Alter Ego #7

Roy T Thomas homas’ Legendary Legendary Roy Comics F F anzine Comics anzine $$

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In the the USA USA In

No. 7 WINTER 2001

“Crises On Finite Earths!”

Julie Schwartz And Chums On The

JLA and JSA!

Co Starring: Anderson ∂ Busiek ∂ Conway Dillin ∂ Ditko ∂ Friedrich Gallagher ∂ Infantino ∂ Kane Kirby ∂ Kubert ∂ Levitz ∂ Maggin Naydel ∂ NOdell ∂ O’Neil ∂ Ordway Perez ∂ Schaffenberger Sekowsky ∂ Swan ∂ Thomas ∂ Wein

All characters TM & ©2001 DC Comics.

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Volume 3, No. 7 Winter 2001

JSA-JLA Section

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Jon B. Cooke GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS

Production John Morrow Eric Nolen-Weathington

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Cover Artists Rich Buckler C.C. Beck

Writer/Editorial: The Super-Teams Supreme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 On the latest TwoMorrows trade paperback, The All-Star Companion, and our favorite Society.

All Schwartz Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Roy Thomas chats with DC’s great editor Julius Schwartz on his days in the Golden Age. Crises on Finite Earths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Complete with interviews, A/E examines every single JSA-JLA team-up from 1963-85.

Cover Color Tom Ziuko C.C. Beck

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

And Special Thanks to: Mike W. Barr Dave Berg Brian Boerner Ray Bottorff, Jr. Frank Brunner Rich Buckler Kurt Busiek Gerry Conway Craig Delich Al Dellinges Mark Evanier Ramona Fradon Mike Friedrich Keif Fromm Carl Gafford Jennifer T. Go Ron Harris Roger Hill Joe Kubert Paul Levitz Elliot Maggin Dave Manak Rich Morrissey

Contents

Will Murray Mart & Carrie Nodell Denny O’Neil Jerry Ordway George Perez David Raboy Ethan Roberts Bob Rogers Alex Ross Julius Schwartz Scott Shaw!

David Siegel Robin Snyder Flo Steinberg Marc Swayze Joel Thingvall Dann Thomas Len Wein John Wells Marv Wolfman Donald Woolfolk Ed Zeno

The Many Oaths of The Green Lantern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Craig Delich on prose & poetry and the sacred oaths of the Emerald Gladiator.

The Genius Jones Twins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Will Murray uncovers an unlikely coincidence involving Argosy, Lester Dent, and Mort Weisinger.

The 1964 Comicon—TwoViews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Bill Schelly and Ethan Roberts look at the first bona fide comics convention.

Corrections to the All-Star Companion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Special Mac Raboy/FCA Part II Section . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Just for a kick, Roy asked a favorite Bronze Age collaborator of his—Rich Buckler—to draw an homage to the very first JLA-JSA cover of all, as flawlessly executed in 1963

by Mike Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson. It looks a lot like the original, until you stop short and notice the greatly increased roll call in the upper half of the picture. But there are some subtle switcheroos in the bottom half, too, which you probably won’t notice till you compare original and homage! [JLA & JSA ©2001 DC Comics.]

Above: The JSA’s first meeting in 12 years, as served up by Schwartz, Fox, Sekowsky, and Sachs; repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Jerry Bails. [JLA & JSA ©2001 DC Comics.]

Alter EgoTM is published quarterly 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@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 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.

2

Writer/Editorial

writer/editorial

The Super-Teams Supreme T

his issue of Alter Ego has been advertised as “a companion to The All-Star Companion,” my 208-page book on The Justice Society of America recently published by TwoMorrows.

But A/E V3#7 wasn’t originally planned as a “companion” to anything.

It’s just that, in order to contain all the material on the JSA, from 1940 through 2000, that I had pulled together, it became apparent early last year that the trade paperback would have had to be more like 250-300 pages, which simply wasn’t feasible.

While the original JLA-JSA stories were, paradoxically, more of a writer’s idea of heaven than an artist’s, one penciler in particular clearly loved drawing them: George Perez, who else? George was traveling when I needed to reach him; but, when we did run into each other at an enjoyable little comicon in Baltimore this fall, I was able to garner at least a few tidbits of last-minute info.

Not that we’re exactly short on original art to reproduce in conjunction with the coverage, especially from the Sekowsky-Dillin years, thanks to Alter Ego founder Jerry G. Bails and several other generous art collectors. Our main regret in the artistic area was that we were unable to unearth a single photo of Dick Dillin, who drew more JLA-JSA team-ups than any other artist. (Anybody out there got one? I was never privileged to meet that talented gentleman, who died a few years ago.) And special thanks to Ye Editor’s old Captain Carrot collaborator Scott Shaw! for providing a great photo of mighty Mike Sekowsky, and to Mark Evanier for telling us he had one.

So, as I explain in the Companion, I cut the post-1950 material down considerably—hell, I even took out stuff from the Golden Age section—and made plans to print the fuller coverage of the JLA-JSA team-ups of 1963-1985 in Alter Ego, instead. The Companion now contains a ten-page overview of the JLA-JSA tales—but publisher John Morrow did find a way, at the eleventh hour, to display each and every JLAJSA cover as a special section in The All-Star Companion. That may well be the first time it’s ever been done.

The rest of this issue, I think, speaks pretty much for itself… but I’ll do a little ventriloquist act at this point, just the same.

An added plus is that, with no need now to show every JLA-JSA cover (there are around fifty of them, counting related comics) in Alter Ego, we could add something special to the magazine’s coverage.

Accordingly, in addition to the scheduled interview with original Justice League of America editor Julie Schwartz (his first since last summer’s publication of his valuable memoir Man of Two Worlds, written with Brian Thomsen), I decided to try to contact every writer of JLA-JSA stories I could find.

Bill Schelly and Ethan Roberts provide two complementary viewpoints on the very first real comics convention, held in New York in 1964, complete with art by the likes of Ditko, Kirby, et al.

And don’t we all wish we’d been there!

The last of Ron Harris’ preliminary sketches for Alter Ego, the 1986 comic book. [Alter Ego hero and Rob Lindsay ©2001 Roy Thomas and Ron Harris.]

Happily, only two of the even dozen scripters of the original 23 JLA-JSA story arcs have passed away: Gardner Fox (in 1986) and E. Nelson Bridwell (in 1987). Most of the surviving authors were unstinting with their time and reminiscences, and surprised me more than once with behind-the-scenes info I hadn’t guessed… as when Elliot Maggin talked about how (and why) he envied Avengers writer Steve Englehart, or when Len Wein revealed the origin of the name “Earth-X.” I even rounded up a few comments by Gardner and Nelson, from previouslypublished pieces.

Only two JLA-JSA scripters are missing from these pages: Marty Pasko, now an editor at DC, returned no phone calls; and Cary Bates, now writing for Hollywood, has made it clear to various people that he doesn’t want to talk about comics. I’m glad my former collaborator Gerry Conway, a successful TV writer and producer for the past decade-and-a-half, has no such selective amnesia.

Again we have no less than two pieces on Mac Raboy, the legendary artist of Captain Marvel Jr. (and later of Flash Gordon): interviews with his son David, and with his 1940s assistant, Bob Rogers.

And, believe it or not, we’re not finished with the Mighty Mac yet!

Michael T. Gilbert showcases some of the non-comics work of the multi-talented C.C. Beck—introduced by an exquisite two-page “Mr. Monster” intro—and Ye Editor tossed in a bit of work by Beck and longtime Fawcett writer Otto Binder as a bonus.

P.C. Hamerlinck provides yet another intriguing installment of FCA, for the ever-growing legion of Fawcett-lovers out there, highlighting Marc Swayze and Mad’s Dave Berg. And, because this issue’s theme is “Super-Teams Supreme,” P.C. examines C.C. Beck’s last dealings with DC in the 1970s—which involved a “Marvel Family” script he had written. A/E takes no side in this long-dead dispute, and, alas, Nelson Bridwell is no longer around so that we could get his POV; but Beck’s piece is fascinating, nonetheless.

And now, without further (or even nearer) ado…

Submit Something To Alter Ego! Alter Ego is on the lookout for items that can be utilized in upcoming issues: • Convention Sketches • Unpublished Artwork • Original Scripts (the older the better!)

• Photos • Unpublished Interviews • Little-seen Fanzine Material We’re also interested in articles, article ideas, or any other suggestions... and we pay off in FREE COPIES of A/E. (If you’re already an A/E subscriber, we’ll extend your subscription.) Contact: Roy Thomas, Editor Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803)826-6501 • E-mail: roydann@oburg.net

Submission Guidelines Submit artwork in one of these forms (in order of preference): 1) Clear color or black-&-white photocopies.

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4

All Schwartz Comics

Article logo by Al Dellinges

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz Conducted & Edited by Roy Thomas Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson [INTRODUCTION: Julie Schwartz needs no introduction to anyone who knows anything at all about the Silver Age of Comics, since as the original editor of The Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Hawkman, The Atom, The Spectre, et al., from 1956 through the 1970s, he practically invented the damn thing. Earlier, he was a science-fiction fan, then agent, in the 1930s and early ’40s; and from 1944 he was an editor at All-American Comics and later for DC Comics proper. (All-American, a company which included all comics featuring Wonder Woman, Flash, and/or Green Lantern, among others, lasted from 1939 to 1945, when it was wholly absorbed by National/DC; however, DC’s symbol had graced all AA covers during those years except for a brief time in 1945.)

[Julie, who is one of the people most responsible for (or guilty of, take your pick) helping Ye Writer/Editor break into the comic book field in 1965, graciously agreed to be interviewed this past August in conjunction with The All-Star Companion, and for this issue of Alter Ego. The limited purpose of the interview—his first since publication of his memoirs—was to be the JSA in the 1940s, and to some extent the influential JLA-JSA team-ups he initiated with writer Gardner F. Fox in 1963.

[My intention in what follows was simply to ask Julie all the questions I could think of about All-Star and the Golden Age JSA, which he edited from 1944-50. Julie has been swearing for decades that he remembers few details about individual stories or even the original series; but I felt I had nothing to lose by asking. Until I did, none of us could ever be certain he might not, under gentle prodding, recall some detail that had just never occurred to him before. And, indeed, while Julie is understandably uncertain about many events now more than half a century in the past, the reader is still likely to find a few surprises in what follows. I know I did…. —Roy.] ROY THOMAS: Basically, Julie, what I’d like us to talk about is the Justice Society, which means mostly All-Star Comics in the 1940s, but to some extent the JLA-JSA team-ups, as well. We’ll send you a free

copy of The All-Star Companion.

JULIUS SCHWARTZ: [laughs] I’d expect that “irregardless”! All right, go ahead.

RT: You’ve often told the story of how you bought three comics on the way to be interviewed at AllAmerican in 1944, and how that’s the only thirty cents you ever spent on comics in your life. Do you know what kind of comics those three were?

SCHWARTZ: What titles and issues? Only my memory bank knows. I don’t.

Photo of Julius Schwartz which he says was “taken August 10, 1945... how I looked in my All-Star days!”

And yes, he hyphenated “All-Star”!

(Below) Julie’s recent memoir, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics, written with Brian M. Thomsen, is a 200-page treasure trove for fans of the Golden and Silver Ages, available at better comics shops, via online booksellers, and through Bud Plant, among others. [©2000 Julius Schwartz]

RT: Well… did they help? With the interview, I mean.

SCHWARTZ: I guess I’d have to answer positively, because when Shelly Mayer interviewed me, my answers must’ve been good enough for him to hire me on the spot! [laughs] RT: So he did the actual hiring? You didn’t meet with [publisher] M.C. Gaines?

SCHWARTZ: No, no, no. Just Shelly. In fact, he offered me $60 a week. I never thought of mentioning that before. $60 a week was pretty good back in those days.

RT: ’Twasn’t bad. I started out at DC in ’65 for only $100 a week—$110 at Marvel—and that was twenty years of inflation later!

SCHWARTZ: I must have been doing well enough, because once he’d offered me $60 a week—it was during the War years—he could not raise me in salary [due to a Wartime wage freeze], so what he did was give me a $100 a month bonus after a couple of months.

RT: That was really good!

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, that was much more than I was making as a literary agent.

RT: Did the fact that you were a science-fiction fan and reader and agent probably help you get the job?

SCHWARTZ: It wasn’t the fact that I was a fan; it

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz

5 RT: You mean she just thought of ideas for “The Atom,” for this character or that character, in spare moments, and wrote them on index cards?

was that I was a literary agent.

Writers would submit scripts to me, and if I liked one well enough to submit to magazine editors, I had the know-how whether the story was good or bad. Shelly knew I was wellversed in pulp magazines, with their strong plots, and that’s the type of stories AllAmerican was doing.

SCHWARTZ: Right! Let me tell you something about Dorothy. She married Walter Galli and later divorced him, her second husband, to marry Bill Woolfolk [prominent comic book writer and later a bestselling novelist]. Let me tell you an anecdote I probably should’ve put in my book….

RT: Did you know Dorothy Roubicek, whom you replaced as script editor under Shelly Mayer in 1944?

SCHWARTZ: Very well.

She had replaced Ted Udall a couple of years earlier. You know who Ted Udall is? His real name? If you check the early All-American Comics, there were several text stories written by “Ted Yigdal.” I believe that’s how you spell his real name. He was an editor for Shelly prior to World War II, and he wrote stories.

RT: Well, you can put it in the second edition.

SCHWARTZ: This is roughly in the early ’90s. After the San Diego conventions, I used to go up to Los Angeles and spend three or four days with Harlan Ellison, Gil Kane, and Forrest Ackerman.

I’d go to the Golden Apple comic book shop, and just hang out. I’d stay at the Holiday Inn in Westwood.

Before Ted Udall came along [in 1940—RT], I believe Shelly Mayer may have gotten some editorial help from— what was the name of that artist who did “Hop Harrigan”?

RT: Jon Blummer. He both wrote and drew it, I think.

Splash of All-Star Comics #26 (Fall 1945). Art by Joe Gallagher and Martin Naydel.

One day, exiting the Holiday Inn, to my stunned amazement, I see Dorothy! I say, “Dorothy?” She says, “Julie?” And we hug each other. Listen, is Dorothy still alive?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think he [©2001 DC Comics.]

RT: Yes. Bill and her son Don may have helped Shelly with the both wrote me recently that she is. [NOTE: Sadly, Dorothy Roubicek editing for a while, too, earlier. Now, when Ted Udall got drafted [in Woolfolk passed away in Dec. 2000.]

1942—RT], that presumably is when Shelly hired Dorothy Roubicek.

What Dorothy had done before, I have no idea.

SCHWARTZ: I hadn’t seen her in twenty years! When she was back at DC briefly during the 1970s, editing the romance books, I used to go The reason Dorothy was leaving in ’44 is, she was getting married to into her office and talk with her. a comic book artist named Walter Galli, and she gave notice; she was just going to stay another week. As a matter of fact, I think it was a RT: You went to work for AA in ’44. Later that year, things began to short week. [laughs] I was hired February 21, 1944, and began working on February 23. February 22 was Washington’s Birthday, which in those days was a legal holiday. It wasn’t until years later that we instituted The quirky 1985 one-shot Presidents’ Day. Fifty Who Made DC Great For three days, as I roughly remember, Dorothy briefed me. She advised me that my main job would be plotting stories and editing them. I would not have to bother with the artwork, which was a relief.

I knew nothing about art.

She left behind a series of index cards containing plot ideas. Hey! Now that I think of it, I haven’t thought about this in years. You’re pretty good, Roy! RT: [laughs] It’s a gift, Julie.

SCHWARTZ: She left a series of index cards. If she had to plot an “Atom” story, she’d go to that index card and come up with a plot she’d already prepared. I don’t think I ever mentioned that to anybody before.

featured this photo of All-American’s original editor, Sheldon Mayer, then 68. The cartoon by Steven Petruccio depicts the historical event of a young (but prematurely bearded) Mayer pushing Siegel and Shuster’s “Superman” on Gaines et al. in 1938. Not only that, but six years later he hired Julie Schwartz! [©2001 DC Comics.]

6

All Schwartz Comics SCHWARTZ: I’m glad you asked me that question. Mort Weisinger always wanted to be a writer and an editor. So in the early ’40s there was a group of magazines called Standard Magazines; they put out Thrilling Mystery, and other “Thrilling” magazines. Mort submitted a short story to Thrilling.

Leo Margulies was the editor-in-chief. The way he worked was: When a script came in, it was read by a series of assistant editors. If three of them okayed the story, Leo bought it. So Jack Schiff read this story by Mort Weisinger, whom he didn’t know, and he asked him to come visit him at Standard. And that’s how Mort became an editor there; Schiff was the editor, really, of Mort.

Julie also sent what he says is “a [lousy] photo of Ted Udall and me in the DC office we shared… next to Shelly Mayer’s… taken the same day,” namely 8/10/45. Udall’s face is shadowy to the point of invisibility, but at least we know he wore glasses—and hey, when was the last time you saw a photo of old AA editor Ted Udall?

fall apart between the All-American group and DC. For seven or eight months, there was an AA symbol instead of a DC one on the books like All-Star, All-American, Flash, Sensation, Wonder Woman, All-Flash, Green Lantern, and Comic Cavalcade—plus a few humor and Bible titles—which finally made AA look like what it was—a totally separate company from DC.

Later, Mort switched over to editing comics for DC. When he was drafted, he persuaded Jack Schiff to take his place at DC until he got out of the service. Mort would get his job back, which was the law at that time. But after the War, DC had increased its output so much that they needed not only Mort; they needed to keep Jack Schiff, too. Somewhere along the line he brought in Bernie Breslauer, who was also an editor at the “Thrilling” group.

RT: It must’ve been good for you as a science-fiction agent to have your old friend Mort working for Standard.

SCHWARTZ: Sure!

RT: When he went to work for Standard, he gave up being an agent with you, right?

SCHWARTZ: Mort liked Henry Kuttner, whom he’d met while we were in California, and I persuaded Kuttner, who’d only been writing

And then, late in ’45, suddenly everything folded into DC. It’s always seemed to me like two different periods. Were you aware of what was going on at the time? And what was going on, precisely?

SCHWARTZ: I was aware of it, but I had no knowledge of what was going on. All I can recall is, presumably at the end of 1944, Shelly Mayer told me we were moving uptown to 480 Lex [= Lexington], because we were now part of DC Comics. We moved uptown, and when you got out of the elevators, as I recall, the first office was Whit Ellsworth’s; next to him were the offices of Mort Weisinger, Jack Schiff, Murray Boltinoff, and Bernie Breslauer. Did you know Bernie Breslauer?

Henry Kuttner in the 1930s; also from Amazing World of DC Comics #3. (The obscured head is that of Psycho author Robert Bloch.) [©2001 DC Comics.]

RT: Only by name. He used to edit Leading Comics, among other things, for Ellsworth.

SCHWARTZ: And further down the hall I had my office with Robert Kanigher. Do you know how Jack Schiff got into DC Comics?

RT: Not really.

SCHWARTZ: Well, lucky you! I’m going to tell you! Because you just asked me, didn’t you?

RT: Yeah, sure. [laughs] SCHWARTZ: Ask me!

RT: How did Jack Schiff get into DC Comics?

Previously-unpublished panels from one of those “Atom” stories Dorothy Roubicek might have plotted on index cards, circa 1943; art by Joe Gallagher. Some of the copy fell off before Marv Wolfman rescued this “written-off” tier three decades back. [Atom ©2001 DC Comics.]

stories for Weird Tales, to write science-fiction. So his first sciencefiction story was sold to Mort.

Henry Kuttner had a thousand pen names.

My favorite one—when he lived in Hastings-on-theHudson, a town on the Hudson River—was Hudson Hastings. [laughs] RT: Of course, he and his wife C.L. Moore together were Lewis Padgett.

SCHWARTZ: We’re going far afield from All-Star…

RT: That’s all right. The thing I was thinking before was—well, the given story about M.C. Gaines is that at some stage he was fighting so much with Harry Donenfeld and especially Jack Liebowitz that he insisted on them buying him out—but it seems to have been done in two stages, or else why is there more than half a year’s worth of a totally separate All-American line?

DC editor Jack Schiff in a 1950s photo taken at the DC offices.

Courtesy of Ramona Fradon.

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz SCHWARTZ: I know absolutely nothing about it.

All I know is that we moved uptown, about the end of ’44.

RT: Are you sure? The reason I’m wondering is that, during most of 1945, books were coming out with just an AA symbol…

SCHWARTZ: Wait a second, let me think. Somewhere in the office, I had a photograph of a big Christmas party in 1945. There’s a shot of everyone who ever worked there… there’s a shot of Harry Donenfeld, there was a shot of a guy who tells me he was Joe Kubert—he was so young at the time! [laughs] There’s a shot of Ted Udall sitting at a table with the girl I later married.

RT: Really? Where is that picture?

7

plotting and editing on stories, on the script. Shelly did not interfere with my plotting or editing.

RT: Shelly Mayer said that, right up to when he left in ’48, he was still co-plotting with the writers, but I’m wondering if he hadn’t cut down on that some years earlier, and given more of it over to editors like you and Kanigher.

SCHWARTZ: During my tenure, I don’t recall Shelly plotting any stories with Gardner or Kanigher. After I plotted the story and edited the script, I would turn it over to Shelly, and Shelly would give it to the artist. When the artist had done the work, Shelly looked at it, but eventually I’d proofread it.

RT: So, in some cases, the first he would see of a story was when there was a completed script?

SCHWARTZ: That’s the way it was.

RT: Did Shelly earlier know what the general plot was? After all, when you’re talking about All-Star in particular, you’re talking about practically the whole book being one story.

SCHWARTZ: My recollection is that he did not. He didn’t know what was going on until I handed him the edited script.

RT: So Shelly’s memory of co-plotting probably reflects those earlier years, when he used to plot All-Star with Gardner in the early ’40s?

SCHWARTZ: When I plotted with Gardner, there was no co-plotting [by Shelly], as I recall. You’re talking about 55 years ago, and everything

SCHWARTZ: Missing. I was not in the picture, because I went to the men’s room at the time. [laughs] There’s a shot of a guy named David Vern, who wrote a lot of short stuff, An All-American house ad from Fall 1945 and Judge Goldstein, who issues. [©2001 DC Comics.] helped out in the lawsuit against Fawcett. The original photograph was held by Milt Snappin. He was originally a letterer, but later he was in charge of the foreign sales department. He gave me a copy of that photo, and I gave it to Paul Levitz [now DC’s publisher]. So, let’s get back to All-Star.

RT: Actually, we never did quite get to it yet! This is all preliminary, but that’s okay—this will be a “Julie Schwartz Golden Age Interview.”

After DC took over AA, did you ever get the feeling that the AA people, like you and Mayer and Kanigher and so forth, were secondclass citizens there?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I wouldn’t say second-class. Just say—how can I put it? Maybe we were the junior members. In other words, Mort and company being there ahead of us were the senior members, and we were the junior members. But we had no editorial contact with each other, really, not even after Gaines sold out. We didn’t interfere with their magazines, and they didn’t interfere with ours. Mayer was our boss, and Ellsworth was their boss.

RT: Besides All-Star, the other All-American super-hero books were any comics that featured Flash, Green Lantern, and/or Wonder Woman. Did you work editorially on all those for a number of years?

SCHWARTZ: On all but Wonder Woman.

RT: I guess Kanigher eventually took over the Wonder Woman stuff, especially after [co-creator William Moulton] Marston died in ’47.

SCHWARTZ: Kanigher got the job, or he took it upon himself. I don’t remember. The way I recall it, on the books I worked on, I did all the

A DC house ad from 1946, after AA had been bought by DC. Julie worked on all super-hero titles on this page except Action and Star Spangled. Sounds like there were “walls of Jericho” between the DC and AA gangs, doesn’t it? [©2001 DC Comics.]

8

All Schwartz Comics A Gardner Fox script page (on legal pad) for the “Hawkman” story in Flash Comics #81 (March 1947), as rather heavily edited by Julie (evidently by May 7, 1946!)—plus the page as drawn by artist Jon Chester Kozlak. Thanks to Joel Thingvall for the script, and to Al Dellinges for photocopying the art!

Neptune Perkins would turn up again in the 1980s, in All-Star Squadron and The Young All-Stars. [©2001 DC Comics.]

I persuaded him to write sciencefiction, and I sold maybe half a dozen or more scripts of his to Planet Stories.

RT: He even got his name on the cover once or twice.

SCHWARTZ: This also reminds me—see how you’re making me think? just blurs, and we have to speculate.

RT: That’s my talent, Julie.

I’d like to briefly say, I think my job was to plot the story, edit it, give it to Shelly, and when the artwork came in, Shelly would look at it and give it to me and I would proofread it.

SCHWARTZ: Let me tell you something: I persuaded Ted Udall to write, too. He wrote a number of stories for Weird Tales, published under the name “Charles King.” That would be between ’45 and ’47.

RT: That means you were most likely the co-plotter on many of the AA comics I liked most, including on what I consider the high point of AllStar, in 1947-48. In late ’46, after #34, Gardner Fox quit writing All-Star.

Was he edged off the book?

SCHWARTZ: I’ve been thinking about that, and I really don’t recall.

RT: He mentioned the change as being fairly amicable, but he never gave any more details.

SCHWARTZ: Let me put it this way: When I first met Gardner, when I started to work in comics in ’44,

RT: By the end of ’46 Gardner seems to have gone over at least partly to westerns and humor. One feature he says he worked on was “The Dodo and the Frog,” in Funny Stuff. Did you have editorial duties on the humor books, too?

SCHWARTZ: Absolutely not.

RT: I didn’t think so, but I was curious.

You probably worked with Gardner on some of the westerns he wrote—in AllAmerican Western, or Western Comics, or later All-Star Western.

SCHWARTZ: When you say “worked

From the JSA—to “The Dodo and the Frog”? An Irwin Hasen panel from Gardner Fox’s last and never-reprinted All-Star (#34, April-May 1947). And Gar may not have written this ‘47 house ad, but hey! Ye Editor actually liked “The Dodo and the Frog”! [©2001 DC Comics.]

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz

there’s hardly any editing on Kanigher.

with,” don’t forget Kanigher. By this time Udall had left, and Kanigher had taken his place. As far as I can recollect, I was editing the western books, but Kanigher did a lot of writing, and he may have plotted some of the stories in the westerns. I know he plotted with Robert Haney a lot. I was in charge of the final layout, you might say—what stories would appear, and where. I also kept the books. Kanigher never kept any of the books.

RT: Years ago John Broome told Jerry Bails that he did the issue [#35] right after Gardner’s 32-issue run ended. But then Kanigher evidently came in for at least two issues, maybe three. Then Broome’s records showed that he did all the rest, from #39 on. Do you know why All-Star would have bounced from Broome to Kanigher to Broome?

RT: You mean records and things?

SCHWARTZ: I don’t remember.

No recollection.

SCHWARTZ: Records, yeah. The reason we don’t have any records is, in those days we had what were called—what the hell was that called? There was a book, maybe half the size of a comic book, in which, if I bought a story, I would write, “Pay to Gardner Fox for script,” I’d give the title, the payment, and so on, right? I’d tear out the front page, and that would go to the accounting department, and I would keep the carbon. When the book was finished, we’d throw it away. So the only record of what was bought was in Accounting!

DC must now have no records of the ’40s, because when they print those Millennium issues, they say, “Author Unknown” or

9

“There’s hardly any editing on Kanigher.” Another Joe Kubert page from the Flash/Rose & Thorn story which DC never published. (See previous issues of Alter Ego for more, courtesy of Robin Snyder’s wonderful publication, The Comics.) [Jay Garrick and The Thorn ©2001 DC Comics.]

“Artist Unknown.”

people were in place when Shelly left.

RT: #35 and the last nineteen issues of All-Star were written by John Broome, but there were at least two issues that were scripted by Kanigher. Would you and Kanigher have co-plotted the issues he wrote?

SCHWARTZ: Absolutely.

SCHWARTZ: Sure. I didn’t have to put in as much detail as I did with Gardner or John Broome, because Kanigher was such a good plotter. I knew what he was doing and I would look it over and edit it, but

RT: One guy who also came in around this time, but became more prominent after Shelly left, was Arthur Peddy, who was mostly teamed with Bernie Sachs as inker.

SCHWARTZ: Yeah, I can’t remember when they came in. Did they work on All-Star?

RT: Oh, yeah! Not only did they do many of the covers; they even penciled and inked entire issues.

At left, a Peddy and Sachs All-Star splash (from #51, Feb.-March 1950)… and, at right, a Frank Giacoia splash (from #56, Dec. 1950-Jan. 1951). Did somebody like Green Lantern, or what? [©2001 DC Comics.]

RT: There was a period of nine issues [#33-41] which were very good—Gardner Fox’s last two stories, then Broome’s and Kanigher’s. At the same time, the art was getting better. Was there a conscious effort to try to upgrade the book starting in late ’46 and in ’47? Over a fairly short period, suddenly Irwin Hasen and Alex Toth and Lee Elias and Carmine Infantino all came in, and some of the earlier guys were eased out—while Joe Kubert just kept getting better. All those

10

All Schwartz Comics SCHWARTZ: On much of Frank’s syndicate stuff, he had a lot of help.

RT: Yeah. I worked with Frank at Marvel, and he was very insecure in his penciling, like on one Avengers we did together, because everything had to be swipes. He was a great inker, so maybe he’d get an assignment as penciler and then get somebody else to do it for him. But whether or not he did that as early as on All-Star #54-57…

SCHWARTZ: All I can tell you is an anecdote about Frank Giacoia.

Ready? I should’ve put it in the book, but I never thought of it. Frank Giacoia was late, late, late, late. On one occasion he was getting married to a girl named Celeste, and I went to the wedding. And after the ceremony was over, I told Frank, “You cannot go on your honeymoon.

I’ve reserved a room at a hotel. You’re staying there until you finish the goddamn story.” [laughs] Every time I saw Celeste years later, she’d say, “I’ll never forgive you for not letting me go on my honeymoon!”

RT: I don’t blame her! About All-Star: I noticed that some of those primo 1947-48 issues I love had a looser format than the earlier ones.

Do you recall any conscious plan to make the book a bit looser, a bit less formulaic?

SCHWARTZ: No.

Flash vs. Degaton in a Lee Elias-drawn splash panel from All-Star #35 (JuneJuly 1947). A “Flash” logo was added when “The Day That Dropped Out of Time” was reprinted in 1982. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Peddy and Sachs did more work in the last two years of All-Star than any other artist or team.

SCHWARTZ: Really? I don’t remember that. They did the covers?

RT: Now, I have a bunch of specific questions about particular issues of All-Star—you probably won’t remember them, but I’ll ask anyway, just in case they stir something. In the first story Broome wrote [#35], there was a time villain, Per Degaton, a really good character who looked like a short Napoleon type in a stormtrooper outfit….

SCHWARTZ: Was he out of another time?

RT: Most of them. Well, according to Craig Delich, Bob Oksner confirmed that he inked one of Peddy’s covers, but mostly Bernard Sachs inked them.

RT: No, he was a lab assistant who stole a time machine. What’s interesting to me is, he changed the outcome of a particular battle between Alexander the Great and the Persians. I’m curious: Who was the history buff who came up with that, do you think? Would that have been you, or Broome?

SCHWARTZ: Oksner did an All-Star cover? Really? I don’t remember that. You’ve surprised me.

SCHWARTZ: Oh, no! Not me!

RT: Another guy who did some work on All-Star in the last year was Frank Giacoia. He’s noted mostly as an inker, but he seems to have done some nice penciling in All-Star and on “Atom” stories in Flash, and later he did the early “Strong Bow” in All-Star Western.

SCHWARTZ: I think a lot of the stuff he did was ghosted by Mike Sekowsky. I’m just guessing.

RT: It might have been, though I’m more aware that Mike ghosted Frank’s penciling later, like on the Sherlock Holmes newspaper strip.

RT: Did John read much history? Important as it was, the Battle of Arbela isn’t one of the most famous battles, nowadays.

SCHWARTZ: That’s way beyond me. John was extremely well-read, he was well-versed in everything. He went into all forms of literature and art. He was a—how can I say it? He was always kind of afraid of himself. For a while, I didn’t know that he was an artist! An amateur artist, but—of course, you know about his traveling. Eventually he left DC and went to Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Paris. He went all over; he sure loved to travel!

RT: All-Star #36 is the one about whose writer we’re not certain. This was the one where suddenly Superman and Batman guest-star.

Do you have any idea as to why they might have been Black Canary pulls her weight in All-Star #40 (April-May 1948), in a panel by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia—oh yeah, and John Broome! [©2001 DC Comics.]

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz

11

RT: And they did. The date “September 30, 1949” is stamped on a lot of the pages that were “written off.”

shoehorned into the JSA, especially just for one issue?

Broome also wrote an All-Star [#40] about juvenile delinquency. Some of us are tempted to see Kanigher’s hand in that one, because Black Canary is so prominent in it, and he’s the one who created her.

But #40 was evidently scripted by Broome. It’s an unusual story, with no super-villains, just hoodlums and kid gangs, with the Justice Society trying to help the kids go straight.

SCHWARTZ: I don’t know.

RT: Issue #37 has an idea you’d have thought would have happened a long time before, an Injustice Society. Of course, you used that idea later in Justice League. Do you know how that happened? That was a Kanigher story.

SCHWARTZ: It just came about.

SCHWARTZ: How it came about, I don’t know—whether anyone suggested it, or it just came to us out of the blue.

RT: It must’ve worked, because there was another one only four issues later. Then there was the issue [#38] where almost all the JSAers died, or seemed to. It’s never been reprinted….

Let me ask you a question out of the blue: Fifteen, twenty years from now, when you are interviewed about your editorship at Marvel, are you going to remember everything?

SCHWARTZ: Let me tell you something about the JSA stories that were never reprinted. There’s a possibility—When I was hired

by Shelly, he said, “You really have no deadline worries, because we’re three issues ahead on everything.” So eventually, when All-Star was cancelled, there were three issues still hanging around!

RT: I don’t remember everything now. Some things I remember crystal clear, and others—well, they may as well have happened on the dark side of the moon.

RT: But he’d been gone for two or three years by the time All-Star died.

SCHWARTZ: You’ll say, “Julie was right!” When you get to be—and I hope you do—in your eighties. I don’t remember what I did fifty years ago.

SCHWARTZ: What I can’t remember at all is whether any of the material that was hanging around was done even before I was hired. Some of the stories you mentioned, I have no recollection of. Some of those stories may have been bought by Shelly as inventory.

RT: They still had to be done no earlier than 1945 or ’46, though, because the unpublished issue of All-Star that partly exists has Flash and Green Lantern in it.

SCHWARTZ: I have no knowledge of it.

RT: I think people remember what’s important to them. Some things you just do for a living, and you don’t think about them that much. If the actual comics didn’t still exist, there’d be no memory of any of this at all.

Julie and longtime colleague Irwin Hasen at dinner during a Heroes Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the mid-’90s. Irwin penciled and inked the entire 39-page JSA story “Invasion from Fairyland” for Julie in All-Star #39 (Feb.-March 1948)—but neither one of them remembers anything about it!

[JSA art©2001 DC Comics; photo by Dann Thomas.]

[EDITOR’S NOTE: For more on the “lost issues” of All-Star, especially the dozen-plus extant pages of the unpublished 1945 JSA tale “The Will of William Wilson,” see The All-Star Companion, published December 2000 by TwoMorrows. End of shameless plug!]

RT: “The Will of William Wilson” isn’t the greatest story in the world— but throwing away two, three, four stories means a lot of money being wasted, when you take a whole issue that’s basically written and drawn, and you don’t publish it.

SCHWARTZ: Presumably you could write it off.

Financially, if you buy something and don’t use it, you could take it off your taxes.

RT: For some reason, the name was changed to the “Liberty Train.” In this same story—and this is even weirder!—the name of the Liberty Bell is changed to the “Freedom Bell”! Why in the world would you

Julie and original DC editor Vin Sullivan were among many Golden Age greats to attend the 1998 San Diego Convention; that’s Ye Editor behind them. [Photo by David Siegel.]

In one issue [#41], there was this whole thing about stealing the Freedom Train, which was another John Broome story.

SCHWARTZ: I vaguely recall that.

12

All Schwartz Comics Kanigher keep doing the work, while Ellsworth was the official editor.

SCHWARTZ: I don’t think Whit Ellsworth even interfered with Mort and Jack Schiff. The only thing Whit Ellsworth did, for me— Mort and Schiff had a book called Big Town. For some reason Ellsworth didn’t like the way it was going, so he turned it over to me.

When I say “me,” I mean Kanigher and me, but I did it. The same thing with the western comics. If Whit didn’t like the way the western comics were going, he turned them over to the Schwartz and Kanigher team.

Whenever I did a cover, I never had a prior okay from Whit.

RT: There were some good ones! One of the things that happened at this time is that, starting with #42, the stories tended to become—and I enjoyed some of them tremendously—a bit more formula-ized again, with the JSA together at the beginning and end, and splitting up into teams in the middle of the book.

Green Lantern rescues his fellow JSAers from “time ledges”—John Broome’s great idea, sez Julie—in “The Gun That Dropped through Time,” from All-Star #53 (June-July 1950). Art by Peddy and Sachs. [©2001 DC Comics.]

change the name of the Liberty Bell?

SCHWARTZ: No idea. You’re really going into trivia, huh?

RT: Well, I figure that all the broad strokes have already been written about All-Star, over the years. What I wanted to do in The All-Star Companion was a book that really examines the comic under a microscope. Only with affection. Isn’t that what you expect from a “companion”—affection?

SCHWARTZ: You ought to call your book A Thousand and One Things You Never knew about All-Star Comics!

RT: Oh, there are more things in it than that, Julie! [laughs] Moving on: With issue #42, and for the last 16 issues through #57, Shelly Mayer was gone and Whit Ellsworth officially became editor. At this time, there’s very much a change in the feel of All-Star. I was wondering if he had any active part in it, or did he just leave it up to you?

SCHWARTZ: Let me tell you something: Whit Ellsworth never saw my covers before they appeared. I never had an okay from him. We just did covers and they went out that way.

RT: I get the idea he was a little more hands-on, maybe, with some of the DC stuff than he was with what he had inherited from AA. SCHWARTZ: He gave us complete liberty. I’m not even sure he read the comics before they came out.

RT: When Shelly left, Ellsworth had almost twice as many books to oversee, but DC didn’t put you guys’ names in the indicia.

They just had you and

Also, there’s a lot of science-fiction in that last couple of years. Is that because of your and Broome’s own inclinations, or was it the feeling that science-fiction was the wave of the future?

SCHWARTZ: No, we never thought it was the wave. We just liked doing science-fiction! Don’t forget, I used to be John Broome’s agent before he went into comics.

RT: There was also one issue in which the villain was supposed to be a surviving Billy the Kid. Was this because westerns were big at the time?

SCHWARTZ: Oh, what the hell… I’ll say yes!

RT: [laughs] You realize I’m asking you a lot of these things just as a technicality. I don’t expect you to remember everything—there’s no reason why you should—but I don’t want to take the chance that you do remember something I’d like to know, and I simply neglect to ask the question that brings it out!

For the first few years you were editing All-Star, the Justice Society worked out of Gotham City, same as Batman. Then, in #44, they went out west for “Evil Star over Hollywood”—you revived Evil Star years later—and when they came back, they came back to a new place for the last couple of years, called Civic City! Do you remember why?

SCHWARTZ: What was the name of that city again?

RT: Civic City.

SCHWARTZ: I have no recollection. What you ought to do, Roy, is to keep records of everything you do, because fifty years later, somebody’s going to ask you about it, and you won’t have the answer.

Seriously!

RT: I’m always glad when people do keep records. I wish I had a chance to go over all Gardner Fox’s pay records. He donated them to the University of Oregon in Eugene. I’ve received copies of some of them from Michael T. Gilbert and others.

Gil Kane’s “Don Caballero” in All-Star Western #59 (June-July 1951). Anybody have any idea if the inker was Joe Giella? [Courtesy of Ethan Roberts;©2001 DC Comics.]

SCHWARTZ: Why to Eugene, Oregon?

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz

Lantern” stories, who was writing them?

When Alfred Bester took over as writer, was Finger writing them up to that point?

RT: It was an idea of Gardner’s agent, August Lenniger, probably for a tax break. For example, I saw on them that sometime in the early 1940s, Gardner got a $600 bonus for All-Star, which would have been a huge sum then. I guess the book was selling really well! Those records also show that Gardner did a lot more writing for DC strips like “Green Arrow” and others than we thought.

RT: You’re asking me? You were the editor! Craig Delich has written an article, which will be in the same issue of Alter Ego as this interview, about all the different versions of Green Lantern’s oath back in the middle ’40s.

SCHWARTZ: I would like you to solve the following problem, Roy. I’m giving you an assignment, okay? Here it is:

SCHWARTZ: I guarantee, Bester did write “In brightest day, in blackest night…”

Gardner Fox and [original DC editor] Vin Sullivan were schoolmates together, and when Vin Sullivan persuaded Gardner to start writing for comics, he wrote several stories for Sullivan, right?

Even some “Batman”?

RT: I’m talking about the ones in between. There were several other variations for a brief time there.

SCHWARTZ: Did I explain in my book that Bill Finger taught Alfred Bester how to write comics? When Al Bester was persuaded to write DC Comics by Mort Weisinger, he put him in touch with Bill Finger, and Bill Finger taught Bester how to write for comics.

RT: Right. I believe he said a “Zatara” was his first story.

SCHWARTZ: So how did he wind up at All-American Comics?

RT: I’ve often wondered the same thing, because he did start with DC, and later the majority of his writing was for the AA group. I don’t know the answer.

13

Julie brought back the JSA as the JLA—a feat which former DC “Junior Woodchuck” Carl Gafford celebrated in this Dec. 1999 cartoon commemorating its fortieth anniversary. [JLA©2001 DC Comics; cartoon ©2001 Carl Gafford.]

SCHWARTZ: I have a similar question: How come Bill Finger, who wrote so many stories for Vin Sullivan, and was always late—how come he would end up at All-American Comics doing “Green Lantern” and “Wildcat”?

RT: [laughs] Maybe he had to jump from one company to another where someone didn’t know he was always late!

SCHWARTZ: When Bill Finger was writing “Wildcat” and “Green Lantern,” I don’t think he was doing anything for Vin Sullivan or DC Comics.

RT: Well, of course, Sullivan by then was long gone, first to Columbia, and then by the late ’40s he started his own company, Magazine Enterprises.

SCHWARTZ: But it is an interesting problem—how two of the main writers that started at DC wound up exclusively at All-American. I think once Gardner started with Shelly, he didn’t write anything for DC. RT: I don’t know how exclusive it was, but they certainly did the majority of their work there.

SCHWARTZ: It’s possible that Bill Finger went back and forth, but since he was always so late on Batman, how come he was allowed to spend all that time at AA? Also, how many Golden Age “Green Lantern” stories did Bill Finger write?

RT: It’s hard to say, isn’t it? A lot of the early ones, of course, but after a while there were no credits anymore.

SCHWARTZ: When Bill Finger wasn’t writing the early “Green The JSA go into action together for the first time in over a decade in Justice League of America #21 (Aug. 1963), in panels repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Jerry G. Bails. [©2001 DC Comics.]

RT: Yeah, I think you’ve got that in there. So everybody should buy your book and read the full story. I know you want me to say that, Julie, but I will anyway—because they should!

Anyway, about all those sciencefiction issues of All-Star: I noticed that one of them, “Invasion of the Fire People,” owes a lot to Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

Did you hear that back in 1938?

SCHWARTZ: Oh, I heard the original, yeah.

RT: Of course, All-Star #49 came ten years later, but a lot of things in it came straight out of that broadcast. About this time, too, you started printing “JSA Laboratory” pages, where some member of the Justice Society would tell how to do some simple science experiment. Do you

14

All Schwartz Comics Shadow Out of Time,” was one of his longer short stories, too!

SCHWARTZ: Prior to that, he’d been writing since 1923, so—all I can say is, I liked things like “The Rats in the Walls” and “Pickman’s Model.” I was not a devout Lovecraft fan. I couldn’t read them fast enough. I was a fast reader, and you couldn’t read Lovecraft fast!

RT: It is sometimes a little like wading through molasses.

SCHWARTZ: Exactly.

RT: The last issue of All-Star [#57] was called “The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives.” People have wondered for years, did any of you know this was going to be the last issue and thus give it that title?

SCHWARTZ: My guess is, we did not know.

RT: At this point you and the writers and artists made up various features for All-Star Western, like “The Trigger Twins” and “Strong Bow” and “Don Caballero”….

SCHWARTZ: Yeah. Kanigher wrote “The Trigger Twins,” I’m pretty sure of that. But otherwise I can’t remember who wrote what. When did All-Star Western begin?

RT: You’d have prepared the stories in mid- to late 1950.

SCHWARTZ: I may have records of those. My recollection is that I started keeping records roughly about that time.

RT: Gil Kane drew “Don Caballero,” and Frank Giacoia—whether by himself or not—did “Strong Bow” for a few issues.

The last few questions I wanted to ask you are about the revival of the JSA in the early ’60s. Why do you think the Justice Society was basically revived, renamed the Justice League, after only two old DC heroes—Flash and Green Lantern—had been brought back in new form? Was this something that came up in an editorial meeting? Do you recall how it happened that this was the time DC decided to come out with a group again?

Julie set the tempo for the Silver Age when he edited Showcase #4 in ‘56—but it was Flash #123 in ’61 that brought the Silver and Golden Ages crashing together like two gleaming cymbals, courtesy of Julie, writer Gardner Fox, and penciler Carmine Infantino. Cover inks by Murphy Anderson. Repro’d from photocopies of original art, thanks to Mike W. Barr. [©2001 DC Comics.]

SCHWARTZ: After The Flash proved successful, they said, “What do you want to do next?”

know how these came about?

When “Green Lantern” proved successful, they said, “What do you want to do next?”

SCHWARTZ: I don’t recall if I wrote them or not.

RT: One story, “The Gun That Dropped through Time” [#53], in 1950—that was Broome, too, of course, and it had this wonderful theory of “time ledges”—that time was like a mountain, and if something fell through time, it would stop for a little while on each of several ledges, each a different era. I’ve been trying for years to learn if that theory came from any particular science-fiction story.

SCHWARTZ: All I know is, it’s all Broome.

RT: Just three issues before the end [#55], in “The Man Who Conquered the Solar System,” you had a Professor Napier—I guess that name came from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Carson Napier [Carson of Venus]. There were elements in that issue, too, from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Whisperer in Darkness.” Did you read Lovecraft, besides acting as his literary agent back in the ’30s?

SCHWARTZ: Oh, sure! I never could read his long stories. I would only read the short stories.

RT: But hey, it was his longest story that you sold, Julie—his short novel At the Mountains of Madness! And the other HPL story you sold, “The

I said, “I want to do ‘Green Lantern’ because that was really a favorite of mine.”

I said, “I’d like to do ‘The Justice Society of America,’ but I don’t like the word ‘Society,’ because it’s like a social group, and I want to use the word ‘League,’ because it’s a more familiar word to young readers, like the National League, American League.”

And that’s how that happened.

RT: I guess by then, with Flash and Green Lantern and the handful of pre-existing DC characters, you felt you had enough heroes to make up a whole League, huh?

SCHWARTZ: How many members did I have?

RT: You had seven, but of course you didn’t show much of Superman and Batman.

SCHWARTZ: I explained that in my book.

RT: Okay, everybody—buy the book! Of course, before long, you brought in Green Arrow, too, and later the new Atom and Hawkman.

Even after Justice League started, Jerry Bails and I, and I’m sure other people, suggested bringing back the JSA itself. And yet, when you

A Conversation with Editorial Legend Julius Schwartz

15 RT: Originally, did you have any thought that the Earth-Two stories might become a regular thing, as they did especially in Justice League after the initial “Crisis” story?

actually did it, you did it in a unique way, with this parallel world business. Do you remember how it came about—why that particular way of bringing the JSA back? Did it grow out of that issue of Flash Comics we’d seen Barry Allen reading back in Showcase #4?

SCHWARTZ: Well, as you remember, when Barry Allen realized he had super-powers, and was thinking what he wanted to do with them, he remembered the old Flash, and at that point, I said, “There’s a second Earth.” And when I used the term “second Earth” to think about what I would call this Earth, I said, “Earth-Two,” because it was the second Earth. It should have been the other way around, of course.

SCHWARTZ: Correct me if I’m wrong—when I did the “Crisis on Earth-One”/“Crisis on EarthTwo” story, which is a two-parter, I believe that was the first time a Justice League story hadn’t been completed in one issue.

RT: Except for the Felix Faust story.

Sure, you’ve seen both these pieces of art before—but, besides the cover, what page of JLA #21 would you print to top off Julie’s interview? And what better portrait of J.S. himself than Joe Kubert’s immortal illo for the cover of Amazing World of DC Comics #3? You can’t beat perfection! [©2001 DC Comics.]

RT: Yeah, but that’s okay. Nobody cared. The main thing is, it was a great idea.

SCHWARTZ: Well, I care! Of course, I had to go to EarthThree, and eventually to Earth-Prime. But Earth-Two should’ve been Earth-One, let’s get that straight!

RT: Here’s something I’ve been wondering for years: Except for a few very early stories

by Kanigher, including the origin, John Broome had written all the Flash stories. Yet, suddenly, when you decided to revive the original Flash—which both Broome and Kanigher had also written at times in the ’40s—do you know why Gardner Fox wound up writing “Flash of Two Worlds” instead of Broome? #123 was the first new Flash story that Gardner wrote!

SCHWARTZ: Let me ask you: Was John Broome on a limited schedule then? Was he still around?

RT: Yes, because he came back and wrote most of the Flash issues for some time after that single story. He was just off the book for an issue now and then.

SCHWARTZ: Sorry, I can’t recall.

SCHWARTZ: When the second “Crisis” issue appeared, I took up the whole front [splash] page with a summary of what happened before.

RT: With all those heads!

SCHWARTZ: Wasn’t that a great idea? I wish they’d do that today!

RT: It was like a scorecard. With that many characters, you needed a scorecard!

SCHWARTZ: When I see a Batman or some other comic nowadays, and it says, “Part 4 of a 6-part Story,” you’ve got to brief the reader. You’ve got to put somewhere at the beginning about what went on before, and who the characters are.

In the old days the pulp magazines like Argosy would run two or three serials in the same issue, and they’d always lead off with a page or more of what happened before! I was brought up on pulp magazines, and that’s where I got it from.

RT: It was a good idea, because it allowed people to get into the story. Two-parters were pretty rare in those days.

Was there any resistance from the higher-ups to the idea of a two-issue story?

SCHWARTZ: No! No one raised any objection. I was allowed to do what I wanted to do.

RT: And what you wanted to do made for some very good comics.

Thank you very much, Julie.

SCHWARTZ: Thanks. Say hello to Dann for me.

16

Crises on Finite Earths

ON FINITE EARTHS The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups (1963-1985)

by Roy Thomas [NOTE: This piece was originally written to be included in the recent TwoMorrows trade paperback The All-Star Companion. However, due to space limitations, most of the pages of that volume dealt with the 1940-1951 incarnation of All-Star Comics. A much shorter and far less complete version of this “reader’s guide” to the JLA-JSA team-ups appears in the Companion… with almost entirely different illustrations, but displaying all 50+ JLA-JSA covers!

The article that follows has been somewhat rewritten, yet no attempt has been made to disguise that it is in actuality a fuller version of a chapter of the 208-page book.

[In addition, the piece here goes beyond what was planned for The All-Star Companion, in featuring excerpts from my last-minute mini-interviews of most of the JLA-JSA writers (there were twelve, counting myself).

We contacted each of the living writers, and a hearty thank-you to each of the scripters who graciously responded. Happily, only Gardner F. Fox, the first and most important, and E. Nelson Bridwell have passed on; but both these are sorely missed for their talent and for their enthusiasm. An attempt was made to contact each of the other nine; Martin Pasko and Cary Bates did not respond, but I’m very grateful to the others for their time and memories.

[Much as I generally hate sidebars (when I run into them in magazines or books, I never know whether I’m supposed to go on reading the main text,

or whether I’m intended to stop and peruse the sidebar’s subject before moving on), I’ve resorted to them hereafter, placing the comments of each participant with the issues on which he worked. Because the sidebars get increasingly out of sync with the main text as the article progresses, I suggest you read the issue-info first, then skip to the interviews with the respective writer.

Between 1956 and 1961, editor Julius Schwartz of DC Comics (then officially known as National Periodical Publications) launched new, updated incarnations of The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, and The Justice Society of America (now The Justice League of America). Even so, a number of readers still clamored for the return of the original 1940s heroes of All-Star Comics.

Alter Ego’s founder Jerry G. Bails and I were among the most vocal and persistent of these, but ours were hardly lone voices calling out in the fourcolor wilderness. These mostly adult readers carried the bring-back-the-JSA banner both in comics fanzines and in letters to editors, particularly to Julie, godfather of the Silver Age of Comics.

A “family portrait” of the full roster of the Justice Society, by Murphy Anderson—who also drew this 1984 illo of Julius Schwartz, prime mover of the JLA-JSA team-ups. [JSA drawing ©2001 DC Comics; J.S. art ©2001 Murphy Anderson.]

Accordingly, in The Flash #123 (Sept.

1961), editor Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox startled comics readers by revealing that Jay (“Flash”) Garrick and Barry (“Flash”) Allen both existed in the DC Universe; they merely dwelt on two parallel Earths. These worlds vibrated at different speeds, and their inhabitants were thus totally unaware of each other—until three of

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups Garrick’s foes (Fiddler, Shade, and Thinker) crossed over to Allen’s Earth to wreak havoc.

Thus was born the concept of “Earth-Two,” a world on which the heroes of the Golden Age JSA had been real, not mere figments of a comic book. (But surely that wonderful scene back in Robert Kanigher’s script and Carmine Infantino’s art for very first neo-Flash story, in 1956’s Showcase #4, wherein Barry reads an old issue of Flash Comics just before he is struck by a mixture of lightning and chemicals, had an influence on Flash #123 five years later.)

It seems likely that Fox was brought in for the very first time to script Flash #123 because in 1940 he had created the original speedster.

However, regular 1960s Flash writer John Broome had also written the human comet’s exploits in the late ’40s, as had origin-writer Kanigher.

“Flash of Two Worlds” was a sensation to new and longtime fans alike. Its cover became one of the most famous and most imitated of the decade. The world in which the older Flash lived was christened EarthTwo, and the younger Flash’s Earth-One; but that was merely an acknowledgment that Barry Allen was the main event, and Jay Garrick a pleasant sideshow.

In the second two-Flashes encounter (Flash #129, June 1962), Schwartz, Fox, and penciler Infantino teased the readers with a flashback sequence from All-Star #57’s “Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives,” the JSA’s last recorded case.

Predictably, readers clamored for more.

Finally, with the third two-Flashes story, came the full-fledged return of The Justice Society of America.

17

Julius Schwartz [EDITOR’S NOTE: In addition to his words in the interview published earlier in this issue of A/E, original editor Julius Schwartz had the following to say in the magazine Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977) about the JLA-JSA team-ups:] JULIUS SCHWARTZ: When we did it the first time, we Gardner (l.) and Julie (r.) in the Sid Greene-drawn minihad no inkling that there’d be a classic “The Strange Advensequel. But when the sales figures ture That Really Happened!” came in, we realized there was a from Strange Adventures #140 reader demand, so we dreamed (May ’62). [©2001 DC Comics.] up another crisis for the two teams. When that also did well, we decided to make it an annual affair. Of all the JLA-JSA crossovers we’ve done, with only one exception, they all did extremely well. It’s like a surefire sale….

The idea [of having the JLA meet the JSA] hit Gardner Fox and me in the spur of the moment. We showed the JSA in flashback in the Flash magazine—I think they even came out of retirement in one [Flash] issue—so it was a logical step to team the groups.

There follows an issue-by-issue recounting of…

THE SILVER AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY STORIES THE BEGINNING The Flash #137 (June 1963) “Vengeance of the Immortal Villain!” - 25 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Carmine Infantino (pencil) & Murphy Anderson (ink) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Carmine Infantino (p) & Joe Giella (i) JSA Roll Call: Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Atom, Hawkman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Johnny Thunder THE STORY: The Flashes of two Earths team up to fight the Earth-Two Green Lantern’s old foe, Vandal Savage—and to free six captured members of the Justice Society. Afterward, the JSA decide to come out of retirement.

NOTES: (a) Oddly, Johnny Thunder, rather than his 1948-51 replacement Black Canary, completes the JSA roster here. (b) Though The Atom wears his All-Star #42-57 costume, Hawkman sports the beaked and winged helmet he hadn’t worn since #41.

THE JUSTICE LEAGUE-JUSTICE SOCIETY TEAM-UPS (1963-1985) Before the ink was dry on Flash #137, the powers-that-be at National/DC had already made the decision to guest-star the JSA in the two summer issues of Justice League of America, a move which quickly proved so popular that the “JLA-JSA team-ups” became an annual tradition for the following twenty-two years!

Just as All-Star #3 had been one of the most important super-hero comics events of the Golden Age, ranking just behind the debut of Superman in impact, so the JLA-JSA pairings at least rivaled in impact all Silver Age DC super-hero events except the introduction of the second Flash in Showcase #4 (1956) and of the JLA itself in The Brave and the Bold #28 (1960).

Gardner Fox [Gardner F. Fox (1911-1986) is undoubtedly one of the most important writers in the history of comic books. He created or co-created the original Flash, Hawkman, and Dr. Fate, among others, and was the first writer of both The Justice Society of America in 1940 and The Justice League of America in 1960. In The Flash #123 (1961) he authored “Flash of Two Worlds,” the tale which introduced the Earth-One/Earth-Two concept, and he became the writer of the first six JLAJSA team-ups. The following remarks are excerpted from an interview conducted by Rich Morrissey for Batmania #22 (July 1977); Marvel Comics editor and writer Mark Gruenwald was present and makes a comment at one point, as well. That interview is ©2001 Rich Morrissey, and is used with permission.]

RICH MORRISSEY: Whose idea was it to bring back the Golden Age heroes?

GARDNER FOX: It was Julie’s. He gave The Flash and the others new secret identities and developed new characters. I later had the two Flashes meet in “Flash of Two Worlds.”

MARK GRUENWALD: Ah, yes! The very foundation of parallel worlds in comic books.

RM: How did that come about? Was the parallel-world setup your idea?

Somebody pen-named “Superswipe” combined a Gardner Fox portrait (originally by Gil Kane) with Dr. Fate in Batmania #22. Nice job. [Art ©2001 Rich Morrissey; Dr. Fate ©2001 DC Comics.]

18

Crises on Finite Earths

FOX: Yes. It was Julie who said, “I want a story with both Flashes,” but I thought up the parallel worlds. Of course, it was an old sciencefiction device.

MG: Didn’t Denny O’Neil quote you in his Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes book as saying the parallel worlds were Julie’s idea?

FOX: I think it was my idea. The way we worked, details like that were usually left to me. But I’m not going to get into an argument. If Julie says it was his, fine. What’s the difference? It probably evolved out of one of those plot conferences when we batted ideas back and forth. I’m not sure, and I don’t think Julie is, either.

RM: What did you think of the artists who illustrated your stories at this time?

FOX: I was very pleased. Julie had some of the best artists in the business working for him: Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, Mike Sekowsky….

RM: You liked Mike Sekowsky? If only Mark Evanier and Mike Valerio were here to hear that! They’re both great Sekowsky fans!

FOX: Sekowsky wasn’t as polished as Murphy Anderson and some others, but he knew how to tell a story. A lot of today’s artists can’t.

Mike Sekowsky Mike Sekowsky (1928-1989) was one of the most versatile comic book artists ever. His first decade of work was done for Timely Comics, for whom at one time (1947) he drew characters as different as The Human Torch, Super Rabbit, Nellie the Nurse, and Georgie (an Archie type). In 1954, for Sterling Publications, he drew Captain Flash, whom Mike Sekowsky with an obviously inspisome consider the rational model in July 1969, during his first true Silver Age time drawing (and even writing and editing) the costume-less “mod” super-hero. Though Wonder Woman. Who says comic book he also drew for artists have it tough? [Photo courtesy of Western, Archie, Scott Shaw!—with special thanks to Tower, Seaboard, and Mark Evanier.] others, from 1952 on, much of his work was done for National/ DC, for whom he drew The Trigger Twins, Adam Strange, and many other features. He was the original penciler of Justice League of America, inked by oldtime All-Star inker Bernard Sachs. In the late 1960s he was the penciler (and later also the writer and editor) of a revamped, non-super-powered Wonder Woman who made a splash for a time. Later in life he worked on TV animation in Los Angeles.

That this twin-Earths teaming was a defining event of the Silver Age is underscored by the fact that the titles of the first three JLA-JSA issues (“Crisis on Earth-One,” “-Two,” and “-Three”) became the model for the 1985-86 series that put a cap on it all: Crisis on Infinite Earths.

From the very first team-up in 1963, a basic pattern was established, wherein JLA and JSA joined forces in two consecutive issues of JLA during the summer months, when sales were traditionally at their peak.

The first team-up to break that mold occurred in 1972, with a three-issue match-up which saw the two groups rescuing DC’s other 1940s super-group, The Seven Soldiers of Victory, from otherworld oblivion. In 1974 came the shortest team-up: a 20-page one-parter. But in 1976, 1980, and 1981 the addition to the mix of the Fawcett heroes, Jack Kirby’s New Gods, and the Secret Society of Super-Villains led to a trio of three-issue story arcs in JLA. And in 1982 came the only fiveissue teaming, when DC’s new/old World War II combo joined the party—for three issues of JLA and two of All-Star Squadron.

The final team-up of the original unbroken JLA-JSA run took place in 1985, in one issue of JLA and one of Infinity, Inc., the comics series which starred the sons, daughters, and heirs of several JSAers.

Oh, and just to prove we aren’t prejudiced against the editors of the team-ups—particularly since the first one was so crucial to their creation—here is the list of editors of the JLA-JSA matches: Julius Schwartz: 1963-78 Ross Andru: 1979 Len Wein: 1980-83 Alan Gold: 1984-85 Now, let’s peruse that wonderful 23-story sequence, which introduced so many readers to the Justice Society of America: Justice League of America #21 (August 1963) “Crisis on Earth-One!” - 25 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i) JLA Roll Call: Atom, Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onzz, Superman, Wonder Woman JSA Roll Call: Atom, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hourman The Crime Champions: The Fiddler, The Wizard, The Icicle of EarthTwo; Dr. Alchemy, Felix Faust, Chronos of Earth-One THE STORY: The Crime Champions of two Earths team up and capture the two Flashes. This leads to both worlds’ hero-teams likewise combining forces for the first time to oppose them.

NOTES: (a) The re-formed JSA has a rotating membership of no more than seven per meeting. (b) This time around, Rex Tyler spells his alter ego as one unhyphenated word: Hourman. In the old days it was generally “Hour-Man.” Justice League of America #22 (Sept. 1963) “Crisis on Earth-Two!” - 25 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i)

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups

19

Justice League of America #30 (Sept. 1964) “The Most Dangerous Earth of All!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i) JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #29 THE STORY: Warned not to let the Crime Syndicate villains say “Volthoom!” when they fight, the JSAers prevent this—and still lose.

The JLA finally sets things right, and places the five super-villains in an extra-dimensional prison.

NOTES: (a) The word “Volthoom” was coined by Weird Tales writer Clark Ashton Smith in the 1930s for one of his otherworldly stories; (b) The Crime Syndicate will next appear in the five-issue crossover between JLA, JSA, and All-Star Squadron in 1982.

Panels from the first full page of the JSA in JLA #21, by Sekowsky and Sachs; repro’d from photocopies of original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #21 THE STORY: Heroes of the JLA and JSA are captured by the Crime Champions and imprisoned in outer space. Rescued by the two Green Lanterns, they eventually triumph over their adversaries.

Justice League of America #37 (Aug. 1965) “Earth—without a Justice League!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i) JLA Roll Call: (None, because in this story the JLA is never formed!)

JSA Roll Call: Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, Mr. Terrific, Flash, Atom, Hawkman THE STORY: Earth-One’s criminal Johnny Thunder gains control of the Thunderbolt and orders him to prevent the heroes of the JLA

NOTES: (a) Dr. Fate is colored on the cover like the Earth-Two Atom. (b) On the final page Dr. Fate says “We saved not only EarthOne and Earth-Two—but for all we know, Earth-Three as well!” Little did even that master mage know!

Justice League of America #29 (Aug. 1964) “Crisis on Earth-Three!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i) JLA Roll Call: Flash, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern JSA Roll Call: Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Black Canary, Starman THE STORY: On an Earth with only super-villains, the Crime Syndicate—evil equivalent of the JLA and JSA—become bored at how easily they thwart police. So they challenge—and defeat—the JLA. But the JSA free their otherworld colleagues.

NOTES: (a) The Crime Syndicate’s roll call consists of Superwoman, Owlman, Ultraman, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring. (b) Earth-Three’s Johnny Quick bears no resemblance to the 1941-54 hero; nor do Ultraman or Superwoman share more than names with earlier DC heroes.

The interior version of the cover shot of JLA #21, repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

By common consent, the cleverest bit in the third JLA-JSA team-up is the scene in JLA #37 in which Johnny’s Thunderbolt cuts short the budding costumed career of Earth-One’s Bruce Wayne. [©2001 DC Comics.]

from ever coming into existence—thus creating Earth-A (for Alternate).

When the JSAers masquerade as the JLA to straighten things out, this Johnny creates an evil JLA to battle them.

Justice League of America #38 (Sept. 1965) “Crisis on Earth-A!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Bernard Sachs (i) JLA Roll Call: (None, since the full contingent of ten JLAers appears in only one panel on the final page.)

JSA Roll Call: same as in #37 Lawless League: Evil versions of Atom, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onzz, Superman THE STORY: The JSAers defeat the ersatz evil-JLA and everything else the Earth-One Johnny Thunder hurls against them—until he finally wishes everything back the way it was. The JLA are restored, unaware that for a time they were non-existent.

NOTE: Issues #37-38, with almost no true JLA presence (if you exclude the Lawless League), stand as a high point of JSA action in the Silver Age, since the JSA dominate the events of both parts of this story.

20

Crises on Finite Earths Matter Man, whose touch will annihilate both positive-matter worlds.

The good guys win—and Blockbuster and Solomon Grundy become best buddies!

NOTE: Did we say #46 was the apex/nadir of TV influence on JLA? Maybe so, but on this issue’s cover, Batman’s figure is as large as those of all the other heroes combined!

Justice League of America #55 (Aug. 1967) “The Super-Crisis That Struck Earth-Two!” - 23 pp., 2 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Green Arrow, Flash, Green Lantern JSA Roll Call: Hourman, Johnny Thunder, Wonder Woman, Mr. Terrific, Wildcat, Hawkman, Robin THE STORY: A grown-up Earth-Two Robin, now a JSAer, is defeated along with his fellow members by ordinary people who, transformed into super-powered villains by an alien black sphere, become the Smashing Sportsman, Gem Girl, Money Master, and How Chu. When Johnny’s Thunderbolt fetches the JLA, the JSAers discover the same crisis has struck Earth-One. NOTE: The Batman TV craze still haunts the book, as Robin wears a costume closer to Batman’s than to his own former outfit.

Justice League of America #56 (Sept. 1967) “The Negative-Crisis on Earths One-Two!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Carmine Infantino (p) & Murphy Anderson (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Same as in #55 JSA Roll Call: Same as in #55 (except this time Johnny’s Thunderbolt is also listed, though he was never a real member of the JSA)

We’re showing this classic page a tad out of sequence but ain’t it a beaut?

The Justice Society meets Crime Syndicate in JLA #30— repro’d from original art, from the collection of Roy Thomas. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Justice League of America #46 (Aug. 1966) “Crisis between Earth-One and Earth-Two!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Joe Giella (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman JSA Roll Call: Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Sandman, Spectre, Wildcat THE STORY: Men and women of Earth-One and Earth-Two, including the JLA and JSA, are tossed back and forth between worlds in random fashion. As the heroes battle Solomon Grundy and Blockbuster, The Spectre tries to prevent the collision of the two Earths, which will destroy both worlds.

NOTE: With three-dimensional sound effects and Batman’s name huge on the cover, this issue represents the high (or low) point of the influence of the 1960s Batman TV show on JLA. All this and “DC Go-Go Checks,” too!

Justice League of America #47 (Sept. 1966) “The Bridge between Earths!” - 24 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Joe Giella (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Mike Sekowsky (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Same as in #46, plus The Atom JSA Roll Call: Same as in #46 THE STORY: While The Spectre keeps the Earths apart, Dr. Fate coats the JLA and JSA heroes with magic so they can battle the Anti-

THE STORY: Earth-Two’s Hourman and Wonder Woman and Earth-One’s Flash and Green Lantern are altered by radiation from the Negative Universe so they can combat “the Black-Sphere Villains.” The latter are forgiven when captured, since they could not control their actions.

Justice League of America #64 (Aug. 1968) “The Stormy Return of the Red Tornado!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Dick Dillin (p) & Jack Abel (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Sid Greene (i)

Dick Dillin According to Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who in American Comic Books, Vol. One (1973), Richard Allen Dillin (1928-1980) was schooled at the Carlos Academy in Watertown, New York, and later attended Syracuse University. He listed as his major artistic influences the big three of the Golden Age of Adventure Comic Strips: Milton Caniff, Harold R. Foster, and Alex Raymond.

In 1951-52 he drew briefly for Fiction House Comics, but switched to the Quality Comics Group in 1952 to do Blackhawk, romance, horror, war, and covers. After Quality folded in 1955-56, he worked almost exclusively in comics for DC, commencing with Blackhawk. At various times he also illustrated “Kid Flash,” Green Lantern, The Challengers of the Unknown, Hawkman, Batman, Superman team-ups, mystery stories—and the longest run of issues of Justice League of America of any artist.

He also drew storyboards for the TV animation programs Hercules and Johnny Zero.

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups

21

Denny O’Neil [At the beginning of 1965, Denny O’Neil, a graduate of St. Louis University, was a police reporter in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. By year’s end he was a staff writer and editor at Marvel Comics, and was soon writing for Charlton, then DC. Over the years he has been an editor at both Marvel and, in recent years, DC, where he has edited the “Batman” titles. In January 2001 he retired from his editorial position and now writes under contract to DC. Some of his most-remembered achievements in comics are his Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman series. In 1969 he became Gardner Fox’s successor as scripter of Justice League of America. This interview was conducted via e-mail.]

ROY THOMAS: How did you feel about writing the JLA in general, compared to other books you’d written up till then?

DENNY O’NEIL: I thought it was a good assignment, and it certainly gave me a place to do the kind of really big stories I hadn’t yet had a chance to write.

I liked working on such a cosmic scope—at least initially. I don’t know that I ever got to the point of dreading them, but I came to question my ability to do them well.

RT: How did you feel about the Earth-Two concept as you received it from Julie and Gardner?

O’NEIL: It seemed like solid sciencefiction, and in those days I was an avid sf reader.

Gardner Fox begins his last JLA-JSA team-up—and Dick Dillin his first.

Repro’d from black-&-white art printed in DC’s own 1970s fanzine, Amazing World of DC Comics. [©2001 DC Comics.]

JLA Roll Call: (None, as they do not appear in this issue.)

JSA Roll Call: Starman, Flash, Black Canary, Hourman, Dr. Fate THE STORY: A scarlet-hued android claiming to be The Red Tornado crashes a JSA meeting. Realizing he has been programmed with false memories, the heroes investigate—only to be felled one by one by the android, who is being controlled by his creator, T.O. Morrow.

NOTES: (a) Thomas Oscar Morrow had earlier battled the EarthOne Flash and Green Lantern in The Flash #143. (b) This issue is definitely a JSA show; the JLA do not even appear.

Justice League of America #65 (Sept. 1968) “T.O. Morrow Kills the Justice League Today!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) Writer: Gardner Fox Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Atom, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow JSA Roll Call: Same as in #64 THE STORY: After kisses from dopplegangers of their ladyfriends seem to kill several of the JLA, the survivors fight T.O. Morrow’s resuscitated versions of their old foes. After he helps the JLA defeat his creator, Red Tornado is accepted into the JSA. Added Villains: Amazo, Starro the Conqueror, Super-Duper, Dr. Light, and a diamond creature.

Denny O’Neil—more or less.

Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977) featured Dave Manak caricatures of all the writers to date of Justice League. [©2001 DC Comics]

RT: How did you arrive at particular storylines, like the one with the mad star Aquarius, or the “paired planets”? Your ideas, or Julie’s?

O’NEIL: Lord knows. I don’t, and I don’t know that Julie does.

Aquarius was almost certainly my idea, but the others could have been mine, Julie’s, or the product of an editorial collaboration.

RT: How did it happen that you used JLA #73-74 to bring Black Canary (as a spanking-new widow) to Earth-One? Why did you have her change worlds?

O’NEIL: It was a chance to get some real tragedy—the death of Larry Lance—into the continuity, and gave us the kind of character, like Green Arrow, who was familiar yet pretty much a tabula rasa, and so could be taken in any direction.

RT: Did you have her relationship with Green Arrow in mind when you decided she should switch Earths?

O’NEIL: I’m guessing that I must have. On the other hand, we made up a lot of stuff as we went along, and it may have been that we decided GA needed a girlfriend and she was available.

RT: Again in #82-83 Black Canary was a central character, willing to sacrifice her life to save Earth, etc. Did you feel a special affinity to Black Canary that made you emphasize her in both your JLA-JSA stories?

O’NEIL: I came to like her very much. In some ways, I guess, she was my ideal woman.

RT: Were you glad or sad to quit doing the JLA-JSA team-ups after two years? And how about the JLA in general?

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Crises on Finite Earths

O’NEIL: Justice League, alas, was the first ongoing assignment I ever walked away from. Too many god-like characters. I had trouble coming up with suitable problems/villains for them. My failure, and certainly no reflection on the series.

Mike Friedrich

NOTES: (a) By coincidence, this two-part tale of a red-skinned android helping a super-group defeat his creator and then joining that group was published at virtually the same time as The Avengers #57-58, scripted by Roy Thomas, in which a red-skinned android (The Vision) helps Marvel’s heroes triumph over his creator (Ultron-5) and becomes an Avenger. (b) The JSA appear in only two panels of this issue. (c) This was Gardner Fox’s last script for a story featuring the JSA he had co-created in 1940.

[Northern Californian Mike edged into a comics career, as so many did back in the 1960s, by writing letters to editors, particularly Julie Schwartz, for whom he was soon writing The Spectre, Justice League of America, and other titles. In the early 1970s he wrote for Marvel, and later inaugurated Star*Reach, the first so-called “ground-level” or “alternative” comic. In 1978 he was even publisher/co-editor of the final issue (#11) of the first volume of Alter Ego. For the past two decades his Star*Reach company, based in Berkeley, California, has acted as an agent for comic book creators. When I called Mike to keep our appointment for a brief phone interview, he apologized for not being able to check over JLA #91-92, his one JLA-JSA team-up tale, because someone had removed those issues (and only those issues) from the personal files he kept in his office! But we soldiered on….]

ROY THOMAS: Did you have any special feeling about doing the JLA-JSA team-ups?

MIKE FRIEDRICH: I definitely had a special feeling about the opportunity to do the crossover. The first JLA-JSA story had been a major spark in my collecting days. I had followed the Justice Society characters ever since. In fact, one of the very first stories I wrote professionally revived an old Justice Society character in The Spectre #3 [March-April 1968]—Wildcat. I had a particular fannish affection for the JSA throughout, so the team-up was something I would have looked forward to.

RT: I was always a little unsure as to whether that was the Earth-One or Earth-Two Wildcat. With The Spectre’s power to go between worlds, it could’ve been either.

FRIEDRICH: At the time, it would have been Earth-Two. RT: Usually I ask if a writer looked forward to or dreaded or was indifferent to writing later team-ups, but Mike Friedrich as caricatured by since you did only one— Dave Manak in Amazing World of DC Comics #14. [©2001 DC Comics.]

FRIEDRICH: Well, if you want to ask, would I have looked forward to the next one—it was very difficult to write, because there were just so many characters to juggle. I had a hard enough time writing Justice League as it was, trying to get enough character development into the material. By that time, I was heavily influenced by the Marvel Comics of the ’60s, where characterization was something I expected should be in a comic. And when you’ve got all those characters running around, and only 22 or 25 pages for the stories, it was very difficult, so it was not something I think I would have looked forward to a lot.

I remember that I got a chance to bring Solomon Grundy back, and to deal with a little pet peeve of mine, which was the awful costume that [the Earth-One] Robin wore. As a big Batman fan I was lobbying behind the scenes to try to get that costume changed. Hanging out at the DC offices with Neal Adams, he and I would talk about various things, and one of them was how out of date and embarrassing the thirty-year-

Wish we had run across a picture of Dick Dillin while preparing this article— but his penciling on JLA (the longest stint of any artist, ever) speaks for itself in still another page of original art from JLA #73. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Justice League of America #73 (Aug. 1969) “Star Light, Star Bright—Death Star I See Tonight!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Joe Kubert Writer: Denny O’Neil Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Atom, Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, Hawkman JSA Roll Call: Starman, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman, Dr. Mid-Nite THE STORY: Aquarius, a sentient star, is banished by the Council of Living Stars and turns its hatred on the planet Earth-Two. Usurping Starman’s Cosmic Rod, it transports people and objects of Earth-Two into another dimension. The Red Tornado is dispatched to get the JLA. NOTES: (a) Only JSAers are shown on the cover of #73—although with Superman, who could tell? (b) No JLA members appear until the final panel of this issue.

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups Justice League of America #74 (Sept. 1969) “Where Death Fears To Tread!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Neal Adams Writer: Denny O’Neil Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Sid Greene (i) JLA Roll Call: Atom, Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Batman, Superman, Hawkman JSA Roll Call: Same as in #73 THE STORY: The combined power of JLA and JSA defeats Aquarius. However, grieved at the death of her husband Larry Lance at the hands of the Living Star, Black Canary resigns from the JSA and relocates to Earth-One. Justice League of America #82 (Aug. 1970) “Peril of the Paired Planets!” - 24 pp.

Cover: Neal Adams Writer: Denny O’Neil Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Flash, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Atom, Green Arrow JSA Roll Call: Superman, Flash, Dr. Mid-Nite, Starman, Wonder Woman, Spectre, Johnny Thunder, Batman, Sandman, Hawkman, Atom, Hourman, Wildcat, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Dr. Fate, Black Canary THE STORY: Alien invaders led by Creator2 attempt to use the combined energies of Earths-One and -Two to create a new planet; but this act of creation will destroy both Earths. The helpless instrument of their cross-dimensional doom is—The Red Tornado.

NOTE: Every hero ever considered a regular or honorary member of the JSA appears in this tale, though most are shown only in one or two panels.

Justice League of America #83 (Sept. 1970) “Where Valor Falls… Will Magic Triumph?” - 23 pp.

Cover: Murphy Anderson Writer: Denny O’Neil Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA Roll Call: (Same as in #83; Superman and Hawkman also depicted in story) JSA Roll Call: Spectre, Dr. Fate, Wonder Woman, Hourman, Johnny Thunder, Starman (Superman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Flash, Red Tornado, Green Lantern, and Hawkman also depicted in story) THE STORY: Black Canary, believing herself responsible for the threat to both Earths, stands ready to give up her existence to save humanity. The Spectre, summoned

by Dr. Fate from the tomb that binds him, loses his earthly existence in battle with the Creators.

Justice League of America #91 (Aug. 1971) “Earth—the Monster Maker!”

- 22 pp.

Cover: Neal Adams Writer: Mike Friedrich Denny O’Neil’s “ideal woman” gets ready for work. She and Starman had already teamed up in The Brave and the Bold #61-62 in 1965.

Repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

23

old Robin costume was. Neal, in one of his moments of inspiration, had designed a brand new Robin costume. We had presented it to DC, and they had decided not to use it. But I was able to get permission to use the Adams design on the Earth-Two Robin. As far as I know, the only time it appeared was in that single story. It took another 15-20 years before DC finally got around to changing Robin’s outfit.

Len Wein [New Yorker Len Wein began writing comics for National/DC in 1968, with mystery stories and the likes of Zatanna, Supergirl, Elongated Man, and others. With artist Bernie Wrightson he created Swamp Thing in 1971. By the early 1970s he also wrote for Marvel, and in 1974-75 was that company’s editor-inchief. His three team-ups, because of the secondary characters used in addition to the JLA and JSA, are some of the most important in the history of those crossovers.]

ROY THOMAS: Did you have any special feelings about doing the JLAJSA team-ups?

LEN WEIN: Absolutely. #100 was the first issue of JLA I did! I don’t remember how we decided to bring Dave Manak’s caricature of Len. back the Seven Soldiers, but it was [Art ©2001 DC Comics.] probably the next logical aspect to what had been done. I remembered those characters, so, ego notwithstanding, it was more likely my idea than Julie’s.

RT: Julie’d probably agree. He hadn’t ever handled The Seven Soldiers back in the ’40s, as he had the JSA. Had you read any of the original Leading Comics starring the Soldiers?

WEIN: Mostly I saw articles about them in the old fanzines. I knew some of the characters. There was always a chance to go fudge around in the DC library. Mark Hanerfeld, God rest him, had replaced a lot of their library.

RT: How did you feel about the Earth-Two concept?

WEIN: I was still a fan when that stuff came out. I loved it. I was just crazy about that Flash story, “The Vengeance of the Immortal Villain,” that brought back the JSA in 1963—because it was my first chance to see some of those characters.

RT: Your Seven Soldiers story was the first three-part JLA-JSA team-up.

Was there much resistance to making this one longer?

WEIN: I think it just came down to, “What do we do that’s something incredibly special for the 100th issue?” We needed a lot of room. There were at least seven chapters, with three characters per chapter. It was very involved.

RT: Fox and Sekowsky could’ve done it in ten pages.

WEIN: [laughs] They probably could have.

RT: Was it your intention that Wing, as the mysterious, deceased “Unknown Soldier of Victory,” should remain dead?

WEIN: I think the noblest thing he ever did was die. He really was an appendage. Killing him off still left us with Seven Soldiers. Green Arrow

24

Crises on Finite Earths

and Speedy I always thought as a team. Even though Wing was Crimson Avenger’s sidekick, killing him off didn’t have the same emotional resonance for me that, say, killing Speedy would have had.

RT: In the next team-up (#107-108), you brought back the Quality heroes. How did that happen?

WEIN: That was a result of the Seven Soldiers storyline having such a strong reader reaction. The previous team-ups hadn’t really brought back heroes, only villains—though I remember how, when The Shade came back with that Infantino costume, I went crazy for him. I was an old Quality fan, so I suggested to Julie, “DC has the rights to these characters; let’s bring ’em back.” Uncle Sam has always been one of my favorite characters.

RT: I never could figure that out—I guess because I never cared much for him myself. That’s why the only Golden Age origin I didn’t script in the 1980s Secret Origins book was Uncle Sam’s, which you talked me into having you write.

Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Atom, Robin JSA Roll Call: Earth-Two versions of the same heroes THE STORY: A young alien boy, A-Rym, and his pet Teppy each wind up on one of the two parallel Earths—where each creates havoc with his extraordinary powers. Searching for his pet, A-Rym discovers instead Solomon Grundy, who lays waste the JLA. Justice League of America #92 (Sept. 1971) “Solomon Grundy—the One and Only” - 22 pp.

Cover: Neal Adams Writer: Mike Friedrich Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA and JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #91 THE STORY: While the two Green Lanterns battle Solomon Grundy, the Robins of two Earths try to unite the alien boy A-Rym and his pet Teppy before both perish. It all ends happily, as the alien’s parents come to take them away.

NOTE: The Earth-One Robin dons a new costume in this issue, “fashioned by a costume-maker I know—Neal Adams!”

Justice League of America #100 (June 1972) “The Unknown Soldier of Victory!” - 24 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA Roll Call: Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, Green Arrow, Batman, Aquaman, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Zatanna, Atom, Metamorpho (Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, J’onn J’onzz, Snapper Carr, and Adam Strange also depicted in story) JSA Roll Call: Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wonder Woman, Hourman, Sandman, Dr. Fate, Wildcat, Red Tornado, Johnny Thunder

Murphy Anderson’s pin-up of the eight Seven Soldiers, printed in b-&-w in Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977) [©2001 DC Comics.]

WEIN: The red, white, and blue costume—I just loved the look of him.

He must have touched some patriotic chord in me. Murphy Anderson came to me immediately and said, “You’re doing Uncle Sam? I’ve got to draw it!” I said, “Sure, fine!” It’s hard to turn down Murphy Anderson.

RT: Why did you decide that Plastic Man and the Blackhawks had previously been killed by the Nazis on Earth-X? WEIN: I’m an old Plastic Man fan, and have most of the original Police and Plastic Man comics. But DC had recently done that oddball Murray Boltinoff revision of Plastic Man drawn by Gil Kane and others, the “Clearly, we don’t understand who Plastic Man is” Plastic Man. So I figured, rather than try to explain all that, just let Plas be dead. And even if the Blackhawks hadn’t still had their own comic at that time, we already had 142 characters in that JLA story, so we didn’t need seven more Blackhawks.

RT: Where did the name “Earth-X” come from?

WEIN: Oddly enough, I didn’t have an “Earth-X” when I wrote the story. I called it “Earth-Swastika.” I wrote it “Earth-” plus the swastika symbol. And Julie, God love him, looked at me and said, “There’s never going to be a swastika in the title of one of my books.” So I asked, “What the hell are we going to call it?” He said, “Take the ends off; make it an ‘X.’” RT: So the swastika became an “X.” How did you come up with the name The Freedom Fighters?

WEIN: It was a pickup name from an old fanzine character I had started

THE STORY: The JLA are transported to Earth-Two to help the JSA combat the Iron Hand which threatens to destroy Earth and to locate the long-missing Seven Soldiers of Victory. But whose body is buried beneath a tombstone inscribed to “The Unknown Soldier of Victory”?

Dr. Fate, Atom, and Elongated Man team up to find The Crimson Avenger.

NOTES: (a) The Seven Soldiers of Victory, active in Leading Comics #1-14 (1941-45), consisted of Green Arrow & Speedy, Vigilante, The Shining Knight, StarSpangled Kid and Stripesy, and The Crimson Avenger. (b) In this issue most of them are seen only in flashback. (c) In the Star Spangled Comics of the 1940s, The Star-Spangled Kid’s name was three words, unhyphenated.

Amazing World of DC Comics also highlighted a nice b-&-w photostat of Nick Cardy’s cover for JLA #100. [©2001 DC Comics.]

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups doing years before, called “Freedom Fighter.”

Justice League of America #101 (Sept. 1972) “The Hand That Shook the World!” - 24 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artist: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Diana Prince/ Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Metamorpho JSA Roll Call: Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Wonder Woman, Hourman, Sandman

RT: The Freedom Fighters had their own comic for a while later. Did you ever have a desire to write a comic about them, or The Seven Soldiers of Victory?

WEIN: If I’d had my druthers, I’d have preferred to do the one about The Freedom Fighters. I’d have probably found a way to bring Plastic Man back into it. This is going to sound weird—but one of my other favorite characters in that group was The Human Bomb. As a kid, I always thought that was a cool name. But when The Freedom Fighters book was done, I was still over at Marvel. So Bob Rozakis wrote that book.

THE STORY: Superman, Sandman, and Metamorpho find The Shining Knight in the time of Genghis Khan; Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Dr. Mid-Nite locate Green Arrow playing Robin Hood; and Stripesy is found in ancient Egypt by Batman, Starman, and Hourman.

Justice League of America #102 (Oct. 1972) “And One of Us Must Die!” - 24 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Joe Giella and Dick Giordano (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Green Arrow JSA Roll Call: Dr. Fate, Sandman, Starman, Hourman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Johnny Thunder, Wildcat, Red Tornado, Mr. Terrific, Green Lantern, Robin THE STORY: Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Johnny Thunder track down Vigilante; Aquaman, Wildcat, and the Earth-One Green Lantern find The Star-Spangled Kid; and Flash, Zatanna, and Red Tornado locate Speedy. To save Earth-Two, Red Tornado sacrifices his android life. It’s learned that “The Unknown Soldier of Victory” was Crimson Avenger’s heroically-deceased companion Wing, who had been the unofficial eighth Soldier.

25

RT: So how did it come about that your third and last one was the only one-issue team-up?

WEIN: JLA had a hundred pages an issue at that point, so DC cut the frequency down to six times a year. Two issues would’ve been a third of a year’s worth of stories, and it would have taken three months to tell the story. So I figured it was just easier to do the one-issue thing.

RT: Where did the idea of using Sandy as the villain in #113 come from?

This cropped photocopy of Earth-X’s Freedom Fighters was printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #14. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Justice League of America #107 (Oct. 1973) “Crisis on Earth-X!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Dick Giordano (i) JLA Roll Call: Green Lantern, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Batman, Flash, Green Arrow JSA Roll Call: Flash, Dr. Fate, Hourman, Sandman, Superman THE STORY: Earth-One’s Batman, Green Arrow, and Elongated Man and Earth-Two’s Superman, Sandman, and Dr. Fate wind up on an Earth where the Nazis won World War II—and where The Freedom Fighters (Quality heroes Black Condor, Human Bomb, Phantom Lady, Uncle Sam, Doll Man, and The Ray) are fighting a guerrilla war against the Nazis.

NOTES: On Earth-X, Quality heroes Plastic Man and the Blackhawks were reportedly killed in earlier skirmishes with the Nazis.

Justice League of America #108 (Dec. ’73) “Thirteen against the Earth!” - 20 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Dick Giordano (i) JLA and JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #107 THE STORY: The Nazis use mind control to force the JLA/JSA sextet to fight The Freedom Fighters. Meanwhile, Red Tornado unmasks the “Adolf Hitler” who still holds sway as an android—controlled by a machine which thus rules even the Nazis. With it destroyed, Earth-X is free.

WEIN: It was a chance to tie up loose ends.

I had always preferred the version of The Sandman that wore the gasmask. The yellow-and-purple version done by Jack [Kirby] and Joe [Simon] was just another guy in a yellow-and-purple costume. So, since they had brought The Sandman back in the original outfit, with no Sandy, Fanboy says, “Okay—why?” So that became the logical next story to tell.

RT: Some people used to believe Gardner Fox and I colluded to toss red-skinned androids—Red Tornado and The Vision—into competing super-hero groups at DC and Marvel at basically the same time. And some fan-writer a year or two back was absolutely positive there was collusion between you and me, because at almost exactly the same time you brought back Sandy as a mutated monster, I wrote Giant-Size Avengers #1 in which I made up the son of The Whizzer and Miss America—Nuklo—who was also a mutated monster. This yo-yo writer refused to consider the possibility that it could’ve simply been a coincidence—which of course it was. You and I never discussed JLA and Avengers storylines any more than Gar and I did! Some people insist on seeing conspiracies everywhere, even amiable ones. Have you ever had anyone ask you about this coincidence?

WEIN: No, I never have. Of course, I’ve had people over the years say Gerry [Conway] and I must have colluded on Swamp Thing and “ManThing.” That, and X-Men and “Doom Patrol” coming out within a month of each other, with leaders in wheelchairs…. It’s the way the universe works. There are two Mars movies this year. There were two Wyatt Earp movies a couple of years ago… two giant meteors hitting the Earth, another year. Every year, somebody decides, “This is the year I should do this story”—and somebody else is already working on that same story.

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Crises on Finite Earths

Elliot S! Maggin [Elliot S. Maggin, who in the 1970s preferred an exclamation point rather than a period after his middle initial, was born in Brooklyn and was 24 when he co-scripted a two-part JLA-JSA team-up with his friend (and sometime collaborator) Cary Bates. Elliot’s first sale to DC was a “Green Arrow” story titled “What Can One Man Do?” written as a history project while he was a college student at Brandeis; shortened by several pages, it eventually appeared in Green Lantern #87. Currently living in the Los Angeles area, he spoke with Ye Editor recently by phone:] ROY THOMAS: The first question I ask everybody is—did you have any particular feeling for Justice League of America as a book, or even more specifically the JLA-JSA team-ups?

ELLIOT MAGGIN: I’d always been a fan of the JLA book. When I started writing it for a while—it wasn’t a regular assignment, it was more of a month-to-month thing—I was kind of jealous of Steve Englehart for a while. He was doing Avengers at that time, and he would get up in the morning and say, “Gee, I’m gonna write an Avengers story today!” And I was feeling like it was… work. [laughs] He was, like, my role model on this thing. It’s a hard series to write. It’s like, the whole first third of the book is setup, and then the first act starts.

RT: How did you and Cary happen to write this story together?

MAGGIN: Julie asked us to. He liked when we wrote things together.

Generally, I wrote the dialogue and Cary would write the breakdowns.

The dialogue was a lot easier for me, and the breakdowns were a lot easier for him, so it seemed to both of us as though we were doing less than half the work.

Justice League of America #113 (Oct. ’74) “The Creature in the Velvet Cage!” - 20 pp.

Cover: Nick Cardy Writer: Len Wein Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Dick Giordano (i) JLA Roll Call: Green Lantern, Superman, Elongated Man, Batman JSA Roll Call: Wonder Woman, Flash, Sandman, Hourman THE STORY: The combined forces of the JLA and JSA find themselves battling a silicon monster that was once the Sandman’s partner Sandy the Golden Boy. NOTES: (a) By coincidence, this story appears at virtually the same time as Marvel’s Giant-Size Avengers #1, scripted by Roy Thomas, with a similar concept—with Nuklo, the mutated son of the 1940s Marvel heroes Whizzer and Miss America, in place of a mutated Sandy. (b) This single-issue story was the shortest JLA-JSA team-up ever.

Justice League of America #123 (Oct. ’75) “Where on Earth Am I?” - 18 pp.

Cover: Ernie Chan (Chua) Writers: Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Batman, Black Canary, Aquaman, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Flash JSA Roll Call: Robin, Wildcat, Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Hourman, Dr. Mid-Nite Injustice Society: The Wizard, The Gambler, Huntress, Sportsmaster, The Shade, Icicle THE STORY: The issue’s two scripters use The Flash’s treadmill to go to Earth-Two, where Cary Bates becomes a master criminal, who joins the Injustice Society—and forces the JLA to murder the members of the JSA.

RT: How did it evolve that Cary became the super-villain of the story?

NOTE: Publisher Carmine Infantino and editor Julius Schwartz also make cameo appearances.

MAGGIN: I don’t know if we tossed a coin, or what. I was under the impression that the super-villain was gonna be the better of the two parts. You look at it like an actor does. Cary got to wear a costume; I didn’t get to wear a costume.

Justice League of America #124 (Nov. 1975) “Avenging Ghosts of the Justice Society!” - 18 pp.

Cover: Ernie Chan (Chua) Writers: Elliot S! Maggin and Cary Bates Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #124

RT: You really weren’t in the story very much, were you?

MAGGIN: Not much. But I got great fan mail. I got the best fan mail I’d ever gotten.

RT: Why is that, do you think?

MAGGIN: I don’t know. I was getting letters from women who wanted to meet me. [laughs] They [DC] were hyping us a little, and I didn’t notice at the time that we were getting promoted. ’Cause they didn’t let us out of these caves we were in.

RT: Maybe I shouldn’t ask if you went to meet any of the women….

MAGGIN: I don’t think I ever did. I didn’t go out of my way to.

Our intention when we undertook the story was, we were gonna write the last of those stories where the writer or the artist appears in the story.

THE STORY: The Spectre returns the JSAers to life in time to help the JLA defeat the new Injustice Gang. Maggin and Bates are returned to their lives as comic book writers.

Justice League of America #135 (Oct. ’76) “Crisis in Eternity!” - 17 pp.

Cover: Ernie Chan (Chua) Writers: E. Nelson Bridwell (plot) & Martin Pasko (dialogue) Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Superman, [and special guest] Hawkgirl JSA Roll Call: Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Robin, Wonder Woman

RT: Why was it going to be the last?

MAGGIN: Because we didn’t like them. [laughs] We wanted to do it up so horrendously that nobody else would ever do one again. That

Julie Schwartz plotting with Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin—from b-&-w photostats of JLA #123 printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #2, Sept. 1974.

Art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin. [ ©2001 DC Comics.]

THE STORY: On Earth-S (for “Shazam”), the beast-man King Kull freezes the Shazam gods to prevent Billy and Mary Batson and Freddy Freeman from becoming the Marvel Family (Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr.). The JLA and JSA team up with Ibis the Invincible, Bulletman and Bulletgirl, Spy Smasher, and Mr. Scarlet and Pinky, against villains King Kull, The Penguin,

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups Ibac, Blockbuster, and Queen Clea of Atlantis.

NOTE: On the cover the Fawcett non-Marvel-Family heroes are called “Shazam’s Squadron of Justice”; in the story itself, they are called (less formally) “Crusaders.”

27

was the idea. That was really the idea.

RT: Did it work?

MAGGIN: No, not even a little. Even I did more stories that we were in. And, about six months later, Cary and I did a story that Curt Swan was a major character in… because he had never been in one, and he wanted to be.

RT: Did you have any desire to write any more JLA-JSA team-ups after that one?

MAGGIN: Yeah, I always wanted to write more JLA. I loved writing that series. And I think it was because of Steve. Steve Englehart was the reason I loved writing JLA. I never told him that. It was the same thing when I was first writing Superman and Gerry Conway was writing [The Amazing] Spider-Man, and we would have lunch once in a while, and I would say, “So what’re you doing with Spider-Man?” Like, he’d talk about his girlfriends, and I’d say, “I don’t want to hear about that! I want to know what you’re doing with Spider-Man!” RT: Everybody has girlfriends, but not everybody writes Spider-Man. MAGGIN: Right. Exactly.

RT: Or Superman.

MAGGIN: Right. So we would swap stories. You must have known he was gonna kill off Gwen Stacy before I did, but I think I was the first one in the rest of the world to know.

RT: Supposedly Stan was the last to know. That’s his cover story, anyway. I’m sure he believes it. Anyway—did you find it difficult to do the JLA and the JSA together?

MAGGIN: Yeah. It was outrageous. I hardly ever had to do research on comics stories, on old characters and things, because I have a really good memory. I used to refer back in one story to lines I’d written in earlier stories that I was alluding to, without even the editors being aware of it.

If they’d change a line, I’d raise holy hell, because it was always a reference to some previous story. And Julie would always say, “Well, let’s put an ‘editor’s note’ in here: ‘See JLA #3.’” And I’d say, “No, no! Don’t tell ’em! I want them to find it!” But he was into baseball, into statistics.

The splash of the Marvels’ greatest book-length adventure, from The Marvel Family #10 (April 1947). This 48-page issue was the closest the Shazamers ever came to the vintage JSA/All-Star Comics format. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Anyway, writing that team-up was so damn hard, and it was so damn much fun. Oh—you know what was cool about the second part of the team-up?

Justice League of America #136 (Nov. ’76) “Crisis on Earth-S!” - 17 pp.

Cover: Ernie Chan/Chua (p) & Frank Giacoia (i) Writers: E. Nelson Bridwell (plot) & Martin Pasko (dialogue) Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Hawkman and Hawkgirl JSA Roll Call: Batman and Robin (and cameo appearance in final panel

by Johnny Thunder) Earth-S Heroes: Bulletman and Bulletgirl, Mr. Scarlet and Pinky.

RT: What’s that?

THE STORY: King Kull animates buildings, monuments, and other inanimate objects to launch his attack on three Earths—even as more super-villains of Earths-One and -Two surface to become Kull’s allies. The Batsons and Freddy Freeman find they cannot change into the Marvel Family.

RT: You probably did.

NOTE: Villains The Joker, The Weeper, and Dr. Light are added to the mix this time.

Justice League of America #137 (Dec. 1976) “Crisis in Tomorrow!” - 17 pp.

Cover: Ernie Chan/Chua (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) Writers: E. Nelson Bridwell (plot) & Martin Pasko (dialogue) Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i)

MAGGIN: We wrote the whole issue in two-and-a-half hours. Everything. In Cary’s apartment in Queens.

RT: Because you wanted to, or because you had to?

MAGGIN: Well, we had to, because we had put it off, and put it off, and put it off—and we decided at eight o’clock that morning we were going to set a record. We had no choice. We had to set a record.

MAGGIN: 18-page story, two-and-a-half hours. Two guys.

RT: And the Guinness Book of World Records never even showed up, because you never told anybody.

MAGGIN: Julie will be learning this when he reads this interview.

28

Crises on Finite Earths JLA and JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #135, plus Johnny Thunder Earth-S Heroes: Same as in #135, plus Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jr. THE STORY: The greatest heroes of three Earths face Captain Marvel’s nemesis Mr. Atom. Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt manages to transform Billy, Mary, and Freddy into the Marvel Family so they can smash King Kull. Captain Marvel uses magic lightning to negate the Red Kryptonite Fever gripping Superman.

Added Villains: Mr. Atom, Brainiac Justice League of America #147 (Oct. 1977) “Crisis in the 30th Century!” - 32 pp., 4 chapters Cover: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) Writers: Paul Levitz and Martin Pasko Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Batman JSA Roll Call: Power Girl, Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern, Dr. Fate (plus cameos by Wildcat and Star-Spangled Kid) Bates and Maggin even made the Kurt Schaffenberger-drawn cover of AWDC #2. Talk about having friends in high places—some of these guys could fly! [©2001 DC Comics.]

E. Nelson Bridwell [The late Nelson Bridwell (1931-87) was the first longtime comics fans to get a job at DC Comics—as Mort Weisinger’s assistant editor on the seven Superman titles. The date was January 13, 1964. His first scripting assignments were science-fiction stories for editor Jack Schiff; he said that his first writing for Weisinger “was restricted to a few extra panels on a ‘Krypto’ or ‘Superman’ story.” For a time he was also a creative consultant on the 1970s live-action Shazam! TV series, created the first truly international super-hero group (The Global Guardians), and wrote such DC features as The Secret Six, Shazam! and Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! Because of his special knowledge of Fawcett characters, he was asked to plot the 1976 JLA-JSA team-up that would co-star The Marvel Family, et al. Comics newcomer Mike W. Barr interviewed him about Captain Marvel and company in Amazing World of DC Comics #16 (April 1978). The interview is ©2001 DC Comics.]

MIKE W. BARR: How far back do you and Captain Marvel go?

E. NELSON BRIDWELL: I think I first started reading Captain Marvel just about the time Mary Marvel was introduced; that was in the early ’40s. I still remember buying that issue. I dropped out a year or two before the end in 1953.

MWB: Julie Schwartz was chosen as the first editor of the revived Shazam! Captain Marvel is 180 degrees away from all the other super-heroes he’s ever done. How did he like the idea of being editor?

THE STORY: Mordru, a super-sorcerer out to conquer an entire galaxy, uses the three demons of Felix Faust to capture four of the Legion of Super-Heroes (Sun Boy, Brainiac 5, Wildfire, and Princess Projectra) in the 30th century. However, the demonic trio turn on him and set out to rule the world on their own.

NOTE: Star-Spangled Kid and Wildcat are crossing over from a case in the revived 1970s All-Star Comics.

Justice League of America #148 (Nov. 1977) “Crisis in Triplicate!” - 34 pp., 3 chapters Cover: Rich Buckler (p) & Jack Abel (i) Writer: Martin Pasko (with an assist from Paul Levitz) Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA & JLA Roll Calls: Same as in #147 THE STORY: The three demons turn the captive Legion of SuperHeroes quartet into their proxies to do battle with the JLA and JSA. The heroes finally manage to turn the tables on them.

Justice League of America #159 (Oct. 1978) “Crisis from Yesterday!” - 25 pp.

Cover: Rich Buckler (p) & Dick Giordano (i) Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, Flash, Red Tornado JSA Roll Call: Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, The Huntress, Star-Spangled Kid, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash THE STORY: The Lord of Time collects five heroes from the past—Jonah Hex, Viking Prince, Miss Liberty, Black Pirate, and Enemy Ace—to attack the JLA and JSA, thus luring them to “a dimension bordering on 3786 A.D.”; he hopes the combined groups can prevent the Eternity Brain, a sentient computer, from stopping all time with catastrophic effects.

NOTE: Each of the five “yesterday’s heroes” had previously appeared in a DC series: Jonah Hex primarily in Weird Western Tales, Viking Prince commencing with The Brave and the Bold #1 in 1956, Miss Liberty in later issues of Tomahawk, The Black Pirate since Sensation Comics #1 in 1942 (though he only gained a mask and secret identity later), and Enemy Ace in Star Spangled War Stories.

E. Nelson Bridwell and friend drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger for Amazing World of DC Comics #17 (April 1978). [©2001 DC Comics.]

Justice League of America #160 (Nov. 1978) “Crisis from Tomorrow!” - 25 pp.

Cover: Dick Dillin (p) - Frank McLaughlin (i) Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Wonder Woman, Elongated Man, Flash (plus cameos by others on final page)

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups

29

JSA Roll Call: Wonder Woman, The Huntress, Dr. Mid-Nite, Star-Spangled Kid (plus cameos by others on final page)

BRIDWELL: He read Captain Marvel Adventures #100, and fell in love with the character. He actually asked for the assignment.

THE STORY: While many JLA and JSA heroes lie in a coma, and all five of “yesterday’s heroes” fail in their assault on the Time Lord’s palace, eight others force their way in and destroy the Eternity Brain, just in, er, time.

MWB: What’s the rationale behind the “new look” in Shazam! [which became the final two issues, #34-35, and was carried on in Don Newtondrawn tales in World’s Finest Comics]?

Justice League of America #171 (Oct. 1979) “The Murderer among Us: Crisis above Earth-One!” - 17 pp.

Cover: Dick Dillin (p) & Dick Giordano (i) Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Zatanna, Red Tornado JSA Roll Call: Power Girl, The Huntress, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Mr. Terrific THE STORY: At the regular meeting of JLA and JSA aboard their orbiting space platform, Mr. Terrific is murdered—and with no one else aboard, it seems that one of the heroes is responsible!

NOTE: Mr. Terrific appears briefly in the Epilogue of the “Justice Society” story in Adventure Comics #465 (Sept.-Oct. 1979) to collect a few heroes for the upcoming JLA-JSA confab.

Justice League of America #172 (Nov 1979) “I Accuse…” - 17 pp.

Cover: Dick Giordano Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA and JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #171, except for Mr. Terrific (deceased) THE STORY: The murderer of Mr. Terrific turns out to be an old adversary of his, the Spirit King—who has possessed the body of the Flash of Earth-Two and used it to kill Terrific.

NOTE: The JLA and JSA vow to bring The Spirit King to justice but it never happens; Mr. Terrific’s murderer is still at large out there

BRIDWELL: I suppose that it needed to be selling a little better. Since today we have generally more realistic characters, they decided to go in that direction….

MWB: Your job is to script more serious stories, but to maintain the charm and integrity the character had in the old days?

BRIDWELL: Absolutely. I’ve spoken to lots of the people involved with Captain Marvel in the old days, and the one thing they all said was that they had fun. And that, I think, is the secret.

MWB: Are you having fun?

BRIDWELL: I am having immense fun. I’ve never enjoyed myself more.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: A few issues earlier, in Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (March 1977), which centered on the Justice League, an unnamed writer penned these words about ENB’s collaborator, Martin Pasko:] “Pasko was assigned story premises by editor Julius Schwartz to use as springboards, and hence had a problem-solving approach to the scripts…. [He] also wrote the dialogue for the JLA-JSA team-up in JLA #135137 over E. Nelson Bridwell’s plot and breakdowns in a story that attempted to bridge the gap between the straight heroes of the JLA and the more humorous heroes of the Marvel Family.”

Marty Pasko, caricatured for AWDC #14. And if anybody runs into Dave Manak, tell him he’s got a free subscription to Alter Ego for life! [©2001 DC Comics.]

Paul Levitz [Paul Levitz began as one of the fabled “Junior Woodchucks,” a sort of intern position at DC in the early 1970s. He was soon writing comics as well, including a memorable stint on The Legion of Super-Heroes.

And in 1976 he inherited the revival of All-Star Comics when Gerry Conway left DC, co-creating The Huntress as the daughter of the EarthTwo Batman. He also wrote the first-ever origin of the Justice Society for DC Special #29 (Sept. 1977). By the 1980s he was DC’s coordinating editor, and today he is the company’s publisher. He took time from his busy schedule to respond to my e-mail questions thusly about his part in one JLA-JSA team-up:] At the time of JLA #147-148, I was writing both All-Star Comics with the JSA and The Legion of Super-Heroes, so I suppose I was a logical candidate to work on the crossover. I wasn’t one of Julie’s regular writers, though. At the time I hadn’t sold him any scripts (or probably even tried, since I was having a tough enough time keeping up with all the deadlines I had overcommitted myself to with other editors).

The JLA and JSA broke bread together in JLA #159—plus scripter Conway threw in five time-tossed guest stars—complete with résumés! [©2001 DC Comics.]

Marty Pasko was one of Julie’s regulars, though, and Marty and I were splitting an apartment in the Village at the time, so somewhere along the way we must have decided to collaborate and talked Julie into it.

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Crises on Finite Earths The first part of the two-parter was a fairly active collaboration. If I go by my files, the plot outline is from my typewriter, with some handwritten page breaks not in my handwriting. The first 13 pages of script seem to come from my typewriter, too, but includes some notes to Marty, so I guess he was going to second-draft or edit-before-the-editor. For the balance of that issue, I just did the panel breakdowns and art directions.

The second part lists in my records as a co-plot only, and I have no written files on it, so I probably did no work at the keyboard, just kibitzPaul Levitz, long before he ing. As I said, I was pretty overcombecame publisher of DC Comics. mitted at the time, and From—you guessed it. [©2001 DC Comics.] might have just dumped it in Marty’s lap.

It looks as though I started the story around January 1977, and while I was capable of solid writing by then (I had just finished the JSA Origin, which remains one of my personal favorite jobs), I was doing very uneven work overall. Fun assignments were coming my way for the first time in my writing career, and I was grabbing too many—and blowing a fair number, either by having to do only a part of the job and belatedly splitting the plot/dialogue chores, or by rushing. I’ve always lumped the one JLA/JSA I got to do in with these errors, and regretted it deeply because of my love for Gardner Fox’s run.

The first comic I ever bought was the beginning of the first JLA/JSA crossover [JLA #21, 1963], and a blowup of that cover still hangs in my office to remind me of the magic that comics can have.

Gerry Conway [Gerard F. Conway, who became the Justice League writer in 1978, served in that capacity for most issues until its demise with #261 (April 1987). Gerry had also revived All-Star Comics with #58 (Feb. 1977), though he relinquished it after five issues. Under his tenure JLA featured the first JLA-JSA team-up that crossed over into another title (the new All-Star Squadron); the last of the team-ups was also a crossover (with Infinity, Inc.). From 1980-85 he and Roy Thomas (who wrote the other chapters of the two “crossover” team-ups mentioned above) co-wrote screenplays for Ralph Bakshi’s animated film Fire and Ice and for Universal’s Conan the Destroyer, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gerry is currently a TV writer-producer in Los Angeles; his credits include The New Perry Mason, Diagnosis: Murder, Matlock, Young Hercules, et al.

This interview was conducted via e-mail.]

ROY THOMAS: Did you have any special feelings about doing the JLA-JSA team-ups?

GERRY CONWAY: I was a huge fan of the JLA, and those annual meetings with the JSA were an enormous part of the series’ appeal—it broadened the “world” the characters inhabited, enriched their backstories, etc. I wasn’t a fan of the JSA as such (never having read their original adventures), but I was a fan of the team-ups.

RT: You, of course, did more of those team-ups than anyone except Gardner Fox; each of you did six of them. Did they get easier or harder to do as time went by?

CONWAY: Easier, actually. Of course, by the time I was done with my ten-year run, I’d moved pretty far away from the traditional team-up

somewhere. (Nor had The Spirit King ever actually appeared in any comic book before.)

Justice League of America #183 (Oct. 1980) “Crisis on New Genesis” or, “Where Have All the New Gods Gone?”-25 pp.

Cover: Jim Starlin Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Dick Dillin (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA Roll Call: Batman, Firestorm, Green Lantern, Superman JSA Roll Call: Dr. Fate, The Huntress, Power Girl, Wonder Woman New Gods: Big Barda, Metron, Mr. Miracle, Oberon, Orion THE STORY: The JLA and JSA are teleported to New Genesis, where their aid is enlisted—for most of the New Gods have been kidnaped by Apokolips and turned into mindless slaves. Apokolips’ new allies are the Injustice Society of Earth-Two (The Shade, Icicle, Fiddler).

NOTE: Virtually every member of the JSA makes a cameo appearance in the issue, most only on the splash page.

Justice League of America #184 (Nov. 1980) “Crisis between Two Earths” or, “Apokolips Now!” - 25 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: George Perez (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #183 THE STORY: Batman, The Huntress, and Mr. Miracle learn that Darkseid plans to teleport Apokolips into the Earth-Two universe, which will cause that world’s destruction. Meanwhile, Dr. Fate and the Earth-One Green Lantern find and free Izaya, Highfather of the New Gods, who has been Darkseid’s prisoner.

Justice League of America #185 (Dec. 1980) “Crisis on Apokolips” or, “Darkseid Rising!” - 25 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: George Perez (p) & Frank McLaughlin (i) JLA & JSA Roll Call: Same as in #183-184 THE STORY: While Dr. Fate and the Earth-One Green Lantern take Izaya to safety, Wonder Woman and the Earth-One Superman free New Genesis’ children from Granny Goodness. The JLA, JSA, and New Gods gang up on Darkseid, who is “destroyed” (for the moment) by his own Re-creation Machine.

NOTE: George Perez took over as penciler (with #185) due to the untimely death of Dick Dillin.

Justice League of America #195 (Oct. 1981) “Targets on Two Worlds” - 25 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: George Perez (p) & John Beatty (i) JLA Roll Call: Atom, Batman, Black Canary, Firestorm, Wonder Woman JSA Roll Call: Flash, Hawkman, Hourman, Johnny Thunder, Superman THE STORY: The Ultra-Humanite assembles his own Secret Society of Super-Villains (Brainwave, Plant-Master, Killer Frost, Cheetah, Signalman, Rag Doll, The Mist, The Monocle) from two Earths. He tells them if they can remove their ten JLA/JSA foes from the multiverse, all super-heroes will vanish. Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and Hawkman are the first to fall.

Justice League of America #196 (Nov. ’81) “Countdown to Crisis!” - 25 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: George Perez (p) & Romeo Tanghal (i) JLA and JSA Rolls Calls: Same as in #195 THE STORY: Ultra-Humanite doesn’t tell his minions that it is only from Earth-Two that all super-heroes will disappear. Psycho-Pirate captures Hourman, Signalman snags Batman, Rag Doll bags Flash, Floronic Man entwines Atom, Brainwave zaps Johnny Thunder, Killer

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups Frost freezes Firestorm, and Ulty himself downs Superman.

NOTE: This issue contains a beautiful centerspread by George Perez of 17 JLAers (counting mascot Snapper Carr) and 15 JSAers (plus Thunderbolt).

Justice League of America #197 (Dec. 1981) “Crisis in Limbo!”

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway Artists: Keith Pollard and George Perez (p) & Romeo Tanghal (i) JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #196-197 THE STORY: With ten JLA and JSA heroes in limbo and the rest vanished from Earth-Two, Ultra-Humanite zaps half the Secret Society back to Earth-One. These worthies gather the other JLAers, who free their comrades and undo everything Ulty has wrought.

Justice League of America #207 (Oct. 1982) “Crisis on Earth-Prime! - Part I: Crisis Times Three!” - 23 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway (plot consultant: Roy Thomas) Artists: Don Heck (p) & Romeo Tanghal (i) JLA Roll Call: Superman, Zatanna, Hawkman, Firestorm, Elongated Man JSA Roll Call: Green Lantern, Starman, Dr. Fate, Power Girl, The Huntress All-Star Squadron Roll Call: Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Robotman, Firebrand, Commander Steel THE STORY: When the JLA try to transport the JSA to EarthOne, the Crime Syndicate (from #29-30’s Earth-Three) materialize instead—while the JSAers wind up on an Earth-Prime (ostensibly our Earth, except that it has been devastated by atomic war). Reaching the Earth-Two of 1942, the JLA find it ruled by Per Degaton—and encounter five of the All-Star Squadron at JSA-HQ. [SPECIAL NOTE: Since All-Star Squadron #14-15 are two additional issues in this JLA-JSA team-up, they are covered here, as well.]

All-Star Squadron #14 (Oct. 1982) “The ‘Mystery Men’ of October” - 23 pp.

Cover: Joe Kubert Writer: Roy Thomas (plot consultant: Gerry Conway) Artists: Adrian Gonzales (p) & Jerry Ordway (i) JLA Roll Call: Same as in JLA #207 JSA Roll Call: Same as in JLA #207, but appear on cover only (see note below) All-Star Squadron Roll Call: Same as in JLA #207 THE STORY: In 1947 Per Degaton regains his memory (lost at the end of All-Star #35) and uses a time machine to free Earth-Three’s Crime Syndicate from limbo; he has them steal atomic missiles from 1962 Cuba so he can conquer the world in 1942. In Jan. ’42 five of the All-Star Squadron face five JLAers, as per the end of JLA #207.

NOTES: (a) JSA members appear in this story only in a dream sequence, as part of the All-Star Squadron. (b) This story was designed to utilize the twenty-year gaps between 1942, 1962, and 1982.

Justice League of America #208 (Nov. 1982) “Crisis on Earth-Prime! - Part II: The Bomb-blast Heard ’Round the World!” - 23 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway (plot consultant: Roy Thomas) Artists: Don Heck (p) & Sal Trapani (i) JLA, JSA, and All-Star Squadron Roll Call: Same as in #207 THE STORY: The JLA and All-Star Squadron combine to try to stop Degaton from conquering the planet during World War II with early-’60s atomic missiles. Meanwhile, on 1982 Earth-Prime, the five JSAers learn that world went to atomic war in 1962 over the Cuban Missile Crisis. At last JLA, JSA, and All-Star Squadron unite—in 1942.

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story I did at first.

RT: How do you feel about the Earth-Two concept Julie and Gardner came up with, as opposed to the One-Big-Earth concept? Do you think the Earths needed to be merged, eventually, to avoid confusion?

CONWAY: I have mixed feelings about the whole merged-Earths concept. Certainly the Earth-One/Earth-Two/Earth-Prime/Earth-Whatever concept was more elegant in the beginning than it became toward the end. (“Flash of Two Worlds” remains the high point, for me, of the entire Earth-Two mythology.) I believe I was the first writer to actually suggest, out loud, the collisions of the Earths that Marv Wolfman eventually executed. But it was certainly an idea that had been floating around for years. After a while the concept seemed to become unwieldy—though I’m not certain they’ve replaced it with anything worthwhile since.

RT: How did it come about that you assembled that group of DC heroes from various eras for your first team-up, in JLA #159-160?

CONWAY: That was an idea I’d been playing around with for years—I’m a fan of time travel stories, and thought it would be neat to bring together some of DC’s lesser-known heroes (though Jonah Hex was pretty popular at the time, I believe).

RT: Why did you decide to kill off Mr. Terrific in #171? What kind of reaction did you get? Did you ever regret doing it?

CONWAY: I don’t honestly remember. I probably felt it was time to put a little bite into the team-up format, and killing an old hero undoubtedly seemed like a way to do it. No regrets—we all gotta go sometime.

RT: How come no follow-up with The Spirit King? At story’s end the JSAers vow to capture him, but he never appeared again, even though you wrote JLA for several more years.

In the late ’70s and 1980s Gerry Conway, currently a TV writer and producer, wrote probably more issues of Justice League of America than any other scripter, despite being spelled occasionally by Roy Thomas and Kurt Busiek. Dave Manak strikes again! [©2001 DC Comics.]

CONWAY: Honestly, I probably just forgot.

RT: Was it tricky to write JLA-JSA team-ups when you were also writing the revived All-Star?

CONWAY: The JLA and All-Star books seemed so different to me, thematically, it didn’t feel particularly difficult to keep them separate. If anything, writing both titles made it easier to organize a team-up.

RT: Any recollection as to why, in #195-197, The Ultra-Humanite wound up in the body of a white ape?

CONWAY: I guess I thought a white ape would look cool.

RT: George Perez, of course, is famous for liking to draw huge groups of heroes. Is that part of the reason there are so many super-villains in those three issues?

CONWAY: I don’t recall, but I imagine it was something George wanted to do, so….

RT: Why did you decide to make your own earlier World War II hero, Steel, into a madman who tried to kill his own grandson, the JLA’s Steel?

32

Crises on Finite Earths

CONWAY: I was probably feeling a little perverse. That was near the end of my run on JLA and I wasn’t happy with the editorial support (or lack of it) that I was receiving.

RT: And why did you kill Gwen Stacy while Stan Lee was out of town?

CONWAY: Hated the bitch.

[NOTE: That last exchange is just a joke, people. The truth of that particular storyline has been explored ad nauseum in the fan press ever since Amazing Spider-Man #121.—R.T.]

Roy Thomas [Roy Thomas became a fan of the JSA at age four in 1945, and was also on board as a Justice League reader from the initial stories in The Brave and the Bold.

These tales led to his correspondence with editor Julius Schwartz, and via Julie with JLA writer Gardner Fox. Though he wound up spending virtually all of his first fifteen years in the comics field (19651980) as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics (serving as editor-in-chief from 1972-74), in 1981 he became a contractual writer for DC. For them he conceived and developed the title All-Star Squadron, which ran 67 regular issues and had a 31-issue successor series, The Young All-Stars. And now he is tired of writing in the third person, so he’ll switch over to first person to tell of his JLA-JSA work:] Considering that the Golden Age All-Star is my favorite comic book of all time, and how important both Justice League of America and the JLA-JSA team-ups were to me in the ’60s, my connections with the team-ups were fairly tangential.

All-Star Squadron #15 (Nov. 1982) “Master of Worlds and Time!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Joe Kubert Writer: Roy Thomas (plot consultant: Gerry Conway) Artists: Adrian Gonzales (p) & Jerry Ordway (i) JLA, JSA, & All-Star Squadron Roll Calls: Same as in previous three comics THE STORY: Degaton tells 1942 Earth-Two’s leaders that he will launch three atomic missiles if they don’t surrender. Teams composed of one member each of the JLA, JSA, and All-Star Squadron stifle two of the missile sites and destroy his spy satellite, but Degaton says he is far from beaten.

Justice League of America #209 (Dec. 1982) “Crisis on Earth-Prime! - Part III: Let Old Acquaintances Be Forgot…”

- 23 pp.

Cover: George Perez Writer: Gerry Conway (plot consultant: Roy Thomas) Artist: Don Heck JLA, JSA, & All-Star Squadron Roll Calls: Same as in #207-208

To glutton-for-punishment George Perez, the JLA-JSA tales were just a warm-up!

In the early ’80s he penciled at least 21 pages of what was to be the first JLAAvengers company cross-over, only to run afoul of politics and what-not, so that the project was shelved. (Gerry Conway had done the original plot, and Roy Thomas was doing some re-plotting when the plug was pulled.) Here Batman slams Captain America, Hawkman battles Starfox, and Zatanna hexes the Scarlet Witch. [Respective characters ©2001 DC Comics or Marvel Characters, Inc.]

THE STORY: While another JLA/JSA/Squadron team demolishes Degaton’s final missile site, still another travels via Prof. Zee’s 1942 time ray to 1962 Cuba, to stop the Crime Syndicate from stealing the missiles in the first place. Another team captures Degaton in 1942—in his hideout underneath the partly-constructed Pentagon!

Atomic war on Earth-Prime and Degaton’s conquest of Earth-Two are both averted.

NOTE: This 115-page multi-parter was the longest of the JLA-JSA team-ups, and the first (and only one of two) to cross over into another DC comic besides JLA. Justice League of America #219 (Oct. 1983) “Crisis in the Thunderbolt Dimension!”

(Part I) Cover: George Perez Writers: Roy Thomas (plot) & Gerry Conway (dialogue) Artists: Chuck Patton (p) & Romeo Tanghal (i) JLA Roll Call: Flash, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Green Lantern, Red Tornado, Zatanna, Firestorm JSA Roll Call: Flash, Power Girl, The Huntress, Starman, Hourman THE STORY: The Thunderbolt attacks the JLA and JSA, leaving several heroes comatose. Meanwhile, Earth-One and -Two super-criminals take over ancient monuments. As other JLA and JSA teams head for those spots, Starman and Black Canary invade the Thunderbolt Dimension—where the evil Johnny Thunder of Earth-One (from #29-30) shows them another Black Canary and her dead husband Larry Lance floating in stasis.

NOTE: The super-criminals involved in this issue are The Wizard, Icicle, and Fiddler from Earth-Two; Dr. Alchemy, Felix Faust, and Chronos from Earth-One. Justice League of America #220 (Nov. 1983) “The Doppleganger Gambit” - 24 pp.

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups Cover: George Perez Writer: Roy Thomas (two-Black-Canarys idea by Marv Wolfman) Artists: Chuck Patton (p) & Romeo Tanghal and Pablo Marcos (i) JLA and JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #220 THE STORY: While other JLA-JSA teams capture the super-criminals, Starman and Black Canary defeat the evil Johnny Thunder. B.C. learns she is actually the original B.C.’s daughter, who grew to adulthood in stasis in the Thunderbolt Dimension and replaced her in journeying to Earth-One after the battle with Aquarius in JLA #74.

Justice League of America #231 (Oct. 1984) “Family Crisis!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Chuck Patton (p) & Dick Giordano (i) Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Paul Kupperberg JLA Roll Call: Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash (guest star: Supergirl) JSA Roll Call: Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, Starman, Dr. Mid-Nite THE STORY: The JLA and JSA aid the three children of physicist Joshua Champion, who has fallen under the control of The Commander, evil overlord of another dimension who has been acting through Dr. Champion. Only thing is, several of the heroes also fall under The Commander’s mental sway.

Justice League of America #232 (Nov. 1984) “Family Crisis - Part Two: Battlegrounds!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Chuck Patton (p) & Dick Giordano (i) Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alan Kupperberg JLA & JSA Roll Calls: Same as in #231 THE STORY: Hero fights hero, as The Commander takes over first the body of Dr. Champion—then “eldritch material” buried beneath the Pentagon. Dr. Fate’s magic opens a dimensional gateway, and the recovered JLA and JSA hurl the alien back into his own world— where he promptly explodes.

[NOTE FOR FOLLOWING TEAM-UP: Since Infinity, Inc. #19 and JLA #244 together make up the final JLA-JSA crossover in the original series, we have covered the former here, as well.]

Infinity, Inc. #19 (Oct. 1985) “Last Crisis on Earth-Two!” - 23 pp.

Cover: Todd McFarlane (p) & Tony DeZuniga (i) Writer: Roy Thomas (consultants: Gerry Conway and Alan Gold) Artists: Todd McFarlane (p) & Steve Montano (i) Infinity, Inc. Roll Call: Star-Spangled Kid, Nuklon, Jade, Silver Scarab, Fury, Northwind (Obsidian absent) JLA Roll Call: J’onn J’onzz, Zatanna, Elongated Man, Vibe, Vixen, Steel, Gypsy JSA Roll Call: Dr. Fate, Dr. Mid-Nite, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Flash THE STORY: At the start of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the time-spanning robot Mekanique and Commander Steel (once of the AllStar Squadron) enlist the help of Infinity, Inc. of Earth-Two. Commander Steel believes the “new JLA” are actually criminals—even his grandson, who is called simply Steel.

NOTE: The JSAers make only a brief appearance in the issue.

Justice League of America #244 (Nov. 1985) “The Final Crisis” - 23 pp.

Cover: Joe Staton (p) & Mike Machlan (i) Writer: Gerry Conway (Roy Thomas, editorial consultant) Artists: Joe Staton (p) & Mike Machlan (i) JLA, JSA, & Infinity, Inc. Roll Calls: Same as in Infinity, Inc. #19 THE STORY: The JLA, JSA, and Infinitors combine forces against Mekanique and the berserk Commander Steel—who is finally felled by his grandson, the JLA’s Steel. Then each group goes off to face its destiny in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

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In early 1982, because Gerry Conway and I were writing screenplays together, we decided to cross over between JLA, which he wrote, and the All-Star Squadron title I had inaugurated the year before. Neither Gerry nor I recall who had the initial inspiration for what became the only five-part JLA-JSA fight-fest, but things were eased by the fact that our colleague Len Wein was the editor of both titles at the time.

Actually, Gerry carried the bulk of the JLA side of things, since he did the first and last issues, plus the middle one. We conferred mostly at his home in Van Nuys, California, and at an office he had taken on Ventura Boulevard.

Somehow, things just fell into place. I think we had both always wanted to see more of the Crime Syndicate from JLA #29-30 back in ’64, but no other JLA writer had continued their story in nearly two decades—so we decided to do it.

We decided we’d use five heroes from each of the three groups. I chose Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Roy Thomas, a couple of years Robotman, Firebrand (my own crebefore the five-part JLA-JSA ation), and Gerry’s retro-World War crossover with All-Star II hero Steel, whom I had promoted Squadron. Where’s Dave Manak to Commander Steel when I’d when you really need him? inducted him into the Squadron.

The fact that there was also a Johnny Quick in the Crime Syndicate just brought together one more pair of dopplegangers in a DC Universe which already contained two Flashes, two Green Lanterns, etc.

Gerry chose the overall title: “Crisis on Earth-Prime!” EarthPrime had been proclaimed by Julie Schwartz to be the super-hero-free Earth on which we normal humans live. Of course, by having it devastated by an atomic war, we were fudging the Earth-Prime concept a bit, because that situation was as unlike our “real world” as Earth-One and Earth-Two were.

I’ve always been proudest about two elements of my own part in “Crisis on Earth-Prime!”: First, I love the happy accident that led us to place the story in 1942 (the setting of All-Star Squadron), 1962 (the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis), and 1982 (the year in which we wrote the stories). The twenty-year interval was perfect, because 1962 had been a year wherein our Earth had come perilously close to atomic war. I titled my first chapter “The Mystery Men of October,” from The Missiles of October, a famous TV docudrama about the 1962 crisis. (And wasn’t it some kind of sinister serendipity that the word “crisis” was part of the name of both the real-world events of ’62 and of most comic book JLA-JSA teamings?)

The other thing I most enjoyed was finding a way, when the teamup was over, that All-Star Squadron could pick up at the exact point where my fivesome had entered JSA-HQ to first confront a quintet of 1982 Justice Leaguers (JLA #207). After the team-up ended, I opened All-Star Squadron #16 with a page whereon artists Adrian Gonzales and Rick Hoberg drew their own version of events which preceded that JSA-HQ meeting, complete with identical dialogue—only this time, instead of facing the JLA, they confront a banged-up (Earth-Two) Wonder Woman who’s just come from a close encounter with a supervillain called Nuclear.

(Nuclear, by the way, had been an actual bad-guy in a 1950 issue of Wonder Woman; his story was related in A/E V3#5. But I remain amused and bemused that, by sheer dumb luck, a villain named Nuclear replaced the nuclear war scenario of the just-completed team-up. I liked that synchronicity so much that I didn’t even care whether anybody

34

Crises on Finite Earths

else noticed it or not.)

Because the team-up had to involve time travel to get the 1982 JLA and JSA and the 1942 All-Star Squadron together, Per Degaton (antagonist of All-Star Comics #35 back in 1947) was the obvious antagonist. I even had fun with the idea of “missile silos,” by having Degaton’s stolen atomic ICBMs hidden in real farm silos, a sort of visual pun.

The next year, I wrote (with an assist from Gerry) JLA #219-220, about which I remember very little, except that I had a chance to use the evil Johnny Thunder from the third JLA-JSA team-up. The only thing that stands out in my mind is that the notion that the Black Canary who had arrived on Earth-One after JLA #74 was not the one who’d just left Earth-Two, but was actually her daughter, was suggested to me by Marv Wolfman. I gave Marv due credit/blame for same in JLA #220, but when I phoned him about it recently, he foreswore any memory of the idea.

“It was probably just one of those fan things,” he said, “which I told you, and then forgot it as soon as I said it.”

[Roy Thomas’ sidebar continues after that of:]

Kurt Busiek [Since entering the comic book field in the 1980s, Kurt Busiek has become one of its most popular writers. Some of his major series have included The Avengers, Iron Man, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, and the super-hit Marvels, painted by Alex Ross. More recently he has focused upon his bestselling independent comic, Astro City. But in 1984 he got a chance, as a young up-and-coming talent, to script the second-from-last JLA-JSA team-up…]

So, at the time I was offered the chance to write the crossover that I did, I was interested in the history of it all, and I liked the idea and I liked the tradition and the majesty of it. But I hadn’t grown up with it.

The reason I had been asked to do that team-up—as I recall, the JLA were all off on Mars. It was in the middle of an extended story Gerry was doing. He was setting up the new “Detroit JLA,” and either didn’t have the time or was tied up in the other story. I had been doing some writing for Alan Gold [then editor of JLA], and he asked me if I could come up with an idea. And then he hit me with the clincher, which was that virtually none of the JLA were available, and not many of the JSA, either! As I recall, you were doing something with a JSA-Infinity, Inc. feud or battle.

RT: I don’t remember at this point, without checking. But you were restricted in the characters you could use?

BUSIEK: Yes. At one point, Len Wein told me that if he was offered an assignment to do a JLA-JSA team-up without really having the JLA or the JSA to work with, he’d have turned it down. And I said, “Yeah, but, Len, you’re not as hungry as I am!”

I got the Earth-One Flash. He was in the middle of his murder trial at the moment. Technically, he wasn’t then a member of the JLA, but I brought him over because I needed people and it gave them something to talk about. I roped in [non-member] Supergirl just so I’d have four guys on the JLA side. I got some nice humor out of using her, because she had a different perspective on it.

In the case of the JSA, I called you and asked who was available. I told you I specifically wanted to use Alan Scott. And you told me you’d rather I didn’t, because of what you were doing with him at the time, but you didn’t go as far as saying, “Don’t do it!” You just said, “I know you’re in a jam, but I’d rather you didn’t.” I tried to find other ways to work it, but ultimately I said, “I’ve gotta have enough people to make this look good!”

RT: I don’t recall what was going on at the time. Obviously, we all survived it.

BUSIEK: I think there was one line that I put in where Green Lantern says something on the order of, “As our friends in Infinity, Inc., might say—” and he says some sort of modern catch-phrase. And your response to that was, “They don’t like each other right now!”

This pair of “mug shots” of K.B. is from the dust jacket flap of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, published by DC and Homage. [©2001 Juke Box Productions.]

ROY THOMAS: Any particular feeling about the JLA in general, or the JLA-JSA team-ups in particular? Or was it just another assignment?

KURT BUSIEK: Actually, I didn’t start reading comics regularly till 1974, so I missed all the really classic JLA-JSA team-ups. I first encountered the idea of them in [the Lupoff-Thompson book version of] All in Color for a Dime. The first one I would have seen would have been the one that involved The Legion of Super-Heroes. But by that time I knew they were historically important, and they sounded like a really cool idea.

But, in any case, the challenge of it—I was a young writer, trying to establish myself, and here I was offered sort of a semi-impossible task: Write a big, important summer crossover story, but you can’t have the major cast. So finding a way to overcome that—to get a good and exciting story out of it anyway—was part of the lure of the assignment.

RT: The story itself had the Champion family, and the other-dimensional villain, The Commander. Anything behind that, other than that it was “the story”?

RT: By the time you read one, there’d already been nearly a dozen of them.

BUSIEK: The idea of them was twofold. First off, I wanted to have characters from Earth-One, and a threat on Earth-Two. That would be an easy way to bring the teams together. In looking around for a way to accomplish that, the Champion family was inspired to a great degree by Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s an award-winning book about some kids whose father does some sort of mysterious work for the government, and has vanished. And they end up being recruited by mystic forces to travel through space to rescue their father. I didn’t have much time to put this story together, because they needed it overnight.

BUSIEK: By 1984, friends had loaned me the Fox-Sekowsky ones, and I really liked the second one, the one with the Crime Syndicate. The first one (in JLA #21-22) must have been a bombshell at the time, but when you come in on the twelfth of them, and go back and read the first one, it’s like—yeah, it sets it all up pretty nicely.

So I thought, I can use the basic setup of that, and none of the particulars. So I’ve got these kids whose father is an important scientist, and he’s traveled across the dimensional gulf and been captured by some evil force and turned into a villain that’s attacking Earth-Two. The kids are from Earth-One, so they go to the Justice League for help. The Justice

The Justice League-Justice Society Team-Ups League has to go to Earth-Two to fight the villain, and we’ve got a JLAJSA team-up!

RT: And it worked out just fine. Would you have liked to do another JLA-JSA team-up, if they had lasted more than one more year?

BUSIEK: Yeah, it would’ve been fun to do more. For that matter, I was kind of hoping that story would be popular enough that the Champion family would’ve gotten their own series.

Roy Thomas cont.

I was privileged also to play an oblique part in the last of the original JLA-JSA team-ups, because I started it off in my title Infinity, Inc., which starred the sons, daughters, and heirs of members of the Justice Society. Actually, the JSA and JLA made only cameo appearances in that Crisis on Infinite Earths-related issue. But the crossover gave Gerry a chance to have Steel, a young hero he had conceived and brought into the JLA as part of what he jokingly called his “All-Conway Squad,” square off with his grandfather, the Conway-created Steel whom I had promoted to Commander.

35

no counterparts during World War II and for decades afterward, despite all those lovely comic books produced during the 1940s. Still, the first four JLA-JSA team-ups have been beautifully reprinted in hardcover volumes 3-6 of DC’s Justice League of America Archives, and hopefully more volumes will follow.

The post-Crisis situation was, of course, a ludicrous if wellintentioned end to a glorious era. There have been many attempts made, at DC and Marvel and elsewhere, to recapture the excitement of that first encounter between two Flashes, between JLA and JSA. But these attempts have been too self-conscious, too company- and committeedirected, to have the impact that Justice League of America #21 achieved when Julie Schwartz just sat down with Gardner Fox and said words to the effect: “Let’s bring back the old Flash!” and “Why can’t we bring back the Justice Society?” When one is lucky enough to catch lightning in a bottle once—maybe even twice—well, isn’t that enough for one century?

[Very special thanks to JERRY BAILS, who very kindly supplied us with photocopies of many original pieces of art which illustrate this article.]

There was an air of sadness about this final team-up, however, because it was planned to be the last of its kind.

And, even if JLA-JSA team-ups have returned in recent years (I hear they have; I haven’t read any), an interval of so many years after 1985 means the new team-ups have no more organic connection with the original team-ups than, say, All-Star Squadron had with the Golden Age All-Star Comics.

But the JLA-JSA team-ups were an annual tradition for 23 years… nearly a quarter of a century… and, like virtually all the other near-dozen writers and the dozens of artists and even editors who took part, I’m proud to have been just a small part of it.

Aftermath With the conclusion of the Crisis on Infinite Earths in both its own and related series, the various Earths were combined into one Earth with an allegedly coherent history. (Yeah, right.)

In this world the Justice Society retired in 1950-51, and the Justice League came into existence several decades (not just ten years) later. Infinity, Inc., were still the sons, daughters, and heirs of the JSA, but with one or two Crisis-dictated changes.

Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Speedy, and Aquaman were now assumed to have come into existence only in recent years, and to have had

Jerry Ordway inked All-Star Squadron #14-15, but he’d soon be penciling the mag, as well. Here’s a sketch of the Golden Age Hawkman he did a few years back; courtesy of Mike Zeno. [©2001 DC Comics.]

36

The Many Oaths of—

THE MANY OATHS OF

Of Prose & Poetry and Sacred Oaths

by Craig Delich When evil threatened between 1940 and 1949, the Golden Age Green Lantern (just like his Silver Age counterpart) charged his ring at his magic lamp, then went forth to battle the forces of darkness.

Actually, we presume he did the same thing through late 1950, when his last appearance was chronicled in All-Star #57; but he was never shown charging his ring in the later Justice Society adventures, as he had earlier done in All-American Comics, Green Lantern, and Comic Cavalcade.

On occasion, Alan Scott merely touched his ring silently to the lamp before flying off. However, one of the unique aspects of his ring-charging was the oath he recited during his private ritual.

Mart Nodell, the artist who basically created The Green Lantern, has said he devised the original oath, which was used from the hero’s first appearance (in All-American Comics #16, July 1940) up till the end of 1943.

However, Nodell recalls that he showed the oath to editor Sheldon Mayer, who made some changes in it—and it’s possible, says Nodell, that writer Bill Finger may have had a hand in making adjustments to it, as well, since Finger was involved in the very first GL story.

The oath varied slightly when he spoke it the second time, in All-American #18 (Sept. 1940). As can be seen by examining the accompanying illustrations, the two versions are identical, except that the earlier one contains a second dramatic pause 2/3 of the way through—and then repeats the words “the light.”

The editor and/or writer must have felt the first way was better, for after #18 the dramatic pause and repetition were usually part and parcel of that oath. (The comma after “for” was dropped in the written version, as well, probably for the better.)

Still, during the early years, there were several minor variations of the oath. In All-American #23 (Feb. 1941), for example, the word “upon” is substituted for “over.”

(See illustration.) But is that a real change, or did Green Lantern— or maybe writer Bill Finger—just forget?

Without a doubt, the use of this solemn, almost grim oath contributed not only to the uniqueness of Green Lantern as a character, but also to his popularity, for no other hero of the 1940s had anything like it. The oath portrayed the commitment Alan Scott had to his new occupation in society... it stated Actually, all the reader ever Recent color illustration of Green Lantern by Mart Nodell, for a poster sold at his purpose in clear, distinct terms... got to read was what seemed to be comics conventions. [Art ©2001 Mart Nodell; Green Lantern ©2001 DC Comics.] it had mystical, maybe even religious the tail end of the oath, beginning overtones. Captain Marvel’s with a dash (really, a couple of “Shazam!” or Johnny Quick’s magic formula just didn’t match up. hyphens) followed by an “and” that suggested there was more before How could they? it. However, since no earlier words to the oath were never revealed, perhaps Alan Scott composed it that way, starting in mid-stream: Around the time Alfred Bester took over the writing of the strip “—And I shall shed my light over dark evil... for, the dark things cannot stand the light... the light of the Green Lantern!”

from Bill Finger in late 1943, Green Lantern suddenly adopted a new oath—one that rhymed:

—The Green Lantern!

37

regular authorship of the Green Lantern strip.

This writer, whoever he was, may have started on the “GL” feature as early as the story in Green Lantern #4 (Summer 1942). The Emerald Gladiator recited his oath only once in the entire issue-length story, and it was a shorter and less poetic version of the original oath. If this was someone’s idea of an improvement, he had a tin ear. (See next page.)

However, by Green Lantern #5 (Autumn 1942), this writer was in full swing, with no less than two highly unusual oaths found within this book-length tale. These two oaths have little in common with either the original oath, or with each other. The simplicity of the first oath was in danger of being lost. (See next page for this one too.)

It seems unlikely that Bill Finger would suddenly and so dramatically change a long-standing tradition in the Green Lantern mythos. So we must yet look elsewhere for this writer’s identity.

First two appearances of the oath, in All-American #16 & #18. [©2001 DC Comics.]

“In brightest day, in darkest night, No evil shall escape my sight!

Let those who worship evil’s might, Beware my power—Green Lantern’s light!”

This oath, too, even excluding minor variations in punctuation, had one slightly alternate version. By 1945, the word “blackest” had permanently replaced “darkest.”

It was this second version of the rhymed oath, of course, that was revived by editor Julius Schwartz and/or writer John Broome when Hal Jordan debuted as the second Green Lantern in Showcase #22 (Sept.-Oct. 1959), and which has been used ever since.

Who was responsible for this ultimate, longest-lasting Green Lantern oath? Mart Nodell or Bill Finger, perhaps? Definitely not!

I’ve spoken with many individuals who worked for DC during that period. No one who worked on the strip as a writer claims to have devised it. Most seem to feel that Alfred Bester created it, because that was the only oath he used when he wrote “Green Lantern” stories.

However, in his last published interview before his death, Bester denied creating it!

One thing few people are aware of is that, from mid-1942 until early 1943, as Bill Finger was packing his bags to go fight for Uncle Sam, Green Lantern began to use completely different oaths when charging his ring—oaths never used before or after this six-month period!

Note the preposition change in this E.E. Hibbard panel from All-American #23, the first issue not drawn by Mart Nodell (or rather, “Mart Dellon”!)... though still scripted by Bill Finger. [©2001 DC Comics.]

It is logical to assume that these oaths were written by one or more persons who worked on the strip only briefly—yet by someone who had the power to change the oath originally devised by Nodell, Mayer, and Finger—and by someone who might possibly have liked to assume the

From All-American #38 (May 1942), a pair of panels by Irwin Hasen, the second regular “Green Lantern” artist. Repro’d from photocopies of the original art, courtesy of Joel Thingvall. [©2001 DC Comics.]

In All-American Comics #45 (December 1942), we find yet another off-the-wall oath—extremely short, if not quite sweet. (See next page.)

At roughly the same time, in the “Green Lantern” story in Comic Cavalcade #1 (Winter 1942-43), this truncated oath appeared: “Let all power and triumph be mine in whatever right I do!”

More or less simultaneous with Comic Cavalcade #1, Green Lantern #6 (Winter 1942-43) contained yet another unusual oath recited by our hero: “The light of the Green Lantern pierces darkness and mystery, and its radiance will strike at the heart at evil!”

Finally, in All-American #47 (February 1943), a last unusual oath was recited by the Emerald Crusader. (See next page.)

Half a dozen versions of the oath in as many months. Something was clearly going on.

The identity of this mystery writer is uncertain, and probably always will be.

Paul Reinman illustrates the original version of the rhymed oath in The Big AllAmerican Comic Book, a 128-page, 25¢ 1944 one-shot. Note the word “darkest.” [©2001 DC Comics.]

38

The Many Oaths of the Green Lantern!

Still, after discussing the matter with Jerry Bails and several pros who worked for DC at the time, the best guesstimate we could collectively make is that the changes were made by the assistant editor of the AllAmerican line of comics: Ted Udall!

Udall, who earlier had written a few scripts for the Quality Comics Group, was a prolific writer for DC during 1942-43, authoring many text features, as well as scripting “Mr. Terrific,” “Ghost Patrol,” “Black The prosaic Green Lantern #4 version of the Emerald Pirate,” “The Gay Warrior’s oath; panel traced by Al Dellinges. [©2001 Ghost,” “The Whip,” DC Comics.] and perhaps others.

He also served as a DC editor from 1940-42, and again from 1944-46.

You want oaths? You got oaths! In this case, from All-American #45 and #47, in 1942-43. Al Dellinges again, tracing Irwin Hasen. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Udall has never been positively identified as a scripter of “Green Lantern” stories, but perhaps he made the changes in his editorial capacity—or perhaps he told one or more GL writers to come up with a new oath, to stop the strip from going “stale”—or perhaps he did actually write all the GL tales listed above, and his authorship has simply escaped detection till now.

At any rate, the “Green Lantern” feature soon passed to Alfred Bester and later to Henry Kuttner (both of whom would go on to become noted science-fiction writers), and to Lee Goldsmith, Robert Bernstein, John Broome, and Robert Kanigher—and thence into oblivion, until the 1959 revival under Schwartz, Broome, and artist Gil Kane.

It’s a real shame that no accurate records were kept during the 1940s, so credit (or blame) could be given where credit (or blame) is due.

Still, trying to solve such mysteries is half the fun for people like me, who try to solve those mysteries of the Golden Age of Comics!

CRAIG DELICH has taught social studies in the public schools of Kansas City, Kansas, for three decades. He is also active as a comic book researcher, specializing in the artwork in Golden Age DC Comics.

He is a major contributor to The All-Star Companion.

Two oaths for the price of one—both from GL #5 (Fall 1942)—both traced by Al Dellinges. Hey, you think we were gonna buy copies of GL #4-5 just for this article? [©2001 DC Comics.]

Gil Kane and Joe Giella get into the act (along with scripter John Broome) in the second Silver Age “Green Lantern” story in Showcase #22 (Sept.-Oct. 1959). [©2001 DC Comics.]

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The Genius Jones Twins

The Genius Jones Twins A brief look at the most unlikely coincidence

by Will Murray It’s no secret that many of the early Golden Age comics characters were inspired by, if not directly purloined from, pulp-magazine characters who came before.

Many of these “borrowings” (to use a polite term) are obvious. Some are not.

appearances, Genius Jones was nothing less than a naked ripoff of Lester Dent’s Argosy hero named—Genius Jones!

Lester Dent, as many comics aficionados know, was, under the pseudonym “Kenneth Robeson,” the co-creator and main writer of the major pulpmagazine hero Doc Savage, which debuted in the early 1930s; he wrote many other pulps, as well.

Few people know, for example, that the More Fun Comics serial, “Bob Merritt and His Flying Pals,” is really a DC’s humorous version of Genius Jones graced the covers of a number of DC Comics Dent’s Genius Jones first thinly disguised version of in the mid-’40s. This random sampling is from All-Funny Comics #7 (Summer 1945) appeared in an eight-part 1937 Street & Smith’s pulp hero, Bill and More Fun Comics #111 and #113 (June and August,1946). [©2001 DC Comics Inc.] Argosy serial called Genius Jones.

Barnes. Only the names were It told the wild tale of a redchanged—and not all of them— haired, red-bearded giant of a young man whom a luxury liner finds by publisher Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who incidentally had created marooned on an iceberg. The sole survivor of a failed polar expedition, Barnes for Street & Smith before launching what became DC Comics. he is eventually rescued. It turns out he has been among the floes since One of the most blatant pulp-to-comics lifts is one you never hear childhood, reared by his half-mad father, with only a set about, but it’s about as pure a ripoff as the era ever spawned. of the Encyclopedia Brittanica to acquaint him with the civilized world!

Genius Jones debuted in Adventure Comics #77 (August 1942) and enjoyed a four-year run in that title, as well as in All-Funny Comics and More Fun Comics. His origin is brief: Jonny Jones is a young boy shipwrecked on a desert island, with only a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica for company. Without anything better to do, he reads every volume cover to cover. By the time he’s finally rescued, he’s an expert on every subject under the sun. Upon his return home, he goes into business as a jack-of-all-answers.

The feature, whose art chores were the work of Stan Kaye, was unremittingly entertaining.

As the strip developed, Genius donned a purple outfit and white aviator’s helmet, becoming a sort of junior-grade, mostly humorous superhero along the lines of Street & Smith’s Supersnipe. Eventually he even adopted a “secret identity” of sorts, calling himself “The Answerman” when his goggles were pulled down.

But, in his origin and early

As Dent portrayed him, Jones is a humorous figure. Naive, possessing Herculean strength that would credit Doc Savage himself and a strong desire to do good, he has a lot of trouble fitting into the cynical world of Depression America. Coming into an inheritance from his late father, Polar Jones, and a good deal of fame, Jones naturally attracts a circle of admirers, gold-diggers, and greedy shysters.

Dent planned Genius Jones as a serial character. A second Jones serial was plotted in full, but either Dent got too busy with Doc Savage, or Argosy declined the sequel. Other than being reprinted in Dent’s hometown Missouri newspaper, the original Genius Jones has never been seen since 1937. Unless you count DC’s version of his “twin brother.”

Coincidence? I doubt it. There’s too much evidence to the contrary.

So who perpetrated this unpunished hijacking?

We know who is credited with creating DC’s Genius Jones, at least.

Alfred Bester was the original scripter and did the strip for much of its first two years—or so they say. Would the future award-winning science-fiction The original Genius Jones debuts on the cover of Argosy Weekly, author, who wrote the classics The Stars Nov. 1937. [©2001 Condé Nast] My Destination and The Demolished

The Genius Jones Twins

41

Now we see what Genius Jones was aiming at! [Illustration from the Nov. 1937 issue of Argosy Weekly; ©2001 Condé Nast]

Man, have co-opted a pulp novel? Seems doubtful. And since Bester passed away a few years ago, we have no opportunity to ask him.

Bester’s longtime friend Ron Goulart—himself no mean authority on Golden Age comics characters—often wanted to pursue the issue with Bester. But, he told me, he never summoned up the nerve to ask.

Too bad. Because I suspect Bester would have exonerated himself, had Lester Dent’s Jones been brought to his attention.

I’m inclined to suspect DC editor Mort Weisinger of the deed. Why him? Simple. Weisinger, later best known as the editor of the DC’s “Superman” titles in the 1950s and ‘60s, was a friend of Dent’s in his early fan and pulp-editor days.

Picked his brain during pleasure cruises on Dent’s schooner, Albatross.

Bought some stories from him. And, in later years, appropriated several signature Doc Savage concepts, not the least of which was Dent’s Fortress Future Genius Jones creator Lester Dent of Solitude, now forever (left) and |future DC editor Mort Weisinger, linked with Superman. circa 1935, on Dent’s schooner, Albatross.

Writing Doc Savage must’ve paid pretty good! [Photo courtesy of Will Murray.]

Weisinger came to DC circa 1941 and worked there about a year before being drafted in July 1942—around the time the first Genius Jones issue of Adventure Comics hit America’s newsstands. That would have given Weisinger just enough time to hand the concept to Bester and artist Stan Kaye, then go off to basic training.

I have to suspect Weisinger—notorious for “rejecting” writers’ plots and then feeding them to unknowing fellow writers in a kind of round robin control-and-manipulation game he seemed to follow all his life—of the arch-deed.

Whether Weisinger was actually in charge of Adventure Comics at the time of Jones’ creation is difficult to ascertain. But Jones is a “gimmick” character, which is one of Weisinger’s hallmarks. So is the knack of recycling ideas. Several concepts from Captain Future, a pulp he edited in his pre-DC days, turned up later in Superman and in “The Legion of Super-Heroes.”

In his recent autobiography Man of Two Worlds, Mort’s longtime friend Julius Schwartz essentially confirmed my supposition. Julie recalled the days when Alfred Bester, seeking to break into comics, sat

down with “Batman” scripter Bill Finger to learn the craft at the feet of an early master.

“When [Bester] was ready,” Julie writes, “Mort gave him an assignment on a comic about a character named Genius Jones (loosely based on a character called ‘the Human Encyclopedia’ that Mort ran when he was a pulp editor). Alfred, of course, did a fine job on it.”

The Human Encyclopedia was also a Brittanica salesman-turnedsleuth, named Oliver Quade. He was the work of another Weisinger friend, Frank Gruber, who created the character for Thrilling Detective in 1934, when Weisinger helped edit the magazine.

But to say Quade inspired DC’s “Genius Jones” alone is not entirely accurate. Quade was an adult, not a freakish youthful castaway whose sole education was a set of dry encyclopedias. DC’s “Genius Jones” was far closer in concept to Lester Dent’s same-name hero than he was to Gruber’s “Human Encyclopedia.” It’s possible that, in citing Gruber, Weisinger was covering his tracks—or purloining two sources, on the theory that one borrowing is theft, but two constitute “research.”

Even without Julius Schwartz’ testimony, the striking correspondence between the two Genius Joneses speaks for itself. In all likelihood, Mort Weisinger took Dent’s original concept and changed just enough to get away with it.

Unlike many writers in the Golden Age, Alfred Bester got credit for his “Genius Jones” scripts. This splash—repro’d from mediocre xeroxes, alas, but it’s all we could lay our hands on by press time—is from Adventure Comics #78 (Sept. 1942). [©2001 DC Comics.]

I just wonder why he (or whoever) didn’t have imagination enough to give his boy genius an original name—or at least a different set of encyclopedias....

WILL MURRAY is a longtime pulp magazine and comic book historian, the author of over fifty novels in the Destroyer, Doc Savage, and other series, and a professional psychic.

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Comic Fandom Archive Department

1964

The New York Comicon--Two Views Presented by Bill Schelly [EDITOR’S NOTE: For some years, Seattle-based Bill Schelly has been collecting, indexing, and recording artifacts of the comic book fan movement of the 1960s and early ’70s. This painstaking research has resulted in two editions of his landmark volume The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, as well as several other fandom-related publications.

(Do yourself a favor and see Hamster Press’ ad elsewhere in this issue.)

[Early on, founding father Jerry G. Bails proclaimed that comics fandom couldn’t count itself as truly organized until it had put on a national fan convention. And so, after a tentative outing or two, the first comics convention that could truly be called “national” was held in New York City, at that time home to virtually all comics publishers.

[While Bill was preparing a piece on the ’64 Comicon and its program booklet, collector/fan Ethan Roberts independently suggested that he himself write an article on that seminal event, which he had helped organize.

Bill has coordinated these two pieces, to give a closeup look at the 1964 New York Comicon… starting with the account of eyewitness Ethan.

—R.T.]

The 1964 New York Comicon: A Personal Reminiscence

by Ethan Roberts

Above: Metal button designed by Art Tripp for the first New York Comicon. Reprinted from Bill Schelly’s The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, courtesy of the author.

IND LL, D, and F subway lines all had stations there. Surrounding this island of the unique and the radical were the commercial interests of lower Manhattan, including the original store of the S. Klein department store chain.

I was there about to get involved in something that was then unique, a radical change for the comics business—the first real comic book convention.

It had started months earlier when I had seen notices in The Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector (RB-CC) and in some comics letters columns that a group of fans were trying to stage a get-together of comic book collectors. One afternoon in a Queens County candy store I finally got a name and a location—Bernie Bubnis, out on Long Island. It’s hard to believe how many outlets there were for comics then.

Newsstands sold them. Pharmacies sold them.

However, the most common outlets were the neighborhood candy stores, which typically had a soda fountain, candy (big surprise), greeting cards, sports and non-sports cards with bubble gum, and periodicals, including comic books in wire racks.

I’d been buying Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, JLA, other DC, and the newly interesting Marvel comics for years.

I knew about comic book fandom first from the letters columns in Julius Schwartz-edited DC comics and from buying Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego, Bob Jennings’ Comic World, and occasional other fanzines. I had already met some other fans and had been dealing with comic dealers Phil Seuling and Howard Rogofsky in New York, and Bill Thailing in Cleveland. But this getting together in a group was something new to me, so I grabbed my loose change and scurried to the pay phone in the back of the candy store. I looked up Bubnis in the Nassau County phone book and dropped in the proper change.

New York, New York, July 27, 1964. I Ethan Robert’s high school graduation picture. was an 181/2-year-old college junior who looked fourteen. What was I doing on 4th Bernie and I talked through several change deposits. He told me his Avenue just south of 14th Street, eyeballing strangers and handing out plans and the problems he was having, the chief of which was locating a white buttons with bold blue and red letters on them? site to hold the gathering. It had to be in Manhattan, to be close to the That neighborhood has an interesting history. 14th and 4th is the comics publishers and to provide transportation for those coming into southeast corner of Union Square, then a major site for radical politics “The City.” I told him I thought I could find a site. We started to disin New York. Anarchists, communists, socialists of various stripes, and cuss it when my supply of change ran out and we got cut off. Bernie labor union activists would literally stand on a soapbox to harangue wrote later that he thought me very excited and was surprised when we passersby, hoping to draw a crowd. Union Square itself was a trapezoid were cut off. I didn’t call him back. I had run out of cash; and besides, I stretching from 14th to 17th Street, with 4th Avenue as its eastern already knew what I had to do. border and Broadway on the west; it was a park with trees, bushes, I scrambled around for some sites and finally thought of the meetgrass, benches, concrete sidewalks, and subway station exits erupting ing place of my parents’ fraternal organization, The Workmen’s Circle, passengers or swallowing them. The Lexington Avenue IRT and the

The 1964 New York Comicon—Two Views a.k.a. Der Arbeiter Ring, Formed largely by working class Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, The Workmen’s Circle was a selfhelp group for people with little money or knowledge of English. Many spoke Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Hungarian, and other tongues; most also spoke Hebrew, but their language in common was the bastardized Middle High German called Yiddish. By the time I was born, the sons and daughters of those immigrants were beginning to take over the organization. They usually spoke English, and they maintained the Democratic-Socialist politics that had been common amongst the founders and which dominated the Union Square area.

My parents and relatives belonged to Branch 1001, the largest English-speaking unit in New York. Its office was on the second floor of a building located on the west side of 4th Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets. The entrance was little more than a door’s width wide. Once inside, you climbed a flight of stairs to get to Workmen’s Circle. The office area had a number of rooms, including a moderate-sized meeting room. I had been to children’s gatherings with Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop and to teenage group dating parties there.

I talked to my parents and my uncle, who had a prominent post in the organization. Branch 1001, somewhat bewilderingly, agreed to let us hold the meeting there.

I called Bernie and told him I’d located a place to hold the gathering. He was delighted. Arrangements were made and announcements sent out.

The morning of July 27th (a Monday) dawned bright and sunny. It promised to be hot, but not as humid as New York could be. I made my way down to Union Square by subway like a good New Yorker. I got there shortly after noon and went to check the meeting room to make sure everything was okay.

Others began to arrive. Unfortunately, Bernie was not there yet, and the crowd was still small. There was some confusion and anxiety.

We were supposed to start at 1:00 P.M. and the main organizer was late!

Art Tripp had already arrived with a supply of specially-made metal buttons, slightly larger than a quarter, white with the word “COMICON” in blue above and “1964” below in red. In order to relieve anxiety and make sure nobody got lost, Art and a few of us went up to 14th Street to watch for comics fans and to hand out buttons. It was blindingly bright and hot after being in a normally lit, air-conditioned building. We did collar some stragglers.

Finally Bernie showed up with Ron Fradkin, bearing gifts from major publishers. Some other fans came with them. The comicon scouts were drawn back into the meeting area. It was later learned that withdrawal combined with the narrow entrance and second floor location of the comicon led to a number of fans missing the gathering altogether.

At 2:00 P.M., with Bernie there and the dealers set up, the program began. The first formal speaker was Dave Twedt (pronounced “tweet”), a representative sent by Marvel Comics. He was an all-American type in a suit. Unfortunately, he didn’t know much about the comic book business in general or Marvel Comics in particular. He was just a college student intern, so the very first professional from the comics industry to address a gathering of fans was not impressive. We pelted him with questions anyway. He did his best to answer them. Nobody had any overripe fruit.

During this exchange, two more folks arrived from the Marvel Bullpen: Steve Ditko and Flo Steinberg.

43 Steve Ditko donated a Spider-Man drawing which later became this front cover of The 1964 Comicon Booklet; but since the program book was printed via spiritduplicator, con organizer Bernie Bubnis had to trace Ditko’s illo onto a ditto master.

[Spider-Man ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Ditko looked just like he drew himself in back-up Spider-Man features: tall, thin, balding, dour, with glasses. I had a one-on-one conversation with him. Over the course of the next thirty-six years of attending conventions, it ranks as the most depressing exchange I ever had with a comics pro. Even though I was majoring in Biology, a field in which I eventually earned a Ph.D., I confessed to Mr. Ditko that I was considering a career as a comic book artist. I think any comic book fan with modest drawing talent entertains that idea at some time.

After all, biologists do have to draw diagrams. Ditko proceeded to tell me how hard the job was; he also said it paid too little and had few lasting rewards. It was a real downer. I think we attendees had the same effect on Steve Ditko, because he never came to a convention again.

Flo Steinberg, on the other hand, was a delight.

She was as friendly as anyone could wish, and pretty, too.

When I told her I had received my Merry Marvel Marching Society membership card without a signature, she suggested I sent it to her at Marvel and she would get it signed. (She was as good as her word.)

The next organized event was a “chalk talk” by comics professional Tom Gill. Actually it was a double flip-chart talk. To me, Tom Gill will always be THE Lone Ranger artist. While Charles Flanders was the comic strip’s artist (and the first 37 issues of the Lone Ranger comic book were strip reprints), Gill drew the new stories Dell and later Gold Key published thereafter. If the Ranger’s uniform was blue-gray instead of red shirt and black pants, Tom was the artist. He drew the Tonto and Hi Yo Silver books, as well. His talk was wellrehearsed, as Gill regularly made trips to military bases and Veterans Administration hospitals to entertain One burning issue was resolved in 1964: The Silver Age Hawkman finally got his own comic (with a #1 coverdated April-May ’64) after three years of tryouts— as commemorated in the Comicon Booklet by fan artist Ronn Foss. [Hawkman ©2001 DC Comics.]

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Comic Fandom Archive Department

On this page of the post-con program booklet, Rick Weingroff discussed more just a fan with extras to sell. mostly-male audiences. He told jokes the convention’s official Marvel guest—an intern, who has vanished from Just inside the back door, Phil Seuling and drew simultaneously. As part of Marvel history. The copy below Ronn Foss’ artwork has been retyped for and his partner Len Berman were set the talk, he had a prepared page on clarity, complete with typos. [X-Men ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.] up. Also there was Bill Thailing from one of the flip charts. He did a caricaCleveland, along with his wife and ture of one fan and told him he knew sons; the latter were the first real chilwhat the fan was thinking. He proceeded dren to attend a comicon—not that to spray the page and a thought balloon some of the attendees were that appeared with a sexy young woman within much older than Thailing’s it. Gill’s talk was the only truly professional preoldest. Other dealers present were sentation at the convention.

Howard Rogofsky, the individual The next organized event was most collectors of the day blamed distribution of door prizes. With the for the rising prices of collectible comicon as small as it was, everyone comic books, and Claude Held got a prize. To my delight, most of from Buffalo. I had actually the door prizes were original comic purchased comics from each of book art. Bill Harris of Western Pubthese men prior to the comicon, lishing had donated some; Tom Gill though I had met only Phil and had brought some. Art Tripp, Bernie Howard before.

Bubnis, and Ron Fradkin had picked

up some DC originals from editors Murray Boltinoff and Julius Schwartz. I was excited, since this would be my first piece of original art. I wound up with the first page of a Little Lulu story by John Stanley.

Was I disappointed! I was an adventure comics fan. Fool that I was, I traded for Page 11 of FourColor #1296, with Fury of TV fame, drawn by Tom Gill. Guess which is worth more today! That Lulu page, however, is the seed from which my comic art collection grew. (See previous issues of Alter Ego.) There was one more notable aspect of the convention. When Bernie Bubnis started to plan it, he worked with a number of his comic-collecting friends from the Long Island area, who bought, sold, and traded comics with each other. When one of these trades went sour between Bernie and one of the initial committee members, Bernie decided this individual should no longer be a part of the group. The ousted person was not going to take this lying down. He showed up at the comicon waving a sheaf of a one-page, dittoed version of his side of the story, and handed them out to anyone who would take them. I wonder whatever became of that fellow. What was his name again? Ah, yes… Len Wein.

While all this was going on, the dealers were selling old comics.

Attendees were buying, selling, and trading. The commercial aspects of comicons were already clearly in evidence. By the first door nearest the hallway, Don Foote from the Albany, New York, area was set up.

Don wasn’t really a dealer, but

“One of the most interesting features of the first Tri-State Comicon was the appearance of one the Merry Marvel Madmen—Dave Twedt. Dave was subjected to nearly an hour of questioning from the attending comic fans and provided several very interesting answers.

“Dave explained that as a college student he had little or no interest in comic books. A schoolmate one day brought a comic into his dormitory and persuaded Dave to read it even though he considered such material below him. The comic, a Marvel book, proved interesting enough to increase Dave’s interest in the field so that this summer he took a job doing clerical work for the Marvel office.”

NEW YORK COMIC CONVENTION PARTICIPANTS Alex Almaraz Joe Azzato Len Berman Rick Bierman Dave Bibby Bernie Bubnis William Chapp Thomas Cheung Carter dePaul Steve Ditko Anthony Fibbio Don Foote Ron Fradkin Paul Gambaccini Margaret Gemignani Tom Gill Steve Griffin

Karl Gutaurski Claude Held Larry Ivie Dave Kaler Steve Keisman George Kopp Fred Landesman Howard Levine Phil Liebfred Phil Libraro Richard Lupoff George Martin Bill Mitchell Mark Nadel Phil Ressgine Ethan Roberts Howard Rogofsky

Al Russell Don Schank Phil Seuling Flo Steinberg Bill Thailing Peter Tilp Art Tripp Dave Twedt Paul Vizcarrondo Bernie Volleman Len Wein Rick Weingroff Malcolm Willits Thomas Wilson Andrew Yanchus

[NOTE: The above list was arrived at by comparing a list which appeared in the comicon booklet published by Bernie Bubnis, with discussions between Ethan Roberts and Bill Schelly about who was and was not actually there. For instance, Jerry Bails’ name appeared on the list, and he did not attend. However, this list is formally titled “Members of the 1964 New York Con” and apparently included Bails because he contributed a door prize.]

The greatest drawback to using the Workmen’s Circle offices for this gathering turned out to be the air-conditioning system. It failed.

Naturally, the area that warmed the fastest was the meeting hall where the comicon was going on. The system was re-started, but between the heat outside and the activity inside, it failed again and again. To help keep everybody cool, Phil and Len brought in large amounts of soft drinks. To keep the refreshments cold, they also brought in ice. In the temperatures of the meeting hall, the ice melted, and the containers holding the ice were not watertight. As water spread from the Seuling/Berman table, attendees and guests picked it up on their shoes. It spread over the meeting hall floor and then to other areas of the Workmen’s Circle complex.

The manager was not pleased. So to whom did he complain about it? To Phil Seuling, whose ice or water it was? To con organizer Bernie Bubnis? No, he complained to the person who had secured the hall for the convention—me.

And I don’t even like carbonated beverages!

With all this hassle, when fans started to drift away from the convention, I went with one of the groups rather than stay to the bitter end. We went out onto 4th Avenue.

In 1964, 4th Avenue south of 14th Street was one of the best places in the world for used and antiquarian bookstores, some of which sold comic books. Someone in the group I left with knew

The 1964 New York Comicon—Two Views simpler early days of comicdom.

of one of these, and we traipsed up to its second floor. There the convention continued, as fans discussed topics of interest with each other and with the store’s owner. I remember the two major topics of discussion. Perhaps you’ve heard them discussed since then: EC Comics and Bettie Page.

That first comicon wasn’t big. It wasn’t well organized. While some of those who attended went on to make a name for themselves in comic book circles, and others dropped out entirely, all who attended were pioneers in comics convention history.

It wasn’t the end of the idea. It was the beginning.

Close-Up: The Comicon Booklet

by Bill Schelly Aside from the personal reminiscences of fans who personally attended the 1964 New York comicon, like the preceding words

by Ethan Roberts, little actual documentation of this event exists.

45

“Simpler,” did I say? Well, yes… though not without conflict. The first thing one is struck by when reading the booklet is the amount of controversy that swirled around this convention—before, during, and after. It was by no means a rousing success by every account, nor did it run smoothly.

But why should that be a surprise? It was the most ambitious fan-meet held on the East Coast up to that point, and actually drew from as far away as Canada, Ohio, Maryland, and California. There were bound to be rough spots, especially when the main organizer was a teenager with no experience at mounting such an event.

The path to the 1964 comicon was a rocky one. A group of New York fans headed by a well-intentioned George Pacinda started out with unrealistically grandiose plans.

Their idea of holding a national comic book convention at a major hotel over one or two nights was simply premature. It was too early to know what type of events, if any, would draw fans from across the USA, and there weren’t enough collectors in the Northeast Steve Ditko never came to a second comics convention, but he generously region to financially support a twoprovided a second drawing to the 1964 one, for Bernie to trace for the day affair. program booklet. [Dr. Strange ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Ethan tells me he is still the proud owner of one of the metal comicon buttons provided by Art Tripp. Most of the original art awarded to the attendees undoubtedly nestles today in various private collections.

Maybe there are even a few photographs of the event out there somewhere, though none have surfaced to date.

We must consider ourselves exceedingly lucky, then, that a fanzine published to commemorate the first New York comicon exists, and that it is such an inestimable trove of treasures.

How many of the early comicons published a complete list of everyone who showed up?

How many comicon booklets were issued after the event, so they could include revealing post mortems by both the organizers and attendees?

How many included original artwork by some of the top pros of the Silver Age and the most talented fan artists of the day?

Keep in mind that comic book professionals had yet to come to terms with the fledgling comics fandom movement. They would be understandably wary about appearing at such a gathering, not knowing what they would encounter. A “testing of the waters” phase had to come first, which is why a more modest one-day event made more sense at the outset. Thus, when the Pacinda scenario died a-borning, Bubnis’ more modest plan was adopted, and it was undoubtedly for the best. It had fallen to Bernie Bubnis, along with Ron Fradkin, Art Tripp, and Ethan Roberts, to put on a much more rudimentary convention.

The only comic book professionals who made it were Tom Gill, long-time Lone Ranger artist, and Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.

Ditko showed up unannounced to check things out.

This turned out to be Sturdy Steve’s one and only appearance at a comicon, perhaps because he realized he couldn’t come without being mobbed.

Some time later, Dave Bibby remembered, “One thing I noticed about Steve Ditko. When he talks, he uses his hands and fingers just like Spider-Man.”

Yes, con organizer Bernie Bubnis really put together something special when he published Marvel’s official representative was Dave what was officially titled The 1964 Comicon BookTwedt, a summer intern who was not exactly what the let. This 34-page fanzine, printed via spirit duplicafans had been hoping for. However, Ethan’s tor (with the distinctive purple printing), comments to the contrary, several other accounts Fabulous Flo Steinberg. This photo from Bill appeared several weeks after the con. The indiof the con indicate that Twedt had been wellSchelly’s The Golden Age of Comic Fandom was cia states it had a print run of 150 copies. One actually taken at the 1965 Kalercon, but she coached and was able to answer many of the might wish it had been printed via photo-offset, hadn’t changed much…. queries volleyed at him. Stan Lee’s secretary Flo which would have allowed for a greater print Steinberg also dropped by to meet the fans, and run. Professional printing would also have of course at that time she was being made into a personality fans felt allowed the cover and interior artwork by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Curt they knew, via references to “Fabulous Flo” on Marvel’s new Bullpen Swan, and Alan Weiss to be printed in its original form, instead of being Bulletins page. transferred to ditto masters by Bernie’s sometimes shaky hand. Yet ditto printing was the most common process used at the time for fan publicaFor its part, DC Comics sent no one at all. Its contribution contions, so there is a certain appropriateness to it, recalling as it does the sisted of the donation of original art from Murray Boltinoff- and Julius

46

Comic Fandom Archive Department ed…. Obviously there was a great lack of planning at the con. This was understandable since the con committee was changing continually over a period of six months.

“The main attraction of the con should be the attendance of professional comic book editors, writers, and artists. Had more pros attended, an interesting part of the con could have been a round-robin discussion of comics: a professional comparison of trends, debates, round-table answers to questions posed by the audience. [This] would have been vitally interesting, and only a con can stage such an event for the benefit of all of fandom. (Julie probably doesn’t bump into Stan too often.)”

Weingroff castigated the committee for not having a keynote speaker, for not displaying rare old comics for fans who could not afford them (something which had been promised), and for failing to publicize the meeting. Still, he considered the con “a good start” and expressed his hope that future con committees would learn from the mistakes made the first time out of the chute.

The 1964 Comicon Booklet also included a brief account of the con

by Bubnis, Weingroff’s piece on Dave Twedt’s presentation, some fan fiction by Bubnis—and a report on the alleged circumstances that led to Len Wein’s banishment from the con. This is hardly the place to reopen old scars; at the time, however, Wein was not allowed to do more than hang around outside the meeting room, handing out the sheet that contained his outraged rebuttal to Bubnis’ charges—which, amazingly, Bubnis later printed en toto in the booklet!

Another pro who generously sent a drawing for Bubnis to trace was Superman artist Curt Swan. [Superman ©2001 DC Comics.]

Schwartz-edited books to be given away as door prizes. A rather generous and important contribution, when you think about it.

A relatively large group of prominent comics dealers attended, but only three brought wares to sell: Phil Seuling, Don Foote, and Malcolm Willits. Howard Rogofsky, Claude Held, and Bill Thailing merely brought their comics-for-sale lists to distribute. Much of the four or five hours of the convention was occupied with the trading and selling of back issues.

Aside from sterling illustrations by Ditko, Kirby, and Swan, some very nice work by top fan artists from Texas (Buddy Saunders), Ohio (Ronn Foss), Illinois (Ken Tesar), and Nevada (Alan Weiss), as well as some cartoons by Bubnis himself, gave the fanzine lots of visual appeal.

Despite the ditto printing, it must be considered one of the most desirable collectibles of all program booklets.

To Bernie Bubnis’ credit, he presented the post-convention booklet with warts-and-all accounts of the con. In the editorial he wrote: “Rick Weingroff [in his article in the booklet] delivers to his readers another well-thought-out kick in the gut. Even though you feel like arguing with Rick in defense of your own side—you can’t! You know everything he says is true and he leaves no unturned leaves for a debater to look under.”

Weingroff was one of the most literate, intelligent fan writers of the day.

In his article he wrote: “The first large meeting of comics fans… proved to be an interesting meeting. It also showed that much improvement will be needSketch sent by Jack “King” Kirby, as traced for the booklet

by Bernie Bubnis. [Thor ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

These panels of Tom Gill art from Four-Color #1296 featured the TV wonder horse Fury. [©2001 Western Publishing.]

Though some urged Bernie Bubnis to stage a more ambitious convention the following year, he preferred to fade into the background and urged others to carry the ball. At first it seemed that Paul Gambaccini (who succeeded Jerry Bails as executive secretary of the Academy of Comic Book Fans and Collectors) would take the reins.

In the end, it was Dave Kaler, the fan who followed Gambaccini in that ACBFC office, who organized the 1965 event—the first full-blown two-day comic book convention held in New York City. Its spectacular success must be at least partly attributed to lessons learned the year before.

[Stay tuned to Alter Ego for our upcoming look at other early comicons. More detailed accounts of the early New York cons can be found in Bill Schelly’s book The Golden Age of Comic Fandom, available for $14.95 from Bud Plant Comic Art, and from Hamster Press, P.O. Box 27471, Seattle, WA 98125.]

A Few Instant Corrections to the All-Star Companion Installment No.

by Roy Thomas

W

ell, The All-Star Companion is finally out, after a two-year struggle— only a few weeks before this issue of Alter Ego hits the mails and the comics shops. Unavoidably, it seems, a few errors slipped in, and this space will be used in future issues of A/E to list corrections— hopefully in a format which allows any reader so inclined to simply cut out a page or two of the issue and slip it into his/her copy of the Companion. (Of course, we assume said reader will purchase a second copy of that issue of A/E so as not to ruin his collection. You’re on your honor here.)

Naturally, while the book was being printed, and as soon as my own copies arrived by UPS, I found a few mistakes myself, so, with the last-minute forebearance of Jon B. Cooke and John Morrow, I’m shoehorning them in here. The page numbers below are those in The AllStar Companion: Page 14: All-American Comics seems to have been our particuAll-Star cover he drew was #11 (not #10). lar jinx. First we typoed that the “Ultra-Man” feature began in AllPage 45: I stated that “From #3-37… at the end of each solo American #18; in truth, it debuted in #8 (and lasted through #19). chapter, the reader is urged to read more of that hero’s exploits in Page 15: Another Ulra-typo: The pseudonym each issue of an anthology title” (such as Flash “Don Shelby,” used as the credit on “Ultra-Man,” is Comics, etc.). Instead of “each,” I should have writof course an anagram not of “by Shelly,” as stated, ten “many.” Those bottom lines were dropped totally but of “by Sheldon.” Typo or no typo, the main point from #26-29 and #35. was that the pen name stood for AA editor Sheldon Page 60: Actually, it was Chad Grothkopf, not Paul (Shelly) Mayer.

Norris, who drew the 1941 “Sandman” story in which Page 22: Despite an account I once read somethat hero first sported a purple-and-yellow costume. where and repeated in the Companion, there seems Norris illustrated the next couple of “Sandman” tales, to be no hard evidence that Dorothy Roubicek ever after which Simon and Kirby took over. My main scripted a “Wonder Woman” story in the 1940s. point, of course, was to correct the oft-stated misimHowever, as script editor of the All-American line pression that S&K were the ones who gave Sandman a from 1942-44, she probably did rewrite a bit of diatight-fitting costume and introduced Sandy. logue and captions from time to time. And, as Pages 71-72: Contrary to a parenthetical phrase, it’s detailed by Les Daniels in Wonder Woman: The unlikely that any Junior JSA members were “edited Complete History, she was kept busy by AA publishout” of the Spectre and/or Johnny Thunder chapters of er M.C. Gaines, coming up with suggestions as to All-Star #16; I was confusing that issue with #17, how Diana and other females in the tales could be where already-completed chapters were shortened due “confined or enclosed” and still “cut down the use of to a decrease in the story’s page count. chains by at least 50 to 75% without at all interfering Page 90: It was Hawkman, not Wonder Woman, with the excitement of the story or the sales of the who narrated the story of Dick Amber in All-Star books.” Surely that’s got to count for something! #24… but it was the Amazon who told Flash and Page 26: Howard Ferguson’s precise JSA credits Green Lantern that they’d be so proud of the JSA that were left off his bio-entry. He is presumed to have they’d become “fighting members” again. contributed to the inking of the Simon and Kirby Page 125: Should have mentioned that “Page U” of “Sandman” chapters in All-Star #14, at least. the JSA finale to the “lost” story “The Will of William Page 27: Due to a sloppily-worded phrase of Wilson” had been previously printed—with Yours mine, it is unclear whether some of the newspaper Truly as editor—in Last Days of the Justice Society of comic strips officially drawn by Frank Giacoia had America Special (1986).

DC’s All Star Archives Vol. 3 indicates that letterer actually been ghosted by himself for other artists, or Page 186: Hawkman’s name was somehow left off Howard Ferguson did some by others for him. The latter was the general case, as the list of JSA heroes who appeared in Justice League inking on some of Joe Simon covered in this issue’s interview with Julie Schwartz. of America #37-38. and Jack Kirby’s “Sandman” (In fact, the more I look at the last few issues of the Page 194: Gerry Conway is stated here to have chapters, such as this one Golden Age All-Star, the more I wonder if perhaps become the regular writer of Justice League of Amerifrom All-Star #14, at least.

Mike Sekowsky wasn’t involved in them, as well, ca in 1980; in truth, he did so by 1978, as correctly This information was inadvertently left out of The Allwith Frank getting the assignment and then having noted (twice) on Page 190.

Star Companion, page 26.

Mike bail him out on penciling, as Sekowsky often There! That wasn’t too painful. Only thing is, that’s [©2001 DC Comics.] did, with Frank inking. Either way, it’s nice-looking only the mistakes I caught at the 13th hour. Next issue work.) we’ll hear from the rest of the world. Fortunately, I Page 31: Due to a badly-placed prepositional phrase, the impresdon’t think too many of the errors are important, but I’ve been too sion is given that Mart Nodell used the pen name “Mort Dellon” on aggrieved in recent years by comics-related misinformavarious comics features he drew circa 1940; in truth he used it only tion being passed on as gospel in hardcover volumes, on early “Green Lantern” stories. Also, Sheldon Moldoff ’s first and thus rarely corrected, to want to sweep anything Green Lantern story was in All-American #16 (not #17), and the under the rug myself.

An ALTER EGO Bonus!

by Roy Thomas

F

or technical reasons, at the eleventh hour, two tiers (rows) of Flash panels from the never-published 1945-46 Justice Society story “The Will of William Wilson” had to be omitted from The All-Star Companion. These panels, scripted by JSA co-creator Gardner Fox, drawn by Martin Naydel, and certainly edited by Shelly Mayer and Julie Schwartz, are printed here for the first time ever. “Will” was removed from the schedule circa 1946 and later “written off “ forever, in 1949. We begin with what was originally meant to be the bottom of Page 2 of the six-page Flash chapter….

After arriving sometime in the late 12th century on his “impossible” mission to retrieve “the sword of Genghis Khan,” The Flash spies a lone man being chased by two armed Mongols on horseback. For an instant he hesitates to let anything turn him aside from his quest—but then recalls that, with his speed, it won’t be a very long detour. So he leaps into action….

It goes almost without saying that artist Martin Naydel, who since 1943 had been drawing a turtle clone of The Flash called The Terrific Whatzit in Funny Stuff for his brother Larry Nadle [sic], DC’s editor for humorous comics, was an odd choice for a super-hero artist. His action scenes tended toward the stiff. (Of course, Gardner Fox had given him a hard scene to draw in the first panel on “Page 3,” if he had described Flash as reaching from behind to smite his foe. But Fox may merely have directed the artist to have the hero hit the Mongol. The precise way this was done, and the symbolic stars over the rider’s head, may have been the artist’s own idea.)

And so the Mongols (who practically lived on their horses) are sent running on foot toward a minimally-rendered horizon. For all his “cartoony” qualities, however, Naydel doesn’t forget to give the rescued man a shadow, which actually balances out other lines on the left side of Panel 2.

And there you have ’em—five more panels to go with the dozen-plus pages’ worth of previously-unpublished JSA art printed for the first time in The All-Star Companion. For the rest of the artwork and the story behind it—indeed, for more “Secrets behind All-Star Comics” than you ever dreamed existed—send for your copy of The All-Star Companion today!

Roy T Thomas homas’ Legendary Legendary Roy Comics F F anzine Comics anzine

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Volume 3, No. 7 Winter 2001

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Second-In-A-Row Special Fawcett Section

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Bill Schelly

Design & Layout Jon B. Cooke GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS

Production John Morrow Eric Nolen-Weathington

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

Contents re:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

FCA Editor

Munificent missives from Marty Nodell and others.

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Michael T. Gilbert

Roger Hill talks to Capt. Marvel Jr. artist Mac Raboy’s son, David, about his father.

Editors Emeritus

Bob Rogers in the 20th Century (Part Two) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

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

Cover Artists

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Michael T. Gilbert presents two previously unseen C.C. Beck short prose stories (with illos!).

Rich Buckler C.C. Beck

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Cover Color

Another fun-filled Fawcett lineup courtesy of P.C. Hamerlinck.

Tom Ziuko C.C. Beck

Fawcett-to-Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Mailing Crew

An editorial potpourri assembled by Jennifer T. Go.

Russ Garwood, D. Hambone, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker

And Special Thanks to: Mike W. Barr Dave Berg Brian Boerner Ray Bottorff, Jr. Frank Brunner Rich Buckler Kurt Busiek Gerry Conway Craig Delich Al Dellinges Mark Evanier Ramona Fradon Mike Friedrich Keif Fromm Carl Gafford Jennifer T. Go Ron Harris Roger Hill Joe Kubert Paul Levitz Elliot Maggin Dave Manak Rich Morrissey

R.H. gives us the second portion of his interview with Raboy’s background artist.

Will Murray Mart & Carrie Nodell Denny O’Neil Jerry Ordway George Perez David Raboy Ethan Roberts Bob Rogers Alex Ross Julius Schwartz Scott Shaw!

David Siegel Robin Snyder Flo Steinberg Marc Swayze Joel Thingvall Dann Thomas Len Wein John Wells Marv Wolfman Donald Woolfolk Ed Zeno

We Didn’t Know... It Was the Golden Age! . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Fawcett artist Marc Swayze on the DC Shazam! reprint compilations.

The Fawcett Side of Dave Berg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The Mad artist/writer on his ’40s work for Fawcett and his World War II experiences.

The Marvel Family Battles Evil Incarnate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Would-be Shazam! scripter C.C. Beck’s conflicts with the 1970s DC editorial department.

JSA-JLA Section. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About our cover: Roy says: “In the 1970s and ’80s C.C. Beck began to re-create classic covers—first those he himself had done, then those by other Fawcett artists, and eventually even heroes he had never drawn, like Batman. I loved ’em all, but when it came time to buy one, the only choice for me was Marvel Family Comics #1, which—JSA lover that I was, even at age 4-5—really knocked me out! It still does, hanging on my staircase every day!” [Art ©2001 Estate of C.C. Beck; Marvel Family ©2001 DC Comics.]

Above: Panel detail by Mac Raboy from the Captain Marvel Jr. story in Master Comics #29 (Aug. 1942), “The Iron Hill of the Hun!” See page 7 for a look at the entire page, repro’d from photocopies of the original artwork. [©2000 DC Comics.]

Alter EgoTM is published quarterly 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@oburg.net. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 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.

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• A huge JOE KUBERT section, spotlighting his greatest creation, TOR! • Part Three of our examination of the work of MAC RABOY! • A look at CAPTAIN MARVEL’S MANY IMITATORS! • ROY THOMAS continues the secret origin of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, with art

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re:

3 Concerning the Wendell Crowley piece in FCA, I’ve got to tell you a story that [comic artist] Bill Ward once told me about the Fawcett editor. It may be apocryphal, like the one you hear about a DC editor being hung out the window by an angry freelancer, but it goes something like this: Crowley was with some Jack Binder shop artists while Ward was on a bookshelf ladder above an inker. Ward looked down and noticed that the inker had filled in his own bald spot with a finely inked hair pattern, complete with a natural-looking whorl. Ward pointed it out to Crowley, who was tall enough to conveniently view it and commented to Bill, “Gee, I wish he inked that good for us!”

Mort Todd (via Internet) Mort Todd is a former editor of Cracked magazine, and has recently begun both a new comic strip (called “Biografix”) with artist John Severin, and a new syndicate called Comicfix.

Dear Roy,

Our heading this time is a slightly amended detail of the Arthur PeddyBernard Sachs cover of All-Star Comics #49 (Oct.-Nov. 1949). For the entire cover, repro’d from photocopies of the original art courtesy of A/E founder Jerry G. Bails, see TwoMorrows’ 192-page All-Star Companion, currently available. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Dear Roy— For a super job on Alter Ego—many thanks. But—there was a bit more to the story of my partly penciled Sub-Mariner cover than you said in your caption. May I fill you in on the circumstances?

While working at Timely with Stan Lee, we (the staff) got word that all “finished” art was to be completed in pencil—in such a way that the art could be reproduced—and so [it must be] tightened up, as sharp as with a pen, and not light or loose. A finished piece of art. (Apparently to circumvent the need for inkers.)

A short time passed by—and we soon went back to normal inking for completion.

That was settled; but some pieces of work were left! In my possession was that partlyfinished Sub-Mariner cover. Any of the art that did not show up in that copy was done in blue—so as not to be photographed—but the black pencil marks shot OK. That’s the story of the photocopy—yet now, these many years later, my son (Spence) found the art in his home, buried away—and he wanted me to have the original cover art. Kind of an interesting story. We photocopied the page. Wonder how much this page could be worth?

Thanks to Martin Greim for allowing you to use that absolutely gorgeous Infantino-Ordway illo as the cover of #5! It was also a thrill to learn that the first Nuclear story does (or did) exist! I’ve suspected as much ever since I read the entry on Nuclear in Michael Fleischer’s 1976 Wonder Woman Encyclopedia, but at this late date I never imagined any of it would turn up.

I appreciated the interview with Mart and Carrie Nodell. Alan Scott’s “parents” seem like a really sweet couple. Likewise, I loved the George Roussos interview. How I wish fans could see his “Air Wave” as it originally appeared in Detective Comics. The color is stunning!

Many thanks for the artistic representation of all the JSAers and for the continued samples from published and unpublished stories. I’m surprised no one has commented on the code numbers on all those Golden Age splashes. It seems obvious to me that those weren’t necessarily the issues they were supposed to appear in. They simply represented the order in which the stories were turned in to the DC offices.

The “Johnny Thunder” episode in Flash Comics #91, for instance, is coded “FL96” and the “Black Canary” episodes in #95, 99, and 103 are coded “FL101,” “FL105,” and “FL107.” The “Ghost Patrol” stories in #84, 91, 99, 103 are coded “FL86,” “FL98,” “FL106,” and “FL109.” The Hawkman tales in #91, 99, and 103 are coded “FL95,” “FL105,” and “FL111.” The only break from this kind of coding is in the “Atom” strip. His story in Flash #91 is “OH24” (“On Hand,” perhaps?), and the one in #99 is “OH31.” (All these details are courtesy of Mike Tiefenbacher.) Incidentally, the unpublished Flash-Thorn adventure “Strange Confessions” is “FL100,” while the Flash-Thinker clash is “FL112.”

Carrie sends her love, as I do, too.

Marty Nodell Somewhere in Florida Thanks for the additional info, Marty.

Always great to hear from the father of the original Green Lantern, even if it’s about Prince Namor! And here’s a fuller (if smaller) repro of what you sent, with the copy intact this time. I still wish we could see The SubMariner’s face!

Dear Roy, Congrats on another great issue. I’m a sucker for the JSA and the Golden Age, even though I’m a child of the ’70s. I guess I’ve got E. Nelson Bridwell to thank for that, with all the great reprints he was overseeing back then.

Regarding Rich Morrissey’s discussion of the early “Sandman” artists: I made extensive notes on the strip when I read the Adventure Comics run on microfiche and came up with this: Here, a bit smaller than we saw it last issue, is Mart Nodell’s unfinished late-’40s Sub-Mariner cover—at least the part he could fit onto a photocopier—including most of the title (obviously “The Strange Story of the Talking Dragon!”) and the beast’s word balloon.

[Sub-Mariner ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Bert Christman drew the “Sandman”stories in New York World’s Fair 1939 and Adventure #40-43; Creig Flessel drew (and sometimes signed) #45, 49-66, and possibly #67 and #68; Ogden Whitney drew (and continued on pg. 32

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

4

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”

An Interview with David Raboy Conducted by Roger Hill me, and thus you, the reader, an opportunity to get to know Mac Raboy a bit better than we otherwise might. —R.H.] ROGER HILL: David, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me about your father, Mac Raboy. I have to ask you right off—was his last name originally “Rabinowitz”?

DAVID RABOY: No. My great grandfather’s Ellis Island papers show the name was “Raboi.” These were the papers he brought with him. My grandfather preceded my great grandfather, and when he came over he departed Ellis Island with the name spelled “Raboy.” So I’m guessing that “i” became “y” on Ellis Island. It got “Anglofied.”

My grandfather came with one or two other brothers when they were quite young. There were nine brothers altogether, and after they had established themselves with jobs and so on, they brought the other brothers and my great grandfather across.

RH: And the name “Raboi” originates from where?

Detail of Raboy’s powerful cover for Master Comics #26 (May 1942). Thanks to Keif Fromm. [©2001 DC Comics.]

RABOY: Bessarabka.

RH: Do you know how to spell that?

RABOY: [laughs] No. All I know is that it is somewhere in eastern Romania.

RH: Was your dad’s name Emanuel, or Manuel?

[INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: When I first contacted David Raboy, son of legendary comics artist Mac Raboy, he wasn’t that thrilled to hear from me, let alone begin a discussion about his father. With gentle persuasion, he finally relented and allowed me to question him in depth about his father’s personal life and career working in the comics field.

[While growing up in the woods of Golden’s Bridge, New York, David learned much from his father about building things. Mac Raboy had a love for animals, a passion for conservation and science, and an awareness of all things that played into that. David developed similar interests during those years and today holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Animal Science and Animal Behavior.

[He currently works as a zoo director, which entails the planning and building of new zoos to replace old ones. David has loaned his abilities to the development of zoo facilities all over the United States, including the building of new zoos in Syracuse, New York, Waco, Texas, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. My utmost thanks to David for allowing

RABOY: Manuel. But all of my life, when he was alive, I never once heard him referred to as Manuel. No one ever called him anything but Mac. RH: I understand your grandfather’s name was Isaac [NOTE: misspelled “Issac” last issue.—R.T.], and that he worked in a hat factory and wrote several books.

RABOY: And essays, poetry, and political polemics, and so on.

RH: I believe he eventually moved to the Mid-West later on, didn’t he?

RABOY: He moved to North Dakota, which is probably a little further than what most people think of as the Mid-West. He was a horsehandler on a horse ranch just outside of Gladstone, North Dakota. He wrote a couple of books about that experience.

All his books were written in Jewish [Hebrew]. I don’t read Jewish.

Two of them, however, were translated into English. My Brothers is

—David Raboy Interview about him and his brothers coming to this country, and The Jewish Cowboy was more specifically about experiences in North Dakota.

He was there for just a year or a couple of years. The other brothers and their father had a fairly large dairy farm in Connecticut, and my grandfather had graduated from an agricultural college in New Jersey.

So he was asked by my great grandfather to return to Connecticut to manage the family dairy farm. Which he did… I think, probably, to his regret, but that’s beside the point. So he managed the dairy farm for a while, and worked in New York City, both in a hat factory and as a furrier. As his fame grew as a writer, he ultimately ceased factory work. He contracted TB and died in about 1943, when I was about three. I have just a couple of recollections of him.

5

RH: Did Mac ever discuss these prints with you or the family?

RABOY: Not at any great length. My mother was more willing to discuss them than he was. She was proud of the fact that they were there in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan. When I visited the museum they were not on exhibit, but I inquired and was shown them. They were very typical of his work during that period.

RH: Any idea how Mac and your mother met?

RABOY: Not a clue.

RH: Your mom’s name was Lulu Belle…?

RH: So where was Mac born? I’ve heard both New York City and the Bronx.

RABOY: The Bronx is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City.

Whether or not he was born in the Bronx, I honestly don’t know. He was born in New York City, somewhere.

RH: I heard that Mac was a graduate of De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Yet, when a friend of mine tried to locate a picture of him in the high school yearbook records there, he couldn’t be found.

RABOY: The only thing I can tell you is my understanding that he graduated from De Witt Clinton. We would drive by it when we drove into the city to visit his mother, who was my grandmother. I can’t account for why there is no yearbook picture. Knowing my father as I do, I’m not surprised.

RH: Yes. From what I’ve learned so far, he was a little camera shy.

RABOY: [laughs] That’s being charitable.

My dad also went to the Cooper Union School and the Pratt Institute.

RH: Both are highly respected institutions for artists.

RABOY: I’m not aware that he graduated or received any kind of degree from either of them, but I suspect not.

RH: It’s very typical for artists to do a year or so at those schools and then move on quickly because of needing work and an income.

RABOY: I think that’s pretty much what he did. He was born in 1914, so he would have gone to those schools around 1932 or 1934.

RH: Are you aware of the wood engravings Mac did for the WPA back during the Depression?

RABOY: I am aware of them. I saw them many years ago at the Met [the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City]. I went up there.

This Mac Raboy self-portrait was drawn for George “Inky” Roussos’ sketchbook sometime around 1944 or 1945. The late George Roussos, who went on to become a comic book artist himself (see A/E V3#5), took his sketchbook around to many of his artistic “heroes” of the Golden Age to get illos. Raboy did this pencil drawing at the time he was doing Green Lama for Spark Publications. Note the stipple beard and glum look on his face. Not much humor going on here, but then again, there wasn’t much going on in the world at that time to be humorous about. This is the first time this drawing has been reproduced totally intact.

(When first seen in Jim Steranko’s History of the Comics, the background images were eliminated.) [©2001 estate of Mac Raboy.]

6 RABOY: Morris. Lulu Belle Morris.

Morris was her maiden name.

RH: Was she from Golden’s Bridge?

RABOY: No, but they had friends in the area before they bought land and built the house. They summered up there. They got married during one of those summers in Golden’s Bridge.

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

This full-page write-up (along with a blown-up detail of Flash and Dale from the Flash Gordon strip, below left) appeared in King Features’ 1949 promotional booklet Famous Artists & Writers. [©2001 King Features Syndicate.]

I recollect a family album on my mother’s side that involved my mother when she was younger and a dancer. She danced for the Martha Graham Company for many years.

There was a scrapbook album of her, with some playbills and things like that mounted in. The Martha Graham Dance Company was probably the most famous modern dance company in the United States at that time. I do recall one photo that my sister has of my mother during that time, and she was quite an attractive young lady.

RH: Did your mother ever dance or perform for you kids?

RABOY: No. No, at some point she stopped dancing. She took up theatre directing.

RH: What else can you tell me about the early years of when your father went into the profession of being an artist?

RABOY: He worked for Walt Disney at one point. There was a guy who worked with him named Phil Wolfe.

He’s long since dead.

RH: I had not heard anything about Mac Raboy working for Disney. This wasn’t in California, so perhaps it was in a Disney East Coast branch studio?

RABOY: It could have been. I’m not sure, but before everything that you know occurred, he worked for Disney.

Hated him.

I can’t tell you specifically what he worked on—which characters or which films. He never spoke in any great detail about them. He made rather disparaging remarks about Disney as an employer. That’s all I really know.

RH: Hated him?

RH: The 1949 King Features promotional booklet write-up on Mac—of which I sent you a copy—mentions Mac starting out in a small commercial art service where he did “all kinds of dirty work, etc.” Any knowledge of what art service this refers to?

RABOY: Oh yeah. I guess Disney was cheap, and he was a real taskmaster. So my father hated him.

RABOY: I don’t know anything about that. The whole article, as it related to him, once the house was established, frankly reads like bull. [laughs] You can quote me on that, if you want. It’s marketing crap. It was common in the later 1940s or 1950s. It doesn’t bear any more resemblance to my father than my cat does.

—David Raboy Interview

RH: I’ve interviewed a number of artists over the years who felt the same way. It was just a job, a way of earning a living to support their family. So I’m curious about this “serious” art that you’re talking about. In Mac’s spare time, would he play around with pen and inks or watercolors?

RH: Did your dad ever mention working at the Harry Chesler [comics] shop?

RABOY: The name was mentioned, but I have no real recollection of the context or substance, or whether it was my father or mother.

RH: Did Mac ever show you or your sister some of the “Captain Marvel Jr.” comic book work he had done earlier, before starting on Flash Gordon?

RABOY: He didn’t do watercolors.

Well, on rare occasions he did play around with them. Pen and ink, oils… none of which have survived. We saw them in progress, and we saw them when they were completed. They were destroyed.

RABOY: Oh, yeah. We’d seen it.

RH: Was he the kind of artist who saved copies of everything he did?

RABOY: No, but my mother did. She was the family archivist, I guess you could call her. She would save whatever work of his she could get her hands on. He had a habit of destroying his work, so it was hard to get it, sometimes.

7

RH: Oh, no! And they were good, in your opinion?

Raboy’s woodcut engraving “Before Bedtime” (12"x14"), done for the Works Progress Administration, mid- to late-1930s.

RABOY: [laughs] Yes. They were quite excellent.

RH: What kind of subject matter had he painted, David?

RH: You mean, Mac would be dissatisfied with something he had drawn and he would just tear it up?

RABOY: Well, we used to spend long periods of time loafing on Cape Cod during the summer, so these paintings showed things like sand dunes, derelict boats up on the beaches, and so on. And they really were quite fine. I wish I had them today. I’m an ocean person, you know. But I have a lot of stuff he did during the early days of the WPA… the prints and so on.

RABOY: Yeah. Nothing was ever good enough. Therefore it couldn’t be seen by anyone because it would reflect poorly on him. This was irrespective of the fact that, in many instances, what he did was quite excellent. But he didn’t perceive it that way.

RH: Do you have the actual wood engravings that he carved to make the prints?

I have some of his artwork and my sister has considerably more, because she was actually living with my mother up to the point of my mother’s death, and my mother still had this collection. So my sister kind of took over the responsibility of caring for it. At my sister’s request, we’ve gone through it and picked out things that I happened to like, and these things are now in my collection.

RABOY: No. Those were burned. I don’t know whether he burned them or if it was government policy to burn them, or whether they burned them to heat the house. Back in those [Depression] days, there was plenty of that going on.

So what we have left is what my mother managed to salvage in the way of prints. I’ve given pieces to my children, both prints and pen and inks. They are quite striking. There’s kind of a starkness, a despair, in the work. Much of it focuses on downtrodden farmers, miners, and so on. You know, the Depression era and social consciences of art.

RH: And is any of this art comic book work?

RABOY: No, it’s serious art.

The comic book stuff was not of great interest to us. We had all the originals from Flash Gordon, for instance. My sister sold them off, or we gave them away as gifts over the years.

They weren’t of great interest to my father, either, quite frankly. It was just his way of making a living.

A Raboy page from the CMJr story in Master Comics #29 (Aug. 1942), “The Iron Heel of the Hun!” Repro'd from photocopies of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

RH: Let’s talk a little about your dad’s work on Flash Gordon. This may be a bit too

”Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

8

“It was just his way of making a living.” Mac Raboy’s first (and thus unsigned) Sunday page for Flash Gordon, from August 1, 1948, probably with the assistance of Gene McDonald. Raboy began signing the strip shortly afterward. [©2001 King Features Syndicate.]

personal, but I’m curious how much your dad was being paid to draw the Flash Gordon strip.

length of an ocean liner. It had the long, low kind of fin that didn’t rise but just continued out beyond the trunk.

RABOY: [laughs] I know exactly what he was paid and I know exactly when he got a raise, and what that was, too. When I was old enough to become aware of it, which was in the early 1950s, he was being paid $300 a week.

He also had a Chrysler Imperial for a while. It was huge. I remember taking it once, with a friend, to go to the Newport Folk Festival, and I was doing about 85 miles an hour on the Connecticut Turnpike. [laughs] Of course, I didn’t tell him that. It was a very powerful car, and had power-everything. Then, in about the mid-1950s, I wanna say around 1954 or 1956, he asked for a raise from King Features and he went to $325 per Sunday page.

RH: Wow! Three hundred for one Sunday page a week?

RABOY: You got it.

RH: That was an incredible sum of money back then!

RH: Did King Features squawk about that?

RABOY: That was at a time when a brand new Cadillac was $6000 and a brand new Volkswagen was fifteen hundred.

RABOY: I don’t know. All I remember is our mother telling us that he had asked for it and they apparently agreed, because she was quite pleased that he went from $300 to $325, at a time when my allowance was about two dollars a week. Beyond that, I went off to college and started my own life, so I can’t tell you.

RH: Man, you’ve got a good memory of this stuff.

RABOY: Well, we bought them both. So I know very well what they cost. My father had a twodoor black El Dorado that pulled a nineteen-foot air stream. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was a big son-of-a-gun that was the

“There’s kind of a starkness, a despair, in the work.” Raboy’s 1930s WPA woodcut “Flooded Mine” (5"x7").

RH: Did your father seem happy drawing Flash Gordon?

—David Raboy Interview

9

RABOY: He hated it!

RH: That seems strange to me. I mean, a lot of the artists who started in comic books back in those days thought it was the supreme opportunity to get a respected newspaper strip, or any newspaper strip, for that matter. In Mac’s case, he was able to take on one of the most famous adventure strips of all time and was able to follow in the footsteps of the great Alex Raymond.

RABOY: He hated it.

RH: Did you ever see any other artists working with your father on Flash Gordon? Any assistants at all?

RABOY: [laughs] You want the truth? The truth is that the only one I ever saw touch it during all those years that I know about was the person who printed the words in the balloons. My sister did it and got $10 a week to do it. That was back when she was a young girl. I wanted nothing to do with it, and I couldn’t have block-printed neatly enough anyway. But she used to enjoy doing it. She had his talent, and she’s never done anything with it. She did this during the 1950s.

RH: So far as you know, nobody else ever penciled or inked the strip?

As stated last issue, Raboy was paid quite well compared to most Fawcett artists in the early ‘40s, as seen by this official list of freelance rates.

RABOY: No, no. Nobody could even go into his studio when he was working. He worked on that strip two or three hours a day, and you didn’t go in there when he was working.

RH: Two or three hours every day?

RABOY: I won’t say every day, but his habit was two or three hours a day.

RH: Early or late?

RABOY: Well, he never did anything early. It would be intermittent, and it would not be a set time.

RH: Did he seem happy or appreciative that he got his originals back from King Features?

RABOY: I don’t know that there was ever a reaction.

I’m not aware that he really cared one way or another.

RH: And I don’t suppose he ever talked about selling these originals?

RABOY: No. That would never even have been a consideration. They were put into the closet and they were not shown to anybody, and they were not available to anybody. Only after his death could they be given away as gifts. Until that point, they gathered dust in a closet.

RH: Mac never gifted any Sunday page originals to anybody?

RABOY: No. Absolutely not. When you originally Even before Cap Junior came along, Raboy illustrated Master Comics’ previous cover feature, “Bulletman.” Repro'd from photocopies of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

10

”Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

Raboy’s love of history shows through in a series of beautifully rendered house ads for The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.

Thanks to Jerry Ordway. [©2001 the respective copyright owners.]

would be having gone in to talk with him about something else, and he would be working. And you didn’t do that too often, believe me. So I would glance at what he was doing. I had no real interest in it, and he never encouraged any interest in it. If the script was late, there would be some annoyance at that. I recall one time the script not arriving at all, so my father simply sat down and wrote that week’s sequence.

contacted me and wanted to talk about my father… you see, there’s a lot that you don’t know that is very personal within the family. There was and still is a reluctance about all of this. Even in the stuff that I’m telling you, it’s not the whole picture, if you know what I mean.

RH: I understand. Yes, I do get that feeling that there is more going on here, and—well, okay, let’s move on. What do you remember about the scripts that Mac worked from? Did you ever hear the name “Don Moore”?

RH: Is that the only time he ever wrote anything on the feature?

RABOY: As far as I know. And he wasn’t real pleased at having to do it, but he had to get the work in and that was the only thing he could do.

RABOY: I don’t remember that name.

Frankly, there was another name, and I don’t recall it now, but I remember another name as being the writer for a long time. It wasn’t Don Moore, and I know that for sure. But the scripts arrived on a weekly basis in the mail.

RH: And what did he do in cases where he and the family wanted to vacation for a few days at the Cape?

RH: And did Mac immediately read it?

RABOY: Oh, I don’t know that he would immediately read it. [laughs] They were about eleven weeks ahead of publication. It varied, nine to eleven weeks ahead. He would get the script and he’d lay it out. I mean, at some point he would identify the number of scenes that he was going to use. I never once, in the entire time, read a script.

If I looked at the panels he was doing, it

Before he got involved in amateur dramatics, Raboy (and a writer, of course) had one of his comic book heroes tangle with a “toymaster of crime,” who appropriated the name and personality of Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Splash page of Spark Publications’ Green Lama #8 (March 1946). [©2001 the respective copyright holders.]

RABOY: If it was a brief vacation, what he would do is get ahead a couple of weeks, or he would take the work with him. Basically it was a drawing board that he would rest in his lap against any desk or table. He didn’t use one of those artist’s drafting tables.

RH: Not even at home in his studio?

RABOY: No, not at all. He never used that sort of thing at home. What he used earlier

—David Raboy Interview or in the commercial houses, I don’t know. He also had one of those two-foot-long fluorescent lights that was pretty bright. This drawing board was basically a hard wood—I want to say, something like a cutting-board. But was maybe three feet, 32" wide by maybe 40" long. It was just a hardwood laminated board. And that’s what the strips were done on. So he could sit almost anywhere and do it.

tion of things. It began after the War. They were selling prefabricated boxed-up Army barracks for about six hundred bucks apiece. So he bought one of those and had it set up on a foundation. He then employed a couple of carpenters, and with them working for him, they finished the barracks which ultimately became the living room, then added three wings onto the house. It’s a very large house.

RH: It’s still standing, I assume?

RH: Since you mentioned that Mac disliked doing Flash Gordon, I take it he did not read or keep up with sciencefiction or the U.S. space program?

RABOY: Oh, yeah. One wing was a studio with a pottery room below it.

Another wing was a combination bedroom and bath, kitchen, and dining room. The third wing was a series of three bedrooms, two of which my sister and I occupied.

RABOY: Well, he died before there really was a space program. He didn’t read science-fiction. He read history. He was very much taken with Abraham Lincoln and the events surrounding the Civil War. He read Carl Sandberg’s five-volume history, as well as many others.

He collected Civil War-era weapons.

RH: So your dad liked carpentry work?

RABOY: Oh, yes. He built many, many—well, mostly furniture. He had a shop with all kinds of power tools. He made a number of tables and benches, you know. He made coffee tables of various kinds. They’re distributed among the family.

RH: He did? I guess, back in those days, a person could still find and afford to buy those sorts of things.

RABOY: Oh, yes. I remember he bought an 1863 Springfield rifle that had been used to shoot Union soldiers. It was an original and had the initials carved into it of the original owner. It was an original long-rifle, not a carbine. I think he paid about 40 bucks or 45 bucks for it, which again, for that time, was a fair amount of change. It was in almost mint condition, too. It had been used in battle but, you know, it had not been reconditioned or retooled or modernized. All of the parts were original Remington parts. My mother and he made trips together to Gettysburg and elsewhere. They enjoyed visiting historic places like that.

11

Woodworking was a hobby for him. But he would never sell anything like that. He would give stuff away. I remember my cousin got married about forty years ago and he gave them a pair of heavy pine end-tables.

They’re still in the family and are held as family heirlooms. He did woodcarving and sculpture, too.

“I think he took some pride in having helped create Captain Marvel Jr.” And well he should have! This page from Master #29 is repro’d from photocopies of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

RH: Did he ever fire the rifle?

RABOY: No. It went up over the fireplace. He was not big on firing guns. I began acquiring guns at a pretty young age, and he would occasionally walk with me through the woods carrying a .22 rifle. In theory we were hunting, but I can’t recall that we ever killed anything. But it was fun walking through the woods.

RH: That was up in Golden’s Bridge, New York, I assume, where Mac designed and built an enormous house? Tell me about it, if you don’t mind.

RABOY: The house was built around 1947 to 1948. It was a combina-

RH: You said your mother was a potter. So Mac played around with it, too?

RABOY: My father potted also, but the pottery room was essentially for my mother. She had a potter’s wheel and a kiln and all that kind of stuff. My father built my mom her potter wheel.

RH: What kinds of things would Mac sculpt from clay?

RABOY: Oh… heads, torsos.

RH: Are any of these items still around?

RABOY: Yes. RH: Are these heads of just anybody, or of famous people?

RABOY: Some are of just very stylized women. Several of us have castings of the head of Lincoln that he did. They’re quite impressive, actually.

12

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”— The sets were built right there out of very light pine and thin plywood. In terms of structure, they would be fairly flimsy. They were essentially visual backdrops to the play. But they were done very well and the finished product looked really quite stunning.

He liked to do it. He would watch rehearsals and he would do the sets, construct them and set them up and everything, but he would never be present when the performance was going on.

When the curtain would go up, the first thing that would happen would be applause for the set. That applause might go on for several minutes. And then the play would begin. And that’s why my father was never present. He could not handle the recognition.

Everybody in the community knew who did the sets, and the applause was for what he had done. And my mother would convey that back to him, but he could never be present to receive it himself.

RH: What kind of plays did they do there?

RABOY: They did things like Twelve Angry Men, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible. Those are three that I recall right off.

In Twelve Angry Men I played the part of the reporter, who reported the events of the play.

In Twelve Angry Men it was the courtroom that my father designed and built. There was another one where you were looking inside a butcher shop. I mean, it was just so realistic. You know, he painted the big meat cases, butcher block table, etc.

RH: So people in the community were very aware that your father was an artist?

Does this page from the “CMJr” story in Master #32, repro’d from photocopies of the original art, reflect Mac Raboy’s social conscience—or is just another modern version of Oliver Twist? Nice, either way. [©2001 DC Comics.]

That was what he did, I would say, as a hobby. The work was never sold. In the best case scenario, if you got his work, it was as a gift. Also, my mother directed summer stock theatre for many years there in Golden’s Bridge. She directed, and my father would design and build the sets.

RH: Wow. You must have attended some of these plays, right?

RABOY: I not only attended them, I acted in them. [laughs] RH: Sounds like the whole family got involved there. How old were you then?

RABOY: Oh, yeah. This was a community that was not made up of wealthy people, so my father was a local legend there. He was not an architect or engineer, but whenever there was design work needed for building or renovation of community buildings, he would do that. That is, he would direct the work. He was the general contractor. He hired the carpenters, the masons, the plumbers, and so on, and they did what he told them to. The house he built is not only still standing, but it’s one of the houses in the community.

I think he was doing architectural work that was substantially better than what architects were designing at the time.

RH: You know, David, it sounds to me like Mac may have been a frustrated architect.

RABOY: I don’t know if he was frustrated or not. He worked at a level that he enjoyed. If he had wanted to do that or make a living by it, he could have switched over and would have been grabbed up. There were plenty of people who would have liked to have gotten him.

RH: It’s strange to me that he took great pride in his woodworking, sculpting, and set-designing abilities, and yet he just didn’t have it for his pen and ink work on Flash Gordon.

RABOY: I was already off in college. This was something they were doing for many years, and if there was a small bit part, I would sometimes get it. This was in the middle 1950s, for a period of, oh, ten or fifteen years.

RABOY: No, it was just—you have to understand. He had no use for King Features. He had no use for newspapers.

RH: This was all volunteer work, which they did because they enjoyed it?

RABOY: Well, that’s how he supported his family, but he didn’t admire them. He didn’t respect what he was doing. I told you, he hated Flash Gordon and detested what he was doing.

RABOY: Money that was raised from the sale of tickets went back into the social activities for improvements, etc. I would say my parents did this up until about five or six years before my father died. The theatre was located there in the Golden’s Bridge community. It was actually created out of a huge old dairy barn.

RH: But they paid him good money.

RH: You mentioned that your mother had been the caretaker of Mac’s published work. Did this include comic books?

RABOY: Everything. Everything from income tax returns to maintaining the things that he would allow to be kept. She balanced the checkbook. She was the business agent.

—David Raboy Interview

13

RH: Did Mac ever talk about his days working for comic books?

RH: So he did have an interest in talking about politics?

RABOY: Only in terms that were rather derogatory. I think he took some pride in having helped create Captain Marvel Jr. I do think he felt good about that.

RABOY: More than a little bit. It was one of his favorite topics. He had strong feelings and he had no qualms about expressing those feelings in the house. He was not politically active in the community about environmental issues or any political issues, but he held strong views.

RH: Do you think he felt some resentment toward the publishers who got most of the money from his creative efforts?

RH: Did he ever try to RABOY: There was a get you into something lot of resentment. And a else, or to go into art? lot of it was based on a RABOY: No. No, there class consciousness. You was never an effort to know, the wealthy have any of us, my sisnewspaper owners verter or myself, go into sus the artists and othFlash Gordon Sunday for March 23, 1952; by this point both Raboy and writer Don Moore art. He recognized, as ers who were not making have credit. [©2001 King Features Syndicate.] did all of us, that my the kind of living they sister had inherited his should have been. So talents, and he encouraged her. But it never materialized. I don’t think working for King Features was never a source of pride for him. So don’t he ever went overboard in pushing her, or anything like that. write the kind of thing that King Features wrote for their promotional booklet, because that’s not who he was.

RH: Can you give me a rundown on what a typical day might have been like for Mac Raboy in the late 1940s or early 1950s?

RH: I’ll keep it honest and straightforward. So was this house located in town, or out in the country a little?

RABOY: [laughs] He would get up, if it was early, about 10:00 A.M. If it RABOY: More than a little. You had to walk a mile on a dirt road to get was typical, closer to noon. He would engage, during the course of the to the tar road where we used to pick up a school bus. At that point it day, in projects or hobbies that he was involved in. He would first eat was a very rural area up in Westchester [County]. Our garden was breakfast, eggs typically, toast, that sort of thing. He liked poached eggs, plowed by a dairy farmer using draft horses. as a matter of fact. He would put in, during the course of a day, about three hours on Flash Gordon. It might be in one sitting, it might be a RH: Did Mac read any other kind of literature? Any fiction at all? couple of sittings. Rarely did he exceed three hours. In the evenings he’d do a lot of reading. He’d go out walking in the woods occasionally. He RABOY: No, he wasn’t really big on fiction. I would say his interests was involved in building projects for the community. He did design were non-fiction. Historical or political. work on a variety of things. He did the design work in his studio, and then if someone else were actually building, he would be there directing workers and contractors. He was an insomniac to some degree.

He couldn’t really fall asleep.

RH: How did Mac’s finished Flash Gordon strips get delivered?

RABOY: We delivered the pages to King Features Syndicate. We would go by train. We all did it. My sister, my mother, myself, or even a courier, because there were people who lived in the area he would occasionally have do it. He would pay anyone who did it, obviously. The pay was [laughs] pretty generous for the time: ten bucks, plus the cost of the train tickets.

Raboy may not have gone to Fawcett’s Christmas parties, but his cover for the 1941 (#1) issue of Xmas Comics, seen in this house ad, must’ve helped the company get rid of its remaindered comics, all pasted together in one humongous 324-page issue. [©2001 DC Comics.]

It was basically a one-hour train ride, or thereabouts, into Grand Central Station. You’d walk about

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

14

three blocks east, off to Lexington. You had to go by a doorman. You’d tell him you were delivering the Mac Raboy strip to King Features.

Then to the elevator, and up to the second floor, where you’d deliver it.

You got a receipt for it and then you went home.

RH: To whom did you actually hand over the strip?

RABOY: A girl at a desk is all I remember. You’ve got to understand, I was maybe ten or twelve years old at the time. And because I made the trip, I was entitled to go see a movie at the theatre there in Grand Central, buy a lunch, and then get on the train and come home.

It was quite an outing. It was an adventure, when you consider that this was a twelveyear-old who could go into New York City.

RH: I take it he had no love lost for that city whatsoever?

RABOY: No. Even when he had to drive in, or we drove in as a family to visit his mother or other family, this was not something he relished or looked forward to. My mother would really have to get on him to do something like that. I mean, half the time he wouldn’t even take phone calls from his mom.

RH: Maybe he didn’t like talking on the phone?

RABOY: No, he just didn’t like his mother. [laughs] RH: So Mac basically only went into the city to visit family or close friends.

RABOY: Yes. And mostly the people that were close to my father and mother—you had to have at least come across the name of Harry Anderson. We called him Andy.

RH: I guess back in those days things weren’t nearly so bad as they are now.

RABOY: As a child, you could go almost anywhere and you were entirely safe because everybody would go out of their way to protect a child. It was a very different world then.

RH: Well, if it’s the Harry Anderson I’m familiar with, he worked in comics for many different comic publishing houses during the 1940s to 1950s. He also worked at Fawcett Publications when your father did.

RH: Did Mac have a portfolio carrier for you to carry the page to King Features?

RABOY: We were all very fond of him. His wife’s name was Peggy. I have fond memories of them coming up. Harry drove an MG. They would use any excuse to get out of the city and come up and spend the weekend at our place. I don’t know the details of his relationship with my father when they were younger, but they had obviously worked together in at least one, perhaps more, places and had grown very close to each other.

RABOY: No. Once he finished the strip, that was it. He never touched it or looked at it again. My mother would roll it up. Whoever was elected to deliver it got careful instructions on how to handle it, and where to go. She told us not to ever put it down anywhere. There was never a mishap with it.

RH: And for this he received $300 a week, later $325.

RABOY: Back then I used to think to myself, “My God, I’ll never make the kind of money my father’s making!”

RH: Did he ever go into the city and deliver the page to King Features himself?

After leaving his editorial position there in 1942, Rod Reed continued to write for Fawcett; but his sole printed credits were on the “Captain Tootsie” comic-style ads by himself and “Captain Marvel” artist C.C. Beck, which appeared on the back covers of various companies’ comics. This one is from 1944. [Captain Tootsie ©2001 the respective copyright holders.]

RABOY: No, he never did. I can’t remember him ever going in to King Features. Not once. He didn’t go to the Christmas parties.

They knew he was a hermit. That’s why, when I read that copy of the write-up from the promotional booklet you sent me, I thought, “God, what a crock of bull!”

RH: I’ve heard from other people who worked with Mac that he was a very quiet person. He just didn’t speak much at all.

RABOY: Yeah. He kept to himself a lot. That’s why he left New York City and built a house as he did and where he did.

RH: I seem to recall that Anderson may have also worked in the Chesler shop around the time your father first started out. That’s probably the connection.

RABOY: I’m not sure, but I have memories of long nature walks in the woods with Harry, sometimes sitting on his shoulders. Also of going to the beach at a nearby lake with him. There was another fellow by the name of Rod; I don’t remember his last name.

RH: That would have to be Rod Reed, who worked as a writer at Fawcett during the early 1940s.

RABOY: His wife’s name was Kentuck. They lived on a farm even further north than us. It was people like that that my father was fond of.

We had multiple beds in the house, so it was never any problem to put

—David Raboy Interview

15

A late Flash Gordon strip, from September 3, 1967. Only a few months after it appeared, Raboy would be dead. [©2001 King Features Syndicate.]

people up for the weekend.

RH: On these occasions when Harry Anderson came up to visit, did he and Mac spend time in the studio talking about art?

RABOY: Not that I’m aware of. If they did, it was certainly not a main focus or something that dominated conversation or time. They used to watch the Brooklyn Dodgers together. We had a brand new Philco television— you know, one of those things the size of a dresser that had an eight-inch screen. We also used to watch the Friday night fights quite regularly.

I remember that he gave me a Louisville Slugger that was his. It’s long since gone, but I do recollect his fondness for baseball.

RH: Did you ever get a chance to see any of Harry Anderson’s art?

RABOY: Not that I can recollect. He and my father had a variety of ties that bounded them together that did not include commercial art. Harry was also a commercial artist, I understand.

You said Rod Reed was a writer. Well, that may be. I don’t know. I do know his wife, Kentuck, was one tough lady. Boy, you didn’t misbehave in that house, let me tell you! If you went into that house, as an eight- and ten-year-old, as my sister and I did, you behaved. Because she was a huge woman and she didn’t put up with any sh*t at all. [laughs] They lived a country ride further out into the country from where we were. It was a country house on kind of an offbeat dirt road. There was a barn and there may have been chickens. A very rural setting.

Then there was another artist that my father was friends with, a guy by the name of Bill Gropper. Gropper was an artist, but I don’t know that he did commercial art, although he may have. He did more fine art.

I have a print hanging here on my wall of the steel driver John Henry.

It’s an original and it’s signed by Gropper.

[INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: William Gropper (1897-1978) was a native New Yorker whom Mac Raboy met while working with the Federal Arts Project between 1935 and 1939. Gropper had attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts and studied at the Ferrer School in New York. He also worked as an illustrator for The New York Tribune and then for The Rebel Worker up to around 1919. This was followed by his cartoons for The New Masses and his volume Fifty-Six Drawings of the U.S.S.R., which resulted from a journey he made to Russia in 1927. He worked in oils and publicly exhibited them in 1936. The following year he was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. He produced a number of graphics and canvases directed against sociopolitical situations of the times.

Gropper assailed not only politicians but also lawyers. He held the belief that the innocent are always wrongfully accused without proper counsel. His lithographs, such as “The Judge,” produced in 1930, revealed his view of New York night court injustices and the cruelty of law magistrates. Gropper’s social comment with works such as these was viewed as pure social protest.]

RH: What kind of a medium is this done in?

RABOY: It’s a black-&-white, done on kind of a heavy, almost beigecolored paper. And it’s fairly stylized. It’s a huge, very muscular, bald black man swinging a tremendous sledgehammer on a railroad track. It’s a very nice drawing. It was a possession of the family. Actually, there were several of them by Gropper, and my sister and I have them now.

RH: What else did Harry Anderson and Mac do when they came up?

RABOY: There were dinners and family things going on. Poker games.

“Nothing Was Ever Good Enough!”—

16

My parents were both poker players, and we had a circle of friends and other couples who were poker players. My father built a kitchen table that was round and about seven feet in diameter, out of heavy oak. So that was a gathering point and that’s where the poker games were held. I was never allowed to play because I was a youth. But I certainly spent a lot of time watching and learned a lot of bad jokes, as well. [laughs] But it was nickel and dime poker. It wasn’t any serious gambling. It was more of a sociable nature. And Harry and Peggy participated in that.

RH: What happened to your father, David? How did he die?

The Story behind Last Issue’s Raboy Cover: Sometime in the early 1970s, Lulu Raboy consigned several pieces of original artwork by her late husband to a comic art dealer in New York City. The package consisted of a few Green Lama pages and a neverbefore-seen bust portrait gouche painting of Captain Marvel Jr. A letter from Mrs. Raboy to the art dealer was sent separately and included a contract for the dealer to initial and return one copy to her. In the letter she refers to the CMJr painting as “the cover of the first Captain Marvel Jr. comic book,” and also says, “I hope they’ll be of value.”

At this point in time we’re not sure how much Mrs. Raboy realized from the sale of said artwork. Of course, the cover of the printed CMJr #1 was a line-drawn ink drawing of a full figure Captain Marvel Jr. leaping toward the reader, framed by a large moon against a black background—and the exquisite portrait Mrs. Raboy offered for sale had, in fact, never been published anywhere! Could it possibly have once been intended as a Master or Captain Marvel Jr. cover? Or was it perhaps intended to be a “photo” premium, similar to ones Fawcett issued of Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher during the early 1940s, both of which were painted by Raboy?

RABOY: It was cancer.

RH: I hope it wasn’t a lengthy illness.

RABOY: It only took six months, and he was gone.

RH: When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1967, did he think he could beat it? I mean, did he have an attitude about beating this thing?

RABOY: I don’t think he anticipated beating it. I think he was resigned to the inevitable. As it came on, and it came on pretty quickly, they used morphine. Then more morphine. So he wasn’t really lucid. He was in and out of consciousness, and that sort of thing. From diagnosis to death, it was about six months, perhaps only slightly less.

He went into Sloan-Kettering, a cancer hospital in New York City. And then they moved him up to Mount Kisco hospital. Mount Kisco is a town that’s about nine miles from Golden’s Bridge.

It was closer to home for him. I think at that point it had spread and they were just managing the pain. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do.

RH: I’ve heard that he used to smoke cigars quite a bit.

But Mac Raboy will be forever remembered by comic book fans as the co-creator and original artist of “Captain Marvel Jr.” and as executor of some of the Golden Age’s greatest covers—such as this one from Master #40 (July 1943). [©2001 DC Comics.]

RABOY: I never saw my father with a cigar in his mouth. He was a two-pack-aday Kent cigarette smoker. But it wasn’t lung cancer that got him. [NOTE: Mac Raboy died on December 23, 1967.]

RH: What did your mom do after Mac passed away?

RABOY: My mother, at this point, sold the house and moved to Florida with my sister. Florida is where my mother died. She had a retirement income, so it wasn’t all that tough for her in her later years.

RH: Was he buried up in Golden’s Bridge?

We may never know the full story behind the portrait. It was eventually sold to a collector in New York, who framed the piece and hung it on his wall for over 25 years. Late last year, the owner put the piece up on eBay for auction, where it was eventually bought by collector Keif Fromm. The minute we saw it on eBay, we wanted it for the cover of Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #6. The original art was in need of some light cleaning and restoration, and upon completion of that work, and with Keif’s kind permission, the piece was photographed for use last issue. Thus, finally, after a delay of nearly fifty years, an almost-unseen Raboy masterpiece came to light, just in time for our Raboy coverage in these two editions of A/E. Timing, as they say,

is everything!

—ROGER HILL.

Monthly! Edited and published by Robin Snyder

RABOY: No. There was no service, and my father was cremated. My father was an atheist, as was my mother. So there would not have been any ceremony of any kind. I too am an atheist and would not engage in ceremonies of that kind.

RH: David, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me. It’s been most enlightening to learn about the more personal side of your father and his career of working in the comics. Without a doubt, he was an interesting fellow, and a heck of a great artist. He’s got a lot of fans out there who remember his work, collect it, and appreciate it. Thanks.

RABOY: You’re welcome, Roger. It was good of you to care enough to call me about it.

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18

Bob Rogers—

Bob Rogers In The 20th Century!--Part 2 Continuing our groundbreaking interview with the artist formerly known as Rubin Zubofsky about his days as assistant to Mac Raboy Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Roger Hill [EDITOR’S NOTE: Last issue we presented the first installment of Roger Hill’s lengthy and thorough interview with Bob Rogers, who changed his name from Rubin Zubofsky after World War II. Rubin, then often called “Ruby,” originally worked as an assistant to artist legend Lou Fine, who drew “Black Condor,” “The Ray,” and other top features for the Quality Comics Group. When Quality refused him a small raise, Rubin/Bob went to work for Fawcett in the very early 1940s as background man and assistant to Mac Raboy, the star artist of “Bulletman” and then “Captain Marvel Jr.” stories in Master Comics. As Bob explained it, contrary to popular belief, Mac Raboy never did any interior artwork on the full Captain Marvel Jr. title; other artists put that book together using tracings of Raboy’s work from Master, where the kid version of Captain Marvel had originated. Last issue he described how even Raboy, with his help, often put together “CMJr” stories using photostats of his own past work, to fend off the dreaded deadline doom. His story continues….—R.T.] ROGER HILL: Would Mac’s wife come into the art department now and then?

BOB ROGERS: I never met his wife at that time.

RH: Did he ever talk about the War or about his political beliefs while you guys worked together at Fawcett?

ROGERS: No. I never knew that he had any sort of feelings about it until later when we worked on Flash Gordon together. It never came up before then.

RH: What kind of pencils did you and Mac draw with?

The cover of Master Comics #24 (March 1942), on which Bob Rogers did backgrounds for Raboy. [©2001 DC Comics.]

and Mac utilize for your inking?

ROGERS: I probably remember more about what I inked with while working with Lou Fine than when I worked with Mac. But when I started with Mac, I was already using the WindsorNewton brushes. If you really want to know what size, I’ll run downstairs and tell you. I still have my brushes!

ROGERS: HBs. That’s the medium type of lead.

RH: I assume you guys were using Windsor-Newton brushes on your work. What size brushes did you

RH: You still have the original brushes? I’ll wait!

Recent photo of Bob Rogers, who in 1942 was Mac Raboy’s first assistant.

[Photo courtesy of Keith Fromm.]

[Bob runs downstairs, and returns in very short time.]

—In The 20th Century!

ROGERS: Now let me see here.

Okay, we have a number 3, and some that are a little smaller. Lots of number 3s here. Yes, so I was using a number 3, and Mac was sort of… I remember sometimes I would take the brush out of his hand, or he would take the brush out of mine, and he’d show me a certain way to do something. So it was sort of like we were using the same brushes.

RH: Did Mac show you certain tricks that you could use when inking his pencils?

ROGERS: Oh, sure. I bowed to his talents, and I made no bones about it.

And he was very satisfied with my work. When I worked with Lou Fine I did a great deal of work with shadows. I love shadows! And I always had one light source in my head. And all the shadows always went in one direction.

19 ROGERS: There was a fellow there who helped out for just a short period of time, by the name of Al Jetter.

He became my assistant. He basically got the menial job of erasing pages and doing the white-out. He was very agreeable to whatever had to be done and we got along just fine. That was for a period of time up until I went into the service. He went on to become an art editor at Fawcett. His name appeared later in the credits of Captain Video comics that Fawcett published.

RH: Yes, I have the run of them in my collection; I believe it only ran for six issues. So Jetter started out as a clean-up artist for you and Mac? ROGERS: Right. I think Fawcett initially took him on because of his capabilities, but in the meantime they had him helping us out as my assistant. Anything to get Mac and me a little closer to that deadline. We’d burn the midnight oil when we had to. We’d work until around 9:00 at night. I’d go home to Brooklyn and Mac was living in the Bronx at the time.

So then I came to work with Mac and Mac looked at my work and—of course I’m paraphrasing here—and he would say something like, “You know, that’s very nice, but did you ever stop to think that when you look You know, I just remembered that, at an object, it isn’t all in shadows and Light and shadow on a page from Master Comics #32, repro’d from within the first two weeks I worked it isn’t all in light? Shadows don’t photocopies of the original art. Sorry a line or three has dropped there, I became somewhat of a gopher always fall the same way. You’ll have a out. [©2001 DC Comics.] for him. play of light and shadow on the same surface, with the same light source, RH: You mean because you were running back and forth to the Fawcett because you’re getting reflected light off of other objects.” And so I library and morgue for him? began to use that technique where I’d have a varied play of light. This would help to create a mood. So it was all a learning experience. That’s ROGERS: Oh, no. No, I had to run up to the police department in the how I eventually got to where I could duplicate Mac’s style. It was also Bronx to pay a traffic ticket for him. from Mac that I learned the technique of holding up a mirror: RH: So he had you running those kinds of errands for him so he could You’ve got your artwork there in front of you. Now you reverse stay at the drawing board? your body. You turn around and look at the opposite side, and you hold the mirror up so that now you’re looking at the work backwards. The ROGERS: [laughs] Exactly! mistakes will jump out at you.

RH: Did Al Allard, the art director there at Fawcett, RH: So Mac taught you how to do this? ever put the pressure on you guys to get the work done?

ROGERS: He taught it to me, but as I’ve learned since, ROGERS: I can only answer that from my own it’s an old technique. And it’s experience. He never put any pressure on me whatan amazing thing, so I always soever. He was always fine with me. Now, if he had a mirror. Sometimes I’d say put pressure on Mac, which is a possibility, I to myself, “Oh, that’s what’s never saw it. Mac would gripe sometimes about been troubling me. It’s right us not being able to meet a deadline, or from the there. I’ve got to fix that.” Your point of view of being late. But I don’t rememeyes become so accustomed to ber him ever saying that Al was after him, or what you do as you work on the thing, that when you reverse it, Al Jetter is credited as “art editor” in you’re looking at a whole strange Captain Video #3 (June 1951). This George new picture.

Evans-drawn tale about an indestructible RH: Did you or Mac ever get any kind of help on “Captain Marvel Jr.” from any of the other artists working there at Fawcett?

robot is one of A/E editor Roy Thomas’ favorites; like, he’s long admitted he swiped its climax as a way to defeat Ultron-6 in The Avengers #68 (Sept. 1969). [©2001 the respective copyright holders.]

20

Bob Rogers— Besides, let me put it this way, Roger: Figures were not my strong point. In other words, I went to art school, of course, but if I had gone to the Juliard School or one of those types, after the War, and worked at it, I guess I could have gotten better at it. But circumstances being what they were, I signed up, but I didn’t go—you know, on the G.I. Bill.

There were other priorities at the time and I never went through with it.

As a result, my weak point was always my figures. With all the work that I did, sketching and everything else on the side, I never had any trouble with anything except figures.

RH: I know that, while you were assisting Mac during those early days at Fawcett, you must have seen him draw the figure of Captain Marvel Jr. many times. So my question is this: Did Mac have a certain approach to drawing that figure? I mean, would he start by sketching in one of those things where elongated ovals are used for the various parts of the body? Did he have a system of how he drew human proportions so correctly?

ROGERS: As I remember it, he would sit down and very systematically start drawing. He had a nice studious approach. He was very much into what he was doing. He didn’t do much talking while he was doing it. He would have to stop and put his pencil or brush down in order to have a conversation. He already had the figures visualized in his head and he would then go ahead and do it.

RH: Okay, but what I mean is, did he have to lay in a stick figure first?

Or did he just start sketching in the figure?

ROGERS: He would just draw it. He’d start working on the head and he already knew how the rest of the figure would lay in. He just went from there.

Maybe Bob Rogers never learned to draw figures, but he was nails on backgrounds—and of course he was the guy responsible for sizing and pasting up the Captain Marvel Jr. figure that needed to be stuck into Panel 7! Again, sorry a few lines have dropped out of this repro from a photocopy of the original art. [©2001 DC Comics.]

anything like that.

RH: I was curious because Mac has this incredible reputation among not only his peers, but collectors and fans all over, as an artist who really knew how to draw the human figure. He was so good at drawing the figure in motion or flight. I figured he must’ve had a special trick when it came to doing it so well.

ROGERS: From the very beginning, when I used to watch Mac draw, it always reminded me of what I knew about Burne Hogarth’s work [on the Tarzan newspaper strip]. You’ve seen the curves in his work. His figures would just flow, like those continuous lines that he would put into drapery and flying capes and waves. Everything had a sort of art nou-

RH: When you were doing backgrounds for Lou Fine, and later on Mac Raboy, did either of those artists ever try to push you to do figures?

ROGERS: Nope.

RH: They never said, “Bob, you ought to try your hand at this a little— you might be good at it”?

ROGERS: Well, I had other people say that to me, but not the people I worked for. I think they were so happy to get someone that they had an affinity for, and whom they were pleased with, that they didn’t want to lose me. If I had gone into figure work, I wouldn’t have been working for them anymore. They’d have had to find somebody else!

Partial style sheet of Captain Marvel Jr. heads, as printed in Amazing World of DC Comics #16 (April 1978). [Captain Marvel Jr. ©2001 DC Comics.]

Another guide sheet of CMJr heads—probably paste-ups from earlier stories— used by the artists who drew the stories in the Captain Marvel Jr. title in imitation of Mac Raboy. [Captain Marvel Jr. ©2001 DC Comics.]

—In The 20th Century!

21

A pair of illos done by Rubin Zubofsky/Bob Rogers for his squadron newsletter while in the service during World War II—with inset self-portrait which he sent to his wife. Incidentally, a photo of Rubin/Bob at this time appeared in the FCA section of Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #3. [Illos courtesy of and ©2001 the artist.]

veau look about it in that regard. He always had these continuous flowing lines, and that came into Mac’s work. His figures were not stilted.

They moved, they jumped, they leaped.

RH: Yes, I think I see the similarities there. From the time you started drawing with Mac up until the time you left, did he ever do any backgrounds on the stories you were working on with him?

ROGERS: Well, let’s see now… I was hired as a background artist to assist Mac, and as far as my memory serves me, the backgrounds were usually left for me to do. Of course, he would explain to me what kind of background he had in mind. I’m sure Mac did backgrounds on his own prior to my coming there. We always discussed things as we worked together. It was a team effort.

RH: You said earlier that sometimes your background work might be done and Mac would still be struggling with the figures, and of course that’s when you would have to run to the stat machine. I assume you guys kept working together until a job was finished?

ROGERS: Absolutely! If he was still working on it, I was still working on it. There was never any such thing as him going home and leaving me there to finish anything up. It was the both of us together, having to complete the thing. I couldn’t do the doggone backgrounds anyway, if he was still working on the figures.

RH: From what we’ve all heard, Mac was probably the slowest comic book artist working there in the Fawcett bullpen.

ROGERS: Well, I guess by now I don’t have to tell you that Mac was a super-perfectionist. I worshiped him from afar when I worked at Fawcett. I thought he was a marvelous artist. Then one day he drew a head of Captain Nazi or someone. All day he worked on this one head in one panel. And at the end of the day—and mind you, we’re working against a deadline—he says to me, “I want you to look at this and tell me what you think.”

I went over there and I looked over his shoulder and it was a beauti-

ful piece of work. I said it looked great! So I went back over and sat down where I was working and I looked back over at Mac. He picked up an eraser and rubbed it all out! This was just a pencil drawing! The whole day’s work!

And so then the next thing I knew, it was back to the photostat machine! [laughs] RH: Do you remember ever seeing any guide sheets that Mac drew up to show other artists how to draw Captain Marvel Jr.?

ROGERS: No, not during my time there. I think that would’ve had to have been done later on, after 1942. Because, before that, he had just started on the “Junior” feature. He’d been doing “Bulletman” and

Interviewer Roger Hill suspects this Fawcett sheet, given out to cover artists, may have been designed with the “late” Mac Raboy in mind, since its dimensions are somewhat smaller than those of many covers of the 1940s, which were generally done twice-up.

Perhaps it was prepared after Bob Rogers’ time as Raboy’s assistant.

22

Bob Rogers—

Mac Raboy was in good artistic company at the short-lived Spark/Crossen Publications. For instance, Green Lama #8 (March 1946) sported a “Lama” story by Raboy, “Angus MacErc” by George Roussos (as “Perry Williams”), and “The Boy Champions” by Jerry Robinson. [©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

things like that. I did some of the “Bulletman” stuff with him.

ROGERS: That’s right.

Who knows, Mac may have done guide sheets as part of an agreement with Fawcett because he was leaving. And I never saw them.

RH: I guess it surprises me that, in instances where a simple background like this was required, Mac didn’t just go ahead and do it himself.

When I came back to Fawcett after the War, the scuttlebutt I heard was that, when I left Mac and Fawcett in 1942, they hired two assistants to do what I was doing. I don’t know who they were because I never met them.

ROGERS: Well, sometimes he would. Sometimes he’d do little bits and pieces here and there, but the rest of the time he’d just want me to do it.

Here again, we were always trying to meet that deadline.

RH: During the time you worked at Fawcett, you also worked on covers with Mac, right?

ROGERS: Oh, yeah. Let me check my chronology here. Oh, here it is.

I have it exactly. I went into the service in November of 1942. I was there at Fawcett from January up until November.

RH: Right. And, knowing that the lead time between the creation of the art to the actual publishing of the art usually ran three to four months, it’s pretty certain that some of your last work with Mac came out in early 1943.

ROGERS: Yes, that’s probably right. Here’s a preliminary list of the titles I worked on. Let’s see, there’s Bulletman, Master Comics, Whiz Comics, and Ibis the Invincible.

RH: Your son-in-law, Dan Johnson, sent me a reproduction of the Bulletman #3 cover, which is from January 1942. He mentioned that you had found the negative for it in your files.

ROGERS: Right. I worked on that cover. [NOTE: And we printed it last issue.—R.T.] RH: You did? Well, it’s a wonderful cover and probably one of the more identified and popular covers with Golden Age comic collectors.

There wasn’t a whole lot of background on this particular cover, though.

ROGERS: Yes, well, sometimes I was out of the picture there.

RH: But the cover does have these clouds in the background. So you did the clouds?

RH: Do you remember what size Mac and you were doing the covers at? Didn’t Fawcett have you guys working at a size that was just a little bigger than the published comic book size, in order to save even more time?

ROGERS: I think we only worked in one size. As I recall it, the covers were the same size as the pages. I’m picturing in my mind the cover where Captain Marvel Jr. is cracking a huge swastika.

RH: Oh yes, that’s the cover of Master Comics #27, dated June 1942.

What a classic!

ROGERS: And I remember that one being the same size as a regular full page.

RH: Did Fawcett used to save all their original artwork?

ROGERS: It’s interesting, because some of it got recycled. I sent my son-in-law, Dan, a page torn out of another comic book where that very same Captain Marvel Jr. image had been used again later as a promo ad for Master Comics. All they did was put fresh copy on it. That was not an uncommon thing for them to do.

RH: Do you remember the Master Comics cover that had this huge “V for Victory” image behind the figure of Captain Marvel Jr., who is standing there giving the “V for Victory” hand sign? [NOTE: We printed that one last issue, too.—R.T.] ROGERS: Yes, I remember that one. I have a small black-&-white comic book version of that in my portfolio.

RH: That must be the “miniature comics” version Fawcett did later on.

—In The 20th Century!

ROGERS: Yes, it’s in black-&-white and the cover, I think, has just a tint of red to it.

RH: So on that particular cover you would have done the giant “V” in the background?

ROGERS: That’s right. I did a portion of that cover.

ROGERS: Yes, he was. Not much older. Just older. He had come on later and was one of the editors there at Fawcett. I think he had joined right before the War started.

RH: When Crossen left Fawcett to start Spark Publications, and when Mac and other people were working for him, did he have a studio there in Manhattan for these guys to work at?

RH: I wanted to ask you about a fellow who used to work at Fawcett and who eventually lured Raboy to come over to his new comics company. His name was Ken Crossen.

ROGERS: I don’t know.

What had happened… well, you have to go back to my chronology now. When I came back from the War, Mac was no longer doing “Captain Marvel Jr.” for Fawcett. I came back in September of 1945. I had gone in in January of 1942.

ROGERS: I knew Ken Crossen.

RH: I know some of the history of that, but I’m still a little confused on parts of it.

I know that Mac Raboy got in with his company, Spark Publications….

So I sat in the art director’s office—Al Allard’s office—and Al said to me, “You can have a choice.

You can either go on salary, or you can go freelance and work with this new artist, Bud Thomson, who is now doing Captain Marvel Jr.” So, whichever way I wanted to go, he gave me that option. And I chose to go freelance.

ROGERS: And got burned just like everybody else.

RH: Is that what happened?

ROGERS: Yes. What happened, as it was repeated to me by Mac and plenty of others, is that they took lower page rates for a piece of the action. A percentage.

And this looked very good when it first began.

But then one day Ken threw a big party for everyone. He invited all his artists and writers in for this party and at the end of the meal he stood up and said, “Okay, fellows, one more last round of drinks.” And they all stood up. And he held up his glass and said, “Drink up, because, fellows, this is it.

I’m quitting.” And he went bankrupt.

And then he skipped town.

23

RH: Which meant that you now got a page rate.

ROGERS: Yes, I got a page rate. Don’t ask me how much it was. That I do not remember. I know that later when I was there it came up to $30 a page.

This page by Bud Thomson and Bob Rogers, drawn for an unidentified issue of Master Comics after Raboy’s departure from Fawcett, has been repro’d from photocopies of the original art. Thompson did all the figure work; Rogers penciled and inked all the backgrounds. Circa 1945-46. [©2001 DC Comics.]

The next time I came across Ken was at a movie theatre or somewhere, and his name came up in the credits. So somehow he was involved in the entertainment field, and that was the last time I ever heard of Ken Crossen.

I remember Ken when I was saying goodbye and they were having a farewell party [at Fawcett] for me when I went into the service. Ken put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Ruby, I envy you young guys.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because nothing’s going to touch you.” And I looked at him and I said, “Really?” And I didn’t know what the hell he meant. [laughs] RH: Was Crossen an older guy than the rest of you fellows?

RH: That seems like a pretty good page rate, compared to some I’ve heard from other artists over the years. When you had this conversation with Al Allard, did you ask him why Mac had left? Or do you think it was just to get a piece of the action with Crossen?

ROGERS: I really don’t remember much about that conversation, Roger. What I heard was that they [Fawcett] had had some kind of personality differences with him. As I was told, at one point he sent his wife to deliver a job to the office, and they opened the portfolio and found the pages were blank. Something like that.

RH: Perhaps that was when he quit. Maybe he just sent the pages back and said, “I’m not doing this anymore.”

ROGERS: Yes, something along those lines. But he used his wife as a ploy.

NEXT: BOB ROGERS MEETS FLASH GORDON!

26

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt presents—

Master Anachronous The Unwanted

by C.C. Beck Magicians have been around ever since, or perhaps even before, there was anyone around at all. There are thousands of them at work today carrying people through the air, speaking in voices which can be heard all over the world and even on the moon, and doing such marvelous things as washing your clothes in magic solutions, serving you food and drink in the twinkling of an eye, and putting you to sleep with secret potions if you want them to.

A long time ago, before magicians were so commonplace, there was one called Anachronous The Unwanted. He was a fine magician who could do many fine tricks, but nobody wanted to see them. He would go to fairs and carnivals and set up his stand where he offered flasks of pure water, healthful foods, diets, and exercise courses for the asking. But nobody ever asked for them. The people bought marvelous patent medicines from the snake doctors, magic turnip peelers and salami slicers from the manipulators, and junk food from the purveyors, but they never went near Anachronous’ stand.

Anachronous threw away all of his stock of goods and decided to try his hand at making money directly instead of by working for it. He tried various spells and formulas which didn’t work, then stumbled on one which was so simple and obvious that anyone could use it. But, like all magic formulas, if used it produced certain side effects which were very unpleasant, such as loss of friends, attraction of crooks and robbers, production of nasty offspring, and other evils. He buried the formula and it has never been found, although people are still looking for it.

“What magic trick can I offer that people will buy, or even take free?” he asked himself. “A great powerful servant that will work for nothing? Everyone could use something like that. I’ll make one.”

He took the magic servant he made to the king, who was horrified.

“Why do you suppose everyone in the kingdom works day and night— except me?” he roared at Anachronous. “That’s so they can support me. If everyone could stop working, they wouldn’t need me. Guards, throw this magic servant down a well and throw his master into jail!” Then Anachronous disappeared (nobody ever found out how) and appeared again in a distant country. This time he had a little gadget he had made, which he demonstrated to the ruler of that country.

“With this gadget I can make magic pictures or look into a drop of water and watch the invisible beasts that live there swimming around, Your Majesty,” he explained. “I can put two of these gadgets into a magic tube, thusly, point it out the window, and see for miles—even to the stars. Wouldn’t it be of great use to Your Majesty?”

“How?” asked the king. “I already have artists to make pictures for me. The palace is full of their work—I’m sick of looking at pictures. As for watching beasts in drops of water, I have enough beasts in my forests and lakes to keep me busy.

“And why, pray tell, should I look out my window? If anything’s happening out there, I’ll find out about it soon enough—I always do. As for looking at the stars, I’ll leave that to my astrologers. They’re crazy enough without my help.

“No, Master Anachronous, I see no use whatsoever for your magic gadget.

Take it away, but don’t show it to anyone else, on penalty of death. Begone!”

Anachronous went away and found himself a cave. There, after some experimentation, he managed to summon up a genie from another world.

“Take me away from this world, Genie,” Anachronous ordered.

“Okay,” the genie said, “get on my shoulders.” The magician did so, and they disappeared together in a flash of unearthly light.

—Whimsical Stories by C.C. Beck

27

“Hello, Urly-

by C.C. Beck

burd,” the buzzard

A little bird once hatched out

said. “When did you

of its shell long before it was sup-

get here?”

posed to. It couldn’t wait; it

“Three hours

pecked its way out and said,

ago. My goodness,

“Here I am! What’s happen-

folks are sure lazy

ing?”

around here, aren’t

“Nothing,” said the mother bird. “Go

they?” the urlyburd

back into your shell. You’ll wake your father

said. “You’re the

bird.”

only one up.”

“Tweet tweet! Wake up, wake up, dear Father Bird. I’m here, or

“I’m just coming in...

haven’t yet you heard? I’m here, your little Urlyburd,” sang the urly-

I’ve been up all night,” the

burd.

“Oh, shush!” grumbled the father bird. “Go find me a

buzzard said, settling down. In another moment he was fast asleep.

worm.”

The urlyburd married him and was very happy.

She got up every morning at 4:00 A.M. and made his

The urlyburd spread her little wings and flew down to the ground. She pecked all around, and

breakfast (worms on toast), which was always cold

stamped her little feet, and cocked her little head,

and yucky by the time the buzzard woke up. She

but no worms appeared. It was too early.

made lunch at ten in the morning, and dinner at four; sometimes she made two breakfasts and

About three hours later all the worms came

three lunches and dinners in one day and went to

out of their holes as usual. By then there were

bed at 3:30 in the afternoon.

hundreds of other birds waiting to gobble them up

She was so early in everything she did that

and the urlyburd had to scramble to catch one.

before she knew it the urlyburd had used up all her

“Sorry, Father Bird, I ate it,” she said back in

time. She died of old age and went to bird heaven.

the nest. “But I was there early. Aren’t you proud of

“What are you doing here?” Saint Peter asked. “I

me?”

“Of course. You haven’t any feathers, and you look sort of froggish, but you’ll be all right— I hope,” the father bird said.

The urlyburd’s feathers came in early, and long before she was supposed to, she was quite grown up. She was still only a few months old when she met an ugly old buzzard. He came to the birdfeeder where the

wasn’t expecting you yet. Kindly wait in the waiting room.”

“Okay,” said the urlyburd. “I guess I’m a little early, as usual. How long will I have to wait?”

“Oh, about ten years.”

“Good heavens! I’ve been early all my life,” the urlyburd said.

urlyburd was waiting for the Kindly Human to come out and fill it with

“Now that I’m dead, I’m earlier than ever before. I’ve broken

birdseed.

my own record!”

28

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt presents—

Afterword It never ceases to amaze me how some episodes of “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” seem to write themselves. This one, for instance.

Here’s the story behind the story: Surfing eBay a few months back, I noticed a wonderful pair of unpublished C.C. Beck drawings up for bid.

These were the two illustrations for “Master Anachronous The Unwanted,” printed this issue. The bidding was too rich for my blood, but by an odd coincidence the winning bid was placed by my friend, sci-fi writer Dave Bishoff. He and I worked out a trade, and I snagged the piece for my small collection. I was delighted, as I absolutely love Beck’s clear, simple art.

trate a story the cartoonist had written for a proposed book entitled Three Times Three and Thensome. Better yet, P.C. sent me a copy of the actual story! Even better than better, P.C. told me there were more unpublished Beck stories—and he generously offered to let me print another one, complete with art.

Before I knew it, I had a whole “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” ready to go, with art to match!

There’s more background info, but I’ll let P.C. tell you in his own words, at left.

By the way, if you enjoyed these stories, check out our distinguished competition at The Comics Journal.

They’ve started serializing Beck’s previously unpublished semi-autobiographical novel, “The World’s Mightiest Fathead.” It’s a thinly disguised telling of the office politics that went on behind the creation of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel— and is very good, indeed!

Anyone interested in what was really going on at the start of the Golden Age can’t afford to miss this!

And now, here’s some more Beck background from P.C. Hamerlinck.

Naturally, my first thought was to print the Beck art here in the Crypt—but I needed background information to go with it. I decided to contact my fellow Alter Ego editor, P.C. Hamerlinck. Paul puts together the Fawcett Collectors of America section, and is one of the foremost C.C. Beck experts around. If anyone would know the history of the piece, it was him.

Turns out I hit the mother lode!

’til next time, Michael T. Gilbert

P.C. wrote back that Beck had done the art in the late ’70s to illus-

An Alter Ego Addendum [Roy Thomas here. To accompany C.C. Beck’s charming little stories, Michael T. and Mr. Monster have invited me to present, for the first time ever in the world, some sample comic strips drawn by Beck and written by Otto Binder, Captain Marvel’s principal scripter from 1941-53.

[When Otto and I corresponded during 1964-65, he sent me a number of his unpublished scripts of various types—plus the originals of a week’s worth of dailies from an unsold Mr. Tawny newspaper strip he and C.C. had prepared, starring the Talking Tiger featured in later “Captain Marvel” stories, along with both gents’ permission to print them. This continuity was apparently done soon after Fawcett folded its comic book tents in 1953.

[The Mr. Tawny dailies were first printed in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #9 in 1965; but, alas, the original art was never returned by the St. Louis printer. In 1997 all six were showcased in Hamster Press’ trade paperback Alter Ego, which reprinted the best of A/E, Volume 1. That book being out of print, we’ve reprinted the final Tawny strip here.

[On November 11, 1964, Otto wrote me: “If you find yourself with a ‘hole’ or two to fill in an expanded mag [=Alter Ego], I have two more sets of 6 dailies each, done by the incomparable C.C. Beck, dealing with (1) a zany scientist on earth and (2) a goofy (humorous) kid-genius who had fantasy adventures (with ghosts, witches, etc.).” What do you think I wrote him back?

This photo of Otto Binder, sent in 1964 to Roy Thomas, was printed cropped in the “best of Alter Ego” volume. On the back Otto had typed: “circa 1947 (in Colorado on vacation).”

—Whimsical Stories by C.C. Beck

29

The Saturday Mr. Tawny strip, which capped the week’s sequence. [©2001 the estates of Otto Binder and C.C. Beck.]

[Strip #1 turned out to be titled Frank and Ernest, years before the current strip of that name—though who is “Frank” and who is “Ernest” in the feature isn’t clear in the six dailies; #2 was called Brian the Brain.

[Soon afterward, Otto sent another note: “In checking through my syndicate stuff, I came across this continuation of the story of ‘Brian the Brain.’” Looking through the script he mailed me (no art had been done for it), I learned that Brian had once been tentatively titled Kid Doc. Otto’s script included: (a) two Sunday pages; (b) a sheet describing the “boy genius,” his character, the strip’s theme (“that he is a kid genius, a mental giant, but nobody real-

izes it, especially his own parents’), and ten more possible names for the strip (Brian the Brain not among them); (c) description and dialogue for an additional 21 panels of continuity, enough for approximately five more dailies… although why the panels were numbered from 1-40 rather than written four-panels-to-a-daily, I have no idea.

Otto’s script continuity for Brian the Brain. [©2001 the estate of Otto Binder.]

[Maybe one of these days, “Comic Crypt” or FCA or A/E proper will print Binder’s script, just to see if any budding spiritual heirs of C.C. Beck out there want to take a stab at illustrating them! For the nonce, here are an even dozen daily offerings of Frank and Ernest and Brian the Brain... by the “Captain Marvel” team supreme of Binder and Beck.]

30

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt presents—

—Whimsical Stories by C.C. Beck

31

32

re: continued from pg. 3

signed) #46-48, the middle installment of which introduced Dian Belmont. The credits on the first Sandy episodes (#69-71) are anyone’s guess [See below.— R.T.], while #72-91, 94-95 are by Simon and Kirby. Issues #92-93 appear to be drawn by Jack Lehti, and I detect a definite Gil Kane look in #96. Beyond that, I cannot even hazard a guess (though my notes cite a Mike Sekowsky look in #97’s installment). The story in New York World’s Fair 1940 is drawn (and signed) by Chad Grothkopf.

Bernard Baily’s comments notwithstanding, the story in NYWF 1939 is identical in art and lettering to Bert Christman’s work in Adventure #40-43 (although someone other than Christman seems to have lettered #41).

I’ve compared the art to Baily’s other work of the period—“The Buccaneer,” “The Spectre,” “The Hour-Man”—and, except for the impressionistic shadow under the nose that both he and Christman employed, I can find no resemblance between the two artists.

Gardner Fox identified The Sandman as Wesley Dodds (with an “s” on the end) in NYWF 1939 and Adventure #44-68. The unnamed writer of the first “new look”/Sandy story in #69 called him Wesley Dodd (no “s”)—as did the script in Christman’s issues (#40, 42, 43). In itself, this doesn’t mean that Christman wrote those issues. He was simply making a consistent typo. Even in NYWF 1939, Christman mistakenly spelled Dodds with an “s” in one panel.

re: NYWF 1939.

That pretty much covers things.

One final note: The FCA material didn’t get much comment in the letters this time, but I wanted to mention how much I love it! The Marc Swayze articles in each issue are a real treat, and one of the features I most look forward to.

John Wells (via e-mail) The first three Sandman-and-Sandy tales with the new purple-and-yellow outfits were apparently drawn by “Aquaman” artist Paul Norris. When Simon and Kirby took over “Sandman,” they modified the outfit slightly, most just dropping the cape.

Re the DC code numbers: My own suspicion is that the stories were originally slated for the issues whose number they bore, but that things got out of sync at some point and the stories began to pile up, until eventually the code numbers did become just a part of record-keeping, as you suggest.

By the way, I, too, have long suspected that the “OH” notation on “Atom” stories stood for “On Hand.” Any other suggestions out there?

Now, just time for our usual corrections and additions, covering last issue (and if you know of more, please let us know).

I’ll start with a doozy: Dunno how, but I managed to credit the cover of Spark/ Crossen’s Mad Hatter #2 (1945) to both John Giunta and Mort Leav in the same caption.

Leav was the artist; I meant to say that Here’s the page from Stan Lee’s 1947 book Secrets Giunta had drawn #1. behind the Comics which sports a self-portrait of Basil Because of the omission of two letters in Wolverton and his creation Powerhouse Pepper; the Gene Colan interview, what should’ve Issues #40-41’s “Sandman” stories are Wolverton was evidently just about the only artist read “Karen Page, DD’s girlfriend” became fairly typical urban mysteries on the order of working for Timely then who lived on the West Coast.

“Karen Page’s girlfriend.” Oh well… with the what Fox was writing. In issue #41, Sandman [Art ©2001 Stan Lee; Powerhouse Pepper ©2001 Marvel checkered career she’s had since the early days ditched his trademark trenchcoat and spent Characters, Inc.] of Daredevil, what’s one more diversion? most of the adventure in swim trunks while Also, I should’ve made it clear that the repro’d Marvel art on Page investigating a narcotics ring situated in a ship in the harbor. Wes 12 of the Colan interview were inked by Frank Giacoia (top) and Joe Sinretained his gasmask and had a gun-belt strapped to his bare chest. nott (bottom), and the Colan figure on page two was inked by Paul ReinNYWF 1939 included a similar aquatic sequence with Sandman dressed man not Vince Colletta. in identical garb.

The caption under the 9/12/48 Flash Gordon Sunday page should There’s little doubt in my mind that Christman wrote and drew have stated it was one of the earliest Mac Raboy pages of FG for which issues #42-43, both of which are tailored to his interest in aviation and original art has turned up; there are a number of Alex Raymond strips exotic locales on the order of his idol, Milton Caniff [creator of Terry and still extant, of course. (I think I used to see most of ’em when I visited Al the Pirates]. Issue #42 reunited Wes with his Navy buddies, New York Williamson!) physician Clyde “Clipper” Dunlap and California artist Happy O’Shea.

Amid all the caricatures of 1947 Timely personnel taken from Stan Six years earlier, while still in the service, the trio had been known as The Lee’s Secrets behind the Comics, we neglected to include a drawing of Three Sandmen, gaining a reputation for their grand adventures. Wes had one of the most famous of them all: Basil Wolverton, who drew Powerlearned of a threat to five of their old comrades and handed each of his house Pepper for Timely and truly weird stuff for Mad and others. So friends a gasmask. “You know what these are for—you’ve helped me we’ve rectified that omission here. before.”

Christman hewed as close to reality as possible in the story, referring to its star strictly as “Wesley” and using only the gasmask portion of his costume. Otherwise, he wore an open-collar white shirt and flight jacket. Issue #43 offered more of the same, with Wes vacationing in the South Seas. Aside from the gasmask, he wore dark, body-hugging clothing. No trenchcoat in sight.

Gardner Fox returned with #44, the last issue to feature beneath the logo the pseudonymous “by Larry Dean” that had been present since

As always, Alter Ego is looking for letters of comment (especially those with additional information), for good copies of original comic art and scripts (the older the better, as a general rule), and for any other possible contributions (especially of truly rare, little-known, or behind-thescenes material, but also convention sketches and the like). See our house ad to that effect elsewhere in this issue. Please contact: Roy Thomas, Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax (803) 826-6501; e-mail roydann@oburg.net

Missing a Back Issue?

Got a hole in your Mr. Monster collection? We’ll gladly e-mail you a free Mr. Monster EEEK-Mail Catalog! Just Contact Michael T. Gilbert at:

MGILBERT@EFN.ORG

For a printed version, send one dollar to Michael T. Gilbert, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene OR 97440

Recent commissioned piece featuring the uncanny Inhuman, Medusa.

Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations!

Also, your ideas for NEW art are welcome!

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

Contact Frank directly for details and prices.

(Minimum order: $150) Write now (be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope!) and receive FREE with my reply an autographed Brunner “Star Wars Galaxy” trading card!

Contact the artist at his NEW address:

FRANK BRUNNER 312 Kildare Court Myrtle Beach, SC 29588 Visit my website at: http://www.geocities.com/soho/8915 and click on “Brunner Link”

Medusa ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.

ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS!

copyright 2000 DC Comics

no. 66

36

Fawcett Collectors of America

Fawcett-To-Go Jennifer T. Go ABOUT THE COVER: Based on a 1999 pencil sketch by Alex Ross to help pitch a Shazam! cartoon show to Warner Brothers, FCA’s P.C. Hamerlinck put the finishing touch on this animated-style illustration of The Marvel Family. (Warner Brothers Animation rejected the proposal.) Alex’s original sketch and other fine Captain Marvel artwork can be seen at alexrossart.com. Special thanks to Ross webmaster Bob Riley.

FAWCETT COMPANION—THE BEST OF FCA! John Morrow announced during the TwoMorrows Publishing panel at the 2000 San Diego Comics Convention that an FCA book is tentatively planned for a July 2001 release. The FCA compilation, edited and designed by P.C. Hamerlinck, will include highlights from FCA’s pre-Alter Ego period (1973-1998), as well as previously unpublished material for all Fawcett fans and comics historians to treasure. Watch this space for updates.

VIC TORRY AND HIS FLYING SAUCER. The classic 1950 Fawcett Comics one-shot—written and drawn by Bob Powell— was reprinted in 1987 by A/E’s own Michael T. Gilbert in Mr. Monster’s Hi-Voltage Super Science #1, published by Eclipse Comics. In case you missed it when it first came out (like we did), Michael still has copies available at $4 postpaid: Michael T. Gilbert, P.O. Box 11421, Eugene, OR 97440.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMIC FANDOM. The revised edition of Bill Schelly’s remarkable 184-page book on the history of early comicdom is a great travel back into time for all comic book collectors.

Included is an 8-page color section of fanzines and photos (including a priceless picture of Captain Marvel scribe Otto Binder next to Phil and Carole Seuling at the 1965 New York Comicon). $14.95 from Hamster Press, P.O. Box 27471, Seattle, WA 98125—hamstrpres@aol.com.

DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY appears in AC Comics’ Golden Age reprint book, Men of Mystery #22.

Winslow was a long-running Faw-

cett comics title, drawn by Carl Pfeufer and John Jordan. AC Comics has published high-quality reprints of many Fawcett comics, including Commando Yank, Bulletman, Tom Mix, Ibis, Hopalong Cassidy, Spy Smasher, Rocky Lane, Nyoka, Mr. Scarlet, and more. Contact: AC Comics, Box 521216, Longwood, FL 32752-1216— accomics.com.

THE MARVEL FAMILY WEB, http://shazam.imginc.com/, is the best Internet source for the latest Marvel Family news, information, and links, compiled by Walt Grogan. A recent visit to the site revealed photos of a Shazam! ride at the Six Flags amusement park in St. Louis, and Walt meeting Sal Abinnanti, Alex Ross’ Captain Marvel model for the Shazam!: Power of Hope book.

TV LAND RE-AIRS SHAZAM!: Once this past summer and once this past fall, Nick-at-Nite’s TV Land cable television channel showed episodes of Shazam!, the hit Saturday morning CBS TV series from the ’70s. Actor Michael Gray, who portrayed Billy Batson on the program, told P.C. Hamerlinck that fans should e-mail TV Land (postmaster@tvland.com) and encourage them to show more episodes. “I just think it would be really neat to have the show back on the air,” said Gray.

MYTH, MAGIC, AND A MORTAL: Meanwhile, P.C. is busy collaborating with Jackson Bostwick (TV’s Captain Marvel) on Myth, Magic, and a Mortal, Bostwick’s poignant and captivating tale of portraying the World’s Mightiest Mortal on the Shazam! series.

THE ART OF C.C. BECK: We’re always looking for rare Fawcett and C.C. Beck art to publish in FCA. Also, FCA is requesting your help in filling in some missing pieces (covers and pages) for our Fawcett Comics archives. We welcome your contributions and feedback: FCA c/o TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605—twomorrow@aol.com.

Thank you.

—Jennifer Go FCA Associate Editor This issue of FCA is dedicated to the memory of Chic Stone, 1923-2000.

Jackson Bostwick as Captain Marvel, Michael Gray as Billy Batson, from the CBS TV series Shazam! (1974). [©2001 the respective copyright holder; Captain Marvel & Billy Batson ©2001 DC Comics.]

We Didn’t Know… It Was the Golden Age!

37

The two Shazam! books not only stirred an interest in that past; they enabled me to learn more about two characters I thought I knew… Captain Marvel and C.C. Beck.

By

mds& logo ©2001 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel ©2001 DC Comics] (c) [Art

Another gift that I prize highly is The PhotoJournal Guide to Comic Books, published in 1989 by Gerber Publishing Co., Inc. This two-volume set, consisting of beautiful, full-color reproductions of thousands of comic book covers, has been a help toward answering a question that has bugged me for years: Which of the Fawcett Captain Marvel covers of 194143 were rendered by yours truly?

Essays in the DC books are so scholarly written, so well researched, so obviously dedicated to accurate comic book history, that I dare not take issue with one word in either. if anything appears here contrary to that, it’s an accident. My intention has been to look closely at the artwork, as closely as I possibly could, in sincere effort to determine what it might tell us. I believe that in the art style, the rendering, the technique, and the changes that occurred therein and thereof, are messages about Captain Marvel and his creator that, if we don’t capture them now, may be forever lost.

[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: From 1942 through 1953, Marcus D. Swayze was a major artist for Fawcett Publications’ comics department, being the first artist to visualize Mary Marvel and illustrating her first stories, but primarily working on Captain Marvel and, later, as a freelance artist and writer, producing The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics and scores of stories for Fawcett’s romance comics, such as Sweethearts and Life Story… all the while drawing Bell The early pages of both Shazam! books Syndicate’s Flyin’ Jenny newspaper strip, crecontain reproductions of the very first Capated by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton. tain Marvel images… the Captain Thunder Marc’s ongoing professional memoirs have Captain Marvel. When I saw them, the reacbeen FCA’s most popular feature since his first tion was, “That’s Tom Tyler!” column in issue #54 in 1996. Last issue Marc Tom Tyler had been my favorite cowboy told of: Returning to the South in 1944, where actor. He had been in films since the ’20s and he produced in his home studio The Phantom I remembered him in a lot of westerns. And Eagle and Flyin’ Jenny; recruiting his sister what a daredevil rider! I’d be willing to bet he Daisy as his letterer; making improvements on put more Hollywood stunt men out of work The Phantom Eagle; Keaton’s amazing backthan any other actor. grounds and techniques; continuing to pursue I was amazed at the resemblance. Nothhis goal of having a syndicated newspaper ing like the Captain Marvel I had known… comic strip of his own creation; and meeting and drawn… in the later ’40s, so similar howWalt Kelly, creator of Pogo, in the late ’40s.

Staff artist Marc Swayze, Fawcett Comics Dept., ever to the 1940 version.

In this issue’s column, Marc backtracks and Paramount Building, New York City, 1941. (Photo discusses the genesis of Captain Marvel, and originally published in FCA #56, Summer 1996.)

But did C.C. Beck draw those first CapC.C. Beck’s artistic approach and possible tain Marvels to resemble Tom Tyler? I don’t influences. —PCH.] think so. I believe it was the other way around.

C

omics have been good to me. A few years ago I received as a gift a 1977 book titled Shazam! from the Forties to the Seventies.

Then, more recently, a couple of generous friends saw to it that I received a second book, The Shazam Archives, Vol. 2, published in 1999.

Those books have provided a view into a period of comic book history of which I knew little, and cared little… until now. When I joined Fawcett Publications my interest was in Captain Marvel as he appeared right at that time. I was not concerned about what he might have looked like leading up to that time, and I don’t think my employers were. The young super-hero was showing signs of popularity far beyond expectations. Why look into the past?

Consider this: Fawcett probably published more movie fan magazines than any other house. When the Hollywooders came to town, they were usually put up at the Astor Hotel just across the street. Due to the fan magazines and, I suspect, the insistence of their publicity people, they were frequent visitors in the Fawcett offices. When they came through, the big ones, it was top drawer all the way, with Al Allard, Fawcett art director, acting as tour guide, our 24th floor magnates tagging along.

Far left: The 1977 hardcover book compiled

by E. Nelson Bridwell for DC Comics and Crown Publishing Co. Cover by Kurt Schaffenberger. Left: The cover of The Shazam!

Archives, Volume 2. [©2001 DC Comics.]

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Fawcett Collectors of America stills… photos of top stars made available for the fan magazines. Beck once told of having selected facial features from several… even mentioned the names of a few. It comes down to how you define “modeled after”… whether it means “copied from,” say, with each day-today drawing … or visually conceived from the beginning. In my mind it is the original conception, and in that sense Captain Marvel was a composite. Later on in his life when he was most likely being rendered by the assembly line system, he may have begun to resemble a specific actor. After a likeness was noted, and the word got around, and his creators picked it up as good interview copy, the boys in the shop may have begun to lean into the Fred MacMurray thing.

E.Nelson Bridwell, in his introduction to the ’77 Shazam! book, said, “Captain Marvel hit the screen in 1941.” To my way of thinking, those movie serials, like Rome, weren’t whipped up in a day. So let’s put together a few facts and some imagination and create a little scenario of our own: It is possible those early talks about a Captain Marvel movie took place, not in Hollywood, but in New York City, right in our offices. “Upstairs,” of course. Can’t you just hear it?

“Now, before we head for the Coast, can you give me a recent picture of this Captain Marvel for our casting office?”

You’ve got to believe me… our folks on the upper floor wouldn’t have known a recent image of Captain Marvel from a recent image of Confucius.

“Why, yes! Here’s one someone left on my desk a few months ago.”

Looking at it from the Hollywood side, imagine the casting department’s reaction:

There does seem to be a resemblance. Above inset: The Beck-drawn Captain Marvel from the first issue of Whiz (#2), Feb. 1940. Above: Tom Tyler in the 1941 Republic serial. Roy Thomas got this photo in 1964 from the late great Otto Binder, writer of Cap’s most memorable adventures.

[Captain Marvel ©2001 DC Comics; photo ©2001 the respective copyright holder.]

And maybe others.

There was an amusing statement made in an interview by Roscoe Fawcett, retired co-owner of the publishing company. [“The Roscoe K. Fawcett Interview,”

by P.C. Hamerlinck, FCA #59, 1998.] He told of once speaking with Cary Grant about featuring him in one of the Fawcett magazines… and the actor’s response: “You’re already doing that!

People have told me I look like Captain Marvel!”

“For a serial? About a comic book character?

What’s the criteria… his batting average? Do we look for a graduate in dramatic arts… or somebody who looks like this drawing that came from the publisher?”

Assistant casting director: “Duh…” Boss: “Let’s see that drawing again. Hey… he looks like an actor I know! Tom Tyler! Get him on the phone!”

That dimpled chin always struck me as resembling Cary’s more than Fred’s.

According to E. Nelson Bridwell’s introduction to Shazam! from the Forties to the Seventies, C.C. Beck was a staff artist working on a movie magazine when chosen to illustrate Bill Parker’s first Captain Marvel story. He had been with the company five years. My aim is to analyze the stories in that book and in The Shazam Archives, Vol. 2 to glean, from the art only, as much as possible about the creator of Captain Marvel.

I wasn’t there. That may not have been the way it happened. But it could have. And I believe it did!

Captain Marvel was a composite. That’s the way we used to draw autos… took a little from this one, a little from that… and you ended up with a fairly decent car that was unidentifiable.

That way, if the script led to the car falling apart later in the story, you and your publisher were less likely to get sued.

The Fawcett library was packed with movie

Nobody was hurt.

I’ll bet even MacMurray liked it a little.

Tom Tyler unmasks The Scorpion in The Adventures of Captain Marvel. [Captain Marvel ©2001 DC Comics; photo ©2001 the respective copyright holders.]

The ideal way to do that would be to spread out a reasonable number of the original pages, which were twice the size of those print-

We Didn’t Know… It Was the Golden Age!

But hold on. The spirit of the moment is there. It is night, the clock in the background says so. And it’s late. That is emphasized by there being only two people on the city walks other than Billy. And it’s raining. Not a pouring rain that might place emphasis on the weather … just a dreary, moody drizzle.

ed, and go at it with a big magnifying glass…

Sherlock Holmes style.

Having neither the glass nor the big originals, I’m taking my chances, expecting experience and sincere intentions to suffice.

I accept the lead story in the 1977 Shazam! book as the oldest evidence of pure C.C. Beck artwork. By “pure” I mean unassisted. My study is to continue until the work… the art style … and Captain Marvel appear as we know them.

39

“That panel [the view of the subway entrance] appears numerous times, never changing… except the people going in and out.” In this instance, Billy is carrying the injured Freddy Freeman to Shazam in Whiz Comics #25 (Dec. ’41), the origin issue of Capt.

Marvel Jr. Art by Beck. [©2001 DC Comics.]

To myself I call the Captain Marvel on the February 1940 Whiz cover and the following title panel the “Captain Thunder Captain Marvel” and sometimes the “Tom Tyler Captain Marvel.” I’ve read that the buttoned-down chest flaps with the tiny lightning flash lasted five issues. I assume that such things as the cuffs with six bands, and the folded-over boot tops, went away about that time.

The first panel in the story is Billy Batson selling papers at the subway entrance. That scene, with different characters, appears at least twice in that story, several times in the book, and numerous times thereafter, never changing in layout, lighting… only the people going in and out.

Not very exciting. No tilted panel, no extreme camera angle, no dramatic perspective with the newspaper thrust forward into the face of the reader. Not much to it.

Already a touch of genius may be peeping through that one panel.

There are many ways in which the scene could have been presented. I have never read a Bill Parker script that I know of, but writers didn’t tell the artist everything that went into a panel. The copy may have said something like: “Billy’s peddling papers at night.” Even the subway station may have been the artist’s idea. I’ll wager that if copies of the script had been handed to ten artists, ten completely different layouts would have resulted, and, moreover, I’ll bet not one would have as much to silently say as this artist. That’s where creativity comes in… illustrative storytelling.

This may not have been the first panel of the story to be drawn. Many of us began a job on an inner page to assure a “warmed up” swing to page one. That panel, though, is highly indicative of the talent that never wavered through the duration of “pure Beck art.”

“…his expression… deadpan, very.”

Panel from the first Captain Marvel story, Whiz Comics #2 (Feb. 1940). Art by Beck. [©2001 DC Comics.)

It would be disrespectful of me to say Captain Marvel started out with a pointed head, but I swear it does seem to taper toward the top in that story. And it may be interesting to note that he never once opens his mouth. Oh, he speaks… but his lips never part. His mouth remains pinched, almost pouty, and his expression… deadpan, very. He himself may have ticketed this as a fallacy… in view of his eventually leading the field of super-heroes in facial expressions and emotions.

Better balanced panel composition and fewer instances of characters close to falling out the bottom are evident as the story moves along.

And, after the first shots of the mechanically rendered subway car, the art style relaxes as, I suspect, the artist began to relax.

It is impossible to resist mentioning a question that came to mind upon reviewing this story… the same question I kept silent about the first time I saw the work of the artist fifty years previously. Could C.C. Beck at some time or other have read and admired the classic newspaper comic strip Captain Easy? The seriously executed backgrounds, the secondary characters, the strong outline and the comfortable pairing of adventure and humor… all tend to remind one of the art of Roy Crane and Leslie Turner.

Of course, I am speaking of influence, not copying. Most of us were influenced by the work of others, whether we realized it or not. Influence is respectable, copying isn’t. Beck would not have copied. He didn’t have to.

[MARC SWAYZE’s memories of the Golden Age of Comics will continue in the next edition of FCA.]

“Could C.C. Beck at some time or other have read and admired the classic newspaper comic strip Captain Easy?” [©1933, 2001 NEA Service, Inc.]

The Swayze Cap, from “Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. 1942). [©2001 DC comics.]

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Fawcett Collectors of America

The Fawcett Side of Dave Berg The FCA Interview by P.C. Hamerlinck [The famous Mad magazine cartoonist talks about his early comic book career and his work as a Captain Marvel staff artist for Fawcett in the early 1940s.]

P.C. HAMERLINCK: Where were you born and when did you become interested in art? Did you have any formal training?

DAVE BERG: I was born in 1920 at the far end of Long Island, a small town called Brooklyn. I started drawing at the age of three. In elementary school, the teacher sent for my parents: “The kid might have some talent. Send him to art school.” At the age of ten, I was put in an adult art class. At age twelve, I received a scholarship to Pratt Institute. In 1940 I went to the Cooper Union Art School at night. There my teacher said I was good enough to be a professional. I was ashamed to tell him that I was already a working professional, drawing crude comic books.

PCH: So you had already broken into comics by then. Where were you working during the daytime?

BERG: I was fortunate to get a job with the genius Will Eisner. I worked on his staff in Tudor City studio. When I was hired, Will had just started two magazines (Hit Comics and Military Comics) in partnership with Quality Comics. I also drew some backgrounds of sequences for The Spirit. The deadline demand on Will in those days was so hectic that everyone in the shop pitched in to help each other.

One day, Will gave me a script to re-write for one of his comic books. After I finished rewriting the story, Will said the words that changed my life.

“You’re a writer!” he said. He then handed over a feature for me to do, called “Death Patrol.”

When it was first published, to my amazement, I got fan mail.

Then Will gave me the big job. He was starting a comic called Uncle Sam. I “[Will Eisner] was starting a comic called Uncle Sam. I was to write and pencil it.” So did Dave Berg work on this particular story? Who knows? [©2001 DC Comics.]

was to write and pencil it. During that period, I couldn’t wait to come to work. There was such a thrust of inspiration that I seemed to float two feet off the ground.

PCH: How long did you work for Eisner?

BERG: Until the shock of Pearl Harbor came. Gradually the Eisner studio broke up, since many of the artists went off to war. I volunteered for the Air Force. But my draft board needed a quota. They made my volunteering null and void, and gave me a draft date months into the future. While I waited to go into the service, I filled up my time freelancing. I did a feature for the lovable, amiable Stan Lee called “Baldy.”

PCH: At this time you also began to do some freelance work for Fawcett, correct?

“Today I’m still built… especially around the equator!” Dave Berg caricatures himself as the Big Red Cheese in a 1980 drawing, originally published in FCA #15.

[Art ©2001 Dave Berg.]

DB: Yes, I did some fillers called “Sir Butch,” “Spooks,” and some others. These were done through an agent. Soon thereafter, I went down to the Fawcett offices in New York at the Paramount Building.

Because of the War having broken out, there were openings on the Captain Marvel staff.

PCH: Is this when you first met C.C. Beck? What do you remember about joining the Captain Marvel staff at Fawcett? What were your job duties?

BERG: Yes, after I met C.C. I got the job drawing and writing Captain Marvel stories. C.C. knew he was going to lose more artists in the months to come. The demand for Captain Marvel stories was great, so C.C. worked out a mass production system. My arrangement was to write a script at night. The next morning, I would roughly pencil the story, which was passed on to the letterer, and on to the next artist who tightened the penciling, then on to C.C. who drew Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and other major characters, along with reworking any panels that needed it, and then on to the inkers. Beck was to oversee everything before it left our department. Artist Marc Swayze did his own layouts/penciling, inking, and lettering.

PCH: I understand you had an unofficial job task on the Captain Marvel staff which the readers of FCA may be interested in.

BERG: Besides writing, penciling, and inking, I did have one more duty.

When Captain Marvel was in a difficult position to draw, I would take off my shirt and pose for the artists. In those days, I was built—I was

The Fawcett Side of Dave Berg

41

what was called a V-man. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscles in between. Today, I’m still built… especially around the equator!

PCH: Did you like working in Beck’s mass production environment?

BERG: Sure. C.C.’s system was efficient and worked well. We produced so much material that during the next three years when I was in the Air Force that same material I had worked on was still coming out! My fellow G.I.s who were reading Captain Marvel Adventures wouldn’t believe me when I said I had written or drawn a particular story.

I heard a soldier say, “I was reading in a Captain Marvel comic book that the Germans changed the course of the Gulf Stream to freeze out England.” I jumped out of my bunk and yelled, “Hey, I wrote that story!” Everyone just laughed at me. Someone said, “Right, and I’m the King of England!” Another soldier said, “Hold on! I work in headquarters. I saw Berg’s records. He did write and draw Captain Marvel.

Fawcett paid him $75 a week plus extra for the stories he freelanced.”

That brought a chorus of “Wow!” Remember, at that time the Depression was still a recent memory, and in New York, that was a fairly good income. But to a Midwestern farmer or a hillbilly, that was a fortune. Word got around the airfield, and before you know it I was in the Air Force newspaper headlines: “CAPTAIN MARVEL ARTIST STATIONED AT WESTOVER”—followed by a write-up about me, that lowly private rich kid from Brooklyn.

PCH: Do you recall any other Captain Marvel stories you wrote or illustrated?

BERG: No, I can’t remember any particular stories. I do remember that I also drew a few covers, one being Captain Marvel Adventures #14, 1942, depicting a fist-raised Captain Marvel towering over Japanese soldiers.

PCH: Tell me about some of the people you remember on the Captain Marvel staff.

BERG: While I was only on the staff for four months before entering the military, I remember that the staff was made up of some very pleasant people. I really respected C.C. Beck; he was thoroughly professional, multi-talented, and a great boss. I remember Pete Costanza, who later became C.C.’s business partner when they opened up their own shop in Englewood, New Jersey. I also remember artist Mac Raboy and couldn’t help but notice how painfully shy he was.

PCH: Overall, did you enjoy your brief stay at Fawcett?

BERG: Yes. However, I must give you a negative. There was a small group of men at Fawcett who were “America Firsters.” They were proGerman, and against America being in the war. I would have been a target for them. I had the wrong background, and it was known that I would soon leave for the Air Force. One day at Fawcett, I passed by an office and I overheard C.C. Beck defending me as he was talking to this group of “American Firsters.” “Leave Dave Berg alone!” C.C. said in anger. “We need him. Besides, he’s tough and Before putting on a uniform, Dave Berg drew the cover for this 1942 issue of Captain Marvel Adventures. [©2000 DC Comics.]

While waiting to enter the armed services after Pearl Harbor, Berg drew “Sir Butch” and “Spooks” for Fawcett. “Sir Butch” is from Gift Comics #1 (1942), and “Spooks” is from Xmas Comics #2 (1942). [©2001 DC Comics.]

won’t put up with you.” The small group of men never bothered me.

They must have been afraid that I would draw funny pictures of them.

PCH: After four months on the Captain Marvel staff, you went into the Air Force. Did you stay in contact with Fawcett? What were your duties in the Air Force?

BERG: Throughout the next three years, Fawcett stayed in touch and sent me many packages of comics. I shared those packages, along with the packages of salamis my family sent, with my brother G.I.s, which made me a very popular sergeant.

The Air Force made good use of me. First, they sent me to special training. I was a chemical warfare technician. They had me paint posters and draw “how-to” pamphlets. I even designed an obstacle course, and I was on a team that developed a new radio for downed flyers. Then I went overseas as a section chief. Our troop transport won a shooting battle with a Japanese submarine. I was in Eniwetok, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, and the tail end of the battle of Iwo Jima. Air raids and sniper fire were endless. We were a P-47 fighter squadron. My section was the

42

Fawcett Collectors of America ogy books, but for the most part I created strips that were based on things that happened to me, my family, and my friends in real life.

ground crew, which involved supplying 500 G.I.s with drinking water purified from the ocean. I had to put guards on duty to keep the Japanese from stealing the water.

[Mad editor] Al Feldstein said that if I was going to laugh at people, then I better show that I was no better. I put myself in the feature, usually as a klutz; I also drew pictures of the people whose incidents I based a sequence on.

Mad named my feature “The Lighter Side of….”

Iwo was the ugliest and most dismal spot in the world. It seemed like it was made up of nothing but black ashes. In addition to my regular duties, I was made Morale officer to help pretty up the place. Whenever possible, I painted some funny pictures as well as painting illustrations and insignias on the motors of the P-47s. I volunteered to work on the island newspaper.

A month ahead of putting anything down on the drawing board, my wife and I would research a subject thoroughly. With that information I found it easy to put it into little short stories.

It became the most popular feature in

Sgt. Dave Berg during World War II, standing next to one of his When the War ended, I was made a painted insignias on a P-47. [Photo courtesy of Dave Berg.] temporary war correspondent. I was flown to Japan. For two days, my phoMad. tographer and I wandered around the outskirts of Yokahama. We were the first Americans the Japanese saw since the War ended. They all Psychology professors used my strip as required reading. One psybowed to us. I, in return, saluted them. chiatrist said I was making some new observations; to this day, I don’t When I met up with know what they are. Time magazine once wrote that stand-up comediGeneral McArthur’s ans were copying my truth-humor style. Mad started to publish books. army in Yokahama, I I did fifteen of them. My books have sold over ten million copies and saw a G.I. there readare translated into a dozen languages. I did lectures at universities across ing a Captain Marvel America and Canada. Eventually Feldstein decided that truth humor comic book. I felt as was passé, and had me switch to a two-panel gag-type formula. When if I was back home.

Nick Meglin and John Ficarra took over, they continued it.

PCH: When you Mad was run like a Mom returned home did and Pop store. Bill Gaines was you continue your the Mom and Pop. He would comics career? Did take the entire staff on trips you go back to around the world. I later reloFawcett to get cated to the West Coast. NBC your old job Berg next to a Japanese soldier, in Yokahama, 1945; the wanted to put “The Lighter back? artist was made a temporary war correspondent after Side” on television as a sitcom, the War ended. [Photo courtesy of Dave Berg.] but everything fell through. I BERG: Yes, just ended up staying in Califorupon returning nia, where I continue my work home, I went to the Fawcett offices. They told me they would love to for Mad. have me back. However, Will Eisner had left me a message saying that he had a job waiting for me. I went to see Will. He was phasing out The PCH: Thank you for your time, Spirit and starting other projects. He hired Jules Feiffer and myself to Dave Berg today in his California Dave. Any parting comments finish out the contract. We both wrote it. I penciled studio—and (below) a recent selfabout your amazing career? it and Will inked it. Later, I did a stint with

Archie Comics. Afterwards, I reunited myself with Stan Lee. I did some teenage comic books for him and assisted him as an editor. Then, for five years, I did Combat Kelly—Korean war stories.

PCH: And then, the big switch—Mad magazine.

BERG: Right… New York, 1956. I came up with the idea of satirizing people, human nature, true to life stories.

Mad had been satirizing just about everything else except those things. I occasionally worked from psycholSgt. Dave Berg at the Battle of Iwo Jima—“the ugliest and most dismal spot in the world.” [Photo courtesy of Dave Berg.]

caricature. [Photo courtesy of and

art ©2001 Dave Berg.]

BERG: In Brooklyn, they have made a Walk of Fame at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. (Brooklyn has produced more famous people than some countries.) Each year they add three names to the list.

They tell me that I’m on the list, but I’m way at the bottom.

We, the comic book artists and writers, landed on the moon decades before Neil Armstrong made one giant leap for mankind. We set the patterns which were to be followed for the next sixty years. Many of the early pioneer comic book creators, myself included, were hacks—but we were inspired hacks.

It was a labor of love, and those early days of comic books were to be my happiest days.

#

1

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Fawcett Collectors of America

The Marvel Family Battles Evil Incarnate The Final Showdown Between C.C. Beck and DC Comics

by P.C. Hamerlinck the police, saying he will appear to testify at the trial. He turns into Billy Batson and finds himself in the underground hall of statues of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man.

C.C. Beck needs no introduction. In 1940 Beck’s clean and simple artwork brought Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel to life and changed the course of comics history. The magic ended in 1953; the wisdom of Solomon told Fawcett that comic books weren’t as lucrative a business as they used to be. In addition, Fawcett, disgusted by the never-ending litigation with Superman’s publisher which had brought suit against them, decided to fold their entire line of comic books. Captain Marvel and The Marvel Family faded into oblivion.

Shazam appears and tells Billy that, though the bodies of the seven evil spirits are imprisoned in the statues, they still roam the Earth and are plotting new revenge. (A flashback sequence shows Captain Marvel fighting the seven evil spirits in previous stories.) As nothing new in the way of evil seems to be happening yet, Billy goes home to bed, somewhat worried.

Twenty years later, DC Comics, the very company whose attorneys had campaigned in the courtroom to While Billy sleeps, the evil seven are holding kill Captain Marvel, were reviving him in a new comic a meeting and discussing ways to get rid of book called Shazam! C.C. Beck, after being asked to Captain Marvel. A witch appears and says that magic may submit samples (!), came on board as the artist for the work against him. She puts an evil spell on a picture, which revival. Beck quickly became dismayed at the poor is given to Billy as a present for Captain Marvel. Billy scripts he was asked to illustrate. He clashed often puts it on his desk and the spell starts working. As he with editor Julius Schwartz. Everyreads the paper, he sees that the warething came to a screeching halt when The Marvel Family—a 1975 convention drawing by C.C. Beck. [Characters house thieves have been released from ©2001 DC Comics; art ©2001 estate of C.C. Beck.]

Beck refused to illustrate two stories jail by a criminal lawyer, who happens slated for Shazam! #11—stories that to be one of the evil seven. Billy loses he called “worthless”—involving Captain his temper. He turns on the radio and hears another Marvel eating gelatin and talking to Santa Claus. member of the evil seven saying that Captain Marvel [EDITOR’S NOTE: For more details, read “Can doesn’t even exist. Billy changes into Marvel and Lightning Strike Twice?” from Comic Book Artist confronts the two, who run away. He finds another #1, reprinted in Comic Book Artist Collection— of the evil seven threatening to foreclose on Station Volume 1.]

WHIZ, which he is helpless to prevent.

In 1974, after Beck had stopped drawing for DC, editor E. Nelson Bridwell extended him an invitation, informing him that if he wanted to submit a script, and if it was approved by the editorial staff, they would let him draw it up. Beck immediately wrote and sent in a Marvel Family script called “Captain Marvel Battles Evil Incarnate.”

The story opens with Captain Marvel catching some thieves at a warehouse. He turns them over to

Captain Marvel now begins to see how the forces of evil are working against him and is so frustrated that he punches a hole in the wall in anger. He is starting to crack up. He gets so mad that he tears up the picture, thus removing the spell that was on him and Billy, although neither of them knew this.

Charles Clarence Beck, 1979.

The evil seven summon up a horrible demon named Odius and send him off to destroy Captain Marvel. A tremendous fight takes place, the demon is knocked through a window, and Marvel changes

The Marvel Family Battles Evil Incarnate to Billy. But Odius comes back and puts a curse on Billy so that he becomes evil. Billy destroys his poster of Captain Marvel and says, “Never mention his name to me! I hate, despise, and loathe him!”

The evil seven walk into the Station WHIZ offices, each with an attendant spirit hovering over him. They throw WHIZ president Sterling Morris out, take over the Here editor Julius Schwartz appears in a station, and demote Billy Beck-drawn panel from Shazam! #7 (Nov. to errand boy and garbage 1973); but the two were actually like oil and water. [©2001 DC Comics.] handler. All seems lost, but Uncle Marvel sends Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. to get Billy. They have to knock him out before they bring him back, as Billy is now completely evil.

Uncle revives Billy and tricks him into saying “Shazam!” The curse on Billy is broken when Captain Marvel appears, and The Marvel Family fly back toward Station WHIZ. The evil seven see The Marvel Family coming and try to summon Odius again, but he refuses to appear. Seeing that they are all helpless, the seven evil spirits depart from the bodies they took over and they are left to the mercy of the Marvels. At the end Captain Marvel says to Mary and Junior, “I guess you could say that they lost their spirits when it came to a showdown.”

That was Beck’s story. It had, he thought, all the old mystery, magic, and evil forces of the old stories, and showed how Captain Marvel was

45

almost defeated when the evil seven spirits teamed up against him.

Six months passed after Beck wrote and sent in his script to DC, with no response from them.

Finally, waiting in his mailbox was an envelope from DC. E. Nelson Bridwell had returned Beck’s script to him, severely edited and rewritten.

Here’s Beck’s story after Bridwell edited it and sent it back to Beck to draw: “Never mention [Captain Marvel’s] name

A dramatic splash to me! I hate, despise, and loathe him!” page contains Captain Art by C.C. Beck from Legion Outpost #8. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Marvel facing Odius. The story doesn’t begin until page two, with Captain Marvel catching crooks and the police taking them away. Marvel changes to Billy and goes to the hall of statues. Shazam appears and tells a long story of how, as a young man six thousand years ago, he first defeated the seven evil spirits and turned them to stone with his “white magic.” Shazam gives Billy a solemn warning, then fades away. Billy yawns and goes home to “hit the sack.”

The evil seven put a “dream inducer,” a little gadget they have “stolen from a scientist,” into the frame of a picture which they send to Billy. Nothing happens the rest of the day; Billy goes home, taking the picture with him, and again “hits the sack.” He has a nightmare and screams. Pa Potter comes in to wake him up, and Billy’s nightmare monsters come right out of his dream and attack Pa, causing him to fall out of the window.

Billy, still asleep, sees this in his dream, changes to Captain Marvel, and flies to Pa’s rescue. Marvel then tears open the picture frame, squashes the gadget, and says, “A gadget that creates nightmares could drive a person mad!”

All is quiet for the next few days, until the evil seven Uncle Marvel, in 1947 art by Costanza summon the demon Odius and Beck. [©2001 DC Comics.] and send him to fight Captain Marvel. This portion of the story is as Beck wrote it, but after the curse is put on Billy he bawls out his boss Mr. Morris and refuses to say “Shazam!”

A “crime wave” now begins, and Uncle Marvel sends Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. to stop it. Odius is still lurking around when he suddenly waves his hand, casting a “hate the Marvels” hex into the people on the streets. The crowd of people become irate and start shouting, “Boo!” A riot breaks out and the crowd begin throwing things at a bewildered Mary and Junior.

“Captain Marvel catching some thieves at a warehouse.” Since Beck’s script was never illustrated, art from other stories has been utilized to accompany this article. Art by C.C. Beck from the fanzine Legion Outpost #6. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Meanwhile, Uncle Marvel has gone to Station WHIZ, where he tricks Billy into saying “Shazam!” Captain Marvel appears and, with Uncle clinging to his leg, flies to help Mary and Junior. Marvel sees Odius, immediately figures out exactly what is going on, punches Odius,

46

Fawcett Collectors of America “They have to knock him out....”

Beck art originally from Alan Light’s The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom in the 1970s. [©2001 DC Comics.]

and everything becomes just dandy.

The Marvel Family clean up the “crime wave” and then fly off to finish the evil seven, who haven’t been doing anything except just sitting in their meeting room. How The Marvel Family even knew they were alive or where they

“The Marvel Family clean up the ‘crime wave.’” Art by Beck from Shazam! #1, 1973. [©2001 DC Comics.]

were located is not explained. The story ends with Billy saying to the reader, “That’s how it happened, folks! Just remember, those seven deadly enemies are still around. Don’t let them warp your minds, too!

Be on guard! So long, and be good!”

Understandably, Beck was reluctant to draw the Bridwell-edited story. He felt that it was childish and totally lacking in plot, with too many characters, holes, and loose ends. The evil seven barely appeared. There were unnecessary riot scenes, an unexplained crime wave, unidentified crooks, the addition of a “dream inducer,” and Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. flying around looking helpless.

Beck tried to draw the rewritten script, but when he came to illustrate the scene where Uncle Marvel is clinging onto Captain Marvel’s leg, he tore up the whole story and threw it in the garbage.

Beck returned the rewritten script to DC and told them that he wanted nothing to do with it. DC’s invitations to Beck stopped and they never contacted him again.

Perhaps had there been only minimal changes made

by Bridwell to Beck’s script, Marvel Family and Beck fans would have been treated to an exciting tale filled with Golden Age storytelling elements, written and illustrated by one of the masters of the medium. But the Golden Age was long over. Captain Marvel had become quaint and out of place in the modern world, and his revival was a failure. The Marvel Family were now dim figures from far back in the mist of time. The magic lightning that once boomed from the skies was silent.

Page 1 of the rewritten script sent to Beck by E. Nelson Bridwell.

Just for the heck of it, we’ve relettered Captain Marvel’s balloon to contain Beck’s dialogue. The art in this panel is from The Marvel Family #10 (April 1947), by Costanza and Beck. [©2001 DC Comics.]

Edited by ROY THOMAS

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ALTER EGO #4

ALTER EGO #5

ALTER EGO #1

ALTER EGO #2

ALTER EGO #3

STAN LEE gets roasted by SCHWARTZ, CLAREMONT, DAVID, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, and SHOOTER, ORDWAY and THOMAS on INFINITY, INC., IRWIN HASEN interview, unseen H.G. PETER Wonder Woman pages, the original Captain Marvel and Human Torch teamup, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, “Mr. Monster”, plus plenty of rare and unpublished art!

Featuring a never-reprinted SPIRIT story by WILL EISNER, the genesis of the SILVER AGE ATOM (with GARDNER FOX, GIL KANE, and JULIE SCHWARTZ), interviews with LARRY LIEBER and Golden Age great JACK BURNLEY, BOB KANIGHER, a new Fawcett Collectors of America section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, and more!

GIL KANE and JACK BURNLEY flip-covers!

Unseen ALEX ROSS and JERRY ORDWAY Shazam! art, 1953 interview with OTTO BINDER, the SUPERMAN/CAPTAIN MARVEL LAWSUIT, GIL KANE on The Golden Age of TIMELY COMICS, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, rare art by AYERS, BERG, BURNLEY, DITKO, RICO, SCHOMBURG, MARIE SEVERIN and more! ALEX ROSS & BILL EVERETT covers!

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ALTER EGO #6

ALTER EGO #7

ALTER EGO #8

Interviews with KUBERT, SHELLY MOLDOFF, and HARRY LAMPERT, BOB KANIGHER, life and times of GARDNER FOX, ROY THOMAS remembers GIL KANE, a history of Flash Comics, MOEBIUS Silver Surfer sketches, MR. MONSTER, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and SCHAFFENBERGER, and lots more! Dual color covers by JOE KUBERT!

Celebrating the JSA, with interviews with MART NODELL, SHELLY MAYER, GEORGE ROUSSOS, BILL BLACK, and GIL KANE, unpublished H.G. PETER Wonder Woman art, GARDNER FOX, an FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK, WENDELL CROWLEY, and more! Wraparound cover

by CARMINE INFANTINO and JERRY ORDWAY!

GENE COLAN interview, 1940s books on comics by STAN LEE and ROBERT KANIGHER, AYERS, SEVERIN, and ROY THOMAS on Sgt. Fury, ROY on All-Star Squadron’s Golden Age roots, FCA section with SWAYZE, BECK, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, JOE SIMON interview, a definitive look at MAC RABOY’S work, and more! Covers by COLAN and RABOY!

Companion to ALL-STAR COMPANION book, with a JULIE SCHWARTZ interview, guide to JLA-JSA TEAMUPS, origins of the ALL-STAR SQUADRON, FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, C.C. BECK (on his 1970s DC conflicts), DAVE BERG, BOB ROGERS, more on MAC RABOY from his son, MR. MONSTER, and more! RICH BUCKLER and C.C. BECK covers!

WALLY WOOD biography, DAN ADKINS & BILL PEARSON on Wood, TOR section with 1963 JOE KUBERT interview, ROY THOMAS on creating the ALL-STAR SQUADRON and its 1940s forebears, FCA section with SWAYZE & BECK, MR. MONSTER, JERRY ORDWAY on Shazam!, JERRY DeFUCCIO on the Golden Age, CHIC STONE remembered! ADKINS and KUBERT covers!

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ALTER EGO #9

ALTER EGO #10

ALTER EGO #11

ALTER EGO #12

ALTER EGO #13

JOHN ROMITA interview by ROY THOMAS (with unseen art), Roy’s PROPOSED DREAM PROJECTS that never got published (with a host of great artists), MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING’S life after Superman, The Golden Age of Comic Fandom Panel, FCA section with GEORGE TUSKA, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, BILL MORRISON, & more! ROMITA and GIORDANO covers!

Who Created the Silver Age Flash? (with KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and SCHWARTZ), DICK AYERS interview (with unseen art), JOHN BROOME remembered, never-seen Golden Age Flash pages, VIN SULLIVAN Magazine Enterprises interview, FCA, interview with FRED GUARDINEER, and MR. MONSTER on WAYNE BORING! INFANTINO and AYERS covers!

Focuses on TIMELY/MARVEL (interviews and features on SYD SHORES, MICKEY SPILLANE, and VINCE FAGO), and MAGAZINE ENTERPRISES (including JOE CERTA, JOHN BELFI, FRANK BOLLE, BOB POWELL, and FRED MEAGHER), MR. MONSTER on JERRY SIEGEL, DON and MAGGIE THOMPSON interview, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and DON NEWTON!

DC and QUALITY COMICS focus! Quality’s GILL FOX interview, never-seen ‘40s PAUL REINMAN Green Lantern story, ROY THOMAS talks to LEN WEIN and RICH BUCKLER about ALL-STAR SQUADRON, MR. MONSTER shows what made WALLY WOOD leave MAD, FCA section with BECK & SWAYZE, & ‘65 NEWSWEEK ARTICLE on comics! REINMAN and BILL WARD covers!

1974 panel with JOE SIMON, STAN LEE, FRANK ROBBINS, and ROY THOMAS, ROY and JOHN BUSCEMA on Avengers, 1964 STAN LEE interview, tributes to DON HECK, JOHNNY CRAIG, and GRAY MORROW, Timely alums DAVID GANTZ and DANIEL KEYES, and FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and MIKE MANLEY! Covers by MURPHY ANDERSON and JOE SIMON!

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ALTER EGO #14

ALTER EGO #15

ALTER EGO #16

ALTER EGO #17

ALTER EGO #18

A look at the 1970s JSA revival with CONWAY, LEVITZ, ESTRADA, GIFFEN, MILGROM, and STATON, JERRY ORDWAY on All-Star Squadron, tributes to CRAIG CHASE and DAN DeCARLO, “lost” 1945 issue of All-Star, 1970 interview with LEE ELIAS, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, & JAY DISBROW! MIKE NASSER & MICHAEL GILBERT covers!

JOHN BUSCEMA ISSUE! BUSCEMA interview (with UNSEEN ART), reminiscences by SAL BUSCEMA, STAN LEE, INFANTINO, KUBERT, ORDWAY, FLO STEINBERG, and HERB TRIMPE, ROY THOMAS on 35 years with BIG JOHN, FCA tribute to KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, plus C.C. BECK and MARC SWAYZE, and MR. MONSTER revisits WALLY WOOD! Two BUSCEMA covers!

MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION (BUSCEMA, COLAN, ROMITA, and SEVERIN), memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL, FCA with ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK, and MARC SWAYZE, tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF, MR. MONSTER on EC COMICS with art by KURTZMAN, DAVIS, and WOOD, and more! Covers by ALEX ROSS and MARIE SEVERIN & RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlighting LOU FINE (with an overview of his career, and interviews with family members), interview with MURPHY ANDERSON about Fine, ALEX TOTH on Fine, ARNOLD DRAKE interviewed about DEADMAN and DOOM PATROL, MR. MONSTER on the non-EC work of JACK DAVIS and GEORGE EVANS, FINE and LUIS DOMINGUEZ COVERS, FCA and more!

STAN GOLDBERG interview, secrets of ‘40s Timely, art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, MANEELY, EVERETT, BURGOS, and DeCARLO, spotlight on sci-fi fanzine XERO with the LUPOFFS, OTTO BINDER, DON THOMPSON, ROY THOMAS, BILL SCHELLY, and ROGER EBERT, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD ghosting Flash Gordon! KIRBY and SWAYZE covers!

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ALTER EGO #19

ALTER EGO #20

ALTER EGO #21

ALTER EGO #22

ALTER EGO #23

Spotlight on DICK SPRANG (profile and interview) with unseen art, rare Batman art

by BOB KANE, CHARLES PARIS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, MAX ALLAN COLLINS, JIM MOONEY, CARMINE INFANTINO, and ALEX TOTH, JERRY ROBINSON interviewed about Tomahawk and 1940s cover artist FRED RAY, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD’s Flash Gordon, Part 2!

Timely/Marvel art by SEKOWSKY, SHORES, EVERETT, and BURGOS, secrets behind THE INVADERS with ROY THOMAS, KIRBY, GIL KANE, & ROBBINS, BOB DESCHAMPS interviewed, 1965 NY Comics Con review, panel with FINGER, BINDER, FOX and WEISINGER, MR. MONSTER, FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, RABOY, SCHAFFENBERGER, and more! MILGROM and SCHELLY covers!

The IGER “SHOP” examined, with art by EISNER, FINE, ANDERSON, CRANDALL, BAKER, MESKIN, CARDY, EVANS, BOB KANE, and TUSKA, “SHEENA” section with art by DAVE STEVENS & FRANK BRUNNER, ROY THOMAS on JSA & All-Star Squadron, MR. MONSTER on GARDNER FOX, UNSEEN 1946 ALL-STAR ART, FCA, and more!

DAVE STEVENS and IRWIN HASEN covers!

BILL EVERETT and JOE KUBERT interviewed

by NEAL ADAMS and GIL KANE in 1970, Timely art by BURGOS, SHORES, NODELL, and SEKOWSKY, RUDY LAPICK, ROY THOMAS on Sub-Mariner, with art by EVERETT, COLAN, ANDRU, BUSCEMAs, SEVERINs, and more, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD at EC, ALEX TOTH, and CAPT. MIDNIGHT! EVERETT & BECK covers!

Unseen art from TWO “LOST” 1940s H.G. PETER WONDER WOMAN STORIES (and analysis of “CHARLES MOULTON” scripts), BOB FUJITANI and JOHN ROSENBERGER, VICTOR GORELICK discusses Archie and The Mighty Crusaders, with art by MORROW, BUCKLER, and REINMAN, FCA, and MR. MONSTER on WALLY WOOD! H.G. PETER and BOB FUJITANI covers!

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ALTER EGO #24

ALTER EGO #25

ALTER EGO #26

ALTER EGO #27

ALTER EGO #28

X-MEN interviews with STAN LEE, DAVE COCKRUM, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ARNOLD DRAKE, JIM SHOOTER, ROY THOMAS, and LEN WEIN, MORT MESKIN profiled by his sons and ALEX TOTH, rare art by JERRY ROBINSON, FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and WILLIAM WOOLFOLK, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY on Comics Fandom! MESKIN and COCKRUM covers!

JACK COLE remembered by ALEX TOTH, interview with brother DICK COLE and his PLAYBOY colleagues, CHRIS CLAREMONT on the X-Men (with more never-seen art by DAVE COCKRUM), ROY THOMAS on AllStar Squadron #1 and its ‘40s roots (with art

by ORDWAY, BUCKLER, MESKIN and MOLDOFF), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by TOTH and SCHELLY!

JOE SINNOTT interview, IRWIN DONENFELD interview by EVANIER & SCHWARTZ, art by SHUSTER, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, and SWAN, MARK WAID analyzes the first Kryptonite story, JERRY SIEGEL and HARRY DONENFELD, JERRY IGER Shop update, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA with SWAYZE, BECK, and KEN BALD! Covers by SINNOTT and WAYNE BORING!

VIN SULLIVAN interview about the early DC days with art by SHUSTER, MOLDOFF, FLESSEL, GUARDINEER, and BURNLEY, MR. MONSTER’s “Lost” KIRBY HULK covers, 1948 NEW YORK COMIC CON with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, and ROY THOMAS, ALEX TOTH, FCA, and more! Covers by JACK BURNLEY and JACK KIRBY!

Spotlight on JOE MANEELY, with a career overview, remembrance by his daughter and tons of art, Timely/Atlas/Marvel art by ROMITA, EVERETT, SEVERIN, SHORES, KIRBY, and DITKO, STAN LEE on Maneely, LEE AMES interview, FCA with SWAYZE, ISIS, and STEVE SKEATES, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Covers by JOE MANEELY and DON NEWTON!

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ALTER EGO #29

ALTER EGO #30

ALTER EGO #31

ALTER EGO #32

ALTER EGO #33

FRANK BRUNNER interview, BILL EVERETT’S Venus examined by TRINA ROBBINS, Classics Illustrated “What ifs”, LEE/KIRBY/DITKO Marvel prototypes, JOE MANEELY’s monsters, BILL FRACCIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, JOHN BENSON on EC, The Heap by ERNIE SCHROEDER, and FCA! Covers by FRANK BRUNNER and PETE VON SHOLLY!

ALEX ROSS on his love for the JLA, BLACKHAWK/JLA artist DICK DILLIN, the super-heroes of 1940s-1980s France (with art by STEVE RUDE, STEVE BISSETTE, LADRÖNN, and NEAL ADAMS), KIM AAMODT & WALTER GEIER on writing for SIMON & KIRBY, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, and FCA! Covers by ALEX ROSS and STEVE RUDE!

DICK AYERS on his 1950s and ‘60s work (with tons of Marvel Bullpen art), HARLAN ELLISON’s Marvel Age work examined (with art by BUCKLER, SAL BUSCEMA, and TRIMPE), STAN LEE’S Marvel Prototypes (with art by KIRBY and DITKO), Christmas cards from comics greats, MR. MONSTER, & FCA with SWAYZE and SCHAFFENBERGER! Covers by DICK AYERS and FRED RAY!

Timely artists ALLEN BELLMAN and SAM BURLOCKOFF interviewed, MART NODELL on his Timely years, rare art by BURGOS, EVERETT, and SHORES, MIKE GOLD on the Silver Age (with art by SIMON & KIRBY, SWAN, INFANTINO, KANE, and more), FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more!

Covers by DICK GIORDANO and GIL KANE!

Symposium on MIKE SEKOWSKY by MARK EVANIER, SCOTT SHAW!, et al., with art

by ANDERSON, INFANTINO, and others, PAT (MRS. MIKE) SEKOWSKY and inker VALERIE BARCLAY interviewed, FCA, 1950s Captain Marvel parody by ANDRU and ESPOSITO, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! Covers by FRENZ/SINNOTT and FRENZ/BUSCEMA!

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ALTER EGO #34

ALTER EGO #35

ALTER EGO #36

ALTER EGO #37

ALTER EGO #38

Quality Comics interviews with ALEX KOTZKY, AL GRENET, CHUCK CUIDERA, & DICK ARNOLD (son of BUSY ARNOLD), art by COLE, EISNER, FINE, WARD, DILLIN, and KANE, MICHELLE NOLAN on Blackhawk’s jump to DC, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on HARVEY KURTZMAN, & ALEX TOTH on REED CRANDALL! Covers by REED CRANDALL & CHARLES NICHOLAS!

Covers by JOHN ROMITA and AL JAFFEE! LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival, with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, BURGOS, HEATH, EVERETT, LAWRENCE, & POWELL, AL JAFFEE on the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and MAD), FCA, ALEX TOTH on comic art, MR. MONSTER on unpublished 1950s covers, and more!

JOE SIMON on SIMON & KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, and LLOYD JACQUET, JOHN BELL on World War II Canadian heroes, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Canadian origins of MR. MONSTER, tributes to BOB DESCHAMPS, DON LAWRENCE, & GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, FCA, ALEX TOTH, and ELMER WEXLER interview! Covers by SIMON and GILBERT & RONN SUTTON!

WILL MURRAY on the 1940 Superman “KMetal” story & PHILIP WYLIE’s GLADIATOR (with art by SHUSTER, SWAN, ADAMS, and BORING), FCA with BECK, SWAYZE, and DON NEWTON, SY BARRY interview, art by TOTH, MESKIN, INFANTINO, and ANDERSON, and MICHAEL T. GILBERT interviews AL FELDSTEIN on EC and RAY BRADBURY! Covers by C.C. BECK and WAYNE BORING!

JULIE SCHWARTZ TRIBUTE with HARLAN ELLISON, INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, KUBERT, GIELLA, GIORDANO, CARDY, LEVITZ, STAN LEE, WOLFMAN, EVANIER, & ROY THOMAS, never-seen interviews with Julie, FCA with BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, NEWTON, COCKRUM, OKSNER, FRADON, SWAYZE, and JACKSON BOSTWICK! Covers by INFANTINO and IRWIN HASEN!

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ALTER EGO #39

ALTER EGO #40

ALTER EGO #41

ALTER EGO #42

ALTER EGO #43

Full-issue spotlight on JERRY ROBINSON, with an interview on being BOB KANE’s Batman “ghost”, creating the JOKER and ROBIN, working on VIGILANTE, GREEN HORNET, and ATOMAN, plus never-seen art by Jerry, MESKIN, ROUSSOS, RAY, KIRBY, SPRANG, DITKO, and PARIS! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER on AL FELDSTEIN Part 2, and more! Two JERRY ROBINSON covers!

RUSS HEATH and GIL KANE interviews (with tons of unseen art), the JULIE SCHWARTZ Memorial Service with ELLISON, MOORE, GAIMAN, HASEN, O’NEIL, and LEVITZ, art by INFANTINO, ANDERSON, TOTH, NOVICK, DILLIN, SEKOWSKY, KUBERT, GIELLA, ARAGONÉS, FCA, MR. MONSTER and AL FELDSTEIN Part 3, and more! Covers by GIL KANE & RUSS HEATH!

Halloween issue! BERNIE WRIGHTSON on his 1970s FRANKENSTEIN, DICK BRIEFER’S monster, the campy 1960s Frankie, art by KALUTA, BAILY, MANEELY, PLOOG, KUBERT, BRUNNER, BORING, OKSNER, TUSKA, CRANDALL, and SUTTON, FCA #100, EMILIO SQUEGLIO interview, ALEX TOTH, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more!

Covers by WRIGHTSON & MARC SWAYZE!

A celebration of DON HECK, WERNER ROTH, and PAUL REINMAN, rare art by KIRBY, DITKO, and AYERS, Hillman and Ziff-Davis remembered by Heap artist ERNIE SCHROEDER, HERB ROGOFF, and WALTER LITTMAN, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and ALEX TOTH! Covers by FASTNER & LARSON and ERNIE SCHROEDER!

Yuletide art by WOOD, SINNOTT, CARDY, BRUNNER, TOTH, NODELL, and others, interviews with Golden Age artists TOM GILL (Lone Ranger) and MORRIS WEISS, exploring 1960s Mexican comics, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and more! Flip covers by GEORGE TUSKA and DAVE STEVENS!

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18

ALTER EGO #44

ALTER EGO #45

ALTER EGO #46

ALTER EGO #47

ALTER EGO #48

JSA/All-Star Squadron/Infinity Inc. special!

Interviews with KUBERT, HASEN, ANDERSON, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, THOMAS, 1940s Atom writer ARTHUR ADLER, art by TOTH, SEKOWSKY, HASEN, MACHLAN, OKSNER, and INFANTINO, FCA, and MR. MONSTER’S “I Like Ike!” cartoons by BOB KANE, INFANTINO, OKSNER, and BIRO! Wraparound ORDWAY cover!

Interviews with Sandman artist CREIG FLESSEL and ‘40s creator BERT CHRISTMAN, MICHAEL CHABON on researching his Pulitzer-winning novel Kavalier & Clay, art

by EISNER, KANE, KIRBY, and AYERS, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, OTTO BINDER’s “lost” Jon Jarl story, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom, and ALEX TOTH! CREIG FLESSEL cover!

The VERY BEST of the 1960s-70s ALTER EGO! 1969 BILL EVERETT interview, art by BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SIMON & KIRBY, and others, 1960s gems by DITKO, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, JERRY BAILS, and ROY THOMAS, LOU GLANZMAN interview, tributes to IRV NOVICK and CHRIS REEVE, MR. MONSTER, FCA, TOTH, and more!

Cover by EVERETT and MARIE SEVERIN!

Spotlights MATT BAKER, Golden Age cheesecake artist of PHANTOM LADY! Career overview, interviews with BAKER’s half-brother and nephew, art from AL FELDSTEIN, VINCE COLLETTA, ARTHUR PEDDY, JACK KAMEN and others, FCA, BILL SCHELLY talks to comic-book-seller (and fan) BUD PLANT, MR. MONSTER on missing AL WILLIAMSON art, and ALEX TOTH!

WILL EISNER discusses Eisner & Iger’s Shop and BUSY ARNOLD’s ‘40s Quality Comics, art by FINE, CRANDALL, COLE, POWELL, and CARDY, EISNER tributes by STAN LEE, GENE COLAN, & others, interviews with ‘40s Quality artist VERN HENKEL and CHUCK MAZOUJIAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER on EISNER’s Wonder Man, ALEX TOTH, and more with BUD PLANT! EISNER cover!

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $2.95

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ALTER EGO #49

ALTER EGO #50

ALTER EGO #51

ALTER EGO #52

ALTER EGO #53

Spotlights CARL BURGOS! Interview with daughter SUE BURGOS, art by BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ED ASCHE, and DICK AYERS, unused 1941 Timely cover layouts, the 1957 Atlas Implosion examined, MANNY STALLMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER and more! New cover by MARK SPARACIO, from an unused 1941 layout by CARL BURGOS!

ROY THOMAS covers his 40-YEAR career in comics (AVENGERS, X-MEN, CONAN, ALL-STAR SQUADRON, INFINITY INC.), with ADAMS, BUSCEMA, COLAN, DITKO, GIL KANE, KIRBY, STAN LEE, ORDWAY, PÉREZ, ROMITA, and many others! Also FCA, & MR. MONSTER on ROY’s letters to GARDNER FOX! Flip-covers by BUSCEMA/ KIRBY/ALCALA and JERRY ORDWAY!

Golden Age Batman artist/BOB KANE ghost LEW SAYRE SCHWARTZ interviewed, Batman art by JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, SHELDON MOLDOFF, WIN MORTIMER, JIM MOONEY, and others, the Golden and Silver Ages of AUSTRALIAN SUPER-HEROES, Mad artist DAVE BERG interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER on WILL EISNER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

JOE GIELLA on the Silver Age at DC, the Golden Age at Marvel, and JULIE SCHWARTZ, with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, SEKOWSKY, SWAN, DILLIN, MOLDOFF, GIACOIA, SCHAFFENBERGER, and others, JAY SCOTT PIKE on STAN LEE and CHARLES BIRO, MARTIN THALL interview, ALEX TOTH, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more! GIELLA cover!

GIORDANO and THOMAS on STOKER’S DRACULA, never-seen DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strip, MIKE ESPOSITO on his work with ROSS ANDRU, art by COLAN, WRIGHTSON, MIGNOLA, BRUNNER, BISSETTE, KALUTA, HEATH, MANEELY, EVERETT, DITKO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, BILL SCHELLY, ALEX TOTH, and MR. MONSTER! Cover by GIORDANO!

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ALTER EGO #54

ALTER EGO #55

ALTER EGO #56

ALTER EGO #57

ALTER EGO #58

MIKE ESPOSITO on DC and Marvel, ROBERT KANIGHER on the creation of Metal Men and Sgt. Rock (with comments

by JOE KUBERT and BOB HANEY), art by ANDRU, INFANTINO, KIRBY, SEVERIN, WINDSOR-SMITH, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, TRIMPE, GIL KANE, and others, plus FCA, ALEX TOTH, BILL SCHELLY, MR. MONSTER, and more! ESPOSITO cover!

JACK and OTTO BINDER, KEN BALD, VIC DOWD, and BOB BOYAJIAN interviewed, FCA with SWAYZE and EMILIO SQUEGLIO, rare art by BECK, WARD, & SCHAFFENBERGER, Christmas Cards from CRANDALL, SINNOTT, HEATH, MOONEY, and CARDY, 1943 Pin-Up Calendar (with ‘40s movie stars as superheroines), ALEX TOTH, more!

ALEX ROSS and ALEX WRIGHT covers!

Interviews with Superman creators SIEGEL & SHUSTER, Golden/Silver Age DC production guru JACK ADLER interviewed, NEAL ADAMS and radio/TV iconoclast (and comics fan) HOWARD STERN on Adler and his amazing career, art by CURT SWAN, WAYNE BORING, and AL PLASTINO, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, ALEX TOTH, and more! NEAL ADAMS cover!

Issue-by-issue index of Timely/Atlas superhero stories by MICHELLE NOLAN, art by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, SEKOWSKY, SHORES, SCHOMBURG, MANEELY, and SEVERIN, GENE COLAN and ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely super-heroes, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY! Cover

by JACK KIRBY and PETE VON SHOLLY!

GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS on their ‘80s screenplay for “The X-Men Movie That Never Was!”with art by COCKRUM, ADAMS, BUSCEMA, BYRNE, GIL KANE, KIRBY, HECK, and LIEBER, Atlas artist VIC CARRABOTTA interview, ALLEN BELLMAN on 1940s Timely bullpen, FCA, 1966 panel on 1950s EC Comics, and MR. MONSTER! MARK SPARACIO/GIL KANE cover!

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19

ALTER EGO #59

ALTER EGO #60

ALTER EGO #61

ALTER EGO #62

ALTER EGO #63

Special issue on Batman and Superman in the Golden and Silver Ages, featuring a new ARTHUR SUYDAM interview, NEAL ADAMS on DC in the 1960s-1970s, SHELLY MOLDOFF, AL PLASTINO, Golden Age artist FRAN (Doll Man) MATERA interviewed, SIEGEL & SHUSTER, RUSS MANNING, FCA, MR. MONSTER, SUYDAM cover, and more!

Celebrates 50 years since SHOWCASE #4!

FLASH interviews with SCHWARTZ, KANIGHER, INFANTINO, KUBERT, and BROOME, Golden Age artist TONY DiPRETA, 1966 panel with NORDLING, BINDER, and LARRY IVIE, FCA, MR. MONSTER, never-before-published color Flash cover by CARMINE INFANTINO, and more!

History of the AMERICAN COMICS GROUP (1946 to 1967)—including its roots in the Golden Age SANGOR ART SHOP and STANDARD/NEDOR comics! Art by MESKIN, ROBINSON, WILLIAMSON, FRAZETTA, SCHAFFENBERGER, & BUSCEMA, ACG writer/editor RICHARD HUGHES, plus AL HARTLEY interviewed, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more! GIORDANO cover!

HAPPY HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE, featuring: MIKE PLOOG and RUDY PALAIS on their horror-comics work! AL WILLIAMSON on his work for the American Comics Group—plus more on ACG horror comics! Rare DICK BRIEFER Frankenstein strips! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY on the 1966 KalerCon, a new PLOOG cover—and more!

Tribute to ALEX TOTH! Never-before-seen interview with tons of TOTH art, including sketches he sent to friends! Articles about Toth by TERRY AUSTIN, JIM AMASH, SY BARRY, JOE KUBERT, LOU SAYRE SCHWARTZ, IRWIN HASEN, JOHN WORKMAN, and others! Plus illustrated Christmas cards by comics pros, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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ALTER EGO #64

ALTER EGO #65

ALTER EGO #66

ALTER EGO #67

ALTER EGO #68

Fawcett Favorites! Issue-by-issue analysis of BINDER & BECK’s 1943-45 “The Monster Society of Evil!” serial, double-size FCA section with MARC SWAYZE, EMILIO SQUEGLIO, C.C. BECK, MAC RABOY, and others! Interview with MARTIN FILCHOCK, Golden Age artist for Centaur Comics! Plus MR. MONSTER, DON NEWTON cover, plus a FREE 1943 MARVEL CALENDAR!

NICK CARDY interviewed on his Golden & Silver Age work (with CARDY art), plus art

by WILL EISNER, NEAL ADAMS, CARMINE INFANTINO, JIM APARO, RAMONA FRADON, CURT SWAN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and others, tributes to ERNIE SCHROEDER and DAVE COCKRUM, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, new CARDY COVER, and more!

Spotlight on BOB POWELL, the artist who drew Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Sheena, The Avenger, The Hulk, Giant-Man, and others, plus art by WALLY WOOD, HOWARD NOSTRAND, DICK AYERS, SIMON & KIRBY, MARTIN GOODMAN’s Magazine Management, and others! FCA with MARC SWAYZE and C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with BOB OKSNER, artist of Supergirl, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Angel and the Ape, Leave It to Binky, Shazam!, and more, plus art and artifacts by SHELLY MAYER, IRWIN HASEN, LEE ELIAS, C.C. BECK, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, JULIE SCHWARTZ, etc., FCA with MARC SWAYZE & C.C. BECK, MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL Part II, and more!

Tribute to JERRY BAILS—Father of Comics Fandom and founder of Alter Ego! Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ, plus art by JOE KUBERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JERRY ORDWAY, JOE STATON, JACK KIRBY, and others! Plus STEVE DITKO’s notes to STAN LEE for a 1965 Dr. Strange story! And ROY reveals secrets behind Marvel’s STAR WARS comic!

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ALTER EGO #69

ALTER EGO #70

ALTER EGO #71

ALTER EGO #72

ALTER EGO #73

PAUL NORRIS drew AQUAMAN first, in 1941—and RAMONA FRADON was the hero’s ultimate Golden Age artist. But both drew other things as well, and both are interviewed in this landmark issue—along with a pocket history of Aquaman! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and more!

Cover painted by JOHN WATSON, from a breathtaking illo by RAMONA FRADON!

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus an homage to artist LILY RENÉE!

Represents THE GREAT CANADIAN COMIC BOOKS, the long out-of-print 1970s book

by MICHAEL HIRSH and PATRICK LOUBERT, with rare art of such heroes as Mr. Monster, Nelvana, Thunderfist, and others, plus new INVADERS art by JOHN BYRNE, MIKE GRELL, RON LIM, and more, plus a new cover by GEORGE FREEMAN, from a layout by JACK KIRBY!

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts

by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, GRAHAM INGELS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

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20

ALTER EGO #74

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

ALTER EGO #77

ALTER EGO #78

STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!

DAVE COCKRUM TRIBUTE! Great rare XMen cover, Cockrum tributes from contemporaries and colleagues, and an interview with PATY COCKRUM on Dave’s life and legacy on The Legion of Super-Heroes, The X-Men, Star-Jammers, & more! Plus an interview with 1950s Timely/Marvel artist MARION SITTON on his own incredible career and his Golden Age contemporaries!

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ALTER EGO #79

ALTER EGO #80

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

SUPERMAN & HIS CREATORS! New cover

by MICHAEL GOLDEN, exclusive and revealing interview with JOE SHUSTER’s sister, JEAN SHUSTER PEAVEY—LOU CAMERON interview—STEVE GERBER tribute—DWIGHT DECKER on the Man of Steel & Hitler’s Third Reich—plus art by WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, and others!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY COMICS! Learn about Crom the Barbarian, Viking Prince, Nightmaster, Kull, Red Sonja, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Beowulf, Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, and more, with art by FRAZETTA, SMITH, BUSCEMA, KANE, WRIGHTSON, PLOOG, THORNE, BRUNNER, LOU CAMERON Part II, and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood,

by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover

by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, with a focus on Conan the Barbarian by ROY THOMAS and WILL MURRAY, a look at WALLY WOOD’s Marvel sword-&-sorcery work, the Black Knight examined, plus JOE EDWARDS interview Part 2, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more!

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(100-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #84

ALTER EGO #85

ALTER EGO #86

ALTER EGO #87

ALTER EGO #88

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

Captain Marvel and Superman’s battles explored (in cosmic space, candy stores, and in court), RICH BUCKLER on Captain Marvel, plus an in-depth interview with Golden Age great LILY RENÉE, overview of CENTAUR COMICS (home of BILL EVERETT’s Amazing-Man and others), FCA, MR. MONSTER, new RICH BUCKLER cover, and more!

Spotlighting the Frantic Four-Color MAD WANNABES of 1953-55 that copied HARVEY KURTZMAN’S EC smash (see Captain Marble, Mighty Moose, Drag-ula, Prince Scallion, and more) with art by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT & MAURER, ANDRU & ESPOSITO, EVERETT, COLAN, and many others, plus Part 1 of a talk with Golden/ Silver Age artist FRANK BOLLE, and more!

The sensational 1954-1963 saga of Great Britain’s MARVELMAN (decades before he metamorphosed into Miracleman), plus an interview with writer/artist/co-creator MICK ANGLO, and rare Marvelman/ Miracleman work by ALAN DAVIS, ALAN MOORE, a new RICK VEITCH cover, plus FRANK BOLLE, Part 2, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

First-ever in-depth look at National/DC’s founder MAJOR MALCOLM WHEELERNICHOLSON, and pioneers WHITNEY ELLSWORTH and CREIG FLESSEL, with rare art and artifacts by SIEGEL & SHUSTER, BOB KANE, CURT SWAN, GARDNER FOX, SHELDON MOLDOFF, and others, focus on DC advisor DR. LAURETTA BENDER, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

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21

ALTER EGO #89

ALTER EGO #90

ALTER EGO #91

ALTER EGO #92

ALTER EGO #93

HARVEY COMICS’ PRE-CODE HORROR MAGS OF THE 1950s! Interviews with SID JACOBSON, WARREN KREMER, and HOWARD NOSTRAND, plus Harvey artist KEN SELIG talks to JIM AMASH! MR. MONSTER presents the wit and wisdom (and worse) of DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE, & more!

SIMON & KIRBY and NOSTRAND cover!

BIG MARVEL ISSUE! Salutes to legends SINNOTT and AYERS—plus STAN LEE, TUSKA, EVERETT, MARTIN GOODMAN, and others! A look at the “Marvel SuperHeroes” TV animation of 1966! 1940s Timely writer and editor LEON LAZARUS interviewed by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, the 1960s fandom creations of STEVE GERBER, and more! JACK KIRBY holiday cover!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL! Big FCA section with Golden Age artists MARC SWAYZE & EMILIO SQUEGLIO! Plus JERRY ORDWAY on researching The Power of Shazam, Part II of “The MAD Four-Color Wannabes of the 1950s,” more on DR. LAURETTA BENDER and the teenage creations of STEVE GERBER, artist JACK KATZ spills Golden Age secrets to JIM AMASH, and more!

New cover by ORDWAY and SQUEGLIO!

SWORD-AND-SORCERY, PART 3! DC’s Sword of Sorcery by O’NEIL, CHAYKIN, & SIMONSON and Claw by MICHELINIE & CHAN, Hercules by GLANZMAN, Dagar by GLUT & SANTOS, Marvel S&S art by BUSCEMA, CHAN, KAYANAN, WRIGHTSON, et al., and JACK KATZ on his classic First Kingdom! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER’s fan-creations (part 3), and more! Cover by RAFAEL KAYANAN!

(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “EarthTwo—1961 to 1985!” with rare art by INFANTINO, GIL KANE, ANDERSON, DELBO, ANDRU, BUCKLER, APARO, GRANDENETTI, and DILLIN, interview with Golden/Silver Age DC editor GEORGE KASHDAN, plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, STEVE GERBER, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and a new cover by INFANTINO and AMASH!

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(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #94

ALTER EGO #95

ALTER EGO #96

ALTER EGO #97

ALTER EGO #98

“Earth-Two Companion, Part II!” More on the 1963-1985 series that changed comics forever! The Huntress, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, Freedom Fighters, and more, with art by ADAMS, APARO, AYERS, BUCKLER, GIFFEN, INFANTINO, KANE, NOVICK, SCHAFFENBERGER, SIMONSON, STATON, SWAN, TUSKA, our GEORGE KASHDAN interview Part 2, FCA, and more! STATON & GIORDANO cover!

Marvel’s NOT BRAND ECHH madcap parody mag from 1967-69, examined with rare art & artifacts by ANDRU, COLAN, BUSCEMA, DRAKE, EVERETT, FRIEDRICH, KIRBY, LEE, the SEVERIN siblings, SPRINGER, SUTTON, THOMAS, TRIMPE, and more, GEORGE KASHDAN interview conclusion, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MR. MONSTER, and more! Cover by MARIE SEVERIN!

Focus on Archie’s 1960s MIGHTY CRUSADERS, with vintage art and artifacts

by JERRY SIEGEL, PAUL REINMAN, SIMON & KIRBY, JOHN ROSENBERGER, tributes to the Mighty Crusaders by BOB FUJITANE, GEORGE TUSKA, BOB LAYTON, and others! Interview with MELL LAZARUS, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more! Cover

by MIKE MACHLAN!

The NON-EC HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950s! From Menace and House of Mystery to The Thing!, we present vintage art and artifacts by EVERETT, BRIEFER, DITKO, MANEELY, COLAN , MESKIN, MOLDOFF, HEATH, POWELL, COLE, SIMON & KIRBY, FUJITANI, and others, plus FCA , MR. MONSTER and more, behind a creepy, eerie cover by BILL EVERETT!

Spotlight on Superman’s first editor WHITNEY ELLSWORTH, longtime Kryptoeditor MORT WEISINGER remembered by his daughter, an interview with Superman writer ALVIN SCHWARTZ, tributes to FRANK FRAZETTA and AL WILLIAMSON, art by JOE SHUSTER, WAYNE BORING, CURT SWAN, and NEAL ADAMS, plus MR. MONSTER, FCA, and a new cover by JERRY ORDWAY!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL (AE #100)

ALTER EGO #99

GEORGE TUSKA showcase issue on his career at Lev Gleason, Marvel, and in comics strips through the early 1970s—CRIME DOES NOT PAY, BUCK ROGERS, IRON MAN, AVENGERS, HERO FOR HIRE, & more! Plus interviews with Golden Age artist BILL BOSSERT and fan-artist RUDY FRANKE, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), and more!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

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ALTER EGO: CENTENNIAL is a celebration of 100 issues, and 50 years, of ALTER EGO, Roy Thomas’ legendary super-hero fanzine. It’s a double-size triple-threat BOOK, with twice as many pages as the regular magazine, plus special features just for this anniversary edition! Behind a RICH BUCKLER/JERRY ORDWAY JSA cover, ALTER EGO celebrates its 100th issue and the 50th anniversary of A/E (Vol. 1) #1 in 1961—as ROY THOMAS is interviewed by JIM AMASH about the 1980s at DC! Learn secrets behind ALL-STAR SQUADRON—INFINITY, INC.—ARAK, SON OF THUNDER—CAPTAIN CARROT—JONNI THUNDER, a.k.a. THUNDERBOLT— YOUNG ALL-STARS—SHAZAM!—RING OF THE NIBELUNG—and more! With rare art and artifacts

by GEORGE PÉREZ, TODD McFARLANE, RICH BUCKLER, JERRY ORDWAY, MIKE MACHLAN, GIL KANE, GENE COLAN, DICK GIORDANO, ALFREDO ALCALA, TONY DEZUNIGA, ERNIE COLÓN, STAN GOLDBERG, SCOTT SHAW!, ROSS ANDRU, and many more! Plus special anniversary editions of Alter Ego staples MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA)—and ALEX WRIGHT’s amazing color collection of 1940s DC pinup babes! Edited by ROY THOMAS. (NOTE: This book takes the place of ALTER EGO #100, and counts as TWO issues toward your subscription.)

(160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • ISBN: 9781605490311 Diamond Order Code: JAN111351

ALTER EGO #101

Fox Comics of the 1940s with art by FINE, BAKER, SIMON, KIRBY, TUSKA, FLETCHER HANKS, ALEX BLUM, and others!

“Superman vs. Wonder Man” starring EISNER, IGER, SIEGEL, LIEBERSON, MAYER, DONENFELD, and VICTOR FOX! Plus, Part I of an interview with JACK MENDELSOHN, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by Marvel artist DAVE WILLIAMS!

NEW!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #102

ALTER EGO #103

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION

Spotlight on Green Lantern creators MART NODELL and BILL FINGER in the 1940s, and JOHN BROOME, GIL KANE, and JULIUS SCHWARTZ in 1959! Rare GL artwork by INFANTINO, REINMAN, HASEN, NEAL ADAMS, and others! Plus JACK MENDELSOHN Part II, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and new cover by GIL KANE & TERRY AUSTIN, and MART NODELL!

The early career of comics writer STEVE ENGLEHART: Defenders, Captain America, Master of Kung Fu, The Beast, Mantis, and more, with rare art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, STARLIN, SUTTON, HECK, BROWN, and others. Plus, JIM AMASH interviews early artist GEORGE MANDEL (Captain Midnight, The Woman in Red, Blue Bolt, Black Marvel, etc.), FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and more!

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-before-published STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts

by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

Compiles the ALTER EGO flip-sides from COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art! All-new rare and previously-unpublished art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, & others, ROY THOMAS on X-MEN, AVENGERS/ KREE-SKRULL WAR, INVADERS, and more! Cover by JOE KUBERT!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(160-page trade paperback) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $4.95

HUMOR MAGAZINES (BUNDLE ALL THREE FOR JUST $14.95)

ALTER EGO:

BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

Collects the original 11 issues of JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS’ ALTER EGO fanzine (from 1961-78), with contributions from JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, and others—and illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! Plus major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by JULIE SCHWARTZ. (192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946

COMIC BOOK NERD

PETE VON SHOLLY’s side-splitting parody of the fan press, including our own mags!

Experience the magic(?) of such publications as WHIZZER, the COMICS URINAL, ULTRA EGO, COMICS BUYER’S GUISE, BAGGED ISSUE!, SCRAWL!, COMIC BOOK ARTISTE, and more, as we unabashedly poke fun at ourselves, our competitors, and you, our loyal readers! It’s a first issue, collector’s item, double-bag, slab-worthy, speculator’s special sure to rub even the thickest-skinned fanboy the wrong way!

(64-page COLOR magazine) $8.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95

CRAZY HIP GROOVY GO-GO WAY OUT MONSTERS #29 & #32

PETE VON SHOLLY’s spoofs of monster mags will have you laughing your pants off— right after you soil them from sheer terror! This RETRO MONSTER MOVIE MAGAZINE is a laugh riot lampoon of those GREAT (and absolutely abominable) mags of the 1950s and ‘60s, replete with fake letters-to-the-editor, phony ads for worthless, wacky stuff, stills from imaginary films as bad as any that were really made, interviews with their “creators,” and much more! Relive your misspent youth (and misspent allowance) as you dig the hilarious photos, ads, and articles skewering OUR FAVORITE THINGS of the past! Get our first issue (#29!), the sequel (#32!), or both!

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

(48-page magazines) $5.95 EACH • (Digital Editions) $1.95 EACH

These sold-out books are now available again in DIGITAL EDITIONS:

NEW!

MR. MONSTER, VOL. 0

TRUE BRIT

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME

Collects hard-to-find Mr. Monster stories from A-1, CRACK-A-BOOM! and DARK HORSE PRESENTS (many in COLOR for the first time) plus over 30 pages of ALLNEW MR. MONSTER art and stories! Can your sanity survive our Lee/Kirby monster spoof by MICHAEL T. GILBERT and MARK MARTIN, or the long-lost 1933 Mr. Monster newspaper strip? Or the terrifying TRENCHER/MR. MONSTER slug-fest, drawn by KEITH GIFFEN and MICHAEL T. GILBERT?! Read at your own risk!

GEORGE KHOURY’s definitive book on the rich history of British Comics Artists, their influence on the US, and how they have revolutionized the way comics are seen and perceived! It features breathtaking art, intimate photographs, and in-depth interviews with BRIAN BOLLAND, ALAN DAVIS, DAVE GIBBONS, KEVIN O’NEILL, DAVID LLOYD, DAVE McKEAN, BRYAN HITCH, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH and other fine gents! Sporting a new JUDGE DREDD cover by BRIAN BOLLAND!

MICHAEL EURY’s biography of comics’ most prominent and affable personality! It covers his career as illustrator, inker, and editor—peppered with DICK’S PERSONAL REFLECTIONS—and is illustrated with RARE AND UNSEEN comics, merchandising, and advertising art! Plus: an extensive index of his published work, comments and tributes

by NEAL ADAMS, DENNIS O’NEIL, TERRY AUSTIN, PAUL LEVITZ, MARV WOLFMAN, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, JIM APARO and others, a Foreword by NEAL ADAMS, and an Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ!

(136-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $4.95

(204-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

(176-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $5.95

SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS: GENE COLAN

TOM FIELD’s amazing COLAN retrospective, with rare drawings, photos, and art from his 60-year career, and a comprehensive overview of Gene’s glory days at Marvel Comics!

MARV WOLFMAN, DON McGREGOR and other writers share script samples and anecdotes of their Colan collaborations, while TOM PALMER, STEVE LEIALOHA and others show how they approached inking Colan’s famously nuanced penciled pages!

Plus: a NEW PORTFOLIO of never-seen collaborations between Gene and masters such as BYRNE, KALUTA and PÉREZ, and all-new artwork created just for this book!

(192-page Digital Edition with COLOR) $6.95

ART OF GEORGE TUSKA

A comprehensive look at GEORGE TUSKA’S personal and professional life, including early work at the Eisner-Iger shop, producing controversial crime comics of the 1950s, and his tenure with Marvel and DC Comics, as well as independent publishers. Includes extensive coverage of his work on IRON MAN, X-MEN, HULK, JUSTICE LEAGUE, TEEN TITANS, BATMAN, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and others, a gallery of commission art and a thorough index of his work, original art, photos, sketches, unpublished art, interviews and anecdotes from his peers and fans, plus the very personal and reflective words of George himself! Written by DEWEY CASSELL. (128-page Digital Edition) $4.95

23

OTHER BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING

PENCILER, PUBLISHER, PROVOCATEUR

COMICS’ FAST & FURIOUS ARTIST

THE ART OF GLAMOUR

MATT BAKER

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE

Shines a light on the life and career of the artistic and publishing visionary of DC Comics!

Explores the life and career of one of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable and dependable artists!

Biography of the talented master of 1940s “Good Girl” art, complete with color story reprints!

Definitive biography of the Watchmen writer, in a new, expanded edition!

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $26.95

(192-page hardcover with COLOR) $39.95

(240-page trade paperback) $29.95

QUALITY COMPANION

BATCAVE COMPANION

ALL- STAR COMPANION

AGE OF TV HEROES

The first dedicated book about the Golden Age publisher that spawned the modern-day “Freedom Fighters”, Plastic Man, and the Blackhawks!

Unlocks the secrets of Batman’s Silver and Bronze Ages, following the Dark Knight’s progression from 1960s camp to 1970s creature of the night!

Roy Thomas has four volumes documenting the history of ALL-STAR COMICS, the JUSTICE SOCIETY, INFINITY, INC., and more!

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $31.95

(240-page trade paperback) $26.95

(224-page trade paperbacks) $24.95

Examining the history of the live-action television adventures of everyone’s favorite comic book heroes, featuring the in-depth stories of the shows’ actors and behind-the-scenes players!

CARMINE INFANTINO

SAL BUSCEMA

(192-page full-color hardcover) $39.95

MARVEL COMICS

MARVEL COMICS

An issue-by-issue field guide to the pop culture phenomenon of LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, and others, from the company’s fumbling beginnings to the full maturity of its wild, colorful, offbeat grandiosity!

IN THE 1960s

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

MODERN MASTERS

HOW TO CREATE COMICS

Covers how Stan Lee went from writer to publisher, Jack Kirby left (and returned), Roy Thomas rose as editor, and a new wave of writers and artists came in!

20+ volumes with in-depth interviews, plus extensive galleries of rare and unseen art from the artist’s files!

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95

Shows step-by-step how to develop a new comic, from script and art, to printing and distribution!

(128-page trade paperbacks) $14.95 each

(108-page trade paperback) $15.95

IN THE 1970s

A BOOK SERIES DEVOTED TO THE BEST OF TODAY’S ARTISTS

FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

FOR A FREE COLOR CATALOG, CALL, WRITE, E-MAIL, OR LOG ONTO www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com