Best of Alter Ego, Volume 2 Preview

Flash, Hawkman, & Dr. Fate TM & © DC Comics; other art © Estate of Sam Grainger.

The Best of

VOLUME 2 More Fabulous Features from the Legendary Comics Fanzine of the 1960s-70s

“More of the Best” – Introduction by Bill Schelly ..........................................................................................4 “The SECOND Best of Alter Ego” – Introduction by Roy Thomas ...................................................................... 5 The Jerry Bails Interview ........................................................................................................................6 Jon B. Cooke’s e-conversation with the founder of the first comic book super-hero fanzine.

The Naming of Alter-Ego, 1961 ............................................................................................................18 Jerry Bails on how The JLA Subscriber concept became… something else.

Alter-Ego #1-3: The Spirit Duplicator Issues......................................................................................19 How the “Ditto Masters of the Universe” gave birth to “purple” prose… and pictures.

The Comicollector—The Companion to Alter-Ego .................................................................................... 44 The coming of comic fandom’s first adzine—with features intended for A/E!

Alter-Ego #4: Jerry Bails’ Photo-Offset Finale....................................................................................55 Alter Ego #5-6: The Ronn Foss Issues .............................................................................................. 61 Alter Ego #7-9: The Roy Thomas Fan Issues ......................................................................................87 The Alter Ego #10 That Almost Was ..................................................................................................124 Alter Ego #10: The First “Pro” Issue ..............................................................................................138 Alter Ego #11: The Mike Friedrich Issue ........................................................................................154 Afterword by Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly ....................................................................................................159

[Special thanks to Shane Foley for the “Table of Contents” illo above—and for his drawings of Alter & Captain Ego, created by Biljo White. The Captain Ego figure is based on a Major Victory drawing by Biljo in Marvel’s The Invaders #16 (May 1977); the Alter drawing is based on art by Biljo in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #7. Table of contents art © 2013 Shane Foley; Alter & Captain Ego TM & © 2013 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly.]

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An Alter Ego Extra!

The Jerry Bails Interview

A Candid Conversation With “The Father Of Comics Fandom” About His Life And Passion

“The Good Doctor”

Introduction by Interviewer Jon B. Cooke

We all have our heroes, whether the four-color, fictional

crime-fighting type or the variety of champion composed of real flesh and blood. Me, as I grew into my teenage years, I was inspired less by spandex-attired do-gooders and more by the icons who toiled behind the scenes at drawing boards and on typewriters. I particularly admired those who effectively shared with me stories about hope, redemption, and fortitude in the guise of comic books, or were just plain honest about the world. Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, Harvey Kurtzman, Alan Moore, Gil Kane, Archie Goodwin, R. Crumb, and—especially—Jack Kirby were creators who always seemed authentic in their selfexpression, and they rarely appeared to condescend. I felt respected and was treated to expert and excellent storytelling. To these heroes, I was grateful.

My interests as a teen and young adult expanded beyond the comic book universes and (partly due to Kirby’s “Captain America” stories in Tales of Suspense— don’t ask; long story!) I developed an avid interest in history and journalism, two subjects I majored in while attending college. Strange fellow that I was, I nurtured an obsession with bibliographies and indexes and documentation of exhaustive research. Well-sourced tomes with extensively laid-out footnotes and references spoke to me, expressing that the author held a respect for readers, telling us, “Hey, come and find out what I learned! Here’s the route….” It spoke to me of the joy of learning and how joy can be cultivated only if it is shared.

By the grace of God (and an association with John Morrow and TwoMorrows Publishing), I was able to meld my passion for funnybooks and their creators with my love of history and journalism into Comic Book Artist magazine, a place I hoped to express my peculiar mania to a wider audience. My goal with the periodical was to focus on the artist and not so much the artifact, with CBA’s tagline boasting, “Price Guide Never Included,” because I loathed the crass money aspect of the hobby.

The blessings continued as CBA attracted some attention and I was able to interact with many of my real-life comic book heroes. I recall with vivid appreciation, for instance, sitting down in an exhibit hall with Joe Kubert, who, despite my pestering questions, gave me his full attention and respect, thoughtfully sharing answers and making me, a nobody schlub annoying one of sequential art’s greatest creators, feel like a Somebody. For Joe and most of these guys, my hero worship only grew….

All-Star Light, All-Star Bright, First All-Star I See Tonight…

Jerry Gwin Bails in 2003 (middle)—interviewer Jon B. Cooke (top right)—and E.E. Hibbard’s cover for All-Star Comics #6 (Aug.-Sept.

1941), which Jerry said was the very first issue he ever saw of what became his favorite all-time comic book. By the late 1950s he had amassed a complete collection of the title’s 57 Golden Age issues— including bound volumes containing the 30+ issues authored by Justice Society of America co-creator Gardner F. Fox. All-Star was, of course, the 1940s precursor of Justice League of America, the mag whose debut inspired Jerry to launch the heroic-comics fanzine Alter-Ego in early 1961. Thanks to Jean Bails and Jon B. Cooke, respectively, for the photos; cover image retrieved from the Grand Comics Database. [Cover © 2013 DC Comics.]

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Then came the doctor. Now, I never met Jerry Bails in person, but long before we corresponded by e-mail, I felt I knew the man, that we were kindred, that he was one of “my kind.” While I can’t remember when exactly Roy Thomas introduced the doctor to me and an entire generation of comics fans—no doubt there was repeated mention in RT’s legendary letters pages—Jerry’s name captivated me with an almost mythical power. I knew he had started Alter-Ego and helmed the Who’s Who of American Comic Books, and because of those achievements, he had to be a guy who was completely dedicated to the folks behind the stories and not so much the characters they created—a devotion to the artist behind the artifact, if you will.

Subj: Date: From: To:

Soon after launching CBA, I did get in contact with Jerry and—good gravy!—Dr. Bails expressed to me that, after reading my humble rag, he felt that we were kindred spirits!

Imagine your hero telling you that! Heavens to Betsy, was that a rush!

We always kept in touch, Jerry and I, and he was generous in offering access to his Who’s Who database and always answering my questions. We even planned an exhaustive multi-part interview, to be conducted via e-mail, which would span his entire life in minute detail. I wanted, y’see, to give Jerry back, if but a fraction, the same respect and attention he had given to recognize the achievements of many, many hitherto unknown comics creators. I also yearned to know what made this analytical guy, this scientist, this professor, love the wacky world of comic books so much….

So we started with an intensive discussion of his childhood (which you will find below), and plans were to periodically focus on different aspects of his development and career in fandom. To my great regret, Jerry and I never finished the interview beyond what is here. Somehow the aughts got away from me and I became less and less involved in the study of comics. Somehow real life intruded on my hero worship.

Somehow I neglected to be grateful.

But—thank you, Bill Schelly and RT!—at least we can read about Dr. Jerry Bails’ youth in his own words, in a proper forum, told to a proper audience. The Good Doctor remains a hero with me, standing shoulder to shoulder with other giants in the field, and I’ll forever be appreciative for our acquaintance. Thanks, Jerry. Kith and kin, you and I….

Part One of interview 2/3/2005 5:18:58 PM Eastern Standard Jerry Bails Jon B. Cooke

Jon, Here are my responses to your first several questions.

Perhaps you should see them. You may want to reshape your remaining questions or send me off on a different tack. I can provide some scans as indicated herein.

Bestest, Jerry

1) Where are you originally from, Jerry, and can you give us an idea of when you were born?

I’m of the generation of kids that were known as “Depression Babies.” I was born at the height of the Great Depression in 1933. It is interesting to note that the comic book in its “modern” pamphlet format was also a Depression Baby. Comic books and I grew up together. I was there when Superman first became popular. I was wearing a Superman sweatshirt for a family photo taken in 1940. My mom was pregnant that year with the youngest of my two brothers. [Want a photo?]

I grew up in the “Heart of America”! That’s what they called my hometown of Kansas City, which is really two cities straddling the Missouri-Kansas state line. I lived on the Missouri side, and we liked to tease about the small hick town only a stone’s throw away. The border there was a hotly contested area in President Truman’s youth, with memories of the Civil War breaking out on that border, but it was pretty tame by my time.

As a young driver, I frequently found that my favorite places to dance and park with my girl friend were on the Kansas side of Stateline. That was the name of a street that bore no reminder of the raiding parties that flourished there nearly a hundred years earlier. It was just a nice dark street

Jon B. Cooke Oct. 31, 2011

*****

Super-Exposure?

(Far Left:) A few years ago, following Jerry’s passing, his wife Jean sent Bill Schelly and Roy Thomas CDs containing scans of many of the photos he’d saved over the years.

Among them—and the nearest thing we can locate to the “Superman sweatshirt” pic he offered to send to interviewer Cooke in 2005—is this circa-1940 image. According to Jean, it shows Jerry, his younger brother Joe, and a female relative known as Choppy, who “took care of the boys when Jerry’s mom was working a temporary part-time job as bookkeeper for a Unity church and also when Vessie was in the hospital for Jack’s birth…. Jerry said his mom scolded Choppy—gently, though—for having the photo taken of Jerry wearing a shirt with a hole in it…. Either the photo is so overexposed that any ID of the Man of Steel washed out, or as a kid he imagined the super-hero to be dressed in a sweatshirt and the color of it was not important…. Still, he said this was his Superman shirt. I didn’t argue, but I probably did look confused when he said it.”

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(Near left:) Like many boys his age, Jerry no doubt pictured himself as looking like this dramatic Joe Shuster pose (inked by Paul Cassidy), as per the cover of Superman #6 (Sept.-Oct. 1940).

Thanks to the GCD. [© 2013 DC Comics.]

An Alter Ego Extra!

The Naming Of Alter-Ego, 1961

by Jerry G. Bails [reprinted from Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #25 (2003)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the years, from time to time I’ve asked Jerry how and why he came up with the name Alter-Ego when casting about for the title of a full-fledged fanzine, as opposed to the original JLA Subscriber newsletter he had planned. But he’s never had much to say about his thought processes at the time [February 1961]. So I tried again, in earnest, while surreptitiously preparing this issue’s contents, and this time I was rewarded by the following.... —Roy.]

I don’t recall considering any options. We had discussed

something I think we called a newsletter, but when “alterego” came to me, I thought how well it fit not only our mutual interests but also our dual identities as civilians and fans. It was as if we were donning our costumes and flying out the window. It referred as much to us as fans as it did to our all-consuming interest in costumed heroes and in the people who created them.

I suspect that the name itself triggered more possibilities, which you have so clearly realized.

I’ve always loved any story that deals with secret or hidden identities, even badly executed movies. There is something deeply primal for me in the notion that I am two people: Clark Kent, the civilian who presents a public persona that meets all the acceptable criteria of civil society, and my secret self that worries not what people think of me, but who is inner-directed and willing to correct injustice when I see it.

I think small children have a sense of justice/injustice that they develop but cannot act upon until they have been thoroughly socialized. By then, it is too late. They are “Clark Kent.”

I would love to see a psychological study of those of us who have loved costumed heroes for as long as we can remember and those who profess to hate the genre while extolling the virtues of the medium of comics. I suspect that there is something fundamentally different about the two groups. Our group seems to remain in touch with the feeling of the child that knows two selves. The other seems to want to put one of these selves away. It has nothing to do with intellectual ability, level of creativity, ideological orientation, or emotional stability, but there must be something different about our brains that shows up somewhere else. It has to be correlated with some other behavioral characteristics, but damned if I know what they are.

I would be disappointed to learn that our lifelong interest was just an accidental circumstance of what happened at certain stages in our lives. That wouldn’t explain to me why we didn’t put away this flight of fancy like other comics readers did. The concept of the avenging hero is as vibrant and vital to me at seventy as it was when I was seven. I wish I understood why.

The Alter-Ego Has Landed!

(Left:) Although no photos exist of Jerry Bails’ visit to the DC offices in February of 1961, he dropped by a second time “circa 1971”—at which time his picture was taken with editor Julius Schwartz (center) and artist Neal Adams (on left).

(Right:) The flip cover of Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #25 (June 2003), heralded a celebration of Jerry Bails’ 70th birthday, a tribute of which he himself knew nothing until he received a copy of the issue by Express Mail. A/E associate editor Bill Schelly drew this portrait of Jerry, while editor Roy Thomas selected (and layout man Chris Day arranged) the framing art montage, which featured every single Golden Age Justice Society member, plus Red Tornado, Sandy the Golden Boy, and Doiby Dickles, all taken from actual 1940s comics. [JSA heroes art © 2013 DC Comics;

portrait © 2013 Bill Schelly.]

Oh, and just for the record: The thank-you note that Jerry wrote to editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox on Feb. 12, 1961, after spending time with them, surely the first occasion on which the new fanzine’s name was ever written down, was reprinted as part of “The Alter Ego Story” in Best of, Vol. 1… while the letter in which he first mentioned the name to Roy Thomas, a day or three later, was also quoted therein. In both instances, Jerry originally spelled it “Alter-ego,” but “ego” was capitalized by the time the fanzine materialized in March. (It was 1963 A/E editor Ronn Foss who dropped the hyphen from the title.)

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An Alter Ego Extra!

Alter-Ego #1-3: The Spirit Duplicator Issues

Jerry G. Bails published and edited the first three issues of

[Heroes & villains TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

[Spectre TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

[Art © 2013 Roy Thomas.]

Alter-Ego, with Roy Thomas as contributor and titular “co-editor”—first from 14242 Dale, Detroit 23, Michigan (in those pre-ZIP Code days), then from 1710 Kenwood Drive in suburban Inkster, Michigan, while he was an associate professor of natural science at Wayne State University in Detroit.

They were printed using a “spirit duplicator,” also called a “ditto machine,” in which text was typed (or artwork traced) onto a “ditto master” from which could be run off up to 300 copies of purple (not black) linework. This was an instrument favored by high schools and colleges at the time; the device itself was less expensive than a mimeograph machine, which however had the advantage of printing more copies per master—and in black, rather than purple.

Ditto masters rendering black and other colors were also available for a spirit duplicator, but had the distinct disadvantage of yielding fewer copies—perhaps 100 or 150 as opposed to 300 before the type or artwork had to be transferred laboriously by hand to a brand new ditto master.

(When one considers the trouble involved, the fact that the cover of Alter-Ego #1 contains no less than six

colors—purple, blue, red, yellow, and green, as well as black— is a tribute to the sheer cussed labor that Bails invested in it.

Yellow (or, more accurately, “brownish-yellow”) masters were available in South Africa, but how Jerry got hold of one we’ll never know; this was before he was in touch with South African comics fan John Wright.

The first three issues were produced on a roughly quarterly schedule. Issue #1 was dated “Spring 1961” and was mailed and postmarked in late March… #2 was for “Summer 1961”… and #3 was dated “Fall 1961.”

Seen at left, from top to bottom, are the covers of the first three issues. #1 & #2 were traced (with a bit of editing) onto a ditto master by Jerry Bails from freehand drawings by Roy Thomas, while #3 was rendered entirely by Jerry, utilizing (and probably tracing) various figures of Green Lantern-related art from 1940s comics.

The first volume of this Best of Alter Ego series, which is still available from TwoMorrows Publishing at www.twomorrows.com, gave a separate, detailed rundown of each individual issue… as well as reprinting from #1-3 Jerry’s initial editorial and the “On the Drawing Board” news section, his Secret Code Chart, a study of JSA foe The Wizard, Roy’s “The Reincarnation of The Spectre” (part 1), a crossword “puzzle tree,” a smattering of early letters to A/E, articles on the Golden and Silver Age Green Lanterns, Linda Rahm’s parodic letter to a fannish exboyfriend, and a sampling of panels from the three chapters of Roy’s “Bestest League of America” parody—all material produced by Jerry and/or Roy, except for the letter spoof written by Roy’s then-girlfriend.

So, this time around, we’re content to offer you the above minimum amount of orientation concerning issues #1-3 and let you plunge ahead, beginning with some of the “best of the rest” of those formative, spirit-duplicator-produced issues....

Ditto Masters Of The Universe

Seen at left is a vintage A.B. Dick spirit duplicator—though probably of the “crank” style rather than the even more primitive type on which Jerry Bails evidently printed Alter-Ego #1-2 and then advertised for sale in issue #1 of his adzine The Comicollector (Sept. 1961—see p. 44). That machine was purchased by Bernie Bubnis, a young fan remembered today for organizing the very first comics convention in July of 1964, in New York City. In 2012 Bernie recalled: “The chance to actually print [the first issue of Comic Heroes Revisited] on the same duplicator that printed Alter-Ego was too enticing to ignore. This printer’s karma would surely rub off on my fanzine. [But] by the time [it] reached me in Farmingdale, Long Island, it appeared that someone neglected to box it and just put a stamp on its metal exterior. Two pieces of cardboard accompanied [it], but they rested next to it on my doorstep….

“This thing sucked. After affixing the master to the drum, you manually ‘pushed’ it along its bed to imprint onto paper. Popeye’s forearm would not have been sufficient. Soon after, I bought my own crank-operated spirit duplicator. Cost me an astounding $130, but it sure helped the rest of my short fanzine-producing career. I attribute most of my later success in life to lessons learned in those early days of fandom. Like for instance: Never buy a spirit duplicator for $25 when an early copy of Captain America is selling for the same price.”

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From Alter-Ego #1:

“Merciful Minerva”

The Story of Wonder Woman

by Jerry Bails

Wonder Woman is the only member of the current Justice

When Wonder Woman first came to the man’s world, she assumed an alter-ego. She posed as Diana Prince, a meek, bespectacled WAC, who served as a secretary to an Army officer, a Col. Darnell, who, unlike Steve Trevor, loved the mildmannered Diana. Of course, neither man knew that both girls were one and the same person.

Wonder Woman also served for a brief spell as a nurse on the front lines during the war. It was at that time that she met Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and was asked by Hawkman to serve as secretary to the newly formed Justice Battalion, a group composed of the members of the JSA acting under the direct orders of the War Department. (All-Star Comics #11, June-July, 1942). From this time on, Wonder Woman served as secretary of the JSA. In All-Star Comics #13 (October-November, 1942), the Amazon Princess was rocketed out into space along with other members of the JSA. Her individual rocket landed on Venus, and she helped the winged women of this planet to overthrow the harsh rule of their male masters, and to set up a new society based on love and charity. However, the lovely Amazon had to return to Venus on several later occasions to help keep the Venusian men in their place. After Wonder Woman and the members of the JSA managed to get back to Earth, the male members voted to make Wonder Woman their fifth honorary member, and like Superman, Batman, Flash, and Green Lantern before her, she appeared in a magazine all of her own.

Wonder Woman #1 was dated Summer, 1942.

The Amazon Princess was the fastest rising new star in the D.C. firmament. She was soon to appear in still another D.C. book, a new 15¢ anthology starring Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman— Comic Cavalcade (#1, Winter, 1943). This giant comic starred the same three superheroes until the middle of 1948, when many of the formerly brilliant stars of the comics began

League of America who was a regular, fighting member of the original Justice Society of America. She made her debut in AllStar Comics #8 (December-January, 1941-42) in a bonus, 9page featurette, which followed the regular JSA adventure.

This featurette tells of how Steve Trevor, a U.S. Army Intelligence officer, was injured when his plane crash-landed on Paradise Island, the secret home of the legendary Amazons.

[ED. NOTE: The current legend has it that no man has ever, or can ever, set foot on Paradise Island or the Amazons would lose their immortality and special powers. This was not so in the old days.]

Steve was nursed back to full vigor by the beautiful Princess Diana. Diana, having never seen a man before (except in her mother’s Magic Sphere), naturally falls in love with this exquisite specimen of manhood. She then earns the right to return with him to the man’s world as Wonder Woman—a new champion to do battle against the forces of hate and oppression which, in those early days of World War II, threatened to destroy America—”the last citadel of democracy, and of equal rights for women.”

This first story, in narrative form, reveals many of the secrets of the Amazons—a race of Wonder Women from Ancient Greece. So long as Queen Hippolyte retains the Magic Girdle, and the Amazons remain on Paradise Island, Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, grants them the power of Eternal Life. With the Magic Sphere, a gift from Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, the Amazons can study the past, the present, and even, at times, forecast the future. All of these gifts become the heritage of the young Princess Diana; however, this first story does not reveal the secret of Diana’s birth on the island of manless Amazons.

The secret of Diana’s birth was told in the first issue of Sensation Comics (January, 1942). [ED NOTE: Wonder Woman was the headline feature in Sensation Comics until issue #106.] Here is how this bit of “parthenogenesis” was achieved. It seems that Queen Hippolyte was lonely, quite naturally, and prayed to Aphrodite for comfort. The Goddess of Love, who should have known better, answered the good Queen’s prayer in a wholly unimaginative way—she turned the nearest statue of stone into the vibrant body of I’ve Got A Secret a female child, possessing (potentially, at 2013 Editors’ Note: When this first Alter-Ego hero-history ran in least) the beauty of issue #1 (a few pages after its first villain-history—see next art Aphrodite herself, the spot), there was no accompanying illustration. However, there had wisdom of Athena, the been a drawing showing Wonder Woman earlier in the issue, since Jerry, in conjunction with the first installment of the advance-news strength of Hercules, feature “On the Drawing Board,” had traced an early proof of the and the speed of cover of the Secret Origins special which would be on sale 2½ Mercury. Thus, months later. Thanks to Doc Boucher for the scan of that cover as it Princess Diana was appeared in A/E #1 in 1961.[© 2013 DC Comics.] conceived.

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From Alter-Ego #1:

BESTEST LEAGUE OF AMERICA – PART ONE

2013 INTRODUCTION: At the time of Jerry Bails’ passing in November 2006, Roy Thomas, the official “co-editor” of the March 1961 Alter-Ego #1, had long since forgotten that, in addition to having on 1-26-61 sent Jerry a synopsis of his proposed “Justice League” parody “Bestest League of America,” he had also, three weeks later, sent Jerry the BLA drawing reproduced below. In early 2007 Roy was startled to discover, among other posthumous papers that Jerry’s wife Jean graciously sent him, an inked-andcolored illo Roy had prepared of the group’s seven regular members.

[© 2013 Roy Thomas]

Until he saw that sketch for the first time in 46 years, he had long wondered if perhaps at some stage he had mailed Jerry the original art of the 5-page BLA chapter he’d completed by early February—not too likely, since the art on those poster-paper pages was 18” by 13”—and yet, one would assume Jerry would’ve wanted to see some visuals related to the story he proposed to begin serializing in the new fanzine’s first issue.

on plain old garden-variety 81⁄2" x 11" typing paper. On receiving them, in addition to everything else he was doing, Jerry traced that quintet of pages (and the cover) onto ditto masters.

(The BLA drawing Jerry traced as the [color!] cover of A/E #1 was originally intended simply to be the internal “cover” of the BLA material, and Roy was surprised at his decision to use it to front the entire issue.)

The fact that the reverse side of the poster-paper sketch is dated “2-16-61” indicates it was done right after Jerry returned to Detroit by mid-February from his New York trip and wrote asking Roy to get to work on the first chapter of “BLA” for Alter-Ego #1. If Jerry ever saw the original “twiceup” version of those five pages before they were reprinted in Bill Schelly’s 1997 Hamster Press book Fandom’s Finest Comics, this book’s editors have never found any reference to that fact in the surviving correspondence.

As recounted by Roy in the “Alter Ego Story” he wrote circa early 1965 after perusing various letters exchanged between himself and Jerry, he immediately set to work redrawing “Bestest League of America,” Part One—not on ditto (spirit duplicator) masters, with which he was totally unfamiliar, but

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The following five pages re-present both 1961 renditions of “Bestest League,” Part One, in a format which necessitates either turning this book sideways, or else lying on your elbow while reading it. The original “twice-up,” RT-penciled-inkedand-lettered art is printed on the left side of each ensuing page; the JGB-traced (and slightly edited) spirit-duplicator version done for Alter-Ego #1 is printed on the right.

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“Twice-up� inked version, Dec. 1960 - Jan. 1961

Spirit duplicator (ditto) version, Feb. - March 1961 (Alter-Ego #1)

A Couple Of Lads Get Together

An Alter Ego Extra!

And Now For Something Completely Different—Sort Of! Years after Jerry did his own spring 1961 reprinting of

Jerry (in checkered shirt) visiting fellow fan/friend Al Dellinges in California circa 1978-80. Jerry always felt that Al strongly resembled movie star Alan Ladd. Lying on the table is a very nice copy of All-Star Comics #27.

Thanks to Jean Bails.

Alter-Ego #1 (minus the “BLA” installment)—and since Roy Thomas had long since abandoned his own 1965 plans for a photo-offset collection of The Bestest of Alter Ego #1-3—a northern California fan-friend of Bails’ named Al Dellinges was given Jerry’s permission in 1988 to do a re-publication of the fanzine’s first three issues.

Since the new edition was done in photo offset, Dellinges retyped all the articles and traced the relatively few illustrations with his own embellishments; those that were based on an Irwin Hasen Wizard and a Paul Reinman Green Lantern were reproduced in the previous Best of volume. He chose to re-interpret all three “Bestest League” chapters by doing his own artwork to go with Thomas’ script. The result was virtually a new work, and an interesting one in its own right—and indeed, in the first chapter, five pages were expanded into six, the final one of which is seen below.

Good—Better—Bestest

(Left:) The sixth page of Al Dellinges’ 1988 artwork for “Bestest League of America,” Part 1, from his photo-offset quasi-reprinting of the 1961 Alter-Ego #1.

[Art © 2013 Al Dellinges; script © 2013 Roy Thomas.]

(Above:) In between those two versions, new pro writer Gary Friedrich, with the blessing of his longtime friend Roy T., utilized the BLA in a new story in the Charlton humor comic Go-Go #5 (Feb. 1967), with art by Richard “Grass” Green. Splash page repro’d from RT’s bound volume, with slight loss of art and text at right. In 1962 Green had briefly been slated to co-publish & co-edit Alter Ego with Ronn Foss; the pair had shared credit on the cover of A/E #4, and in ‘63 Green had collaborated with Thomas in #6 on “Bestest League of America Meets... Da Frantic Four.” [© 2013 the respective copyright holders.]

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From Alter-Ego #2:

“Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here!”

Part I – The All-Winners Squad

by Roy Thomas

A recent issue of the fanzine Xero spotlighted an excellent arti-

simply, “All-Winners”—a smaller reproduction of the title logo on the cover. The pikers didn’t even bother to have an artist scribble in “Squad” underneath! The lead splash itself, done by a fairly good though unidentified artist who drew the whole story, pictures the seven Squadders standing about in various poses of horror as people fall dying all about them. In the middle of this scene is the supposed “dwarf,” looking properly fierce. Sort of gives you a hint that this is to be a kind of gruesome tale, doesn’t it?

As the story opens, it seems that Captain America has summoned the other members because, in a raid on the hideout of a lovely but lethal villainess named Madame Death, he and his boy-partner Bucky have discovered that the fair maiden and her ruthless gang are about to team up with the dwarf, who is called “Future Man” in the story. You see, Future Man has come in a ship from 1,000,000 A.D. to wipe out all present-day human life so that his people can escape the dying Earth of their era by migrating back in time. Cap and Bucky were doing a good job of mopping up Madame Death’s gang when Future Man, who had evidently been reading Dr. Mid-Nite stories on the side, tossed a “Dark-bomb” on the floor, blinding our heroes.

Naturally, all the crooks escaped in the dwarf’s rocket.

cle by Don Thompson of Cleveland, Ohio, on the subject of the Timely group of comic books, whose mainstays were the Human Torch & Toro, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America & Bucky. Fortunately for those others of us who like to write articles about comic-book heroes, Don left uncovered a few items of interest to fans. One of the most important of these, I believe, is the All-Winner Squad, an apparently stillborn JSAtype group consisting of the five above-named heroes plus a couple of minor ones, Miss America and the Whizzer.

The reason I say that this super-squadron was stillborn is that, as far as I have been able to ascertain, All-Winners #21 is the only comic in which this group ever appeared. Of course, I’ve heard that an early issue or two of that magazine featured a 2page written featurette about a bunch of heroes, and everybody knows there was a lot of crossing-over (such as the TorchNamor fights); but those don’t really count as far as a real JSAlike group goes. Therefore, it is possible to give a pretty accurate portrait of this great if extremely short-lived organization by poring over this one issue, published for Winter of 1946-47; and, happily, in reading it I discovered that it can hold its own with most issues of All-Star and even today’s Justice League of America.

The cover, reproduced elsewhere in this issue, boasted that it contained “a complete full-length mystery thriller,” which is fairly accurate, as the story ran over 40 pages. The title given on the cover was “The Riddle of the Demented Dwarf,” which really didn’t fit too well, as the villain was four feet tall if he was an inch, and no more demented than the average comic-book villain for my money. The reason they called him demented, I suppose, is that he wanted to kill everybody on Earth, but I think “anti-social” would have been a better description.

At any rate, the first page of the real story, like that of many Justice Society adventures, features an entirely different and more appropriate title, “Menace from the Future World.”

Evidently, though, the publishers of All-Winners were either lazy or extremely parsimonious, as the masthead of the story reads

Win-Win With All Winners!

2013 Editors’ Note: This image of the Jerry Bails-traced cover of All Winners Comics #21 which appeared in A/E #2, when compared with the printed cover of the 1946-47 mag, will reveal how hard he worked on those early spirit-duplicator issues. Not only did he carefully trace (somehow) the black line art of the cover of the slightly incomplete comic used

by Roy Thomas to write the article—Jerry even added color! Five decades ago, before the hues had faded as ditto copies are wont to do, the Torches were rapturously red, the villain’s cloak gangrenously green, with plenty of blue and yellow on Captain America and The Whizzer. This required no less than five ditto masters—and a lot of man-hours.

Although he flawlessly traced the title logo, Jerry decided to leave off the issue’s cover blurb. At this stage, neither he nor Roy knew the Squad had also been featured in All Winners #19. [All Winners Squad characters TM & © 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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From Alter-Ego #2: “Bestest League of America,” Part 2 – by Roy Thomas

33

From Alter-Ego #2:

Hawkman, Winged Wonder

[by Jerry G. Bails (unsigned) & Douglas Marden]

In this issue of Alter-Ego we are happy to feature drawings of

A WORD ABOUT JOE KUBERT. Joe, like so many other artists in the business, attended the High School of Music and Art in New York. That was in 1940. Less than a year later, at the age of fourteen, he got his first job working for comic books. When he was sixteen, he moved with his parents to New Jersey, which has been his home state ever since. The only time in the past twenty years that Joe has not spent drawing and producing comics was the time he spent in Germany as the guest of the U.S. Army.

Kubert fans will always remember the all-too-brief existence of Joe’s own creation, Tor, the hunter, who appeared in 1953 in 1,000,000 Years Ago.

the Hawkman as he appeared over the years in Flash Comics.

According to our best sources, the Hawkman was first drawn in 1940 by an artist named Neville, but the job was soon taken over by Sheldon Moldoff, who signed his work “Shelly.”

Shelly, whose art first really captured the spirit of the Hawkman, handled this assignment until 1945, when the very youthful but very talented Joe Kubert took over. The several changes in Hawkman’s headgear probably reflect the several changes in the editorial staff at DC Comics.

A WORD ABOUT THE CREATOR. The Hawkman was created by author Gardner F. Fox. Gar, as he is known affectionately to his friends, also created the Justice Society of America, the original Flash, Space Ranger, and Adam Strange, and in collaboration with editor Julius Schwartz, is now giving us the Justice League of America and the new Hawkman and Atom.

Gar has a B.A. degree in history and English, and an LL.B. Degree, but he gave up the practice of law many years ago in favor of writing. In addition to putting out a comic story or two a week, he writes historical novels under a variety of pseudonyms.

One of his latest on the stands in paperback form is Veronica’s Veil by Jefferson Cooper.

His real name is “owned” by Gold Metal and Crest Books, so he writes under a variety of names for the other houses (Pocketbooks Inc., Popular Library, Signet, Monarch, and Avon). Most of his novels are historical, with an occasional suspense or modern-day background thrown in. Here are the titles of some of his more recent works: Lover in Iron, The Question Sword, Borgia Blade, and Barbary Slave.

News-Beak

2013 Editors’ Note: For A/E #2, Jerry Bails painstakingly drew six Hawkman heads, in the styles of artists Dennis Neville, Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff, and Joe Kubert, to show the evolution (or devolution) of the hero’s headgear between Flash Comics #1 and its last few issues when his helmet had become merely a cowl—plus a drawing of Hawkman as revived just as that issue of A/E was going to “press.” This study foreshadowed the artistic analyses that would be a staple of comics fanzines from that day to this.

[Hawkman TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

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A Synopsis of the First Hawkman Story, Which Appeared in Flash Comics #1, Jan., 1940 (by courtesy of Douglas Marden)

The story opens in the weapon-lined library of Carter Hall,

research scientist and wealthy collector of ancient weapons.

Carter notices a strange package on the table near him.

He guesses that it is another addition for his weapons collection that has just arrived from his friend in Egypt. He hastily opens the strange gift.

The package contains an Egyptian knife made of glass. It was once used to offer sacrifices to the gods. The knife emits a strange glow which causes Carter to fall into a deep sleep.

A weird dream shapes itself in Carter’s subconscious…

He finds himself in ancient Egypt in the body of a Prince Khufu, who is being held captive by the high priest, HathSet. The priest addresses the prince, telling him that he will be beaten until he reveals the whereabouts of a girl named Shiera, but Prince Khufu refuses to say. He would rather die than let his beloved Shiera be sacrificed to the gods.

With a surge of strength, the prince breaks away from his captors, and uses a chariot to escape into the desert, where he returns to the arms of his loved one.

Unfortunately, Prince Khufu has been followed by the high priest and his temple guards. The prince makes a valiant effort to save Shiera, but he is outnumbered. They are both captured and returned to the temple of the feared Anubis, the HawkGod, where they are to be sacrificed. With his last breath, Prince Khufu vows that he and Shiera will live again, and that he will kill the evil Hath-Set. At this point the dream comes to an end, and Carter awakens. He leaves the house the next day for a short walk. As he passes a subway, he sees people running out, screaming about the rails and train turning blue and then bursting into flames.

Carter races down into the subway to see the cause of the panic, and accidentally bumps into a girl. By some weird trick of fate, the girl is the reincarnation of Shiera. Together they look at the subway rails to see that they are being flooded by millions of volts of electricity. The people in the trains have been burned to cinders. Only a dynamo could have done this, Carter concludes.

With Shiera, he then returns home; and on the way he relates the incredible story of his dream.

Upon reaching home, he goes to his laboratory where he constructs a dynamo-detector. Shortly he emerges from his room clad in the guise of the ancient Hawk-God, Anubis. He is now Hawkman, Peril of the Night. His powers are derived from his discovery of the secret of the ages, ninth metal, which repels electricity and defies the pull of gravity.

Hawkman goes forth into the night until he reaches a desolate house just beyond the city limits. It is the home of Dr. Hastor, where Hawkman’s instruments have revealed that a gigantic dynamo is in use.

Never Say Never, Neville!

2013 Editors’ Note: The first-ever reprinting of Hawkman’s origin came in DC’s tabloid-sized Famous First Edition “Vol. 2, No. F-8 (Aug.-Sept 1975), which reprinted the entirety of Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), thirteen years after A/E #2 retold the story and Jerry Bails rendered an approximation of Hawkman’s helmet as drawn by original artist Dennis Neville. Script by Gardner Fox. This splash, of course, was not in A/E V1 #2. [© 2013 DC Comics.]

Inside, Hastor gazes upon his creation, a fantastic dynamo which he is using to make the city do his bidding. At this moment, a face appears at the window…. It is Hawkman!

Hastor, who in reality is the reincarnation of Hath-Set, mistakes the Winged Wonder for the God Anubis, and tries to blast him out of the air by electricity from his dynamo. This fails, however, due to the fact that the costume that Hawkman wears is partly of ninth metal, and repels the electrical charge.

Hawkman swoops down and smashes the dynamo with the quarter-staff which he is carrying. When he is finished, Hastor has escaped.

Hastor, who now realizes that Hawkman is really the reincarnation of Prince Khufu, guesses that Shiera must be alive, too, and summons her through Anubis.

When Hawkman returns home, he finds Shiera gone and immediately suspects Hastor. The Winged Wonder then takes a cross-bow and a cloak of ninth metal with him as he returns to Hastor’s house.

Meanwhile, Hastor has prepared Shiera for sacrifice to the God Anubis. He is just about to destroy her with a bolt of electricity when Hawkman appears just in time. The Feathered Fury drops the cloak of ninth metal over Shiera, protecting her from the electrical charge. Then Hawkman turns his full vengeance on Hastor, killing him with a shaft from the ancient cross-bow.

This time it is Prince Khufu who has won, and has slain the evil priest of Anubis, and it is the dying Hastor who has sworn vengeance.

Hawkman flies home with Shiera in his arms. At the end of his first adventure, the Winged Wonder looks out over the night sky, sure that he has not seen the last of Hastor. THE END.

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From Alter-Ego #3:

Dear Reader:

A Message From The Editor

[by Jerry G. Bails–untitled in original fanzine]

As a result of the plug Alter-Ego received in JLA #8, the demand for A-E now exceeds the supply. While I will explore the possibilities of increasing the print run, I must advise all readers that I will honor requests for A-E #4 in the following order: (1) Contributors (as defined below), (2) Faneds (with whom I have trade agreements), (3) Creators of the comics (who bother to write me even once), and (4) Paying readers. Those in the last category who order too late to receive issue #4 will be among the first to receive #5. Sorry, no subscriptions can be accepted.

Only orders for the next issue will be honored.

The single copy price for A-E #4 is 50¢ in coins or stamps.

(No checks or money orders, please.) Collector’s copies mailed in a special envelope are 10¢ extra.

I regret to announce that A-E #1 and #2 are sold out. Perhaps at some future time I’ll reprint some of the more popular features “My Salad Days, When from these issues.

I Was Green In Judgment” Because of the huge volume of our mail, it is not possible for 2013 Editors’ Note: If this illo looks familiar, it’s because our first Roy Thomas or me to answer personally all the letters that we Best of volume contained Al Dellinges’ pen-and-ink redrawing of receive. We will acknowledge the more interesting and informaJerry Bails’ ditto-tracing of this Paul Reinman Green Lantern panel. tive letters, all specific trade offers, and contributions (as defined This time, we’re using Jerry’s pointing out the mistake he lettered into below); however, unsolicited materials (drawings, articles, comics, etc.) can not be returned unless they are accompanied by sufficient GL’s oath as an excuse to reprint the original Reinman/Bails fanzine art. Incidentally, the entire area of the lantern’s aura was colored return postage. green in A/E V1#3. Jerry’s GL article was reprinted in Best of, Vol. From now on, “On the Drawing Board” will be published (on roughly a monthly schedule) as a separate newsletter. The current 1, while the original 1961 fanzine also featured a recap of the hero’s origin by fan George Paul, which has not been reprinted in either volrelease (#5) is now available in return for a stamped, selfume. [Green Lantern TM & © 2013 DC Comics.] addressed envelope. Send your requests to me, not Roy. The next issue of The Comicollector (A-E’S companion zine devoted to swaps and sales announcements) will be ready soon. If you are not already entitled to a copy, you may order one for 20¢.

You are also welcome to advertise; the rate is $1.00 per quarter-page or fraction thereof. Free ad space can be arranged in return for the loan of pre-1948 costumed-hero comics at the rate of 40 words per comic. Send me a list of the comics (including issue numbers) that you are willing to loan. Remittance (cash or comic loan) should accompany a double-spaced copy of the ad as it is to appear.

A-E is published on an irregular schedule, which means that there’s no sense in asking me when you can expect the next issue. I just don’t know. I will get each issue ready as fast as I can, but it takes lots and lots of time, a commodity that I don’t have a great deal of. If you would like to see A-E published more regularly, volunteer for a job on the staff. I need good typists, artists, and proof-readers. I also need someone to help me with production and circulation; this has to be someone who lives in or about Detroit and can spend about one afternoon or evening each week with me in my basement office.

Anyone who materially assists me in publishing either of my fanzines, or who has material published in A-E, or who is specifically charged to gather information for me on past, present, or future events in the comics will be counted as a CONTRIBUTOR, on an issue-by-issue basis, and will be entitled to special privileges.

In closing, I would like to say that I am sorry that space limitations crowded out Roy Thomas’ excellent review of the new comic Magic Agent. It is, however, scheduled for issue #2 of The Comicollector.

Best regards, JERRY BAILS (Publishing Editor) 1710 Kenwood Dr. Inkster, Michigan

P.S.: The statement of Green Lantern’s “second” oath which accompanies the Paul Reinman illustration in this issue contains an error. “Blackest” should read “brightest.”

[2013 Editors’ Note: In the actual A/E V1#3, the above page came after, not before, the “Bestest League of America” segment which here follows it. Once again, please turn the book sideways to read the final mind-numbing BLA chapter.]

40

The Comicollector –“The Companion To Alter-Ego”

An Alter Ego Extra!

The Coming Of Comic Book Fandom’s First Adzine

Once Jerry Bails’ creative and entrepreneurial juices started flowing in early 1961, they just wouldn’t quit.

Having founded the first regularly published fanzine devoted to comic book costumed heroes, he quickly realized that many of the “for sale” and “wanted” ads for which he was selling and trading space in early issues of Alter-Ego were becoming dated while sitting around waiting for the next quarterly issue to be published. As he told Bill Schelly for the latter’s 1995 historical study The Golden Age of Comic Fandom: “My initial conception of Alter-Ego turned out to be unrealistic. I wanted well-researched articles and features, comic strips, news, and ads. Each of these features demanded different deadlines.” Besides, a timely “adzine” might even furnish him with a modest profit to help support his interests, which were turning more and more toward data-collecting.

Thus, with a cover date of September ‘61 (but clearly on sale in August—see next page), Bails launched The Comicollector (“The Companion to Alter-Ego”), the first comic book adzine—not that ads related to comic strips or related items would be turned away.

Below, from Schelly’s Comic Fandom Archive collection, is its very first spirit-duplicated page—which even managed to squeeze in its first paid ad!

Artis Gratis

By The Comicollector #2, Jerry had decided to add a few visuals to his new adzine, so that issue sported a Thomas cartoon featuring the Bestest League and the Thing—a nice full-page rendering of two JSAers by fan Raymond Miller (above)—and a cartoon by Robert Hopkins (below), a new English-teacher friend of Roy’s who would, a year or three later, write an article on Doc Savage for A/E #8. [Dr. Mid-Nite & Atom TM & © 2013 DC Comics; other cartoon © 2013 R. Hopkins.]

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An Alter Ego Extra!

Jerry Bails & Stan Lee – 1961

2013 Editors’ Note: Within a few days of picking up The Fantastic Four #1 (yes, the first issue officially had a “The” in the title) at a Missouri newsstand in late July or early August of 1961, new college grad Roy Thomas wrote a two-page review of it, intended for inclusion in Alter-Ego. However, Jerry (who may or may not have asked for the review) chose instead to include it in the first issue of The Comicollector, which, though dated Sept. ‘61, appeared in August. Roy’s review was reprinted in full in the previous Best of Alter Ego volume.

From the very beginning, Jerry had sent copies of each issue of his fanzines to every pro whose address he could get hold of, though whether he’d sent Timely editor Stan Lee anything prior to the release of FF #1 isn’t known. That company wouldn’t be called “Marvel” again till 1963; in fact, at this stage, Lee was using the stationery of the parent company, Magazine Management, which published numerous types of magazines besides comics. On Aug. 29, 1961, he sent Jerry the following letter, which is probably the first time Stan Lee had ever typed (or even heard) the name “Roy Thomas”:

Stan The Man & Roy The Boy— Together Again For The First Time!

2013 Editors’ Note: (Far Left:) The beginning of Roy Thomas’ two-page review (Stan Lee called it a “critique”) of The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961), from The Comicollector #1 (Sept. 1961), as retyped by Jerry Bails, who added an asterisked footnote mentioning that Lee “was formerly an editor of the Timely group of comics, which featured the original Human Torch.” Few readers of FF #1—and certainly not Roy—would have known that fact.

(Above:) Stan Lee in a 1960s photo; retrieved by Danny Fingeroth from the Stan Lee Archives at the University of Wyoming for his and Roy’s book The Stan Lee Universe (TwoMorrows, 2011).

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Time –And The Comicollector–March On!

An Alter Ego Extra!

With issue #2 (dated “Jan. 1962,”

whether published then or in the preceding December), the masthead of The Comicollector announced a circulation of over 500 copies—while Alter-Ego #2 had reached at least 300 people, though #3 might have had a higher circulation.

The first page of CC #2 included a deadline schedule for issues #3 through #8 (the latter due for “December 1, 1962”—Bails was clearly thinking ahead!). By now, he was accepting, even encouraging, subscriptions to the bimonthly zine: 6 issues for the princely price of $1, with a single-copy price of 20¢.

Along with any slight income derived from CC, the adzine gave Jerry an additional stage from which to solicit information. For instance, page 2 of the second issue featured his “Wanted!” ad seeking (1) the fabric version of the original JJSA badge (which had replaced the metal badge due to wartime restrictions; (2) “any membership certificate of the JJSA picturing Mr. Terrific and Wildcat (1945)”; (3) original DC splash or cover art; and (4) information of which artists besides Arthur Peddy, Bernard Sachs, and Frank Giacoia may have contributed to the last ten Golden Age “Justice

It would seem that yet another comic company has followed

Society” stories. In exchange, he offered payment, generous trades, and/or advertising space in CC. He finished off that page by hawking for sale his own old ditto machine—”the one used on the first two issues of Alter-Ego”—for the munificent sum of $35. Eventually he apparently yook $25 for it, see note on p. 19.

A second (and, as it happened, final) review by Thomas, intended for a quarterly A/E, wound up in CC #2: a look at the American Comics Group’s Magic Agent #1, which wasn’t destined to meet with quite as much success as did Fantastic Four….

appears on the Schaffenberger cover.)

His origin, by the way—the second of the three stories in the magazine—is perhaps the weakest link in the magic agent chain. It seems that, in early 1944, some of the Germans knew that D-Day was coming and were going to move some forces from Transylvania to Normandy just in case that was where it would occur. To prevent this movement of Nazi troops, John Force—then just a normal top secret agent with an eye patch but no trench coat—was sent to Transylvania to stir up the underground there, thus making it necessary for the German troops to stay where they were to maintain order.

Captured by the Nazis (along with most of the underground) and imprisoned in the haunted Castle of Cagliostro, Force was awakened by four great “sorcerers of the past”— Cagliostro, Merlin, Nostradamus, and believe it or not, Houdini—and was

the lead of National Comics by throwing its own super-hero into the proverbial ring. Published by the American Comics Group (which previously has had few “regulars” except the “Spirit of Frankenstein” feature some years back in Adventures into the Unknown and the short-lived Atomic Sub mag), this new comic is not generally on a par with Justice League and The Fantastic Four, but it has some noteworthy aspects which will bear watching in future months.

Entitled Magic Agent (or, if you believe the cover, Calling John Force—Magic Agent), it concerns the adventures of “America’s top secret operative,” a character who would fit into that rare category of a super-hero without a distinctive costume.

Taking his cue (perhaps coincidentally) from the post-World War II character Radar, John Force is an otherwise normal human being with a number of psi powers. (Also, like Radar, he evidently wears a trench coat even in 100+ degree weather, even though he doesn’t have any clever device such as turning it inside-out to A Magic Gent change into a secret identity, not having one 2013 Editors’ Note: (Above) The title/byline and a to change into.)

Roy Thomas drawing (based on either the Kurt For added effect, our black-haired (or, on Schaffenberger cover or art from the Paul the cover, brown-haired) hero wears a patch Reinman/Pete Costanza interiors), from CC #2. Roy over one eye. How he acquired this patch is never figured out how to trace art from comic books not mentioned in the comic, but he has without leaving pencil lines or dents on the mags, so obviously worn it a long time, as he sports all his drawings for the fanzines were done freehand— it in the origin story, which takes place in as if you wouldn’t have noticed that! the latter part of World War II. (He was (Right:) The cover of Magic Agent #1 (Jan.-Feb. 1962), courtesy of the Grand Comics Database. This America’s top secret operative then, too, it art, of course, did not appear in CC #2. [© 2013 the seems, so he must be a lot older than he respective copyright holders.]

48

An Alter Ego Extra!

“Did Robin Want To Join Batman?”

MIKE TUOHEY On Being An Eyewitness–And A Helping Hand–To Comic Fandom History

2013 EDITORS’ INTRO: In the early 1960s, young Detroit comics fan Mike Tuohey became Jerry Bails’ first on-the-spot assistant and general aide-de-camp. Half a century later, we’re honored that he’s shared his fond memories at length for the first time ever.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!

What you can do or think you can—Begin it!

–Goethe.

It was in late April 1961 that Jerry Bails invited me to visit

him at 14242 Dale, when I summoned the courage to call him after reading a letter from him which editor Julie Schwartz had printed in The Brave and the Bold (the second Hawkman try-out).

I wanted to see a copy of All-Star Comics, my mind aglow with the revelation that superheroes existed that I had never seen before.

Jerry said he was publishing a comic book fan magazine—“fanzine”—and he sent me an abbreviated copy (sans the BLA adventure) of Alter-Ego #1, which arrived May 1, 1961 (I wrote the date in pencil on the back cover), two days before my 13th birthday.

I’m pretty sure it was the following Saturday, May 6, when my mother drove me that first time from my own house in Detroit to the Dale Street address some five miles away, where I met Jerry Tuohey Can Play At That Game!

Bails and his mother.

(Left:) Mike Tuohey, probably a year or so before he assisted Jerry Bails in mailing Jerry was tall, slim, angular, and energetic, with out early copies of his fanzines. He’s holding Monogram’s 1/48-scale Space Taxi, brush-cut hair, sharp features, and clear blue eyes.

He was 26 years old, already a college professor of manufactured from a design by rocketeer Willy Ley in 1959.

(Right:) A photo of Mike at the 1997 Fandom Reunion Luncheon in Chicago, with Natural History at Monteith College, part of the original ditto master of the cover of Alter-Ego #3, which Jerry gave him in the Wayne State University in downtown Detroit. early 1960s—and which he gifted to Jerry’s widow Jean at the July 2011 San Diego The first thing I did was dig into some issues of Comic-Con. Mike writes, “It’s such a beautiful work. You can see Jerry’s pencil strokes, and how he used a softer reddish pencil to do the shading against the green All-Star Comics, and Jerry showed me his bound ditto ink backing.” Photos courtesy of Mike Tuohey. editions of issues 1-24 that he had obtained from Gardner Fox. I took home with me a copy of All-Star Comics #37, feaAlter-Ego’s basement publishing set-up was Jerry’s huge turing the story about the Injustice Gang of the World. But metal desk, file cabinets, a separate stand that held the typethat was only the beginning of the comic book wonders that writer from which came pages of Alter-Ego 1, 2, and 3, Jerry shared with me that day and in the visits that followed: Comicollector 1-6, as well as On the Drawing Board/The Fighting American and Captain Flash and Thrills of Comic Reader 1-25, The Index to All-Star Comics (both Tomorrow featuring Stuntman. original and revised), Secrets behind All-Star Comics, and

I rode my bike on Saturdays to work with Jerry and to read or return more of his old comic books (More Fun with the Spectre, Adventure with the Sandman, Pep Comics #17, Sub-Mariner #34) during that summer of 1961 after the trip doubled (11 miles one-way) when he moved Alter-Ego headquarters to the basement of 1700 Kenwood Drive in Inkster, Michigan, sometime in June.

51

The Authoritative Index to DC Comics by Howard Keltner and Jerry.

There were other tables against the walls that held all manner of office supplies: a scale to weigh mail, postage stamps, sponges for wetting the postage (really beat licking hundreds of 3-cent stamps), staplers, manila envelopes, bulldog clips, carbon paper, and various reams of 8½” by 11”

involved in all this while he was in college, or he would never have finished his Ph.D. Jerry moved to 17645 Gaylord in May 1961, and he managed to hurt his back during the move. Even so, in the new headquarters in the basement at Gaylord (4½ miles from my house, making it easier for me to bicycle to), things really began to mushroom, including Jerry finally allowing me to work on the ditto masters myself.

Jerry was virtually exploding with new ideas and new projects. He had begun photographing first-issue covers, a huge undertaking by itself, and he was putting together monthly On the Drawing Board/The Comic Reader, one or two pages which he decided must be separated from Alter-Ego and The Comicollector because of the timeliness of the information. Jerry was also hard at work on his Index to All-Star Comics and, of course, Alter-Ego #4.

Plans for Jerry to transition his fanzine publications (with the exception of The Comic Reader) to other hands were taking shape, and he was working out details with Ronn Foss to take over Alter-Ego and The Comicollector.

Everything Old Is New Again

On July 23, 2011, at the “Meet and Greet” party held in conjunction with the “50th-anniversary of comics fandom” celebration at the San Diego ComicCon, Mike presented his pristine original copy of the March 1961 Alter-Ego #1 to Roy Thomas. That’s Xero publishers/editors Dick & Pat Lupoff in between the pair; veteran writer & editor Marv Wolfman can be seen behind the Lupoffs. Roy was joyfully astounded by Mike’s generosity. Still is. Photo by Jackie Estrada, organizer with Bill Schelly of the fandom event.

I mastered an illustration/tracing of the Spectre on an ad for Masquerader #1 in The Comicollector #6; I felt the page needed some kind of picture. After all, super-hero drawings were what it was all about. Jerry felt that it was paid advertising and that Mike Vosburg had not requested and probably shouldn’t have special attention like that, but I thought it looked cool, and Jerry agreed to let it stand. I desperately wanted to contribute to A-E, and since I couldn’t draw, I wrote an article based on one of the comic books Jerry lent me: “The Legend of the Heap.” Jerry let me type the article and master the illustration/tracing of the Heap for Comicollector #6.

For a time in 1962, I took over the mailing of On the Drawing Board (renamed The Comic Reader with issue #8, March 18, 1961), and fans began sending the self-addressed, stamped envelopes directly to me. I mailed out Comic Readers #11 (July 26, 1961), #12 (Aug. 20, 1962), and #13 (Nov. 8, 1962). I must say, I grew tired of the task fairly quickly, and Jerry re-assumed the mailing before passing it on to Glen Johnson with issue #26. I also handled the sales of some of his comic books (with the letters pages missing) and his first-issue photographs, which he had parceled into what we called “packets” and advertised in The Comic Reader.

Jerry told me about an idea he had for a super-hero, involving a fellow who goes to a female psychologist with a sleep deprivation problem. During the course of his therapy, under hypnosis, the psychiatrist finds out about this guy’s alter ego, a night-prowling mystery man who fights crime: a separate personality that the fellow is unaware of, except that he wakes each morning more exhausted than when he went to bed, with unexplained cuts and bruises. Jerry

explained that the female psychiatrist, who hesitates to reveal to the guy his other personality, for fear of further trauma, eventually becomes a love interest. I thought this an interesting twist, in which the girlfriend knows the secret identity while the hero does not.

Roy Thomas came to Detroit to visit Jerry sometime in 1962 or 1963, and we went to a showing of a couple of episodes of the old Batman serial at a local theatre. While I was always at ease with Jerry, I got the feeling Roy couldn’t wait for me to go home so that he and Jerry could spend time without a little kid around. I can’t really blame him. I was a little kid. I realize now that Jerry was a 28-year-old grown man and I was a 14-year-old boy, but Jerry always treated me as an equal.

54

Jerry was a salesman, a teacher, a facilitator. In this one hobby of his, he was a shining example that the individual can make a difference; can nudge the universe to realign itself; can impact the world.

By passing along his projects, by involving everyone he found who had an interest in the same things, Jerry empowered them to uncover their own skills and allowed himself to dig into other aspects of this hobby that held fascination and rewards for him.

Jerry has been referred to as the “Father of Comic Book Fandom,” and what a good father does is enable his children to be productive. He gives them a chance to get involved and to make and share something that’s uniquely their own. To me, this was Jerry’s overwhelming contribution to comic book fandom.

An Alter Ego Extra!

Alter-Ego #4: Jerry Bails’ Photo-Offset Finale

By mid-1962, Jerry Bails was publishing three fanzines:

Alter Ego, The Comicollector, and The Comic Reader (formerly On the Drawing Board), the last one containing news of upcoming pro comics and developments in fandom. In TCR #12 (dated Aug. 20) Jerry made a momentous announcement: “Alter-Ego #4, which I hope will be my finest ... will be my last! Other demands upon my time make it impossible for me to continue as the publishing editor of Alter-Ego and The Comicollector.”

In his editorial “A Parting Shot,” the first item from that issue reprinted herein, Jerry explained developments in greater detail and named Ronn Foss of Suisun, California, as his successor on both fanzines. (Bails continued publishing The Comic Reader for another year.) When you read about the various projects Jerry wanted to pursue, all of them of importance to comics fans, one can understand why he decided to step down. But he was going out at the top, having decided to move on from spirit duplicator to the superior process of “photo offset,” which would not only allow much better reproduction (and the use of photographs and actual images from the comic books themselves) but would enable him to print an infinite number of copies, as opposed to the maximum of 250 to 300 that one could get from the best ditto master.

In his last issue as editor of A/E, Bails rounded up features from some of the most knowledgeable fans of the day.

The cover was signed by fan-artists Ronn Foss and Grass Green (who were close friends), but the printed artwork is entirely a Foss effort. In the early 1990s, Ronn elucidated:

Breakfast Serial

Future editor/publisher Ronn Foss got into the spirit of his new situation by delivering several nicely shaded drawings for Ron Haydock’s piece on the 1943 Batman movie serial from Columbia. Above is his title drawing. [Batman & Robin TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

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“Jerry was running a ‘draw Alley Oop’ contest and had selected my drawing as the winner. Then he asked me to do a cover to match.

It needed more than the same Alley Oop figure.

Grass sketched a cover with various comic book heroes in stars alongside. While I did the actual artwork, I wanted to acknowledge Grass’ layout, and also to bring him to the attention of fandom in [Alley Oop TM & © 2013 UFS, Inc.; The a big way. Jerry told Fly TM & © Archie Comic Publications, me he was going photo Inc.; Human Torch TM & © 2013 Marvel offset and printing 1,000 Characters, Inc.; other heroes TM & © 2013 DC Comics.] copies.”

For their 50¢, readers got an excellent 34-page fanzine. In Volume 1, we reprinted “MLJ Leads the Way” by Howard Keltner (which would win an Alley Award for 1962), the report on the 1961 Alley Awards by Roy Thomas, a letter from veteran pro artist Paul Reinman, and an iconic Jack Kirby drawing of the Thing holding up a sign that proclaimed: “Buy Alter-Ego—or else!” This time, we offer two more excellent items by top fan writers.

The first is “The Superman before the Time of Superman…..

‘Maximo,’” an article on one of the very few original characters created for the Big Little Book format. In later life, Ed was a member of Mensa International, which probably explains his attraction to a hero who used his super-mental powers to achieve great feats; but see the note beneath the BLB art spot on p. 58 for a major correction to his article.

The second is L. L. Simpson’s “Hall of Infamy” column about two of the nastiest villains of the Golden Age of Comics: The Claw and Iron Jaw (he spells it “Ironjaw”) from Silver Streak Comics and Daredevil Battles Hitler. The two illustrations are “swiped by the editor,” by Bails’ own admission; his odd signature may be meant as the initials of “Robert Lindsay,” one of the pseudonyms he used over the years in letters to comics editors. Few realize that Jerry possessed a certain amount of art talent and could ably handle an ink pen and brush.

In retrospect, it’s odd to think that Jerry Bails, who conceived Alter-Ego, only published and edited four issues, over a period of roughly 21 months in 1961 and 1962. On the other hand, his vision for the magazine was so powerful that it inspired others to pick up the torch and continue it, while he turned his attention to the project that became his life’s work in the medium: the Who’s Who of American Comic Books.

From Alter-Ego #4:

As most of you know

A Parting Shot (An Editorial)

by now, this issue is my last as publisher and editor of AlterEgo. Ronn Foss is succeeding me; he and his cohorts in California already have the next issue in The issue’s contents page illo was provided by Harry Thomas (no relation to Roy). [Green Lantern & Flash TM & © the works. I know a 2013 DC Comics.] bit about what they are planning, and I am truly excited about the articles, features, It would be worth your time to send me a list of the titles you stories, and art that will appear on the pages of this fanzine. are willing to loan me. (Caution: I can only use mint covers.)

You can bet that Alter-Ego will continue to set the pace, featurThere is still another project that I need time to work on. I ing fandom’s top artists and writers in a high-quality bimontham engaged in collecting data on artists and writers, and all ly publication. Yes, I said “bimonthly,” and I advise you to costumed-hero comics published before 1948. With a big assist subscribe now if you don’t want to miss an issue. (See page 3 from Howard Keltner I hope to publish a big index to DC titles for details.) before too long. Interested?

Some of you may wonder why I am retiring as the publishAnd then, of course, I’d like to have more time to contribute ing editor of a successful fanzine (the print run for this issue: to many of the new fanzines on comics that have recently hit 1000). The answer is simple; I’ve got dozens of other fannish my mailbox. (Do you know that at this writing I’ve received projects that I need time to work on. For one thing, I’ve got no less than 6 such fanzines? A year ago Alter-Ego had no nearly one hundred rare comics from the forties that I purcompetition in this field.) All of these new zines have somechased in the last year and which I haven’t had time to read thing of interest; many have original ideas; some have excelyet, and I anticipate many more as I continue to build my collent art; a few have good stories; and at least one has mastered lection of early super-doers. Dealers and collectors please note: the ditto machine. While encouraging them all to set their ediI always have money for items on my want list (predominantly torial standards higher and strive for better reproduction, I pre-1948 DC comics but also many non-DCs featuring superwish all six of these faneds and any others who enter the field doer origins and cross-overs). the very success I have enjoyed—the support of fandom. (For Another reason I need time—I want to complete my project plugs see page 22.) of photographing the covers of the first issues of all comics Let me take this opportunity to thank all of my friends in magazines published before 1948. (Over 100 photographed so fandom for their encouragement, contributions, and kind comfar.) I can still use a lot of help on this project. I offer free ments. I would like very much to receive a letter of comment advertising space in The Comic Reader (which I will still pubfrom each and every reader of this issue (no matter when it lish), original JLA art by Mike Sekowsky and Bernard Sachs, may be written). The best letters will be forwarded to Ronn for or enlargements of your favorite comic prints for the loan of publication. first issues that I need. For that matter, I’m looking for any issues that introduce a new costumed hero as the cover-feature.

Jerry G. Bails

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ALTER-EGO proudly presents its imitators: MASQUERADER (Mike Vosburg, 3040 Avalon, Pontiac, Michigan) THE COMIC FAN (Buddy Saunders, 1605 Joyce, Arlington 2, Texas) COMIC HEROES REVISITED (Bernie Bubnis Jr., 65 Walnut Ave., East Farmington, New York) SPOTLITE (Parley Holman, 3715 S. 3100 East, Salt Lake City 9, Utah) KOMIX ILLUSTRATED (Billy J. White, 407 Sandra, Columbia, Missouri) HEADLINE (Steve Gerber, 7014 Roberts Ct., University City 30, Missouri) FAN TO FAN (Robert Butts, 719 Pierce St., South Bend, Indiana) COMIC HEROES UNLIMITED (G.B. Love, 9875 S.W. 212 St., Miami 57, Florida) THE COMIX (John Wright, P.O. Box 1277, Port Elizabeth, South Africa) THE COMIC WORLD (Robert Jennings, 3819 Chambers Dr., Nashville 11,Tennessee) SUPER-HERO (Mike Tuohey, 16857 Sunderland, Detroit 19, Michigan)

For information about any of these comic fanzines, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the fan publisher.

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From Alter-Ego #4:

Before I go into the story of Maximo, the amazing superman, let

with Erwin L. Hess taking over the art in the second story. Fig. 1 me first tell about the type of book he appeared in, the Big Little depicts our hero as he was done Book. The Big Little Books were published at Racine,

by Henry E. Vallely. Vallely was Wisconsin, by the Whitman Publishing Company. These books very adept at using simple lines were about three and three-fourths inches wide by four and oneto illustrate his ideas. This is a half inches high, and held about four hundred and thirty pages of very difficult technique and not alternating story and art, with credits, contents page and three or nearly as easy as it looks. Vallely four pages of ads also included. The Big Little Books were the also did several other Better Little true forerunners of the present day comic book. They made their Books, among which was the appearance in the early thirties and reached their peak about 1939 Lone Ranger. I personally liked and 1940. By this time these books were now called the Better his artwork. It was light and Little Books and some of them even contained pictures that breezy and very easy to look at. I would move when the pages were flipped rapidly. Certain variwill go into Erwin Hess’ style and ants of the Better Little Book contained pictures with word balinterpretation of Maximo a little loons in true comic-book style, although all that I have seen were To The Max! later, as I now want to tell how in black and white. I still have the first Big Little Book I even 2013 Editors’ Note: Ed the story of our hero started. Mr. received. The title is Billy the Kid, and it has some very beautiful Lahmann’s 1962 drawing of Hess and his efforts belong to artwork by Hal Arbo of the W Lazy 5 Ranch. The story was by Maximo, based on artwork by another story. I will say this much Henry E. Vallely. [Art © 2013 Leon Morgan. This book was copyrighted 1936. Most of the Big of Mr. Hess, his style was very estate of Ed Lahmann.]

Little Books contained features from the newspaper comic strips different from that of Mr. Vallely. but several original features appeared also, especially westerns.

Our story begins on a rustic country lane where the only traces This then brings us to the feature I would like to tell of here, of civilization are a railroad crossing, the distant sound of a train, Maximo, the amazing superman. and an onrushing automobile. The car being driven by a young The best way I think to introduce you to Maximo is to repeat woman charges ahead as if it were a wild beast loosed upon the here the prologue that appeared before his story in both Better serenity about it. The ever-moving obstacle of the train seems as Little Books in which he appeared. the protector of the peace and in its course will blot out this “WHAT IS A SUPERMAN?......... A superman is a human usurper. The timing is perfect, the result is there transfixed, nothbeing who has greater powers than the normal person—physical, ing can stop what is about to happen. mental, or possibly supernatural. From ancient times the idea of a Maximo Miller, out for a brisk walk and dressed as a matter of superman has fascinated people, capturing the imagination. fact in his hiking togs, also happens to be in this same road and is Hercules was a superman capable of great feats of strength. The witness to the events taking place. He shouts, nobody hears. He knights of King Arthur were supermen of a kind, and so were signals, nobody sees. Maximo steels himself for this coming Robin Hood and Richard the Lion-Hearted. Legends of every age crash. His mind is straining, saying, and every land tell of supermen, who stop! Every fiber of his body is on fire. had great power and led charmed lives.

He puts his hand before his eyes and The great superman of American stories then a sharp pain in his head, a snap is Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack, somewhere inside his brain, and a feelwhose deeds were marvelous in the ing of great exhilaration comes over extreme. The hero of this story, Maximo him. He looks up and the train is passMiller, is a new kind of superman. He is ing. When it has cleared the crossing he gifted with a superbrain which he learns sees something that is most unbelievhow to use to do things which no other able. The car is hanging suspended in man can do. And that makes the tale.” the air about three feet above the This is the prologue as it appeared. ground, its wheels spinning and smoke Now, into my recollection of Maximo, pouring from the exhaust. Then a feelthe amazing superman….

The Collegian And The Crook ing of relaxation comes over Maximo The story of Maximo was authored 2013 Editors’ Note: Prof. Arvid and Watts Garvin, as reand the car settles to the earth. As the

by R.R. Winterbotham and the art was rendered by Ed Lahman for A/E #4. [Art © 2013 estate of car touches the wheels bite in and it

by Henry E. Vallely in the first story, Ed Lahmann.]

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From Alter-Ego #4:

Hall Of Infamy

by L.L. Simpson

Welcome, fellow lovers of villainy, to the cob-webbed

Huge in size—he made King Kong seem like a schoolboy—the Claw was oriental in appearance with slanted eyes, yellow skin, heavy bushy eyebrows, fanglike teeth, and long slender (claw-like) fingers. He usually wore a black skullcap and red robe. Soon after landing on Earth he learned that he could control his growth; he could become mountain-sized, man-sized, or mouse-sized, and all within seconds. But this was the least of his powers; his greatest power lay in his cruel, brilliant mind. With science unknown to Earthmen, he could design awesome war machines and produce deadly gases. Naturally, with powers like these, he set his eyes on global conquest.

His first step was to enslave local natives with a maddream machine. By a process known as “acclimation,” the natives became addicted to the ecstatic dreams induced by the machine. Only by loyally serving the Claw could the subjects be assured of blissful sleep. The disloyal suffered the torments of agonizing nightmares.

With his slave army, the Claw built a large war base and set out to conquer America, a feat which he obviously never accomplished. One of the least prepared of all nations for war (at that time), the U.S.A. had mighty industries and huge natural resources that the Claw wanted to control. He attempted to hypnotize America’s leaders, he immobilized great cities with sleeping gas fogs, and he tunneled into Alcatraz to recruit the convicts, all in an attempt to conquer America; but always he failed.

Always, men and women of skill and courage appeared to smash his evil schemes.

One of these heroes was a young fellow in a colorful black and scarlet costume named Daredevil! Daredevil fought the Claw many times, always winning each battle (naturally). Daredevil even won a feature-strip of his own and then turned his attention to other villains. From that point on, the Claw’s own strip became a secondary feature, and in the mid-forties, the Claw was finally assassinated (Daredevil #32). In the late forties, however, the Claw showed signs of new life. He attempted a comeback—this time in Rocky X (a secondary feature in Boy Comics). He attacked Earth with a fleet of rocketships, but again he failed, and once again he was dropped from the comics.

corridors of my memory, where lurk the greatest evildoers ever to spice up the pages of a comic book. I speak not of today’s weak-sister villains, but of the colossal super-criminals of yesteryear, who would steal pennies from a blind man or commit murder with equal ease. I have in mind such notorious fellows as the original Two-Face, the Toyman, the Hun, Sivana, Capt. Nazi, the Brain Wave, the Red Skull, Solomon Grundy, and two others I’d like to recall for you—The Claw and Ironjaw. These two master villains were both the special creations of Comic House, who published Silver Streak, Daredevil, and Boy Comics.

The Claw was one of the few villains to star in his own feature-strip. He was even cover-featured on the very first issue of Silver Streak Comics (December, 1939). He was also featured in Daredevil Comics and a special oneshot, Daredevil Battles Hitler (July, 1941). According to a later retelling of his origin, the Claw came to Earth from a distant planet and set up a base of operations in the mountains of Tibet. (Originally, it was the island of Ricca in the mid-Pacific.) In any case, he was one of the first space creatures to descend upon comicdom with evil aims.

2013 Editors’ Note: The Claw, as rendered by Jerry Bails. Maybe the initials represent “Robert Lindsay” or another of his many pseudonyms. [Claw TM & © 2013 the respective copyright holders.]

In the fantastic world of the comics, the Earth can match Space evil for evil, and even the evil Claw had his earthly counterpart. This was Ironjaw—arrogant, cruel, and completely evil. In appearance, he was a hulking giant with a blond crewcut, hard pig-like eyes, coarse evil features, and an ugly metal jaw. The metal jaw 59

From Alter Ego #5:

I’m here to welcome you to the pages

At any rate, within this world of Alter Ego, you will find not only currently of this issue of Alter Ego; your world popular comic book heroes, but also and mine. By your, I mean just that. those of the Silver Screen (no relation to Your interest and enthusiasm is what TV) and books other than the seriokeeps Comic Hero fandom (pro as well comic. By simply glancing at the opposas amateur) alive and flourishing. ing page or leafing through this issue, Certainly, without the combined popular you’ll understand far better than I could demand of everyone concerned with explain, so I’ll not preview more. adventure heroes, there would be none.

My point is that Alter Ego is your Someone somewhere sometime ago (I magazine—by many of you, for all of won’t say who for fear of being contestyou. If you like what you see, let me ed, and the point, per se, is relatively know. If you don’t see what you like, insignificant) conceived a fictitious hero then you’re reading the wrong zine, or and/or heroine, which has evolved into I’ve failed somewhere along the line— what we know today as the excitement by all means, let me know, too. In order A Photo-Offset Baton of adventure characters, sometimes to achieve the finest possible publication apparently unlimited as we mortals are, 2013 Editors’ Note: The photo of Ronn Foss that accompanied his first editorial was reprinted in our with the best efforts there are to be but nonetheless they never cease to amaze us and stir our spirit. Perhaps it first Best of volume. The above pic, not from A/E #5, found among fandom, I respectfully represents a symbolic “passing of the [Alter-Ego] request that you write the individual has always been the heritage of man to torch” from Jerry (at left) to Ronn. Although the dream of what he doesn’t ordinarily do, photo is dated “1964,” it may well have been taken directly whose particular work you like; tho I too want to hear your views of the but would perhaps like to—danger, some time earlier, as Ronn is holding a copy of material contained herein, for the purthrills, action … and anything and Jerry’s A/E #4, which was published for the fall of pose of retaining the contributors you everything the mind can imagine. If so, ’62. Apparently, the hyphen in Jerry’s original fanzine title fell off while JGB was handing it Ronn! prefer. Following each article is the then we are part of this heritage. As address of its author or artist—by correPhoto courtesy of Bill Schelly. active fans of adventure, it is not only sponding with him directly, he will get our privilege, but I feel, our responsibilithe full benefit of your appreciation for his work… or your (I ty to maintain this undefineable drive and determination hope) considered criticism. Most assuredly, I want your overtoward more and better adventure heroes… further exploration all opinion of AE; what you like best—and least. As is the and explanation of its wondrous history, and most important, policy with most fanzines, those letters of interest to all readcontinued exposure in the future. ers will be printed in the following issue.

Perhaps at this point I’d best stop and offer the specific defiAlthough this issue has taken more time than was scheduled nition of Alter Ego’s repertoire. and is consequently late, I am pleased to be able to announce As the title implies, the pages contained herein deal with that AE-6 will be early. At this writing, I have over half the individuals of dual-identities. Whereas this generally infers a total material on hand. The next issue will be dated June, but mask being involved, this mask isn’t necessarily always matewill in all probability be in the mails late April or early May. rial or physical. In fact, a character needn’t even have two Here’s to many more to come. personalities to gain interest from readers. (Example: Very Sincerely, Aquaman, Blackhawk, Fantastic Four.) In the foregoing, I’ve tried to stress adventure hero; which is to say, not only comic characters, but also those from books, motion pictures, and the trusty, unfortunately rusty old radio— Yes, there is a Captain Silver of the Seahound.

Bound For Oblivion?

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2013 Editors’ Note: As it happened, Ronn, like Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas, was a devotee of Joe Kubert’s renditions of Hawkman—both in the 1940s and the early ’60s—so when it appeared for a time as if the revival version of the Winged Wonder wasn’t ever going to be awarded his own title, Ronn drew this vision of that hero joining the original (then, the only) Captain Marvel in limbo—perhaps forever! Who would’ve suspected that, along with an eventual Hawkman title, even the World’s Mightiest Mortal would return—in a DC mag! [Hawkman

& Shazam hero TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

From Alter Ego #5:

When it was suggested that I write on the subject of Fandom

from the viewpoint of why a fan stayed on in Fandom, it seemed like it would be an easy job. After all, I have been active in the Whirl of Fandom for over ten years, and I’ve published fanzines, written articles, and corresponded; been active in clubs and even on a Worldcon Committee, among other things.

But looking deeper into the subject, it appears that it will take quite a few words to cover the apparent contradictions that would be involved if I sought to define the term. In this way it’s like science fiction (with or without the hyphen): it’s probably impossible to make up a definition that everyone would accept.

The main element of science fiction is, I believe, individuality. Like science fiction, some people are attracted towards Fandom because they “like a story.” Undoubtedly, some fans would be happy with any sort of tale, or perhaps other sorts have become boring to them. Others may be attracted because of the art element, and both art and Fandom can attract people because they are interested in this. One of the things that is found so often in fanzines is opinion articles; and so selfexpression is but another reason for being active. However, I believe that socializing—to be part of a group of people with interests similar to one’s own—is the greatest attraction for gaining and retaining the attention of the fan.

You will note an omission above: I’ve not mentioned the element of ego-boosting; or just plain “ego-boo.” This may be very important for the newer fan, but I would say that socializing—not only with other fans, but professionals as well—is a more fundamental appeal.

Any person is naturally going to try to get more out of things which he has found interesting in the past, and so a certain process of growth begins with some of the readers. They may see a letter in a magazine, or an advertisement, and write for a feeling of contact with others to locate additional reading matter. It doesn’t take long for the feeling of companionship to involve him in correspondence and then the whole plenum of fanac—getting fanzines, writing for them, and in general becoming a part of a growing circle of various fan interests.

Projects widen the number of contacts, or perhaps the publishing bug may bite. What is important is that there is a wide variety of things a fan can do, and it all depends on the individuality of each fan on exactly what he does. Each new contact may suggest another activity, and if the fan develops the

Fandom Is As Fandom Does

2013 Editors’ Note: This article is basically a re-run of an article from a science-fiction fanzine, with a few words changed (with the permission of author Stan Woolston, who is not known to have been a comics fan per se), because A/E #5-6 editor/publisher Ronn Foss felt it was equally applicable to comics fandom. The latter wrote in a note at the end of the piece that it was “reprinted (with minor revisions due to application) from Escape #1, a West Coast zine edited by Ron Haydock and Larry Byrd, with permission of the copyright owner. The author publishes his own reviewzine, Science Fiction Parade, and welcomes comment on the foregoing. Write: Stan Woolston, 12832 Westlake St., Garden Grove, Calif. The accompanying illustration is an adaptation of the original as done

by Charlie Scarborough, by yours truly.” [Art © 2013 estate of Ronn Foss.]

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ability to make decisions instead of going immediately into all of these things, his interest can be sustained for a long time.

I hinted above that many fans have a certain type of mental outlook. Many seem to be more willing than the average person to look at the world as much more than merely a series of emotional problems that control his life. The idea of adopting the “scientific method”—of looking at new ideas and processes as related to a method of finding answers, by looking for causes and testing whether a possible solution will work—may be included. This is, I’m sure you’ll agree, just a few degrees above the idea “sock him in the nose” as the popular way to “solve” a problem. Setting up a theory and then testing it means seeing the universe as more than just chaos, and I believe more fans follow this method than any other people.

Modern life seems closely related to engineering and science, and with someone who is science-oriented it is easier to see changes as logical developments instead of things to be

From Alter Ego #5:

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From Alter Ego #5:

When Alter Ego first appeared, a skeptical reviewer in

one of those “established” science fiction fanzines offered his opinion that a fanzine devoted to costumed heroes would soon run out of material, fans would lose interest, and the zine would die an early death. Well, that was two years ago. Today, Alter Ego is probably the most widely circulated fanzine on six continents, and its distribution is still growing. And as for material, we have only just scratched the surface of the great wealth of material on costumed heroes. Just let me suggest to you some of the many possible topics for articles. Hopefully, maybe I can persuade you to research one of these topics and come up with an article. In this matter, I would be more than happy to help in any way I can to locate material or assist in preparing an article for publication.

Of course, there is the article dealing with the history of a strip, comic magazine, publishing group, or an individual pro. However, there are many unique ways to approach these subjects. For example, an article could compare similar strips. Roy Thomas once suggested “The Cult of Mercury” as the title for a study of the Flash and all his imitators. Then, an article could easily be written which focuses on a villain or villains of a popular strip.

(I’ve promised myself that one day soon I’ll write the second part of my Green Lantern article, which would tell the story of the original GL’s greatest enemies as seen through the eyes of his side-kick, Doiby Dickles—and by golly I will.) A third theme for an article might be a study of the problems of identifying and distinguishing pencil artists and inkers. I intend to use these pages myself to comment on my eighteen-year study of art styles, and I’d enjoy hearing from other fen on the subject.

But let’s not forget that the comic book is not the only medium in which the costumed hero has appeared.

Remember the great radio serials of the ’40s? There were Superman, Capt. Midnight, The Shadow, Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger, and a variety of non-costumed adven-

ture heroes deserving of attention. I remember in particular exciting adventures of Jack Armstrong, Hop Harrigan (from the pages of All-American Comics), Terry and the Pirates, Tom Mix, and Buck Rogers. Surely, somewhere the original scripts for these famous radio shows exist.

Perhaps someone even has access to transcriptions or tape recordings of the more exciting episodes. I’m sure many older fans remember when Batman and Robin gueststarred on the Superman radio show. They may even recall the famous mystery thriller, “The Snow Man of Lake Placid,” on the Jack Armstrong program; but how many remember the story revealing that Britt Reid (alias The Green Hornet) was the son of Dan Reid, the nephew and frequent companion of the Lone Ranger? I for one would love to relive the exciting moments of these “breakfast-food operas” in the pages of Alter Ego. So, if you are one of those lucky people that have access to records of these great adventures of the air waves, take pen in hand and give us a feature article.

77

Perhaps the radio chapter-plays were written on the wind and survive only in our memories, but this is not so with the great adventure strips of the newspapers. Maybe you are one of those many dozens of fans who have a collection of the famous strips: Tarzan, The Phantom, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Mandrake the Magician, Superman, Batman, or The Lone Ranger. If so, then why not share your enjoyment of these renowned strips with the many hundreds of fans, new and old, who read Alter Ego? Just a few of the things I’d like to know are: (1) What great artists and writers handled these strips over the years? (2) What newspapers carried them?

(3) When and how were interesting supporting characters introduced into the strips? Can you answer these questions? If so, how about preparing an article?

Of course, comic books, radio, and newspapers were only a few of the many media in which the costumed hero appeared. Fortunately, Ron Haydock has recalled for

From Alter Ego #6:

Alter Ego is fortunate in having acquired, via a time-warp, the introduction to a three-volume work of literary criticism written in the year 5263 A.D. by Professor X.I. Brrz of the University of Texarkana. They are written in the super-standardized language of the 53rd century, but are here presented in definitive translation by Roy Thomas, with an assist from Linda Rahm.

Introduction To

The Rise Of The Twentieth-Century Epic New Light On Schwartz’s Justice League Of America

by X.I. Brrz, Ph.D.

H

believe that civilization in the twentieth century produced not one or two or perhaps even three such classics?

Volume I of this work, then, discusses these historical problems. Volume II analyzes the work itself in its various aspects, but most especially as it reflects life in that long-ago time. Some preliminary work has been done on this period in the field of anthropology2 and archaeology3, but Just A League Of Americans results have thus far 2013 Editors’ Note: No illustratons been discouragingly appeared with “Schwartzian Epic” in small.

Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #6, but since its 1963 Primary among these publication, the time machine operated by amazing disclosures, of Dr. Elbert Wonmug and his associate A. course, is the method of Oop has brought back this image of one of writing itself. The com- the pages of the epic extant in the 53rd bination of pictures and century—apparently from a coverless copy cartouches (twentiethof Justice League of America #19 (May century term: word bal- ’63). Thanks to David P. Greenawalt for loons) suggests a short- his arduous efforts at restoration. [© 2013 lived return to the hiero- DC Comics.] glyphics of the early Egyptians. Except on a fragmentary page of correspondence, lower-case letters are all but unknown. A long-since-lost rule of grammar seems to have dictated, moreover, that all proper names be written with boldface letters. Also, the period—which appears in earlier and later extant writings—seems to have been completely ignored in favor of the more artistic exclamation point.

Or perhaps, as Professor Urgiz theorizes, it may simply be that twentieth-century man was in such a state of constant excitement that only the exclamatory sentence would fill his needs.

aving withstood the ravages of time and cosmic catastrophe, a small handful of literary works remain from the first three millennia A.D. One of these, the classic Schwartzian epic Justice League of America, stands out head and shoulders above all the others and, as is well known, has inspired volume upon weighty volume of comment since its rediscovery only a little over a century ago in the basement of a ruin in the center of this continent once known as America.

These commentators and critics have been in agreement on virtually nothing about this epic except, of course, the undeniable fact that it must be ranked with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as one of the great works of antiquity. Those scholars who have attempted to relegate it to a position inferior to the surviving anonymous play Hamlet have long since been conclusively shown to be lacking in critical faculty.

It is not the place of an introduction to go deeply into the subject of a three-volume work, but a few highlights may be pointed out to the general reader who is interested in obtaining a liberal education in the classics.

First of all, of course, there arises unavoidably in any study of our one extant nearly-complete piece of twentieth-century literature what is known as the “Schwartzian question.” Was the Julius Schwartz mentioned as being “editor” (a still confusing and untranslatable term) of the epic a real person? Is there any plausibility to the view of Professor Urgiz1 that Schwartz is but a composite representing a large number of persons who may have kept the epic alive and in the process of growth over a period of many years?

New light—or perhaps new darkness—has been thrown on the problem since Professor Urgiz’s early work by the discovery in 5248 of a part of one of the missing pages, a printed one containing personal correspondence from various parts of the planet Earth, which seems to give credence to the view that this work was actually the effort of many superior minds. Unless this page is a clever forgery, Justice League of America stands as the only epic work in the history of the Earth to be written by an academy of literary geniuses, thereby truly deserving the title of “world epic.”

The few remaining scraps of this page also present a question as to the previously supposed uniqueness of the epic. Scholars have identified allusions to other epics (twentieth-century term: issues) of a related nature, generally reputed to have been as excellent as the surviving one. Would it not indeed be wonderful to be able to

1See his Prolegomena to the Study of the Schwartzian Epic, pp. 310 ff.

2See Anvlix, Georr Y., Life in the Twentieth-Century As Gleaned from a Perusal of Old Chewing-Gum Wrappers: An Interpretation.

3The classic work in this field is still Prof. Zorig’s monograph, “The Striped Tubes: What Was In Them?,” the results of which are inconclusive due to the archaeologist’s inability to decide between “tiger oil” and “zebra fat.”

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From Alter Ego #6:

E

well as our number-one choice in book-length stories, “The Planet That Came to a Standstill,” a well-conceived space epic revealing how the Justice League learned of the existence of Adam Strange.

This story had many outstanding qualities, but most important, it possessed the one attribute that is essential to the success of an adventure strip—viz., continuity. Continuity is, in fact, a characteristic feature of all Gardner’s strips. By bridging the gaps within and between his stories, Gardner has succeeded in creating a fantasy-world populated by adventurous heroes and colorful villains that not only survive from issue to issue, but promise to outlive us all. Mark my words, Gardner is creating the classics of tomorrow.

The next category, “Best Pencil Artist,” is a little more specific than last year’s corresponding category, but the Alley Trophy goes once again to that superb artitst, Carmine Infantino. Carmine’s work continues to improve year after year. He has been winning awards for years now, and it looks like he’ll go right on. His work is appreciated by fans, fellow artists, and by the hardest of all to please, his editor. It should be a real inspiration to all aspiring illustrators to look back over Carmine’s career and watch his climb from strips like the Ghost Patrol and Black Canary of 1947 to The Flash and Adam Strange of today. It will take some doing to unseat Carmine as fandom’s favorite pencil artist.

The next Alley Award trophy goes to the talented artist whose final choices can “make or break” a strip—the inker—and fandom’s choice of “The Best Inker” is none other than that wizard of pen and brush, Murphy Anderson. Murphy wins the award not only for his fine inking of Adam Strange and many Flash tales, but also for his inking of the JLA covers, and the Atomic Knight series, both of which he pencils as well. While Murphy is a young man, he has been a pro for quite a few years. Comic art collectors proudly display his work in the Planet Comics of the ’40s, and the syndicated Buck Rogers strip from the early ’50s.

I have already mentioned the fact that Hawkman was selected as fandom’s favorite hero, but it should be pointed out that he polled more votes than both the second and third place winners, Flash and Green Lantern. Guest appearances of the Feathered Fury with the Atom are fine, but fans won’t be satisfied until Hawkman and his lovely wife, Hawkgirl, have a book of their own, or are made the cover-features of a monthly like Strange Adventures.

Sub-Mariner is another excellent revival of an old favorite that fans want to see in a strip of his own. Prince Namor, The SubMariner, polled more votes for “Best Villain” than all his competitors combined, and his revival story was ranked second among the book-length stories of the year. Perhaps, after Namor’s appearance

ach year the Academy of Comic Book Arts and Sciences conducts a continent-wide poll to determine “The Best Comic Book of the Year.” This year the title goes to the Fantastic Four. In the short space of just one year, the super-talented team at Marvel Comics, headed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, managed to make The Fantastic Four the number-one favorite of more fans than both the Justice League of America and The Flash combined. Stan and Jack, with a half-century experience in the business between them, accomplished this feat by giving adventure-hero fans just what they wanted in the way of colorful heroes and villains, twofisted action and adventure, and off-beat plots and dialogue; not to mention a snappy letter department and pin-up page. The Fantastic Four also edged out The Justice League as fandom’s favorite adventure-hero group, and contributed “The Best Villain of the Year” – The Sub-Mariner, and “The Best Supporting Character” (i.e., a character not having his own title strip) – the Thing. So our congratulations and the Academy’s special award trophy, The Golden Alley, go to Stan and Jack, and to inker Dick Ayers, and all the others on the Marvel team.

This is the first year that the Academy has offered a specific award for “The Best Editor of a Comics Group,” and the award couldn’t go to a more deserving gentleman, one of fandom’s favorites, Julius Schwartz, a DC editor since 1944, and the man most responsible for the strip development, story ideas, plotting, and final approval of scripts and art for The Justice League of America, Flash, Mystery in Space, Green Lantern, The Atom, and Strange Adventures, as well as many issues of DC’s two “try-out” magazines, Brave and Bold and Showcase. All eight of these titles were among the Top Ten Comics selected by fandom in the 1962 Poll. This is an accomplishment deserving of fandom’s highest Award, the Golden Alley.

“The Best Script Writer” is also a new category this year, but over the years it will bring recognition to the industry’s finest writers. It is most appropriate that the first Award trophy should go to Gardner F. Fox, who may well may have written more scripts for the comics in the last quarter of a century than any other writer; and without a doubt, he has created some of the most memorable. In 1962, he gave us fandom’s most beloved hero, Hawkman, as

Where, Indeed?

2013 Editors’ Note: Stan Lee’s hand-scrawled note to Academy secretary (and results reporter) Jerry Bails, on receiving the notice that Fantastic Four had won the “Best Comic Book of the Year” Alley award.

He didn’t bother to object to the fact that “Spider-Man” was spelled “Spiderman” all through the article—maybe because in those early days it sometimes got lettered that way even in Marvel comics!

Retrieved from the Stan Lee Archives at the University of Wyoming (Laramie) by Danny Fingeroth for his and Roy’s TwoMorrows tome The Stan Lee Universe, but not included therein. Incidentally, none of the images accompanying this reprinting of Jerry’s announcement/analysis of the 1962 Alleys was run in the original A/E #6, which was unillustrated. We have not reprinted here the actual list of awards, which was seen in Best of, Vol. 1 . [Art on stationery © 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 84

art appear idiotic by comparison. in the Fantastic Four Annual, the National made the decision not to Marvel Comics Group will be try to hold their aging readers with ready to try him out on his own. these strips, and as a result, lost In the category of “Best what could have been a substanSupporting Character,” The Thing tial number of life-long readers. took first place, although many One would think that National fans feel that he is the star of The would wake up to the fact that it is Fantastic Four. The idea of a hero Articles Of Faith failing to reach a large and stable with a monstrous appearance and a 2013 Editors’ Note: The four winners of Alleys for best fanzine arti- audience of older readers who temper to match seems to have cles in 1961-62. were brought up on Wonder grown on fans, but any attempt to Woman and Batman, and who imitate him would meet with a very (Left, l. to r.:) Jerry Bails, Howard Keltner, and Roy Thomas (plus this volume’s co-editor, Bill Schelly) the evening before the Fandom would in time take to comics cool reception. By the way of his Reunion Luncheon at the 1997 Chicago Comic-Con. Bill was one again if they found their old entanglement with the Yancy Street of the chief organizers of that landmark event. favorites being treated in a mature Gang and his blind girlfriend, The (Right:) Richard Kyle circa 1961, in a pic printed in Bill’s book fashion. It is time that all conThing added real depth to The Founders of Comic Fandom.

Incidentally, the four Alley-winning articles have all been cerned, including the CCA, recogFantastic Four, and it is clear that nize the existence of adult comic fen would enjoy seeing him in solo reprinted, between Best of A/E (Vol. 1), Alter Ego #101, and the 1970 Arlington House hardcover All in Color for a Dime, the latter readers. Give us an adult version action. edited by Dick Lupoff & Don Thompson and back in print from of Batman and Wonder Woman; it “The Origin of Spiderman,” the Krause Publications. won’t hurt the kids to read adult try-out story for a brand new coscomics any more that it does for them to see “adult” westerns on tumed hero from the Marvel Comics Group, took first place as TV. “The Best Short Story” over such notable stories as “Earth’s First Almost every comic magazine was listed for improvement by Green Lantern” (second place), and “Superman under a Green more than one fan. However, notably absent from this list was The Sun” (third place). On the basis of fandom’s warm response to Flash. The Scarlet Speedster, it would seem, deserves a special Spiderman, author Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko are now preaward for the most gregarious and extroverted hero of all time. senting The Amazing Spiderman in a book of his own. We can Have you ever stopped to count all the costumed heroes and vilexpect this colorful and mysterious hero to challenge all of the old lains that have appeared in action with or against him in just the favorites in future popularity polls. last couple of years? Try it sometime when you have about an hour “The Best Cover of the Year” was created by Joe Kubert—a to spare.

Hawkman cover, naturally. You just can’t escape the fact that the Once again this year fans selected The Spectre as the strip they fans want Hawkman. I was eleven years old when Kubert first would most like to see revived. This is a very curious result, no drew Hawkman, and it was one of his early Hawkman covers for doubt indicating that fans liked Roy Thomas’ revival version of the old Flash Comics (early 1945) that converted me into a lifeJerry Siegel’s old hero, and want to see more of the mysterious time student and lover of comic art. I suspect the same thing is hero with occult powers. Fortunately, they now have one in the happening today to eleven-year-olds everywhere. character of Dr. Strange, another I now come to the Special creation of Stan Lee and Steve Division, “The Comic Book Ditko. If my suspicions are corMost in Need of rect, fans are going to clamor for Improvement”—not a very more and longer stories of this cherished or euphonious title, new master of Black Magic. It but still more accurate than last looks like DC missed the boat by year’s title, “Worst Comic.” not responding to our plea last Clearly, fans aren’t interested year for the revival of The in the worst title; they wouldSpectre. n’t even bother to read what they considered the worst.

However, among those they The Presentation read, they can surely pick the Of The Silver Alleys one that disappointed them the It was the decision of the Alley most – the one they would like Awards Committee to award two most to see improved. Last Silver Alley Trophies this year; year it was Wonder Woman; one for the year 1961, and one for this year it is Batman. In both 1962. cases, I think fandom laments The award for 1961 goes to Roy the fact that these strips, which Thomas for his hilarious comic …And They Felt Ditto About Ditko! were among the more mature strip parody, “The Bestest League 2013 Editors’ Note: This original 1960s drawing done especially adventure-hero strips in the early of America” (Alter Ego #1-3), and for The Comic Reader shows the bond that existed between forties, are now aimed at the for his two-part story, “The artist/co-creator Steve Ditko and his fans during that period… youngest comic readers; conseReincarnation of the Spectre” though he only ever attended one comics convention (the very first, quently the stories, characters, and held in 1964). [Spider-Man & Dr. Strange TM & © 2013 Marvel (Alter Ego #1-2), both of which Characters, Inc.]

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An Alter Ego Extra!

Alter Ego #7-9: The Roy Thomas Fan Issues R

s—now.]

[Marvel Family TM & © 2013 DC Comic

2013 Editors’ Note: (Above:) Circa May of 1963, Ronn Foss (on left) and Biljo White look over Ronn’s original layouts for A/E #5 with daughter Sunday White looking on. Photo by wife Ruthie White.

(Right:) Foss’ fantasy interpretation of his passing the torch of A/E and CC to White—and to Roy Thomas, who was never actually in any room with those two friends at the same time—was seen in RF’s final issue of The Comicollector (#12, Sept.-Oct. ’63). A miniaturized Joy Holiday (the Foss-designed mascot of both zines) stands on the table at left; note the Alley Award statuette at upper right. [Art © 2013 estate of Ronn Foss.]

[Blackhawk TM & © 201

3 DC Comics—ditto.]

oy Thomas’ tenure at the helm of Alter Ego is amply documented; but less well known are the odd circumstances under which he became its editor/publisher, after a year (and two issues) of having no close connection with the fanzine he’d help launch in 1961.

During the summer of 1963, after publishing A/E #5, Ronn Foss asked fellow fanartist Bill J. (Biljo) White if he’d like to take over the reins of that zine, plus The Comicollector and The Comic Reader, an offer accepted by Biljo (as we tend to refer to him nowadays, though in those days he was always just “Bill” in person or in letters). A fireman in Columbia, Missouri, White was already the publisher of a popular ditto’d fanzine titled Komix Illustrated, devoted to original ama-strips.

(Above:) A/E’s only wraparound cover. All three covers on this page were drawn by Biljo White. [Heroes TM & © 2013 the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

Although it would take Foss another six months to finally publish A/E #6, Biljo White lost no time in announcing the prospective changeover—in a special three-page ditto’d announcement, seen on the next page….

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At any rate, somehow—and how, no one precisely remembered years later—things soon got flipped around, with RT assuming publishing and editing duties, and BJW on board as chief artist (with the formal title of “art editor”) months before A/E #7 went to press. The editors of this volume suspect that White quickly found the duties involved in putting out The Comicollector so time-consuming that he felt he couldn’t also handle Alter Ego. Thomas was less than eager to take over the latter; but when “Captain Biljo” backed out, “Corporal Roy” felt he had little choice but to step up to the plate, since he’d been Jerry Bails’ official coeditor/contributing editor on the earliest issues. White drew—and provided color overlays for—the covers of A/E #7-9, the last three “amateur” issues.

As fate would have it, though, Biljo bowed out of CC, as well, after only three issues. (Seen at right is his cover for his final issue (#15, March 1964); note that, at this stage, the adzine was combined with The Comic Reader, though it would soon become a separate publication again.) CC, after all, was mostly drudge-work—keeping subscription lists, typing ads, collating, and mailing—a poor vehicle for one with White’s creative abilities. He left it to a fellow fan to pick up the pieces; Gordon B. Love merged The Comicollector with his own fanzine Rocket’s Blast to become the long-running RB-CC, fandom’s foremost adzine for at least a decade.

It’s probable that the only item on which White actually began work that would wind up in A/E #7 was the 7-page “Alter and Captain Ego” super-hero comics story he wrote and drew, which was reprinted in full in Best of, Vol. 1. (The BJW Captain Ego art below is from an ad in #7 announcing the never-published Alter Ego Comics, a related project of Thomas’ that was to have featured ama-hero stories and/or art by White, Thomas, Foss, Grass Green, and others.)

[Batman TM & © 2013 DC

city-employee newspaper. The shadowy figure of Ego and his name/logo (both rendered backward) were taped to the backside of a sheet containing the rest of the illo and logo.

Whether Biljo renamed the character in the 1960s or circa 2000 is unknown.

The two pages were intended to be printed on opposite sides of a single sheet of paper.

Thus, when the page was held up to the light, the reader would see the spectral figure of Ego peeping through, eager to foul up Alter’s date. A/E layout man Christopher Day painstakingly combined the images here in 2003 for A/E #33.

Another piece that may have once been intended for a White run on A/E was an earlier, non-super-hero effort he called “Alter and His Ego.” Circa 2000, he sent Roy Thomas both it and a similar “see-thru cartoon” of “See-Thru Sam” that he’d done years earlier as art editor of the Columbia, Missouri,

[Captain Ego TM & © 2013 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly; character created by Biljo White.]

Comics.]

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[© 2013 Estate of Biljo White.]

From Alter Ego #8:

2013 Editors’ Note: White’s rendering of conflicted pacifist Dick Amber with JSA guest stars Mr. Terrific and Wildcat, from All-Star Comics #24 (1945). The original artist had been Martin Naydel. The masthead drawing for this article was printed in Best of, Vol. 1; the article itself dealt with the two “Conscience” issues, #22 & #24. [Heroes TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

From Alter Ego #9:

2013 Editors’ Note: Biljo’s title logo and art for the “Them Justice Guys” entry that dealt with the two Injustice Society stories, in All-Star #37 & 41 (1947 & ’48)—and two of his other three art spots done to accompany it, all based on Irwin Hasen art. A fourth drawing, in the style of Carmine Infantino, appeared in Best of, Vol. 1. [Heroes & villains TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

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Now, on to a few of the previously uncollected treasures (whether unalloyed or gilded) from Alter Ego #7-9, in the years 1964 and 1965….

From Alter Ego #7:

T

[Artwork accompanying this article © 2013 Estate of E. Nelson Bridwell. The Thing and the Hulk TM & © 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Eclipse TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

Article and art by E. Nelson Bridwell

friends. Together they battled and killed the monster Humbaba.

Then the goddess Ishtar tried to seduce Gilgamesh, who upbraided her with reminders of her past misdeeds. (Remind anybody of early “Blackhawk” stories?) In vengeance, Ishtar got her father Anu to send the Bull of Heaven (a storm spirit). But Enkidu killed it and hurled its thigh at Ishtar’s face, which shows a certain lack of common sense.

For this the gods caused him to sicken and die. This scared the devil out of Gilgamesh, who had never before stopped wrestling long enough to recall that he was a mortal, even if he was the world’s mightiest one. The rest of the Epic tells of Gilgamesh’s fruitless search for immortality, and includes the story of Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, the only human in ancient Mesopotamian myth who ever gained eternal life.

he current fad for monsters as super-heroes in comic-books may be said to have started with the appearance of The Thing in the first issue of The Fantastic Four.

With the success of that magazine, Lee and Kirby immediately imitated themselves and came up with The Incredible Hulk, whose spotty career seems at present to be on the uphill grade once again. And the trend has spread; witness The Doom Patrol (Robotman), and Eclipso.

Yet these are but the latest embellishments on a tradition as old as history.

One of the earliest works of literature which we possess—though in somewhat fragmentary form—is The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was to Sumer and Babylonia what The Iliad and The Odyssey were to Greece.

It treats of Gilgamesh—two-thirds god and one-third man, with superhuman size and strength, the ruler of Uruk (or Erech)—one of the first known “super-heroes.”

His arrogance became unbearable to his subjects, for he could take whatever he wanted with impunity. (And what he wanted was for the men to go hunting with him when they had other things to do—and for the women to fill his insatiable desire.)

So the people prayed to the goddess Aruru to create a man to match Gilgamesh and keep him busy. Aruru therefore made a man from clay—Enkidu.

And here, in a tale over 4,000 years old, we meet our first monster super-hero!

Enkidu had shaggy hair that covered his entire body. The hair on his head was long like that of a woman. Furthermore, he is represented in the art of the times with the legs and tail of a bull (see picture; the horns were a symbol of divinity). All in all, he looked rather like a premature Greek satyr.

He grazed with gazelles and drank with wild asses (like a forerunner of Mowgli and Tarzan), and he loved to foil hunters by filling their pits and tearing up their traps.

Finally one unhappy hunter complained to Gilgamesh, who sent him back with a temple woman; for, even then, Beauty could tame the Beast. She disrobed before Enkidu, who was filled with ardor and made love to her for a week, which certainly ought to classify him as a super-hero.

At the end of this time Enkidu tried to return to his animal friends, but they avoided him. He had become a man and was no longer one of them.

Bowing to the fait accompli, he clothed himself and went to Uruk, where he challenged Gilgamesh. They wrestled furiously, and finally Enkidu forced Gilgamesh down. But (like Robin Hood after him) Gilgamesh immediately liked his adversary, and they became fast

E. Nelson Bridwell, 1971.

Photo by Mike Zeck; thanks to Pedro Angosto.

The Greek pantheon, as well, had its ugly gods. Chief of these was Hephaestus, the lame smith-god, whom the Romans identified with Vulcan. In Book XVIII of The Iliad, Homer tells how his mother, Hera, hurled him from Olympus because he was born lame. Though ugly, Hephaestus forged objects of great beauty, and was eventually reinstated to his rightful Olympian status.

More easily comparable to today’s omnipotent uglies was Pan. In the Homeric Hymn to Pan, an anonymous poem of perhaps the fifth century B.C., it is related that when his mother beheld her child— horned, goat-footed, and bearded—she fled in terror. But his father, Hermes, was pleased, and took the infant to Olympus, where he delighted all the immortals; hence they called him Pan, meaning “all.”

Pan grew up to be a lusty god; but his aspect was hardly the kind to inspire a maiden’s dreams. The nymph Syrinx, as Ovid tells us in his Metamorphoses, fled from his advances. Finding her way blocked by a stream, she prayed to be rescued from the famed fate worse than death.

And, just when Pan thought he had her, he found himself clutching a handful of reeds, out of which he made the first Pan-pipes, called “syrinx” after the nymph.

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The Cyclops Polyphemus, who appears most notably in The Odyssey, hardly seems a likely hero; yet he is one of our “tragic monsters.” Theocritus, in his eleventh Idyll, tells of his love for the sea-nymph Galatea. Though he doted on her beauty, she scorned his ugliness. Later, when she fell in love with a

From Alter Ego #8:

H

istory has proven whenever liberty is smothered and men lie crushed beneath oppression, there always arises a man to defend the helpless, liberate the enslaved, and crush the tyrant. Such a man is BLACKHAWK!” In 1939 the Germans pushed through Poland, only to be slowed at the gates of Warsaw by the small but valiant Polish Air Force. Captain von Tepp, Nazi air ace, led his infamous Butcher Squadron against the outnumbered Poles. The latter were shortly defeated and their last remaining planes shot down.

The skillful pilot of that final Polish fighter managed to land his machine near a farmhouse.

As he ran for cover, von Tepp attempted to bomb him; however, the bomb hit the house instead, killing—by one of those amazing comic-book coincidences—the pilot’s brother and sister, who lived there. The saddened aviator swore to avenge their deaths and walked away without a backward glance.

Soon a number of armed, dark-clad men calling themselves “Blackhawks” began popping up throughout Europe, always searching for von Tepp. At this time he was in a chateau somewhere in the north of France, preparing to execute an English nurse who had refused to reveal where certain medical supplies were hidden.

Just before she was to be shot, the mysterious figure known only as “Blackhawk” entered the courtyard and ordered her would-be executioners to surrender. As Blackhawk’s uniformed [Blackhawk TM & © 2013 DC Comics.] men materialized on the wall around the plaza, von Tepp tried to escape, but was tripped by the nurse.

Soon arriving at a secret island base somewhere in the Atlantic, Blackhawk explained to von Tepp that he was the Polish pilot who had escaped him and challenged the German ace to an aerial duel in an attempt to avenge the deaths of his brother and sister.

Secretly, von Tepp managed to loosen the gas valve on Blackhawk’s craft. Just an insurance move, you understand. As the world’s greatest pilot and a member of the master race to boot, he knew he couldn’t lose, but why take a chance?

In the midst of the battle Blackhawk realized what von Tepp had done and unhesitatingly did a back flip, ramming his plane into that of the German. Both of them survived the resulting crash to earth in good health, though, and Blackhawk had to polish von Tepp off with a gun. The nameless nurse aided the wounded avenger but was soon sent back to England: “Ours is a mission of justice and death, while yours is one of mercy and healing.”

Thus Blackhawk was first introduced in Military Comics #1, dated August 1941. The rest of the comic consisted of war stories, featuring such characters as the Death Patrol (an unproclaimed parody of the Blackhawks), Yankee Eagle, the Sniper, and others.

Despite this wealth of heroes, however, Blackhawk was always cover-featured, as he proved the most popular of the lot by far.

In Military #2 the Blackhawks for the first time utilized the revamped Grumman Skyrockets which were several years later to be replaced by streamlined jets. They rescued a cowardly English pilot who was showing an extremely white feather in a dogfight over the English Channel and took him to their island, where he stayed until he later proved himself a hero by saving Blackhawk, getting himself gallantly killed in the process.

The item of greatest importance in this issue was the introduction of the individual members of Blackhawk’s great fighting team.

The first story had been anything but definite as to the exact number and origin of the Blackhawks.*

*Elaboration in late-forties issues of Blackhawk depicted the leader as an American pilot rejected by the RAF and therefore forming his own little air force of similarly frustrated warriors; but this was merely a rabbit pulled from a convenient hat, as it would obviously be unpatriotic to have the leader be anything but an American, you know.

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From Alter Ego #9:

As many of you already know, since the last issue of Alter Ego

so much of my supposed “spare time 2013 Editors’ Note: 1965 photo of RT and money,” I gener- taken by St. Louis roommate and high ally find it impossischool friend Albert “Bud” Tindall, then a ble to confirm orders, fellow high school teacher, and today a etc. If you wish your successful (if semi-retired) attorney. order confirmed, it would be best to include a postcard in your letter. I may miss answering a few of these, too, but I do try, so help me Alley.

I have, in my own small way, “gone pro”—having written and sold to Charlton Publishing Company one script each for Son of Vulcan and Blue Beetle and being currently at work on more scripts for the same two heroes.

In honor of the occasion, I have decorated (if that is the correct word) this page with the above photograph of ye editor hard at work researching his next script (I’m the one between the remodeled models). After all, Blue Beetle in his alter ego is an archeologist, so anyone who writes his adventures should at least be able to count to Carbon 14.

Writing the Charlton scripts has thus far been an almost entirely pleasurable task, which I look on as being as much a hobby as a job—albeit a grueling hobby, requiring long hours of slaving over a hot typewriter while sandwiching work on Alter Ego in the interim. It has, however, given me an excuse to do some long-intended re-reading in such things as Homer’s Iliad (my favorite work of literature after Yeats’ play “On Baile’s Strand”) and ancient Egyptian religion (which I would now be studying at the University of Chicago if I had several thousand spare dollars).

When these issues come out in a few months, I would appreciate any comments (pro or con) which you might have on the stories. I tried, as I imagine most comics writers do, to steer a middle course between what I thought was salable and what I myself wanted to see in this second heroic age of comics. And if a few of you think you spot traces of one of your favorite heroes or villains of yesteryear peeping through now and then, don’t be too sure that your senses are deceiving you. After all, we’re all the products of our environments—and my early environment included a ferocious number of comic books. Heh heh heh.

* * * Two items scheduled for this issue are noticeably absent: the completion of Fred Patten’s “Supermen South” and Ronn Foss’ “Warrior of Llarn.” Fred was sending the article in three installments—and only the first two arrived in time for publication. It is hoped that “Warrior” (scripted by ye editor and based loosely on the Ace novel by Gardner Fox) will see print in AE-10, where it will dovetail nicely with the by-mail interview with the creator of Flash, Hawkman, and the JSA. And, speaking of problems, this brings me to a minor but troublesome matter which has arisen of late. Because of my various fan and pro activities which take up

* * * A small dispute seems to have arisen in regard to Blijo White’s character Captain Ego in AE-7. About two years ago David Kaler sent Bill a script for a hero called the Gypsy. There are a number of similarities between the two characters, at least in origin, which may indicate that Bill was unconsciously influenced to some extent by the Gypsy script in doing his Captain Ego strip for AE-7. There are no hard feelings on either side in this matter, since the characters are quite different except in origin; however, both Bill and I thought that Dave, a talented scripter, deserved at least a portion of the credit for the success of Ego. Bill himself is too busy at present to continue the series, but I’d like to close this column by printing a teaser panel sent me by Sam Grainger, a professional commercial artist and newcomer to fandom who wishes to illo a future Ego strip. And who could have refused?

2013 Editors’ Note: The Sam Grainger drawing that appeared on #9’s editorial page showed Biljo White’s hero Captain Ego knocking down Roy T’s door; it was printed in Best of, Vol. 1. The Grainger/Ego illo at left accompanied an ad for the adzine RB-CC, elsewhere in that 1965 issue. Balloon & lettering by RT. [Captain Ego & Tigris TM & ©

2013 Roy Thomas & Bill Schelly; created by Biljo White.]

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From Alter Ego #9:

space nor the knowledge to write a full history of each character, from his origin story down through the years to the present.

Imagine that you are walking through the streets of downtown Mexico City and you stop at one of the newsstands which abound at almost every street corner.

This is what you’d find right now. * * * * * * * * * * * As I said, a very few Mexican hero comics are stylistic copies of their US counterparts. In support of my aforementioned theory that independent Mexican comics survive because they are more closely attuned to the Mexican cultural heritage and daily life, I [2013 EDITORS’ NOTE: All art accompanying this article © 2013 the respective copyright holders.] note that there are only two such pseudo-American comics being published today. These are n the first part of this article were discussed Mexican comicboth published by La Prensa, on a monthly schedule, at $1.00 books which reprinted U.S. super-hero stories, as well as origi(one peso—about 8¢) per copy, containing 24 pages, not nal Mexican comics which utilized characters from the counting covers.

American magazines (e.g., Blackhawk).

The only one of these two which can be unequivocally conActually, the bulk of Mexican super-herodom consists of the sidered a super-hero comic is Relámpago el Ser Increible (or, comics in the first of these classes. Virtually every super-hero in English, Lightning the Incredible Being). This comic is and science-fiction/fantasy comic being published today by exactly one year old as these lines are written, the first issue DC and Gold Key, not to mention several of Marvel’s best and being dated July 1964, so perhaps it would not be out of place such Dell titles as there are, appears on the Mexican newsto cover the origin story in some detail…. stands. With this horde of relatively cheap reprint material “The story of this extraordinary being begins in the laboratoavailable to readers, the chances of producing a significant ry of the notable scientist Dr. Van Hackett,” we translate from number of entirely original, financially successful super-hero the Spanish, “hidden in the high mountains of the Atlantic comics must be fairly slim.* coast”(which should place it in the state of Veracruz, if it’s not Such do exist, however, ranging from stylistic copies of the a completely mythical setting).

In this lab Dr. Hackett is putAmerican magazines to those containing stories based much ting the finishing touches on an experiment which will “have more closely upon Mexican customs and daily life. Frankly, I revolutionized every concept of medicine.” suspect that the latter factor is one primary reason why indeTo his two assistants—his pretty 24-year-old daughter Linda pendent Mexican comics do exist: being more Mexican in their and young Rod Hanelson (who bears a striking resemblance to cultural background, dialogue, setting, etc., they appeal more Elvis Presley)—he demonstrates that he has kept a rabbit’s to the reader as “realistic” stories, just as we American readers heart beating artificially for ten days, and that other parts of praise the Marvel comics for their “more natural” American his equipment will restore other organs to functioning status: dialogue.

“I’m almost sure that I could revive a corpse.” Rod has his This, then, is a coverage of the super-hero comic books feadoubts that such a revived being would still be human, and the turing entirely original characters to be found on Mexican doctor admits, “It will live electrically, and I don’t see how it newsstands today. And, while disliking to be a spoilsport, I’m will be capable of having sentiments and passions.” afraid I’ll have to emphasize that “today.” While I intend to go They are soon to find out, though. Leaving the laboratory to into as much detail as seems advisable, I have neither the

I

* If the reader doubts the veracity of this statement, let him consider what happened to the Australian comics industry—John Ryan will recount the story of the rise and fall of the Aussie super-heroes in a near-future AE. 103

[Robotman TM & © 2013 DC Comics.]

From Alter Ego #9:

I was “born,” you

might say, on a latewinter day in 1942.

(In Star Spangled Comics #7, to be exact.)

The earliest memory I have is one of light—a stray beam of sunlight which had drifted through the window of Bob Crane’s laboratory and had fallen upon my ocular lens. This activated my electronic heart—and I lived.

My first inclination, of course, was to move, to get up from the steel chair on which I sat. I was vaguely aware of being numb and somewhat stiff; and, in my confused state, I fancied naturally enough that I had been asleep.

It was only with the first squeaking of my knees that I began to become aware of the true state of things. Looking down to locate the source of the irksome sound, I beheld—feet and legs of metal! In fact, my entire body was constructed of a light blue steel-like metal which clanked as I stepped awkwardly from the low platform on which I had awakened. “Have I gone mad?” I wondered for an instant. “Or am I still dreaming—?”

Then I remembered.

The events of the previous night flooded in upon me now: I, Bob Crane, wealthy young scientist, pursuing my life’s work in the lab attached to my palatial residence. Chuck Grayson, my lifelong friend and assistant, working busily with me to perfect a mechanical robot which would look and act like a human being. A forgotten date with my fiancée, Joan Carter— of which I had been abruptly reminded by an insistent doorbell followed by a stinging slap and the screech of automobile tires.

And then, only minutes after Joan had left, three men—one of them called “Flip”—bursting in with drawn pistols.

Harshly impatient questions about my “valuable new invention.” One of the trio heading for the screen which shielded a section of the lab. My instinctive, protective lunge toward the armed crook—and then my own outcry of pain mingled with the smell of gunsmoke as I fell. Then—nothing, until— “Bob—Bob—speak to me. It’s Chuck. Are you all right?”

Unable to move, I had looked up into the anxious eyes of Chuck Grayson, himself still stunned by a blow from the butt of a pistol. We had exchanged hurried words, each of us realizing fully that my only chance for life lay in having my human brain transplanted at once into the skull of the metallic

109

figure which sat motionless and unliving behind the nearby screen and which had not been disturbed by the criminals, who had thought it nothing but a statue and who had fled in disgust at the thought of gaining nothing from their dirty work.

And now I stood alone in the laboratory, just beginning to recover from the effects of the delicate operation which Chuck had performed. Chuck—but where was Chuck?

Almost in a daze, I rushed to the door and retrieved the morning paper lying outside. Completely unaware of the frightened newsboy rushing away as my metal hand clutched the paper, I scanned a headline that made my oil run cold.

Chuck—had been accused of my murder! But then, after all, hadn’t Bob Crane’s lifeless body been found in my lab, with my assistant standing over it?

Determined to help Chuck before it was too late, I rushed into the streets of the city. A traffic-hardened taxi driver panicked and stepped on the gas as I approached. Without even thinking of why he was afraid or of what I was doing, I overtook his cab easily and hopped into the front seat. Only the clanging of metal when the cabbie slammed a wrench against my head reminded me of my fearsome appearance.

After one more encounter—with two policemen who emptied their pistols at me—I returned in stealth to my lab. To my amazement I had discovered that I was now invulnerable to small-arms fire, “just like the Superman we read about in the funnies!”

Quickly fashioning a false face and false hands of flesh-like material and wearing them over my metallic parts, I donned a suit and visited Chuck in jail. To the police I used the fictitious name “Paul Dennis.” Revealing myself to my elated friend, I vowed to clear him by locating the real murderer and left—to attend my own funeral!

At the graveyard I met the weeping Joan Carter (the only person present besides a minister—I was evidently not a popular soul as Bob Crane). Probably because I unconsciously reminded Joan of her late fiancé, she expressed a desire to see me again.

Leaving Joan at her doorstep, I proceeded to search for a hood called “Flip”—and of course I soon found him and cleared Chuck’s good name. However, I chose to tell no one else that the awesome Robotman was “Paul Dennis’; only

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From Alter Ego #9:

SATIRE DEPT.

(Notification for the Benefit of Those Who Wouldn’t Recognize It Otherwise Division): As the best-selling comics fanzine in the world, Alter Ego naturally receives a great deal of mail—and ye editor wouldn’t have it any other way. In recent months a number of readers seem to have run out of prose comments on comics and their creators and have taken to utilizing poetry to express their thoughts on the world of the super-hero. Because it is thought that some of these contributions may be of interest to those of AE’s readers who know an iamb from an Atom, a few of them are reprinted below. We call them:

A TREASURY OF MORTAL VERSES

The first of these was submitted by Carl Sandbug of Chicago; we don’t know, but we suspect that he may be one of fandom’s famed “Chicago hoods,” which include Alex Almaraz and Billy Placzek. At any rate, here is his free-verse letter of comment, which he calls: “National”

Comics Factory for the World, Hero-Maker, Producer of Panels, Player with Word-Balloons and the Nation’s One-Company Paper Shortage, Stormy, husky, affluent, Company of the Full Pockets:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen Diana Prince told she had a father.

And they tell me you are wordy and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the evil scientist talk his head off and go free to talk again.

And they tell me you are artless and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen not the slightest vestige of recognizably human expression.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my company, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another company with hooded head singing so proud to be alive and wealthy and strong and cunning.

Flinging gosh-wow curses amid the toil of fighting foe after fancy foe, here is a scarlet speedster drawn vivid against a dwarf-high skyline; Fierce as a dinosaur with tongue lapping for anachronistic dog-faces, cunning as a Bosch ace still fighting the Allies after fifty years; Mask-wearing, Zooming, Hiding a secret identity, Smiling, Talking, running around, re-talking,

Under the same old masthead, blurred ink all over his mouth, laughing with gigantic capped white teeth, Under the terrible burden of newsstand sales laughing as an Infantino-drawn man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant Amazon laughs who thinks she had a father, Bragging and laughing that under his glove is a six-inch-high Power Ring, and in his pocket a piece of red Kryptonite which catches on fire when out of water for an hour unless freed by a male with a faulty responsometer during an eclipse.

Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, affluent laughter of Middle-Age, capeless, air-conditioned, proud to be Comics Factory, Hero-Maker, Producer of Panels, Player with Word-Balloons and One-Company Paper Shortage for the Nation.

(NOTE: Don’t laugh, Stan. Next letter he said he was going to defend you!)

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From Alter Ego #9:

2013 EDITORS’ NOTE: This footnoted article was headed by the title art and logo at left, pasted up by Roy Thomas, using a figure from Hubert Rogers’ cover for the science-fiction pulp Astounding Science Fiction (Oct. 1939)—and, even more astoundingly, a Green Lantern figure which was actually cut out of a page of Mike Sekowsky/Bernard Sachs original art from an issue of Justice League of America given to Thomas by DC editor Julius Schwartz. Of course, access to a good photocopier or Photostat machine was difficult for the average person in 1965, but RT still considers it one of his worst youthful follies—on both an artistic and a financial level. [Astounding art © 2013 the respective copyright holders; GL art © 2013 DC Comics.]

Alas, neither of the editors has any knowledge of Shel Kagan’s later doings—although that name did pop up as an editor in issues of National Geographic only a few years ago. Do you think maybe…?

All of this is by way of introducing a series of science-fiction novels, now about thirty years old, which (as an additional reason for this article) would have made a magnificent comic-book (or -strip) series.

The visual possibilities, the colorful characters and variety of weird beings, the sweep of galaxy-wide adventure—great enough in prose—would have been classic under the knowledgeable pen of a true master of panel art. As it is, there are a number of parallels that can be drawn between this series and several currently popular ones. This is the story of—the Lensmen.

W

hile science-fiction no longer enjoys the flush times comicwise that it did during the 1950s, still a large percentage of today’s comics are concerned with s-f themes. A very common figure is the scientist-hero, and two very popular and closely-related origin motifs are those of the experimentgone-wrong and of the accident-with-radioactivity, as witness Doctor Solar, the Metal Men, and a good number of Stan Lee’s abundant offspring.

Many other super-hero comics have close connections with science-fiction either in conception or realization. The power of Green Lantern was bestowed on him by a stranded and dying spaceman and many of his adventures take place on other worlds; Hawkman, too, has been transformed from a reincarnated Egyptian into an interstellar policeman. And, of course, Superman’s birth on Krypton and his subsequent journey through space are the classic examples of sciencefiction in panel form; even the original explanation for his “flying”—the lighter gravity of Earth—is straight out of an astrophysics textbook.* Probably justifiably, Julius Schwartz denies any real dependence on science-fiction prose. However, he does point out the large number of comic writers who have also worked in the science-fiction field: Alfred Bester and Otto Binder, to name just two.

As both a science-fiction reader and a comics fan, I can’t help thinking that there is a distinct relationship between the two genres. It’s not so much that one owes any particular debt to the other, but rather that they share a common body of ideas—a pool, as it were, out of which authors and illustrators draw (pun intended) their story lines and graphic concepts.

I.

Two thousand million or so years ago, two galaxies were colliding; or, rather, were passing through each other.

So begins Triplanetary, the first volume of E.E. (Doc) Smith’s six-volume Lensmen series. The opening chapters of this first novel detail the encounter between two superraces—the Eddorians and the Arisians, each from one of the two colliding universes. The Eddorians, “intolerant, domineering, rapacious, insatiable, cold, callous and brutal,” are planning the conquest of our space-time continuum, which they have just recently entered. The Arisians, kindly yet powerful guardians of our Milky Way star system, discover the interlopers when Enphilistor, a young Arisian, stumbles (if that is the right word, since they are all pure mentalities) on an Eddorian war conference. Lightly parrying a destructive thrust of Eddorian mental energy, Enphilistor calls for help.

A grave, deeply resonant pseudo-voice filled the Eddorians’ minds; each perceived in three-dimensional fidelity an aged, white-bearded human face.

“We, the Elders of Arisia in fusion, are here.”

* It is perhaps this matter of science-fiction, as much as any other single factor, which elucidates the basic difference between Superman and his accused imitator, Captain Marvel. The World’s Mightiest Mortal was based entirely on fantasy—magic, if you will—while the Man of Steel was a product of elementary-level science-fiction. —RT. 119

An Alter Ego Extra!

Crudzine

Steve Gerber & “Comic Heroes Of Past, Pressent, Future, And Others!!”

In 1964, perhaps a year before he “turned pro,” Roy Thomas impishly birthed

the notion of producing a one-shot parody publication. Crudzine #1-and-only would take aim at all the truly awful, badly-illustrated, and sub-literate comics fanzines that had sprung up in the preceding few years. The term “crudzine” was indeed in use at that time as a dismissal of, obviously, a “cruddy fanzine.”

Crudzine would be printed on a spirit duplicator (not that that, in and of itself, was anything to be ashamed of), would have spectacularly lousy production standards (and spelling), would be studded with art spots and comic strips that would give the word “amateur” a bad name, would have its pages stapled partly upsidedown and out of order, and would consist entirely of wretchedly written, ill- (or un-)researched articles with atrocious sentence structure and worse punctuation.

As a final fillip, one-syllable words would be divided at the end of a line.

All of these things were in evidence in the “crudzines” of the day—although they weren’t always all on view in the same publication.

Roy, then a high school English teacher in Arnold, Missouri, enlisted his younger St. Louis friend Steve Gerber (then in high school in suburban University City) and several of the latter’s teen friends to contribute. A blast was to be had by all.

However, as Roy first got busier and busier with Alter Ego itself, began writing long-distance for Charlton, and then abruptly got the call from “Superman” line editor Mort Weisinger to move to New York City, he reluctantly turned the entire 2013 EDITORS’ NOTE: This quarter-page ad for project over to Steve and his buddies (Bruce Carlin, Steve Grant, and Allen Crudzine #1 appeared in Alter Ego #9—which may Goffstein). The U-City boys ran with it—and how! have come out after the spirit-duplicator mag did!

Crudzine was, in one sense, like The Comicollector and On the Drawing Roy Thomas’ advertised “Interview with Stan Lee’s Board/The Comic Reader, a spinoff of Alter Ego—but this time of Roy Thomas’ Third Cousin”—conceived long before RT had met A/E, not Jerry Bails’. And, just so that nobody could miss the point, it was decidor gone to work at Marvel, remember—was never written. ed the Crudzine logo would be a send-up of A/E’s own.

The Gerber-andcompany Crudzine hit the U.S. mails sometime in 1965, perhaps after Roy had departed for the Big Apple. Its highlights included a two-page “Complete History” of Batman, a Justice League of America checklist (with some truly hilarious one-sentence summaries of issues’ stories), and, perhaps best of all, the SG-written-and-drawn “The Green Rabbit,” a takeoff on ama-hero strips of the period. (Any resemblance to Steve’s later work on the Howard the Duck feature he co-created, or on Man-Thing, Omega The Unknown, et al., is strictly coincidental.)

Crudzine ended with Steve’s basically serious admonition to all fanzine editors: “IF YOUR ZINE LOOKS ANYTHING, REPEAT—ANYTHING—like the magazine you have just read… BURN ALL COPIES AND DESTROY THE MASTERS!” And apparently most people did—’cause copies of Crudzine #1 are roughly as rare as those of the 1961 Alter-Ego #1!

For a several-page, illustrated article discussing Crudzine in more detail, see Alter Ego #95 (July 2010).

2013 Editors’ Note: Steve Gerber, some years later, ponders the cover he drew for Crudzine (or should we call it Crud Zine?) #1. And yes, Virginia, the rest of the issue was printed upside-down from the cover. [© 2013 Estate of Steve Gerber.]

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An Alter Ego Extra!

The

#10 That Almost Was

The Story Behind The Never-Published Issue Of A/E, Vol. 1

by Roy Thomas

A funny thing happened on the way to Alter Ego, Vol. 1, #10.

124

[Flash, Hawkman, & Dr. Fate TM & © 2013 DC Comics; other art © 2013 Estate of Sam Grainger.]

I became a professional comic book writer and editor.

It happened in three stages in 1965, while issue #9 was in the final stages of preparation and printing. In late winter or very early spring of that year, while teaching high school in the St. Louis area, I sold two super-hero scripts to Charlton via mail; by year’s end, they would be published in the final issues of the mid-1960s incarnations of Son of Vulcan and Blue Beetle. Also early in '65, I received a letter from DC editor Mort Weisinger offering me a job as his assistant on the seven Superman/Superboy-starring titles.

Turning my back on a graduate fellowship under which I would have studied foreign relations at George Washington University in the nation’s capital, I accepted his offer and in late June I flew to New York City. As it turned out, before mid-July I wound up working for Stan Lee at Marvel Comics.

When I left Missouri, not only was the entirety of A/E #9 in the hands of a St. Louis County printer (who did a mediocre job on it after I made the mistake of paying him in advance), but the 10th issue was well under way and had been announced at 48 pages, the same length as the previous edition.

Its promised contents, as revealed in the first Best of volume and in the #9 house ad printed on the facing page of this book: The cover had already been drawn by future Charlton and Marvel artist Sam Grainger, utilizing the Ronn Foss mask logo that Biljo White and I had kept for #7-9. Sam’s illustration art depicted Golden/Silver Age writer Gardner F. Fox and four of his co-creations: the Silver Age Flash and Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Alan Morgan, hero of Fox’s 1964 Ace paperback novel Warrior of Llarn. (Sam had misunderstood my instructions and had drawn the Silver Age Flash instead of the Golden Age speedster—not that Fox shouldn’t rightfully be considered cocreator of the 1956 incarnation, as well. Sam cheerfully volunteered to draw a Jay Garrick/Flash figure I could paste over that of Barry Allen/Flash; and he would have, if that cover had been used for the tenth issue. For this book, Sam having sadly passed away in 1990, Australian fan/artist Shane Foley traced/redrew one Flash into the other and sent us the results digitally, so that no pasting needed to be involved. Layout supervisor David P. Greenawalt has added the text for the cover blurb at lower right. The resultant cover is reproduced at right—as it would’ve been seen had it been printed in late 1965 or ’66 as originally planned, except for the lack of color. The art portion of Grainger’s work, as adjusted by Foley, became the cover of this publication.)

The cover feature was to be a by-mail interview with Gardner Fox (see a more photographic drawing of him on p. 29).

The writer had consented to my interviewing him via that method while I still lived in Missouri, but I don’t believe I ever got around to sending him any questions before my plans abruptly changed and A/E Sam Grainger #10 got delayed.

Next up, as per the ad in #9, was to be the third and final part of Fred Patten’s “Supermen South” study of the adventure comics then being published in Mexico. (Fred would finally publish it in a fanzine in the 1970s. His entire lengthy article, plus added material on the mid-1960s Mexican “Conan” comic, was gathered with beaucoup illustrations in A/E Vol. 3, #43—but, while it is certainly of ample quality for inclusion in any “best of” volume, it is not reprinted herein. Its magazine version, however, is still in print.)

“The Cult of Mercury” was in the process, presumably, of being written by Derrill Rothermich, who had co-authored the “Blackhawk” history in #8. It would have covered the Golden Age likes of Johnny Quick, Silver Streak, Quicksilver, The Whizzer, et al.

Perhaps because my circumstances changed and A/E #10 became officially delayed, Derrill never delivered any of the article to me, to the best of my recollection.

Plastic Man. I was thrilled that Don Thompson, whose nostalgic

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129

An Alter Ego Extra!

Alter Ego #10 - The First “Pro” Issue

Much of the story of how the tenth issue of Alter Ego was

form; most of he art had been utilized in a different format (and with considerably different verbiage) in Joe’s color eventually published was told, to the best of Roy’s ability to Tor comics for DC in the ’70s. This coup led to Mark’s remember it, in Best of, Vol. 1, so by and large, below, we’ll being listed as an “assistant editor.” The circumstances try to add information he and Bill didn’t have room for in around John Benson’s groundbreaking interview with 1997. would-be comics industry escapee (and very definite And those memories, as Roy admits, are far less sharp innovator and entrepreneur) Gil Kane, which became the than those concerning Modeling with Millie #44 (the first cover feature and lead piece in the issue, were related in Marvel comic he dialogued) or Conan the Barbarian #1. detail in Vol. 1 of this series. Roy got informal permission Why? Simply because the preparation was all done, in from Topps Chewing Gum (i.e., its young exec and former fits and starts and little pieces, in the space in between the RT roommate Len Brown probably cleared it verbally with demands of being an associate editor and writer for Stan his superior, Woody Gelman) to reprint from black-&-white Lee at Marvel Comics.

Photostats, with no money changing hands, two Wally Roy has only the foggiest recollection of how Stan and Wood-drawn parodies of pro heroes Marvel production manager Sol that Topps had test-marketed circa ’67 Brodsky became, at least for a brief (with one script each by Len and time, his “silent partners” in the Roy)… while Comics Code Authority enterprise—though he’s positive it was administrator Len Darvin was happy to Stan’s idea as a business proposition, scribe an article about the Code and that Sol was rung in mostly (another freebie). Roy’s Coney Island because he was there (although Sol poker host Phil Seuling turned over became quite enthusiastic about the photos from his 1969 New York Comic project). Under these circumstances, Art Convention for Roy to add allegedit no longer made much sense to utily humorous word balloons to; Phil lize the fan-material originally even wrote a few words about the con planned for issue #10 (although Roy (promotion for the ’70 one, don’t you would’ve wanted to run many if not all know). Roy doesn’t recall quite how his of those pieces at some later stage). underground cartoonist friend Trina He’s pretty sure it was Marvel letterer Robbins came to suggest the SterankoSam Rosen whom Sol assigned to related riff on the “Paul-McCartney-Isadapt Ronn Foss’ A/E logo into the Dead” rumor then making the rounds, version still in use more than four but it was probably her idea, just as he decades later (but as to how Sam was wrote in 1969; the two of them still paid—or if he was paid—Roy has no The cover of Alter Ego #10 (1970), with art by giggle about it occasionally when they memory; Sol sadly died in 1984, and Gil Kane framing a caricature of Kane by run into each other at the San Diego Stan’s steel-trap memory is no better Marie Severin. It was printed far bigger, of Comic-Con. What Jim Steranko on this subject than it is on who inked course, in Vol. 1 of this series. [Caricature © thought of it, they never asked.

Fantastic Four #1). Roy can only 2013 Marie Severin; Green Lantern TM & © 2013 Marie Severin was asked by Roy if assume that each man became a oneDC Comics; Captain Marvel TM & © 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc.; other art © 2013 Estate of Gil she’d draw a caricature of Gil for the third partner, though he doubts that Kane.] cover—and, again, Roy’s not sure if she anything ever got put down in writing received, or wanted, remuneration. She before Stan decided to withdraw his took to the task with apparent relish, and Gil himself was so participation, well in advance of the beginnings of real taken with it that he obtained the original from her. It hung preparation of the issue. in his home for the rest of his life. Gil was only too happy Roy recalls Mark Hanerfeld acquiring the never-printed to draw a frame for it, consisting of a mix of DC, Marvel, samples of Joe Kubert’s 1960s Tor comic strip as and generic heroes—plus his own hero, from the graphic Photostats, as well as Joe’s permission to publish them— novel His Name Is… Savage, which he then intended to be and we are eternally grateful to Joe, a year before he his ticket out of what he felt was the comic-book ghetto. passed away in 2012, for permission to reprint them in this That last part didn’t work out—but of course Gil is now book in the same size and format that we did more than honored, and was honored late in his lifetime, as one of the forty years ago, so that they can be seen in their original 138

From Alter Ego #10:

The Help

2013 Editors’ Note: A/E #10’s two assistant editors.

(Above:) Mark Hanerfeld, fan and sometime DC editorial assistant; 1965 photo from the files of Jerry G. Bails.

(Below:) Tom Fagan, fan-writer and host of Rutland, Vermont, Halloween parties. Thanks to Al Bradford.

These photos were not in A/E #10

Sol Brodsky designed and probably even pasted up the inventive #10 contents page, utilizing art and photos from the body of the issue. Nice job, huh? [Hulk & Captain America art © 2013 Marvel Characters; parody art © 2013 Topps Chewing Gum, Inc.; Tor art © 2013 Estate of Joe Kubert.]

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From Alter Ego #10:

You know the line.

Joe Kubert. Photo not in A/E #10.

G

enerally, it starts with my quietly explaining to them that just because more than one person is involved in the creation of a work of art doesn’t mean that work (be it literature, painting, or whatever) is any less valid as “art.” After all, didn’t many of the great painters of the Renaissance have their assistants help in finishing-up those slightly less important details of a painting? And furthermore, is not the subject matter of many of those great paintings drawn directly from the mythology of the ancient Greek and Roman storytellers? As old axioms die hard, this bit of analogizing usually leaves the poor victim flustered, especially if he’s never really given those axioms a second, or perhaps even first, thought. That’s when I hit them with the clincher. I double back to their original qualifications and tell them all about Tor. It goes something like this: Back around 1953, there was this enterprising comics group called the St. John Publishing Co., whose publisher, Archer St. John, had the foresight and daring to allow an artist to edit, write, pencil, letter, ink, color, and even own the rights to his own character. Why, the artist even got to share in the magazine’s profits! Unheard of! The comic book was called Tor, and the artist was Joe Kubert. Tor was a caveman adventure strip set in the world of one million years ago, and although the ecological balance was a bit jum-

[All art accompanying this article © 2013 Estate of Joe Kubert.]

I mean the one about how comic books can’t really be art because so many people are involved in the production of the thing. And how there are different pencilers, and inkers, and colorists, and how most of the stories are written by other people anyhow? Yeah, you know the line! You almost always get it from the ones who like their opinions ready-made and predigested (although, at times, I have gotten it from people who should have known better.) Whenever I get any of these people, I usually sit them down in a nice comfortable chair, and hit them with something I call…

bled for story’s sake, the strip had an air of reality about it that grew out of the powerfully-drawn characters and settings.

Even though later issues occasionally employed the writing talents of Bob Bernstein and inking talents of Bob Bean, the strip still bore the distinctive stamp of a Joe Kubert creation: the product of one man’s thought and imagination.

By the time I’ve finished haranguing my poor victim with words (and illustrations, if I have my copies of the magazines handy), he is customarily ready to grudgingly admit that, yes, some comic books can be art. No mean accomplishment, I assure you. But chances are, if you’re reading this, you already know all that because you already are a comics fan.

However, if you’re a new fan, you may not have heard of, let alone actually seen Tor. Well, let’s remedy that situation here and now!

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In a way, we’ll begin at the end, with a “new” Tor story. On the next six pages are printed an unfinished two weeks’ worth of an unsold Tor newspaper strip, which was written by Carmine Infantino and illustrated by Joe Kubert, circa 1959.

The comic book followed the adventures of mature Tor; the strip harks back to his childhood…

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From Alter Ego #10:

It was Trina Robbins who first made the Great Discovery.

She’s a funny girl, is Trina. An underground cartoonist, a sometime seamstress, a maker of weird and wonderful cookies from arcane, occult recipes.

A few years ago I’d have written her off as a kook. Now’s she just good people.

Anyway, we were sitting around rapping one night not long ago—she, I, my omnipresent wife Jeanie, and Ted White (yes, the one who writes that crazy Buck Rogers stuff)—when suddenly Trina said it.

“Jim Steranko is dead due to acute lead poisoning in his right forearm—and I can prove it!”

Simonesque sounds of silence resounded through my living room. A mote of dust crashed loudly into a scatter pillow.

And then, as we three sat mesmerized, Trina unfurled her case with the aid of my dog-eared bound volumes of Marvel Comics. An airtight case, I might add. An all but irrefutable line of inductive reasoning.

For some time, it seems, in between chronicling the often amorous escapades of “Panthea the Beast-Girl” for Gothic Blimp Works, Trina had been copiously poring over the collected comic book works of one Jim Steranko. Hardly a life’s work, inasmuch as Jim has (had?) built his monolithic reputation on the merest handful of panel-art masterpieces.

And slowly—inescapably, she likes to put it—there had dawned upon her the staggering conclusion that the awardwinning super-artist of S.H.I.E.L.D. was no longer with us—or with anybody, for that matter.

The internal evidence to support the Trina Thesis was massive—and impressive.

According to it, Jim Steranko perished soon after completing

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the mind-rending artwork and script of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 (“Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill!”—which many devotees consider his finest hour), and was swiftly and surreptitiously replaced by a second artist, who has actually done all artwork attributed to Steranko since that time. The cause of the Jaunty One’s untimely demise was a severe puncture of the right forearm by an errant Eversharp.

More strangely still, there is even evidence to suggest that the real Steranko had premonitions of disaster—that he foresaw that he was not long for this mortal coil.

Consider for a moment, if you will, S.H.I.E.L.D. #3.

In that issue—Jim’s last, according to the Trina Thesis— there is a singular obsession with death, tombstones, and graveyards. “R.I.P.!” screams the stone on the cover, and “R.I.P.!” echoes an almost identical stone in the final panel of the tale.

Consider also the myriad other references to death and to things dead in that story. The murder with which the magazine opens, splashed in living black-and-white across two pages; the movie stars with whom Jim has peopled the book, some of them deceased (and waiting for Jim to join them?); the supposed ghost with whom Nick Fury duels; the rusty, cobwebbed armor, a relic of a bygone age, which almost dispatches the indestructible agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; even the climax, in which it is revealed that the true villains are a crew of unregenerate Nazis, last remnants of a dead Reich.

The most telling clue of all concerning Steranko’s imminent demise is a name which pops abruptly in and out of the story on page 4. Nick Fury states that he has come to Ravenlock because of the death of an old army buddy, one “Ken Astor.”

And Ken Astor spelled sideways is—Steranko.

And yet, all this seems flimsy enough—until one realizes

An Alter Ego Extra!

Alter Ego #11 – The Mike Friedrich Issue

In his editorial on the first page of Alter Ego

and Jean Giraud’s discussion of the latter’s #11, Mike Friedrich—comic-book writer and “highly spiritual approach to drawing and stoeditor, and by then also the publisher of rytelling” translated all that well into print.

Star*Reach Publications and its small line of That’s as may be, but Mike was still one of the “ground-level” comics between mainstream first people on this side of the Atlantic to conand underground—says that it was more Roy duct an interview with that artistic genius. The Thomas’ issue than his. That might be true in decades since have borne eloquent witness to terms of the number of pages it contained Mike’s estimate of Giraud’s stature in the graphdevoted to Roy’s interview with artist/writer ic arts, as Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier Bill Everett as opposed to Mike’s with French arranged in the 1980s and ’90s for much of his cartoonist Jean Giraud (22 vs. 7), but the fact work, both the Western Lt. Blueberry (done as remains that, without both Mike’s initial impe“Gir”) and the science-fantasy (as “Moebius”) tus and his stated desire to become A/E’s fourth to be published by Marvel for an American publisher/editor, the issue would never have audience, and for Moebius and Stan Lee to colhappened. laborate on a classic Silver Surfer graphic Or at least, Roy feels, it wouldn’t have hapnovel. Giraud passed away in 2012. pened till at least 1986, the year in which his Morever, since the artwork and writings of The cover of A/E #11 consisted of a second three-year contract with DC Comics Sub-Mariner/Amazing-Man creator Bill Everett caricature of Sub-Mariner creator came to an end and he became, at age 45, for have also come in for increased and wellBill Everett drawn by Marie the first time in his life, that most tenuous of deserved critical attention in the 21st century, at Severin—surrounded by a frame drawn by Everett. [Caricature © 2013 least partly because of a combination of coverlife-forms: a professional freelance writer.

Marie Severin; Sub-Mariner, Fin, & Venus age in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, and in hardcover books That was the year, after all, when Roy and TM & © 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc.; wife Dann got together with a new Chicago edited by Blake Bell, that makes A/E #11 a bit of other art © 2013 Estate of Bill Everett.] company called First Comics and turned out, a landmark in more ways than one. (Though with artist Ron Harris, a four-issue comic book series called— Roy has never totally resolved in his own mind the question of Alter Ego. whether he interviewed Bill circa 1970, as he believes, or in Since additional details regarding how and why A/E V1#11 1972. He’d give more credence to the later date, which he cited got published in 1978 are fiendishly vague in the minds of both in his 1978 editorial, but that would set it much closer to the gents, suffice it to say that Roy dug out his transcription of the date of Bill’s death in February 1973, and he feels their talk Everett interview (done for him by Don & Maggie Thompson), came rather earlier than that.) and Mike did As an additional if minor milestone for #11, there’s Mike’s the rest, though use, in his interview with Giraud, of the abbreviation “A/E” for “Roy Thomas “Alter Ego,” which had previously only been used once—on the and Mike contents page of #10 (see p. 141). This usage, which splits the Friedrich” were difference between the fanzine’s original hyphenated name and listed—by Mike, the two-word version amended by Ronn Foss with issue #5, generously—as would be re-introduced by editor Jon B. Cooke in 1998, when co-editors in the Alter Ego (in a “Vol. 2”) resurfaced after twenty years to indicia. become a separate-cover “rider” to the first five issues of his In the notes TwoMorrows magazine Comic Book Artist. This time around, he wrote for Roy took a liking to that slash… and “A/E” it has been ever Best of, Vol. 1, since.

Mike said he Although destined to be the final issue of A/E’s initial incardidn’t think the nation, that single splendiferous definitely-1970s issue means majority of his that, from 1961 through the present, there has never been a decade in which This photo of Mike Friedrich (times 2), taken by San Diego Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf, was a comics-related magazine titled Alter snapped on the California coast in 1978, and Ego did not play a part. appeared on the inside back cover of A/E #11, And Roy is determined to accompanying an ad for back issues of keep that streak going for Star*Reach comics. [© 2013 the respective copysome time to come.... right holders.]

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From Alter Ego #11:

2013 Editors’ Note: Jean-Giraud (Moebius) around the time of this interview. This photo was not in A/E #11. Giraud passed away in 2012.

Monday, November 1st, 1977. “All Saints Day” in France is

a holiday, so the Parisian streets are lacking their usual bustle.

Londoner Mal Burns and a friend of a friend of his, Dominique Gaillard, and myself are taking the train out of town to visit Jean Giraud. While passing the row of auto plants I’m trying to remember the first time we’d met: New York some five years previous, when we’d shared a coffee shop table with a number of other comics people. All I can recall is that at the time I knew his name and had glanced at his work on “Lt. Blueberry.” The conversation had been distant, perhaps strained.

Now Giraud’s become the famous “Moebius,” seen first in L’Echo des Savanes and Metal Hurlant, then more recently in translation in Heavy Metal. His “Blueberry” is now much more familiar (and exciting). Perhaps more than any single European comics artist, this guy’s bridging the gap across the Atlantic, making the world that much smaller. What kind of person was I going to meet? What does one say?

We get off about 60 km outside Paris and he’s there to greet us—in a bright (if faded) red American college jacket. He’s clear-headed, instantly cordial and open. All worries evaporate. In fact, he appears more nervous than we are, perhaps due to having to speak in English (in which he is reasonably fluent, if not confident). Fortunately, Dominique is with us to translate and interpret when necessary, so even this problem is quickly erased.

We meet his very young son (the kind with searchlight beacons in his eyes), who’s fascinated by the foreigners. Then we settle down to talking, whereupon we discover that “Moebius”

has a mind as agile as his artwork. Mal’s tape recorder captured most of it for you (though some is missing, including more of our conversation about America).

Most of the recorded questions are asked by Mal, who is the one who has transcribed and edited the interview into its present form. Mal has printed this interview in his British magazine Graphixus and we thank him for permission to use it here.

Thanks, too, to Jean-Pierre Dionnet, who arranged the meeting, and again, to Dominique Gaillard for her invaluable assistance and company. —MF ALTER EGO: [Previous to the point where this dialogue begins, we have been looking at the latest issue of Brainstorm Comix – in particular, the emotional impact of Steve Berridge’s “Sonny” strip and then Tony Scofield’s “City Tale”….]

JEAN GIRAUD: It is very typical, you know—after all this time. The detail is very small. It conveys the kind of vision that goes right back to the Aztec cultures, people who take mushrooms, Mexican mushrooms, they all get the same kind of vision. This scientist has recently discovered it—a special way in which the eye views things that is not present in our [normal] vision, but that things like mushrooms can bring out.

A/E: Do mushrooms and similar catalysts help you much in your work? Some of the images do suggest so.

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GIRAUD: Well, I’ve taken mushrooms, yes, but I did not

TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina

More Of The Best Of Alter Ego, The Legendary Comics Fanzine!

This sequel to Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine presents more fantastic features from the fabled mag begun in 1961 by Jerry Bails & Roy Thomas—covering undiscovered gems from all 11 original issues published between 1961 and 1978! Editors Roy Thomas and Bill Schelly uncover never-revealed secrets about the first super-hero fanzine ever published, with vintage articles about Tor, Hawkman, the Spectre, Blackhawk, the Justice League of America, the All Winners Squad, Robotman, Wonder Woman, the Heap, the Lensmen/Green Lantern connection, and so much more! Plus rarely-seen comics stories by Joe Kubert (a gorgeous, unsold “Tor” newspaper strip), Ronn Foss (“The Eclipse”), and Roy Thomas and Sam Grainger (adapting Gardner Fox’s novel “Warrior of Llarn”), as well as Roy’s entire “Bestest League of America” parody, collected for the first time ever!

There’s even a never-before-reprinted 1977 interview with Jean Giraud (“Moebius”), plus special sections on Bails’ adzine The Comicollector and on “the A/E #10 that almost was”! It’s all behind a classic cover of Gardner Fox and his greatest creations by then-future Marvel artist Sam Grainger!

Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Blackhawk, Marvel Family are TM & © DC Comics. Tor is TM & © Joe Kubert.

All other characters are TM & © their respective owners.

1995

$

In The US

ISBN 978-1-60549-048-9

ISBN-13: 978-1605490489 ISBN-10: 1605490482 51995

9 781605 490489