Alter Ego #114

Roy Thomas’ Marvel Comics Fanzine

STILL MORE

DON RICO— ALLEN BELLMAN— In$8.95 & MARTIN GOODMAN! the USA TIMELY/MARVEL TITANS!

No.114

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Dec. 2012

Edited by ROY THOMAS The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

2012 EISNER AWARD Nominee Best Comics-Related Journalism

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #101

ALTER EGO #102

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

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ALTER EGO #98

ALTER EGO #99

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

Spotlight on Superman’s first editor WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, longtime Kryptoeditor MORT WEISINGER remembered by his daughter, an interview with Superman writer ALVIN SCHWARTZ, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, AL PLASTINO, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA), and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!

GEORGE TUSKA showcase issue on his career at Lev Gleason, Marvel, and in comics strips through the early 1970s—CRIME DOES NOT PAY, BUCK ROGERS, IRON MAN, AVENGERS, TEEN TITANS, HERO FOR HIRE, and more! PLUS: JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age Fiction House artist BILL BOSSERT, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more!

A/E celebrates 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO magazine in a double-size BOOK! ROY THOMAS interviewed by JIM AMASH about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY, INC., ARAK, other DC work, and more! Art by PÉREZ, McFARLANE, BUCKLER, ORDWAY, MACHLAN, GIL KANE, COLAN, GIORDANO, and more, plus Mr. Monster, FCA, BUCKLER/ORDWAY cover!

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

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(160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 US • (Digital edition) $5.95

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO #105

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

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

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

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

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art

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

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

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

ALTER EGO #109

ALTER EGO #110

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

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

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art!

DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, TUSKA, SEKOWSKY, TALLARICO Part 3, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Spectre/Hour-Man creator BERNARD BAILY, ‘40s super-groups that might have been, art by ORDWAY, INFANTINO, KUBERT, HASEN, ROBINSON, and BURNLEY, conclusion of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH, MIKE PEPPE interview by DEWEY CASSELL, BILL SCHELLY on “50 Years of Fandom” at San Diego 2011, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, PÉREZ cover, and more!

SHAZAM!/FAWCETT issue! The 1940s “CAPTAIN MARVEL” RADIO SHOW, interview with radio’s “Billy Batson” BURT BOYAR, P.C. HAMERLINCK and C.C. BECK on the origin of Captain Marvel, ROY THOMAS and JERRY BINGHAM on their Secret Origins “Shazam!”, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LEONARD STARR interview, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

Vol. 3, No. 114 / December 2012 Roy Thomas

Editor

Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Associate Editors Christopher Day

Design & Layout John Morrow

Consulting Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

FCA Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Comic Crypt Editor Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Editorial Honor Roll

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

Proofreaders

Allen Bellman & Mitch Breitweiser

Cover Artists

Elizabeth Breitweiser

Cover Colorist

With Special Thanks to:

Sean Howe Heidi Amash Rob Hunter Ger Apeldoorn Eric Jansen Atomic Romance William B. Jones, Jr. (website) Sharon Karibian Rodrigo Baeza Jim Kealy Bob Bailey Komikero Dot Com Rod Beck (website) Robert Beerbohm Richard Kyle Allen & Roz Robert Levitt Lanyi Bellman (Dr. Ronald Levitt) David Bernstein Mitch Lee Dominic Bongo Paul Leiffer Jerry K. Boyd Dominique Leonard Elizabeth Boyle Alan Light Elizabeth Jim Ludwig Breitweiser John Lustig Mitch Breitweiser Bruce Mason Mike Broder Lesley McGrew Bernie Bubnis Harry Mendryk Larry Buckstead Joyce Moed Connie Carlton Brian K. Morris Dewey Cassell Mark Muller Shaun Clancy Barry Pearl Chet Cox Warren Reece Bill Croskey Donato Francisco Pete Crowther (Buz) Rico III Rob Deighton Tone Rodriguez Craig Delich Randy Sargent Mark Evanier Eric Schumacher Justin Fairfax Dan Sehn Michael Feldman Cory Sedlmeier Juan Fernandez Mitchell Senft Shane Foley Marc Swayze Nikki Frakes Stan Taylor Allen Freeman Dann Thomas Steven Freivogel Michael Uslan Janet Gilbert Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Glen David Gold Dr. Michael J. Larry Good Vassallo Tom Grindberg Jennifer Hamerlinck Hames Ware Gregg Whitmore Michele Hart Wiley-Blackwell Bill Henley (John Wiley & Ben Herman Sons) Hero Initiative David Williams Rob Hunter

Contents Writer/Editorial: Names To Conjure With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Once And Future Don Rico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Robt. Levitt Lanyi’s 1977 interview with the 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel artist, writer, & editor.

Michele Hart talks about her time with husband Don Rico—and her own colorful career.

“We Had A Great Life Together” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 The life and Timely/Marvel times of Golden Age artist Allen Bellman, by Joyce Moed, et al.

Bellman, Book, And Candle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Timely/Marvel’s peerless publisher’s unlikely career in show business, by Ger Apeldoorn.

Martin Goodman, A.K.A. The Angel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Warren Reece and the almost-was secret origin of the original Human Torch.

The Invaders Issue That Nearly Was! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Michael T. Gilbert and Mr. Monster examine parodies of the classic Charles Atlas ads.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Charles Atlas, Part 3! . . . . . . . . 57 John Lustig and nameless Charlton artists take an irreverent look at the Amazing Amazon.

Wonder Woman’s Last Kiss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Tributes to John Celardo, Tony DeZuniga, & Ernie Chan. . . 65 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 68 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #173 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 P.C. Hamerlinck presents a classic George Evans tale from Captain Video #3.

On Our Cover: 1940s-50s comic artist Allen Bellman and a current rising young star, Mitch Breitweiser, teamed up to produce their own dramatic entry in the proud line of illustrations that depict Captain America getting physical with Adolf Hitler. Coloring by Mitch’s wife Elizabeth Breitweiser. [Captain America TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2012 Allen Bellman & Mitch Breitweiser.]

Above: “Red Comet” panels drawn (and perhaps written) by Don Rico for Planet Comics #5.

There’ll be other art from that May 1940 Fiction House tale later in this issue. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Don Rico, John Celardo, Tony DeZuniga, & Ernie Chan Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344.

Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices.

Eight-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $85 Canada, $107 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

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writer/editorial

Names To Conjure With

ee—Kirby—Ditko—Romita—Heck—Ayers—Colan— Everett—Wood—Buscema (two of ’em)—Severin (ditto)— Steranko—Tuska—these are some of the most familiar names associated with Silver Age Marvel Comics… what Stan Lee himself preferred to call “The Marvel Age of Comics”…

L

…while the big names in the Golden Age of its predecessor, Timely Comics, were guys like Simon & Kirby (him again!)— Everett (ditto)—Burgos—Gustavson—Avison—Shores…

…and the names that might’ve rung visual bells for readers in those interim days when the Atlas globe loomed above Timely/Marvel’s hero-bereft 1950s landscape were Maneely—Heath —Everett (couldn’t keep that guy down!)—Ayers (ditto)—Tuska (double-ditto)—Severin (John)—Sinnott—Sekowsky—Hartley— DeCarlo—maybe a few others, including a guy named Lee.

But there were other artists and writers—their names mostly unknown today except to the more historical-minded comics aficionados—who likewise contributed substantially, even importantly, to the body of work that today’s Marvel is reintroducing to the world through its hardcover Marvel Masterworks series, via a triple-track policy of reprinting comics material from the 1940s (Timely), the 1950s (Atlas), and the 1960s and beyond (Marvel).

Two of those talents, in some ways nearly at opposite ends of the spectrum from each other, were this issue’s featured creators, Don Rico and Allen Bellman.

Don Rico was seemingly everywhere in comics’ early days, his work and often even his byline surfacing at many a company, though mostly at Timely. To over-simplify just a bit: in the 1940s he mainly drew… in the 1950s he increasingly wrote… and in the mid-1960s he scripted a trio of tales for Stan Lee’s up-and-coming Marvel Comics, even if two of them were under a pseudonym.

Don had also functioned for several years as an editor.

Allen Bellman mostly drew, rather than wrote, but during most of the 1940s and early ’50s he only rarely affixed his byline to a story—except for the one- and two-page “Let’s Play Detective” entries that he both drew and scripted for Atlas’ crime comics.

Much of the time, he was one of those bullpen stalwarts who pitched in wherever they were needed—a full panel or page here, a face or figure there, a bit of penciling and/or inking anywhere.

He swears he drew at least one “Jap-Buster Johnson” exploit scripted by later best-selling novelist Mickey Spillane; but for the life of him, neither Allen nor his interviewer (for A/E #32) and now good friend Dr. Michael J. Vassallo can ID a single episode of that series as definitely containing his art!

The third Timely/Marvel name on our cover is one that was probably even less well-known to the general comics-buying public before at least the 1960s than even those of Rico or Bellman: that of publisher Martin Goodman. But of course he was the head honcho, the man who bossed even editor Stan Lee and made the life-or-death decisions for comics and a small empire of more “adult” magazines. In this issue, we get a glimpse at another, even more esoteric side of him. You’ll see.

So what’s my point?

Mainly, that as long as there’s an artist or writer or editor or staffer left standing from a given era, there’ll be something—and someone—worth our time to talk to and spotlight. Even surviving loved ones—spouses, children, occasionally friends or other relatives—can often shed light on the dynamic, ever-shifting tableau that was the World of Comics at any given moment in time.

And, hopefully, you’ll allow us to be right there to chronicle it.

Bestest,

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The Once And Future DON RICO A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

by Robert Levitt Lanyi

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: I first learned of this interview with my erstwhile L.A. colleague Don Rico from reader Mitch Lee, who sent me a copy of it several years ago. It had appeared in the magazine The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. XIII, No. 1 (Summer 1979), and had been conducted by Dr. Ronald Levitt, under the reasonably transparent pen name “Robert Levitt Lanyi.” Dr. Levitt is currently an adjunct associate professor in the English department of Pasadena City College, Pasadena, California. While the 1977 conversation between the two men is light on the specific details of Don’s comics career, and I wish someone had also talked to him in depth about such matters, we have the interview that we have—and it’s a very good one. Between it and Dewey Cassell’s talk with Don’s widow Michele Hart, which follows on p. 21, this issue presents, I think, a reasonably well-rounded picture of a talented man who contributed materially to three (actually four) decades of comics history—as well as to numerous other fields.

A/E

On a related front: Acquiring the rights to reprint this interview was a tricky procedure, and several times it looked as if it simply wasn’t going to happen. Rights to material published in The Journal of Popular Culture are currently controlled by Wiley-Blackwell—an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing concern owned by John Wiley & Sons—and may be viewed for a fee at their website. They do lease reprint rights, as well, but for rather more than Alter Ego’s limited budget would allow. However, after several back-and-forth e-mails and particularly through the good offices of Elizabeth Boyle, Editorial Assistant/SSH Journals, she and her colleagues at Wiley-Blackwell volunteered to waive their fees—declining even to accept the sums I could offer, or proffered ad space in this issue. I can only presume that this decision came, pretty much out of the blue, because they realized that Don was a friend of mine— never a really close friend, to my eternal regret, but an esteemed comrade nonetheless— and that my desire to preserve the interview in the pages of A/E was as much in the

Double-Dare(devil) Don Rico, looking down on samples of his work as both artist and writer, in a circa-1970s photo courtesy of Mark Evanier.

(Left:) His cover for New Friday’s Silver Streak Comics #12 (July 1941), showcasing the original Daredevil. Circa 1970, Rico seems to have told Who's Who researcher Jerry Bails that he scripted the first “Daredevil” story, which was drawn by Jack Binder, for Silver Streak #6 (Sept. 1940), although the pseudonymous script byline there reads “Captain Cook.” There is a criminal “Ricco Gang” in that first story… but that name could just as likely have come from the 1930s Warners gangster movie Little Caesar, starring Edward G. Robinson (“Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Ricco?”). Rico was credited in the 1970s print edition of The Who’s Who of American Comic Books with working on that very first story, so the accreditation is probably based on correspondence with him. Thanks to Jim Ludwig. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

(Above:) Splash page from Spellbound #4 (June 1952) of a story scripted by Rico and drawn by Dick Ayers. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

nature of a personal tribute as of an historical mission. I sincerely thank Ms. Boyle and her associates—and I’ll repay the favor anytime they give me the chance.

Except for the subtitle on p. 3 and this introduction, nothing has been added to the text as it first appeared a third of a century ago. However, neither its original print version nor its current online incarnation was accompanied by photos or art—and, thanks to Don’s wife and son and a number of helpful comics researchers and collectors, the specimens of those artifacts, abetted by accompanying captions scribbled by Ye Editor, will hopefully underscore the points being made in the interview itself.

Don Rico is not a name as familiar to comics (or even Timely/Marvel) fans as are those of Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Bill Everett, or Carl Burgos—or even perhaps the likes of Syd Shores, Joe Maneely, and several other one-time Bullpenners. Still, Don played an important role in the history of Timely Comics—and indeed, in the field of comics itself, beginning in 1939-40—and I’m overjoyed to be able to give him just a little bit of his due in these pages. —Roy Thomas.

INTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION (1979): Don Rico was one of the better and most active comic book writer-artists of the Golden Age, which extended from the late ’30s through most of the ’40s. Born Donato Francisco Rico in Rochester, New York, in 1918, he created for such publishing houses as Fawcett, Fiction House, Fox, Gleason, Holyoke, Marvel, MLJ, Novelty, Pines, Quality, and Rural Home, none of which, except for Marvel, produce comic books anymore. He drew and/or wrote the exploits of such characters as Apache Kid, Black Hood, Blast Bennett, Blue Beetle, Bulletman, Captain America, Captain Battle, Captain Marvel, Cat-Man, Claw, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Flip Falcon, Gary Stark, Golden Archer, Grey Mask, Human Torch, Jann of the Jungle, Kid Terrific, Leatherface, Oran of the Jungle, Silver Streak, Sergeant Spook, Sorceress of Zoom, and Stevie Starlight. Although he has not been an active creator in comics since the mid-’50s, he is currently preparing the eagerly awaited Cloven Hoof, one of the earliest American works in a new international genre, the novel-length comic, or, as he terms it, “the novel in graphics.” For the last four years, Don’s involvement in comics has included two classes he teaches through UCLA’s extension program: a

“Zoom!” Went The Strings Of His Heart According to an article by Lynn Simross that appeared in The Los Angeles Times and in the June 10, 1976, edition of The Newark Advocate (of New Jersey), Rico had spotted the following classified ad in The New York Times, sometime in the summer of 1939: “WANTED: Artist to draw comic books in the style of Flip Falcon, Blast Bennett, The Sorceress of Zoom. Fox Publications.”

The article continues: “Donato Rico II, a starving—well, not quite, but almost—18-year-old artist, borrowed 50 cents from a friend, took the subway downtown from the Bronx to Lexington Avenue and applied for the job.” He soon wound up drawing brief runs of all the Victor Fox features mentioned in the ad, including reportedly the “Sorceress of Zoom” page reprinted above left from Weird Comics #3 (June 1940). Since Weird was a monthly during its brief 1940 life, though, it’s hard to see how “Sorceress” could’ve already acquired much of a “style” for a young illustrator to follow. Thanks to Stan Taylor for the scan, and to Barry Pearl for the 1976 newspaper article.

(Above right:) Also attributed to Don—though with even less certainty—is the “Blue Beetle” story in Fox’s Mystery Men Comics #13 (Aug. 1940). Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

The Once And Future Don Rico

5

At a time when I was getting $7.50 a page and making whatever that is times three per day and times that by six days, I was making for that time an awful lot of money. I made more in one day than my father made in a week.

This was Depression. Rents were low, and if you made $75 or $80, $100 a week, you were considered wealthy.

RL: I understand you were in the movement to establish a union of comic book workers. What happened there?

Targets For Tonight (Clockwise from above left:) Don Rico’s “Gary Stark” splash page from Target Comics, Vol. 7, #5 (July 1946) and his covers for Target, Vol. 7, #6 (Aug. ’46) & Vol. 8, #7 (Sept. ’47). Both spotlight Gary’s tropical adventures, a sort of modern-day Treasure Island. A/E’s editor has a theory that, most times, when the byline reads “by Don Rico” as opposed to simply his name, it means he both wrote and drew it—but that's only a theory. These images and others have been retrieved with the blessing of the valuable Don Rico website, created by his son Buz; it can be accessed at www.deadwax.net/donrico/index.html. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

lecture course on the history, theory, and technique of comics, and a workshop course in which students working in groups produce their own comics. The following interview with him was conducted on March 23, 1977, at California State University at Sacramento, where the Comic-Con, a convention of overground and underground artists and their fans, was being held. We went into the cafeteria, where Don found an outlet for my tape recorder. Then I pressed “Record” and said:

ROBERT LEVITT LANYI: You’re an exceptionally talented man: a painter; a magazine book jacket and record album illustrator; a wood engraver; the author of over fifty novels; a writer of plays for screen and television; a courtroom sketch artist [for CBS during the Gordon Liddy trial]. Why did you get into comics?

DON RICO: Money. It was Depression time. A fine artist could get exhibited a lot, but nobody had money to buy prints and paintings.

And I always loved illustration; I always loved comics. And when the opportunity came to work in them, I did.

RL: But I understand that the rates were as low as $5 a page.

RICO: They were $5 a page, but again, this was Depression time.

RICO: Well, a lot of us were dissatisfied with conditions, mainly recognition, rights to strips, etc.

But we were thwarted in the organization of such a guild because there was no way in which we could make demands and have them lived up to by anybody. There were always new artists ready to come in and take our places and work for anything the publishers wanted to give them, just as we were when we started.

RL: Why did you finally get out of comics?

RICO: Well, I’m not quite sure whether I got out of comics or whether comics got out of me. I moved out to the Coast from New York, and at that time I was very much interested in writing novels and screenplays. And I did that. And that was a time also, just coincidentally, when comics hit a really low bottom and a lot of artists were thrown out of work.

RL: In an interview published a few years ago in the first issue of Mysticogryphil: The Journal of Cosmic Wonder, you stated that in the tough neighborhood you grew up in you were prevented by your peers from engaging in fisticuffs, that they looked after you because you were an artist. Why was that?

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

“Korok” Spelled Backwards Is… “Don Rico”?

Speaking of the 1960s, as Rico and Lanyi do in the accompanying text: Don scripted three stories for Marvel Comics from others’ plots in the middle of that decade. The “Iron Man” story in Tales of Suspense #52 (April 1964) revived The Crimson Dynamo and introduced The Black Widow, both Russians—while the “Dr. Strange” yarn in Strange Tales #129 (Feb. 1965) brought us Tiboro, a sinister extra-dimensional who was (or at least so Ye Editor has always preferred to think) named for the famed Triborough (sometimes spelled “Triboro”) Bridge—actually a system of three separate bridges that connect Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, three of the boroughs that make up New York City.

Under the pseudonym “N. Korok,” Don dialogued “Iron Man” stories from Stan Lee plots for Tales of Suspense #52 & 53… but after Strange Tales #129 he was seen no more in Marvel’s pages until a dozen years later. Art by Don Heck and (probable plotter or co-plotter) Steve Ditko, respectively. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scans. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RICO: Remember, I was born in Rochester, a very quiet city, very nice, and when I was about twelve years old we moved to New York, which is an entirely different environment.

RL: Where in New York?

RICO: In the Bronx, 174th Street and Third Avenue, around that area. And there were some pretty tough hoods who lived in the same area. And I had no idea that they knew me or knew who I was or anything else, and I was about fifteen, sixteen years old and drawing away all the time. But they did know who I was, you see, and watched out for me. And I got into a heavy engagement with a guy, and I was used to fighting. You had to know it to survive. But one time when I was engaged in battering a fella to pieces, I was picked up bodily by a hood, who said, “Don’t do that anymore; you’ll break your hands. You’re an artist. Get out of here. We’ll take care of this guy.” And they did.

RL: All that hostility you were prevented from expressing by your peers—did depicting the interaction between the villain and society and the villain and the hero provide you with an avenue for releasing that which had been pent up?

RICO: No, no. There was never anything pent up. I released everything I ever had, mainly in sports. My interest wasn’t in releasing inhibitions, because I did it all through my drawing and my writing. Everything was there, whatever I wanted to do. But my drawing super-heroes: they were part of a trend of the time. At the very beginning I didn’t draw super-heroes and villains; I drew nice, ordinary people. And I still love drawing them. There was no deep psychological— RL: Are you saying, then, that you released inhibitions through drawing but not hostility?

RICO: Yeah, yeah. Well, inhibitions, I don’t know. It was more like something I wanted to say. If I wanted to tell a story of an adventure, of places I hadn’t been—I did a strip called “Gary Stark” once, which was about a boy sixteen years old, an apprentice seaman, and he and two of his older buddies were wrecked and left on an island in the Pacific. And that gave me a chance to draw beautiful islands. I went to National Geographic and got backgrounds, and I told nice, romantic stories with always some kind of a villain in the background.

The Once And Future Don Rico

Hands Across The Years A head shot of the original Daredevil, drawn by Don circa 1980 as a gift for Roy Thomas—and a trio of pages the artist had drawn decades earlier for New Friday Publications, the forerunner of Lev Gleason Publications: the “Daredevil” splash from Silver Streak Comics #15 (Oct. 1941), the cover of Silver Streak #16 (Nov. 1941) which shows the title hero for a change, and the first page of a “Blackout” story from Captain Battle Comics #2 (Fall 1941). These splashes are courtesy of the Don Rico website and Bruce Mason, respectively, while the black-&-white illo is from Ye Editor’s personal collection. [Comics pages ©2012 the respective copyright holders; original sketch ©2012 Estate of Don Rico.]

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

RL: Why a villain?

RICO: Well, a story has to have some kind of an action, motivation, to keep it going. There was always a little bit of byplay about the frustrations of the hero and the villain—not mine, but theirs, you see. Because they were so outlandishly constructed and uniformed that all they had to do was just battle each other constantly. And what I tried to do was bring it a sort of tongue-incheek attitude, rather than violence or action for its own sake.

RL: There have always been a pretty considerable number of ItalianAmerican artists in comics: yourself, Carmine Infantino, Frank Frazetta, John Giunta, Vince Colletta, Nick Cardy, Joe Cavallo, Joe Orlando— RICO: Don’t forget Dick Giordano.

RL: Pete and John Costanza, Sal and John Buscema, John Romita Sr. and Jr., Pete Morisi, Frank—

RICO: Don’t forget Frank Giacoia, Vince Alascia, a whole slew of guys.

RL: Is there any particular reason for that, or why currently on the international scene some of the most sophisticated comic art is being done in Italy?

RICO: I consider Europe—France, Italy, other parts that publish comics—much more sophisticated than the American comic artists are. I don’t know if it’s the artists, the editors, or the publishers.

Whatever it is, there’s a great deal more freedom to explore other areas and do things other than the super-heroes battling the villains all the time, or the villains always saying, “I must conquer the world.” There are stories of the West that the French artists are doing; there’s stories of American history that they delve into. And there’s a great deal of character and characterization in the work they do. They are quite sophisticated. Their stories are written more in the nature of a novel rather than action for action’s sake or violence for violence’s sake. I admire them tremendously, and I wish there were more of it in this country.

RL: Well, why are there so many Italians in this country’s comics? Next to Jews, they must be the largest ethnic group in the business.

RICO: I don’t know; I don’t know. I don’t know if there are. You know, I never went around questioning who’s what and who’s the other thing. I don’t know. You know, Italians love to draw. We’re artists and singers and all that sort of thing. We’re storytellers. We like to amuse people. Which brings back another subject: I consider myself a storyteller. Whatever I’m doing, I’m telling a story. And whether Italian or Jewish or Polish or whatever you are, you’re a storyteller. And you tell it. Whether there’s any ethnic reason for it, God, I don’t know.

RL: In illustrating the exploits of heroes who preserved the American way, including its myth of an equal chance for all, were you ever bothered by your not being permitted to depict an Italian-American as the recipient of that equal chance, not to mention as the hero?

RICO: No, I was never bothered by it. I was bothered by other things.

What bothered me was the showing of a black person in the old days with huge liver lips. I was bothered by the showing of the Chinese as villains, Japanese as villains. I was bothered by the injustice toward people, toward… toward minorities, toward any group as a stereotype.

RL: What about white ethnics?

Captain’s Courageous While the extent to which he worked on “Captain America” art or script during the 1940s is unclear, Rico told his 1970s colleague Roy Thomas and others that he had been involved with that hero’s Golden Age exploits. For his part, Marvel writer/editor RT happily assigned Don to pencil and ink the “Captain America” chapter of The Invaders Annual #1 (1977), as seen above. Regrettably, it was the only time the two worked together. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan. The story was reprinted, among other places, in the trade paperback Invaders Classic, Vol. 2 (2008).

That same year, at the San Diego Comic-Con, Rico penciled the Cap head at right for dealer/historian Robert Beerbohm, who generously shared it with us. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

RICO: What about them?

RL: You’re talking about Chinese, blacks, and so on, but not the white ethnics.

RICO: A lot of things bothered me. The type of story that we had to do bothered me. The ethnic situation as far as whites are concerned didn’t

The Once And Future Don Rico

A Real “Horror” Comic—In 1941!

The 11-page “Doctor Horror” story in New Friday’s Captain Battle #2 (Fall 1941) was likely an early example of Rico both writing and drawing a story which presaged his later horror-comics work. The character, conjured up by other weirdies as a monstrous villain rather than as a hero, swiftly met a bad end and never returned. Thanks to the Don Rico website and Bruce Mason. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

The Super-Good, The Super-Bad, And The Super-Ugly (Left:) Also in 1977, Don drew the cover for this collection of Golden Age super-hero stories published by Superlith, Inc. Inside were 1940s tales reproduced, alas, in rather muddy black&-white directly from public-domain comics. Repro’d from the Don Rico website.

(Above:) A year earlier, he’d drawn this ornate group portrait of the villainous Claw and his bother me, because there was no exploitation of that monstrous henchmen. The battles between The Claw and Daredevil were the highlights of sort of thing. What was exploited was the blacks, the several issues of Silver Streak Comics. Thanks to Michele Hart. [Art ©2012 Estate of Don Rico.] orientals, and that kind of thing. They were the villains. This was World War II, and the tradition of own image in Captain America because everyone would like to be Fu Manchu carried on as a super-villain, you know. And that more strong. All the skinny kids would like to kick sand in the villain’s than anything else disturbed me. face, you know, that sort of thing. And here you cheer for the hero; 1 it’s always been a good thing. I remember as a kid growing up we RL: In The Decline of the WASP , Peter Schrag noted that “The couldn’t wait for the last reel because the hero caught up with the cultural issues of the late 1960s were not only ethnic or pluralistic, but villain and knocked the hell out of him. It would give us a great also disintegrative—alienation, doing your own thing, dropping out, deal of satisfaction.

Italian is beautiful, the white Negro—and almost any sort of material was (and is) acceptable to the new audiences of the young as long as it is RL: How do you feel about psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s observation, distinguishable from the WASP mainstream....” Well, in recent years we stated in Seduction of the Innocent, that the violence in comic books have seen a somewhat alienated, doing-his-own-thing kind of comic book maims the sensibilities of young readers? hero, and he has not been just white but also black, red, or Chinese. Why do you suppose, though, that the white heroes all remain ethnically RICO: Well, then he should have attacked “Jack and the WASPs? Beanstalk.” Here’s a boy who’s a thief, invades a man’s private home, steals some very valuable objects from him, and then kills RICO: Well, for the same reason that Paul Newman is the epitome him. Nah, you can’t frighten kids. Kids love excitement, and thrills, of the American hero: the blond, blue-eyed, perfectly-formed and stealing, and all that kind of thing. They don’t like doing it; features of your standard movie hero. Your standard comic book they like reading about it because, again, that’s a release for the hero is modeled around the same principle, that way. And there is things they can’t do. You can take any of the stories. Take “The not too much concern—and I’m not knocking the super-heroes, Three Bears”: She goes into the three bears’ home when they’re not because I feel they fill a very, very big need in reading. The superhome, eats their food, breaks their furniture, sleeps in their bed. hero to me is fantasy; it’s imagination, all kinds of wonderful She’s invaded someone’s private domain. I don’t see Wertham things. It’s a dream world, it doesn’t necessarily relate to our own attacking that. That’s fantasy. world as we live it. It’s not concerned with escaping from a neighborhood that you don’t want to be into. It’s fantasy; it’s fairy tales.

RL: Today’s reader of comic book adventures demands story conventions It’s the super-hero, the epitome of everybody who says, “Hey, I that were unheard of in your day: heroes burdened with anxieties and want to go out and do all the great things in the world.” The best neuroses involved in situations with no clear-cut solutions nor even fully example of that is Spider-Man, who’s one of the most imperfect, clear good/evil connotations. If you had stayed in the industry, would you rather, the most successful, of them all. It’s a great, great thing have been comfortable with these conventions? because it does relate somehow to where he lives as a boy, and he RICO: You find with any convention, any restriction, the way to has an aunt. And he has certain problems, like sewing his uniform tell your part of the story, a certain attitude, a certain way of when it’s torn. How to keep his aunt from finding out that he’s expressing what you feel even though it’s within the full confines, Spider-Man. It does relate in a sense to something. the restrictions, of the medium.

RL: But if his name were Rosen or Rico it would relate too much?

RL: Isn’t it true that, in spite of changes in the conception of the hero, RICO: No, no, it’s a non-ethnical kind of thing. Each one can find villain, and society, the fundamental theme of adventure comics has his own image in the character of Spider-Man. You can find your

The Once And Future Don Rico

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remained the same: power—how it operates, how some struggle to get it, how those who have it use it?

RICO: Yes... yes... yeah. The villain always struggles to control the world one way or another, and the hero is always trying to keep him from doing this, being on the good side. Yeah, it’s been pretty much stagnant that way. Another thing: the comic book business today is limited to the number of pages in a comic book. Back when I started, there were 64 pages, which meant that you could have eight to ten or even more stories of varying subjects. So you could really satisfy a lot of demands and keep a lot of different types of writers and artists at work. It’s not that way anymore.

You’re limited to, what is it, 17 pages? What can you tell, more than one story? And what can you tell more or better than the story which is already selling over and over again? But even within this framework, Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, writers of that ilk do produce things which are a vast improvement on what could have been very much of a stagnant subject.

RL: Overall, though, you feel that what has been considered the Golden Age of comics really was the Golden Age and—

RICO: Well, what is the Golden Age, all right? I’ll try to define it

Putting His Own Stamp On Things In several issues of Captain America Comics, according to those avid creditresearchers Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, Hames Ware, and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., Don Rico drew the curious “Secret Stamp” feature, in which a lad donned a costume, fought adult criminals, and sold Defense (and soon War) Stamps.

Each page had its own art-and-masthead, in an attempt to look like a reprinted Sunday newspaper strip. Writer unknown. These panels from Cap #18 (Sept. 1942) are reprinted from the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Captain America, Vol. 5. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

for you. The Golden Age is the beginning of anything. When something begins, that’s the Golden Age for one simple reason— RL: I thought it meant the ripest moment.

RICO: Well, the beginning, and the ripeness, and then it went off in all different directions. You see, when we started comics, there were no standards by which our work was set. We just did what we could. We adapted our drawing to the story and created it. Our influences were the great syndicated strips like Milton Caniff s Terry and the Pirates; Hal Foster—before Prince Valiant, his Tarzan; those illustrators—

RL: Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim.

“Bullet” Proof?

Don reported drawing just a bit of “Captain Marvel,” “Bulletman,” and “Mr. Scarlet” for Fawcett in the early 1940s. FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck says that this “Bulletman” tale from America’s Greatest Comics #3 (Spring 1942) has no particular suitors for its credits, and may be Rico’s work, which was reportedly in the form of layouts, not finished art. Even if it isn’t, it’s still fun to look at, right? [©2012 the respective copyright holders; Bulletman TM 2012 DC Comics.]

RICO: Raymond, of course. And the pulp magazine illustrators, men like Mike Hays, Herbert Morton Stoops, John Richard Flanagan. I loved these guys. So that’s the standards by which we began. We had no other way. Today, of course, comics has its own standards established by comics. It’s a field unto itself. So you’ve got a heritage. Now when I go back to the early days, I think it was great because we had a variety of things to do. And I think it’s sad that most artists can’t do that anymore; even the ones who are

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

“Stevie” By Starlight The feature of his that Don Rico refers to as “Stevie Starlight” was actually titled “Mickey Starlight,” and ran in several issues of Novelty’s Humdinger Comics.

Despite the partial misremembering of the name, Chet Cox and Jim Ludwig were able to run down scans from issue #4 (Nov.-Dec. 1946), in which the Old Hermit tells Mickey all about Zeus and his fellow Olympians. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

trying to break in can’t do it. You’ve got to adapt to what is successful, what is selling.

RL: Although there have been these changes in what can be done in comics, is the kind of man who goes into comics or the kind of person who reads comics—have they remained somewhat the same? Is there, in other words, a personality type which has consistently been interested in the medium?

RICO: Back at the very beginning and until relatively recently, we didn’t know who was reading comics. We’d write and draw them, got paid for them, and they sort of vanished. We didn’t know there was a reading public out there. We knew during World War II the servicemen ate the stuff up avidly. We knew that cowboys on ranches used to eat up our Western stuff. But we just had a vague notion of this. We had no idea as artists and writers what was going on outside. The publishers knew, but we didn’t care. Is there an audience? The audience begins when you’re young, you know, when you’re a kid looking for something to read which is much better than the heavy stuff they give you in school. And after a while, of course, the audience discards the comic book. And then a few years later says, “Hey, I used to read that stuff. Gee, I wonder what they’re doing now.” And they inadvertently pick up a comic book, and they’re hooked all over again because it’s hypnotic, the reading of comics. If you don’t read comics for a while, you lose it.

But if you start picking one up, it’s like picking up a cigarette after

laying off smoking; you keep on smoking. And it’s a nice escape, a nice escape. There’s got to be that kind of an audience always.

RL: Among the theories is that, for example, the people who read detective narratives themselves suffer from strong guilt feelings and are therefore very relieved to have a detective find that somebody else is guilty. It’s this kind of thinking I had in mind. Is there some—

RICO: It’s so hard to measure an audience. You can’t tell where they spring up. I know that some very distinguished attorneys in Los Angeles are avid comic book fans. They read them, collect them, and get so overwhelmed! When I go to a party where most of the people are strangers to me, I am the instant lion when they find out I draw comics. They want to sit down and say, “Hey! Who did this? Who did that? Did you do that? Did you do the other thing? Whatever happened to...? Etc., etc., etc.” It all comes out.

RL: People from all walks of life?

RICO: All walks of life. And especially the upper strata. It’s strange.

RL: They’re not more power-mad or otherwise unhinged than the others?

RICO: No, nah. The upper strata discusses it a little bit more intellectually. They have more delving questions, but the lower ones say, “Hey! How come this and that?” Or “Do you know Stan Lee, and do you know Jack Kirby?” You know, these names which are

The Once And Future Don Rico

very familiar to them. They want to know about them. It’s like stepping backstage at the movie studio.

RL: In your own work you were never aiming even for a specific age group or sex?

RICO: No, I wrote for myself. I wrote the kind of stories I’d like to read. There were some stories—one of my features was “Stevie Starlight,” which was about a little boy modeled after myself when I was seven or eight years old. I was the oldest of nine children, and I was all by myself, even before my brothers and sisters showed up. And we lived out in the country, and I was all by myself. And I modeled this boy after me. Well, Stevie would always get in some kind of trouble with his parents. He lived alone and would go into an island across a bridge—even though he wasn’t allowed to do it, he’d do it—and would get a little wet by falling into two inches of water. And he’d always go into the house of a hermit who was a sculptor. And the hermit was always, every month same thing, creating a statue of some character out of mythology. And as the boy came in, the man would tell him a story—he was a kind of wizard, he always knew what kind of trouble the boy was in—and the statue would come to life. And I’d tell the story based on some incident out of mythology which related to Stevie Starlight’s dilemma. So I was able then to deal with the great gods, with the Titans, with not only the action of battle but the story of Narcissus, the Labyrinth. I could go into many, many things. I enjoyed telling and reading those stories, and they were aimed at anybody who wanted to read them. And I discovered later on kids loved it, and grownups loved it because it brought back the memory of their childhood.

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my lecture courses, more than three-quarters of my students were school teachers, primary grade school teachers, who came to my class because they felt they had to find some affinity with the children, so that they could have something in common to talk about. They feel they’ve lost touch, and because the kids do read comics and always will, they’ve got to know something about it.

And they come to a university course to find out in a more or less intellectual way how these things are created, what the reasons for them are. Well, why kids read them is very, very simple: it’s the easiest way to read. You see pictures and you see balloons. You put a comic book in the hand of almost any person, and I’m including grownups, and if they read the first panel, they’ll keep on till they finish the whole book. It’s easy to read.

Classics Illustrated is a perfect example of that. When I was teaching one course, they asked me if I’d done any Classics Illustrated. And I did; I did The Moonstone. It was a terrible, terrible thing to do, very hard. I did it in a couple of weeks with assistants and everything else. But I found out from our students, who are all grown up—they’re not college kids, this is an extension course—

RL: In a recent article, Leslie Fiedler claims that the reason so many books about the comics have been appearing lately is that the comics are dead, have run out of things to say. The books about comics, he says in essence, are post-mortem effects.2 Do you agree?

RICO: The books being published are an examination of the techniques of the comics and what they meant in our society from The Yellow Kid on up to today. There’s always a retrospect going on in any medium.

RL: But in comics much more so now than previously.

RICO: Much more so because now there’s established a history.

You know, thirty years ago there was no history. As it goes on, as times change and new developments take place, as certain things become more valuable than others, as certain influences take effect, people begin to realize that it is part of our culture, no question about it.

And the fact that universities are giving courses in the meanings, history, and techniques of the comics is meaningful.

There’s a need—also there’s another angle to it. I found among my students, especially in

A Classic Heist Don Rico drew the cover and interior art for Classic Comics #30 (Sept. 1946), in the days before the series’ title was altered to the more dignified Classics Illustrated. The script adaptation of William Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, generally considered the first true “detective novel,” is by Dan Levin.

Thanks to William B. Jones, Jr., author of the invaluable hardcover Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History (2nd edition, McFarland & Co., 2011). [©2012 Frawley Corporation and its exclusive licensee, First Classics, Inc.]

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

Just Imagine…

Rico preferred exercising his imagination to delineating literal truth, as seen in these drawings from the late 1940s through the early 1950s.

(Clockwise from above left:) A 1940s-50s pulp magazine drawing, retrieved from the Don Rico website (precise date and magazine unknown). .. his splash page for a comic book story that he both wrote and drew, for Marvel Tales #99 (Feb. 1951)… and his illustration for a Ray Bradbury story in Manhunt magazine (Sept. 1953). Thanks respectively to the Don Rico website… to Ger Apeldoorn, Cory Sedlmeier, and Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr…. and to Michael T. Gilbert. [Manhunt text ©2012 Estate of Ray Bradbury; magazine illos ©2012 the respective copyright holders; comics page ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

that most of them did book reports in school based on the comics.

Anybody who waded through The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins had to be some kind of a night owl, you know, because it’s a very dull book, although it was the first detective novel ever written. But to read it in comic book form, my God, you read it in twenty minutes.

It’s easy to get the whole gist. You know the characters, you know the situation, you know the background, you know the costumes, you know the wars involved. It’s a very simple thing to do.

RL: Wally Wood, for decades one of the greatest artists in the industry, has 3 stated, “I must admit that 90% of comics are garbage... . “ Would you agree with that assessment?

RICO: I have to agree with him; I have to. But what does he mean by “garbage”? We have to define our terms, you know? Does garbage mean it’s not worth reading? Does garbage mean it’s hack?

Does garbage mean it’s repetitious? What does it mean? Insofar as interest is concerned and what the artist is doing, it’s not 90% garbage. A lot of artists are doing some fantastic things; a lot of writers are doing great things within the restrictions, the limitations of the medium. It’s not the work itself which is garbage. It’s the restrictions placed upon it. That creates garbage. Which is why, incidentally, a lot of artists, including myself, who are both writers and artists, have created a new form, which is the novel in graphics, where we can go into various things. Some of the artists, unfortunately again, have repeated what they did in comics. Either they couldn’t get away from a formula, or they felt that was it. I think there’s room for the same kind of novel that’s written for the adult market, and I don’t mean adult in quotes, “for adults only.” That kind of a novel will be told in a comic book fashion, and that’s what I’m hoping to do.

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RL: The price of these comic book novels would render them inaccessible to most adolescents. Is there enough of an adult audience willing to buy such a product?

RICO: If a novel is creative, so that it is a work of integrity, so that it’s a work where the artist-novelist has something to say, either in terms of our present, our past, our future or in terms of pictorial embellishment of something, the subject, I don’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be. I mean, my God, Dore’s Inferno is still selling; his Bible is still selling. And as far as the kids are concerned, kids will buy books at almost any price. They will save for them because they want them. They are true, devoted fans. I think they brought back comics to what it is through the conventions and through the real interest in the writers and artists.

I’ve known kids who saved their money the entire year to fly to San Diego for the convention. And they come there well-equipped to buy a lot of things. They don’t come there broke, see? And if a series of novels like these are interesting, they’ll buy those as well as anything else. My God, I know in Europe the work by the artists is not only sold to adults; kids buy them. And they’re not cheap.

They’re pretty expensive. I would rather buy those than 25- or 30cent comics.

RL: You’re saying, among other things, that adults will buy the comic book novel if it has something new to tell them. I wonder if you’d comment then on something Burne Hogarth has said about comic art: “In its exercise of danger it is too reckless of reason, too void of feeling to be profound; and in its pursuit of the genial and the jocular it is possessed of a frenzy that is too bitter a remedy for the relief of pain. In short it neither elicits the heights of the human dream nor probes the depths of the human 4 soul nor promotes the catharsis of light-hearted laughter.”

RICO: Talk about statements! I love it! I think there’s a lot of something there, and exactly what it is I can’t say. Look, Somerset Maugham said, “I am a teller of tales,” huh? I don’t know whether I want to plumb the depths or the heights. If I do I’m very happy that someone has noticed. “Hey, there’s something here!” And I look at it and say, “There is?” My own work! I don’t know it’s there. I think we are basically storytellers, and whether we tell tragedies or comedies or just a story for its own sake, it’s worthwhile. Reading is entertaining. Whether you’re reading The Golden Bough by Frazer of the latest novel by Harold Robbins, you’re being entertained. If you’re not being entertained, you can’t follow word after word, you lose interest. Our business is in capturing the attention of the reader and then sustaining it. Opera does that; great plays do that. Shakespeare’s whole impetus was to entertain the people who came into his theatre.

RL: Do you feel that depths can be reached, that ambiguities, complexities, tensions, ironies can be developed?

RICO: Yes, if we get away from what is now the main current of comics, then an artist can go into it quite seriously if he wants to.

Mister Terrific Examples from the Rico website of his Golden Age work for the company called both Et-Es-Go and Continental (which the Who’s Who lists under the Holyoke umbrella): the full art on the cover of Terrific Comics #1 (Jan. 1944) and the penciling of the “Kid Terrific” story therein. Don also wrote, drew, and signed a second story in that issue. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

There is nothing that an artist can’t tell. What separates the artist from the novelist, really? Nothing, except the medium. You can do anything you want to do. The difference is that the artist must think in terms of words and pictures. You’re not just illustrating a novel. No, I think there is nothing, nothing in the world which is restricted to any artist or any writer. And I think I’m very lucky, as well as the artists around me now, to be at the very beginning of this medium, the novel told in graphics. Gil Kane has done it, Corben has done it, other guys have gone into it because they want to have something more definite to say.

RL: The genre really, though, is only a few years old. As you say, Rich Corben and Gil Kane have done it, and Burne Hogarth in Tarzan of the Apes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan and Jim Steranko in Red Tide have done it. But the conventions of this new genre haven’t yet been established. It’s not yet clear how to do the comic book novel. Are there any graphic or narrative innovations that you’ve created in doing The Cloven Hoof?

RICO: Well, they’re very personal approaches that we all take.

Each one—Kane, Steranko, and the rest of them—are all taking very individual approaches to it. I see it so far, in what I’ve worked on so much now—for instance, The Cloven Hoof was a play I wrote, optioned for Broadway, unfortunately never produced. And I got restless with it. I felt I had to tell the story one way or the other. So I decided to try it as a novel in graphics. And what I did, I saw it as a series of progressive shots through the eye of a camera that try to

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A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

Graphic Violence Though Don Rico’s projected graphic novel The Cloven Hoof (based on his play) did not come to fruition, he and his interviewer touched on several of the bare handful of graphic novels (Don preferred to call them “novels in graphics”) that had been produced by the time of this 1977 interview. (Pages clockwise from top left:) Gil Kane’s magazine-format graphic novel His Name Is Savage, anonymously scripted for him by Archie Goodwin (1968). This is easily its most famous, most violent, and oft-reproduced page—aside from its cover, whereon Savage bears an uncanny resemblance to actor Lee Marvin. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Tarzan of the Apes by Burne Hogarth (1972) adapted the classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hogarth, who in the late 1930s and the 1940s had drawn the Tarzan newspaper strip, was volubly proud of utilizing art techniques gleaned from Da Vinci & company. [©2012 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.] The Richard Corben-illustrated Bloodstar (1975), which was Gil Kane’s brainchild, with unacknowledged scripting by John Jakes; freely adapted from Robert E. Howard’s short story “The Valley of the Worm.” [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Jim Steranko’s Chandler: Red Tide first saw life in 1976 courtesy of Byron Press’ Visual Publications.

In 2011 plans to reissue it were announced. [©2012 Jim Steranko.]

The Once And Future Don Rico

establish the mood which lead up to the next panel, and the next and the next. It wasn’t just a series of vignettes. I wanted to get the feeling of it, the mood. So I established, for instance, in the opening of the story, a long panoramic shot of this very desolate valley.

There’s no life in the valley. And there’s smoke coming out of a chimney, a thin wisp and it’s going straight up. There’s no wind; there’s nothing. And then I show the exterior of a cabin. Then I go into the interior, and a woman is in labor, about to give birth. And the husband is sitting there beside a candle, very patiently waiting with his hands folded. And the woman is lying back. And the next scene is the woman screaming, jumping up in anguish; and he’s grabbing her, holding tight to her. In other words, if it were necessary, the story could be told only by following the pictures, which is what I think good movie-making is about. I studied the early movies, the silents, and things like that done by the Germans and Russians, where you could follow what was happening just by the film. You didn’t need the words. So I try to do it that way. I try to tell it through expressions, through shots, through angles, any way in which I can get the mood of what I’m trying to say. I’m not so interested in the picture as in what I’m trying to say in the picture.

RL: When you do use words, where do you put them: in balloons, in

17

narrative incorporated in the picture, or as a text beneath the picture?

RICO: No, I mix them up. I don’t hold to any fast rule. If I feel I can tell it with narration, I’ll do so. If I feel it’s too stilted that way, that it’s too formal, too straight and square, I put the balloon in. I think the balloon is part of a drawing. So I tell it whichever way it fits me. But I also believe in this other factor: that the novel in visuals, the way I want to do it and see it done, is that the artist does everything. He writes the story, he does the lettering, designs the balloons, designs the captions, everything that’s all part of the picture. It can’t be added by someone else or just put on the side as just text. It should blend; it should flow.

RL: The basic procedure of six or nine standard-sized, standard-shaped panels per page in the novel-length work would get extremely dull. For novel-length don’t you have to create more variation, perhaps even do away with panels as George Herriman sometimes did in Krazy Kat?

RICO: Well, Herriman—I’m glad you brought him up, he’s my favorite of all time—designed his panels and his pages as entities unto themselves. You could look at the whole page and feel joy; even without seeing what was happening, you felt that kind of joy.

He was a designer; he was the ultimate artist. A page in a book such as I’m describing, again, has to be free so that the artist can

“The Terror! The Terror!”

(Left:) The original artist of “The Terror” was Syd Shores, but Don Rico drew an installment of the series in Mystic Comics #9 (May 1941) as one of his earliest assignments at Timely. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert for sending us this microfiche scan.

(Right:) This story drawn (and written?) by Rico was reprinted in Marvel’s Chamber of Chills #11 (July 1974), from Adventures into Terror #4 (June 1951). Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. But hey—does anybody know if the Comics Code required any changes to be made to this story that bore the title “The Torture Room”?

Come to think of it: comparing the 1950s horror stories reprinted by Marvel in the late 1960s and ’70s with their pre-Code versions might make a nice addition to the next hoped-for installment of Richard Arndt’s “Tales from the Code”! [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

18

A 1970s Interview With A 1940s-70s Timely/Marvel Artist, Writer, & Editor

use it any way he likes. Some could be in panels, some could be in vignettes, some could be in spots, some could be just a page of lettered dialogue, a caption. As long as the book—I agree with you; it needs variety, flexibility. It can’t be the same turn-one-page-afteranother thing, because then it takes on the same aspect as the other forms, the comic book or strip. It needs this kind of design. It needs more thought, more working out, more experimentation, more comparing of one page against another. There’s constant work that goes on.

RL: In being the writer of such a work as well as the artist, do you have to come up with narrative techniques other than those in comic books, a greater emphasis on the intricacies of sub-plot, for instance?

The girl has a cloven hoof; therefore, she must be something evil.

The boy is a kid who comes across the mountain. And he plays the guitar and doesn’t have a job. And all he has is love. And when they come to him, he says, “Hello, my name is David. Who are you?” And they say, “We’re not talking to you. You’re a stranger.”

So he says, “Uh uh, I’m not the stranger. You know my name. You’re the stranger. I don’t know your names.” It’s youth, it’s the rebel, it’s the free spirit. So within the structure of this fantasy I try to tell how I feel about people who are not like other people, whom other people consider abnormal, strange. This is the enemy to them. But it is he and the girl who finally bring the people of the village together, so that they’re all human beings. Yes, I try to say something.

RICO: Yeah, yeah, no question. In such a novel, as in a regular novel, you can resort to all kinds of things—the flashback, retrospective thinking, the soliloquy.

RL: One last question: A growing You can go into all of that. You can number of comic artists are turning also use dialogue which is more to teaching their art: Will Eisner, natural than is being used in comic Harvey Kurtzman, Burne books: people talking back and Hogarth, John Buscema, yourself, forth in real conversation. You can and now Joe Kubert. Why? deal with subtleties and conflict, whatever there is. The regular RICO: We are by nature an comic book is involved in the unselfish breed. We’ve got so telling of one sequence. It starts much stored up: techniques, and it ends, and that’s the end of feelings, everything else. And it. And that’s good because that’s you love the medium. You what comics are, and that’s one of want people to get into it and Capping Things Off the things that makes it appealing carry it on, to sustain and A Captain America head sketched by Rico—clearly in a playful mood. to a great many people. But now hopefully improve it, do Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [©2012 Captain American TM & ©2012 Marvel we’re talking about the comic something with it. And where Characters, Inc.] novel, or the novel in visuals. It’s are they going to learn it, not a comic; the word “comic” is a misnomer. These things are not especially today when you can’t go into a publisher’s office and get comical. And when you’re doing these things you can’t go by the a job in a bullpen? You learn it in private schools and collegeaccepted, standard thing. You can’t keep showing the hero sponsored courses. And we’re anxious for that. We want to see punching somebody and go on and on and think you’re telling a what’s going to happen. It’s a joy! It’s a pleasure! story.

RL: You’ve said you don’t really think about the meaning of what you say. But are you aware of conveying some meaning in The Cloven Hoof, making a specific point?

RICO: Oh yeah! Oh yeah. No, everything I write has a specific point. There’s something I want to say here. In The Cloven Hoof I try to tell the story of the unaccepted: the boy who is strange and the girl who is strange, not like the others around them. They find and cling to each other. They’re the only ones who believe in each other. Nobody else does, see? Everyone else considers them freaks.

NOTES

1 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), p. 67.

2 “Up, Up, and Away—the Rise and Fall of Comic Books,” The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1976, pp. 1, 9-11.

3 In Wolfgang J. Fuchs and Reinhold Reitberger, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium (London: Studio Vista, 1972), p. 156.

4 In Pierre Couperie, Maurice Horn, et al, A History of the Comic Strip (New York: Crown, 1968), p.5.

DON RICO Checklist

[NOTE: The following Checklist is adapted from information contained in the online edition of Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999 (see ad on opposite page), established by Jerry G. Bails. Some information has been added based on information contained in the two Rico-related interviews in this issue of Alter Ego; thanks also to Hames Ware, Paul Leiffer, and Michele Hart. Names of features which appeared both in comics with that title and in other publications have generally not been rendered in italics. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inks only; (la) = layout art; (w) = writing.]

Name: Donato Francisco Rico II (1912-1985) (artist; writer; editor)

Pseudonym: N. Kurok (used only at Marvel in 1964)

Education: Cooper Union High School (fine arts)

Major Influences: Lynd Ward, Rockwell Kent, H.M. Stoops, J.R. Flanagan.

The Once And Future Don Rico

Other Arts: Wood engraving and painting represented in museums and private collections; author of more than 50 novels, screenplays (e.g., Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary & The Strangers), teleplays (e.g., Adam-12); producer/director of movies; book illustration and cover art (also magazines and album covers); advertising art; painter of comics characters for Cory Gallery (San Francisco); writer & artist of The Killing of Reuben Salazar (novel); courtroom sketch artist c. 1972-73

Member: Writers Guild West, Dramatists Guild, Authors League of America, CAPS (Comic Art Professionals—one of the three founders of this West Coast organization)

Teacher: UCLA Extension course on comic books (1975, perhaps other years); California State U. Northridge (no date)

Syndicated Strips: Johnny Jones (1943-45) [NOTE: Don Rico probably supplied this information for the 1970s print edition of the Who’s Who, and to a volume of the Contemporary Authors series; but we have been unable to date to verify that this comic strip ever actually appeared in any newspapers.]

Shops: Harry “A” Chesler shop 1940-43; Jack Binder shop (la) 1940s; S.M. Iger shop early ’40s

Publications for Superlith, Inc.: The Cloven Hoof (w)(a) graphic album (not completed or published); Magnificent Superheroes of the Golden Age (cover art & introduction to reprinting of 1940s comics stories)

Editor: Lev Gleason c. 1943; Timely/Marvel c. 1948-51

COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publications):

Eastern Color Printing: Heroic Comics (a) 1945

Fawcett Publications: Bulletman (la); Captain Marvel (la); Mr. Scarlet (a) 1941

Fiction House: Auro – Lord of Jupiter (a) 1941; Oran of the Jungle (a) 1941; Red Comet (a) 1941

Fox: Blast Bennett (a) 1940; Blue Beetle (a) 1940; Flip Falcon (a) 1940; Perisphere Payne (a) 1941; Sorceress of Zoom (a) 1940; Sub Saunders (a) 1940

Rural Home: crime (a) 1945

Timely/Marvel: Adventures into Terror (a) 1951; Adventures into Weird Worlds (a) 1952; Apache Kid (w) early 1950s; Astonishing (i) 1952, (w) 1957; backup feature in Jann of the Jungle (p) 1956; Battle Action (w) 1957; Battle (w) 1957; Battlefield (i) 1952; Battlefront (w) 1952, 1957; Battleground (w) 1957; Bible Tales for Young Folks (a) c.

1953; Blonde Phantom (i) 1947, (p) 1949; Captain America (a) 1977, (i) 1942; Cliff Mason (w)(p) 1956-57; Commando Adventures (w) 1957; covers (i) 1951; crime (w) 1957; The Destroyer (p) 1944; Doctor Strange (w) 1965; fillers (p)(i) 1953, 1956; G.I. Tales (w) 1957, Gary Gaunt (a) 1942; Gunsmoke Western (w) 1957; horror (w)(a) 1951, 1953; Human Torch (p)(i) 1944-46; illustrations (a) 1953; Iron Man (w) 1964 (as “N. Korok”); Jann of the Jungle (w)(p) 1954, 1956-57; Jap-Buster Johnson (i) 1945; jungle (w) 1953-54, 1956-57; romance (dates uncertain); Secret Stamp (a) c. 1942; The Terror (a) 1941; Western features (a) 1951-52, c. 1955-56; Western Gunfighters (w) 1957; The Western Kid (w) 1957; The Whizzer (p) 1943-44; Wild Western (w) 1957; Wyatt Earp (w) 1957; Young Allies (a) 1943

Ziff-Davis Comics: romance (w) c. 1951; Western (w) c. 1951

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999 Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US.

Gilberton/Classics Illustrated: The Moonstone (a) 1946

Holyoke (also Et-Es-Go, Continental, & Related Companies): Cat-Man (a) 1944; Commandos of the Devil Dogs (a) mid-1940s; crime (a) 1945 [Imprint: Narrative]; Golden Archer (a) 1944-45; The Grey Mask (p)(i) 1943-44 [Imprint: Et-Es-Go]; horror (a) 1944; Kid Terrific (a) 1944; Leatherface (a) 1944; Power (a) 1945 [Imprint: Narrative]; The Reckoner (a) 1944; war (a) c. 1944

Gleason Publications (& New Friday): Bingham Boys (w)(a) 1941; Blackout (a) 1941; Captain Battle (a) 1941; Captain Battle Jr. (a) 1941; The Claw (w)(a) 1941; The Claw Vs. Daredevil (a) 1941; covers (a) 1941; Daredevil (w)(a) 1941; Doctor Horror (w?)(a) 1941; Silver Streak (w)(a) 1941-42; Tex Hazard (w)(a) 1942

MLJ/Archie: Black Hood (a) 1944

Nedor/Pines: Fighting Yank (la) 1942

Novelty: The Chameleon (a) 1945; Gary Stark (w)(a) 1946-49; Mickey Starlight (w)(a) 1946-47; Sgt. Spook (a) 1946-47; Target and the Targeteers (w)(a) late 1940s

Quality: Espionage (a) 1944; G-2 (a) 1943-44; romance (p) 1950; Western (p) 1950-51

19

This Don Rico splash panel, retrieved from the artist’s website, appeared in Novelty’s Blue Bolt Comics, Vol. 7, #3 (Aug. 1946). Scripter unknown. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

$500,000 PAID FOR ORIGINAL COMIC ART! COLLECTOR PAYING TOP DOLLAR FOR “ANY AND ALL” ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK AND COMIC STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT! COVERS, PINUPS, PAGES, IT DOESN’T MATTER! 1 PAGE OR ENTIRE COLLECTIONS SOUGHT! CALL OR EMAIL ME ANYTIME!

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Dr. Strange, Clea, Ancient One, & Baron Mordo TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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21

“We Had A Great Life Together” MICHELE HART Talks About Her Time With Husband DON RICO—And Her Own Colorful Career Conducted by Dewey Cassell

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Don Rico found in Michele Hart his soul mate, and vice versa, and they married in 1962. Whatever difference there was in age paled in comparison to what they had in common, including an interest and aptitude in the arts. Together, they shared 22 wonderful years and raised a son. Here, then, is a delightful interview with Michele Hart, who sheds light on the later life and career of Don Rico, a true Renaissance man. This interview was conducted June 24, 2012, and was later copy-edited by Michele Hart. —Dewey.

Michele Hart—And Loved Ones (Left:) Michele with Don and their son Buz at the latter’s 6th-grade graduation at the Garner Street School, West Hollywood, California. Don and Michele were married on Sept. 28, 1962, two days after Don’s 50th birthday. Michele reports that Don was definitely born in 1912, not 1918 as is generally recorded.

(Right:) Michele’s current head shot from her acting portfolio. The photo was taken by Larry Buckstead. Both pics provided by Michele Hart.

“You’ll Never Make Any Money As An Artist”… “Yes, I Will!”

DEWEY CASSELL: In reading about Don, I learned that you are an actress.

MICHELE HART: I am.

DC: Are you the actress that was in General Hospital?

HART: Yes. My God, did you watch that?

DC: [laughs] I did. When I was in college, I used to come home from school and watch General Hospital. It was the only soap that I watched.

HART: [laughs] I am an actress and a dancer; I have done extensive ballet and jazz dance, both. And I acted as much as I danced, or danced as much as acted. And yes, that’s me.

On, Comet…

Some of Don’s earliest comic book artwork—after the brief experience with Victor Fox—was done for Fiction House. This “Red Comet” yarn appeared in Planet Comics #5 (May 1940); with thanks to Jim Kealy.

The whole story will be seen in PS Artbooks’ forthcoming hardcover Roy Thomas Presents Planet Comics, Vol. 2. Meanwhile, grab up Vol. 1! [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

DC: I read about the dancing, too. You were a principal dancer in the ballet?

HART: I was principal in two small ballet companies in Los Angeles which did what ballet companies in Los Angeles do, which is to go out of business because they can’t get backing. Lord

22

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

only knows, I mean, San Francisco’s had a ballet company for a hundred years, and we don’t have one here—well, we sort of have one now, but it’s been very hard to get those things going. And there’s actually kind of an odd parallel between what I did and why I did it and what Don did and why he did it. And if you’d like, I’ll try to tie that together.

DC: That would be great.

HART: Don began as a wood engraver. That is not a wood-carver, nor is it a person who makes wood cuts. Wood engraving is a different thing. He had three one-man shows in New York before he was twenty-five, which is pretty extraordinary. But nobody was buying stuff, and he wasn’t making any money at it. A friend of his said, “You’ll never make any money as an artist.” And he said, “Yes, I will! Watch this,” and got involved with comics. I had a similar kind of thing of “You can’t make any money doing ballet from here,” and I really did not have the commitment to go to New York and try to get into one of the big companies. It was a case of, I’m not going to make any money doing ballet, so I got a job dancing in Reno in a hotel casino. And, by the way, dancing is not being a showgirl. Two different things.

The first one of which is you have to be six feet tall, and I don’t qualify. But dancers dance; showgirls just kind of walk around. So I

backed off of the ballet thing, and then I later went back to it, because a man that I knew who had a studio founded a small company called Dancers Studio Ensemble, and we did two years of some small performances and got nice notices, but it never really went anyplace. I think you need to have a grant-writer and a fundraiser and all that sort of thing, and we didn’t. So anyway, that’s that story.

DC: Was that after you were in General Hospital?

HART: Yeah.

DC: I noticed you also did acting in the late ‘70s and early ’80s in The Rockford Files and Tenspeed and Brownshoe, which had Ben Vereen in it… so you continued to do some acting later as well?

HART: Yeah. I still do when there’s work around. It’s just that, once you’re over forty, you have to be Meryl Streep or you don’t get much work, you know? There are very few roles for older women, and there’s tons of research on it, and producers keep saying, “Well, we will have to do better,” and then it doesn’t happen. I’m still doing the occasional stage play, and there are films being made by graduate students at UCLA, USC, The American Film Institute, and they are permitted to use members of Screen Actors Guild because otherwise, they would only be using

All The Horrors Aren’t In The Comic Books!

Back when Don Rico drew—and probably also wrote—these horror stories for Suspense #7 & 8 (March & May 1951), things were going great for Don at Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics. But between Dr. Wertham and the comics censors in the mid-1950s, and then the “Atlas Implosion” of 1957-58, he soon found himself trolling for a whole new career! Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“We Had A Great Life Together”

23

an artist and he had done wood engraving. It was not until several months later that I found out that he’d been involved with comics. He was completely away from it at that point.

DC: Which is one of the things that I wanted to ask you about. It looks like around 1958 was a turning point for him, and he moved to California and began writing instead of drawing. Do you know what prompted that?

HART: Yeah. He was writing and editing for Marvel at that point. His marriage broke up and he moved to California. He arranged for a portion of his salary to be sent directly to his (in process of becoming) ex-wife and that he would get some of the money, and everything would be hunky-dory. And that was the point at which Dr. Wertham came in and put the kibosh on the entire comic business, and the whole business turned. He lost his job—everybody lost their jobs, from what he said—and it was a time of great transition in the comic business.

Paperback Writer After leaving comics, Don wrote literally dozens of paperback novels. Seen here are the covers of two of them: Nikki (a sexy thriller) and The Last of the Breed (a Western), from the Rico website. [Cover art ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

And suddenly, he had no income, and he began writing because of that, because that was something else to do. He tried to get work out here in animation, and you want a weird anecdote—I don’t know how printable this is, but it certainly

amateurs or they would only be casting people who were college age. So the idea is that this gives them a chance to work with professional actors while professional actors get a chance to work with somebody who might be the next Spielberg or Coppola. So I’m still doing those, and it’s keeping a hand in, and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting back to it as times change, because times are changing. There is starting to be more work for older people, and we’ll see what happens.

“Your Basic Love-At-First-Sight Number”

DC: Did that have anything to do with how you and Don met?

HART: Absolutely. First, I had no idea that Don had anything to do with comics. I got a call from an acquaintance of mine, a woman in her late forties or early fifties who was an actress. She said, “I’m working on a staged reading of a play. The author is trying to get backers, and one of the people in the play dropped out. I’ve recommended you. Can I have the director call you?” And I said, “Yeah, okay.” The staged reading obviously isn’t going to take a great deal of my time and energy, and so I went. I spoke to the person on the phone, who turned out to be Don, and went over to his apartment, which struck me as being a little dicey. But he said, “Don’t worry.

The entire cast will be there.” And that’s how we met. I met him as a director who had written a play, and then I realized he was a writer who was directing, and we basically did a love-at-first-sight thing. We went out to dinner at the end of the day’s rehearsal with the lady who referred me. She was, in an old-fashioned term, “sweet on him,” and he couldn’t have cared less about her. He and I bonded immediately.

It was very strange. There was thirty years between us and it didn’t make any difference. And you’ve seen me if you’ve seen General Hospital. You know I’m not your typical blonde-bimbo trophy-wife kind of lady, and I can’t explain it. We did your basic love-at-first-sight number and it never stopped. The play, incidentally, did not get backed, and it did not come to fruition. And bit by bit, I began to find that Don had done other things. There was an engraved woodblock on his coffee table, and I said, “What is this?,” having never seen one. And he explained that he also was

Getting Things Ironed Out Back on p. 6, you saw the splash pages for two of the three stories Don Rico dialogued for Stan Lee’s burgeoning 1960s Marvel Comics. Here’s that of the third, from Tales of Suspense #53 (May 1964)—the second, still pre-costume appearance of The Black Widow. At that time, little Robert Downey, Jr., was just entering the “terrible twos”—and Scarlett Johansen’s mother may have been little more than a gleam in her grandfather’s eye! Thanks to Barry Pearl. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

24

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

was true at the time—it took him a great deal of time and energy to get anybody to talk to him at Disney because everybody knew who he was. He said, “I’m looking for a job,” and he was trying to get something going at Disney and nothing happened. At any rate, he finally got somebody from Disney to agree to meet with him. And the guy went out and interviewed Don in his car. He wouldn’t let him on the lot. He said, “I’ll meet you at such-and-such a place.

Bring your portfolio.” And he looked at the portfolio and said, “Well, this is wonderful and we can’t use you.”

DC: Why was that?

HART: What it came down to was that the guy at Disney and probably whoever else was involved there thought that if they hired Don Rico, they themselves would be kicked down a notch in very little time and Don would be running things. So that’s what happened, and it’s a very Hollywood story, but those things do happen and I have no doubt that it’s true. It’s insane unless you know Hollywood, and particularly Disney. And he started writing other things, because the comic business was dead at that particular point and he didn’t write funny or draw funny-animal stuff, so the comic aspect was gone for quite a while.

DC: Was that when he started writing paperbacks?

of them. He had a couple of small plays produced; he was involved in a dreadful movie that was rewritten three or four times by other people, which is also a typical thing to happen. And he wrote a little television and the same thing happened, too.

But it was a struggle, and he never really got back to doing things that were going to be extremely lucrative the way the comic business had been. Apparently, in New York, he had a very nice apartment and a house in the country, and that sort of thing just didn’t happen anymore, but that was okay. You know, there were other ways of getting around.

DC: I gather he did do a little writing for Marvel Comics in the mid-’60s, right? A “Doctor Strange” story and a couple of “Iron Man” stories.

HART: He did, but I don’t really remember specifically what it was that he did.

“He Also Played Semi-Pro Baseball”

DC: Are there other members of the family that have exhibited artistic talent?

HART: That was the only thing that was open. It was very hard to get into what is very much a closed town. A lot of this city is built on who you know and building relationships with people who know people. As somebody who has tried, to knock on a door and get in cold is very, very difficult.

It was then, it is now. Building relationships takes a long time to happen. And he didn’t even know who the best people were to meet and how to go about meeting them, so he did whatever would support him, and he began writing paperbacks and just turning out reams

A (Web)Site To Behold Donato Francisco Rico III, a.k.a. Buz—seen at left in a recent photo— put together the Don Rico website (see info on p. 5), which is full to the brim of comic book, paperback, pulp magazine, and other images, as well as information about his father’s life and career.

For instance, Buz says that, although the cover of New Friday’s Silver Streak Comics #11 (June 1941) bears Don’s signature, his father told him that only the Claw and Daredevil heads at the top are actually his work. The black-&-white drawing at left, which is titled “The Splendid Apparition,” was done by Don in the 1970s. Photo

by Lesley McGraw. [Comic cover ©2012 the respective copyright holders; b&w illo ©2012 Estate of Don Rico.]

“We Had A Great Life Together”

25

HART: Well, let me go back on this. Don had a daughter, Dianne, who was ten years older than I and never really did too much with her life. She just had a series of small jobs, nothing to do with art whatsoever. And his daughter had a daughter, which is interesting because when Don and I got together, I acquired an instant 10year-old grandchild, which is weird because I was twenty. Actually, everyone got along really well. Don’s daughter nicknamed me “Wick” for wicked stepmother, so that’ll give you an idea. Things were friendly and fine. His daughter passed away about two years ago.

DC: I saw that.

HART: His granddaughter, Dorian, lives in England and has for many years. There is, as far as I know, no artistic talent on any side there. Our son, Don’s and my son, goes by the name of Buz. Don’s real name is Donato, as I’m sure you’ve got in your research. Don was actually Donato II, named after his grandfather. If it skips a generation, you become a “second” rather than a “junior.” Anyway, our son goes by the name of “Buz” with one “z,” which came from one of Don’s written characters, a character named Buz Cardigan.

Buz is very involved in music, which comes from both sides of our family, and he has a very interesting straight job, in charge of IT for the Ninth Circuit Court, Federal Court. And he still has a couple of bands. He toured with Chrome for a long time, and he toured with Colorfinger, which preceded Everclear. When he got tired of touring, he got a straight job, and he’s now also fronting two bands: one called Reptile House, and the other one called Spellbound, which is a tribute band for Siouxsie and the Banshees.

You know who these people are?

DC: I’ve at least heard of some of them, yes. [mutual laughter]

HART: All right, and there’s a lot of music on both sides of the family. Don sang semi-professionally for quite a long time.

DC: That’s one of the other things I wanted to ask you about. I read that he sang in night clubs in Manhattan.

HART: He did, and he also played the Vizier in Kismet; it apparently ran for months in some smaller theatre in Long Island. He had great fun with it because it was sort of a wicked character, which he loved, and there was a great deal of characterization to it.

But he had a lovely light-operatic baritone voice and sang beautifully. And he even had a small radio show for a while. I believe he was upstate New York at that point. It wasn’t like a major station in the big city. But he did a lot of stuff. You mentioned that he seemed to be something of a Renaissance man and asked if it was a conscious effort on his part? No, it just came with the territory. He also played semi-pro baseball.

DC: You’re kidding!

HART: No, he was first baseman. And when we moved back to New York, when he was fifty, he was playing with pickup teams in Central Park. Hardball.

DC: Oh, wow.

HART: He went out and bought a pair of spikes, oiled up a new glove, and was playing with pickup teams in Central Park. I suggested this was somewhat crazy. He said, “Well, I’m back in New York. There’s people to play with here.” When we went to his mother’s house, he and his brothers would be out in the street, playing catch. They were a very baseball-oriented family. Let me put it this way: when I was pregnant, his sister Evelyn gave us a small crib suitable for a newborn because she knew that we were going to have a baby. And I came home one day from ballet class and there was a little, teeny Yankee uniform in the crib. And I said,

Venus, If You Will…

According to the aforementioned researchers for the Marvel Masterworks volumes, Don was one of at least nine artists who worked on the threechapter lead story in Venus #6 (Aug. 1949), as the comic was evolving from romantic comedy to fantasy, science-fiction, and even horror. How much he may (or may not) have contributed to this page is hard to say, though.

Need we add that the scripter is likewise unknown? Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, one of the art-ID-ers, for the scan.You can read the entire story in the 2011 hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Age Venus, Vol. 1. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“What if it’s not a boy?” He said, “Don’t worry. It’ll be a Yankee.” [mutual laughter] DC: Now that’s a Yankee fan.

HART: Don was happy and chagrined that he and I and my parents went to a Dodger game and Don caught a foul fly. Barehanded, caught it himself, thrilled to pieces, and the chagrin was he said, “All these years going to Yankee games and I had to catch a Dodger baseball!”

“Where’s Your Sketchbook?”

DC: [laughs] So what were his work habits like? Did he work out of the home?

HART: He would work at home for quite a number of months and then one day, he’d say, “Oh, I can’t really work here. I’ve got to have a studio,” and he would rent a little studio someplace in Hollywood, sometimes inside an actual movie studio space where

26

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

they have, well, studios you could rent. He was at Hollywood General for a while, and later he was at Producers Studio, which is now called Raleigh, right across the street from Paramount. So he would work in the studio for a while and then a number of months would go by, or a year, and he’d say, “You know, I really miss working at home. I’m going to give up the studio.” And it would be, “Okay, he’s back.”

There was always a drawing table in the house, there was always a typewriter, there were taborets. I actually used to say, “You know, I could run an art supply store out of what’s in my closets here.” And by “art supplies,” I mean everything from wood engraving blocks and tools and a small press, to a full complement of oil paints. Later, he switched from oil to acrylic because he began getting headaches from the oil paint. You know, even if you leave all the doors and windows open, that stuff is toxic. Plus, [he had] everything he would need for just regular drawings.

He pretty much went everyplace with a sketchbook. He loved to go to my dance classes. He would sit and draw dancers, make quick sketches of them. He said he was approached by many people who were interested in art and prospective artists who wanted to know about drawing and painting and so forth, and he said, “Where’s your sketchbook? You haven’t got a sketchbook with you? What’s the matter with you?” That was his attitude.

“You want to learn how to draw? Draw! Go to the park, go look at people. Go sit on a bus bench.”

He used to draw in the subway all the time, because people would stay in the same position for a long time. I could look through his sketchbook and tell you , “Oh, yeah, this was done on the subway; this was done in the park.” I have a little painting that he did at one point of two people who were at a bus stop, and one of them was from a sketch that was done in New York and the other one was somebody who was in L. A., and they wound up together in the same painting.

DC: I’ve talked to artists before who looked at it more as just a job, but it sounds like Don really must have enjoyed art.

HART: Oh, absolutely. He was a true artist in the sense of this was something that was in his blood. He was compelled to do art and/or write. We stayed with some friends in Rosarito Beach, which is south of Tijuana [Mexico]. They had a little rented house, and we went down a few times and stayed with them. And right now, I’m looking at a painting that he did, based on the fact that we had been down at Rosarito Beach. He had started painting and I said, “What are you working on?” He said, “Oh, it’s Rosarito.”

Well, you know, my first thought was, “Oh, gosh. He’s going to do a seascape. I’ve never seen him do anything like that.” Well, he didn’t. He drew and then painted a scene as if he were standing on the sand, looking up the cliffs and the stairs that went up to the house where we stayed, so it was a reverse. Yes, it was the beach at Rosarito, but he was standing on the beach, looking up at the landward side. It’s not what people usually do when they go to the beach.

DC: Did he have any other hobbies?

HART: He loved freshwater fishing. He liked to be out in waders, standing in streams, and there’s very little of that in southern California. People who fish here tend to fish in the ocean. We don’t have a lot of free-standing water here. Apparently there were lots of places to fish when he had a house in Carmel, which is upstate New York. So he was extraordinarily happy when I got a job dancing in Reno and then later working in Tahoe, because it is wonderful fishing country and we would go out on my day off. We would get in the car and say, “Okay, we never took this road. Let’s see where it goes.” And at one point—I don’t remember exactly which way we went, but we had gone to the west of Tahoe and there was a sign pointing to the “North Fork of the American River.” Don said, “Oh, my God, the American River! I’ve read in books about people fishing the North Fork of the American River.

Wow, this is fabulous! We’ve got to fish here.” And he had, of course, all his gear with him, and he was so excited. You’d think he found Nirvana. I have, someplace, a photograph of him standing in his boots in the American River, casting, and I had made a copy of it and I sent it to his book publisher in New York and I said, “This is Don, hard at work.” [mutual chuckling]

DC: Oh, that’s great.

Crime Marches On! The cover of Target Comics, Vol. 7, #8 (Oct. 1946), from the Don Rico website. During this era, so-called “true crime” comics had come to the fore, spurred by Lev Gleason’s (and Charles Biro’s) Crime Does Not Pay. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

HART: And it was working, to a great extent, because he had sort of a gestation period on things that he wrote. He would go out and take a walk almost every morning. He would go and buy The New York Times or The L.A. Times, depending on which coast we were on. I said, “You want me to have the paper delivered?” He said, “No, I want the walk.” And that was when he was mentally cooking the story up in his head for whatever he was writing.

Often he would write in pencil on a basic yellow, lined legal pad.

But when he went to write paperbacks, they were almost all totally first drafts. At the point when he started to actually put it down on the IBM Selectric, he was writing a finished story.

“We Had A Great Life Together”

27

A Heroic Effort Rico work from two wars: (left:) World War II art from Eastern Color’s Heroic Comics #31 (July 1945), and (right:) from Timely/Atlas’ Battlefield #6 (Dec. 1952), where Paul Reinman illustrated his tale of the Korean War. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert for the former; the latter is reprinted from the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Battlefield, Vol. 1. [©2012 the respective copyright holders & Marvel Characters, Inc., respectively.]

I did a lot of editing and proofing for him as time went on. His grammar was always great, but I found a place where he had given two people in the story the same name because one only appeared in the first part of the novel and the other one didn’t show up until Chapter Six. But by the time he was ready to start typing, that was pretty much a finished draft. It was very little rewriting. Like I say, something would be sketched out on legal pads, but there would be just notes. When it came time to write, it all came out there in one giant lump and it was not necessary to do very much changing. I found silly typos. He would give me a chapter at a time to read. And I’m reading something very serious and suddenly I am laughing myself silly. He looked at me, “What’s so damn funny?” And I said, “Well, you have this guy sneaking into this abandoned building, and he creeps up the stairs, and you describe the room, and then you say, ‘There were three dirty widows looking out onto an alley.’ [mutual laughter] Do you want to accompany this with an illustration of these widows? I’d like to see them.” It pretty much broke up the mood of the story. It got changed to “windows” and it wasn’t nearly as funny. But it was up to me to find stuff like that.

DC: When he was working, especially when he was at home, did he work fairly standard hours or was it more irregular?

HART: No, it was very irregular. He was one of those people who had the gift of waking up and being happy to be awake in the morning. I would be happier if I didn’t wake up until ten. But he would wake up with his brain just churning away, doing wonderful things. He would want to talk about a story in the morning and I would just sort of sit there and grunt. And he would go in and either write or draw whatever it was at that point, or paint, or engrave. He would stop when he felt like it, and if somebody called him on the phone, he was happy to stop and chat.

He said he loved being interrupted. You know, if the cat got on his lap, or the kid had something to say or do, he was happy to be interrupted and he would go back to work afterwards.

“Queen Of The Jungle”

DC: That’s interesting. A lot of creative people seem to feel like they have to get it out and they want to be sort of isolated. He didn’t mind the interruptions?

HART: Oh, no! [laughs] He would deliberately interrupt himself.

He would find little things to do. He told me once that he dismantled the cigarette lighter because it avoided working. He found ways to procrastinate. So, yeah, I don’t know what his work habits were as far as when he was at an office or a studio, but we

28

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

Don Rico And Friends A triptych of photos. (Left to right:) Don (on the left) with writer/artist/editor Harvey Kurtzman at the El Cortez Hotel (the site of many early San Diego Comic-Cons)— probably in 1977, the year in which the creator of Mad was a guest of honor. Photo sent by both Michele Hart and Mark Evanier…

Don with Ken Krueger, one of the co-founders of the San Diego ComicCon. Photo sent by Michele Hart; Ken was ID’d by Mark Evanier…

Don drawing for a group of kids, probably in the 1970s.

This photo sent by both Michele and son Buz is one of the latter’s favorite pics of his father.

If Ever, Oh, Ever, A Whizzer There Was… The “Whizzer” stories from All Winners Comics #11 & #13 (Winter 1943 & Summer 1944, respectively) aren’t identified in the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age All Winners, Vol. 3 as having been drawn by Don Rico, but they are listed so in the Grand Comics Database… and Bruce Mason, who sent us the latter scan, concurs. Thus, since what Dr. Michael J. Vassallo calls Don’s “non-specific records” sent to Jerry Bails in the 1960s/70s reported that he drew “The Whizzer” circa 1943-44, we thought we’d give you a look. What do you think? Whoever the artist was, he did a better job of making The Whizzer look like a speedster than did the mid-’40s artists of DC’s “The Flash”! [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“We Had A Great Life Together”

29

DC: Was it storyboards for animated shows?

HART: Yeah. I don’t remember specifically what it was he was doing at that point, because I was busy doing other things myself.

DC: I gather that, at one point, Don also taught college.

HART: He did. He taught at UCLA Extension and he taught at Cal State Northridge (CSUN). And what he was teaching was the history, theory, and technique of comic books. He taught quite a few semesters. I believe the course at UCLA was called “Ka-Pow.”

DC: [chuckles] That’s great. Did you read comics growing up?

HART: Pretty much no. I liked “Captain Marvel” when I was a little kid. I don’t know why I didn’t like “Superman.” I read “Captain Marvel” and “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” which is really funny because I am the rotoscope model for Jana of the Jungle for Hanna-Barbera.

DC: Oh, really?

HART: Yeah! After all these years of reading “Sheena,” I wound up being Jana, which happened as a result of Don working at HannaBarbera and [hearing] they were looking for somebody to do rotoscoping. You know what rotoscope is?

DC: I’ve heard of it, although I’ll confess I’m not exactly sure what it is.

Escape From New York?

Hope those “new freaks... coming in from New York” weren’t Don and Michele fresh from their 1960s two-bedroom Manhattan apartment with a view of the Hudson River! But then, since Don drew this story for the March 1944 issue of Terrific Comics (#2), that seems highly unlikely. Wrtier unidentified. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

were always in an apartment that had good light and where you could see good stuff out the window. That was the main thing in the course of looking at an apartment: where’s the drawing table going? There had to be good natural light, and I’m still pretty much a freak on that myself. And even in New York, we had a wonderful two-bedroom, two-bath apartment on Central Park West, which now probably has become a condo and is selling for ten million dollars. [chuckles] But at the time, it was rent-controlled and we had a view of the Hudson River from the eleventh floor.

DC: Sounds like a great location.

HART: We were up at 106th and Central Park West and there were people from Joe Papp’s theatre company in the building and everything, but it was a sneeze from Harlem. Everybody in the neighborhood was either black or Puerto Rican, and I had some problems because my last name was Rico and nobody understood why I didn’t speak Spanish. So it was interesting. But Don was not a nine-to-fiver in that sense at all. Towards the end of his life, he got a job at Hanna-Barbera and he was doing storyboards for them.

And of course, then he had to actually go to a place to work on a regular basis, which he had not done, I don’t think, since he worked for Marvel. He was not happy at Hanna-Barbera and he kept coming home and saying, “Well, maybe they’ll fire me,” [mutual laughter] which of course they didn’t.

Captain America Could Teach At The School Of Hard Knocks— And Right Crosses This flyer heralded the extension course Don Rico taught in 1975 (and perhaps in other years) at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Thanks to Michele Hart. [Captain America TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

30

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

Would You Like To Be Queen Of The Jungle For A Day? Michele reveals that one of her favorite comics characters as a kid was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Seen above left is a Fiction House “Sheena” splash page from an uncertain issue of Jumbo Comics, probably penciled by longtime artist Robert Webb. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

As fate would have it, Michele later married Don Rico, the writer/co-creator for Timely/Atlas of both “Lorna, Queen of the Jungle” and “Jann of the Jungle.” The latter was the lead feature in Jungle Tales #1 (Sept. 1954); the mag was renamed for her with issue #8. Pencils of this first story are reportedly by Arthur Peddy. The previously unidentified inker may be Peddy’s longtime partner, Bernard Sachs, whose widow recently told Richard Arndt that he did some inking “for Stan Lee” during this period; that interview is scheduled to appear in A/E #121. This scan is from the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Jungle Adventure, Vol. 2. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Still later, the similarly named Jana of the Jungle became a TV animated series from Hanna-Barbera for 1978-79; or, more precisely, it was one segment of the small-screen Godzilla Power Hour. Creation of “Jana” is generally credited to longtime comic book artist Doug Wildey, but apparently Don Rico worked on it, as well—with the result that, as Michele reveals, she wound up posing for early rotoscoping of the heroine. The jungle gal’s albino panther, by the way, was named Ghost. [©2012 Hanna-Barbera or their successors in interest.]

making the bed, you know, what are the gestures of arms when FYI: the original “Jan of the Jungle” (with one “n” and one “a”) was a sort of “boy Tarzan” in 1930s pulp-mag they’re shaking out blankets? She stories written by Otis Adelbert Kline, one of the most popular and prolific imitators of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In turns her face away from the dust the 1940s, there was also a “Jan of the Jungle” series in Fiction House’s comics. Some names have legs. of the blankets, she has to shake it a certain way. So rotoscope is used HART: Okay, rotoscope is a process—of course, nowadays it would for real movements. In the case of Jana, someplace around there is be CGI and they wouldn’t have to think about it. But what they film of me climbing a rope, because Jana climbs vines. There are used to do was, if you needed to have a character that moved in a shots of me walking along a two-by-four, stretched between a very realistic way—it was a real human being, not one of Snow couple of apple boxes, which was Jana walking along the edge of a White’s dwarfs or a monster or Bugs Bunny—if you wanted to cliff. I climbed up stacks of boxes, I jumped off boxes, I swung have a character that moved realistically, you would film a person from ropes, I did all sorts of things that were things that Jana doing those moves, and then the animation would be based on the would do that were translated into her doing them in the jungle, video of the person doing various things. whereas I was doing them in the studio. And based on that were the drawings of Jana which I did with a long wig that went down So, to give you an example of that, in Snow White and the Seven almost to my butt and ended with me lying on my stomach on a Dwarfs, the dwarfs can look and move any way that they want two-by-four stretched between a couple of apple boxes, swimming. because they’re not real characters. They’re not even real human [chuckles] dwarfs, they’re imaginary dwarfs, but Snow White is a real girl. So when you have something like Snow White cleaning the house, DC: That is fantastic. sweeping with a broom or shaking out the blankets when she’s

“We Had A Great Life Together”

HART: So, yeah, it’s funny, because one of the few comics I read was “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.” [chuckles] And then all these years later, I’m this animated character who was very much like Sheena. [INTERVIEWER’S COMMENT: In a note of further irony, Don co-created “Jann of the Jungle” in 1954 for Timely/Atlas Comics, predecessor of Marvel.]

“[Don] Was Amazed [At His] First Comic-Con”

DC: I understand that in the late ‘70s he did a little more writing and drawing in comics. I also noticed that he worked with Sergio Aragonés.

HART: Yeah. He was writing some stuff (“T.C. Mars”) with Sergio.

It actually was on account of Sergio and Mark Evanier that he got the kind of recognition that he had never really had from fans.

There was not the big fan thing then that there is now in relationship to comics. I asked Don, “Do you have any of your old comics? Would your daughter have any of them stashed?” He said, “Oh, no. When I was working for Marvel, I used to bring home stacks of comics every week or so, and my daughter would give them to all the kids on the block and she would be a hero because she was giving out free comics to everybody.” He didn’t keep anything, and the publishers kept nearly all of the original material.

31

Aragonés, Mark Evanier, and Don Rico in 1977. Back in the Stone Age (pre-Internet/Facebook/LinkedIn), the intention was to help comic artists/writers to link up with each other, both socially and professionally. Los Angeles is huge geographically, with nothing like “going into Manhattan” where one would run into likeminded folks, so a meeting place convenient to most was found. I attended a 30-year anniversary meeting of CAPS last year. It’s still going strong.

“There Was A Great Deal Of Socializing Back Then”

DC: I realize that, by the time you met Don, it was past his work in comics in the Golden Age. Did you ever have a chance to meet any of those guys or spend any time around them?

HART: Definitely. In New York, we were friends with Jim Miele and Mike Sekowsky and ... it’s a long time ago, but there were others. When he first got back into being recognized as a person of

Nobody kept anything. Nobody knew it was going to be worth anything, and most of it was destroyed. So when the Comic-Cons first started in San Diego in the ’70s, the first time he went to a Comic- Con, he was kind of reluctant, saying, “Well, who knows who I am?” And he came back with—you know how, in animated stuff, they would draw a character with their eyes turning into little spirals?

DC: Sure.

HART: That’s kind of what he looked like when he came back from his first Comic-Con. He was absolutely stunned. He said, “There are people who know who I am who weren’t born when I stopped drawing. There were kids asking for autographs, bringing me stuff that they recognized that I had drawn, even though I hadn’t signed it.” He had no idea that comics had acquired this cachet of being collectible and being “real art.” He was amazed. And when I went to a couple of the Comic-Cons with him, when they were infinitely smaller than they are now, it was like following Elton John through a rock concert. It was just insane! I mean there were people crowding around him. They did everything but tear his clothes off.

It was astonishing!

DC: Well, Don had a big impact on comics.

HART: He went through the [Comics] Buyer’s Guide and started looking at stuff and going, “Oh, yeah, I did this and I did that one.

Oh, I forgot I did this one, too.” And he would be looking at stuff and making little notes on Buyer’s Guide because there were many he forgot he did because he did so much of it. You know, people were churning out comics really fast in the ‘50s.

DC: Were you there when he got the Inkpot Award in San Diego in 1976?

HART: Oh, yeah. He was completely stunned by the whole thing, and all that came around the time that CAPS was started—you know, Comic Art Professional Society. He and Sergio and Mark put that together.

DC: Can you tell me more about CAPS?

HART: The Comic Art Professional Society was founded by Sergio

Don Rico Goes To Mars Don Rico reportedly dialogued “T.C. Mars,” a feature about a wacky private detective—and her brawny aide “Rico”—which was drawn (and probably plotted) by Mad cartoonist Sergio Aragonés. It appeared in the first and only issue of Joe Kubert’s Sojourn, a 1977 tabloid-size cross between a magazine and a newspaper supplement which also featured original strips

by John Severin, Doug Wildey, Dick Giordano, Lee Elias, and Kubert himself.

Thanks to Larry Good. [©2012 Sergio Aragonés.]

32

Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

CAPS Pistols!

Also in 1977, the aforementioned Sergio Aragonés, comics & TV writer Mark Evanier, and writer/artist Don Rico teamed up in Los Angeles to found CAPS— the Comic Art Professional Society, open to all comics creators on the West Coast. The organization is still going strong after more than a third of century.

(Left to right:) Sergio at his desk… Mark at a formal event at the 1982 San Diego Comic-Con (photo by Alan Light)—and a penciled self-portrait of Don (courtesy of Buz Rico). [Art ©2012 Estate of Don Rico.]

import in the comic world, at that point, it was much smaller and more social than it is right now. The Comic-Con was done in a hotel, everybody knew everybody, and yeah, I met a whole lot of those people. I used to go to the CAPS meetings with him and we would go to Canter’s restaurant afterwards and everybody would sit around and eat and drink and talk after the official meeting itself was over. Sergio hosted a couple of parties at his house, Mark had a couple at his. And I talk to Mark regularly. I see Sergio at remote intervals because Sergio doesn’t live in town anymore. He’s way out beyond the suburbs. Evanier had a party recently because he turned 60 and I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen in many years.

And I knew Roy and Danette [Thomas] from that era, also. There was a great deal of socializing back then, and I don’t think that’s happening quite as much anymore, although I’m really kind of off that track. I was only part of the comic world because of Don, and I’m still friends with people, but we don’t see each other with any degree of regularity.

DC: Did Don enjoy socializing?

HART: So, here’s an anecdote, in answer to your question. We were at a cocktail party, Don and I. He was about 70 years old at the time. I can’t recall whose house, but it was large enough that there were a number of groups of people standing about chatting.

Don was at the far side of the room. I was making small talk with several women, none of whom I really knew. One gestured toward Don and asked, “Who’s the old guy with two blondes hanging all over him?” “Oh,” said I. “That’s my husband.” That’s Don.

DC: It sounds like you were made for each other.

HART: We had a great life together. You know, obviously, there was huge opposition from my family because he was a divorced man who was thirty years older than I was. And it was really interesting, because I was so certain of my love for him and his love for me, and that we would be terrific together, but people said all sorts of weird things. You know, when they had exhausted everything else, they were finally down to saying things like, “Well, he’s a Libra and you’re a Pisces! How can you possibly get along?”

And I watched all my girlfriends, and some of my male friends, get divorced and have difficult marriages and so forth, but he and I were really happy. I was so convinced that this was the right thing for me to do and everybody said, “Well, you know he’s going to die before you,” and I said, “Yeah, I could walk in front of a bus tomorrow, and if we only have a couple of years together, that’s fine. I’m willing to do that.” And as it was, we were together for 22 years, which is longer than a lot of marriages. We had a terrific son, and Don lived to see him grow up and get married.

DC: That is wonderful.

San Diego, Here I Come…

Don signs a few comics at the El Cortez during a Comic-Con, circa late 1970s or early ’80s, as wife Michele looks on. Photo sent by both Michele Hart & Mark Evanier.

“We Had A Great Life Together”

33

HART: And we were extremely happy. We gave each other a lot of space. But on the other hand, I was always thrilled when he was working at home. I was happier to have him home than to have him at the office or the studio, whichever. And we did a lot of fun stuff together. We liked to drive, and one of the things we would do is get in the car and say, “Okay, what direction have we not driven for a while?” Los Angeles being the enormous space that it is, we would go, “Oh, well, I guess we’re going to Palm Springs today.” [mutual chuckling] And we would explore a great deal, particularly when I was working up in Reno and Tahoe. Don loved stuff about the Old West, and two days after I got my job up in Reno, when he came up there, he’s a couple blocks away at the Overland Hotel, which was run by the Overland Stage Lines. You remember seeing that in all the Westerns? Well, that was a real thing.

Don was talking to the hotel manager, who brought out the original guest book. He would be chatting up the person with the guest book and looking at the people who in the 1800s were coming from places like Sweden and Germany and France. And suddenly they’re in Reno. He was totally jazzed to go to Virginia City, which is today almost an hour’s drive from Reno. And of course, we realized that there were many silly things like—

You remember the show Bonanza? They were up in Tahoe and they would ride over to Virginia City for lunch. South Lake Tahoe to Virginia City’s an hour and a half by car. [mutual laughter] We drove a lot of strange back roads, we went to little towns that nobody’d ever heard of, we chatted—he loved talking to people who had lived in areas and knew stuff about history. He loved the history of the Old West. He was working on trying to do a weekly, single-panel thing to go into newspapers with stories of the Old West. He found a lot of interesting things, including the guys who originally went to Virginia City looking for gold and they kept finding what they referred to “the blasted blue stuff.” They kept throwing it aside until somebody said, “That’s silver.” Stories like that. He just loved turning up stuff like that and wanted to do a series of one-panel things that would appear only in the Sunday comics. He never wanted to do a daily strip. He said that would make him crazy.

“He Was Planning To Do Two Books In Pictures”

DC: Yeah, that’s really hard work. So, did Don continue to draw later in life?

HART: Towards the end of his life, he went back to painting for a while. He was painting abstract, working in acrylic, and then really went around full circle and started engraving again, which he had not done for many, many years.

DC: What engravings did he do?

HART: He had done a couple of random things, not engraving regularly. He did a series of engravings of the Reno and Tahoe area that were published as a center spread in Westways Magazine [Dec. 1962], which was a publication of the AAA, The Auto Club. He did a wood engraving as a Christmas card for us when we were living in New York, when our son would have been about two years old.

He was very proud of the Westways piece, and it was quite wonderful. And at the same time, he also did a small engraving of me as a dancer with the lights of Reno in the background. He never finished two engraving projects that he was doing on and off for many years

DC: What were the unfinished projects?

Kid-ing Around “Don loved stuff about the Old West,” Michele says—as witness this splash page from Kid Colt Outlaw #13 (Feb. 1951), probably written as well as drawn by Don. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

HART: Don was planning to do two books in pictures, The Song of Solomon from the Bible and The Sign of the Star, which was the story of the birth of Jesus. He was very impressed by the work of Lynd Ward, who did a series of novels completely in pictures with no words whatsoever. Despite what a number of uptight people will tell you, the Song of Solomon is actually a poem of erotica, in the voices of several people. There is a narrative voice, a male voice, and a female voice. Because punctuation was not used in Biblical times, one has to sort it out and find out who’s talking on each line.

And these were not completed, but there are mock-up works in existence of them, with some illustrations ready to be transferred to blocks to be engraved, some fully engraved and printed. It’s very sad to me that these never got done.

DC: They sound like wonderful projects.

HART: I have several of the Lynd Ward books here. The originals are highly collectible. But anyway, Don was trying to do something similar to, or I would say inspired by Ward’s books, with these stories. He had already approached a number of people who were going to back him on this series. In other words, they would agree to pay for print-by-print as they were done, and he had a whole group of people who were interested in this, and some galleries that wanted to show them. And he passed away in midstream.

But he really went full-circle with his life and went back to the engraving which was his first love. I think one of the things that was a great culmination in his life was that he had gotten a letter

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Michelle Hart Talks About Her Time With Husband Don Rico—And Her Own Colorful Career

Home Is “The Wanderer” (Above:) Influenced by artist Lynd Ward, who in 1929 and the 1930s created wordless graphic novels by a similar art technique, Don Rico produced this 5” x 7” wood engraving, which he titled “The Wanderer.” It was, Michele Hart says, one of a kind, not part of a “novel in graphics.”

(Above right:) A Paul Bunyan wood engraving by Rico, also probably not done as part of a story. “He just liked the character,” Michele states. “He also did a ‘John Henry’—I think he liked heroic characters before Captain America.” Thanks to Michele for both scans. [©2012 Estate of Don Rico.]

from a friend of his in New York—this was, I believe, in the beginning of the ‘80s—asking him if he was aware that some of his work was being shown at the Metropolitan Museum in a show of works of the WPA Arts Project.

DC: That is amazing.

HART: He flew back to New York to look at it. You know, if you’re an actor, it’s the Academy Award; if you’re an artist, the Metropolitan.

DC: Absolutely.

HART: His work is in many museums all over the world, including some of them that I didn’t even know about. The University of Michigan got some prints; the Oslo, Norway, Museum has some, and he didn’t know about it for years.

DC: When did Don pass away?

ON SALE NOW!

HART: 1985. There were obits picked up in the press when he died— the Associated Press picked it up. It was in The L.A. Times and in The New York Times and a number of other papers nationally when he passed.

You know, just prior to Don’s becoming ill with lung cancer, he was learning to use a computer. He bought what was then state-ofthe-art, a Kaypro II. It was before the mouse existed, and he was teaching himself prompts. That was typical of Don… always learning, always moving forward.

DC: He truly was a Renaissance man.

HART: If you are a Renaissance person, and you start telling people what you can do, they look at you funny, you know? We have all learned that phrase “jack of all trades, master of none,” and a lot of people assume that if you say you do one thing well, it means you don’t do the other things well or that you do everything badly. And Don did a lot of things well.

Dewey Cassell is a regular contributor to TwoMorrows publications and author of the new book Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics.

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BELLMAN, Book, And Candle A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Golden Age Artist ALLEN BELLMAN EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: In this year of 2012, Allen Bellman celebrated the 70th anniversary of the day in 1942 when he joined the staff of Timely Comics, under its editor, Stan Lee. (I suppose that’s the day he lit the symbolic “candle” of my whimsical overall title above.)

While Dr. Michael J. Vassallo’s interview with Allen was published in Alter Ego #32 in 2004—an issue now out of print primarily because Allen himself bought up so many back issues in order to give them out at comics conventions over the past decade!—we felt we should use the occasion for a somewhat briefer revisiting eight years later of this artist, perhaps the “last man standing” among those who drew super-hero adventure comics for Timely during the 1940s.

A/E

This special coverage is divided into four parts:

A short overview of Allen’s career by his friend, Joyce Moed…

Salutes by two other buddies, Michael Uslan and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo… …and a few words from Allen himself to round things out.

And now, since time (and the page count) are a-wasting…!

“Patriot” Games Seems like only yesterday to Allen Bellman (seen above in 1945, at age 21) that he was drawing things such as the “Patriot” splash page (pictured at left) for Marvel Mystery Comics #62 (March ’45)—and, next thing he knows, it’s several decades later and he’s posing for a photo at a comics convention with his old boss Stan Lee (below)! Though Allen mentions to Joyce Moed that Stan’s “real name is Stanley Lieber,” actually Stan changed it legally years ago. Thanks to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo for the art scan; this rare, identifiable Bellman-drawn splash originally appeared with his interview back in A/E #32—but this time we can show it in color! Only thing we can’t do is tell you who scripted the story. [Page ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Allen Bellman

Part I

ALLEN BELLMAN - “One Of The Early Pioneer Artists”

by Joyce Moed

o say that Allen Bellman is a comic book legend is an understatement.

T

In 1942, when he was just a teenager, Bellman drew the backgrounds for Syd Shores’ “Captain America.”

Later he worked on features, including “The Patriot,” “The Destroyer,” “The Human Torch,” “Jap-Buster Johnson,” “Jet Dixon of the Space Squadron,” and others.

His work appeared in such Golden Age titles as All Winners Comics, Marvel Mystery Comics, Sub-Mariner, and Young Allies.

“My self-created backup crime feature was called ‘Let’s Play Detective,’” Bellman remembers. “I also contributed to pre-Code horror, crime, war, and Western tales for Atlas. I worked in the comics field until the early 1950s.”

He still recalls his first day at Timely Comics, now known as Marvel Comics: “Monday could not come fast enough, and when it arrived, Don Rico [an artist at Timely/Marvel] was introducing me to the staff. Rico introduced me to Syd Shores and Vince Alascia.

Syd was penciling ‘Captain America,’ and Vince was his inker.”

Bellman was given some of Shores’ finished pages, and instructed to ink the backgrounds: “I did this for a while, and they soon decided to allow me to do complete scripts––pencil and ink. I believe the first one I did was ‘The Patriot.’ My art was somewhat crude, and yet looking back at very early Kirby work and his much later art, you could see the great strides made in his artwork.”

At this time, Bellman had still never seen Stan Lee, or knew anything about his boss.

“Later on, I began seeing Stan walking behind a gentleman by the name of Robby Solomon, who I later learned was publisher Martin Goodman’s brother-in-law. I also heard that Stan was Solomon’s nephew. Till today, it was never confirmed, but Robby Solomon was an authority figure, though no one ever knew what his title was. To me, he acted as if he was an art director breaking Stan in.”

Bellman soon learned that the reason he had not seen Lee previously was because he had been in the Army, and had just been released and come back to his job as the company’s editor. [A/E EDITOR'S NOTE: The wartime editor was cartoonist Vince Fago.]

“This is all hearsay, but having Robby Solomon as an acting art director was not always good. Robby would come into our room and speak to all of us, telling us to draw like Lou Fine or Mac Raboy––very fine artists working for another company. In spite of this, Goodman’s comic books were outselling all of the competition, including DC Comics,” Bellman says. “Good art didn’t sell comic books; story matter and characters sold. Let’s take ‘Superman,’ for example. Joe Shuster’s art was crude, but it had style and it was a million-dollar idea. Dick Tracy was badly drawn, but it had character, and a drawing style everyone took to. Robby decided to get on my back, and because of this I worked harder. So in a way he did me a service. Robby died as a young man, and it was then Stan Lee really took charge.”

Signs Of The Times (Above:) This classified ad for prospective Captain America inkers from the Sept. 9, 1942, edition of The New York Times, say Allen and his buddy Doc V., may be the very one that the 18year-old aspiring artist answered 70 years ago to land his job with Timely Comics! Thanks to Allen & to Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. Sean Howe sent us scans of similar ads in the Times from July 7 & 19 and Sept. 6. Goodman must’ve been getting desperate! [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

(Left:) We’ve never seen any photos of Rob Solomon—whom Allen mentions as a general “authority figure” around the offices and whom some early-’40s Timely mags listed under the catch-all title “consulting associate”—but wartime bullpenner Dave Gantz said that this caricature, done by an unknown artist for an injoke story in Krazy Komics #12 (Nov. 1943), might well be of Solomon. Or it might not, say Doc V., Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Hames Ware, who provided this detail. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

About a year and a half older than Bellman, Lee was known as a young man with a purpose, the artist notes. “His real name is Stanley Lieber. As young guys, we always liked to take a pen name with hopes for a good future. I at one time called myself Allen Bell, but it didn’t stick.”

Bellman noted that working for Lee was “clear sailing,” but there came a time when the “bullpen” was disbanded.

“I went to Lev Gleason and got a staff job immediately. Dates and time escape me, but I worked for Bob Wood and Charlie Biro.

Bob was a great guy to work for. Lev Gleason’s staff was disbanded, and comics were making a comeback, so I soon was doing freelance for Stan. Stan kept me busy, giving me a new script upon bringing in a finished story. I can remember getting a romance story to do for DC and gave it back because Stan was keeping me busy. I was always assured of getting work from Stan, and if I took a leave of absence to do a story for DC, I might break the chain that I could always count on.”

At the time, Bellman’s home life with his first wife, whom he had married when he was just 20 years old, was getting worse: “But I still kept punching and even went up to the Associated Press bringing my samples to the art director of the syndicate.”

They liked his work and wanted him to take over the comic strip Scorchy Smith.

“Every comic book artist always would dream of doing a newspaper comic strip,” Bellman recalls. “All they wanted was one week of strips, and with conditions as they were at home, I never followed through. There was no one at home I could work with on this, and once you sign a contract you must deliver––no ifs or buts.

I’m not a quitter, but sometimes in life you have to make a decision, good, bad, or indifferent. There was a separation followed by a divorce. I was depressed, once having a family, now alone, when she took our two children to live in Florida.”

Bellman, Book, And Candle

Bellman then lost all desire to draw: “After my first wife and I split, I found myself homeless––no money, but I was privileged to have a car, not exactly a new one, but my driving backrest was my pillow at night.”

Soon after, he went to live with his sister and her family, in Brooklyn. He was still friends with Mel Blum, who was the art director for Goodman’s other magazines.

“He helped me get a job with Pyramid Books on Madison Avenue,” Bellman says. “It wasn’t a comic book house, but there I learned layout, and they used my art very often. In fact, I illustrated a paperback book called Impossible Greeting Cards, cover and all.”

It was a job that afforded him to get a place of his own. In the meantime, Mel Blum left Goodman and began publishing his own magazines. He kept Bellman busy drawing spot cartoons.

“Things in reality weren’t good,” Bellman recalls. “I left Pyramid Books after they told me to work overtime on a Friday

37

when I had a hot date waiting for me at Radio City Music Hall. I was a member of Parents without Partners, an organization of people who once were married, and they would meet once a week at a bowling alley in Brooklyn. I really did not like bowling, but this one evening, feeling a bit lonely, I wandered off to be with people in my own boat. As I walked toward the back of the alley, I saw a young blonde woman speaking to one of the male PWP members, and little did I know he was telling her that I was one of the best artists in New York, and little did he know that I was unemployed, doing freelance jobs here and there and having perhaps enough money in my pocket to pay for my bowling game.”

An introduction followed, and this was Bellman’s first meeting with Roz, whom he married shortly after. This was the turning point, when things started to look up for him.

“I went into business, which afforded me to travel around the world, buy expensive cameras, and enjoy life,” he says. “I had a new lease on life. I also did small freelance art jobs.”

Marvel Mystery Comments (Left:) Because during the 1940s diverse hands often worked on the same Timely story—hey, even on the same panel—it’s often hard to ID who did what on which tale. This “Captain America” adventure from Marvel Mystery Comics #86 (June 1948), for instance, is credited by the Grand Comics Database to Al Avison—but it's quite likely that others, including possibly Allen Bellman, worked on it, as well. Scripter unknown.

(Right:) In that selfsame issue, though, we do know that Allen wrote and drew the one-page “Let’s Play Detective” crime feature—’cause he often gave himself a byline, though not in this instance. Thanks to Doc Vassallo for the scan. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

38

A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Allen Bellman

all the new Batman movies, and I appeared in a movie called The Legends behind the Comic Books. Uslan presented me and other artists with an award.”

Bellman also received the Inkpot Award at Comic-Con in San Diego.

“Under the pointy finger of Dr. Frederic Wertham and the Salem-like accusers who claimed comic books were cheap, lurid entertainment that corrupted children, turning them into a generation of depraved juvenile delinquents, homosexuals, and asthmasufferers, comic book writers and editors like Stan Lee in the 1950s and early ‘60s would admit at cocktail parties only that they were working in the field of literature for children, in fear of being ostracized by society or worse,” Uslan says. “Comic book artists whose work had inspired the servicemen and kids through World War II were now forced to flee that business and find work in advertising, technical, and commercial art.” That’s what happened, more or less, to Allen Bellman, who had brought to life such super-heroes as Captain America and The Human Torch in the Golden Age of the 1940s.

But when the Batman TV series helped spawn a pop culture age and Warhol and Lichtenstein pop paintings began hanging in our most prestigious museums and galleries—when Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics opened comic books to college audiences—when comic books began being taught at colleges as a legitimate American art form and as our modern-day mythology—when the graphic novel was born, and when Superman and Batman became blockbuster global powerhouses at the boxoffice—a new respectability descended on the characters, the comic book itself, and the creators. Allen Bellman emerged from self-imposed obscurity into rock star status at comic cons from coast to coast. Fans pay top dollar for his art. He signs autographs for long lines of collectors.

He is invited to speak at prestigious events, garners media

Why Does Captain America Keep Picking On Poor Adolf Hitler?

Steven Freivogel, who’s mentioned by Allen as a booster and friend, is the guy who commissioned—and later sent A/E a copy of—this Captain America drawing that was penciled by Bellman, inked by Mitch Breitweiser, and colored by the latter’s wife Elizabeth. Look familiar?

[Captain America TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2012 Allen Bellman & Mitch Breitweiser.]

Later, after 18 years out of the business, the Bellmans moved to Florida. He joined the art department of a major daily newspaper.

He then became interested in photography, and learned he had a great talent for taking photographs. He won many nationwide photography contests. In fact, many of his photos have appeared in hardcover books, have been on exhibit in museums in Florida, and received positive reviews in several newspapers.

“After working ten years for the newspaper, I received a phone call from a dentist in New York who identified himself as Michael Vassallo, asking me if I was the Allen Bellman who worked for Timely Comics.”

Then, in 2007, he met a comic book enthusiast named Steven Freivogel, who, like Vassallo, encouraged Bellman to get back into the comic book industry.

Soon after, he met Mike Broder, chairman of Florida Supercon, who invited him to be a guest at his comic book convention.

“Since then, I was invited to attend a comic book con in Montclair, New Jersey, by Michael Uslan, the executive producer of

O.K. Axis, Here We Come!

Allen’s version of Timely’s Golden Age “Big Three” is one of many Photostatted copies he sells for reasonable prices at comics conventions or via the Internet. [Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and Human Torch TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2012 Allen Bellman]

Bellman, Book, And Candle

39

coverage, is quoted often, and can barely keep up with requests for his photo with those multiple generations of fans.

Allen’s journey, representative of all his fellow artists and writers in the comic book industry, has been remarkable. While most of them never lived to see their names celebrated and their art hanging in museums, Allen makes sure they are remembered and cherished as part of that Greatest Generation.

Stan Lee is happy to see Bellman come back to his comic book roots. “Allen was one of the early pioneer artists when Marvel was a-growing,” Lee says. “It’s good to see that he’s as sprightly, energetic, and talented now as before, and that he still finds time to meet and spend time with fans at various comic book conventions.”

Today, at 88 years old, Bellman draws for his fans, chats with them, and poses for pictures with them at comic book conventions.

His beautiful wife of 50 years, Roz, is always at his side.

Bellman is a guest at comic book conventions throughout the country, and is available for commissions. To reach him, write to him at allen@allenbellman.com.

Part II

ALLEN BELLMAN – “One Of The Last Living Legends”

by Michael Uslan y father, Joe Uslan, was the kind of dad every comic book fan and collector ever hoped for. When we moved into our new house the summer I completed fifth grade, he never once put the family car in the garage. Instead, he built me floor-to-ceiling shelves around its three walls in order to house my fast-growing comic book collection. Also, he drove me to faraway drug stores and candy stores whenever I was desperately searching for some elusive Charlton comic book that hadn’t made it to the stands that carried the DCs. He drove me to the homes of any comic book professional I could track down in our Garden State of New Jersey… whether a creator, editor, artist, or writer. He and my mom took me to New York City so I could attend the world’s first comic book conventions in the 1960s. So it was only natural that he’d share my excitement that night he came home from his weekly Lion’s Club meeting in 1966.

M

My Dad was the president of the Ocean Township Chapter of this wonderful social service organization whose good deeds included collecting eyeglasses to be redistributed to people who could not afford them. Every member of that Lion’s Club was a civic leader, a philanthropist, and a real-life super-hero. At this particular meeting, Dad had a chance to talk at length with a recent new member, Al Bellman.

“Michael,” Dad exclaimed, “did you ever hear of Al Bellman?”

I hadn’t.

“He told me tonight that he used to draw comic books!” Dad proclaimed. My curiosity was piqued, but my Dad was perplexed that I wasn’t overly excited.

“I never heard of him, Pop, and I think I know the names of

The Anniversary Schmaltz (Left to right:) Michael Uslan, Allen and Roz Bellman, and Dann and Roy Thomas celebrate Allen’s 70th year since his debut in comics, at a party thrown for him by Mike Broder, host of the Florida Supercon in Miami, on the cusp of June & July 2012. Roz, Michael, and Roy did a bit of impromptu “roasting” of Allen at the microphone. But Mr. B. gave as good as he got!

every artist whoever worked in comic books,” I said as a cocky fifteen-year-old who was certain he knew everything about everything (despite my dad’s lectures that the older you get, the more you realize the less you know). I figured that, if this man had really been a comic book artist, he probably just drew something mundane like True Comics or My Little Margie, Heart Throbs, or one of those obscure Charlton war comics like Fightin’ Army, Fightin’ Navy, or Fightin’ Etc.

But no. Dad responded that this Al Bellman worked for a man named Stan Lee and he wondered if I knew that name.

My jaw dropped. There’s a man in Ocean Township who drew comic books for Stan Lee?!? Oh my God! (For you history buffs, the latter term was the forerunner to “OMG.”) Who could he be? What did he draw for Marvel? “Pop… are you sure his name is Al Bellman and not Al Hartley or George Bell?” I knew Al Hartley was a sometimes super-hero artist but mostly a Marvel Western and Millie the Model-type artist. And I knew George Bell was an inker at Marvel. But although back then I knew everything, I somehow did not yet know that George Bell did not exist, but rather was a “pen name” for early “Batman” ghost artist George Roussos, who did not want his long-time employer, DC Comics, to know he was moonlighting at Marvel in order to supplement his income.

I was stumped. In those pre-Internet days when the total number of books about comic books published since 1938 was about four, all I could do was comb every page available in search of “Al Bellman.” Nothing. So I pulled out all the fanzines in my collection—Alter Ego, The Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector, the RBCC Specials, On the Drawing Board, The Comic Reader, Batmania, Flame On, Aurora, Ymir, True Fan Adventure Theatre—and every piece of paper I ever received from Dr. Jerry Bails, Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, Julius Schwartz, and even Stan Lee himself. Nothing about an Al Bellman. And so I begged my Dad to take me to a Lion’s Club meeting so I could meet this quixotic figure in person. There was a family night upcoming, and that would be my chance.

The night came and I finally met Al Bellman and had a new hero in my life. He regaled me with tales of being hired as a kid at Timely Comics in the 1940s war years. I heard personal anecdotes

40

A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Allen Bellman

tales of the “good old days” became a great first-hand source of the history of comics for me. He was my very own human version of the great Library at Alexandria.

Al also then told me of the coming of The Darkness… when Dr. Frederick Wertham and his notorious 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent almost single-handedly brought the end of all comic books upon us and how that, coupled with the Atlas/Marvel distribution implosion, drove him from his comic book artist career in search of steadier, more secure employment in the world of advertising in New York City.

My favorite moment while in Al’s company was when he surprised me with a drawing he’d done and colored of one of his favorite characters, The Patriot. It was the first time I actually saw Al’s artwork. I was happily stunned to see how much it looked like the work of Simon and Kirby! It’s a piece I still have, framed and glassed, on my office wall amid my original art from Marvel’s Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, and Don Heck.

Invaders From Miami Allen & his new pal Rob Hunter, who currently draws for DC and Marvel, teamed up on the All Winners Squad cover of the 2012 Florida Supercon’s program book. Note Allen’s photo at upper left; that’s the con’s mascot floating above the Torch. Coloring by Juan Fernandez. [Miss America, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Human Torch, and Whizzer TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

about Stan Lee and Martin Goodman, the publisher. Al brought to life for me the Golden Age Marvel bullpen up in the Empire State Building… the way they churned out the work… the hi-jinx and pranks… the personality conflicts. I soon felt like I personally knew Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Syd Shores, Al Avison, John Romita, Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, Matt Fox, and so many more illustrious members of what would soon become the Atlas Comics bullpen, as the company would turn its focus from super-heroes to horror, science-fiction, war, crime, Western, detective, spy, humor, and jungle comics.

Al Bellman successfully made that precarious transition from Timely to Atlas, but it was his 1940s super-hero work that positively enthralled me! He actually drew “Captain America” in the Golden Age of Comics! He drew the original “Human Torch”!

He drew “The Sub-Mariner” during World War II! And one of his personal favorites was “The Patriot,” a character I already knew well, having amassed a sizeable collection of old comic books like Marvel Mystery, All Winners, Young Allies, All-Select, and U.S.A.! Al’s

In most articles about legendary artists of the Golden Age and Silver Age, we fanboys get great insights into the history and the way it was. Few, however, focus on the person rather than the artist. But writing about Allen Bellman the artist without writing about Allen Bellman the person would sadly paint an incomplete picture. As he careens toward his 90th year, Allen remains a man full of life, energy, and the spirit of a boy—still excited every single time he meets a fan, attends a comic con, is bestowed with the next accolade or award, or picks up a pencil to draw. He is one of the chosen few on Earth to take his passion in life and turn it into his life’s work. His enthusiasm is matched by his lovely wife, Roz, around whom he still acts like a lovesick schoolboy on his first date with the girl of his dreams. After fifty years of marriage, Roz remains Al’s anchor and number one fan, accompanying him on every personal appearance from coast-to-coast and country-tocountry, all the while keeping track of his growing list of commissions by fans looking to add to their collections of originals by one of the last surviving Golden Age artists of “Captain America” and “The Human Torch.” (P.S.: Check out allenbellman.com to see what I’m talking about!)

Allen is also the great family man, and that’s always where his first priority lies, be it with his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, in-laws and out-laws. Two of Allen’s granddaughters (he refers to them as “the twins,” but I refer to them as “The Wonder Twins”) have become famous artists in their own right. Jeaneen Barnhart is dedicated to the art of drawing on paper, creating works with such diverse line and texture taking on their own dimension. Her exploration with oil painting continues, working with a variety of subject matter, including her Full-Bodied Wine series, Tulips, Sunflowers, Equine, and the Figure (artsocool.com). Doreen Barnhart Dehart is an accomplished graphic designer with an extensive award-winning portfolio spanning art and advertising (twinspired.com).

Allen’s dry, witty sense of humor never stops. Coupled with his unrelenting travels in order to interface with his fans, he destroys the stereotype of a comic book artist operating as a veritable hermit of limited social skills, chained to his drawing table day and night.

Allen Bellman and his indomitable spirit helped make comic books the fun and artistic achievement they were and remain to this day.

Along with Stan Lee and John Romita, Allen Bellman is one of the last living legends connecting us to the earliest golden days of what would become the entertainment juggernaut known as “Marvel.” He is, thus, one of comicbookdom’s true national treasures… a treasure I’m proud and lucky enough to call my friend.

Bellman, Book, And Candle

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The Company They Keep Doc V. and Allen, in a 2000 photo that also appeared in A/E #32… and a partly-colored illo by Mr. B. delineating Cap and a couple of his— and humanity’s—greatest enemies. [Captain America & Red Skull TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2012 Allen Bellman.]

Part III

“He Saw, Witnessed, And/Or Toiled On Nearly Everything That Timely Published”

by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo n February 5, 1998, I dialed a Florida phone number given to me by Maggie Thompson’s brother Paul Curtis. Paul told me that he had tracked down and briefly spoken to an artist named Allen Bellman in his quest to work out art IDs for Timely-era Photostats he’d gotten from Marvel’s archives, and, knowing I was always on the lookout for creator contacts with Marvel’s long-lost past incarnations of Timely and Atlas, gladly gave me Allen’s phone number.

O

I’d come to know Allen’s work quite intimately over the years as I made my way through art indexing the late Timely- and early Atlas-era comic books (I loved his version of “Jet Dixon of the Space Squadron”!) and placed the call with the hopes Allen would be more forthcoming than other artists I’d spoken to in the 1990s, several of whom had no interest in “revisiting the past,” nor an understanding of why anyone in the present would be even remotely interested in their work.

Boy, was I in for a happy shock! Not only was Allen the most gracious past creator I’d ever spoken to, but in telling me that he

no longer had any copies of his old stories, he asked me whether I could copy what I had of his work for him to re-live again. That, of course, was no problem at all, as I had nearly everything he had ever done for Timely from 1949 to the end of his career already copied, bound, and ready to ship out to him as a thank-you for talking to me!

Although very successful in his post-comics career and life, Allen was extremely proud of the work he did in comics. Not seeing that work for many years, nor being able to show it to his family and grandchildren (they had to rely on an “oral history” of his early career) bothered him in a way that came through in our conversations even when it was unspoken. When my package arrived, it opened up a part of his life thought long-forgotten to his family, and when through our long interview (published in the Jan. 2004 Alter Ego #32) his work got more deserved widespread recognition in comic fandom circles, I felt happy to have been party to another wonderful uncovering of one of the lesser-known creators of the Golden Age comics, as well as gaining a great friend in the process.

A few years later, I put Allen’s interview on the web, first on Ken Quattro’s Comicartville site and then on my own TimelyAtlas-Comics blog. Now the world outside Alter Ego’s readership got a glimpse into Allen’s Golden Age past, and in no time at all Allen was a prime guest of honor at cons all over the country, especially in Florida, his home state. He also received an Inkpot Award in 2007 at the San Diego Comic-Con. Today, Allen is quite possibly the last Timely staffer (other than Stan Lee) who worked for the company continuously for nearly the entire decade of the 1940s, having joined the staff at age 18 in 1942 and remaining there until the staff was shut down at the end of 1949. He saw, witnessed, and/or toiled on nearly everything that Timely published, a true participating witness to Golden Age comics history.

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A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Allen Bellman

beginning of 1942, is when things became interesting. But now I would like to speak of two of those on staff who are gone: Syd Shores and Sol Brodsky.

Syd Shores and I became very good friends. As I was a newly single person, Syd and Selma Shores often invited me to dinner in their home in Bethpage, Long Island, in New York. Those were happier times for them, not knowing that in a short time Syd would find it difficult to find work when Martin Goodman, the publisher of Timely/Marvel, would disband the entire bullpen.

In a way I was lucky that I received my walking papers a little earlier, at which time I joined the staff of Lev Gleason, working for Bob Wood and Charlie Biro, thus avoiding the stampede of artists looking for work at the same time. Syd was stunned, and I can remember visiting him at his home while he was working on a story illustration for one of Martin Goodman’s “men’s” magazines.

The artwork looked great, but it was taking him a long time to do; this was not the answer to supporting a family of four. He was one unhappy camper.

Cap’s Pistols (Above left:) Photos of 1940s Timely bullpen stalwart Syd Shores are rare, but here’s one of Syd, seen on our right, with none other than Jack Kirby, the co-creator of Captain America, the hero Shores drew and oversaw artistically in the latter 1940s, after inking him earlier in that decade. In the late 1960s (when this picture was probably taken), Syd was once again inking Jack— and very well, too—on issues of Captain America. Sorry, but we’re not certain of the original source or date of this pic; we got our copy from Allen.

I never knew that Syd drove a taxi cab for a time until that was revealed by Joe Giella in his interview in Alter Ego #52. Driving a cab doesn’t make one a bad person, but he was a professional artist

(Above right:) And here's "Captain America" inker Vince Alascia, in a detail from the famous 1942 "Bambi" photo of Timely and Funnies, Inc., personnel.

Part IV

Time And Time-ly Again: For Whom The Bells Toll

by Allen Bellman

A

sk me what I had for lunch, and I am sure to draw a blank, yet my mind is like a time machine, and I can go back to the very day I started working for Timely.

Don Rico is the one who took my portfolio—to whom, I don’t know—while I sat in anticipation in the lobby. He came out shortly to tell me that I was hired.

When I reported for work Monday morning, I can clearly see Syd Shores and Vince Alascia inking Syd’s penciling of “Captain America.” One could feel the tension in the air, and I soon learned that there were hard feelings between Don Rico and Syd Shores.

The reason could very well have been jealousy of Syd, as he had been chosen to take over “Captain America,” and Don was doing The Young Allies. As the new kid in town, I tried to stay clear and not take sides.

Shortly after, when Timely moved to the Empire State Building from the McGraw-Hill Building around the

When Cap Got The Bird—Twice!

Allen knows what he’s talking about when he lauds the late great Gene Colan! Above are a photo and an unpublished variant (probably an earlier version) by Colan of his cover for Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969)—next to the printed cover, as displayed on the Grand Comics Database website.

The published art was inked by Joe Sinnott, with apparently some added penciling and even inking by staffer John Romita. The scan of the original version was retrieved from an eBay auction by Glen David Gold.

Photo courtesy of Hero Iniatiative. [Captain America, Falcon, & The Exiles TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Bellman, Book, And Candle

Heart And Sol Sol Brodsky, Marvel’s production manager from circa 1964 till 1970, and later a Marvel V.P. Allen Bellman thought the world of him— and so did A/E’s editor.

Thanks to Justin Fairfax & Bob Bailey for the photo printed in the 1964 Marvel Tales Annual #1. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

and he’d given his all to Marvel.

When he drew a horse, it sure looked like a horse, and when he drew Captain America, his anatomy was perfect. And yet, when Marvel was revived, it seemed as if Timely/Marvel turned its back on Syd. From what I understand, the great Syd Shores was given mediocre work such as inking and scripts that were below the “Captain America” level. I asked Gene Colan about that situation while speaking to him on the phone a few years ago, and he told me that he asked Stan Lee the same question at the time. Stan’s reply was something to the effect that it was then “different times.” If you weren’t a Jack Kirby, you were not in the “In Crowd”—that is my feeling.

If you read Gene Colan’s last book, you will see that he suffered from people who held a position of the high and mighty and had it in their power to judge who shall live and who shall die. Gene stood steadfast and today is recognized as one of the greatest comic book artists ever. Where are those “bullies” today?

When Syd Shores’ wife died, a good many years ago, I lost all contact with his two daughters, Linda and Nancy.

Sol Brodsky and I became friends when he joined the Timely

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bullpen. We continued our friendship outside Timely. We were friends even before his marriage. In fact, we were going into a business venture that would not interfere with our jobs. It consisted of creating cartoons to be sold to business people for their advertising. It never really took off, and we were content to have our jobs, but I did have an account with a cash-check company on a side street where the Empire Building stood.

Many of you may know that I have twin granddaughters who are well-known artists. They did two Kentucky Derby posters, one for the PGA, among others. The late Marvin Hamlisch, composer of the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, bought one of Jeaneen’s paintings when it was on exhibit in the Hamptons in New York.

Both twins won art scholarships to Alfred University in upper New York.

After they both graduated, I thought, because of their style of drawing, that they would make great comic book artists, and that is when I thought of calling Sol, who was then a vice president of Marvel. I was not in comics at the time, and I had not been in contact with him for a long time. The phone rang a few times before his wife picked up the phone. “Hi, Selma, how are you, this is—” I did not finish my sentence; she cut me off, asking, “Who is this?” When I asked to speak to Sol, there was a short silence— then she told me that Sol had passed away. She knew of my friendship with Sol, yet she had never called me. There were a few words when I expressed my feelings, and there were no other conversations. In reality, I was shocked.

My granddaughters went on to great heights in the art field in Louisville, where they both reside.

Capping It Off Two more of Allen’s recent drawings: a commission sketch of the Sentinel of Liberty done for collector Ben Herman, and a depiction of a World War II Cap good-naturedly turning down an offer of aid from another comics/cinematic star, courtesy of the artist himself. Interested in purchasing original or Photostatted Allen Bellman art? See p. 39. [Captain America TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Batman TM & ©2012 DC Comics; other art ©2012 Allen Bellman.]

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A 4H-Part Look At The Life And Timely/Marvel Times Of Allen Bellman

Addendum:

Hooray For Hollywood!

Walking The Red, White, And Blue Carpet

by Allen Bellman he invitation came. It was from the office of Kevin Feige, the producer and president of Marvel Films. It was our invitation to the premier showing of the Captain America: The First Avenger film. Jeez... never did I think, when I joined the bullpen of Timely/Marvel Comics in 1942, that this would ever happen to me.

T

Arrangements had to be made for the hotel and for air flights to Los Angeles. We had a night flight, non-stop to LA, and had a beautiful suite at the Roosevelt Hotel just across the street from the El Capitan Theatre where the movie was to be shown. We met Syd Shores’ daughter Nancy and her family, who were among those who received an invitation. Syd Shores took over “Captain America” when Simon and Kirby left Timely to work for DC Comics. Wow! Here we were on Hollywood Boulevard, having lunch at Mel’s Diner. We arrived one day before and had the opportunity to walk the street of the stars. Later on, while Roz was enjoying the pool at the hotel, I walked around the pool’s edge.

There were four young people sitting on a lounge. I “jokingly” asked if they had room for this ol’ guy to sit down. All four got up and I shook my head and said I was not serious. But four, two males and two females, perhaps in their twenties, gave me the feeling that, somehow, they were here for the movie, and I was right. They were Emily, Michael, Jedd, and Julian, the grandchildren of Joe Simon. They were there representing Joe, who would pass away some months later.

Just Follow The Red, White, And Blue Road!

A triptych of images of Allen Bellman at the premiere of the 2011 movie mega-hit Captain America: The First Avenger. Our thanks to Steven Freivogel for all three photos. (Counterclockwise from right:) Allen on the “Red, White, and Blue Carpet.”

Allen with Syd Shores’ daughter Nancy Shores Karlebach and Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Films and one of the movie’s producers. Allen and Nancy felt that they and Joe Simon’s grandchildren were standing in for all the artists and writers who had created the “Captain America” stories of the 1940s.

Allen with actors Derek Luke (“Gabe Jones” in the movie’s version of the Howling Commandos) and Neil McDonough (“Dum Dum Dugan”).

Then it was showtime, and Roz and I took the short walk to the El Capitan Theatre, where there were crowds on both sides of the closed street. Security guards were all over in their black suits, looking like funeral directors. Getting past the guards was no easy task even with our invitation in hand, but we were escorted in by a vice president of Marvel Comics whose name escapes me. We then walked the Red, White and Blue Carpet. Roz had to check her small Canon camera, and we were escorted to our seats. We had box seats in back of the theatre. We had the privilege of meeting the vice president of Paramount Pictures, a beautiful young lady who told us her grandfather was the English actor Reginald Denny from the 1930s and ’40s. An organist onstage entertained the guests as they made their way to their seats. A gentleman came over to me and said he was the grandfather of Chris Evans (who plays Captain America in the film), and how did I get to sit in a very special seat? Without thinking I said,”That’s because I’m a very important person.” This is not me, and I would have liked to apologize to the gentleman.

After the movie, it was party time at the Supper Club for invited guests of the movie. We then had the opportunity to meet Kevin Feige, the producer, to whom I mentioned that the Red Skull in the movie was too slick-looking, sporting a beautiful set of teeth and eyes, not what the usual decent skull should look like. I posed with people in the cast, and it was a night to remember.

Dedicated by Allen to the memory of two good friends: Syd Shores & Gene Colan.

45

Martin Goodman, A.K.A. The Angel Timely/Marvel’s Peerless Publisher’s Unlikely Career In Show Business

by Ger Apeldoorn

A

Introduction

ccording to the Internet Broadway Database, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman twice in his career tried his hand at producing something other than comics and pulp magazines.

In June 1944 he was the “angel” (financial backer) behind the Broadway play Love on Leave, written by A. B. Shiffrin and produced

by Charles Stewart, whose credits include several productions for The Ballet Theatre in 1941 and a revival of Porgy and Bess in 1942.

And in October 1955 a “Martin Goodman” is reported to have backed Leonard Lee’s Deadfall, directed by the blacklisted Michael Gordon, who in 1959 would return to the movies as the director of Pillow Talk (the first of several ultra-successful Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic-comedy vehicles).

Both times, the producers must have hoped for a big success and a nice profit, but neither of the above productions lasted longer than a couple of weeks. Love on Leave came to a halt after four days and seven performances. Deadfall lasted 20 performances.

These facts came to our attention when Golden Age Timely/Marvel artist Allen Bellman mentioned in Alter Ego #32 that he and the rest of the Timely staff were invited to the premiere of Love on Leave. No one was invited to the premiere of Deadfall, so Goodman must have learned at least that much from his earlier failure.

The plays themselves must have been eminently forgettable. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, at least some information could be found concerning them....

If I Had The Wings (Or Even The Cape) Of An Angel…

(Top of page:) Timely/Marvel publisher Martin Goodman is seen in 1941 perusing cover proofs of Captain America Comics #11 (Feb. 1942)—hovering above images of both of his company’s heroes called “The Angel.”

(Oh, and thanks to Nikki Frakes for the photo scan.)

(Above:) Goodman apparently believed his company’s comic-book costumed detective called The Angel was going to be as popular as his inspiration, Leslie Charteris’ prose hero The Saint—so he had the guys at the Funnies, Inc., comics shop stick him on the cover of Marvel Mystery Comics #2 (Dec. 1939), and again on that of #3, though in both cases he was shown minus his moustache. That’s probably because the covers were drawn not by the character’s artist/co-creator Paul Gustavson but by Charles J. Mazoujian. In 1941 there was even a single issue of The Angel Detective pulp magazine—but minus mustache and costume!

(Left:) The later mutant called The Angel had actual wings—and they worked! This detail from the splash page of The X-Men #1 (Sept. 1963), like the rest of the issue, was scripted by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Paul Reinman. Repro’d from Ye Editor’s personal bound volumes.

[Both pages ©2009 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

46

Timely/Marvel’s Peerless Publisher’s Unlikely Career In Show Business

Love On Leave—And Martin Goodman AWOL

Love on Leave was staged in mid-1944 by Eugene S. Bryden and starred Millard Mitchell and Mary Sargent. Mitchell was a stage and radio actor in 1930s New York. His initial cinema appearances were in industrial short features, filmed in New York; his first Hollywood role was in Mr. and Mrs. North (1941). After World War II, he acted in a number of movies, often cast as sardonic, stolid characters. In February 1944 this anecdote about him appeared in the San Mateo Times: “Millard Mitchell, who closed recently in Maxwell Anderson’s Storm Operation, is receiving attractive film offers. Mitchell is a good, dependable actor. But once, in Boy Meets Girl, where he played the role of a movie producer resting on a couch, Mitchell played it too realistically and fell asleep. The other actors onstage delivered his cue line: ‘What do you say? You ought to know.’ Mitchell still slumbered. They nudged him and repeated the cue. Mitchell stirred, opened his eyes, and said: ‘Make mine another beer, Charlie’—which was his line from another play in which he had appeared, Three Men on a Horse.” Clearly, the company had picked a winner. Mary Sargent was a stage actress, who doesn’t seem to have done any movie work.

The play itself was reviewed for the San Mateo Times by Broadway columnist Jack Carver. The following gives us some insight into the story and possible flaws:

…Also Featured In… Character actor Millard Mitchell, who starred in the short run of Love on Leave, would later have prominent roles in such film classics as A Foreign Affair (1948), Twelve O’Clock High (1949), and as a movie mogul in the musical-comedy masterpiece Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

Love on Leave, however, would add little to the luster of his résumé. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

aspires to be an actress, sneaks out of the house one night to go with an older and more experienced girl to Times Square to see what life is like in that service men’s playground. They are picked tip by a lively sailor, who takes them to his hotel, where he is stopping with his buddy. Fortunately for the younger girl, this buddy is a right guy who suspects her real age, wipes off her makeup, and takes her home against her screaming protests. Meanwhile, word has gotten around that the girl was seen going into the hotel and there is the devil to pay, especially since the child insists after they have reached home that the sailor did her wrong. A little medical investigation disproves this and everything ends happily, with the good sailor becoming a suitor to the older sister. Some people will be offended at treating this subject with a comedy, almost farcical touch. But the chief trouble is that the comedy is uninspired— and the people and their motives are not believable. The author might have been better off had he gone completely overboard and written the play as an out-and-out farce.

NEW YORK, July 11 The problem of the straying junior miss comes in for some more attention in Love on Leave, but this time the author has chosen to handle it with a comedy touch. But, since it is one of those comedies in which anything for a laugh is the rule, the result is not happy. A.B. Shiffrin wrote the play, and it was produced by Charles Stewart and Martin Goodman. In the cast are such experienced people as Millard Mitchell and Mary Sargent and some young people who do very well.

Among these are June Wilson, Rosemary Rice, James Dobson, Joann Dolan, Bert Freed, and John Conway.

Shiffrin has written about an Astoria, Long Island, family that consists of father, mother, and two daughters, one grown up and the other only 15. Father is a writer of child psychology articles for magazines, a believer in modern child-raising methods.

The younger girl, who

It seems the play was a humorous little thing about the girl who yelled “rape.” Not a pleasant subject even in those days. What is interesting to collectors of Martin Goodman’s more successful line of comic books is the mention of a “junior miss.” Junior Miss was a successful Broadway comedy which ran from Nov. 18, 1941, to July 24, 1943. It was turned into a radio show for CBS and a movie, and the title was even used for a comic book series from Goodman’s Timely company. It would interesting to know if any of the play’s

Maybe The Book Was Better?

(Above left:) This squib from a Broadway-related column in the June 1, 1944, edition of The New York Times reveals that Love on Leave was to open on tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut, that very night. How it was received there is not known. Thanks to Sean Howe for this scan and the next.

(Above:) This small ad from the 6-18-44 Times was framed by ones for the competition that Love on Leave was up against on wartime Broadway—from the popular hit Life with Father (based on a book; together they would spawn a film and even a TV series) through a late rendition of the legendary Ziegfield Follies. [These two scans ©2012 New York Times or its successor in interest.]

(Left:) Love on Leave may have boasted a somewhat sordid plotline for a comedy, but maybe that’s because it was based on a 1942 novel of that name, written by one Eliot Brewster. Or was it? There’s no way we can prove one way or the other, since there’s no mention of Brewster or his book in anything we’ve seen to date on the subject of the Broadway play. Even so, thanks to Michael Feldman for the scan of the cover, which doesn’t look especially comedic. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Martin Goodman, A.K.A. The Angel

names or ideas were used or mentioned in Goodman’s juvenile books. “Love on Leave” is not a title on any of the stories in my collection or on the great Atlas Tales website (neither of which has an overabundance of titles in that genre).

The above is the only review I could find, but there must have been more, and they must have been even more damning. A week later, a columnist for the Oakland Tribune wrote about the dangers for novice producers:

Why Do Stage Successes Emerge from Failure? Asks Editor, Citing Instances

47

Junior Miss—And A Goodman Miss (Right:) Junior Miss was a reasonably successful Timely comic whose run began with issue #24 (real #1), cover-dated April 1947, several years after a one-shot #1 dated “Winter 1944” whose cover is seen at right. Cover pencils attributed to Mike Sekowsky. Any resemblance to the events of the 1941-43 hit play called Junior Miss was most likely unauthorized. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Below:) This piece in The New York Times for June 26, 1944, played taps for Love on Leave. Thanks to Sean Howe. [©2012 New York Times or successor in interest.]

Incidentally, The Billboard magazine for July 1, 1944, sent by Ger, briefly summed up all nine NYC newspaper critics: “a zero per cent score.” Ouch!

Nine for nine! Not even Night Nurse ever had that kind of odds against it!

by Wood Soanes If any producer continues to labor under the impression that in this day and age the public will accept anything and pay its good money for the privilege of being duped, he is certainly a short-sighted individual and should consult the case of Love on Leave. This little item was turned out of the typewriter of A. B. Shiffrin to add its 10 cents’ worth to the growing theatrical agenda on juvenile delinquency. It was produced jointly by Charles Stewart and Martin Goodman, and it lasted a short week after a lambasting by the critics. In explaining the reasons for the sudden death of Love on Leave, Sam Zolotow, New York Times theatre reporter, wrote: “In an effort to overcome adverse notices and to give the management an opportunity to make both ends meet, the actors had agreed to a one-third reduction in salary. Operating expenses were further pared down by eliminating a heavy scene (Times Square subway arcade) on Saturday afternoon.

That night, however, the weekly statement revealed total receipts of $2490 for the first seven performances.”

Not enough, apparently.

Dead End For Deadfall

Several Internet sources (including the International Broadway Database) mention a second play produced by Martin Goodman, ten years later. This courtroom melodrama was three times as successful as his first: it only closed after 20 performances instead of 7. The stage manager this time was a real name: stage and movie director Michael Gordon. The play was written by Leonard Lee (no relation), a television and movie writer who had scripted the 1946 Sherlock Holmes movie Dressed to Kill, starring Basil Rathbone. The main parts in the play were portrayed by the “husband and wife team” of John Ireland and Joanne Dru. But actress Sheila Bond seems to have caught just as much attention. News about Broadway plays in those days was usually written in the gossipy Walter Winchell style. This means that most of the information I could find was in the form of brief but tantalizing tidbits.

The first mention I found was on August 2, 1955, when the play had just been announced.

Dorothy Manners, Broadway columnist for the Herald Journal, wrote: “Joanne Dru and John Ireland are the latest Hollywooders lured back to Broadway. These two are set to star in Leonard Lee’s new play, Deadfall, which Michael Gordon will direct for producer Martin Goodman.

Rehearsals start in late September for an October opening date. Happily married in real life, Joanne says they play wicked roles in the play. ‘John is a murderer and I’m the scheming, unscrupulous wife of his victim.’”

48

Timely/Marvel’s Peerless Publisher’s Unlikely Career In Show Business

On September 15, Walter Winchell wrote: “Gladys Shelley and Abner Silver (who wrote the long-time popular torchant, ‘How Did He Look?’) feuded for years over a royalty dispute. They just reconciled to write the theme song for the upcoming Deadfall show.” No theme song is mentioned in the Internet Broadway Database.

On October 23, four days before the premiere, Walter Winchell had another bit: “Sheila Bond seems destined for type-casting.

Deadfall is her 3rd consecutive role in a swimsuit. The others were Lunatics and Wish You Were Here.”

On November 1, Ohioan columnist Earl Wilson adds: “Sheila Bond’s white bathing suit distracts from the plot in Deadfall (just opened), so she hides it under a robe.”

I also found one review which tells us more about the play itself. It’s from the Bridgeport Post from October 28, 1955:

In A Timely Fashion Incidentally, though it’s only tangentially related to the theme of this article (but quite intriguing, nonetheless), the ever-researching Michael Feldman has probably cleared up the long-standing mystery of why Martin Goodman christened his company “Timely.” Seen on this page are the cover and contents page of the first issue of Popular Digest (Sept. 1939), his short-lived attempt to create a competitor to the super-successful Reader’s Digest. Note that the former was published by “Timely Publications.” And why was it named that? We’ll let Michael explain: “In 1938 Martin Goodman was having a crisis: with the Depression in a second wave, his pulps, cheap imitations of the competition, weren’t selling too well.

He looked around at what else was on the newsstand for inspiration. Two brisk sellers were Reader’s Digest, which inexpensively reprinted condensed articles and stories from other sources, and the weekly news magazine, Time.

“An imitation of Time would have required a large staff, real journalism, and much on-location reporting and photography. But doing a poor man’s Reader’s Digest just meant buying low-priced material. The compromise was a hybrid of the two called Popular Digest, [which was] subtitled ‘Timely Topics Condensed.’

“A new publishing entity was created: Timely Publications, Inc. It might be the case that Goodman wanted to name his new magazine ‘Timely,’ but that either a warning letter from the publishers of Time, or just prudence, caused him to abandon the title, while still keeping the registered publishing name.

“Popular Digest ran bimonthly from September 1939 (cover date), but was gone by the beginning of 1941. Robert O. Erisman was its initial editor, and an associate editor, Ward Marshall, was a pseudonym for Goodman himself.

“The magazine got lost on the stands, but it didn’t matter too much. Within weeks of its first issue, Goodman took a gamble with another venture, color comic books. DC Comics had an unqualified hit with their Action Comics featuring the powerful costumed character Superman. Goodman put out an imitation, featuring a mixture of newly created powerful costume heroes, and a couple of his old pulp characters.

“For convenience’s sake they used the new entity, Timely Publications, as the publisher. There was no reason to believe the demand for the faddishly popular comic books, which were expensive to produce, due to their four-color printing process, would last too long.

“In fact, when the first print run came off the press, the printing was off-register, and Goodman was so furious that he cancelled his plans for subsequent issues. But when early sales results started to come in, he changed his mind. A second printing was ordered of Marvel Comics.”

Thanks for the scans and the info on the Oct. 1939 and Nov. 1939 editions of Marvel Comics #1, Michael. We confess we’d never heard of Popular Digest—but we’re curious how you know that “Ward Marshall” was Martin Goodman himself, etc.! [Images ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Martin Goodman, A.K.A. The Angel

Play Features Scene in Court

by Mark Barron NEW YORK Oct. 28 — Manipulating his now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t pen, dramatist Leonard Lee has conceived an unusual melodrama in Deadfall, which arrived at the Holiday Theatre on Broadway last night.

Apparently the playwright has a vast knowledge of courtroom law, for he has manipulated his story in such a fashion that there are several times that he uses legal tricks to keep the case of Deadfall from being thrown out of court on justified technical grounds. The title, Deadfall, means a trap for large game.

49

Most of the action in Deadfall takes place in a courtroom where the prosecuting and defense attorneys and the judge address the audience as if the onlookers out front are members of the jury. The plot concerns a woman named Nora who never appears. She, in real life, has disappeared and the assumption is that she had been murdered. But there is no corpus delicti on which to base a legal case. Many, many people are eager to give hearsay evidence. And a man is acquitted once on the murder charge and then brought up again to face the same charges.

As prosecuting and defense lawyers, Clarence Derwent and Jay Jostyn are superb as they cite one legal ruling after another in this duel of legal wits. Humorous relief is given by Sheila Bond when this blonde is a witness on the stand, speaking with her native Brooklyn accent, and who is eagerly willing to answer all questions of the two opposing attorneys and to add her own comments.

Joanne Dru and John Ireland join Jay Jostyn, Clarence Derwent, and Shiela Bond in making this an exciting melodrama with a case of spirited players.

Playbill Playmates (Clockwise from above left:) Well-known stage (and film) actors John Ireland and Joanne Dru, co-stars of the doomed drama Deadfall, were depicted on the cover of Playbill, the magazine/program handed out to Broadway audiences.

Also printed from that edition is the page featuring the full credits of the cast and producers, complete with ad at bottom—and a definition of the word “deadfall.” Note Martin Goodman’s name above the other credits—and we’d bet money that co-presenter “Julius M. Gordon” was related to director Michael Gordon. Any takers? Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn for these two Playbill images.

Crom bless the Internet, for what we could learn about supporting Deadfall actress Sheila Bond, seen here in a 1955 photo—though not in a swimsuit, apparently de rigueur in her three Broadway plays. Evidently she’d appeared in the 1952 movie comedy/drama The Marrying Kind with Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray, and even survived Deadfall’s crash-and-burn to play a role in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), starring Jimmy Stewart. [©2009 the respective copyright holders.]

Why and how this exciting battle of legal wits failed to click with the audience is left to our imagination.

And, in the end, it may not matter, because there are strong suspicions that this play was produced by a different Martin Goodman—a theatrical agent who should have known better. If that is the case, the latter may be the same Martin Goodman who, according to a tidbit in one of Walter Winchell’s columns in 1960, briefly dated the newly divorced Lucille Ball. Too bad, if true: the “real” Martin Goodman could have had a poster drawn up

by Joe Maneely, instead of using a bland photo of John Ireland and Joanne Dru, and perhaps have changed the future of the play.

At least Allen Bellman’s invitation to the first play confirms that at one time Timely/Marvel publisher Martin Goodman had dreams of bigger and better things—although he had to wait at least another twenty years before he could cash in.

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51

The INVADERS Issue That Nearly Was! WARREN REECE & The Almost-Was Secret Origin Of The Human Torch INTRODUCTION BY ROY THOMAS: It’s well-known nowadays that, in 1971, while penciling the classic The Avengers #93 issue that launched the full-scale Kree-Skrull War, artist/co-plotter Neal Adams suggested to me, as his co-plotter, scripter, and de facto editor that, while rummaging around at minuscule size inside the comatose form of The Vision, Henry Pym, a.k.a. Ant-Man, would “see something” which would later turn out to be proof that the android Avenger’s physical body had originally been the equally non-human form and material of the 1939 Human Torch. This concept was followed through in later Avengers issues by writer Steve Englehart.

Now add to that another retro Torch item: Sometime circa 1977, while I was editing and usually (but not always) scripting The Invaders, the retroactive-continuity title I’d developed featuring the exploits of the Torch, Captain America, and Sub-Mariner during the Second World War, I received a written synopsis for a proposed “Invaders” story from Warren Storob, a young collector who was briefly a Marvel staffer. (Now answering to the name Warren Reece, that worthy will be familiar to readers of this magazine as the author of the lengthy and offbeat article “With the Fathers of Our Heroes” in A/E #108.) As Warren related there, sometime in the mid1970s, through the good offices of our mutual friend Gary Friedrich, he submitted to me “a plot for an untold portion of the origin of the Golden Age Human Torch,” which I expressed an interest in potentially utilizing as the basis of a future issue of The Invaders. When Warren dug out a copy of that vintage synopsis and mailed it to me a few years back, it jogged my memory and I recalled the essence of it—though not what precise alterations I might have intended to make to it, if I’d gotten around to using it before Invaders was canceled in 1979 with issue #41.

Still, Warren’s story—which expands creatively upon the oft-related events of 1939’s Marvel Comics#1—could well have served as the springboard for some issue from #42 on, if I’d gone back to writing the comic myself instead of farming out the scripting, as I increasingly did near the end. Thus, he and I agreed that perhaps, after roughly 3½ decades, it was high time to shine a spotlight on his presentation, precisely as I first read it circa 1977…

Carrying A Torch (Left:) Synopsis-writer Warren Reece holds up his personal copy of the Oct. 1939 edition of Marvel Comics #1, with its Frank Pauldrawn cover that was the world’s introduction to The Human Torch. This 1980s photo taken by Anastasia Walsh for a South Florida newspaper was also seen in A/E #108. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

(Above:) Don Rico—a name you read a lot earlier this issue—drew and colored his personal take on the Torch at some undetermined date several decades ago for a friend or collector. This image was retrieved by Dominic Bongo from the Heritage Comics Archives. As in the sketch which Torch-creator Carl Burgos drew in late 1939 for a “new Human Torch” (again, see A/E #108), this Torch’s facial features are clearly visible, as they rarely were in printed Golden Age comics. [Human Torch TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“The Torch of Remembrance” (A synopsis to explain important unanswered questions about the original Torch)

by Warren Reece (as W.R. Storob) s many of us know, the original Human Torch was an android robot, who debuted in Marvel Comics #1, October, 1939. One of the questions that may have crossed the minds of many readers is, “How did the newly-created Torch know our language?” Moreover, how did he have this seemingly innate knowledge of what a racketeer was, or feel a “natural” hate of being used for selfish gain or crime? This is what I hope to explain.

A

52

Warren Reece & The Almost-Was Secret Origin Of The Human Torch

It is the year 1937, and Professor Phineas Horton, fortyish and white-haired, is a bio-chemist doing advanced research on synthetic organic compounds. He is touching on the development of a synthetic organic material capable (theoretically) of being electro-chemically differentiated into various related materials.

Seeing a great parallel between his discoveries and the differentiation of somatic cells to form the organs and tissues of people and animals, he proposes a project for creating artificial men.

However, the government looks upon this as the effect of too many Boris Karloff Frankenstein movies over the previous six years. They refuse to fund such a seemingly preposterous project.

At the same approximate time, a colleague of Horton’s, Gordon Stark, is on the verge of a breakthrough in cybernetics, at a time when computer science was still in its infancy. With the aid of a jointly developed synthetic, electrochemical brain, and a computerized electromagnetic programming helmet of Stark’s own design, they propose to leave their government jobs, seek personal financing, and construct an artificial human being for that most allAmerican of reasons: making a fortune.

However, the pair soon discover that banks and other conventional loan institutions are just as reluctant to invest in such a far out project. The out-of-work pair are in a spot until…

Word gets around about their proposed work, and they are approached by a representative of a syndicate boss. Foolishly, perhaps, they agree to give a large share of profit and control of their humanoid project (if successful), in return for financing.

The project slowly gets underway, with Horton on construction development, and Stark working on the cybernetic programming devices. Overseeing their progress, via frequent visits, are some of the mob gun-toughs. The one checking on Horton is an earlythirtyish guy named Jim Hammond.

Over the successive months, Hammond, who is essentially a James (“Rocky Sullivan”) Cagney-type of hood, grows to respect and admire the peaceable but hard-working Horton. He asks all kinds of questions about the android project. In the process, Horton is able to get to know Hammond.

Hammond is, perhaps stereotypically, a child of the East Side slums. His father had lived around the docks and old el [EDITOR’S NOTE: elevated train] of Coentis Slip, in lower Manhattan, until the turn of the century. Mom had passed on when Hammond was three. His dad died while working for starvation wages on the tunnels for the city’s growing subways, a victim of company negligence, in or around 1923, leaving 16-year-old Jim to look after his 14-year-old brother Mickey, as well as to ponder secretly whether it was sheer railroad boss negligence, or his depressed dad’s drinking also, that led to Hammond Sr.’s demise.

Jim goes after odd jobs, trying to scrounge up money for the bare essentials, while kid brother scavenges the New York streets for scrap wood, as so many children did for unheated apartments.

They swipe from fruit stands, etc. Anything to get by.

Of course, they have a few good times too… a little bubble gum, tag games through alleys, across railroad yards, and over roofs, and with some of the local “Yancy Street Gang” types. As was typical, unfortunately, in the early part of this century, the unheated slum flats and rampant influenza take a mighty toll on many. Again, tragedy strikes Jim, when Mickey is stricken in the epidemic.

Jim tries his best for Mickey, but lack of sufficient visiting by the doctor, coupled with the aforementioned problems, takes its toll after eleven lingering days.

The death of his brother has a dual effect on Jim: he vows never to be one of “the poor suckers with no bread,” and he gets his personal revenge on the negligent landlord by taking up the offer of a “job” with a local mobster who hears about Hammond through the grapevine. The mobster is after the territory of a rival: Hammond’s slumlord, in fact. It is with the strong-arm work of Jim Hammond that the takeover is accomplished, and Hammond’s landlord (the rival syndicate man), one of the few survivors of a gun confrontation in which Jim is instrumental, is ironically forced out by a monster of his own inadvertent creation.

“The People Ride In A Hole In The Ground…”

Another instance of “retroactive continuity”? Perhaps the fact that Jim Hammond’s father had “died while working for starvation wages on the tunnels for the city’s growing subways” is reflected in Carl Burgos’ splash panel for Marvel Mystery Comics #13 (Nov. 1940) and its visual antipathy shown toward New York’s subway system. Warren’s personal copy of that issue was scanned for this art spot. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Over the decade following his brother’s death in 1928, Hammond bangs out a career in the treacherous shadows of the underworld, somehow hardening his heart with the thought that “the swells” didn’t give a damn about him or his family, and that (typically) the thing that counts is “doin’ what’s best for number one,” even if it happens to help the mob. But, along the way, he tries to keep off the little guys, the poor working joes, and his influence with the mob keeps them off the little guys… sometimes.

Back now to 1939. The project has been moving slowly, and Hammond’s bosses are getting

The Invaders Issue That Nearly Was!

53

Suddenly… “Duck, Prof!”

Hammond wheels and overturns a big table, as he fires upon the mob. A terrific gunfight ensues, during which he gets his mitts on another gun, and with both blazing, kills Horton’s assailants.

However, Hammond is mortally wounded. He won’t last long.

Horton wastes no time. He calls Stark to ready his cybernetic recorder and gets Hammond in the car. They arrive at Stark’s, where Hammond jots down a dying declaration of his boss’s plans, enough to get the rotten stinker fried good! Horton and Stark would never be bothered by the mob again!

Horton and Stark make a promise to Hammond: his shall be less than a death, and more than a life.

They take him and rig him up on a special table, attach electrodes to his body; and, using screens that penetrate Hammond’s body from front, side, and top with powerful electronic rays, they are able to analyze his makeup, recording the points of ray intersection as well—almost like taking a 3-D holograph with x-rays. An extra special amount of care is taken in the recording of brain patterns.

Ready—Aim—Fire!

We don’t exactly have a pile of vintage art depicting the pre-Human Torch Jim Hammond on hand—since there wasn’t any such animal—but here’s the splash panel from Marvel Mystery #86 (June 1948), an issue not yet reprinted in the Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics series. The Grand Comics Database attributes the script to William Woolfolk, the pencils to Mike Sekowsky. Thanks to Cory Sedlmeier. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

impatient. They already have an interested, wealthy client awaiting completed androids, and the means to make more: an agent for a German industrialist!

Needless to say, the police and the law use Hammond’s dying declaration to cause no end of trouble for the syndicate, and in the months that follow, Horton takes full control over the forming of his android.

Constructing a basic armature, he covers it with his various compounds, puts it in a primitive hydroponic tank (such as those used by A.I.M. in “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” around 1966), and, using

Horton and Stark are given the hurry-up notice from the mob boss, via Hammond and company, and are made aware of the German client. Horton becomes conscience-stricken, as does Stark.

Horton tries to appeal to the good side of Hammond, voicing his fear and horror of the rising Nazi government. Hammond tries not to hear it, indicating that he works for his boss, and Horton had better deliver. But Horton won’t hear of it. They argue, but Hammond can’t bring himself to beat sense into Horton, who refuses to work anymore unless he can buy his way out.

Hammond leaves in anger, but wrestles with his conscience.

His boss finds out, via Stark’s overseer, of the rebellion of the two scientists. He decides quickly; no one backs out of a deal with the mob, especially when they can blow the whistle about dealings with a government that could be declared hostile any time now. He gives the order to rub the scholarly pair out!

The boss calls the boys together and proceeds to order the executions.…

The mob calls on Horton first. He’s taken by surprise in his home by six armed men. “So this is what it’s come to, ‘ey, Jim?” Horton asks, sarcastically. “You betcha, Prof! Over there!” he orders, gesturing with his pistol towards a wall.

tA Torch By Any Other Name In these panels from Marvel Mystery #4 (Feb. 1940), the Torch—who’s suspected of having killed “Jim Hammond,” which was actually his briefly-held secret identity!—has to come clean to his cop friend Johnson in order to clear his name.

Somehow, it never really worked for any Human Torch to have a dual identity— remember Johnny Storm’s pitiful attempts in 1963-64 issues of Strange Tales? Art (and maybe script) by Carl Burgos; scanned from Warren Reece’s collection. At this point, the original Torch’s costume was still colored blue—another similarity to Sue Storm’s hot-tempered kid brother. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Warren Reece & The Almost-Was Secret Origin Of The Human Torch

the genetic information recorded by Stark, trains the recorder in reverse on his android, to guide its artificial differentiation as no hand could hope to.

Finally, after some weeks, and minor corrections to compensate for Hammond’s recorded mortal wounds, Horton is ready to activate his creation, setting his artificial Krepp cycles in motion.

However, due to an overload of activation energy, and a nitrogen deficiency in his creation’s artificial compounds, what should have been a “normal” synthetic cell’s internal oxidation becomes a rampant mass of cell powerhouses.

Fortunately, with the android having been programmed with Gordon Stark’s prototype computerized mind-programmer, the android, still self-regenerating from the atmosphere via catalyses, is directed by Horton into a bell jar apparatus, where he is controlled by pumping out the air to the point of temporary deactivation.

Naturally, the rest is history, and is adequately chronicled in the early issues of Marvel Mystery Comics. The Torch, however, still contained certain psychological imperfections. Evidently, the Stark memory transfer device and the Horton artificial brain were not successful in giving Jim Hammond immediate self-awareness in this synthetic second life. However, he still possessed a seemingly innate knowledge of our language and mannerisms, apart from a single-minded hatred of racketeers like Sardo (Marvel Comics #1, Oct. 1939).

While travelling incognito, the Torch was questioned as to what his name was. He seemingly chose (with a slight hesitation) the name “Jim Hammond” out of thin air. We now know better. Eventually, he became a policeman with the aid of his undercover cop friend, Johnson, further manifesting his obsession: never to be used again for selfish gain, or crime. I think the motivational factor, overt or subconscious, works.

“In This Airtight Glass Cage Lives My Creation” For A/E #108, we scanned from Warren’s copy of Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939) the page in which Professor Horton first presented his artificial, flame-powered creation to fellow scientists. Here are two later interpretations of that iconic scene.

(Above:) In Marvel Mystery Comics #92 (June 1949), the Torch’s origin was faithfully retold in 14 pages… by a penciler who, thinks expert Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, may be Bob LaCava. Scripter unknown. This retelling may have been a last-ditch (and lackluster) attempt to revitalize both hero and magazine; but Timely’s flagship title metamorphosed with #93 into a horror comic, rechristened Marvel Tales. Thanks to Cory Sedlmeier. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Right:) In this screen capture from the 2011 movie Captain America: The First Avenger, the android body of the original Torch stands encased and unmoving at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair (although didn’t the film place that Fair in 1941 or ’42?). Got to admit, this scene slipped right by A/E’s editor, who was watching for views of the robot Elektro and maybe his dog Sparko—and David Bernstein became the first of a number of persons to forward it to us. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

In addition, the apparent death of Horton, during the accidental fire started by the Torch in his home (Marvel Mystery Comics #2, Dec. 1939), would have been an excellent opportunity for Horton to dodge possible syndicate thugs too

The Invaders Issue That Nearly Was!

55

ornery to stay out of his life, as well as government agents or private profiteers after Horton’s valuable (but dangerous) secrets.

Since Horton popped up a few times in the following two years, he couldn’t have died. Yet, in Marvel Mystery #92 (1949), his death was witnessed and recorded by the papers. How then could he have lived to assist Ultron in the early 1970s?

The answer would be, of course, that Horton made an android double of himself, programmed to die! Obviously because of a personal wish to drop out of sight, he faked his own death with an android double. It was apparently a clever enough copy to fool people into believing he had a heart condition or whatever for some years, and no autopsy was required. And as for Gordon Stark … he became quite wealthy through his work, and founded a thing called Stark Industries. Guess which nephew he eventually broke into the family business???

Thanks to Brian K. Morris for a typing assist.

“Invaders Assemble!”

(Right:) Warren Reese wrote this synopsis for the 1970s series of The Invaders—so it’s fitting that we close with this dramatic image, a commission illustration by the same Mitch Breitweiser who inked this issue’s cover, as colored by his wife Elizabeth. Mitch and Ye Editor worked together on the 1940-set Sub-Mariner issue that was collected in the Timely 70th Anniversary Collection in 2009. Thanks to dealer Mike Burkey—and to the Breitweisers, of course. [Invaders TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Below:) Here’s a crossover battle-fest Ye Editor is sorry he never got to write: The Invaders vs. a World War II/MLJ precursor of Archie’s Mighty Crusaders! Art by pro David Williams, commissioned by Gregg Whitmore. Thanks to both gents for their permission to print it.

[Timely/Marvel heroes TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; MLJ heroes TM & ©2012 Archie Comic Publications, Inc.]

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57

Paradigm Parodies A bevy of satires of the Charles Atlas ads by Bill Morrison, Bill Griffith, Ted Rall, HippieCritic, and Steve Mannion.

[Art & text ©2012 by the artists & writers of the material.]

58

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Charles Atlas – Part 3!

by Michael T. Gilbert n Alter Ego #108 & 109 we delivered the inside dope on muscleman Charles Atlas. This time, we’re back with parodies of his classic comic book ads––plus a sampling of four-color heroes inspired by the original Greek god himself!

I

Sons of Atlas...

First up is Atlas the Mighty, from Great Comics Publications’ Choice Comics #1. His origin was revealed in the opening caption:

“Springing from the pages of ancient history into the world of today comes a man who can shoulder the Earth’s burden of crime and corruption. Known as Atlas the Mighty, this man of colossal strength finds no menace too tough to tackle.”

Maybe so, but Mr. Mighty folded early, lasting only one issue.

Superman also tangled with the Greek god at various times.

Once he even fought the unlikely team of Atlas, Samson, and Hercules. But the terrible trio was doomed to defeat. Everyone knows you can’t beat Superman in his own book!

Jack Kirby also tackled the legend in DC’s 1st Issue Special #1. It featured “Atlas,” a.k.a.

Atlas the Untamed, Atlas the Avenger, Atlas the Great, and probably Atlas the Plumber.

But, great as he was, he couldn’t sustain his own title for more than one issue. Are we seeing a trend here?

Heavy Lifting!

(Above:) “Atlas the Mighty” from Choice Comics #1 (Dec. 1941). Atlas shared the issue with, er, Kangaroo Man! Art by Paul Powers. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

(Left:) Jack Kirby’s cover to DC First Issue Special #1 (April 1975) also starred a guy called Atlas. Inks probably by D. Bruce Berry. [©2012 DC Comics.]

Super, Man! Superman and Atlas have had a long history together, though rarely a friendly one! Cover art by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye for Superman #28 (May-June 1944) & Action Comics #121 (June 1948) and by Curt Swan & George Klein for Action Comics #320 (January 1965). [©2012 DC Comics.]

Charles Atlas—Part 3!

59

Atlas, Man Of Might!

None of those heroes was actually influenced

by Charles Atlas. However IW’s “Atlas, Man of Might” probably was. His origin is right out of the Charles Atlas playbook. Punks push puny Jim Randall around, embarrassing him in front of his sexy girlfriend. Luckily, there isn’t a beach nearby or he’d have had a face full of sand!

Humiliated, Jim falls asleep, only to be awakened by Atlas, “Greek god of strength”! In any ordinary comic this would be the scene where Atlas tosses a bolt of lightning and transforms Jim into a super-hero bearing his name. Not here!

Instead of using magic, this joker tosses Jim a set of exercises (probably some Charles Atlas course knockoff!). It’s not as quick as Captain Marvel’s Shazam bolt, but months of hard work pay off as Jim is transformed into a super-stud. Frankly, I’d rather have a magic lightning bolt!

Once Jim’s finished all the hard work, Atlas zaps him with super-powers, adding a goofy costume to his chiseled body for good measure.

Where was that magic bolt when he needed it?

Atlas’ gift was a mixed blessing. On one hand Jim became a super-hero. On the other, he also got stuck with one of the silliest costumes in comics history. Leopard-skin hot pants? Really, guys?

Really?!?

A Daring Hero!

(On this page:) A sampling from Atlas’s origin, as related in IW’s Daring Comics #18 in 1964.

IW (a.k.a. Super Comics), whose name stood for the initials of publisher Israel Waldman, specialized in unauthorized or quasi-authorized Golden Age reprints. The original 1940s artist is unknown, though the team of Ross Andru & Mike Esposito team drew the 1964 cover. Thanks to Bill Henley, whose letter to A/E about this Atlas inspired me to seek out the comic. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Still, you have to admire a guy who tells kids that they too can become a super-hero just by doing special exercises—like the ones shown on the Man of Might’s “Secrets of Super-Strength” page!

Or maybe not. Unfortunately, the Atlas curse struck again,

killing Atlas Comics before the kids ever saw it. At this late date no one knows why (or when) it was scrapped or even who the would-be publisher was, though the title lettering suggests Nedor as a possibility.

Regardless, in 1964, the projected contents of that sole Atlas Comics issue did finally appear (with a new cover) in IW’s Daring Adventures #18. And then he disappeared forever.

Poor Atlas. Strong as he was, he couldn’t manage to carry his own title!

60

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

Li’l Abner!

Al Capp really enjoyed teasing Charles Atlas. In an amusing 1956 sequence, Li’l Abner’s muscle-bound brother Tiny sees a Charles Atlas-style ad and decides he’s really a 98-pound weakling. Naturally he sends away for the Stanley Strongnose course, not realizing that the strongman is actually a greedy, corset-wearing phony! Don’t worry, readers. Stanley gets his in the end!

Spittin’ Image!

Cartoonist Al Capp’s Stanley Strongnose looks an awful lot like Capp himself in this 1956 sequence! [©2012 United Features Syndicate or successors in interest.]

Charles Atlas—Part 3!

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Flex Mentallo!

Charles Atlas ads are such an easy target it’s almost impossible not to parody them! But sometimes you can go too far. In the case of Grant Morrison’s Flex Mentallo, the thin line was crossed between parody and plagiarism.

Morrison used “Hero of the Beach” and other classic Charles Atlas tropes as part of his wonky hero’s origin. Since this was a continuing character and not a one-shot parody, DC found itself on slippery ground.

The Atlas folks weren’t amused, and sued.

DC won a split decision. They didn’t have to pay for the parodies in the comics that had already appeared, but were ordered to do so for any future reprints.

And so, decades after his death, Charles Atlas got to “Flex” his muscles one last time!

Flexing His Muscles!

(Above:) The original Charles Atlas ad. You can’t beat a classic! [©2012 Charles Atlas Ltd.] (Panels below right:) Writer Grant Morrison’s DC parody, Flex Mentallo, as seen in his origin from Doom Patrol, Vol. 2, #42 (March 1991). Art by Mike Dringenberg & Doug Hazlewood.

(Images at left:) A challenge from Flex Mentallo #4 (Sept. 1996), illustrated by Frank Quietly—and Flex striking a pose in issue #1 (June 1996). Script by Grant Morrison. [©2012 DC Comics.]

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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

And Finally...

Our Charles Atlas articles in A/E #108 & 109 drew some responses from fans who had actually taken the course... or had dreamed of doing so. Here’s one from recent A/E contributor Shaun Clancy: Michael: Just read the Charles Atlas article you did in the latest Alter Ego and I was so moved at how well you presented it that I had to dig thru my stuff and tell you my own personal story. Back in 1982 I had just turned 15 years old and at 6’ and 135 pounds I found myself considering sending away for that famous Charles Atlas muscle-building program I had always read in my comic books. So I broke down and sent for the brochure that, as you stated, wanted more money for the courses. I signed up for the course that required you to pick 12 lessons from about 30 with each one specializing in a specific body part. I received the 12 lessons I wanted and immediately started to put them to use.

At 15 years old, I was still too young to realize that there would never be any way I could have the physique that Charles Atlas had, but I will tell you that it did put me in the right mindset of working out. After about a year of using his lessons, I did notice muscles building from the routine that he suggested (never any diet), which in turn gave me the confidence to join a local gym.

I had been working out at gyms for almost 25 years straight because of that course, which I stopped attending when I turned 40 about four years ago. But I still do the standing up and down on your tippy toes on a phone book 100 times every day! The lesson which stands out in my mind that gave me the best results was the one of putting your feet on a chair and placing two more chairs in front for your hands which allowed you to do push-ups.

Your chest would go down below the level of the chairs and really build muscle quickly. I still catch myself doing this exercise whenever I get the itch to work out after feeling guilty for not working out for so long (because of work and kids).

To sum it all up... Charles Atlas had a very positive effect on my life that I still carry with me to this day, and so your article really hit home for me. I was very surprised to find the original 1982 lesson tucked away in my stuff, and here’s a scan of the outside envelope. I’ll scan a few more pages to show how dated it was but still very effective. The 1940s picture/brochure you

Mr. Monster Builds Strong Bodies, Too! Another Charles Atlas ad parody. [©2012 Michael T. Gilbert.]

used in the article I bought last year and have a copy of, too.

Yes... I took some pictures of me before I started working out.

Never really did for the “after” effects when I was 15, but I have a few from when I was 19 on up.

Shaun Clancy (May 11, 2012)

And finally, here’s one more from another Charles Atlas fan: Hi Michael,

I picked up Alter Ego this week. As a comic reader who eventually became a pro drug free bodybuilder, I have to credit those Charles Atlas ads as my first exposure to the idea of muscle building. I can’t begin to count how many times I re-read that ad and I appreciated all the details revealed about the course and Angelo’s life. Great article!!

P.S.: While I did read the ad repeatedly as a kid, I never did actually order the course (though I studied about isometric exercises to see what “Dynamic Tension” was all about).

Muscle Builder (the predecessor of Muscle & Fitness) magazine was my formal introduction to weight-training technique.

Dan Sehn 5/25/12

And that winds up our Atlas coverage. Our thanks to Bill Henley, Dan, and Shaun—and to Charles Atlas, of course!

That Atlas Man! Shaun Clancy, before and after taking the Atlas course. The pic at left was taken in 1980, at age 13… the other in 1994, age 27. Charles Atlas (and puberty!) did the trick! Photos courtesy of Shaun Clancy.

Till next time...

63

Wonder Woman’s Last Kiss A/E EDITOR’S INTRO: John Lustig (photo at right) has written funny comics for Disney, Marvel, Viz, and others. But he’s best known for his oddball series Last Kiss—in which he takes old romance comic book art he purchased from Charlton years ago (mostly from the 1960s title First Kiss) and adds his own witty new dialogue. There’ve been issues of a Last Kiss comic book, for a time there was a newspaper comic strip, and it’s a regular feature in Comics Buyer’s Guide. Here’s a page of Last Kiss panels “starring”none other than everybody’s favorite Amazon princess. Artists of Last Kiss can’t always be positively ID’d, but much of the art was by the Vince Colletta studio. Colors by Allen Freeman.

More Last Kiss in future issues of Alter Ego. Meanwhile, John Lustig’s whacky re-dialogued comics appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on the site www.lastkiss.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LastKissComics

COMICS’ GOLDEN AGE LIVES AGAIN! MINUTE-MAN BLACK TERROR • AVENGER PHANTOM LADY • CAT-MAN DAREDEVIL • CRIMEBUSTER CAPTAIN FLASH SPY SMASHER MR. SCARLET SKYMAN • STUNTMAN THE OWL • BULLETMAN COMMANDO YANK PYROMAN • GREEN LAMA THE EAGLE • IBIS

Art ©2012 AC Comics.

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In Memoriam

65

John Celardo (1919-2012) “He Really Knew How To Draw”

by Mark Evanier eteran comic book and strip artist John Celardo died Friday, Jan. 26, 2012, at a nursing facility near his home on Staten Island, New York. He was 93.

V

According to an obituary in his hometown newspaper, Celardo attended the New York Industrial Arts School, Federal Arts School, and New York School of Visual Artists. It notes that he began working as an artist in the late 1930s, drawing animals at the Staten Island Zoo.

I can pick up the story after that: His first work in comics was done in or around 1939 for the Eisner-Iger Studio, and he quickly segued to drawing comic books for Fiction House, Quality Comics, and other companies. For Fiction House he often drew “Kaänga,” who was a Tarzan-like character. It is said that drawing that jungle hero primed Celardo for a crack at drawing the real Tarzan some day. He would get his chance, but before he did, he served in World War II and drew a lot more comics, including a long stint for Better Publications (a.k.a. Nedor, Standard, and Pines).

He got his shot at the Tarzan newspaper comic strip in 1954, taking it over from his friend and studio-mate Bob Lubbers when Lubbers accepted an offer to go to work for

Jungle John John Celardo at Fiction House, 1954—and two of the features for which he is most remembered: the cover of that company’s Jungle Comics #17 (May 1941), featuring Kaänga; and a panel from his 1954-67 run on the Tarzan newspaper strip. The latter was supplied by Mark Evanier. [Tarzan art ©2012 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; other art ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Al Capp on Li’l Abner. Celardo drew (and eventually wrote) Tarzan until 1967, when he was replaced by Russ Manning. With nary a week off, Celardo moved over and began drawing the Tales of the Green Beret newspaper strip when its first artist, Joe Kubert, gave it up. When Beret ended in 1969, Celardo began drawing for DC Comics and Western Publishing. His work for the latter was featured throughout the 1970s in the Gold Key “ghost” comics such as Grimm’s Ghost Stories and Twilight Zone. DC used him on a wide array of books, often as an inker. Celardo was a very good artist and the kind of inker who tended to dominate a page. Often but not always, he was assigned to ink pencil work by other artists who, some editor felt, needed a lot of “fixing.”

In 1981 Celardo left comic books to take over the Buz Sawyer newspaper strip and became the last in a line of artists to continue Roy Crane’s creation. As far as I know, he retired after the strip ended in 1989.

I never met Mr. Celardo, but I admired his work. From all reports he was a solid professional, and it’s obvious to anyone who saw his work that he really knew how to draw and that he maintained a high standard through his career.

This piece is reprinted, with slight editorial changes, from Mark Evanier’s online website www.newsfromme.com.

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In Memoriam

Tony(1932-2012) DeZuniga “His Fine Work Will Not Be Forgotten”

by Mark Evanier

ilipino comic book legend Tony DeZuniga died on May 11 of this year at the age of 79. He suffered a stroke in mid-April, which led to a range of infections and other medical problems. Many in the comic book community had chipped in to help with hospital bills and other expenses, because he was wellliked and respected. He was, among his many other accomplishments, the co-creator of the popular DC properties Jonah Hex and The Black Orchid.

F

Tony entered the flourishing comic book industry in the Philippines in 1957, working as a letterer to finance his college education at the University of Santa Tomas. Despite having been warned that a Filipino artist could not crack the American marketplace, he came here several times to try to do so, and in 1970 secured work at DC, inking other artists at first, then doing complete art. His style was unique, at least to American comic books, and exciting for its blend of realism and energy.

He told the editors at DC that there were many other fine artists back in the Philippines. At first, the notion of working with talent so far away (and not well-schooled in English) scared DC’s management away. That was until they learned how inexpensive it

Fire From The Philippines Tony & Tina DeZuniga at the Third Summer Komikon, held in the Philippines (where Tony had gone home to live for the last few years of his life) in April 2011. Thanks to Mark Muller & the Komikero Dot Com website.

Jonah Hex was not just a pretty face in the story “Welcome to Paradise” in AllStar Western #10 (Feb.-March 1972). Script by John Albano; thanks to Mark Muller. [©2012 DC Comics.]

A Conan sketch drawn in the recent years for collector Dominique Leonard.

[Conan TM & ©2012 Conan Properties International, LLD.]

would be to have comics drawn there. Even with the expense of shipping work halfway around the world, it made it possible to get a comic book drawn (and drawn well) for a fraction of what American artists were paid. At first, Tony (with his first wife Mary) served as a kind of agent, as dozens of Filipino artists began drawing for DC and later for Marvel and other companies. They included Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Nino, and Ernie Chua (later known as Ernie Chan). Some of these artists later relocated to the United States, and Tony spent much of his own time here.

Tony DeZuniga is best remembered for Jonah Hex and for the work he did on DC’s mystery comics and on Marvel’s “Conan the Barbarian,” especially in the black-&-white magazine The Savage Sword of Conan. He drew very powerful heroic figures and very beautiful women, and I always enjoyed talking or lunching with him and his wonderful wife Tina. Our thoughts and condolences go out to her, along with the knowledge that Tony and his fine work will not be forgotten.

This tribute and the next one have been slightly edited from their original form in Mark Evanier’s blog www.newsfromme.com.

In Memoriam

67

Ernie Chan (1940-2012) “Ernie ‘Got’ The Style”

by Mark Evanier

nce again, I am back, alas, with an obituary. Ernie Chan, one of the most prolific artists in American comics of the 1970s, died on May 16 at the age of 71. His death (from cancer) came only five days after the passing of his Filipino colleague Tony DeZuniga.

O

As mentioned in my tribute to the latter: in the early ’70s, DeZuniga opened the door for many comic artists in the Philippines to work for publishers in this country, starting with DC Comics. The work was both excellent and inexpensive, but to the great frustration of management, the Filipino artists rarely seemed to be able to produce the kind of art the company wanted for its mainstay: the super-hero titles. Time and again, DC tried those artists out on “Superman,” “Batman,” or other such features, and the result was usually unsatisfactory. Ernie Chan, whose name then was Ernie Chua, was a rare exception.

Ernie “got” the style that was wanted. In fact, he did it so well that, when he relocated to the United States—for personal reasons and to earn American rates—he wound up doing hundreds of covers for DC and drawing the “Batman” feature for several years.

Readers also knew him for his long association with the Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan comic books at Marvel, finishing the pencil work of John Buscema and sometimes drawing stories on his own. He was fast and dependable and very much in demand.

I believe I first met Ernie at the San-Diego Comic-Con in 1976.

He and fellow Filipino artist Alfredo Alcala were doing wonderful color sketches for fans at bargain rates to raise money for an ailing artist-friend back in the Philippines. I commissioned one from each, and as Ernie worked on his, he told me proudly how he’d just achieved U.S. citizenship and had taken the opportunity to change his name from Chua to Chan,

restoring the original family name that had been changed against their will… I don’t recall just why.

I asked him if he was going to start signing his comic book work as Ernie Chan. He said he was trying to decide that. People knew him as Chua, and there was the thought that one should keep one’s “brand” intact. As he was so close to finishing my piece, I asked him to sign it “Ernie Chan,” and he did… and before the con was out, he decided to sign all his drawings that way. So I think I have the very first U.S. drawing by Ernie Chan. I’m sorry to learn that now someone someplace has the last.

A/E EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE: If what Ernie told me once is true, the story related in Brian Cronin’s recent book Was Superman a Spy? is probably basically correct: that when he emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, a typographic error on his birth certificate led to the name on his immigration papers being “Chua” rather than “Chan,” and that he felt he had to go along with it to avoid legal complications. Or something like that. We’re all just sorry we can’t ask Ernie to tell us that story one more time….

Sand And Cimmerians Ernie Chan at a comics convention just a few years ago, in a photo courtesy of the Atomic Romance website—juxtaposed with primo specimens of Chan/Chua penciling-and-inking for DC and Marvel: his splash page for The Sandman #2 (April-May 1975), scripted by Michael Fleisher—and a page from Savage Sword of Conan #35 (Nov. 1978)). In both cases he was asked to capture the style of other artists: Jack Kirby, who had penciled The Sandman #1, and regular SSOC and Conan the Barbarian penciler John Buscema. He succeeded admirably in both cases. [Sandman page ©2012 DC Comics; SSOC page ©2012 Conan Properties International, LLD.]

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54 Captain America who was not Steve Rogers, in order to account for those “hero revival” stories), I held then—and hold now—a somewhat different view of the early Cold War world than S.E. himself did. However, my policy was to turn talented people loose to do good work, and that he definitely did.

Next we hear from Richard Kyle, an early comics fan who was featured prominently in #108113’s coverage of the “50th anniversary of comics fandom” events at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con: Dear Roy,

Alter Ego #103 was another splendid issue. The only troubling element was the news that Christopher Day is leaving. He’s done an extraordinary job. Please pass on my appreciation, along with everyone else’s.

Lotta changes. Will Murray tells me that Jim Amash is cutting back on his contributions, too. I hope not so completely. Alter Ego is an important historical source, as well as great entertainment for those of us who love the early comics.

Although I’m basically a Golden Age guy, I like reading about the Silver Age. (Wonder if Doc Savage would’ve done better if he’d tried working from a Sgt. Fury script with more traditional grammar?) And I particularly enjoyed reading the Englehart-Starlin “Master of Kung Fu.” A great batch of issues.

ince this is a “mostly-Marvel” issue, our maskot-drawer-in-chief Shane Foley employed a Jack Kirby shot from a vintage issue of Fantastic Four as our opener—with cacochromous (that’s the coloring equivalent of “cacophonous”) colors by Randy Sargent. We can’t thank these guys enough for coming through for Alter Ego, issue after issue! Let ’em know if you enjoy their work, okay? [Captain Ego TM & ©2012 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly—created by Biljo White; Alter Ego super-hero TM & ©2012 Roy & Dann Thomas—costume designed by Ron Harris; other art ©2012 Shane Foley.]

S

Now, on to Alter Ego #103, beginning with comments from Steven Smith about Jim Amash's cover-featured interview with writer Steve Englehart: Mister Thomas,

Much enjoyment of the interview with Steve Englehart on his early career, though I must state that, in 1972, when I first saw his treatment of the fiercely McCarthyite Captain America and Bucky of the early 1950s—as a near 12-year-old, I want to stress—I was dismayed, appalled, and severely rankled, this development coming as it did in the wake of the crippling of my hero George Wallace after the assassination attempt he bore. To me, the avidly anti-Communist Captain America of the early 1950s always seemed more to the point in a truly dangerous world, just as the original conceptions of Superman and Batman struck me re the context of the late 1930s. In 1972 Englehart invented the ruse of tainted or improperly prepared super-soldier serum to explain the patent lunacy of the Cold War Captain America and Bucky, highly dramatic metaphors for real-life Americans who were exponents of the strenuously reactionary ideologic far right: what, if anything, was his view on why people in real life would strive for the same sort of nation and world the Cold War and Bucky sought—absent super-soldier serum? I have long wanted to know.

Steven Smith

I don’t want to get into the political right/left of the thing, Steven… except to say that (as the editor who suggested that Steve E. posit a 1953-

But it was the George Mandel interview that really caught my attention. He was not my favorite artist by a long shot, of course, and his odd personality is… well, odd… but I love reading about that period in comics. Wish he’d said more about Tarpé Mills and Mickey Spillane. (I’ll have to run down his war books, which seem likely to give a deeper sense of the man.)

Four typos:

[Twice “hydromatic” is used instead of the correct “hydramatic.”]

Page 41, column 1… should be “lowlands,” not “low ends.”

Page 44, column 1… second line, “Jimmie Lunceford,” not “Jimmy Lunsworth.”

Richard Kyle

Thanks, Richard. And, after the “Comic Fandom Archive” runs Bill Schelly’s interview with you in our very next issue, you may have to send some comments and corrections on a piece that deals with you! Another observation on the George Mandel conversation follows, from Mitchell Senft: Roy—

Had to tell you: I’m in the middle of the Mandel interview in A/E #103, where he talks about his combat experiences, and I’m blown away. Just an awesome reminiscence.

Way too often, an accepted truth is just accepted with nothing more. Last couple of years or so, it’s been oozing out into the press and media, I think, that loads of combatants come back unwilling or unable to clearly describe what happened in combat—understandably. We who don’t fight then are left with an emptiness, a lack of firsthand info about the reality. Mandel’s description fills in a huge amount of that gap.

Again, awesome.

Mitchell Senft

We agree. Unfortunately, Jim Amash has been unable to re-establish contact by phone or mail with George Mandel in the past year or two. We

re:

69

Seeing Red (Left:) Hames Ware tells us that the “Woman in Red” story from Nedor’s Thrilling Comics #10 (Nov. 1940), from which we ran a number of panels in A/E #103, was actually drawn by another artist entirely: William B. Smith. Thanks to Jim Ludwig, all the same, for sending us this scan.

(Right:) Eric Schumacher, however, believes that George Mandel may have been the artist of this chapter from the legendary Daredevil #1 (July 1941), popularly known by its cover title of “Daredevil Battles Hitler.” So how about it, Hames? Gonna bust Eric’s bubble, too? [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

can’t even be certain that he received the copies of A/E #103 that were mailed to him. We can only hope that, although he may have moved on without leaving a forwarding address, he is still with us.

Next up, here’s a communication from Bill Croskey that deals with a number of Michael T. Gilbert’s “Comic Crypt” pieces, including those related to Spirit letterer Abe Kanegson, which ran in #103, amongst other issues. It was sent to Michael, who forwarded it to us:

Michael—

I am a big fan of your articles in Alter Ego. I want to particularly compliment you on the Loretta Binder series from a year or so back. I was trained as a school psychologist. Dr. Bender developed the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test, a visual perception copying task that helps us identify children who might have difficulty perceiving letters or numbers in school. There is a scoring system that accompanies the test. According to my measurements professor, he and some other psychologists once asked her about a detail of the scoring system. She is supposed to have said that they were free to ignore the system and concentrate on an overall (Gestalt) impression or whether the student knew how to reproduce the design. In my world, that is a pretty pragmatic answer and very refreshing. It appears that she had that same wisdom about another visual world: comics.

I also really enjoyed the journey you undertook to track down

information about Abe Kanegson. What a delightful aspect to the Spirit story! And when you wrote about the possible comics connection to the Little Black Sambo illustrator, I was impressed!

Before school psychology, I was a history teacher. You guys really get what history should be about.

Michael, you, Roy, Jim, and P.C. do a wonderful job. In my opinion, your work combines the research and detail of a peer review journal with the fun and whimsy of a pop culture magazine.

Bill Croskey

Just what we’re aiming for, Bill! We don’t want to go back to the “gosh-wow” early days of fandom—but neither have we ever been able to take the whole comics thing as seriously as some publishers and critics insist that we should. We’re talking comic books here, after all.

Now, here are a few truncated comments on #103, with Ye Editor’s comments in italics:

Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., reports that the “Patriot” story in Marvel Mystery Comics #21 was drawn by George Mandel, not by Art Gates as listed in the Grand Comics Database.

Bernie Bubnis says that his own path and that of his late fellow fan Ed Lahmann, whose passing was noted in #103, “surely must have crossed a few times in the early ’60s. [Still, re-reading Bill Schelly’s

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[correspondence, corrections, & criticism]

tribute to Ed several times], I guess I didn’t know him. I would never forget someone who could touch me this deeply. He may be the true essence of the word ‘fan.’”

Eagle-eyed Hames Ware notes that “one of those artists [of the] unknown paperback covers [in #103, p. 29]” did indeed sign his cover, “and Jim V[adeboncoeur] has a way of enlarging things to possibly tell you who did it: Kermit Jaediker.” He adds: “The ‘Woman in Red’ examples on page 40 are actually drawn by that feature’s primary artist, the prolific but barely ever signing W.B. Smith. [He] was so prolific in comics’ early days that Jim V. and I had to come up with a ‘pen name’ to keep track of all the work until we finally got an ID. Well, Jim’s tireless efforts finally paid off when he turned up a really early Nedor that Smith had actually signed. Later on, Lee Boyette turned up a Centaur where Smith had a byline. Thus, I can now say that the ‘W.’ stands for ‘Wallace.’” You and Jim are a twin fountainhead of information, Hames—as you have been ever since the days when Dr. Jerry Bails named you co-editor of the 1970s print version of the Who’s Who of American Comic Books. We have a couple of pieces on file by the two of you that we simply have to squeeze into an early issue!

In addition, around the same time as the above e-mails arrived, we got one from our fellow JSAficionado Craig Delich—only it deals with a

matter that had come up in A/E more than 70 issues earlier! He writes: “In Alter Ego #27, on page 24, you mentioned you didn’t know if or where the ‘Captain Daring’ story ‘Allegiance of Evil’ was published. It was found in Buccaneers #27 (May 1951)” from Quality Comics. Thanks, Craig! See? Ask a question, and it’ll be answered— sooner or later!

Please send comments to:

Roy Thomas e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com 32 Bluebird Trail St. Matthews, SC 29135

Once again, we remind you that, to get advance news and informed discussion concerning features in Alter Ego, and of comics of yesteryear in general, join the Alter-Ego-Fans list at group.yahoo.com/group/alter-ego-fans/—and, if you have any trouble getting on board, contact co-Web-overseer Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com and he’ll walk you through it.

Unfortunately, we must close this “re:” section on a somber note, with an update culled from communiqués received over the past two weeks (as this issue is prepared) from The Hero Initiative:

Comic book writer, editor, and colorist Roger Slifer was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Santa Monica, California, on June 23. Roger was moved to Barlow Respiratory Hospital on Friday, July 27.

For some weeks he could not breathe on his own, and in an e-mail sent on August 13 his sister Connie Carlton wrote us that he is still in a coma, “but has made some progress this week, and as of yesterday is off the vent unless he develops distress.

Some have seen his eyes open but we don’t know how he is faring inside those Slifer brown eyes yet. At the moment, we can guardedly say he’s making progress now but still has a long recovery ahead. He is in a respiratory hospital at present, and his next move will be to rehab or a nursing (Above:) A recent photo of facility, all depending on what he is ready for Roger Slifer; with thanks to when they release him. There is also a section Hero Initiative. of his skull that needs to be reattached at some (Right:) Tone Rodriguez’s point, but they tell me that will just be an illustration—or should we overnight stay.” We’ll have to be thankful for say, “Wanted poster.” [Lobo the fact that at least some of the above news is TM & ©2012 DC Comics.] upbeat, after numerous weeks of no change at all in Roger’s condition.

Police still have not located the driver of the hitand-run car, but are on the lookout for a 4-door white sedan with a sun roof. Anyone with information can call the Santa Monica Police Dept. at (310) 458-8495.

Meanwhile, artist Tone Rodriguez has contributed the amazing drawing at right, which features the DC character Lobo whom Roger co-created. It was auctioned off on eBay to help pay for Roger’s care, but equally important is its loud-andclear message.

Get well, Roger. We’re all pulling for you!

… so most likely the car we're looking for is a 1996 to 2002 Honda Accord white four door sedan with a sunroof… uh hu… has lowered suspension, and a gnarly chunk out of the front right corner. Ok yeah I got all that.

Yeah, don't worry about it, that fraggin' bastich is in for a rude awakening if I find him first… no, this one's on the house, I assure you this will be a pleasure.

Yeah me too. I owe everything I am today to Roger.

#173 December 2012

Illustration by Eric Jansen.

[Captain America, Thor, Iron Man & Ultron TM & ©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Captain Video TM & ©2012 the respective TM & copyright holders; other art ©2012 Eric Jansen. Coloring by Randy Sargent]

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“Vini, Video, Vinci!”

The Full, Unfettered Story Of How CAPTAIN VIDEO’s Greatest Foe Inspired The Ultimate Enemy Of Marvel’s AVENGERS!

U

ltron.

by Roy Thomas

Easily the most popular villain amongst the relative handful of that species that I cocreated for Marvel Comics during the 1960s and ’70s. Ahead of The Grim Reaper—Tiger Shark—Arkon—Sauron—ManApe—Thundra—not to mention The Banshee and Sunfire (a pair of mutants who started out as villains in The X-Men but later cleaned up their act). Naturally, that doesn’t count Wolverine.

Of course, all comic-book villains have antecedents of one kind or another. The Red Skull’s name was apparently lifted from the title of a Doc Savage pulp novel.

Dr. Doom was Alexandre Dumas’ Man in the Iron Mask given added armor and turned into an archfiend.

And the ultimate inspiration behind Ultron was a living robot called Makino, in the third issue of Fawcett Publications’ Captain Video comic book, cover-dated June 1951.

Maybe FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck and I are doing things backward, but we’ve scheduled an overview of the 6-issue Captain Video comics series for A/E #117, three issues from now, after the aforementioned Makino story has been fully reprinted. All the same, you need to know these minimal facts about that series up front:

Captain Video was, first and foremost, a very early children’s program on the DuMont Television Network, which aired from 1949 to 1955. To quote the first paragraph-plus of the rather good Wikipedia coverage:

“Set in the distant future, the series followed the adventures of a group of fighters for truth and justice, the Video Rangers, led by Captain Video. The Rangers operated from a secret base on a mountain top. Their uniforms resembled U.S. Army surplus with lightning belts sewed on. The Captain had a teenage companion who was known only as the Video Ranger. Captain Video received his orders from the Commissioner of Public Safety, whose responsibilities took in the entire solar system as well as human colonies on

Two Types of Video Recorder

planets around other stars.”

(Above:) Al Hodge (on the right, as the good Captain) and Don Hastings as the Video Ranger in a publicity still from the Captain Video TV series, courtesy of a Wikipedia entry.

(Left:) The photo-cover of Fawcett’s Captain Video #3 (June 1951). Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck. [©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

When Fawcett’s licensed Captain Video comic made its debut (#1, Feb. 1951), it strayed in several key ways from the TV series. For one thing, although the uniforms of the Captain and the Ranger were light brown on the covers (all six of which utilized photos—either color ones or else black-&-white ones which had been “colorized”), they were blue in all interior stories. Moreover, the comics were set in the present day (i.e., early 1950s), not in some far-flung future where space travel is a given; in fact, I haven’t been able to ascertain that Video’s comic book Whirlojet—which can fly only as high up as the stratosphere, not into outer space—was the precise equivalent of any of the vehicles he used on the TV show. Also, there were slightly more Video Rangers in evidence in the comic, apparently, than on the small screen. Still, Dr. Pauli, the Captain’s arch-foe on the TV series, did make an appearance or two in the four-color version.

“Vini, Video, Vinci!”

73

Fawcett threw in the towel (it essentially quit publishing comics in late 1953), its titles could be found only at a small five-and-dime, called Cox’s, which carried no other companies’ comics. Separate but unequal treatment.

What made Captain Video worth seeking out during its 1951 run were the art and story. Though the tales bore no credits, the detailed, realistic pencils of all “Captain Video” tales were by George Evans, whose name I’d later come to know through EC Comics; the inking was mostly by Martin Thall (see his interview in A/E #52), with some of the embellishment being by Evans himself and even, according to Evans, by a very young Al Williamson. The scripts, like the art, were more adult than the usual kiddie comics fare—probably much more so than the TV show.

And no “Captain Video” story made a stronger impression on me than the lead tale in issue #3.

Klang, Klang, Klang Went The Robot Marc Swayze, who celebrated his 99th birthday this past July 17, has been an important part of each and every issue of Alter Ego, Vol. 3, beginning with its very first issue in 1999. Marc wrote and drew this tale starring a far earlier Fawcett evil robot for Captain Marvel Adventures #15 (Sept. 1942).

[Shazam hero TM & ©2012 DC Comics.]

As a kid of ten, I loved the Captain Video comic. Only problem was: during this tail-end of Fawcett’s first foray into the comics field, the company’s titles were rarely on sale in the two drugstores which were the major comic book outlets in Jackson, Missouri, and which were the places where I purchased DC, Timely, Dell, and most other comics firms’ product. For the last year or so before

Because I’ve always wanted to do so even before Alter Ego went to full color a few issues, back, FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck has indulged me and named me a sort of “guest associate editor” for a trio of issues—and so FCA will serialize the 19 pages of that story over A/E #114-116—annotating it in this introduction and at the bottom of each reprinted comics page. We’ll be show-and-telling how the Makino episode influenced not only the creation and emergence of Ultron over the course of The Avengers #54-55 & #57-58, but also his second story arc in #66-68.

And now, with art scans courtesy of collector Rod Beck and P.C. Hamerlinck:

Long before artist John Buscema and I designed Ultron-5… even longer before I coined the name “Adamantium” for the hardest material imaginable in the second Ultron outing… there was…

Makino—“The Indestructible Antagonist!”…

Showing His True Metal (Left:) Ultron had a somewhat convoluted debut. When first seen in The Avengers #54 (July 1968), he seemed merely a robot stand-in for the mysterious criminal known as The Crimson Cowl—while in that issue’s final panel (not reprinted here) it appeared the true Cowl was none other than The Avengers’ very own butler, Jarvis! Script by Roy Thomas, pencils by John Buscema, inks by George Tuska.

(Center:) In Avengers #55 (Aug. ’68), however, it was revealed that it was Ultron—or Ultron-5, as he first identified himself, being the fifth version of a robot prototype—who was the real criminal mastermind all along. That’s poor Jarvis he’s pummeling, by the way. Script by RT, pencils by JB, inks by George Klein. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan.

(Right:) By the final panel of Avengers #57 (Oct. ’68), Ultron-5, who had created the android known as The Vision in an attempt to destroy the assembled superheroes, had apparently been destroyed “forever,” with his head being booted around a vacant lot by a kid playing kick-the-can to the tune of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias.” The origin of Ultrons 1 through 4 in the lab of Dr. Henry Pym would be revealed via flashbacks in #58. [©2012 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

[Captain Video #3 art & story on following 7 pages ©2012 the respective copyright holders.]

Penciler George Evans, from the "EC Artist of the Issue" feature in Frontline Combat #13 (July-Aug. 1953), as reprinted in the hardcover Frontline Combat, Vol. 3 (1982), published by Russ Cochran. [©2013 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc.]

The splash panel, which illustrates an upcoming scene from the story, gives little indication of the nature of Makino except his apparent invulnerability. Editor Barbara (“B.J.”) Heyman, P.C. informs us, was a Fawcett editor from 1950-52 who was fondly remembered by artist Evans in a 1999 essay for FCA. Executive editor Will Lieberson and art editor Al Jetter are better known. In fact, Al’s wife Charlotte, a letterer, worked on staff at Marvel in the early 1970s when Roy T. was editor-in-chief; but, alas, he never realized her connection to the man once also listed as art editor of Captain Marvel Adventures!

“Vini, Video, Vinci!”

75

Inker Martin Thall, in a 1952 photo taken while he was in the Marine Corps. Courtesy of the artist.

As a Fawcett title, Captain Video was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Captain Marvel’s exploits in Whiz Comics, Captain Marvel Adventures, and The Marvel Family. Penciler George Evans’ style bordered on photographic realism—while “Captain Marvel” major artist/co-creator Charles Clarence Beck would emerge in the 1970s and ’80s as an outspoken proponent of basic, simple cartooning, with little if any excess “information” given in the drawings, as the only acceptable way to relate super-hero exploits. Love C.C.’s work though he did, Roy never agreed with that exclusionary view, and he and Beck quarreled about it via mail.

76

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Claude Rains was wrapped in bandages for many scenes in Universal's original Invisible Man movie. [©2012 Universal or successors in interest.]

This page introduces Makino, in a scene that echoes the opening of H.G. Wells’ classic novel The Invisible Man—not to mention the even more widely viewed 1933 movie adaptation starring Claude Rains. His bandaged face builds up suspense and expectation, particularly after the dramatic splash panel two pages earlier. The name “Makino” is most likely derived from the word “machine,” with its “ch” hardened into a “k” à la the related word “mechanical.” Sure wish we knew who scripted this story, ’cause it’s a good one! P.C. reports that the late Roy Ald said he had written some “CV” tales—so maybe he came up with Makino!

“Vini, Video, Vinci!”

77

Googling didn’t locate either the last name “Siminek” or the expression “energy inversion quotient of the hydrogen chain reaction,” but both show cleverness on the writer’s part. Siminek is both easily pronounceable and exotic-looking, while the made-up formula (as voiced by Makino) is “simply” Einstein’s energy/mass equation with an added “H” for “hydrogen.” Since the expression voiced echoes of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs, it would’ve carried an impact with young readers in 1951.

78

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

Luckily for us, Makino talks to himself while burning Prof. Siminek’s papers, thus furthering the plot. This page displays George Evans’ ability to make scenes appear so lifelike that reading “The Indestructible Antagonist!” is as much like watching a movie as reading a comic book. Siminek’s cluttered room in the decrepit old manse… the carefully rendered stairway… even the detailed if dilapidated heating pipes in the basement… all add to the mood in a way that might’ve been tailored to drive C.C. Beck around the twist!

“Vini, Video, Vinci!”

79

At last, on this page nearly one-third of the way through the story, Makino stands revealed for what he truly is—a living, murderous automaton. His figure isn’t chiseled into bulging steel “musculature” as Ultron’s will be later, for such bulk is hardly needed. One truly inspired touch is the fact that Makino’s mouth is carved as a sinister, eternal smile—not unlike a metallic version of The Joker. I believe I showed some of this art to John Buscema and asked him to do a variation on its robot villain. Otherwise, Ultron wouldn’t bear such a resemblance to Makino.

80

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

On the 7th page of this 19-pager, Makino shows that he is not merely all but invulnerable, but also possesses dizzying speed and a mind that can master the complicated controls of Captain Video’s Whirlojet in “minutes.” Here, though, Evans’ art is somewhat at odds with the text, for although Makino supposedly runs at 70 m.p.h., the two Rangers are never drawn as if they’re more than a few seconds behind him. Next Issue: Robot Cat… Human Mice!

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3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (includes free glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

JOE KUBERT TRIBUTE! Four Kubert interviews, art by RUSS HEATH, NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, SHELDON MOLDOFF, IRV NOVICK, and others, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive, FCA’s Captain Video conclusion by GEORGE EVANS that inspired Avengers foe Ultron, cover by KUBERT, with a portrait by DANIEL JAMES COX!

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