted graphic novel on the pages immediately following—including, on p. 5, a step-by-step study of the illo used as our colorful cover. [©2003 DC Comics.] Above: In conjunction with JLA: Liberty and Justice, Alex painted the JLA as part of a new line of “collector plates.” You can see the finished image, and even the photos of the guys who posed for the figures, on p. 11. Above, we’ve chosen to reproduce Alex’s pencils for the plate. [©2003 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Title writer/editorial

Just a League of Their Own As longtime readers will avow, we tend not to cover—or even mention—current comic books in Alter Ego. It’s not that we think there isn’t some “good product” (as they say) out there; we’re just generally not interested. We prefer to leave that sort of thing to other mags, some of which fall all over each other in their rush to publish the publishers’ (or worse yet, the writers’ or artists’) grandiose hype as if it were gospel. Still, when Walt Grogan contacted us about the possibility of his interviewing Alex Ross about the latter’s new giant-size JLA volume, we couldn’t resist. After all, Alex had been kind enough to let us utilize his Captain Marvel-related work in A/E V3#3 and #15, including covers. Even more importantly, however, he and writer Paul Dini were dealing with the 1960s-70s Justice League lineup. No Aquaman that looks like Captain Hook with a beard—no post-Hal Jordan Green Lantern or postBarry Allen Flash. And, best of all, since JLA: Liberty and Justice postulates a world in which Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened, or at least hasn’t happened yet—it’s Wonder Woman, not the jarring Black Canary, who’s shown helping the guys tackle Starro the Conqueror on our cover. Bravo, Alex! Naturally, we could hardly expect Mr. R. to do a brand new JLA painting for us, especially at our rates, but we happily opted for using an interior panel/painting that gives us a new angle on that first battle with the starfish from space. Happily, through Walt,

Alex (with DC’s permission and cooperation) also sent us plenty of penciled Ross art that won’t be seen in the tabloid-sized graphic novel— and even some amusing photo layouts of the models! Who wouldn’t give his eyeteeth (or at least a crusty molar) to play Justice Leaguer? What’s more, because Alex is such a fan of the Dick Dillin years on Justice League of America, he even arranged for Walt to interview that sadly-departed artist’s family, which is all the excuse we needed to run lots of original art we’ve had secreted in drawers. For the first time, you (and we) even get a look at never-published penciled Dillin pages of that final JLA/JSA team-up that he was working on at the time of his untimely passing, when George Pérez stepped into the breach. That art alone, to us, would justify the entire issue—but it’s really just the icing on a particularly tasty cake. Michelle Nolan and I have filled out the JLA coverage with some speculations on the creation of the JLA in 1959—while Michael T. Gilbert, Bill Schelly, and our ever-cavortin’ correspondents have a few things of non-JLA interest to say, as well. And you haven’t even turned the issue upside down yet! Bestest,

™

COMING IN DECEMBER NOW MONTHLY!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE COMIC BOOK MASTERS! Plus—DICK AYERS & HARLAN ELLISON at MARVEL!

• Two colorful Christmas covers—FRED RAY (Superman, early 1940s), and a new Marvel-hero cover by Darlin’ DICK AYERS!

C Com

• It’s double dynamite when Timely/Marvel super-star DICK AYERS talks to both ROY THOMAS & JIM AMASH about his work in the 1950s & ’60s! (Need we add there’ll be mucho art by Dick and other Bullpen bigwigs?)

ics

• Science-fiction author HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age Masterworks! The stories that spawned classic early ’70s epics of The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers—with rare art by RICH BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, HERB TRIMPE, et al.! • “And Men Shall Call Him—PROTOTYPE!”—Part Two! Did STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, and STEVE DITKO give The X-Men, Dr. Strange, et al., sneak tryouts before they made their official debuts? Only TOM LAMMERS knows for sure! • Christmas cards from comics greats! JOE MANEELY, NICK CARDY, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MART NODELL, HARRY LAMPERT, & many more mirth-makers! • FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with MARC SWAYZE, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, etc.—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on horror comics’ “missing link”—and a Christmas stocking full of Yuletide surprises! Edited by ROY THOMAS

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Just a League of Their Own part one

Alex Ross at work in his studio. (Below:) One of the recent products of his labor: a pencil drawing of the Justice League in action for his new DC book JLA: Liberty and Justice. Photo courtesy of Alex Ross and Walt Grogan. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Walt Grogan [INTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: In ten short years, Alex Ross has become a bona fide comic book legend. Bursting onto the comics scene with 1994’s Marvels (with writer Kurt Busiek), his vivid paintings retold the history of the early Marvel Universe, and his photo-realistic style had fans anxiously waiting for more. In 1996 Ross followed up his previous success with Kingdom Come, a post-modern take on DC’s seminal heroes and their offspring. With writer Mark Waid, Ross’ story was a thinly-veiled critique of the then-current comic book market. The story juxtaposed the values of the traditional heroes with that of a new breed of “heroes” they had inspired. Ross has also had a guiding hand in a series of stories from Marvel under the Earth X banner, as well as the Battle of the Planets series for Top

Cow. For the last five years Ross has collaborated with writer Paul Dini on a series of oversized tabloid-style comics featuring the greatest icons of the DC Universe: Superman: Peace on Earth, Batman: War on Crime, Shazam!: Power of Hope, and Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth. As a coda to that series, Ross and Dini have re-imagined the Justice League for a new generation of readers in JLA: Liberty and Justice, a 96-page tabloid due on the stands November 19. —Walt.] This interview was conducted via telephone on August 5, 2003, and was copy-edited by Alex Ross.

Alex Ross

WALT GROGAN: What led you to the Liberty and Justice book? You had done the four icon books, and this one seems a departure from those. ALEX ROSS: Really, just excitement. We [Paul Dini and I] had been having such a good time with the books we were doing that the idea of a book with multiple characters in it was something we could really sink our teeth into—particularly the group we grew up with. These characters are the center of the super-hero universe—the longestrunning of all team books. We felt that it would be more captivating, more exciting than anything else we had done. It would be a Alex’s pencil sketch for a triptych series of covers for Wizard magazine, done to publicize the new book. payoff for everything. We’ve [©2003 DC Comics.] taken the time to establish this WG: So that’s what led you to use this particular set of characters, the sort of “Ross/Dini Corner of the DC Universe,” which to me is just “Barry Allen” Flash and the “Hal Jordan” Green Lantern, for re-establishing the universe that was, before DC rewrote it with Crisis instance? on Infinite Earths and everything that has followed since. I wish to create a pocket for fans like me who grew up with this form of enterROSS: It comes from what we grew up with. To my mind, the stuff in tainment. the ’70s was sort of finding everything in, arguably, a bit of a developmental paralysis. The characters who had been introduced in the mid’50s or early ’60s pretty much stayed the same during most of that time. So it’s kind of like a “Them were the good ol’ days” kind of attitude. The characters were all in their prime. Nobody had died yet; nobody had lost a wife or child, and these are the purest forms of those concepts. Also, the simple origins of the classic Silver Age versions are just that— they’re simple. They are heroes that add to the cultural mythos of DC and, frankly, to the cultural mythos of the world. They have 40 years among most of them. They’ve been around. They’ve been the standard. They’ve been replaced in only the last ten years, most of them, although it’s been a lot longer for Wally West (the current Flash). They’ve changed the backstory with Green Lantern and Aquaman. All those changes are only ten years old. And during those ten years, those changes have been the most hotly contested by fans like myself and others who have always felt like, “Why do we have these pure, unchanged classic icons (i.e., Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) side-by-side with these guys who have been so radically reconfigured, so that we lose the sense of this legendary ensemble who were so timeless before?” WG: So, given your views on using the Silver Age icons, was there resistance to using these versions of the characters? ROSS: I thoroughly would have expected huge resistance, and there was none. We had our editors, Charlie Kochman and Joey Cavalieri, both feeling that they were given 100% encouragement that anything we would want to do like this would be warmly received. They also didn’t fight us at all on the fact that we still wanted it to be an over-sized book. For this final thing, it seemed a fitting send-off that we finish it with a great giant-size “Justice League” story that’s a third longer—96 pages— than the average book that we had done. I’m painting more characters than I did per book before—why let it be small? I’ll probably be back to comic-size with the next thing I do. WG: Your body of work for DC and Marvel takes place either in the past or the future. Do you consciously avoid working with the present day incarnations of the characters? Pencils for a Flash and Green Lantern poster done in conjunction with JLA: Liberty and Justice. The composition of the Flash figure is quite different here from the version in the released poster. [©2003 DC Comics.]

ROSS: You know what it must be? I would consider myself to be a big comics fan, and I like a lot of things that have happened in modern

Liberty & Justice

The birth of a page of JLA: Liberty and Justice—and incidentally of the cover of this issue of Alter Ego. (Left to right:) Alex starts with a super-tight thumbnail (which is reproduced here not much smaller than subsequent versions of the art). Based on that small sketch, he then does a full-size detailed pencil rendering of the panel/page (center). At this point, he photographs his models for use in the lighting of his final painting. At bottom right they have been inserted into the pencil rendering, just for fun. The models are, clockwise from upper left: Cory (Flash) Smith, Tony (Green Lantern) Vitale, Rhonda (Wonder Woman) Hampton, Chris (Aquaman) Fleming, and Alex (Martian Manhunter) Ross. Hey, maybe we should’ve used this version as our calamitous cover! [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

were as old as their legends were, there are kids who have grown up and become heroes in their own right (i.e., Dick Grayson as an adult Robin). It allows for this latitude as if all publishing were real continuity. All of that history was worthwhile.

Sort of like the point of John Byrne’s Generations book. You’re not supposed to ignore the fact that these characters had this long history. This philosophy doesn’t make it impossible to enjoy a lot of the new things that are done. I enjoy the contemporary JSA book—it’s something I like and read. I can enjoy Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright series because I think it’s an extension of what they’ve done on the Smallville television series. Smallville makes the idea of a young Superman or a man who is not Superman yet in our modern day and age seem attractive and viable to me as a fan. And I don’t get up in arms that he doesn’t look enough like the classic Superman. At the end of the day, I’m much more interested in the spirit of these things. So I’m not completely inflexible about change.

times, but I’m very selective about it. I’ve been fatigued by the overwrought changes of the ’80s and ’90s that have happened to a lot of these mythologies. Because I view them as mythologies, thereby plugging my new book Mythology [an art-of-Alex Ross coffee table book designed by Chip Kidd with photography by Geoff Spear, published by Pantheon Books, out in stores now!] [laughs] You can screw up an icon if you make it unrecognizable. You may bump up the immediate sales of a book, and I’m not saying that should never be tried, but it’s risky to the character’s distinctiveness. For my first time spent with the DC characters, I moved directly to the future so I could pass that entire problem by and go to a time period where all those issues were past. I did a revision of Superman, focusing on his classic characteristics, while also doing a creative blend of history with a modern graphic approach. It was fun to play with, but in my mind and in my heart the characters I wanted to draw were the ones I grew up with and who also happened to look that same way for many years beforehand. I was born in 1970. At the time I was reading comics, the Justice League would have been around for fifteen years by the time I got my first issue. And some of these characters had been around for 20, 30, or 40 years before I came into contact with them. WG: Would the changes in mythology make it difficult to do something like a Justice Society book set in the 1940s? ROSS: Let’s say I had the opportunity to do a Justice Society book. I would need to embrace the JSA for what they were—the 1940s DC super-heroes, the first super-hero group. Most of that group had not been affected by crazy changes made in continuity. I would never have Wonder Woman called Queen Hippolyta. That’s not correct in terms of publishing or history; let’s not try to retroactively rewrite what happened to the world. In Kingdom Come, which could’ve been taken not as a story of the future but as a story of today where the characters

If DC hadn’t allowed me to use the classic versions of the Justice League, I might not have done it. A lot of these characters are still changing every year, and, in many cases, going back to what they had been before. So if you check forward five years into the future and you find the Justice League look like how they were painted in this graphic novel, then my views would have been prescient. If that turns out to be the case, then we will have created a product that stands the test of time. That’s something that’s very important to me. That’s why I don’t like drawing something that commits it to a particular period of time. And if people look at what I’m doing now as something of the past, that view is generally contained within the current comics readership. People outside of comics don’t know that Aquaman doesn’t look like that anymore. As it is, DC already cut his hair, and they’ve already given him back a hand of sorts. WG: And it looks like DC is going to give him his orange shirt again. ROSS: They’re giving him back the shirt!? WG: Anybody else we’re going to see in

Alex Ross

Liberty and Justice besides the big seven? ROSS: Oh, yeah, I’m not being shy about letting people know that you’re going to see the majority of the classic Justice League in here—to the point of inclusion of odd extended characters that you wouldn’t

necessarily think of as fundamental Justice League members, and here’s where it gets into a huge debate—people like Plastic Man and Captain Marvel, characters like Metamorpho. Everybody knows that Red Tornado, Elongated Man, Zatanna, Atom, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl—everybody knows those characters fill out the rest of the classic ranks. But I wanted to represent what this group’s

(Above and below:) Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the “pure, unchanged comic icons” (well, relatively speaking, anyway)—but, as Alex points out, Aquaman, Captain Marvel, and even Plastic Man have had their moments since the advent of TV-animation series in the 1960s-80s. Here are Ross’ rough pencils for proposed posters featuring Superman & Batman, Wonder Woman & Martian Manhunter, Aquaman & Zatanna, and Atom, Hawkman ,& Plastic Man. (In the printed versions, one of Aquaman’s arms is placed differently, and Plas was altered considerably.) Curiously, no pencils were sent relating to Captain Marvel (let alone Robin the Boy Wonder), so we’ve opted to print Alex’s pencil rough for the color painting which was used as the cover of Alter Ego V3#3, in which a Fred MacMurray-ish Big Red Cheese has polished off a goodly number of rival super-heroes the way he might have in the mid-1940s, when for a brief time Captain Marvel Adventures was the best-selling comic book on planet Earth. [JLA poster art ©2003 DC Comics; Capt.-Marvel-&-Friends art © Alex Ross; all characters thereon TM & ©2003 their respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Liberty & Justice fullest reach could be—from my youth and into, well, my adulthood. One odd reason is that all the promotional material coming out of DC from the mid-’70s on, and much of their marketing and franchising, was inclusive of an overwhelming group aesthetic involving the icons Captain Marvel and Plastic Man. The reason why is that they acquired those characters around that time period. They acquired Plastic Man in the late ’60s and Captain Marvel in the early ’70s. Think about every calendar that you saw of the group of them, with Captain Marvel probably being number four placed next to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. That’s why I wanted Captain Marvel as one of the four books I did, focusing on that character instead of Flash and Green Lantern. He was treated as a bigger icon of greater worth by DC at the time because he had this rich history and huge following that led to his TV show and a lot of merchandise. Look at the Mego toys of the 1970s—there is no Flash or Green Lantern Mego but there is a Captain Marvel one. After those big four, there was Robin, and then you’d probably get Aquaman

7 before you’d get around to Flash or Green Lantern. We all know that Flash and Green Lantern are effectively DC’s next most important icons after the big three (or big four if you count Robin). More people have love for Flash or Green Lantern than Aquaman, but because he was on that damn show [Super Friends], his legend is huge throughout the world. His name is known by everybody. Even Chris Rock made a joke about Aquaman as a hero, in his Bigger and Blacker HBO cable special, as a real hero to look up to. Snoop Dogg, his favorite hero—Aquaman. He’s said, “He can swim underwater without getting wet.” Whatever the hell that means. [laughs] Let me get back to the point. This story will eventually bring in all those members. This is basically me scratching the fanboy itch, but in a more limited circumstance than the all-across-the-world thing of Kingdom Come. Kingdom Come had almost every conceivable DC character. This is more of wanting to make these guys show up and be brilliant and come off as strong characters. That was my purpose and mission. WG: I’m looking forward to seeing it.

ROSS: I’m looking forward to getting it off my table. I’ve been working on it for about a year now! WG: Given your love of the Justice League, especially the iconic characters of the ’70s and ’80s, who were your favorite artists of that period? ROSS: I’ve always been very open about my connection to [George] Pérez. He was a huge, fundamental influence on me as a kid. He was what I based my work on during the one time period when I aped another artist’s style. I was doing lots of drawings, either of other company’s heroes or my own made-up heroes, in an intentionally Pérezish style. He completely captivated me with what he did with the Justice League of America. Probably the first issue I had of Justice League by Pérez was #192, which has that phenomenal true origin of the Red Tornado. It had his masterful establishment of the ship and the satellite and both how creepy he could make Red Tornado come across and how impressive Aquaman would seem to become in the course of this story. WG: I remember the shot you’re talking about, the last panels of issue #192, with Aquaman coming up out of the water in shadow. ROSS: It established a reason to fear and respect this guy, and those were the kind of things I really responded to. But, before Pérez, there was, of course, the guy who filled the 1970s period all by his lonesome, Dick Dillin. I have the utmost respect for what he accomplished in the course of his time on that book. The great number of characters and the quality of work that Dillin put in is really surprising given the kind of schedule he kept. What was it, 114 comics? A pair of post-Sekowsky pillars. (Left:) The Dick Dillin/Dick Giordano splash page to the JLA/JSA crossover in Justice League of America #113 (Oct. 1974), in which Sandman’s one-time kid partner Sandy became a silicon-based monstrosity. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Brian H. Baile. (Top:) George Pérez’s cover for Murray Ward’s Official Justice League of America Index #1 (April 1986) spotlighted the original seven members. Special thanks to Murray. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Alex Ross him, his world is perfect. He’s got a little kid with a little orange shirt on. I thought, how cool is that? He’s got a hot-looking wife— everybody’s undersea—a great world for Aquaman. And then the next story I read, Aquababy’s dead. WG: Wow. ROSS: The same thing happened to me with Flash. The first Flash comic I had, he’s got a wife. The following issue I got, the wife’s killed. In a way, my first introduction to these iconic characters is seeing them in the state they had been in for so long and then seeing how that was being contorted by the aspects of my crueler generation, when it was time to make everything dark and gritty and bring some tragedy into these people’s lives.

WG: 115. There were four giant-size reprint comics in the run, but they looked to be part of the publishing plan. Other than those, there were two issues partly drawn by Neal Adams and Juan Ortiz, and one full issue (#153) penciled by George Tuska. ROSS: It’s utterly phenomenal what he accomplished. I have a great deal of respect for the guy. He had kind of that post-[Neal] Adams look to his stuff which Jim Aparo and others did, as well—that really made the stuff sing. I was captivated by the realistic interpretations of these characters. It wasn’t a cartoon book—it wasn’t like watching Super Friends on television. There were all these extra characters, and I wondered, when are they going to show up on Super Friends? It was 1975, and the first Justice League comic I ever got was May of ’75, #118. And that story had pretty much everybody with the exception of Wonder Woman. I guess Wonder Woman was still in her white-outfit days back then. The love that I have for this stuff is that it creates a mysterious mythology and timeline of my own design. I’m not so much re-creating the timeline but rather responding to what was in my mind’s eye. One of the key things I have with Aquaman, for instance, is that this is happening before or instead of him losing his infant son. So I have a history timeline which is sort of like my perfect playground, where he isn’t a mourning father. WG: The happy Aquaman. ROSS: Well, he was like Reed Richards—one of the few guys in comics who got married and had a kid. Unlike Reed, whose kid never got any older. DC decided in the mid-’70s, maybe around ’77, that they had themselves in a trap. Here’s the irony for me—the first Aquaman comic I had as a kid was Adventure Comics #450, and the subsequent comic I had was #452, when his son is killed. So the first adventure I get with

A step-by-step look at a group panel in JLA: Liberty and Justice. (Above to bottom:) Alex’s “super-tight thumbnail”—the fully-rendered pencils—a photo utilizing himself and his friends as models—and finally the fully-painted panel as it appears (only in color) in the new volume. From left to right in photo are Chris Faulkner, Tony (Green Lantern) Vitale, Cory (The Flash) Smith, Rich Koz, Alex (Martian Manhunter) Ross, and Rhonda (Wonder Woman) Hampton. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

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And, in a way, I started to doubt it, because these two characters were that Dave Gibbons drew that had two different art styles. not talking about their personal losses. They were still there front and WG: That issue was written by Mike W. Barr. center. If you were watching the cartoons, same thing. So, in a way, these two terrible events, which in the real world would have completely ROSS: And they showed the old version of The Joker eventually and he devastated the was in jail and toothless and had people to whom graying sideburns and I thought this they happened, was excellent! I always wondered what were just an old version of Joker would look moments of story like. And the way Gibbons could ink correction and the old style of Batman comics was so cleaning up a much fun. There was that acknowlcharacter that they edgement of the passing of the torch were worried that had never actually been done. In about. In the case fact, I don’t think that in any of those of The Flash, they JLA/JSA crossovers the two Batmen killed his wife ever met. because his book wasn’t selling WG: Getting back to Dillin. He enough, he wasn’t drew many of the most memorable as exciting as he JLA/JSA crossovers. could be. He ROSS: He introduced us to the world wasn’t a sexy new of Earth-X. Guess where I got the character for an name of my series from? So that introaudience of duced us to the Quality characters. Spider-Man Earth-S had all the Fawcett characters. In two different pencil drawings for a single panel, Alex Ross works out the positioning freaks. And, in a That gave us a world of Fawcett of Green Lantern... to finally arrive at the painted panel of a soaring GL in space. way, those things [©2003 DC Comics.] characters as well as the Marvel remain as points Family. It featured the very first of destruction to meeting between Superman and Captain Marvel. I may not this day. Everything that seems awkward about Aquaman and his have picked that up when it came out, but I looked for those persona stems from that time, as well as Flash being dead. He’s issues as an older fan. I had to see the first meeting between still dead! They even brought back his damn wife. When those two characters. I was utterly fascinated with anything they killed him in Crisis he was a character who had been that enriched the overall universe of DC characters and that so mortally wounded over the years, it was like putting him they did it through alternate versions of Earth. It was down for good. awesome—I loved that! I also understood that it was WG: Let’s move to the JLA/JSA team-ups. What did completely confusing at the same time. you think of those? WG: I’ve always disagreed with that argument. I was ROSS: I was a big freak for the two different reading those early crossovers when I was seven years universes. I was captivated with the old. I had no problem understanding what was going idea of the older version of the on and, in fact, those crossovers inspired me to find Justice League. I did a lot of out more about those characters. So when DC artwork of the Earth-Two started reprinting the Golden Age adventures of versions of characters. Just the the JSA in the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars or mystery of where’s the Eartheven earlier created new adventures in The Two Batman. We have the EarthBrave and the Bold with Black Canary and Two Superman, but where’s Batman? Starman—well, I was all for it. And as It would take until my mid-teens when I much as I enjoyed Crisis, it destroyed would find that issue of Adventure those multiple Earths. Comics. Did Paul Levitz write that? WG: You are correct. It’s Adventure Comics #462. ROSS: They showed the character as being retired, but he had to put on the costume one last time to get killed by an absolute nobody. WG: The Earth-Two Batman was also in the Justice League of America #135-#137 featuring Shazam’s Squadron of Justice. ROSS: Yes, he was. That was one of those weird things, because if you look back at the artwork, Dick Dillin wasn’t doing what he could to establish the sense of the old Bob Kane Batman. He was drawing his modern version of Batman with the changed emblem. It was unsatisfactory in a weird way—Batman didn’t look any older, and The Joker from Earth-Two didn’t look any older. So it would take until sometime in the mid-’80s for other artists to establish that these guys were from a different reality. There was that great issue of The Brave and the Bold

Alex Ross League where she was never there and Black Canary took her place. Now you’re telling us that all this old classic artwork doesn’t matter—that none of it is real. That’s why Liberty and Justice is a celebration of the true published history of the Justice League and the true legends that these characters have been. Look at the cover of this issue of Alter Ego. Who’s fighting Starro? Wonder Woman! And I’m not telling you that any of that stuff didn’t happen. There’s some form of that reality that still exists in an eternal way. WG: So does this story take place in the past? ROSS: When I show the Justice League operating in the world, I’m not dating it to the 1970s. Alex originally intended for Red Tornado to be included in his poster series, but this one never went further than this pencil-sketch stage. In yet another pencil composition for the posters, he worked out the placement of Green Arrow’s bow hand in the sketch of the archer and Black Canary. [©2003 DC Comics.]

ROSS: Crisis was one of my favorite series in my youth, but it destroyed a version of DC that I found very powerful. I love the idea that, before Crisis, DC never took away the idea that Superman was the first super-hero, as well as having him as this young, vital character in his main book. But I think there would be a lot of confusion for anyone outside of comics trying to understand this stuff. I know as a kid I was still thrown by issues of The Brave and the Bold where Batman met The Unknown Soldier or Sgt. Rock and it would suddenly change tenses where it was the Earth-Two Batman of the 1940s. But I thought those guys were part of the Earth-One universe. Now I’ve got to compartmentalize them to that other universe. I was keeping a checklist—a mental checklist and probably a written checklist—as a kid. But I loved categorizing that stuff in my mind. So when the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and DC’s Who’s Who came out—aw, God—I loved that.

WG: As if that version were still being published.

ROSS: I’m letting it look as modern as today is. There won’t be anything in it that would look dated to us in a few years. But essentially you’re getting the modern world represented in this one story—but with classic characters. WG: So, switching gears a bit—what do you see as the difference between the JLA and The Avengers, and why do you favor the JLA? ROSS: Well, the JLA has a lineup of DC’s greatest icons and if you include the Super Friends as part of that, you get Robin in there as well. But there is clearly a descending order of who is most important among DC’s greatest heroes. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman—these are the icons known the world over. Following them, you have Green Lantern,

WG: You and me both! ROSS: I loved finding out everything about those characters. The whole idea of learning the history of those characters is part of a bygone age. It’s so bizarre to me, we’re not expecting people today to care about what has gone on in the past? WG: That was one of my biggest problems with Crisis. It erased history and made it so that the prior adventures were not important or desirable. ROSS: Wonder Woman became a problem. She was devolved into clay to be reborn and introduced as a new character. They now had a problem of not having retold all the JLA stories from day one. They had to rewrite a history of the Justice In this pencil drawing, Alex is working on the lineup for the JLA poster composite. [©2003 DC Comics.]

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date on a work that’s gotten as close to Kingdom Come’s lineup as I’ve come since. For Paul [Dini] and me, each of our tabloid books was meant to be a defining representation of DC’s greatest icons, and this JLA book is no different. It’s our tribute to a beloved group of characters that I believe will connect with the audience who grew up with them like we did, as well as providing a simple, movie-like presentation for people to be introduced to the characters for the first time. For anybody who is an old fan, they may be curious that our story was inspired by Justice League of America #118 and #119, which featured an alien invasion of Earth. When I talked to Paul about the book, I gave him a general idea of the plot and, not to ruin anything for anyone, but most Justice League stories revolve around some kind of alien plot toward Earth. You’ve got a lot of universe-hopping that’s happening through the crossovers with the Justice Step up to the plate! Yep, there’s even a beautifully-crafted WG: With the Justice League, you could Society, but more often than not, you’ve commemorative plate featuring the JLA. Above the image of easily rattle off the members, while with got an extraterrestrial invasion force. With the finished plate art is the “photo lineup” of the members, as The Avengers you’d need to know what their first story, you had an extraterresphotographed by Alex. The pencils for this art were seen on point in history was being referenced. trial invader, and their origin story and our contents page. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.] most of their other adventures are based ROSS: The core of The Avengers is the around this idea that they are the defense force of Earth. To get these key three characters: Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. But you get guys together, it’s got to be the biggest thing that could come down—to more out of the contributions of The Vision, Scarlet Witch, Giant-Man, get them to unite. Wasp, and Hawkeye. These are the characters who are instrumental to Flash. In the case of Marvel, Spider-Man and Hulk are their greatest icons, and then you get into a question of who is next most important. Given the time period now or say from the mid1980s on, you’d get a shift from Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor being the next most famous icons to Wolverine or whoever else is hot at the moment from The X-Men to The Punisher or Ghost Rider or what have you. That’s why it becomes more confusing with Marvel, because Marvel’s is more dictated by popularity. Whereas popularity is not as constricting or commanding with DC—because at the end of the day, everyone knows Superman and Batman. There is a group of cool characters that make up the Avengers, but it’s not a team led by Spider-Man, with The Hulk, with Wolverine, with basically everyone who is important to Marvel publishing incorporated into one main lineup.

that group, because they didn’t have books of their own. If you read through the JLA of the 1970s, you get a lot of page-time spent with the Red Tornado, Elongated Man, Green Arrow, Black Canary—again, characters who didn’t have their own books. But you always had those main characters—with a revolving door of who showed up for a particular adventure. Maybe Batman wasn’t in the issue, but you had Superman or The Flash. The important thing was that these groups were a combination of characters who were established in their own mythologies first. This was the case for both Avengers and the JLA, and certainly this came from the Justice Society. But it just so happens that DC icons almost all support their own titles. But with Marvel, you have three main Avengers that support their own titles. WG: So why should someone pick up the new Liberty and Justice book? ROSS: For hopefully a lot of reasons. It just may be my best artwork to

And the way we framed this in the story is that you don’t just have these guys hanging around in a room waiting for a call. They all have their own lives to lead and their own problems to deal with, and it comes down to who’s available to deal with the threat. I’m not going to break the doors wide open with how I’m redefining the Justice League; I just want to create a story where it seems like they’re grounded in reality. That grouping of those guys, the way they operate—that it seems feasible. Paul and I have no intention of having these characters hate each other or have trouble dealing with each other. So it’s not your standard comic book, because everything in your standard comic book is based upon how characters are almost impossible to deal with—because everyone has got “attitude.” And it’s that these personalities are providing that charismatic conflict that keeps everyone bickering constantly. The members of the JLA essentially come off of their jobs from all different walks of life, get together, and have

Alex Ross

mutual respect for each other—and that includes Batman, who is not necessarily sitting there and showing his contempt for everybody. Ever since Frank Miller redirected Batman in that fashion, we’ve had this mindset that these characters are following much more in the Marvel mold. They are following the style of The X-Men or the Fantastic Four. There are so many more personality problems, everybody’s got baggage. Well, this is not that story. This is more of a story where the JLA is like the Super Friends. Each one of these heroes is the greatest hero from wherever they are from, from whatever their city is. Aquaman is the Superman of the ocean, Flash is the Superman of Central City, etc. WG: Is there any difference between working on this book and working on the previous four? ROSS: Basically, we would always talk out the general plot. Paul or I would have an inspired idea, and then he’d write a three- or four-page outline that would break down the whole tale without page numbers or scene-by-scene blocking. I would take that and I would lay out thumbnails of the 60 pages. This one I wanted to shoot right to the point, and I spent time writing an outline of all of my thoughts of what the plot could and should be—that was fairly definitive—that I had collaborated on with Paul. I don’t know how many pages it was, but luckily, my wife helped me type it. When I say help, I mean she did all the typing. From there, I sent it to Paul and my editors and everyone agreed that it was fine to go ahead with that plot. I then broke down the 90 pages in small thumbnails of about 2H and 1I inches (that’s for a double page spread). I went through all 90 pages figuring out what happens on each two pages. I’d have a spread of Green Lantern stretched across two pages, just like I was also crafting pages that may have had eight or nine panels on them, at this size. I did this on maybe four pages of paper and blocked it out in maybe three or four days. I ran it past everybody and got their approval to go to penciling. And I also did comprehensive outline notes for each one of the pages, so when it came time for Paul to write the text, he had all of these notes to reflect upon. I had notes for particular situations in the story and some suggested dialogue, so there were a lot of ideas he could use, and he’s been working from those notes consistently. WG: With all the planning you do on these books, will there ever come a time when you do the scripting yourself? ROSS: I’ve been inspired to try and tackle it myself, but maybe not for the next thing I’m doing. It’s not my plan that I must replace that part of the team. It’s just that I have a surplus of ideas when I approach these things, and it’s hard to keep that from growing within myself. I’ve generally been able to offer all the things that come to my mind into these projects and they’ve been all accepted. For the next thing that I’m doing, I’ll probably be doing more of the same, but each new step is

toward that whole package being done by me. WG: Do you see yourself moving toward an approach where you would be doing the writing and someone else is doing the artwork? Along the lines of the Earth-X projects? ROSS: I’m not sure if I would ever do just the writing, although I have entertained this idea of doing the painting over someone else’s penciling. What that could mean, if you have the right match of talent, is that it would still look like what I would intend my work to be seen as, with someone else taking the brunt of the hard work of the penciling. It would allow me to relax and just concentrate more on how pretty I could make the pages look. I’m very much interested in going in that direction, because I’ve had a long enough time to get into these projects and prove myself to the market that nobody’s going to be questioning my ability to draw if I’m only painting over someone. There’s always the question of what it would look like if I just penciled a book instead of painting it. I’ll tell you right now, and I’ve said it many times before—I don’t trust anybody with that, because once you do it, they’ll say that it looks just like another penciled book. There are plenty of realistic pencilers out there who do a great job, and they get very little fanfare. People like Stuart Immonen or J.H. Williams— guys that have phenomenal talent, and they’re not getting the same kind of attention I get because that’s the added pizzazz of the painted illustration. WG: Why do you think fans are so eager to see you pencil? ROSS: It’s a constant question I get. I don’t mean to be rude about it, but I don’t trust the marketplace. WG: Is it because they think they may get more work out of you if you just do the pencils? ROSS: Maybe. But the thing is that the other option of me painting over somebody else’s pencils would achieve the same goal, if not better. Because the hardest process is not the painting—it’s kind of like color by number for me—the hardest process, for me, has always been the penciling breakdown; thinking out the page layouts. I’m looking forward to taking a break. WG: Are you taking a break after JLA: Liberty and Justice before getting started on your next project? ROSS: Yeah, I won’t be drawing any additional story pages before the end of this year, that’s for sure. But usually I would have about six months between the books I did, so my time was filled with covers, posters, prints, etc. Here, I’ll finish up within the month and then I’ll have to the end of the year.

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were setting a precedent to be followed in all superhero stories thereafter for decades to come. Who knows how well the history of comics would have fared with super-heroes whose lives changed as ours do? Watching our protagonists develop in this way might have engaged the audience on a more believable human level than the constant state of being in one’s prime.

SIDEBAR BY ALEX ROSS: That Long-Lost Superman “K-Metal” Script In Alter Ego #26, Mark Waid wrote an article about the lost Superman script by Jerry Siegel. In 1994 Mark gave me a copy of the script, which he had painstakingly transcribed (see AE #26 for details). I kept thinking that this story was something that had to be printed one day, illustrated from scratch. Not only did this tale, written in 1940, introduce the concept of kryptonite (K-Metal, as it’s referred to in the script), but, more importantly to me, it had Superman revealing his identity to Lois Lane. Only two years into the development of the character, this story would have ended the love triangle that has been considered fundamental to the Superman legend for 60 years! This would have been a turning point in super-hero reality. It’s not only the simple idea that he shared his identity with Lois. It’s that the creators were taking steps to evolve the archetypal super-hero story beyond the repetitive dramas created by this personal obstacle, which kept the characters’ relationship from maturing.

Black-&-white repro of the painted Superman poster done by Alex in conjunction with JLA: Liberty and Justice. See Alter Ego #26 for Mark Waid’s article on the never-used Jerry Siegel “Superman” script that would have introduced kryptonite to the world in 1940—and revealed the hero’s secret identity to Lois Lane! [©2003 DC Comics.]

You would have wound up with a mythology for Superman much like some of the comic strips of the day in which the characters’ lives developed in a way the mirrored real life—they grew older, got married, had children, etc. The prime example is Gasoline Alley. In that way, you write a story that moves things forward. It’s obvious why the choice was made not to print this story back then, but the powers-that-were at DC

My interest was also captivated by this sort of pure 1940s Superman script that could be illustrated for DC. What a wild thing to see a modern art approach on this story set in the 1940s. It would have scratched this itch of mine, of depicting this original version of Superman looking as true to Joe Shuster’s design as possible. It was what I wanted to do with Superman after Kingdom Come, and I discussed it with my friend Charlie Kochman, who then became my editor, both of us studying the copy Mark had given me. Charlie worried that it would be difficult to convey the importance of this one simple script and its possible impact on the history of Superman. Would it be possible for it to be special to anyone else?

The Siegel script that Mark passed on inspired me to come up with something that would suit my time and energies, and ultimately was the origin for Superman: Peace on Earth. Still, I have to wonder how the impact of the Superman legend would have been different if he had aged or passed on his mantle over the years. It might have made for an interesting narrative—but it also might have kept the character from achieving the stature of the world’s greatest modern myth. WG: But you’re still going to be working. ROSS: Yeah, I’ll still have jobs to do, but I won’t be doing story material. I’ll also have to take time to do touring for promotion of the book.

WG: So what would be your super-hero dream project, or have you done it already?

ROSS: Oh, boy—I think if I were to over-think the whole thing, and given the current political climate it would take years to fulfill this dream, the idea of doing an all-universe DC/Marvel crossover—something that I’ve kind of covered both bases with in my overall work. I’ve done it with illustrations that have combined the two. I’ve had more universe-hopping than just about anybody since George Pérez. I would love to do something that follows up those original crossovers. WG: Like Superman vs. Spider-Man? ROSS: There’s nothing better than that comic. It’s one of the greatest things in history. [Walt Grogan lives in the Chicagoland area with his wife, twin daughters, and orange furball of a cat. In his spare time (ha!), he keeps the spirit of Captain Marvel alive on his Marvel Family Web site (www.marvelfamily.com).]

Just a League of Their Own part two

REMEMBERING DICK DILLIN —“The Top Man In The Country!” The Family of DICK DILLIN Talk about Life with the Longest-ever Artist of Justice League and Blackhawk Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Walt Grogan [INTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Ask almost any longtime comics fan the name of the artist who drew Justice League of America and you’ll probably get Mike Sekowsky’s name in return. While certainly Sekowsky was synonymous with the JLA in its early years, I consider Dick Dillin the League’s defining artist. Dillin’s run as penciler on a single super-team title has yet to be matched— with 115 consecutive issues to his credit (his only break being the pre-planned reprint issues #67, 76, 85, and 93). His JLA output spanned twelve years, starting with #64 (Aug. 1968) and ending with #183 (Oct. 1980) at the time of his death. Before George Pérez became known as the super-group artist, Dillin was the reigning king, often drawing dozens of characters pitted against one another in the JLA/JSA annual team-ups. [If you grew up with Dick Dillin’s run on Justice League, you were treated to many a fine JLA/JSA team-up and were often introduced to a number of long-forgotten super-heroes, some of whom hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. He had the uncanny ability to weave these time-lost heroes into a modern-day story without any of them seeming out of place. He also handled the artwork on many of the JLA’s defining moments, such as: the introduction of a new Red Tornado (#64, Aug. 1968)... the return of the Seven Soldiers of Victory (#100-102, Aug.-Oct. 1972)... the second coming of many Quality Comics heroes (#107-108, Sept.-Dec. 1973)... Superman and the JLA meet the Fawcett Marvel Family (#135-137, Oct.-Dec. 1976)... “No Man Escapes the Manhunter!” and its sequel (#140-141, March-April 1977)... a 1950s proto-JLA (#144, July 1977)... a JLA/JSA/Legion of Super-Heroes crossover (#147-148, Oct.-Nov. 1977)... an assemblage of DC heroes of yesteryear (#159-160, Oct.-Nov. 1978)... the murder of Mr. Terrific (#171-172, Oct.-Nov. 1979)... and “Crisis on New Genesis,” the first chapter of a 3-part JLA/JLA/New Gods crossover (#183, Oct. 1980). Great moments... and we recall them all as they were seen and depicted by Dick Dillin.

Dick Dillin worked at the same drawing table for his entire professional career, so it’s highly likely that this unique cover art for The Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977) was composed there, as well. Why “unique”? Because it seems to have been reproduced (and even colored) from a signed Dillin pencil—one of the only uninked samples of his artwork known to exist. (Even if he did ink it with pen, it’s still unique, because Dick virtually never inked his own work!) All photos and much of the art reproduced with this article were provided by Walt Grogan and the Dillin family. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

[Dick Dillin’s wife Estella, their son Richard, Jr., and their daughters Leslie and Terry were kind enough to participate in a joint interview on August 17, 2003, about this remarkable artist they all loved. Special thanks to Dillin fan supreme Alex Ross for setting up this one-of-a-kind interview. —Walt.] WALT GROGAN: When was Dick born? MRS. ESTELLA DILLIN: December 17, 1929, in Watertown, NY. WG: And when did he pass away? MRS. DILLIN: March 1, 1980. WG: Where did he go to school? MRS. DILLIN: Watertown High School. And he went, as a special art student, to Syracuse University. He went to Syracuse after his tour of duty in the service, on the G.I. Bill.

“The Top Man In The Country!”

which is the beginning of the Hudson Highlands. All of a sudden it gets mountainous and very picturesque. That’s where I was raised and that’s where the family was for years. It was a nice little river town back then. Nowadays, it’s quite different. WG: Mrs. Dillin, how long had you been married before he switched jobs? MRS. DILLIN: Probably about four or five years. WG: So you knew about his love of art all along. The Dillin family members who participated in this interview. (Left to right:) Richard Dillin, Jr.... Leslie (Dillin) Battista... Estella Dillin... and Terry (Dillin) Doscher.

MRS. DILLIN: [laughing] Oh, definitely. Him and a couple of his friends who were artists.

RICHARD DILLIN, JR.: When he went as a special student to Syracuse, he was a special fine arts student and all he did was studio work.

WG: When did Dick get started drawing comics?

MRS. DILLIN: And he was on the Dean’s List. Every quarter he was there.

RICHARD: When he was very, very young. He knew what he wanted to be.

RICHARD: That’s where he got so good at anatomy, and why he didn’t like to draw animals. They didn’t bring too many animals to class. [laughs]

WG: Really? So he knew he wanted to be a comic book artist?

WG: Where was he stationed while he was in the service?

MRS. DILLIN: Yes. When he was a kid, he tried to copy Hal Foster and some of the Sunday comics—and always the action ones with a lot in them.

RICHARD: In Okinawa. WG: Mrs. Dillin, when did you get married and how many children do you have? MRS. DILLIN: We were married in 1948 and we have three children, a son and two daughters: Richard, Leslie, and Terry. WG: Were you and Dick already married when he started looking for work in comics? MRS. DILLIN: He was working at this air brake company in Watertown, where they make air brakes for trains, and he came home one night and said to me, “I quit and I’m going to New York to look for art jobs.” I said, “Good.” Then he said, “I didn’t really quit, I wanted to see what you’d say.” [laughs] The next day I went out and got a job, and a couple of days after that he left for New York. He knew a man that had a little studio in New York, so he helped my husband at first, when he got a job, gave him a place to work. And about six months later, the kids and I moved down. RICHARD: He used to love the Hudson River Valley. When he first left Watertown to walk the streets of New York to find work, he got on the train and was looking for a place to live and came up to Peekskill, Portrait of Dick Dillin, taken while he was in military service—and a photo of “Dick and his best friend Delos Barney, a great artist in his own right, back from Japan in 1948. They were born side-by-side in Watertown.”

WG: So did he have a desire to become a comic strip artist, or was he interested in becoming a comic book artist?

Rich Dillin (Richard Dillin, Jr.) says of this photo of Dick’s sister Ruth, his mother Hazel, and young Dick holding a Hal Foster Prince Valiant page he had copied: “He wanted to be a comic book illustrator from the time he could first look at the funny papers. He drew constantly, copying the greats and developing his own style. I always considered him to be among the few people in the world who knew their goal at a very young age and accomplished it. I had never seen the picture before. I think he might have been a child prodigy. He worked at home and was there all through my childhood.”

MRS. DILLIN: Always comic books. RICHARD: As a matter of fact, he used to copy stuff from the time when he was a kid. He saved money from delivering groceries, when he was a kid, and he bought his first drawing board. He had that drawing board his whole life through. When the kids were home, he used to have the drawing board in the master bedroom, and when we moved out, he finally got his own room and I still have it in my master bedroom today—the very same drawing board. WG: What a treasure! What comic book titles did he work on? MRS. DILLIN: He worked on a lot of them at Quality Comics. Blackhawk was the main one; there were a lot of little ones that you never heard of. WG: So what happened when Quality closed up shop? MRS. DILLIN: We went up to Watertown

Remembering Dick Dillin

On the left is a splash from Blackhawk #77 (June 1954), penciled by Dick Dillin and inked by the series' co-creator, Chuck Cuidera, for Quality Comics Group. The two men formed a team for years on the title, which—amazingly—continued, as seen by the partial-panel above, after Quality went out of business and sold the Blackhawks to DC. Quality splash repro’d from photocopies of a story reprinted in black-&-white in the ’50s in an OK Annual, one of numerous English hardcovers containing comics and stories, wherein so much Quality material was reprinted; thanks to David Roach. The DC art was printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #11 (April 1976). [©2003 DC Comics.]

WG: So he was happy to get that assignment? RICHARD: Yes, he was. He was a little worried about having to do all the super-heroes together. He liked it. He did it. WG: Which of his titles was his favorite? MRS. DILLIN: I think he liked JLA the best of any of them. for vacation. And after a couple of days he called Quality to see if they had work for him and they said, “No, we’re going out of business. We sold Blackhawk.” And so we packed up and went home panicked because we didn’t know where he’d be working. You know, you got three kids—you need income. He said, “I’ve got to pound the pavement in New York again.” He went to a couple of places; then he went up to DC and there was Blackhawk lying on the desk where they interviewed, and they said, “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you.” And that started his long session with DC. WG: What a story—not a good story while it was happening, though. MRS. DILLIN: No, not while you’re on vacation, spending vacation money, and find out he has no job. But it worked out. WG: I know that he worked on Justice League of America for a long time. RICHARD: I can remember when they said that they weren’t going to publish Blackhawk anymore at DC. He was all worried, because that had been his staple. He was worried what was going to happen. In between, there was an interim, where they put him on some World’s Finest and a few other magazines—Batman specials and stuff like that. And then they handed him Justice League of America.

The original art for this unused cover for Justice League of America #66 (Nov. 1968) was recently auctioned off by Heritage Comics—though mislabeled as being “attributed to” Carmine Infantino and Mike Sekowsky. This art was first printed, in color, as the back cover of Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (1977), with no credits. The inker is uncertain, though it is probably not Sid Greene, who inked the interior art on JLA at this time; Joe Giella seems a likelier bet. The actual published cover of JLA #66, a totally different layout, was done by Neal Adams, and is on view, along with Dillin’s first six JLA stories, in Justice League of America Archives, Vol. 8, published earlier this year. Hopefully there will be additional volumes in this series. [©2003 DC Comics.]

WG: His work was wonderful on that book, and he stayed on it for such a long time. As I was growing up, he was the JLA artist. Did he

“The Top Man In The Country!” have any favorite characters that he enjoyed drawing? MRS. DILLIN: He said Superman was the hardest one to draw. I don’t know why. And, as I mentioned, he hated drawing animals. RICHARD: It took him some time before he got to a point where he considered he had them all mastered. And at the end, he probably still didn’t consider he had them all mastered. It was quite a lot to get all the super-heroes in Artist George Evans later “modified” the Dutch one cover or one story Blackhawk named Hendrickson to closely and have them all look resemble Dick Dillin, as seen in this art detail right. I know when he that was reprinted from black-&-white photostats in Amazing World of DC Comics #11. did Blackhawk, that [©2003 DC Comics.] was a post-war thing, it was after World War II, and he was still fighting the Commies and the bad guys, and right up until the Viet Nam era he would get mail from fans that the insignias were wrong on uniforms and stuff. So he had to watch all of that kind of thing. He was very passionate about his drawings and his comic books. [Terry (Dillin) Doscher’s husband Frank Doscher interjects that, when George Evans took over the art on the revived Blackhawk comic book, Evans modified the oldest member of the Blackhawks, the mustachioed Hendrickson, to look more like Dick.] WG: Did you ever watch him while he was drawing? RICHARD: Oh, constantly. We would sit and talk with him and everything. MRS. DILLIN: The noisier the house was, the faster he drew. One day he’d come out, he’d say, “I can’t draw, we’re all going to starve.” But we knew the next day he’d be sitting in there and he’d holler, “I’m a genius, I’m a genius! Come see what I drew!” LESLIE [DILLIN] BATTISTA: A lot of times when he needed to draw a hand in a certain position or something, he might have asked you to help him with that. In fact, my father worked better when there were more people around. You would think that he’d want to be alone doing his work—a lot of people don’t like distraction. But my father loved it. He worked from home, and so many times, people would stop over and talk to him and he absolutely loved that. Those were my favorite times with my dad, when I would go into his room and he was working and we would talk while he worked.

what he was doing. RICHARD: I had friends who would come in and read comics in his room all day. He was very jovial—very friendly. Friends would come over—didn’t matter if any of us kids were home. They’d sit and talk with my father. TERRY: I had a girlfriend who used to come to the house, even when I wasn’t at home. And that’s because of both my parents. She would come on the weekend and stay even if I wasn’t there. My parents really enjoyed having young people around. My father was always a laugh— always a lot of fun. WG: Did any of you children have artistic talent as well? MRS. DILLIN: Yes. RICHARD: All of us… pretty much. WG: So he passed it onto you. RICHARD: When we were younger, we were taken to all the museums and the shows in New York City. So we got a broad base in art. TERRY: My father was a real artist; he was continually trying to do better and to try new and different things. He was always experimenting and continuing to enhance his craft. Just a few years before he passed away, he asked for an anatomy book for Christmas. Here he had been drawing for years and years and years. Yet still he was trying to make it better. He would take us out of school to go to art museums. He really brought us up with a sense and appreciation of art—all different kinds of art. He had us experience things other people never would have thought of or take kids out of school for. Nowadays, I think there’s more of that in school. MRS. DILLIN: My son won’t tell you, but he was an art director in an ad agency in New York. RICHARD: It wasn’t an ad agency, it was multimedia. WG: What was Dick’s work day like? When would he get started and how long would he draw? [Several of the family members laugh.] MRS. DILLIN: He would get started whenever the mood struck him, and he would sometimes work until two or three in the morning. Then, other days, he would say, “I can’t draw, let’s go somewhere.” If the going was good, he didn’t even want to stop to eat.

TERRY [DILLIN] DOSCHER: I don’t think I realized what he did when I was growing up—I just took it for granted. When I got to high school, I knew kids who were majoring in art, and they wanted to come home and watch my father work. And I was, “Oh, yeah,” you know. I was always in awe of it, but I respected it more as I got older rather than when I was growing up in the house with it. He was probably the most talented person I’ve ever known. LESLIE: My father absolutely loved his work and what he did. Every day he worked he was so excited about

Dick Dillin and three of his favorite ladies: with his wife Estella, dressed for a formal outing—and as the proud grandfather of twin daughters.

Remembering Dick Dillin A nice Dillin/Greene page from Justice League of America #73 (Aug. 1969). Black Canary, like Starman, was then a member of the Justice Society, but she’d soon switch Earths and group allegiances. Script by Denny O’Neil. Repro’d from black-&-white photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Jerry G. Bails. [©2003 DC Comics.]

WG: Would there be some days where you wouldn’t see him all that much? RICHARD: Oh, we could talk to him and stuff, but you weren’t going to get him away from his drawing table. WG: Do you know anything about his childhood? RICHARD: He grew up very modestly, so he maintained a modest lifestyle. A lot of people always assumed, “Oh, a comic book artist makes big money,” which they do nowadays. He was a very fine artist and a lot of people haven’t seen his pencil work. It was very fine and tight. By the time it was inked, half of his work was covered, even though the composition was there. We have the last five pages of pencils that he drew, and that’s all that remains of his natural pencil work. It was probably for Justice League. I remember that there was a big monster. Yeah, it’s got to be Justice League. WG: How was he on deadlines? RICHARD: He sure would torture himself to make deadlines. He would go into panic mode and stress himself out. TERRY: He would say, “I’m not going to get it done, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.” He seemed stressed but he always got it done. According to him, it was always right up to the deadline. I have such a respect, though, for being to perform on command. To have such an imagination like that. RICHARD: I didn’t find out until a few years ago that he has the record for not missing deadlines. I think it was with JLA or with all of the titles.

Dick taking a rest between pages— in more ways than one, because the art flanking his photo is pp. 7 & 8 from Justice League of America #113, as JLA and JSA tackle the monster that once was Sandman’s kid partner Sandy. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Brian H. Baile, who owns the whole story! Art by Dick Dillin (pencils) & Dick Giordano (inks); script by Len Wein. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

“The Top Man In The Country!”

Here's a bittersweet find. When Dick Dillin passed away, he had just begun work on Justice League of America #184 (Nov. 1980), with the first 2H penciled pages completed. Through Walt Grogan, Dick's grandson David Olsen sent us scans of pp. 1 & 3 (p. 2 may be lost). Also depicted are George Pérez and Frank McLaughlin's printed versions of those same pages from Gerry Conway's script. We thank David and the Dillin family for allowing us to print this never-beforeseen art, as a tribute to the JLA's most prolific artist ever. [Art ©2003 Estate of Dick Dillin; JLA TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

Remembering Dick Dillin WG: He certainly has the record for most consecutive issues of a super-team title. He did 115 issues of Justice League of America. How many pages could he do in a day? MRS. DILLIN: That would depend on the day. [laughs] On some days, if what he was drawing wasn’t too detailed, he might do a page and a half—usually a page and a half a day. He went into the city every ten days. Some of the stories were 18 pages long. It really took him more than that. He really did more than that in a day.

see is how beautiful his pencil drawings were. It’s just amazing. He did beautiful work. WG: Did he ever do any work outside of comics? RICHARD: He did some storyboarding for the Hercules cartoons. He just did the storyboards, and then they’d send them over to Korea or Japan or wherever and get them to do the animation. MRS. DILLIN: I wish I could remember the name of the guy who he worked for. RICHARD: Barnes. Jack Barnes. WG: Was he Dick’s boss on the Mighty Hercules series? RICHARD: Yes. I don’t know what company it was. My dad would do the storyboards, and Jack Barnes would come up to pick up the storyboards. He would tell my father, “You’re top man in the country!” For years and years, my dad would say, “You’ve got to remember, I’m the top man in the country!” MRS. DILLIN: A month before he died, Marvel called twice and tried to get him to go with them and leave DC, but he wouldn’t do it. RICHARD: He was very loyal to DC.

WG: Did he have any friends at DC? RICHARD: Not really. But he was very friendly with them when he would go into work. Julie Schwartz was the editor for most of those issues— I think probably all of them.

WG: What was his process for breaking down a script? LESLIE: He always got very, very excited about it. He worked from a script, and I think I remember him saying that he never read the whole story. He would read it as he went, so that he could visualize the story unfolding kinda like somebody reading the story would. So he worked page by page. He wanted to see it in the eye of the reader.

MRS. DILLIN: There was an editor who always sat on his check. I can’t remember his name! [laughs] Richard told me he was in with this editor, and when he got ready to leave, the editor would say, “Wait, here’s your check,” and he was always sitting on it.

TERRY: Growing up, I was in complete awe of him, taking a page of a script and dividing it up and making sense of it all. He’d get some word balloons and a brief description of the action and the scenes that he would create. It was phenomenal.

WG: Oh, that’s terrible. [laughs]

WG: Did you ever see his work in the printed comics? LESLIE: Yes, but it was more exciting when the rights to pages were released and we got some of the actual pages back. WG: Do you have some of those pages? LESLIE: Oh, yes. All of us have some of those. I loved the early Blackhawks, and unfortunately, what people can’t

A page from “The Parallel Perils of Adam Strange,” in Justice League of America #120 (July 1975). Art by Dick Dillin & Frank McLaughlin; script by Cary Bates. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Brian H. Baile. [©2003 DC Comics.]

RICHARD: Yeah, really! Beat the man! Beat the man! And another thing he did, I believe it was probably for Jack Barnes—he did a series of little carrying-cases for girls and vinyl lunchboxes—they were called Tina Teen. It was like early Barbie… but there was no Barbie yet. MRS. DILLIN: Before

“The Top Man In The Country!”

he went to New York, when we still lived in Watertown, he worked for New York Air Brake. He used to draw illustrations for the Sunday School paper. RICHARD: He painted portraits, too. MRS. DILLIN: There was a nightclub here and he used to make their posters. WG: Most comic book fans know him for his comics work only. It would be a treat to see some of that other work. MRS. DILLIN: He liked to draw and he didn’t care what it was. WG: Did he ever do any teaching? RICHARD: When we were in grade school, as kids, he would come to our classes and do demonstrations with chalk on the chalkboard for about a half an hour. He did help with class plays. TERRY: I remember, one time, we were doing a program on Indians. This was third grade. My teacher knew that my dad was an artist, so she asked him to do these pictures of Indians to put on the stage in the auditorium. For my father, this was like a major project—these were bigger than life-size—huge and gorgeous Indians. Everyone in the school had to come and see these Indians, including the principal. My third grade teacher was so impressed and so grateful and wanted to see more of his artwork. RICHARD: My father wanted to be Jackson Pollack at one point in his life. So he went down into the basement and he got a piece of masonite and he cut it down the middle so that it was two foot wide and eight foot long and he went out and bought all these paints and he wouldn’t let anyone go down there for a week and he wouldn’t let anyone even take a peek. And finally we go down and we see it and it’s like a big abstract picture of the universe. It’s like some pictures you might see through the Hubble telescope [laughs], and we had this on the wall in our living room for so long. And the classes from the school used to come up and kids from the class used to go back and write what they thought they saw in the painting. MRS. DILLIN: And they sent it to him. TERRY: My whole class came up, and this was during the Jackson Pollack period. He was a little Peekskill celebrity, so the kids came up. He loved young people. WG: Did he ever create the look of any of the comic book characters? RICHARD: I’m sure he did. But I don’t know them off-hand. MRS. DILLIN: I know he did, because I remember him drawing model sheets so that every time he had to draw that character he had a copy to look at so he wouldn’t forget. WG: Dick was very young when he died. LESLIE: It was very hard on all of us. I think he lived to be a year older than his father. When he hit that milestone, he said, “This is great, I did it!” And then the next year he was dead, which was unfortunate. He will be missed, but he was a very vivid personality. I can’t tell you the number of New Year’s Eves I’d go out on a date and I’d come home and all my friends would be in the living room with my parents, celebrating New Year’s with them. The kids always loved my parents, and my father was kind of like a Renaissance man—my father knew something about everything. It didn’t matter what you talked about, my father knew something about it. It just always amazed me. WG: He seems like a very fun-loving guy. LESLIE: Oh, definitely. He was silly. Actually, there was one thing that I remember—I don’t know how we ended up with this kind of Buddha

For JLA #100 (June 1972), Dillin and inker Joe Giella teamed up with writer Len Wein to bring back the Seven Soldiers of Victory, whose series in Leading Comics had been discontinued in 1945. The latter is repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Brian H. Baile, bless ’im! [©2003 DC Comics.]

statue on top of our TV as we were growing up. My brother was in the Air Force and my father would put epaulets and a cap on the Buddha. At Christmas, he would dress it up like Santa Claus. It was like this ongoing joke. When anything was going on—that Buddha was dressed up. My father was silly and he loved silliness. Also, I remember one time he made a pair of glasses with lenses that were shaped like crescents—they were moon-glasses instead of sunglasses. Just stupid silly stuff, he was always doing things like that. RICHARD: Although he could be embarrassed, as well. Whenever he went into work, he took the train. He would come home always elated because he finished his work. One time, I had a little Austin-Healy Sprite and the Snoopy World War I goggles and helmet and big blue scarf and it was a convertible, and I picked up him up like that. He was totally embarrassed. WG: Are you happy that he is well remembered in the comics community? LESLIE: It always flips me out that people remember him. I’m so sure that he would be flipped out, as well. I remember several years ago, I was getting some of his work framed and I was standing there waiting for somebody to help me, and there was a guy standing next to me and he said, “Oh, those are nice,” and then he looked at them and said, “Hey, those are Dick Dillin’s work.” And I said, “Yeah, I know.” And he said, “How’d you get those?” I said, “He’s my dad.” And this guy, I thought it was hysterical—it was funny—he was like this comic groupie.

Remembering Dick Dillin

A Dick Dillin Checklist [NOTE: A/E editor emeritus Jerry G. Bails has kindly provided the following list of Dick Dillin’s credits from his online Who’s Who in Twentieth-Century American Comic Books, which can be accessed via the Grand Comic Book Database at www.comics.org; see the GCD’s ad elsewhere in this issue. Some of the following information was provided by Dillin himself via questionnaire:]

DICK DILLIN (1928-1980) — Artist Full name: Richard Allen Dillin.

Challengers of the Unknown

Superman Jr. and Batman Jr.

Education: Carlos Academy (New York state); Syracuse University.

Fabulous World of Krypton

Superman team-ups

Green Arrow

Terra-Man

Influences: Milt Caniff, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond.

Green Lantern

The Unexpected

Hawkman

Whatever Happened to Hourman?

Animation storyboards: [Trans-Lux/Joe Oriolo] Johnny Zero, c. 1962; Mighty Hercules, 1963; Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero, 1967.

House of Secrets

The Witching Hour

Judge Gallows

Wonder Woman

Kid Flash

Comics Feature Credits (all as penciler unless otherwise indicated):

Buzz Bennett

Private Life of Clark Kent

Space Rangers

Charlton Comics (1955):

Seven Soldiers of Victory

Lance O’Casey (artist)

Superman and Batman

Justice League of America

Robin

Fiction House (1951-53):

Grosset & Dunlap (Tempo Books) (1977) Quality Comics (1952-56): Blackhawk

DC Comics (1957-1980): Aquaman

G.I. Combat

The Atom

horror

Batman

Love Confessions

Blackhawk

Love Secrets He was like, “Let me shake your hand.” He went on and on and on. Of course, it was after my father died, so when I left, I went out to my car and sat and cried. But it’s so nice to know that his work is so appreciated. MRS. DILLIN: We were a very close family. We all miss him desperately. My children are all thrilled that he is remembered so well after 23 years. Not that many people get that praise after 23 years. That pleases us all. To close, we’ll let Dick flank his artwork this time! These circa-1980 photos of him in front of his home in Peekskill, NY (at left), and visiting Watertown (right) serve as book-ends to his cover for his very first Justice League of America issue, #73 (Aug. 1969), which introduced a new Red Tornado into the DC Universe. Repro’d from photocopies of the black-&-white art. [©2003 DC Comics.]

LESLIE: I always felt that, for us kids, he kinda spoiled it for us because he was so fortunate to do exactly what he loved to do and exactly what he always wanted to do. That’s what we all aspire to—how lucky can you get?

Just a League of Their Own part three

How Green Was My Martian by Michelle Nolan [EDITOR’S INTRO: While preparing this issue’s coverage of the early Justice League of America, I—that’s A/E editor Roy Thomas— got to musing about various oddities and anomalies of the first story or three of that all-important super-hero group: [Why Superman and Batman were used so sparingly in early issues. (This, at least, we could almost guess at the time, and the truth has

Why was J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars, rather than Green Arrow, selected as the “seventh” member of the first version of the Justice League of America? Why a six-page backup character from Detective Comics, one who didn’t really start out as a super-hero or costumed character, at least in the traditional sense? Why not a much longer-running, full-fledged costumed hero (albeit also a backup)—the non-super-powered Green Arrow, who was nearly two decades old when the JLA debuted in 1960? And yet—why not the Martian Manhunter? As someone who watched with considerable curiosity as that hero developed during the 1955-59 period, I remember being enthused over seeing the greenskinned J’onn J’onzz (as he was almost invariably called in the early “JLA” stories, with the term “Martian Manhunter” becoming common usage only some time later) in the original group lineup. Of course, it didn’t take Green Arrow long to catch up, since the Emerald Archer joined the group in Justice League of America #4, the

been confirmed since. DC, or at least those two heroes’ respective editors, feared that they might seem over-used.) [As long as we were picking nits, I even pondered the fact that Aquaman’s gloves are colored yellow in the first “JLA” tale, just as they had been for the preceding two decades—then suddenly become green in both the second “JLA” tale and in solo “Aquaman” stories from then on. (Coincidence? Probably. Still, one may wonder if perhaps the “JLA” colorist didn’t make a minor error—and Aquaman’s guiding editor didn’t decide he liked that hue better, after all.) [Then came the biggie: Why was Green Arrow, who after all had debuted in the very same issue of More Fun Comics in 1941 that Aquaman had, left out of the JLA for its first half dozen adventures, in favor of a minor player like J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars, who had never been a cover feature as G.A. had? Was it only because the Martian had super-powers while Green Arrow was basically Batman with a bow? And, most intriguingly of all—was it mere coincidence that, in his solo series in Detective Comics, J’onn J’onzz had only become visible to Earthlings a very short time before The Brave and the Bold #28 introduced the Justice League of America to the waiting world? [Michelle Nolan and I were kicking these and other thoughts around on the phone one night, and she volunteered to write an article about “John Jones—Manhunter from Mars”—which turns out to be a far more interesting and innovative series than I had given it credit for. —Roy.]

(Left:) J’onn J’onzz was a far grimmer, more Spectre-like character when he first appeared in Detective Comics #225 (Nov. 1955) with his prominent brow and stern demeanor; later he was often drawn as just a smiling green Martian. This debut story was most recently reprinted in the 1998 Replica Edition of the first Secret Origins special, from 1961. Pencils by Joe Certa. (Right:) Artist Tom Mandrake, artist of a recent long-running Spectre series, restored the grim visage in this pencil-and-ink sketch, done for collector Mike Zeno and used by permission of both Tom and Mike. Visit Tom’s website at <www.tommandrake.com>. [Detective #225 art ©2003 DC Comics; sketch ©2003 Tom Mandrake; Martian Manhunter TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

Martian Manhunter Still, one cannot but wonder about this drastic change in the Manhunter. I purchased Brave & Bold #28 on January 5, 1960—the day that issue hit the stands on the West Coast. Was it just coincidence that J’onn J’onzz had finally become visible to the world in Detective #273, which was cover-dated November 1959 and had gone on sale only a few months earlier, in either late September or early October? I wondered at the time, and I still do.

JLA’s seventh adventure, counting the three tales in The Brave and the Bold #28-30. Many collectors still don’t fully realize, however, that the slowly-evolving “John Jones—Manhunter from Mars” feature—as the strip was titled through its 102-issue run in Detective Comics #225326—was in reality as fresh a concept in 1960 as were the Silver Age versions of The Flash and Green Lantern. With the ever-increasing emphasis on science-fictional themes in comics after the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957, soon followed by the first U.S. Earth orbiter in 1958, the Martian Manhunter emerged as a far more commercially viable character than Green Arrow, then still just a holdover from the Golden Age.

I often wrote the date on which I bought comics—right at the top of the first page—and those dates were almost always the date each comic hit the newsstands and comic racks. I would usually visit all the half dozen racks near my home on Tuesdays and Thursday (new-comics days in that era) to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Remember, comic book circulation was far wider but also much more inconsistent in those days.

Many, if not most, of the original readers of Justice League of America probably did not realize how radically J’onn J’onzz’s presentation had changed—much for the better, from the standpoint of young readers who dug seeing green-skinned Martians—in the two years before the JLA’s debut in The Brave and the Bold #28 (March 1960). Even so, it was just common sense to see the Martian Manhunter emerge from the shadows of invisibility, if only to provide more story possibilities for his series. He did so in Detective #273 (Nov. 1959), when his Martian identity became known to the world in “The Unmasking of John Jones.” He did, of course, retain his secret identity as the muscular daredevil detective John Jones, who was usually portrayed as anything but a less-than-aggressive Clark Kent type.

How our memories play tricks on us! A/E’s editor had long recalled the full-page house ad that heralded the upcoming JLA debut at the end of 1959 as being topped by that oft-seen “Just Imagine!” heading, which actually appeared on ads for later issues, starting with Justice League of America #1. He’d forgotten that Starro the Conqueror got such double-billing, too! But Roy’s memory was correct about J’onn J’onzz being colored yellow instead of green on the ad, probably because a DC colorist accidentally confused the hero with the different-hued Martian criminal B’rett in Detective Comics #273; the Manhunter’s garb was colored on the ad as B’rett’s had been, as well. Incidentally, Michelle Nolan took this house ad from Batman #129 (Feb. 1960)—cover-dated one month earlier than The Brave and the Bold #28. [©2003 DC Comics.]

J’onn J’onzz had occasionally revealed his Martian visage and physique to Earthlings in a few previous stories, but these always ended with folks believing the green apparition to be a hoax. In Detective #271, in fact, three crooks captured by a very visible Manhunter were derided as delusional. (A brief origin recap in that issue, incidentally, is not totally faithful to the first story in #225.) In Detective #273, the Martian criminal B’rett exposed J’onn to a gas compound, permanently taking away his Martian super-powers when he was invisible (though he could still turn invisible). Until that issue, the Manhunter had spent much of his time in his invisible state, which longtime “John Jones” artist Joe Certa strangely rendered in different ways. Even though the Martian Manhunter was soon destined to join the JLA—less than four months after, in fact, with regard to newsstand time—I still have my doubts that this change in his visibility was made intentionally so that he could join the Justice League. Jack Schiff edited Detective and Joe Samachson wrote most of the “Manhunter from Mars” stories, while Justice League of America was edited by Julie Schwartz and written by Gardner Fox.

For some reason, I did not record the purchase date for my copy of Detective #273, but I did so date Action Comics #258, which also carried a November cover date. I bought the latter on September 29, 1959, which means Detective #273 came out at about the same time, probably no more than a week earlier or later. So call it only about three months ahead of the JLA’s debut.

In those days, with no comics press and no way of knowing anything about what was coming up in comics three months in advance, little could I know that “visibility” was soon to take on an entirely new meaning for J’onn J’onzz, with the stunning creation of the JLA. But, while reading Detective #273, I was just happy to see the intriguing Martian take such a leap forward. For me, the Martian Manhunter was what I later came to call an “always character”—that is, he had always seemed to exist for me. When I had begun buying comics in April 1956, little had I known that “John Jones—Manhunter from Mars” was such a fresh concept. Unique, in fact. Nor did I understand what DC was trying to accomplish with this odd little strip, especially in its first two years.

My first exposure to the Martian Manhunter was in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956)—that’s right, the wonderful issue that also introduced Batwoman in the “Batman” lead feature. That landmark issue contained the Manhunter’s ninth story; but, much to my consternation, his Martian self was never shown therein! To my eight-year-old mind— which thought green-skinned Martians were much more intriguing than their human disguise could ever be—this was every bit as frustrating as those episodes of The Adventures of Superman on television in which the Man of Steel appeared in only a couple of scenes. Nor did the Manhunter’s Martian identity appear in Detective #234 or #235. It wasn’t until #236 (Oct. 1956)—in the story “The Great Earth-Mars Mystery”—that at last I first saw the green-skinned super-

How Green Was My Martian

to 12 pages in Detective #301 (March 1962) through #326 (April 1964). In #326, John Jones supposedly died, setting the stage for the Manhunter’s shift to House of Mystery with #143. Detective #246, though, marked a milestone for the feature, not to mention the best story in the series to that point. By this issue, I had been reading it for a year, and I recall thinking how much better this story was than any of the others. This is the well-crafted little 6-page epic titled “John Jones’ Female Nemesis,” in which the Manhunter meets Diane Meade, the police commissioner’s daughter. Oddly, he wasn’t destined to run across her again until Detective #275 (Jan. 1960). In Detective Comics #228 (Feb. 1956), wherein the Martian Manhunter’s true likeness is seen only in one (flashback) panel, the name of the scientist who brought him to Earth is misspelled “Urdle.” This story was included in the 1990 hardcover The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told, and is one of the few “John Jones—Manhunter from Mars” tales ever reprinted, except for the origin. [©2003 DC Comics.]

hero in the flesh. He appeared in scenes in which he finally contacted his father by machine, nearly one year after being stranded on Earth in Detective #225 (Nov. 1955). Talk about being a puzzled reader! Who ever heard of a comic book hiding the true identity of a super-hero? Nor did the Manhunter appear in his true form in Detective #237 or #238, meaning that his Martian visage appeared in only one of the first six of his stories that I read. He did appear in four panels at the start of the story in #239 (Jan. 1957), but not in action.

While debating the rookie policewoman’s request to accompany Jones in the back pages of #246, he agrees, with this thought: “Yet, she will be safer with me... and she is kind of pretty as, er, Earth girls go!” Now that was an unusual line for DC comics of the day!

The Manhunter doesn’t appear in action as himself until the last page of #246, and then only in the odd dots briefly used to designate his invisibility. In the last two panels, Jones’ human visage reflects on his adventure with Diane: “Her eyes sparkle so when she looks at me! Even if she does create a dreadful dilemma, I must admit it’s fun having her along on a case!” Then his Martian face reflects: “Yet... would her eyes sparkle if she saw me in my natural guise—like this? (Sigh) A Martian on Earth can lead an awfully lonely existence!”

His Martian form appeared briefly in #240, 241, and 242, but only in his invisible state, which was oddly portrayed as white dotted outlines. By this time, I was getting pretty frustrated! I had been reading this character for nearly a year, and it seemed DC simply did not want to show him in his alien identity! Of course, what I didn’t understand was DC’s unique and original concept—that of a capable detective on Earth who was really a shapeshifter from Mars. And that, of course, was why J’onn J’onzz had landed in Detective Comics and not in Strange Adventures or Mystery in Space. The Manhunter appeared only in flashback sequences on Mars in #243, and did not appear in his Martian identity at all in #244 or 245. By this time, I still had not seen his infrequent earlier appearances, beginning with his origin story in #225, “The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel,” in which J’onn J’onzz had been mistakenly teleported to Earth. The Manhunter appeared in a few panels—all in a reflective state over his Earth-bound dilemma—in #226, 227, and 228, along with two panels showing only his head in #229. DC did about as little as possible to make readers aware of the Martian Manhunter. The company did plug the hero by name at the top of the covers of Detective #225, 227, 229, and 231, but it was to be four years—with his JLA appearance on The Brave and the Bold #28—before the Martian Manhunter was to get any sort of visual cover exposure. Indeed, the Manhunter had precious little visibility—pun intended!— in his first 25 stories. In fact, it wasn’t until Detective #250 (Dec. 1957) that his green-skinned self made a significant appearance! The last story in which only his John Jones persona appeared was in #249 (Nov. 1957). His alien form gradually took on more and more responsibility in 1958 and ’59, which surely was much more satisfying from a young reader’s standpoint. With the advent of the Space Race, this was probably no coincidence. Ironically, the John Jones-oriented stories of 1955-57 are, in retrospect, much more intriguing reading today than the 1958-59 ones. They display genuine imagination and hold up much better than the later adventures, even though the “Martian Manhunter” strip was expanded

Martian Manhunter

(Above:) The first and fourth pages of the all-important story from Detective Comics #273 (Nov. 1959), in which J’onn J’onzz loses his ability to use his super-powers while invisible and becomes known to the world. The escaped Martian criminal was colored yellow rather than green—maybe a side effect of Formula Z6? His outfit looks identical to J’onzz’s in black-&-white, but the hero’s blue-with-red-harness was replaced by a purple-with-blue-harness. (Below:) A pencil drawing of the Martian Manhunter by Sal Velluto, artist of the 1990s Acclaim title Bloodshot and the recent JLA Task Force. Thanks to the artist and to collector Mike Zeno. [Detective #273 art © DC Comics; sketch ©2003 Sal Velluto; Martian Manhunter TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

Such philosophy was a radical departure from the tone of the series, except in a couple of the earliest stories, in which J’onn J’onzz had expressed sadness over being stuck on Earth. The series gradually took off from this point, though failing to take advantage of the Jones-Meade tension again until 1960. Meade reappears 29 issues after her debut, in the simple tale of “John Jones’ Pesky Partner”—two issues after the world finally learns of the Manhunter’s existence—and by page 3 she accuses Jones of being the Martian. He uses a robot version of himself to throw her off the trail, but she remains unconvinced, especially after a fleeing criminal shoots Jones in the chest and yet doesn’t hurt him. However, he finally convinces her by pulling out a good luck charm he has dented with his fingers. His thought-balloon reaction: “I think you’re a very clever girl... and I’ll have to be especially careful in the future to fool you!” Surprisingly, this story is not nearly as well thought-out as the first MeadeManhunter meeting. The second one was similar to what was happening in Superman’s Girl Friend—Lois Lane at the time.

The Martian Manhunter’s powers frequently were changed and redefined in the series’ first couple of years. Today’s readers would be puzzled by this, but it probably didn’t matter to the kids of the time. Typical of the Manhunter’s shifting powers were the telekinetic abilities he showed in “The Case of the Magic Baseball” in Detective #226 (Dec. 1955). In this amusing tale, he appears as the Martian only in one panel, yet he mentally maneuvers pitches and line drives during a baseball game to foil a group of blackmailers. J’onn J’onzz appeared in 52 six-page stories in Detective Comics before he branched out into the Justice League. In retrospect, he was never better than in his first 25 adventures, when we saw him almost entirely as John Jones. It’s too bad that so few of those stories have ever been reprinted. They would make a pretty entertaining 150-page book.

Just a League of Their Own part four

The Schwartzian Epic [ROY’S INTRO: In 1963, for Alter Ego (Vol. 1), #6, then being edited and published by Ronn Foss, I dashed off the following parody of historical/archaeological scholarship. In this I had some help from then-ladyfriend Linda Rahm, who is fondly remembered by early’60s fans as the photographic incarnation of original A/E symbol “Joy Holiday” in issues #5-6 (and who soon went on to a Woodrow Wilson fellowship in the study of literature and became a university professor). This “Schwartzian Epic” is somewhat half-baked, perhaps, but at the time I was reading such weighty late 19th/early 20th century tomes as J.G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Gilbert Murray’s The Rise of the Greek Epic, and Jane Ellen Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Under their heady influence, I had

fun theorizing how scholars in a far-future era might reconstruct the world of the mid-20th century if one of the few surviving artifacts left from our day was a single issue of the Julius Schwartz-edited Justice League of America, one of the most influential comic books of the period. Re-reading the piece after forty years, I was sorely tempted to revise and polish it—not least because not everyone will recognize such (now) obscure 1960s references as, for example, one to “striped tubes” (which, in truth, held a long-gone but then-new brand of toothpaste called Stripe). In the end, however, I opted to re-present the parody as itself an artifact—of the importance of the original JLA to early comics fandom. And so, without further ado or apology:]

of to a three-volume work e warp, the introduction tim ey are a Th . via ana ed, ark uir Tex acq of in having Brrz of the University . X.I Alter Ego is fortunate sor fes ation Pro nsl by tra . ted in definitive n in the year 5263 A.D tury, but are here presen cen literary criticism writte d 53r the of ge gua ndardized lan written in the super-sta . assist from Linda Rahm an h wit as, om by Roy Th

Introduction to e League of America tic Jus z’s art hw Sc on ht Lig ew N ic: Ep The Rise of the Twentieth-Century

ain dful of literary works rem catastrophe, a small han mic ca, cos eri and Am e of tim e of s agu age Le Justice Having withstood the rav classic Schwartzian epic ighty nia A.D. One of these, the inspired volume upon we has , wn kno ll we is from the first three millen as , and center ers the oth in the n all rui a ve ulders abo the basement of stands out head and sho le over a century ago in litt a y onl y ver isco red ce its volume of comment sin wn as America. ept, of of this continent once kno hing about this epic exc agreement on virtually not in at works n gre bee e the hav of ics one crit as Iliad and Odyssey r’s These commentators and me Ho h wit ked ran t that it must be r to the surviving Linda Rahm and Roy Thomas, e it to a position inferio course, the undeniable fac have attempted to relegat o wh critical faculty. rs in ola g in a 1963 photo taken at Biljo sch kin lac ose be Th to of antiquity. conclusively shown n bee ce sin g lon e White’s home in Columbia, hav anonymous play Hamlet ume work, but a few Missouri. Photo by Ruth the subject of a three-vol o int ply dee in the go to ion introduct White. Thanks to Bill Schelly. aining a liberal education It is not the place of an who is interested in obt der rea l era gen the to out d highlights may be pointe twentieths. ssic cla nearly-complete piece of study of our one extant ng any in bei ly as d dab one voi nti una me es ” re aris “Julius Schwartz First of all, of course, the the view of rtzian question.” Was the to wa ty Sch e bili “th usi as pla wn any re kno is ? Is the century literature what of the epic a real person have kept the and untranslatable term) ber of persons who may num e larg a ing ent “editor” (a still confusing res rep ite pos com a but is 1 wartz Professor Urgiz that Sch iod of many years? cess of growth over a per early work by epic alive and in the pro since Professor Urgiz’s thrown on the problem n bee pondence from has res ss— cor al kne dar son new d one containing per nte pri a New light—or perhaps es, pag g sin rk was mis wo the view that this a part of one of the the discovery in 5248 of seems to give credence to ich wh th, Ear net pla various parts of the Epic, pp. 310 ff. dy of the Schwartzian 1 See his Prolegomena to the Stu

2003 NOTE: No longer having access that good ol’ 1963 time warp, we primitives of the early 21st century can only guess at which issue of Justice League of America had turned up in the 53rd century. At left is an early-’60s Mike Sekowsky/Bernard Sachs group shot repro’d in The Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977). [©2003 DC Comics.]

Roy Thomas actually the effort of many superior minds. Unless this page is a clever forgery, Justice League of America stands as the only epic work in the history of Earth to be written by an academy of literary geniuses, thereby truly deserving the title of “world epic.” The few remaining scraps of this page also present a question as to the previously supposed uniqueness of the epic. Scholars have identified allusions to other epics (twentieth-century term: issues) of a related nature, generally reputed to have been as excellent as the surviving one. Would it not indeed be wonderful to be able to believe that civilization in the twentieth century produced not one or two but perhaps even three such classics? Volume I of this work, then, discusses these historical problems. Volume II analyzes the work itself in its various aspects, but most especially as it reflects life in that long-ago time. Some preliminary work has been done on this period in the fields of anthropology2 and archaeology3, but results have thus far been discouragingly meager.

The Justice League issue unearthed by 53rd-century archaeologists had to be one between #14 (Sept. 1962) and #31 (Nov. 1964), since the Schwartzian Epic refers to The Atom (who joined in the former tale) as a JLAer, but not so to Hawkman, who came aboard in the latter story. Repro’d from black-&-white copies of the cover art by Mike Sekowsky & Murphy Anderson. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Primary among these amazing disclosures, of course, is the method of writing itself. The combination of words and pictures and cartouches (twentieth-century term: word balloons) suggests a short-lived return to the hieroglyphics of the early Egyptians. Except on the fragmentary page of correspondence, lower-class letters are all but unknown. A long-since-lost rule of grammar seems to have dictated, moreover, that all proper names be written with boldface letters. Also, the period—which appears in earlier and later extant writings—seems to have been completely ignored in favor of the more artistic exclamation point. Or perhaps, as Professor Urgiz theorized, it may simply be that twentiethcentury man was in such a state of constant excitement that only the exclamatory sentence would fill his needs.

In the section of Volume II which deals with the fascinating and welldelineated characters of the epic, the reader will find an amazing diversity of character. Contrary to the popular tradition which holds that this was a time of conformity and uniformity of dress, the Schwartzian epic unfolds a panorama of astonishingly divergent modes of clothing and transportation. For example, the costumes of the various heroes (twentieth-century term: members) are of a myriad of designs and colors. A few of them wear capes and/or suspenders, once thought to have been largely a nineteenthcentury fashion. The women seem to have worn rather scanty costumes decorated with drawings of now-extinct birds and magic symbols then intended crudely to resemble stars; they also seem to have worn headbands4 and clumsily-constructed sandals with elevated heels. In the matter of transportation, the circumstances are equally diverse. Some of the “members” were able to fly (without the use of anti-gravity shoes, it would seem), others had highly personalized aircraft, some could run with astonishing speed and little fatigue. One hero who is difficult to fit 2 See Anviix, Georr Y., Life in the Twentieth Century as Gleaned from a Perusal of Old Chewing-gum Wrappers: An Interpretation.

A 1988 drawing of Aquaman by penciler Scott Goodell (whose art credits include The Longest Pleasure for Moonstone Books, Rock ’n’ Roll Comics for Revolutionary Comics, and several classic titles for Scholastic Books); and inker Josh Neufeld (American Splendor, Keyhole Comics, Titans of Finance, et al.). Visit Josh’s website at <www.JoshComix.com>. [Art ©2003 Scott Goodell & Josh Neufeld; Aquaman TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

3 The classic work in this field is still Prof. Zorig’s monograph, “The Striped Tubes: What Was in Them?”—the results of which are inconclusive due to the archaeologist’s inability to decide between “tiger oil” and “zebra fat.” 4 Similar to those of the Indians in the surviving nineteenth-century epic, A Narrative of the Life of Davey Crockett, by Himself.

The Schwartzian Epic into any set category is the “member” named Aquaman. It is uncertain whether his ability to swim at high speed and to exist underwater for indefinite periods was intended to represent scientific advancement or a reversal in evolution. Despite the many amazing technological achievements of this ancient era—for example, scientists are still unable to duplicate Green Lantern’s power ring—some of the “members” still clung to modes of defense once thought to have been obsolete in the twentieth century: arrows, lassos, boomerangs, etc. It has been suggested by some critics that this shows a primitive psychology lying dormant just under the mentality of twentieth-century man, a view long since shown to be spurious.

53rd-century scholars had difficulty comprehending that, in order to have “Crimefighters,” you have to have “Criminals.” We, at least, can identify these guys as being Mr. I.Q., The Tattooed Man, Jason Woodroe, The Penguin, Captain Boomerang, Lex Luthor, Cutlass Charlie, and Dr. Light—in a partial-panel from JLA #61 (March 1968), as repro’d in The Amazing World of DC Comics #14. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Nonetheless, medical science in the twentieth century seems to have been particularly deficient, as is evidenced by the as-yet-unidentified disease which turned men green and caused their hair to fall out, as well as another which caused extreme dwarfism. An extant fragment of a possibly related epic features a benevolent but deformed hero who was in the process of devolving into a bird.

Another startling discovery made by study of this epic appears to be that the typical dwelling in this period was not composed of wood, stone, or bricks, as was previously supposed, but was a hollowed-out mountain. It was this which caused the first discoverers of the epic to assume it to be a survival of Old Stone Age culture. Other factors which led them to this over-hasty conclusion were the apparent lack of an organized system of vocations, primitive tattoos on some members’ faces that look like masks but have no visible means of support, and the communal, marriage-less type of life implicit in the epic. (Work is still being done on the reason on reasons for the surprisingly high sex ratio—eight men to every woman5.) There seems to have existed at this time a keen class struggle between two groups, called the Crimefighters and the Criminals, though exactly what “Crime” was has not yet been determined. The epic seems to indicate that in the twentieth century there were still a handful of people who did not possess everything they wanted and that this led to clashes with other humans (the Crimefighters) whose powers enabled them to get everything they wanted. Also, the reader will note that I have made an admittedly ambitious attempt to decipher the dialogue of the youngest member, Snapper Carr, efforts at translation of which have broken down three lingua-translators. It has been suggested by Professor Urgiz that this unique language was a form of psychological compensation utilized by Snapper to make up for the physical malfunction which compelled him to constantly snap his fingers, or perhaps some form of secret code. The third, and briefest, volume discusses the place of the epic in solar literature. Despite analogies to the Iliad, the epic shows an even closer resemblance to that realistic treatise on everyday medieval life, Le Morte d’Arthur. Also included in this volume is a short appendix on the texts of the recently discovered fragment of a Fantastic Four epic, unearthed in Death Valley, about which little is yet known but much has been conjectured.6 It is to be devoutly hoped that future generations of scholars will utilize these two, a semi-complete work and a fragment, to tell us more of that far-distant civilization where classics of literature were available to all citizens at an absurdly small price. 5 See Frpp, Sex in the Justice League of America, 2H pages. 6 The standard work on the subject so far is Huppw’s The Fantastic

Four: New Light on the Death Valley Scrolls. See especially his fine chapter on “The Thing as a Vegetation Deity.”

“The Thing as a Vegetarian Deity”?! But then, the 53rd century didn’t have access to this Kirby/Ayers figure from F.F. #8 (Nov. 1962) as reprinted in Essential Fantastic Four, Vol. 1, like we do! And anyway, it was the Justice Leaguers who nearly became vegetation, in their origin in JLA #9 (Feb. ’62). [The Thing ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Justice League of America ©2003 DC Comics.]

Missing a Back Issue? Got a hole in your Mr. Monster collection? We’ll gladly e-mail you a free Mr. Monster EEEK-Mail Catalog! Just Contact Michael T. Gilbert at:

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Comic Crypt

The Nickel Library prints were all 8H" x 11", printed on stiff card stock with 3 holes punched on the side, so they could be collected into notebooks. When the series began in the early ’70s, the Nickel Library was aiming for 500 different prints. They eventually produced 58––each selling for a nickel!

No. 28: Wally Wood experimented with an unusually detailed fine-line style in this sci-fi drawing, probably done in the ’50s. Wood generally drew more streamlined illos for science-fiction digests like If or Galaxy magazine. Check out the previous page for an example of Wood’s more stripped-down sci-fi style (No. 8).

Nickel Library

No. 20 (above): The Nickel Library says this tasty 1957 Alex Toth page was drawn for a proposed Dragnet comic (presumably for Dell). The series never appeared. Just the facts, ma’am!

No. 1 (above): The New Nickel Library series started out with a bang! This first episode featured a stunning Reed Crandall Doll Man cover (issue #42, Oct. 1952). Gruesome, ain’t he?

Comic Crypt No. 13 (left): According to the Nickel Library, a young Will Eisner drew “Captain Savage” in the late 1930s as a pre-Spirit comic supplement. In fact, Eisner did draw many strips under a variety of pseudonyms for the British and Australian edition of the weekly tabloid Wags, which reprinted American comic strips. Eisner produced new comic pages for Wags designed to look like comic strips, and this was probably one of these. Many were later reprinted in American comics produced by Fox and Fiction House.

No. 3 (opposite page): Nobody drew funny animals like Harrison Cady! Cady illustrated many similarly intricately-detailed drawings like this for the old humor magazine, Life, and for St. Nicholas magazine in the 1890s and early 20th century. Today he’s most famous for illustrating Thornton Burgess’ Peter Rabbit books and Peter’s comic-strip spin-off of same.

No.19 (right): The Nickel Library had eclectic tastes! This one features a charming Donald Duck animation model sheet from 1937.

Nickel Library

Comic Crypt No 25 (left): Gary also published art by his underground comic pals––including this gory illo by the late great Roger Brand, who helped edit The Nickel Library. During the 1960s, Roger assisted both Wally Wood and Gil Kane. In addition to his underground comix work, Roger also wrote and drew a number of stories for James Warren’s Creepy and Bill Pearson’s witzend magazine.

No. 18 (below): This illo is by underground cartoonists Simon Deitch and the late Rory Hayes. Spooky, huh?

That’s it for now, gang! Hope you enjoyed our trip down memory lane, courtesy of “Groovy” Gary Arlington and “Hairy” Larry Rippee. Our sincere thanks to both—and to wife Janet, for her proofreading expertise!

Next issue: Did you know there were two black-&-white horror mags years before Warren’s Creepy and Eerie? If not, you will—next issue! Join us as we track down “Horror’s Missing Link!” Brrr!!! Till next time,

Title Comic Fandom Archive

A Visit with OTTO BINDER Brilliant Writer of SF and Comic Books An Excerpt from the Book Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder by Bill Schelly Few comic book writers have contributed more to the medium than Otto Oscar Binder (1911-1974), author of over half of all strips featuring Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family for Fawcett Publications. In the course of writing an estimated 3000 comic book scripts between 1940 and 1970, he worked for nearly every publishing house, including Timely, EC, Dell, Quality and Warren. Binder wrote stories for Captain America, Blackhawk, Sub-Mariner, Black Hood, Uncle Sam, and literally dozens of other character in the Golden Age of Comics. After Fawcett ceased publishing comic books in 1953, Binder moved over to DC to become the principal writer of the Superman family of titles through the end of the 1950s, despite a stormy relationship with irascible editor Mort Weisinger. Binder launched both Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen in their own books, and cocreated Supergirl, Krypto, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Brainiac, Kandor, Lucy Lane, the Superman Emergency Squad, and Jimmy Olsen’s signal watch. He also wrote the first Bizarro story in comic books. In 1969, largely in response to the death of his 14-year-old daughter Mary, Otto and his wife Ione moved from “the house that Captain Marvel built” in New Jersey to a considerably more modest abode in the Adirondack mountains, completely turning his back on the comic book field. As a result, little has generally been known of the man in his final years—until now.

legendary science-fiction and comic book writer. The ringleader of the group was Tom Fagan, the man who had brought the costumed heroes to Rutland for the annual Halloween parade. Tom was a writer too, having penned some remarkably well-written articles and fiction pieces for Alter Ego, Batmania, and Comic Crusader. He had already met Otto, having been in the bar of the Hotel Broadway Central to listen as Binder and Bill Finger drank cocktails and were interviewed by a clueless reporter from The New Yorker magazine for an article (which eventually appeared a week or two later). Otto’s appearance had changed since then. He now wore a mustache, and his complexion was more noticeably red. He had also grown a substantial potbelly. All those years of sedentary activity had had their effect. But his welcome was hearty, and his eyes twinkled as he shook their hands. The second member of the fan contingent was J. Randolph Cox, known to his friends as Randy, and nicknamed Steed by Fagan (after The Avengers television show). Cox was not particularly a comics fan; his interest was in researching the history of the famous publishers of The Shadow, Street and Smith. He had heard that Otto had written for them, and hoped he might glean some information on that subject. He, like Fagan, had hoped to meet with Jack as well as Otto, for he thought Jack might have retained records of the accounts he had had with Street and Smith as the owner of a comic book production shop in the early 1940s.

The cover of Bill Schelly’s spanking-new, just-published biography Words of Wonder, featuring Bill’s cover portrait of Otto Binder, plus hero art by Jerry Ordway. [Art ©2003 the respective artists; heroes TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

A year before he passed away, Otto Binder was visited by a contingent of admirers from comic fandom— not an unusual occurrence in itself, for he received visits from a few other fans in the months before and after. But what was different in this case was the fact that virtually the entire visit was taperecorded… and those long-lost tapes have been found! This account, and the quotes found within it, are the result of a distillation of some of the material on those tapes, as well as interviews conducted recently with the three participants. On October 29, 1973, three travelers arrived at Otto Binder’s modest colonial-style home on Friend’s Lake Road just outside Chestertown, New York. They had driven over from Rutland, Vermont, to visit the

The third member of the group, more or less in the category of “hanger-on,” was a dark-haired 16-year-old who dreamed some day of drawing comics himself. Clearly he was hoping to learn something from the old seasoned pro. His name was Frank Miller.

Frank (now famed as the writer/artist of The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, and other comics) recently recalled: “Back then, I lived in farmland, a few miles from Montpelier, Vermont, where I was raised. I’d gotten word about an annual comic book Halloween parade in Rutland, Vermont, run by Tom Fagan. Tom was very generous with his time, letting me tag along as he put the show together and managed it. I’d known since I was six years old that I was going to make comic books for the rest of my life. This was my first chance to actually mix with other people who shared the passion.” The trip to Chestertown was another chance for Miller to pal around with Fagan, as well as meet a comics legend.

Otto Binder communicate with the living. For a while in the early 1970s, EVP was popular among spiritualists and the counter-culture. The trio of comic book fans had arrived in late afternoon. It was just Otto and his cat, no sign of his wife Ione. While it was still light, Otto took them back to his garage to show them where he had kept his Fawcett and other Golden Age comics. “There was nothing there but new stuff, but I guess he wanted to show us where they’d been. He said he was eternally grateful to Jerry Bails for helping him sell them. When I asked why he would sell his personal collection, Binder said simply, “I had to eat.” “The new comics included a lot of copies of the Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer comic book,” Fagan said. “Frank and Randy were saying how great they thought it was, sort of reviving the look of Captain Marvel. But I spoke up and said I didn’t like it, because I thought it made fun of fat people. They were a little shocked that I would say something like that in Otto’s presence, but—though he obviously disagreed—it didn’t seem to bother him. After all, it was just my opinion.”

The trio of 1973 Binder interviewers (plus one) in other eras: [Left to right:] Daredevil/Boy Comics/Crime Does Not Pay writer/artist/editor Charles Biro rapping with Tom Fagan and J. Randolph Cox circa the late 1960s—plus a 1986 photo of Frank Miller.

The house where Otto and Ione lived was set well back from the road in a lot among the tall pine trees of the Adirondack Mountains. As Ione’s niece put it in a recent interview, they were “about as far in the boonies as you could go.” Their nearest neighbor was a half mile away. They had chosen the house for its affordability (for they had suffered many financial reversals over the years), and because it was just over a mile from the Jack Binder homestead, where Otto’s brother had set up a shop to make signs for the local motels and dude ranches, and decorative statuary for both residential and commercial purposes. The childless couple were no longer the dewy-eyed young lovers who had fallen in love and wed 33 years before. But, though shattered by the death of their daughter, the effects of Ione’s mental problems, the effects of their dependency on alcohol, and the vicissitudes of his making a living as a freelance writer, Otto and Ione had nevertheless found a kind of peace here in the back woods. Otto’s voice on the tape sounds very much the same as he had when he had been riding high in 1965 as a guest of the New York Comicon, his first two Adam Link stories having been adapted for the Outer Limits TV show late in ’64. Friendly, sincere, genial—gentle. He was obviously pleased that these fans had made a special effort just to see him.

Talking to the Dead On the drive to Chestertown, Fagan had cautioned his compatriots, “Whatever you do, don’t ask him about trying to communicate with the dead. It might embarrass Otto.” But Cox recalled, “Funnily enough, it was Otto who brought the subject up. He was sort of apologetic, saying he realized we might not be too interested in the phenomenon.” Otto had become fascinated with the theories of Dr. Konstantin Raudive, the Latvian-born student of Carl Jung who wrote a book about electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). In his book Breakthrough—An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead (1971), Raudive published his interpretation of tens of thousands of “spirit voices” obtained by simply turning a tape recorder on and recording “silence.” When played back, with the volume amplified, he claimed that the sounds one hears are the voices of dead people trying to

Next, the host produced several reels of home movies. He set up a projector, and showed his guests several brief 8millimeter films made in the late 1940s and early 1950s of the Fawcett crew relaxing and clowning around in his old back yard in New Jersey. These three fans may be the only members of comicdom to have seen these (apparently) lost pieces of comic book history. “Who’s hungry?” Otto asked. He was quite surprised when Tom Fagan insisted on footing the bill for the group to go to a restaurant. It was Fagan’s turn to be surprised by the Chestertown restaurant that Otto chose. “It was the seediest place imaginable, a real dive, with the lights down so low—it was so dark in there! I turned to Otto and asked, ‘Isn’t there any place that’s nicer than this?’ Otto said, ‘Yes, there is one other place, but it’s quite expensive.’ I got the feeling that perhaps Otto didn’t frequent the place where we eventually had our dinner. I wasn’t rich, but I wanted to do something for Otto, and I felt good about it.” Sometime in the course of that meal, Binder brought up his interest in paranormal phenomenon, specifically the theories of Raudive. Fagan said, “When we got back to his place, Otto did play us a tape that he claimed sounded like his daughter saying something like, ‘I’m here. I’m here. Help.’ I couldn’t hear it, but I have always been curious about such matters so I didn’t think it was ridiculous.” The group decided to conduct an experiment in EVP right then and there. That’s when they began the recording that is the basis of this account. The lights were turned down low, and they huddled close to the bulky reel-to-reel recorder. Otto was the first to speak. “We’re at the house of Otto Binder in Chestertown, New York. There are four of us. This is Otto Binder speaking, and the others will introduce themselves in turn.

“We would like to contact the Spirit Man, and call for Mary Binder, my daughter. This is your Daddy.” He paused to leave space on the tape for a response to his request. Then: “I would also like to contact Earl Binder, my brother. This is

Comic Fandom Archive Otto, your brother.” Again a pause while the tape recorded only the silence in the family room. “Please try to come in. Try to state your names or some message which will indicate that it’s you.” Otto handed the microphone to one of his guests. “This is Randy Cox. I would like to know if Mark Van Doren, poet and good friend, remembers sending me autographed copies of his books.” Then the youngest visitor took the mike. “This is Frank Miller. I’d like to contact my grandmother and ask her to say her name, or say hello, or anything.” The last one spoke. “This is Tom Fagan.” He asked to hear from a correspondent whose name is not decipherable on the existing recording of this experiment. Then Otto said, “Okay, let’s let it run for a few minutes. Give the spirits a chance to respond.” However, when they replayed their tape at high volume, Fagan recalled, “You could hear sounds when he played back the tape, and they did sort of sound like voices, or maybe voices played backwards.”

you going to have lunch with me, Otto?’ He didn’t believe a word I’d said! So I said, ‘Okay, Mort.’ And I went to lunch with him, and believe it or not, we got along fine. I’d said everything I had to say, and he didn’t believe a word of it. “There’s just something in Mort’s mind, where he really believes he’s the greatest guy on earth… and that no one could dislike him! He really believes that! If someone told him, ‘Otto hates your guts,’ he wouldn’t believe it for a second. If someone quoted me saying that, he’d be 100% sure that I had been misquoted. That’s just the way his mind worked. He lived in a world of his own.” Otto recalled, “One day [Mort] went up to Julie [Schwartz] and said, ‘You can’t have Otto any more.’ He didn’t ask me whether I wanted to write for Julie, and of course, I wanted to because Julie was easier to work for. He could be finicky, but there was a good back-and-forth exchange with him. But no, Mort had to have his way. It was a quarrel. Julie said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mort, how can you just take him away? That isn’t right. You can’t do that!’ So when I went to Julie the following week, he said, ‘You can’t write for me. Mort will make trouble.’ Mort was that kind of a guy. Crazy, crazy. He was a madman. It’s a wonder I didn’t go mad!”

Miller recalled, “Otto Binder struck me as a deeply haunted man. The whole business of recording an empty room—it Someone snapped this photo of Otto Binder taking home spoke of abiding grief for his daughter movies circa 1950. Otto showed these films to Tom, Randy, and Mary. Never having believed in mysticism, Frank in 1973. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.] I still had to go along with it, but even at Otto also recalled of Weisinger: “He sixteen, I could tell that I was witnessing a man in unanswerable pain.” can charm a guy with his talk. Mort’s got a real slick tongue. He talked me into working exclusively for DC. He said he would guarantee me Before long, they had pronounced the results inconclusive, and began $200 a week, which wasn’t a huge amount, but I could still augment it discussing comics. Fortunately, they kept the tape rolling. The recording with non-comics work. Mort didn’t care about that as long as it didn’t reveals all kinds of little, personal things about Otto, like what a good interfere with my production for him. host he was. He made sure they were comfortable, and offered them drinks. (His beverage of choice was beer.) According to Fagan, OOB “But, it didn’t turn out to be even $200 a week. With all the re-writes spoke very deliberately, yet freely, with evident sincerity. I was having to do, it was averaging at $155 a week. When I told him that, he said my figures had to be wrong. He was absolutely sure he was The guests sat on an enormous couch, and Otto took a seat in an easy giving me $200 a week worth of writing. Finally, I told him I couldn’t be chair. Sometimes they were joined by his cat Pearl. exclusive with DC any more. The visitors hadn’t come with a specific list of questions, so the “I’m gonna tell you another story about Mort. You can print it if you resulting discussion is not very revealing. Randy Cox asked about want. See, this guy makes excellent money. Good wages at DC—and he whether Otto had written for Street and Smith comic books, and Binder sells articles on the side and such. He’s always making money. So we go could only answer, “I’m sure I wrote a couple of Doc Savages, but I out to lunch. This happened more than once—many times. The waitress really can’t remember. It’s all written down somewhere. Ask Jerry Bails gives us separate checks, see? Which meant that maybe the tax on the where you can find it.” His memory of the early days of comics was not check cost an extra cent or two, by dividing the amounts. So he asked as good as it had been, just ten years before. the girl for a single check! This would embarrass the hell out of me. But Otto did talk at some length about more general topics, such as Once he even told the girl, ‘It costs an extra penny if you give us his move from pulp writer to comic book scribe. He made it clear, as he separate checks.’ So the girl would go back and make out a single check, always did, that it was only because of his brother Jack’s urging that he to save one penny. And a minute before he’d shown me a check for got into the comics field. $1000 from This Week or something. He was a cheap, miserly bastard.”

Binder on Weisinger Binder had no trouble, however, recounting the difficulties he had working with DC editor Mort Weisinger. “Mort was an unbelievable character,” Binder recalled in this interview late in life, when he felt free to talk frankly. “One afternoon, we were all sore at him. I got mad as hell, and told him off for a half an hour—called him every goddam name I could think of…. And I walked out, and went to see Julie, and Mort comes down the hall and says, ‘Are

Binder on Wertham Of the reviled psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham, who incited anticomics feelings in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Otto said, “I think Wertham knew he could get attention and make money criticizing comics. Just like McCarthy and the Commies. Who was going to stick up for comics? He probably doesn’t believe a word he said about comics. If he does, then he’s a real nut. If he was doing it for money, then I can at least understand his motive…. But I have a hard time

Otto Binder

thinking he really believed what he said. God, he got me mad back then. He infuriated the hell out of me. In those days, oh, I was mad.”

Miscellaneous Thoughts When asked about how many words he turned out in a day, OOB replied, “These days, I can do about 3000 words, or ten pages. By then, I’m dizzy. I can’t even think straight any more. The most I ever did in a day was twelve thousand words, but that wasn’t every day. What I do now is work steadily, so it piles up nicely.” Tom Fagan has a distinct memory of Otto stating that he and Jack were convinced that the original art to Whiz #2 (the first appearance of Captain Marvel) still existed, but he wouldn’t say if they knew who had it. As time passed, the author waxed philosophical. “Every person, or nation, or world, should have its own self-determination,” he said. “Whether you stumble along or not, you’ve got to learn it all by yourself. You have to go through your experiences. Nobody can yank you through life.”

goodbyes, and then headed back to Rutland. Cox was driving, having limited his intake of beer to one or two. There was an annual Halloween costume parade and party (at Tom Fagan’s house) that would take place in a couple of days. The tapes of the event were entrusted into the custody of Randy Cox, who had completely forgotten that they existed until I contacted him about this visit. “There hadn’t been a plan to have them transcribed for publication, so they weren’t missed,” Cox explained. “I’m glad Otto’s fans will now be able to visit him, vicariously, through them.” Who says the dead can’t talk to us?

How I Ended Up Writing the Definitive Binder Biography The simplest way for me to explain what Otto Binder’s writing means to me, personally, is to state that he scripted two-thirds of the stories in the first comic book I ever read, an 80-page giant published in 1960 called Superman Annual #1. Since the nine stories in that extra-thick comic book introduced me to a world of ideas and adventure—the comics medium—that has been a great source of joy and fascination for me ever since, Binder’s importance in my life would be hard to overstate. Would another author’s stories have had an equally thunderous effect on me? Maybe. Maybe not. Dr. Fredric Wertham, M.D. (an inventive fan can think of all manner of things those initials could stand for)—and C.C. Beck’s cover for the final issue of Whiz Comics (#155, June 1953), probably with an Otto Binder “Captain Marvel” story. By then, western bowman Golden Arrow been shoved aside by Sheldon Moldoff’s Dr. Death and horrorstory overflow from This Magazine Is Haunted! [Photo ©2003 the respective copyright holder; Whiz cover ©2003 DC Comics.]

What seems clear is that, whatever adversity had come in his life, Binder was not bitter. He was, more than anything, dumbfounded by the behavior of some of the people he had come up against. “I think he was a pretty brave soul,” Fagan added.

Binder on UFOs Otto also talked at some length about UFOs. “I believe that they exist, simply because the documentary evidence is so strong. The hard part to figure out is, why are they here? My one idea is that they’re leading us to the stars, so that we can join the whole community of worlds out there.” Then Binder sounded wistful. “You know what would really excite me? If a UFO landed out here, and some little guys came out, and—if they knew our language, and some people say they do—if I could just talk to them. I would get a big bang out of that. Even if they didn’t have any great message. Just to say ‘hello’… and to hear that they came from another star. I wouldn’t want to take a ride with them. I’m too much of a coward. I’d just like to talk to ’em. “I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to their world to stay. Supposing it was some sort of advanced planet? You’d feel like a moron. What kind of a life would that be? If I went, or just went on a trip around the world in a saucer, I’d want to come back and write about it.” Finally, it was time to leave. Binder signed some Captain Marvel comics for Randy Cox, as well as a copy of his latest book, Horror Hospital. Others received signed freebies, as well. They said their

Like a space rocket, Otto’s significance to me came in more than one stage. Stage two arrived within weeks after I discovered comics fandom in 1964, and received a copy of Alter Ego. Its seventh issue featured the lead article “One Man’s Family” by Roy Thomas. It was here that I first found out about the exciting and sometimes whimsical adventures of Captain Marvel, the one super-hero who had actually outsold Superman for a time during World War II, in that glorious period known as the Golden Age of Comics. Immediately intrigued, I set about finding old comic books featuring the Big Red Cheese (as he was affectionately known) as well as members of his “family,” Capt. Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel. I loved his adventures from the start, and I knew who had written by far the majority of them, because he’d had a long letter in the back of that issue of A/E: Otto Binder. While books on the lives and work of the best comic book artists are not in short supply, few have been devoted to comic book writers (as distinguished from writerartists). This disparity may be understandable, given the emphasis on visuals in comics… but why is it so lopsided?

In May 2002, Roy Thomas and I were having one of our frequent telephone confabs, and ended up discussing this very subject. Knowing that Otto and Roy had been friends, I suggested that he write a book about Binder. As things turned out, however, Roy’s schedule at the time wouldn’t allow him to take on the project. Roy said, “Why don’t you write it?”

Comic Fandom Archive

The covers of one of Otto Binder’s books about flying saucers, and of his paperback novels Horror Hospital (1973) and The Avengers Battle the EarthWrecker (1967). Cover artists unknown. [Avengers TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other material ©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

I turned the idea over in my mind. My first book (Harry Langdon, Scarecrow Press, 1982) had been a biography, and I was ready to try another one. I also knew that I had a strong personal connection to some of Otto’s work. Then, too, his frequent contacts with members of comic fandom of the 1960s was right up my alley. I made a tentative decision to do it. But I hesitated. I had never met the man. Otto had passed away in 1974. While I would focus in large part on his writings, his ideas, and the trajectory of his career, it would seem an incomplete book without conveying something of the man himself: his background, his motivations, his creative methods, his personality, his disappointments and his triumphs. What sort of person was he? Then I realized how many people who had known him were already friends and colleagues. I was blessed by the generous cooperation—nay, active participation—of numerous intimates of Otto Binder: his friends, colleagues, and collaborators. Aid of immeasurable importance was also provided by the family of Otto’s wife, especially Patricia Turek, and Jack Binder’s daughter Bonnie Binder Mundy. Invaluable, too, was the assistance offered by a man who knew Otto for forty years: Julius Schwartz. William Woolfolk, Al Feldstein, Murphy Anderson, and many others shared their memories of Otto. Beyond these contacts with industry professionals were the memories of numerous fans whom Otto had welcomed into his houses, both in Englewood, New Jersey, and Chestertown, New York. These fans, who were the recipients of Binder’s generosity of time and energy, often had ongoing contact with him, some to the extent they should be numbered among his friends. I talked with Jerry Bails, Bill Spicer, Michael Uslan, Marty Greim, and of course Roy himself, and found their input immensely helpful. Otto really didn’t grant that many interviews to fans, but (miracle of miracles!) one from 1973 that had never been used was found by Randy Cox. No longer in the comics field, Binder felt free to express himself more candidly than ever before, though by then he was fuzzy with details of his comics work. Listening to it was a fascinating, revealing experience. That, and a tape of the panel discussion he did with Gardner Fox and Bill Finger at the first full-fledged comic book convention in New York in 1965 (a printed version appeared in Alter Ego #20), gave me a sense of contact with Otto. Then, at the eleventh hour, came a wonderful discovery: Otto’s manuscript from 1948 for the autobiographical book Memoirs of a

Nobody. Completed, then forgotten, this charmingly light-hearted look at his life was among Binder’s papers bequeathed to SF historian Sam Moskowitz, and were acquired by the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University upon Sam’s passing. I owe a great debt of gratitude to curator Hal Hall for providing a copy of this memoir, as well as about fifty letters from the correspondence between Otto and his brother Earl, during and after their illustrious writing partnership, as well as a number of letters to other family members and colleagues. To my knowledge, the contents of these letters are revealed in Words of Wonder for the first time. Therefore, if this book succeeds in evoking the personality and essence of Otto Binder, it’s because I came as close to meeting him as anyone could—who didn’t. One thing I chose not to do was try to relate an all-inclusive history of Fawcett Comics, or their most famous characters, the Marvel Family. While Otto’s 13-year stint as chief writer for Fawcett would certainly be examined in some detail, I was chiefly interested in what Otto and Jack Binder contributed to those memorable Fawcett comic books. But there were many other writers and artists who contributed mightily to the success of Fawcett. For those who are interested in a more complete history of Fawcett comics, I refer you to P.C. Hamerlinck’s excellent Fawcett Companion (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2002) and The Steranko History of Comics, Vol. 2 (Supergraphics, 1972). Between the two of them, you’ll get most of the picture. Otto Binder’s decade-long stint as a writer for science-fiction and weird pulps was largely unknown to me when I began this book. I took great delight in learning about this work, which goes far beyond the Adam Link series. Some may feel I gave those stories short shrift. Three quarters of the book is about Binder’s 30-year career as a writer of comic books, where (in my estimation) he achieved his greatest heights. It’s been a privilege to be able to tell his story. [Bill tells us that he’s planning on running more Binder material in future issues, since he naturally unearthed more than would fit into Words of Wonder, extensive as it is. But that doesn’t mean he’s abandoning his role as an historian of comics fandom. In fact, his next book (if all goes according to plan) will be The Best of Star-Studded Comics. Also, you should know that his previous tome, Sense of Wonder: A Life in Comic Fandom, is now exclusively available from Hamster Press. To find out all about Bill’s growing list of books, check out: www.billschelly.com.]

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re: and bottom panels, are also knockouts. This sort of overlap-heavy composition was at its zenith in the ’40s and ’50s in the work of illustrators like Noel Sickles, Robert Fawcett, Albert Dorne, and Dean Cornwell. I’d guess Meskin studied these artists and figured it out. I think it’s part of the reason his work is reminiscent of Kirby’s, as well. Jack could design overlaps with the best of them. Thanks for another fine issue. Even a funny photo of a teenaged Mike Friedrich in a (gasp) jacket and tie—it couldn’t get any better than this! Paul Chadwick Thanks for the comments, Paul, and keep up the good—no, excellent—work on Concrete! Next, a brief anecdotal note from 1940s Timely/Marvel artist Allen Bellman, whose own interview is coming up in the next few issues of Alter Ego: Hi Roy— I remember well at Timely when Stan Lee and Robby Solomon would tell all the illustrators at Timely that they wanted us to draw like Mort Meskin. Mr. Meskin was a great talent, and many of us did not have that natural gift, but he was an inspiration to me to do better. Allen Bellman This is the first we’ve heard of artists at Timely being urged to emulate Meskin’s work, Allen—but it just shows that Stan and his editors

Sorry we’re a month late with our comments on our Meskin/X-Men issue (#24), but we’re catching up by running two “re:” sections this time, one on each side. But first—thunderous thanks to Miraculous Mark Glidden for the above spanking-new illo of our Biljo White-created mascots Alter and Captain Ego. Catch Mark’s work in some current AC Comics such as Fighting Yank #5, where he does a great job of assimilating the 1960s Marvel (i.e., Kirby) style of art. [Art ©2003 Mark Glidden; A&CE TM & ©2003 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.] Now let’s start out with a letter from none other than Paul Chadwick, renowned writer/artist/creator of the popular contemporary character and comic Concrete: Dear Roy: It amazes me how frequently you publish this substantial magazine. And what a treat to have an in-depth treatment of Mort Meskin. I can’t let it pass without commenting on the thing that, for me, makes his artwork so rich: his well-considered overlaps. Overlapping, as a compositional tool, can hardly be used too much, as Meskin’s work shows. Every object overlapping another is a visual cue that deepens the space. Level after level, Meskin adds depth to his panels. More importantly, he overlaps in just the right places. That “Johnny Quick” panel on page 25 is a spectacular example. The angle of each platter, the amount of each face showing, the negative spaces— they’re just perfect. Those pencils from the Colonial Era story (p. 19), especially the top

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had good taste. For us, a high point of A/E #24 was our reverse-engineered “double interview” with Mort Meskin’s sons Peter and Philip. Soon afterward, we received the following welcome missive by fax from Peter Meskin: Dear Roy and John, I’m thrilled with the articles about Dad, my father, Mort Meskin, in Alter Ego. The presentation of his work interspersed with our family photographs and the very complimentary way you showcased him is a dream fulfilled for me. It was a pleasure giving Jim Amash the interview. He’s a very nice person, and his questions really led me into areas I had not talked about in years. I’ve been waiting for Dad to get this kind of recognition for a very long time. He would have loved it, guys. Sure, he wouldn’t have wanted to be reminded about certain issues any more than I wanted to read about them in print, but you really did a great job of it and he would have been made to feel very proud. You, Jim Amash, Alex Toth, and Dylan Williams really pulled it all together for me... for Dad. I want you to know that, even if his fame goes no further than this, being properly recognized and applauded in your wonderful magazine, I’m satisfied. It really fills a need I had to see some closure for him and for me. Sure, I hope the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum show goes off, and I’d like to see much more of Dad’s art written about and displayed in museums. Jerry Robinson has expressed a desire to have Dad featured in a one-man show at a museum after the Atlanta show. I especially want Dad to be additionally recognized for all of the noncomic book art that he’s done, too: for his paintings and sketches, his

“haikus” and BBD&O doodles on paper towels, his cut-outs and holiday cards and more. I believe my Dad is one of the great American impressionists and experimentalists, blazing new directions every time he grappled or toyed with a new artistic idea. He was endlessly creative in what seemed to me to be his search and quest in the service of the Muse of Art. As far as I know or can remember, he painted or drew every day of his life that he was able. This letter, guys, is really about you who have made a son who loves and misses his Dad very happy. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please let me know any time that I can assist in presenting more of Dad’s work in Alter Ego in the future. Peter Meskin ’Twas our pleasure to present even a small portion of your father’s work to those who hadn’t seen it before, Peter—as well as to remind us long-timers of how great and influential it was and remains. But, as we said at the time, there’ll be more vintage Mort Meskin appearing in this mag in the future—including in conjunction with an upcoming interview with his erstwhile partner in many ventures, a guy named—Jerry Robinson! Now, not to neglect the X-Men side of #24, here’s David Anthony Kraft, who labored in the Marvel Bullpen as writer and editor for years (Roy, then Marvel’s editor-in-chief, hired him after the two exchanged letters re the work of sf and fantasy writer Otis Adelbert Kline). Dave published 150 issues of the excellent Comics Interview magazine before disappearing into the wilds of northeastern Georgia, where he lives atop a peak called Screamer Mountain (and, as one who has had to drive up to it in wintertime, Ye Editor can guarantee the place is aptly named): Roy: “The Men Called X” brought back many Marvelous memories. I was working at the desk just outside your door in 1974 when Wolverine first found his way into The Incredible Hulk, and I was on hand to copy-edit the first couple of issues of the new X-Men re-launch. Those were the days. Someone in the section—Shooter, maybe?—misremembers about editing Claremont’s copy, however. Chris took maybe too much to heart Len’s rep for writing accented characters, sometimes with the unfortunate result of almost impenetrable dialogue, and later down the line it fell to me to rewrite and simplify some of it under strict orders from Shooter without consulting Claremont. Something I would never have done on my own recognizance, regardless of how I might have felt about it. Incidentally, [longtime Marvel editor] Jim Salicrup reminds me that I story-edited the very first appearance of Rogue, in Avengers Annual #10 (so, as can clearly be seen, I am single-handedly responsible for the success of both movies that rely so heavily upon Rogue). The Woolfolk interview was also wonderful. Much valuable information and just plain fun. Keep it up! David Anthony Kraft We’re trying, Dave. Meanwhile, Jim Shooter has promised to write some memoirs of his early days in comics, and we still plan to showcase that sold-but-unproduced X-Men screenplay Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway wrote circa 1983 for Orion.

The final page of the Mort Meskin-drawn “Johnny Quick” story “Mayhem in the Meal-O-Met,” from Adventure Comics #127 (April 1948). Note the several layers of “overlap” in the art. More panels from this story can be seen in Alter Ego #24. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Sadly, issue #24 also reported the death of Biljo White, early fan artist and editor who in 1964-65 was art editor of the first volume of Alter Ego. Fellow 1960s fan (now BBC-radio personality and former Rolling Stone writer) Paul Gambaccini, when sending his comments for the Jerry Bails tribute in #25, contributed these spontaneous thoughts: Dear Roy, I must also acknowledge how I was hit by the news of Biljo White’s

[comments & corrections]

Fandom Archive. Meanwhile, reader Martin Downham sent these X-Men-related words from Britain:

passing. I used the word “decent” to describe Jerry’s contributions, and this is a concept I apply more and more to our fandom years. I can’t get over, in comparison to how comics are treated like commodities today, how we did what we did for love... and without any hope or possibility of selfgain. Biljo gave so much of himself that, even though we only ever corresponded by mail, he presented a substantial and genuinely good human being. We could not have taken as much joy and fun in his art, whether it be a Batman piece or an “Eye” strip, if he had not put that joy and art in his work himself. To celebrate such individuals is not only our opportunity but our responsibility.

Hi, Roy, Greetings from across the pond—unseasonably cold for London! Just a quick message to say what a great X-Men issue #24 was. Long overdue! Couple of corrections: Page 5: The Stan Lee interview, on Prof. X’s early infatuation with Jean Grey, states that “there never was any other reference to it, after that one time.” I wouldn’t say “never”: in the mid-1990s, the Onslaught character (really an amalgam of Xavier and Magneto) shows Jean how Prof. X had these feelings—she’s naturally horrified. A minor point, but one I thought worth pointing out.

Paul Gambaccini Well said, Paul. Here are more words about Biljo, from another who admired his talent and kindness, Lynn Wooley: Dear Roy, I can’t believe Biljo is gone. It just doesn’t seem possible. When I was in my early teens, my first fanzine (with the exception of a one-sheet “On the Drawing Board” with an illustration by Harry Thomas) was Batmania #5. I was in love with fandom after that and bought most of the rest of the Batmanias, which I have to this day. I even traded with Biljo for the original cover to Batmania #6, which still hangs on my wall. Batmania inspired me to do my own fanzine, The Symbol, which, while horrible, certainly improved with time and taught me the mechanics of printing and writing. Today, I am a professional writer with my third book about to come out. Biljo was a part of helping me to discover my creative abilities.

In 1964 Billy J. White of Columbia, Missouri, drew this rarely-seen spirit-duplicator sketch of “Cap’n Biljo” and “Corporal Roy” to announce the imminent reprinting of 1961’s Alter-Ego [Vol. 1] #1. At that time, Biljo planned to take over publishing and editing A/E (from Ronn Foss), with Roy’s assistance— though at the last minute he decided instead to relinquish the reins to Roy and serve instead as the fanzine’s official “art editor.” [©2003 Estate of Biljo White.]

Lynn Woolley Temple, TX There’ll be more about Biljo White in an upcoming issue, Lynn, when associate editor Bill Schelly comes up for air following publication of his book on Otto Binder (which comes out this very month) and has time to write it for the Comic

P. 6: The beautiful Cockrum New/Old XMen drawing may have been designed for a Slurpee, but it first saw the light of day, to my knowledge, in the text article in Rampaging Hulk #2. P. 9: The rejected Gil Kane cover to X-Men #33: the original cover was published—in blue and white!—in FOOM #8. P. 24: Cockrum states, when discussing the death of Thunderbird, that “we didn’t say anything about it on the cover.” Not true—issue #95 ran the “not a hoax, not a dream, this issue an X-Man DIES!!” cover blurb. P. 34: Cockrum’s head circle illustration, sans Xavier, was published years ago in (I think?) a fanzine. Xavier has clearly been added at a much later date. Martin Downham

A few years ago, sitting in my office in Austin, Texas, I got into a nostalgic mood. On a whim, I called information in Columbia, Missouri, and asked for a Billy Joe White. I dialed the number, not knowing if Captain Biljo was still alive. A girl answered the phone. I asked if the Billy White that lived there was a Batman fan who used to draw for fan magazines. “That’s Dad!” she replied, proudly. Biljo came to the phone and I gushed about how much he and Batmania had meant to me when I was growing up. We talked about the state of comics and the Batman movies and I asked endless questions about what happened to his collection. I asked if he’d ever tried to go pro. He said he’d wanted to, but it never worked out. I’m glad I made that call. It, and my collection of Batmanias, are certainly something to remember him by. My best to his family and to Batmanians everywhere.

Our thanks, Martin. And here’s still more info from a common and welcome source—Carl Gafford, longtime comics colorist for DC and Marvel: Dear Roy, A couple of things come to mind skimming over the X-Men Files in A/E #24: Doom Patrol #86 (renamed with that ish from My Greatest Adventure) and X-Men #4 both came out in the same month—January 1964—debuting the Brotherhood of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, respectively. It’s quite likely that DC had a longer lead time getting their books done, so you might have thought that DP came out earlier. Sob! Way too many lines dropped out of this repro of Gil Kane’s original art for the cover of X-Men #31 when it was printed in FOOM #8 in 1974. We seem to recall that a better image of the original art appeared somewhere else—anybody out there got any idea where it might have been, assuming we didn’t dream it all? The far-too-frightening monster was replaced, by “request” of the Comics Code Authority, by the more human Juggernaut, who was likewise in the issue. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The “fill-in” for Jack Sparling you were thinking of in your account of X-Men #30 was more likely your collaboration with him a month earlier, on the “Captain America” feature in Tales of Suspense #87. That one was inked by Joe Sinnott, but Sinnott didn’t use Sparling’s pencils for much more than suggestions, as he redrew most everything. Rather than finding more time for Ross Andru to pencil X-Men by adding the “X-Men

re: (Left and below:) A pair of panels from a Mort Meskin crime story, which we should’ve used in A/E #24 to illustrate the artist’s casual approach toward drawing handguns. Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn. (Center of page:) An apparently all-Meskin “Fighting Yank” splash (as opposed to a Robinson-Meskin one) from the late 1940s. [Art at left ©2003 the respective copyright holder; retouched Fighting Yank art ©2003 AC Comics.]

A Few More Cogent Comments & Corrections Before We Run Out of Room:

Veteran artist Dick Ayers (who has his own interview coming up in our very next issue) e-mails us that his and wife Lindy’s great-grandson Conner Reed Ayers was born recently, right on schedule, and is “the first of the 15th generation Ayers since landing in Massachusetts in 1635 from England.” For Ayers art, log on to http://community.webtv.net/dickayerscomicbookillustraor.

Origins” series in #38, Don Heck was now the series penciler starting with that ish, replacing Ross. Ross had only done those two issues of XMen in the summer of ’67: #37 (inked by Roussos) and #38 (inked by Heck—and even in the reprints, the two-page spread is flummoxed). At about that time, Ross and Mike Esposito did that spoof of the Golden Age Torch/Subby battle with you in Not Brand Echh #1, and Ross did that “Spider-Man” fill-in story that showed up in Marvel Super-heroes #14 in Feb. 1968. The earliest that Spidey story could have run would probably have been the 1967 Spider-Man Annual, but the fact that Ross did that story (and the two X-Men with you) brings up something I’ve been wondering about: Like, why did Ross and Mike get the Flash assignment over at DC? Now, you have probably heard stories that Carmine Infantino got the art directorship at DC by threatening to jump ship to Marvel; I’ve often wondered if Ross hadn’t similarly looked to Marvel as a way to get work away from DC, and it was only Carmine offering him The Flash (since Carmine knew he couldn’t draw the book any longer) that kept Ross at DC.

Netherlands reader (and contributor) Ger Apeldoorn pointed out that the three vintage panels we printed on p. 6 of #24’s Meskin side weren’t the venerable Mort’s work, at all, but that of Ric Estrada, which Ger had sent us along with a mountain of Meskin art. Our carelessness. But, since the point of that art spot was to underscore Alex Toth’s observation that Meskin tended to make up his own guns rather than draw from photos, on this page is another panel (Meskin, this time) that Ger sent which proves that point. Pro artist Scott Koblish wrote good-naturedly that he was tempted to address Ye Editor as “Ron Thomas” because he got mis-labeled as “John Koblish” in conjunction with his inking of Dave Cockrum’s “Slurpee cup” X-Men illo on page 6 of ish #24. Sorry, Scott. Ron—er, Roy—took down that name from someone over the phone, and maybe he mis-heard it. Must’ve been something in the air that issue, ’cause Don Marquez e-mailed Michael T. Gilbert, who forwarded his note to us, that his first name is not Robert, as credited on his two-page spread of preMarvel monsters from Tales to Astonish. Michael says he first wrote the name as “Robert,” then corrected it to “Don” on a later draft, but somehow the earlier version got printed. Sorry about that, too. And R. Dewey Cassell tells us it was his friend Aaron Sultan, not himself, who came up with the idea for the Deadman sketch done by writer Arnold Drake that appeared with our 2000 X-Men panel. Aaron and Arnold apparently brainstormed the concept; then Aaron gave it to Dewey as a gift.

Carl Gafford Only Carmine would (perhaps) recall the sequence of events now, Carl, since Ross, alas, is no longer with us. But he was as fine a man as he was an artist, and a great joy to work with, even if he never really seems to have liked drawing comic books. Incidentally, Jim Amash has done an interview with Carmine Infantino which will touch on some things not mentioned in the earlier one we published in issue #10. Watch for it! All the same, the Jack Sparling-penciled issue of X-Men (#30) was definitely a fill-in, as well. And Roy seems to recall that part of his motivation for launching an “X-Men Origins” back-up series in the late 1960s was indeed to gain time for artist Andru—only Ross left the book anyway, for various forgotten reasons.

FLASH FOR INFO-BUFFS! Howard Keltner’s magnificent Golden Age Comic Book Index—1935-1955: Revised Edition is now available online in the Alter Ego section of TwoMorrows’ website at www.twomorrows.com. Howard, a diligent indexer since the early 1960s, compiled an invaluable reference work on twenty years’ worth of comics history (“Emphasizing the Costumed/Super-Hero Titles,” as the subtitle has it). In printed form, this work would run nearly 400 pages! Howard’s friend Bob Klein worked with him to make this edition available, just before Howard’s untimely death in 1998. Mrs. Keltner has graciously given us permission to provide the Index gratis, for all to enjoy! (It’s a 1.5 mb Acrobat file.) We thank both her and Bob for their generosity, which is very much in the spirit of what Howard would have wanted.

PLUS: PLUS:

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No. 30

November 2003

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Vol. 3, No. 30/November 2003

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

The French Connection Section

Production Assistant Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Steve Rude Alex Ross

Contents

Cover Colorists Solid! Colors Alex Ross

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Dick Dillin & Warren Kremer

Writer/Editorial: Three Cheers for the Blue, White, and Red! . . 2 Blue (Hawk), White (Archer), Red (Mask) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Jean-Marc Lofficier on the super-heroes of French popular culture, from 1857 to today. Ghost Writers in the Sky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Jim Amash talks with Golden Age writers Kim Aamodt and Walter Geier—who scripted tales for Simon & Kirby!

“If It Doesn’t Tell a Story, It’s Just Wallpaper!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Alex Toth on storytelling in comics—and he should know! Warren Kremer (1921-2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 A brief tribute by Mark Arnold. re: [caveats, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #89 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Paul Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze, C.C. Beck, and the Shazam! cartoon show. Just A League Of Their Own Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: As detailed in Jean-Marc Lofficier’s exhaustive survey that starts on p. 3, the French-spawned Homicron started as a super-hero in 1972—was revived in 2000 with art such as this powerful drawing by Nexus artist/co-creator Steve Rude—then metamorphosed overnight into a super-heroine! Thanks, Steve! [Art ©2003 Steve Rude; Homicron TM & ©2003 the respective copyright holders.] Above: Nope, it’s not The Fly (a.k.a. Fly-Man) from 1960s Archie Comics—or even The Human Fly, who was licensed by Marvel in the mid-1970s. It’s Mikros, the Titan Microcosmique, leader of an insect-powered super-hero team that debuted in French Comics in 1980. And if you think he’s something, wait’ll you get a load of Saltarella and Bobby Cragg! Art from Titans #63 (April 1984) by Jean-Yves Mitton. [©2003 J.-Y. Mitton.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Title writer/editorial

Three Cheers for the Blue, White, and Red! The first and longest piece on this side, my good friend Jean-Marc Lofficier’s masterful and extensive survey of 150 years of French masked and/or costumed heroes and villains (with emphasis on the 1940s through the 1980s), has been collecting dust on the shelf for ’way too long! At my suggestion, Jean-Marc wrote it soon after he did an article for A/E V3#1 about a two-part “Silver Surfer” story that was specially written and drawn for a French comic book circa 1980. However, because I knew his opus would require so much space, I kept delaying it, and delaying it, till finally he had to update it—because by now he’s writing and editing new stories starring the selfsame Golden/Silver Age characters he had examined more than three years ago! What prompted me to decide at last that, by Crom, I was going to print it this month, come hell or high water, is the happy happenstance that Jean-Marc and I, who have co-written several comics stories for Marvel and DC since the 1980s, are scheduled to share the stage at a symposium on French and American comic books on November 19 at the University of South Carolina, just an hour from where Dann and I live; he and wife/collaborator Randy will lecture on French comics the day before. They are being flown in from L.A. by an amalgamation of organizations connected to USC; it’ll be the first time they’ve had a chance to visit us since we moved East in December 1991, though of course we’ve gotten together in Southern California several times since then. Thanks to another good friend, Dr. Freeman Henry, professor of

French literature at USC, for making it all happen! I hope and trust you will be as astonished and delighted by all JeanMarc’s revelations, both in text and art, as I was. The pictorial panorama that follows was only hinted at by the old 1960s-80s comics he showed me at his parents’ apartment in Paris in spring of 1992. Now I’ve gotta find the space to run Fred Patten’s great coverage of 1960s Mexican comics—which has been gathering dust on the shelf even longer! In addition, this issue, Jim Amash interviews two little-known but fascinating and knowledgeable gents who wrote scripts for the legendary Joe Simon and Jack Kirby team, among others, back in the 1950s—Alex Toth comments on storytelling in comics—and our fabulous FCA section showcases Marc Swayze, C.C. Beck, and the animated Shazam! TV series of the early 1980s. We’ve got a century and a half of comics and adventure lined up in the next 50 pages—and all you have to do is start reading on the facing page...! Bestest,

Who is this costumed super-hero who speaks perfect French? Why did his success pave the way for a censorship law in France, more than half a century ago? How come he looks like he swiped the Golden Age Hour-Man’s costume out of the laundromat? Find out answers to two of these three questions, at least, on p. 7. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

Blue (Hawk), White (Archer), Red (Mask): An Historical Overview of French Super-Heroes by Jean-Marc Lofficier

[Unless noted, all art accompanying this article has been provided by the author.]

In the Beginning: Rocambole

The first French super-hero ever was Rocambole, the creation of writer Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail. The saga of Rocamabole, ou Les Drames de The French Tricolor flag came to life in some of that nation’s greatest Paris [The Dramas of Paris] was heroes and villains. L’Epervier Bleu (The Blue Hawk) battled pirates of the stratosphere—Jean-Yves Mitton’s L’Archer Blanc (The White initially serialized in chapters Archer) was a manhunter with a bow and arrow, and Masque A new universe? A new publisher? which appeared in the pages of Rouge (Red Mask) apparently conducted of his dirty work in the daily Parisian newspaper Le No, just some of the names of superpre-World War I skies. [L’Epervier Bleu art ©2003 Sirius/Dupuis; Matin, and was later collected in heroes that have appeared in the pages of other art ©2003 the respective copyright holders.] approximately a dozen volumes, French comic books and pulp magazines published between 1857 and 1870. since the 1940s, following a pulp literary tradition that began in the The last serial was, in fact, left uncompleted due to the untimely death of 1850s! This article will provide an historical overview of some of the its author. best-known or most interesting of them, as well as the publishing context in which they evolved. Rocambole, whose origins remained shrouded in mystery, was an adventurer who did good, but was often on the wrong side of the law, like Leslie Charteris’ Saint. Foreshadowing Doc Savage, Rocambole Before the medium of comics (in French, “bandes dessinées”) was gathered around him a group of trusted assistants, selected from various invented by Swiss writer-cartoonist Rodolphe Töpffer (whose first slices of society. And, like The Shadow, Rocambole had mastered the graphic story, Histoire de M. Vieuxboix [The Story of Mr. Vieuxbois], famed skills of the Orient and inherited the secrets of an ancient Tibetan was published in Geneva in 1827), super-heroes were to be found, in civilization. He was more than a mere man; his ability to escape from France as in America, in popular literature serials published first in daily any kind of deadly trap led to the French coining the adjective “rocamnewspapers—hence the label “roman feuilleton,” feuille (leaf) being a bolesque” to label any kind of fantastic, outrageous adventure. term for a newspaper page—before being collected in what we would The amazing Rocambole. The elusive Fantômas. The Nyctalope. Mad Doctor Cornelius. Judex. Fantax. Satanax. Salvator. Zembla. Wampus. Photonik. Homicron.

recognize as “pulps.” As is the case today, there was a distinction between those forms of popular entertainment and more highbrow literary works with more respectable cultural aspirations.

Rocambole’s sometimes lover, sometimes rival, was the beautiful Baccarat, a former courtesan who was a fearless shooter, rider, and swordswoman. Baccarat is perhaps the first modern female super-hero in the history of pulp literature. Rocambole’s arch-enemy was his former master, the satanic Sir Williams, who, like Doctor Doom, had a sense of

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

panache and doomed grandeur about him. Rocambole always referred to Sir Williams as “my good Master,” and it was clear that the two adversaries liked and respected each other. Rocambole tales were often sprinkled with fantastic elements, such as a sect of Kaliworshipping thugs, an exiled Russian prince who was always a mad scientist plotting to conquer the world, etc. With Rocambole, Ponson du Terrail created and virtually defined all the archetypes of modern heroic and superheroic fiction.

Sâr Dubnotal—Master of Psychognosis Sâr Dubnotal was created by writer Norbert Sevestre, and was published in 1909-1910 as a series of pulp magazines, not unlike the Shadow and Doc Savage pulps in the U.S. The Sâr Dubnotal was the one of the few pulps to embrace a full range of larger-than-life super-heroics, but, perhaps because of this, its success was limited and it was cancelled after only twenty issues. The Sâr Dubnotal was the Great Psychagogue, a Master of Psychognosis, the Conqueror of the Invisible. (“Sâr” itself is some sort of Oriental/Hindu title meaning “wise man” or some such thing.) In spite of his stylish Oriental guise, Dubnotal, like Mandrake, Sargon, Dr. Strange, and their various imitators, was a western man who had first been educated in the Rosicrucian tradition, before learning the ancient occult secrets of the Hindu yogis, and mastering their fantastic paranormal abilities.

Skipping ahead a bit chronologically: fourteen issues of a Rocambole comic book were written and drawn by Gaston Niezab and published by Armand Fleury Cover of Sâr Dubnotal #11, probably 1910. in 1947. Over 200 black-&-white daily He was the Dr. Strange of his day. Art Dubnotal lived in a comfortable Parisian apartment comic strips were written and drawn by by Sarace. [©2003 the respective located beneath his sophisticated laboratory. His regular copyright holder.] André Galland and serialized in the daily companion and assistant was the beautiful, plucky Italian newspaper Le Parisien Libéré in 1949medium, Gianetti Annunciata. Dubnotal was usually busy 50. Later, over 600 strips labeled The New Adventures of Rocambole thwarting the nefarious goals of a colorful gallery of super-villains, and likewise done by Galland, were serialized in Le Parisien Libéré in including Tserpchikopf the Hypnotist, who was later revealed to be Jack 1954-56. Finally, 41 issues of yet another Rocambole comic book series the Ripper, and the Russian terrorist mastermind Azzef. were published by Aventures & Voyages between 1964 and 1967; its writer and artist are unknown. In the latter, Rocambole was depicted as a The Sâr Dubnotal series was never reprinted nor collected in book freelance adventurer who lived in semi-retirement in a Brittany castle form, and remains to this day a relatively obscure, yet ground-breaking with his faithful man-servant and his dog Kid; he was periodically achievement. summoned to London by the British Intelligence Service to undertake a variety of perilous missions.

The Nyctalope—a Gallic Dark Knight

A more popular pulp super-hero was The Nyctalope, created by Jean de La Hire, a prolific pulp writer of the times. The Nyctalope was the alias of Léo Saint-Clair (or Jean de Sainclair in some novels, continuity not being La Hire’s strong point). He was a super-powered crime-fighter whose piercing yellow eyes could see in the dark, and who sported an artificial heart. His name refers to an eye condition in which vision is normal in daylight but abnormally weak at night— paradoxically, the exact opposite of his powers! Like Rocambole, The Nyctalope’s adventures were first serialized in the daily newspaper Le Matin, starting in 1908 with L’Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l’Eau [The Man Who Could Live Underwater], and were later collected in sixteen volumes with equally lurid titles. The last one appeared in 1954, a mere two years before La Hire’s death.

The Nyctalope had superpowers and a secret identity, and was, like Rocambole,

The Nyctalope—French forerunner of The Black Bat and Dr. Mid-Nite (except that the latter two had the added twist of being blind in normal daylight). Cover art by R. Brantonne. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

(Left:) The famous Sarace illustration of Fantômas bestriding Paris, with the dagger in his right hand partly, er, cut off at the edge, appeared on a 1987 hardcover English-language translation of the original novel. (Center:) This poster from the 1913 Gaumont Louis Feuillade movie serial features a fuller version of the illo—only somebody erased the dagger! (Right:) A somewhat less debonair poster for a 1932 Fantômas movie. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

surrounded by a devoted group of fearless assistants, including the Japanese count Gno Mitang, the mysterious Jewish wizard Mathias Lumen, and the international Committee of Information and Defense against Evil, which he had created. His rogues’ gallery was colorful enough to excite envy in even Doc Savage or Batman. These included the megalomanical Baron Glo von Warteck (aptly nicknamed Lucifer), the mad monk Fulbert, the devilish Oxus, Gorillard the Mastodon (a brilliant mastermind), the mad engineer Korridés, the “Scarlet Princess” Diana Ivanovna Krosnorow (Queen of the Hashishins, a.k.a. Titania), and finally, Leonid Zattan, who was truly evil incarnate.

who created him in 1911. He appeared in 32 volumes written by the two in only two years—then in eleven more volumes written by Allain alone after Souvestre’s death in 1914. Arch-criminal Fantômas remains even today one of the most popular characters in French pulp literature. His adversaries were the determined policeman Juve and the dashing young journalist Jerôme Fandon, who eventually fell in love with Fantômas’ daughter. Another recurring character was the tragic figure of Fantômas’ lover, Lady Beltham, who was constantly torn between her passion for the villain and her horror at his criminal schemes. The first Fantômas book cover, showing a contemplative masked man dressed in a dinner jacket and holding a dagger, boldly stepping over Paris, has become so well known that it is almost a cliché today.

The Nyctalope’s adventures took him to every location on Earth, underwater, into the snowy wastes of Tibet, and even to Rhea, an unknown satellite of Earth, and to Mars, where he fought H.G. Wells’ Martians! In one if the novels, he is forced to travel to the future to battle Belzebuth, the son of Leonid Zattan and Titania.

Just as Sherlock Holmes became the archetype for a host of rivals and imitations, so did Fantômas. Among his better-known, and even more horrific, literary descendants were Arnould Galopin’s Tenebras (1911), Gaston René’s Masque Rouge [Red Mask] (1912), Louis Feuillade’s gang of Vampires (1915), Fascinax (1921), Gabriel Bernard’s Satanas (1921), Arthur Bernède’s Belphégor (1927), Marcel Allain’s own Tigris (1928), Fatala (1930), Miss Teria (1931), and Ferocias (1933)—and a bevvy of Italian super-villains, such as Diabolik, Satanik, Kriminal, and others.

The last “Nyctalope” story (according to internal chronology) was written in 1944 but took place in 1941. In it, The Nyctalope appeared to have succumbed to the charms of collaboration with the Nazis, retroactively making him the first super-hero to have actually gone bad in his old age!

Fear over Paris: Fantômas As Rocambole was France’s first super-hero, so was Fantômas the first French super-villain to star in his own series. He was the brainchild of writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre,

Fantômas was also the subject of several comics adaptations, the most recent in the 1990s.

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

The Doctors Are In(sane) It was just at the turn of the 20th century that another modern archetype of superhero tales made its appearance in popular literature: the mad doctor. The character of Doctor Caresco, introduced in Le Mal Nécessaire [The Necessary Evil] in 1899, written by André Couvreur, himself a medical doctor, was undoubtedly one of the first mad surgeons in popular literature. Caresco returned in Caresco Surhomme, ou Le Voyage en Eucrasie [Caresco the Superman, or The Voyage to Eucrasia] (1904), a novel describing a sadomasochistic utopia built by surgery and ruled by Caresco. In 1909, with Une Invasion de Macrobes [An Invasion of Macrobes], Couvreur then embarked on a series of adventures featuring another mad scientist, Professor Tornada. By comparison, Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu was first published in 1913. A truly worthy competitor of Fantômas was Dr. Cornelius Kramm, the star of Le Mystérieux Dr. Cornelius, a sprawling 18volume pulp saga published in 1912-13, and written by another prolific author, Gustave Le Rouge.

Fantômas worked alone, but Cornelius Kramm and his brother Fritz ruled an international crime empire called Le Main Rouge (The Red Hand). Fantômas was a man of action; Cornelius was a mad scientist to rival H.G. Wells’ Dr. Moreau. Nicknamed “The Sculptor of Human Flesh,” Cornelius could alter the appearances of men at will, and even “clone” them (to use modern terminology). Doctor Cornelius was defeated only by a vast alliance of heroes led by scientist Prosper Bondonnat, after a world-spanning battle.

Judex—the Judge Judex, a mysterious crime-fighter wearing a slouch hat and a dark cloak, whose look almost certainly influenced that of The Shadow, made his first appearance simultaneously on film, as a serial, and in print (as a novelization of the serial), in 1917. Filmmaker Louis Feuillade had been taken to task by the bourgeois newspapers for his successful film adaptations of Fantômas and Les Vampires, which his critics claimed glorified crime... so he decided to make his next serial about a crime-fighter, not a villain. Here comes le judge! A still from the 1917 serial Judex. The avenging hero was played by René Cresté. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

He hired writer Arthur Bernède, and together they imagined a blackclad avenger whose name meant “Judge,” who could appear and

disappear like a ghost, who was a master of disguise, and who commanded the loyalty of circus folks and redeemed apaches. That hero was Judex. His nemesis was the evil banker Favraux and his mistress Diana Monti. Eventually, we found out that Judex was the son of one of Favraux’s victims. Up till this time, none of the characters mentioned had worn a specific uniform. Judex was the first costumed super-hero; it is said that Feuillade designed his cloak himself. Judex had a few sequels and has been remade several times since, but his success never matched that of his evil doppelgänger, Fantômas.

From Pulps to Comics Many other super-heroes made their first appearances in the pulp literature of the 1920s and 1930s—too many to name here. A special mention, however, should be reserved for writer Paul d’Ivoi, who created a slew of colorful characters such as the Corsair Triplex (a Captain Nemo type), Docteur Mystery, The Illusion Knight, and Miss Mousqueterr. As was the case in America, pulps eventually died and were replaced in popularity by comics. Super-heroes merely traveled from one medium to the other. Their major influences were the popular American strips of the times, such as Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Tarzan, before their importation was stopped by the Nazis during the Occupation of France during World War II. The running storyline in Flash Gordon was wrapped up by Belgian artist Edgar P. Jacobs, who then went on to produce a Flash Gordon imitation, Le Rayon U [The U Ray] in 1944. In that strip, Professor Marduk, Major Walton, and the beautiful Sylvia fought the villainy of Captain Dagon on the continent of Norlandia on the planet Austradia. Le Rayon U is undoubtedly the first French superhero-like story of its kind. (Jacobs later created the popular adventures of “Blake & Mortimer” for Tintin magazine; that duo’s stories also

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7 American pulps like The Shadow, The Spider, and The Avenger.

Drawn by Mouchotte and written by Marcel Navarro (using the American-sounding pseudonym of “J.-K. Melwyn-Nash”!), Fantax was the first French comic book super-hero. Thirty-nine issues of Fantax were published between 1946 and 1949. Alas, because of its violent contents, including sadomasochistic scenes, bondage, torture, and the like, mild by today’s standards but deemed rather Pierre Mouchotte’s Fantax—the first French comic book super-hero. His success led to the Law of July 1949, prurient at the time, the series and decades of censorship of Gallic adventure comics. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.] quickly drew the wrath of conservative and Christian featured numerous science-fiction elements, but were more earthbound organizations. It is no exaggeration to say that Fantax was singleand far less super-heroic in nature.) handedly responsible for the adoption of the Law of July 1949, which thereafter heavily censored adventure comics. The magazine was disconRespectable children’s weeklies—such as Spirou, created in 1938, or tinued that year. Tintin, created in 1946—published only G-rated-style cartoony or realistic adventures, and virtually no science-fiction, a genre deemed too In 1955, Mouchotte created another super-hero, the bike-riding intense for children. As a result, a number of other newsstand magazines Black-Boy, who was introduced as the son of Fantax, who made the appeared to meet the demand for harder-edged, more fantastic stories. occasional appearance in the series. Unfortunately, more recurring Their publishers either translated American stories, or Italian and problems with censorship ultimately drove Mouchotte out of the Spanish imitations, or produced their own French imitations. business entirely, but not before, in 1959, eight new Fantax stories (written by Mouchotte and drawn by Rémy) had been released. Naturally, parents and educators frowned upon these magazines. A Mouchotte passed away in 1966. law was passed in July 1949 to create a censorship committee, which began to harass the publishers. Originally published in a regular color size, the magazines were then forced to go to black-&-white and pocketsize, hence their name, petits formats (small formats).

Salvator, Atomas, and Satanax

Fantax and Black-Boy Backtracking to Lyon, 1940, in the part of France not yet occupied by the Nazis: writer Marcel Navarro was asked by the president of the publishing company S.A.G.E. to translate Italian comics into French. While working for S.A.G.E., Navarro met writer/artists Pierre Mouchotte and Robert Bagage, both heavily influenced by American adventure strips. These three men were almost single-handedly responsible for the Small Format publishing phenomenon of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946, Mouchotte launched his own company with the magazine (and hero) Fantax. Fantax was the secret identity of Lord Horace Neighbour, who worked at the British Embassy in Washington during the day, and fought crime as a dark-clad, caped crusader at night. His enemies included The Mikado, The Gentleman Ghost, The Werewolf, and The Cobra—not to mention the more mundane Ku Klux Klan, the Mafia (led by “Al Capy”), and various secret societies such as The Black Tigers. Like the early “Batman” stories of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Fantax’s adventures owed more than a passing debt to

In 1947-48, writer/artist Auguste Liquois created the short-lived super-hero Salvator for the magazine Tarzan. In the origin story, Salvator was shipwrecked on an island and met Professor Sirenus, who gave him super-powers and a bracelet that enabled the two of them to remain in telepathic contact. Salvator’s first adventure pitted him against Neptunas, an underwater tyrant who wanted to rule the world. Atomas was initially created by writer Robert Charroux (who later became the French Erich Von Daniken) for Auguste Liquois, but the

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

series was taken over by artist Pellos, and was serialized in the weekly magazine Mon Journal in 1948. Atomas was an atomic-powered super-hero whose origins remained mysterious. His adversary was the world-conquering Borg. The following year, Liquois went to work for Éditions Mondiales. There, he produced sixteen issues of Satanax in collaboration with writer Jean d’Alvignac. In the origin story, Arsène Satard, a humble court recorder, was given superhuman powers by an ancient alchemist, in an origin not unlike Captain Marvel’s. Satard then decided to fight crime and injustice as Satanax. Worthy of a mention here is Mister X, the Man of Mystery, whose foes included Doctor Zamos the Monster Master and Marcalbus the Magician. Mister X was the creation of writer Andreé Roger and artist André Bohan for Éditions Élan. Thirty-two issues were published between 1949 and 1951.

The Artima Universe The publishing company Artima was founded in 1946 by Emile Keirsbilk in Roubaix, in the North of France. At various times it published over 50 titles with various colorful names including Audax, Dynamic, Météor, Cosmos, Mystic, and others, a number of which printed translations of 1950s DC Comics series such as “John Jones, Manhunter from Mars” and “Adam Strange.” One 1956-59 Artima magazine, Atome Kid, even reprinted the adventures of a Spanish superhero! In spite of this, Artima never fully embraced the super-hero genre, even though some of their creations were quite interesting.

[Above, left to right:] Salvator getting super-powers from Prof. Sirenus—Atomas in action—and Satanax. Atomas drawn by Pelios; other art by Auguste Liquois. [Below:] The milquetoast Arsène Satard was ordered to walk through mystic fire—and became Satanax. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Fulguros, self-dubbed Master of Thunder, was the star of a series created in 1946 by writer Robert Collard, using the pseudonym “R. Lortac,” and of René Brantonne, who later became one of the most famous science-fiction cover artists of the 1950s and 1960s. Fulguros was a scientist who had developed mastery over lightning; he fought supervillains like The Green Dragon or The Public Enemy No. 1. At first, Fulguros did not wear a costume, but he eventually acquired one. Oddly, the first three of his adventures were published in a girls’ magazine called Sylvie in 1952, then reprinted in the magazine Audax. Several of his adventures appeared only as late as 1967, in the title Météor. “Fulguros” was a promising series that never took off, perhaps because of Brantonne’s other commitments. Wonderman was another costumed super-hero whose career never took off. Created by writer-artist J.-A. Dupuich in 1949, he fought a colorful gallery of rogues such as The Black Circle, atomic spies, power-

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

crazed Tibetan lamas, and their ilk. His series appeared sporadically as a back-up in various magazines such as Aventure, Dynamic, and Audax until 1951, then disappeared. Artima’s most successful super-hero was Vigor, a Captain America-like super-soldier (minus the uniform) who worked for the United Nations, after having fought during World War II; indeed, several of his Vigor, by R. Giordan. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.] stories were flashback episodes that took place during that war, when he had fought the Nazis and Japanese with his sidekicks, the amusing Le Grenouille [The Frog] and Sgt. Makenzie. He battled a variety of threats, often including supervillains. Vigor was created in 1948 by writer-artist Duteurtre, then was entrusted in turn to Dupuich in 1952, and to Raoul and Robert Giordan in 1954. “Vigor” ran without interruption in its own magazine from 1954 to 1962. Another Artima success story was Tarou, a Tarzan-like hero created in 1949 by writer/artist Robert Dansler, who used the pseudonym of “Bob Dan.” Tarou was the son of a French engineer and a Polynesian

woman, and was raised by tigers. His adventures initially included the standard Tarzanic jungle fare, but eventually grew to encompass a variety of genres, including science-fiction and fantasy. Tarou fought sea monsters, evil wizards, and mad scientists, and discovered lost civilizations and alien races. He was eventually granted his own magazine in 1954, which ran for 222 issues, until Dansler’s death in 1973.

In 1962, a “Second Artima Universe” was born when Keirsbilk sold the company to the powerful French publishing corporation, Presses de la Cité (PC), which renamed the company Aredit. Under PC’s management, Aredit published a slew of black-&-white, pocket-sized magazines featuring translations of more DC Comics series; over the years these magazines included such titles as Étranges Aventures, Aventures Fiction, Spectre, Eclipso, Aquaman, Spectral, Démon, and others.

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes been published by Fleuve Noir from 1957-59 and were credited to “Benoît Becker,” a house pseudonym for noted screenwriter JeanClaude Carrière. The “Frankenstein” series became the star feature of Hallucinations magazine. Carrière’s approach to the character was startlingly different from both the Universal and Hammer film versions. His novels followed the footsteps of the Monster, christened “Gouroull,” as he made his way back from Iceland to Scotland, then to Germany and Switzerland, from the late 1800s to the 1920s. Unlike its predecessors, Carrière’s Monster was a ruthless, murderous, demoniacal thing, the very incarnation of evil. Like its competition, Aredit eventually concentrated on the publishing of American material, adding translations of Marvel Comics with L’Inattendu (1975-80), Conan (1977-90?), and Hulk (1978-?) to its DC roster. The company went out of business in the early 1990s.

Covers of Artima comics featured adaptations of novels starring Madame Atomos and the Frankenstein Monster. We presume the helpless young lady on the former is neither Madame nor Mademoiselle Atomos? [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Simultaneously, Aredit also launched a series of titles devoted to comics adaptations of popular novels of espionage, sciencefiction, and horror that had been published by PC’s popular paperback imprint, Fleuve Noir. One of the new titles, Atomos, featured comics adaptations by an unknown artist of writer André Caroff’s series of seventeen Madame Atomos novels published by Fleuve Noir in the 1960s. These novels featured a Fu Manchu-like (but female) Japanese mad scientist who unleashed various plagues and monsters on the United States to avenge the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An interesting development was the creation by Madame Atomos of a younger version of herself, dubbed Mademoiselle Atomos, groomed to continue the good fight should Madame Atomos die. Mlle. Atomos eventually fell in love with the hero and joined forces with him to fight her evil progenitrix. After 24 issues, released from 1968 to 1974, Aredit ran out of Madame Atomos novels and began to adapt other, unrelated novels by Caroff. The other notable Aredit series of the 1970s was “Frankenstein,” a comics adaptation by an equally unidentified artist of six horror novels featuring Mary Shelley’s immortal Monster. The novels had originally

The Imperia Universe

In 1946, the same year Artima was founded, writer-artist Robert Bagage, sensing opportunity, founded his own publishing company, the Éditions du Siècle, renamed Imperia in 1952. They were headquartered in Lyons and contained mostly Italian and Spanish imports, with a few French features thrown in.

The most famous series published by Imperia was Super Boy—two words, no hyphen. This character, who owes nothing to DC’s hero (except of course the name), was the son of a genius scientist who protected Earth against super-villains and hostile aliens in an undetermined near future. Super Boy wore a rocket belt which enabled him to fly, and a radio helmet with a transparent visor à lá Judge Dredd. He was far more like Adam Strange than any regular super-powered character. Super Boy was the creation of Bagage’s first wife (under the name “Schwarz”) and of artist Félix Molinari. The magazine Super Boy was actually launched in 1949, without a feature of that title in it! The eponymous hero made his debut in issue #112 in 1958. New stories appeared without interruption until the mid-1970s, after which it switched to reprints. Imperial launched other super-heroes during the late 1940s, but none were as popular as Super Boy, and none lasted very long. Still, three deserve a mention:

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask) Robert Bagage’s cover for an issue of the Doc Savage-like Tom X—and Robert Meyer’s for Radar (as in, The Exploits of...). Hey, a guy could hurt his knuckles slugging a robot! [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

The Lug Universe In 1950, writer Marcel Navarro, who had preciously worked with both Mouchotte and Baggage, decided to try his luck, as well. He teamed up with publisher Auguste Vistel to create Éditions Lug, also based in Lyons, hence the name (Lyons was called Lugdunum by the Romans). At first, Lug published the traditional mix of French and Italian series, but unlike the competition, Navarro (using his Englishsounding “Malcolm Naughton” or “J.K. Melwyn-Nash” pseudonyms) decided to create far more new characters, which he then entrusted to Italian studios to script and draw. This is why the universe created (or cocreated) by Navarro remains to date the first and foremost shared universe in French Comics.

Tom X was a Doc Savage-like character who fought threats such as The Blue Dragon, The Thirteen Hoods, The Red Circle, and even a resurrected Adolf Hitler! The series lasted for thirty-nine issues between 1946 and 1948, and was first written and drawn by Bagage himself, before being entrusted to Raoul Auger.

Lug’s most famous hero was a Tarzan “clone” called Zembla. The Zembla comics magazine was created in 1963 for artist Franco Oneta, primarily to compete with the Italian Akim, an Italian Tarzanic type published with much success in France by Aventures & Voyage. Zembla quickly became one of Lug’s most popular titles. Zembla was a dark-haired Ka-Zar, and his Savage Land-

Imperia’s Tarzan clone was Targa, created in 1947 by Bagage for artist Georges Esteve. Targa was far more fantasy-oriented than his competition, fighting menaces that time forgot and super-powered enemies like The Living Arrow and The Dragon. The Targa magazine was taken over by artist Robert Rocca in 1949, then by André Rey in 1950. For reasons unknown (the similarities between the names Targa and Tarzan?), it was later reprinted by Imperia under the name Agar. Last but not least, Radar was a worthy combination of Flash Gordon and Doc Savage. The eponymous scientist super-hero starred in only twelve adventures, with exciting titles such as “The Planet Of Terror,” “The Green Ray Hell.” and “The Prisoner Of The Void,” between 1947 and 1948. Radar was written by Bagage and drawn by artist Robert Meyer. Perhaps because it was ahead of its times, the series did not meet with the success it deserved, and the magazine was quickly cancelled. Imperia led an uneventful life throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and eventually went out of business after Bagage retired.

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

The company called Lug (the name is pronounced just like the English word) had a whole passel of superhero and quasi-super-hero series during the 1960s, including (clockwise from top left): Rakar— Silver Shadow—Bathy-09—Max Tornado—Drago—Le Prince de la Nuit—Morgane (she’s the one wearing the black tie)—Tanka—Le Roi des Profondeurs—Le Pilote Noir— and Gun Gallon (he’s the galoot on the right). The artists’ names are given in the text. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask) like kingdom often brought him into contact with mad scientists, world conquerors, lost civilizations, wizards, and aliens. The original series ran without interruption until the 1980s, when, as we shall see below, the entire Lug output was switched to reprints only. Zembla returned in 2000 in a series of new adventures. Other super-hero series published by Lug before 1969 included: — Rakar, a western masked avenger not unlike Marvel’s original Ghost Rider, drawn by Italian artist Ivo Pavone; — Silver Shadow, a futuristic crimefighter, drawn by Italian artist Gorgio Trevisan; — Bathy-09, an underwater task force not unlike DC’s Sea Devils, drawn by Italian artist Carlo Savi; — Max Tornado, a NASA astronaut who returned from Mars with super-strength (original artist unknown); — Stormalong, a Shadow-like avenger in 19th-century New Orleans, drawn by Italian artist Emilio Uberti; — Drago, another super-powered western crime-fighter, drawn by the Studio Barbato; — Le Prince de la Nuit [The Prince of the Night], a Rocambole imitation (original artist unknown);

At one point in Fantastic Four #8 (Nov. 1962), The Puppet Master flees on his winged flying horse—“my greatest puppet of all!” Éditions Lug turned that panel into the cover of Fantask #3, | circa 1970, which also starred The Silver Surfer and Thor. [Art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

— Morgane, the modern-day descendent of Morgan Le Fey, drawn by Italian artist Arnoldo Rosin; — Tanka, another jungle lord, drawn by French artist Yves Mondet; — Le Roi des Profondeurs [The King of the Depths], an Aquaman-like hero, drawn by Italian artist Mario Cubbino; — Le Pilote Noir [The Dark Flyer], an Iron Man-like crime-fighter equipped with fancy flying machines (original artist unknown); — Doug Malone, a telepath, drawn by Italian artist Giorgio Trevisan; — Gun Gallon, an Edgar Rice Burroughs-style hero who explores a fantastic universe with three moons, drawn by Italian artist Lina Buffolente. The look and feel of these characters was very evocative of early ’60s DC heroes. In 1969, Claude Vistel, Auguste Vistel’s daughter, returned from a trip to New York and convinced Navarro to publish the first translations of Marvel Comics in France, in a magazine entitled Fantask, which featured the Fantastic Four, SpiderMan, and Silver Surfer. Sensing that he was on to something, Navarro followed suit with his own creations. Wampus was created in 1969 for Italian artist Luciano Bernasconi. This

Who says a fiendish monster can’t be the star of his own comic book? Well, the French censors, for one, who gave Éditions Lug so much trouble that they cancelled Wampus after six monthly issues! But here’s a triptych composed of Luciano Bernasconi’s cover for Wampus #4 (June 1969)—an interior page—and a house ad of Wampus hiding behind the Eiffel Tower. In English, incidentally, the rare word “wampus” in some dialects means “a strange or objectionable person,” or simply “a lout.” And A/E editor Roy Thomas recalls hearing creepy tales of a dreaded “wampus cat” that lurked in the Missouri woods or marshes, when he was a kid back in the late 1940s. Dunno quite what meaning the good folks at Lug had in mind when they developed their Wampus, though. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes As recounted in Alter Ego V3#1 (has it really been over four years already?), artist Mitton drew a new, Marvel-authorized 42-page “Silver Surfer” adventure for two 1980 issues of Nova, utilizing figures from John Buscema issues of the U.S. comic, after it was discontinued. [Silver Surfer & Mephisto TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

series, launched in its own magazine, featured a fearsome-looking, shape-shifting alien monster sent by an evil cosmic intelligence to destroy Earth. The back-up feature was “Mister Song,” the adventures of a S.H.I.E.L.D.-like organization called Clash, drawn by Giorgio Trevisan. Unfortunately, Lug had run-ins with the censors, and both Fantask and Wampus were cancelled after only six issues. The following year, Navarro re-launched the Marvel characters, first in a magazine called Strange, then in Marvel (which also fell victim to censorship a year later), then in Nova, Spidey, etc. At the same time, he continued to introduce more new French heroes, relying mostly on the talents of a hand-picked crew of French and Italian talent, such as writer Claude-Jacques Legrand and Italian artist Luciano Bernasconi. In 1972, in what might well be called “The Lug Universe: Phase Two,” Navarro launched the magazine Futura, which published the following heroes: — Jaleb le Télépathe [Jaleb the Telepath], an alien mind-reader who grew up on Earth and now searches for his origins, drawn by Italian artist Annibale Casabianca; — Homicron, a Captain Atom-like alien stranded on Earth, drawn by Italian artist Paolo Morisi; — La Brigade Temporelle [The Time Brigade], a time patrol from the 40th century, drawn by Spanish artist Edmundo Ripoli; (Counter-clockwise from left:) A few of the Futura crew circa early 1980s. Jaleb the Telepath—Homicron—L’Autre (The Other)—and La Brigade Temporelle. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

(Above row:) Hmm... looks like the artist of the cover of Waki #2 was a Joe Kubert fan—while Kabur apparently owed a debt to Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian—and Bernasconi’s Gladiateur de Bronze (Bronze Gladiator) got into tight spots in his native New York. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

The cover of Mustang #54 (June 1980) featured (left to right) Photonik, Ozark, and Mikros. Franco Oneta drew Ozark; the other two figures are by Jean-Yves Mitton. [Mikros TM & ©2003 J.-Y. Mitton; Photon TM & ©2003 Tota; cover art ©2003 the respective copyright holders.] Lug’s popular Photonik—in a splash page, and a contents page from Spidey. [Art ©2003 Tota; Spider-Man & Power Pack TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

(Left:) Mitton’s cover for Mustang #56 (Aug. 1980), which features Mikros and Bobby Cragg. (Right:) Art from a second, undated splash showing all three team members. Mikros is the bug-eyed leader, Bobby Cragg has a right hand like a huge insect claw, and Saltrella—well, at least she doesn’t resemble a lower life form of any kind. By the way, Bobby’s stars-and-stripes outfit is definitely an All-American red, white, and blue (as opposed to the French national colors of blue, white, and red!). [Mikros characters TM & ©2003 J.-Y. Mitton]

— Mikros, Titan Microcosmique [“Microcosmic Titan”], drawn by Jean-Yves Mitton (who in 1980 had drawn the French Buscema-homage “Silver Surfer” story spotlighted in the first issue of this volume of Alter Ego), featured three Harvard entomologists and Olympic athletes, who were unwillingly mutated into insectsized humanoids (à lá Marvel’s Ant-Man) by the alien insectoid race called the Svizz. Mikros’ two superpowered colleagues in the series were Bobby Cragg and Saltarella (real name: Priscilla Conway). Mikros, too, would return after Mustang’s cancellation, in more than fifty issues of Lug’s Marvel-based magazine Titans, between 1981-86.

— Jeff Sullivan, Man of Brass, a man with the power to control his own density, drawn by Bernasconi;

— Ozark, drawn by Franco Oneta, was the Native American sorcerer supreme of that new universe.

— Larry Cannon, an insurance investigator who fought alien parasites that had the power to control human minds, written by Legrand and drawn by Casabianca and, later, Chantereau.

— Mustang, a western super-hero written by Jacques Lennoz (using the pseudonym “Jack Nolez”) and drawn by Italian artist Franco Oneta.

— L’Autre [The Other], a less monstrous, more humanoid version of Wampus (with the same unique eye design), involved in tales of less nihilistic violence, drawn by Bernasconi; — Sibilla, a Madame Xanadu-like heroine and occult investigator, drawn by Bernasconi. In 1974, Navarro launched a new magazine named after its Kamandilike star, Waki, whose exploits were drawn by Bernasconi. In 1975, he launched another magazine, Kabur, featuring a Conan-style adventurer of that name, backed up by stories of a New York-based super-hero, The Bronze Gladiator (a Hawkman-like character); both features were drawn by Bernasconi. In 1980, in a virtual “Lug Universe: Phase Three,” Navarro relaunched the magazine Mustang, formerly a western-themed publication, with several super-hero series: — Photonik, drawn by Cyro Tota. A hunchbacked boy, a lonely, alienated Billy Batson, could transform himself into a golden Prince of Light known as Photonik. With the help of neuropsychologist Dr. Ziegel and “Tom Thumb,” Photonik fought numerous super-powered threats in the best, angst-ridden Marvel tradition. (Arguably the most popular of all Lug’s super-heroes, after Mustang’s cancellation Photonik returned in the Marvel-based Spidey, beginning in 1982 and continuing till the end of the decade.)

— Cosmo, a cosmic super-hero created by Navarro for Mitton. During that time, other super-heroes were inserted into the contents of the various other magazines published by Lug, including: — Phenix was a black-clad, bike-riding Huntress-like heroine who fought crime in Chicago (drawn by Bernasconi); — Starlock was another powerful Hulk-like alien stranded on Earth (drawn by Bernasconi); — Kit Kappa was a Master of Kung Fu trained in a Tibetan Shangri-La (drawn by Bernasconi); — The Count of St.-Germain was the notorious immortal alchemist, now turned supernatural avenger (drawn by Bernasconi); — Bob Lance was the modern-day descendant of the Round Table hero Lancelot (drawn by—whose else?—Bernasconi); — Jayde was a teenager with the power to turn into animals (like DC’s Changeling) (drawn by Danilo Grossi); — Motoman was a super-biker high school student (drawn by Franco Oneta); — Masque Blanc [White Mask] was an African super-hero fighting apartheid (drawn by Lino Jeva);

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

(Clockwise from top left:) Phenix rising, and Starlock in action, both by Bernasconi—Jeff Sullivan flying into trouble on a Futura cover by Frisano— Jayde becoming elephantine (by Grossi)—and Oneta’s Motoman, the high school “super-biker.” [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes lived Wulf the Barbarian and Marvel’s Captain Marvel, Iron Fist, The Invaders, Doc Savage, Star Wars, et al. When Mustang was cancelled for a second time, “Mikros, Titan Microcosmique” returned in a new series of adventures, with Mitton at the helm, that ran from Titans #35-87 (198186). At Mitton’s behest, the series, which had originally taken place in the United States, moved to Southern Europe, in particular to Venice. Mitton also introduced the heroes’ arch-nemesis, a mad mentalist named Psi.

A central late 1980s self-portrait of bearded Jean-Yves Mitton, surrounded by some of the heroes of all types he has drawn. [Art ©2003 Y.-V. Mitton; characters TM & ©2003 the respective trademark and copyright holders.]

— Petit Cube [Little Cube] was a young boy in possession of an alien medallion à lá Green Lantern’s ring (drawn by Fausto Oneta); — Magic Tom was a stage magician with real magical powers and a talking gorilla sidekick (drawn by Bruno Tremulo); — Mozam was an African, more hard-edged Tarzan (drawn by Arnoldo Rosin); — Lucifer was an angel exiled on Earth who had to perform good deeds (drawn by Raffaelle Paparella); etc. Marcel Navarro had masterminded the creation of a super-hero universe entirely unlike any other in French comics, in terms of scope, diversity, and number of characters—one that resembled the less cohesive DC line of the period, as opposed to more coherent Marvel setup. Since Lug licensed many of its comics from Spain and Italy, conversely its own series were also licensed by Italian and Spanish publishers, and printed with great success in these two countries. The 1980s title Titans has already been mentioned; it featured reprints from such American titles as Atlas/Seaboard’s short-

Mitton also added to the “Mikros” saga by introducing Epsilon (a.k.a. Moi, Epsilon, 15 Ans, Fils du Néant—in English, “I, Epsilon, 15 Years Old, Son of No One”). The stories now took place in the year 2086, and Epsilon was the teenage son of Psi, the despotic ruler of “Eden,” a futuristic Pan-European city-state. But the super-powered Epsilon became a rebel, teaming up with his girlfriend Foxie and the robot Mentor to fight Psi and search for his mother. Epsilon appeared in

Titans #88-108 (1986-87). Also worth a passing mention is Kronos, a Mitton creation who appeared in Titans #115-120 (1988). Kronos was, in reality, an alien named Zaar who had been hiding on Earth for thousands of years to escape from his people. However, during the mid-1980s, Auguste Vistel passed away, and Navarro eventually chose to retire. Lug was sold to the Scandinavian publishing group Semic in 1993. At that time, the commissioning of new French stories was discontinued, and the titles became reprints only, or foreign licenses. Lug was fully merged into the Semic group in 1994.

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

(Clockwise from top left:) L’Epervier Bleu (The Blue Hawk) contemplates the moon—the Wildcat-like Le Chat (The Cat) gets bestial— Kaza looks Martian—and Jacques Flash uses his super-power to make an object invisible, so that it trips someone who needs tripping. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Mainstream Weeklies Meanwhile, a few super-powered heroes had managed to make their appearances in the more respectable weekly children’s magazines. L’Epervier Bleu [The Blue Hawk] was created by writer/artist Sirius for the weekly comics magazine Spirou, starting in 1942. From the start, this series was in trouble with the censors because of its science-fiction elements, causing Sirius to abandon it in 1954. Le Chat [The Cat] was a black-clad Batmanlike hero who fought crime in England. He was the creation of writer/artist Michel Denys, in reality a pseudonym for the more famous Michel Greg. Twenty-six episodes were published in Heroic Albums between 1953 and 1956. Kaza le Martien [Kaza the Martian] starred in a serial in OK Magazine from 1946-48. With the help of three Earthians who arrive on Mars, Kaza, who is the Red Planet’s legitimate emperor, strives to retake his home city of Liberapolis from the usurper Agold; along the way they encounter such colorful Martian races as the Triangle-Heads and the People of Yog. Kaza was the creation of “Kline,” the pseudonym of writer/artist Roger Chevalier, and was clearly inspired by Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. Jacques Flash was a journalist who used a serum to become invisible so he could fight crime. He was a creation of writer Jean Ollivier and artist Pierre Le Guen for Vaillant in 1956 and quickly became one of its most popular heroes. In 1960, the series was taken over by Gérald Forton, in 1961 by Pierre Castex and René Deynis, in 1968 by Max Lenvers, then finally in 1973 by Legoff. In total, “Jacques Flash” ran for a total of 54 adventures.

In 1967-69, Vincent Larcher, a soccer-player hero created for Tintin in 1963 by writer/artist Raymond Reding, teamed up with Olympio, the super-powered son of a mad scientist. Together, they lived three strange adventures that featured a unique combination of sports and super-heroics: Olympic 2004, 11 Left-handed Players for Mexico, and The Zoo of Dr. Ketzal. Every French teenager knows that a seemingly ordinary teenage girl, Françoise Dupont, takes on the identity of costumed crime-fighter Fantômette to fight crime. Fantômette began in 1961 as a popular series of juvenile novels by Georges Chaulet (it now comprises over fifty titles), and in the late 1970s became a comic book series drawn by François Craenhals. The white-haired wizard Rork, created by writer/artist Andréas for Tintin in 1978, came from another dimension and battled supernatural threats. Supporting characters included Raffington Event, a portly detective of the occult, and astrologer/crime-fighter Capricorn. Rork’s

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

(Clockwise:) Vincent Larcher and Olympio on a cover of the long-running Tintin magazine (which starred Hergé’s famous creation)—a “Rork” page from Tintin (as translated by JeanMarc & Randy Lofficier for Dark Horse’s Cheval Noir)—Félina from a late-’70s issue of Circus— and the cover of a Fantômette juvenile novel. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

saga ended in 1993 after seven graphic novels, but Andréas has since produced eight Capricorn books. Félina is a black-cloaked super-heroine who uses her circus skills to avenge her husband’s death; she is aided in her campaign against evil by a Tibetan wizard. Félina was created for the magazine Circus in 1978 by Spanish writer Victor Mora and artist Annie Goetzinger, and starred in three graphic novels. L’Archer Blanc [The White Archer] was a sci-fi version of Robin Hood. In a medieval future, the masked bowman and his Merry Men fought the tyrannical Klovos. The hero was created by writer François Corteggiani and artist Jean-Yves Mitton for Le Journal de Mickey (as in “Mouse”) in 1988, and ran for ten episodes. There was even a second Masque Rouge—though this one spelled the name as one word, Masquerouge—a medieval, Zorro-like masked rider who fought for justice and the defense of the oppressed in 1624 France, a time when apparently there were a lot of oppressed folks around. A prodigious swordsman—masked and dressed all in scarlet and assisted by a trained sparrowhawk—Masquerouge was secretly the young Baroness (!) Ariane de Troil, whose father had been murdered. The only man in her confidence was Germain Grandpin, her loyal weapon-master and her late father’s trusted confidante. Like The Phantom, Ariane had taken over the costume and mission of an earlier Masquerouge, who had been killed in action. The costumed heroine was the creation of writer Pierre Cothias and artist André Julliard and first appeared in Pif in 1978. After three very successful graphic novels published by Glenat, its creators went on to chronicle the equally successful adventures of The Sparrowhawk, Masquerouge’s 18thcentury descendant.

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

Comical Super-heroes Asterix is by far the best-known of all cartoony super-heroes. This series was created in 1959 by writer René Goscinny and artist Albert Uderzo for the launch of the magazine Pilote. Since Goscinny’s death in 1977, Uderzo has continued the series alone. In the latest installment (No. 30 in the series), Astérix discovers Atlantis. Benoît Brisefer is a little boy with superstrength, except when he catches a cold! Among his arch-enemies are an evil android grandmother, Madame Adolphine. His series was created in 1960 by Belgian writer/artist Pierre Culliford, a.k.a. Peyo, the father of the world-famous Smurfs, for the magazine Spirou. The bittersweet, poetic tales of Submerman, prince of Atlantis, and of his Wonderland-like undersea kingdom, which also included the villainous, scaly, green-skinned Hydrons, appeared in Pilote between 1967 and 1972. He was the creation of writer Jacques Lob and artist Georges Pichard. The series has recently been revived by Pierre Legall.

Clockwise costumed comedy: Goscinny and Uderzo’s Asterix may be a fighter, but his big buddy Obelix is the real muscle of the team —while Benoît Brisefer duplicates Superman’s feat on the cover of 1938’s Action Comics #1—and Submerman hits an underwater snag. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

A young boy turned into Supermatou [Supertomcat], a masked hero who fought crime with the help of his talking dog. The “Supermatou” comedy series, the creation of writer/artist Jean-Claude Poirier, was comprised of a dozen of six-page stories, serialized in Pif in 1975-77. The name “Dupont” is in French what “Smith” and “Jones” are in English. The satirical adventures of SuperDupont, a 100%-French super-hero, were the brainchild of writer Jacques Lob and cartoonist Marcel Gotlib. Created in 1972, “SuperDupont” was initially drawn by Gotlib, then was entrusted to artists Alexis, Jean Solé, and others. One story was even drawn by U.S. super-star artist Neal Adams! SuperDupont thwarted the evil schemes of Anti-France, a Hydra-like organization of black-clad foreigners.

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

(Top to bottom:) Gotlib’s SuperDupont makes an entrance— SuperDupont’s Neal Adams-drawn encounter with a Supermandopplegänger (who sports a “Z” on his chest instead of an “S”)— and, finally, a gathering of DC and Marvel hero-clones drawn by Adams in the same story. The latter panel from Fluide Glacial #80 is courtesy of David Anthony Kraft’s late lamented Comics Interview magazine. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes

The Lug-Semic Universe During the 1990s, the Semic Group sold a controlling interest in the company that had formerly been Éditions Lug back to its French partners. The business became autonomous again, operating under the name of Semic S.A. In 2000, under its new editor-in-chief, Thierry Mornet, Semic decided to create new stories and revamp its old characters. This program took the form of a line of six digest-sized comics: Kiwi, Mustang, Rodeo, Special-Rodeo, Yuma, and Special-Zembla, as well as limited series such as Fantask and Strangers, which published a mix of old reprints, new Italian stories (such as “Tex” or “Martin Mystery”),

and new French creations. Under the aegis of writer-editor Jean-Marc Lofficier (yes, the very author of this historical overview), the Semic Universe witnessed the return of Zembla, Wampus, Kabur, Phenix, The Bronze Gladiator, The Time Brigade, Sibilla, and numerous other classic characters. Some series have been drawn by talented French newcomers, such as Jean-Jacques Dzialowski (who has recently drawn Thunderbolts for Marvel and Detective Comics for DC), Chris Malgrain, Stéphane Roux, J.-M. Arden, and the Peru Brothers. Others enlisted once again the talents of their original artists, such as Luciano Bernasconi and Franco Oneta. Finally, artists from all over the world have contributed to the new line: from Mexico (Juan Roncagliolo Berger, Alfredo Macall,

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

Current DC & Marvel artist JeanJacques Dzialowski drew the 21stcentury version of Homicron above—but it was later decided to revamp the character as a female, as per the pencil sketch by Manuel Garcia at right. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.] (Bottom row:) Two contemporary talents—Stephen R. Bissette (well-remembered for his Swamp Thing work) and Ladrönn (artist on Marvel’s Inhumans and Cable, and of the independent HipFlask series)—offer their individual takes on Wampus... while the legendary Bernasconi returns, better than ever, to handle the story artwork above. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

An Historical Overview of French Super-heroes Maybe you can go home again! A montage of 21st-century art from the revived Lug/Semic Universe. (Top row:) Kabur (by Ladrönn)—Time Brigade (by Timothy II)— Bronze Gladiator (by Malgrain). (Middle row:) Jaleb the Telepath (by Pasarin)— Morgane (by Dave Taylor—she’s still wearing that black tie!)—Sibilla (by Roux). (Bottom row) Starlock (by Peniche)—the male Homicron (our cover shot by Steve Rude)—and the new character Futura (by Philip Xavier). Not exactly a good time to be an evil-doer in La Belle France! [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Blue (Hawk), Whie (Archer), Red (Mask)

You’ve come a long way, bébé! The March 1975 issue of Lug’s Strange (#63), with its X-Men vs. Hulk cover painted from interior swipes, reprinted the final tale of the original X-Men series (#66), plus Daredevil, Iron Man, and The Amazing Spider-Man. Strangers #1 (of volume 2, Sept. 2002), with its Phenix cover by Formosa, has led to the series’ American publication by Image. As an in-joke, on the inside front cover the lettering is credited to “Art Semik.” [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

Manuel Martin Peniche), from Spain (Mike Ratera, Mariano De La Torre, Manuel Garcia, Javier Pina, Fernando Blanco), from Brazil (Marcelo Di Chiara), etc. These stories have attracted new teenage readers, as well as older, nostalgic ones who are eager to rediscover favorite characters of their youth.

[Jean-Marc Lofficier—often with wife Randy, under their joint credit “R.J.M. Lofficier”—has written for both Marvel and DC; the pair won an Inkpot Award from the San Diego Comic-Con for their English translations of the Moebius graphic novels. Their most recent comics are Tongue*Lash, Strangers, and Wonder Woman: The Blue Amazon. Jean-Marc is currently writer/editor of the Semic Universe in France, and is working on several graphic novels.

More recently, Strangers—a group comprised of a new Homicron, Starlock, Jaleb, Jayde, Tanka, plus a new character, Futura (in homage to the old magazine)—was licensed to Image Comics, making it the first French super-hero comics ever published in the United States!

[Randy and Jean-Marc are also the authors of such books as The Doctor Who Programme Guide, a French science-fiction encyclopedia (available from McFarland & Company), Doctor Omega—and most especially the brand new 312-page trade paperback compendium Shadowmen, whose evocative cover by Andrew Paquette (artist of Daredevil and Harsh Realms) is pictured here. In it you’ll encounter Rocambole, Judex, The Nyctalope, Fantômas, Belphégor (Ghost of the Louvre), Dr. Cornelius, the Sâr Dubnotal, and other heroes and villains of turn-of-the-20th-century French pulp fiction mentioned in this article—plus 150 black-&-white interior illos by period artists. Retail price is $19.95 (US). Check out the Lofficiers’ website at www.blackcoatpress.com. [For additional information on French pulp literature and super-hero and science-fiction comics, log on to www.coolfrenchcomics.com.]

Kim Aamodt

Ghost Writers In The Sky JIM AMASH Talks with KIM AAMODT and WALTER GEIER —Two Genial Gents Who Wrote for Simon & Kirby during the Golden Age I. KIM AAMODT: “It Was Fun While I Did It!” [INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Kim Aamodt’s comic book career was brief but fascinating. He wrote for the fabled team of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, as well directly for several comics companies. Alex Toth, known for being a shrewd judge of talent, has publicly praised Aamodt’s romance scripts on several occasions. A victim of Dr. Fredric Wertham’s crusade against comic books in the 1950s, Kim tells us how he worked his way out of the morass into another field of work. —Jim.] JIM AMASH: Where and when were you born?

(Above:) Believe it or not—Kim Aamodt’s passport photo taken May 3, 2003! Courtesy of K.A. (Right:) The Simon & Kirby splash for a story in Black Magic #6 (Aug.-Sept. 1951)—which may or may not have been one of those Kim wrote. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

KIM AAMODT: I was born in North Dakota. Jack Benny, Skeezix Wallet, Hugh Downs, and I share the same birthday, February 14. I’m Jack Benny’s age: 39. [laughs] I hate to say this, but I was almost named Valentine. My mother interfered and said, “I like Dr. Kimball and I like his name, so that’s what it’s going to be.” My full name is Kimball Ellsworth Aamodt. I don’t like that middle name, either. I was named after two grandfathers, Knute and Evan. That’s the way things were in those days. JA: What got you interested in writing?

AAMODT: A teacher of mine (I don’t remember what grade I was in) said, “We’re going to study Edgar Allan Poe next week. Can you do better?” I said, “Yeah.” I wrote a story and she said, “It’s pretty good, Kimball, but it’s not better than Mr. Poe.” I started writing stories for pulp magazines and got a pile of rejection letters. I was eleven or twelve years old Kimball (“Kim”) Aamodt as a U.S. Navy pilot during then. Later, when World War II, “a couple of years before embarking on I got into college, the adventure of writing comics.” Courtesy of K.A.

I discovered literature. I’d always been a big reader, but it’d always been soft stuff. JA: Where did you go to college? AAMODT: I went to Hamlin in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a couple of years. Then I flew in the Navy for four years, 1942 to 1946. I was a flight instructor and that hurt, because I wanted to spill my blood, you know. When I finally got my orders for sea duty, they were planning for the invasion of Japan, and needed a lot of hospital ships. They sent me around for training on various planes. I flew as a co-pilot on big four engine planes. Then I volunteered for a new group for medical transport because we were told about the invasion. They didn’t tell us much, but we knew it was coming and they needed people to transport the wounded. They stationed me in Guam, which was probably the best thing that happened to me, because I’d have probably gotten killed if I’d gone on a big carrier. Some of my buddies did get killed. When I got out, I finished up my schooling at New York University and took a graduate year. I found a great teacher in college, and after that, I couldn’t care less about writing for the sake of writing. I wanted to write literature. Or try.

Ghost Writers In The Sky

When I got to New York, I did write a couple of short stories. One of them was published by Chicken Farming magazine, which was an organ for chicken farming in upstate New York. I had sent that story to Collier’s magazine, and the editor sent me a nice handwritten rejection slip. He said, “Any time you want to submit, submit to me.” I was very pleased, but I thought that anybody could do this. It was just commercial writing. I wasn’t interested in keeping this up. I finally went back to North Dakota for six months in 1950 and wrote my novel, which was never published. All writers have a novel. When I finished, my buddy Walter Geier [pronounced “Guyer”] called me up and said, “Come to New York and write comic books. The money grows on trees!” Walter was writing for Simon & Kirby at the time. We met on campus at N.Y.U. Well, I took the next train to New York, and I’m still waiting to find that money on the trees. JA: I’ve never heard of Walter Geier. You know, Jack and Joe always said they wrote most of their stories, but I know they had some people, like Jack Oleck, writing for them. AAMODT: Well, Simon and Kirby wrote the plots. They sat there and wrote them, and that’s what we followed. They were the only people who ever gave me plots. I had to submit plot ideas to everyone else. I’d send in a dozen and they’d say, “We’ll take six.” Then I’d go home and write.

Kim says he wrote “Black Magic and romance stories” for Simon & Kirby, but so far it’s proved impossible to ascertain which tales he did of each—so here are a couple of possibilities from that period. The Black Magic splash is from #28 (Jan-Feb. 1954)—while “Back Door Love,” from Young Romance, Vol. 3, #3 (1949), was reprinted in the 1988 volume Real Love: The Best of the Simon and Kirby Romance Comics: 1940s—1950s, edited by Richard Howell for Eclipse Books. [Art ©2003 Joe Simon & Estate of Jack Kirby.]

JA: So you fleshed out the plots and wrote dialogue for Simon & Kirby? AAMODT: Yeah. And sometimes Walter and I would be sitting with them in a little anteroom that was their office. They’d be in there smoking big cigars, facing each other. It looked like two fireflies mating. [mutual laughter] Cigar smoke covered the room and it was hilarious to watch them, because they ignited each other and developed a story between them. Then they’d say, “That’s the story, kids.” Jack did more of the plotting than Joe. Jack’s face looked so energized when he was plotting that it seemed as if sparks were flying from him. They’d say, “Do a five-pager on this, or a six-pager on that.” If the artist was really good, I might make a small suggestion about the art. If the guy was awful, I’d write more detail into the story. JA: What did you write for them? AAMODT: Black Magic and romance stories. JA: Great! I’d like to be able to give you credit for what you did. AAMODT: We never got credit for what we wrote there. In fact, we had to sign a paper that gave Simon & Kirby all the rights. I think we got a dollar each time we did that.

As seen in The Jack Kirby Collector #25, here is the Simon & Kirby shop circa 1949, a couple of years before Kim worked for the team. (L. to r., standing:) Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Bill Draut, Marvin Stein. Seated: letterer Ben Oda.

Anyway, it was hard for me to plot, so I spent many an indecent hour trying to come up with a decent plot. This story was for one outfit: a composer had run out of ideas and he sold his soul to the Devil, but

Kim Aamodt

didn’t know how he would be answered. One day, he was looking out his window, and on five power lines, there were five black birds sitting there in different positions. Suddenly, he realized he was looking at a music staff and that the black birds were notes. So he just copied them down and of course, after a year goes by, the man gets his comeuppance. One night, it was about two a.m., and I had been reading. I turned the television on and there was my story, almost verbatim. I don’t know if someone sold my story or if it they stole the idea. Many times, I’ve seen my work come to life. JA: So you had to sign a waiver-of-rights agreement with Simon & Kirby? AAMODT: Yes, but I think this was common practice back then. Walter and I shared an apartment for five years, but he got out of comics before I did. He had started before me, but he went straight [laughs] and got a real job! He made good money. JA: Who hired you at Simon & Kirby’s? AAMODT: Walter recommended me and I went in with him... February 1951. They sat there and gave me a plot the first day; it was very informal. They’d say to us, “You do this one and you do that one. Five pages, six pages”... that’s how it worked. They paid $5 a page. I didn’t have to show them any writing samples. JA: What was it like to work for them? AAMODT: It was fun to go up to meet with them. Joe would occasionally spring for lunch, but maybe Walter could tell you more about them than I could. Joe was good, but not as creative as Jack was. Joe had his own ideas, though. I always thought that Joe Simon was the businessman and Jack Kirby was the artist. They made for a great combination. JA: Joe was an editor at Victor Fox’s, which is where he met Jack. That’s when they became a team. When Simon became an editor at Timely, he took Jack with him. AAMODT: Well, Joe did that because he had good sense. JA: Yeah, because how many times do you get to work with a comics genius?

I remember that Jack Kirby was very good about making up titles. I remember giving him a lame title and Jack said, “No. We’re going to call it ‘Under the Knife.’” It was a surgical story. I was impressed that Jack came up with titles so quickly. And Jack and Joe were quite talkative. We’d have lunch and tell jokes and have a good time. I worked for them for nearly two years. I can’t remember specifically how long, because I was also working for Standard after a while. JA: Did other people work at the offices? AAMODT: I don’t know. All I remember was that small anteroom. I don’t recall going into any other office there. They could have had other people working there. JA: Why did you quit working for Simon & Kirby? AAMODT: I think they got annoyed with me because I was in Maine on a little vacation and I told Walter to pick up my check when he went to pick up his. I had never asked for one before, and I think that annoyed Joe. I don’t know for sure, though, and I wasn’t really worried about it, because I had other work. In those days, comic book companies were interested in new people, so it was easy to show work around. I never had any problems and I was good at business. JA: Was Standard the first place you got work after Simon & Kirby? AAMODT: I think so. Joe Archibald was in charge there, and I had a wonderful editor named Jean Press. She really liked me and pushed me. When she moved over to a confession magazine outfit, I started writing there. Joe was the major domo, and he had a big reputation in the comic book field. He was an older man with gray hair... a little heavy. He may have had a great big mustache, but I can’t remember for sure. He was a warm person, but I only saw him a couple of times. Jean edited love stories and said, “You’re really good at this stuff. Have you ever been in love?” I said, “Several times. That’s why I have bitter endings.” [laughs] The hard part was coming up with plots, and as I told you, I’d have to submit them first. They chose which ones I was to write and gave me a page length. Some places gave you certain parameters. Some editors wanted lots of dialogue and little exposition; others wanted the reverse.

JA: Did you ever meet Alex Toth or Mike Peppe while you were AAMODT: There was one in my lifetime, and it was Jack. Jack drew there? some of my stories, but so did others, because they had a stable of artists. Their office was in the 50s in Manhattan, and next door was one of the AAMODT: I met Alex a couple of times, and we used to correspond. new tabloid magazines, like JA: Did any of the companies Confidential. give you free Walter and I copies of your would see expublished strip-teasers work? come by and we’d get a AAMODT: glimpse of the They must real life. [laughs] have, because I Some of them don’t were old and remember ever they used a lot of buying any make-up, but comics. I never they had great got a by-line. figures. That’s why we’d make JA: Did the excuses to go up lack of a byand have a line bother meeting with You pays your money and you takes your chances! Aamodt wrote for romance comics published by Standard (a.k.a. you? Joe. Better, Pines, and Nedor), so his stories might have appeared, for instance, in that company’s Popular Romance issues published with early-1950 cover dates; the series had begun with #5. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

Ghost Writers In The Sky AAMODT: No. I was just happy to get the $5 per page. I might have gotten six or seven at some places, but I remember getting five from Joe Simon.

writers and artists were packed in this room. Stan was very exuberant, saying, “We’re on our way. We have over thirty titles.” I think he thought they were going to publish a hundred. He felt like he had the tiger by the tail.

JA: Did you prefer writing horror or romance stories?

JA: Do you remember much about Al Sulman?

AAMODT: I think I got a bigger kick out of writing the weird stories. They were more imaginative. I think it was easier to write romance than horror. I really sweated out plots, unlike Jack Kirby. Jack just ignited and came out with ideas, and Joe’d just kind of nod his head in agreement.

AAMODT: Not too much. He was about five-foot-nine or -ten at the most. He had black hair and was slightly balding at the forehead. He wore glasses. He was pretty much what an editor looks like, by my book. [laughs]

JA: Do you think Joe did much writing? AAMODT: I really don’t know. I always just thought of him as being a counterpart to Kirby. I just saw him handle the business end. I always said, “Joe was on the ground and Jack was on cloud nine.” Jack was more the artist type; he had great instincts. I remember Kirby talking to a young artist about arms: “Don’t you know about arms? They hang below your knees, for God’s sake!” I’d never thought about it before. It was something that always struck me. JA: Do you remember much about Dell Comics?

I mostly wrote weird stories for them. I don’t remember anything else. I got out of comics in 1955 and worked at another job. I got back into it in 1957, but that was brief. I don’t remember who I wrote for, though.

One of Kim Aamodt’s biggest fans was Alex Toth, who penciled this story for Standard’s Intimate Love #26 (Feb. 1954); inks by Mike Peppe. It may or may not have been scripted by Kim Aamodt. Repro’d from a black-&-white reprinting in Greg Theakston’s Buried Treasure #2 (1986). Greg tells us that the original title of the story was “Somewhere I’ll Find You,” and that the pencils were dated “8-17-53.” [©2003 Greg Theakston.]

The reason I had to get out of comics was because of the Senate investigations into comics. The work dried up. Things got better in comics, but I didn’t care. I got into Yachting Publishing Corporation and worked there for fifteen years. I was the editor on a nuts-and-bolts book about buying and selling boats. JA: Are you a yachtsman? AAMODT: Nope. I like sailing and we had a lake and made boats and so forth.

AAMODT: Not really. I didn’t do but a story or two there. It’s hazy to me. I just remember delivering work and picking up work. Walter and I were paying $40 a month rent, and sometimes it was hard to come up with that $40. Sometimes we’d go up to our friend’s place and eat at the Bird In Hand restaurant. Other times, we were eating oatmeal. It was either oatmeal or a good restaurant.

I was surprised recently when I heard about the rates writers get in comics today. It’s not bad, if you can get steady work.

JA: Are there any artists that you preferred working on your stories?

AAMODT: No. We laughed about it because it seemed so silly. I didn’t realize what the repercussions would be. But then I found all my work was drying up.

AAMODT: Not really, besides Kirby. I accepted whomever they put on the stories. Sometimes I’d get a real good one, and other times a bad one. JA: Alex Toth once told me that he really liked drawing your romance stories at Standard.

JA: Were you scared when the Kefauver hearings began?

JA: You know, if that hadn’t happened, you might have stayed in comics.

AAMODT: He was a very good artist. I remember that we were trying to put together a strip, but it fell apart because I was working at another job at the time. I think he was living on Staten Island before he moved out West.

AAMODT: You’re absolutely correct. I was pretty lucky that it happened, because it could have been a dead end for me. It’s hard to know what it’d have been like had I stayed. But it was fun while I did it, and my son enjoyed keeping my comics. I told him, “It’s my claim to fame, kid.” He said, “It’s not bad.”

JA: Tell me about working for Stan Lee.

JA: Are you still writing today?

AAMODT: I was working for Timely until the Senate investigations in the mid-1950s. I didn’t deal with Stan. Al Sulman was my editor. Al would call me up and say, “Come down here. I have a story for you to do.”

AAMODT: Not really. Most of what I do are editorial chores. I do a lot of copy-editing and proofreading for several book publishers. I keep telling people, “As soon as I get old, I’m going to write.” [laughs] I don’t have much time to get old, so I don’t know what that’s all about!

I think I only saw Stan Lee once. There was a big meeting, and all the

Walter Geier

II. WALTER GEIER: “Simon and Kirby Were Real Characters!”

even stole a piano from Army services. We had to do stuff like that in order to get what we needed. So we put on a show and invited the Army Special Service guys. They said we had a pretty good show and invited us to play field hospitals. I enjoyed doing these shows.

[INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: In the 1950s, comic book credits were few and far between, especially for writers. So you can imagine my surprise when Kim Aamodt (a writer whose name I knew only because Alex Toth told me how much he had enjoyed working on his scripts) told me about his writer friend, Walter Geier. Geier had never received a writing credit on any of his comic book scripts, so I wasn’t about to miss the chance to find out about his career. It may have been a relatively short one, but as you are about to learn, Geier wrote some important features and sheds an interesting light on the Joe Simon & Jack Kirby shop of the 1950s; he even takes us over to Vin Sullivan’s Magazine Enterprises for a short visit. —Jim.]

Before I went into the service, I had wanted to be a lawyer. I’d even taken some pre-law classes at New York University. When I got back

JIM AMASH: Kim Aamodt surprised me when he told me about you. You’re not listed in The Who’s Who of American Comic Books, so everything you tell me is news. So I’ll start off with my most basic questions, like where and when were you born? And how did you get into writing? WALTER GEIER: I was born in the Bronx, February 9, 1924. I was in the Marine Corps during World War II and we were heading towards an invasion during Christmas. We knew we were going to be at sea during the holidays, and it was pretty miserable because there were about 700 of us living below in the hold of the ship. The C.O. came down and said, “Christmas is coming and we have to do something to lighten things up.” He talked to one of the guys who might be able to put on a show and that guy was a friend of mine. The show was bombing at intermission time and my friend asked me what I thought about it. I said, “I got to be honest with you. You can tell from the audience’s reaction that it’s bad.” He said, “Well, when you got a lemon, you make lemonade.” I said “I’ll sit in the audience and be your plant.” I said, “If you want, tell me to come up on the stage and see if I can do any better.” So that’s what we did, and the show turned around and was very good. Afterwards, the C.O. asked us to put on another show in New Guinea. We found a rec hall and the chaplain and I went in and stole some musical instruments. Once, we (Above:) Walter Geier says this photo is “the only decent one I had taken recently.” It appeared with a piece on The Workshop in Business Opportunities, an organization he founded in 1966 in “the belief that social equality could only be gained by minorities through economic empowerment.” More power to you, Walter! (Right:) The splash of a 1950s script Walter sent us, for Magazine Enterprises’ fondly-remembered Ghost Rider, drawn by Dick Ayers. We couldn’t find the particular story “Hangman’s Town!”—but Bill Black’s indispensable AC Comics contain retouched art for many, many tales from that series, with the hero rechristened “The Haunted Horseman,” since Marvel has trademarked its own Ghost Rider. Did Walter write “The Freaks of Fear“? Your guess is as good as ours—but if he didn’t, hey, he sure as heck wrote something a whole lot like it! Incidentally, for a tantalizing glimpse of all the Golden Age reprint goodies AC Comics currently has available, see its website at <www.accomics.com>. [Haunted Horseman art ©2003 AC Comics.]

Ghost Writers In The Sky from the service, I thought to myself, “There’ll be three years in college and three years in law school and I’m getting pretty old.” I was twentytwo, but I thought I was getting old. [laughs] At the school, they had a little department called radio, where they prepared you to work in radio. There was no television in those days. I took a couple of classes, one of which was radio writing, and I also took a couple of English courses. I did all right with that and I knew how to write. Television was just starting to come in while I was at NYU in 1947. There was a film producer there, and we wrote a play that was the first dramatic play on network television, called The Wall Of Lies. It broadcast on the nowdefunct Dumont Network, which could only be seen in New York, Washington, and Boston. Harvey Lembeck and Dolores Sutton were in it, and I even had a role in the show. I started freelance writing for television and went backwards and wrote for radio. I wrote two series, one of which won a Freedom Foundation Award. It was called P.A.L. Theatre and the other one was Pals of P.A.L. As radio shows started to fade from popularity, I realized I needed to find other work.

33 once in a while, but Jack was the idea man. These weren’t written plots; they were verbal. Joe was the businessman of the two, and he was the guy we had to go to for our checks. That was the basis for most of our conversations with Joe, who always paid on time. We’d ask for our checks and Joe’d say, ‘Yeah, sure. Can ya wait just a couple of minutes?” Hey, we’d have waited a couple of hours for those checks. Joe didn’t talk much. He could come up with decent plots, but it was usually very sketchy stuff. He’d say, “There’s this broad, and her father keeps her busy at work all the time. She meets this guy at work and the guy has another date...” and so on. A lot of times, Joe would say, “Awww... you figure out the ending.” [mutual laughter] Most of the time, Jack would give me the ending, because he was good at figuring out stories. It was not hard to work with Jack.

Jack was a very friendly guy. He’d tell jokes and we had a lot of fun. And I used to suggest a lot of things. The romance stories all had the same plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and boy finds girl again. Jack Kirby often said that one of his favorite stories was “Mother Delilah” You give them different settings and from Boys’ Ranch (Feb. 1951). If the fates are kind, you can still pick up occupations for variety’s sake. I a copy of the hardcover reprint of the entire series, published a few years said, “We ought to do one in I saw an ad for a freelance writer back by Marvel. It’s the Simon & Kirby team at their best—even if some of the stories may have been scripted by others from their plots. Hawaii.” Joe said, “That’s great! in the newspaper, but they didn’t say [©2003 Joe Simon & Estate of Jack Kirby.] That’s great! Here’s how we do it.” what kind of writing it was. I So I went and wrote the story, answered the ad, which was placed in which they really liked. It was tender love story about a Hawaiian girl. the paper by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. They were looking for comic book writers. I starting writing Young Romance for them. This was in Simon and Kirby used to get a ton of mail. What they used to do the late 1940s, maybe 1949. when the mail came in was to shake the letters out and see if there was a check inside for a subscription. If there wasn’t, they’d throw the letter JA: Who hired you: Simon or Kirby? away. But when things were really slow, the girls in the office would GEIER: I think it was both of them. Every time I went up there, I saw read the letters. I came in one day and Jack said to me, “Hey, Walter. both of them. And they always gave the writers the plots. Jack Kirby You ought to read this one letter. You need to be careful with what was great about that; he always came up with the plots. Jack had a fertile you’re doing when you write these stories.” mind. I also wrote Boys’ Ranch for them, and I remember Jack telling I read the letter. It was a beautifully scripted letter; the girl must have me, “For God’s sake, don’t put so many horses into the stories! Horses been a school teacher. She wrote, “Thank you so much for writing a are terribly hard to draw. Stop with the horses!” Jack was very good at story about Hawaii. People never think about writing anything about us. drawing horses, but it apparently was a lot of work. “Geez! You always They never have stories about us in the newspapers or anything. And I have six or seven horses in every scene. I have to cut some of them outta opened up this comic book and there’s this wonderful, tender story there.” That was Jack! about Hawaii. I loved that girl and she was such a typical Hawaii girl. JA: How much were you paid per page? But I must tell you that you made a terrible mistake. The name that you gave the guy...”—I just made up a name that sounded Hawaiian—“in GEIER: They paid $5 a page. Magazine Enterprises and Ziff-Davis paid Hawaiian means ‘horse manure.’” Jack and I were hysterical over that. me a little more . JA: What did you think of Simon and Kirby?

JA: So am I! [laughs] I didn’t know Simon and Kirby had women working in the offices. Were they secretaries?

GEIER: I liked them. They were real characters. They were kind of like street guys. Joe Simon was not what I’d call “Ivy league.” Joe used to sit there when the writers came in for conferences. They sat there and made up plots for the writers. Jack did most of that. Joe would say something

GEIER: Yeah. They answered the phones and read letters. There was only two or three of them, and they must have done typing, too. They had a bookkeeper. It was a pretty good-sized business. They sold a lot of

Walter Geier

books. [NOTE: Since Simon and Kirby were working for Crestwood as well as doing their own books for Harvey, and later for Mainline, I think it likely that these office employees were working for Crestwood and S&K. —Jim.] JA: Did you see other artists at the company? GEIER: No. The only one I ever saw draw was Jack. And not that often, because when we came in, the four of us (Kim and I used to always come in together, though we didn’t write together) sat in an anteroom. It was a tiny room and we filled the place. They worked in another office. JA: Maybe no one else worked there because they kept the room filled with cigar smoke? So says a fellow cigar smoker. GEIER: Ohhhhh... yes! Their cigars practically touched each other when they talked. I used to add to the drama because I smoked cigars once in a while. I didn’t smoke them in there because we didn’t stay that long. I wasn’t going to waste a whole nickel for a few minutes.

Looks almost like a masked super-hero, don’t it? A Simon & Kirby splash from Young Romance #12 (July-Aug. 1948).

JA: Kim told me that you guys had to sign a rights waiver to the stories. GEIER: Yes, we did. JA: Did you write Fighting American? GEIER: No. I wrote a lot of Black Magic stories, Young Love, and Young Romance. JA: Can you remember any specific Boys’ Ranch stories that you wrote? The “Mother Delilah” story from that series is one of the best-known Jack Kirby stories. GEIER: No, I’m afraid not. JA: The story credits are generally accredited to Kirby. GEIER: Well, they should be. They were his plots. I just fleshed them out and supplied the dialogue. I was also writing for television at the time. I wrote Gang Busters for creator Phillips H. Lord, but not for long. It wasn’t a great association. JA: Did Simon and Kirby ever request story changes? GEIER: They did change some stuff, but not often. They usually accepted what I gave them with no problems. In fact, they did very little editing on what I wrote, which surprised me. Most companies were that way. They’d tell you if they didn’t like it, and not even much of that. JA: How long did you work for Simon and Kirby? Interviewer Jim Amash is the proud owner of the original art to this page from Boys’ Ranch #2 (Dec. 1950). Naturally, he can’t help being curious if, by sheer coincidence, the scripter of this page might have been none other than Walter Geier! Repro’d from scans of the original art. [©2003 Joe Simon & Estate of Jack Kirby.]

GEIER: I started around 1949 and worked for them until about 1954. JA: When did you start writing for other companies?

Ghost Writers In The Sky

GEIER: Early 1950s. Sometimes there wasn’t enough work to go around, so I had to look elsewhere. I think Kim was the first of us to get work elsewhere. He went to Stan Lee at Timely. I went to Magazine Enterprises and worked for [editor] Ray Krank. I wrote a lot of stuff for them. I wrote Ghost Rider, some stories about Marines, “Dogface Dooley,” which was a comedy and the one I liked best of all. I liked to write comedy. Ray loved my comedy writing. JA: Did you write a lot of “Ghost Rider” stories? Gardner Fox is usually credited with writing this feature. GEIER: I couldn’t tell you how many I wrote. I wrote at least half a dozen and maybe more than that. “The Ghost Rider” was fun to write; he reminded me of The Lone Ranger just a bit. JA: Even though he glowed in the dark. [laughs] What do you remember about Ray Krank? GEIER: A very, very nice guy. He was always telling me that I could do more than I did. He tried to get me to write Flash Gordon for Dan Barry. He gave me Barry’s phone number. I had one interview with Barry and could see that we weren’t going to get along. He had his own ideas, and it wasn’t how I pictured Flash Gordon. I said, “I don’t know if I could do this,” and Barry said, “I don’t know if you can, either.” JA: That sounds like Dan.

(Above:) A page from a 1950s “Jet Powers” script by Geier. (Left:) The cover of Standard’s Jet Fighters #5—one possible place it may have appeared. Originally Jet Powers had been the name of the science-fictional hero of Magazine Enterprises’ Jet Comics, in four 1950-51 issues of its umbrella title A-1 Comics. In 1952-53 Standard published three issues of Jet Fighters (#5-7), which featured instead “Flaming Air Battles over Korea!” We’re just making a halfeducated guess here, but since Walter’s script takes place during the Korean War and the word “Jet” is lettered quite similarly in the two logos, there may have been some sort of deal between M.E. and Standard/Better/Nedor for the latter to pick up (in part) where the former had left off. Or maybe we’re just nuts, and the hero of Jet Fighters wasn’t even named Jet Powers! Anybody out there know? [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

GEIER: Yep. That was just an illustration of how Ray tried to help me. He had a small son and used to give me letters that his son wrote. Ray said, “Even my son likes your work.” He was such a nice guy. He was a slight, well-dressed older guy, though he didn’t wear a suit. He had black hair. JA: Was Vin Sullivan around much? He was the owner of M.E. GEIER: I know the name and must have met him, but I don’t really remember him. Ray was the only guy I dealt with. I don’t remember anyone else being there. I worked there for about a year or so and they paid me $7 a page. I also signed a rights waiver there, which I think was a common practice. JA: Did you have to submit plot ideas? GEIER: Yes. I brought in a written synopsis, only he called it a “synop.” JA: What do you remember about Ziff-Davis? Was Jerry Siegel the editor? GEIER: I think it was Jerry Siegel, but I don’t really remember him. I only did half a dozen stories or so for them. I wrote G.I. Joe and I may have written some romance. I wrote some WWII stories for them, too. JA: Since Kim Aamodt wrote for Timely, why didn’t you? GEIER: Kim was not enamored with Stan Lee because he had a tremendous ego. I was already phasing out of the comics business by that time, but Kim wrote a lot of stuff for them. Kim was always a very good writer, and he doesn’t know how good he is, which is a shame. He’s a great writer and my good friend.

Walter thought we might enjoy seeing “the only rejection I ever got” —a 1952 missive from Harry Shorten, then editor of Archie Comics. [Archie logo TM 2003 Archie Comic Publications.]

Walter Geier

Walter says he wrote scripts for Ziff-Davis’ G.I. Joe comic, which (as per A/E #26, 27, & 29) were illustrated by Henry Enoch Sharp, Mike Suchorsky, Ernie Schroeder, and others. (Top left:) A Sharp-drawn house ad for G.I. Joe, from Explorer Joe #2 (Oct.-Nov. 1952), a mag for which Geier also wrote at least one script. (Above right:) The first page of Geier’s 4-page synopsis intended for a series listed at the top of the page as “Jungle Joe,” but changed by hand to “Explorer Joe” (too close to Alex Raymond’s Jungle Jim?—besides, Joe wound up roaming all over the Earth)—and page 1 of his finished script. (Above left:) However, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., informs us that no story in either of the two issues of Explorer Joe matches Geier’s storyline; the closest, in #1, has Joe searching for a lost explorer on the Equator, so perhaps his script was rewritten or simply never used. Anyway, here are the cover of Explorer Joe #1 (painted by pulp-mag legend Norman Saunders)—and the splash page of the jungle story that did appear in that issue, as penciled by Arthur Peddy (inker uncertain). Thanks to Jim V. for art scans and art IDs for Explorer Joe. [©2003 the respective copyright holders.]

JA: Why did you quit doing comics? Were you unhappy? GEIER: No, I liked doing the comics and made some money at it. I quit working for them when I got a job at a company called Tradeways, and they paid me a regular salary. They wanted a radio writer and I jumped at that. I was writing about dramatized case studies and they used that for training people. This led into me starting my own business, which I’ve had for 45 years. In 1966 my wife and I became concerned about the racial situation in this country. We wondered, “What can we do about this?” I started a non-profit all-volunteer business and we helped minorities to learn how to start their own businesses. It was part-time at first, but now I devote my whole time to it. It’s called Workshop in Business Opportunities, and

we’re in eight locations in the Tri-State area and we’re about to go national. It’s all-volunteer, and up until 1998, there was no funding. It was all our own money. JA: You just went up ten notches in my estimation. I’m very impressed. GEIER: Thank you. People need help and we do what we can. Over time, we’ve had over 700 volunteers, and every one of them was a business owner. I’ve never had a problem getting volunteers, and they work a lot of hours. 90% of people are good. NOTE: The Workshop in Business Opportunities can be reached at 220 East 23rd Street, NYC, NY 10010-4606. Phone: (212) 684-0854.

Who Cares? I Do!

“If It Doesn’t Tell A Story, It’s Just Wallpaper!” ALEX TOTH on Storytelling in Comics

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Alter Ego is proud to present this 1999 piece by the Golden/Silver Age artist of Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Bravo for Adventure, and myriad other comics features.]

When he lauds comic book storytelling, Alex knows whereof he speaks, as per this page from All-American Comics #101 (Sept. 1948), the second-ever “Johnny Thunder” western tale. Writer: Robert Kanigher. [©2003 DC Comics.]

Warren Kremer

Warren Kremer (1921-2003) by Mark Arnold Warren G. Kremer was born in the Bronx, New York, down in the Mott Haven section, lower town, on June 26, 1921. He is best known as the prolific primary artist behind Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich for Harvey Comics, helping to design their present “Harvey look.” He worked for Harvey for 35 years, drawing everything from their horror mags to their children’s titles, and virtually every cover produced for comic books featuring Casper, Hot Stuff, Jackie Jokers, Little Audrey, Little Dot, Little Lotta, Richie Rich, Spooky, Stumbo, and Wendy. He was born to a sign painter, raised on the likes of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon and Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, and was a huge fan of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian. He graduated from the School of Music and Art and the School of Industrial Arts, and spent over ten years working for publishing houses doing layouts and lettering, and illustrations for pulp and aviation magazines.

Warren Kremer (left) and another comics giant, Joe Simon, at the Harvey offices in 1975. Photo courtesy of Mark Arnold.

A hernia kept him out of the military, so during World War II Kremer kept his job at Ace Magazines as an illustrator, eventually moving into their comic book line. One of the first comic books he drew was Hap Hazard Comics, which began in 1944. He then moved on to drawing the “Ozzie and Babs” feature in Fawcett’s Wow Comics and its own title in 1947. (Some accounts say it was Ozzie and Harriet, but that comic was published by DC and not until 1949.) It was also in 1947 that Kremer married his longtime letterer Grace (whom he met while working at Ace); and in 1948, he started freelancing for Harvey Comics. His first assignment there was drawing “Humphrey and Little Max” for Joe Palooka. Kremer alternated easily between the cartoony and the gruesome, drawing one of the most graphic horror comic book covers of the early 1950s—Tomb of Terror #15, which featured an exploding head. He was soon offered a position as Harvey’s art director, a role he held to the end of the company’s first publication run in 1982. The late artist Marty Taras once said of Kremer: “You know, if Warren went into animation, we’d all have to leave our jobs!” What Taras may not have known is that Kremer did work in animation, providing the opening and closing storyboards for The New Casper Cartoon Show and the Harveytoons logo. Kremer considered fellow Harvey artist and Famous/Paramount animator Steve Muffatti as one of his biggest influences and mentor. Both Kremer and Harvey editor Sid Jacobson have laid claim to having created the character of Richie Rich. Kremer was also the primary illustrator for Stumbo the Giant (which he claimed he designed during his years at Ace), and he designed the present look for Casper (who was created by Joe Oriolo and Sy Reit). Kremer’s take on the ongoing creation claims with regard to Richie Rich was that he based Richie on the TV show The Millionaire and named the character after his son. He said he then approached editor Sid

Jacobson with the idea, and Jacobson had Steve Muffatti design the character. However, The Millionaire did not debut until January 19, 1955, whereas Richie Rich made his debut in the September 1953 issue of Little Dot, nor did Kremer draw Richie from 1953-1960. Alan, Russel, Adam, and Eric Harvey maintain that their father Alfred created Richie Rich, and point out existing documentation, as early as the 1930s. Kremer seems to have been one of the five most prolific cover artists in the history of comics, the other four being (in no particular order) Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, and Dan DeCarlo. According to Sid Jacobson, “Kremer could pencil eight pages of interiors a day at his most productive!” Kremer basically drew everything for Harvey (even Sad Sack for Hostess cakes ads in the late ’70s), but credit should also be given to fellow artists Howie Post (Hot Stuff, Spooky, Wendy, Little Audrey), Marty Taras (Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Nightmare, Wendy), Ernie Colón (Richie Rich, Little Dot, Little Lotta, Jackie Jokers), Sid Couchey (Little Lotta, Little Dot, Richie Rich), Dom Sileo, Ken Selig, and Ben Brown (all Richie Rich and related titles), and George Baker, Fred Rhoads, Jack O’Brien, Joe Dennett, and Paul McCarthy (all on Sad Sack-related comics). After the original Harvey company closed its doors in 1982, Kremer ended his career at Marvel, drawing titles for their Star line, including Planet Terry, Royal Roy, Heathcliff, Flintstone Kids, Ewoks, Popples, Hugga Bunch, and Top Dog. “They don’t know it, but this is the best artist who ever walked through these doors,” claimed artist Marie Severin upon Kremer’s visit to the Marvel Comics bullpen. His final comics work was for Count Duckula, before he suffered a debilitating stroke in the late 1980s, which left him partially paralyzed on his left side, rendering his drawing hand useless. In the early ’90s, he worked occasionally on merchandise projects for the new owners of the Harvey characters but eventually retired to his home in New Jersey. According to Sid Jacobson, “Warren wrote with his right hand, but drew

Warren Kremer

with his left. After his stroke, he tried drawing with his right hand, which produced excellent results to all who saw his work, but Warren was extremely disappointed that it was not quite up to the quality of his left hand, and vowed never to draw professionally again.” Kremer professed a hobby of woodworking and loved to build and fix things. He considered painting a house and building and flying a model airplane as projects of which he was most proud. Warren Kremer lived in Bloomfield, New Jersey, for 47 years, and died on July 24, 2003, at Mountainside Hospital in Glen Ridge, after suffering a short illness. Ill health forced him to decline an offer to be a Guest of Honor at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International. Surviving are his wife Grace, sons Richard W. and Peter R., daughters Maryanne Kremer-Ames and Suzanne Petrozzino, a sister, Anita Sudol, and two grandchildren. [Mark Arnold has been the editor and publisher of The Harveyville Fun Times! [http://thft.home.att.net] since 1990, and has had articles published in Comic Book Marketplace, Comic Book Artist, and Hogan’s Alley, as well as doing comic book stories for Shanda Fantasy Arts. Upon hearing of Warren Kremer’s passing from Alan Harvey, he broke the news to the comic book industry. Though deserving of praise equaling Kirby, Barks, or DeCarlo, Mark says Kremer remains virtually anonymous. He hopes this tribute will help to change that, ever so slightly.]

Submit Something To Alter Ego! Alter Ego is on the lookout for items that can be utilized in upcoming issues: • Convention Sketches and Program Books • Unpublished Artwork • Original Scripts (the older the better!) • Photos • Unpublished Interviews • Little-seen Fanzine Material We’re also interested in articles, article ideas, or any other suggestions... and we pay off in FREE COPIES of A/E. (If you’re already an A/E subscriber, we’ll extend your subscription.) Contact: Roy Thomas, Editor Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803)826-6501 • E-mail: roydann@ntinet.com

Submission Guidelines Submit artwork in one of these forms (in order of preference): 1) Clear color or black-&-white photocopies. 2) Scanned images—300ppi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (on Zip or floppy disk). 3) Originals (carefully packed and insured). Submit text in one of these forms: 1) E-mail (ASCII text attachments preferred) to: roydann@ntinet.com 2) An ASCII or “plain text” file, supplied on floppy disk. 3) Typed, xeroxed, or laser printed pages.

If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher! his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one. If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do: 1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download. TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

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re: played the crook who went to a monastery and reformed; Bogie was a bad guy all the way through. I don’t know how I made that error and never caught it till the other night. I must have seen that movie twenty times—at least. In fact, it was on TV this past week and I watched it again. I wonder if anyone caught that besides me. Jim Amash If they did, Jim, they didn’t write in to us about it. Ye Editor feels he should’ve caught that minor goof, since he was as aware as anybody that Humphrey Bogart almost always played villains, not heroes, until he starred in The Maltese Falcon a year or two later.

: e r Though Alter Ego V3#25 contained various other features, as well, its main foci were writer/artist Jack Cole (and his wonderful creation Plastic Man) and the surprise happy-70th-birthday tribute to this mag’s founder, Jerry G. Bails. Above is a panel from the “Plas” tale in Police Comics #99 (April 1950), which was almost certainly penciled (and perhaps inked) by Cole, spotlighting a villain called Needles Noggle, repro’d from reprinted black-&-white art in a 1950s English hardcover volume of comics and stories. Except for replacing the newspaper headlines, the panel is untouched. Thanks to Michael Feldman for photocopies of the entire story. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.] And what better follow-up to said art could there be than a letter from Dick Cole, Jack Cole’s brother, whose interview in A/E #25 was a highlight of that issue: Dear Roy, Wow! What a super tribute to Jack! As I told Jim Amash, he did an outstanding job with his bio, and the interviews; also thanks to you and your staff in putting it all together. Also many thanks for your generous gift of ten copies of the issue. I will be giving and mailing them to the family members and to a couple of die-hard Plas fans. Roy, I doubt that I will be doing any more interviews about Jack. I shall refer them to the Alter Ego “special issue”; one cannot beat perfection. Truly, that is what the issue is! There is nothing more than I could add to what has already been written about Jack. I do not anticipate that one day, out of the blue, I will have sudden recall for some great or unusual event in Jack’s life that I had forgotten. Dick Cole High compliments, indeed, Dick, both to A/E and, particularly, Jim Amash, Alex Toth, Creig Flessel, Art Paul, and Bill Seay, who provided analysis and insights—but the centerpiece of the issue was still Jim’s interview with you, for which we’re as grateful as we can be without getting maudlin about it. And, if you ever do think of anything more you’d like to say about Jack or a related subject, we hope you’ll let us know, ’cause we’re bound to be interested. There’ll be more on the subject of your brother and his creations coming up a few short issues from now, when we deal with the 1950s at Quality Comics! Meanwhile, our amiable associate editor Jim Amash had this correction to make to his own work in A/E #25: Roy, In the place in my article where I discuss Jack Cole using the Brother Orchid movie for Plastic Man’s origin, I transposed the roles of Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. It was Robinson who

The following words by longtime comics scribe Steve Skeates are taken not from a letter per se, but from comments he made in connection with his piece, a couple of issues back, on his work on DC’s Isis comic. Steve took a turn at writing “Plastic Man” tales in the 1970s, and offers these thoughts: All I can say about Plastic Man, one of my all-time favorites when I was a kid, was that it was indeed a thrill to be able to follow in Jack Cole’s footsteps. Ramona Fradon was indeed the perfect artist for the series! I tried my hardest to recapture the sort of spirit Cole employed storywise, and, from what I understand, that rather bothered certain hardcore comics fans; they felt that in stories like “The Hamsters of Doom,” “The Bogus-Men’ll Get You If You Don’t Watch Out,” and “If I Kill Me, Will I Die?” I was making fun of a world they held sacred! But most of my contemporaries (my fellow writers and artists) quite liked what I was up to, and I still possess the sneaky suspicion that Jack Cole would have approved, as well! You’d think hardcore fans, being a fairly conservative lot, would want verisimilitude, would want me to emulate Jack Cole’s style. But NO! Being escapists, those who have chosen to live in the comics they read rather than in the real world, they don’t want the world they’ve chosen to reside within made fun of. Therefore, they probably never really liked Plas to begin with. Hardcore fans are, in a nutshell, not a particularly healthy group, yet, starting in the ’80s, most publishers seem to have consciously chosen these sickies as the niche that their publications were and are aimed at. Although that choice has little to do with a ’70s phenomenon like my “Plas” stories, could this not perhaps somehow help explain why comics are no longer selling very well, at all? I wonder.... Steve Skeates We prefer to abstain on that vote for the nonce, Steve. Next, a letter from Lee Boyett about some recent IDs of comic book artwork—and even the cover of A/E #17: Dear Roy, As I’ve told mentor and good friend Hames Ware, I like to think of myself as a comic book detective! For example, the recent first volume of Batman: World’s Finest Archives identifies “The Man Who Couldn’t Remember” from World’s Finest Comics #2 as “art by Bob Kane,” while on page 2 the name “Robinson” is visible on a building in panel 1, strongly suggesting that Jerry Robinson, not Kane, is the artist. In my estimation, the “Lou Fine” cover art you used on Alter Ego #17 is not by Fine, but rather by his collaborator Bob Fujitani. Likewise, the “Hack O’Hara” story is also by Fujitani rather than Fine, while the “Uncle Sam” piece from National Comics #13 used on page 13 is inked by Reed Crandall. Crandall also did the “Doll Man” splash on the right of page 17. I consider Lou Fine the best comic book artist of all time, and feel his covers and stories with Will Eisner are still unsurpassed! About 30 years ago, I got my first look at a lot of the great Quality comics through a collection owned by Grant Irwin, and from that point on I have painstakingly collected Fine, Eisner, Cole, Crandall, and the other Quality greats, until now I have nearly ever Quality, Fox, and Fiction

[caveats, correspondence, & corrections] Mike Brown 53 Stratford Avenue Grangetown, Sunderland SR2 8RY England

House comic that contains Fine’s or Eisner’s work, plus many others, as well. I look forward to being of help any way I can to you. Lee Boyett 6708 Forbing Road Little Rock, AR 72209 By the time you read these words, Lee, Ye Editor will hopefully have sent a copy of Alter Ego #17 to Bob Fujitani, to see if he feels he may have had a hand in it. More than that we cannot do, since others seem to feel that Ray-and-rat drawing was definitely the work of Lou Fine. Bob, of course, was himself interviewed in A/E #22, but we’re not sure if he saw the earlier issue or not. Stay tuned!

We couldn’t agree more re JGB’s contribution to comics and comics fandom, Mike. And we’re pleased as punch to report that we did indeed manage to surprise Jerry with that issue (we FedEx’d him a copy as soon as we received one, so that he wouldn’t hear about it first from others). In typically modest fashion, he feels we oversold his contributions somewhat... but that’s one area where Jerry is definitely outvoted.

And now, one of many missives we received about our tribute to Jerry G. Bails, this one from Mike Brown of England:

In issue #25, we asked when and where a cover we reproduced of Real Hit Comics might have appeared. John Moores sent us this response by e-mail from Great Britain:

Dear Roy,

Dear Roy—

Some of this letter—certainly the sentiments and praise—has been composed for 40 years! I, too, am an avid comic fan, and was also “firedup” by the letters and emergence of fandom in the early letters pages of The Brave and the Bold, etc., in the early ’60s, and eagerly watched the debate around the emergence of the JLA, Hawkman, and The Atom—all those lifetimes ago!—even though my introduction to the Golden Age was through those tantalizing glimpses in the letters columns. The groundbreaking effect of the printing of erudite fans’ addresses gave me the impetus to write to Jerry and yourself then to say “Deal me in—I’m nuts about the JSA and Golden Age characters, too!” But I’m not sure that those letters got sent.

Just a short note—the cover of Real Hit Comics was first used (unless it was an ashcan edition, which seems unlikely) as the cover to Fox Features’ Blue Beetle #25, which means that the character depicted is none other than a “fatigued” Dan Garrett! Alter Ego #25 as a whole was another fine, entertaining issue. I quite enjoy “themed issues” as a way of getting a lot of information in one place, rather than dotted about. Alex Toth’s pieces are always a joy, of course, and belated birthday best wishes to Dr. Bails! John Moores

Over the years, as my comics collecting has periodically waxed and waned, the only steadfast elements have been my affection for the JSA/Golden Age heroes and for your work—particularly All-Star Squadron—which on its inception made me feel as if there could be no finer book, or setting, or personnel list. I would have dearly loved to see where it could have gone on to, had not the dreaded Crisis emasculated the whole “Earth-Two” concept and the whole DC Universe, and left in its wake an even more confusing but ultimately less satisfying continuity. What caused me to write you after so long was Alter Ego #25 and its tribute to Jerry Bails, whom you rightly dubbed the “Founding Father of Fandom.” I was around at the time, but being 3000 miles and a culture away seemed to create an emotional as well as a physical distance. However, I have followed some of the developments since, and can appreciate the full extent of Jerry’s (and your) importance to the comic fan movement, but also to the development of comics in the Silver Age and beyond. I don’t think it was emphasized enough in the tribute to Jerry how much the continued use of the JSA/Golden Age characters over the last sixty years, including the current incarnation of the JSA, is owed to Jerry (and yourself). All of us who still love the old characters can never repay that debt. It is inconceivable that profit-making concerns like comics publishers would wish to use old, no, ancient characters in today’s cynical, serious world—unless it was because of the insistence of devoted fans like Jerry and yourself, who lit the torch and have kept the flame alight. The development of the formal “Earth-Two” concept was, I feel, a landmark in the continuity of the Golden Age (and in comics history), and is something that I can never forgive DC for destroying. This letter, although a little long in coming to completion, is none the less heartfelt in my appreciate and gratitude to Jerry Bails—and is my own small tribute to him—for the enormous contribution he has made to the medium of comics. Long may it continue!

Jack Cole’s high school graduation photo (1932), courtesy of Dick Cole— and the first page of the “Plastic Man” lead story from Police Comics #99, repro’d from Michael Feldman’s black-&-white photocopies. The zaniness of the 11-page story and its villain is a major reason it seems so likely to be the work of Jack Cole, and not of his slavishly excellent imitators, Alex Kotzy and Jack Spranger. [©2003 DC Comics.]

re:

This Christmas photo of Jerry Bails (left) and his son Kirk, taken circa 1989, got squeezed out of #25. Here ’tis, with a timely specimen of Dick Dillin/Sid Greene JSA art from Justice League of America #73 (Aug. 1969), repro’d from a photocopy of the original art which was provided by JGB. Photo courtesy of Bill Schelly. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

else wants to put his 2¢ worth in?

Thanks, John. We never would’ve guessed that was The Blue Beetle! Now, one minor correction from one of those who helped us honor Jerry in ish #25, Craig Delich:

Here’s another note about a mis-identification in that issue, from Jake Oster:

Roy,

Dear Editor,

The tribute to Jerry Bails was just too much for words! Job well done! By the way, on page 22, that stationery is mine. I drew that up to use for correspondence purposes after I had the All-Star Revue published. If I remember correctly, Jerry asked for unused sheets of this, and ran a bunch off for his own use.

The Tomahawk page from the story “The Secret of Debtor’s Prison” depicted in Alter Ego #25 (page 42) is not by Frederic Ray. It was drawn by Bruno Premiani. It appears that Fred Ray may have touched up the face on the Tomahawk figure in the splash panel (or maybe not).

Craig Delich Next: amazingly, we still seem to be going round and round about our admitted mis-IDing of a Superman panel way back in issue #20, where we repeated someone else’s judgment that it was the work of Jim Mooney. Not so, says researcher Lynn Woolley:

The “Sgt. Rock” story “No One Comes Down Alive... from Buzzard Bait Hill” appeared in Our Army at War #170 (Aug. 1966). I don’t have this issue, but I seem to remember it appearing with a completely different Kubert cover than the one pictured on page 21 in Alter Ego #26. Jake Oster

Roy, OK, re the “Mooney” Superman panel in A/E #20: go back to the original story in Superman #123 (1958)—right in the middle of the time that Dick Sprang and Stan Kaye were doing the World’s Finest team-up stories. Look at the opening shot of Superman in the page 1 splash. Left arm is too stocky to be Curt Swan. The faces of the supporting characters look like Sprang, especially the super-villain on page 9 of the final chapter. Sprang also drew Superman in certain poses that few others ever did—for example, the horizontal Superman on page 7 of Part III. Swan rarely drew Superman popping out of the upper left-hand corner of a panel, but Sprang used that device all the time, including Chapter I, page 9, panel 6, and Chapter III, page 2, panel 6. Finally, look at the villain in panel 1, page 6 of Chapter II. Sprang all the way; no Swan villain ever looked like that. It’s possible that Swan assisted on some of the panels, but most of it looks like classic Sprang pencils with Kaye inks. Now, look at World’s Finest #92, which everyone agrees is Sprang/Kaye. On page 2, you have Superman popping out of the corner (upper right-hand, this time, but the exact shot otherwise); on page 4 you have the horizontal pose of Superman flying; and on page 3, you have the stocky arm shot. Sprang, my good man. No question. Lynn Woolley Temple, TX Okay, you win, Lynn... unless somebody

Thanks, Jake. We’ve got to admit we had our own doubts about whether that particular splash was by Fred Ray or not. We were aware, for instance, that Bob Brown drew some later “Tomahawk” stories. But you say it’s Premiani, so let’s see whether other readers and researchers dispute your identification. Oh, and does anybody know if that Kubert/Rock original art we featured was or was not used as the cover for Our Army at War #170— or elsewhere? It sure seemed too nice not to have been printed by DC! Remember, send any mail (at least, any that you want Ye Ed to read) to:

Trina Robbins, who wrote the Bill Woggon tribute in issue #25, informed us via e-mail that she was given the framed Katy Keene award in the 1980s, not in the 1930s as we typo’d: “I’m not that old, the Katy Keene Fan Club is not that old, and furthermore there was no Katy Keene Comics in the 1930s! Please print a correction somewhere, so readers will know I’m not a crone.” Nobody’s ever mistaken you for a crone, Trina! Here’s Trina, who’s an honorary trustee of the New York City Comic Book Museum, with its president, David Gabriel, at a 2002 event.

Roy Thomas Fax: (803) 826-6301 Rt. 3, Box 468 e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com St. Matthews, SC 29135 And we still have a few personal copies left of the out-of-print Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #1, in which Roy and Jerry Ordway reveal the secret story of Infinity, Inc., Irwin (Green Lantern/JSA) Hasen talks about the Golden Age, and Stan Lee’s compeers roast him at a 1995 Chicago con— while this issue’s featured writer Jean-Marc Lofficier relates the story behind a Silver Surfer story that appeared only in 1980 France—all this, plus Bill Schelly, Michael T. Gilbert, and P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA, for $20 per copy, postpaid. Roy also still has a handful copies of the outof-print Comic Book Artist #2-5 (yep, even found a few of #5!), each of which has its own Alter Ego section, for $15 per issue postpaid. Sorry, but $5 extra on all foreign orders, for reasons we all know.

No. 89 Our 30th Year! 1973-2003

ALL IN THE FAMILY Filmation’s SHAZAM! Cartoon plus: MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK

Marc Swayze

45 or an infield... but a publishing business. The feeling on the 22nd floor was that there was a lot of publishing expertise “up there.” But to have the new character concept funnel down with so little to go on: “a young super-hero... er, heroine... about Billy’s age.” From the art standpoint I could see a few handholds to grasp. But writing? I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole.

And yet, I did. It goes back to an early settler who lived on the banks of a Louisiana bayou. The founder of our community named not only the bayou, but the main street, in honor of the old trapper. His name was DeSiard. Now I doubt... I’d even lay a little cash on it... that there is another community in the whole wide world with a “DeSiard Street” as its main thoroughfare.

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Comics. The very first Mary Marvel character Years after working in comics, I was looking at an old copy of sketches came from Captain Marvel Adventures [#19] and noticed in the Marc’s drawing table, dialogue a mean guy’s reference to “186 DeSiard and he illustrated her Street.” A few pages later Mary Marvel herself earliest adventures, remarked to the reader that she was on her way to... including the classic “186 DeSiard Street.” Further inspection of the story Mary Marvel origin revealed small personal phrasings and familiar peculistory, “Captain Marvel arities that convinced me it was my writing—“The Introduces Mary Training of Mary Marvel”—where Captain Marvel Marvel (CMA #18, and Captain Marvel Jr. launched Mary on her own Dec. ’42); but he was trail of adventure. (“186,” by the way, was once the primarily hired by address of a jewelry shop operated by a musician Fawcett to illustrate friend, if my memory is correct.) Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz When I departed the Fawcett offices for military Comics and Captain service, I left some of my belongings for storage in Marvel Adventures. the building where I had lived on West 113th Street. He also wrote many I’m not certain I would ever have returned for any of Captain Marvel it had I not overheard Tucky, Rod Reed’s wife, say scripts, and continued she was looking for a small drawing table. Just such to do so while in the an item was among the things I had left for storage. military. After leaving It was good to see again my old pal Marvin, the service, Marc elevator operator and general custodian of the worked for Fawcett on A panel from “The Training of Mary Marvel” in Captain Marvel Adventures #19 (Jan. 1, 1943) which contains an old street address a freelance basis out of familiar to Swayze. It was this clue that made him realize that he his Louisiana home. had written the story as well as drawn it. [©2003 DC Comics.] There he produced both art and story for “The Phantom Eagle” in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue, Marc discussed his associations with comic strip creators Russell Keaton, Zack Mosley, and Rick Yager. This time, he revisits the early-1940s period when he helped to originate Captain Marvel’s little sister, Mary Marvel. —P.C. Hamerlinck.] There were things I couldn’t understand. One: How a major character like Mary Marvel could have been conceived without there being a definite road set out for her to travel... some consideration as to who her readers were to be... and in her stories, some thoughts about her friends, her adversaries, her environment. As put by the industrial world... what were the long-range plans? The idea had come from “upstairs.” It was pretty clear that when Dad Fawcett brought his four boys up, it wasn’t with the idea of a backfield...

“The chest emblem and the cape’s floral pattern were important factors in emphasizing Mary’s relation to Captain Marvel,” says Marc. A previouslyunpublished illo by her visual creator. [Art ©2003 Marc Swayze; Mary Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

We Didn’t Know... A quantity of the sketches showed Mary in flight. It was my opinion that of all the super-powers vested upon Mary, the most meaningful... most appropriate for a young supergirl... was the ability to fly in the air. Had things turned out differently, I would have had Mary Marvel fly... and for that matter, do everything... gracefully, lightly, perhaps even pleasantly.

Marc says, “I could never envision Mary Marvel shooting through the sky like a projectile.” A never-before-published 1942 sketch of Mary Marvel by Swayze. [Art ©2003 Marc Swayze; Mary Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

building... a fellow ex-Southerner... Alabama. Marvin’s comment as he brought out the drawing stand was, “Been wondering what it was. Finally decided it was a biscuit board!” That tickled Kentuck, who had names for everything. From that moment the old drawing stand became “Kentuck’s biscuit board.” Interesting thing about the occasion was that among the stuff Marvin had stored for me was a batch of rough drawings and notes featuring Mary Marvel. The material indicated that, despite my claims to the contrary, I had envisioned a future with Mary as a regular assignment. It was easy to see that, to my mind, the foremost characteristics to consider were her youth... and her relationship to the most popular superhero in the comic books.

There were some drawings of Mary’s skirt. I was reminded of the skirt as being the one part of her costume that could contribute to her movements... her action... yet, if not drawn thoughtfully, might violate the Fawcett policy of good taste. My conclusion, according to the notes, was a tight-fitting garment down to about where the hem of a modest swim suit would be, then four subtle flares, two in front, two in back. I never followed the adventures of Mary Marvel. When she was gracing the pages and covers of Wow Comics, I was flying around on the back pages with Mickey Malone, The Phantom Eagle. Mary, though, was in capable hands... to have stayed with us so long and to have eventually earned her own magazine. So it all turned out very well.

In regard to the latter, there were quite a few drawings of Mary’s cape, identical to Captain Marvel’s but drawn to suggest a lighter material... always, however, with its action arranged to reveal the familiar floral pattern along the left edge. Similar attention was indicated by the number of sketches devoted to the lightning flash chest emblem, the point in both cases obviously having been to remind the reader of Mary’s connection to Captain Marvel. The majority of the sketches were very rough and obviously rendered for my personal benefit, indicating considerable concern over Mary’s hair... not so much the arrangement, but its action under different circumstances... light breeze, high wind, various actions and positions of the head. The drawings of her facial expressions appeared to be experimental... to see to what extreme different emotions could be carried without affecting the character’s identity and personality.

Marc Swayze believes that “The most memorable super-power vested upon Mary Marvel was the ability to fly in the air”—as in this third never-before-published sketch. [Art ©2003 Marc Swayze; Mary Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

I am glad to have reviewed the old notes and sketches from West 113th Street... recalling things intended... or envisioned... for Mary. And I don’t mind having been reminded of the fellow who sat at the biscuit board and rendered them... in the late after-hours... determined, should the permanent assignment come his way, to do the right things with it. Was he taking the comics too seriously? I wonder. [Marc Swayze will return next issue with more memories of the Golden Age of Comics.]

“There were numerous sketches of Mary in flight,” the artist relates, although this one, like the others on this page, has never been printed before. [Art ©2003 Marc Swayze; Mary Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

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BACK ISSUES OF THE ISSUE!

Enjoy this issue’s look at the early Justice League? Then you’ll love Alter Ego #7’s full coverage of the JLA/JSA team-ups, with rare DICK DILLIN art, and interviews with virtually everybody who ever wrote a JLA/JSA tale! And if ALEX ROSS is your meat, see his Shazam!-related covers, interior art, and interviews in issues #3 and #15! Order one or all three today (well, tomorrow will be okay, just this once) from TwoMorrows Publishing; see ad bloc elsewhere in this issue. Hey, we’ve got 28 back issues of A/E available— if you don’t spot something you like, you’re not really trying!

All In The Family

All In The Family SHAZAM! Television’s Animated Marvel Family Adventures by Andy Mangels Almost all fans of Captain Marvel are aware that the World’s Mightiest Mortal appeared in a 1974-1977 live-action CBS-TV series produced by Filmation. But many aficionados may have forgotten that Cap was accompanied to the small screen by the other members of the Marvel Family a few years later, for a spate of animated adventures. As the ’80s began, Filmation pitched the idea of a super-powered series based on The Archies to NBC’s head of programming, Fred Silverman. Unfortunately, their license to do Archie cartoons had expired, but producers Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott had an easy solution: they would create new high school characters that closely resembled Archie characters, but with superpowers added. The resulting concept was Hero High, a series which replaced Archie with Captain California, his rival Reggie with Rex Ruthless, Betty with Glorious Gal, Veronica with Dirty Trixie, and other corollary characters. But while NBC was positive about the show, they were much more happy when Filmation decided to pair Hero High with new animated adventures of Shazam! After all, Silverman had been at CBS when the successful live-action series had aired, and since that earlier Shazam! had been brought back into reruns in 1980, a new generation of kids would now already be acquainted with Captain Marvel.

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck Despite these minor alterations, the writers and artists strove to make the animated Shazam! faithful to the comics. One episode even featured a cameo appearance by C.C. Beck and E. Nelson Bridwell, called by name! Several comic book professionals (past and future) worked on the series, including writer Paul Dini and layout artists Russ Heath, Dave Hoover, and Bruce Timm. Almost all the scripts had references to Captain Marvel as a “Big Red Cheese,” and when he flew, Cap took a running leap, just as he had on the live-action series. The animation was standard for most Filmation shows of the time, which is to say, quite limited. There were lots of stock and reused shots, and characters only moved when absolutely necessary. The music and sound effects were re-used, as well, from the live-action Shazam! series. But despite these shortcomings and some ridiculous plots, the show at times did contain some of the same charm of the original Captain Marvel comics.

NBC needed a concept to package the series together, and Filmation fell back on a tried-and-true variety hour show. The series would feature liveaction wraparounds of the Hero High kids singing songs and telling (bad) jokes to a live-in-studio audience of children, before introducing either the two Hero High stories per hour, or the 18-minute Shazam! adventure. Two of the Hero High episodes had VHS cassette cover of a Shazam! home video release. [Art ©2003 the Work began on a series of twelve featured cameos of Marvel Family respective copyright holders; Captain Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.] Shazam! episodes, which hewed much members, and one even featured a more closely to their comic book cameo appearance of sister TV heroine Isis. predecessors than had the live series. The model sheets followed the Christened The Kid Super Power Hour With Shazam!, the series simple style of C.C. Beck’s artwork, right down to Captain Marvel’s squinting eyes. Brought into the fold were Mary Marvel and Captain premiered on NBC on September 12, 1981. Ratings were acceptable, but Marvel Jr., as well as supporting cast members Uncle Dudley/Uncle not astonishing. One Hero High actress won the Youth in Film Award Marvel, Mr. Tawny, Mr. Morris, Freckles Marvel… and a host of familiar for Best Actress in a Daytime Series, but the series itself lost out in the villains, including Dr. Sivana, Mr. Mind, Black Adam, Ibac, Aunt Best Children’s Television Series category, even though it had been Minerva, and Mr. Atom. nominated. Unfortunately, after a year’s run the series was cancelled, as the live super-hero concept didn’t attract enough attention to merit a There were some changes made to the series. WHIZ-TV was now planned Hero High album deal and concert tour. Years later, both WIZZ-TV. Tawny was never called “Tawky Tawny,” and his surname Shazam! and Hero High were repackaged as separate half-hour shows, was spelled differently. Many of the characters never quite got full and aired in syndication. Family Home Entertainment also released names, either: Mr. Morris was never Sterling Morris, and Dr. Sivana videotapes and laserdiscs. wasn’t revealed as Thaddeus Bodog Sivana. Most odd were the facts that Dudley talked like W.C. Fields—and that Freddy Freeman/Captain What follows is a complete episode guide to the Shazam! episodes, Marvel Jr. was given an inappropriate, “pipsqueak”-like voice. along with some trivia, examples of the wonky dialogue, and other goodies.

Shazam! Television’s Animated Marvel Family Adventures

The Animated SHAZAM! Episode Guide Cast: Burr Middleton (Billy Batson/Captain Marvel) Dawn Jeffory (Mary Batson/Mary Marvel) Barry Gordon (Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel Jr.) Alan Oppenheimer (Uncle Dudley/Mr. Tawney/Dr. Sivana) Lou Scheimer (Mr. Morris) Norm Prescott (Narrator) Animation Directors: John Armstrong, Marija Dail, Ed Friedman, Lou Kachivas, Selby Kelly, Marsh Lamare, Ernie Schmidt, Lou Zukor. Produced by Lou Scheimer, Norm Prescott for Filmation Associates. Network: NBC. Running Time: 18 minutes each. Series originally aired September 12, 1981 to September 11, 1982. 1.“Who’s Who at the Zoo?” Story by Fred Ladd. Teleplay by Dennis O’Flaherty.

Uncle Dudley, a.k.a. Uncle Marvel, was part of the regular cast. Freckles Marvel, who in the 1940s had been a supporting character in many “Mary Marvel” stories, appeared in one TV episode. [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holder; Uncle Marvel & Freckles Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

Billy is interviewing Mr. Tawny at the zoo about the new gorillas that have arrived. One of the gorillas is secretly Dr. Allirog, and he uses his mind control powers to force a zookeeper to let the lions loose. Captain Marvel soon rounds up the lions, but Allirog swears vengeance. Later, Mary and Freddy are captured by gorillas, and Tawny and Uncle Dudley go to the zoo to investigate. Although Dudley is captured, Tawny strips out of his clothes and escapes. Allirog plans to release the animals and put humans in cages, and use his “jungle machine” to grow super-plants and turn the world into a jungle. Captain Marvel plans to use weed killer on the giant plants, then recaptures all of the escaped animals from the zoo. Cap confronts Allirog, who shoots him with a ray that makes him too powerful, and Marvel shoots off into space, then returns to Earth and is almost flattened by a steamroller. He changes back to Billy, who now has powers almost equal to Cap’s level. Billy leaps to the zoo, ties up a snake, defeats Allirog, and frees the others. 2.“The Incredible Shrinking City” Written by Paul Dini. At the park, Billy, Mary, and Freddy meet a creepy ice cream vendor who is really Dr. Sivana in disguise. Not only that, but Mr. Mind is in his cart! The two villains use a “Mind Warper” blast to make the trio forget their magic word, but Freddy is unaffected. Captain Marvel Jr. soon destroys the ray, and Sivana is captured. Mr. Mind gets away, though, and escapes into the sewer to form an evil all-worm army. They plan to chew a huge sinkhole under the city. While Uncle Dudley is showing Mr. Morris his fantastic

49 new dry ice machine, buildings begin to topple. The Marvel Family must rescue a school bus of children and right the buildings. Mr. Mind gives an ultimatum that his worms will keep attacking unless he is declared “King of the World.” Dudley uses his worm-finder invention to find an underground cave where Mr. Mind is organizing his minions at a worm convention. Mind reminds the worms of the evil one-way fishing trips humans take them on. The Marvels realize that worms come to the surface when it rains, but it’s been a dry summer. They use Dudley’s dry ice machine to fill three dumpsters and fly above the clouds to seed them and create rain. Just as the worms strike at the Farmer’s Market, rain begins, and the worms come to the surface. As birds eat the worms, Mr. Mind flees, vowing revenge. 3.“Best Seller” Written by Dennis O’Flaherty.

When she comes for a visit, Freckles Marvel brings Mary an old book sold to her by a peddler. She doesn’t know that the peddler was Ibac the Accursed! That night, humanoid lizards (who wear white tennis shorts and shirts) jump out of the book in a section called “The Hissmen Cometh!” and enlarge themselves to human size. They quickly capture Billy, Mary, and Freddy and shrink them down. Transporting them back into the book, the lizards deliver them to Ibac, who puts them in his “People Processor” and turns them into lizards unable to say their magic words! Escape seems an option, until they learn they are a million years in the past, and dinosaurs roam the area around Ibac’s castle. Ibac puts a “time tube” up into Billy’s back yard, and plans to use it to bring humans back and change them into Hissmen so that they can fight the cavemen and thus prevent the human race from ever coming into power! Freckles, Dudley, and Tawny are puzzling over the tube when Billy escapes out of it and changes to Captain Marvel. Inexplicably, Freckles and the others immediately know Ibac’s plans. Unable to enter the tube as Captain Marvel, Billy changes back, but he’s recaptured when he tries to rescue Mary and Freddy. Luckily, Freckles, Dudley, and Tawny go through the tube and free Billy. He changes to Cap and turns the Hissmen into people, then flies off to capture Ibac. Once Ibac is saved from a dinosaur, the Marvels return to their own time, and throw the book into the time tube. Captain Marvel tosses the tube into outer space.

4.“Flight 601 has Vanished” Written by Dennis O’Flaherty. Dudley and Mary are headed to a

All In The Family Adam into saying “Shazam!” and he’s transported back in time to Egypt. (NOTES: At the beginning of the episode, Freddy tries to sell newspapers to Mr. Beck and Mr. Bridwell, both of whom walk across the screen. Later in the episode, Mary uses the same incantation to talk to “the Elders,” as Billy did in the liveaction Shazam! series. Solomon quotes Proverbs 21:7). 6.“A Menacing Family Affair” Written by Paul Dini.

As Uncle Dudley rehearses for his new TV show Shape Up with Uncle Marvel, Billy prepares a broadcast. But Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel are called away when Dr. Sivana and his evil offspring Georgia and Sivana Jr. use an atomic-powered “Titanic Robot” to menace the city. The blasts hurl Cap through a building, but he and Mary soon topple the robot. The Sivanas escape in the robot’s head, as its body is thrown into space. Later, a spaceship crashes near Sivana’s hideout, and a wee creature named Grimjune from the planet Captain Marvel battles Black Adam in Egypt (with the series logo added in the background) Celestia emerges. He gives the Sivanas a jewel in the episode “Black Adam’s Return.” [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holders; amulet that will give them super-powers, and Captain Marvel & Black Adam TM & ©2003 DC Comics.] they don uniforms and go off to fight the magician convention in an airplane, unaware that Sivana is nearby in an Marvel Family. During their battle, Sivana reveals the source of their airship with his new shrink ray. Both the plane and Sivana’s airship are powers, and Captain Marvel knocks the jewel away. Uncle Dudley gets caught in a tornado which transports them to a planet in the 4th the jewel and gains super-powers, and uses them to help defeat the dimension! Mary’s lost her memory, and she and Dudley are soon Sivanas. Cap crushes the jewel, and Dudley uses what remains of his captured by a giant girl named Magna, who adds them to her doll power to make his debut TV show a success. collection. Captain Marvel and Jr. investigate the plane’s disappearance 7.“Uncle Dudley’s Wedding Day” Written by Dennis O’Flaherty. and manage to get to the 4th dimension, but they transform back into Billy and Freddy and must flee from a “laser beast” dragon. Put into a While everyone gathers to watch the new Captain Marvel TV show, cage with Mary and Dudley, Sivana uses his shrink ray on himself, only a newsflash says that a spaceship has landed in the park. The Marvel to have it reverse and turn him into a giant. He captures Billy and Family are soon on the job, battling three purple robots in their tracks. Freddy and presents them to Magna as more new dolls for her Afterwards in the wreckage they discover that the robots were made in collection. Since things are reversed in the 4th dimension, Dudley’s Rio de Janeiro! One of the robots grabs Dudley and flies away; Aunt magic actually works, and he’s able to use a squirting flower to repel the Minerva is piloting it, and she wants to marry Dudley! The Marvel laser beast when it attacks. Mary recovers her memory, and the trio say Family give chase, but her ship goes to ultra speed and gets away to their magic words backwards to change into the Marvel Family. Sivana Minerva’s beach lair. The Marvels put clues together to learn that the finds out that Magna’s father has a “dimensional transporter” that he can ship went to Brazil and fly down. Meanwhile, Minerva is planning to use use to steal anything from anywhere. Sivana tricks Magna into opening a “Mechanical Mole” to tunnel from Brazil to Fort Knox to steal all the all her doll cages at once, freeing humans, lizard men, and aliens alike. gold, and she has a ray that will remove the Marvels’ powers if they With much difficulty, the Marvels wake up Magna’s sleeping parents; interfere. When the Marvels arrive, Minerva erects a force field dome then Cap destroys the transporter. Magna will be punished for around her compound. Changing back into their alter egos, the trio get kidnapping all the people and creatures… but Sivana is shrunk down through the dome but are captured. Minerva tries a love formula on one again for Magna to keep. of her henchmen, then sprays Dudley with it and puts Billy, Mary, and Freddy into a “de-powering” machine. Dudley fights the love-stricken 5.“Black Adam’s Return” Written by Paul Dini. thug and is hit on the head by falling bananas. Recovering his wits, Freddy Freeman is selling newspapers when a sinister man drops off Dudley frees Billy and the others and they stop Minerva. She threatens an extra edition with the headline “Captain Marvel Vanishes!” It’s the to reveal their secret identities, but when she hits her head, she forgets work of Black Adam, back for revenge. Freddy returns home, where them. Mary is vacuuming. Billy, Tawny, and Dudley are on a river fishing trip. 8.“A Little Something Extra” Written by Dennis O’Flaherty. Mary and Freddy immediately think it’s the work of Black Adam, and consult the Elders. Zeus, Solomon, and Hercules give them cryptic The Marvel Family see a comet fall to Earth, but it’s really the equally advice about dealing with Black Adam’s sorcery. Mary and Jr. rush off to powerful Black Adam. When they tussle with him, Junior’s head is save Billy, where Black Adam is going to use a potion to dry up the turned into that of a jackal! The Marvels go to summon the old wizard river. Billy and the others are caught in a whirlpool and sucked underShazam; he changes Junior back and tells them the origin of Black ground, and Mary and Jr. follow. Black Adam sends them back to Adam/Teth-Adam. Adam has come to Earth from his prison at the end ancient Egypt, where they defeat “Mummy Ghosts” and use a magical of the universe to reclaim ancient Egyptian Princess Janii as his bride. staff to return to the present day. Black Adam uses water and lava to She’s a mummy at an exhibit in the museum where Tawny works, and create a pocket of underground steam pressure which will destroy North despite the Marvels’ efforts, Adam frees her. She’s quite belligerent, and America. As Dudley and Tawny try to find a ranger station, the Marvels she and Black Adam cause a baboon (that looks like a lion) and a battle with Black Adam and lava monsters. Mary finally tricks Black

Shazam! Television’s Animated Marvel Family Adventures crocodile to grow to giant size. The Marvels stop the giant animals from rampaging the city, then fight Adam and Janii in Egypt. Captain Marvel destroys the Staff of Osiris, and Janii disappears. Black Adam freezes Cap and Jr. and hypnotizes Mary to be his new love slave. As Adam and Mary fly off through space, Cap and Junior escape and pursue them, eventually using some alien trees to create a giant wooden treasure chest in space. Black Adam opens it and finds a scroll within it. When he reads it, it contains the word “Shazam!” and he is turned into a pile of ancient dust. Mary is freed from his spell. (NOTE: This is the only episode in which the wizard appears (though he’s never referred to as Shazam), as well as the tunnel with the statues of the Seven Deadly Sins.) 9.“The Airport Caper!” Written by Dennis O’Flaherty. Uncle Dudley is trying to use his new invention—a pair of infa-red glasses—to see in the dark. Billy goes on the air to report about new rare white tiger cubs about to arrive at the zoo. The villainous Night Owl decides to steal the cubs at the same time he steals a gold shipment from the city airport. There’s a snowstorm at the landing field as well, but when Night Owl uses his “Dark Flash” gun to black out a guard, he’s able to cut the power to the airport. The Marvel Family must help rescue three planes, all of which are trying to land blind. Night Owl gets away with the gold and the tigers, then tries to ransom the cubs for $10 million. Mary, Jr., Dudley and Tawny try to find out how Night Owl escaped and where he is now, even as Billy broadcasts news that the ambassador won’t pay a ransom for the cubs. Enraged, Night Owl decides to use his giant Dark Flash generator to blanket the city in darkness and loot it. Using his sense of smell, Tawny tracks down Night Owl’s hideout at the Acme Turkish Toffee plant, and actually manages to trap Night Owl in a toffee-making machine. But the villain escapes, and plans to use his Owl Tank to rob banks in the darkness. Captain Marvel uses Dudley’s infa-red glasses to find Night Owl and destroy the Dark Flash generator and the tank. 10.“Mr. Atom, the Smasher” Written by Fred Ladd. Frustrated with doors that stick, Dudley creates a remote control, but he needs a special vacuum tube to power it. But all the vacuum tubes are being used by the evil Mr. Atom, who has an army of “Atomic Robot” policemen. One of the robots creates a huge traffic jam in the city, and the Marvel Family must save the day by flying cars around. Later, two trains loaded with explosives hurtle toward each other and Captain Marvel must halt them. Mr. Atom sends a telegram to the United

Nations, threatening that his robots will destroy many national landmarks unless he’s proclaimed “Master of the World.” Billy tries to track Mr. Atom, but suddenly, electronics around the city begin to go haywire. The source of the electronic problem is not Mr. Atom, but instead, Dudley’s remote control. Captain Marvel takes it, and after the UN rejects Atom’s demands, our hero attaches the remote control to a satellite. The waves it sends out destroy Atom’s robots. When the Marvels fly to Atom’s hideout, he threatens to destroy everything in the city, but Mary and Jr. use a giant electromagnet on him, and defeat Mr. Atom. 11.“The Circus Plot” Written by Paul Dini. Billy reports the news that the circus is in town. Mr. Tawny is going to do an act at the show, with Dudley acting as his agent. Tawny is nervous, and in a circus tent, he and Dudley accidentally set off the entire stash of fireworks. Captain Marvel must stop a frightened stampeding elephant running from the fireworks. Meanwhile, Dr. Sivana and Mr. Mind are in an airplane over the circus. Mr. Mind’s worms have woven a special “Magic Grid” fabric that reflects the sun’s rays in a blast of heat. A small piece of the fabric causes several fires which Captain Marvel puts out, but the larger section of the fabric has been used by circus workers to fix the Big Top tent. To recover it, Mr. Mind sends his worms to dig up the tent poles, so that it will collapse. As Mr. Tawny does a song-and-dance act, the tent collapses. Luckily, the Marvels are there to save the day. Sivana blasts away at Cap, then at a ferris wheel. While Cap and Junior save the ferris wheel, Mary uses a mirror from the House of Mirrors to reflect the blasts back at Sivana’s ship. Although Mr. Mind blames the attack on Sivana, he’s sentenced to prison, where his cellmate is an angry Sivana. Tawny decides to return to the jungle in disgrace, but the Marvels sing to him and beg him to come home. (NOTE: At the episode’s end, Tawny hugs the Marvels and says they’re “Grrrrrreat!” in the exact same style as “Tony the Tiger” exclaims in Frosted Flakes commercials.) 12.“Star Master and the Solar Mirror” Written by Tom Ruegger. Everyone is bored at home, watching Dudley do magic tricks, but suddenly the lights go out. A giant three-eyed alien head appears in the sky, addressing the people of Earth as Starmaster, proclaiming that he will be blocking Earth’s sun. As the world’s weather goes bad, the Marvels fly into space and try to assault Starmaster’s ship. Mary and Cap Jr. get caught in ice rays and pulled into the ship, while Cap must outrun a fireball. The UN discusses using an experimental force field rocket to protect the Earth from Starmaster, but they don’t know where he will target first. Captain Marvel goes to Hero High and enlists Glorious Gal to read Starmaster’s mind. She finds out that he’s targeting New York. The city is evacuated, and when Starmaster sends his freeze rays down, he gets the Statue of Liberty and a boat on which the heroes are standing. With the help of the Hero High kids, Starmaster’s bolts are deflected, but the alien villain targets the polar ice caps for melting, which will flood the world. Captain Marvel realizes that if they use a large enough mirror—like the one from an observatory telescope—to deflect the rays, they can save the Earth. They do so, and Cap breaks into Starmaster’s ship and frees Mary and Junior. The ship is blown up, but Starmaster vows to return.

[Andy Mangels (www.andymangels.com) is a best-selling Star Trek and Star Wars author who has worked in the comics field for 18 years. An expert in comics-to-film/TV adaptations, he is the author of the recent book Animation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide, and is currently writing the Dragon’s Lair comic for MVCreations/CrossGen.]

C.C. Beck

Stifling the Imagination by C.C. Beck

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: This short opinion piece by Charles Clarence Beck, the original and major artist of “Captain Marvel” stories from 1939-53, was first published in FCA/SOB #15/26 (Aug.Sept. 1982).]

Back in ancient times, an entire story took place in the audience’s imaginations. What the characters looked like and what they did were not seen by the eye. They were like dreams and illusions... until artists started to turn them into pictures.

Today, when established comic book characters are adapted to TV production, all the producers seem to want to do is to play up the special effects at the expense of whatever characters and plot (if any) may be in the story.

Putting illustrations into books was the first step in the stifling of the imagination. The reader could see exactly what each character looked like, according to the illustrator. No imagination was needed. Comic books, which contained many more illustrations than earlier publications, only weakened the imagination a bit, however, as the characters and plots in the early comics were still strong and stimulating.

I have before me some of the storyboards of Filmation Studios’ Shazam! cartoons. They illustrate the third step in the process of stifling the reader’s imagination that has been going on since comics first appeared. In Golden Age comics, the most important element in a story was what the hero did... not how he did it. He had to stop an invasion, or foil a villain, or prevent a catastrophe. When Billy or Mary or Freddy said their magic words, just three panels were needed, the first showing the word being spoken, the second showing a flash of lightning, and the third showing the appropriate costumed figure dashing into action. The drawings in Golden Age comics were simplified on purpose; they were not supposed to slow down the story by drawing the reader’s attention to the drawings as “art,” to be admired and studied at length.

The second step took place when comics books began to run out of good stories and characters. The art became better, to cover up the lack of imagination-provoking elements. It became more detailed and realistic, more eye-appealing. This step was taken during the Silver Age of Comics, when many very fine artists entered the field, replacing the old-time cartoonists, who were considered to be cornball and silly.

Reproduction of this image photographed off a TV screen seems a bit fuzzier than usual, but we couldn’t resist showing you how C.C. Beck himself made a cameo appearance in an episode of Filmation’s Shazam! cartoon series, passing by Freddy Freeman’s newsstand. Not that that raised C.C.’s opinion of the show! [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holder; Freddy Freeman TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

MONThLY! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

Today, as can be seen in Filmation’s artwork, everything has been made eyeappealing, “arty,” and wonderful to look at. Today a dozen or more panels are used to show the three children saying their magic words, changing right before your eyes with flickering special effects, standing around like wax figures, then flying around like members of an aerial squad to show off their astounding powers.

The characters are drawn by Filmation, surprisingly, in cartoon style. But they are grotesque caricatures of the original characters, utterly unbelievable. Thus we can see how, in their version of the Marvel Family saga, everything present in the original stories has been destroyed. I will not deny that Filmation’s artists have good imaginations. But they’re merely showing off their imaginations; they’re not allowing the readers to use theirs. The whole thing to me is about as interesting and stimulating as a slide show or a lecture presented by a sales manager to a bunch of bored flunkies. Has the imagination and magic of comics been stifled completely today? It would seem so.

Write to: Robin Snyder, 2284 Yew St. Rd. #B6, Bellingham, WA 98226-8899

Now—FLIP US for our “Just a League of Their Own” Section

Edited by ROY THOMAS

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ALTER EGO #4

ALTER EGO #5

ALTER EGO #1

ALTER EGO #2

ALTER EGO #3

STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!

Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more! GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!

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ALTER EGO #6

ALTER EGO #7

ALTER EGO #8

Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!

Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!

Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!

WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!

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(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!

Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!

Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!

DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ‘40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ‘65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!

1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

ALTER EGO #17

ALTER EGO #18

A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!

JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!

MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!

STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ‘40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!

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(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

ALTER EGO #21

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!

The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on JSA & All-Star Squadron, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, FCA, and more! DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers!

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!

Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on AllStar Squadron #1 and its ‘40s roots (with art by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!

VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!

Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!

ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!

DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ‘60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!

Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!

Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!

JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!

WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!

JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!

RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!

Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!

Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!

(108-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special! Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ‘40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more! Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!

WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ‘40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ‘40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #49

ALTER EGO #50

ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!

ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!

Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!

(100-page magazine) $5.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #54

ALTER EGO #55

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Cards from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ‘40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, more! ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ‘80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #59

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

ALTER EGO #63

Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, featuring a new ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on DC in the 1960s-1970s, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4! FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!

Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

ALTER EGO #68

Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!

Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

ALTER EGO #73

PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more! Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #74

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

ALTER EGO #77

ALTER EGO #78

STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!

DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—LOU CAMERON interview—STEVE GERBER tribute—DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus art by WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, and others!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, LOU CAMERON Part II, and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood, by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, with a focus on Conan the Barbarian by ROY THOMAS and WILL MURRAY, a look at WALLY WOOD’s Marvel sword-&-sorcery work, the Black Knight examined, plus JOE EDWARDS interview Part 2, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #84

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stores, and in court), RICH BUCKLER on Captain Marvel, plus an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!

Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!

The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and pioneers WHITNEY ELLSWORTH and CREIG FLESSEL, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CURT SWAN, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, focus on DC advisor DR. LAURETTA BENDER, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #89

ALTER EGO #90

ALTER EGO #91

ALTER EGO #92

ALTER EGO #93

HARVEY COMICS’ PRE-CODE HORROR MAGS OF THE 1950s! Interviews with SID JACOBSON, WARREN KREMER, and HOWARD NOSTRAND, plus Harvey artist KEN SELIG talks to JIM AMASH! MR. MONSTER presents the wit and wisdom (and worse) of DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE, & more! SIMON & KIRBY and NOSTRAND cover!

BIG MARVEL ISSUE! Salutes to legends SINNOTT and AYERS—plus STAN LEE, TUSKA, EVERETT, MARTIN GOODMAN, and others! A look at the “Marvel SuperHeroes” TV animation of 1966! 1940s Timely writer and editor LEON LAZARUS interviewed by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, the 1960s fandom creations of STEVE GERBER, and more! JACK KIRBY holiday cover!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL! Big FCA section with Golden Age artists MARC SWAYZE & EMILIO SQUEGLIO! Plus JERRY ORDWAY on researching The Power of Shazam, Part II of “The MAD Four-Color Wannabes of the 1950s,” more on DR. LAURETTA BENDER and the teenage creations of STEVE GERBER, artist JACK KATZ spills Golden Age secrets to JIM AMASH, and more! New cover by ORDWAY and SQUEGLIO!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY, PART 3! DC’s Sword of Sorcery by O’NEIL, CHAYKIN, & SIMONSON and Claw by MICHELINIE & CHAN, Hercules by GLANZMAN, Dagar by GLUT & SANTOS, Marvel S&S art by BUSCEMA, CHAN, KAYANAN, WRIGHTSON, et al., and JACK KATZ on his classic First Kingdom! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER’s fan-creations (part 3), and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “EarthTwo—1961 to 1985!” with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, ANDERSON, DELBO, ANDRU, BUCKLER, APARO, GRANDENETTI, and DILLIN, interview with Golden/Silver Age DC editor GEORGE KASHDAN, plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and a new cover by INFANTINO and AMASH!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #94

ALTER EGO #95

ALTER EGO #96

ALTER EGO #97

ALTER EGO #98

“Earth-Two Companion, Part II!” More on the 1963-1985 series that changed comics forever! The Huntress, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, Freedom Fighters, and more, with art by ADAMS, APARO, AYERS, BUCKLER, GIFFEN, INFANTINO, KANE, NOVICK, SCHAFFENBERGER, SIMONSON, STATON, SWAN, TUSKA, our GEORGE KASHDAN interview Part 2, FCA, and more! STATON & GIORDANO cover!

Marvel’s NOT BRAND ECHH madcap parody mag from 1967-69, examined with rare art & artifacts by ANDRU, COLAN, BUSCEMA, DRAKE, EVERETT, FRIEDRICH, KIRBY, LEE, the SEVERIN siblings, SPRINGER, SUTTON, THOMAS, TRIMPE, and more, GEORGE KASHDAN interview conclusion, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more! Cover by MARIE SEVERIN!

Focus on Archie’s 1960s MIGHTY CRUSADERS, with vintage art and artifacts by JERRY SIEGEL, PAUL REINMAN, SIMON & KIRBY, JOHN ROSENBERGER, tributes to the Mighty Crusaders by BOB FUJITANE, GEORGE TUSKA, BOB LAYTON, and others! Interview with MELL LAZARUS, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Cover by MIKE MACHLAN!

The NON-EC HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950s! From Menace and House of Mystery to The Thing!, we present vintage art and artifacts by EVERETT, BRIEFER, DITKO, MANEELY, COLAN , MESKIN, MOLDOFF, HEATH, POWELL, COLE, SIMON & KIRBY, FUJITANI, and others, plus FCA , MR. MONSTER and more, behind a creepy, eerie cover by BILL EVERETT!

Spotlight on Superman’s first editor WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, longtime Kryptoeditor MORT WEISINGER remembered by his daughter, an interview with Superman writer ALVIN SCHWARTZ, tributes to FRANK FRAZETTA and AL WILLIAMSON, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA, and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

ALTER EGO #99

GEORGE TUSKA showcase issue on his career at Lev Gleason, Marvel, and in comics strips through the early 1970s—CRIME DOES NOT PAY, BUCK ROGERS, IRON MAN, AVENGERS, HERO FOR HIRE, & more! Plus interviews with Golden Age artist BILL BOSSERT and fan-artist RUDY FRANKE, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more! (84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL is a celebration of 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO, Roy Thomas’ legendary super-hero fanzine. It’s a double-size triple-threat BOOK, with twice as many pages as the regular magazine, plus special features just for this anniversary edition! Behind a RICH BUCKLER/JERRY ORDWAY JSA cover, ALTER EGO celebrates its 100th issue and the 50th anniversary of A/E (Vol. 1) #1 in 1961—as ROY THOMAS is interviewed by JIM AMASH about the 1980s at DC! Learn secrets behind ALL-STAR SQUADRON—INFINITY, INC.—ARAK, SON OF THUNDER—CAPTAIN CARROT—JONNI THUNDER, a.k.a. THUNDERBOLT— YOUNG ALL-STARS—SHAZAM!—RING OF THE NIBELUNG—and more! With rare art and artifacts by GEORGE PÉREZ, TODD McFARLANE, RICH BUCKLER, JERRY ORDWAY, MIKE MACHLAN, GIL KANE, GENE COLAN, DICK GIORDANO, ALFREDO ALCALA, TONY DEZUNIGA, ERNIE COLÓN, STAN GOLDBERG, SCOTT SHAW!, ROSS ANDRU, and many more! Plus special anniversary editions of Alter Ego staples MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA)—and ALEX WRIGHT’s amazing color collection of 1940s DC pinup babes! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (NOTE: This book takes the place of ALTER EGO #100, and counts as TWO issues toward your subscription.) (160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • ISBN: 9781605490311 Diamond Order Code: JAN111351

ALTER EGO #101

Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by FINE, BAKER, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others! “Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, SIEGEL, LIEBERSON, MAYER, DONENFELD, and VICTOR FOX! Plus, Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by Marvel artist DAVE WILLIAMS!

NEW!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #102

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION

Spotlight on Green Lantern creators MART NODELL and BILL FINGER in the 1940s, and JOHN BROOME, GIL KANE, and JULIUS SCHWARTZ in 1959! Rare GL artwork by INFANTINO, REINMAN, HASEN, NEAL ADAMS, and others! Plus JACK MENDELSOHN Part II, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by GIL KANE & TERRY AUSTIN, and MART NODELL!

The early career of comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART: Defenders, Captain America, Master of Kung Fu, The Beast, Mantis, and more, with rare art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, STARLIN, SUTTON, HECK, BROWN, and others. Plus, JIM AMASH interviews early artist GEORGE MANDEL (Captain Midnight, The Woman in Red, Blue Bolt, Black Marvel, etc.), FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and more!

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

Compiles the ALTER EGO flip-sides from COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art! All-new rare and previously-unpublished art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, & others, ROY THOMAS on X-MEN, AVENGERS/ KREE-SKRULL WAR, INVADERS, and more! Cover by JOE KUBERT!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(160-page trade paperback) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $4.95

HUMOR MAGAZINES (BUNDLE ALL THREE FOR JUST $14.95)

ALTER EGO:

BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

Collects the original 11 issues of JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS’ ALTER EGO fanzine (from 1961-78), with contributions from JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, and others—and illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! Plus major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by JULIE SCHWARTZ. (192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946

COMIC BOOK NERD

PETE VON SHOLLY’s side-splitting parody of the fan press, including our own mags! Experience the magic(?) of such publications as WHIZZER, the COMICS URINAL, ULTRA EGO, COMICS BUYER’S GUISE, BAGGED ISSUE!, SCRAWL!, COMIC BOOK ARTISTE, and more, as we unabashedly poke fun at ourselves, our competitors, and you, our loyal readers! It’s a first issue, collector’s item, double-bag, slab-worthy, speculator’s special sure to rub even the thickest-skinned fanboy the wrong way! (64-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95

CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS #29 & #32

PETE VON SHOLLY’s spoofs of monster mags will have you laughing your pants off— right after you soil them from sheer terror! This RETRO MONSTER MOVIE MAGAZINE is a laugh riot lampoon of those GREAT (and absolutely abominable) mags of the 1950s and ‘60s, replete with fake letters-to-the-editor, phony ads for worthless, wacky stuff, stills from imaginary films as bad as any that were really made, interviews with their “creators,” and much more! Relive your misspent youth (and misspent allowance) as you dig the hilarious photos, ads, and articles skewering OUR FAVORITE THINGS of the past! Get our first issue (#29!), the sequel (#32!), or both!

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

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(48-page magazines) $5.95 EACH • (Digital Editions) $1.95 EACH

These sold-out books are now available again in DIGITAL EDITIONS:

NEW!

MR. MONSTER, VOL. 0

TRUE BRIT

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

Collects hard-to-find Mr. Monster stories from A-1, CRACK-A-BOOM! and DARK HORSE PRESENTS (many in COLOR for the first time) plus over 30 pages of ALLNEW MR. MONSTER art and stories! Can your sanity survive our Lee/Kirby monster spoof by MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MARK MARTIN, or the long-lost 1933 Mr. Monster newspaper strip? Or the terrifying TRENCHER/MR. MONSTER slug-fest, drawn by KEITH GIFFEN and MICHAEL T. GILBERT?! Read at your own risk!

GEORGE KHOURY’s definitive book on the rich history of British Comics Artists, their influence on the US, and how they have revolutionized the way comics are seen and perceived! It features breathtaking art, intimate photographs, and in-depth interviews with BRIAN BOLLAND, ALAN DAVIS, DAVE GIBBONS, KEVIN O’NEILL, DAVID LLOYD, DAVE McKEAN, BRYAN HITCH, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other fine gents! Sporting a new JUDGE DREDD cover by BRIAN BOLLAND!

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! It covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor—peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS—and is illustrated with RARE AND UNSEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art! Plus: an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS, and an Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

(136-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $4.95

(204-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

(176-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $5.95

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN

TOM FIELD’s amazing COLAN retrospective, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his 60-year career, and a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics! MARV WOLFMAN, DON McGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages! Plus: a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-seen collaborations between Gene and masters such as BYRNE, KALUTA and PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created just for this book! (192-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

ART OF GEORGE TUSKA

A comprehensive look at GEORGE TUSKA’S personal and professional life, including early work at the Eisner-Iger shop, producing controversial crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers. Includes extensive coverage of his work on IRON MAN, X-MEN, HULK, JUSTICE LEAGUE, TEEN TITANS, BATMAN, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and others, a gallery of commission art and a thorough index of his work, original art, photos, sketches, unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus the very personal and reflective words of George himself! Written by DEWEY CASSELL. (128-page Digital Edition) $4.95

OTHER BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

PENCILER, PUBLISHER, PROVOCATEUR

COMICS’ FAST & FURIOUS ARTIST

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

MATT BAKER

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE

Shines a light on the life and career of the artistic and publishing visionary of DC Comics!

Explores the life and career of one of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable and dependable artists!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!

Definitive biography of the Watchmen writer, in a new, expanded edition!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95

QUALITY COMPANION

BATCAVE COMPANION

ALL- STAR COMPANION

AGE OF TV HEROES

The first dedicated book about the Golden Age publisher that spawned the modern-day “Freedom Fighters”, Plastic Man, and the Blackhawks!

Unlocks the secrets of Batman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, following the Dark Knight’s progression from 1960s camp to 1970s creature of the night!

Roy Thomas has four volumes documenting the history of ALL-STAR COMICS, the JUSTICE SOCIETY, INFINITY, INC., and more!

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95

(240-page trade paperback) $26.95

(224-page trade paperbacks) $24.95

Examining the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes, featuring the in-depth stories of the shows’ actors and behind-the-scenes players!

CARMINE INFANTINO

SAL BUSCEMA

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95

MARVEL COMICS

An issue-by-issue field guide to the pop culture phenomenon of LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, and others, from the company’s fumbling beginnings to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity!

IN THE 1960s

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

MODERN MASTERS

HOW TO CREATE COMICS

Covers how Stan Lee went from writer to publisher, Jack Kirby left (and returned), Roy Thomas rose as editor, and a new wave of writers and artists came in!

20+ volumes with in-depth interviews, plus extensive galleries of rare and unseen art from the artist’s files!

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

Shows step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and art, to printing and distribution!

(128-page trade paperbacks) $14.95 each

(108-page trade paperback) $15.95

IN THE 1970s

A BOOK SERIES DEVOTED TO THE BEST OF TODAY’S ARTISTS

FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG, CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL, OR LOG ONTO www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom! TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com