Alter Ego #132

Roy Thomas’ Landmark Comics Fanzine

8.95

$

In the USA

No.132

Art © DC Comics.

May 2015

BONUS! SPOTLIGHT ON

04 1

82658 27763

5

ARTHUR PEDDY

Edited by ROY THOMAS The first and greatest “hero-zine”—ALL-NEW, focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America], MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY’S Comic Fandom Archive, and more!

EISNER AWARD Winner Best Comics-Related Periodical

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

ALTER EGO #123

ALTER EGO #124

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

ALTER EGO #120

ALTER EGO #121

ALTER EGO #122

X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MMMS fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!

GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, BOB OKSNER, HOWARD PURCELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!

Farewell salute to the COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE! TBG/CBG history and remembrances from ALAN LIGHT, MURRAY BISHOFF, MAGGIE THOMPSON, BRENT FRANKENHOFF, “final” CBG columns by MARK EVANIER, TONY ISABELLA, PETER DAVID, FRED HEMBECK, JOHN LUSTIG, classic art by DON NEWTON, MIKE VOSBURG, JACK KIRBY, MIKE NASSER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

ALTER EGO #125

ALTER EGO #126

ALTER EGO #127

DENNY O’NEIL’s Silver Age career at Marvel, Charlton, and DC—aided and abetted by ADAMS, KALUTA, SEKOWSKY, LEE, GIORDANO, THOMAS, SCHWARTZ, APARO, BOYETTE, DILLIN, SWAN, DITKO, et al. Plus, we begin serializing AMY KISTE NYBERG’s groundbreaking book on the history of the Comics Code, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY and more!

We spotlight HERB TRIMPE’s work on Hulk, Iron Man, S.H.I.E.L.D., Ghost Rider, Ant-Man, Silver Surfer, War of the Worlds, Ka-Zar, even Phantom Eagle, and featuring THE SEVERIN SIBLINGS, LEE, FRIEDRICH, THOMAS, GRAINGER, BUSCEMA, and others, plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s Comics Code history, M. THOMAS INGE on Communism and 1950s comic books, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Golden Age “Air Wave” artist LEE HARRIS discussed by his son JONATHAN LEVEY to interviewer RICHARD J. ARNDT, with rarely-seen 1940s art treasures (including mysterious, never-published art of an alternate version of DC’s Tarantula)! Plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s exposé on the Comics Code, artist SAL AMENDOLA tells the story of the Academy of Comic Book Arts, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Second big issue on 3-D COMICS OF THE 1950s! KEN QUATTRO looks at the controversy involving JOE KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, BILL GAINES, and AL FELDSTEIN! Plus more fabulous Captain 3-D by SIMON & KIRBY and MORT MESKIN— 3-D thrills from BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, JAY DISBROW and others— the career of Treasure Chest artist VEE QUINTAL, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

1940s WILL EISNER/”BUSY” ARNOLD letters between the creator of The Spirit and his Quality Comics partner, art and artifacts by FINE, CRANDALL, CUIDERA, CARDY, KOTZKY, BLUM, NORDLING, and others! Plus Golden Age MLJ artist JOHN BULTHIUS, more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s History of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, cover by DANIEL JAMES COX and JASON PAULOS!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows.

A New Day For Comics Fans!

ALTER EGO #128

ALTER EGO #129

ALTER EGO #130

ALTER EGO #131

CAROL L. TILLEY on Dr. Fredric Wertham’s falsification of his research in the 1950s, featuring art by EVERETT, SHUSTER, PETER, BECK, COSTANZA, WEBB, FELDSTEIN, WILLIAMSON, WOOD, BIRO, and BOB KANE! Plus AMY KISTE NYBERG on the evolution of the Comics Code, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLEY, and a new cover by JASON PAULOS and DANIEL JAMES COX!

Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure heroes in comics! With art by FOSTER, HOGARTH, MANNING, KANE, KUBERT, MORROW, GRELL, THORNE, WEISS, ANDERSON, KALUTA, AMENDOLA, BUSCEMA, MARSH, and YEATES—with analysis by foremost ERB experts! Plus, the 1970s ERB comics company that nearly was, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Cover by TOM GRINDBERG!

CAPTAIN MARVEL headlines a Christmas FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) Fantasmagoria starring C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER, MARC SWAYZE—and the FAWCETT FAMILY (presented by P.C. HAMERLINCK)! Plus: Comic book/strip star artist DAN BARRY profiled, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more! Cover by C.C. BECK!

GERRY CONWAY interviewed about his work as star Marvel/DC writer in the early ‘70s (from the creation of The Punisher to the death of Gwen Stacy) with art by ROMITA, COLAN, KANE, PLOOG, BUSCEMA, MORROW, TUSKA, ADAMS, SEKOWSKY, the SEVERINS, and others!

Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at twomorrows.com

Vol. 3, No. 133 / May 2015 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor)

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

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

Proofreaders

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

www.twomorrows.com

Contents

Cover Colorist

Writer/Editorial: Golden + Silver Anniversary = 75 Years! . . 2 A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimmer Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

With Special Thanks to:

Remembering Arthur Peddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Cover Artists

Arthur Peddy or Irwin Hasen, Bernard Sachs, et al.

Tom Ziuko

Heidi Amash Nancy Shores Richard J. Arndt Karlebach Bob Bailey Jim Kealy Jean Bails Dominique Leonard Dominic Bongo Mark Lewis Jerry K. Boyd Jim Ludwig Christopher Boyko Elliot S! Maggin Mike Burkey Dan Makara Nick Caputo Will Meugniot Mike Catron Kurt Mitchell Bob Cherry Bart Mixon Shaun Clancy Brian K. Morris William Colosimo Mark Muller ComicBookPlus Will Murray (website) Ken Nadle Chet Cox Palantine News Joshua Cozine Network (website) Fred DeBoom Fred Patten Jeff Deischer Barry Pearl Craig Delich Tony Pidone Jeff Dell John G. Pierce Al Dellinges Michael Posner Betty Dobson Francis Rodriguez Jim Doty Bernice Sachs-Smoller Michael Dunne Randy Sargent Mark Evanier Ed Silverman Shane Foley Anthony Snyder Frank Giella J. David Spurlock Joe Giella Aaron Sultan Janet Gilbert Tenth Letter of the Golden Age Comic Alphabet (website) Book Stories Dann Thomas (website) Toni Torres Arnie Grieves Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Larry Guidry Dr. Michael J. Bill Henley Vassallo Heritage Comics Hames Ware Archives (website) Bill Warren Richard Howell Steven Willis Bill Wormstedt

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Arthur Peddy & Al Feldstein

Kurt Mitchell’s brief history of The Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman (1940-1970).

Richard Arndt talks with Michael Posner, stepson of the Golden Age artist.

“The Will Of William Wilson” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Flash and Green Lantern in the legendary lost Golden Age tale of the Justice Society.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! The Mystery Of The Missing Comic (Part Two) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 More by Michael T. Gilbert on Bob Powell’s AWOL Man in Black issue.

Comic FandomArchive: Al Dellinges–“It’s Been A Great Trip!” . . 55 Bill Schelly introduces the ultimate Kubert fan, recalling a lifetime of fan-publishing.

In Memoriam: Al Feldstein. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #191 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Elliot Maggin, John G. Pierce, & Otto Binder.

On Our Cover: This issue’s major cover art is a bit of a mystery—but, just this once, we’ll mostly deal with that mystery in our writer/editorial on the following page. Here, we’ll just note that it was reproduced from a photocopy of the original art for the cover of All-Star Comics #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1949) that was sent years ago to Ye Editor by A/E’s founder, the late Jerry G. Bails, who then owned that art.

For some reason, though, the bottom partial-inch of the art got cut off on that photocopy. Since that “Justice Society of America” art spotlighted The Flash and Green Lantern (plus Wonder Woman), it seemed a natural choice to front this issue that deals in large part with the first three decades of those two hero-concepts. The inker has been identified as Bernard Sachs, while the penciling is by either Arthur Peddy or Irwin Hasen. The Carmine Infantino/Joe Kubert insert of the Silver Age Flash is from Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956), while the Gil Kane/Joe Giella head of the Hal Jordan GL is from an early adventure of that version of the Emerald Gladiator. [Art © DC Comics.]

Above: This color illo of the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern by the latter’s co-creator, Mart Nodell, was probably done in the 1990s, when Marty was drawing commissions and attending numerous comics conventions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time it’s been printed in color. [Flash & Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics.]

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: $67 US, $85 Canada, $104 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.

2

writer/editorial

Golden Anniversary + Silver Anniversary = 75 Years!

W

hen co-publisher M.C. Gaines and his editor Sheldon Mayer included first “The Flash” and “Hawkman” in All-American Comics’ Flash Comics #1 (cover-dated Jan. 1940)—and soon afterward greenlighted “Green Lantern” to headline their flagship title All-American Comics—it’s highly unlikely they, or anyone else, envisioned those concepts as still being around 75 years later. Yet here they are, in their Silver and/or Golden Age incarnations, not only in comics but also on TV and in a big-budget film.

Hence our celebration here of the first three decades of these concepts—with our TwoMorrows sister mag Back Issue #80 picking up the coverage circa 1970. Well, one difference: Because Hawkman, like Flash and Green Lantern, was a cover star from the get-go (as well as even more of a personal favorite of mine than the other two were), I asked Kurt Mitchell to include him in his masterful and lively A/E overview. Since publisher John Morrow’s original suggestion had been that we cover Flash and GL, it’s understandable that BI editor Michael Eury won’t be dealing with the post-1970 Hawkman there.

For this issue’s cover, since DC doesn’t favor third parties commissioning cover artwork depicting its characters, I sidelined that notion (see p. 15) and instead utilized a photocopy of the original art for the cover of All-Star Comics #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1949), merely adding new mountain-carved lettering and insert head shots of the Silver Age Flash and GL. But one question kept bugging me: namely, who penciled that deceptively simple but iconic 1949 cover? I’ll let fan/historian Craig Delich take it from here, as per his “Indexer Notes” in the Grand Comics Database’s online entry:

Jerry owned the original cover at that time. Years later, when I did the All-Star Comics Revue [1977], I told Jerry that it looked like [Arthur] Peddy did the pencils, citing various reasons, and he agreed that it could have been him, so the credit was changed to Peddy. Hasen later denied doing the cover to me, so that change stayed in place.

Before Jerry’s death, he sold me the original cover to AS #49… which I later sold to a friend back East, and that person, knowing Hasen personally, showed it to Hasen at a show. This time, Hasen stated that he did the cover.

Studying the various aspects of the art very closely, the figures of Wonder Woman, GL, and Flash all carry [artistic] “signatures” of Peddy as well as Hasen being the penciler.

What makes this the more difficult is the excellent inking of Bernard Sachs, who inked both pencilers over the years. That inking may very well hide telltale clues that would pinpoint either Peddy or Hasen as the true penciler…. So I am adding Hasen back [in the GCD credits], along with Peddy, and both with a “?”

All of which goes to show how difficult it is to research artwork (let alone writing) in the Golden Age of Comics!

Our combined Flash/GL/Hawkman and Arthur Peddy coverage this time around crowded out both the latest installment of Amy Nyberg’s history of the Comics Code and the latest segment of Alberto Beccatini’s study of Dan Barry. We’ll try to squeeze some of one or both into our next issue!

So much history—so few pages.

Best wishes,

Back when Jerry Bails did his original Authoritative Index to All-Star Comics, he listed [Irwin] Hasen as the penciler.

# COMING IN MAY 133 Spotlight On Gentleman JIM MOONEY! FROM BATMAN TO SPIDER-MAN AND BACK AGAIN—HE DREW ’EM ALL!

• Cover montage by MOONEY of some of his greatest DC hits (and we could’ve done an alternate cover of his Marvel ones!)

• DR. JEFF McLAUGHLIN’s in-depth interview with JIM MOONEY—featuring art for Batman & Robin, Spider-Man, Supergirl, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Tommy Tomorrow, Ghost Rider, Dial H for Hero, Kaänga, The Invaders, The Moth, Wildfire, Flash Lightning—and a whole host more!

• New segments of AMY NYBERG’s Comics Code history and/or ALBERTO BECATTINI on DAN BARRY—if the prodigious Mr. Mooney leaves us any room!

et, Streaky, Super Heroes, Supergirl, Com Batman & Robin, Legion of & Tommy Tomorrow TM & © DC Comics

• FCA with OTTO BINDER, plus JEAN-MICHEL FERRAGATTI on Fawcett’s fearless felon-fighters in French—MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s “Wertham Attacks!”—BILL SCHELLY begins multi-part coverage of the influential 1960s-70s adzine Rocket’s BlastComicollector—& MORE!!

Edited by ROY THOMAS • SUBSCRIBE NOW! Eight issues in the US: $67 Standard, $82 First Class • (Canada: $85, Elsewhere: $104 Surface, $242 Airmail). • NEW LOWER RATES FOR INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS! SAVE $4 PER ISSUE!

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comic Fans!

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • www.twomorrows.com

3

A Streak Of Scarlet— A Glimmer Of Green—

And The Beating Of Mighty Wings A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

by Kurt Mitchell

A

utumn 1939: the dawn of the Golden Age of comic books.

Established and newly minted publishers alike are going into the business right and left in the wake of the phenomenal debut of “Superman” the previous year. Among them is All-American Comics, Inc., a fledgling line jointly owned by entrepreneur Max Charles Gaines, the man who a few years earlier, some say, more or less invented the American comic book as we know it, and Jacob “Jack” Liebowitz, part-owner of Superman’s publisher, Detective Comics, Inc.

Frustrated by his DC partner Harry Donenfeld’s reluctance to expand their line, Liebowitz approaches Gaines, who has previously packaged titles for other publishers, about establishing a sister company that will share printing and distribution costs with Detective while maintaining separate editorial offices and

identities. The two companies advertise each others’ books and, as of AA’s June 1940 issues, both lines bear the ubiquitous DC “slug”’ on their covers. AA’s flagship title, AllAmerican Comics, features reprints of newspaper comic strips and original characters like aviator “Hop Harrigan” and two-fisted servicemen “Red, White, and Blue.” Two other AA titles, Movie Comics and Mutt & Jeff, are also on the

All-American Guys M.C. Gaines (1894-1947), recently of the McClure Syndicate (left), and DC accountant/co-publisher Jack Liebowitz (1900-2000) joined forces in 1939—with Harry Donenfeld’s blessing— to create the All-American Comics Group. The photo of Gaines is from Amazing World of DC Comics #5 (1975), that of Liebowitz was found online.

The Last Shall Be First!

(Top left:) The final Golden Age panels that featured The Flash (seen only in a super-speed blur), Green Lantern, and Hawkman were featured on the last two pages of All-Star Comics #57 (Feb.-March 1951). Script by John Broome; pencils by Arthur Peddy; inks by Bernard Sachs. Reproduced from Roy Thomas’ bound volumes of the actual comic.

(Top right:) More than a dozen years and a couple of revivals later, two Flashes, two Green Lanterns, and the Golden Age Hawkman shared the cover of Justice League of America #22 (Sept. 1963) with several other heroes of two ages. Art by Murphy Anderson. The editor of both comic books, a dozen years apart, was the late great Julius Schwartz. Thanks for these and various other comics covers accompanying this article to the online Grand Comics Database (see ad on p. 48). [© DC Comics.]

4

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

newsstands when Gaines and Liebowitz decide to put together a new title, one emphasizing colorful mystery-men (not yet generally called superheroes).

When Sheldons Clash!

All-American Comics editor Sheldon Mayer (1917-1991, seen at left) and artist Sheldon Moldoff (1920-2012) play at mock fisticuffs in the early 1940s. After the latter returned from World War II military service and Mayer refused to give him back the “Hawkman” feature, the bad blood became real. This photo was first published courtesy of Moldoff in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #4 (Spring 2000), an issue celebrating the first sixty years of “The Flash” and “Hawkman.” It’s still available from TwoMorrows; check it out for more rare art and information about the stars of Flash Comics.

Gaines turns to his right-hand man, AA editor and art director Sheldon Mayer, to determine the specific contents of the new comic. Mayer, a talented artist in his own right whose series about a boy cartoonist, “Scribbly,” is a highlight of AllAmerican, knows a thing or two about supermen: according to some accounts (including his), it was he who discovered sample pages of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s revolutionary “Superman” strip during Gaines’ days with a newspaper syndicate and recommended the feature to DC editor Vince Sullivan.

Although they will never achieve the popularity or universal recognition of the Man of Steel, four of

the super-heroes Mayer helps develop for All-American will become cornerstones of what comic fans of later generations will dub the DC Universe.

This is the story of three of those heroes.

(Wonder Woman being the fourth, of course.)

The Fastest Man Alive!

Gardner F. Fox (1911-1986), writer/cocreator of “The Flash” & “Hawkman,” would soon go on to do the same duties for “Doctor Fate,” “The Justice Society of America,” “Skyman,” “The Face,” and other major comic book concepts. Photo supplied by Fox’s late daughter Lynda some years ago.

Harry Lampert

“Faster than the streak of the lightning in the sky… swifter than the speed of the light itself… fleeter than the rapidity of thought… is The Flash, reincarnation of the winged Mercury… His speed is the dismay of scientists, the joy of the oppressed—and the open mouthed wonder of the multitudes!!”

(1916-2004) drew only the first two “Flash” stories before editor Mayer replaced him as artist, but nonetheless is the visual co-creator of the concept. This photo, taken while he was in the Army during World War II, was supplied by Lampert to accompany his interview in Alter Ego V3#4, which is still available from TwoMorrows.

So reads the opening caption of “The Flash,” the eponymous cover feature of Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). The ability to move at superhuman speed is hardly original (Mercury is but one of many mythological speedsters) and Superman counts extraordinary speed among his many attributes, but no comic has yet to seize on it as a stand-alone super-power. Enter Gardner F. Fox, a moonlighting lawyer who will describe himself in a 1979 letter as “the very first writer hired to do comic book writing.” Fox’s comics credits include early episodes of “Batman” (we have him to thank for the Batarang) and (perhaps) the co-creation of “The Sandman.” He and editor Mayer hammer out a plot about Jay Garrick, who gains super-speed after inhaling “hard water” fumes in a chem lab accident. The science is suspect, but it serves tidily as a deus ex machina, getting us quickly to our fleet-footed hero. Mayer also has a hand in the character’s design, working with the series’ original artist, Harry Lampert, to give The Flash a colorful costume appropriate for a modern Mercury, including winged boots and winged helmet. Lampert, a former inker for the Fleischer animation studio more comfortable with humor than adventure, yields the art chores to Everett E. Hibbard following the second episode.

Hibbard will draw the strip off and on for the next eight years, earning a rare byline alongside Fox.

No Flash In The Pan! (Right:) Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff’s cover for Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940)—and (above) the splash panel of that issue’s “Flash” origin, scripted by Gardner F. Fox and drawn by Harry Lampert—and a “Hawkman” panel by Fox and artist Dennis Neville—both repro’d from DC’s 1975 tabloid-size reprinting of Flash Comics #1. [© DC Comics.]

Early episodes of the series are, superspeed notwithstanding, rather ordinary tales of

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

5

A Flash By Any Other Name (Above:) Gardner Fox and E.E. Hibbard (1909-?) wrote and drew themselves into the lead story in The Flash’s solo mag All-Flash #14 (Summer 1942). That’s one of the Three Dimwits admonishing them from silhouette.

(Right:) Down in Argentina, Fox & Hibbard’s “Flash” tale from Flash Comics #11 (Nov. 1940) was reconfigured and re-colored to become the feature “El Ciclon” (“The Cyclone”) in the comic Pif-Paf #224 (dated Dec. 14, 1943). The South American mag’s pages were quite wide, with the panels of each page of the U.S. original reformatted to become a row of panels in the reprint; thus, the art seen here is from the top half of pp. 1-3 of the “Flash” yarn. Thanks to Tony Torres. The first two dozen “Flash” stories from Flash Comics and the first two issues of All-Flash were all reprinted in Vol. 1-2 of the hardcover Golden Age Flash Archives, so that’d be a good place to compare the Argentine and U.S. editions of Flash Comics #11. [© DC Comics.]

crime and corruption. Fox and Hibbard, still fine-tuning the details, alter elements of the strip over time. Jay Garrick’s position as a professor at Coleman University, for instance, is never mentioned again after Flash Comics #1. Originally set in New York, the series eventually relocates to fictional Keystone City. Flash shows little apparent concern for protecting his dual identity early on (his ladylove, Joan Williams, is in on the secret from Day One), using his powers openly at tryouts for the Olympics and while playing professional baseball, under his real name in both cases, and showing his face to dozens of others, including several bad guys. Fox will retroactively address the problem in All-Flash Quarterly #3 (Winter 1941), noting that our hero “always moves so quickly that even when he is visible his features are a sort of haze,” though that explanation doesn’t always fit the circumstances of those earlier stories. The Fastest Man Alive’s clash with his first costumed villain, a murderous art thief called The Vandal, in Flash Comics #5 (May 1940), and his encounter with the giant Gila monsters created by an eccentric scientist (#9, September 1940) hint at more exciting possibilities ahead, but Flash’s speed is the chief attraction during the strip’s first two years.

Despite all that “swifter than the speed of light” talk, it takes a bit for the tyro speedster to hit his stride. He requires three hours to run the 1700 miles from New York to “the Canadian backwoods” in one early story but only 15 minutes to cover the distance from Manhattan to the Panama Canal just four months later. By Flash Comics #12 (Dec. 1940), Jay is swift enough to singlehandedly end an aggressor nation’s invasion of its hapless neighbor, an adventure that underlines the paradox at the heart of the strip’s premise: if Flash can disarm (and disrobe!) a country’s entire army, dismantle its air force, and capture its navy, all in a matter of minutes, how can any lesser menace present a challenge?

Mayer, Fox, and Hibbard will find their solution in an element of the series there from its beginning: humor.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere In Flash Comics…

Wealthy scientist Carter Hall, a collector of antique weapons, receives a package containing a glass knife. On touching it, Hall

relives his past life as Khufu, a prince of ancient Egypt, murdered alongside his consort, Shiera, with that very knife by the rogue priest Hath-Set. Carter soon learns that Shiera and Hath-Set also have contemporary incarnations, the former as plucky heiress Shiera Sanders, the latter as Dr. Anton Hastor, the “electrician extraordinary” whose futuristic dynamos threaten New York City with catastrophe. Determined to stop Hastor and avenge the murder of Khufu, Hall dons a costume based on the Egyptian hawk god, complete with fully functional mechanical wings, a bizarre hawk’s-head helmet, and a belt laced with the mysterious anti-gravitic “ninth metal.” The newly christened Hawkman tracks the renegade scientist to his lair and, after freeing Shiera from his clutches, fires a crossbow quarrel deep into the villain’s chest.

As this origin makes clear, Gardner Fox’s “Hawkman” is altogether different in tone and feel from his “Flash.” The atmospheric art of Sheldon Moldoff, whose 58-issue run begins with Flash Comics #4 (April 1940), is a major factor in the strip’s appeal.

Moldoff, who started in comics at 18 doing filler pages, is a personal favorite of M.C. Gaines, hand-picked to replace the strip’s original artist, Dennis Neville. (Neville, a product of Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies, Inc., studio, will produce pages for DC/AA, Timely, Quality, et al., throughout the ‘40s but is otherwise an enigma.) “Shelly” has an illustrative, fine-lined style that stands out amidst all the cartoonists on Sheldon Mayer’s roster of talent. If he relies overmuch on swipes from Alex Raymond, Harold R. Foster, and movie magazines—and if the same faces and poses appear again and again—his storytelling sensibilities and mastery of dramatic lighting more than compensate. He tweaks Neville’s design almost immediately, altering the proportions of the helmet and giving Hawkman the famous “furry” wings that define the

6

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

Hawkman Lives!

Since the first nearly two dozen “Hawkman” tales (from Flash Comics #1-22) were all collected in the 2005 hardcover volume The Golden Age Hawkman Archives, Vol. 1, we’ve chosen to reproduce instead (above) “Shelly’s” color re-creation of the cover art for Flash Comics #7 (July 1940)… and (at right) one of his re-renderings of a classic figure from an early story.

It’s way past time for Vol. 2 of these Archives!

[Hawkman TM & © DC Comics.]

character’s classic look. This more menacing appearance is perfect for the pulpy mix of mad scientists, voodoo masters, murderous cults, and hidden civilizations that Fox unleashes against the Winged Wonder.i Though Carter Hall’s penchant for using antique weaponry is evident from the outset, the other story elements we associate with the Golden Age Hawkman will not fall into place until late in the series’ second year. In Flash Comics #23 (Nov. 1941), a wounded Flying Fury is nursed back to health by the duck hawks of Hawk Valley, who teach him the avian lingua franca and become his allies in his ongoing crusade against crime. An issue later, Shiera Sanders—engaged to Carter since the second installment—joins him in costume and action as Hawkwoman, soon altered to Hawkgirl. One of the few male-and-female super-hero teams in Golden Age comics, preceded only by Fawcett’s Bulletman and Bulletgirl, their partnership makes them unique among the DC/AA pantheon.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the early “Hawkman” series is its brutality. Carter Hall’s arsenal is not for show. Hawkman either kills or indirectly causes the death of at least one villain in seven of his first ten stories, as well as in his appearances in AllStar Comics #1-2 (Summer and Fall 1940). He even commits genocide, albeit of necessity, wiping out a race of telepathic waterbreathers living in a cavern beneath Manhattan (Flash Comics #9, Sept. 1940). But nothing tops the deliciously horrifying scene in Flash Comics #24 (Dec. 1941) in which the Feathered Fury and his

army of raptors crash through the windows of a gang czar’s hideout. As the birds tear into the mobsters, Hawkman mercilessly beats their boss—who he mistakenly believes killed Shiera—with a heavy medieval flail. Such moments of unbridled violence are not to last, alas, as the new Code of Conduct adopted by both DC and AA mandates a softening of the feature’s rougher edges.

“And I Shall Shed My Light Over Dark Evil…”

The sales figures leave no doubt: Flash Comics is a hit (so much so that Gardner Fox gives up his law practice to write full-time).

Charlie Gaines and Sheldon Mayer begin looking for a super-hero feature to headline All-American Comics. Their search ends when Chicago-born cartoonist Martin Nodell shows them four pages of art detailing the origin of a gaudily costumed mystery-man wielding a magic ring: “The Green Lantern.” Although Nodell’s work is crude, Gaines recognizes the strip’s potential. Mayer teams the young artist with scripter Milton “Bill” Finger, the unacknowledged co-creator and head writer of “Batman,” and together the three flesh out Nodell’s concept.ii The end result debuts in AllAmerican Comics #16 (July 1940), fronted by a memorable Sheldon Moldoff cover.

Civil engineer Alan Scott is the only survivor of a railroad trestle collapse. In the wreckage of the train, he finds a strange green lantern and falls into a trance. The Green Flame of Life, the

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

7

immensely powerful intelligence that inhabits the ancient lantern, appoints Alan its champion. “Power shall be yours,” promises the Flame, “if you have faith in yourself … for will power is the flame of the green lantern!” It instructs him to fashion a ring from its substance, which, if recharged at the lantern every 24 hours, will give him immunity to all metals, as well as the power to fly and walk through walls. Donning a colorful costume “so bizarre that once I am seen, I will never be forgotten,” the newborn superhero takes his sacred oath for the first time: “—and I shall shed my light over dark evil … for the dark things cannot stand the light … the light of the Green Lantern!”

The new series’ powerful premise captures the imagination of its young readers. After all, who wouldn’t want a magic ring that obeys your every command? Indeed, the ring is the whole show at first. Most of GL’s early adventures are prosaic crime dramas enlivened only by the ever more ingenious uses he finds for his power: melting steel, stalling motors, providing electricity to a blacked-out city, and forming objects—a wall, a blade—of solid light. The ring also allows him to read minds and compel confessions. Its most sinister attribute is seen only once: in All-American #22 (January 1941), a crook dons the ring and is immolated on the spot by the Green Flame. Green Lantern operates out of Metropolis at first, then relocates to Capitol City (a thinly disguised Washington, DC) after meeting Irene Miller at the New York World’s Fair in All-American #18 (Aug. 1940). Irene is a secretary at the Apex Broadcasting System, and soon Alan Scott is working there, too. Despite the change in setting, the stories continue to feed GL a steady diet of cheap crooks and corrupt authority figures. Something is missing. The solution comes in the unlikely form of an irascible little taxi driver with an impenetrable Brooklyn accent… Doiby Dickles.

It’s Not Easy Being Green (Lantern) Artist Martin Nodell drew up an initial version of Green Lantern’s origin for All-American editor Sheldon Mayer circa the turn of 1941—but Mayer quickly teamed him with already-veteran writer Bill Finger (who’d worked with Bob Kane on the creation of “Batman”) to rework the tale. Nodell’s original version of one page was printed in A/E #102. Above is a 1989 color drawing Nodell did for collector Aaron Sultan, who kindly shared it with us. Above left: Mayer assigned the first Green Lantern cover of All-American Comics (#16, July 1940) to established artist Sheldon Moldoff. For the “GL” stories from All-American #16-38 and the first three issues of Green Lantern, see DC’s hardcover Golden Age Green Lantern Archives, Vol. 1-2. [© DC Comics.]

Brothers In Arms And Strange Bedfellows

“Green Lantern” artist/conceptualizer Martin Nodell (1915-2006, left) & writer/co-creator Bill Finger (1914-1974, right) in the fuzzy photos that appeared with their bios in Green Lantern #1 (Fall 1941). [© DC Comics.]

As every reader of Alter Ego surely knows, All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940) features the debut of the “Justice Society of America,” comics’ first team of costumed super-heroes. The Flash, Green Lantern. and Hawkman are not only charter members of the Society, they successively serve as its chairmen. For the most part, their adventures with the JSA have little impact on their solo strips, Shiera Sanders coming into her inheritance in All-Star #6 being the notable exception (probably because Gardner Fox was writing both the “JSA” and the “Hawkman” feature in Flash Comics). An unspoken—and surreal—dictum of the series is that any hero who stars in his own solo title (i.e., Superman and Batman) is too busy for active duty. Sure enough, the premieres of All-Flash Quarterly #1 (Summer 1941) and Green Lantern #1 (Fall 1941) both lead to their namesakes yielding their seats at the JSA’s round table to other worthy heroes. Both will return to active duty in All-Star #24 (Spring 1945) and remain with the team through the end of the run in All-Star #57 (Feb.-March 1951). For more information about our three heroes’ careers with the Justice Society, see TwoMorrows’ four-volume book series The All-Star Companion.

8

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

results. At first, the menaces they face continue in the same bizarre vein as before: sentient Plant Men from the ocean floor, a robotic sea serpent, a renegade scientist armed with an amnesia-inducing “memory-machine,” and Lola Darling, a beautiful torch singer who somehow turns into a beefy, goateed, middle-aged man. As 1942 slides into ‘43, the series begins to drift into the crime-andcorruption rut that typifies the early “Flash” and “Green Lantern” strips. The setting drifts, too, as the Hawks’ Manhattan milieu becomes Gotham City, then Keystone City, then Gotham again. Costumed villains appear with increasing frequency—The Human Dynamo, The Pied Piper, The Hot Shot—but only Simple Simon, a country bumpkin with a keen criminal mind, and The Humming Bird [sic], a gorgeous ornithologist with her own set of wings, appear more than once.

Gathering ’Round The Table Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern in a panel from All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940), the first meeting/story of “The Justice Society of America”—along with lesser lights Johnny Thunder and The Atom. The former trio were the only three heroes ever to serve as Golden Age chairmen of the JSA—GL for only one issue. Script by Gardner Fox; art by E.E. Hibbard. Repro’d from Roy T.’s bound volumes—of the original comics, not the Archives reprints. [© DC Comics.]

The aforementioned cabbie, Doiby Dickles, and his taxi, Esmeralda (replaced later by Goitrude, the limousineturned-ambulance he drove in World War I), are not the only new faces debuting in All-American Comics #27 (June 1941). Ghosting for Mart Nodell is Irwin Hasen, a graduate of the shop system who has also studied at the National School of Design and the Art Students League.

The two-fisted Doiby, modeled by Hasen after movie character-actor Edward Brophy, gains the gratitude of

Its third year sees the “Flash” strip continue much as before, plotwise, but Gardner Fox and E. E. Hibbard (and fill-in artist Hal Sharp) have begun to play up the criminals’ personalities, Fox exaggerating their colorful slang, Hibbard broadening their reactions to the Crimson Comet’s speed tricks. In All-Flash #6 (Sept.-Oct. 1942), a story dealing with dirty doings at a racetrack, the villains’ henchmen include a trio of incompetent stablehands named Winky, Blinky, and Noddy. Patterned after the Three Stooges, they prove popular with readers, returning over and over until they become something akin to The Flash’s sidekicks.

Whether creating another of their bizarre and inevitably disastrous inventions, being mistaken for lookalike Axis spies, or failing at yet another profession, their comic antics are central to many “Flash” adventures of the mid-’40s and eventually earn them their own series in All-American. Other recurring characters join the cast, such as Eb Jones, a.k.a. The Worry Wart, and Erasmus “Deuces” Wilde, a loquacious gambler straight out of Damon Runyon. Fantasy and science-fiction also begin to play a larger role in “Flash” stories.

The Scarlet Speedster, often accompanied by Joan and the Three Dimwits, visits such exotic locales as Mars, Fairyland, the planet Karma, and the Fourth Dimension, travels forward and backward in time, and confronts a string of criminal scientists armed with such arcane inventions as a curiosity ray, an electronic diathermy projector (whatever that is), and a fourth-dimensional forceps.

Super-villains, too, pop up with increasing frequency. Lesser baddies like The Eel, Sven Scarface, The Merman, and The Wind Master will be remembered only by the handful of collectors who own the comic books they appear in, while others— The Shade, master of darkness; the triple-jointed Rag Doll; The Thinker, a district attorney turned criminal mastermind; The Turtle, billed as “the slowest man alive”—will have careers extending well beyond the Golden Age. Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff, forced to tone down the violence in the “Hawkman” strip, play up the Winged Wonders’ ability to talk to birds, using it as the springboard for many episodes. Big Red, leader of the birds of Hawk Valley, often serves as an aide to Hawkman, beginning in Flash Comics #24. Red’s mate, Kitty Hawk, is introduced in #35 (Nov. 1942). She and Hawkgirl will make several attempts to show up their men, with uneven

The Way Of All-Flash The splash page for chapter one (in a four-part story) of All-Flash #11 (JulyAug. 1943) showcases The Flash, girlfriend Joan Williams, and the Three Dimwits… as well as their future dopplegängers. Script probably by Fox… but the art, despite the Hibbard byline, is by Hal Sharp, who often filled in for E.E. around this time. [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

9

the feature stars of Comic Cavalcade, a 15¢ quarterly that is AA’s version of DC’s World’s Finest Comics.

Hawkman Was No Spear-Carrier!

Moldoff’s dramatic splash page for the “Hawkman” saga in Flash Comics #25 (Jan. 1942). Script by Gardner Fox. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert. [© DC Comics.]

Green Lantern after the valiant little hack saves Irene Miller from hoodlums. Doiby’s squat form, his infatuation with his taxi, and his talent for malapropisms are just the breath of fresh air the series needs. So invaluable does Doiby prove that the Lantern entrusts him with his secret identity (All-American #35, Feb. 1942). Green Lantern himself grows more and more powerful, his invulnerability to metals gradually morphing into immunity to everything but wood, and the menaces he faces rise to the challenge. In AllAmerican #38 (May 1942) he battles gangster Nick Bonaparte and his Army of Crime, unaware that shortly he and Doiby will be facing a real army.

The War Years The cover of Green Lantern #4 (Summer 1942) says it all: “The Green Lantern and Doiby Dickles Join the Army!” Inside, Alan Scott enlists as a buck private, while WWI vet Doiby is reactivated with the rank of sergeant. In the following two issues, the duo lead a special task force sent to disrupt the plans of The Black Prophet, a Nazi posing as an Islamic holy man, and visit the hidden land of Exilia, populated entirely by the descendents of expatriates from around the globe. In #7 (Spring 1943), Alan and Doiby are honorably discharged, their jobs in radio considered vital to the war effort.iii (Artist Irwin Hasen is not as lucky: his number comes up around the same time, necessitating his departure from the strip.) At the end of ‘42, GL joins The Flash and Wonder Woman as

Hawkman and Hawkgirl also do their patriotic duty— for a single issue of All-Star. In #11 (JuneJuly 1942) Carter and Shiera enlist in the army, he as a bomber pilot, she as a nurse.

Hawkman is discharged to lead the newly militarized Justice Society (as the Justice Battalion) at story’s end.

Presumably Hawkgirl is, too, as she is a civilian in all subsequent appearNew Lanterns For Old! ances. Neither’s No, you’re not seeing things. The issue number on military service is the cover depicted here is “#40,” with a cover date ever mentioned of “Sept.-Oct.” (of 1949). But, as Golden Age again. The war does aficionados know, there was no such animal! The touch them in one original Green Lantern comic was cancelled with important sense: #38 (May-June ’49). However, some industrious Sheldon Moldoff is soul seems to have gotten the bright idea of drafted, his last art Photoshopping a bogus GL #40 cover, utilizing job appearing in Irwin Hasen art (which includes the ever-popular cabbie Doiby Dickles) from two different Flash Comics #61 early-’40s sources—and offering it for sale on (January 1945). His eBay a year or two back for a tidy sum. Hope replacement is 18there weren’t any takers! Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd year-old Joe Kubert, for the scan. [© DC Comics.] who has been working in comics since he was 12. Nowhere near as polished as Moldoff initially (he struggles mightily with bodily proportions early on), Kubert is an adept visual storyteller whose growth as a craftsman can be observed issue by issue. His collaboration with Gardner Fox yields a pair of creations that will loom large forty-odd years later: Neptune Perkins, an oceanographer forced by a congenital condition to spend much of his time immersed in salt water (Flash Comics #66, Aug.-Sept. 1945), and the bird-people of the hidden Arctic city of Feithera (#71, May 1945).

Irwin Hasen (b. 1918) was the second regular “Green Lantern” artist (though E.E. Hibbard drew one earlier “GL” adventure), and would illustrate tales of the Emerald Gladiator up through the end in 1949. In summer of 2014 he was elected to the Eisner Hall of Fame… but, at 96 years of age, New Yorker Hasen was unable to attend the ceremony in San Diego, so the award was belatedly presented to him at last October’s New York Comics Convention by Michael Uslan, Paul Levitz, and others. Thanks to Christopher Boyko for both the info and the photo of Irwin with his long-overdue Eisner.

10

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

The Changing Of The Hawks (Clockwise & in chronological order:) A Joe Kubert Hawkman figure shared the cover of the one-shot Big All-American Comic Book in mid-1944 with AA’s other big guns: Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern, in particular. Inside was Kubert’s very first “Hawkman” story, done while Sheldon Moldoff was still the Winged Wonder’s regular artist in Flash Comics.

Moldoff’s final “Hawkman” splash, from Flash #61 (Jan. 1945). This tale and the next were probably both scripted by Gardner F. Fox. A fight page from Kubert’s first “Hawkman” assignment for Flash Comics (#62, March ’45). There’s still a considerable Mort Meskin influence—fitting, since Kubert had inked Meskin’s “Vigilante” a bit earlier. Thanks to Al Dellinges for all Photostats used for this art spot. [© DC Comics.]

Garrick Research Laboratories’ contributions to the war effort keep The Flash out of uniform, leaving him free to cope with stateside menaces. A new artist, spelling E. E. Hibbard, joins the Fastest Man Alive’s pit crew in Flash Comics #50 (February 1944): Martin Naydel. An odd choice for a super-hero series, Naydel has a flat, stiff approach to action art wholly unlike his contemporary whimsical work on “McSnurtle the Turtle,” a strip in All-American’s humor title Funny Stuff whose star is The Terrific Whatzit, a funny-animal version of The Flash. He nonetheless handles much of the art chores for the next three years. Jon Chester Kozlak also substitutes for Hibbard during this period, his own fine draftsmanship and assured brushwork as dead a giveaway as the “CK” he sneaks into the occasional splash panel. Hibbard himself contributes less and less, focusing mostly on the art for All-

Joe Kubert & Irwin Hasen joking around on a trip to California in 1947. Kubert (1926-2012) is the taller one.

From Amazing World of DC Comics #5 (May 1975). [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

11

Flash and the “Winky, Blinky, and Noddy” strip.

The Big All-American Comic Book, a 25¢ 128-page one-shot featuring nearly every character in the AA line, heralds a turning point in the history of All-American Comics. In late 1944 Charlie Gaines buys out Jack Liebowitz’s share of the company. For six months or so, his comics feature an AA logo in place of the familiar DC slug. The experiment doesn’t last. The following summer, Gaines sells most of his line to DC, retaining only Picture Stories from the Bible and Picture Stories from World History for his new publishing venture, Educational Comics (EC). The AllAmerican offices are closed down, their editorial operations relocated to DC’s headquarters. The adventures of Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern seem untouched by these developments. It will take time for the long-term consequences to be felt.

Along Comes Schwartz Martin Naydel Naydel Maneuvers The hepster cover of All-Flash #25 (Oct.Nov. 1946), as drawn by Martin Naydel. [© DC Comics.]

(1911-1965), whose family name was actually spelled “Nadle.” This photo was taken in the early 1950s.

Thanks to son Jeff Dell and nephew Ken Nadle.

Changes are afoot for the “Green Lantern” strip, as co-creator Bill Finger’s final scripts overlap with the first stories by a newcomer named Alfred Bester. Bester, a University of Pennsylvania grad who forsook law school to write sciencefiction, is trying his hand at comic books at the suggestion of his friends, DC editors Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff. Given a crash course in comics scripting by Finger, Bester brings a fresh approach to the series. His first published “GL” story in All-

Good, Better, Bester (Left:) In a 1995 commission drawing, original artist/co-creator Mart Nodell utilized a very slightly abbreviated form of Green Lantern’s first oath.

(Right:) On a Paul Reinman-drawn, Alfred Bester-scripted page from All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944), GL recites the more famous oath, probably coined by Bester—and used to the present day—before heading off to do battle with the monstrous Solomon Grundy, Bester’s other major contribution to the GL canon.

Thanks to dealer Anthony Snyder for the former artwork; check out his site at www.anthonysnyder.com. [Page © DC Comics; Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics.]

12

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

American #53 (Oct. 1943) is also the debut of a new artist, Paul Reinman.

Best remembered today for inking Jack Kirby on early issues of Marvel’s Alfred Bester Paul Reinman Avengers and (1913-1987) is best (1910-1988) enjoyed a X-Men titles remembered as a major good 1940s run on “Green and for science-fiction writer, the Lantern,” later illustrating providing author of The Demolished the Tarzan newspaper much of the art Man and The Stars, My strip, inking Marvel’s for Archie Destination. He also wrote early X-Men, and drawing Comics’ for Holiday and other the Archie group’s Mighty mainstream magazines.

Crusaders. Photo from infamously The Burroughs Bulletin camp “Mighty #13 (1962); thanks to Crusaders” Michael T. Gilbert. super-hero line, Reinman’s work here is cartoonier than his ‘60s material, his ink line lighter and more versatile. Mart Nodell continues drawing the Green Lantern solo title and the odd Comic Cavalcade installment, but it is Reinman—with an occasional fill-in by Kozlak—who provides the art for most GL appearances through early 1947.

Bester puts his stamp on the strip immediately, almost certainly being the one who gives Green Lantern a dramatic new oath: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might beware my power—Green Lantern’s light!” Humor becomes more prominent, with stories built around colorful characters like 10-year-old music prodigy turned criminal mastermind Melvyn Luminous, the consciencestricken ghost of crime boss King Shark, and Owen Cooley, a pestiferous leprechaun convinced that Doiby is his long-lost uncle. Bester changes the dynamic between Doiby and the Lantern, modeling their relationship after popular movie comedians Abbott and Costello, Alan playing the exasperated Bud to Doiby’s bumbling Lou. GL comes off uncomfortably harsh in many of these episodes, while Doiby is less competent and more naive than Finger’s version… and the story that ends with GL taking the roly-poly cabbie over his knee is downright Julius Schwartz bizarre. Bester also contributes two of (1915-2004), in a photo the strip’s nastiest villains, baddies dated 1945… originally sent destined to play major roles in DC to Roy Thomas for use in A/E history down to the present day: the V3#7. sinister immortal named Vandal Savage and the grotesque albino giant called Solomon Grundy.

But Bester’s greatest service to Green Lantern, All-American, and comics fans alike is in recommending one Julius Schwartz as Sheldon Mayer’s story editor. Previously a literary agent for science-fiction and fantasy authors (his clients include H.P. Lovecraft and young Ray Bradbury, as well as Bester himself), Schwartz has virtually no familiarity with the comics medium when he starts work for AA in February of ‘44. A fast study, he is

soon comfortably coplotting the series under his oversight.

Several former Schwartz clients, feeling the pinch of a slump in the market for sciencefiction prose, turn to scripting comics to make ends meet.

Edmond Hamilton, like Bester a future inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, is one of them. Most of his comics work is for the DC side of the company, but he does write a story for Green Lantern #18 (Winter 1945).

Robert Bloch, the horror author best Deep Cover known today for Reinman’s cover for Green Lantern #12 (Summer Psycho, scribes a 1944), perhaps the first issue on which new story single “Flash” story editor Julius Schwartz might have worked under Sheldon Mayer. It featured three stories scripted by (Flash Comics #66, Henry Kuttner, though all were drawn by Mart Aug.-Sept. 1945) Nodell. [© DC Comics.] before deciding comics are not the medium for him. Henry Kuttner, a seasoned fantasy writer who contributed to the Cthulhu Mythos tales in the classic horror pulp Weird Tales, adjusts far better. He hits the ground running with two stories for Green Lantern #12 (Summer 1944), one a slapstick farce complete with villains in drag, the other the deadly serious introduction of The Gambler. Kuttner’s GL and Doiby have a mellower relationship than Bester’s, and he is far more interested in Alan Scott’s radio career than Bester, who rarely even mentions GL’s day job. Neither writer will remain with comics for long. Kuttner’s last script is for Green Lantern #22 (Oct.-Nov. 1946), Bester’s for #26 (June-July 1947).

End Of An Era 1947 is the year that everything begins to change for the super-heroes of the former All-American Comics, as Sheldon Mayer’s staff and titles are fully absorbed into the newly rechristened National Comic Publications, Inc., which (in its DC incarnation) had Henry Kuttner purchased AA two years earlier. Mart (1915-1958) is remembered Nodell and E. E. Hibbard depart for primarily for science-fiction the more lucrative world of adverand fantasy novels and stories, many written with tising, where both enjoy long and his wife C.L. Moore under successful careers. Gardner Fox takes a the joint pseudonym “Lewis sabbatical from super-hero comics to Padgett.” try his hand at prose fiction (and for other comics companies besides National/DC), his last “Hawkman” script appearing in Flash Comics #80 (Feb. 1947), his last “Flash” story in All-Flash #28 (AprilMay 1947). And in the spring of ’48, Mayer himself steps down

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

A Cavalcade Of Talent Three artists and two writers who rose to prominence in the latter days of DC’s Golden Age.

Comic Cavalcade #29 (Oct.-Nov. 1948) Artist Lee Elias (top left; 1920-1998) and writer Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) contributed The Flash’s clash with Star Sapphire to the final super-hero issue of the extra-size anthology title Comic Cavalcade. For its first 29 issues, CC’s cover stars were Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern; beginning with #30 they were replaced

by The Fox & the Crow, Nutsy Squirrel, et al. How the mighty had fallen! [© DC Comics.]

Comic Cavalcade #26 (April-May 1948) Artist Carmine Infantino (1925-2013) drew both “Flash” and “Green Lantern” tales near the end of the Golden Age—though most of the latter were never printed. This story was reportedly also inked by Infantino.

Script by Robert Kanigher. Photo detail courtesy of J. David Spurlock, from their 2001 Vanguard Prod. book Carmine Infantino: An Autobiography. [© DC Comics.]

Comic Cavalcade #22 (Aug-Sept. 1947) Writer John Broome (above left, 1913-1999), talked by his one-time SF literary agent Schwartz into writing for DC, teamed up with artist Howard Purcell (above right, 1918-1981) on a pair of “Green Lantern” stories. Photo of Broome from the Julius Schwartz Collection; photo of Purcell courtesy of Mike Catron. [© DC Comics.]

13

14

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

spare, dramatic style that will make him one of the top comics talents of the 1950s.

Infantino, Elias, Jon Chester Kozlak, and Howard Purcell also draw “Green Lantern” installments.

Everett Raymond Kinstler (b. 1926) would move in the 1950s from comics into illustration and portrait-painting. He was interviewed by Jim Amash in A/E #81.

Thanks to Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., author of the hardcover Everett Raymond Kinstler: The Artist’s Journey through Culture 1942-1962.

A pair of “Hawkman” stories feature what may be the best art ever seen in the AA line, the work of Everett Raymond Kinstler, an illustrator with a sensitive brushline who will go on to become a top portraitist, his subjects including two sitting Presidents. Kozlak, Paul Reinman, and Bob Oksner will also pencil episodes, but the majority of the strip’s art duties continue to fall to Joe Kubert.

Robert Kanigher, a writer with years of experience in and out of the industry who has been handling the “Wonder Woman” series since before its creator’s death in 1947, assumes the scripting on all three top features after Bester’s and Fox’s departures.

He is joined by John Broome, a former

Fit To Be Tide “Everett Raymond”—pen name of E.R. Kinstler—drew “Hawkman” in Flash Comics #87 (Sept-Oct. 1947), and did it superbly. Thanks to Al Dellinges. [© DC Comics.]

from his editorial position to return to cartooning full-time, leaving his books in the competent hands of Julius Schwartz.

Neither an artist nor a lifelong comics fan, Schwartz has a markedly different editorial style from Mayer, and, even before being officially passed the reins, he has assumed more control over the storylines of AA’s adventure titles in the later days of Mayer’s editorship. Now, under Mayer and/or Schwartz, overtly comedic characters like Winky, Blinky, and Noddy are phased out, the Dimwits taking their last bows in All-Flash #29 (June-July 1947).

The outgoing cartoonists Hibbard, Nodell, and Naydel (gone after All-Flash #29) are replaced by a new generation of artists, many of them stylistically influenced by Milton Caniff, brilliant writer/artist of the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon newspaper strips.

Among the very best of these is British-born Lee Elias, already making a name for himself at rival publisher Fiction House, whose lively staging and juicy ink line enhance every series he lends himself to. Carmine Infantino has been freelancing since he was 15, with credits at Timely, Quality, Fawcett, and Holyoke. He and Elias will pencil most of the forthcoming “Flash” episodes, with occasional fill-ins by Joe Kubert and Irwin Hasen. Now mustered out of the service, Hasen returns to the “Green Lantern” series with All-American Comics #85 (May 1947), where he will share art duties with Alexander Toth, a newly minted high school graduate still working in a Caniff mode, though he will soon begin to adopt a

A Harlequin Romance Between the two of them, writer Robert Kanigher and artist Irwin Hasen produced an entire issue of Green Lantern (#29, Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948) that contained three separate stories in which GL battled his romantically inclined nemesis, The Harlequin. Other hands inked some of the material, but Hasen is credited with inking this splash page, which also served as the cover illo. [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

15

be joining GL as his permanent partner (but instead, that turns out to be her final Golden Age appearance). It is also Kanigher who introduces Streak the Wonder Dog, Scott’s new pet, a Rin Tin Tin lookalike who soon lands his own back-up series in Green Lantern.

Neither colorful nogoodniks nor precocious canines, however, can save the All-American heroes from the one foe they cannot best: a change in audience tastes.

Despite the best efforts of Schwartz and company, a disastrous postwar downturn in the popularity of costumed super-heroes leads to the cancellations of All-Flash (as of #32, Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948), Flash Comics (#104, Feb. 1949), and Green Lantern (#38, MayJune 1949). Comic Cavalcade becomes a funny animal title following the 29th issue (Oct.-Nov. 1948), and All-American switches to an allWestern format as of #103 (Nov. 1948). The characters live on as “Justice Society” members for a couple of years, until the horseand-six-guns crowd take over All-Star, too. The Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman slip into pop culture oblivion … or so it seems at the time.

Not A Ghost Of A Chance In the penultimate issue of Flash Comics (#103, Jan. 1949), Hawkman battled his mysterious foe The Ghost for a final time—but nothing could stave off cancellation of the title after #104. Art by Joe Kubert; script probably by Robert Kanigher, who had written all previous Ghost stories. Thanks to Al Dellinges. [© DC Comics.]

Julius Schwartz client, who takes to comics like the proverbial duck to water. Although both writers are versatile and provide a balanced mix of plotlines, their work in this period is best remembered for the proliferation of new costumed villains they concoct.

The Fiddler, whose musical virtuosity is literally magical; the extradimensional empress Star Sapphire; and The Thorn, a shy botanist unaware of her homicidal alter ego, are Kanigher creations. So are Hawkman’s only recurring nemesis, The Ghost, who may or not be the phantom he appears to be, and Green Lantern’s frosty foe, The Icicle. Broome contributes a quartet of memorable antagonists for the Lantern in the persons of The SkyPirate, whose flying pirate ship is really a disguised dirigible; Crusher Crock, a corrupt athlete who later becomes the costumed Sportsmaster; The Fool, a seeming simpleton in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit; and Knodar, the Last Criminal, an escaped convict from the 26th century.

Then there is The Harlequin, a villainess so popular with her cocreators, Kanigher and Hasen, and with readers that she virtually takes over the “Green Lantern” strip. Molly Maynne is Alan Scott’s secretary, who first becomes the bespectacled Harlequin merely to attract the Lantern’s attention. After a year’s worth of confrontations, captures, and escapes, she is finally (and illogically) revealed as an undercover FBI agent in a story that implies Harlequin will

A Landmark Drawing May we confess something? Fond as Roy Thomas is of the cover of this issue of A/E, derived as it is from the original art of Arthur Peddy (or Irwin Hasen) & Bernard Sachs’ cover for All-Star Comics #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1949)—well, if he’d had his druthers, our drawing up front would have been the one above, in which the Golden Age art has been altered by our able “maskot” artist Shane Foley to show the Silver Age Flash and Green Lantern instead of Wonder Woman—and then the whole magilla’s been ably colored by Larry Guidry. Still, we’re happy to be able to feature that colorful art here so we can all enjoy it… and that’s really what comics are all about, right? [Flashes & Green Lanterns TM & © DC Comics.]

16

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

Last Stand As chance would have it, the final lone exploits of both The Flash and Green Lantern occurred in their “solo” chapters in the final Golden Age issue of All-Star Comics (#57, Feb.-March 1951). “Flash” art penciled by Arthur Peddy (see next article in this very issue of A/E) & inked by Bernard Sachs; “GL” art by Frank Giacoia. Script by John Broome. [© DC Comics.]

A Brief Interlude To fans of the All-American heroes, All-Star Comics #57 marks the end of the Golden Age. Only Wonder Woman remains, her two solo titles continuing publication uninterrupted. She, Superman, Batman, and Robin, along with a handful of back-of-the-book second-stringers, survive both the sales slump and the bad press created by psychologist Frederic Wertham’s incendiary anti-comics book, Seduction of the Innocent, and a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating the perceived excesses of the industry. The subsequent creation of the Comics Code Authority in January 1955 suggests to the powers that be at National that the time might be ripe for a colorful, wholesome, new super-doer or two.

Since the bottom fell out of the super-hero market, Julius Schwartz and his bullpen have focused their attention on other genres, including Westerns and science-fiction. Strange Adventures (its first issue cover dated Aug.-Sept. 1950) and Mystery in Space (April-May 1951) feature the kind of space opera that dominated the SF pulps of the 1930s, updated for a new generation with an emphasis on eye-catching visuals. Even before the imposition of the CCA, their contents are in good taste and suitable for all ages.

Schwartz, who continues to co-plot with his scripters, often begins with an issue’s cover, creating an intriguing situation bound to grab a young browser’s attention, then building a story around it.

It is in these comics that the seeds of the coming super-hero revival can be seen.

A Bolt from the Blue Barry Allen, a forensics specialist for the Central City Police Department’s Scientific Detection Bureau, is working in his laboratory during a thunderstorm when a bolt of lightning strikes his workbench, saturating him in an esoteric mix of electrified chemicals. It isn’t long before Barry realizes that the accident has endowed him with superhuman speed, a secret he conceals from his girlfriend, Picture News reporter Iris West. Inspired by the four-color career of his favorite comic book hero, the young scientist devises a colorful costume and begins fighting crime as … The Flash!

Frank Giacoia (1924-1988) did relatively little penciling after the Golden Age, transitioning to becoming one of the most sought-after inkers in the field. This relatively late photo is from FOOM Magazine #3 (Fall 1973).

It may be Julius Schwartz, or it may be someone else, who at a DC Comics editorial meeting first suggests reviving “The Flash” for the fourth issue of the company’s new try-out title Showcase. Be that as it may, assigned-editor Schwartz makes a crucial decision: he sees no point in simply bringing back Jay Garrick. Jay had his

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

Detritus From A Golden Age (Clockwise from top left:) Two panels from a never-published circa-1949 “Flash” story in which the Scarlet Speedster encountered King Arthur in the modern era. Penciled by Carmine Infantino; inker & scripter uncertain. All you see of The Flash in these two panels is speed lines! Thanks to Dominic Bongo.

The original art of the splash page of a leftover “Green Lantern” tale penciled by Infantino and inked by Bernard Sachs. This yarn was originally intended for GL #39, but the series was canceled with #38 and it was finally printed in its entirety in the 2nd-series Green Lantern #88 (Feb.-March 1972). Scripter unknown. Thanks to ComicLink site.

The same “entrepreneur” who tried to sell an ersatz Golden Age Green Lantern #40 on eBay (see p. 9) also tried to unload a fake #39, allegedly published in 1949, utilizing a Paul Reinman splash page from a couple of years earlier.

Thanks to Jerry K. Boyd. [© DC Comics.]

A Flash Of Silver…

(Left:) Because the Silver Age “Flash,” “Green Lantern,” and “Hawkman” stories have all been reprinted in various editions, including (but hardly limited to) full-color hardcover Archive editions, we won’t reprint that many pages from such issues in conjunction with this article—but there’s no way we could forgo spotlighting the sensational Carmine Infantino/Joe Kubert cover of Showcase #4 (Sept.Oct. 1956), which introduced a new Flash for a new generation. [© DC Comics.]

(Right:) A pencil sketch of The Flash by Infantino, owned by Michael Dunne.

Thanks to Michael for sharing it. [Flash TM & © DC Comics.]

17

18

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

run. According to the received wisdom of the era, the audience for comics turns over every four or five years, so few readers will even remember Jay, let alone be clamoring for his return. Carmine Infantino is assigned to be the penciler.

Schwartz and Kanigher agree on a plotline, Kanigher bangs it out, and Schwartz hands it to Infantino to illustrate. Little do the trio suspect they are launching what will come to be known as the Silver Age of Comics. Joe Kubert inks Infantino’s pencils for Showcase #4.

Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct. 1956), on sale in July, sells Gil Kane’s “Green Lantern” cover for well enough to justify a Showcase #22 (Sept.-Oct. 1959). Although second “Flash” try-out in #8 Joe Giella is often given credit for inking this cover, experts say that the “G” & “K” (May-June 1957); its sellin the signature are the way Kane signed through, in turn, prompts his work in those days when he inked as two more (#13-14, Marchwell as penciled it. [© DC Comics.]

April and May-June 1958).

Each issue features one story scripted by John Broome, and one by Bob Kanigher. The latter’s Flash has a harder edge than Broome’s: he deliberately destroys an enemy submarine in #13 and wipes out an interdimensional invasion fleet in #14. More typical of the strip’s future, however, are Broome’s tales of Captain Cold and Mr. Element, the earliest of the cast of colorful costumed villains soon to be known collectively as the Rogues Gallery. The art plays a central role in the strip’s appeal. The new Flash’s streamlined, crimson-tinged-withyellow-lightning costume and the stroboscopic effect used to depict him in super-motion give the series a fresh, modern look. No longer one Caniff disciple among many, Infantino has developed an exciting, eccentric, expressionistic style that at times borders on the abstract. His pages, designed to guide the reader’s eye from panel to panel, use negative space in a way few comic artists before or since have attempted.

…And A Flash Of Green

24 hours at a lantern (now a power battery), and recites the “In brightest day, in blackest night …” oath while doing so, but everything else about the original character has been stripped away. Schwartz and his creative team, writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane, eschew the magical trappings of the Nodell/Finger version in favor of one of the greatest science-fiction concepts to ever appear in comics: fearless test pilot Hal Jordan is chosen by a dying alien to take his place as a member of the elite intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.

Gil Kane (1926-2000) had drawn a backup feature or two in the original All-Star Comics, but it was with his work on the Green Lantern and The Atom series that he emerged as a major Silver Age artist.

Gil Kane, nee Eli Katz, has been working in comics since his teens, most recently as penciler of the Western strip “Johnny Thunder” and the long-running animal series Rex the Wonder Dog. His experience on Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, where he polishes his signature approach to science-fiction, makes him the ideal artist for “Green Lantern.” His intelligent layouts and animated figure work in the Showcase run are accented by the light touch of Joe Giella, who will remain the series’ main inker through Green Lantern #28 (April 1964), periodically spelled by Murphy Anderson. The evolution of Kane’s style over the course of his tenure, from the quiet house look of Showcase #22-24 to the wild dynamics of his work in the late ‘60s, will be one of many reasons his Green Lantern issues are considered definitive.

By the end of his Showcase tryout, it is clear that the new GL is the most powerful DC super-hero not born on Krypton. In those three issues alone, Jordan uses his power ring to fly, levitate an entire mountain, follow a radiation trail, probe another’s subconscious, travel in outer space, translate alien languages, create a force field capable of resisting an atomic blast, transmute matter, and create objects out of solidified light, the feat that will become his specialty. Raw power is not GL’s only advantage. Hal is also intelligent, imaginative, resourceful, and daring. He is not,

When the final sales figures come in, National executives realize they have a hit. The Flash #105 (Feb.-March 1959), its numbering continued from the old Flash Comics, appears on the newsstands in December just in time for Christmas, the first DC super-hero to be awarded his own title since Superboy in 1949.

Beware My Power The success of the new “Flash” leads inevitably to a second Golden Age revival. Like the Scarlet Speedster, the Green Lantern who debuts in Showcase #22 (Sept.-Oct. 1959) bears only a superficial resemblance to his predecessor. He still wields a power ring, charges it every

Two For The Price Of Two This 1960 house ad from, among other places, Strange Adventures #20, ballyhooed both on-sale issues of The Flash and Green Lantern, with cover pencils by Infantino and Kane. Thanks to the former Golden Age Comic Book Stories website. [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

however, invincible—due to a “necessary impurity” in the composition of the ring, Green Lantern’s power has no effect on anything yellow. Cocky and extroverted, Hal Jordan provides a vivid contrast to steady, square Barry Allen. He embraces the sudden celebrity being GL affords him. Early episodes find him lionized at cocktail parties and dating Coast City’s most desirable women, a far cry from the carefully guarded public personas of Batman or Superman.

19

Mike Sekowsky (1923-1989) is primarily identified with numerous issues he penciled of Justice League of America—but he would also briefly be the artist of the Green Lantern title. This photo is from 1969-70.

The bright optimism of the new “Flash” and “Green Lantern” strips resonates with comics readers of the nascent Space Age. Just one month after Showcase #24 hits the newsstands, GL and Flash play central roles in Julius Schwartz’s third Golden Age revival, joining Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and The Martian Manhunter as charter members of the “Justice League of America” (The Brave and the Bold #28, February-March 1960). Scripted by Gardner Fox and penciled by the underappreciated Mike Sekowsky, this updated version of the Justice Society of America is an immediate hit. By the summer of 1960, which begins with Green Lantern #1 (July-Aug.) and closes with Justice League of America #1 (Oct.-Nov.), Schwartz and his staff have turned the comics industry on its ear. (For further information on our heroes’ careers with the JLA, see TwoMorrows’ The Justice League Companion.)

Wheet! Wheet!

At first glance, Julius Schwartz’s next project looks more like a resurrection than a reimagining. His new Hawkman and Hawkgirl wear essentially the same costumes as their Golden Age predecessors, have the same civilian identities, speak the language of birds, and arm themselves with ancient weapons. Moreover, the new series is scripted by Gardner Fox, co-creator of the originals, and illustrated

by Joe Kubert, the old series’ main artist for the second half of its Flash Comics run.

By page 2 of The Brave and the Bold #34 (Feb.-March 1961), however, any sense of déjà vu is negated. “Creature of a Thousand Shapes” introduces us to Katar Hol and Shayera Thal, married police officers of the distant planet Thanagar, a virtual utopia where crime is committed solely for the thrill of it. Sent to Earth in pursuit of the shapeshifting Thanagarian criminal, Byth, the Winged Warriors assume the cover identities of Tunnel Vision Midway City Museum Joe Kubert’s magnificent cover for curators Carter and Shiera The Brave and the Bold #34 (Feb.-March Hall with the help of Police 1961) ushered in a new but familiar Commissioner George Hawkman—not to mention Hawkgirl.

Emmett, the only human in [© DC Comics.]

More Starros Than There Are In Heaven…

The first and iconic “Justice League of America” cover was done for The Brave and the Bold #28 (Feb.-March 1960) by Mike Sekowsky, penciler, and Murphy Anderson, inker. With the new Flash and Green Lantern as two of its five cover stars, it was the culmination of a revival/revolution wrought by editor Julius Schwartz. Seen here is the blockbuster ad that knocked the socks off a lot of comics fans in late 1959! Thanks to the since-renamed Golden Age Comic Book Stories website. [© DC Comics.]

on the secret of their alien origin. After capturing Byth, the Hols are assigned to Earth to learn our police methods.

The new “Hawkman” strip has a lot going for it, not least of which is the art. In the years since Flash Comics #104, Kubert’s work has evolved (Roy Thomas will aptly describe it in Alter Ego, Vol. 2, #1, as “blend[ing] realism, grace, and dynamism in a perfect marriage of style and substance”). His flowing linework, emotive figures, and impressionistic backgrounds bring a different look to the Schwartz line-up. Fox’s scripts feature a heady mix of space opera leavened with subterranean wonderlands, hidden races, and lost cities. Super-menaces add additional flavor—villains like The Matter Master, a costumed alchemist whose “mentachem” wand works miracles of transmutation; Konrad Kaslak, the museum’s consultant on occultism turned power-hungry sorcerer; The Shadow Thief, able to make his body immaterial thanks to the “dimensiometer,” a gift from an alien scientist unaware of the Earthman’s criminal tendencies; and The Manhawks, a band of intelligent alien birds, raiders who loot first Thanagar, then Earth.

The chemistry between Katar and Shayera is another high point of the revamp, Fox giving the couple a warm, mature relationship unlike anything previously seen in a DC comic. The scenes he and

20

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

Whirlwind Adventures A new inker joins the creative team of Julius Schwartz, John Broome, and Carmine Infantino for the first issue of The Flash. Joe Giella’s delicate penwork enhances the airy openness of Infantino’s layouts while tempering his sometimes harsh angularity. The duo provides the art for most issues through #166 (Dec. 1966), with sporadic fill-ins by Carmine’s “Adam Strange” inker, Murphy Anderson.

A Hawk’s-Eye View Though Kubert’s initial stay on the Silver Age “Hawkman” lasted a mere six issues, he was always happy to draw the Hawks for fans.

His 1976 commission featuring The Shadow Thief from The Brave and the Bold #36 (June-July 1961), seen above, was printed in color as the cover of Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #4—while the Hawkgirl sketch at right was retrieved from the online Palantine News Network. For more of Kubert’s Hawkman, see A/E’s Kubert special, issue #116, still available from TwoMorrows. [Hawkman, Shadow Thief, & Hawkgirl TM & © DC Comics.]

Kubert craft of our heroes’ domestic lives, on Earth and on Thanagar, are delightful, off-setting the sometimes stiff characterization they’ve given Katar. A running gag centers on naturalist Mavis Trent repeatedly and fruitlessly throwing herself at Carter, as Shiera looks on with a combination of annoyance and amusement. Her confidence is warranted. This Hawkgirl, unlike her 1940s counterpart, is a full and equal partner to Hawkman, proving every bit as intelligent, athletic, and courageous as her husband while remaining thoroughly female, the ultimate incarnation of the independent career women Schwartz likes his heroes involved with. She deserves equal billing, and had the strip been created in a later decade she might have had it.

Much to the surprise of all concerned, the three-issue tryout in The Brave and the Bold #34-36 does not sell well enough to justify a Hawkman title. A second “Hawkman” stand in Brave & Bold #42-44 (June-July through Oct.-Nov. 1962) fares no better, despite maintaining the same high quality of the earlier run. Schwartz believes in the strip, however, and waits for another opportunity to convince readers to share his enthusiasm.

The best part of the new Flash comic is the villains. Many members of the Rogues Gallery are admittedly interchangeable, eccentric crooks with no inherent super-powers, differentiated from each other largely by the gimmick they employ (mirror, boomerang, top) and the color scheme of their costume. Still, John Broome gives each some nuance of characterization that makes readers want to see them again. Captain Cold falls in love with random women. Mr. Element, who sometimes uses the identity Dr. Alchemy, is an unstable scientist who eventually goes straight with The Flash’s aid. The Master of Mirrors, later The Mirror Master, is such a thorough rotter that he feels compelled to steal even after becoming the pampered prince of a planet populated by paragons of pulchri… er, by gorgeous women. James Jesse, a.k.a. The Trickster, is a former circus aerialist who hero-worships his reverse namesake, Jesse James, yet insists “I’m not a mean man.” Captain Boomerang is a cocky Aussie con man obsessed with his reputation. The Pied Piper, The Weather Wizard, The Top, Heat Wave: each receives his own individual tic and distinctive look.

Schwartz, Broome, and Infantino, their tongues in cheek, depict these colorful oddballs as supreme egotists, competing to see who can pull the most spectacular crime or devise the cleverest death trap for their speedy nemesis. Whether on their own, paired up, or acting in unison, the Rogues provide both thrills and laughs.

Three villains stand apart from these costumed kooks, a trio of super-powered menaces who will become Flash’s most determined, most dangerous enemies. Grodd, a.k.a. Gorilla Grodd, a.k.a.

Super-Gorilla Grodd, is a sociopath from the hidden African realm of Gorilla City, a scientifically advanced society of simians. His psychic powers, coupled with a genius intellect and inhuman strength, make him one of the Crimson Comet’s most formidable foes. Abra Kadabra, a time-traveling stage magician from the 64th century who desperately craves fame and applause, uses the advanced science of his era to simulate magic in our own. Most treacherous of all is Professor Zoom, also called The Reverse-Flash.

A science teacher in his native 25th century, Eobard Thawne uses the remaining energies in Flash’s surviving costume to give himself

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

21

Flash Facts (Left:) An Infantino splash page from The Flash #111 (Feb.-March 1960), inked by Murphy Anderson.

Script by John Broome. Thanks to Bob Bailey.

(Right:) Joe Giella inked most of Infantino’s classic Flash work, including the ill-fated attempt in issue #117 (Dec. 1960) to bring back the Three Dimwits as comedy relief. Script by Gardner Fox. Thanks to William Colosimo. [© DC Comics.]

Murphy Anderson (b. 1926) had been the artist of the Buck Rogers newspaper comic strip in the 1950s, and was a top artist on DC’s science-fiction titles. He would become the first penciler and inker of the Hawkman title.

super-speed. As fast as the Scarlet Speedster and infatuated with Iris West, Zoom’s clashes with his heroic adversary are epic … and personal.

Fortunately, The Flash has no shortage of super-heroic help. Iris’ teenage nephew, Wally West, gains speed powers under circumstances identical to those that befell Barry Allen and, with Flash’s encouragement, assumes the identity of Kid Flash in The Flash #110 (Dec. 1959-Jan. 1960).

More independent operative than juvenile sidekick, Wally will star in his own back-up series beginning the following issue, while also frequently teaming with his mentor.

Another ally is The Elongated Man, introduced in #112 (May-June 1960), a sideshow performer named Ralph Dibny able to stretch his body to fantastic lengths. One of the few super-heroes of the era without a secret identity, Ralph soon lands his own long-running solo series in the back of Detective Comics. Schwartz also pairs Flash with Green Lantern in a series of stories that create a bond between the Justice League teammates like that between Superman and Batman, right down to the exchange of secret identities.

The Flash #123 (Sept. 1961), featuring the first modern appearance of Jay Garrick, the Joe Giella Golden Age Flash, is a landmark issue by any measure. Using the old science-fiction (b. 1928) got his start as an inker in the late standby of parallel realities, Julius Schwartz Golden Age, and was a and guest scripter Gardner Fox explain that major DC embellisher Barry and the Justice Leaguers live on during the Silver Age. “Earth-One,” while Jay and his Justice He currently draws the Society cohorts live on “Earth-Two.” The Mary Worth newspaper two Scarlet Speedsters battle side by side strip. Thanks to Joe and many times, in the pages of Flash and in the son Frank. annual JLA/JSA crossovers in Justice League of America, beginning with #21-22 (Aug. and Sept. 1963) of that title. (For more detailed information about the Silver Age adventures of the Earth-Two heroes, see my articles in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #93-94.)

Of the initial seventy-five issues of The Flash penciled by cocreator Carmine Infantino (including the four Showcase issues and the all-reprint Flash Annual #1), all but four feature a super-villain, a guest hero, or both. With two stories featured in most early issues, there is room for enough alien encounters, interdimensional journeys, bizarre transformations, spy rings, and mobsters to alleviate any potential monotony. Nor do Broome and Infantino

22

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

A Bit Of Support (Above:) The Elongated Man was introduced as a sometime supporting character in The Flash #112 (May-June 1960). Script by Broome; pencils by Infantino; inks by Giella.

(Above right:) A year or so after his debut in The Flash #110, Kid Flash got his own distinctive costume. Seen here is a splash page from issue #173 (Sept. 1967).

Script by Fox; pencils by Infantino; inks by Sid Greene. Thanks to Bob Bailey for both scans. [© DC Comics.]

neglect the strip’s growing supporting cast. We meet Dr. and Mrs. Allen, Barry’s parents, and his childhood sweetheart, movie actress Daphne Dean. Iris’ father, the spectacularly absent-minded Professor T. H. (later Ira) West, comes close to uncovering Barry’s secret identity more than once. Dexter Myles, a destitute Shakespearean actor befriended by Kid Flash, eventually turns tour guide at the Flash Museum, a gift to the Fastest Man Alive from the grateful citizens of Central City. Steady sales and enthusiastic reader feedback via the title’s letters column, “Flash-Grams,” suggest that if The Flash is formulaic, it is a winning formula.

First Among Equals One of the greatest delights of the new “Green Lantern” series is the slow unfolding of the complex world Julius Schwartz, John

Two Flashes—Two Foes Two things associated with the Silver Age Flash title are his “Rogues Gallery” of super-villains… and the return of the Golden Age Flash, who lived in an alternate dimension (“Earth-Two”) and became Barry Allen’s friend. Both aspects of the feature were on prominent display in The Flash #129 (June 1962), the second team-up of the “Flashes of Two Worlds” who had first met in #123 (Sept. 1961). Thanks to Bob Bailey. [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

23

anti-matter universe where evil is the norm and goodness an aberration, Sinestro returns repeatedly in his relentless campaign to destroy the Guardians and the GLC.

Boy, Does Somebody Leave A Big Carbon Footprint!

Not quite Infantino—and not quite not Infantino—this cover of the Brazilian issue #17 of its reprinting of The Flash is signed “Baron”… but, some oldtime fans will instantly recognize, it’s based on the splash panel of the story “Land of Golden Giants” in The Flash #120 (May 1961). Reproduced from a scan of the original art, with thanks to Mike Burkey. [© DC Comics.]

In addition to the Corps, GL has not one but three sets of supporting characters to interact with. The first is his friends at Ferris Aircraft, “Eskimo greasemonkey” Thomas “Pieface” Kalmaku and Carol Ferris, Hal’s beautiful boss and the object of his affections (Carol, naturally, prefers the glamorous Green Lantern to plain old Hal, making our True To The Corps hero his own romantic rival).

The cover of the Silver Age Green Lantern Pieface becomes the Lantern’s #6 (May-June 1961) featured several confidante and amanuensis, aliens of the Green Lantern Corps who learning his secret identity policed the cosmos under the command (#2, Sept.-Oct. 1960), posing of the Guardians of the Universe. as both GL and Hal to protect Pencils by Gil Kane; inks by Joe Giella. that secret, and compiling a [© DC Comics.] casebook of the Emerald Gladiator’s adventures.

Brave, smart, and resourceful, Thomas plays a key role in GL’s early success even after marrying his childhood sweetheart, Terga, in #11 (March 1962). The second supporting cast lives in the 58th century, where in times of crisis Dasor, chairman of the High Council of Solar Delegates, and his secretary, the lovely Iona Vane, summon GL from the past to assume the fictitious identity of Solar Director Pol Manning, beginning in Green Lantern #8 (Sept.-Oct. 1961). The third set of cast members is the Jordan family, first seen in #9 (Nov.-Dec. 1961). One of the rare super-heroes with siblings, Hal co-stars with his older brother, district attorney Jack, and younger brother, public relations whiz Jim, in a series of amusing stories centered largely on reporter Sue Williams’ suspicions that Jim Jordan is Green Lantern, suspicions she retains even after they marry and have baby Howie. Along the way we meet the brothers’

Broome, and Gil Kane create for their fledgling Emerald Crusader.

While every episode can be understood and enjoyed in its own right, the through line of the early issues—Hal Jordan learning just what wielding a power ring means—keeps readers coming back to learn alongside him. In Showcase #23 (Nov.-Dec. 1959), Hal receives orders through the power battery, sending him on his first mission to another planet. We meet the intelligence behind those orders, The Guardians of the Universe, in Green Lantern #1. A race of identical immortals inhabiting Oa, a planet at the exact center of the universe, the Guardians do not reveal themselves to Hal until #7 (July-Aug. 1961). In Green Lantern #6 (May-June 1961), GL teams for the first time with a fellow Corpsman, a humanoid bird named Tomar-Re. With each subsequent encounter with other Lanterns, Hal begins to appreciate what a wild diversity of lifeforms the Corps encompasses: insects, living What Kind Of Fowl Is On The Menu? crystals, robots, plants, blobs, and other creatures that Pretty much all of the non-criminal cast of the early Green Lantern issues appears in this elude easy description, all beautifully imagined by Kane. panel from the final page of the story “Wings of Destiny!” in #7 (July-Aug. 1961): Any thought of idealizing the Corps is cured after Jordan Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan (a.k.a. GL), and Terga and Thomas (“Pieface”) Komalku. Script meets Sinestro, the renegade Green Lantern who will

by Broome; pencils by Kane; inks by Giella. Thanks to Bob Bailey. Belying this bland dinner become his arch-enemy. Wielding a yellow power ring scene, the story itself had a clever touch: a dream Hal is having causes his Power Ring given him by the Weaponers of Qward, warlords from an to turn Tom/Pieface into a seagull, because the mechanic has always wanted to “fly like a bird.” Thanks to Steven Willis for the art. [© DC Comics.]

24

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

Anybody Want A Used Star Sapphire?

The Golden Age Star Sapphire was an antagonist of The Flash. In the Silver Age, Carol Ferris became a different (but still villainous) Star Sapphire—and her enemy was Green Lantern! The cover of issue #14 (Oct. 1962) was penciled by Kane and inked by Murphy Anderson. John Broome wrote the story inside.

In Mexico, “Linterna Verde” (“Green Lantern”) was one of several heroes, including “The Flash,” that alternated as the featured star of the Batman comic. The Kane/Anderson cover of Batman #223 (dated 18 June, 1964) was recycled from Green Lantern #19 (March 1963) of the U.S. edition. Thanks to Fred Patten. [© DC Comics.]

On the right is a later pencil sketch Gil Kane drew of Green Lantern, which eventually wound up being auctioned off by Heritage Comics. [Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics.]

uncles, respected judge Jeremiah and terrible-tempered architect Titus, and their scapegrace cousin from Tennessee, Douglas “Hip” Jordan.

Guest stars are less frequent in Green Lantern than in The Flash, perhaps because the Corps serves a similar narrative function.

Thus, Hal teams with the grasshopper-like Xax of Xaos and the beautiful Katma Tui, Sinestro’s successor as GL of Korugar, as well as sharing more cases with Tomar-Re. The Flash, reciprocating the Lantern’s appearances in his title, guests in a trio of issues. Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, also joins his Earth-One counterpart in several adventures, one of which finds the irrepressible Doiby Dickles chosen as the royal consort to Princess Ramia of the planet Myrg.

And, of course, there are the super-villains, each as quirky as the baddies John Broome concocts for The Flash: Hector Hammond, a smooth-talking con man later transformed into a macrocephalic super-intelligence, immortal but immobile; Bito Wladon, a.k.a.

Sonar, a fanatic bent on making his postage stamp-sized homeland of Modora a world power whether that nation likes it or not; Dr. Polaris, the malevolent master of magnetism who is actually schizophrenic philanthropist Neal Emerson; The Shark, an atomically mutated tiger shark who derives pleasure from stalking humans in general and GL in particular; Black Hand, the embittered scion of a distinguished family who incessantly talks in clichés; and Star Sapphire, Carol Ferris transformed into a superhuman powerhouse by the alien warrior women known as the Zamarons, whose fondest wish is to defeat the Lantern in battle and force him to

marry her. The actions of one foe in particular, Krona, an ancient Oan obsessed with learning forbidden secrets of the universe’s origin, will shake the entire DC Universe twenty years down the line.

Gardner Fox, who spells Broome on the title for several months and then continues to contribute scripts intermittently, also offers up a brace of memorable villains, including The Tattooed Man, a merchant mariner whose enchanted body art comes to life; Myrwhydden, a wicked wizard imprisoned inside the power ring

by Hal’s predecessor; Evil Star, an alien warlord whose wrist-worn star band is “the most powerful weapon in the universe”; the catastrophe-causing Major Disaster; and Goldface, whose armor of solid gold protects him from GL’s emerald energy. Despite such daunting adversaries, Green Lantern seems to be sitting on top of the world, little dreaming of the shocking betrayal about to shatter his perfect life.

Winged Wonders After a year’s absence broken only by a guest appearance in The Atom #7 (June-July 1963), Hawkman and Hawkgirl alight in the back pages of Mystery in Space #87 (Nov. 1963) in a story that crosses over with that issue’s “Adam Strange” feature. Too busy with his stellar work for Robert Kanigher’s war titles to continue as artist, Joe Kubert passes the torch to Murphy Anderson. Anderson, whose credits include a two-year stretch on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip and the “Atomic Knights” series in Strange Adventures, has a classic, illustrative style known for its meticulous

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

25

figure construction, detailed backgrounds, and polished finish. His gift for depicting the Hawks against breathtaking vistas, using tall or wide panels to emphasize the freedom of flight, serves Fox’s imaginative scripts well. The change seems to do the trick.

After a four-issue run in MiS, the Pinioned Paladin is finally awarded his own bi-monthly series with Hawkman #1 (AprilMay 1964).

The early issues of the new title are a tour de force by Gardner Fox and Anderson. The Hawks’ exploits send them to exotic locations all over Earth, to Thanagar and other planets, to sub-atomic universes, and to parallel worlds, pitting them against winged gorillas, moth-men, intelligent lizards from outer space, ice giants, and figures from Greek mythology. Fox does not forsake super-villainy, introducing I. Q., a petty crook made super-intelligent by an alien stone; Chac,

Hawkman Finally Wins His Wings!

Two Silver Age Hawkman firsts—after, of course, his debut in The Brave and the Bold #34: (Top left:) The new Feathered Fury got the cover spot when he took over half of the Mystery in Space title with #87 (Nov. 1963)… with a relatively Earthbound adventure. Art in this spot and the next by Murphy Anderson.

(Above:) Partly because of WWII-era paper restrictions, the Golden Age “Hawkman” feature never received its own solo magazine—but the Silver Age Hawkman #1 debuted with an April-May 1964 cover date, soon after this full-page house ad appeared in various DC Comics. Thanks to the Golden Age Comic Book Stories website. [© DC Comics.]

an immortal Mayan chieftain armed with extraterrestrial weaponry; The Shrike, the winged prince of another world raised from infancy by Amazonian Indians; and Lion-Mane, an archaeologist turned savage cat-man. Several issues focus on the Hawks’ bouts with C.A.W. (The Criminal Alliance of the World), another of the ubiquitous super-spy organizations spawned by the mid-’60s James Bond craze. Past foes like the Manhawks, Matter Master, and Shadow Thief return as well, but sci-fi and fantasy remain the strip’s bread and butter.

Let’s Be Original!

Anderson’s cover for Hawkman #16 (Oct.-Nov. 1966), reproduced from a scan of the original art. Courtesy of dealer Mike Burkey, whose ads will be found in this issue on pp. 43 & 66. [© DC Comics.]

Hawkman #4 (Oct.-Nov. 1964) introduces Zatanna the Magician, daughter of the Golden Age hero Zatara, and her quest to find her long-missing father, a storyline that will weave through most of Julius Schwartz’s super-hero books before resolving itself in Justice League of America #51 (Feb. 1967). The Atom and Adam Strange also make appearances, but, alas, there is no team-up with the Earth-Two Hawkman and Hawkgirl. The JLA inducts Hawkman in Justice League of America #31 (Nov. 1964).iv In spite of the extra exposure, Hawkman struggles to hold an audience. It doesn’t help

26

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

back in Showcase #4 had not been random, but the work of a bespectacled nebbish in an oversized robe named Mopee, “heavenly helpmate, initiate tenth class.” Reader reaction to Gardner Fox’s It’s a Wonderful Life riff is mixed, at least as reflected in the letters page, but over time the story becomes regarded as one of the biggest misfires in DC history and is eventually deemed apocryphal. This bump in the road notwithstanding, the Flash title proceeds smoothly until #174 (Nov. 1967) and the departure of Carmine Infantino, newly promoted to DC art director.

Green Lantern #49 (Dec. 1966) begins as a lackluster encounter with a new super-foe, The Dazzler, but ends with a bombshell. Learning Carol Ferris is engaged to another man, Hal Jordan quits Ferris Aircraft and leaves his life in Coast City Friends And Foes Alike behind. Heartbroken, his confi(Left:) Green Lantern battles his greatest foe—the renegade Lantern known as Sinestro—on the cover of issue #52 dence shaken, Hal moves north (April 1967). Art by Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson. Thanks to Betty Dobson & Bob Bailey. [© DC Comics.] to Evergreen City, taking jobs as (Right:) A commission drawing of Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Silver Age Atom done by longtime GL inker a charter pilot, an insurance Joe Giella for collector Dominique Leonard. [GL, Hawkman, & Atom TM & © DC Comics.] claims adjuster, and a toy salesman. Only his role as Green that DC begins encouraging its artists to use smaller art boards, Lantern continues to give his life meaning, and he plunges into it hampering Murphy Anderson’s bravura storytelling, or that the with renewed commitment. The best stories of this period focus on intimate scenes of Carter and Shiera’s personal lives that gave the the Green Lantern Corps, such as a two-part battle between the early issues such charm are squeezed out by prolonged action Corps and an army of criminals newly escaped from the scenes. Schwartz, forced to conclude that Fox and Anderson’s time Guardians’ prison planet that leaves several Corpsmen dead (#55is better spent on the new Spectre series, eventually hands responsi56), and the introduction of Guy Gardner, the high school gym bility for Hawkman over to other editorial sensibilities.

The Times, They Are A-Changin’ By the fall of 1966, Julius Schwartz’s once-modern approach to super-heroes is beginning to look old-fashioned, especially compared to upstart competitor Marvel Comics’ line of books. Rather than scrap the story elements that made The Flash and Green Lantern bestsellers in the first place, Schwartz changes his titles’ pacing, stretching out fight sequences at the expense of plot, and adds a touch of soap opera. The look of the line changes, as well. Sid Greene, who has been Gil Kane’s inker since Green Lantern #29 (June 1964), assumes the same duties on Justice League of America as of #45 (June 1966) and The Flash with #167 (Feb. 1967). A staple of Schwartz’s sci-fi titles as both penciler and inker, Greene uses boldly inked outlines and a tastefully applied palette of textures to create depth and clarity.

In The Flash #165 (Nov. 1966), Barry Allen and Iris West wed at last, in a ceremony attended by the entire supporting cast. The happy couple move to the Central City suburbs, and Barry is reassigned to the Labmobile, a van specially equipped for performing forensics in the field. The strip has needed a boost, and the change in status quo is a welcome one. Less so is the bizarre revelation in #167’s “The Real Origin of The Flash” that the lightning bolt that struck Allen

Better Late Than…

A pair of dramatic late covers by the Silver Age heroes’ initial artists: The Flash #159 (March 1966) by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella… and Green Lantern #69 (Oct. 1969)

by Gil Kane & Dick Giordano. Thanks to Betty Dobson. [© DC Comics.]

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

teacher who had been the power ring’s second choice to succeed the dying Abin Sur (#59, March 1968), and who will figure prominently in the Green Lantern mythos in the 1980s and beyond.

Gil Kane, meanwhile, has been growing restless, frustrated by Schwartz and Broome’s emphasis on power ring tricks over the hand-tohand combat sequences he favors. Inspired by the largerColor The Hero Mostly Green than-life fight This “color guide” was prepared in DC’s production choreography of department, under Jack Adler, to instruct the groundbreaking engravers how the cover of Green Lantern #65 (Dec. Marvel artist Jack 1968) should be colored. Art by Mike Sekowsky & Joe Kirby, Kane Giella. Thanks to Anthony Snyder. [© DC Comics.] persuades his collaborators to turn him loose. His pages explode, his figures turning, twisting, slashing across the panels, demonstrating his mastery of human anatomy in action. With Green Lantern #50, Kane begins inking himself, the raw power of his layouts making up for his unpolished penwork. Reader reaction is underwhelming, and soon Sid Greene is back. Kane leaves the strip after #61 (June 1968) to pursue greener pastures, first at Marvel, then self-publishing the graphic novel His Name Is Savage. Jack Sparling, Mike Sekowsky, and Dick Dillin take over the illustration chores, but while each delivers some of his best artwork, the series suffers for Gil’s absence.

Sales, which have been eroding throughout the mid-’60s, worsen. Not even the return of a reinvigorated Kane with #69 (April 1969) seems likely to keep the title from cancellation. If the book is to be saved, drastic measures will have to be taken.

27

Kashdan a former assistant to Jack Schiff, takes up the editorial reins with #26 (June-July 1968), teaming Dillin and Cuidera with new writer Raymond Marais for an action-packed tale of Thanagar’s war with the Infinite Empire, followed next issue by the Hawks’ clash with the Snow-Fiend, a beautiful Himalayan princess in a Russian-built exoskeleton, and her squad of fake flying yeti. Sales, unfortunately, continue to drop and the plug is pulled on Hawkman with #27 (August-Sept. 1968).

Just a month later, control of the Flying Furies’ destinies returns to Julius Schwartz. Another of his books, The Atom, is also floundering. Schwartz hopes that by combining the two features into a single title, their combined readerships will keep the book afloat.

The Atom and Hawkman #39 (Oct.-Nov. 1968), which continues The Atom’s issue numbering, teams Atom and the Hawks in a Bob Kanigher-scripted saga of insurrection south of the border. The plan is for the heroes to team up every third issue, splitting the books between the strips the rest of the time. Vishnu and the other Hindu Gods make trouble for our heroes in #42, while Atom’s gal pal, lawyer Jean Loring, goes bat-crap crazy under the influence of nefarious types from a sub-atomic world in #45. Murphy Anderson and Joe Giella illustrate the first of these, Dick Dillin and Sid Greene the last two.

It is immediately clear that Schwartz intends to ignore the developments of Hawkman #22. The Halls are back in charge at the Midway City Museum, their alien origins secret once more. Atom and Hawkman #40-41 reunite Gardner Fox with Joe Kubert and Murphy Anderson, a rare collaboration of the two artists and a surprisingly successful blend of their disparate styles. Anderson flies solo for #43-44, a two-parter scripted by Bob Kanigher debuting an updated version of the Golden Age Hawkman’s greatest foe. Gentleman Jim Craddock, a 19th-century highwayman sucked through an interdimensional vortex and deposited in 1969 as a bodiless wraith, resumes his crime career as The Gentleman Ghost. It’s a promising start to a second wind for the strip, but it comes too late. The Atom and Hawkman #45 (Oct.-Nov. 1969) is the

Under New Management The new creative team of editor George Kashdan, scripter Bob Haney, and longtime Blackhawk artists Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera waste no time in putting their combined stamp on Hawkman. Their first issue, #22 (Oct.Nov. 1967), finds the Hawks’ civilian identities, Carter and Shiera Hall, outed as extraterrestrials in a story of xenophobia rare in the alien-friendly books edited by Julius Schwartz. Some of the details are off—our heroes’ Thanagarian cruiser is drawn as a lime-green flying saucer and the strip’s small supporting cast is MIA—but otherwise the Kashdan-edited issues (#22-25) are a different but not inappropriate take on the series. Murray Boltinoff, like

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

(Left:) Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera, longtime penciler and inker of Blackhawk (like, at two different companies, even!), drew the dramatic cover of Hawkman #26 (June-July 1968).

(Right:) Only a couple of issues later, though, the Hawkman title was merged into The Atom, and the result was The Atom and Hawkman #39 (Oct.-Nov. 1968), picking up the Tiny Titan’s numbering. Cover art by Joe Kubert. [© DC Comics.]

28

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

Back In A Flash Just for the heck of it, editor Julius Schwartz had Robert Kanigher (who’d written both the Golden and Silver Age versions of “The Flash”) write a new tale of the 1940s speedster, to be drawn by Murphy Anderson for The Flash #201 (Nov. 1970). Thanks to Bob Bailey. [© DC Comics.]

final issue. For the time being, Hawkman fans will have to be content with his appearances in Justice League of America. The Winged Wonder will not headline another comic book for nearly a decade.

Voices Of A New Generation The new art team on The Flash is Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, fresh from long runs on Wonder Woman, Metal Men, and the GIsvs.-dinosaurs series “The War That Time Forgot” in Star-Spangled War Stories. Andru is a master of using page design to propel narrative, with a flair for characterization through facial expression and body language, a uniquely kinetic approach to action sequences, and a passion for authentic backgrounds. Their first issue, #175 (Dec. 1967), is the second in a series of never-conclusive races between Flash and Superman, guest-authored by Mort Weisinger’s assistant editor, E. Nelson Bridwell. Frank Robbins, artist and writer of the long-running Johnny Hazard syndicated strip, writes a handful of episodes, including a two-parter (#18081) inspired by the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and packed with embarrassing racial stereotypes, but John Broome remains the series’ anchor.

Nelson Bridwell is the first of a new generation of creators to come out of the formative era of comics fandom. Julius Schwartz,

himself a founding father of science-fiction fandom, has always encouraged the fan press, so it is not surprising that he begins assigning scripts to the most promising amateurs. Cary Bates, who began submitting cover ideas to DC at age 13 and has been writing for Weisinger’s “Superman” titles, introduces the parallel world called Earth-Prime in his maiden Flash tale, #179 (May 1968), in which the Crimson Comet accidentally enters our reality, returning to his own dimension with the help of Schwartz himself. Another up-and-coming talent, college student Mike Friedrich, contributes scripts to Flash, one of which revives All-American’s Sargon the Sorcerer (#186, March 1969), and to Green Lantern.

The most important new writer to join Schwartz’s stable is Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, a former newspaper reporter who worked for Marvel and Charlton Comics before following Charlton editor Dick Giordano to National. His star quickly rises when he takes over Justice League of America from co-creator Gardner Fox, one of several veteran freelancers forced out of the company after an illfated attempt to gain health insurance and other benefits. The erudite O’Neil, whose story sensibilities encompass emotional realism and absurdist satire, is soon authoring episodes of Green Lantern and Atom and Hawkman, as well.

By the end of 1969, it is clear that the demographics for superhero comics have changed. Competition from television and the

A Streak Of Scarlet—A Glimpse Of Green—And The Beating Of Mighty Wings

29

enough conceptually to adapt to changing times and tastes down to the present day. Movies, television series, and animated cartoons will expand their appeal beyond the confines of comic book fandom. It is always risky to predict the future, but it seems certain that as long as there is a DC Comics, the adventures of The Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman will never end.

Ross Andru.

Fast-Change Artists (Above:) A page by penciler Ross Andru and inker Mike Esposito from The Flash #191 (Sept. 1969), repro’d from a scan of the original art. Script by John Broome. Thanks to Arnie Grieves. [© DC Comics.]

(Center:) John Broome’s final script for Green Lantern was done for issue #75 (March 1970), behind this cover by Gil Kane.

(Right:) Gil Kane had a brief run on The Flash, as illustrated by this page from #197 (May 1970), inked by Vince Colletta from a script by Robert Kanigher.

But editorial director (and classic Flash artist) Carmine Infantino didn’t like his version much. Kane and Infantino, friends in their early days, had an antagonistic relationship in later years. [© DC Comics.]

steadily spiraling costs of production and distribution have cut so deeply into industry sales that comic books are no longer the cultural touchstone of American childhood they were at the dawn of the Silver Age. The readership skews older than in the glory days, requiring more sophistication from both plot and characterization. Perhaps sensing that his style of storytelling is becoming passé, John Broome decides to retire, his last scripts for Julius Schwartz appearing in The Flash #194 (Feb. 1970) and Green Lantern #75 (March 1970). Ahead lie the relevance craze, a series of price hikes, and the Bronze Age. It is with this changing of the guard that our survey ends. Over the ensuing decades, the trio of mystery-men who anchored AllAmerican Comics throughout the Golden Age and their Silver Age successors will be continually redefined and reimagined in ways their creators could scarcely have envisioned, each hero strong

[A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: Our TwoMorrows sister mag Back Issue, edited by Michael Eury, will carry forward this study of The Flash and Green Lantern—though not of Hawkman—in #80, on sale now. Don’t miss it!]

30

A Brief History Of The Flash, Green Lantern, & Hawkman (1940-1970)

“Now They Belong To The Ages” A 1994 Green Lantern color sketch by Mart Nodell—and a Sheldon Moldoff illo of the original Flash and Hawkman, of similar vintage. At right are a trio of photos of A/E editor Roy Thomas with three early-’40s creators (clockwise): Marty Nodell (and his gracious wife Carrie) at a comics convention a decade or so ago… original “Flash” artist Harry Lampert… and “Shelly” Moldoff, Golden Age “Hawkman” artist who did the first covers ever to feature The Flash and Green Lantern. Roy wanted to end this study on a personal note, because he is proud and humbled to have been fortunate enough to get to know, at least a little bit, these talented men who created (or, in Moldoff’s case, refined) three of the greatest, longest-lived concepts in the history of comic books. How many folks cast shadows that are 75 years long—and still growing? Thanks to Anthony Snyder for the Nodell sketch, and to the late great “Shelly” for his. [Green Lantern, Hawkman, & Flash TM & © DC Comics.]

KURT MITCHELL is a former business process analyst and database designer who has found his true calling as a comics historian. A graduate of the University of Washington, he resides in Tacoma, where he spends much of his time hanging out in chemistry labs praying for lightning to strike. He would like to thank Jim Doty, Tony Pidone, Bill Wormstedt, and two gentlemen who prefer anonymity for their generosity in giving him access to their collections.

FOOTNOTES: i

One aspect of the “Hawkman” series, arguably its most interesting one, does not survive: despite the first episode’s characterization of the Pinioned Paladin as “a phantom of the night … who from time immemorial has fought [for] the cause of justice,” the reincarnation angle is dropped almost immediately. Occasionally mentioned in origin recaps, it will figure in a plotline just once more (Flash Comics #16, April 1941) during the series’ run.

ii

Bill Finger and Sheldon Mayer will in later years claim that Green Lantern’s civilian identity was originally to be Alan Ladd (an almost-anagram of Aladdin) but that, thinking such a name too corny and implausible, they rejected it, unaware that only a year or so later a film actor by that name would rocket to stardom in the noir classic This Gun For Hire. Mart Nodell, however, in an interview published years after his collaborators’ passing, will insist that the more prosaic Alan Scott was part of his proposal from the start. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Messrs. Finger and Mayer didn’t consider changing that name, which Mayer as editor would have had the power to do.

iii

The Grand Comics Database tentatively credits Bill Finger with the script for Green Lantern #4 & 5, but this may not be the case. Finger almost gets the wording of GL’s oath right, occasionally dropping a random “and” but otherwise staying faithful to Mart Nodell’s original oath. Whoever is writing these issues—and the GL episodes in All-American #47 and Comic Cavalcade #1—seems determined to improve or replace it, offering up six different variants, some simply truncated versions of the original, most wildly divergent. The GCD credits the script for Green Lantern #6, which features yet another new oath, to Joseph Greene, so perhaps he is the mystery writer. At any rate, it is Finger who returns, original oath and all, to muster the boys out and return the strip to its prewar status quo. (See Craig Delich’s article in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #7 for the full texts of the various oaths.)

iv

Hawkgirl, denied membership on the flimsy excuse that “our by-laws permit taking in only one new member at a time,” has to wait until Justice League of America #146 (Sept. 1977) for her induction.

Remembering ARTHUR PEDDY

31

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist’s Stepson, MICHAEL POSNER Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

A

rthur Peddy (Dec. 26, 1916-May 15, 2002) began his comics career in 1939, illustrating Western, pirate, and adventure yarns for companies like Fox, Fiction House, and Brookwood. His first regular strip was “The White [by #2, ‘Red’] Panther” in Fiction House’s Jungle Comics. In 1940 he made the move to Quality Comics, co-creating the classic character “Phantom Lady” in Police Comics #1 (Aug. 1941). He worked for Quality through 1942, before making another switch to Hillman, where he worked for several months. After a stint in the military during World War II, Peddy returned to Hillman, where he worked on “Airboy” and “The Heap,” among other features. In 1948 he moved to DC, where he spent most of the rest of his comics career. There, he started off drawing “Wildcat” and “The Boy Commandos.” He also did covers for Wonder Woman. Around 1950, he went onto the book that he became most noted for: All-Star Comics, where he penciled “The Justice Society of America,” often drawing the entire nigh-book-length story, usually inked by Bernard Sachs. While still working for DC, he did art jobs for St. John Publishing in the 1950s, where he got his first experience drawing romance comics. He was also regularly doing war tales for both DC and Atlas during this time. From 1954 until the end of his comics career, he worked exclusively at DC, with most of his work in the later years focused on DC’s various romance titles. Around 1967 he left comics behind and moved into television advertising.

Michael Posner, LTC, MC, USA (RET), and his brother Bruce are the stepsons of Arthur Peddy and the sons of the late Jerry Posner and Joanne Posner-Peddy. Michael and his wife of 46 years live on a working farm in the Gettysburg National Park’s “Battlefield Protected Region.”

They moved there in 1984 from the U.S. Academy at West Point.

Michael is an obstetrician/gynecologist and recently retired after 42 years of practice. He and his wife have seven children and fourteen grandchildren. He is an avid fisherman and tries to fish every day on their pond; he is also a deep-sea fishing enthusiast and enjoys surf casting on Assateague Island in Maryland. His son Matthew, recently returned from Afghanistan, is the chief of orthopedics at West Point, following his father’s 1976-1984 chairmanship of that department.

This interview was conducted on February 2, 2014.

RICHARD ARNDT: Arthur Peddy was your stepdad, is that right?

MICHAEL POSNER: Yes, he was my stepfather. I don’t know much about his early life. My father passed away in the winter of

Being Peddy (Top:) Arthur F. Peddy in 1937, at age 20-21, at Pratt Institute. Thanks to Mark Muller & the Tenth Letter of the Alphabet website.

(Above right:) Peddy in later years, with wife Joanne Posner-Peddy on left; between them is Bernice Sachs, wife (later widow) of Peddy’s longtime partner Bernard Sachs. A fuller version of this photo appeared in A/E #121 with an interview with Bernice Sachs-Smoller (whose last name, alas, was incorrectly rendered there as “Sachs-Smollet”). Pic courtesy of Bernice.

(Left:) The Peddy & Sachs splash page of All-Star Comics #55 (Oct.-Nov. 1950), one of the best of the Julius-Schwartz-edited Golden Age issues. Script by John Broome. Repro’d from Roy Thomas’ bound volumes. [© DC Comics.]

32

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

impressed with from his Army days was that he made a lot of drawings, very good drawings that he did just about everywhere he went. He started them in his initial duty station in Florida and continued them in the European Theater. He drew them on military stationary called V-Mail.

RA: Yes, I know those. Very thin paper, almost onion paper or carbonpaper thin.

Michael Posner in his home office.

1984. My mom was living in Connecticut. I was in the Army and stationed at West Point with my family. In the spring of 1987, she came to visit and introduced us to Arthur Peddy. Arthur was smitten with my mother. They were very friendly. They certainly communicated to us that they had been growing close for the last few months or so. They married in April of 1987. That’s when I first met his co-worker from DC Comics, Bernard Sachs, and his wife Bernice. I later met the Sachses on two or three other occasions when they visited Arthur. I loved that interview you did with Bernice Sachs [in Alter Ego #121]—especially the photo that showed my mom with Bernard and Bernice. I loved how she described how friendly Arthur and Bernard were, as well as the wives. They really were great together.

As you may remember from Bernice’s article, my mom worked for “Save the Children,” Paul Newman’s group, for 30 or 35 years in Westport, Connecticut. That’s where their main corporate office is. Mom went all over the world, although her main interest was in South America. When she died, there was a memorial ceremony, and the people from “Save” took a portion of her ashes and distributed them to the countries in South America that she was most involved in. That was pretty touching.

Anyway, Arthur would chat with me about his life prior to DC Comics. A lot of our discussions centered around his days in the Army in World War II. He enlisted in 1942 and was assigned to the 530th 63rd Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion— Company B, 19th Tactical Command, 9th Air Force. He was there from 1942-1945, stationed in England, northern France, Belgium, and parts of Germany. He made the rank of tech sergeant. He was a signal man.

The thing that I was really

POSNER: We had something similar in Vietnam when I was stationed overseas. In Saudi Arabia, too. We had a letter that you could fold into an envelope. I don’t think it has a special name now, but in the 1940s it was called V-Mail. These drawings he did during his service time were really amazing. There must have been fifty or more of them. I donated about twenty of them to the American Army Heritage Museum at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They put the artwork on display as part of their artifact exhibits of World War II. They hadn’t seen anything like what Arthur drew before. The art is really quite neat.

I gave a bunch of them to one of my sons, who’s currently an orthopedic trauma surgeon in the Army. He’s just come back from Afghanistan. I also gave some to one of my uncles—my mother’s brother. I still have a bunch of them, though. They’re sketches of his buddies—some of them shaving nude, which I thought was interesting. Tanks and scenery and things like that.

Arthur left the Army in 1945. If I recall from some of his statements, in 1939 he started working in the comics. He was drawing for a book called Mystery Men Comics…

RA: That would have been for Fox Comics. Victor Fox, the publisher, had a reputation of being quite a character.

POSNER: He didn’t work there long, though. I believe he was instrumental in creating “Phantom Lady.” From what he told me, he not only did the penciling but also some of the dialogue in that series.

The editorin-chief of DC Comics sent my mother and me a

Peddy In Uniform Arthur Peddy with his rifle during World War II—and with some Army buddies during that period (he’s second from the right).

Thanks to Michael Posner.

Remembering Arthur Peddy

33

“V” Stood For “Victory” Five sketches that Arthur Peddy sent home via V-Mail in or circa 1944: drawings labeled “Barracks 2 Palermo 13 Aug 1943”… “Man Reading 14 Apr 1944”… “Soldier Cleaning Rifle 19 Aug 1944”… “Radar Man”… and “Haircut.” Thanks to Michael Posner. [© Estate of Arthur Peddy.]

34

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

That’s Why The Lady Is A Phantom While working for the S.M. “Jerry” Iger comic shop, Peddy drew (and even signed) the first baker’s dozen “Phantom Lady” stories in the Quality group’s Police Comics. This splash page from issue #10 (July 1942) is repro’d from PS Artbooks’ hardcover Roy Thomas Presents Classic Phantom Lady, Vol. 1. (See ad on p. 66.) A few years later, the Fox company would revive the pulchritudinous heroine in the most notorious of the late-1940s “headlight” comics. Scripter unknown. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Hames Ware, the reigning expert on Iger shop personnel-spotting, writes that, while Peddy was prominently involved in all the “PL” stories with his (rare for Iger) byline, “If one looks at [these stories], one can spot bits and pieces of Reed Crandall, Nick Cardy, Max Elkan, Rudy Palais, Rafael Astarita, Art Saaf, Alex Korda, and Mort Leav…. Peddy’s primary inker [in this period], Witmer Williams, is seen lots and lots.” E.g., Hames points out that, on the splash page of the “PL” yarn in Police #8 (March 1942), a ship’s life preserver sports the name “S.S. Wittmer.”

POSNER: Is that right? There’s also a fellow named Oshkosh or… He worked on “Superman.”

RA: Probably Bob Oskner. He penciled or inked a lot of comics back in the day. He could move from humorous strips to romance to superheroes without missing a beat. All kinds of different strips.

POSNER: Arthur did a lot of war stories in the 1950s—in the same book that “Sgt. Rock” appeared in. I have some of his comics… the ones “Phantom Lady” appeared in… Airboy Comics. I guess he and Mr. Sachs, as penciler and inker, did a lot of these over the years. From 1939 until 1967 or so.

RA: In the 1960s he was doing a lot of romance comics.

POSNER: Exactly. I have some of those Love Story ones. I loved the titles on some of those. Falling in Love. Girls’ Love Stories.

Girls’ Romances. [laughs] These Airboy Comics are really interletter remarking on Arthur’s work on the 1940s Wonder Woman covers. He did at least three or four of those in the late 1940s. There was a little book, very small, three inches by four inches or so, of all the Wonder Woman covers from that period….

RA: Oh, yeah! I’ve got three of those small books, one of the Superman covers and two more dealing with Batman’s Detective Comics covers. They’re really kind of cool.

Arthur’s first regular assignment at DC seems to have been “Wildcat.”

POSNER: “Wildcat”? I don’t have any of those.

RA: Wildcat didn’t have his own title. He appeared in Sensation Comics, which was the other title that “Wonder Woman” was regularly featured in, besides her own book. He also worked on Boy Commandos.

POSNER: Yes, there are some Boy Commandos here. The cover of the one I’m looking at is credited to Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. There are other names listed here. Irwin Hasen….

RA: Hasen also drew “Wildcat” and many of the “Justice Society” stories. He was the artist on the Dondi comic strip for its entire run, too.

POSNER: There’s an Infantino…

RA: Carmine Infantino. He co-created the character Black Canary and eventually became the publisher of DC Comics for a number of years.

Is There A Doctor In The Inventory?

Not all of Peddy & Sachs’ “Dr. Mid-Nite” stories made it into print before All-American Comics became All-American Western after issue #102 in 1948. These panels starring his alter ego, Dr. Charles McNider, and his assistant Myra were listed for sale a few years back by Heritage Comics. Thanks to Fred DeBoom. [© DC Comics.]

Remembering Arthur Peddy

35

Justice For All (Stars) (Clockwise from top left:) If Art Peddy did pencil any Wonder Woman or Sensation Comics covers, it’s proven virtually impossible to distinguish them from the numerous ones penciled by Irwin Hasen, since Bernard Sachs inked many of Hasen’s efforts and his style in this case tended to obscure the differences between pencilers. But Peddy & Sachs did definitely draw this page from the “Justice Society of America” full-lengther in All-Star Comics #55 (Oct.-Nov. 1950), whereon the Amazon uproots a Jupiterian tree—although, of course, Hawkman is carrying her. Script by John Broome.

The cover of All-Star Comics #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1949), whose original art was utilized for that of this A/E issue. AllStar experts Craig Delich, the late Jerry Bails, and Roy Thomas (as well as a couple of other folks) went back and forth for years trying to decide whether this cover was penciled by Peddy or Hasen—though it seems to have definitely been inked by Sachs. (See p. 2.) Any other opinions or info out there?

The Peddy & Sachs team also handled these “Wildcat” stories from Sensation Comics #75 (March 1948, on left) & #79 (July 1948). Scripters unknown.

Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert & Jim Kealy. [© DC Comics.]

Bernard Sachs (b. 1918? – d. 1998) in later years.

Detail of a photo courtesy of Mrs. Bernice SachsSmoller, seen in full in A/E #121.

36

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

Peddy & Sachs On DC Hero Series Namely: “Dr. Mid-Nite” from All-American Comics #95 (March 1948)—“Hop Harrigan” from AA #96 (April ’48)—“Black Pirate” from AA #99 (July ’48)— and “The Ghost Patrol” from Flash Comics #102 (Dec. 1948). All scripters are, alas, unidentified. Thanks to Al Dellinges for the latter scan. [© DC Comics.]

Remembering Arthur Peddy

37

also my actual father’s high school English teacher at Tilden High School in Brooklyn! It’s a small world sometimes.

When I asked Arthur about it, he said sure enough it was Sam Levenson in the storyboards. In some of the frames on the storyboards it’s actually credited to Sam Levenson. I don’t know if you recognize his name. I recognized Levenson while looking at Arthur’s storyboards because, every time we saw him on TV, my dad would remark on him being his English teacher back in the day.

RA: Vaguely. I seem to remember Levenson being a Borscht Belt comedian or something like that.

POSNER: Exactly! Arthur also had a lot of sketches with Charles Bronson in them, for a Chevron commercial. There was one dated 1971 with Phil Silvers for Hills Brothers coffee commercial. There was a whole slew of things like that. Pepsi, Pine Sol, Burger King, Quaker Oats, DuPont.

There are a whole bunch of these commercials that I still have the storyboard art sketches to.

RA: His long-time comics partner, Bernard Sachs, went into

Over The Hillman Two Peddy & Sachs assignments for Hillman Publications—a signed “Heap” story from Airboy Comics, Vol. 4, #3 (a.k.a. #38, April 1947) and the cover of V4#10 (a.k.a. #45, Nov. ’47)—plus a signed Peddy solo effort from Dead-Eye Western #1 (Nov.-Dec. 1948). Thanks to Jim Ludwig for the latter. This “Heap” story, as well as several others by the Peddy & Sachs team, is on view in the PS Artbooks hardcover Roy Thomas Presents The Heap, Vol. 1. [© the respective copyright holders.]

esting, too. Apparently that character started earlier, but Arthur worked on stories for the Airboy title starting in 1946. He did them for several years.

RA: He also drew quite a number of the “Justice Society” stories for AllStar Comics. Bernard Sachs inked all of those, if I remember right. They were big comics. Very long stories, which was unusual for that time period. The comics were bigger, but they generally packed a lot of different characters in each book.

POSNER: He did a number of those, and he worked on something called All-American Men of War. G. I. Combat....

He also did a lot of commercial work in the 1950s and 1960s. A lot of his work is on these big storyboards that they used for the TV ads. Arthur had a lot of the original sketches in ink of these commercial storyboards for companies like Campbell Soup.

They’re done like comic strips. The guy in these storyboards that I most remember looked like Sam Levenson, who was a comic and humorist in the 1950s who did a lot of TV game shows. The irony of Arthur doing these soup commercials is that Sam Levenson was

38

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

Cinderella Stories While known in the 1950s and ’60s for penciling romance stories for National/DC, Peddy drew some on his own earlier for other companies… … such as the above stories for Ziff-Davis’ Cinderella Love #6 (April 1952) and St. John’s Diary Secrets #22 (Feb. 1954). Matter of fact, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., has ID’d Peddy as both penciling and inking both of these. Both scans provided by Jim Ludwig. [© the respective copyright holders.]

There’s A Star Spangled War Story Flying Somewhere…

This battle tale from Star Spangled War Stories #42 (Feb. 1956) was both penciled and inked by Peddy. Writer unknown. Thanks to Jim Kealy. We apparently have Julius Schwartz’s meticulous records to thank for the art info, even though he wasn’t the mag’s editor. [© DC Comics.]

Remembering Arthur Peddy

Spellbound And Gagged Peddy also did a bit of work for Timely/Atlas during the 1950s, including (clockwise from above) the story “The Madman” for Spellbound #11 (Jan. 1953), of which p. 2 is printed here, because the splash page was depicted in A/E #121… another horror holler from Spellbound #23 (June 24)… and a Code-approved tale for Spellbound #26 (Feb. 1956). All three scans supplied by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo. The first yarn was signed by Peddy alone. As for whether Peddy, Sachs, or someone else inked the last, even Doc V. can’t say for sure… though he does comment that “Sachs inked Peddy [at Atlas] from 1954-1956, as per [fellow artist] Mike Esposito.

Otherwise, my feeling is it’s all Peddy.” [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

39

40

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

Ad Hoc Above, reproduced from a photo sent by Michael Posner, is a color sequence for a TV ad—whose cab driver was to be played by Phil Silvers, a.k.a. Sgt. Bilko. [© the respective copyright holders.]

advertising at nearly the same time. Do you know if they continued to work together?

POSNER: They may have. I know that they had a studio together at some point, but I don’t know the exact years. They were certainly very good friends for a very long time.

Arthur would come and visit me at West Point. He was in awe of that place and the cadets. I was chairman of the Departments of Surgery & Obstetrics at the time, and I’d take him around to show him a lot of the academy. He would talk about his wartime experiences and about the places he’d been stationed in Germany and Belgium and France. He’d sit down and sketch my kids. Just freehand them.

RA: You mentioned to Roy [Thomas] that Arthur did some portrait work.

Was that a sideline with him?

POSNER: It was. In your interview with Mrs. Sachs, she mentioned that Arthur and Bernard had a gallery or a shop or studio together in New York. It was at 20 Sutton Place. I know that in his home in Connecticut he had quite a number of paintings. I don’t know the medium—it might have been pastels. They were beautiful scenery paintings with many showing the coast of Maine. I kept about a dozen of them. My mother, before she passed away, allowed her friends to get some of the paintings. I don’t know if Mrs. Sachs was one of those friends. Arthur had many of them. I took most of what was left after my mother’s friends had their picks. There were some portraits. I don’t know if he sold them. We never really got into that.

Freddie’s Four-Color Face Here’s a nice splash page penciled and inked by Art Peddy for Strange Tales #35 (April 1955)—the first Comics Code-approved issue of that title. The coloring seems blotchy and faded compared to the reprinting of the story in the hardcover Marvel Masterworks: Strange Tales, Vol. 4, but maybe it was just a poor printing job. Scripter unknown. Thanks to Jim Ludwig. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Arthur was a delightful man.

Never a nasty look or a frown. He was very smiley. Sadly, for the last two years of his life he started to get dementia. Not Alzheimer’s but some form of dementia. It was a shame, because he was such a vibrant, talented person.

Just the nicest person. It was just sad to see how he deteriorated.

RA: Mrs. Sachs mentioned that Bernie, Bernard Sachs, also had the same kind of dementia.

POSNER: Yeah. [sighs] Arthur passed away in 2002, and my mom passed in 2003.

We Must Go Down To The Sea In Ships!

Two paintings by Arthur Peddy. The second, as per designation sent with them by Michael Posner, indicates that it is of “a local fisherman in a seaport town, Booths Bay, Maine.” [© Estate of Arthur Peddy.]

RA: Thank you. It was nice of you to share your memories.

Remembering Arthur Peddy

41

ARTHUR PEDDY Checklist [This Checklist is adapted from information found in the online edition of The Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999, founded by the late Dr. Jerry G. Bails. Names of features that appeared both in comics with that precise title and in other magazines, as well, are generally not italicized.

This Checklist has been augmented by some information supplied by Michael Posner. Key: (p) = pencils; (i) = inks; (w) = writer.]

Name: Arthur F. Peddy (1916-2002) – artist, occasional writer Commercial Art & Design: BBD&O Advertising, NYC, 1970-79; “commercial work” in 1950s & 1960s, including for TV ads – details uncertain; portrait work – dates uncertain Comics Shop/Studio: Eisner & Iger Studio (p & i) 1938-39; S.M. Iger Studio (p & i) 1940-42; Peddy and Sachs Studio (p) dates uncertain Note on Comics Career: Shared studio with Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Jack Abel, and Bernard Sachs 1957-59 COMIC BOOK CREDITS (U.S. Mainstream Publishers): Ace Periodicals: romance (p)( i) 1949

Avon Comics: Wild Bill Hickok (p) 1953 Better/Standard/Nedor Publications: Real Life Comics (p)( i) 1946

Peddy In Planet An early all-Peddy art job, done for Fiction House’s Planet Comics #6 (June 1940)… as reprinted in PS Artbooks’ hardcover Roy Thomas Presents Planet Comics, Vol. 2. (Either Ye Ed is following Art Peddy around, or vice versa!)

We don’t know the name of the writer, but we’d bet platinum to a planetoid that it wasn’t “Starr Gayza”! [© the respective copyright holders.]

Diamonds In The Rough Peddy & Sachs’ splash page for All-Star Comics #51 (Feb.-March 1950). The pair on occasion drew entire 32-page stories of “The Justice Society of America” during that series’ latter Golden Age days. Script by John Broome.

Repro’d from Ye Editor’s bound volumes. [© DC Comics.]

DC Comics (incl. All-American): All-American Men of War (p)(i) 1954-56; All-American Western (p) 1949-50; All-Star Comics backup (p) 1949; The Atom (Golden Age version) (p) 1972; Black Pirate (p) 1947-48; Boy Commandos (p) 1949; Captain Comet (p) 1954; covers (p)(i) 1947-56; Dr. Mid-Nite (p) 1947-48; Falling in Love (p) 1957-60s; G.I. Combat (p)(i) 1957; Ghost Patrol (p) 1947-49; Girls’ Love Stories (p) 1955-73; Girls’ Romances (p)(i) 1958; Heart Throbs (p) 1968-69; Hop Harrigan (p) 1948; International Love Story (p) 1966; Justice Society of America (p) 1958-51; Manhunters around the World (p) 1950; Our Army at War (p)(i) 1952-57; Our Fighting Forces (p) 195457; Strange Adventures (cover, #21) 1952 (not known if pencil, ink, or both); Strange Adventures (p) 1954; Secret Hearts (p) 1954-56, 196469; Star Spangled War Stories (p) 1954-56; Wildcat (p) 1948-49; Wonder Women of History (p) 1949, 1970; Young Love (p) 1963-68; Young Romance (p) 1968-69, 1971 Fawcett Comics: romance (p) 1950-52; Young Eagle (p) early 1950s

42

A Talk With The Golden Age Artist's Stepson, Michael Posner

Color Me Whatever When Arthur Peddy drew the secret-identity hero in Jungle Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), he was called “The White Panther.” Peddy ended his run in the mag by doing the re-hued “Red Panther” through Jungle #15 (March 1941), the name and color having changed with issue #2. Scripter unknown. Thanks to the great ComicBookPlus website for public-domain comics. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Feature Comics: romance (p) 1950 Fiction House Comics: adventure (p)(i) 1940-43; Captain Terry Thunder (p)(i) 1940; Dusty Rhodes (i) 1943-44; fillers (w)(p)(i) 194243; Flint Baker (p)(i) 1940-41; Inspector Dayton (p)(i) 1940; Kayo Kirby (p) 1943-43; Kinks Mason (p)(i) year uncertain; The Monster (p) 1953; Red Panther (p)(i) 1940-41; Shark Brodie (p) 1942-43; Skull Squad (p)(i) 1940-43; Stuart Taylor (p)(i) 1943; war (p) c. 1953-54; White Panther (p)(i) 1940; ZX-5 (p)(i) 1940

Ziff-Davis Comics: cars (p) 1952; crime (p)(i) c. 195052; Explorer Joe (p)(i) 1951-52; romance (p) 1950-52; science-fantasy (p)(i) 1951; sports (p) 1952; war (p) 1952

Fox Comics: Captain Savage (p)(i) 1939; various features (p)(i) 1948-50; Waco Kid (p)(i) 1939 Great Comics Publications: Kangaroo Man (p)(i) 1942 Harvey Comics: Human Meteor (p)(i) 1941-42; Man with 1000 Faces (p)(i) 1939-40; Ted Parrish (p)(i) 1941 Hillman Periodicals: Airboy (p) 1946-48; Black Angel (p) c. 1942 – unconfirmed; covers (p) 1947-48; crime (p) 1948-53; Flying Fool (p) 1948; The Heap (p) 1946-47; non-fiction(p)(i) 1947-49; romance (p) 1953; sports (p) 1948; Western (p)(i) 1948-51 Marvel/Timely Comics: adventures (p)(i) 1955; Battle (p)(i) 1953-54; Black Rider (p)(i) 1954; Combat (p) 1953; crime (p)(i) 1954-55; horror (p)(i) 1953-54; Jann of the Jungle (p)(i) 1954; Journey into Unknown Worlds (p)(i) 1955; Jungle Tales (p)(i) 1954; mystery/occult (p)(i) 1956; romance (p)(i) 1953-54; spy (p)(i) 1955; Strange Tales (p)(i) 1954-55; Uncanny Tales (p)(i) 1955; war (p)(i) 1954; Western (p)(i) 1954-56 Orbit Publications: crime (p)(i) 1949-50; romance (p)(i) 1949-50; Western (p) 1950 Parents’ Magazine Press: True Comics (p) 1949 Quality Comics: Doll Man (p)(i) (dates uncertain); Don Glory (p)(i) 1941-42; Merlin the Magician (p)(i) dates uncertain; Phantom Lady (p)(i) 1941-42; Prop Powers (p)(i) 1941; Rookie Rankin (p)(i) 1941 St. John Publishing: horror (p)(i) 1954; romance (p) 1953-55; Western (p)(i) 1954 Stanmor: Crime Detector (p) 1954 Whitstone Publications: Lunatickle (p)(i) 1956

Like A Champ Peddy penciled this “Human Meteor” lead story for Harvey’s Champ Comics #24 (Dec. 1942)—but Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., who ID’d Peddy’s work, isn’t 100% certain if the inker was Mort Leav or someone else. Thanks to Jim Ludwig. [© the respective copyright holders.]

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ GREATEST HEROES— NOW IN FABULOUS ONLINE COMIC STRIPS!

by ROY THOMAS & TOM GRINDBERG Art © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

NEW SEQUENCES CONSTANTLY BEING ADDED! Official Website:

http://edgarriceburroughs.com/comics/

Website now also features weekly comic strips of John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar, Land That Time Forgot, et al.— only $1.99 per month!

ALSO:

by ROY THOMAS & PABLO MARCOS

ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR ADVENTURES —NOW PLAYING ON AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

$500,000 $500,000 PAID PAID FOR FOR ORIGINAL ORIGINAL C COMIC OMIC A ART! RT! COLLECTOR COLLECTOR PAYING PAYING TOP TOP DOLLAR DOLLAR FOR FOR “ “ANY ANY YA AND ND A ALL” LL” O ORIGINAL RIGINAL C COMIC OMIC B BOOK OOK A AND ND C COMIC OMIC S STRIP TRIP A ARTWORK RTWORK FFROM ROM T THE HE 1 1930S 930S T TO OP PRESENT! RESENT! C COVERS, OVERS, P PINUPS, INUPS, P PAGES, AGES, IIT TD DOESN’T OESN’T M MATTER! ATTER! 1P PAGE AGE O OR RE ENTIRE NTIRE C COLLECTIONS OLLECTIONS S SOUGHT! OUGHT! CALL CALL OR OR EMAIL EMAIL ME ME ANYTIME! ANY YTIME!

3 330-221-5665 30-221-5665 m mikeburkey@aol.com ikeburkey@aol.com O OR RS SEND END YOUR YOUR LIST LIST TO: TO:

MIKE MIKE BURKEY BURKEY

H4 4266 P.O. P .O. BOX BOX 455 455 • RAVENNA, RAVENNA, O OH 44266 CASH IS IS WAITING, WAITING, S O HURRY!!!!!

HURRY!!!!!

CASH SO

44

“The WILL of WILLIAM WILSON” The Flash & Green Lantern In The Legendary Lost Tale Of “The Justice Society Of America”

by Roy Thomas

I

t was around 1943 that Gardner Fox scripted the 48-page “JSA” story titled “The Will of William Wilson,” which then sat on a shelf for a year or two. Circa 1945, editor Sheldon Mayer (or his story editor, Julius Schwartz) seems to have altered two of its six solo-hero chapters so that they starred returning charter members Flash and Green Lantern, and the entire tale was drawn by various artists and slated to appear in All-Star Comics #31 in 1946.

For one reason or another, however, “Will” never saw the light of four-color day.

Individual tiers/rows of panels also survive of the “Flash,” “Green Lantern,” “Atom,” and “Dr. Mid-Nite” chapters (though nothing from those of “Hawkman” or “Johnny Thunder”), in which the heroes individually seek out the “impossible” items named in the “last will and testament” of the tale’s title… and art from the “Flash” and “GL” adventures follows, as colored especially for A/E by collector/artist Larry Guidry. Those segments’ 2/3-of-apage symbolic splash panels were probably sliced up and thrust into the flames nearly half a century ago… but the bottom tier of “page 1” of the “Flash” section is reprinted below. It was drawn by Martin Naydel, also the artist of both full-JSA chapters. (Nearly all the non-splash “Flash” art still exists, mostly as tiers sold to RT by the late Mark Hanerfeld some years back.) The Scarlet Speedster’s “impossible” assignment: to retrieve the sword of the worldconquering Genghis Khan…!

[Art & Story © DC Comics.]

[Art © DC Comics.]

Eventually its shelved pages were mostly sliced up and were either burned in the DC incinerator or (thankfully) carted off in the late 1960s by Marv Wolfman or other young staffers, who distributed them to eager collectors.

A/E’s editor has made it his task for the past decade and a half to try to locate as much art from this story as possible; thus far, we’ve amassed originals or copies of nearly half its 48 pages, usually one tier of panels (each tier making up 1/3 of a page) at a time. The complete, never-sliced-up 5-page “JSA” intro and the nigh-complete 6page “JSA” finale have sporadically seen print in color in issues of A/E, beginning in #109; all art that has surfaced to date was printed, in black-&-white, in one of the four volumes of TwoMorrows’ and my All-Star Companion series.

“The Will Of William Wilson”

[Art & Story © DC Comics.]

On page 2 of the “Flash” episode, whose three sliced tiers have been re-combined here, Jay Garrick arrives in Siberia at the turn of the 13th century and instantly finds himself called on to make a slight detour from his stated mission….

45

46

The Flash & Green Lantern In The Legendary Lost Tale Of “The Justice Society Of America”

[Art & Story © DC Comics.]

The entire first page of the “Green Lantern” episode is still MIA, but page 2—its three tiers of panels taped together—was purchased in 2007 by collector Dan Makara. GL seeks a goblet carved by sculptor Benvenuto Cellini that went down to the bottom of the Atlantic in the hold of a 16th-century Spanish galleon, the Castile….

47

[Art & Story © DC Comics.]

“The Will Of William Wilson”

[Art & Story © DC Comics.]

Above is a tier (also courtesy of Dan Makara) that is probably either the first or second row of page 3 of the “Green Lantern” chapter— while the tier below probably made up the top one-third of page 4. Colorist Larry Guidry was kind enough, in the first dialogue balloon on this page, to correct the word misspelled “occassion,” as no doubt DC’s editors would have done if the saga had been published.

More art from “The Will of William Wilson” will appear in future issues of Alter Ego.

Sheena is a trademark of Galaxy Publishing, Inc., & Val D’Oro Entertainment, Inc.

HEROINITIATIVE.ORG

EVERYONE DESERVES A GOLDEN AGE, EVEN IF YOU’RE

avenue back into paying work.

Since inception, the Hero Initiative has been fortunate enough to benefit over 50 creators and their families with over $500,000 worth of much-needed aid, fueled by your contributions! It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.

Copyright 2014 Darby Pop Publishing, Inc. All Right Reserved. DOBERMAN, the DOBERMAN logo and the likeness of all featured characters are trademarks of Darby Pop Publishing, Inc..

The Hero Initiative creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an

49

[Pages © Harvey Publications or successors in interest.]

50

Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt!

The Mystery Of The Missing Comic! (Part 2)

by Michael T. Gilbert

I

was a teenager when I first made the acquaintance of The Man in Black Called Fate. Or Mr. Twilight. Or perhaps you know him as... Death.

No, not the real Grim Reaper, but the Harvey company’s long-running comic book series. Sometime in 1965, I found the strip hidden in the back of a late-’40s Green Hornet comic.

It was love at first sight! Bob Powell’s art on the strips was masterful, full of lush Eisneresqe black inks and dynamic layouts.

The stories were great, too: short morality tales where a tiny twist of Fate forever alters people’s lives. The Man in Black himself was stern, but fair. If he had to claim the life of someone innocent, he felt bad. Sometimes his comic foils, Cupid and Venus, thwarted him. Love conquers all, and stuff like that.

I searched out more “Man in Black” stories and found another three in issues of Green Hornet, each one a graphic masterpiece.

Years later, I discovered that Fate really got around, with

Before And After!

When Michael T. Gilbert discovered Bob Powell’s unlettered, unpublished “Man in Black” preview page (seen at left) on the Heritage Comics website, he decided to complete it, 46 years after the fact (see above art & text.). [© 2014 Harvey Comics or its successors in interest.]

stories in Harvey’s All-New Comics, Front Page Comics, Strange Story Comics, and even an issue of Terry and the Pirates. In the late ’50s, he even had four issues of his own title.

But I didn’t have a clue to any of this in 1965, and no way to find the books if I had. So imagine my surprise, a few months later, when I spotted a new comic from Harvey starring my beloved Man in Black!

The actual title of the anthology comic was Thrill-O-Rama #1, but Fate’s name was bigger than the logo. The first issue had three sci-fi and supernatural stories, but “The Man in Black” was the main feature—at least for that issue. The art was sparer than Powell’s 1940s work, but his drawings of faces and figures were still masterful, and the storytelling remained top-notch.

Two more Thrill-O-Rama issues followed, and then... nothing.

Harvey’s line had been launched amidst a tidal wave of interest in comics, thanks to the popular 1966 Batman TV show. But the general public’s short-lived love affair didn’t translate into sales for other characters. Harvey quickly decided to stick with Richie Rich

The Mystery Of The Missing Comic! (Part 2)

and their other highly profitable kiddie titles and kill their adventure line.

After one final story in Thrill-O-Rama #3, Bob Powell’s signature character vanished, too.

With Bob’s death on October 1, 1967, I thought I’d never read a new Powell “Man in Black” story again.

Back Again!

Then, earlier this year, while browsing the Heritage Comics website, I spotted a mysterious Powell “Man in Black” story I’d never seen!

By now my “Man in Black” collection contained every story the artist had drawn. Where did this one come from? Heritage itself provided some useful information. They suggested the unpublished 1958 story might have been dropped at the last minute because the subject matter involving the atomic bomb was considered too strong for the Comics Code. But further research led me to believe the story wasn’t censored at all, at least not in the ’50s, but was actually intended for the never-published Man in Black #5.

Another unpublished page discovered on the Heritage website tipped me off: an unlettered “Man in Black” splash featuring previews of the comic’s other stories. When the title was abruptly cancelled in 1958 after issue #4, work on the page stopped.

One of the vignettes depicted the mysterious Hiroshima story, so I knew I was on the right track. The next part of the puzzle was to find out what happened to the other stories shown on the unfinished page.

Unraveling The Mystery!

The first one was easy. The story of the sculptor in ancient Persia appeared in Harvey’s Thrill-O-Rama #1 in 1965.

Joe Simon, who edited Harvey’s mid’60s Thriller line, must have figured it would be a good place to burn off unused inventory from their late-’50s “Thrill Adventure” run, including the “Man in Black” story planned for issue #5.

Powell Unpublished!

Printed here for the first time are pages 4 & 5 (the latter seen on next page) of the unpublished 1958 “Man in Black”/“Hiroshima” story we started last issue. Art by Bob Powell. From the Joe Simon Collection, courtesy of Heritage Auctions. [© 2014 Harvey Comics or its successors in interest.]

Thrill-O-Rama #1 also recycled stories from their late-’50s sci-fi and mystery books. Simon had done something similar with other Harvey titles, including his own Fighting American double-size comic—as well as Blast-Off, which ran unused Jack Kirby and Al Williamson “Three Rocketeers” stories intended for Race for the Moon #4.

Oddly enough, the “Man in Black” story in Thrill-O-Rama #1, “The Hate Cupids!,” would eventually be rejected three times.

After it had been bounced from Man in Black #5 in 1958, the story was then rescheduled to appear in Harvey’s Alarming Tales #4 in 1962, as indicated by editorial notes on the original art.

51

52

Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt!

But, for some unknown reason, it was again scrapped, before finally debuting in Thrill-O-Rama #1 in Oct. 1965, seven years after it was drawn.

Years later, the story was supposed to be reprinted in Harvey’s 1981 Shocking Tales digest, only to be dropped at the last minute. It’s enough to give even Death a complex!

The next story on the unpublished preview page was about an Italian peasant scammed by unscrupulous world travelers. That one appeared in the second issue of Thrill-O-Rama, cover-dated Sept. 1966, nearly a full year after the first. In the interim the book had been retooled, with “The Man in Black” kicked to the rear, replaced by a new leading man, the soggy super-hero Pirana.

The next issue appeared two months later, featuring a tale about Fate and a cheeky jewel thief. This was the final story depicted on the unpublished Man in Black #5 preview page. And, as it turned out, it was also the swan song for “The Man in Black,” as Thrill-ORama was cancelled with issue three.

The Last Hurrah!

When those first “new” “Man in Black” stories were published, I naturally assumed Powell was revisiting his baby for one last hurrah. But even then something about the art seemed off.

The story in issue #1 was pure, beautiful Powell. But some parts in the next two stories reminded me of Jack Sparling, who drew the “Pirana” stories. As a teenager I was confused.

Did Powell draw it, or Sparling?

Almost fifty years later, the answer is clear. Powell penciled the three stories in 1958, inking one of them and possibly parts of another. When the book was killed, the unfinished pencils remained with Joe Simon.

When Harvey hired Joe to create a new comic line for them in 1965, he asked Jack Sparling to ink Powell’s pencils. So why didn’t Simon ask Powell to create new “Man in Black” stories––or at least ink his old pencils?

Bounced!

Whited-out notes on the “Hate Cupids” story (for the aborted Man in Black #5) indicate it was subsequently slated for Alarming Tales #4, before being printed in Thrill-O-Rama #1. Years later, it was supposed to be reprinted in Harvey’s Shocking Tales digest, only to be bounced at the last minute. [© 2014 Harvey Comics or its successors in interest.]

Actually Joe did ask.

Powell referenced that in a letter to Jerry DeFuccio dated July 10, 1966, as seen in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #10. Discussing his “Man in Black,” Powell wrote ”I understand it’s coming out again, but because of an agreement I made with Stan Lee, I’ve refused to take it over again.”

Stan was keeping Powell busy drawing “Giant-Man” and Daredevil over at Marvel, and Bob didn’t want to rock the boat. So when Simon mailed Sparling his “Pirana” pages for inking, it makes sense that Joe would toss in Powell’s “Man in Black” pencils, too.

The Mystery Of The Missing Comic! (Part 2)

Final Questions!

A piece or two of the puzzle still remains before we wrap this up. First, why didn’t Simon print the fully-inked Hiroshima story in Thrill-O-Rama, along with the other unused inventory? That’s hard to say, but perhaps (as the Heritage site suggested), the publisher was worried the story wouldn’t pass the Comics Code.

And what happened to the cover to issue #5? Well, it was converted into Thrill-O-Rama #1’s cover. The art depicts a scene from Powell’s “The Hate Cupids!,” originally slated for the aborted fifth Man in Black issue.

Since Bob was working almost exclusively for Marvel in 1965, he had to have penciled the cover in 1958. But Man in Black was cancelled before Powell could ink it, so when Simon pulled the art out of his files in ’65, he gave it to someone else to ink. If I were a betting man, I’d put odds on Paul Reinman.

And so ends “The Mystery of the Missing Comic!” By my count, twenty pages of “Man in Black,” plus an intro page and cover makes a complete issue.

Checkmate!

Powell’s Man in Black #4 cover (March 1958) proves that Fate was game for anything! [© the respective copyright holders.]

The Tuska Version!

The unpublished George Tuska story printed on this page and the next one (minus a missing splash page) was drawn in late 1966 for the cancelled Thrill-O-Rama #4. Bob Powell was working at Marvel at the time and declined to illustrate this final “Man in Black” story. [© 2014 Harvey Comics.]

53

54

Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt!

But Wait! There’s More!

While searching the Heritage site, I also stumbled on another exciting find: a second unpublished “Man in Black” story (minus the splash page) intended for Thrill-O-Rama #4! But this one wasn’t

by Bob Powell.

With Powell out of the picture, Simon gave the script to George Tuska, one of his dependable regulars. Tuska’s work was solid, but lacked Powell’s moody atmosphere. The script was equally off-model, with Fate taking the form of a human for the first and only time.

Perhaps at that point The Man In Black stepped in and convinced Harvey to cancel the book before Tuska’s tale could see print.

After everything Bob Powell had done for him, it was the least he could do!

Till next time...

The Long Goodbye!

Joe Simon’s Sick Magazine #42 (Feb. 1966) featured a short Bob Powell biography, accompanied by this self-portrait. Shortly before his death, Powell here drew all his major characters aged in real time. This Man in Black cameo may have been Powell’s last. [© 2014 Estate of Joe Simon or successors in interest.]

The Comic Fandom Archive Presents...

55

Al Dellinges: “It’s Been a Great Trip!”

The Artist, Editor, Publisher, & Kubert Fan Remembers!

by Al Dellinges

CFA

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: When Roy suggested I do an interview with Al Dellinges— perhaps best known as the ghost artist in some issues of DC’s Tor series of the 1970s, and as the publisher of Near Mint magazine—I was all for it. Al had even done a little work for Roy’s All-Star Squadron in 1985.

Shortly after broaching the idea with Al himself, I received an envelope from him full of photos, artwork, and an autobiographical article, appended with a note that read in part: “I really doubt that I would make a good subject for a feature in Alter Ego, as I didn’t even discover comic fandom until the late 1960s, and most people would have no idea who I am. But, if you are determined to do so, you’re welcome to run the enclosed biographical sketch.” I assured him that, while his “story” is different from those of most of the other people I’ve written about or inter-

viewed for CFA, readers would welcome the opportunity to learn about him and the unique way he approaches his interest in comic art.

In order to fill in some gaps in the piece, I interpolated bits of a telephone interview with Al on January 21, 2008, and incorporated material from other things he had published in some of his books. A long time in the making, I’m delighted this piece has finally made its way into the pages of Alter Ego. —Bill Schelly.

I

was born in 1932 in San Francisco, and discovered comic books and the Sunday funnies around 1940. Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon were my favorites. I tried to copy the artwork, but found it much too difficult. I settled for coloring books instead, which were very popular with youngsters during World War II. Soon after that, I started collecting comic books. I didn’t really have favorites, although I did like The Spectre’s green and white costume a lot. I was different from a lot of kids, I guess, because I rarely read the stories. I just picked up the ones that had good art. And, as I got older, I found it was easier to copy the artwork that I liked. However, my general drawing skills had not improved, and trying to study the basics didn’t help at all. I just had a lot of trouble with anatomy. Copying art was fun; studying art was work and produced no satisfaction.

I soon realized you either had to have a special spark, or you had to reach a certain point in your life when you could under-

A Man And His Hawks (From top of page:) Al Dellinges in 1981, and as an aspiring artist in his home studio in 1949—plus a copy of the classic 1946 masks of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, based on artwork by Joe Kubert, and hand-colored by Al. [Hawkman TM & © DC Comics.]

56

Comic Fandom Archive

Obsessed with Kubert Such was Al’s devotion to Kubert, and his skill with India ink (and water colors), that he has produced many illustrations based on panels in his favorite “Hawkman” stories. [Hawkman TM & © DC Comics.]

stand things like human anatomy.

What I did learn in high school was how to paint signs, because we did a lot of posters for football games and such. I found I liked it and it came easily to me. I loved lettering with a brush. After high school, I spent the next ten years lettering truck doors and windows, and doing posters as a side job.

Comics. I thought, “Why didn’t I take the comic book with me?” All I could think about was the artwork in that story. The next day after school, I ran back to the shop to get that book, and fortunately, it was still there. I asked the barber if I could buy the book and he said sure, so off I went with this visual treasure under my arm. I couldn’t wait to get home and dissect the panels in each page. I can’t tell you how much I loved that artwork, and still do with just as much intensity.

Soon I was searching out other comic books with Joe’s artwork.

My problem in progressing as a realistic artist is that I never got the right foundation. I never did learn the basics of anatomy and such. I think the only way I could have made it as an artist in, say, the comic strip field, was if I had been taken under the wing of a successful professional, and taught the tricks of the trade. Needless to say, that never happened. I did, however, receive an encouraging letter from Alex Raymond.

I continued doing art copy work as a hobby, because I enjoyed it. It was relaxing and fulfilling, and then became an addiction, too. I couldn’t help it—I’d see something I liked, and I had to copy it. It didn’t matter how long it took. I’d lose track of time. I copied all kinds of comic book covers. Then, in high school, I discovered the work of Joe Kubert.

A Magnificent Obsession I became obsessed with Kubert’s art.

Originally I loved his work on the “Hawkman” strip in Flash Comics, especially his early period on it.

I discovered Kubert’s art in a copy of Flash Comics #76, when I was about 14 in 1946. I was on my way home from school and stopped at the local barber shop to get a haircut. As I waited my turn, I picked up this comic book and began to flip through the pages, from the back cover to the front. I always start at the back of the book because I find it easier to turn the pages. The last page of the book was the last page of the “Hawkman” story that Kubert had illustrated.

[NOTE: The story was titled “The Crazyquilt Crimes.” —Bill.] The artwork was stunning, and I quickly tried to check out the rest of the story. But, before I could finish it, it was my turn in the barber’s chair.

After the haircut, I left the shop to continue my way home, but without the copy of Flash

A Message From The Master Al received this encouraging letter from Alex Raymond in 1952, when he asked the artist how to break into syndicated strips. The creator of Flash Gordon was doing the newspaper strip Rip Kirby at the time.

Al Dellinges: “It's Been A Great Trip!”

57

First Contact (Above:) The first Kubert-drawn story that Dellinges encountered was “The Crazyquilt Crimes” in Flash Comics #76 (Oct. 1946). Years later, he copied that story’s splash page in black-&-white line art—and did a remarkable job at it. [Comic page © DC Comics; Hawkman TM & © DC Comics.]

The first new comic books that I bought with Kubert’s “Hawkman” were All-Star Comics #33 and Flash Comics #86. Both were beautiful examples of Joe’s work, but they were about the last of that particular style that he would ever do. With the following issues of Flash and All-Star, his drawing technique changed and the style that I loved was disappearing. Just as I really got to know it, it was over. So there I was, no place to go but back. But what a trip that was, because it gave me a chance to track down all his earlier work.

Eventually I learned to appreciate his later version of “Hawkman” in The Brave and the

What Planet Are You From?

Al has copied numerous artists besides Kubert, including Joe Doolin, who drew the cover of Planet Comics #46 (Sept.

1948). [© the respective copyright holders; Dellinges art © Al Dellinges.]

58

Comic Fandom Archive

Bold, and his great work on “Sgt. Rock.” But it was my discovery of Joe Kubert’s early “Hawkman” at that barbershop in 1946 that inspired me to spend so many rewarding hours copying his work.

I also liked the artists in Planet Comics. Murphy Anderson’s art really impressed me, because I loved the way the guy drew muscles. The stories were interesting, too, because all us kids were fascinated by outer space and planets and things like that. The idea that there could be other planets with people living on them was mysterious and wonderful.

“The Lost World” in Planet Comics was a particular favorite. I really liked Joe Doolin’s covers and copied several of them over the years.

My main job after high school was as an electrician for the San Francisco division of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of 25,000 employees. I was in the Underground Department. We installed cables and transformers in manholes and vaults. It was a great job. I loved it. I also did some Safety First-related projects for them, which involved a lot of artwork. It was a fun “perk” to have.

Flirting With Animation In the early to mid-1950s, I had a part-time job with Bob Mills, who had an animation studio on Kearny Street in San Francisco. His place was named Animated Commercial Productions. He produced TV commercials for mostly local clients like Langendorf Bread.

Before Mills went into business for himself, he had worked on the Crusader Rabbit TV show, and while I was there with him, he was in the process of trying to syndicate a daily Crusader Rabbit strip.

Although Bob liked my cartoons, I never did any actual artwork for him. All I ever did was ink and opaque the cells, along with four or five other temporary employees. One day, I found out that I was making more money at the time as an apprentice electrician for the power company than Bob Mills, who was running this shop! I had a

The Power Of Al Dellinges Photo of Al from the 1950s pages of PG&E Life magazine [the “PG&E” stood for Pacific Gas and Electric Company), part of a special feature on his contributions to the Safety First campaign—plus an example of his cartoon work from that campaign. [© the respective copyright holders.]

family then, and I realized there was no way I could move fulltime into animation. Just before I left, Bob gave me a drawing scrapbook that he’d made up during his learning years.

Recapturing The Magic In the mid-1960s, I began seeing ads in magazines relating to Golden Age comics. My original collection had taken a beating over the years, and I saw a chance to get it back in shape. As I began locating replacement copies of some of my comics, my interest in comic book art was being renewed. I was introduced to fanzines. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was on a path which eventually led me to the likes of Jerry Bails, Bill Sheridan, and Ray Funk, three very important people in my life. Fandom changed my life. I found a cause and I was on a mission. A whole new world was unfolding around me, and it was delightful.

Jerry Bails was always very encouraging to me. We met in 1981 when he came to California for the San Diego Comic-Con. Later, he gave me permission to do facsimile editions of the original AlterEgo #1, 2, and 3. I only wish I could have discovered fandom in the early 1960s. Then I would have been in on the ground floor, and been better able to make contacts. Maybe then I would have been more active, but I didn’t really get involved until the late 1960s and

Dan’l Boone? Davy Crockett? Tomahawk?

Al didn’t need to copy another’s drawing to produce some nice work, like this piece he did in India ink and wash. [© 2015 Al Dellinges.]

Al Dellinges: “It's Been A Great Trip!”

59

The Altered Egos (Above:) Al Dellinges and Jerry Bails when they met in California in 1981.

Photo by Jean Bails.

(Right:) Al published his photo-offset “reprint” of the 1961 Alter-Ego [Vol. 1] #1-3 in 1988. These weren’t variorum reprints of the original spiritduplicator issues; rather, he redrew all the artwork and had the articles typeset. Although he closely copied Bails’ and Thomas’ original art for the covers, he utilized his own quite different cartooning style when redrawing (and expanding the length of) the three chapters of RT’s “Bestest League of America,” as seen in this page from his version in #2; script by RT. Another page was sampled in The Best of Alter Ego, Vol. 2, still available from TwoMorrows. [Art © Al Dellingesl script © Roy Thomas; Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas.]

early 1970s, and by then, the fanzines had become slick and professional.

Learning The Print Trade I met Bill Sherman from an ad he had in a fanzine he was publishing. He owned a printing shop in Redwood City, California, about 12 miles from where I lived in Millbrae. In 1973, I was working on Joe Kubert: The Golden Age Index and called him about

printing it. Part of our arrangement was that I would help him publish CartooNews, which he was doing in partnership with Jim Ivey. Putting one of those things out was a hell of a lot of work. Bill was usually swamped with other things, so he needed all the help he could get.

After the Kubert book was finished, Bill and I did two specialty books together: The Art of Alex Toth and The Art of Frank Thorne.

Both books were very well received. It was during this time period that Bill taught me how to run a print shop, the whole gamut: negative and Photostat work, how to run the press, everything.

On one occasion, Alex Toth brought his Bravo for Adventure originals up to

Heroes Should Be Zine And Not Heard (Far left:) Joe Kubert, A Golden Age Index (1973).

[Tor © Estate of Joe Kubert; Hawkman, Flash, Sargon, & Wildcat TM & © DC Comics; other art © Al Dellinges.]

(Near left:) Near Mint #17 (1977). [Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc,; other art © Al Dellinges.]

60

Comic Fandom Archive

An Artistic De-Tor (Left:) Kubert’s then-new cover for DC’s Tor, Vol. 2, #4 (Dec. 1975-Jan. 1976).

(Above & below:) When one compares Kubert’s original “Tor” art in color from the original Tor, Vol. 1, #3 (May 1954), with a black-&-white image of Dellinges’ copy of that panel which was printed (in color, of course) for DC’s Tor V2#4, one can appreciate just how skillful Al became at capturing Joe’s inking technique. [© Estate of Joe Kubert.]

the shop, and the two of us spent all day making up sets of photostats that he could send out to potential publishers.

Alex then spent several days with me at my place in Millbrae. We had a great time.

Working with Bill was fun, but shortly thereafter, his health took a turn for the worse and he could no longer work. That’s when I started doing my own fanzine, Near Mint. So, with the aid of Ray Funk, who had complete runs of a lot of comics and Big Little Books, I published 39 issues of Near Mint and a bunch of other comics-related zines.

They had interviews and reprinted work by many of my favorite comics artists such as Murphy Anderson, George Evans, Dick Briefer, Jerry Robinson, and many others.

Working For Kubert Over a period of time, I had been sending Joe Kubert some of my copies of his artwork. I told him I’d be available should he need any of his “Hawkman” material redrawn. Joe was impressed with the samples I’d sent, and he gave me a chance to work Rock On! on some of his “Tor” material that was in the process of being Kubert original republished in the early 1970s. At the time, National couldn’t cover for Dellinges’ get good enough reproduction from a lot of the pages in the Joe Kubert, The War original St. John comic books, so the only way they could Years (1990). The “reprint” them was have someone copy those pages by hand. piece was especially So all my years of copying Joe’s work ended up with me commissioned by Al helping on Tor. I never would have believed something like for his book. The that could happen! Of course, I was paid for the work, but I two of them allowed the cover to would have done it for no pay at all.

I also did some comic art jobs for Roy Thomas when he was at DC Comics. [NOTE: One was a re-creation of Jack Burnley’s cover for All-Star Comics #13, published in All-Star Squadron #51; the other was an adaptation of the 7-page “Hawkman” chapter in the “Shanghaied into Space” story from that

be re-used on Bill Schelly’s 2008 Kubert biography Man of Rock.

[Sgt. Rock TM & © DC Comics.]

Al Dellinges: “It's Been A Great Trip!”

61

A Hawk By Any Other Name—Or Artist Al Dellinges, seen below in his backyard in July 1984, stands beneath one comic book page he’d be perusing—and another he’d be drawing— roughly a year later.

(Left:) The splash page of the “Hawkman” chapter from the “Justice Society of America” full-lengther in All-Star Comics #13 (Oct.-Nov. 1942); reproduced from Roy Thomas’ bound copy. Artist Sheldon Moldoff drew the 7-page segment in his best Alex Raymondesque style, though that influence is more apparent in the ensuing pages than here. Script by Gardner F. Fox. (Right:) As per editor Roy T.’s wishes, Al utilized various circa-1946 Hawkman drawings by Joe Kubert, plus copies of other art by Kubert and Raymond, to construct a 7-page retelling of that chapter in All-Star Squadron #51 (Dec. 1985). RT adapted Fox’s script and DC’s staffers, as per usual, couldn’t be bothered to get the masthead colored. [© DC Comics.]

same issue of All-Star, which appeared in the following issue of Squadron. —Bill.]

I published two books on Joe’s work. The first was Joe Kubert, A Golden Age Index. The second, published in 1990, was Joe Kubert: The War Years. I was especially pleased with the way that one turned out. I was able to interview Joe for the book, and a number of Joe’s collaborators and fans contributed articles and tributes, such as Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Robert Kanigher, Irwin Hasen, and Jerry Bails. Both books were illustrated by reprints of Kubert work, along with my copies of his work. I printed everything but Joe’s color cover on a printing press in my basement. Bound it and glued it—everything.

While I enjoyed being my own printer, I eventually realized that my costs were too

high, considering how much the distributors took. After that, I published less and less. But I had a lot of fun putting out my own magazines and books. There always seemed to be people who enjoyed them.

All In All...

All in all, it’s been a great trip, a bit “gritty” around the edges on occasion, but it’s been a wonderful experience, and the joy it has provided is without measure. Locating old comic books and collecting was as much fun as any hunt for lost treasure could be. In the process, I was fortunate to have come in contact with a lot of great people. Who could have imagined it would turn out that way?

62

Comic Fandom Archive

COMING NEXT: Finally, after a great deal of (enjoyable) work, we are ready to begin our multi-part tribute to the great G.B. Love and Rocket’s BlastComicollector (RBCC).

We’ll begin with an overview of the fanzine’s history, and follow with interviews and remembrances from Love’s friends and colleagues. ’Nuff said! Comments on the Comic Fandom Archive columns can be sent to Bill Schelly at hamstrpres@aol.com.

Two Cups Of Joe (Left:) Al re-does Kubert’s art on what is arguably the most celebrated of the numerous characters drawn by JK in comics: Sgt. Rock of Easy Company.

(Right:) This special color version of Al’s copied version of Enemy Ace was prepared especially to accompany his article in this issue. [Sgt. Rock & Enemy Ace TM & © DC Comics.]

Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole Introduction by Alter Ego ’s Bill Schelly!

272 pages of the most bizarre, proto-psychedelic, eye-popping comic book covers of all time!

In Memoriam

About Al Feldstein...

63

A Reminiscence Of A Comics Legend In Three Acts

A/E

by Mark Evanier

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following piece appeared Sunday, July 13, 2014, on the www.newsfromme.com website of comics/ TV writer Mark Evanier. Our thanks to Mark for allowing us to reprint it here, and to Brian K. Morris for a typing assist.]

W

hen Al Feldstein died at the end of April, I was too swamped with work to write a long piece about him. Al was obsessive about meeting deadlines, so I used that as an excuse to defer this piece.

Al was a fascinating, talented man whose career more or less divided into three acts….

Act One: Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein in 1950 Act One came when he was writer-editor of most of the EC Comics from 1948 to 1955. Before that, he was a journeyman comic book artist—not a particularly great one—who was, like most, trying to make a living in a business that seemed stacked against the guys who created the product. Publishers paid X dollars a page. An artist could, if he worked long hours, produce Y number of pages per week. X times Y was not a bad living wage… but it has never been the American Dream to be content with “not a bad living wage” for your entire life and how long can you work long hours, anyway?

It was especially not satisfactory to those who grew up, as Al did, in the Depression. Another of those men, a fine artist named Jim Mooney, said this to me one time in an interview: If I put in a sixty-hour week at the board, I could usually finish seven or eight pages a week. That’s pencils and inks.

That paid decently. I could support a family on that as long as my health didn’t falter and the publisher didn’t go under. I was nervous about relying on those two things. We all were. I wanted to get ahead, to get some cushion in the bank so I wouldn’t be in trouble if the work suddenly stopped or if I got sick. Hell, I just wanted to be able to cut back to forty hours a week. But, doing comics, there didn’t seem to be a way.

That was the dilemma that Mooney faced, that Feldstein faced, that they all faced: How do you parlay this thing you can do into some sort of meaningful financial security? Feldstein took a giant step in that direction in the late ’40s when he connected with William M. Gaines, publisher of EC Comics. He became Gaines’ main editor, and they concocted one of the best-selling lines of comics at the time—Tales from the

Crypt, Crime SuspenStories, and all the rest. Gaines made money and some of that trickled down to Feldstein.

They were good comics, some of the finest ever done. And all the time, Feldstein was looking for what he might do next, what might pay even better. Because, like everyone, he wasn’t content with just making a weekly wage. He wanted that cushion in the bank. He wanted to amass enough funds to see himself and his family through emergencies and for them to live better. He also thought it might be nice to have enough money that he could someday retire.

One of the interesting things to me about those comics is that all the artists in them signed their work. That was not true at any other comic company of the day. Some companies discouraged [signing work], but even at the ones that didn’t care, most artists did not sign what they drew. EC did encourage it and even did little spotlight pages on their artists, promoting them.

Still, in marked contrast to what Stan Lee would do less than a decade later, Feldstein did not put his name on what he wrote. He authored something like 80% of the stories that ran in the comics he edited, but he didn’t slap “Written by Al Feldstein” on any of them in the color comics. He mentioned it from time to time deep in the letter pages, so it wasn’t a secret. He just didn’t call a lot of attention to that because, you know, that was just his current job.

He had fantasies of getting into something else, perhaps some other form of publishing that paid a lot better and offered more possibilities of getting rich. Maybe, if and when that opportunity presented itself, he’d want people to forget he’d written The Vault of Horror. There were some best-selling novelists around then who quietly omitted from their bios that they’d once scripted comic

On EC Street (Above:) Al Feldstein (1925-2014, on right) and EC publisher/managing editor William M. Gaines during the color comics’ heyday.

(Right:) The splash page of a Graham Ingelsdrawn story from Tales from the Crypt #35 (April-May 1953); story by Gaines (plot) & Feldstein (script). The latter is repro’d from the hardcover The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt, Vol. 4. [Page © William M. Gaines, Agent, Ltd.]

64

In Memoriam

books for a few bucks a page. There were also those people in the world who felt that whoever was behind those horrible horror comics should be in jail.

Act One of the Feldstein story ended when the horror and crime comics did… when political, societal, and mostly business pressures forced those comics off the racks. Reluctantly—because Gaines treated his employees like family members—he let Feldstein go. Al went off to try and sell novels and TV scripts and to just find anything.

Act Two: A Photo I Took Of Al Feldstein In The Mad Offices In 1975 Act Two was all about Mad. Harvey Kurtzman was Mad’s first editor, and Mad was the only surviving remnant of Gaines’ publishing empire after the comics went away. [By then,] it was a magazine and it was a successful magazine, but it wasn’t coming out on time. Kurtzman was a slow, almost obsessive worker who’d spend days to get one page just the way he wanted it. Deadlines came and went with no issue of Mad going off to the printer.

He also had problems with the way Gaines ran the company.

Emboldened by an offer from Hugh Hefner, Kurtzman went to Gaines and demanded 51% of the business. Gaines refused, Kurtzman left, and Gaines hired Feldstein back to run Mad. It had to be Feldstein. Gaines was this compulsive guy who, like I said, ran his business like a family. To the extent possible, he did not want to deal with new people in his life. He did not want to expand. (That was one of the many business differences with Kurtzman.) He wasn’t going to go out and hire a stranger. He needed someone he knew and someone who could meet deadlines. Feldstein was that man.

Al went right to work. He not only had to get Mad onto a bi-monthly schedule, he had to do it without much of a staff, since Kurtzman had taken most of his people with him. But assemble a new staff Al did. Before long, he’d found Mort Drucker and Frank Jacobs and Bob Clarke and Dave Berg and Don Martin (Don Martin!) and all the rest of The Usual Gang of Idiots… and Mad was coming out regularly.

Before long, it hit the 1.5 million mark and then the 2 million mark and it seems to have topped off for a time around 2.3 million before beginning a slow ‘n’ steady descent. By that time, Al Feldstein was probably the highest-paid editor in the world. He was making a lot more off Gaines’ magazine than Gaines. Al was the only creative person at Mad who had a deal linked to success.

Act Two ended around 1984 when Feldstein began to see the circulation, not just of Mad but all magazines, dropping. He decided not to ride it down but to retire… to a ranch in Montana to build a new career for himself as a painter of Western scenes. He had achieved what he wanted to achieve at Mad: He was very, very wealthy.

I first met Al Feldstein in the middle of Act Two, visiting the Mad offices where everyone seemed happy and friendly and very much in tune with the spirit of the silly magazine they produced up there. Everyone except Al Feldstein, that is. He was polite but curt. He was willing to take time to meet me because I was a friend of Sergio Aragonés but for no other reason… and after pleasantries were exchanged, he made it clear I was wasting his time and he had a magazine to get out. Others in the office told me that was just how Al was. He was the only one there who worked with his door closed.

I guess I was a little surprised and maybe disappointed. I expected the editor of the world’s greatest humor publication to have a great sense of humor… and he really didn’t. He had a very strong social conscience and a lot of the magazine’s morality; its disdain for weaselly politicians, its campaign against smoking, etc., came in no small part from Feldstein.

But the funny came from the writers and the artists, and an awful lot of it came from an associate editor named Nick Meglin. When the “editor” said something funny in the letters page, that was possibly another associate editor then working there, Jerry DeFuccio, but it was more likely Nick. It was almost never the editor, Al Feldstein.

It was a good magazine. Some still argue it wasn’t as good as what Kurtzman did, and to me, that’s like debating whether one great pizzeria’s better than another great pizzeria. Fine.

But Feldstein’s Mad was very, very successful as both a cultural icon and a money-maker. Sales went up and up and so did Feldstein’s compensation.

Al was shrewd enough to capitalize on Gaines’ reticence to employ new people, especially in the all-important post of Editor-in-Chief. At a couple of key junctures—mainly when Gaines was dickering to sell Mad to a corporation—Feldstein demanded a larger piece of the money pie and Gaines acquiesced. At the time, Mad was selling around 600,000 copies an issue, which was very good. Gaines agreed to give Feldstein an escalating series of bonuses linked to Mad’s sales figures.

The money would really have been great for Al if the magazine’s circulation got up around the million mark… and sure enough, a few years later it did.

Decision 1961 (Above center:) Feldstein in a photo taken by Mark Evanier at the Mad offices in 1975.

(Directly above:) The two covers of Mad #60 (Jan. 1961), which were both printed on the same million or so copies, upside down from each other. Painting by Bob Clarke.

[Covers © EC Publications, Inc.; photo © Mark Evanier.]

About Al Feldstein...

Meeting most of the major Mad contributors of that generation, I came to have a pretty good sense of who was doing what on that publication. Feldstein was certainly not goofing off, letting underlings do the hard work while he napped and collected the biggest check. He worked very hard editing and adapting scripts into visual format, laying out pages and such. For a long time, he’d “spec” the type in the balloons on the typewriter in his office, figuring out exactly how to space the lines so they’d fit together properly on the page. He did an awful lot of work on most pages… … but it really didn’t involve being funny. At best, it involved how to present someone else’s funny for maximum impact.

Mad paid its people decently, but it was no secret that Gaines paid his editor super-super-well. Some (not all) felt that Feldstein was reaping a disproportionate share of the riches… that the “split” was not fair. The fact that Al was not a warm, friendly guy perhaps exacerbated those resentments a bit. One longtime Mad writer told me that it bothered him a lot that so much of the reward for the magazine’s success went to the guy who ran the restaurant efficiently and not to the chefs who created and cooked the wonderful meals.

Once in a while when Feldstein was interviewed, he described himself a “total mercenary, a guy who’s just in it for the money.”

No one was sure if he meant that as a joke or a confession. During our brief encounters then, I could see why it was hard to tell.

Things began to change when we got into Act Three. For several years, Feldstein stuck with his paintings… which were very good, by the way. Then he began making the rounds of comic conventions with two obvious goals in mind. One was to promote and sell those paintings—the Western scenes but more often paintings he also did recapturing the EC days. He did re-creations of old covers of Weird Fantasy and scenes of the hosts of the EC horror comics.

That was one objective.

The other was to reaffirm his legacy. After years of only caring about the check—or at least saying he did—it had started to bother him a lot that, first of all, no one seemed to know he had written most of those great EC Comics. They were being adapted for movies and television then, and even when his name was mentioned, it wasn’t mentioned enough to suit him. He was furious one time when a magazine did a major overview of the adaptations EC had done of Ray Bradbury stories and omitted all mention of Al Feldstein, implying the artists had done the script conversions. It also bothered him that a lot of people thought Harvey Kurtzman deserved all the success for Mad, at least on an editorial level.

I spent a lot of time with Al at conventions in various cities. I probably did a halfdozen one-on-one interviews and had him on eight or nine panels. We sometimes dined together because he didn’t seem to have a lot of friends at those cons. He was bright. He was fascinating. And in retirement, he was a much, much nicer person than he was up at the Mad offices.

Some folks he encountered who’d worked for Mad were amazed to discover that Feldstein had become—or was at least trying to become—one of the boys.

Some time ago, I wrote in four parts about arranging for him to meet Ray Bradbury on stage at the 2002 Comic-Con International. Here is a link to the fourth

65

part: www.newsfromme.com/2012/06/15/the-ray-bradbury-juliusschwartz-al-feldstein-story-part-4/. It was a very emotional moment that included Al breaking down and shedding real tears.

When certain of his old associates heard about it later, they didn’t believe it. That was not the Al Feldstein they knew, but it was, for the most part, the Al Feldstein I knew.

Act Three: A Photo I Took Of Al Feldstein At A Comic Convention In 2002 Al was right that he didn’t get sufficient credit for writing all those EC Comics. His own fault for not putting his name on them?

Probably—but he still deserved more recognition than he received, even if all that may have mattered to him at the time was the paycheck.

And not to take anything away from Harvey Kurtzman, who was also a wonderful man with a stellar body of work, but he got a lot of kudos because Mad survived so long and it survived so long because of Al Feldstein and people hired by Al Feldstein. It was a wonderful magazine that became an important part of the social consciousness and sense o’ humor of a couple of generations. (By the way, it’s still—under its present regime—a pretty good publication.)

I don’t think Al has received enough credit for that magazine.

Some of the folks who worked under him think he received too much of the money, but I’m not taking sides on that one. I really only mention the dough because I think it’s wonderful when anyone who started in the hardscrabble days of comic books created something of great value and managed to actually get paid what their work was worth. We can all name so many who did not.

Still, before Al died, if you went to Google and typed in “editor of Mad,” almost all the hits on the first few pages would be for Kurtzman, who left the publication in 1956. That’s a function of how often people wrote about Harvey and Mad as opposed to Al and Mad. Al is only in first position at the moment because of all the recent obituaries.

He should stay on or around the top because Mad was a terrific and much-loved magazine when he was on or around the top of its masthead. I think all those guys deserve a lot of credit and it shouldn’t be at the expense of each other.

The Final Frontier (Left:) Feldstein in the photo take by Evanier in 2002. (Right:) A space scene painted by Feldstein in retirement. [Photo © Mark Evanier; painting © Estate of Al Feldstein.]

66

In Memoriam

Seen with this article are two photos I took of Al, 27 years apart.

As I mentioned, when I met him up at the Mad offices, I was kind of disappointed. That magazine meant a lot to me, and I didn’t expect its editor to act like an accountant who had to get back to his ledgers. It took me a long time to fully understand and appreciate his contribution to that magazine, since, by then, I was well aware that he wasn’t responsible for the funny. That came from Frank Jacobs and Al Jaffee and Mort Drucker and Don Martin and Larry Siegel and Tom Koch and Bob Clarke and Jack Rickard and Stan Hart and Dick DeBartolo and Sergio Whatzisname and Lou Silverstone and Dave Berg and Don Edwing and dozens of others and especially Nick Meglin.

I don’t think I really got it until I researched and wrote Mad Art, a book about the making of that magazine. That was the year before I took the second photo above of Al. By then, I’d learned how hard he had worked and that, no, he may not have contributed the funny but he hired the guys who supplied the funny. He got great work out of them and he didn’t get in the way of it like so many people in his position might have done. Instead, he selected the funny and he edited the funny and he laid out the funny and he made sure it stayed that way… and he got it to press on time. He couldn’t have done it without all those other people, but they couldn’t have done it without him.

And by the time I learned that and took that last photo, Al Feldstein had changed. I didn’t really like the guy in the red pants in the first of the two photos. But I definitely liked and respected the one in the second. A lot.

O ORIGINAL RIGINAL CCOMIC OMIC AART RT

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999

IF YOU LOVE COMIC BOOKS, THEN YOU “MUST” CHECK OUT THE OTED TO BUYING, LARGEST INTERNET WEBSITE IN THE WORLD DEVO SELLING, AND TRADING ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK ART AND COMIC STRIP ART! YOUR BEST ARTWORK INTERN TERNET SOURCE IS RIGHT HERE!

FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

ROMITAMAN R OMITAMAN

Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails

CHECK OUT OVER 8000+ “PICTURED” PIECES OF COMICBOOK AND COMIC STRIP ART FOR SALE OR TRADE. ALSO CHECK OUT THE WORLD’S “LARGEST” SPIDER-MAN ORIGINAL ART GALLERY! I BUY/SELL/AND TRADE “ALL” COMICBOOK/ STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT. SO LET ME KNOW YOUR WANTS, OR WHAT YOU HAVE FOR SALE OR TRADE!

www.romitaman.com w ww.romitaman.com

Green Lantern flies off with a reluctant passenger in Comic Cavalcade #26 (April-May 1948). Art by Alex Toth; writer unknown. [© DC Comics.]

67

viewed as F.F. imitations, though Lee and Kirby in X-Men were imitating themselves). This is not intended as a slam at the DP or at Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, though. Whatever their inspiration, they made “Doom Patrol” a series with its own style and flavor, combining (especially in the earlier issues before a “camp” influence crept in) some of the best aspects of both Silver Age DC and Marvel.

Bill Henley

That’s pretty close to my own view of things, Bill. But no one was ever going to convince the late Arnold Drake, bless him and those Turkish cigarettes he used to smoke (in those days when people could puff away at the office), that X-Men wasn’t a card-carrying copy of Doom Patrol, despite the similarities of both to Fantastic Four. And you’re right, of course, that Doom Patrol was a significant creation all on its own.

I

t had to happen, didn’t it? Turn Australian artist & A/Eficionado Shane Foley loose with a mandate to come up with an homage illo that celebrates the 75th birthdays of the concepts of The Flash and Green Lantern—and you’ll receive via e-mail attachment a drawing of both of this magazine’s two costumed “maskots”—Captain Ego (on the left) and Alter Ego—in poses happily derived from Golden Age artists… in this case, E.E. Hibbard and Alex Toth, respectively. And we’re no less ecstatic about Randy Sargent’s bold coloring. You’ve done it again, lads!

Oh, and by the way—the colored “maskot” drawing for A/E #133 is due in thirty short days! Somehow, we think you’ll come through yet again!

[Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly—created by Biljo White; Alter Ego hero TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas—costume designed

by Ron Harris.]

Now, on to missives and e-mails re Alter Ego #120, which celebrated another anniversary—50 years of The X-Men, birthed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963—with the editorial “we” again dropped in favor of “I” (for Roy T.) in the italicized responses to the bouquets and brickbats below, beginning with a note from reader Bill Henley, who says that he was a big fan of the original 1963-70 X-Men run, identifying especially with The Beast, but he believes that:

[T]he “school” aspect of the series hurt it. Kids read comics as an escape from real life, including school life with its classes, tests, grades, and bossy teachers. A lot of them, I suspect, were put off by the idea of young super-heroes who had to deal with all that stuff at “Prof. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” even getting graded on how well they performed their super-feats. Note that the much more popular Spider-Man was a teenager whose life as a super-hero was an escape from his own school travails as Peter Parker, and who didn’t have an adult mentor telling him what to do as Spider-Man. Also note that when the “New X-Men” became a hit in the ’70s and ’80s, the “school” aspect was much played down (I recall an early scene in which Wolverine threatens Prof. X with his claws when “Charley” tries to give him a demerit).

I’d like to weigh in on the ancient argument about whether The X-Men with their wheelchair-bound leader were an intentional copy of the slightly earlier Doom Patrol with their wheelchairbound leader. Put aside the “wheelchair” thing for a minute and look at the makeup of the original Doom Patrol. Four members, including a brainy, somewhat overbearing scientist-leader (The Chief); a grumpy, inhuman, wisecracking, orange-colored strongman (Robotman); a character who flew around surrounded by a glowing, crackling nimbus of light (Negative Man); and a token female (Elasti-Girl). The resemblances between the Doom Patrol and the Fantastic Four were a lot stronger than any resemblance between the DP and The X-Men (indeed, both could be

Bart Mixon offered an observation about Daredevil #1, which, as noted in A/E #118 & #120, had originally been scheduled to have debuted on the same 1963 date that The X-Men did, before deadline problems forced The Avengers onto the schedule in the former’s place: Hi Roy—

Bill Everett has been credited as the artist of the Daredevil figure from the cover of Daredevil #1, when this is clearly Jack Kirby inked by Everett. The Photoshopped cover of DD #1 on page 10 [of A/E #120] is what Kirby’s original cover must have looked like (flopped or not)—even the gangsters are clearly Kirby/Everett—and the splash page image of DD is lifted from the Kirby cover and not the other way around.

Bart Mixon

You’re probably right, Bart. We’ll try to remember to credit it as “Kirby & Everett” in the future, unless we hear a good argument to the contrary.

Richard Howell, a veteran pro comics artist, responded to a query of Ye Editor’s about the four penciled, unused X-Men #17 panels we printed on page 7 of A/E #120. We knew that they were on the back of the fullpage drawing of The Angel flying that wound up being done for that Marvel issue, but we were curious as to whether that page actually consisted of two pieces of drawing board put together. Richard, who owns the original art, responded: Hey, Roy,

I’m looking at the page right now, which certainly confirms that it’s still here. I hadn’t seen it in a while, but since it’s included in the separate “Kalish” part of the Legendary Howell/Kalish collection, I wouldn’t have merely stumbled upon it in the usual course of my day.

The [Angel] page in question is composed of three different taped-together areas, the largest being the 2/3 page that, on the back, retains the unused art (but sideways) that was deemed unnecessary… and the top tier is constructed of two other segments, the larger of which is almost blank (someone scribbled “1/2 SIZE” on it), and the rest, the balance of the full sheet, sports very little of another unused pencil panel. It’s small enough that it’s difficult to identify what’s going on in it (there are no characters depicted, not even anonymous Army men), but Kirby’s border notes include the names “Prof. X,” “Beast,” and the word “hazard.”

Richard Howell

Thanks, Richard. The late Carol Kalish, as many long-time comics fans know, was Marvel’s direct sales manager at the time of her far-too-early passing in 1991. Doesn’t seem possible she’s been gone from us so long.

This from Barry Pearl, one of A/E’s “angels,” who helps us

68

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

embryos implanted into the wombs of all the women in Midwich capable of giving birth.

Same is true of both the movies, though the number of forced pregnancies is much smaller.

Another John Wyndham novel, however—Chrysalis in England, Re-birth over here—is about mutants, though it is set in a distant future, become more primitive because of nuclear war in their past, our future. They don’t know what caused the disaster, but feel it has something to do with deviations from a narrow interpretation of normalcy. They don’t know there are deviations—mutations— among their own children. One of Wyndham’s best ideas is that, because of the extreme repression in their society, these different children, with various psi powers, don’t themselves know they are mutations. Like all of Wyndham’s novels from Day of the Triffids onward, it’s an excellent sciencefiction novel.

Bill Warren

We were aware that the Midwich Cuckoos weren’t technically mutants, Bill, but the concept of exceptionally “gifted” children still smacked of The X-Men, which is why it was mentioned in that informational spread. Might’ve been a good idea for us to make that clarification, however.

Artistic Kneed Shaun Clancy sent us the photo above of the Sal Buscema/Tom Palmer original art for the cover of The X-Men #64 (Jan. 1970), and asked Roy why the Sunfire figure was moved up slightly on the published version depicted at right. Odds are that Stan Lee (more likely than publisher Goodman, associate editor RT, or production manager Sol Brodsky) had that figure Photostatted and relocated so it couldn’t give the impression Sunfire was leaning his knee against the Capitol dome. Stan never liked that kind of overlapping, and preferred a bit of visual space be left, instead. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

enormously with vintage Marvel Age scans, including in this issue: Hi Roy—

I loved the feature on the Merry Marvel Marching Society in A/E #120. Did you know that the last two people to get the highest rank, “F.F.F.,” were Nick Caputo and me? You may certainly interview us at any time!

Barry Pearl

You guys are a bit young for A/E’s up-through-1975 general franchise, Barry—but of course you were a prominent part of an article on a visit to the home of Dick Ayers a few years ago, and we suspect you’ll pop up again!

Bill Warren, science-fiction fan, movie reviewer, and one of the first friends Ye Editor made when he moved to Los Angeles in 1976, writes: Dear Roy—

Sorry, but The Midwich Cuckoos are not mutants. They are alien

Ed Silverman, as was made clear in Shaun Clancy’s interview with him in A/E #120, was a major broadcaster for many years, and we were honored that he agreed to speak with us. As to how that interview, when printed, impacted Ed, we have this letter: Dear Roy—

My Emmys and my having been first on the air for ABC during the Kennedy assassination get ho-hums from my younger friends… but when I showed them the current Alter Ego, it was like WOW… my career lives on! So, in response to popular demand, I would like to purchase ten additional copies of the mag, if possible. Just let me know the cost and how you would like the purchase price remitted to you.

Ed Silverman

As I recall, we shipped Ed the extra copies at no cost. We’re glad to have rescued his career from “oblivion.”

Nick Caputo, like Barry Pearl a member of the self-styled Yancy Street Gang, had this to say: Hi Roy—

I particularly enjoyed the ‘Brazilian X-Men’ article. But I’m curious—do you recall anything about the scheduled story for X-Men #49, as noted in the blurb in the last panel of #48: “The heat is really on Beast and Iceman next ish… when they face the fury of Metoxo the Lava Man!” Although the same team (Drake, Heck, and Roth) produced the next issue, there was no reference to the previously scheduled story. Was the idea nixed at the last minute by Stan? Or are there some unpublished pages out there?... Also, when Stan put Steranko on The X-Men, was he a fill-in, or was he supposed to be a permanent artist to perhaps help raise sales?...

A few corrections and info re A/E #120. The inker for the cover of X-Men #76 is almost certainly Frank Giacoia. I’m “certain” that that

re:

69

Wizard magazine once to suggest that “maybe The X-Men were based on The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, a movie that had a character in it named Mr. Xavier.” Seems a bit of a stretch to us, Francis, despite the shared name “Xavier.” After all, if you’re going to call a mutant Professor X and have his actual last name begins with the letter “X,” how many choices do you have?

P.C. Hamerlinck, our fabulous FCA editor, dropped us a line to say: “In A/E #120, page 70, the spelling should be Al Carreno, not Carrena.” Duly noted!

SPECIAL NOTE: Nancy Shores Karlebach, daughter of the great Golden Age artist Syd Shores, has asked Alter Ego to print a muchbelated correction with regard to her father. In an interview printed in A/E #52 (Sept. 2005), fellow artist and friend Joe Giella stated that he had been told by Shores in the early 1970s that, unable to find work in the comics industry, he had become a taxi cab driver. Joe has since said publicly that he believes he confused Syd with someone else in that instance; but in the meantime that bit of mistaken data has found its way into the online Wikipedia entry on Shores. It’s hoped that Giella’s statement, confirmed here in A/E, will convince the good folks at Wikipedia to delete that tidbit of misinformation from their entry. Syd Shores was still working as a valued artist for Marvel Comics when he passed away at the too-young age of 60 in June of 1973.

“Weird” But True Reader Jeff Deischer exchanged e-mails with Will Murray, author of our “X-Men”/mutant history article in A/E #120, advising us all that: “The first labeled mutant in Atlas/Marvel wasn’t Roger Carstairs… but the ‘Weird Woman’ from Amazing Detective Cases #11 (March 1952)—a year earlier than Roger, making her the first Marvel character to call herself a ‘mutant.’”

Thanks to benefactor Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, we’ve reproduced the crucial page from that story. Art by Joe Sinnott, scripter unkown. For more on this tale, check out www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/weirdwomanadc.htm. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

of X-Men #1 is inked by Sol Brodsky, although some of my fellow GCDers suggest Giacoia or Paul Reinman. Brodsky’s line is much cleaner than Reinman’s, as can be seen if one compares the interior Reinman inking to the cover. Inking on the unpublished Smith XMen #53 cover may be by John Verpoorten.

Nick Caputo

I’m afraid I don’t recall for sure what waylaid Metoxo the Lava Man from making an appearance, but I suspect that it happened because Stan Lee elected to end the experiment he had launched a few issues earlier, in which the comic’s main logo was the name of a mutant or two—and, in conjunction with that, he may have asked writer Arnold Drake to go in a different direction. But that’s only a half-educated guess, at this remove.

Jim Steranko only agreed to pencil a couple of issues. It was never in the cards that he was going to stick around for long, but his stellar work brought a bit of added attention to The X-Men. As for the ID of those X-Men covers you mention, we can only print your missive and see what others think.

A couple of fast comments to close things out:

Francis Alexander Rodriguez reports that someone wrote in to

A Bunch Of True Sports In A/E #120, Ed Silverman reported that he scripted the entire contents of Ziff-Davis’ comic book Bill Stern’s Sports Book #2 (Summer 1952).

Ric Estrada drew the real-life story of the original basketball Celtics, a 1920s New York-based “pro” super-team—no relation to the Boston Celtics founded in 1946. Reproduced from the bound volumes of early-’50s Ziff-Davis editor Herb Rogoff. [© the respective copyright holders.]

70

[correspondence, comments, & corrections]

Send e-mail and snail-mail to:

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

Why not sign up with the Alter-Ego-Fans online chat list in order to learn more about upcoming issues of this mag, as well as other facts and phenomena related to the Golden and Silver Ages of Comics? You’ll find it at group.yahoo.com/group/alter-ego-fans. If you run into any problems, just contact our genial overseer Chet Cox at mormonyoyoman@gmail.com and he’ll walk you through them. You’ll be glad you signed up!

Putting All Your “X” In One Basket As artist/animator Will Meugniot points out, The X-Men appeared in one episode of the 1966-67 Grantray-Lawrence quasi-animated TV series Marvel SuperHeroes, which split its focus five nights a week between “Captain America,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Iron Man,” “Thor,” and “Sub-Mariner”: “What happened was, since ‘Sub-Mariner’ was the ‘youngest’ of the Marvel features to be adapted, the studio ran out of source material. So they kluged together an episode of ‘Subbie’ from his F.F. crossovers—but, not having the rights to the F.F., they had to find stand-ins for them and used The X-Men, for whom it would appear rights were lacking. So they are never called The X-Men on the show!” No doubt true—but wouldn’t it have been easier to adapt the X-Men #6 (July 1964), which had guest-starred Prince Namor? Or maybe they did that, too? Anyway, above, from an MSH “Sub-Mariner” episode made up especially for the series, is a Mel Keefer drawing of the Atlantean confronting a monster; courtesy of Anthony Snyder. The latter dealer had a number of such drawings on sale a few months back; check out his website at www.anthonysnyder.com/art. For more about artist Mel Keefer’s career in comics, commercial art, and animation, see Alberto Becattini’s interview with him in Alter Ego #119. [© Marvel Characters, Inc.]

ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS! Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations!

Also, your ideas for NEW art are welcome!

Art can be pencils only, inked or full-color (painted) creation!

Contact Frank directly for details and prices.

(Minimum order: $500)

Visit my website at: http://www.frankbrunner.net

[Hawkgirl TM & © DC Comics; She-Hulk TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art ©2015 Frank Brunner.]

Previously Unpublished Brunner Artwork!

72

Art ©2015 Mark Lewis

There are other much more important events in my life, such as my wedding day, the death of my father, Pearl Harbor. Yes, I remember those things naturally, but they don’t stand out particularly.

They have blended back into a sort of formless curtain of the hazy past. But that one day that I slept, yet was awake, stands out as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.

Part XIII

O

Abridged & Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

tto Oscar Binder (1911-1974), the prolific science-fiction and comic book writer renowned for authoring over half of the Marvel Family saga for Fawcett Publications, wrote Memoirs of a Nobody in 1948 at the age of 37, during what was arguably the most imaginative period within the repertoire of “Captain Marvel” stories.

In the Ten Commandments of a writer, one law states: “Thou Shalt Not Use Coincidence.” Editors throw up their hands in horror if you dare submit a story in which something happens by sheer coincidence. If it isn’t relatable or true to life, they bleat. Everything has to have a cause and effect.

Things just don’t happen because they happen.

Is that so? Perhaps all of you at one time or another have been absolutely amazed and stunned at some unbelievable coincidence that happens—just because it happens.

Right? Let me tell you of one instance of mine.

I once had a cold—the cold to end all colds, so bad that I became voiceless for one day. All I could get out was a low,

Aside from intermittent details about himself, Binder’s capricious chronicle resembles very little in the way of anything that is indeed autobiographical. Unearthed several years ago from Binder’s file materials at Texas A&M University, Memoirs is self-described by its author as “ramblings through the untracked wilderness of my mind.” Binder’s potpourri of stray philosophical beliefs, pet peeves, theories, and anecdotes was written in freewheeling fashion and devoid of any charted course— other than allowing his mind to flow with no restricting parameters. The abridged and edited manuscript—serialized here within the pages of FCA—will nonetheless provide glimpses into the idiosyncratic and fanciful mind of Otto O. Binder.

In this 13th excerpt, entitled “Peepholes into the Past,” Otto shares some intriguing memories from his life—including one incident he had with a desperate comic book artist. — P.C. Hamerlinck.

T

his chapter starts off with reminiscences of my life. Do all of us have certain vivid and undying memories that stand out against the dim backdrop of our past? I think so. Often they are just little things. Things so trivial and meaningless that it seems impossible they should survive. Each of you has such a series of memories, like pictures strung along a movie reel. They flash before our minds at odd moments, and startle us by their vividness.

I still remember the day, as a boy, when I had my first malted milk. I remember its flavor (cherry)… its slightly-bent straw… and I can picture the girl who served it to me. The sweet, nectar-like taste of it hit me like a ton of bricks. Now why should a ridiculous little incident like that stick in my mind as if I had seen an atomic bomb drop?

I was 22. It was the Depression. I was jobless. Who wasn’t? I went to spend the summer on a farm in northern Wisconsin with friends. It was rugged country, less suited for farming than fishing and hunting. One day my friend Matt and I walked seven miles into a forest to fish and hunt. At dawn, we trudged our way home, weary, grimy, cold, hungry. When we arrived back at the farm I collapsed on the grass. I didn’t move the rest of the day. And yet, a vivid memory sticks out to this day, a sensation I never had before.

I slept soundly that whole day, but some part of me was still awake and took in all that went on around me. Nothing like it ever happened to me again.

Penny For Your Thoughts, Mr. Binder?

Otto Binder crafted the early “Mr. Scarlet and Pinky” tale “Crimes For a Penny!” in November of 1941 — the same year he began writing comics scripts for Fawcett. By the time the story was published (in America’s Greatest Comics #2, Feb.-May ’42; art by Phil Bard), Binder was already a few weeks into a 6-month editorial position he accepted with Fawcett before returning to freelance writing. And the rest is history! [Mr. Scarlet TM and © DC Comics.]

Memoirs Of A Nobody - Part XIII

73

Page Quest Perhaps Binder’s “Commando Yank” story “Quisling Quest In Tibet!” (from Wow Comics #44, June ’46; art by Carl Pfeufer) could’ve been the script with the elusive “missing page” as detailed in this issue’s installment of Memoirs of a Nobody? Or maybe not…. [Commando Yank TM and © the respective copyright owners.]

out a new page from memory and mail it to him? I can’t remember. What sticks out in my mind is that ghastly phone conversation in which the artist pleaded for me to talk— and I was without a voice.

One more reminiscence: We all know how a bit of music or a whiff of some odor will bring back deep-seated memories. One Christmas, as a boy, the phonograph was playing “Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum,” the classic German Xmas tree song. At the same time, I was reading one of my Christmas gift books, John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The two—the song and the story—became inextricably combined. Whenever I hear “Tannenbaum,” I don’t see Santa Claus. Instead, I am instantly whisked away to the planet Mars.

I always come back, though, wouldn’t you know? whispering growl that would sometimes change to a high squeak, neither of them understandable.

And the phone rings!

On the phone happens to be an artist who had lost one page out of one of my comic book scripts. He explained that he had called the editors, but they couldn’t help him. Did I have a copy?

It was a mistake to answer the phone in the first place, I know.

But I was stuck now. My wife wasn’t home. I had to try to answer him. The artist could make nothing out of my weird mutterings, but he guessed it was a heavy cold. Now, if it hadn’t been important, he would have hung up. But it seems he had to finish the story that day. A strict deadline. The editors had threatened to lynch him if he didn’t finish the job.

So he pleaded with me to tell him what that missing page should hold. He was utterly desperate and determined to get it out of me. And my voice was gone. If he had called the day before, or the day after, I would have been able to talk. It had to be that day.

And never before or since have I had such a cold. And never before or since has an artist lost a page of one of my comic book scripts with a deadline to meet or hell to pay.

That, my friends, is coincidence.

Yet if you used such an incident in a story, no editor would buy it and no reader would believe it. Is there some Cosmic Elf, like a Court Jester, who looks down upon this world and brings about such merry doings, laughing madly in glee?

If you’re wondering how it all came out with the comic book artist, I finally rummaged and found a carbon of the story and mailed him the missing page by Special Delivery. Or did I write

Next: WESTWARD HO!

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

© AC Comics.

The above is just a partial list of characters that have appeared in AC Comics’ reprint titles such as MEN OF MYSTERY, GOLDEN AGE GREATS, and AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS. Virtually all issues published to date are still available for purchase 24/7 with PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard. To find over 100 quality Golden Age reprints, go to the AC Comics website at <www.accomics.com>.

74

Bringing The Thunder The Elliot S! Maggin FCA Interview

by John G. Pierce Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck with J.T. Go

E

DITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Elliot S! Maggin was a major writer for DC Comics through the 1970s and early ’80s. While he is most closely linked with Superman, he was also a vital part of Captain Marvel’s comic book comeback in the pages of Shazam! during 1973-75. John G. Pierce conducted the following interview with the writer in August and September of 2014. —PCH. JOHN G. PIERCE: How did writing for Shazam! come about? Did you request the assignment, or did editor Julie Schwartz ask you to do it?

ELLIOT S! MAGGIN: Yeah, Julie asked me to do it.

JGP: Denny O’Neil told me that he was given a bunch of old Fawcett comics to read in preparation before writing his Shazam! scripts, though in his case it was a matter of re-familiarization, since he had been a “Captain Marvel” fan in his youth. What about you?

MAGGIN: I read the same pile of old comics as Denny did. For some reason, I was familiar with the “Captain Marvel” series beforehand. I knew all about Shazam the wizard and Billy Batson.

JGP: As a Superman fan, how did you feel about writing stories of the character who was the Man of Steel’s number one rival of the 1940s?

MAGGIN: Y’know what? Superman and Captain Marvel were rivals in the publishers’ offices and the lawyers’ offices. When DC started publishing Shazam!, the mucky-mucks there thought it’d be good promotion to play on that to attract more attention to the relaunch of the original Captain Marvel. I don’t know whether it worked, but it made a good story.

JGP: I’ve read two contradictory statements about Julie Schwartz’s being given the Shazam! book. One, from Nelson Bridwell, was that Schwartz had asked for it, but Schwartz himself said that he didn’t really care much for Captain Marvel.

MAGGIN: I think Julie understood that the Superman and Captain Marvel characters were different—notwithstanding the silly long-term lawsuit—and approached it with the same kind of challenge he always did. He generally groaned over having to deal with new characters, then they grew on him and he took a close proprietary interest in them. That’s what he did with Superman and, before that, Batman as well.

Maggin’s Mob Elliot S! Maggin (on the right, in front of the typewriter) receives some unsolicited advice from Captain Marvel during a scripting session with Cary Bates (the writer on the left) and other “friends” in a piece used for the cover of The Amazing World of DC Comics #2 (Sept. ’74); art by Kurt Schaffenberger (seen peeking behind Superman). Mr. Tawny’s there too! [© DC Comics.]

approach.” He went on to describe your story that introduced a new character named Sunny Sparkle (Shazam! #2). Was Sunny your own idea?

MAGGIN: Yeah, Sunny Sparkle was my guy. In fact, he was the first character I created whom I heard people talking about as though a person who was painfully likeable was a “Sunny Sparkle” type. As though I’d created a cliché. That felt very cool.

After that I started showing up with story ideas based on characters who were personifications of superlatives. “The Most Beautiful Woman on Earth” … “the World’s Dullest Human” (actually wrote that one)… all to go along with “the World’s Mightiest Mortal.”

JGP: “The Wizard of Phonograph Hill” (Shazam! #3) was another clever story you crafted. Was that your own idea?

JGP: Did Schwartz ever give you the sense, or even actually say something aloud, to the effect that a certain approach to the title had been forced on him, in spite of his better judgment?

MAGGIN: I think so. It’s kind of a blur. But a takeoff on Thomas Edison sounds like something I’d dream up. I think I had a larger hand in the background concepts that went with my Shazam! stories than I had with most other characters.

MAGGIN: Nope. Julie thought through transformations of characters in the course of editing their series. He was a jump-inthe-soup kind of guy. He usually liked to let characters evolve. He did that all the time, over and over, and obviously it generally worked for him.

JGP: C.C. Beck’s Shazam! #4 cover concept was lifted from his cover for Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April, 1945). Was your story for that issue, “The Mirrors That Predicted the Future,” developed with that old cover in mind?

JGP: I established a correspondence with C.C. Beck shortly before Shazam! #1 appeared. In his first letter to me, he mentioned, with regard to the stories, that “Elliot Maggin is writing them also, and he has a great

MAGGIN: I think probably the story was inspired by the old cover. I generally try and make a point of not reading source material when something is derivative in other ways.

Bringing The Thunder

75

First Impressions (Above:) In his very first Shazam! script—and first collaboration with Captain Marvel co-creator/artist C.C. Beck—Maggin introduced a new character, Sunny Sparkle, to the Captain’s cast of characters in “The Nicest Guy in the World” in Shazam! #2 (April 1973). Beck initially liked Maggin’s approach to the new “Captain Marvel” stories, but his appreciation for them would soon fade away.

(Right:) Maggin channeled Thomas Edison for his new character, Dr. Thomas Kilowatt, in “The Wizard of Phonograph Hill” in Shazam! #3 (June ’73). Art by Beck; edited by Julie Schwartz. [© DC Comics.]

JGP: For your story in Shazam! #5, “Dexter Knox and his Electric Grandmother,” C.C. Beck told P.C. Hamerlinck that Dex’s grandma was based on C.C.’s sister-in-law, Ruth—whom P.C. met a few times—and it’s an accurate characterization! (Beck also told Paul that he had always drawn Dexter to look like himself as a teenager.) Did Beck have more influence than usual on that particular script?

MAGGIN: The idea for that one came from reading Tom Swift when I was a kid. I’m glad C.C. had fun with it, but he didn’t know about the story until it was done.

JGP: You also wrote “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories. Were you given any instructions to make them more realistic (relatively speaking) than the solo “Captain Marvel” tales?

MAGGIN: That was kind of understood. I never thought of them as “more realistic,” but rather as calling for less credulousness on the part of the reader. I always thought of Junior as a kind of young Elvis.

JGP: Your “CM Jr.” tales were drawn by Dave Cockrum and Dick Giordano. Were all of you attempting to bring the essence of the early stories illustrated

by Mac Raboy?

MAGGIN: I was definitely trying to capture the mood of the old stories that were

Smoke And Mirrors Maggin says he may have been influenced by the cover of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures #45 (April 1945)–seen at left—when he wrote “The Mirrors That Predicted the Future” for Shazam! #4 (July ’73). The art in both cases is by C.C. Beck, pencils and inks. [Shazam hero, Shazam, & Billy Batson TM & © DC Comics; Shazam! #4 art © DC Comics.]

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

76

The School Of Hard Knox Maggin brought inspiration from the Tom Swift juvenile books of the early 20th century when he wrote “Dexter Knox and His Electric Grandmother” for Shazam! #5 (Oct. ’73). Art by Beck, who once told FCA’s editor that he had always drawn Dexter Knox to look like himself when he was a teenager. [© DC Comics.]

drawn by Raboy. I thought Dave was a natural to try and evoke that, and I was thrilled that he wanted to draw it. Dick was thrilled at the idea, too.

were writing stories that he would draw, or was everything done through the editors?

JGP: Nelson Bridwell once told me that Mary Marvel was a character that you “couldn’t get started on,” so he ended up writing her stories. Do you remember what the difficulties might have been, if indeed there were any?

MAGGIN: Always with Julie. I almost never worked with Nelson, although I liked him quite a lot.

MAGGIN: I don’t remember the specific problems I had with Mary, but I’d suppose that Nelson was correct. I had gotten into the habit of writing a lot of the female characters— Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Black Canary—but I never quite got what was distinctive about Mary Marvel.

JGP: Were you aware that two of your stories—“Invasion of the Salad Men” (Shazam! #10), and “The Incredible CapeMan” (Shazam! #11)—were scripts C.C. Beck refused to draw because he deemed them too silly and consequently were given to other artists to illustrate (Bob Oksner and Kurt Schaffenberger, respectively)?

MAGGIN: I had quite a bit of contact with him the couple of times he came to New York. He was a great guy to have a drink with. He got a little heavy-handed when it came to rewriting elements in scripts, and I think I told him that. He shrugged.

JGP: Speaking of editors, did you work mainly with Schwartz or with Bridwell?

JGP: When you went into Schwartz’s office for a story conference, would you work on more than one story during the meeting?

MAGGIN: No, just one at a time. He once said, “You’re not capable of doing two projects at once.” I disputed that, and I had no idea where he got that impression. So one day I handed in the script we had discussed along with another one—a “World of Krypton” story which he read and bought—that he had no idea I was working on. So there!

JGP: Did you always have a story in mind when you went in to see Julie?

MAGGIN: I pretty much always had something—even if it was something I came up with in the subway on the way over. Once in a while he’d accuse me of being a “plot vampire,” constantly sucking his ideas out of his head and slapping my name on the credits. It really was quite a collaborative process, though. I learned after a while that it was rarely a good idea to get married to a story

MAGGIN: Yeah. I liked Beck’s work, mostly—the way he apparently liked mine—but I didn’t (and don’t) see the line where something was either acceptable or “too silly” in his judgment. I was just trying to be clever. Clever was what I did for a living. And “Salad Men”? Spare me. I love that story and I love those characters. What kinds of aliens do you want in a Shazam! story—green-eyed monsters? Really? C.C. was just being a kvetsch.

JGP: Beck also declined to draw your other story from Shazam! #11, “The Year without a Christmas!,” with the conviction that The Marvel Family shouldn’t co-exist with Santa Claus. [EDITOR’S NOTE: For more on Maggin’s Shazam! Christmas tale, see A/E #130/FCA #189.]

MAGGIN: The idea that The Marvel Family somehow shouldn’t live in the same world as Santa Claus is just silly. It’s a big deal to be able to come up with stories set in an established world with its own distinctive set of suspensions of disbelief without over-thinking the thing and crashing the whole house of cards. If a kid with a fishing line sitting on the curve of a crescent moon is internally consistent enough to introduce the world E.T. lives in, then Santa Claus can live in the same universe as The Marvel Family. Hell, he lives in the same world as I do, and I’m a much more realistic character than Billy Batson. At least I think I am.

JGP: Did you have any contact with Beck during the time you

All Shook Up! In his “Captain Marvel Jr.” Shazam! stories, Maggin sought to emulate the mood of the 1940s era of artist Mac Raboy, during the character’s Fawcett run. Maggin’s first “CM Jr.” tale, “The Mystery of the Missing Newsstand!,” appeared in Shazam! #9 (Jan. ’74); art

by Dave Cockrum. Maggin viewed CM Jr. as a “young Elvis.” [© DC Comics.]

Bringing The Thunder

idea if I was going into a full-blown plotting session with Julie, because he would just let his mind go and he’d generally expect the same from me. So even if I had an elaborate, tight story idea worked out—and often I did—I would invariably leave with a seriously twisty variation on the theme I started with.

JGP: Otto Binder once said that a writer doesn’t find ideas on street corners or hiding under lamps, but rather that “you have to think them out.” Would you agree? Where did you find the inspiration for some of your stories?

MAGGIN: My guess is that Otto was probably wrong about that.

I get a lot of ideas from out of the corner of my eye when they don’t think I’m looking. They just show up. Now, in the execution of a story, you have to do the work. You have to figure out what your decision is, what the conflict is about, how to resolve the thing. But ideas themselves—those germs—they’re crawling around in my head (and Otto’s, too, I suspect) like roaches. Used to be that the question I’d get most from people— like on elevators or in cabs or here and there—was, “Where do you get your ideas?” and I never really had an adequate answer for that. Then I heard Einstein’s answer to the same question. Someone asked him that, and he sat pensively, sucking on his pipe for a while, and he said, “Well, I’ve only had one or two.” I used to tell people there were really only about six or eight plots, then I sat down and tried to figure out what they were, and I realized there’s only one. Really.

JGP: Did you ever enter into a conference with Schwartz (or any other editor) and end up emerging with a story almost totally different from the idea you went in with?

MAGGIN: More often than not.

JGP: Did you ever come up with any story ideas (for “Captain Marvel,” “Superman,” or any other feature you worked on) that were completely rejected?

MAGGIN: All the time. Mostly what I did for a living was dream up stuff that got squelched.

JGP: About how often did you need to go to the DC offices?

MAGGIN: When I lived in New York, I had to be there generally once a week—but sometimes I’d go by more often on some pretext because I was interested in hanging out and wasting time. I remember showing up one day in shorts with Steve Mitchell and

77

Eat Your Vegetables!

Maggin stands by the scripts he wrote that, in turn, infuriated C.C. Beck enough that he refused to draw them; and that (along with ongoing disagreements with Julie Schwartz) finally caused him to resign from Shazam! Amongst the stories (besides “The Year without a Christmas” from Shazam! #11) was “Invasion of the Salad Men” (left) from Shazam! #10 (Feb. ’74), which was then assigned to artist Bob Oksner… and “The Incredible Cape-Man” (right) from Shazam! #11 (Mar. ’74), which was given to Fawcett alumnus Kurt Schaffenberger to illustrate. [© DC Comics.]

Cary Bates on the way to the beach. Sol Harrison caught a glimpse of us and I thought he was going to have a canary, but Julie hustled us into his office and slammed the door. Then he gave us a lecture on propriety—probably just to be able to tell Sol he did.

Them days are gone. You’ve got to be more inventive to be outrageous now. Once I moved to New Hampshire in the late ’70s I came to town once a month or so. When they reserved a room for freelancers to come in and work—especially at 909 Third—it was a great place to hang out and get your juices flowing.

JGP: Did you have any preference among the three assignments for Shazam!, viz., “Captain Marvel” tales, “Junior” stories, or “Marvel Family” ones?

MAGGIN: I liked the Captain and Junior the best. Loved working with Kurt Schaffenberger, although I had limited acquaintance with him. The thing I liked best about him, though, was how much he looked like Clark Kent (as drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger). I think Kurt probably added the moustache to his own look just to avoid being mistaken for Clark on the street.

JGP: What about Bob Oksner, another artist who drew your Shazam! stories?

MAGGIN: He was the sweetest guy, and he always hung around to talk and compare notes when he came by. Ridiculously talented.

Where you could always recognize a Schaffenberger character at a glance, Oksner could ape other people’s styles and fit into a series like a key in a lock. He was a good writer, too.

JGP: After his exit from DC, Beck did try for a rapprochement, by writing a story about the Seven Deadly Enemies. After receiving the

78

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

heavily-edited script back from Bridwell, he started to draw it, but then gave up in disgust. Your replacement for his story was “The Man Who Stole Justice” (Shazam! #16). Do you recall being told to write a story about the Seven Deadly Enemies as a replacement for Beck’s tale, or was it handled as any other assignment?

MAGGIN: I don’t remember that Beck declined an assignment. I guess they didn’t let me in on that stuff. I just knew he had gotten increasingly unhappy with the editing process and really didn’t feel he needed the work.

JGP: Was Zazzo, the mischievous character you created for “Who Stole Billy Batson’s Thunder?” (Shazam! #19) inspired by Mr. Mxyzptlk?

MAGGIN: I’m not sure, but I think I actually had Reggie from the Archie books in mind at the time.

JGP: “The Strange and Terrible Disappearance of Maxwell Zodiac” (Shazam! #20) was Bridwell’s choice as the best Shazam! script you did, but he said that it required a lot of work to put it into usable shape. Do you have any recollection of what changes were made in your script?

MAGGIN: I don’t. Although the thing I liked best about the story was the title… worked hard on that title. I did hundreds of scripts in those days, and although I take pride in having a deep memory, the circumstances behind the products get a little blurry.

JGP: “Maxwell Zodiac” was also your final Shazam! story. Were you informed of that at the time or later?

MAGGIN: I was never informed of much of anything except what kind of script they wanted next. It felt like a breakneck speed at the time, and I don’t think I noticed for months that I hadn’t written a Shazam! story lately. I still miss doing it. It was a kick-and-a-half.

JGP: Let’s turn now to the “Superman” story with your pseudo-Captain Marvel, “Make Way for Captain Thunder” (Superman #276). I understand that there was some edict at the time that Superman and Captain Marvel couldn’t appear together.

MAGGIN: It didn’t seem that they should be together any more than you can readily have a Star Trek/X-Men crossover. The worldviews of the two sets of characters were so different they were at odds. What you’ve got to remember about working with fantasy characters is that it’s the storytellers who are responsible for a character’s internal consistency. So using made-up approximate characters like Captain Thunder—and Cape-Man in the Shazam!

Book—was my way of having each character acknowledge the other without having the Universes implode. Since that time, it’s occurred to a number of people that it might be fun to have Universes implode, so we no longer have many of the continuity issues we had then. We’ve got brand new ones.

JGP: Out of all you’ve done, which was your favorite character to write?

MAGGIN: Superman. No contest. If you realize that when you deal with that character you’re working with an icon who’s been with us in different guises through hundreds of civilizations over thousands of years, you get to feel really privileged. At one time it’s possible that Captain Marvel could have evolved into such an icon, but it never happened—and that may be what the DCFawcett lawsuit was really about.

JGP: Denny O’Neil (in Shazam! #15) did a parallel-world adventure in which he brought Lex Luthor in to fight against Captain Marvel.

MAGGIN: I was always too wary of internal inconsistencies to attempt too much in the way of crossovers.

JGP: In a collaborative effort between you (dialogue) and Cary Bates (plot

Sha-Zazzo!

Maggin reveals that his Zazzo character from “Who Stole Billy Batson’s Thunder?” (Shazam! #19, Aug. ’75) was not inspired by Superman’s mischievous Mr. Mxyzptlk, but by Reggie Mantle from Archie Comics!

Art by Kurt Schaffenberger. [© DC Comics.]

and breakdowns) for a JLA/JSA crossover tale in Justice League of America #123 (Oct. ‘75), you and Bates—as well as, to a lesser extent, Julie Schwartz and Carmine Infantino—are all part of the story. Do you recall what led to the concept of weaving fictional characters with nonfictional individuals?

MAGGIN: Cary and I came up with the idea in the middle of the night hanging out drinking coffee at the Hilltop Diner in Queens. I can’t remember which story or stories inspired it, but we were both kind of fed up with writers and artists putting themselves in stories by name as characters. I’d done it before and so had Cary, and as it turned out we would both do it again. (It got to be such a cliché that a few years later other people were using me as a character in stories I had nothing to do with. I only wish somebody had portrayed me the way Dick Dillin did in that JLA/JSA story. I got groupie stalkers over that one.) So Cary and I decided that the thing to do was put ourselves in a story and go so over-the-top with it that no one would ever want to do it again. We flipped a coin to decide which of us would be the hero and which would be the villain and wear a costume. Cary won. And afterward we got such a positive response to the thing that guys were putting themselves in stories right and left. I bet Grant Morrison’s social life improved a quantum level when he showed up to freak out Animal Man, but now he’s a recurring character, too, pretty much out of his own control. Goes to show you.

JGP: What kind of interactions did you have with any fellow writers or artists?

MAGGIN: Cary Bates was probably my best friend through those years. Al Milgrom was my roommate for years, and I miss him these days quite a bit. I became close with a lot of artists and writers I met through comics, and many of us are still involved in each other’s lives in one way or another.

JGP: Did you ever meet any of your legendary predecessors in comics,

Bringing The Thunder

such as Mort Weisinger, Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, or John Broome?

MAGGIN: I spoke to Mort Weisinger on the phone a few times about one thing or another, but I was never around when he came by. I never actually met him face to face. I met John Broome, though. He was teaching English in Japan, as I recall. He was the best man at Julie’s wedding. I never met Otto Binder or Gardner Fox, although I certainly would have liked to. I met Wayne Boring when he was up at the office once, though. Nice guy.

I also met Alfred Bester who, it turned out, knew a lot of people I knew. He was an editor with a travel magazine at the time. I had gotten all excited about a book of short stories he wrote. I just tripped over it; I had never heard of him before. I was about 21 and I didn’t know anything about anything. So I went over to Julie and asked him if he knew a guy named Alfred Bester. Julie thought that was so goofy he called people in from the hall and made me repeat the question for everyone he could corral… Carmine Infantino, Dick Giordano, Nelson Bridwell, all the older guys who knew better than to ask a silly question like that. Apparently Julie had been Bester’s agent in the ’30s and early ’40s, and when Bester was writing “Green Lantern” (I’m convinced he wrote the oath; Bester couldn’t remember whether he had, but it was too much like the opening and closing of The Stars My Destination for it to be a coincidence), and Bester was the person who convinced Julie to apply for his job as an editor.

So I called him up and hung out with him on the phone for about an hour. I was about to start a graduate program in journalism at Columbia, and Bester tried to convince me I needed to go to the film school instead, which, as far as I can determine, wasn’t an option at that point. Turns out he was a friend of someone who became my favorite professor at Columbia, a guy named Lou Cowan, who had been president of the CBS network once upon a time. Cowan knew everyone in town, too. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Alfred Bester also freelanced “Captain Marvel” stories for Fawcett from 1942-45.]

I got to know Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster pretty well, too, when we all got involved in the effort to get them a pension from Warner Bros. I wrote a long article in The Village Voice about them.

JGP: Did you continue to follow Shazam! after you were no longer involved with it?

MAGGIN: I did follow it for a little bit, but never really read the character when he was folded into the DC Universe… didn’t think that ever really worked. I caught up with him a little when I did the novel version of Kingdom Come, but even a significant chunk of that treatment of him didn’t make sense to me, and it was the source of a good deal of contention with my book editor at DC. I spent hours on phone calls for months after I wrote the book— months longer than it took to write the book—having to justify this or that niggling little creative choice I’d made.

JGP: Were you doing any non-DC work (either comics or other writing) during those years?

MAGGIN: I wrote a few stories for Marvel here and there, as well as for a few other publishers. I got a Masters in journalism from Columbia while I was at DC, and I did some work for some newspapers, notably The Village Voice. I also raised horses, children, bees. The horses are gone and the children are grown, but the bees continue to reproduce at an alarming rate.

JGP: About how long did it take, generally speaking, to do a short comics story? How about a book-length script?

MAGGIN: I wrote just about a story a week—an average of 12 or

79

13 pages—pretty consistently. It takes roughly the same amount of effort and time to fit a story into six pages as it does to fit one into 24.

JGP: You’ve already mentioned Kurt Schaffenberger. Who were some of your other favorite artists to work with?

MAGGIN: Alex Toth, hands down, is the one who best understood in artistic terms what I was getting at in my script. I only did one story with him [“Villain! Villain!

Who’s Got the Villain?” from Superman Annual #9, 1983], but it was a corker. I liked working with Neal Adams, with whom I also did only one script—my first [“What Can One Man Do?” from Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87, Dec. ’71/Jan. ’72]—but who turned out to be a great character in his own right.

As you can probably see from my treatment of Sivana, the Joker, and Luthor, I rather enjoy inveterate pains in the ass.

JGP: What can you share about working with Curt Swan?

Gangway For Captain Thunder!

Maggin’s magnificent “Make Way for Captain Thunder!,” featuring his pseudoCaptain Marvel and Billy Batson (Willie Fawcett) appeared in Superman #276 (June ’74), with art by Curt Swan and Bob Oksner. Maggin explained that creating approximate characters like Captain Thunder—and even Cape-Man—was his way of having characters like Superman and Captain Marvel indirectly acknowledge the other without having each of their universes implode. [© DC Comics.]

MAGGIN: Curt was the definitive Superman artist.

Still is. Everyone is trying to put his own imprint on Curt’s Superman. There was this management philosophy people seemed to subscribe to in the ’70s and ’80s that involved a boss dividing and conquering his employees, pitting them against each other in competition. If you were working for a guy who had a copy of Management by Peter Drucker on an accessible shelf in his office, you’d do well to look out. Julie thought the best idea was to have Curt dislike me from the beginning. We were actually very similar, Curt and I, but neither of us knew it. We had the same politics, the same issues with authority. We both loved Superman and Julie. He was an artist from Westport, for heaven’s sakes, and I was a social sciences major from Brandeis. So every time Curt had some issue with something in a “Superman” story, no matter whose idea it was, Julie would tell Curt it was “Maggin’s fault” and he’d tell me Curt’s coming up, I should go to lunch because he wants to throttle me. So that went on for years until the last year we were doing “Superman,” sometime in 1985, when Curt, Julie and I went to a little comic convention in Ithaca, New York, and Sunday morning Curt and I found ourselves in this hotel breakfast place drinking scotch and vodka and listening to some girl play harp music for

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]

80

The Strange & Terrible Disappearance Of Elliot S! Maggin Without warning, “The Strange and Terrible Disappearance of Maxwell Zodiac!” from Shazam! #20 (Oct. '75; art by Kurt Schaffenberger) became the last Shazam! story written by Elliot Maggin. He still misses writing them, and we miss reading them. [© DC Comics.]

hours. We were friends after that as long as we were both on the planet at the same time.

JGP: Do you remember what your very last comics script was?

MAGGIN: I think it was an Archie’s Super Teens story from 1994. I had never written a story for Archie before, and I wanted to do that before I stopped. I’ve done other comics scripts since, but only as tie-ins with other larger projects I’ve been working on.

JGP: What are you doing nowadays?

MAGGIN: I work training doctors and nurses at a big HMO, and I finished a book last year—or at least I thought I did. I’m now embarking on my fifth draft of the thing. I keep writing, pretty much constantly—obsessively—whether I’m getting paid for it or not. I’ll see about getting the thing published when it’s ready.

JGP: Do your present co-workers know what you used to do?

MAGGIN: Yeah, they figured it out after a while. I work with a guy who used to be an NFL football player, and he seems to place a great deal of importance on people’s career evolution, so he has a habit of telling everyone he meets—just as an excuse to tell people he used to be a Washington Redskin, I think.

A Advertise dvertise With With Us! Us! ALTER EGO! • BACK ISSUE! • DRAW! COMIC BOOK CREATOR! COVERS: 8.375" Wide x 10.875" Tall (plus 1/8" bleed all around) FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875"

These raates are for ads supplied on-disk (PDF, JPEG, TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpresss files acceptable). pply.

No agencyy discounts ap Display ads are not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Call for BrickJournal raates.

A Ad dR Rates: ates: Back cover COLOR: $800 ($700 for two or more) Inside cover B&W: $400 ($350 for two or more) Full-page B&W interior: $300 ($250 for two or more) Half-page B&W interior: $175 ($150 for two or more) Quarter-page B&W inteerior: $100 ($87.50 for two or more)

Bulk Bulk Ad Ad Rates!

Rates!

Run the same size ad for 26 insertions and these discounts apply: Back cover COLOR: $10,000 ($385 per ad) Inside cover B&W: $6000 ($231 per ad) Full-page B&W interior: $4000 ($154 per ad) Half-page B&W interior: $2000 ($77 per ad) Quarter-page B&W inteerior: $1000 ($39 per ad)

We accept check, money order, and all major credit cards; include card number and expiration date.

Send ad copy and payment (US funds) to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 919-449-0344 • fax 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

NEW ISSUES:

TwoMorrows.

A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Visit us on the Web at twomorrows.com

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

BACK ISSUE #80

BACK ISSUE #81

BACK ISSUE #82

BACK ISSUE #83

“Flash and Green Lantern in the Bronze Age” (crossover with ALTER EGO #132)! In-depth spotlights of their 1970s and 1980s adventures, MARK WAID’s look at the Flash/GL team, and PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Lost GL Fillins. Bonus: DC’s New York Office Memories, and Green Lantern: Ganthet’s Tale by LARRY NIVEN and JOHN BYRNE. With BARR, BATES, GIBBONS, GRELL, INFANTINO, WEIN, and more. Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

“DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints!” An indepth exploration of DC’s 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULARS, plus: a history of comics giants, DC indexes galore, and a salute to “human encyclopedia” E. NELSON BRIDWELL. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, RICH BUCKLER, FRANK FRAZETTA, JOE KUBERT, BOB ROZAKIS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. Super Spec tribute cover featuring classic art by NICK CARDY.

“Bronze Age Events!” With extensive coverage of the Avengers/Defenders War, JLA/JSA crossovers, Secret Wars, Crisis’ 30th anniversary, Legends, Millennium, Invasion, Infinity Gauntlet, and more! Featuring the work of SAL BUSCEMA, DICK DILLIN, TODD McFARLANE, GEORGE PÉREZ, JOE STATON, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE ZECK, and more. Plus an Avengers vs. Defenders cover by JOHN BYRNE.

“International Heroes!” Alpha Flight, the New X-Men, Global Guardians, Captain Canuck, and Justice League International, plus SpiderMan in the UK and more. Also: exclusive interview with cover artists STEVE FASTNER and RICH LARSON. Featuring the work of JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, RICHARD COMELY, KEITH GIFFEN, KEVIN MAGUIRE, and more! Alpha Flight vs. X-Men cover by FASTNER/LARSON.

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships June 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships August 2015

KIRBY COLLECTOR #66

BRICKJOURNAL #34

ALTER EGO #133

ALTER EGO #134

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! Another potpourri issue with a comparison of Jack Kirby’s work vs. the design genius of ALEX TOTH, a lengthy Kirby interview, a look at Kirby’s work with WALLY WOOD, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, Jack’s COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

DOUBLE-TAKES ISSUE! Features oddities, coincidences, and reworkings by both Jack and Stan Lee: the Galactus Origin you didn’t see, Ditko’s vs. Kirby’s Spider-Man, how Lee and Kirby viewed “writing” differently, plus a rare KIRBY radio interview with Stan, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused pencil art from FANTASTIC FOUR, 2001, CAPTAIN VICTORY, BRUCE LEE, & more!

TOMMY WILLIAMSON on the making of his YouTube LEGO sensation BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, BRANDON GRIFFITH’S COMICBRICKS PROJECT recreates iconic comic book covers out of LEGO, JARED BURKS and his custom Agents of SHIELD minifigs, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

Gentleman JIM MOONEY gets a featurelength spotlight, in an in-depth interview conducted by DR. JEFF McLAUGHLIN— never before published! Featuring plenty of rare and unseen MOONEY ART from Batman & Robin, Supergirl, Spider-Man, Legion of Super-Heroes, Tommy Tomorrow, and others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Celebrates SOL BRODSKY—Fantastic Four #3-4 inker, logo designer, and early Marvel production manager! With tributes by daughter JANA PARKER and son GARY BRODSKY, STAN LEE, HERB TRIMPE, STAN GOLDBERG, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT, TONY ISABELLA, ROY THOMAS, and others! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover portrait by JOHN ROMITA!

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships Spring 2015

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Summer 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships June 2015

DRAW! #31

FREE 2015 TWOMORROWS CATALOG

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

DRAW! #30

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren Publishing, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, “Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman” cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; plus the late STAN GOLDBERG speaks; the conclusion of our BATTON LASH interview; STAN LEE on his European comic convention tour, and more!

We focus the radar on Daredevil artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Agents of Atlas, Batman, Avengers, Captain America) with a how-to interview, comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) talks about his creative process and his new series Winter World, columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

How-to demos & interviews with Philadelphia artists JG JONES (52, Final Crisis, Wanted, Batman and Robin) and KHOI PHAM (The Mighty Avengers, The Astonishing SpiderMan, The Mighty World of Marvel), JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews of art supplies, JERRY ORDWAY demos the “ORD-way” or drawing, and Comic Art Bootcamp by MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS! JG Jones cover! Mature readers only.

Features all available back issues and books! Download the INTERACTIVE PDF DIGITAL EDITION (click on any item, and you'll automatically be taken to its page on our website to order), or for a FREE PRINTED COPY, just call, e-mail, write us, or go online to request one, and we'll mail it to you at no cost (customers outside the US pay a nominal shipping fee)!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Summer 2015

(36-page FULL-COLOR catalog) FREE (Interactive PDF Digital Edition) FREE

SAVE

15

THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS!

WHE % OR N YOU ONLDER INE!

SPRING 2015

THIS JUNE: MONSTER MASH

The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972 Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (Shock Theatre, The Addams Family, The Munsters, and Dark Shadows), “Mars Attacks” trading cards, Eerie Publications, Planet of the Apes, and more! It features interviews with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN (Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters), JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of “The Dark Age”). SHIPS JUNE 2015!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490649

GO TO www.twomorrows.com NOW FOR A FREE PREVIEW!

Everybody’s Grandpa (Z LSKLZ[ º4\UZ[LY » 5L^ @VYRLY (S 3L^PZ ^HZ H KYVSS +YHJ\SH

Then there was Aurora Plastics Corporation’s infainfa mous guillotine model kit.

Aurora Witch kiit; the wifee posed) and Aurora’s

Aurora had been enjoying great successBama’s box art forr The Witch (for which his Voger Forgotten Prisoner kit photo by Mark Witch kit photo courtesy of Polar Lights; The Witch box photo by Kathy Voglesong; with its model kits based on movie monsters, themselves often based on classic literature. Its Hunchback of Notre Dame set depicted a scene of outright torture — a chained Quasimodo with whip marks on his exposed back — but no one batted an eye. After all, the Hunchback was a character from classic fiction (Victor Hugo, yo!) and the kit was based on a rel relatively recent Hollywood hit.

Buoyed by its monstrous suc success, Aurora brought out a decid decidedly gruesome kit: a working guil guillotine. “Victim loses his head!

Really works!” proclaimed one ad.

Added another: “Harmless fun!”

The kit worked like this: The blade came down; the head of the bound man was “cut off”; it landed in the basket. Kids across America painted blood stains on the kit’s blade, head and gener basket withsgenerAddam ’s “The a Milton ous Bradley dabs of Testors red enamel.

Game” offered FamilyACard colleagueto of minethe built the nity see kit,opportu way back when.

Said he of the rare in color. show of the of reliability the guillotine’s funcstars TV Productions © Filmways Addams Family” “Thetion: “It worked fine except that I covered and re-covered that poor little man’s head in so much red paint, it did occasionally stick.”

WITH HIS LONG BEAK, COMIC MANNERISM and distinctly Noo Yawk S accent, Al Lewis seemed the least likely actor to be cast as Count Dracula. But in some ways, Lewis was a better-known Dracula than his forebears Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela John Carradine and Christopher That’s because even non-horror Lee. fans know Lewis’ thanks to his role as Grandpa Dracula, Munster.

Lewis with There is confusion over Lewis’ year of birth, apparently created stogie at his by the actor himself, who claimed to New York be older than he was (!). Many sources eatery in put Lewis’ birth in 1923, but he indeed 1989. told me he had been a circus performer Photo by Kathy in 1922.

Oh, that Grandpa ...

Voglesong Lewis died in 2006. I interviewed him at his Greenwich Village restaurant, Grampa’s Bella Gente Street, in 1989. Good conversationon Bleecker ... not to mention, good pasta.

Q: What happened during your audition for Grandpa Munster?

LEWIS: I never auditioned.

They just called me and told me they were pilot, and would I be interested? doing a They sent me some scripts, and then I flew out.

Q: Would you say you created Grandpa? For instance, did you elaborate on the character in the scripts?

LEWIS: Yeah. Of course I created it. Sure! I mean, there was no previous mold.

Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Maré kit.

The clearest example of Bama’s use of a movie still was his Dracula box art, which mirrored a publicity photo of Bela Lugosi from “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948).

Again, it seems odd didn’t go with a still that from the 1931 “Dracula” Bama yet again, Bama’s — and instincts were spot-on. © Universal Studios; box photo

by Kathy Voglesong

row for an hour and a half every night, and I’ll just watch movies. I’ll watch the horror movies in sequence, or Sherlock Holmes movies or whatever I’m in the mood for.

Q: Did you see your box art in stores at the time of release?

BAMA: I never saw them. and I wasn’t interested I was 35 years old at the time, in kids’ model kits.

They weren’t offered to me, and I didn’t ask for them.

I was 82 before I saw them! But almost everyone I know who says to me, “I put is in their 50s together those monster models when I was a kid.” So it was tremendous exposure. escape it. For all of But I can’t the beautiful Western paintings I’ve done since 1968, I’m better known for the monster kits and Doc Savage. I did 62 Doc Savage covers. That’s a lot of covers. I told my wife (Lynn), “The world will come to an end, but the monster models will still be know, my wife posed around.” You for one of my Aurora her, posing for The jobs. That was Witch.

Q: Was she prettier than The Witch?

BAMA: A little bit.

I always thought of her as an Margret, Lee Remick type. She was gorgeous. AnnAs I get older, my She still is. eyes get weaker, so she still looks beautiful to me.

“Harmless fun!” proclaimed a 1965 ad for Aurora’s Chamber of Horrors Guillotine model kit. Parents begged to differ.

Photo courtesy of Polar Lights

Disturbing as the guillotine kit was, Aurora seemed to think it had an “out.” The company hedged its bet by naming the kit “The Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors Guillotine.” In other words, this kit didn’t depict an actual beheading — it was a depiction of a depiction.

And that depiction was from a famous attraction at a respected wax museum. Madame Tussaud’s originated in London, you know. And London is a classy place.

It didn’t work. Parents freaked, and Aurora discontin discontinued the product.

Not that Aurora exactly dialed down the nightmarish thereafter. The Witch cooked rat stew. The Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Maré kit implied torture of a most insidious kind — a poor soul chained by the neck and ankles to a prison wall, defenseless against non-human appar visitors (there’s a nearby snake and a rat), who apparently starved to death over a lengthy period.

Compared to that, a beheading sounds downright merciful.

Famous Monsters of Filmland made Zacherle its cover boy twice, with issues #7 (1960), in a painting by Albert Nuetzell, and #15 (1962), in a painting by Gogos. Zacherle’ Basil s national profile was also enhanced by coverage in Life, TV Guide and The Evening Post. © Saturday W arren Publishing

200 out of the first three designs So there were a track record. not too bad of news. That’s phenomenon? you a national Q: What made What broke “Big Daddy”? when ROTH: It was Revell said, “We a want to make your model out of cars.” And then, of course, they out made models , too. of the monsters into That broke me the big time. on the Q: You worked but did you model designs, 3-D realizawork on their tions?

ROTH: Yeah. them in clay?

Q: Did you do in clay, and ROTH: Did ’em at Revell the model-makers plasticarb. made ’em into different Q: How many had kinds of products on your monsters were them? There decals, T-shirts, patches …

ROTH: Emco of made a bunch ’60s. decals in the That was a big a lot one. There’s naof old parapher lia that I’ve licensed out through the years. you Q: Which do prefer, drawing monsters or working on cars? tosROTH: It’s a real worksup. I suppose where I ing on cars is but I’ve make good at, money with the gotta make the monsters. a car called Q: You designed the Druid Princess for “The Addams

that were bad

ever used? show. Was it never on the the next Family.” It was speculation. And use it, it for them on can’t ROTH: No. I built and said, “We called me up gonna quit the thing was, they because we’re I thought “The series.” And so successful Munsters” was Family” that “The Addams have I still would be. But the car. of the Rat Q: In the wake the Weird-Ohs Fink kits came r. Were and Freddy Flypoggestyle? of your those a ripoff es were three compani ROTH: There kits. One of them putting out monsterwith the (mascot) m, was Monogra There was Hawk Mouse’s stuff. models. It seemed with five or six company went like every model collection. I think into a monster had the best the Revell ones assembly. character called Q: There’s a

by Sid Big Daddy played a Bikini Haig in “It’s …

World” (1967) a couple ROTH: They had those in of Big Daddies Bingo” “Beach Blanket (Don) things, where the Rickles played Big Daddy. They need a Big Daddy those of in all movies to show y’s in that somebod charge, you know? make Q: How did you Did out in the ’60s? share of you get your pie? the Rat Fink lly, I ROTH: Financia statedon’t have any wealth ment, but my in the is in my wife, built all fact that I’ve the fact those cars, and the with straight that I’m These are my man upstairs. to dollars seem wealth, and the es, you take care of themselv d on any go overboar know? I don’t Life is drugs or stuff. you one thing. No affordable if watch your Ps and Qs.

113

42

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

PRINTED IN CHINA

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

OTHER NEW BOOKS, NOW SHIPPING!