CBA Interview
Paul’s Gold Key Memories
Conversing with Aquaman co-creator and Magnus artist Inset right: Paul drew this picture of his co-creation, Aquaman, for the San Diego Blood Bank. Art ©2002 Paul Norris. Aquaman ©2002 DC Comics
Below: Paul displays a page of his original artwork from The Jungle Twins series. Photo by and courtesy of Shel Dorf. ©2002 Western Publishing, Inc.
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Conducted by Joe Caporale On April 26, 2002, Paul Norris turned 88 years young. He proudly has been called a protége of Milton Caniff, creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon and fellow Ohioan. Paul worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News in the late 1930s. He moved to New York City in 1940, where he got a job with Prize Publications, producing such comic book series as “Yank and Doodle” and “Power Nelson, Futureman.” He joined National Periodical Publications (now DC Comics) later in ’40, where he co-created Aquaman with Mort Weisinger in 1941 and drew two episodes of “The Sandman” in Adventure Comics before Jack Kirby and Joe Simon took that strip over. Paul only drew the first ten stories of “Aquaman” in More Fun Comics before it was discovered that there was a clause in his contract to draw the newspaper strip, Vic Jordan, for the New York daily PM that prohibited him from doing comic books! He joined the service in ’43 and upon his return to civilian life in ’46, went on a work rampage that would continue until his self-imposed retirement in 1987. Paul worked on the following newspaper strips: Vic Jordan (194243), Secret X-9 (three months in 1943), Jungle Jim (1948-54), Flash Gordon (briefly in ’53), Secret Agent X-9 (1950-60), and Brick Bradford (1952-87) as well as the feature, Six Days a Week Mystery Stories (1947-50). Please note that he was producing the dailies and Sundays over a two-year period in 1952-54 for Jungle Jim and Brick Bradford as well as working on Secret X-9 while drawing comic books for Dell Comics from 1946 onward! Among the known comic books he drew for Dell were Jungle Jim and Flash Gordon. For Gold Key, from 1968-76, he produced Magnus, Robot Fighter, The Jungle Twins, Tarzan, Woodsy Owl, Huck Finn, Hi-Adventure Heroes, and Fantastic Voyage. Paul was married to his wife, Ann, for 61 years, who was his helper, partner, and best friend until her death. They produced two sons, one of whom, Reed, followed the artistic leanings of his parents and was an artist
for the toy company, Mattel, for many years. With such an amazing résumé, Paul was not concerned that he never signed his Dell and Gold Key work. He felt the work spoke for itself. He was awarded an Inkpot Award at the 1993 San Diego Comic Convention. He is a quiet, pleasant, and friendly man who did exactly what he wanted with his life and did it to the fullness of his ability. Proud of the fact that he never missed a deadline, he was very surprised to find out that he was listed on the Internet. Paul was almost embarrassed yet pleasantly surprised he had been found out. Comic Book Artist: When did you begin working for Dell/Gold Key? Paul Norris: I started working for Dell in 1946, I think. The latter part of 1946, I did Flash Gordon for Oscar LeBeck, who was editor for Dell at that time. I guess it was the 1950s when I started doing the Jungle Jim comic book for Dell. Matt Murphy was my editor then. I was also drawing the King Features [newspaper strip] Jungle Jim from 1948 until it ended in 1954. I guess my association with Gold Key started in 1968 when I moved to California and started working with Chase Craig there at Western Publishing until it all ended in 1976. CBA: Chase Craig also worked with Alex Toth, Russ Manning, and other artists on the West Coast. Was he a good editor and did you enjoy working for him? Paul: Oh, yes. To begin with, he was a cartoonist himself. Not too many editors were cartoonists. He knew the business. He knew it well. I enjoyed working with him. As a matter of fact, when Gold Key lost the contract with the Burroughs people on Tarzan (to DC Comics) that’s when Gold Key decided to do The Jungle Twins. That was a creation of Chase Craig and myself and we worked it out and then we got together with the man who had been writing the Tarzan stories. We got him to write The Jungle Twins. I don’t recall his name. He lived in Florida and was a fundamentalist minister, I understand. He wrote good, clean scripts that were easy to follow. There were some writers who would write a script and describe a scene from half COMIC BOOK ARTIST 22
October 2002