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No. 27 August 2003

VIN SULLIVAN ––GOLDEN AGE GODFATHER TO THE TWO GREATEST SUPER-HEROES OF ALL!

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Vol. 3, No. 27 / August 2003

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Production Assistant Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Jack Burnley Jack Kirby (with Randy Sargent & Shane Foley)

Cover Colorists Tom Ziuko Shane Foley

And Special Thanks to: Heather Antonelli Dick Ayers Jill Baily Regina Baily Robert Beerbohm Blake Bell John Benson Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Ken Dudley Harlan Ellison Tom Fagan Michael Feldman Creig Flessel Patricia Floss Shane Foley Ken Gale Glen David Gold Ron Goulart George Hagenauer Peter Hansen Ron Harris Larry Ivie Bill Jourdain Bunny Lyons Kaufman Adele Kurtzman

Richard Kyle Joe Latino Mark Luebker Maurizio Manzieri Fred Mommsen Brian K. Morris Will Murray Vittorio Pavesio John G. Pierce Devon Raymond Charlie Roberts John Romita Randy Sargent Warren Sattler Romano Scarpa Barbara Seuling Carole Seuling Gwen Seuling David Siegel Marc Swayze Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware Bill Warren Ray Zone

VIN SULLIVAN & THE GIANTS OF DC! (And Fawcett,Too!)

Contents Writer/Editorial: Vin and Vigor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Vin Sullivan––Present at the Creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A candid conversation with the late godfather of Superman and Batman.

The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Comics great Jack Burnley writes about his wife Dolores Farris—Broadway dancing star of the 1920s.

“I Wrote Batman in the 1940s!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Move over, Bill Finger! Here comes Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #86 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Jay Disbrow, Marc Swayze, and more. “New” Jack Kirby Covers––and Some “Great Unknowns” . . Flip Us! About Our Cover and Illo Above: Jack Burnley—co-creator of Starman and ofttime artist of the Superman and Batman newspaper strips—has done occasional re-creations of his classic 1940s art. The drawing he graciously allowed us to use as this issue’s cover was a quasi-re-creation of the one he’d done for the cover of World’s Finest Comics #29 (July-Aug. 1946)—except that, as seen above, on the original drawing Robin the Boy Wonder was winning a race with his bemused elders. Was the fix in? [Cover art ©2003 Jack Burnley; WFC cover ©2003 DC Comics; Superman & Batman TM & © 2003 DC Comics.]

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Mrs. Dolores Farris Burnley, Lester Zakarin, & Al Hartley

Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Title writer/editorial

Vin and Vigor While I’m pleased to present Bill Jourdain’s piece on little-known “Batman” scripter Bunny Lyons Kaufman, and P.C. Hamerlinck has worked his usual wonders in assembling an entertaining and enlightening edition of FCA, the other thing I want to talk about here is Golden Age artist Jack Burnley’s “The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper.”

Vin Sullivan must’ve been one amazing individual. It wasn’t enough for him to have been in on the ground floor at the creation of DC Comics—or to have been the editor of Action Comics #1, with its debut of “Superman”—or to have had (apparently) the original idea for New York World’s Fair Comics of 1939, which became the forerunner of World’s Finest Comics—or to have suggested to a humor cartoonist named Bob Kane that he might increase his income by creating a new super-hero (the result, of course, being Batman).

My introductory comments on page 27 speak for themselves, but I should state right here and now that this is an article which—for the first and perhaps only time in A/E’s history—has no connection whatever with comic books. Oh, it’s illustrated with a bit of Jack’s artwork from his days drawing superheroes, as well as several of his sports and other cartoons... but it’s basically a non-comics outing. Jack poured his heart and soul into writing the short book of which this entry is an abridgement—and we hope that, even in necessarily truncating it, we’ve been able to let that love and enthusiasm for his subject matter shine through.

No, for Vin, that was just the beginning—as he went on to co-found first the Columbia comics group—and, a bit later, the wonderful Magazine Enterprises company, which endured for a decade and a half. Yeah, Vin Sullivan was a pretty amazing guy—and I’m happy that, one evening at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1998, I got to meet him and tell him so. Now, thanks to a quartet of dedicated comics fans, you can hear what Vin had to say, in his own modest way, about his life and times.

Along with drawing the cover of the 1940 edition of New York World’s Fair Comics, the first time Superman and Batman had ever been depicted together, Jack Burnley also illustrated the “Superman” story which led off that magazine. [©2003 DC Comics.]

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Present At The Creation

Vin Sullivan-Present At The Creation A Candid Conversation with the Godfather (or Is It Midwife?) of Superman and Batman Conducted Oct. 8, 1994, by Joe Latino, Rich Morrissey, Ken Gale, & Tom Fagan Edited by Roy Thomas

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Corporation and launch such titles as Big Shot Comics, Skyman, The Face, and Sparky Watts. However, dissatisfied with that company, he left in 1943 to start his own well-remembered Magazine Enterprises, which became a reasonably prominent player in the field through most of the 1950s with such other-media adaptation comics as Straight Arrow, Tim Holt (later Redmask), and Durango Kid, and with such original material as the western Ghost Rider, Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman, The Avenger, Strong Man, and others. [The portion of this interview which dealt with Magazine Enterprises saw print in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #10, along with a severalpage article on Vin Sullivan. That issue is still available from TwoMorrows; see its ad bloc in our flip side. —Roy.]

“We Were Putting Out a New Comic Book” In the beginning...! Since we lack the facilities for turning videotape images into reproduceable photos, here’s a shot of Vin Sullivan and two dawn-of-DC colleagues snapped in May 1993, a year and a half before this interview was conducted. [Left to right:] Creig Flessel (at whose Long Island home it was taken), Fred Guardineer, and Vin. Read about all three on the pages that follow. The accompanying art, of course, is from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s “Superman” debut in 1938’s Action Comics #1; more about it coming up, too! [Photo ©2003 Charlie Roberts.]

[EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 8, 1994, four knowledgeable comics fans/collectors interviewed Vincent Sullivan, who along with Whitney Ellsworth had been one of DC Comics’ first editors, back in the latter 1930s—including at the time of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27. The interview, according to one of them—Joe Latino, from whose videotaping of the session our transcript is taken—took place in “a parlor room in his home” on Long Island, New York. “He was friendly and cordial to all of us. Totally absent from the walls in any of the rooms that I saw,” Joe writes, “were any comic art of any kind, although we did not walk by many rooms. The interview took approximately two hours before we broke and went out for dinner. We treated Vince to dinner at a local steakhouse... where Ken Gale and I got into a ‘heated’ discussion on capitalism and landlord/tenant issues.” Joe has long since left the profession of tenant lawyer, but Ken says that “Vin really seemed to enjoy the argument. He was smiling broadly the whole time, didn’t give his opinion on what we were arguing about. After the dinner he said we made him feel young.” [Vin Sullivan, who had been born in 1911, passed away in 1999. This interview—despite lapses while the videotape was being changed, etc.—deals with his accomplishments, primarily at DC Comics. In 1940 Sullivan left DC to co-found Columbia Comic

JOE LATINO: Okay, would you like to introduce yourselves? Name, identity, what your interests are.... KEN GALE: I’m unwrapping tapes so I can record this whole thing for playing on WBAI, because I do a comic book show every two weeks, interviewing different people in the industry. My name is Ken Gale, and I guess the first time I knew of Vin Sullivan’s work was when I started buying Golden Age comics in the late ’70s.

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BACK ISSUES OF THE ISSUE!

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF TWO! This month, we’re plugging two back issues you’ll enjoy if you dug this one! Don’t miss our in-depth interview with “Starman” artist JACK BURNLEY in Alter Ego V3#2—and the rest of our VIN SULLIVAN interview in V3#10, in which the legendary editor talks about his own company, the fabled Magazine Enterprises! Order both today from TwoMorrows Publishing. (Since you can’t order them tomorrow from ToDay Publishing.) See the Alter Ego back issue ad on the inside cover of this mag!

The Dolores Farris Story

The Golden Girl and the Silver Slipper The Dolores Farris Story: A Tale of the Twenties Excepts from the Book by Jack Burnley Edited and Abridged by Roy Thomas [INTRODUCTION: This entry is a bit unusual for Alter Ego, and really should have appeared in an issue with a February cover date. For it is indeed a Valentine—from Golden Age great Hardin “Jack” Burnley, 1940s artist of Starman, Superman, and Batman, to his beloved wife of more than six decades, Dolores Farris Burnley. I felt our readers might enjoy, as a change of pace, reading this piece which, though written by a legendary comics artist, deals with non-comics subject matter, although we’ve scattered a few of Jack’s comic book images throughout what follows. Here’s how it came about:

Jack and Dolores Burnley in 1992, holding some of Jack’s most noted comic artwork: a Macy’s Department Store giveway featuring Superman, printed as a Sunday advertising supplement in the New York Journal American for Nov. 24, 1940, and the cover of New York World’s Fair Comics—1940 Issue, the first drawing ever to depict Superman and Batman together. Photo courtesy of Jack Burnley.

my decision... and I trust you’ll agree with it. The abridgement that follows is copyright ©2003 Jack Burnley, and is, with minimal editing, just as written by Jack, and studded with liberal quotations from Dolores herself. Even in the italicized/bracketed stitching I have written between sections of the text, I have tried to paraphrase Jack to the fullest extent possible in the space allowed.] [Sadly, Dolores Burnley passed away on May 22, 2003, while this abridgement was being readied. Jack, however, gave us his blessing to go ahead with its publication... and it thus becomes his, and now in a sense our, parting gift to a most remarkable lady. —Roy.]

[In 1995 Jack Burnley wrote a biography of Dolores’ early life, when she was a dancer and headliner on Broadway during the 1920s and ’30s. The book contains some eighty pages of text plus dozens of pages of photos and art, documenting not only her show business career and the famous personalities she encountered, but the whole panorama of the 1920s. It also recounts her love affair at that time— years before she and Jack met—with a prominent Broadway nightclub owner and, yes, racketeer. (But not gangster. Jack draws a firm distinction between the two: a racketeer is “one engaged in an illegal business”; a gangster is “a member of an organized group of criminals.” The man Dolores Farris loved was definitely the first, but probably not the latter.) [It is rare to find a biography written by the subject’s spouse—far rarer to find one dealing largely with that husband or wife’s earlier romance with another person. But such was the strong bond between Jack and Dolores Burnley that he wrote just such a book, for which Dolores gave unstintingly of her honesty and memories... and the result, I found, is a book which touches the heartstrings and, at the same time, brings alive a decade that became an era. Jack gives copies of his book only to those he believes will appreciate it... and he was decidedly correct in deciding I was one of those. [Early this year, I suggested to Jack that a brief abridgement of his book be featured in the issue of A/E fronted by his cover of Superman and Batman. Only 10% or so of its text could be included here, and a like percentage of the accompanying visuals. But I assumed our readers would appreciate, just this once, a piece by a comics master, yet not about comics. The fact that some of the real-life characters you’ll meet herein, even in truncated fashion, are at least as colorful as Dr. Sivana or Dr. Doom could ever be, helped me make

“The Gangster and the Bubble Dancer.” Illustration by Jack Burnley for the Damon Runyon short story collection Guys and Dolls, source of the popular Broadway and Hollywood musical comedy. Runyon’s tales were a major source of popular mythology about the “Roaring Twenties”... and Burnley’s gangster could’ve done a walk-on in his Batman newspaper strips of the 1940s. Dolores, of course, was never a bubble dancer. [Art ©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

“Bunny” Kaufman

“I Wrote Batman in the 1940s!” RUTH “BUNNY” LYONS KAUFMAN Probably the First Female Ever to Script the Darknight Detective by Bill Jourdain As the webmaster of the Golden Age Batman website, I receive interesting e-mail from around the world asking questions about Batman. While I don’t profess to be an expert on the topic, I love to discuss the Golden Age Dark Knight with the various fans that take the time to write. Imagine my surprise in June of 2000 when I received an e-mail with the subject: “I wrote Batman in the 1940s”! The receipt of that e-mail from Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman has led to the discovery of a wonderful woman who wrote a few Golden Age stories for DC Comics in 1942. Apparently, her contribution to the Golden Age of Comics was unknown before now.

some Golden Age comic book covers and what appeared to be a copy of a four-page 1942 letter on Detective Comics letterhead. The note was as delightful as the e-mails had been. My friend wrote, “Enclosed, finally, are photo-copies of the Batman, Shining Knight, and Aquaman 1942 comic books.” “Frankly, those early scripts had a lot more story-line, but less blood and gore than today’s comic books.” She then went on to describe the attached letter: “To me, the letter from Jack Schiff is far more interesting. Jack was a great guy and a very good editor. He applied the same in-depth editing to Batman as he would to a Nero Wolfe mystery novel! Hope you enjoy this bit of comic book memorabilia. See you on the E!” Upon reviewing the rest of the contents of the envelope, I knew that her story was true, and she had indeed written these Golden Age stories. I also knew that she deserved the credit for her work, so here it is!

When I first received the e-mail containing this claim, I must admit I was skeptical. I didn’t know this person, and upon checking sources such as the Grand Comic Book Database Project (www.comics.org), I found no reference to her. In fact, the “Batman” story she claimed to have written was credited to the great Bill Finger. She told me that she had written other stories as well, and upon checking references for those stories, I found that the scripters were listed as “unknown.” Despite my skepticism, my interest was piqued, and I began to exchange e-mails with this “mystery writer” from the Golden Age. After we exchanged a few more e-mails, in late June she emailed me that she had copies of the books in which her stories appeared and would be happy to send me color copies of the covers. She also told me, almost as an aside, that she had a letter from a DC editor in which her “Batman” story was discussed and that she would send me a copy of that, as well. I gladly accepted her offer and told her that I would look forward to her package. Two months later (I had almost forgotten about the package by then), I received a large manila envelope from my e-mail friend of the Golden Age of Comics. Upon opening the envelope I was astounded by what I found inside. Inside the package was a handwritten note clipped to color copies of

A couple of years back, Ruth Kaufman sent Bill Jourdain the photo at left, which she says was taken about the time she wrote the story for Batman #16. Interestingly, if DC ever does a fourth volume of its Dark Knight Archives, “The Grade A Crimes” will finally be reprinted after more than six decades. Photo courtesy of Ruth Kaufman. Thanks to Ken Dudley for all scans from the “Batman” story which accompany this article. Art by Dick Sprang & Charles Paris. [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

“I Wrote Batman In The 1940s!”

When writer/historian Ron Goulart interviewed Jack Schiff for Pioneer Books’ 1985 book The History of DC Comics: Fifty Years of Fantastic Imagination, the above photo of the longtime DC editor appeared with it. Alas, we couldn’t turn up copies of Adventure Comics #84 or More Fun Comics #90, in which Mrs. Kaufman’s “Shining Knight” and “Aquaman” stories appeared, by deadline time. But here are the classic covers to those two issues—by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, and by George Papp, respectively. Can anybody out there supply us with interior art for a follow-up piece? [Art ©2003 DC Comics.]

Ruth “Bunny” Lyons Kaufman wrote three stories for DC Comics in 1942. Under the name Bunny Lyons, she submitted her stories to editor Jack Schiff. She wrote “The Grade A Crimes,” which is the second story in Batman #16 (AprilMay, 1943); “Riddle of the Rodeo,” the “Shining Knight” story in Adventure Comics #84 (March 1943); and “Somewhere in the Pacific,” the “Aquaman” story from More Fun Comics #90 (April 1943). How do we confirm that she wrote these stories? Other than her word (which is more than good enough for me), there is no way identify with certainty her work in Adventure and More Fun. However, the 1942 Jack Schiff letter confirms that Bunny Lyons, not Bill Finger, scripted “The Grade A Crimes” for Batman #16 (a “key” book because it features the first appearance of Alfred, Batman and Robin’s loyal butler and friend). Not only does this letter confirm Bunny’s authorship; it also provides a wonderful historical glimpse into the creation of a published Golden Age comic book story. Here is Schiff’s letter, dated August 14, 1942:

Bill Schelly PCH: Do you think your book can help new readers discover his work? SCHELLY: I would think so. The book is certainly an attempt to increase fandom’s awareness of the length and breadth of Binder’s contributions to the comic book medium, as well as the science-fiction field.

Bill Schelly (left) and Julius Schwartz. The legendary DC editor contributed in several important ways to Words of Wonder, whose cover is shown small below. Photo courtesy of Bill Schelly. [Superman, Marvel Family, Supergirl, Krypto TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

PCH: Future projects: do you plan to write other comic creator biographies?

One of the greatest pleasures was interviewing his surviving relatives—both his brother Jack’s daughter Bonnie, and Otto’s wife’s sister-in-law Alice Turek and her daughter Patricia. So people who knew the subject of my book intimately were able to tell me all kinds of little things that added up to a vivid portrait of Otto.

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SCHELLY: I would like to write another biography, but the subject would have to be someone whose work I really enjoy. I also hope to do some more writing for DC. I really got a kick out of writing introductions for the Dark Knight and Plastic Man Archives. On the fiction side, I definitely want to write a novel that I’ve already mapped out. It just depends on what grabs my attention next. [FCA highly recommends that you search out Hamster Press’ ad for Bill Schelly’s brand new book, Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder, elsewhere in this issue of Alter Ego!]

John G. Pierce

Levity, Learning, & Lightning Bolts by John G. Pierce [Based on previously published articles concerning the many facets of the original Captain Marvel, by JGP; rewritten in 2003.] Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck Part 1 of 3:

Learning from Captain Marvel When “Captain Marvel” was made into a live-action television series, Shazam!, in 1974, many fans of the character were initially excited about the show, until they had their first actual look at the program. Gone were the whimsy, humor, action, and adventure of his old tales. In their place were highly censored stories which attempted to teach kids moral values. In addition, Captain Marvel or Billy would later appear after each episode to explain the point of each story, just in case the young viewers had somehow missed it! Although most fans highly approved of Jackson Bostwick (or even his successor John Davey) as Captain Marvel, and most may have tolerated the too-old Michael Gray as Billy Batson, and even the animated “elders” who consulted Billy, overall most fans of the World’s Mightiest Mortal felt the show’s approach fell short. However, it may come as a surprise that moralistic stories were not really anything new, or a departure from Captain Marvel tradition, but rather were somewhat of a staple of the Big Red Cheese back in the ’40s and early ’50s. (DC, in its revival of the character, never attempted this type of story, per se.) Although Filmation, the studio which produced the Shazam! TV series, probably didn’t know it, they were simply reviving an old style of story of the original Captain Marvel. Alas, because of the incredible restrictions on Saturday morning television at the time, one of the show’s many writers, Don Glut, once told me that even the word “atomic” was forbidden. The morals were not wrapped in entertaining adventures. No guns or knives were ever pulled or even hinted at. Most of the conflict was emotional, not physical. But these were not hurdles to jump during the Golden Age days at Fawcett Publications, where Captain Marvel’s moralistic stories were neither lacking in adventure or excitement. In this series’ first installment, I’d like to examine a few of those stories which not only entertained readers, but provided good values and lessons which could, and still do, last a lifetime. Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel, in the moralistic 1970s TV series Shazam! [Captain Marvel TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

Many of the best such tales featured the talking tiger, Mr. Tawny, all of whose stories were written by prolific “Captain Marvel” scripter Otto Binder and illustrated by the Captain’s chief artist, C.C. Beck. It is sad that many comics researchers of past years completely missed the point of those stories because they couldn’t get past the concept of a talking tiger (yet they could swallow a boy turning into a man who could fly!). Jules Feiffer, in The Great Comic Book Heroes, dismissed Mr. Tawny as a villain, which he never was, while Dick Lupoff, in All in Color for a Dime, wrote that he had “never warmed to Mr. Tawny.” Later, the author of the RBCC Special #8 stated that he’d automatically skipped over any story containing Tawny. These individuals really should have read and closely examined those stories. First of all, though a tiger, Mr. Tawny was actually as human as two more famous talking animals, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Except perhaps for his origin story (Captain Marvel Adventures #79), virtually every tale that featured Mr. Tawny as the main player (with Captain Marvel being a secondary figure) contained some sort of moral or special lesson. Usually it was Tawny himself who had to learn the lesson, with the assistance of his friends Billy and Captain Marvel. The loquacious feline was lionized by Hollywood in CMA #92, lost faith in mankind in #96, had a persecution complex in #98, daydreamed of himself as a hero in #102, was turned against Cap in #113, and went on a culture craze in #137. He sought new personalities in #115, looked for happiness in #117, engaged in a sales campaign in #119, had to go on a diet in #121, faced a

4 Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

Michael T. Gilbert

I Remember Monster! by Michael T. Gilbert It was 1962, and my mom and I had just walked from our Levittown, Long Island, home to the A&P grocery store a few blocks away. While she searched the aisles for dented cans and other dubious bargains, I dashed to the drugstore next door to look at comics. One book in particular caught my attention among the dozens on display at the drugstore’s spin-rack: a strange comic featuring a green monster called The Incredible Hulk. (It was issue #2.) Before I knew what was happening, Jack Kirby’s dynamic art hooked me, and Steve Ditko’s dark, moody inks reeled this poor fish in! Who was this Hulk guy? Another Marvel monster threatening Earth for the umpteenth time? Or some kind of gruesome super-hero? My 11-year-old brain burned with curiosity! The Hulk sure looked like a monster, but the weird Toad Men he was fighting looked even worse. Predictably, I begged Mom for 12¢. Equally predictably, she refused.

Rats! A couple of months later, the third issue of The Incredible Hulk was on the same spin-rack. This story began with The Hulk trapped in a dark, gloomy cell, somehow imprisoned by a terrified teenager named Rick. How could any kid do that? And was Rick a friend of The Hulk, or his enemy? I was dying to find out more, but I’d only read a few pages when Mom returned. Try as I might, no amount of whining convinced her to buy me that glorious comic. Double rats! A few months later I finally scored my first Hulk comic. I was studying for my upcoming Bar Mitzvah, and every Saturday my dad took me to his tailor shop, where I’d cool my heels until Hebrew School started. Happily, a soda shop around the corner had a great comic book display on the wall. Most Saturdays Dad would spring for a hamburger and a couple of comics. One Saturday, we went there for lunch, and I spotted not one, but two different Hulk comics on the rack. Issues #4 and #5, to be exact. #4’s cover was only so-so, but issue #5 more than made up for it. That one showed an enraged Hulk smashing through a solid stone wall in the foreground as the villain ordered his minions to kill the brute. It was glorious! Dark grey coloring made the cover even more mysterious and appealing. The villain, Tyrannus, was an arrogant blond Adonis. Even as a kid I was struck by the originality of a villain handsomer than the hero. Superman was never like this! I read my comics while Dad gulped his food and “schmoozed” with the waitress. Between bites I learned that the teenager who’d trapped The Hulk in issue #3 was Rick Jones, a friend of Bruce Banner, The Hulk’s alter ego. Aha! Bruce’s girlfriend Betty Ross didn’t know her skinny scientist boyfriend was really The Hulk. Good thing too, since The Hulk made her skin crawl. And what about The Hulk? Well, he was a good guy, sort of. I mean, he was always saving Earth from Toad Men and Commies and stuff. But half the time you didn’t know if he was going to save someone or kill them! He was kind of unpredictable that way. That very unpredictability made those early Hulks incredibly exciting. Stan and Jack were making it up as they went along, and that was half the fun. The Hulk might be a half-witted brute one issue, and a cunning savage in the next. Once he even became a mindless puppet controlled by Rick. Then there were the transformations. In issue #1, Bruce Banner involuntarily changed into The Hulk at night. Later, it took a blast from his Gamma Ray machine to make the change. And you never knew how that would turn out. Those darn Gamma Rays always seemed to screw things up. Either The Hulk would wind up with Banner’s brain, or Banner would wind up with The Hulk’s muscles. One time The Hulk even got stuck with Bruce Banner’s head and had to wear a Hulk mask. Talk about schizophrenic! Half the time, The Hulk was afraid he couldn’t change back into Bruce Banner, and be trapped in this monster’s body forever. The other half he worried that he would turn back into his puny alter ego.

The first Incredible Hulk series died with issue #6 (March 1963). Jack “King“ Kirby penciled the first five, while “Sturdy“ Steve Ditko drew both cover and interior art for that final outing. But “what if” Kirby hadn’t left? Well, his cover might have looked like this imaginary cover (on facing page), rather than the published Ditko version (above). Us, we love ’em both! Art by Steve Ditko. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Around the same time, I discovered a second monster-hero in another offbeat Marvel comic. Fantastic Four #11 was a tongue-in-cheek job starring The Impossible Man, with a guest appearance by Lee and Kirby, no less. This issue, my first, also introduced me to The Thing, a hero almost as ugly as The Hulk. Needless to say, I loved the comic, even if I didn’t quite understand it. But things really kicked into high gear the following issue. Dad took me to the same drugstore a couple of months later, where I

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

...the real Astonish #62 (Dec. 1964)...

As we noted earlier, The Hulk lost his own book in March 1963. Seven months later, he began co-starring with Giant-Man in the monthly anthology Tales to Astonish. In 1968 The Hulk took over that title completely, and it became his second series. But “what if” The Hulk’s original series hadn’t been cancelled? Well, maybe Giant-Man and the wonderful Wasp would’ve taken over Astonish, finally getting a book of their very own. And it might have looked like the cover above!

Till next time... ...and Randy Sargent & Shane Foley’s imaginary Tales of Giant-Man #60. Don’t worry—we printed a larger version of this “what if” cover in Alter Ego #24.

Phil Seuling

[INTRODUCTORY NOTE: By 1978 comics conventioneer Phil Seuling, a Brooklyn high school English teacher, had been putting on his annual New York shindigs for a decade, beginning in 1968 with the SCARP-Con in affiliation with others. To celebrate this tenth anniversary, he wrote for the ’78 Comic Art Convention’s program book a fanciful account of a comicon he had attended thirty years earlier—which of course had never existed. But what if it had? Ye Editor believes Phil’s spoof catches the spirit of the ’40s, and what such a convention might’ve been like. Our thanks to Phil’s daughters Gwen Seuling and Heather Antonelli for permission to reprint this piece—to Fred Mommsen for providing a copy of the program book—to Phil’s ex-wife Carole Seuling for putting us in touch with all of the above—and to Barbara Seuling, Phil’s artist sister, for allowing us to reprint several of the illustrations she did to accompany the spoof in 1978. All art except Barbara’s drawings has been added for this reprinting. All events in this article are fictitious—on this Earth. —Roy.] A teenage Phil Seuling arrives at the ’48 comicon—as depicted in 1978 by his sister Barbara. [Art ©2003 Barbara Seuling.]

The 1948 Comic Art Convention As It Very Well Might Have Been, If It Had Been At All A Report by Phil Seuling (Who Would Have Been There, of Course!) When I got to the Hotel Pennsylvania opposite Penn Station in Manhattan, I was nervous and my anticipation was rising minute by minute. I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t know why I was excited, but I really was trying to keep myself calm. A fourteen-year-old kid biting his nails doesn’t look too cool, and I tried to resist every time I found myself chewing at a thumbnail. On the trip to the Convention by subway, I had already cursed myself out plenty of times for forgetting things I should have remembered to bring. A shopping bag or something. Those comics without covers I wanted to dump on someone in a trade. My want list (but anyway I knew it by heart). Now I was here. And I was weak in the knees at what might be there to see. Maybe my folks would turn out to be right. The convention would be just another way of taking advantage of kids who were too stupid to stop reading comic books. “Especially at your age,” they would add. They had a mental warehouse of examples of my misplaced trust which they would heap on me every time I wanted to make another venture into collecting comic book stuff. “Where’s that subscription for a year? You only got three issues, didn’t you?” That one hurt. “Did you ever get the Tom Mix ring you sent for?” No, I didn’t. But I did get a badge, a de-coder, and all that went with it from the Junior Justice Society of America! Anyway, there were things my folks didn’t know because I’d never tell them. Once I waited weeks for a Tom Mix comic book which had the criminal’s name hidden somewhere in the book—the criminal

from the radio series, of course. It was a contest: who could find the name first and send it in? They announced the winner three weeks before I received the comic book! Maybe I was stupid. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable telling people about my fascination with comic books. I was now in high school! It’s true I didn’t feel odd telling people about my other manias— baseball, softball, skating, reading—but comic books? They sounded like kid stuff to most people. It wasn’t often that I could find others who would laugh and enjoy themselves as much as I did when we recalled our favorite books, stories, characters! The comic book collectors’ convention might be the place I would encounter more of my kind of people. I arrived at the registration area, paid my fifty cents, and walked in. It took me a minute to absorb the scene. It wasn’t what I expected, but it wasn’t different, either. It was only that it caught me unprepared. The room was long and narrow and I couldn’t see what was down at the end. I saw first of all the banners strung across the room by National Comics, which was made to look as if it was supported on one side by Superman and on the other by Batman. Somebody next to me said, “It looks symbolic. Those two have always supported the company.” That was funny, and I wondered who this guy was who was both clever enough to use words like “symbolic” in ordinary conversation, and comical enough to make me laugh. We

Title “The Great Unknowns”–––Part II of a Series

Mike Suchorsky, a.k.a. “Mr. Photo” by Hames Ware & Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr. A top-ten list of the finest artists to draw for comic books in their first decade would provoke little contention on the first six to ten names. For most who’ve studied the subject: Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Will Eisner, Carl Barks, Jack Kirby, Walt Kelly, and a number of others, for a variety of reasons, would vie for these slots without protest—but if you only have ten slots, you’ve gotta get Jack Cole in there too somehow, and....

Well, obviously it’s tough. So tough, in fact, that just by randomly selecting the above we’ve already omitted a bunch of other contenders, some of them equally worthy. But what if you saw such a listing, and wedged in between some of these giants of the comic art world you spotted the name—Mike Suchorsky!? Your first reaction, altogether understandable, might be: “Now, Mike Sekowsky may’ve been the fastest good artist... but he sure doesn’t deserve to be in the top ten!!” (Note: several artists may’ve equaled Sekowsky’s speed, but few combined fast and good the way he did!) Actually there are probably some who might argue persuasively that Sekowsky does deserve such a designation—only, we’re not talking about Mike Sekowsky or committing a typo. We mean Mike Suchorsky, and here’s why! As an adjunct of the art-detecting done for the original Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Jim and I began an unofficial list of top ten “Unknown Artists” whom we were determined to identify. These were the Golden Age talents who, despite all the research Jerry Bails, Jim, and I had done to uncover their identities, alas, remained unknown. Heading the list, with no other artist even close, was an unknown whom Jim dubbed “Mr. Photo” because of his crisp, realistic style. A Suchorsky page from “Ginny,” a teenage feature in My Date Comics #2 (Sept. 1947), published by Hillman. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

What made this artist so worthy of being credited was that, among

Mike Suchorsky

Then, as Hames pored back over the Who’s Who, looking for somebody, anybody who might be able to help, he stumbled upon a name that held promise. Herb Rogoff had been at the prestigious ZiffDavis company when it forayed briefly into comics. Further, he had been a gracious respondent when Hames and Jerry had plumbed his memory for many of the unsigned greats that graced Ziff’s comic book art staff. “Mr. Photo” had worked at Ziff (as had our previous column’s subject, Henry Enoch Sharp). Jim and Hames wrote a joint letter to Mr. Rogoff. Jerry de Fuccio was on the edge of his seat: “Hames, this is one we really need to nail!!” Would Herb, after all these years recall this long lost genius? He did! “Of course I know who this is,” Herb replied. EUREKA!! Herb went on to say that, though he was uncertain of the spelling “Sukorsky” or “Suchorsky,” the art was indeed that of one Mike Suchorsky, and that he had died in a boating accident in the mid-’50s in New Jersey. De Fuccio was elated, but also slapped his forehead during a phone conversation with Hames, saying, “I’ve heard this name before and I just

other things, he/she was simply one of the finest artists ever to have drawn for comics. Maddeningly, unlike some other “Great Unknowns” who may well have been slick or hardcover types simply moonlighting in comics for brief periods, “Mr. Photo” went all the way back into the 1930s and had rendered features at all the major companies. He had drawn “The Green Lama” at Prize and “Lando, Man of Magic” at DC, and had rendered one of fellow comic art detective Jerry de Fuccio’s favorites, “Shipwreck Roberts” for Fawcett. Throughout this long tenure, while the artist just kept getting better and better, he handled every genre from war to teenagers with equal ease and good humor, regardless of the setting. And yet, not once, not even in a sneak, did this artist ever sign his/her name! Every attempt we made to pin a name on this wonderfully gifted artisan came to a crashing dead end. Hames ran samples past two regular correspondents who themselves were contemporaries of “Mr. Photo.” Golden Age great Rafael Astarita had worked at the same Harry “A” Chesler Shop where “Mr. Photo” had begun his career in comics. The great Lou Cameron had shared pages in the same companies where “Mr. Photo” had finished out his career (ACG, et al.) in the mid-’50s. Each artist paid high compliments to the work—but as to who had rendered it, both shrugged their shoulders and wished us good luck in our search.

A page from the “Alpha the Slave Pirate” feature in Hillman’s Pirates Comics #3 (July-Aug. 1950). This was several years before EC’s title Piracy, which of course had no continuing characters. Charles Laughton seems to have been the visual inspiration for this Roman emperor. Well, our researchers did call Suchorsky “Mr. Photo” for years, after all! [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

Alter Ego #27