Back Issue #30 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

Fly high with

SATURDAY

MORNING HEROES!

r 2008 O c t o be

82658 27762

N$o6..3905

JACKSON BOSTWICK & JOHN DAVEY!

Interviews with

Space Ghost’s GARY OWENS & STEVE RUDE h Super Friends h Super Powers toys Captain Cosmos h Astro Boy h MARV WOLFMAN on the 1988 Superman cartoon and a DAVE STEVENS tribute by ADAM HUGHES

Volume 1, Number 30 October 2008

The Retro Comics Experience!

Celebrating the Best Com ics of the '70s, '80s, and Today! EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

FLASHBACK: Shazam!: DC’s Captain Marvel Revival of the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 The story of the Big Red Cheese’s return from comics limbo

INTERVIEWS: Jackson Bostwick and John Davey: The World’s Mightiest Mortals . . . . . .17 Two all-new interviews with the actors who brought Captain Marvel to life

COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Eric Nolen-Weathington SPECIAL THANKS Jim Alexander Anthony Allan Al Bigley Jackson Bostwick Jerry Boyd Tony Caputo Matt Cauley Nicola Cuti John Davey DC Comics Willie Fawcett Shane Foley Ramona Fradon Jason Geyer Grand Comic-Book Database Lawrence Guidry Larry Hama P.C. Hamerlinck Hanna-Barbera Productions Heritage Comics Auctions Adam Hughes Internet Movie Database Kenner Toys Jason and Jeff Liebig Alan Light

Cast from the second season of Shazam!: John Davey (Captain Marvel), Les Tremayne (Mentor), and Michael Gray (Billy Batson). TM & © DC Comics.

GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Captain Thunder Sequel That Went “Sha-Boom!” . . .11 Elliot S! Maggin and Alex Saviuk recall the fizzled follow-up to Superman #276

COVER ARTIST Alex Ross

Elliot S! Maggin Andy Mangels Kelvin Mao Eric Mayse Darrell McNeil Dennis O’Neil Gary Owens Daniel Pickett Ruben Procopio Alex Ross Bob Rozakis Steve Rude Alex Saviuk James Sawyer Richard A. Scott Andy Smith Anthony Snyder Ken Steacy The Earth Roy Thomas Mark Tomlinson Eric Treadaway Jason Ullymeyer Mark Waid Edward Wires Marv Wolfman Alex Wright

BACKSTAGE PASS: Those Super Friends of Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 A year in the life of a young Hanna-Barberian, Darrell McNeil FLASHBACK: Super Friends in Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 From comics to TV to comics again, DC Comics’ Justice League “lite” SPECIAL FEATURE: Adam Hughes Remembers Dave Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 How the late creator of The Rocketeer influenced one of comics’ most popular artists ART GALLERY: The Art of Dave Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 A visual remembrance of the much-missed artist GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: Super Powers: The Unproduced Fourth Wave . . . . .53 The Kenner action figures you might have seen INTERVIEW: Space Ghost Unmasked: Gary Owens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 The voice behind some of our favorite toon titans speaks to BACK ISSUE INTERVIEW: Spaced Out!: Steve Rude’s Space Ghost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 “The Dude” looks back at Comico’s stunning 1987 Space Ghost one-shot BEYOND CAPES: Now Comics and the Original Astro Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 The 1980s reboot of the robotic do-gooder, with Ken Steacy and Tony Caputo OFF MY CHEST: Marv Wolfman and the Adventures of Superman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 The superstar writer tells how he helped bring the Man of Steel to Saturday mornings INTERVIEW: Nicola Cuti: Calling Captain Cosmos! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 The co-creator of E-Man reveals what it’s like to be a real, live space hero GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD: The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. . . . .83 Bob Rozakis’ fantasy history continues with a look at the AA heroes’ media adventures BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Reader feedback on “Heroes Behaving Badly” issue #28 BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. E-mail: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $40 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $90 Surface International, $108 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Alex Ross. Captain Marvel (Shazam!) TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2008 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

M ic h ae l Eu ry

In 1995, actress-turneddirector Betty Thomas was applauded by TV fans and even some hard-to-please film critics with the release of The Brady Bunch Movie. Working off an in-joke-laced screenplay penned by a round-robin team of four screenwriters, Thomas’ vision of the Brady Bunch—that kid-loaded sitcom family with the polyestered patriarch, wigged mom, and wacky housekeeper Alice—imagined, What if the very ’70s Bradys lived a very surreal life in the very modern ’90s? This “fish out of water” (or, in more appropriate BACK ISSUE terms, “trapped in a world [they] never made”) concept worked (in the first Brady film, at least). The anachronistic movie Bradys were so out of step (despite their platform heels) they became cool, their family conformity seeming rebellious when juxtaposed against the “real world.” Thirteen years earlier, DC Comics attempted a similar reimagining. The company, then scoring headlines for its “relevant” storylines (Green Lantern and Green Arrow tackle racism! Teen Titan Speedy becomes a junkie! The Justice League cleans up pollution! Robin encounters campus unrest!), revived the original Captain Marvel, the bestselling comic-book character of the Golden Age. For readers old enough to remember Captain Marvel—the ultimate wish-fulfillment concept, a boy (Billy Batson) who became the “World’s Mightiest Mortal” upon his recitation of a magic word (“Shazam!”)—this was a momentous occasion. The average comic-book reader of the day, however, was less impressed. Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel and his support team, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr., had not appeared in new stories since The Marvel Family #89 (cover-dated Jan. 1954, but released in 1953), forced into dormancy after a long legal battle with DC over Captain Marvel’s similarities to, and supposed infringements upon, Superman. The Captain and company were your father’s superheroes. Carmine Infantino, at the time DC’s publisher, sought to combat Marvel’s recent market dominance by trying new things. One of those “new” things happened to be the licensing of “old” characters, including Tarzan, The Shadow, and Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel Unchained! Dave Cockrum, who in a few short years would rocket to fame as the artist of the New X-Men, drew this ink-and-watercolor (check out our digital edition to see this in color!) illo of the World’s Mightiest Mortal in his pre-pro days of 1970. Just over two years after Cockrum completed this drawing, the hero he so wonderfully depicted would return to print—but would be legally denied the right to title his comic the name “engraved” here in stone! Art scan courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

But the Marvel Family proved no Brady Bunch. DC attempted to replicate the jocundity of Captain Marvel’s glory days, backdropped against a sanitized “now generation” world of long-haired, bellbottomed bad guys and passersby. After initial reader interest and strong issue #1 sales fed by speculators, the air slowly leaked out of the Captain Marvel balloon. Holy Moley! What went wrong?

IDENTITY CRISIS

During the original Captain Marvel’s two-decade nap, Marvel Comics snatched up the “Captain Marvel” trademark in the late 1960s, introducing its Kree warrior Mar-Vell, a.k.a. Captain Marvel. As a result, DC needed an alternative title for the hero’s new adventures. And that title, proposed by editor Julius “Julie” Schwartz, was the hero’s magic word: Shazam!

C. C. Before DC Almost two years before DC’s Shazam! (re)launch, Golden Age Captain Marvel artist C. C. Beck was commissioned by Bruce Hamilton to produce this (and another) illo of the World’s Mightiest Mortal for the 1972 Phoenix Con program booklet. Note that Beck added long sideburns in an attempt to bring Cap up to date. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. TM & © DC Comics.

What If... …Marvel, not DC, had picked up the rights to publish the original Captain Marvel? Here’s our look at what might have been, imagined by Michael Eury with a little graphics wizardry by BI designer Rich Fowlks. (Yes, that’s sweet little Mary Batson in Cap’s arms—and that seventh “Sin” is apparently lurking off-camera!) Marvel art and Captain Marvel TM & © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. Shazam! characters TM & © 2008 DC Comics.

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

“Shazam!” What did that word mean? How did you pronounce it? Readers who tuned into TV reruns knew the word as an exclamation drawled by genial bumpkin Gomer Pyle as “Shuh-ZAY-um!” But the comics-buying kid with 20 cents in his pocket who had never before seen this barrel-chested he-man with the lightning-bolt emblem wondered, Was “Shazam” this hero’s name? The addition of cover tag lines “With One Magic Word…” and “The Original Captain Marvel” above and below the logo added more clutter than explanation. Yet, in late 1972, Shazam! #1 (cover-dated Feb. 1973) premiered to considerable fanfare. Former legal rivals Superman and Captain Marvel had kissed and made up— or, more likely, shook hands—as the Man of Steel drew back a curtain on the cover to reveal young Billy Batson and his awesome alter ego to the ’70s audience. While Shazam! #1’s cover has become one of the Bronze Age of Comics’ iconic images, its art portends the series’ ultimate downfall: Billy and the World’s Mightiest Mortal are rendered in the thick-lined, wholesome style of C. C. Beck, known to longtime fans as the chief artist of Captain Marvel of the Golden Age; but Superman epitomizes DC’s house style of the Infantino era, a Nick Cardy-drawn body with a Murphy Anderson-redrawn head. This jarring jam of artists subliminally suggested to the reader that this whole relaunch was an ill fit. Almost ten years prior, editor Schwartz had been cherry-picked to dig Batman out of a sales chasm, having proven to be DC’s “Fix-It Man” after spearheading the successful revivals of classic characters such as the Flash and Green Lantern. He knew little about Batman but surrounded himself with talent appropriate for the job, and soon Batman was a sales success and cultural phenomenon. Schwartz was equally unfamiliar with Captain Marvel, but in this case, lightning didn’t strike twice. When Schwartz and Infantino were fishing for a Shazam! artist (Schwartz “usual suspects” Kurt Schaffenberger, Bob Oksner, and Murphy Anderson were apparently considered), as reported in The Monster Times #25 (Aug. 1973), C. C. Beck wrote a few letters to DC stating his interest, then sent in a “Rip Van Marvel” drawing which clinched the deal. In “Preacher’s Son,” Beck’s early 1980s autobiographical essay (presented in edited form in the TwoMorrows book Streetwise), the artist told a different story from the Monster Times report: “Twenty years after Captain Marvel had disappeared I got a call from Superman’s publisher. They were reviving Captain Marvel and wanted me to submit samples of my work in competition with other artists whom they were considering. This was somewhat silly, it seemed to me. I had not had to submit samples of my work since I had first appeared as a callow youth at Fawcett’s door forty years earlier. But I sent Carmine Infantino a drawing of Captain Marvel as Rip Van Winkle with a long white beard, a rusted musket, and a look of wonder on his face. Carmine Infantino loved it. Julie Schwartz loved it. So did E. Nelson Bridwell and Sol Harrison. DC sent me two scripts. They were not good.” Despite his dissatisfaction with the writing, Beck accepted the Shazam! assignment. Instead of reuniting Beck with Golden Age Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder, or pairing him with Schwartz’s own assistant editor (and Captain Marvel fan) E. Nelson Bridwell, the editor signed his go-to “relevant” writer, Denny O’Neil—the scribe who helped return Batman to his “creature of the night” roots and contemporized Green Lantern and Green Arrow—to launch Shazam!

TM & © DC Comics.

TIME DISPLACEMENT

Shazam! #1 begins with a BOOM!—literally— as the “Big Red Cheese” soars skyward on its splash page framed by a crackling lightning bolt. A six-page origin recap brings new and forgetful readers up to date, showing how young Batson was bestowed the abilities of “six mighty heroes” (actually, gods)—the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury—by mouthing the moniker of the benefactor wizard whose name just happens to be an acronym for that roster of champions. A ten-page tale by O’Neil and Beck follows, titled “The World’s Wickedest Plan,” which explains that Captain Marvel—along with Mary, Junior, arch-enemy Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana and his sinister son and daughter, and a variety of supporting-cast members—had spent the last twenty years frozen in “suspendium.” Suspendium was scripted as a compound invented by Sivana, but it was in fact writer O’Neil’s invention, a clever jumpstart to the Marvels’ long-cold “engine.” Beck’s art in issue #1 was unlike anything that most DC (or Marvel, if they were straying) readers had ever seen: big, open, uncomplicated, and airy, almost like a coloring book. His art lacked the detail Golden Age readers expected; according to P.C. Hamerlinck in FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #134 (Jan. 2008), this was the result of Beck working without his former assistants (who often completed more detailed backgrounds), his drawing within the smaller dimensions of the artboard of the 1970s, and

the artist’s negative attitude toward stories he deemed “infantile.” When compared to DC’s other visual fare du jour—the photorealistic art of Neal Adams, the bombastic work of Jack Kirby, and the highly stylized renderings of masters Joe Kubert and Nick Cardy and newcomers Michael Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson— Beck’s vanilla illustrations fulfilled the “ill fit” promise of the jam-artist cover. But variety was the hallmark of the Infantino regime, and Beck’s corny, cutesy Captain Marvel offered readers an alternative to the meatier material found in other DC magazines. Schwartz’s threestory-per-issue formula (the third being a Golden Age reprint) further annointed Shazam! as the entry-level title in the 1973 DC Universe. “Gosh, the world sure has changed since I was in suspended animation!” laments Billy Batson, hanging out in the park amid hippies, in the opening of the O’Neil/Beck lead tale in Shazam! #2 (Apr. 1973). O’Neil is denied the chance to explore those changes, however, and this script quickly becomes yet another showcase for talking tigers, worms, and alligators, the stuff of which Captain Marvel’s Golden Age was made. In “A Switch in Time,” the lead tale in issue #3 (June 1973), Billy, whining that he’ll always be “behind my time—a freak,” convinces the wizard Shazam to advance his age twenty years to where he should be— with the unexpected side effect of his transforming into a teenage Captain Marvel! Then the references to the Marvel Family’s two decades in limbo wafted away. The Shazam! machine kept chugging along,

And Then There Were Three Drawn at the dimensions of 12" x 16", Beck’s preliminary for the cover of Shazam! #3 (June 1973), and its finished version. Prelim courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions. TM & © DC Comics.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

Action Comics #576 (Feb. 1986), one of the last Superman issues produced by outgoing editor Julius Schwartz, featured (under its Eduardo Barreto cover) two tales: “Earth’s Sister Planet” by comics veterans William Woolfolk and Kurt Schaffenberger, and “The Monumental Menace of Metropolis,” one of the earliest scripts penned by Mark Waid. Originally, however, Julie Schwartz had commissioned for that issue a sequel to one of the most fondly remembered Superman stories of the 1970s, “Make Way For Captain Thunder!” I stumbled across this buried treasure when artist Alex Saviuk contacted Roy Thomas in November 2007 about the possibility of Roy covering in Alter Ego an unpublished mid-’80s Superman tale featuring a Captain Marvel-like hero called Colonel Lightning. Knowing the 1980s to be BACK ISSUE’s stomping grounds, Roy kindly referred Mr. Saviuk to me. Once Alex informed me that he could provide scans of the 12 unpublished penciled pages he had produced from a script by one of my favorites, Elliot S! Maggin, I was convinced that the Superman/Colonel Lightning adventure was tailor made for “Greatest Stories Never Told,” and that it would make a nice coda to the Shazam! article in this very issue.

M ic h ae l Eu ry

Thunder Struck

But imagine my surprise when, in late March 2008, I received from Alex Saviuk scans of those pages—and discovered that this “Colonel Lightning” was, in fact, a previously seen hero I knew as Captain Thunder, the otherworldly Captain Marvel analogue from Superman #276 (June 1974)! Holy Moley! I mean, Creepies! (as Captain Thunder and his alter ego, Willie Fawcett, would say). Whatever happened to Captain Thunder?

Colonel Lightning clobbers Dr. Art Lanta. Pencils by Alex Saviuk, who kindly contributed the pencil art used in this article.

“HERE COMES COLONEL LIGHTNING!”

Before we examine the reasons for that name change and for this story being shelved, allow me to walk you through those 12 pages of pencils I had the good fortune to review. These pages are unlettered, but include Alex’s printing of Elliot’s captions and dialogue as space indicators for the letterer. The tale opens with a bald, bespectacled evil scientist named Dr. Art Lanta (the counterpart to Dr. Sivana, whose name—say it aloud—is a homonym for a famous Southern city). Lanta is aiming a high-tech cannon skyward, drawing bead on a rapidly approaching “colorful streak” rocketing toward him: Colonel Lightning, the spitting image of Superman #276’s Captain Thunder. The hero dodges the cannon’s blast and squares off against his foe, but is zapped from behind S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

TM & © DC Comics.

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

1 1

Saviuk in Action (left) The title page of the Colonel Lightning story, and (right) a glorious glimpse of Alex’s mighty Man of Steel. TM & © DC Comics.

by a remote-control sneak attack that bathes both the hero and villain in eerie radiation. A splash-panel caption explains that this is indeed the crusader once known as Captain Thunder, although the story’s title suggests he’s been promoted: “Here Comes Colonel Lightning!” The Colonel shrugs off the effects of the blast, although Dr. Lanta’s ominous cackling alerts the reader that Colonel Lightning is in for an unexpected aftereffect. Colonel Lightning deposits Dr. Lanta at the local prison, and soon covertly rubs his belt buckle. In a flash of “magical energy” (SHA-BOOM!), he transforms into flattopped radio broadcaster Willie Watson (in the original tale, Willie Fawcett), now a young man and no longer the eight-year-old we met in his original outing. As Willie saunters down the street … he inexplicably disappears! The story cuts to Earth-One’s Metropolis, where “three good friends”—Clark Kent, Perry White, and Jimmy Olsen—are having a dinner out together. Clark’s telescopic vision spies an imperiled electrical lineman, and as Perry and Jimmy bicker over their shares of the tip, Kent politely excuses himself to locate his “missing wallet.” He switches to Superman in the restaurant’s men’s room and speeds to the scene of the action, where a downed electrical wire is about to shock a youthful passerby. The Man of Steel saves the kid, repairs the severed wires, and zips back to the restaurant, where, as Clark, he discovers White and Olsen still arguing. 1 2

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

As the trio exit, wandering Willie Watson spots the familiar face of Clark Kent and realizes where in the DC Universe he’s landed. He approaches Clark and the two engage in conversation, with Perry and Jimmy saying goodbye. Kent is puzzled to see how much older Willie is, the lad having matured considerably beyond the age he was “a year or so ago” in the heroes’ Superman #276 adventure. Willie recounts Colonel Lightning’s origin, which shows minor changes from the first time Maggin told it in 1974: After following a horned owl into the woods near an orphans’ camp, little Willie meets the Native American Tonca, the “last shaman of the Ogala Tribe.” Tonca bestows upon Willie “five spiritual powers” which will appear whenever the lad rubs the buckle of a special belt and recites the shaman’s name: Thunder (power), Owl (wisdom), Northwind (flight), Colt (energy), and Antelope (speed). [In Superman #276, the shaman’s name was Merokee, “last of the great medicine men of the Mohegan tribe.” Willie was given seven “spritual powers” and a different magic word, “Thunder,” standing for Tornado (power), Hare (speed), Uncas (bravery; an editor’s note defined “Uncas” as “an outstanding warrior chief of the Mohegan tribe”), Nature (wisdom), Diamond (toughness), Eagle (flight), and Ram (tenacity).] We discover that Willie Watson, now 22, is weary of his bodyexchanging alter ego, “who’s never really grown up! The guy still says ‘Creepies!’ when he’s excited.” Willie can no longer stomach the danger Colonel Lightning attracts, pointing to a copy of Newstime magazine with Superman’s foe Brainiac on its “Villains” cover to illustrate the type of “funky stuff” always awaiting him on his own world. The next panel shows the magazine not in Willie Watson’s hands but in Dr. Art Lanta’s, suggesting that the ray blast from the earlier scene has somehow linked

P. C . H a m e r l i n c k

The Shazam! live-action television series, aired on CBS from 1974–1977, still resonates within the hearts and minds of its young impressionistic viewers from decades ago whom—like Billy Batson’s transformation into Captain Marvel—have since transformed into (hopefully) wisdom-filled, justice-seeking adults themselves. Like so many other TV comic-book adaptations, Shazam! fell victim to network policies and artistic liberties that were often an eternity away from its source material. Yet, the live-action Saturday morning show— produced by Filmation, a studio more commonly known for its memorable animated cartoons—still became a ratings success, with numbers out-performing many primetime scheduled programs. Along with cast members Michael Gray (Billy Batson) and Les Tremayne (Mentor), there were two actors who portrayed Captain Marvel during the series’ three-year run. The first was Jackson Bostwick, who passionately approached the role with conscientious care, and thus convincingly captured the mythical essence of the hero. With his stark, almost ethereal appearance and uncanny resemblance to the comic-book Marvel, it was clear Filmation had made the “world’s mightiest” casting choice. Jackson’s forthcoming autobiography, Myth, Magic, and a Mortal, is a vividly visual, personally revealing memoir with a closeup and panoramic cameraview of the beloved Shazam! series. (Check in for updates at

jacksonbostwick.com.) Jackson, along with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Erin, live in Tennessee where he continues to act, write, produce, and direct films. Bostwick’s disturbingly abrupt departure early into the show’s second season left the Captain’s boots unfilled for only a couple of hours, and after the lightning struck again and the smoke dissipated, there stood affable but apprehensive John Davey. After the professional boxer-turned-actor’s initial reluctance towards donning the red tights (smoothed over by the exuberant prodding of Davey’s enthusiastic eight-year-old Shazam-fan son), he finally accepted his fate and eventually developed a defensive pride over his involvement with the show. Retired from acting, Davey and his wife Linda now enjoy smalltown bliss in northern California. In his spare time he wrote a novel set in the world of boxing entitled The Fighter Still Remains. He claims it is in no way autobiographical, and while hating the cliché “coming of age,” he surrenders that it’s still a good descriptor for his redemption-filled piece of prose that’s in search of a publisher. I’ve interviewed both actors previously on separate occasions— both now out of print. The following fresh new pair of interviews were conducted in April 2008. My thanks to Jackson and John for their cooperation. – P.C. Hamerlinck

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

1 7

P.C. HAMERLINCK: Jackson, you were born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Montgomery, Alabama. Your father was a neurosurgeon. What were your childhood years like? JACKSON BOSTWICK: I was blessed with a wonderful family life to grow up in down in the Deep South; there were my two younger sisters, Joan and June, our two dogs, a cat, and my mom and dad. I loved (and still do) the outdoors, where I often enjoyed hunting (both bow and gun) and fishing. I leaned toward the sciences in school and played trumpet in the school band and orchestra, and also played in a small dance band for local gigs. I was active in golf, water skiing, swimming, basketball (on a third-place team in the city—still have the medal), shot archery, and rode my bicycle everywhere. On the career aptitude tests they gave us in school it was determined that I would be good as either a CPA or a Forest Ranger. Oh, yeah, there was tax money well spent! [laughter] HAMERLINCK: You’re a graduate of the University of Alabama—a pre-med student who majored in Biology and minored in Physics and Chemistry—but the acting bug had bit you in 1968, while you were still in the Army. Were your parents supportive that their pre-med son’s thoughts had turned to acting? BOSTWICK: The thought of acting never crossed my mind until I was on The Dating Game (great in the audition, pathetic on the show) and a scout from Paramount asked me if I was interested in getting into the movies. I told him that I had never done anything in that line of work in my life. He suggested I should get some training and then look him up. I was still in the Army (Ft. Irwin) at the time and without my knowledge my secretaries had sent my name into The Dating Game and I was invited down to audition for the show. A short time later, after I had finished my tour of duty, I asked my dad what he thought about my giving acting a shot. He said as long as I was continuing my schooling, I could give it a try. (He later told me that of all the fields I could have pursued, acting was the one area he couldn’t help me with.) So, not knowing the ridiculously incredible odds for someone who had never done any formal acting before in his life— much less, even remotely considered doing any— I casually bop on over to USC and take a stab at getting into their “acting school” (as I, then, naively referred to their program). Now it will naturally follow that after being accepted as one of the 11 original members of the Master’s Company that I regard it as not being such a big deal. I mean … hey! Anybody can do it. Right! Just walk in off the street, thick southern drawl and all ... just tootle in on a lark, apply for a slot in a subject that you are thoroughly unacquainted with 1 8

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

Say “Cheese” Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel, the star of CBS-TV’s Shazam! A promo headshot from 1974, revealing the actor’s uncanny resemblance to his comic-book counterpart. Unless otherwise noted, all Shazam! photos are courtesy of P.C. Hamerlinck. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

H e r o e s

I s s u e

(I didn’t even know who Lawrence Olivier was), and then get unconsciously welcomed into one of the premier programs in the country in that field. Hah! Now, talk about “being at the right place…” or, “when it’s meant to be …” or—even more aptly in my case— just “your plain, good ol’ dumb luck…” HAMERLINCK: A year before Shazam!, you received your MFA at USC. Did you already have an agent at this time? BOSTWICK: I had gotten an agent—Dale Garrick— before I had even entered school, and had already done a national commercial for Mutual of Omaha on Wild Kingdom by the time I had stepped into my first class at USC. HAMERLINCK: How did going to Filmation’s “cattle call” for the role of Captain Marvel come about? BOSTWICK: I had just signed with the Jack Wormser commercial talent agency, so when I got the call [for Captain Marvel] I naturally think it’s for a Captain Crunch-type cereal (not serial) and so I show up in my usual commercial “cattle call” garb—jeans, white T-shirt, and cowboy boots. When I arrive at Filmation Studios, where the audition is being held, there is nobody in the lobby. (Not normal for a commercial audition where there isn’t a parking space for ten blocks and the casting room is packed like a “free beer and pizza night” at the local bowling alley.) No, this was more like a deserted town in a Sergio Leone Western—complete with a tumbleweed blowing by. As I sit down, the producer, Bob Chenault, comes out and I soon am made to realize “this definitely ain’t no breakfast cereal.” HAMERLINCK: Did Filmation cast you before casting Michael Gray as Billy Batson? How did your first meeting go with Filmation, and when did you first meet costars Michael Gray and Les Tremayne? BOSTWICK: It could be somewhat contentious as to who was on first, but I do know what was on second and that was they had been searching for a Captain Marvel for four months before I had arrived—actors that were athletes, then athletes that were actors, then back to actors that were athletes. When I first meet Michael and Les, I still haven't been told that I have gotten the part. The meeting is supposedly just to let the CBS executives have a look-see. When I come into the room, I am the last to arrive. A quick look around and I guess that Michael is up for the part of Billy Batson, but I wrongly surmise that Les is probably to be considered for the old wizard, Shazam. It turns out he’s to be the Mr. Mentor character who has been concocted by the writing gang at Filmation for the sole purpose of satisfying the Saturday morning censors’ worries about a young boy (Billy) traveling the highways and byways on his own. Everybody is cordial and a good time is had by all. However, it had slipped by my attention that there had been a “sky in the morning…” HAMERLINCK: Did you have to read for the part of Captain Marvel, or were they only searching for a particular look at the time? BOSTWICK: As I recollect, Bob Chenault and I just had a little chit chat at our first, and only, interview and that I showed him some photos of myself, including a couple of flying side kicks in karate, to which he commented, “Heck, you don’t even need any wires to fly”—or something to that effect—and that about summed up the whole affair. I figure that after I told him that I had an MFA from USC that he probably felt that I could handle any Captain Marvel dialogue. He later told me that once he saw the smile and heard the voice that he pretty much had made up his mind.

Myth and Magic Bostwick’s heroic portrayal of Captain Marvel captured the mythical essence of the hero. TM & © DC Comics.

HAMERLINCK: Do you think Filmation had set out to (as close as they could) match the Captain Marvel look from the comic book—and if so, do you think that it had anything to do with them selecting you for the part? You’ve told me previously that Mark Harmon had been one of the final few considered for the part, but of course he doesn’t look at all like Captain Marvel. BOSTWICK: Only The Shadow could know what lurked in the hearts and minds of the two executive producers at Filmation Studios. However, I do know that the show’s original producer, Bob Chenault, wanted only to create the best [show] he could, allowing for the budget and equipment he was afforded to work with at the time. (Bob departed abruptly before the start of the second season, and in my opinion the show suffered an irreplaceable loss with his untimely withdrawal.) Ironically, Filmation was chiefly billed as an animation studio before they did Shazam!, and yet, I feel, the weakest part of the show was the cheesy cartoon work that they contributed rendering the Elders as stilted, “still life” psychedelic drawings with the only part of their entire anatomy ever allowed any kind of “animation” being an ever so slight lip movement as they spoke some philosophical “wisdom” to Billy. And then, of course, there was the unimaginative canned music they imported in from Belgium— or some outfit in that neighborhood— that would have fit more appropriately in one of those floor-hopping inventions patented by Otis. Now, as for selecting me for the role of the Big Red Cheese ... as far as I am aware, that action was the exclusive doings of Bob Chenault. Mark Harmon had just graduated from UCLA as their star quarterback, so he was pretty much in the “athletes-who-were actors” phase of the search. He was in the final four when I arrived. Now I feel quite certain that some of Mark’s loyal fan base could very easily see him playing the part of the good Captain or Superman, et al., but in my opinion,

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

1 9

P.C. HAMERLINCK: John, where were you born and raised? JOHN DAVEY: I was born in Winnemucca, a small town in northeastern Nevada. My dad was involved in ranching and mining and his work soon took us to northern California. When I was four years old, we moved onto a cattle ranch near the Oregon/Nevada border, and when I was ten we moved back to Winnemucca. After graduating from high school, I went into the Marines for four years before becoming a professional boxer. HAMERLINCK: Tell me about your boxing career. When did your interest in the sport begin? DAVEY: I got hooked with boxing when I was very young. My dad bought me and my brother a pair of boxing gloves and I really took to it. I weighed 118 lbs. for my first fight, and kept at it until becoming a heavyweight. My dad was a big boxing fan and, on the ranch where we lived, we couldn’t get good enough radio reception to listen to the big fights—so we’d all hop in Dad’s car and drive to a higher elevation just to hear the boxing matches. The names of all the top fighters became embedded into my young brain, and I was convinced that boxing was the key to gaining acceptance in the world. When Dad gave us that pair of boxing gloves, I carried them around with me wherever I went, and looked for anyone who’d put them on with me. There wasn’t much boxing where I grew up, so in 1957, when I left for California and entered the Marines, I only had a total of eight fights under my belt. Since our base didn’t have a boxing team, I convinced the brass there to start one. I only had another four fights as a Marine, so when I got out of the service in 1961, I had only boxed a total of 12 amateur fights. Yet, even with my deplorable credentials, I still had it in my head that I was going to become a professional boxer. So, come hell or high water, I launched myself into a career I really didn’t have any business being in. After about 15 fights I was gradually getting the hang of it, but by then I was so badly beat up and, without realizing it, was already on the tail end of my boxing career. HAMERLINCK: You were still in California at the time, right? DAVEY: Yes—it was boxing that kept me in Los Angeles. When I first got there after being discharged, I went straight to the Main Street Gym, the place where I use to spar with amateurs and pros while in the service. At the gym, I inquired about how I could get involved in a Golden Gloves tournament or something because I knew I needed more experience in the ring. Then someone walked in and gave me the spiel: “Why does a big, white kid like you wanna be in some Golden Gloves tournament when you could be makin’ some real money out there?” So I ended up boxing, mostly in L.A., for about 41⁄2 years. I had 26 pro fights … but let’s not talk about my record! I met a lot of 2 8

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

Big Red Cheese Re-Booted John Davey, the second actor to wear the Captain’s boots on CBS-TV’s Shazam! Photo courtesy of Andy Mangels. Shazam! TM & © DC Comics.

H e r o e s

I s s u e

interesting people along the way. I sparred with Joe Frazier in the early ‘60s, and I once met a young Cassius Clay, whom I didn’t spar with but I did loan the future Mr. Ali one of my T-shirts. HAMERLINCK: How did you get involved in acting? DAVEY: I started out being a lowly extra, and kind of worked my way up—or down, depending on your point of view. One day my manager and I were at a wedding reception at a little restaurant across from Universal Studios. There were some movie people there and my manager knew one of them. I had just come back from a fight in Idaho and my face was all cut up and bruised. My manager introduced me to this casting director who asked me, “Why the hell do you want to get yourself all busted up for with boxing? Why don’t you get into the film business instead?” Well, I had no interest—or talent—for it, so I just drifted off and started talking to other people at the reception. Then my manager came running over to me: “Are you out of your mind?” he asked. “This guy just handed you something that people would kill for!” A few days later I called the casting director and got signed up. I worked as an extra for a couple of years, and then I worked for a while as a stuntman after I met and trained with other stuntmen. Eventually, I got involved in theater groups, which of course pointed my direction more into acting than stunt work. My body was taking a beating as the stunts were getting to be too much like boxing all over again, so I switched over to acting. That’s when I got real hungry and learned to paint houses on the side. HAMERLINCK: You told me before that you had once considered acting a “sissy pursuit.” DAVEY: I did, but I do have great respect for good, talented actors. It’s not easy; you need tremendous discipline, concentration, and a special chemistry that comes through on the screen— which apparently I didn’t have. I was one of those guys who could sort of get by doing little parts here and there. I was a hitchhiker on life’s highway, and acting was a way to get a ride to somewhere else … so I rode along with it since the opportunities were there in front of me. I appeared in films (The Long Goodbye, 3 Women—both directed by Robert Altman; The Late Show, A Fine Mess—with Chevy Chase); episodic TV shows (Night Gallery, The F.B.I., The Odd Couple, Ironside, Room 222, The Rookies, S.W.A.T., Baa Baa Black Sheep, Cannon, MacGyver, The Twilight Zone, ChiPs, Remington Steele, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files); and between 40–50 TV commercials. HAMERLINCK: Out of all the actors you got to work with, which one was your favorite? DAVEY: Without a doubt, one of my favorites was James Garner, who I worked with seven or eight times. He was just a great guy, and a very underrated actor. HAMERLINCK: Describe the day you got the call to play Captain Marvel on Shazam! DAVEY: My eight-year old son, Tom, and I were hanging around my apartment that day when my agent called me up. He asked me if I had ever heard of a Saturday morning kids’ show on TV called Shazam! After I told him I hadn’t, he proceeded to tell me that Meryl O’Laughlin, casting director for Filmation Studios, wanted me immediately on the Shazam! set to play Captain Marvel, replacing Jackson Bostwick on the show. What first came into my mind was a kid show formatted like Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. While I knew of the character, and had read my share of Captain Marvel comics as a kid, I still thought this show must be something like, “Okay, kids, today we’re going to take a trip to the zoo!” So I thought, “Ah, jeez, I can’t do something like that!”—and not because I was too busy

Raging Bull (top) A 1965 press photo of pro boxer John Davey. (bottom) An Apr. 1965 Boise, Idaho, newspaper clipping announcing an upcoming Davey fight with Boise bad boy George Logan. S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

2 9

D arre ll “Big D” McN eil by

What is It About the “Scarlet” Speedster You Don’t Understand?? Alex Toth-designed models of the Flash, who (along with the Atom) might’ve been colored orange on TV’s Challenge of the Super Friends were it not for Darrell McNeil! All photos and art are courtesy of “Big D’s Tonsorial Taj Mahal.” TM & © 2008 DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Hear ye, hear ye, y’all! ’Tis I, your friend and yours, the “Big D,” making my annual return to Euryland, with a ride that’ll be “even better than six ‘B’ coupons”! This year I have been axed to ruminate upon one of the funner (is that a word? Well, now it is!) time periods of my 32-year (and counting) animation career … the time I toiled on my all-time super-favorite superheroes: Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and, of course, the big red S, the Superman hisself, collectively known as the Super Friends! (And yeah, that includes Aquaman, too, but since I can’t swim…) First, some backstory: As them what knows me already knows, I was, growing up, the king HannaBarbera super-adventure geek as a “little D.” It was Space Ghost, Frankenstein Jr., the Impossibles, Young Samson, the Herculoids, and all the rest that both entertained me as a kid and inspired me to want do ’em when I grew up. The thing is, though, looking back on it as I did when the 3 4

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

good folk at Boomerang reran the first two seasons for the first time in their original formats since the ’70s, it was the Super Friends that really grabbed me. Why? ’Cuz it was the biggest, the coolest, the grooviest superheroes of all on one show at the same time. (Sorry, Marvel fans!) Justice League of America was at the time my favorite comic (particularly the Mike Sekowsky/Sid Greene art run). I even dug the title: Super Friends. Now, as a kid, I didn’t know why they called the team that rather than the “Justice League of America” (though I thought then: “Maybe the name’s too long?”). I loved the name so much I gave it to a team of superpowered teenagers I created and modeled after me and my Westchester High School friends. (I later got a gentle lesson from future H-B colleague Bob Singer as to what a “copyright” was.) That 1973 original hour-length Super Friends series was an interesting deal for a number of reasons. It was one of only three Saturday-morning series that consisted of actual hour-length stories. (The other two premiered

the year before: ABC’s Saturday Superstar Movie and CBS’ New Scooby Doo Movies.) I’ve already dealt with the show’s genesis in previous pieces I’ve scribed in past issues. Just getting a regular series with super-folk in that post-violent kids’ show era was enough of a trick! Violent action and really mean villains were no-nos, while pro-social messages and energy crises were go-gos. Did that stop me from digging the show? Sh-yelll, no! Because it wasn’t just the stories or animation, limited as it was (and being produced in Australia, Canada, and Mexico, not as good as what H-B’s American animators did), that drew (pun intended) me in. It was the auditory combination of H-B’s (particularly Joe Barbera’s) voice casting—joining H-B veteran voice actors John Stephenson (Col. Wilcox), Sherry Alberoni (Wendy), and Frank Welker (Marvin and Wonder Dog) with actors who played the characters in their previous Filmation incarnations: Olan Soule (Batman), Casey Kasem (Robin), and Ted Knight (the narrator), plus newto-H-B vocalists Shannon Farnon (Wonder Woman), Norman Alden (Aquaman), and Danny Dark (Superman), with H-B’s master maestro Hoyt Curtin’s background score (featuring my all-time fave H-B theme)—that created a show that sounded so stirring that geeky kid I, in those pre-VCR daze, made sound cassettes of the shows to listen to. (And 35 years later, I still do sometimes!) Now, as a kid who was addicted to “my Superman Radio Shows” as well as Filmation’s ’67 Superman/ Aquaman Hour of Adventure, it took a little getting used to hearing Danny Dark and Norman Alden portraying Supes and Aqua rather than the long-running Bud Collyer and first Aqua Marvin Miller (something I told Danny and Norman later, but again, I’m getting ahead of myself). Still, the previously cited combo, along with the too-fine visual blandishment of my soon-to-be mentor and bestest friend Alex Toth, made a 16-episode series package I’d watch over and over again. And again… And again. And—ya seeing a pattern here, folks? Yep, as a TV-watchin’ kid, I didn’t know the whys and wherefores of this stuff, ratings and renewals and all that. All I saw was a number of cartoons (and live shows, too) having new episodes of shows I wasn’t as crazy about appear like topsy, while for the next three years (’73–’76), ABC reran the same 16 hours of Super Friends. It turns

out that I wasn’t the only one frustrated … the guys at Hanna-Barbera were as well. So much so that, during one visit/pseudo “job hunt” I made there in ’75, then-design supervisor Bob Singer proclaimed (to his eternal regret, heh, heh) that the ’73 Super Friends series was “the last superhero show H-B would ever do.” Yee … epp. The All-New Super Friends Hour, under the supervision of H-B’s ABC network liaison/producer that season, Art Scott, began production in September of 1976. At the same time yours truly, having graduated from the aforementioned Westchester High in ’75 and almost going to the School of Visual Arts and the inaugural classes of both the Joe Kubert and John Buscema schools, was taking classes at both Cal State Long Beach and UCLA. At the former I was taking a course in the history of Saturday-morning animation taught by the aforementioned Art Scott who, because it took him an hour and a half to drive to Long Beach from H-B in Hollywood, would have me run films from old H-B cartoons to the class until he got there (I dug that!). Mr. Scott told us at the time that Hanna-Barbera was starting a training program under the instruction of Harry Love. Art had felt that I’d be a natural for the program and the studio; unfortunately, he had no particular pull over that program—Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna had given Harry total reign over the deal. And it was for current employees to move up in rank and training, as it were: cel ink and painters who wanted to move up to becoming background painters, inbetweeners who wanted to work up to assistants or animators, layout artists working up to storyboards, and so on. Not being a current employee—nuh-uh, as Harry informed inquisitive moi, saying when I called (after gruffly wondering how I got his special contact number … thank you, Mr. Scott!), “Nobody will be admitted until next April!” (Remember, this was the September prior to that!) I couldn’t wait six months! But it looked like I was going to have to. So … end of story? Nah… …’cuz the other class I was taking at UCLA was one ’bout children’s programming in general. That class was being taught by future ABC Saturday morning Standards and Practices ace Bonny Dare. She had invited a pair of special guests to her inaugural session: Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. By this time I was making my own animation cel setups of various concepts of mine, plus Mr. Scott had S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

The Hall of Justice “The fact that the current and animated versions of the Justice League pay homage to this HQ never fails to bring a smile to my face,” beams Big D. TM & © 2008 DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The HannaBarbera “Corner Crew” (left) From 1977: Darrell McNeil, Sandra “Farrah Fawcett Minors” (as dubbed by Doug Wildey) Young, and Art Roman, son of Film Roman founder Phil Roman. Photo © 2008 Gold Medal Productions.

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

3 5

SUPER POP QUIZ: Name a Bronze Age comic book which fits the following categories: 1) features a core team of well-known, long-running characters in a recognizable headquarters 2) features dozens of guest heroes, many of whom aid the main team 3) features extensive continuity with the main DC superhero line, including footnotes and long letters-column explanations about obscure DC history-opedic knowledge of comics history If you chose All-Star Squadron by Roy Thomas, you’re not completely wrong. But you’d be missing the more obvious, albeit more forgotten, choice. The correct answer is Super Friends. Yes, Super Friends, the “DC TV Comic” that debuted in November 1976 (cover date) and continued under the writership of super-fan-turned-pro E. Nelson Bridwell for 47 issues until its cancellation in August 1981. Though it was supposedly aimed at younger readers, throughout its four-year run, Super Friends took its fans on a virtual tour of DC’s Earth-One, touching not only on major elements of mainstream DC continuity, but also venturing into pre-Vertigo realms and showcasing a multiculturalism unseen in comics to date. Today’s comic fans may see Super Friends as a camp-fest, but to do so dismisses a book that was perhaps the perfect synthesis for its era, literally uniting the television viewers with the comic readers.

HERE COME TV’S SUPER FRIENDS!

Inspired by the success of Filmation’s Superman, Aquaman, and Batman animated series of the late 1960s, and emboldened by Batman and Robin’s guest

Famous First Edition Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41, published in 1975, was the first DC title to bear the Super Friends logo—although there was very little actual SF material in the tabloid-sized comic itself! TM & © DC Comics.

4 0

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

Andy Mangels

THE SECRET ORIGIN OF E. NELSON BRIDWELL Edward Nelson Bridwell was born in 1931 in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. As a child, he was interested not only in ancient mythology and folklore, but the modern mythology of comic books (in particular Superman, Captain Marvel, and anything by Walt Kelly). Some sources cite that he wrote text pages for the American Comics Group in the late 1940s, and Dick Giordano once noted that Bridwell often wrote letters of comment to EC Comics. Bridwell himself said in an interview in Amazing World of DC Comics #17 that he started at DC “on January 13, 1964, as Mort Weisinger’s assistant. My first scripting assignments were science-fiction stories for Jack Schiff. My first writing for Mort was restricted to a few extra panels on a Krypto or Superman story.” Bridwell would soon become an editor on the Superman family titles, alongside Weisinger, who, by many accounts, delighted in torturing the young fan-turned-pro. Bridwell also began writing more in the DC Universe, though on such non-headline series as The Inferior Five and Secret Six. He later wrote for Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superman, World’s Finest Comics, and Legion of SuperHeroes, as well as one of his childhood favorites, Shazam! He also freelanced for MAD magazine, often working with Joe Orlando (his Lone Ranger parody instituted the now-famous catchphrase, “What you mean we, white man?”), and scripted some stories for Jim Warren’s black-and-white anthologies Creepy and Eerie.

His near-encyclopedic knowledge of DC continuity and trivia made Bridwell the go-to guy when DC began doing various reprint projects in the 1970s. In Amazing World of DC Comics #13, Bob Rozakis wrote, “If ever there was a complete fact file on comics and it could be transformed into a human being, it would undoubtedly come out being Nelson Bridwell. DC’s master of trivia and ace historian remembers more about comics than most of us will ever know.” He worked on the hardcover books Superman: From the 30’s to the 70’s, Batman: From the 30’s to the 70’s, Shazam!: From the 40’s to the 70’s, and The Great Superman Comic Book Collection, as well as various treasury collections and digests. His 80-Page Giants and 100-Page Super Spectaculars were not only filled with Golden Age reprints that thematically linked to the modern stories and appearances, but he also wrote text pages and reference material telling newer readers the origins of some of the “forgotten heroes.” Bridwell passed away on January 23, 1987 of lung cancer (ironically, he didn’t smoke), and was eulogized in various DC Comics titles by both Denny O’Neil and Dick Giordano. Posthumously, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame in October 2005. In Amazing World of DC Comics #17, an unnamed DC staffer was quoted as saying, “If Nelson didn’t exist, we would have to invent him.”

appearances in a pair of CBS New Scooby-Doo Movies, as well as Superman and Wonder Woman guest shots in ABC’s The Brady Kids, Hanna-Barbera was commissioned by ABC to create a kid-friendly version of DC’s Justice League of America. The result was Super Friends, starring Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and a trio of teen sidekicks: Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog. The program debuted on September 8, 1973. Although the series was a hit and viewership likely dwarfed the entire sales output of DC Comics’ line, the company was a bit slow to embrace the animated show. With DC’s Justice League of America #110 (Mar.–Apr. 1974), the cover tagline did change from “The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes!” to “Here Come TV’s Super Friends!,” but the move was reversed after only seven issues. “Many people thought a Super Friends comic would be a natural,” Bridwell would later write in a text page in Super Friends #9, “but at the time, we felt the TV series was really a version of the Justice League of America.” A one-shot treasury edition of Super Friends was produced by DC in late 1975. A framing story by E. Nelson Bridwell featured art by Alex Toth (who had designed the animated series), and it showed the introduction of Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog to the Super Friends … known more specifically as the Justice League here. Following a Justice League reprint, Toth provided a hand-lettered look at how animation was produced in 1975, and his own densely written bio. In all, the actual Super Friends content for the 66-page book, counting the two covers, ran a whopping nine pages.

Roll Call The kids go zonkers when meeting the entire JLA, from the Super Friends tabloid. TM & © DC Comics.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

4 1

Photo courtesy of www.davestevens.com.

Adam Hughes

Dave Stevens was a pretty private guy. While he was (and remains for all time) one of my great art heroes, one of the best artists to grace the medium, I’m sad to say I never got to know Dave on anything more substantial than a social level. He had closer friends than I, surely, any of whom would probably be more suited to wax rhapsodic about Dave’s many fine qualities. So … why me? Why Adam Hughes? Where’s, say, Bill Stout or Mark Evanier, gentlemen geniuses who knew the creator of The Rocketeer far more intimately than this bourgeois white boy from New Jersey? I think it’s because of the old screenwriter’s axiom: show, don’t tell. Almost any peer or compatriot of Dave’s could develop a chronic case of logorrhea going on, ad infinitum, about Dave’s humor, his generosity, and his overall sense of decency (in a sometimes precarious industry filled with what Dave would call “oily characters”). All the qualities that, I think, Dave would cringe over if you brought them up if he was within earshot. You think Cliff Secord traveled fast? Dave would’ve probably broken land-speed records exiting, stage right, any such discussion about himself. As I stated earlier, Dave Stevens = private guy. In the aforementioned sense of “show, don’t tell,” I think I was invited to share my Dave-isms because the thing that made Dave a household name (but only in the coolest of houses) was his art, his beautiful, magnificent art. And why talk about art when you can show art? If you want a testimony to Dave’s colossal stature as in illustrator, I won’t tell it to you, I’ll show you. Go look at my work. All of it. If you find yourself liking, in any way large or small, my modest scratchings and smears, then raise your glass and thank the stars above that Dave got to share his art with me, with all of us. Rereading this, I grow concerned that it might come across as slightly egocentric. It’s not meant to be, I assure you. It’s just that I can’t summon the proper words to express how much Dave’s art has influenced me in my life, in my career. All I can do is point at a body of work, my body of work, and say, “That is how fantastic Dave Stevens’ art is. That would not exist were it not for the craft of Dave Stevens. He helped make all that happen.” Not only did Dave Stevens create art, he helped create artists. In 1986, I worked in a small comics shop in Burlington, New Jersey. It was a small shop, a really small shop. I mean, it was a Bizarro-TARDIS; it was smaller on the inside than the outside. I had to close the joint to go to the bathroom, which was in a police station next door. Only one employee could be in there at a time. (The comics shop, not the cops’ toilet.) We had Marvel Comics and DC Comics, just like the newsstands. We even carried some of those wacky new premium-format comics, or books that couldn’t be sold at newsstands. I sold the original run of The Dark Knight Returns. I sold Watchmen. We also carried, God knows how, a nice selection of the new wave of independent comics, from companies like First, Comico, Eclipse, and Pacific Comics. It was a pretty eclectic shop, for one the size of a refrigerator. And with all that great inventory, it was quite an eyeful to take in. Every square inch of wall was covered in comics; it was like working in the cover to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sometimes my eyes would ache, there was so much to see. 4 8

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

And amidst that optic cacophony, Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer stood up and announced itself. WITH AUTHORITY. I had never seen anything like it, before or since. The artwork was lush, sensual, and dynamic. The story was fabulous, the characters fully formed and instantly approachable. A more perfect first impression, you’ll probably never have. Like so many others, I was smitten instantly. What followed was a fabulous few years of searching for Dave’s work anywhere I could lay my grubby meat hooks on it. There’s no joy quite like the joy of discovery, especially when spelunking in long, white cardboard boxes steeped in magic and must. Finding one of Dave’s Eclipse Comics covers was akin to Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb (for me, anyways). Imagine how I felt when I discovered that Bettie Page was a real, live girl! She had lived, breathed, and made young Dave Stevens’ world quite a fabulous place. T’ain’t nothin’ like a good woman, McGee. I studied Dave’s work relentlessly. I gleaned. I learned from it what I could. Which wasn’t much. I didn’t posses the skills necessary to deconstruct what Dave was doing. It wasn’t until I actually met Dave that doors started unlocking and opening. Chicago, summer of ’88: my first convention as a pro. Dave was the guest of honor, as the first issue of the new Rocketeer Adventure Magazine was being celebrated. Dave had better things to do, bigger fish to fry. I was a guppy, a tadpole. But two things happened that really altered the way I do things, even to this day, and both involved Dave. I made an ass of myself the night I first met Dave, I was so apprehensive. To say that I was quite the sweaty fool is putting it lightly. The next day, I went up to him and apologized for my nervousness, and Dave did Life-Altering Thing #1: he laughed it off, patted me on the back, and said, “No worries, man; I did the same thing the first time I met Steranko.” With one quick, offhand sentiment, Dave made me realize the vast cosmic order of it all, and my small place in it. I was part of a chain, a link like Dave Stevens, and Jim Steranko. Suddenly, I was “on the map of the universe, part of the mind of God,” as Garrison Keillor once wrote, all because of a few kind words from a friendly stranger. That was the first time I felt part of the greater whole, not just an outsider looking in, pretending and pantomiming. Thanks, Dave. Life-Altering Thing #2. The next day, Dave wanders Artists’ Alley, and finds me and my sad pile of photocopies, grim testaments to my even grimmer defenestrations in the field of comic-book art. Dave could’ve just glanced over them, and moved on. He was guest of honor, remember. No, Dave spent the better part of 90 minutes going over my artwork, offering advice and critiques on every page. Everything that fell out of his mouth, I took to heart. Dave extolled to me the virtues of inking with a brush (I was inking all my stuff with a technical pen). I fought, I resisted, I caved. I have spent every year since dedicating myself to what Dave was saying was the best way. I could never thank him enough. Also, with those two examples, Dave also taught me how to handle fans, especially earnest ones with artistic aspirations. Anyone who’s had a pleasant experience with me, thank Dave Stevens. Anyone who hasn’t, I apologize for not being made of the same quality stuff as Dave. He was one-of-a-kind, after all. So now, Dave is gone. He’s left us, but he can still speak to future generations of crafts persons through the all-too-slim portfolio of magnificent art he’s bequeathed us. I feel sorry for all those who’ll never get to meet him as I did. I feel sorry for his close friends and family, who didn’t lose an artist or a hero, but a brother and a son. And I feel a little sorry for myself. I never really got to know Dave Stevens as anything more than a brilliant artist, a role model, and a first-class act. Dave Stevens was a pretty private guy.

“My life has been a poor attempt/ to imitate the man/ I am the living legacy/ To the leader of the band” – Dan Fogelberg

ADAM HUGHES is among comics’ brightest stars, his poster-worthy covers gracing issues of Wonder Woman, Tomb Raider, and Catwoman. Visit his site at www.justsayah.com.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

4 9

Who is this mysterious being from another galaxy? Who is he and what does he want? Who is Gary Owens? Gary is THE fabulous voice, the announcer, the golden smog (sorry, Fat Freddie Flintstone). Gary is the voice that has streamed through the ether of all of television and radio for the last forty-plus years. He is a presence without having to be that presence. Everyone knows his voice, even if they don’t realize it. What does Gary want? Simply to entertain the masses and make them smile. For that is Gary Owens’ simple mission in life, to enjoy life and pass that enjoyment on to others. Why is Gary Owens a subject in BACK ISSUE’s “Saturday Morning Heroes”? Because he has narrated or starred in roughly 3000 cartoons. Perhaps you know him better as Roger Ramjet, Powdered Toast Man, the Blue Falcon, or Tad Ghostal, a.k.a. Space Ghost! – Richard A. Scott

Richard A. Scott

cond ucte d Febr uary 18, 2008 is and trans cribe d by Brian K. Morr

RICHARD A. SCOTT: You’ve been the voice of many “Saturday Morning Heroes.” GARY OWENS: Thank you for doing this feature on Space Ghost and my cartoon heroes. Powdered Toast Man—you know who John Kricfalusi patterned that after? It was Kirk Douglas’ face. SCOTT: I have a nice Kirk Douglas sketch by John K. I met him in San Diego one year and he was doing Ren and Stimpys for everybody. And I guess he got sick of doing Ren and Stimpys, and I was going to ask him to do a Kirk Douglas, and he started drawing. [chuckles] I was just blown away by that. OWENS: I was with John a couple of months ago and we did a Comcast commercial together on television. It’s on TV right now, I think. And the reason he hired me, he always loved Roger Ramjet, which was the first cartoon that I did as a voiceover guy back in 1965. Ramjet, I think, we did 156 episodes of that. That was Tom Selleck’s favorite cartoon, by the way, when he was going to school. SCOTT: Roger Ramjet was slightly before my time, although I did end up seeing them in syndication after the fact. OWENS: They were very funny. Two guys named Gene Moss and Jim Thurman were the writers for it and it was very, very much fun to do.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

5 9

Rod Serling used to drop over and we’d have lunch quite often. We had a big cardboard acoustic tile there and when Beginnings: Mel died, we decided to just Delivering radio news as a teenager in Mitchell, South Dakota have all that memorabilia with Noel, his son, who was the vice Trademark: president of the company. And so Hand cupped over ear while talking into microphone we worked with just about everybody over that twenty-year Milestones: period. And then beyond that Prolific radio announcer, DJ, narrator, broadcaster, and animated voice specialist, with over period, I’d worked at Hanna3000 cartoon shows and 12,000 radio shows to his credit Barbera for years and years. Among his many credits: Roger Ramjet / Space Ghost (all incarnations) / Rowan & Martin’s And also Walt Disney Laugh-In / Sesame Street / Dynomutt’s Blue Falcon / narrator of Legends Studios, and just about every of the SuperHeroes TV special / Ren & Stimpy’s Powdered Toast Man / company doing cartoons of Additional honors: honorary sheriff of Encino, California / some kind. But my first job was Radio Hall of Fame induction, 1994 / star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame / a writer at Jay Ward Productions For a full list of credits, visit tv.yahoo.com/contributor/793995/credits or when Allan Burns was there and www.imdb.com/name/nm0654365/ Chris Hayward, George Atkins, all those great comedy writers Works in Progress: who are now top producers in The Music of Your Life syndicated radio music program, which just Hollywood. Allan Burns and Jim wrapped up its run in February 2008 / Keep your ears open for more Brooks—Jim Brooks was not of Gary Owens’ voice work soon! with Jay Ward, but Allan Burns was, and they later created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant, Rhoda. SCOTT: I was asked by my editor to ask you about Ted Knight, since he narrated a lot of superhero cartoons… OWENS: Oh, sure! Well, we used We would record, many times, right across the hall from Frank to do cartoons together. When I was doing Space Ghost, he was Sinatra and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. And as a matter of doing Aquaman, I think. Ted was a very, very good friend of mine. fact, on a couple of episodes—and I can’t tell you which ones And the comedian Johnny Dark, who’s a regular on the David they were because I don’t remember—but we had Frank come in Letterman show playing Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, we used and Dean and Sammy doing just voices, unlabelled, on the thing. to go out and have lunch together frequently, the three of us. I think that Frank played a fireman, and Dean Martin played a singer Ted was great. We used to have a luncheon thing… You’re too in a nightclub—which of course, he did very well—where Sammy did young to remember this, but Four-Star Television was a major TV the voice of a farmer. [laughs] It was in “The Treasure of the Sierra production company back in the late ’50s, early ’60s, and Collier Mattress” on the Roger Ramjet, I believe. But when you do over 150 Young was the president, along with David Niven, Dick Powell, episodes, let alone doing other things, you don’t always recall. and Gig Young, and they did a lot of the shows. Collier also owned SCOTT: Oh, right. Ironside with Raymond Burr. OWENS: But I’ve been doing this since I was a writer, first for Jay Ward. SCOTT: I used to watch that. I came to Hollywood in 1961, my wife and I and were just starting OWENS: Yeah, a very, very good show. Once a year, out in the business, and our kids were babies at that point. Our oldest for 17 years, about thirty of us would get together son, Scott, and our younger son, Chris, they’re both top TV for lunch. Not frequently, but once a year, and regproducers now in Hollywood. ulars in that group included Joseph Cotten, a great But it was always fun doing cartoons. Well, I still do. Buzz Lightyear, actor all the way from Citizen Kane on up; and I’m the announcer on that. And there’s a new cartoon that was just David Wayne; Arnie Sultan, the given to me day before yesterday and I can’t tell you the title for producer of Get Smart; Ted it yet because we don’t have a title of it. It’s me as a little boy. Knight; Ed Asner; Bill Dana; Same voice as I am today. Burt Prelotsky, the great SCOTT: You’re one of those people like, say, Sterling Holloway. You know, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer one voice tends to cover a gamut of various characters. for the L.A. Times and the OWENS: Now, that’s true. Primarily, you know, I’ve done maybe New York Times; and 3000 different cartoon episodes. But as you draw a different character, Allan Burns and Chris you raise or lower your voice in one way or another. Usually, I’m the Hayward, who created narrator or I’m the superhero, whatever, although I do other voices. The Munsters, by the But I don’t primarily pretend to [do different types of voices]— way. And of course, later not when you’ve got great talents like Frank Welker and Don Messick on, Chris was one of the and Daws Butler. creators of Barney Miller. And Did you know I owned a company in Hollywood with Mel Blanc Allan, of course, with all of the MTM producfor twenty years? tion things. But we did nothing but laugh and joke SCOTT: No, I didn’t. for five hours at a time, from noon until five in the OWENS: We had Mel Blanc Audio Media, and it was great fun. And so afternoon at a well-known restaurant called Scandia I would record with Mel at least three times a week, and we would have on Sunset Boulevard. And they put us in the every great voice person in the country there, and it was always fun. wine cellar because we all made too

GARY OWENS

6 0

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

Costumed crimefighters’ stocks soared in the 1960s, and by 1966 the imagination put forth by the Schwartz/Infantino “New Look” Batman and the Marvel superheroes spilled countrywide, from Broadway’s Superman musical to Hollywood TV shows like Batman and The Green Hornet … and the Saturday morning (Hanna-Barbera, to be specific) spaced-out offering, Space Ghost. Guardians of the galaxy on TV and film weren’t new, but SG was very different. He wore a dark executioner’s mask, just barely outlined with a lighter blue or white aura. He fought with large power bands that were wrapped around his forearms, and his mostly white (think ghostly) outfit came with a flowing cape that looked almost shapeless or ragged (think torn drapes in a haunted house) when he flew into action. Space Ghost was a big hit and his success paved the way for other H-B superheroes to come. The magic of the character was caught again by Comico the Comic Company in a one-shot in December of 1987. It was a beautifully realized comic book in all aspects—the coloring made each panel look like an animation cel, the writing exquisitely captured the show’s flavor, and its wonderful artwork by Steve “the Dude” Rude was everything a fan of the show (which I can wistfully claim to be) could ask for. Editor Diana Schutz did a great job rounding up the talents involved. Mark Evanier handled the writing and Ken Steacy did the coloring, and penciling the project (with inks by Willie Blyberg) was the realization of a childhood dream for Rude. – Jerry Boyd JERRY BOYD: Steve, you were a kid when Space Ghost began on CBS-TV in the fall of 1966. Why did he become your favorite character in the Hanna-Barbera World of Super Adventure pantheon? STEVE RUDE: Trying to explain “cool” is sometimes a useless exercise, but it was the animation, working along with the character voices, great sound effects, and music, that formed my total impression. They had a little over six minutes to wrap up an episode, and every second had to count. Especially since that’s how animation was done, in terms of frame-by-frame action. BOYD: The H-B staffers seemed to really grasp what made the Marvel and DC superheroes so cool in the mid-’60s. Did you ever try to sketch the various characters, their outfits, and mechanical devices as you watched the cartoons on TV? RUDE: Actually, I did try and draw when the TV was on, or maybe after the show was over and then try and draw what I remembered. It was a challenge that I tried many times, certainly 15 years later, and still do today. But regarding the staffers, I don’t know what makes a certain generation “get” anything. I just know that if they didn’t, the show would have no lasting appeal beyond [our] childhood. When I would ask any of these men, many of whom were still active when I visited the H-B Studios in the ’80s, [about this,] they would simply say, “Hey, it was just a job, kid.”

Co-meeee-ko! The as-seen-on-TV cover to Comico’s Space Ghost one-shot.

6 8

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

Jerry Boyd

condu cted via e-mail on Decem ber 3 and 12, 2007

H e r o e s

I s s u e

Beginnings: Nexus (1981)

Milestones: Nexus / Jonny Quest / Space Ghost / World’s Finest / Superman vs. the Incredible Hulk / X-Men: Children of the Atom / Legends of the DC Universe (Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen) / Spider-Man: Lifeline / The Moth / Nexus the Animated Promo / the book Steve Rude: Artist in Motion (Flesk Publications) / multiple Eisner, Kirby, and other industry awards

Works in Progress: The Moth / Nexus / Amazing Dude Tales

Cyberspace: www.steverude.com www.rudedudeproductions.com

STEVE RUDE BOYD: Gold Key put out a short-lived TV superheroes title in the late ’60s featuring the H-B heroes. There was a Space Ghost one-shot, as well. Did you buy any of these? Any lasting impressions? RUDE: Well, I remember at the time being really disappointed. Everything was off-model: the ship, the main characters, the villains, everything. The stories were not what the TV show was. Space Ghost himself was drawn very “round” and soft. The edge had been taken off him. I was very excited when I bought it, however. Comics were then such a new and exciting thing for me. BOYD: What events led up to the Comico Space Ghost one-shot in 1987? Were the company’s editors always interested in you doing the art, or did Alex Toth’s name ever come up? RUDE: The Comico people and I were always close, and when they got the licensing permission, they called. I really doubt if Alex’s name ever came up. Even back then he was known as the curmudgeon that might start something but never finish it. BOYD: Did you ever talk to Alex Toth about Space Ghost? If so, did he ever give you any advice about the designs or animation in general? RUDE: The first time I ever called Alex was around ’83 or so. I hadn’t heard anything about his reputation— I was just glad to finally have a name for the guy who designed Space Ghost. So I called him up, told him he was a genius, and went into how Space Ghost had affected me. He was very gracious and flattered. As we talked, he replied that he didn’t really like Space Ghost—too many compromises—but remembered a show I’d never heard of—Space Angel—much more fondly. In hindsight, it was easy to understand,

No “Coast to Coast” Here

since Space Angel didn’t have as many meddling hands to dilute his vision. BOYD: Mark Evanier’s Space Ghost story, “The Sinister Spectre,” got a lot in! Anything you would’ve added or taken out? RUDE: By the time the story was finally worked out, it was complete. But I remember it took Mark several turns at the script to satisfy me. Typical me. BOYD: Every panel looked like an animation cel. It was truly a beautiful comic. Ken Steacy did the coloring. Were you pleased with his work or did you wish you’d done the coloring yourself? RUDE: It is breathtaking to see how Ken had rendered the coloring, which he painted directly on the original art. No overlays or blue lines or any of that. He’s got a technical ability to render and understand color that was simply exceptional. When the originals came back, they were a sight to behold. We all owe a lot to Ken. BOYD: You couldn’t help reading this terrific comic and hoping for additional one-shots with Birdman, the Herculoids, Mighty Mightor, etc. Did Comico ever approach you and Mark about projects in that vein? RUDE: No, I believe that Space Ghost was the only book that was ever really discussed. BOYD: In BACK ISSUE #2, Michael Eury wrote about the aborted Space Ghost sequel, guest-starring the Herculoids. Any plans on the backburner concerning getting that book done one day? RUDE: Space Ghost #2 remains an aborted project. With me up and starting Rude Dude Productions, I’ll just be focusing on Nexus, The Moth, and Amazing Dude Tales. S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

6 9

Though now it can be told in hindsight, Astro Boy is generally considered the basis of all Japanese anime. At the time of its creation (1951), Astro Boy originated as an early post-war manga called Tetsuwan Atumo (or Mighty Atom) by creator Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989), who also created the popular Kimba, the White Lion. Tezuka is now considered the “God of Manga” by many fans. The character of Astro Boy was a robot creation of Doctor Tenma (a.k.a. Dr. Boynton), designed to be a replacement for Tenma’s late son, Tobio. Astro Boy was later abandoned at a robot circus and adopted by Professor Ochanomizu. A robot family was soon created for Astro Boy, and the heroic Astro Boy was enlisted to resolve conflicts on Earth and in space using his superstrength and jet-powered ability to fly. An animated version of Astro Boy was produced by Mushi Productions and premiered on Japan’s Fuji TV on January 1, 1963, lasting four seasons and 193 episodes. Three of those episodes were compiled into a 1964 feature film called Hero of Space. One hundred and four of those episodes aired in America premiering in syndication on September 7, 1963. Those and the remaining 89 episodes have since aired on American television or have appeared on VHS or DVD. These American airings predated all other Japanese animated shows including Speed Racer, Kimba, and Gigantor, the latter being another Japanese anime series of the same vintage as Astro Boy, and also in black-and-white.

Mark Arnold

ASTRO BOY SPUTTERS THROUGH SILVER AGE COMICS

In the 1950s and ’60s, Dell Comics and later Gold Key Comics seemingly snapped up the licenses to virtually every animated property, which were originally produced as theatrical shorts, and turned them into comic-book series. Disney, Warner Bros., Walter Lantz, and MGM had very successful Dell and Gold Key runs (with both lines produced by Western Publishing).

Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots That likable Astro Boy wallops a mechanical man in this commissioned illustration by Ken Steacy (www.kenspublishing.com), who kindly contributed it to BACK ISSUE. © Tezuka Productions.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

7 3

When animation switched from movie theaters to television, properties from Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, and various other series made for television had success at Western Publishing. Amazingly, the entire US output of Astro Boy comic books from its inception to the 1980s’ NOW Comics series was a grand total of two, and one of those was a giveaway. It is unknown whether the Gold Key issue of Astro Boy was a success, as Gold Key produced quite a number of one-shots over the years, particularly as part of the Four Color series. What is known is that this single “try-out” issue was released with an August 1965 cover date and is now listed as “scarce” in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. This may be due to it not being a tremendous seller and the remainder copies being destroyed at the time, or perhaps due to the fact that Astro Boy never really achieved the same popularity as other contemporary television cartoons of that vintage. I am a child of the 1970s. Astro Boy was never to be seen on my television, almost entirely due to the original series being in black-and-white. Times had changed, and except for old I Love Lucy reruns, or Three Stooges shorts, black-and-white television shows were rarely seen or wiped from the tube.

7 4

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

Other Japanese anime such as Speed Racer and Kimba, the White Lion were shown frequently, and it was most assuredly due to the fact that these series were produced in color over than whether they were better or worse than Astro Boy. As the Astro Boy comic book appeared almost precisely when the majority of network television switched from black-and-white to color, this probably did have an impact of sorts on the sales of the comic book. Gold Key made only one more attempt with Astro Boy before abandoning the license: March of Comics #285 (circa late 1965, early 1966). Both this and the one-shot are now highly sought after. In fact, #285 is the highest-valued March of Comics issue, eclipsed only by the earliest three or four issues and those featuring Donald Duck by Carl Barks. Issue #285 is worth on average ten times as much as other March of Comics issues produced the same year. Gold Key let the Astro Boy license go at this point, and a telling statement of its lack of fondness for the Japanese product shows no comic books attempted of the aforementioned Speed Racer, Kimba, or even Gigantor.

ASTRO BOY’S TIME IS NOW

Fast-forward twenty years. A young entrepreneurial comic-book publisher by the name of Tony Caputo started a company called NOW Comics, designed to be a major player amongst the likes of Marvel and DC. By this time in 1987, the comic-book industry had changed dramatically. Publishers Gold Key, Harvey (Casper the Friendly Ghost and his pals), Charlton (which followed Gold Key/Western as comics’ number-one source for cartoon-inspired comics), and Fawcett (Dennis the Menace) were gone, or just a shadow of what they once were and virtually gone. Marvel and DC were still the major players. Dark Horse had not quite yet risen to prominence and others such as Pacific, Eclipse, and many other independents came and went faster than you can say their company names. Caputo has this to say when asked about the origins of NOW Comics: “That’s a long story in a different time, when NOW Comics sold 1,100,000 copies in comic shops and newsstands every month. Nowadays, it’s different. Truthfully, I started NOW Comics when I was 23 years old because I wanted to be more creative, potentially get rich, and more importantly, change the country’s concept of ‘the dummy’s literature.’ Comics were up and coming in the 1980s, but most of the real world didn’t know they were still published. That’s why I wanted to do more mainstream intellectual properties and not limit my audience to superhero readers and collectors, which Marvel and DC owned and still own.” Though NOW Comics published much more than what would eventually be called The Original Astro Boy, it was one of a few series that helped get NOW on the map (the others being titles such as Ralph Snart Adventures, Syphons, and Speed Racer), and this was strong enough to get a listing of “NOW Comics” placed on later versions of the old familiar circular comic-book spinrack placard that traditionally stated “Hey Kids—Comics!” Caputo got involved with The Original Astro Boy series in the following way: “I called the name of the company that was listed as owner on the original Astro Boy cartoons—Suzuki & Associates out of Japan. Lots of late night calls, as they were on the other side of the world in the pre-digital age of 1985.

While he may be best known for writing many of comics’ most popular titles (from Amazing Spider-Man to Tomb of Dracula to New Teen Titans to Crisis on Infinite Earths) and for creating a score of enduring characters (Cyborg and Blade, to name merely two), Marv Wolfman has also written for virtually every medium imaginable, including non-fiction books (such as Homeland, The Illustrated History of the State of Israel) and animated cartoons. For the latter, his short-lived Superman animated series of 1988 remains fondly recalled by fans (and a curious absence from Warner Bros.’ DVD listings!), and Marv has some recollections about that series he’d like to get off his chest… Work comes from the strangest places. An animation writer, story-editor, director friend of mine, Gordon Kent, called one day to ask if I’d be interested in writing an episode of Garbage Pail Kids, a cartoon show that was going to be produced by Southern Star, where he worked. He knew I was writing the [Adventures of] Superman comic and thought it would be great to have me write a Garbage Pail Kids [Superman] parody version as well. I said sure, wrote the episode, had a great time doing it, then moved on to my next project. After the shows were animated but before they aired, church groups managed to get the show killed based on the idea that the Garbage Pail Kids gum cards were “disgusting,” so the show must somehow be bad for kids, too, despite the fact that nobody had seen any of the episodes. In truth, the shows were cute parodies and quite funny. But I digress....

Marv Wolfman

Come On and Do the Locomotive With Me

About a year later, I got a call from CBS Children’s TV asking if I’d be interested in being story-editor of the brand-new Superman animated series they were planning. I, of course, assumed I was being asked because A) I was writing the Superman comic and therefore knew the character, and B) I was also writing animation, so it would make sense to hire me. In point of fact, I was wrong. I was hired because although the Garbage Pail Kids show never came out, the people at CBS Children’s had seen my episode and liked it and thought since I wrote a funny parody of Superman, I’d be great to do the actual Superman series. I guess they thought because I could make fun of Superman I could write it, too. Weirder things have happened. I wrote the pilot script and actually based it on my Garbage Pail Kids story, only done straight. Both stories had Luthor creating giant robots which Superman had to stop. The GPK was, of course, funny and silly and the “real” show was “serious,” but they came from the same place. CBS liked the pilot and the show was then assigned to the animation company Ruby-Spears to do. Although I had never worked with Joe Ruby or Ken Spears, the founders of Ruby-Spears (R&S), I came with the show. A funny story. As I mentioned, CBS didn’t hire me because I wrote the Superman comic. So one day I’m invited to a meeting where they spend a lot of time introducing me to DC president Jenette Kahn, who I had been working with for almost a decade.

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

Gil Kane storyboards from the actionpacked title sequence of Ruby-Spears’ Adventures of Superman. (below) A screen capture of Lois Lane and Supie. TM & © DC Comics.

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

7 7

Regular BACK ISSUE readers may best know Nicola Cuti as E-Man’s co-creator (with artist Joe Staton), but are you aware that Nick is also a real, live Saturday morning hero? Yes, Nick Cuti, comic-book writer, editor, and artist and animation designer, is actually Captain Cosmos, the Last STARveyer! In the tradition of 1950s sci-fi TV fare such as Captain Video and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Cuti’s Captain Cosmos is a space-spanning children’s video series that has won two Kid’s First! Awards. I’ve had the pleasure of viewing two Captain Cosmos episodes, and while those ’50s space operas from Nick’s childhood were indeed their inspiration, I was reminded of ’70s Saturday morning fare like Ark II and Jason of Star Command, programs where imagination and ingenuity outweighed any limitations of production budget. But therein lies the appeal of Captain Cosmos—its ability to transcend time and turn any viewer into a wide-eyed, eager child. Via the space-age innovation of “e-mail,” BACK ISSUE was able to traverse the cosmos to speak with the good Captain himself in early June 2008. – Michael Eury

MICHAEL EURY: What’s the basic premise of Captain Cosmos? NICK CUTI: Captain Nick Cosmos (aka Nicola Cosmosini) belonged to an organization known as STARveyers, a division of the United Worlds. The STARveyers proved to be such a dangerous organization that, after losing more than 75% of its members, it was disbanded. Nick and his partner, Lillian, were retired. They married, bought a jelly farm on the planet Silver Valley, and settled down to raise “jellies,” which are large, shapeless creatures that can be milked for their “jelly,” a substance which can be used for food or material. But Nick missed the adventure of the old days. He bought an old starfreighter, The Bedevere, and with his alien step-daughter, Zen-Ya,

Command Crew of the UWSF Bedevere (front) Captain Nick Cosmos, Nicola Cuti. (back row, left to right) Cadet Starling, Amanda Pleak-Emory, and First Mate Zen-Ya, Danielle Marie Mays. The set is located in Nick’s dining room! © 2005 Nicola Cuti.

8 0

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

M ic h ae l Eu ry

What if… instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in 1945, Max Charles “Charlie” Gaines had purchased National Periodical Publications (DC Comics) from them? That’s the premise of this fantasy series being divided between the pages of BACK ISSUE and its TwoMorrows big-sister mag Alter Ego and set on “Earth-22,” where things in the comics business happened

rather differently than the way they did in the world we know. Just imagine: a comic-book industry in which the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash, rather than Superman and Batman, are the premier heroes of comics, media, and merchandising. The author, Bob Rozakis, a longtime writer, editor, and production manager for DC Comics, has imagined just that in…

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. The Story of M. C. Gaines’ Publishing Empire

Book Two – Chapter Three: Multi-Media!

Bob Rozakis

Anthony (“Tony”) Allan is a noted author with books on the multi-media adventures of the All-American Comics characters. He has written liner notes for collections of radio recordings as well as DVD collections of the TV series. He is currently working on “I Saw It on the Radio,” a timeline history detailing which elements of the comic books actually came from the radio programs and other media, to be published later this year by TwoMorrows. In this installment, Tony and Bob Rozakis talk about the movie and television adventures of Green Lantern, the Flash, and the rest of the AA Universe in the 1970s and beyond. BOB ROZAKIS: These days, when there seems to be a new comic book-based movie or three coming out every summer, they are almost taken for granted. But that certainly wasn’t the case back in the ’70s when the first Green Lantern movie was released. ANTHONY ALLAN: That’s true. An entire generation of fans had never seen their favorite characters on the big screen. They’d had Green Lantern on TV in the ’50s and in reruns in the ’60s and the Flash TV series defined “camp” in the ’60s. Keep in mind, too, that both series were done on a limited budget, so special effects were kept to a minimum. ROZAKIS: And there were no computer-generated effects then, either. ALLAN: Right, so all of the superheroic effects were confined to the cartoons. GL, in particular, was a staple of Saturday morning fare for more than a decade: The New Adventures of Green Lantern, the Green Lantern/Hawkman Adventure Hour, The FlashGreen Lantern Hour.

A Picture Worth a Million Tickets The movie poster that set the stage for the return of the Emerald Warrior to the silver screen. Note that this was an early version, released when Marlon Brando was still expected to be the voice of the lantern. He was later replaced by the voice of the late Bud Collyer. From the collection of Alex Wright. (All images in this article are © DC Comics.)

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

8 3

ROZAKIS: And then Super Friends in the early ’70s. ALLAN: Exactly. It was easy to show GL’s ring doing pretty much anything in the cartoons. Where in the ’50s program, there would just be burst of energy to knock a gun out of a crook’s hand, the cartoons would show him creating a ram’s head or a giant hand or whatever other thing the writers could come up with. Same kind of thing with the Flash. His superspeed was a lot of off-screen “whooshing” effects. He’d be standing in a spot, facing one villain or another who was holding a weapon. Then he’d disappear for a moment—with the off-screen “whoosh”—and then he’d be back in the same spot but with the weapon in his hand. But showing him moving at super-speed and actually disarming the villains was a snap in the cartoons. ROZAKIS: Actually, my favorite part of those cartoons was when they would bring another character from the comics, like the Atom or Wildcat. By the time Super Friends came on, I was nearing college graduation and was not watching Saturday morning cartoons any more. I do recall seeing one or two with Wendy and Marvin and Wonderdog and thinking that this was nothing like the comic books. ALLAN: You weren’t alone in that, but the show drew a large audience, which, I’m sure, is why AA started publishing a comic-book version. Still, it was the decision to do a live-action Green Lantern movie that was the first attempt to attract an adult audience to what was long considered “kids’ stuff.” ROZAKIS: And to break away from the campy approach of the Flash TV show.

ALLAN: Ilya and Alexander Salkind saw the potential and started negotiations with Bill Gaines sometime in 1974. Their plan was to spend a lot of money and turn GL into a franchise. Their representative, Pierre Spengler, must have spent a lot of time in the AA offices. ROZAKIS: You know, it’s funny. When I first started at AA, I was sitting in a cubicle near Lyle Stuart’s office. Lyle was the AA business manager. I used to see Spengler coming and going all the time, but I didn’t know till much later what he was Master of Media there for. and His Missus ALLAN: Everything about the film was planned to Comics in Media expert be top-notch. Richard Anthony Allan, shown here Donner, who had made a name for himself with his lovely wife Rebecca. directing The Omen, Photo by Samantha Rozakis. was signed. With Gene Hackman cast as Vandal Savage and Ned Beatty as Doiby Dickles, they had a pair of big-name box-office stars. And the idea of casting relative unknowns—Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder—as GL and Cathy Crain worked to their advantage as well. Possibly the only thing that didn’t work out as well as they’d intended was the script by Mario Puzo. Going back to the Golden Age origin and ignoring all the Kid Lantern stories made some amount of sense. The TV series and even the cartoons made no mention of Alan Scott ever having the power ring as a teenager, so much of the audience knew nothing about it anyway. However, Puzo’s script called for the power ring to have an intelligence of its own and that it would constantly be talking to Alan and that was just a bit too far out in left field. ROZAKIS: I’ve heard it speculated that when Puzo was given the research material for his script, they only gave him a few stories, one of which was the origin from 1940. He’d never read any of the comic books before, so he assumed that the lantern, which explained itself to Alan Scott in that story, always talked. And if the lantern talked, why not the ring? ALLAN: Did you know, by the way, that Marlon Brando had originally been chosen to be the voice of the ring? When the speaking part was cut back to just the short piece of the origin, they decided they could use someone who cost a lot less. ROZAKIS: That, of course, was actually something we fanboys loved— using Bud Collyer’s voice. ALLAN: Yes, despite the fact that the man had been dead for six years. They were able to edit together parts of what he’d done for the Green Lantern cartoons in ’66 to voice the lantern. It was fitting, after all, since Collyer had played GL on the radio show through the ’40s.

Now Showing on a TV Screen Near You The DVD release of Challenge of the Super Friends brought the classic cartoons of the early ’70s to a new generation of viewers. In addition to team mainstays Hawkman, Kid Flash, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman, Wildcat and the Atom also appeared. From the collection of Alex Wright. 8 4

•

B A C K

I S S U E

•

S a t u r d a y

M o r n i n g

H e r o e s

I s s u e