Issuu

Roy Thomas ’ Marvelous Comics Fanzine

5.95

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THE

No. 11

Titans

November 2001

Timely! (That’s Marvel To You! )

Starring:

SYD SHORES Artist Extraordinaire

MICKEY SPILLANE CREATOR OF MIKE HAMMER

VINCE FAGO TIMELY’S “FORGOTTEN” EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

VALERIE BARCLAY

Human Torch, Captain America, Sub-Mariner TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

“GLAMOROUS GIRL INKER”

Featuring Art & Artifacts By:

JOE SIMON JACK KIRBY CARL BURGOS BILL EVERETT CARL PFEUFER DON RICO FRED BELL HARRY SAHLE ALEX SCHOMBURG —not to mention

CHARLES BIRO & JOE SHUSTER!

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

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

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

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DRAW! #22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Vol. 3, No. 11 / November 2001 ™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

The Titans of Timely

Comics Crypt Editor

Section

Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Carl Burgos, Fred Bell, & Carl Pfeufer Don Newton

Cover Color

Contents

Tom Ziuko Don Newton

Writer/Editorial: The Timely Times, They Are A-Changin’! . . . . 2

Mailing Crew

re: letters, what else?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Russ Garwood, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston Wallace

And Special Thanks to: Bill Alger Valerie Barclay Dennis Beaulieu Blake Bell Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Gary Brown Michael Bryan Mrs. Olympia Certa Mike Costa Mike & Carole Curtis Rich Dannys Al Dellinges Wayne De Waid Rich Donnelly Tom Fagan Vince Fago Shane Foley Ron Frantz Ken Gale Dave Gantz Robert Hack Bill Harper Richard Harpster Mark & Stephanie Heike Jennifer T. Go

Robert Hack Al Hewetson Chris Irving Barry Keller David Anthony Kraft Harry Kremer Al Lenny Ed Lane Joe Latino Stan Lee Paul Levitz Jon Mankuta Anthony Newton Eric NolenWeathington Ethan Roberts Trina Robbins Howard Siegel Dave Sim Joe Simon Mickey Spillane Maggie Thompson Jim Vadeboncoeur Michael J. Vassallo Jean Walton Hames Ware Jay Willson

In Memoriam: Chuck Cuidera Jerry de Fuccio George Evans Barbara Knutson

“IVinceLetFago,People Do Their Jobs!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Timely/Marvel’s third editor-in-chief—interviewed by Jim Amash. That “Glamorous Girl Inker”! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The enigmatic Valerie/Violet Barclay, profiled by Trina Robbins. “Comics Were Great!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 And Mike Hammer creator Mickey Spillane should know! He wrote a million of ’em! Nuggets: Missives from Mickey (Spillane) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Jerry de Fuccio’s colorful correspondence with the author of I, the Jury. Syd Shores: A Biography and Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 A vintage 1973 celebration by Al Hewetson.

FCA, ME, & Comic Crypt, Too! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: For a change, editor Roy Thomas and publisher John Morrow opted to do a montage featuring Timely’s Big Three super-heroes of the ’40s: The Human Torch (by Carl Burgos), Captain America (by Fred Bell—though they thought the artist was Syd Shores till an expert told ’em different!), and Sub-Mariner (by Carl Pfeufer). [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: When Bill Everett entered the Army after Pearl Harbor, Carl Pfeufer became the chief “SubMariner” artist, and Namor’s head got more and more triangular, his arms and legs more like turkey drumsticks. Still, Pfeufer’s art had a whacky charm of its own. From Marvel Mystery Comics #41 (March 1943). [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8.00 ($10.00 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Vince Fago

“I Let People Do Their Jobs!” A Conversation with VINCE FAGO—Artist, Writer, and Third Editor-in-Chief of Timely/Marvel Comics Interview Conducted and Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTRODUCTORY NOTE: Vince Fago has worn many hats and worked in many capacities and fields and genres over his long career, and is still active today, at the age of 87. Even so, he remains relatively (and undeservedly) unknown even by many longtime comics fans, especially in his capacity as Timely/Marvel’s third editorin-chief—probably because his predecessor and his successor in that position were the same man: None other than Stan Lee. Just as Stan had followed Joe Simon as Timely’s editor, so did Vince step into Stan’s shoes when the latter was drafted in 1942, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, until Stan was mustered out of the service, probably in late 1945. But let’s let Vince speak for himself... —Roy.]

JA: What inspired you to be an artist? FAGO: I always liked to draw. In 1922 or ’23, Al got a job with the Alexander Smith Rug Company. Everybody thought he’d be on the assembly line, but he was put into the design department. He had gone to a trade school and knew woodwork and painting. He used to put a rug on a big piece of paper on the side of the apartment we lived in and grind his own colors and paint little squares on that paper. JA: What newspaper strips did you like as a child? FAGO: The Katzenjammer Kids, Tillie the Toiler, Mutt and Jeff, Bringing Up Father, and Moon Mullins. Kids like colors, so it was a dream event every Sunday.

JA: When did you start your art career? FAGO: I graduated from De Witt Clinton when I was 20. I had lost the vision in one eye when I was 16. In those days, they didn’t care if you were handicapped, so I stayed longer in high school. I started at Audio Productions in 1933 as a tracer and worked there about a year. We were in the old Edison studios, and because film was so flammable, that building had been fireproofed. I became an in-betweener when the studio moved from the Bronx to the Fox Movietone News Building.

I. Of Fagos And Fleischers JIM AMASH: Where were you born—and who was older, you or your brother Al? VINCE FAGO: I was born Vincenzo Francisco Gennaro Di Fago, in Yonkers, N.Y., on November 28, 1914. Physically, Al was ten years older than me. Mentally, he was ten years younger than me. That’s good or bad, depending on your point of view. One of my sisters was a dress designer and the other one a beautician. My parents came over from Naples about 1890 on a boat that took three months to get to America.

Three years after he stepped down as Timely’s editor-in-chief, this photo of Vince Fago—flanked by two versions of Peter Rabbit—appeared in the Sept. 20, 1948, issue of Newsweek. We’ve taken the liberty of adding a pair of Timely/Marvel heroes who were under his aegis from 1942-45. The Cap figure is from Captain America #22 (Jan. 1943)—Torch from Marvel Mystery Comics #42 (April 1943). Photo courtesy of VF, ©2001 Newsweek. [Cap & Torch art ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Peter Rabbit art ©2001 respective copyright holder.]

Some guy from New York got a job in Detroit as an animator, and they didn’t think much of his ability. So they sent Doc Ellison to New York, and he set up in a hotel room with a drawing board and tested us out to see who’d get the Detroit job. I did. I worked in Detroit at the Jam Handy Company for about four years. We did films for Chevrolet, and stop-motion pictures, and Technicolor films for the Metropolitan Insurance Company. They had a $35,000

“I Let People Do Their Jobs!” Technicolor camera that I got to use. I worked in Detroit for about four years, and there were several Disney people there. Then Fleischer Studios hired us to come to New York. But then Fleischer Studios had a strike, so I didn’t start working for them until it was settled. After the strike they moved the entire operation to Florida. They moved everyone’s furniture and paid the train fare and hotel bills for a while. I ended up working for Fleischer for four years. Vince’s brother Al in 1934, at age 30, “in front of a graph (squares) of a rug he was designing for Alexander Smith-Bigelow-Sanford.” Photo courtesy of Vince Fago.

JA: Why did you leave Detroit?

FAGO: I went down to the railroad tracks and got on a train and figured it’d change my life. I was unhappy in Detroit. JA: What did you do at Fleischer’s? FAGO: I was an assistant animator. I worked on a lot of the films. Recently, someone from Harvard was looking for a speaker at a film festival Ken Burns was involved in. They asked me to do something on Gulliver’s Travels. They had about 300 people in the theatre at North Hampton. I had a bunch of slides and kept the young people entertained. They also had the Beach Boys; I don’t understand why. But it was very successful. Ken Burns had a morning slot and I was the featured speaker on Saturday night. I not only received a fee but they paid our transportation and hotel for three days. I never thought I’d ever get to do something like that. JA: Who did you work with at Fleischer’s that we might know for their comic book work?

JA: Did the staff have a big reaction to doing the Superman cartoons? FAGO: Oh, yeah. Whoever worked on it felt they were doing something beyond the call of duty. I was an assistant animator on it, and I remember helping draw a train that Superman was pushing. Doc Ellison animated Superman, and he would push out his jaw in an exaggerated way for effect. Abner Kneitel was a friend of mine, and I worked for him on several different cartoon features. JA: Do you remember meeting Joe Shuster when he came down to the studios and did some model sheets for the cartoons? FAGO: I did meet him, but I really don’t remember much about him. JA: So you were there when Paramount bought out the Fleischer brothers? FAGO: Yes. The Fleischers owed Paramount money, and when they had trouble paying it back, Paramount took over and kicked the Fleischers out. Paramount knew how to beat people because they were from Hollywood. The building had a jail on the eighteenth floor. And sometimes the animators would have a wild weekend and tear up a bar or something and they’d land in jail. But at least they’d be in the same building. [laughs] JA: How did the staffers react to the change from the Fleischers to Paramount? FAGO: I wasn’t really upset because I was going to leave anyway. A while back, I had gone on a vacation to New York. I’d quit but I didn’t tell anyone. So for two weeks I did model charts for an animation studio. “Pepsi Pete” was one of the characters I did. Then I went back to Florida and never told them what I had done. They were still holding my job for me because they thought I was on vacation. Sometimes they’d check out a guy’s work if they were suspicious of his work habits. There was this one guy who kept the same drawing on his desk for a month. He never bothered to change it. He wasn’t working! Anyway, the transition from Fleischer’s to Paramount was no big deal. Paramount was really running the studio the whole time they were in Florida. Sam Buckwald was in charge of the staff people. Max wasn’t too active, but his brother Dave was. Dave had a big, booming voice.

FAGO: Pauline Loth—a great artist—was an assistant animator there. I hired her at Timely when she left Fleischer’s and came to New York. She did “Miss America” for us and created her costume. And Doc Ellison, who did the rotoscoping for Gulliver’s Travels. I worked with him in Detroit and I hired him when I hired Pauline Loth. JA: How much did you make while working for the Fleischers? FAGO: They started me out at $30 a week. After I’d been there a year, I was given a three-year contract at the same salary. I got a raise later on, and by the time I left, I was making $40 a week, which was very good money then. I worked on Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman, Mr. Bug Goes to Town, and Gulliver’s Travels. I remember Steve Muffati’s opening shot for Superman. He had that down to an art. When Paramount took over and we redid the beginning, Steve was ready to do it again. He had it mapped out in his head. He was a real artist with a terrific background.

Vince Fago in Florida, 1939. Fellow animator Larry Reilly drew a cartoon of Vince in the Sunshine State because “I liked to draw bones in the late 1930s at Fleischer Studios.” Photo & art courtesy of VF. [Art ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

Vince Fago for over a month. Walter Winchell [famous newspaper columnist] said the reason it stayed broken was because Fleischer couldn’t find a relative who knew how to fix clocks. JA: Did you get to know the Fleischers? FAGO: Yes. Max was a kindly, older man. I used to bowl on Monday nights with Max. One time, he hit himself with a bowling ball and fractured his leg. I drew a caricature of that. They always asked me to draw caricatures because they felt I was the best. I felt I was the worst. Dan Gordon, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, was a genius. Guys like him really ran the place. When we moved to Florida, Disney animators came and worked for us. I always worked with them. People would say, “Vince Fago never worked for Disney. Why does he know so much?” I paid attention to what people did and that’s how I learned. It was just common sense.

Vince says: “The Florida studio had 700 employees—there were ten animator groups—they did all the original drawings—working in pencil only—the drawings went to the inking department and were traced onto transparent acetates (cels) they went to the painting department and were painted on reverse side. Next they were photographed by the camera-men.” In this slightly cracked photo of “Tom Palmer’s animation group,” a reference to “Disney” means that person had also worked for Walt Disney Studios: [Standing, l. to r.:] “Shane Miller (background layouts); Unknown; Nelson Demarest (Disney); Abner Kneitel (Max Fleischer’s cousin); Tom Palmer (Disney director); Arnold Gillespie, Disney animator.” [Seated, l. to r.:] “Vince Fago (assistant animator); Stan Quackenbush, Disney special effects; and ‘Frankie.’” Photo courtesy of VF.

Max Fleischer had his relatives working for him, running the studio restaurant and such. There must have been over thirty of his relatives working for him in various capacities. The Fleischers would look around for a relative before they hired anyone. Like Izzy Sparber, who was a distant relative. He had been a tailor and he couldn’t draw, so they made him a director. The New York studio was located in the Paramount Building, in Times Square. It had a big clock on it that quit working and wasn’t fixed

We were required to do thirty feet of animation a week. Arnold Gillespie, who had worked at Disney, said he could do thirty feet a week but it wouldn’t be his best work. He said he could do twelve feet and it’d be great. So they let him, and we worked together. We were the only guys working on that quota. Gillespie was also the first man to do pencil tests. We shot the scenes in pencil to see how it’d look.

II. A Timely Change JA: Where were you when you heard the news about Pearl Harbor? FAGO: I was on the lawn in Coral Gables listening to the Philharmonic when they broke in with the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I didn’t understand what had happened. So I took a train up to New York. I just figured it was too big a change to stay where I was. The studio started doing war work and I didn’t want to be a part of that. I moved in with my mother in the Bronx. I went to Timely Publications looking for a job in comics. The owner, Martin Goodman, was doing comics, pulps, detective magazines, and sex hygiene books. Once a week, a guy named Frank Torpey would come in and Martin would give him a check for 25 bucks. This was his reward

Joe Shuster’s Superman was adapted for the great Fleischer/Paramount cartoons in the early ’40s. (L:) An original pen & ink by Joe Shuster, circa ’70s, courtesy of Joe Latino. (R:) A model sheet from the Fleischer Studios, signed by Dave Fleischer; courtesy of Rich Dannys. Both drawings appeared in CFA-APA #43, June 1997. [Art at left ©2001 Estate of Joe Shuster; Superman TM & ©2001 DC Comics.]

“I Let People Do Their Jobs!” because Torpey talked Goodman into publishing comics. That was good money then. Torpey was a magazine pusher. That’s where Stan Lee discovered me. He was impressed by my work and immediately hired me as a freelance artist. I felt it

money if you’re a freelancer. Stan did that with me and many others, so I got that habit from him. It was fun. It wasn’t my money, and I knew there was a lot of money being made. You know, I always thought it was unusual to be drawing in an office, for money. Martin Goodman had about six or seven companies. If he was ever sued or went bankrupt, he’d still have these other companies! Goodman knew the hard times, and though things were going great, he banked on things changing later. And he was right. He used to split my salary up into six different checks. JA: Didn’t Goodman have some relatives working there, too? FAGO: Robert Solomon was married to Martin Goodman’s sister, and he kept everybody honest. It was a sin if you worked on the side for anybody else. Some guys would rent a hotel room and moonlight. One guy—I won’t tell you his name—his initials were Harry Stein—used to write the same story for 4-5 different places. He figured by the time they came out, the war would be over and nobody’d recognize the stories. But he was a good writer and didn’t have to do that. It was like stealing.

was a put-down to do comics after having been an animator. But I needed a job. Timely was in the A lot of guys thought comics were going to McGraw-Hill Building. There were two die after the war, so doing things like recycling little rooms and four people in the stories didn’t seem to matter. We thought it back. There were three or four was going to be harder getting dimes from Stan Lee (above left, age 20) and Vince (28) in swim attire in 1942, people in the front and the rest kids, and the armed services wouldn’t be in a photo courtesy of VF. Vince recently sketched this caricature of were freelancers. ordering the amount of comics they had Stan—as one of the rabbits Fago loves to draw—playing his recorder been. I felt that life might not be planned at Timely in the old days. Some folks say it was actually an ocarina, JA: Who worked on staff then? out for me in a very pleasant way, so I had not that it matters much. [Art ©2001 Vince Fago.] to figure out my own way to be interested FAGO: Mike Sekowsky. Ed in comics. Winiarski. Gary Keller was a production assistant and letterer. Ernest Hart and Kin Platt were writers, but they worked freelance; Hart also drew. George Klein, Syd Shores, Vince Alascia, Dave Gantz, and Chris Rule were there, too. JA: What were your early impressions of Stan? FAGO: I had worked in animation, and those guy were really free thinkers. So was Stan. He used to play a recorder all day long. It was like a clarinet. It made it very nice for everybody; it made things relaxing. He’d make us wait while he finished whatever tune he was playing. He’d even go into Martin Goodman’s office and blow it at him. Everybody felt Stan was wonderful. He kept things pretty loose. Stan used to like long walks and I’d go walking with him. We’d have fun doing it and I learned something from this. When I was the editor, I’d go walking with a freelancer and say, “Okay, I’ll give you a dollar more a page.” In the course of a year’s time, that translates into a lot of

Anyway, Solomon just sat in the offices and talked. He had a store on 34th Street and sold women’s hats, but he’d always come into the offices. He never worked. He was loud and talked all the time and knew absolutely nothing. He was just a watchman for Goodman. JA: Did you like Martin Goodman? FAGO: He seemed like a kind man to me at times. But then he’d say, “After the war, I’ll get those sons of bitches!” I couldn’t imagine who these people were. The Goodmans were nice people and hard workers. His wife used to come in and ask us to do special work for her. Fred Eng, a staffer, would end up making displays for her private club. He was also supposed to be an assistant, but he wasn’t really. His girlfriend used to always sit on his lap, so he wasn’t always working. JA: Which “sons of bitches” was Goodman referring to? FAGO: His staff and freelancers. Anybody who was working for him. So I figured he felt the same way about me. He didn’t say much, but he had several brothers and In the early ’40s, some staffers amused themselves by drawing, in Timely’s humor stories, caricatures of everybody from publisher Martin Goodman on down. The Krazy Komics panel above depicts Goodman (and read the balloon!)—while artist Dave Gantz says the caricature at left may be of Goodman’s relative-by-marriage (and chief watchdog) Robbie Solomon. The photo of Martin Goodman appeared in Les Daniels’ indispensable 1991 history Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics. Special thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur for sending Ye Editor a bulging notebook containing all the caricatures used in this piece—and what’s more, he’s writing up the story behind them for A/E V3#13! See end of this interview for how to obtain Jim’s beautiful new art magazine The Vadeboncoeur Collection of ImageS. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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Mickey Spillane

“Comics Were Great!” A Colorful Conversation with MICKEY SPILLANE Conducted by Roy Thomas Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson [NOTE: As the creator of hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer and the author of I, the Jury and many other novels, Mickey Spillane is one of the bestselling authors of the 20th century. It’s been known for decades that he wrote for comics during the 1940s, but he has rarely talked about these experiences at length. Early in 2001 fan-writer Chris Irving interviewed Spillane in conjunction with a different project for TwoMorrows, and was later instrumental in setting up the following phone conversation between Spillane and Ye Editor. For that, and for allowing us to print material which to some extent anticipates his own interview with the writer, we thank him most sincerely. —RT.] ROY THOMAS: When we were setting up this interview, you mentioned you’d worked for “the magazines,” meaning, I take it, the pulps, before getting into comics.

MICKEY SPILLANE: Oh, yeah. That’s a long time ago. I was writing mostly mystery stories, or adventure stories. Don’t ask me the titles, there were so many! RT: There were thousands, I know. I believe you used to write features for newspapers, too. SPILLANE: I did stuff for King Features. See, you’re going back here sixty years. It was around the time I did comics. I was continually writing. It was a business. I don’t know the titles of the magazines I wrote for. I had a lot of the old A photo of Mickey Spillane a couple of decades magazines and whatnot on back. Courtesy of Jerry de Fuccio. my shelves, and then Hugo just pretty much destroyed it all. I lost the house, I lost everything I had except my valise. [NOTE: Hurricane Hugo, one of the most devastating storms ever to hit the South Carolina coast, struck Murrells Inlet in 1989. —RT.] RT: That’s terrible. SPILLANE: Oh, I got another house. [laughs] RT: Was your radio work also before the war? SPILLANE: Yeah, I did a lot of that. I was even into early television, but you didn’t take note of all these things you were doing. People don’t know that, back in 1936, they were broadcasting stuff from Coney Island. The first tower built for long-distance stuff was up in Newburg, New York. RT: So when and how did you get into comic books? Was it about 1939? SPILLANE: I don’t know the year, but Ray Gill—who was a good artist and a good writer—I was a friend of his brother’s. Joe later turned out to be a great comic book writer. He introduced me to Ray, and Ray said, “Come on, give comics a try.” So I went up with Ray, and I started—Bam!—right into Funnies, Incorporated. I was doing other things on the outside, but then I got into comics, and I started to enjoy it. Now don’t forget, I’m not a young guy! But I was then—and all these new experiences were pretty exciting and nice and enjoyable. I was never a comic book reader until I got into the business itself. RT: Lloyd Jacquet put together Funnies, Inc. What was it like to work for him for that year or two?

A splash from Marvel Mystery Comics #41 (March 1943); art by Carl Pfeufer. Spillane may or may not have scripted this particular tale, since he was in the USAAF by the time it would’ve been written. Repro’d from Canadian photocopies of the original art. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

SPILLANE: Oh, that was a lot of fun! Boy, he was a very strange man. He looked just like [General Douglas] MacArthur; he looked so much like him that he used to smoke a corncob pipe! [laughs] But he was a

Mickey Spillane

Among the features at Novelty Press which Spillane sometimes wrote were “Target and the Targeteers” (art here by Ken Battlesby?) and “The Cadet” (art by John Jordan?), both in 1941 issues of Target Comics. But did he write these stories? You tell us! Art courtesy of Jerry Bails. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

these things, there’s a slave who’s got a big tray, and what he’s carrying is a large [male sex organ]! [laughs] And nobody noticed it! And it was put there to be noticed and edited out with a blue pencil, and they already had a covering thing they could just paste right on there, to put something else in place of it. It was just a joke. Their editors never saw it, and it got printed! RT: Bill Everett told me how guys would put in stuff, just for fun, figuring it would be taken out. But sometimes it wasn’t. Anything else you can tell me about Lloyd Jacquet? I’ve been interested in him ever since Bill used to talk to me about the Funnies, Inc., days. nice guy, he let us alone, we did our jobs. We were a studio. We did things for other publishers. Funnies did not publish itself. RT: I know that two of the main companies they packaged for were the early days of Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics, and Novelty, for which you did a lot of work. Novelty did Four Most, Blue Bolt, Target. SPILLANE: Oh, yeah, I did a lot of those.

SPILLANE: Well, Lloyd never could understand artists and writers. He was a general overseer of us. I don’t think he quite knew what he was doing. But he was a nice guy. Let me give you an example of what happened. I used to make up these little helicopters; they were pieces of paper, cut, only about 2-3 inches long, but they’d spin down like... you know these things from a tree, the “polynoses,” they used to call them? The seeds would spin down, they’d have the leaf in the top, like an airflow design. Well, we used to make these things up, and just have fun... it was just

RT: When whole books were produced by Lloyd Jacquet and Funnies, Inc., did Funnies just make up the package and present it to the publisher, or did the publisher tell Jacquet what the book’s name was, or what the characters might be? SPILLANE: Lloyd Jacquet acted as an independent group. They presented the entire concepts right there. The ones who published it exercised editorial concept of a grand nature; they didn’t edit. We took our pleasure in screwing them. RT: [laughs] How’s that? It’s okay to tell now! It’s a long time ago. SPILLANE: I’ll give you an example. Now this, I didn’t do, but some others did. They had a medieval scene, and in the background, all the slaves were carrying in these big things—a boar’s head, a pig with an apple in his mouth and so forth, and in the midst of all

Spillane’s first script page for a 5-page feature called “Smarty Pants”—renamed or re-routed to “Jackie the Slick Chick”—written in November 1945. At right is a splash by artist Marvin Levy (“Marv Lev”) from a different “Jackie” story. Note that the “magazine” for which the script is listed as being done is “Funnies, Inc.”—which of course was the name of Lloyd Jacquet’s shop, not a particular comic book. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

“Comics Were Great!”

Other Novelty strips often scripted by Spillane were [l. to r.]: “Dick Cole,” who contrary to the “Wonder Boy” subtitle wasn’t a super-hero but a comic book equivalent of radio’s Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy (with art by Al Fagaly)—“Blue Bolt” after the Simon & Kirby glory days (he appears in costume only on the splash)— “Sub-Zero” (a frosty answer to The Human Torch)—and the ghostly cop “Sergeant Spook.” All these splashes are from Blue Bolt, Vol. 3, #3 (Aug. 1942)—the same issue which features lifeguard “Capt. Mickey Spillane” in one story! Read on... [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

doodling, that’s all, and throw them up, they’d spin down. The kids loved to see them. I still make them for the kids. One day, we were having fun, we must’ve made 500 of these things, and we put them in a big box and were going to dump them out the window and see what would happen. Now, we were on the 19th floor or something, and it was a Saturday afternoon. It was in the summertime, and the sun was hot, and we took this box of these little helicopter things and we dumped them out the window! But instead of going down, the air current from the heat of the ground sent these spinning little things up! And they went up and up and up, and the sky was covered with these things, to the point where the people on the ground noticed them, with a “What’s that?!?” [laughs] And they drifted across the Hudson into Jersey. I think the Daily News and the Elizabeth Daily Journal reported on them. I had copies of that, but again, that went out with Hugo. They didn’t know what it was! Lloyd Jacquet, he knew what it was! [laughs] He was very discombobulated with the whole thing. RT: I’ve heard that, after Pearl Harbor, Funnies, Inc., and a lot of comics shops stayed in business by hiring women artists and writers, the very young, and the older artists. SPILLANE: Oh, they were terrible. They had a bunch of creeps come in there, and we went into the military right away, and they took over all our stuff. When we came back, we were faced with the fact that these guys had taken over the jobs we used to have, so we decided we’ve got to get them out. They’d formed a union, that’s what the problem was, and we were going to kill that union. Because these guys, they didn’t have the talent that we had, I’ll tell you that! So we went in, and we just lowered the price! “You’re giving them all this money; we’ll do it for half the price.” RT: Servicemen were supposed to get their jobs back, but I know that was easy to get around, because you had been freelancers. SPILLANE: These were freelance jobs, so they didn’t have to give them back to us. So we went in and said, “Okay, we’ll be freelancers, we’re gonna cut the price down.” We wiped these guys out of their spots, and they bitched and yelled, but tough! We got back in the business, and then our prices went up. [laughs] RT: All the work you did for, say, Timely or Novelty—was that all done through Funnies, Inc., or were you one of the people like Carl Burgos

and some others who were later hired independently by Goodman? SPILLANE: We had a guy—I’m trying to think of his name. Anyway, he was a courier between a couple of places at that time. He would come up to me—because I always had stuff I’d hand him—and say, “Hey, we need a couple of short stories,” or “We need a six-page story for something, and we need it right away!” And I’d have something already written! We knew these things would come up, see? RT: You wrote them in your spare time, figuring there’d be a chance to sell them later? SPILLANE: Right. We’d hand in this thing, and I’d get a check back, but it didn’t go through Funnies. I was working as an independent entrepreneur. RT: And working for Funnies at the same time. SPILLANE: Oh, sure! The money for Funnies wasn’t all that big. I was making more money on the outside doing this! Anyway, this is what happened, a lot of the time. These are the things that happened in the business that’s long since been changed, you know? RT: I’d like to ask you about a few people. Since Chris Irving has done an interview with you that’ll be published later, and I don’t want to step on his toes—and he talks a lot with you about Tom Gill and Joe Gill— let’s talk about a couple of guys you didn’t discuss with him. For example, what do you remember about Carl Burgos and Bill Everett? SPILLANE: These guys were great! They were the leaders in the field, and you’ve got to remember that, when they were doing these things, printing and reproduction of the things were not as good as they are today. Some of those fellas worked with brushes, others worked with pens—I mean, a lot of different techniques! And these guys were young, and as they were working, they were improving. So the latest stuff these fellas did was much better than it was in the beginning—except that the primitive stuff was always fine to look at! I enjoy seeing that stuff. I enjoy seeing “Sergeant Spook” and “Sub-Zero” in those early days, because they were in a primitive form. Later, they evolved, and they came to be pretty fancy artwork. A lot of these guys turned out to be great artists. Ed Robbins, for instance, became a great painter. He was a pen man, but he did great paintings. Some of these other guys... Who was the Eskimo? I can’t think of his name? He and his mother used to talk in clicks and clacks.

Syd Shores Syd worked with Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, Nicola Cuti, and Jack Abel at a jointly-rented studio in Valley Stream on Long Island (the Wood Studio), where for a threeweek period Syd and I worked out Radical in Power, commuting to and from his home in Bethpage, Long Island.

weird lighting for accuracy and clicked away in his basement with his Rollei. Then he’d soup the negatives and prints in his own darkroom and... voila... all the comforts of a professional photographic studio, with professionallooking models (principally because of their endurance, knowing Syd) right at home.

Syd never worked for National, the major Marvel competition, because Syd was a “Marvel man.” But for posterity it is interesting to note here that, two weeks before Syd’s sudden death in June, an editor at National contacted me to solicit Syd’s art for various National comics. Of course, this never came to be, but Syd was delighted at the idea during our last correspondence, which was on this matter, six days before his death.

I’ve seen Syd’s files of photographs taken at these weekly sessions, and in a word, they’re remarkable; the inventiveness of the man seemed endless. In 1961-63 Stan Lee picked up Marvel by its heels and turned it upside down into an astonishing success. By 1965 it was in the race for leadership in the comics game, attracting an enormous adult and college market, and by 1967 they’d grabbed the number one spot in sales with a number of their books—the first time since 1942 with Syd’s Captain America. Marvel tried to get Syd back into comics and plagued him with quarterly phone calls between ’63 and ’67. That’s how long it took. Syd was back in comics! His first job in 1967 for Marvel? You guessed it—inking Jack Kirby’s Captain America in a re-release of the character with a splash: “Big Premiere Issue!”

When Roy Thomas and John Buscema’s Native American hero Red Wolf— introduced in The Avengers—was backdated to an Old West setting in Marvel Spotlight #1 (Nov. 1971), Golden-Age greats Gardner Fox and Syd Shores were tapped as the creative team. Thanks to Shane Foley for photostats of the original art. [©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Syd continued to ink Captain America again, as well as other firstline books such as Sgt. Fury, the new Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Gene Colan’s Daredevil, Captain Savage, Ghost Rider, Rawhide Kid, and Thor, at the same time doing countless covers for Marvel’s entire line of books. He drew the western title Red Wolf until his death. He illustrated Skywald’s Hell-Rider magazine and “The Bravados” and various westerns, and he illustrated several macabre stories for Skywald’s, Warren’s, and Marvel’s black-&-white magazines.

There were also Tales of the Macabre and Dirty Soks (two newspaper strips which Syd and I teamed up to produce in 1970, which failed to materialize for lack of time on both our parts)... The Satirist (a venture into newspaper Canadiana)... Radical in Power (which Syd and I prepared as a new concept in large-size adult reading for National Periodicals). For about two years

The realms of Syd Shores’ comics are as various as the medium itself. In 33 years he entertained literally millions upon millions of children, and adults, with the adventures of Captain America, the acrobatic stunts of Daredevil, the freaked-out world of the Hell-Rider, the weird-vamplady The Blonde Phantom, the shoot-outs of Wild Bill Pecos, the gangbuster action of Crime Does Not Pay, and the explosive Indian saga Red Wolf.

It stands to reason that a man as talented as this biography demonstrates was recognized at an early age. His first artwork was displayed in the Brooklyn Museum while he was still in high school. He won second place—a gold medal—for a poster contest run by the famous Wannamakers Store Foundation, with a humanist picture showing the brutal treatment of puppies. Three years later, pen stroke by pen stroke, it was copied by a professional artist as an ad for a dog food company in a major ad campaign. Syd was thirteen. Before his death, he was daily in receipt of letters praising his work, asking about his life and career, pleading for advice. At the comic conventions held in New York each year, Syd met the fans and graced their requests for sketches and discussion. In my last letter from Syd, he expressed his desire to get together with me at the 1973 convention and to talk about comics. Our love. Syd Shores died on June 3rd of a heart seizure. His wife Selma writes: “It was completely sudden and so unexpected...” He was respected by his peers, and by his readers. We loved him. We still do. [AL HEWETSON wrote for Marvel, DC, Skywald, and Cracked from 1969 through the ’70s.]

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Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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Vol. 3, No. 11 / November 2001 ™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

FCA

Comics Crypt Editor

ME !

Section

Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Carl Burgos, Fred Bell, & Carl Pfeufer Don Newton

Cover Color Tom Ziuko Don Newton

Contents

Mailing Crew

Writer/Editorial: FCA & ME 2! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Russ Garwood, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston Wallace

In Memoriam: Chuck Cuidera Jerry de Fuccio George Evans Barbara Knutson

Magazine Enterprises, Part II— More about Vin Sullivan’s Big Little Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Joe Certa, John Belfi, Frank Bolle, Bob Powell, and Fred Meagher Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 It’s a bird—it’s a plane—it’s Super Sam! Michael T. Gilbert on Jerry Siegel at war. The Don & Maggie Thompson Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Two of the founders of comics fandom, interviewed by Bill Schelly and Jeff Gelb.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #70. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Marc Swayze, C.C. Beck—and a spotlight on the career and art of Don Newton. Special Section on the Titans of Timely! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: This is a Captain Marvel painting by Don Newton—or, in truth, only a part of a painting—that Ye Editor bought from the artist circa 1980. When, a few years after Don’s untimely passing, Roy was gearing up anew to write a Shazam! series, DC’s managing editor Dick Giordano hoped to use it as the wraparound cover of its first issue. See the entire painting—albeit, alas, only in black-&-white—on Page 44. The art is used by permission of Don’s son, Anthony Newton. [Art ©2001 estate of Don Newton; Captain Marvel ©2001 DC Comics.] Above: Roy admits it: He’s always had a weak spot for Jet Powers, the hero of ME’s short-lived Jet. How could he not love a science-fictional hero drawn by Bob Powell, written by Gardner Fox, and calling himself a “Captain of Science”? This is the splash page of #1. [Art ©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8.00 ($10.00 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

John Belfi finished pages would look like— until they were printed—and what the artwork would show. He’d cover up anything—except Daredevil.

BOB McCAY The son of Winsor McCay [creator/artist/writer of Little Nemo]. He was old to us kids. Not a good artist, but tried his best. Unfortunately, he drank very heavily—rarely sober. He wasn’t at Quality very long. It was hard to follow in his famous father’s footsteps. We all felt sorry for him and did what we could to help him. He was a very friendly, quiet person—even when he drank. But he kept mainly to himself.

GILL FOX I met Gill at Busy Arnold’s in 1940. Gill primarily did two-page fillers for several books. “Wun Clu” was one of the fillers. He did Carmine Infantino (as he mentioned last issue) may have attended some of not work in the bullpen, but came those shindigs at musician Fred Waring’s place, but Belfi’s the one who got this in often from Stamford, photo with a number of comics pros, circa 1950! (Front, l. to r.:) Unknown, Tom Gill, John Belfi, 3 Unknowns; (middle row, l. to r.:) Mrs. Steve Douglas, Connecticut. A very slow penciler Irwin Hasen; (rear, l. to r.:) Lee Elias, Frank Fogerty, Unknown, Charlie Biro, and inker. His lines were carefully Bob Dunn, Unknown, Dave Breger, and a very young Frank Frazetta. Photo crafted. I did not work for him courtesy of Jim Amash, who was given it by John Belfi. while he was an editor. He is short, well built, like a wrestler. We were friends for several years at Quality and he was well liked by everyone.

He was a work freak. A little demanding, not a good artist himself, but he insisted on doing all the Daredevil heads. They usually didn’t fit the body. And we couldn’t use any black areas. He demanded clean, simple outlines, no heavy lines, etc. On both Daredevil and Crime Does Not Pay. I wasn’t crazy about doing the crime stuff. Preferred adventure, western, etc., type of stories. I was never ashamed of doing comics—except slightly when I did dozens of Crime Does Not Pay. Biro, Wood, and Roy were heavy into racing horses—at all tracks, coast to coast. Constant phone calls to place bets, results, winners, losing, etc. I never was interested.

JOE CERTA

DAN BARRY I worked with Dan for two or three years, full-time. Dan had a loft office on 26th Street, New York City, top floor. We only used about 1⁄6 of the large room. For Dan, I did dozens and dozens of assignments. Several Daredevils. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Biro didn’t like solid black areas in the art. To him, blacks were “cheating.” He wanted the art open for color.] Charlie Biro didn’t complain about too many black areas because he could lose Barry’s services. So he accepted what was turned in. I also did “Heap,” “Airboy,” “Gang Busters” (for DC), crime stories for Biro, and Buster Brown Shoes comic books (pencils and inks). Also—short stints of inking Tarzan (along with Dan’s brother Sy) and Flash Gordon. Dan is a super-fast penciler and a great inker. His pencils were tight, line for line, and a pleasure to follow. He was so fast he kept his brother Sy and me in full inking—and it was still hard to keep up with him. As a person, one of the very best. I met Burne Hogarth at the studio a few times.

MIKE ROY, BOB WOOD, AND CHARLIE BIRO I also worked with Mike Roy for several years—doing work for Biro and several other publishers at the same time. I did The Saint with him. We always had at least a dozen scripts on hand, and often far more. We had a large studio, several helpers, including a young kid named Al Williamson. Biro’s deadlines were rough. A “Daredevil” 12-page story was due on Monday. We couldn’t even start it till Saturday. So I called Charlie Biro and tried to get a few extra days with one excuse or another. I’ll never forget his answer: “Only if you’re both dead! Not even if you’re in a hospital sick! I want it on Monday!” We worked without sleep and got it to him on Monday. Biro thought the story was all there was to his features. 12 to 16 panels on a page—3⁄4 of it was copy! Written, rewritten, again and again, before being printed. Lots of pasted-up lettering! I never knew what the

A tight penciler, well defined. I tried to convince Joe to give me just tight breakdowns. I prefer to ink loose pencils. This gives me more freedom, creativeness, etc., rather than just “trace/ink” pencils. Socially, I was not real close to Joe and his wife Olympia. We visited each other on a few occasions, even went to a National Cartoonists Society awards dinner/dance in tuxedos and gowns. First and last time I wore a tux. Joe was a quiet, likable person. We worked together for several years, doing all kinds of stories like Durango Kid, Straight Arrow, adventure, love, war, etc., for several publishers. We worked well together. Joe was a hard worker. We always had tight deadlines and we did them all on time.

DON SHERWOOD I helped out on his newspaper strip, Major Flagg.

LEE ELIAS I inked Black Cat and various love stories of his for a couple of years.

BUSY ARNOLD Was excellent to work for. No problems, ever. Arnold admired all the artists in his bullpen. As a youngster, I was paid well. He was good to all artists. I never heard of any complaints—except—no originals were ever returned. They were ripped into pieces and thrown in the garbage! I used to have a few ripped ones—and some unripped ones I sneaked out late at night. Most are gone. Harry Chesler’s son Jay was an editor—all-around office boy. I could never understand why. His father had his own publishing company.

GRAY MORROW My wife Valerie and I are great friends with Gray and Pocho. Gray wanted me to help him ink Young Indiana Jones (over Dan Barry’s pencils), but I declined. I’m out of comics.

Frank Bolle

Frank Bolle An Article/Interview by Bill Harper [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article/interview originally appeared in FCA #43 (Fall 1988), a.k.a. FCA & ME, TOO! #7, and has been edited slightly for inclusion here. It is ©2001 Bill Harper.] Ed Robbins, an artist who worked in the comics during the Golden Age, wrote: “[Back] then artists grew up wanting to do something else but instead did comics for a living.” This was not the case with Frank Bolle. He purposely entered the comics field: FRANK BOLLE: Comics were... my first art culture. My family knew nothing about art, and the only art I saw was in the magazines or newspapers. I would copy Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, and other strips. In high school I wrote and illustrated my own comics. I bought a sketchbook, ruled panels, and drew my comics. Over the weekend I would produce several pages and take them to school Monday and let my friends read them. Born in the Queens borough of New York City in 1924, Frank was raised in Brooklyn. While attending Pratt Institute, he began freelancing for comic book publishers. In 1948, while still at Pratt, he joined Magazine Enterprises, primarily drawing westerns: Tim Holt, Best of the West, Red Mask, and Black Phantom, as well as Robin Hood.

did till the end of the Red Mask run. I didn’t write all the stories. Gardner Fox wrote many of them. I didn’t use the “3-D Effect” on any other features. The 3-D craze was short-lived and there was no interest later. I did some magazine illustrations using this method. ME wanted to keep the art simple. Not much detail. I would often do some fine-line cross-hatching and facial details, but Ray would suggest that I do bolder lines and less details. The editor wanted heavy lines outlining the figures. Maybe it was due to the printing, the paper, or inks. My lines were thinner, as I felt the heavy lines lost sensitivity. I always tried to tell the story simply and make it realistic without adding something that was not necessary or at such an angle that the reader could not figure out what was happening. ME never published a true super-hero comic. When Bolle was asked why, he replied that he didn’t know, and that he was glad they didn’t!

During these years he freelanced “Freshman Freddy” and “Lance O’Casey” for Fawcett. Once the “B” westerns fell out of favor at the movie houses, ME decided to continue Tim Holt, although changing the title and character to Red Mask. (Tim Holt never assumed the Red Mask disguise in the movies.) BOLLE: The idea to change Tim Holt comics to Red Mask was done either by Vince [Sullivan] or Ray [Krank]. Ray just told me they wanted the change, and I created Red Mask. I tried to make him different than most masked characters. Later I introduced Black Phantom, also at Ray’s suggestion. Artistically, Red Mask is unique, due to the “3-D Effect” and the use of light lines instead of the typical heavy outlines associated with other ME features. BOLLE: 3-D was the craze—3-D movies and comics with glasses. I approached editor Ray Krank with some sketches. I was very good with perspectives and I was always sketching using extreme perspective. I drew figures coming out of the panels. Ray went along with my idea, allowing me to write my own stories and use the “3-D Effect,” which I

BOLLE: They never talked to me about publishing a superhero comic, but that was fine! I liked good detective stories, good adventures or westerns. I was never grabbed by the “superman” type of story. I have done some, but for some reason they went beyond my sense of realism. I liked Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates, Prince Valiant.

In the course of the interview, Frank remarked on ME’s office arrangement: BOLLE: There were two girls working there. They did paste-ups and some minor corrections, etc. The only other staff member was Ray Krank, the editor. There was very little editorial discussion about books. I would talk with Ray, he might make a suggestion and change a word or two. It was a simple operation. Ray was a sweet guy and very easy to get along with. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was easy working with ME. I understand that at Fawcett, for example, there were more editorial discussions. I never talked with anyone at Fawcett, however, as I worked directly with the scripter. Frank started working in comics doing backgrounds in 1943 and discontinued his comics work in the late 1970s. He now [in 1988] works mostly for syndicates. He has been doing Winnie Winkle for the past eight years, as well as five features for Boy’s Life magazine. He feels confident in that he is a master at his craft. His long list of credits is indicative of this. The story of Bolle’s becoming the artist on Doctor Solar underlines his confidence:

Bob Powell Powell excelled at good girl art. No better examples of that genre can be found than in several Magazine Enterprises titles: Thun’da, Cave Girl, and Africa - Land of Mystery and Adventure. Fans... if your bag is beeyoo-tee-ful ba-zoomy white goddesses swinging through the jungle, then you can’t afford to be without these comics.

Indian, or Indian against his environment. Most of the stories ring true because of the weaving of factual Indian lore into the plots. Because of the number and great variety of the stories, it is not possible to describe them all here. However, here are a few “bait” stories to hook you, all of which appeared in Straight Arrow:

Thun’da #1 was total Frazetta... ’nuff said. But #2-6 were total Powell, as were Cave Girl #11-14 and the one-shot Africa.

Issue #27 was the first of several stories whose plots revolved around somewhat bizarre villainesses (as only Powell could draw them). “The Claws of Death” in #27 was about “The Panther Woman and the Puma Men,” who had a stronghold on an isolated mesa. #30’s “Black Arrow of Death” involved a witch-woman, called Cat Eyes, who took her revenge by strapping victims to large, missile-like arrows and then catapulting them from a ballista. In #31 “The Flying Horror” was the “Flying Cat Woman,” who fell upon her victims by gliding in an Icarus-like costume with huge feathered wings. Issue #35 saw Red Hawk captured by “The Women Warriors,” a tribe of Amazon-like Indian women warriors with the men doing the squaw chores (shades of women’s lib).

Although Thun’da’s mate, Pha, was good girl art, she played minor roles in that comic, so I will concentrate on Cave Girl, who is a statuesque, pneumatic, blonde queen of the jungle. Her costume is a one-piece striped zebra skin, which in reality must have been wet silk, from the way it stuck to her body. “Cave Girl” was introduced in Thun’da #2 and appeared as a filler strip in #2-6. She got her own comic, the numbering of which commenced with #11 and lasted through #14.

Africa #1 continued the “Cave Girl” series. This one-shot appears to have A Powell “Red Hawk” splash, repro’d from a photocopy of the been planned to be Cave Girl #15, but original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts. [©2001 the estate of Vin was released with a new logo. Africa Sullivan.] My only comment on this story is: ended the careers of Thun’da and Cave The way Powell drew those female Girl. Perhaps it was the pressure of the warriors, it would be better to make love, not war! Comics Code, since this was the first—and last—of the “Cave Girl” Are you hooked yet? sagas to appear under the aegis of that protector of youthful morals, the Comics Code Authority. The CCA killed good comics such GOOD GIRL ART: Good girl art has always been a winning formula in as these, along with the real trash. comics, for obvious reasons. As in most other aspects of comic art,

Four Cave Girl panels, repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Ethan Roberts—and a Thun'da splash, courtesy of Bill Black. [Cave Girl art ©2001 the estate of Vin Sullivan; Thund’a art ©2001 AC Comics & the estate of Vin Sullivan.]

Straight Arrow

A Short History of

Straight Arrow by Bill Harper [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: The following overview of Straight Arrow—from radio program and cereal premium to comic book and comic strip—was printed in Pow-wow, Vol. 7, #27 (Fall 1992), and is ©2001 Bill Harper and Pow-wow. It has been slightly edited here.] When Straight Arrow aired to millions nationwide over the Mutual Broadcasting System, starting February 7, 1949, three times weekly, Monday 8-8:30 PM, Tuesday and Thursdays 5-5:30 PM, this wellorchestrated and finely tuned production had been in preparation for over a year. During late 1947 or early 1948 Sheldon Stark was engaged to script a radio show audition for McCann-Erickson Advertising Agency of New York, portraying an Indian as the hero. A storyboard was given Stark to develop into an action-packed 30-minute western. Stark, a native New Yorker who had previously worked at WXYZ Detroit [radio station] from 1932-1942 scripting The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Challenge of the Yukon, among others, submitted the completed script January 5, 1948. The finished product was produced in New York and presented to McCann-Erickson’s client, National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), for approval. Nabisco was looking for a vehicle to sell its Shredded Wheat, considered to be an “adult” cereal, to youngsters. The Straight Arrow concept was accepted by Nabisco, which subsequently became both sponsor and owner of the property. McCann-Erickson - Los Angeles was given the responsibility of auditioning persons to fill the roles. Howard Culver, a familiar West

Coast voice, was selected to play the dual role of Straight Arrow/Steve Adams. Veteran actor Fred Howard (Wright) was chosen to be Packy McCloud, hired hand at Adams’ Broken Bow Ranch, sidekick to both Steve Adams and Straight Arrow and the only person knowing In 1986 the Harpers launched Pow-wow, a quarterly that Steve Adams was illustrated newsletter dedicated to Straight Arrow in all born Comanche incarnations and all media; it was published through Indian: The legendary 1993. Complete compilations of Pow-wow, which Straight Arrow. Gwen include photos of the radio cast and comics personnel, Delano, another information on the many Nabisco Shredded Wheat seasoned performer, premiums, a radio script, cassettes of the radio show, won the role of and a nigh-complete run of the Straight Arrow daily Mesquite Molly, newspaper strip by Gardner Fox, Joe Certa, and John housekeeper of the Belfi, are available from Bill at 301 E. Buena Vista Av., Broken Bow Ranch. North August, SC 29841. A stamped, self-addressed envelope will get you a flyer on how to receive these Frank Bingman goodies... or contact Bill via e-mail at rounded out the <whh_mht@bellsouth.net>. The logo photo is of sustaining cast as Howard Culver, who played Straight Arrow on the radio, narrator and and in the June 1951 Portland, Oregon, Rose Parade—of announcer, while which a video is also available from Bill Harper! Milton Charles, [Straight Arrow ©2001 Nabisco.] organist, was responsible for the music. McCann-Erickson and Nabisco gave the show a trial run over the Don Lee Network, a Mutual affiliate on the West Coast. The first show aired May 6, 1948, and continued weekly, Tuesday 8-8:30 PM, until January 21, 1949. Produced in the studios of KHJ Hollywood under the supervision of McCann-Erickson’s J. Neil Reagan (Ronald Reagan’s brother), the first show featured a spectacular “premium” offer—“the son of the mighty horse rode [sic] by Straight Arrow.” The horse plus tack or $1000 would go to the person submitting, with a Nabisco Shredded Wheat boxtop, the name selected for Straight Arrow’s golden palomino. In the meantime, Straight Arrow rode from the secret cave for three months on a horse without a name! From 50,000 names, “Fury” was selected. The winner, according to Sponsor magazine (Dec. 9, 1949), turned down the horse and took the money instead. All the contestants received a two-red-feathered Straight Arrow headband for their efforts. From Sheldon Stark’s fertile imagination came the story of Steve Adams, rancher, born Comanche Indian, orphaned and then reared on the Broken Bow. Later, while rescuing Packy, Steve was lured into the “secret cave” in Sundown Valley by a golden palomino and his identity as Straight Arrow, “the legendary figure spoken of around the council fires of the Comanches,” was revealed. However, this idealistic origin story, developed over a period of time, was never aired in its entirety. When the radio show premiered, the character of Straight Arrow was “full-blown.” In the first show the dual role of Steve Adams/Straight Arrow was established and, much to Steve’s chagrin, alluded to by Packy even before the first trip to Sundown Valley was broadcast. Stark would later prepare the origin story for Nabisco, and it was edited and printed on the inside front

Comic Fandom Archive

The Don and Maggie Thompson Interview by Bill Schelly & Jeff Gelb Transcribed by Brian K. Morris All Photos Courtesy of Maggie Thompson Last issue we took a close look at the memorable seven-issue run of Don and Maggie Thompson’s seminal fanzine Comic Art from 1961-68. This time, they tell their story in their own words, in an interview conducted in 1992. Here’s how it came about: After my initial period of involvement in comic fandom (when I published a fanzine called Sense of Wonder), I had dropped out of all fannish activities until 1991. When I returned, I found I had a keen interest in chronicling the history of our hobby, and began the research that led to The Golden Age of Comic Fandom and other books.

MAGGIE THOMPSON: The earliest thing I can remember was an issue of Tom and Jerry—also some early issues of Raggedy Ann. When I was five years old, I got rheumatic fever and I wasn’t permitted to get out of bed for about six months. Just to keep me shut up, my mother would buy me comic books and read them to me. I learned to read through comic books, through that process. DON: It teaches you a little bit of taste, too, when you’ve got to live with the same comic book for a week. MAGGIE: I came back one day with a comic book that my mother enjoyed reading to me for entire week. She was delighted by its variety and wit. That was a Pogo comic. She wrote a fan letter to Dell and was put in touch with Walt Kelly. This was before he had started Pogo in The Star. A friendship began with Kelly from my family’s correspondence with him. This was when I was still a kid and so we had the Curtis— which is my maiden name—the Curtis Family Kelly collection. And every time a Walt Kelly comic book would come out, it would go into that collection. No plastic bags—we just read ’em until they fell apart.

My first major comics convention was the 1992 San Diego Comicon, at which Jeff Gelb and I had a chance to interview the Thompsons as part of a series for Comics Buyer’s Guide (which they edited together) to be called “Fandom’s Founders.” At first, we wondered if the interview would DON: However, your mother ever happen, as they were so did buy multiple copies because much in demand at the Krause she discovered that they did fall Publications booth. Finally we apart. San Diego, 1992 (l. to r.): Bill Schelly, Maggie, Don, and Jeff Gelb. managed to shepherd them to a Photo courtesy of Bill Schelly. table in the relative quiet of the MAGGIE: Oh, yes. Because by upstairs refreshment area for our that time there were two kids, so there was to be one for each. My folks tape-recorded talk, and a quick photo-opportunity afterward. visited Walt Kelly a couple of times. My mother was going to script a science-fiction strip for him. They even went up to visit in Darien, Parts of the interview appeared in CBG around the time of Don’s Connecticut, before plans for that strip fell through. But as a result, we untimely death in 1994, but I’ve always felt it should see print in a more were more tied in than many people with the world of comics, so we got nearly complete form. Thus I’m happy to do so in honor of the fortieth to see it from that point of view. When Don and I met in 1957, one of anniversary of Comic Art—though it covers everything from how Don the big topics of our conversation was comic books, because so few and Maggie met through their ascension to the editorship of CBG. people at that point knew anything about them. —Bill Schelly. BILL SCHELLY: What are your earliest memories of reading comics?

BILL: Were both of you actually collecting them at this point?

DON THOMPSON: I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading comics or having them read to me by my older brothers and sisters. I’d watch as they read them and discovered one day that I could read them for myself.

MAGGIE: Yes.

BILL: Were these comic strips or books? DON: Books, comic books. I’ve had some surprises—like, I will come across an issue of Captain Marvel, Jr. #1 and realize that I read it when I was very young. But mostly what my brothers and sisters read me was Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, similar titles, and that is when I discovered I could read.

DON: I had been collecting ECs, although I wasn’t consciously thinking of collecting them. I just hung onto them because I knew I wanted to re-read them. The same was true of the Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics. That was basically all I had. At various times, I had accumulated large numbers of other comic books, and like everyone else, something happened to them. They got discarded. BILL: Did you ever see or contribute to any of the EC fanzines? DON: I saw a couple of them but I never contributed. I did have letters

Don And Maggie Thompson published in a couple of EC comics. I had one in Panic and one in, I think it was Tales from the Crypt. JEFF GELB: How did you two meet? DON: We met at a science-fiction picnic at the home of Basil Wells in Pennsylvania. He was a pulp magazine writer and there were people like Andre Norton, Edmond Hamilton, P. Schuyler Miller, Leigh Brackett— a whole bunch of people. I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that one of these people was Betsy Curtis, who had written some very good stories in the magazines. And there was this annoying little 14-year old kid named Maggie running around. [laugher] MAGGIE: Yeah, right. JEFF: What year was this? MAGGIE: 1957, June 8th. DON: That’s one of the two anniversaries we celebrate, the other being, of course, our wedding anniversary, June 23rd. They’re five years apart, so this year was 35 years since we met, 30 years since we were married.

their Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel costumes. We won Best Group because of my mother’s costuming. We went as the Five Fannish Senses. My father was Sense of Science, wearing his doctor’s gown. My mother was Extra Sense, wearing the clothes she had and looking like a fortune teller. My sister was Sense of Humor. She had a third leg and little jokes written all over her. I was Sense of Wonder with bright red hair and looking startling. BILL: You were the original Sense of Wonder!? DON: I was covered with shiny little bottle caps that sort of looked like coins because I was the 35 to 50 “Cents” the science-fiction magazines cost. [laughs] Getting back to that conversation we had with Hal and Will, we said there ought to be a fanzine about comics. Science-fiction fans were interested in an awful lot of topics. They’d at least mention some comic strip whether it had science-fictional content or not. But there had never been, per se, a comics fanzine. MAGGIE: There was no comics fandom the way there was a sciencefiction fandom, and we said, “Wouldn’t that be neat? We don’t know anything about the comics that we love.” DON: What we were going to do was a science-fiction fanzine about comics. Right after the convention, we sent out this little one-sheet, both sides, called Harbinger… which was a request for material for a fanzine about comics, which became Comic Art.

BILL: Your mutual interest at that point was mainly science-fiction? MAGGIE: Comics, musicals—I mean, when you have as many things in common as we had, coming from very different backgrounds, we just talked for a day.

BILL: When was Comic Art #1 published?

DON: Then, maybe a month later, I happened to see a copy of Humbug #1 on the stands. On a whim I bought two copies and sent one to her because we’d talked about Kurtzman. A correspondence grew out of that. I visited her a few times. We lived about 30 or 40 miles apart, which is a lot further than it is nowadays. MAGGIE: When you’re hitchhiking, which you were. It just kind of grew out of that. BILL: Did you do any fanzine work separately before you published one as a team?

DON: March. I’m certain it was in March, or maybe April. MAGGIE: Spring. DON: Jerry [Bails] didn’t get his copy until April, so he figures Alter-Ego #1 had come out ahead of us. JEFF: You guys think that Comic Art might have pre-dated Alter Ego? Dick and Pat Lupoff appeared as Captain and Mary Marvel at the masquerade of the World Science Fiction Convention in Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend, 1960, at which they also handed out copies of Xero #1, with the first installment of “And All in Color for a Dime.” This photo is more rarely seen than the one that originally appeared in Alter Ego, Vol. 1, #5, in 1963.

DON: I had worked on one when I was at Penn State called Ballast, which was the Science Fiction Club publication. MAGGIE: My mother and father did a fanzine called Cricket which actually had comics content and was named for a Walt Kelly story in which they’re talking about how you show that you were refined was that you played cricket. That was the end of the 1940s. But it wasn’t just devoted to just comics. BILL: What was your earliest fanzine you did together?

DON: It might have. Harbinger definitely did, by months. BILL: How did you know how to do a comics fanzine when there was no such animal in the past?

DON: We didn’t have any limits on it. We just said anything about comics… and this meant comic strips and comic books. MAGGIE: By the time of the first issue, we were friends with Dick and Pat Lupoff. After the Pittsburgh convention, Bill Thailing (I think) gave us a copy of Xero #1, and we started corresponding with the Lupoffs. They connected us up with other sf fans who were also into comic books. So we sort of grew into that science-fiction thread. Then Jerry and Roy also had Alter Ego, so as soon as we found out about each other, we started crossing those threads. Their focus was the super-hero.

DON: That was Harbinger. We got together at the banquet at the Pittsburgh Science Fiction Convention in 1960 over Labor Day weekend, and we talked with Hal Lynch and Will F. Jenkins. We hadn’t seen Xero. Its first issue was being handed out, free, at that convention and we didn’t even know about it.

DON: We never had that limit.

MAGGIE: We were at the masquerade when Dick and Pat Lupoff wore

DON: We had no problem with doing an issue that had, for example, a

MAGGIE: We didn’t care. It was anything on comics as far as we were concerned, from animated cartoons to magazine filler cartoons and everything in between.

Comic Fandom Archive

MAGGIE: We probably wouldn’t have taken the job if the Press had still been going, and that would have been too bad. DON: Or if we had taken one of the jobs in Cleveland, because working for Krause involved moving. MAGGIE: Our kids were in school. Our daughter was a sophomore in high school, and our son was in fifth grade. DON: We wouldn’t have uprooted the family and given up a house where we had almost paid off the mortgage, and start all over again in a strange state, seven hundred miles away. But it has all worked out great. BILL: What’s your sense of the changes in comics fandom in the last thirty years, and do you consider them healthy changes?

you couldn’t find the comics you were looking for because the newsstands didn’t carry it all, but (B) you had to have a print run of, say, 200,000 copies out there in order to make anything go. But now you can, with proper pricing and strategy, print 3000 copies and make a go of it. BILL: How would you compare fandom of the 1960s to fandom of today? DON: The fans from the 1960s are a lot older today. [laughs] MAGGIE: Some of them are higher in their various social or economic levels, but what has happened is, the item that they couldn’t afford 30 years ago, because it cost $20, they can’t afford today because it’s $2000. That’s certainly what happened to our collecting. We could no more get a Prince Valiant original today than we could back when we first started to collect.

DON: Actually, I think the biggest change in the field is that most of the BILL: Do you still fans today are interested consider yourself fans? in what’s being published DON: We wouldn’t work right now. When we this hard if we didn’t. started in 1961, [laughter] everybody was interested In 1990 Don and Maggie, along with Julius Schwartz (at left) and Roy Thomas (far right), were in the stuff that had been flown to Chicago to accept Lifetime Fandom Awards given by Diamond distributors; Jerry Bails MAGGIE: Absolutely. published years ago and (depicted here between Maggie and Roy) couldn’t make it. DC publisher Paul Levitz, who We’re “amateur” in the how can I get all this presided over the ceremony, arranged for the above drawing, a huge copy of which was given sense that we really love stuff? Now, those things to each of the recipients. Caricatures by Dave Manak... we think. [Art ©2001 DC Comics.] what we do. are being reprinted, but the majority of fans aren’t at all interested in that. What they want to DON: Right. We could make as good a living, and work a lot less hard know is what’s coming out next month and the month after that. than we do, and a lot shorter hours. But we want to stay in the field we Anything that’s already on sale is old news and of no interest. love. So, yeah, we’re definitely fans. In the field itself, the big change is that comic books, for the first time, are being written and drawn by people who grew up on comic books. All those comic books in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s were done by people who had grown up reading pulp magazines or dime novels or adventure fiction or whatever. They had no intention of making a career in comic books. It was just a job and it was a job they were generally ashamed of. They were only going to do that until they could find the job they really wanted. They may have spent their lives doing comics, but they didn’t intend to. Nowadays, you’ve got people whose ambition from childhood was to be a comic book writer or artist and to do that as a career. MAGGIE: The other aspect that’s changed is that you can have a tiny print run today because you’re targeting an audience that can financially support something with a very small print run. Whereas, in the newsstand marketplace, which is where comics were when we began, (A)

MAGGIE: We still get a thrill talking to somebody who’s done work we admire. DON: Also, we still like a lot of the new stuff. It’s not just [gruffly] “Well, they haven’t written any good comics since 1958.” [laughter] [The session ends with a group photo being taken.] [NOTE: A complete report on the 1964 Alley Tally Party with photos can be found in The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, available for $14.95 from Hamster Press, PO Box 27471, Seattle, WA, 98125. And don’t miss Bill Schelly’s new book Sense of Wonder: A Life in Comic Fandom from TwoMorrows Publishing. In addition, a handful of copies of his and Roy Thomas’ officially out-of-print 1997 book Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine, collecting pro and fan material from the 1961-78 volume of A/E, are still available from Bill for $17.95, postpaid.]

No. 70

DON NEWTON • Pencils/1972 P.C. HAMERLINCK • Inks/2001

In this issue-

DON NEWTON Plus—

MARC SWAYZE • C.C. BECK’S FATMAN • FAWCETT-TO-GO

We Didn’t Know...

At one point I had thought of it as a marriage made in heaven... these romances and me. Not so, apparently. It was beginning to look as though I wasn’t so hot in the romance comics game. And they were such great fun. Where the “Phantom Eagle” stories had been limited to six or seven pages, the romances were often as long as fourteen. Gave you room to concentrate on characterization and emotional expression. Still, my spirits were low. I was bothered. When the next script came I didn’t pay much attention to the note that was with it. Roy Ald’s messages were pretty much all the same... big script scrawled in blue pencil across the page, usually saying little more than, “Here’s another one!” Something about this one, though, held my eye. I couldn’t believe what I was reading: “...for our dough you are the best romance artist in the business...” The best in the business. Editors just didn’t say things like that! It encouraged requests for raises. But there it was. And the note went on to say the layouts were interesting, the girls beautiful... and so on. Suddenly it was a different world. Everything was great. And it didn’t stop there. Time magazine came out with an article on the phenomenal success of the romance comic books. The report named only two comic books as examples: Sweethearts, with sales of one million an issue, and Life Story, with seven hundred thousand (Time, Aug. 22, 1949). Once again I was the fair-haired boy... at least at Fawcett Publications. My greatest satisfaction was in feeling that the confidence in me by executives Ralph Daigh and Al Allard was being justified. Of course, there was the pleasure of knowing I was doing what others must have felt was good work. Others, in this case, would have to refer to a very limited number, however. Not many people knew who was illustrating those lead stories... even within the world of comic books. It’s like the report given by a friend who attended one of those comic book conventions and kept asking, “Do you know Marc Swayze?” The answer, he said, was always the same: “Who’s he?”

Oh, well... [Marc Swayze’s memoirs of his days in comics will continue next issue.]

Don Newton & Captain Marvel

Don Newton Captain Marvel A Match Made at the Rock of Eternity by Barry Keller (with Jay Willson)

This photo appeared in Texas Magazine in the Sunday, Aug. 12, 1973, edition of the Houston Chronicle, accompanying an article titled “They’re Kooky for Comic Books and Film Freaks” by Blair Pittman—in which Don Newton (the adult in the Captain Marvel costume) is mistakenly referred to as a “California artist.” Don disqualified himself from costume competition because he had won in ’71. Behind Don, wearing a shirt with a Shazam lightning bolt, is the late G.B. Love, publisher of the Rocket’s Blast/ComiCollector. [Photo ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

Artist Don Newton spent much of his life pursuing a love of anything relating to Captain Marvel. This article explores Don’s passion for Captain Marvel and the many contributions that he made to the character over the years, including rare and previously unpublished work from the artist who was taken from us far too soon. We’ll also see how this passion for The World’s Mightiest Mortal transformed the dreams of a small boy into reality.

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck the Mesa Tribune and pulled a number of other stints as a cartoonist for other newspapers. He also did commissions for paintings during this time, one of which was a series of six religious paintings for the Hattie Klienbrook Memorial Collection, also in Mesa. These paintings were turned into a set of beautiful Christmas cards. Besides being a grade school art teacher in Phoenix, Don also worked part-time as a student art reviewer for the mail-order “Master Artist’s Painting Course.” He was successful, but something was missing; he could not shake his interest in comics.

Don eventually discovered comic book fandom, while searching for a source to purchase old comics. A friend gave him a copy of the Rocket’s Blast/ComiCollector (RBCC). Don sent the publisher, Gordon (G.B.) Love, a sample of his work entitled “The Great Comic in the Sky,” which eventually saw print as Don’s beautiful rendering of Captain Marvel and the Shazam the back cover of Golden Age #3, Growing up in Mesa, Arizona, in the 1940s, gods and heroes first appeared as the centerspread in RBCC another fanzine Love published #64 in 1969; it was later reprinted in The Fandom Annual #2 Don Newton began drawing when he was a under the auspices of the SFCA and FCA #57. [Art ©2001 estate of Don Newton; Captain young boy—with the comic books he collected (Science Fiction and Comics Marvel ©2001 DC Comics.] (Captain Marvel Adventures, Whiz Comics, Association). This piece featured Batman, Daredevil, Planet, All-Star Comics, 1940s comic book characters and others) as a major influence on his artwork. His favorite characters Skyman, Airboy, Bulletman, Target, Spy Smasher, Cat Man, Black were Batman, Daredevil, and, most of all, Captain Marvel. Don Terror, and the original Daredevil listening to Captain Marvel tell a tale devoured anything that involved the Big Red Cheese, including from his glorious past. Excited about seeing his artwork in print and Republic’s Captain Marvel serial, which he watched at the local movie having found an outlet for work through which he could express his theatre. rekindled love of comics, Don was hooked on comics fandom. Comics fandom also became hooked on the artwork of Don Newton, and would As a child, Don was a serious collector of comics; but when he enjoy a mountain of artwork from him in the years to come. reached his high school years, he had already dumped his comic book

I. The Early Years

collection in the garbage can (gulp!), even though he had nearly complete runs of both Captain Marvel and Whiz. A growing attraction to the opposite sex, as well as to weight-lifting and potential competition in that arena, had reduced his available time for comics to practically nothing, and he felt it was time to explore other interests. Don thought he was done with comics. By the mid-’60s Don Newton was a successful artist and teacher of art. He drew a small cartoon feature entitled Sport Star of the Week for

II. The SFCA Years During this period he became an artistic staple of all the SFCA publications. He produced nearly two dozen covers for the RBCC, and between 1968 and 1973 it was difficult to find an SFCA publication that did not feature something by Don Newton. He did not limit himself exclusively to the SFCA; he worked for most of the major fanzines during these years. Through all of this fan work, Don’s favorite subject

Alter Ego #11