They walk among us… they talk among us… and you can never quite tell if they’re friend or foe. You can run, but you can’t hide from these…
Gorillas In our midst! “act like human beings” in his Strange Adventures, but instead of ll hail Julius “Julie” Schwartz, patron saint of comicevoking sympathy like Ralph of “Evolution Plus!” did, they book gorillas! became a simian Seven Deadly Sins. These gorillas were capable Schwartz (1915–2004), one of the founding fathers of robbing librarians at gunpoint, executing humans before a of science-fiction fandom, left a successful career as a sci-fi gorilla firing squad, and threatening a global takeover! literary agent to become a DC Comics editor, a position he Schwartz’s Strange Adventures was also home to held for over four decades. Among his innumerable societies of gorillas, in some cases quite amused by a contributions to the field was the discovery (albeit human “missing link” who might blunder into their by chance) that intelligent gorillas sell comics. lives. A comics curiosity is the Otto With the publication of the SchwartzBinder/Carmine Infantino story “The Gorilla edited Strange Adventures #8 (May 1951), World” from issue #45 (June 1954); its the comics business took a giant step civilized gorillas dressed like humans and forward in a story that took an evolutionworked in offices (they even >gasp!< ary leap backward. “Evolution Plus!”, smoked!), almost a decade before the same scripted by longtime Schwartz collaboraconcept was exposed to a wider audience by tor Gardner Fox, penciled by former Terry the 1963 publication of Pierre Boulle’s Vance and future Angel and the Ape artist Monkey Planet (a.k.a. Planet of the Apes). Bob Oksner, and inked by Bernard Sachs, “In due time every editor wanted to told “the incredible story of an ape with a use a gorilla on the cover,” wrote Schwartz in human brain!” his memoirs. Contrary to Schwartz’s recollecNo doubt many vigilant mothers tsktion, comics historian and artist Jim Amash tsked such monkeyshines when noticing this contends that not every DC editor went ape. funnybook peeking from under the beds of their “George Kashdan was not fond of the idea,” accordpre-adolescent sons. Grown men also took notice ing to Amash, the last person to interview the editor of of it, such as then-DC editorial director Irwin Blackhawk, The Brave and the Bold, and Aquaman Donenfeld. Sales spiked upward with Strange © 2007 DC Comics. before his death in 2006. Amash says that Kashdan Adventures #8, and Donenfeld wondered why. used gorilla covers “because it was expected of editors.” Schwartz (with Brian M. Thomsen) wrote in his 2000 Editor Jack Schiff seemed quite willing to do what was autobiography Man of Two Worlds that after deliberation, DC expected of him. Schiff had a lust for the incredible. His gawky “decided that the magazine sold well because the gorilla was infusion of fantasy into the urban landscape of Batman (alien acting like a human being. So we decided to try it again… and invasions, bizarre Bat-transformations, and… well, Bat-Mite, a every time we tried it, it sold fantastically well, with sales shootdarn pixie!) nearly killed that book in the early 1960s, but his ing sky high!” Outer Limits-like sensibility worked well with DC’s Strange For Schwartz, the success of Strange Adventures #8 opened Adventures’ companion titles House of Mystery and My Greatest the cage for more talking gorillas. The brainy beasts continued to
A
Gorillas In Our Midst!
73