Alter Ego #73 Preview

Roy Thomas’ Strange Comics Fanzine

A Haunt-Happy HALLOWEEN From

BRUNNER, BIRO,

$

6.95

In the USA

& BUDDIES

No. 73 October 2007

PLUS:

10 1

82658 27763

5

Vol. 3, No. 73 / October 2007 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

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

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

Cover Artist

Writer/Editorial: Eyes On The Prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Strange Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Frank Brunner personally annotates his illustrations of Dr. Strange and others.

Blood, Bullets, And Gun Molls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Frank Brunner

With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Richard Arndt Bob Bailey Jean Bails Alberto Becattini Allen Bellman John Benson Christopher Bing Bonnie Biro Dominic Bongo Jerry K. Boyd Gary Brown Frank Brunner Brett Canavan R. Dewey Cassell Russ Cochran Gene Colan Mike Collins J. Randolph Cox Teresa R. Davidson D.D. Degg Wayne DeWald Michaël Dewally Tom Fagan Michael Feldman Stuart Fischer Shane Foley Robert Gerson Jennifer Hamerlinck Janet Gilbert Penny (Biro) Gold Fred Hembeck

Contents

Roger Hill Stan Lee Alan Light Joe Mannarino Bruce Mason Fred Mommsen Brian K. Morris Will Murray Eric NolenWeathington Marie O’Brien Jerry Ordway Denise (Biro) Ortell Paul Dale Roberts Steven Rowe Scott Rowland Steve Sansweet Anthony Snyder Steve Stiles Marc Swayze Ty Templeton Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Mike Tiefenbacher George Tuska Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Delmo Walters, Jr. Hames Ware Robert Weiner Jerry Weist Tom Wimbish

This issue is respectfully dedicated to the memory of

Charles Biro, George C. Shedd, William B. Ziff, Jr., & Al Grenet

A brief overview of Charles Biro & Lev Gleason Publications by Steve Stiles.

Charles Biro—“Some Kind Of Genius” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 J. Randolph Cox presents the only comic-con appearance ever (1968) by the creator of Crime Does Not Pay, et al.

“He Always Wanted Immortality For His Work” . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Charles Biro’s three daughters talk about their talented and influential father.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Twice-Told Marvel Heroes (Part 1) . 49 Michael T. Gilbert on two Daredevils, & Jerry K. Boyd on comics characters who read comics.

A Dose Of Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Richard Arndt interviews Robert Gerson, publisher of the 1970-71 black-&-white horror comic.

From Bing To Bails—And Back Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Hames Ware in search of “Great Unknown” artist L. Bing.

Comic Fandom Archive: Celebrating 40 Years of Squa Tront . 66 Bill Schelly toasts the important EC fanzine and a few of its 40ish fellows.

Tributes To William B. Ziff, Jr., George C. Shedd, & Al Grenet . . 71 re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . 74 FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) #132 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck, Jerry Ordway, Marc Swayze, & the Montclair (NJ) Art Museum.

FREE PREVIEW of Draw! #15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 On Our Cover: Doc and Clea hangin’ out at 177A Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village— courtesy of Frank Brunner, artist of the Mystic Master’s popular 1970s stint in Marvel Premiere and Dr. Strange. What more need we say—except thanks, Frank, for letting us use this beautiful painting for our cavortin’ cover! [Dr. Strange & Clea TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: This illo by Charles Biro appeared on a two-page spread in Boy Comics #9 (April 1943) that celebrated the first “birthday” of that best-selling comic book. Biro, as co-editor, chief cover artist, and major writer of the company’s comics line, almost single-handedly put Lev Gleason Publications on the map. This drawing shows Biro and co-editor Bob Wood (doing an Oscar Levant turn at the piano), as well as Boy Comics stars Crimebuster & Squeeks, Young Robin Hood, Little Dynamite, Swoop Storm, and maybe even Yankee Longago. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Alter EgoTM is published eight 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.

Single issues: $9 US ($11.00 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $78 US, $132 Canada, $180 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. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

4

Strange Interlude FRANK BRUNNER Annotates His Association With Stephen Strange And Others

A/E

EDITOR’S NOTE: Some months back, we made arrangements to use as an A/E cover a gorgeous Dr. Strange and Clea painting of which Frank Brunner had sent us a copy a year or two ago. Frank, of course, is one of the most successful delineators ever of the Sorcerer Supreme, beginning during Ye Ed’s reign as Marvel editor-in-chief in the early 1970s. However, somewhere along the way, we learned that our TwoMorrows sister mag Back Issue #24, edited by Michael Eury, planned to feature—in the very same Halloween month—a round-robin interview with Frank and two or three other artists about drawing the Mystic Master. So, to avoid duplication, and since I had already interviewed Frank briefly for A/E #29, I invited him to write his own comments about a number of his magic-, fantasy-, and horror-oriented illustrations for this issue. So, with Frank on tap, what am I continuing to yak away for? Except for the occasional necessary editorial comment and contributor IDs, the rest of the text you read in this section will be Mr. Brunner’s! —Roy.

WitchGirls Inc. #3 (April 2006), Cover, Heroic Publishing “This was the cover assignment that got me back into writing comics. Right after I sent it in to editor Dennis Mallone, he asked me if I had a story to go with it... and would I want to write and draw it? I begged off on the latter, but agreed to write it as a 5-part miniseries, as long as I had full creative control. I’ve finished the first three chapters (“Circles of Fear”), in which I explore some of the Gnostic books of the Bible (the books that were cut out of the modern Bible), and I’ve created an amusing partner for Rose (Psyche) and a certain Dr. Kent Buttterworth who works for her WitchGirls Inc. Detective Agency. He’s a big Sherlock Holmes fan and dresses accordingly; he’s also a retired proctologist, which makes him a natural probe and snoop in general. (Ouch!)” [Art ©2007 Frank Brunner; characters TM & ©2007 Heroic Publishing.]

Silver Comics #1 (Feb. 2004), Cover, Silver Comics Publications “This independent press effort is in the tradition of Big Bang Retro Comics, and reflects the styles of late-’50s/early-’60s comics. Even the coloring for the cover was done the old way, with several screens instead of a computer… to achieve that retro look. Each book features several continuing-character storylines, and there have been six issues published thus far. I contributed three covers to them... a ‘Mr. Monster’ cover (SC #4) and ‘The End’ (SC #6) which ends this little backstory….” [Art ©2007 Frank Brunner; characters TM & ©2007 Silver Comics Publications.]

Frank Brunner Annotates His Association With Stephen Strange and Others

Doc And The Caterpillar, Tight Pencil Commission, 2007 “This an expansion on the famous meeting of the two in Doctor Strange #1 (June 1974). Obviously, the caterpillar was a borrowed idea from Alice in Wonderland… which is how I thought of what it was like inside the Orb of Agamotto. Which is where Doc fled to avoid death! It’s always fun to draw everything realistically and then put a cartoon character in it… such as I did with Howard the Duck! And the advice I gave the Lucas people about Howard was just as I said: ‘It’s a cartoon in the real world, and not a guy in a duck suit!’ But my words fell on deaf ears, and the Howard movie is what it is! Later I was vindicated when Roger Rabbit appeared and was done exactly as I had wanted for Howard!” [Characters TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

5

6

Strange Interlude

Flare Adventures #17 (Oct. 2006), Pencil Cover Layout, Heroic Publishing “This rough layout (Flare vs. Tigress) was inked (myself) and colored (Mike Estlick) for publication. It is one of about 5 or 6 Flare Adventures covers I’ve done, most of them having to do with her adventures on Olympus. The dramatics of this Illo were heavily dependent on the coloring of the lamppost light with a lens ‘flare’ effect, which I thought was very apropos for a Flare cover! ’Nuff said.” Thanks to Anthony Snyder. [Art ©2007 Frank Brunner; characters TM & ©2007 Heroic Publishing.]

Dejah Thoris, Pencil Study, 2005 “This was a private commission. It seems I’m quite often sketching Dejah, and have rendered her in pencil, ink, and oil painting. She is a perennial fan favorite, and I noticed while viewing the movie 300 that the King of the Persians’ costume was inspired by Dejah, too! Her popularity in fantasy is undiminished through all the decades since she was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the early 20th century, and I think I’ll be drawing her right up till I join Edgar in the afterlife.” Thanks to Anthony Snyder. [Art ©2007 Frank Brunner; Dejah Thoris TM & ©2007 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]

Frank Brunner Annotates His Association With Stephen Strange and Others

Red Sonja #1, Cover, Dynamite Comics, 2007 “I’ve had four Sonja covers published by Dynamite, and not one of them was an assignment. They all began as private commissions…that the publisher liked! Sonja was one of the few characters at Marvel I regret not having done at least one story with. She’s ‘frankly’ a lot more fun to draw than Conan… but then again, the female form was always a favorite subject of artists down through the ages! I’m reminded of what a certain comedian said on TV one night: ‘Collecting baseball cards when you’re an adolescent is hero worship. Collecting baseball cards when you are grown is just collecting pictures of men!’” With thanks to the Heritage Comics Archive, as retrieved for A/E by Dominic Bongo. [Red Sonja TM & © Red Sonja, LLD.]

7

13

Blood, Bullets, And Gun Molls A Brief Overview of Charles Biro At Lev Gleason Publications

A/E

by Steve Stiles

EDITOR’S NOTE: This short piece by a longtime comics and science-fiction fan and artist is reprinted (in slightly edited form) from his website www.stevestiles.com, and is ©2007 Steve Stiles. Steve is also well-remembered as the artist of numerous stories in Mark Schultz’ original Xenozoic Tales series.

Crime Does Too Pay The first issue of the blockbusting Crime Does Not Pay comic was apparently labeled “#23”—but was actually “#22”—and featured photos of infamous criminals as well as a Charles Birodrawn cover. At left are the creators who made CDNP happen—co-editor Bob Wood, publisher Lev Gleason, and co-editor Biro—in a 1947 photo, courtesy of Biro’s daughters, who are interviewed starting on p. 30. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

After the Axis crashed and burned and World War II came to its overdue end, so did the Golden Age of the super-hero. Captain America, Daredevil, Miss America—all had done their part in the panels to bring down the Nazis and Imperial Japanese.

The payoff was a not-sograceful retirement for the men and women in tights and capes, and a long hard look at another kind of war. A significant section of the comics field turned to the mayhem of crime, with which Americans were all too familiar from reading the headlines of their daily newspapers. The era of Prohibition and the Great Depression had been fertile times for the likes of “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Bugsy” Siegel, “Scarface” Al Capone, “Legs” Diamond, and the hundreds of other gangsters, big and small, who contributed to the bloody history of organized crime in America.

[NOTE: Jim Amash writes: “The woman whom Mickey Jelke—23year-old heir to an oleomargarine fortune—had tied up in his room was there against her will. [Veteran comic artist] Creig Flessel was with Biro when he was approached to go up to the room. Imagine what Biro must have thought when he read the papers the next day and the scandal broke! Seems like I read Flessel discussing it in one of Ron Goulart’s articles.” —Roy.]

Although profits were dropping for other comics publishers, there was one publisher who was not only hanging on but prospering. The publisher of Crime Does Not Pay and Crime and Punishment was Lev Gleason, the employer of two artists, Charles Biro and Bob Wood, who would take his circulation soaring to the one million mark and beyond. In its heyday in the late 1940s Crime Does Not Pay sold more than 4 million copies a month. Gleason, Biro, and Wood had been involved in crime comics since June 1942, when Silver Streak Comics, Gleason’s first title, changed to Crime Does Not Pay with issue #22, the first crime comic and a hot collector’s item valued from $194 to $1650—certainly contradicting its title!

Whatever the case, Crime Does Not Pay was launched. Biro had scripted and drawn crime stories for other Gleason titles like Daredevil and Boy Comics, and knew what kids wanted—lots of gore!

Artist Bob Fujitani recalled that Biro said, “Forget about art. Go for the detail, the nuances. Bullets going through the head. Brains blowing out the back.” With additional scripts and art by Bob Wood, Gleason’s comics produced countless pseudo-documentaries about supposedly “true” crime exploits in anthology formats that portrayed a wide variety of violence, frequently directed at women. Disguised as morality plays and illustrated by artists like George Tuska, Dan Barry, and Bob Fujitani, Gleason’s comics began outselling Superman.

There are two stories about how Crime Does Not Pay came about.

One has it that the comic was inspired by a moralizing B-movie. The other has it that one night Biro was sitting in a bar when he was approached by a pimp with a proposition. Biro turned him down and the next day was startled to see the man’s picture in the paper for kidnapping a woman! He told Wood about it, which inspired a gabfest about crime, and Silver Streak Comics was soon a thing of the past.

Other publishers quickly jumped on the industry’s latest bandwagon. By 1948, no less than 38 crime comics, representing 15% of all comics titles, were on the stands. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby produced Headline Comics, which featured stories about real criminals like Bonnie and Clyde and Ma Barker (a comic Kirby would try to reinvent in 1971 with the black-&-white DC title In the Days of the Mob). There was also EC’s Crime Patrol and War against Crime,

15

Charles Biro— “Some Kind Of Genius” The Only Comics Convention Appearance Of The Creator Of Crime Does Not Pay, Et Al. - 1968

A/E

EDITOR’S NOTE: Editor/writer/artist Charles Biro was a major figure in the comic book field from virtually the day he entered it until the day he left it. Three of the comics he developed—Daredevil Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, and Boy Comics—were among the most popular and influential in the industry during World War II all the way through the pre-Comics Code years. Yet, so far as we know, he was never really interviewed about his work in comics—so we were elated when collector/researcher J. Randolph Cox informed us that he possessed an audio tape of an impromptu speech Biro made at the 1968 SCARP Con in New York City and offered it for use in Alter Ego. Brian K. Morris did journeyman service in transcribing the tape; but alas, the quality of the old tape was so poor that Brian, Randy, and I had to do considerable reconstruction and even a bit of guesswork as to the precise wording in many areas… and, in the end, we still had to jettison a portion of the speech as unintelligible.

Even so, it provides a welcome hook on which to hang a big hat—and to do honor to Charles Biro. And to serve as an introduction to the interview which follows it, Jim Amash’s great conversation with Biro’s three loving daughters, who accepted their father’s Eisner Hall of Fame award in San Diego a couple of years back.

But first, let’s let Randy tell (with, as he says, “lots of help from Tom Fagan,” his good friend and a major 1960s comics fan) the circumstances under which Biro attended the one and only SCARP Con. Both Randy’s anecdotal insights and the speech itself— augmented by the help of some generous contributors of art scans and photocopies—enable Alter Ego, at last, to give a bit of coverage to the man Stan Lee has called “some kind of genius.” —Roy.

Biro’s Boy Charles Biro (right) and co-host Phil Seuling at the 1968 New York comics convention hosted by the short-lived organization called SCARP (Society for Comic Art Research and Preservation)—juxtaposed with the sketch Biro drew for young J. Randolph Cox a few weeks later. (Note that it’s signed by “Daredevil” rather than by “Crmebuster”—or even Squeeks!) In the photo, sent by John Benson, the artist’s hand partly obscures his face.

[Art ©2007 Estate of Charles Biro.]

The Night We Met Charles Biro

I

by J. Randolph Cox (with lots of help from Tom Fagan) wish I had taken notes!

There are historic occasions in our lives when memory isn’t enough to preserve the situation. July 6, 1968, was just such a time.

Someone should have used a camera or a tape recorder. Of course, I had a tape recorder along, but it was in my dormitory room the night Tom Fagan and I met Charles Biro. This is a blend of the memories of the two of us, written by one of us.

Let me set the stage. It was the summer of 1968. I had been working as a reference librarian at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, for six years and was in New York City on a program for college librarians to learn about books published in the so-called “Non-Western” countries and how to order them for our libraries. I was staying in a dormitory room at Barnard College, and for the most part our sessions were being held at Columbia University. It was also the summer of the SCARP Convention, a comic book fan convention sponsored by the

16

The Only Comics Convention Appearance Of The Creator Of Crime Does Not Pay

I don’t even have a distinct memory of how we encountered Charles Biro. He was not on the official program, and he may have approached us to ask directions. How did he learn about the con? As best I recall, he had seen an article about the convention in one of the papers and thought he would stop by the hotel and see what was going on. As simple as that. At first, he thought we were part of the industry and not just a couple of longtime fans. Here was one of the pioneers in comic books who was interested in talking with us!

I don’t know how it came about, but we soon adjourned to the bar in the hotel, and for the better part of an evening we talked about comics, old and new. Some things I remember vividly, other things are hazier. I told him how much I had enjoyed reading Daredevil and Black Diamond and the stories of “Crimebuster” in Boy Comics. I said I had had a sense these stories were intended for older comic book readers, because they were filled with serious themes.

I remember him saying how almost any theme could be successful in comics, even what he called the “sweet and light,” if it were done as true as possible. Here was someone who wrote stories for comics as diverse as Uncle Charlie’s Fables and Crime Does Not Pay.

Fan-Friends Forever!

Randy Cox (right) and his pal Tom Fagan, in a photo taken in summer of 1971 near Tom’s home in Rutland, Vermont—the small New England city that in the early 1970s became the setting for a number of Halloween stories at both Marvel and DC. With them are Tom’s daughter Deana (pronounced “Deen-a” because she was named after James Dean) and their dogs Lobo and Diablo.

It was obvious he’d been keeping up with comics even in his present position as an art director for NBC. That’s why he had an opinion about the new Marvel Daredevil as contrasted with the hero

Society for Comic Art Research and Preservation. The dates of that convention were July 4-7, a convenient holiday for those of us at the Non-Western Studies Seminar. Every day I got on the subway and went to the convention hotel, the Statler-Hilton. It was like having a secret identity. By day a mild-mannered librarian; by night, a comic fan.

I hung out with Tom Fagan for most of the convention. I had met Tom two years earlier when he was representing the Charles Tuttle Publishing Company at an education convention in Minneapolis.

Whenever Tom went to a new city for Tuttle’s, he always tried to find someone in the area who was into comics, and I had been recommended by none other than Biljo White. I was heavily influenced by the TV series The Avengers that year and showed up at his hotel room wearing a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella. Ever since, Tom has called me “Steed” after the character Patrick MacNee played in the series. If anyone were to call me “Randy,” Tom would profess not to know whom they meant. I have no memory of just when things happened that weekend and whom we met (although I do remember having Will Eisner sign a collection of Spirit dailies), and a look at the program book only reinforces the fact that memory is often unreliable. I remember buying things in the dealers’ room for prices that seem ridiculously low today, but didn’t at the time.

Biro Was A Star From The Start Biro’s first cover was that of Chesler’s Star Comics #6 (Sept. 1937), seen at left—his second, perhaps Star #9 (Dec. ’37), above.

Nice scans of the latter were sent to us by Bruce Mason and Michaël Dewally. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

20

The Only Comics Convention Appearance Of The Creator Of Crime Does Not Pay

Give ’Im The Air, Boy! Charles Biro also worked briefly for Hillman Periodicals. Bob Bailey sent these scans of the cover and a fine “Airboy” page from Air Fighters #4 (Nov. 1943); the latter includes a schematic of his wonderful plane Birdie.

Bob believes Biro penciled and inked the cover, and at least penciled the “Airboy” adventure (and perhaps even “‘wrote’ most of the stories [in that issue] on the boards that others finished (à la Eisner),” and “at least did the layouts for most of the other stories.” Biro just couldn’t seem to keep away from drawing kids! [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Two Comic Book Guys And A Monkey (Above left:) Publisher Lev Gleason was depicted in uniform and written about in Boy Comics #9 (April 1943). Artist’s signature unclear. Thanks to Michael T. Gilbert.

(Above right:) This photo of Biro (on the left, with a monkey on his shoulder) and publisher Gleason poring over the company’s comics was sent by both Biro’s daughters and Michaël Dewally. It apparently appeared in an early issue of Comic Book Marketplace.

(Right:) Biro’s cover for Boy Comics #3 (April 1942)—actually the first issue, since the previous two were titled (and starred a lackluster super-hero named) Captain Battle.

The debut edition introduced both Crimebuster and his pet monkey and a contest to name the latter. The winning entry? Squeeks! Incidentally, this is probably the only time CB ever wore a mask. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

30

“He Always Wanted Immortality For His Work” The Three Daughters Of Comics Wizard CHARLES BIRO Talk About Their Famous Father Interview Conducted by Jim Amash Transcribed by Tom Wimbish

C

harles Biro, the celebrated writer/ artist/editor of the Lev Gleason line of comic books (among others), was more than a major influence on the comic book field. He was multi-talented man whose abilities led him into other venues, such as television, advertising, illustration, and invention. He was, by all accounts, a fascinating larger-than-life character, devoted to doing the best work possible. Thanks to his daughters, Denise Ortell, Penny Gold, and Bonnie Biro, we find, upon closer inspection, that Charles Biro was much more than the sum of my previous descriptions. An amazing man in amazing times, Biro will always remain one of the top editorial influences in comics history, as well as one of the most intriguing men who helped build the comics industry. This interview, incidentally, was conducted via a joint phone call to Denise’s and Bonnie’s homes, with Penny on an extension at the former. —Jim.

Charlie’s Kids (Top left:) Charles Biro’s cover for Uncle Charlie’s Fables #2 (March 1952), from Lev Gleason Publications—and (at right) the issue’s inside front cover, in which “Unc” talks to a group of children. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

His own daughters—(l. to r.) Denise Ortell, Penny Gold, and Bonnie Biro, in photos sent from Denise’s design firm, DFO Creative Consultants. If you mentally transpose the three sisters into the photo from UCF #2, you wind up with a reasonable facsimile of a grouping of the Biro household—minus Mrs. Frances Biro. In fact, Denise writes: "The group of kids on the inside of every cover of Uncle Charlie's Fables was me and my friends from our summer home in Wilton, Connecticut."

UCF seems to have been designed, at least in part, to show that the folks who produced Crime Does Not Pay could also do “clean and wholesome.”

Except where otherwise noted, all art and photos accompanying this article were sent by the Biro sisters, via Jim Amash and Teresa R. Davidson. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“He Always Wanted Immortality For His Work”

31

blueberries, and they literally came nose to nose. Grandfather fainted, and that’s the only way he survived.

PENNY: They say that’s the best way to escape from bears; they won’t eat dead meat.

DENISE: Some time after that, he came back to New York, and we don’t know how he made his money, but he was able to buy a quite a bit of land in Jamaica, Queens. It’s now very valuable property, but unfortunately, we don’t own it. He built a working farm there, and then he became an engineer. I don’t know when he studied for his engineering degree, but he was the chief engineer when they built the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan. There’s a plaque in the Waldorf with his name on it.

PENNY: I used to work there in the summer, and the plaque used to be right in front where the doorman was. They moved it recently, though.

DENISE: Our grandparents were lovely people. From an eight-yearold’s point of view, he seemed sort-of stern, while she was very loving and warm.

JA: Did your grandparents speak Hungarian around the house?

PENNY: Our dad remembered the curse words, and some food words, but I don’t think he was fluent in Hungarian once he left home.

JA: How many children did your grandparents have?

DENISE: They had three sons: Mitchell, Louie, and Charlie. Charlie was the youngest by ten years or more. I guess he was a surprise.

Mitchie and Louie were very interesting: they went down to Argentina and introduced boxing there, and set up a boxing federation.

PENNY: I was told that later on, Louie invented the electronic tickertape display with the moving letters that they have in Times Square. It was called the Flash-O-Graph in those days.

Back From The Future A character blows up his own “crystal ball” in Boy Illustories #67 (July 1951) to see his future—while Charles Biro’s daughters tell us of their family’s past.

Art by William Overgard. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

“Biro Is A Hungarian Name That Means ‘Judge’” JIM AMASH: When and where was your father born?

DENISE ORTELL: He was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, on May 12, 1911. Biro is a Hungarian name that means “judge.” Our grandfather was a judge in Hungary, and when they came over to the United States, he took the name “Biro.” We don’t know the name that they went by in Hungary. Our grandmother was a homemaker.

JA: What were your grandparent’s names?

PENNY GOLD: Anton and Josephine Biro. I was told that when our grandfather came through Ellis Island and they asked his title and name, the immigration officials were having such trouble with the language that they just took the first part of it. He said, “Judge Anton,” and whatever the last name was, and they just took the first two words.

DENISE: Our grandfather was an interesting character. He had to leave his wife in Hungary when he came over here to make his fortune.

He mined for gold in Alaska during the Gold Rush. He had an encounter with a bear. He and the bear were both gathering

DENISE: That was Louie and Dad, Penny. Both of their names were on the patent. Louie was also a sculptor; he had large shows in Manhattan, and influential people like the mayor attended. I haven’t been able to find any references to his work on the Internet, though. I think time sort-of washed over it.

PENNY: Mitchie and Louie had traveled around the world while our father was still going to school in New York, so they didn’t really have a close relationship with him.

BONNIE BIRO: They were relatives, not buddies. They were an extremely creative group.

PENNY: They were very rough with Dad. They taught him to swim by throwing him off a bridge. Which is also how he taught me to swim. [laughs] DENISE: Our father went to Jamaica High, and he was what they called in those days a “five-letter man.” He was extremely athletic: he did track, tennis, football, boxing, hockey, golf.

“[Our Dad] Was Driven” PENNY: He was a natural athlete, and he would play almost any sport you could name until he mastered it.

DENISE: He was driven. He had to win at whatever he did, and he would take each sport up to the point where he could win at the highest level. If it was ping-pong, he would keep going until he could beat the world champion. In tennis, he played the semi-professional circuit. When we were growing up, we had trophies everywhere you

[Daredevil TM & Š2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

50

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt

Twice-Told Marvel Heroes!

(Part I)

A

ny Merry Marvel Marcher worthy of the name holds a special place in his/her heart for Stan Lee. In the early ’60s, Stan (along with collaborators Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, and Steve Ditko) created some of Marvel’s most beloved super-heroes, including The Mighty Thor, The Black Panther, and Iron Man. Ah, but did you know that some of these heroes had debuted decades earlier, for entirely different publishers?

This is not to suggest that Stan was a copycat! Most of these characters were obscure, short-lived features done for minor companies. It’s extremely unlikely that Stan had even heard of some of the heroes he would later re-invent. But at least one Marvel character was directly inspired by a very well-known Golden Age hero. His name was ...

The first appearance of the original Daredevil, from Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics #6 (Sept. 1940). Art by Jack Binder; writer uncertain. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Daredevil!

Decades before 1964, the year Stan Lee and Bill Everett created “Daredevil, the Man without Fear,” cartoonist Jack Binder invented “Daredevil, Master of Courage”!

Stan envisioned his character as a blind superhero. Oddly enough, Binder’s Daredevil suffered a different infirmity: he was mute––though only for that first story! Weird, huh?

Above is Jack Kirby and Bill Everett’s cover to Marvel’s Daredevil #1 (April 1964). Wally Wood later redesigned his costume, as depicted on the cover to Daredevil #9 (Aug. 1965), seen at right. [©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Other similarities included the boomerang that the Golden Age version employed against crooks. It would always return to him, much like the billy-club Stan invented decades later for Marvel’s Daredevil.

55

A Dose Of Reality A 2007 Interview with Black-&-White Horror Comics Publisher ROBERT GERSON Interview Conducted by Richard Arndt

M

any readers of Alter Ego will be totally unfamiliar with the two issues of the black-&-white comics magazine Reality, published in the early 1970s. May Ye Editor make a confession? I was one of that uncognizant group. But Richard Arndt sent me this interview with its publisher, Robert Gerson, and I thought that it would be a perfect fit in this Halloween issue, since several of the then-young artists who contributed to it (Bernie Wrightson, Michael W. Kaluta, Jeffrey Jones) went on to illustrious careers. So we’ll let the interview—and the accompanying pictures— tell the story. By the time you’re finished reading, you may not only wish you knew even more about Reality—but wish you had copies of both issues! —Roy.

That’s What We Call Starting Out At The Top! Robert Gerson in 2007, juxtaposed with three covers from the two issues of Reality. (Left to right:) The front cover of issue #1 (Nov. 1970) was painted

by Jeffrey Jones—that of #2 (which came out sometime between Jan. and May of 1971) by Larry Todd—with a back cover by Michael W. Kaluta, which sported the issue’s logo! Unless otherwise specified, all art accompanying this interview was provided by Richard Arndt. Photo courtesy of R. Gerson.

[Illos ©2007 respectively Jeffrey Jones & Michael W. Kaluta.]

56

A Dose Of Reality

RA: Can you tell us a little about your background?

Don Thompson, along with many others, was an amazing creative environment for a young artist to learn from. I discovered the first independent magazines that were being published around the country thanks to Phil Seuling’s New York City comic art shows and G. B. Love’s Rocket’s BlastComicollector. After a few years of reading and being inspired by Graphic Story Magazine, Alter Ego, Fantastic Fanzine, witzend, and Squa Tront, I decided to give the publishing world a try at the ripe old age of 14. For a young artist those magazines offered a glimpse of the creative potential in comics, graphic design, and sequential art illustration.

RG: Born and grew up in New York City as Robert Gerstenhaber.

When I was 21 I shortened my last name to Gerson, largely because my last name was rarely spelled or pronounced correctly. I’m an artist, book cover illustrator, and graphic designer. Some of my paintings and illustrations can be found at www.robertgerson.com. Primarily self-taught with studies at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where I studied figurative and portrait painting. Moved to Santa Barbara when I was 21, and have also lived in Colorado and the Brandywine Valley in Pennsylvania; I currently live in the Santa Ynez Valley just north of Santa Barbara with my wife Annette.

There was also a friendly “New York neighborhood” aspect of getting Reality up and running, thanks to my across-the-street rivalry with my school pal Adam Malin. We were in school together since kindergarten, read the same comics, copied and did our first drawings from the same Kirby and Steranko pages together. Adam was planning to publish Infinity magazine, and we had a fun rivalry going back then about who could get the most interesting art and interviews for their magazines.

RA: How did you get involved in publishing Reality?

RG: Reality was the result of two of my passions as a teenager: becoming an artist and collecting comic book and illustration art.

The comic art community of the 1960s-70s, which started with and evolved from the efforts of Jerry Bails, Roy Thomas, and Maggie &

When Knights (And Gerson) Were Bold Michael W. Kaluta (left), Bernie Wrightson (center), and Jeff Jones. Kaluta photo is from the fanzine Graphic Showcase #1 (Fall 1967), sent by Bob Bailey—the 1970 Jones photo courtesy of Robert Weiner. The Wrightson photo is from a 1973 newsletter for the professional Academy of Comic Book Arts, taken at its awards banquet held on May 29, 1973. The Wrightson-drawn story “Dark Genesis” from Swamp Thing #1 won “Best Feature Length Story” for 1972…while Kaluta had won the “Outstanding New Talent” award the previous year, for 1971. Newsletter courtesy of Flo Steinberg.

(Center:) Robert Gerson feels he has fabled EC artist Graham “Ghastly” Ingels to thank for making him bold enough to get into a 1970 comicon conversation with Kaluta and Wrightson that led indirectly to their (and Jeffrey Jones) contributing to Reality. The mid-1950s Ingels page he traded to Bernie reportedly came from a Classics Illustrated special, but we couldn’t find any listing for such an Ingels story in William B. Jones, Jr.’s, 2002 volume on CI. The page was reprinted in Reality #1. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Black-&-White Horror Comics Publisher Robert Gerson

Wake Up To Reality The three stories whose splashes are repro’d on this page were written and drawn especially for issues of Robert Gerson’s magazine Reality:

“Endless Chain” For more on Frank Brunner and his amazing art, see pp. 4-12 in this very issue— but then, you already knew that, didn’t you? Script by Joe Manfredini.

[Art ©2007 Frank Brunner.]

“As Night Falls: Michelle’s Song” Michael Kaluta’s evocative first page (of two) illustrating a piece of music. [©2007 Michael W. Kaluta.]

“Renegade!”

Howard Chaykin (above) at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1976, and the first page of the story he penciled specifically for Reality. Inks by Bill Stillwell; script

by Chaykin. Photo courtesy of Steve Sansweet.

[Art ©2007 Howard Chaykin & Bill Stillwell.]

59

63

From Bing To Bails— And Back Again In Search of Artist L. BING Part IV Of Our Series “The Great Unknowns”

by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., & Hames Ware

T

he Raggedy Road to identifying L. Bing has taken many a fun and bumpy turn since Hames saw an “L.B.” carved on a desk in the 1942 Dell adaptation of TOM SAWYER.

Although Dell doesn’t generate much enthusiasm from current fandom (it dabbled only briefly with hero types—“The Owl,” “Phantasmo,” and strange phenomena like “Dr. Hormone”), it was the most successful publishing company throughout much of Golden Age. Dell quickly settled into a format synonymous with its credo “Dell Comics Are Good Comics!” And indeed, they were good for bringing favorite Disney and other animated characters to life in the comics... and favorite B-Western heroes, Zane Grey adaptations, Zorro, and others who might not have had the panache of a Superman, but somehow gave comfort to parents and a lifetime of enjoyment to kids who liked the wholesome format Dell chose to pursue.

While it’s true Dell didn’t have Jack Kirby or C.C. Beck, they did

Der Bing-L The same artist probably drew these two Dell Comics pages— an “Andy Panda” splash and a scene from an adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel Tom Sawyer—and his name may well just have been “L. Bing.” Or not. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

have Walt Kelly, Carl Barks, Morris Gollub, and dozens of other wonderful artisans who seldom or never worked anywhere else. And, when researching the 1970s four-volume Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Jerry Bails and Hames were dedicated to documenting these artists, as well.

One old-timer at Dell, Dan Noonan, recalled for them that an elderly gentleman named George F. Kerr had done the Raggedy Ann feature, and Hames remembered that the Tom Sawyer art was very similar to the style of Raggedy Ann, as well as the art on “Andy

64

From Bing To Bails—And Back Again

Panda” and on several strips in Fairy Tale Parade.

George F. Kerr had a distinguished career prior to his anonymous work in comic books, having been an editorial cartoonist at the turn of the century, an illustrator at The American Weekly and of numerous hardcover books such as Old Mother West Wind and L. Frank Baum’s American Fairy Tales in 1906! He was born in 1869 and died in 1953, so he would have been in his seventies when he started drawing for Dell.

Hames thought Kerr might not be the whole story on the Raggedys. Could it have been that this elderly gentleman had needed an assistant, perhaps even a ghost at times? Maybe “L.B.” was that assistant.

based on such fragmentary evidence, and there the matter stood as our current protagonists eventually met and set off on our other quests.

“Bing” Went The Strings?

This “Bing” signature appears on the “Andy Panda” splash in Dell’s New Funnies #63 (March 1942), which was devoted to the creations of animator Walter Lantz. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Reinforcing that suspicion was another clever, and perhaps dare we say unique, sneak that Hames had detected. In another Dell issue, there was a giant snoring away in one of the panels, yet instead of having the customary “zzz’s” in the word balloon, the giant’s snore-sounds were “Kerrr”! The art on this tale, however, was not as lively nor as ornate as the art with the L.B. sneak—again hinting at two different artists.

Then fellow Arkansan and animation and comics historian Michael Barrier graciously let Hames review his wonderful collection of Dells for information for Who’s Who. Lo and behold, there on the splash panel of “Andy Panda” in New Funnies #63 for March of 1942 was a single four-letter name signed to the familiar “Raggedy Ann” style!

The name signed was “BING.” Jerry Bails immediately assumed that it must be a nickname for George F. Kerr, but Hames instantly recalled those L.B. initials carved on that desk in Tom Sawyer and proposed L. Bing as the artist’s name.

Jerry was understandably reluctant to allow a listing in the Who’s Who

Jump forward twenty years. Jim and wife Karen came to visit Hames in Arkansas, and at one point Jim plopped down on the living room floor, and, like the giant plant in Little Shop of Horrors, cried out, “Bring me comics!” Looking through some Raggedy Ann comics, he spied another L.B. sneak on a handbag, and now he was likewise hooked on the Bing/L.B. mystery.

Jim, always more circumspect in his approach than Hames’ more visceral one, went home and acquired more Raggedy Anns and Fairy Tale Parades. With more to work on and a very narrow focus, we eventually learned how to distinguish George Kerr and were able to state with certainty, “There is a Bing!”

With that reassurance, we gave Bing credit for other work. We thought he’d drawn at least one feature for Timely, as Hames’ notes credited “The Falcon” in Daring Mystery Comics #6 (April, 1940), but it had been 40 years since he’d seen it. It’s also possible that Bing drew a similar-styled “Human Top” in the single issue of Tough Kid Comics (March 1942).

And there the mystery paused again, frustratingly, for nearly two decades.

Re-enter Jerry Bails. It was a very pleasant surprise when we received a note from him out of the blue last April. It re-opened the Bing mystery and led to a wonderful spring and summer of research and correspondence that rolled back the years on us all.

Jerry’s note proposed a theory that the art we had been crediting to Bing was in fact done by another old-time artist named Munson Paddock. Of course, he was correct that some aspects of these antique styles bore major resemblances to each other. What Jerry hadn’t known is that, while Jim was recovering from one of his ankle surgeries, he had researched Munson Paddock to a fare-thee-well.

He sent Jerry a copy of that illustrated essay, and the fun began.

They’re A Couple of Real Dolls A double-page spread of “Raggedy Ann & Andy.” [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

Comic Fandom Archive

66

Celebrating 40 Years Of SQUA TRONT!

by Bill Schelly

I

n American pop culture, 1967 is remembered for the Summer of Love, when the “Flower Children” made their way to San Francisco.

In comic fandom circles, 1967 is remembered (among other things) as the year the moldy zombies and slithering aliens of EC comics walked back onto center stage, in the pages of a fanzine that would prove to be a classic of its form: Squa Tront!

Forty years have passed since the halcyon days when Kansas comic book fanatics Jerry Weist and Roger Hill published the first issue of what would prove to be not only the greatest EC fanzine of all time (and there have been quite a few), but the longestlasting. We might have missed the opportunity to celebrate Squa Tront’s 40th birthday, if Chris Kettler—who himself worked on the

Who Says EC Fans Didn’t Like SuperHeroes?

Jerry Weist (left) and Roger Hill were the original editors of the EC fanzine Squa Tront.

This photo was sent by Roger, who writes: “Here’s a photo of Jerry and me, taken around 1968, in my room where I grew up (parents’ house). We’re holding the original [‘HeMan’] house ad for Mad #5 (1953) by Wally Wood.”

early issues of the mag—hadn’t introduced himself to us at this year’s ComicCon International in San Diego and promptly suggested such a piece.

A 40th anniversary is certainly remarkable in the world of fanzine publishing. So what if there was a 20-year “hiatus” between Squa Tront #9 and 10? John Benson, who took over the editorship with issue #5, assures us that he always intended to publish more issues—and continued gathering material as the years went on—but didn’t have the time until he semi-retired after the advent of the new millennium. The fanzine wasn’t dead; it was merely hibernating.

And so, let’s take a look at the origin of Squa Tront, the “ultimate EC fanzine,” and how it returned in recent years, with input from Roger Hill and John Benson.

The Origin of Squa Tront The Squa Tront story began in the early days of fandom, when two buddies going to Derby High School in Derby, Kansas, discovered the wonders of EC Comics.

“I first started collecting ECs back in 1964,” Roger Hill wrote in Squa Tront #4 (1970). “Jerry Weist dropped by one day with the first EC that he or I had ever seen. It was a copy of Panic #7, and my first impression was that this EC comic really wasn’t too great.” Then Roger saw his first New Trend issue. “[Jerry] had just received in the mail Haunt of Fear #15, which he had bought from a fellow in Michigan. Wham!! The outstanding artwork and excellent story content of the EC comics hit me like a ton of bricks.” From that point on, Hill and Weiss collected every EC comic book they could get their hands on.

Spa Fon, Meet Squa Tront!

Roger Hill’s cover to Squa Tront #1 (Sept. 1967) was an homage to Wally Wood’s great art in the EC science-fiction comics. Covers imitating the logo-style and look of EC comics became commonplace in later years, but this was one of the first. It was also one of the first full-color fanzine covers. [Art ©2007 Roger Hill.]

In a recent telephone chat, Roger explained what happened next.

“We started to get involved in fandom in the next year, and began collecting any fanzine with EC material. Rich Hauser’s Spa Fon was the first EC fanzine we’d ever seen. Then another collector in town, Bob Barrett, a long time Frazetta collector, told us about Reed Crandall. He was living in Wichita at the time and working for Warren Publications and Tower Comics. We were like ‘Oh my God, there’s an EC artist living right here in Wichita.’ We couldn’t believe it!”

About the same time, the editors of Spa Fon showed up.

“Rich Hauser, Helmut Mueller, and Wally Reichert came to town,”

Celebrating 40 Years Of Squa Tront!

69

Special Bonus Feature:

Four More Fanzine 40th Anniversaries!

By 1967, the Golden Age of Comic Fandom was in full swing. G.B. Love’s Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector was chugging along like clockwork, the New York Comicons were getting better (and larger) each year, and the number of fanzines was exploding.

Most of these new publications were launched by enthusiasts who discovered fandom as a result of plugs in comic book letter columns in

Sense Of Wonder (Above:) The first issue of Bill Schelly’s own fanzine, dated January 1967, sported a cover by fan-artist Ronn Foss featuring Bill’s most memorable fancharacter, The Immortal Corpse, and interior art by Doug Potter and D. Bruce Berry. “I was 15 years old when it began,” says Bill, “and twenty when it ended with its twelfth issue. It gradually changed from an imitation of Star-Studded Comics to an article-zine along the lines of Alter Ego and Gosh Wow.” [Art ©2007 Estate of Ronn Foss.]

(Right:) For Sense of Wonder #6 (1968), Bill writes, “I was the lucky recipient of an original Mr. A cover

by Steve Ditko. He did several of these for different fanzines at this time, to publicize his new creation in the fan community. One of the highlights of Sense of Wonder #11 (1971) was a brand new, complete ‘Mr. A’ strip by Ditko.” [Art ©2007 Steve Ditko.]

1963 and 1964. A few, however, were from the original movers and shakers who had something new to say.

Here’s a cover gallery of four fanzines that made their first appearance the same year as Squa Tront, and which proved to be longrunning. (We picked covers with attractive images, rather than sticking strictly to those on their first issues.)

Shazam! characters TM & Š2007 DC Comics.

81

If it came to that. But I was being offered a shot at the romances … and the idea of drawing them was already becoming of interest. An early ambition had been illustration … as seen in popular magazines of the period … much of it about romance … current environments, costumes, and so on … and gals. I loved to draw gals.

Sissy stuff? I guess. But outselling the rough-andtumble boys … so let’s be real. I turned back to Lieberson: “Try the romances? You bet!”

[Art & logo ©2007 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2007 DC Comics]

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvel character sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illustrated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story, “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by Fawcett Publications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote many Captain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military.

After leaving the service in 1944, he made an arrangement with Fawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis out of his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze produced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics, including Sweethearts and Life Story. After the company ceased publishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications, where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have been a vital part of FCA since his first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue Marc discussed writing scripts for Captain Marvel during the ’40s. In this installment he takes another look back at when he first began to work on Fawcett’s romance comics. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

“W

Once the commitment was made, hurdles began to appear. Where, in drawing romances, would be the action? After Captain Marvel, Mary, Phantom Eagle and Flyin’ Jenny … I was accustomed to drawing action. My impression of the romances, gleaned from casual glances at those in the newspapers, was of panel after panel of vertical figures … talking. No action. They were there in the paper, however, every day, evidently growing in popularity all the time.

I was certain they’d be no fun to write. The stories, I assumed, were all confessions of heartbreak told in the first person by females. The very thought would discourage any urge I might have to spin an occasional yarn at the typewriter.

ould you like to try the romances?”

The question had come from William H. Lieberson, executive editor of the comics department at Fawcett Publications. The occasion was one of my rare visits to what I considered the “new” location on 44th Street, not the offices I had known so well in the early ’40s at Times Square.

Now it was 1948 … peacetime was at hand. Willie was referring to a special variety of comic books that were clamoring for prominence at the newsstands.

But try them? To be perfectly frank, I hardly knew the romantic comics existed. The company had just announced the demise of Wow Comics, laying to rest such characters as The Phantom Eagle, but things were bright in other corners. I was dickering with The New York Star over a contract they had prepared for my private detective, Marty Guy.

And there were other possibilities at Fawcett. One was Real Western Hero, featuring names like Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, et al, and, heck … I could do a Western. Brought up on horseback, thoroughly familiar with the gear … and the animal … and after all those cowboy movies, the lore. The folks at the office didn’t know it, but I could do a Western.

Good Night, Sweethearts Photo cover of Fawcett’s Sweethearts #70 (Dec. 1948), which featured Marc Swayze’s romance-comics debut. Executive editor: Will Lieberson.

Editor: Roy Ald. [©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

84

Reflecting Culture: The Evolution of American Comic Book Superheroes T

by P.C. Hamerlinck

he Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey opened on July 14th, a first-of-its-kind exhibition, Reflecting Culture: The Evolution of American Comic Book Superheroes, on view until January 13, 2008. The exhibition traces how comic books have throughout its history reflected our culture, national events, and even our emotions and hopes … represented by more than 150 works of original art and rare comics from the Golden Age to the present.

Assembled by the museum’s chief curator Gail Stavitsky, with assistance from Twig Johnson and award-winning film producer Michael Uslan, Reflecting Culture: The Evolution of American Comic Book Superheroes is divided into five sections: •Superheroes Go to War: The Depression and New Deal 1938-1945 •Cold War, Conformity, and Censorship: Comic Book Superheroes in the Postwar Era and 1950s •Questioning Authority: Comic Book Heroes and Sociopolitical Change in the 1960s and 1970s •Diversity and Moral Complexity: Comic Book Superheroes of the 1980s and 1990s •Spider-Man at Ground Zero: The New Century and a 9-11 Postscript A second exhibition, Comic Book Legends: Joe, Adam, and Andy Kubert, will feature a separate gallery of original artwork by “New Jersey’s First Family of Comic Art.” Programming includes various lectures and outdoor movie nights (starting with the 1941 Adventures of Captain Marvel serial and ending with Batman Begins). A movie theatre constructed in the gallery offers regular screenings of Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked (2003), a film addressing both the history of comics and

their mass-media entertainment counterparts.

Gail Stavitsky believes comic book super-heroes will continue to embody escapism, fantasy, and social relevance: “Still functioning for many readers as metaphors of our dreams and transformative aspirations,” she said, “they are needed, perhaps now more than ever before.”

Michael Uslan, executive producer of Batman Begins (and of the forthcoming film adaptations of Shazam! and Will Eisner’s The Spirit), served as principal consultant for the exhibit, providing key loans and guidance every step of the way.

(The idea for the exhibit originated from his wife Nancy.)

Uslan previously donated over 40,000 comics to his home college of Indiana University, and later saw an opportunity to give back on the local level where he was born and raised … and where many of the founding fathers of the comic book industry had also resided. “If you know nothing about comic books, you’ll find this exhibit very educational and informative, but fun and entertaining at the same time. If you’re a comic book fan and collector, you will salivate!”

The exhibit is unique in that it’s exclusively about comic books and super-heroes. The first two art pieces you’ll encounter walking into the exhibit will be an original Eisner Spirit page and a color cover recreation of Action Comics #1 that Joe Shuster drew for Uslan in 1979. The first part of the exhibit, “Superheroes Go To War,” is decorously marked with prime examples from that seminal era: an early original “Captain Marvel” page, splash pages by H.G. Peter (“Wonder Woman”), Lee Elias (“The Flash”), and Paul Reinman (“Green Lantern”). There are also pages by Irwin Hasen (“Wonder Woman”), Shelly Moldoff (“Batman”), and many others … and, of course, an eye-opening display of historical comic books.

86

Jerry Ordway: A Modern Master Interview by Eric Nolen-Weathington

C

elebrating the release of Eric Nolen-Weathington’s Volume 13 of his Modern Masters series, spotlighting artist Jerry Ordway, FCA presents the following excerpt (including unpublished outtakes) from the book, focusing on Ordway’s Power of Shazam! comic series from the 1990s—and how he incorporated former Fawcett characters into the stories. Check out the TwoMorrows ad this issue and order Modern Masters Vol.13: Jerry Ordway today. —PCH ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON: With The Power of Shazam! you brought in a wide range of Fawcett heroes. Minute-Man, Bulletman, and Spy Smasher appeared early on in the series, as part of a flashback.

You didn’t bring in Mr. Scarlet until the very end.

JERRY ORDWAY: Well, you know, one of the big problems was that I was searching for comics. I wasn’t able to buy the really expensive back issues. Because DC didn’t own the character until more recently, they didn’t have an archive. DC’s got this great library of bound volumes of all the DC books and whatever companies became DC books. And you can go in there, into their hallowed halls, and sit down with a notebook and read.

One of my trips into DC was to go through their Fawcett collection, but they didn’t have very much. They really were very spotty. They had a handful of Captain Marveltype things, but they didn’t really have any of the other characters. So I was always on the search for those, and I would find them in some reprint form here and there.

But then I started having a little more luck finding them on microfiche. So, some of those characters could have been in there if I had more information on them at that point. I don’t know why, but

Excerpt edited by P.C. Hamerlinck I think I referenced Mr. Scarlet in the first year, though, somehow...

EN: Yeah, I think his name was mentioned, but you didn’t...

ORDWAY: We didn’t have a good visual for him. You know, it’s funny because now, with the Internet, you can find all this stuff. At the time, when I was doing the book, all you had were expensive back issues, because there really wasn’t anything reprinted. To this day, the only guy who has really reprinted much of that stuff has been Bill Black, through his AC titles. So it was kind-of an adventure for me to read about it. I never really had that much of an idea of the impact of all the Fawcett stuff.

The only one we weren’t allowed to use was Captain Midnight … but we used what we could, and we even did a Captain Midnight-esque thing, we just had to change him a little bit. But I was totally fascinated.

We used all the stupid names, the obscure ones, that we could find. I went back to the reprint of Whiz #1, and there’s Lance O’Casey … I went through all the guys in there, because I just thought if anybody knew it, it was fun, and if you didn’t know it, it didn’t detract anything.

EN: Exactly.

ORDWAY: That’s adding a little extra layer, and it was all there for the reader’s fun. And the people who knew the stuff enjoyed it, and the people who didn’t know, it was just another name.

“You’ve Either Got Or You Haven’t Got Style!”

Jerry Ordway’s drawing of Captain Marvel for the DC Comics Style Guide. [©2007 DC Comics.]

EN: The villains you brought in more slowly. Early on you had a plotline with Blaze, bringing her in

Jerry Ordway: A Modern Master

87

from “Superman.”

ORDWAY: When I did the regular series, they didn’t say, “Do whatever you want.” When I did the regular series, the main goal was, this has to be integrated in the DC Universe, because that’s never successfully been done. “Shazam!” has always been a thing on its own, and every one of those big DC crossovers that happened when we were doing The Power of Shazam!, “Shazam!” is part of every one of those. And sometimes that meant you had to set your own story aside, or rethink something. Like, with Underworld Unleashed, we had to change our ending. I mean, we did as much as we could, but basically [Mark] Waid’s spin kind of trumped us, not in timeliness, but because it was a bigger crossover.

So originally the way that Power of Shazam! #12 was going to pan out was … and he and I both read the same Marvel comics when we were kids, obviously, and we were both riffing on a thing that Neal Adams drew in his one or two issues of Thor he did when Kirby left Marvel.

With Stan Lee he did this thing where Thor just projected this goodness that sickened Loki. And that was what I wanted to do, because I thought that was kind of like a cute little thing, plus it had a little tie to my fanhood instincts. And then I found out, lo and behold, that’s what Waid’s planning for Captain Marvel and Neron.

EN: And it even sounds like something that Captain Marvel would do back in the ’40s or something.

ORDWAY: Yeah. I mean, again, it was a cute idea, and when you’re working for DC Comics, you’re working for the better good of the DC Universe, and that’s part of … I’ve always been a team player. Some people quit over stuff like that. I just forge ahead. And we had the same—I shouldn’t say exactly the same—but we had another issue with Kingdom Come and Mr. Mind. And, again, Alex Ross and I saw the same stupid Star Trek movie, and we saw the same Diamond Is A Super-Hero’s Best Friend bad TV shows and movies when we were kids, too.

Ordway art from a Diamond Previews catalog. [©2007 DC Comics.]

He had this idea about using Mr. Mind secretly controlling Captain Marvel, and it was like, “Well, case it was like, well, let’s use Mr. Atom and have the ulterior motive of gee.” Y’know? And I had a conversation with Dan Raspler, and I said, doing something really drastic to bring Mary’s adoptive parents into “Look, this is part of our plan.” Again, it was the year-long plan, and it Billy’s life. And Mr. Atom fit into that. Not at that point, I guess we seemed like it was a good idea and I felt like maybe I got there first, or introduced him. I don’t remember when we blew up Fairfield … maybe we both got there at the same time and just neither of us knew it. But what do you do? I don’t know if any of that ever contributed to EN: That was eight, ten issues later. … I love Alex’s work, but he said some nasty things in the fan press about Power of Shazam!, and that always made me wonder if it was ORDWAY: Well, we set him in place. over any of that stuff, or just the fact that he thought he knew how to EN: You used pretty much everyone from the Captain Marvel do it better or something. But he seemed kind of resentful, and I always mythology, but you didn’t use King Kull. thought that was weird, because, y’know, I was doing my best.

EN: You updated Mr. Atom and made him look like a Transformer, almost. Was that what you had in mind?

ORDWAY: I think Pete [Krause] wanted to do him more like what Alex Ross had done with him on Kingdom Come. We talked a lot during the run, and while I don’t think he necessarily suggested too many story ideas, he did have ideas here and there about stuff — “Oh, it would be fun to draw this, or fun to draw that.” So I think in that

ORDWAY: No. I had an idea for him, though. I was planning on using him. I was gearing him up towards the issue #50. I was going to do something with him taking over the Rock of Eternity. I think he did that once in the past. [Editors Note: Not quite, Jerry, but Kull once crept into the abandoned subway’s secret underground hall and brought to life the statues of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man in Captain Marvel Adventures #137, Oct. 1952. —PCH] He was one of those characters I think, it could have been kind of fun to do in a semi-