FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #226

“There Was Always A Party In The Comics Department On Payday!”

The Thrilling True Story of HARVEY JANES & Fawcett Publications Interview Conducted by Shaun Clancy Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

Harvey B. Janes in the backyard of his Salt Point, NY, residence in March 2012, with one of his rescued racetrack dogs. Photo courtesy of Shaun Clancy. (Above left:) Harvey Janes wrote the cover story “Science Creates a Monster”—a behind-the-scenes article on the Universal horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon—for the May 1954 issue of Fawcett’s Mechanix Illustrated. Janes later became the magazine’s Science & Auto Editor. (Above right:) The masthead of Fawcett’s Jackie Robinson #6 (1952) listed Janes as editor. The 32-page story centered around the baseball star’s most famous plays and was scripted by Charles Dexter, with art by Clem Weisbecker. Fawcett Publications led the way, among mainstream comics companies, in comics featuring African-Americans… in this case, the first “Negro” player in Major League Baseball. [TM & © the respective copyright holders.]

FCA EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: You may be asking yourself, “Who’s Harvey Janes?” In 2010, Golden Age comics fan-collector-historian Shaun

Clancy had managed to locate Chris Lieberson, son of 1950s Fawcett managing editor Will Lieberson. Chris was still living in the same New

York City apartment Will had lived in back in the day. During one of their conversations, the name “Harvey Janes” popped up. Harvey was just 19 years old when he began working in the comics department at Fawcett, and became a close friend of Will and his family. Shaun was able to track down Harvey, and a series of phone calls, beginning in January of 2012, revealed a vivid memory filled with fascinating stories from the former

Fawcett employee. In March of 2012, during a road trip from Seattle to

Boston, Shaun stopped by to visit Harvey at his house in Salt Point, NY.

Reminiscing with Shaun of days gone by was at the forefront of Harvey’s mind, as he had just survived a bout with cancer and was quietly taking care of two rescued greyhound race track dogs. Sadly, Harvey B. Janes passed away on June 17th, 2014. —P.C. Hamerlinck

SHAUN CLANCY: Let’s begin with some background information. When and where were you born? HARVEY JANES: I was born December 12, 1930, in the Bronx at a place called Webb’s Sanatorium. One of my father’s older brothers was a doctor there, as well as the co-owner of it.

SC: Any siblings? JANES: No.

SC: Your father, J. George Janes, was a pulp artist. Did he want you to become an artist? JANES: My dad thought I was going to be an artist. My mom even kept some drawings I had done when I was 4 or 5 years old. My dad would’ve loved to have helped me, and I did study art, but I became more interested in writing. Because of my dad’s contacts, I was already selling articles to publishers when I was 16 and 17 years old, so I went in that direction instead of art.

SC: Were you on the high school newspaper? JANES: Yes, I was an editor for the newspaper at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, along with Edward S. Feldman, who became a famous movie producer [Witness], and Bruce Jay Friedman, who became a famous novelist and screenwriter [Stir Crazy]. When I later got a job at Magazine Management editing a car magazine, there sat Bruce [laughs] editing one of their men’s magazines! What a small world.

SC: Did you go to college? JANES: I attended the New School of Development and Research in New York City.

SC: Was Fawcett Publications your first full-time employment out of school?

JANES: No, my first full-time job was with a clipping bureau. One of the duties I had there was carrying large sacks of envelopes full of mailings from the post office a few blocks away. One day, I’m carrying these huge bags down the sidewalk when I was accosted by some guys. One of them pushed me and I fell over. At the time I happened to be a welter-weight boxer about to turn pro, and so I got up and beat the s*** out of him. I thought that the other guys would jump me, but they didn’t. I called up the next day and quit the job. I didn’t like the people there anyway and, for all I knew, those guys would’ve tried to gang up on me again. After that, I went looking for another job, and that’s how I wound up at Fawcett! [both laugh] SC: How did you get the job at Fawcett? JANES: I got it through an employment agency. I was hired to be a clerk in the comics production department under Annette Packer.

SC: Was she the one who actually hired you at Fawcett? What year was this?

JANES: Annette hired me in late 1949. After a week there I got my first paycheck and Annette called me and said, “You got a raise!” The reason I got a raise was because the minimum wage law had just changed. [both laugh]

Pulps & Pinups (Left to right:) Harvey B. Janes’ father, pulp artist J. George Janes, in 1927. For further information on the elder Janes’ career, compiled by David Saunders, visit https://www.pulpartists.com/Janes.html. J. George Janes’ cover for Secret Agent X (April 1934), published by A.A. Wyn’s Ace Magazines. Scan courtesy of Heritage Auctions. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.] In this March 2012 photo, Harvey proudly displays one of his father’s pinup paintings.

SC: It seemed like there was such a fun atmosphere at Fawcett. We’ve previously published photos of some of the get-togethers and parties, including editor Ginny Provisiero’s Fawcett 10-year anniversary party…

JANES: Ginny and Edna Hagen were always man-crazy! Did Ginny ever marry?

SC: No, she didn’t. In a big group photo from Will Lieberson’s 10-year anniversary party, those two ladies are the only ones sitting on men’s laps! JANES: They were always looking for men! [both laugh] SC: Do you remember the lawsuit between National (DC) and Fawcett? JANES: Oh boy, do I remember that! We were locked away for days trying to come up with stuff to prove that Captain Marvel did things before Superman did them. We spent many hours looking through comics and materials.

SC: Did Fawcett supply you with Superman and other comics so that you could compare them with the “Captain Marvel” stories? JANES: Oh, yes. We were given piles of comicbooks to find things that preceded “Superman.”

SC: Were you successful in finding anything? JANES: Sure, we found a lot of examples. We found some things that came before a lot of the stuff that Superman was supposed to have originated. We thought we had a strong case and that it wasn’t plagiarism on Fawcett’s part.

SC: Who else besides you were assigned to research material for the case? JANES: Edna, Ginny, Dagny [Weste], Wendell Crowley, Al Jetter, Otto Binder, and others. Will Lieberson asked us to do it.

SC: Dagny later married Wendell. JANES: I remember the day in 1970 when Will told me Wendell had died. Dagny was Will’s secretary, so that’s how she and Wendell met each other. One time in the comics department we did a circus sideshow skit. Will was the ringleader. Wendell, at 6’8”, was, of course, the giant. Kay Woods was the fat lady; Edna Hagen was the skinny lady; the midget was Bruce Nichols. The strong-man was Roy Ald. Roy Ald used to do handstands during meetings. [both laugh] SC: Did you know that Wendell collected all of Fawcett’s comics while he was working there?

Annette Packer A pic of Fawcett’s comics production supervisor at Will Lieberson’s Fawcett 10-year anniversary party, held on July 11, 1952. JANES: No, I didn’t, but I once had a collection of comics. I had a wooden chest that my father made for me when I was about 8 years old and, because of my father’s connections in the publishing world, he’d bring home all kinds of comicbooks, including early Superman issues. The chest was full of them! Shortly after I got married, my parents moved from the Bronx to Long Island and they wanted to use that chest, so they threw away all the comicbooks inside of it! [both laugh]

Super-Hero Circus To strengthen their case in the National (DC) vs. Fawcett lawsuit over whether or not Captain Marvel was infringing on Superman’s trademark and copyrights, Janes was among several people at Fawcett assigned to gather material for the defense. When it came to circus covers, at least, C.C. Beck’s for Whiz Comics #6 (July 1940) preceded Paul Cassidy’s for Action Comics #27 (Aug. 1940). [Action cover TM & © DC Comics; Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

SC: Did you know artist Bill Brady? JANES: Sure, I knew Bill. He was a little leprechaun. [both laugh] Will and I used to go to the fights all the time. Will loved boxing. Bill was very close to Will and his family and would occasionally come along with us. Once I was at the Liebersons’ house having dinner with them before Will and I went to one of the fights. Will’s son—Dennis—was about 7 or 8 at the time, and Will was trying to convince his son that I was Soupy Sales. [both laugh] The kid didn’t buy it, but he didn’t argue with his dad, either. I was over at Will’s three or four times a week to go somewhere together, and Bill would often come along with us. He was a lovely, sweet man with a wry Irish sense of humor.

SC: Will had written a Broadway play called Springtime Follies that lasted only one night. JANES: I believe Will wrote the play with his brother. It starred movie actor Joseph Buloff.

SC: Did you go see the play? JANES: No, I didn’t. I told Will I’d see it next week, but there was no next week! [both laugh] SC: After leaving Fawcett, Will developed TV Junior magazine. Were you involved in that?

JANES: Yes, I was. I wrote some articles for it as a freelancer.

SC: It sounds like you stayed in touch with Will after you were both gone from Fawcett. JANES: The day I started at Fawcett and first met Will, he was 36 and I was 19. We became good friends and we had the same interests in boxing as well as music. He was crazy about the theatre and he got me involved in it. During the ’70s he was the director of the Quaigh Theater, which was an off-Broadway theatre, and we worked together there. I was a stage manager and assistant director and we did all kinds of things. In addition to that, we went to off-Broadway plays all the time together. When I found out that Will had died in 1995, I wondered if he had died on the tennis

Actually, Lieberson Should Have Called It Winter Follies! Actor Joseph Buloff (seen here in the 1957 MGM musical Silk Stockings) starred in Will Lieberson’s very short-lived Broadway play, Springtime Follies, which ran for a single night on February 26, 1951.

Wendell Crowley & Will Lieberson Two Fawcett editors extraordinaire (Wendell’s the tall one on our left) pose with Captain Marvel in the comics department in 1947. Fawcett must’ve loved that drawing of old Shazam’s star pupil about to throw a toy airplane that’s emblazoned on their T-shirts; they also used it on the wristwatch they sold through the mail around that time.

court. It stated in his obituary that Will had a heart condition, but that wouldn’t have stopped him from being out on the courts with his racket. If they told him he had a bad heart, he’d still go play tennis.

SC: While you were at Fawcett, did you do any writing there? JANES: I did some writing for a couple of their magazines like True and Mechanix Illustrated.

SC: Did you do any writing while you were in the comics department? JANES: Only editing. One of my duties with Will was editing the two-page text stories that appeared in the comics so that they’d qualify for Third Class postage.

SC: What else did you do in the comics department? JANES: Besides editing stories, I checked the manuscripts for grammatical errors. I’d also distribute the art pages that needed lettering. The artist would bring in the artwork with empty word balloons, so I was in charge of sending it out to either Charlotte Jetter or Martin Demuth to letter, then proof the final pages.

SC: Did you meet any celebrities that may have stopped by the comics department, like Gabby Hayes? JANES: Rhoda Geller was our main receptionist, and the alternate receptionist was Pat Cushman (who happened to be Buzz Fawcett’s mistress). One time, neither of them was available for the reception area, so I was asked to take over the desk for

It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Soupy-Man! One of Lieberson’s post-comics projects was the development a TV Guide-like publication for children called TV Junior, for which Harvey Janes wrote articles on a freelance basis. Shown above is TVJ, Vol.2, #7 (Nov. 1959). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

a few minutes. I was sitting there and in walks Gabby Hayes. He looked like an old rag in the movies, but when I met him he was tan, standing up straight, and wearing a $4,000 suit, a big watch, and a big cowboy hat. In a normal-sounding voice he says, “George Hayes for Ralph Daigh.” [both laugh] I also met Tex Ritter. He was there to see Will. He was very pleasant. Rod Cameron visited the offices and I had a long talk with him. He was a huge guy and a big serial/Western movie hero. Smiley Burnette once stopped by the comics department, but I didn’t talk to him. On one of the floors below the Fawcett offices was a Screen Actors Guild office, so Fawcett had a constant flow of famous people stopping in to see them—some because of the comics, some because of the movie magazines. SC: Do you remember any of the comicbooks you worked on? JANES: Nyoka the Jungle Girl was one of them.

SC: Do you remember editor Barbara Heyman? JANES: Yes! I was in love with Barbara Heyman. Besides myself, she was the youngest one on staff in the comics department. She was probably in her early 20s. I had a crush on her.

SC: As Executive Editor of the comics, was Will the only editor at Fawcett that had a secretary? Edna Hagen, Kay Woods, Ginny Provisiero, and Dagny Weste had all been his secretary at one time. JANES: Annette Packer had a secretary, a pretty girl named Kitty Carrie, but as far as I knew, Will was the only other editor in the department with a secretary. I remember Will had hired a secretary who had misfiled everything, including freelance writers’ and artists’ paychecks that had been sent over from the Greenwich, Connecticut, office. It took us a week to find them, so no one got paid for awhile. After she was fired, Will was looking for a new secretary and someone decided to pull a prank. They got a model/ actress to go into Will’s office for an interview. She’d cross her legs, open her blouse, and come on to him. Will, being a practical joker himself, immediately smelled a rat, and so he attacked the girl and she ran out of the office! [both laugh]

[continued on p. 77]

Play Ball! The splash pages of 1950’s Thrilling True Story of the Baseball Giants and Baseball Heroes, both scripted by Charles Dexter and edited by Harvey Janes. Artists unidentified. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Go West, Young Man! Harvey Janes recalls these cowpoke actors with licensed Fawcett comicbook titles riding into the comics department at varying occasions: George “Gabby” Hayes (#5, April ’49); Smiley Burnette (#1, March ’50); Rod Cameron (#2, April ’50); Tex Ritter (#2, Dec. ’50). The photo below shows Harvey, during his stint as comics production assistant and editor, at Will Lieberson’s 10th-year anniversary party in 1952. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Take Me Out To The [Four-Color] Ball Game… While he didn’t mention them in his conversations with Shaun Clancy, Harvey Janes received a byline as the editor of several of Fawcett’s baseball-related comicbooks: Jackie Robinson #6, Baseball Heroes, Thrilling True Story of the Baseball Giants, and Thrilling True Story of the Baseball Yankees, all cover-dated 1952. All these issues were scripted by Charles Dexter. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

It’s A Jungle Out There, Girl! The photo-cover of Nyoka the Jungle Girl #66 (April 1952). While he couldn’t recount many specific comicbook titles on which he worked at Fawcett, Harvey Janes did remember Nyoka. [TM & © AC Comics/Bill Black.]

[continued from p. 74]

Before Fawcett, Will worked at Funnies, Inc. Several of the people from Fawcett originally were at Funnies, Inc., including Ray Gill. He and I shared an office together for a while. He was a heavy drinker. Mickey Spillane had also worked at Funnies, Inc. Mickey used to come up to Fawcett often to see Ray on Fridays (payday) and we’d all go out for drinks over at the Algonquin Hotel’s lounge, so Mickey and I became good friends.

SC: Any stories about Mickey? JANES: There were always people who were beating the system at Fawcett so they could make extra money on the side. Al Jetter’s wife Charlotte was supposedly a comicbook letterer, but actually it was Al doing all the lettering jobs, and Al even admitted to me and Will that he was the one doing the work to make a supplementary income. Charlotte would bring in the lettered comic pages to me, and then I would give her more pages to do, and she’d bring them back in the next day because Al was awake half the night working on them!

Anyway, we had another person also doing the lettering for the comics, a charming fellow named Martin Demuth, whom I mentioned previously. We became friends. He was another heavy drinker. I’d pick up comic pages from Martin, who was staying at the Iroquois Hotel next door to Fawcett. I was there one morning when Martin gets a call from Mickey Spillane from Grand Central Station and he asks to see him. Martin asked why and Mickey said he’d tell him when he got there. We go over there and Mickey says, “I need money! I’m embarrassed to tell you that I got my pocket picked on the train!” And I said, “Now, let me get this straight: Mike Hammer got his pocket picked?” [both laugh] Martin and I gave him money. Mickey calls me up the next week and he took me to lunch and gave me the money back. That’s a story I’m sure he would not have wanted told! [both laugh] SC: Earlier, you recalled the circus sideshow skit that the comics department did, and you mentioned the name Bruce Nichols. Can you share anything more about him? JANES: In the late 1960s my wife and I had lived in Manhattan, near Madison Square Park, where I’d walk our dog. One day I was leaving the park and a short homeless man approached me and asked, “Mister, can you …” Once he got a good look at my face he ran away. It was Bruce. I recognized him, he recognized me and, obviously ashamed, ran away from me. I called up Will and told him about the incident and he said, “Oh yeah, he’s been a bum for several years and he calls me occasionally. I made the mistake of giving him money once, and now he keeps calling. I told him it had to stop. I never found out how he ended up like this.” It’s a sad story. All I know is, when the comics department broke up, Bruce got a job at Disney in their art department. Bruce was quite small, and he and Wendell Crowley used to go out to lunch together. Wendell was twice his height. One of the places we’d all go to lunch to was a Chinese restaurant called The Great Wall. Al Jetter was so good with the chopsticks that he could pick up three peas in a row. Wendell loved their egg foo young. He’d always tell the waiter to serve it with “Lots of gravy!” [laughs]

You know, I had met my wife at Fawcett. We’re divorced now. Her name was Barbara Brotman. She was editor Jim Scardon’s secretary for Fawcett’s Woman’s Day magazine. Anyway, one of my jobs was writing articles for an in-house publication called The Fawcett Flame, and Scardon was its editor. I used to go around to all the different departments and try to get interesting material for The Fawcett Flame, and every time I’d check in with Scardon, I’d get to see Barbara, and eventually we became husband and wife.

SC: Did you know Bob Powell? JANES: Sure, I knew Bob. He drove a Porsche. I’d occasionally see him down at the race tracks.

SC: How about Rod Reed?

JANES: Rod Reed had been the head of the comics department before Will replaced him. Rod had a deal with Will that he would write most of the two-page short stories that were in the comics. At one point, with an increase of comic titles, I was put in charge of all the two-page stories as the editor, so I decided to have my friend Dan Greenberg write a few of them, but I didn’t tell Rod. Rod would’ve written all of them, had I let him! I never met Rod in person, but did speak with him on the phone.

Bill Parker was the editor of Mechanix Illustrated and, years before Rod Reed’s tenure, he was Fawcett’s first comics editor. One day I went to lunch with True editor Ken Purdy and he told me that Bill Parker had cancer. (Bill died years later, in 1963.) Ken said during our lunch that if he found out he had cancer he would blow his brains out. Well, that’s exactly what he did, in 1972.

Some (Clockwise) Faces In The Fawcett Crowd Harvey Janes became friends with hardboiled crime novelist—and occasional actor—Mickey Spillane (seen above in the 1954 murdermystery film Ring of Fear). His creation, two-fisted private eye Mike Hammer, would become one of the rages of that decade. Husband & wife comicbook “lettering team” Charlotte and Al Jetter, at Will Lieberson’s Fawcett 10-year anniversary party on July 11, 1952. But Janes explains why we put “lettering team” in quotation marks. Bruce Nichols, comics production assistant, from a photo taken at the same 1952 party.

Hefner and told him all about me, and I could’ve had a job as auto editor for Playboy if I wanted it. I wasn’t really interested, but told Sheldon I’d get back to him. It turned out two weeks later Sheldon and his wife died in a plane crash outside of Chicago. I never heard from Hefner, and I never bothered to contact him. But another opportunity was waiting for me.

A photo agent had stopped by Fawcett one day while I was working on the next issue of Sports Cars and Hot Rods. He asked me, “Do you want to edit a car magazine?” and I replied, “By myself?” and he answered, “Yeah. Martin Goodman over at Magazine Management is looking for an editor.” I went over there and was hired as the editor of Auto Age magazine. Diana Bartley from Fawcett came with me over to Magazine Management. Diana was a beautiful woman. She was disabled and had several different colored crutches to go with her outfits. She became a freelance writer, writing for auto magazines under the name D.M. Bartley, as she thought that the predominantly male readership wasn’t ready to accept a woman writing about cars.

SC: Martin Goodman was also publishing Atlas Comics at that time and had three brothers.

Martin’s brother, Arthur, came into my office and congratulated me and I said, “I didn’t know Martin had a brother!,” to which he replied “There’s four of us, just like the Fawcetts, except we all have the same mother!” [both laugh] That’s when I thought to myself that this wasn’t a friendly competition. I thought later that Martin must have enjoyed hiring someone away from Fawcett, and it might have helped me get the job, even though I was qualified for it. I was there less than a year because, in the interim, shortly after I started working there, Martin had a battle with his distributor and walked away from them. Martin had to go crawling to the other big distributor, who already had two car magazines. They agreed to take his publications, but he had to get rid of the car magazine.

SC: This would have been about 1957?

JANES: Yes. Fortunately, I had made many connections in the business and landed a job as the New York editor for Road & Track magazine. I did road tests and then wrote about the cars for the magazine and for a newspaper column. It later led to a P.R. manager job with Saab, which eventually got me an advertising job at the J. Walter Thompson Company on the Ford account.

SC: Did you get to know any of the Fawcett brothers?

JANES: I knew Roger Fawcett the best out of all four brothers. His secretary was a gorgeous blonde named Nicky Hamilton. While at Fawcett,

I became friends with an Englishman named Charles Binger, a portrait painter who talked Roger

Calling All Cars! (Left:) Father-and-son collaboration: The Young Sportsman’s Guide to Sports Car Racing, published by Thomas-Nelson in 1962, written by Harvey B. Janes and illustrated by his dad, J. George Janes. (Right:) Auto Age magazine (Jan. 1956), edited by Janes and published by Martin Goodman’s Magazine Management. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

into letting him do his portrait. Binger lived close to me, and I was over there one Saturday morning when in walked Roger Fawcett for one of his portrait sessions—so that’s how I got to know Roger better than his brothers.

SC: Was Roger’s office on a different floor than the rest of the staff?

Roger K. “W.H.” Fawcett, Jr. The Fawcett Publications president in a 1951 photo. Harvey Janes knew Roger the best out of the four Fawcett brothers who ran their publishing empire. Roger passed away two years after the $50 million sale of Fawcett to CBS in 1977. JANES: He was on a floor above us. Interestingly, the entrance into the Fawcett offices was on 67 West FortyFourth Street and, after I had left Fawcett, they removed that entrance and put it on Sixth Avenue, giving them a totally new address.

SC: Did you have any interactions with Roscoe, Gordon, or Buzz Fawcett?

JANES: I didn’t know Roscoe or Gordon at all, because they were up in the Greenwich, CT, office; Roger and Buzz were in the New York office. Buzz knew who I was and we had said hello a few times. One time I took a ride up to the Armonk Airport and, while watching the planes coming in, I bumped into Buzz Fawcett. He said, “Hi! You didn’t see me here.” And I asked, “Why?” and he replied, “My wife doesn’t know I have the plane!” [both laugh] And here I’m thinking, “How much money must you have that your wife wouldn’t know you had an airplane?” I was a good boy and didn’t tell anybody.

SC: Until now. Did you know Fawcett’s Editorial Director, Ralph Daigh, or Art Director Al Allard? JANES: Ralph Daigh and I got along very well. He was an interesting guy. I remember seeing him drive up to the office in an MG in all weather with the top down and wearing a huge fur coat and big fur hat. We were both car nuts, so that was our connection.

Al Allard was very handsome with long hair. He and Ralph were both from the Captain Billy era in Minnesota where Fawcett Publications originated. I remember one day washing my hands in the bathroom at the office and Al comes out of a stall and goes to the sink next to me and says, “Harv, I’m getting old.” And I asked, “How can you tell?” and he replied, “It takes

Turning The Page Wait a minute! That’s not Nyoka the Jungle Girl! Harvey Janes never forgot meeting the legendary model Bettie Page. me all night to do what it used to do all night!” [both laugh]

I also remember Grayson Tewksbury, the head of Fawcett’s photo department. His studio took pictures for all the magazine covers and articles. The studio had a changing room with a doublesided mirror. [both laugh] In fact, one of the models I saw there was Bettie Page. She became a cult figure. Grayson introduced me to her once. She was a gorgeous woman. I can still remember her body. [both laugh] SC: Who were some other people you remember from Fawcett? HARVEY JANES: Rona Jaffe. We had adjoining cubicles. She worked in the Gold Medal Books department, and my side of the cubicle was where the comicbook section had ended. Rona later wrote a novel in 1958 called The Best of Everything, which was based on her experiences in the Fawcett workplace. It was made into a movie the following year. In the film, she suggests that she slept with everyone in the office but me [both laugh], which was true. When I saw the movie, I knew who all the characters were supposed to be in real life, including Rona herself.

I got along very well with comics writer Jon Eric Messman. He was a funny guy, liked kidding around, and he and Will Lieberson were good friends.

SC: I had heard Jon was a practical joker.

Rona Jaffe was a former Fawcett employee whose best-selling book, based on her experiences (and colleagues) at Fawcett, was turned into a popular 1959 film of the same name: The Best of Everything. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

“The Kid” Grows Up! A 1954 magazine illustration by Harvey Janes’ pulp-artist father, J. George Janes, feautring actor Jackie Cooper. [© the respective copyright holders.]

JANES: He and Will were veterans at practical jokes. Sometimes Will would get pretty cruel with his jokes. Anything would go with him. I sometimes played tricks on Annette Packer.

SC: Was there anybody you didn’t get along with at Fawcett? JANES: There was a guy named Bob Risotti who later changed his last name to Rickwell. He was a big, blustery braggart. He knew that I had been a boxer and had kept in shape, and one day he asked me, “Harvey, I’m about 20 pounds overweight. What do you think I should do?” and I replied, “Cut off your head!” That was the last time he asked me anything. He was Annette Packer’s assistant in production. One time, he gave me an envelope to give to a woman upstairs and, on the way up, I opened it to see what was inside and the envelope was full of nude photos of the woman who I was delivering it to!

Every year we’d have a big Christmas party in the office. There’d be many people there because employees could invite guests. So, I’m in this crowded room and Wendell Crowley was near me and some idiot who I’d never seen before looks up at Wendell and says, “How you doing, chicken-head?” I pulled the guy aside and told him that, if he said another crack like that, I’d throw him out. I never knew how Wendell felt about it, or maybe he was used to those type of wisecracks.

There was always a party in the comics department on payday. All vouchers from the freelancers would come in on a Friday morning, and then they’d all come back in the afternoon for their checks. So it became like a party because the Shaun Clancy & Harvey B. Janes freelancers, many of whom (left to right) at the editor/writer’s home we didn’t see that often, in Salt Point, NY, in March 2012. would hang around and we’d all socialize for a while.

Back then, there was no air conditioning, so we’d have the windows propped open on warmer days. Al Liederman, the freelance comic artist who drew “Captain Kid,” got a little too close to the window once and somehow managed to dislodge the plate glass and it fell down towards the sidewalk. I quickly stuck my head out and yelled, “Look out below!” It happened around 5 p.m. and there were a lot of people down there. By some miracle, the glass didn’t hit anyone.

SC: Did you work on any of Fawcett’s Gold Medal books?

JANES: After the comics folded, Ralph Daigh was pushing me because he knew I was a good editor and he wanted to place me somewhere, so I was with the Gold Medal line for a short while before moving over to Mechanix Illustrated as Science and Auto editor.

SC: Did your dad do any artwork for Fawcett while you were there? JANES: Yes, I got him some work with Mechanix Illustrated, and when I started writing for True magazine I got him some work there also. He began doing auto covers for magazines in the ’50s after I became editor of Auto Age. I even did two books with my dad—I wrote them and he illustrated them. One of them was The Young Sportsman’s Guide to Sports Car Racing. We liked working together.

ALTER EGO #168 Two RICHARD ARNDT interviews revealing the wartime life of Aquaman artist/ co-creator PAUL NORRIS (with a Golden/ Silver Age art gallery)—plus the story of WILLIE ITO, who endured the WWII Japanese-American relocation centers to become a Disney & Warner Bros. animator and comics artist. Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, and more, behind a NORRIS cover! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2021

ALTER EGO #169 Spotlight on Groovy GARY FRIEDRICH— co-creator of Marvel’s Ghost Rider! ROY THOMAS on their six-decade friendship, wife JEAN FRIEDRICH and nephew ROBERT HIGGERSOM on his later years, PETER NORMANTON on GF’s horror/ mystery comics, art by PLOOG, TRIMPE, ROMITA, THE SEVERINS, AYERS, et al.! FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster, and more! MIKE PLOOG cover! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships April 2021 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #24 TIMOTHY TRUMAN discusses his start at the Kubert School, Grimjack with writer JOHN OSTRANDER, and current collaborations with son Benjamin. SCOTT SHAW! talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot, and Flintstones work! Also PATRICK McDONNELL’s favorite MUTTS comic book pastiches, letterer JANICE CHIANG profiled, HEMBECK, and more! TIM TRUMAN cover. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping! COMIC BOOK CREATOR #25 BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH discusses his new graphic novel MONSTERS, its origin as a 1980s Hulk story, and its evolution into his 300-page magnum opus (includes a gallery of outtakes). Plus part two of our SCOTT SHAW! interview about HannaBarbera licensing material and work with ROY THOMAS on Captain Carrot, KEN MEYER, JR. looks at the great fanzines of 40 years ago, HEMBECK, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Spring 2021 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #26 Career-spanning interview with TERRY DODSON, and Terry’s wife (and go-to inker) RACHEL DODSON! Plus 1970s/’80s portfolio producer SAL QUARTUCCIO talks about his achievements with Phase and Hot Stuf’, R. CRUMB and DENIS KITCHEN discuss the history of underground comix character Pro Junior, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his wife, HEMBECK, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Summer 2021

WORLD OF TWOMORROWS Celebrate our 25th anniversary with this retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW and Comic Book Creator magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors! Introduction by MARK EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS, Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new cover by TOM McWEENEY! (224-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • Now shipping!

BACK ISSUE #124 HORRIFIC HEROES! With Bronze Age histories of Man-Thing, the Demon, and the Creeper, Atlas/Seaboard’s horrifying heroes, and Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch) rides again! Featuring the work of CHRIS

CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, ERNIE COLON, MICHAEL GOLDEN, JACK KIRBY, MIKE PLOOG, JAVIER SALTARES, MARK

TEXIERA, and more. Man-Thing cover by RUDY NEBRES. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping!

BACK ISSUE #125 CREATOR-OWNED COMICS! Featuring in-depth histories of MATT WAGNER’s Mage and Grendel. Plus other indie sensations of the Bronze Age, including COLLEEN DORAN’s A Distant Soil, STAN SAKAI’s Usagi Yojimbo, STEVE PURCELL’s Sam & Max, JAMES DEAN SMITH’s Boris the Bear, and LARRY WELZ’s Cherry Poptart! With a fabulous Grendel cover by

MATT WAGNER.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Jan. 2021

BACK ISSUE #126 “Legacy” issue! Wally West Flash, BRANDON ROUTH Superman interview, Harry Osborn/Green Goblin, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, Infinity Inc., Reign of the Supermen, JOHN ROMITA SR. and JR. “Rough Stuff,” plus CONWAY,

FRACTION, JURGENS, MESSNER-LOEBS, MICHELINIE, ORDWAY, SLOTT, ROY

THOMAS, MARK WAID, and more. WIERINGO/MARZAN JR. cover! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships March 2021

BACK ISSUE #127 “Soldiers” issue! Sgt. Rock revivals, General Thunderbolt Ross, Beetle Bailey in comics, DC’s Blitzkrieg, War is Hell’s John Kowalski, Atlas’ savage soldiers, The ’Nam, Nth the Ultimate Ninja, and CONWAY and GARCIA-LOPEZ’s Cinder and Ashe. Featuring CLAREMONT, DAVID, DIXON,

GOLDEN, HAMA, KUBERT, LOEB, DON

LOMAX, DOUG MURRAY, TUCCI, and more. BRIAN BOLLAND cover! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships May 2021

KIRBY COLLECTOR #79 See “THE BIG PICTURE” of how Kirby fits into the grand scheme of things! His creations’ lasting legacy, how his work fights illiteracy, a RARE KIRBY INTERVIEW, inconsistencies in his 1960s MARVEL WORK, editorial changes in his comics, big concepts in OMAC, best DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS, MARK EVANIER’s 2019 Kirby Tribute Panel, PENCIL ART GALLERY, and a new cover based on OMAC #1! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Now shipping! KIRBY COLLECTOR #81 “Kirby: Beta!” Jack’s experimental ideas, characters, and series (Fighting American, Jimmy Olsen, Kamandi, and others), Kirby interview, inspirations for his many “secret societies” (The Project, Habitat, Wakanda), non-superhero genres he explored, 2019 Heroes Con panel (with MARK EVANIER, MIKE ROYER, JIM AMASH, and RAND HOPPE), a pencil art gallery, UNUSED JIMMY OLSEN #141 COVER, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Spring 2021

BRICKJOURNAL #66 YUANSHENG HE’s breathtaking LEGO® brick art photography (and how he creates it), the many models of TOM FROST, and the intricate Star Wars builds of Bantha Brick’s STEVEN SMYTH! Plus: “Bricks in the Middle” by KEVIN HINKLE and MATTHEW KAY, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2021

RETROFAN #13 Exclusive interviews with Lost in Space’s MARK GODDARD and MARTA KRISTEN, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Hogan’s Heroes’ BOB CRANE, Wham-O’s Frisbee history, Twilight Zone and other TV sci-fi anthologies, Who Created Archie Andrews?, oddities from the San Diego Zoo, & lava lamps, with ERNEST FARINO,

ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT

SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Feb. 2021

RETROFAN #14 Behind-the-scenes photos of many of your favorite Sixties TV shows! Plus: an unpublished interview with Green Hornet VAN WILLIAMS, Bigfoot on Saturday morning television, WOLFMAN JACK, The Saint, the lean years of Star Trek fandom, the Wrestlemania video game, TV tie-in toys no kid would want, and more fun, fab features from FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships April 2021

New from TwoMorrows

OLD GODS & NEW: A COMPANION TO JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD

For its 80th issue, the JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine presents a double-sized 50th anniversary examination of Kirby’s magnum opus! Spanning the pages of four different comics starting in 1970 (NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, MISTER MIRACLE, and JIMMY OLSEN), the sprawling “Epic for our times” was cut short mid-stream, leaving fans wondering how Jack would’ve resolved the confrontation between evil DARKSEID of Apokolips, and his son ORION of New Genesis. This companion to that “FOURTH WORLD” series looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to determine how it came about, where it was going, and how Kirby would’ve ended it before it was prematurely cancelled by DC Comics! It also examines Kirby’s use of gods in THOR and other strips prior to the Fourth World, how they influenced his DC epic, and affected later series like THE ETERNALS and CAPTAIN VICTORY. With an overview of hundreds of Kirby’s creations like BIG BARDA, BOOM TUBES and GRANNY GOODNESS, and post-Kirby uses of his concepts, no Fourth World fan will want to miss it! Compiled, researched, and edited by JOHN MORROW, with contributions by JON B. COOKE. SHIPS FEBRUARY 2021!

(160-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4

CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS POP CULTURE! Break out the candy canes! HOLLY JOLLY is a colorful sleigh ride through the history of Christmas, from its religious origins to its emergence as a multimedia phenomenon. This FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER explores movies (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life), music (White Christmas, Little St. Nick), TV (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), books (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), decor (1950s silver aluminum trees), comics (super-heroes meet Santa), and more! Featuring interviews with CHARLES M. SCHULZ (A Charlie Brown Christmas), ANDY WILLIAMS (TV’s “Mr. Christmas”) and others, the story behind DARLENE LOVE’s perennial hit song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), and even more holiday memories! Written and designed by MARK VOGER (author of the TwoMorrows’ books MONSTER MASH and GROOVY), the profusely illustrated HOLLY JOLLY takes readers on a time-trip to Christmases past that you will cherish all year long!

NOW SHIPPING! THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-097-7

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