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No.3 No.3 Winter Fall1998 1999

$5.95 In The US

Neal Adams: The Marvel Years

NO. 3

CELEBRATING THE LIVES & WORK OF THE GREAT CARTOONISTS, WRITERS & EDITORS

WINTER 1999

COVER STORY: THE ADAMS IMPACT The tale behind our cover and the “Nefarious” One’s unpublished X-Men graphic novel pages ..............1 EDITOR’S RANT: SHAPING UP THINGS TO COME Ye Crusading Editor on Neal Adams’ forthcoming graphic novel and promises lost ..................................2 CBA REVIEW: THE “FAX” OF WAR Jon B. Cooke ruminates on Joe Kubert’s graphic novel, Fax from Sarajevo................................................3 FUNNYBOOK BOOKS: KNOWING LES, LEARNING MORE Reviewing Superman: The Complete History and a friendship with author Les Daniels ............................4 CBA COMMENTARY: READING BETWEEN THE PANELS Roy Thomas checks the facts in Steve Duin & Mike Richardson’s Comics Between the Panels ..................5 CBA COMMUNIQUES: CARMINE INFANTINO’S REBUTTAL DC’s ex-publisher responds to CBA #1; Sal Amendola discusses DC; and more missives from readers......7 STRIPPED Rick Pinchera reveals the rejected Merry Marvel Mutants ......................................................................11 FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE:@!!?* Detail of Neal’s pencil art from Astonishing Tales #12. ©1998 Marvel Entertainment.

Our man Fred chats with the late Captain Marvel about Krees, Skrulls and war ....................................12 CBA SPECIAL SECTION: NEAL ADAMS AND THE AGE OF MARVEL NEAL ADAMS: THE MARVEL YEARS Interview by Arlen Schumer..............................................................13

CBA #2 CORRECTIONS: Kevin Hanley co-wrote the Steve Englehart interview with Bob Brodsky—my sincere apology for the oversight. “The Uncensored Conan” panels on pg. 51 were from the story in Conan the Barbarian #12, not #11 as printed, and the entire story was originally intended for Savage Tales #2 (as was the above “Man-Thing” story). Syd Shores inked the unpubbed Avengers cover on pg. 21. Jim Starlin insists he did not draw the Marvel Super-Heroes cover on pg. 71, though it sure looks like Jim to me! Sal Buscema was the artist of the Captain America page on pg. 68. The Dr. Fate panels in the Alter Ego section, pg. 12, were drawn by Howard Sherman. Bob Yeremian, where for art thou? COPYRIGHTS: The Angel, Ant-Man, Avengers, The Beast, Black Bolt, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Goliath, Havok, Ice Man, Iron Man, Ka-Zar, Killraven, Magneto, Man-Thing, Marvel Girl, Medusa, Professor X, Rawhide Kid, Rick Jones, Sauron, The Thing, Thor, Tomb of Dracula, Triton, Vision, War of the Worlds, X-Men ™&©1998 Marvel Entertainment Inc. Captain Marvel, Batman, The Joker, Robin, Superman ™&©1998 DC Comics. Conan ™&©1998 Conan Properties. Uncle Creepy ™&©1998 Warren Publications.

TOM PALMER: THE ART OF INKING NEAL ADAMS Mini-interview with possibly Adams’ greatest inker ....23 NEAL ADAMS’ MARVEL WORK: A CHECKLIST by David Berkebile ............................................................39 ARTIST SHOWCASE: NEAL ADAMS’ LOST X-MEN GRAPHIC NOVEL Six pages of an aborted project ............47

The Avengers get intergalactic in this digitally manipulated panel from Avengers #96

Visit CBA on the Web at: www.fantasty.com/comicbookartist/ All letters of comment, articles and artwork, please mail to: Jon B. Cooke, Editor Comic Book Artist P.O. Box 204 West Kingston, RI 02892-0204

NEXT ISSUE — WARREN PUBLICATIONS: THE EMPIRE OF HORROR!

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT the editorial office. Single issues: $5.95 ($6.40 Canada, $7.40 elsewhere). Yearly subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 elsewhere. First Printing. All characters are © their respective companies. All material is © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © their respective authors. ©1998 TwoMorrows/Jon B. Cooke. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Cover Story

The Adams Impact Celebrating Our Featured Artist and His Stint at Marvel Comics

Winter 1999

COMIC BOOK ARTIST

no worse color for comic books than eggshell blue [the most prominent color on the cover]… Look at the reproduction inside. The way this thing happened was they called me and said, ‘We’re going to reprint this stuff.’ And I said, ‘I’d kinda like to have the black-&-whites to retouch them—we’re in the ’90s now. Can I rework the pages just a little bit?’ They said, ‘We’ve already started work on it.’ I said, ‘Okay. How about I art direct the color?’ They said, ‘Sure, we’ll send you over some of these proofs.’ I know what that means, so I said, “Okay, I’ll do the cover.” So I did it and they vignetted it, and the rest just disappeared! How much can one sabotage by good intentions?” Holding up the CBA #3 cover proof and the X-Men collection, Neal said, “I submitted this and I got that. How would that make you feel? So Comic Book Artist gets the cover.” Thank you, Neal. As for our special Artist Showcase, six pages of an unpubbed X-Men graphic novel, Neal answered my second query: “In the early ’80s, I got a call from Jim Shooter and he said, ‘Do you have any problem working for Marvel?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I’ve got a graphic novel I would like you to do.’ I said, ‘I would love to do it but let me let you know ahead of time just so you know, Jim—I’ve sort of taken this stand against workmade-for-hire, but it’s not hard to write a contract that’s not work-made-for-hire. And you can take everything; it’s not a problem. So you know that going in.’ “He said, ‘Yeah, that’s not a problem.’ I said, ‘Well, as long as you understand that, I’m fine. No problem; I’ll be glad to do it.’ Of course, everybody was surprised; I never said no. “Jim said, ‘Let me send you the outline,’ which I think he wrote. So I read it and talked to him afterwards, and I said, ‘The outline’s a little loose; can I have flexibility to play with it?’ (something I always ask when I get a new job). And he said, ‘Sure.’ “I said, ‘How’s the contract coming?’ He said, ‘We’re working on it but you can get started if you want to.’ I said, ‘Fine.’ “The result is what I did. I called a couple of weeks later and he said, ‘I can’t put the contract together. I can’t do it.’ And I don’t know why. So they gave the project to Brent Anderson [God Loves, Man Kills]. I said to Jim, ‘I’ve already done some pages.’ He said, ‘What can I say?’ [laughs] So I guess I sent him Xeroxes of the pages and said, ‘Maybe some other time.’ “These were the pages that were done and never paid for.” The Adams generosity continues. For a peek at the neverbefore-seen X-Men graphic novel pages, please turn to page 45 to see a bit of what could have been….

As we were coming down to the wire on putting Comic Book Artist #2 to bed, rushing to get the issue ready for the San Diego Comic Con, we were faced with the prospect of announcing what’s coming up in issue #3. The plan was originally to feature “Empire of Horror: The Warren Publishing Story” as the subject for our third edition, but we had virtually no specific material on hand to promote in the Previews solicitation (due the same day we had to finish CBA #2). Somehow—and I can’t remember the exact chronology—I found myself on the phone late on that Sunday night chatting with Kris (Adams) Stone, Neal’s daughter and manager of Continuity Associates, and she offered CBA use of two incredible works by Neal: An (oddly) unused X-Men wraparound cover and six pages of an unpublished X-Men graphic novel. Well, needless to say, as a fax of the cover art came out of our machine, the probability of a “Neal Adams: The Marvel Years” issue became very real. (That moment—as this extraordinary image was transmitted between facsimile machines—won’t be forgotten by this editor for some time to come.) Very special thanks to Neal, Kris, Cory (who again—under crushing a deadline—colored our cover to perfection), Jason, Zeea, Josh, Marilyn, and all the fine people at Continuity Associates. (Because of their efforts we were able to have proofs of our cover available for inspection at the San Diego Con, certainly the hit at our booth.) To make this issue a reality, we next had to line up our pal Arlen Schumer, undoubtedly the world’s biggest Adams fan— author of the bestselling “Neal Adams: The DC Years” issue of Comic Book Marketplace [#40, reprinted in #56] and one-time Continuity employee—to helm this companion issue, using his interviewing skills and design magic to bring this issue to light. Arlen is a big DC fan, so it took some work wearing him down to focus on the Marvel stuff but, as the talk and layout reveal, he put in great enthusiasm and (yet again) has achieved seminal work. Arlen and I traveled down to Continuity’s New York studio and spent a number of hours interviewing Neal about his Marvel experiences. While I just sat back and soaked in Neal and Arlen’s conversation, I could see that a great issue was coming together and all of my questions were being answered… except two. As the duo took a breather, I asked Neal, “Why are you giving CBA this great piece of art for our cover? What’s the story?” Neal said that he originally drew it as a wraparound cover for the X-Men Visionaries 2: The Neal Adams Collection trade paperback that was released in 1996, compiling the entire Adams/Thomas run of X-Men. “One of the reasons I offered you guys use of the cover, was that Marvel vignetted these characters—not even using Xavier’s face—and cutting out the rest.” It seems some freelance art director had different thoughts about Neal’s submitted piece. Neal was “terribly upset” with the published cover. “There’s

Above: Can you believe that Neal submitted the cover art of this issue to Marvel originally for use as the cover art to X-Men Visionaries 2: The Neal Adams Collection and Marvel came up with the above, severely revised (and over-designed, methinks) finished piece? Go figure. ©1998 Marvel Entertainment.

Funnybook Books

Knowing Les, Learning More by Jon B. Cooke

Les Daniels. Photo by Beth Gwinn.

Superman: The Complete History. The Life and Times of the Man of Steel. By Les Daniels. Book design by Chip Kidd. 192 pp, 200 color images. $29.95 hc. Published by Chronicle Books, San Francisco. 4

Les Daniels and I, we go way back—farther back than he may realize. In the early ’70s, when the only histories of comics out there were about comic strips (with hardly a mention of funnybooks), somehow by chance or circumstance, I uncovered Les’ and Mad Peck’s glorious tome, Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America. Absorbing that book, my eyes popped and brain exploded (à la Basil Wolverton) as I read a real history of comics, at once informative, entertaining, and (yes) downright subversive. Not only did Les discuss Jack Cole, Will Eisner, and EC, he also exposed me most importantly to the genius of Harvey Kurtzman and Harvey’s “sons,” R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and the whole underground gang. Les told me that Mad was once (gasp!) a comic book, and that other Kurtzman wonders (Trump, Humbug, and Help!) lurk out there. With Comix, my obsession with Harvey began and I haunted Providence’s Thayer Street bookstores to unearth those Ballantine paperback reprints of Mad comics—and I’ve never been quite right since. As a kid I heard that the author lived in my puny state, and I saw his name pop up here and there as critic and local wit. I first encountered Daniels on stage during a Martin “Fernwood Tonight” Mull stage show (they used to jam in a band called The Double Standard Quartet), and I would devour his film review column, “MindRot,” every week in the Providence Eagle, a free tabloid. Les was into everything I was into, and he wrote with such erudite, literate and accessible panache that I just knew he was one of those few cool guys who dug really cool stuff. (And I’ll betcha you don’t know that Les is also one of the premier horror writers of our time, didja? Les has written an exquisite series of historical novels featuring his aristocratic vampire, Don Sebastian, including The Black Castle, The Silver Skull, and Citizen Vampire. Check ’em out!) I didn’t get to actually meet Les until I started up my own (short-lived) horror fanzine back in 1991 (with the appropriately obscure title for a Lovecraft-inspired rag, Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror) and chose Les as the subject of the first issue. And we hit it off rather well, once traveling together to some horror soiree in New York City, and calling each other every six months or so. And we mostly talked about comics. (Even during the Tekeli-li! interview session, I asked him more about comics than horror because, well, I dig funnybooks more.) Then he came out with Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics and, more recently, DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes, two worthy volumes that are surprisingly concise and frank for corporate-sponsored books. Now my friend Les brings us Superman: The Complete History, a 192-page chronicle of the world’s first super-hero, designed by the most excellent Chip (Batman Collected) Kidd, and just in time for

the 60th anniversary of the Man of Tomorrow’s debut. My first impression of this delightfully affordable, handsome book is raging jealousy. Right with the opening unpublished panel from the Superman newspaper strip, Les scores with any number of scoops: An unpublished 1936 sketch by Joe Shuster (prophetic doodlings of the merchandising power of the thenunsold Superman); a minute and detailed study of Superman’s creation; a layout drawing for an unreleased 1940 test reel of Fleischer’s unsurpassed cartoon series; surprisingly open interviews with Shuster, Jerry Siegel, the “real Lois Lane,” Whitney Ellsworth, Mort Weisinger, Curt Swan, and other luminaries; Bruce Timm’s superb designs for the recent cartoon series; and (yow!) a concise examination of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and the agony of televising the couple’s wedding. Okay, I was kidding about the last bit. My one complaint about Les’ recent comic book histories is their over-emphasis on non-comic book material (leaving me with the impression of editorial/corporate insistence on the material’s inclusion—forcing a self-conscious legitimacy where it simply isn’t necessary— especially evident in the DC overview). But combined with Kidd’s excruciatingly detailed and microscopic views of Super-merchandising and the exclusive visuals, this combination of mediums works in Superman: The Complete History; while I normally could care nary one wit about The Adventures of Superman TV show (at least, those episodes without Phyllis Coates), Les combines interesting anecdotes by Ellsworth, Larson and others, with great images (like the creepy lifemask of George Reeves) sustaining my interest throughout the chapter. Equally impressive as Les’ prose is Chip’s innovative design. Smaller than his Batman Collected of a couple of years ago, the book is still a package chock-full o’ cool stuff, thoughtfully laid out. There’s an emphasis on the recent Timm/Paul Dini cartoon series, featuring a few breathtaking background paintings. Best of all might be the cover—dust jacket featuring detail drawings by Joe Shuster; inside covers by (the dangerously-close-toover-exposed—but still impressive) Alex Ross [see left]. Full comic stories are included with mixed results; from the best (1942’s “Powerstone”) to the mediocre (“Metropolis 900 Mi”—John Byrne’s 1987 Lex Luthor vignette which doesn’t even feature Superman), though one suspects Les had some slim pickings to choose from if the criteria was keeping story lengths short. And naturally Chip chose to shoot the tales directly from the original comics, achieving a feel of authenticity and sepia-toned nostalgia. My nitpicks? Few and decidedly self-centered: I had hoped to see a greater emphasis on the 1970s (that being CBA’s era, I suppose), enlightening us to the “Swanderson” approach and maybe a talk with Jose Garcia-Lopez. I was disappointed that the great stories by Gil Kane and Marv Wolfman were overlooked (“The World Without Superman” is a personal favorite), but aside from these quibbles, I was quite impressed. Word has it that Les and Chip will also be compiling companion volumes featuring Batman and Wonder Woman, each character celebrating their own 60th anniversaries. If they follow this book as template, the new team of Daniels & Kidd can’t miss. Oh, and Les says to look for a fancy-schmancy edition of this book called Superman: The Golden Age in June. COMIC BOOK ARTIST

Winter 1999

CBA Commentary

Reading Between the Panels by Roy Thomas Back in the mid-’60s, during the early days of the Vietnam War, the national news media discovered comics fandom. (I’d prefer to think there was no causal connection between those two events.) When Newsweek and other magazines and newspapers and TV programs began to feature stories on comic books old and new, I was almost invariably appalled by the number of mistakes of fact which crept into generally simple-minded and often fairly brief coverage. If the media couldn’t get facts about comic books and comics fans straight, it slowly dawned on me, how the hell was I supposed to believe what they were telling me about a war that was going on on the other side of the world? I think we all know the answer to that. And, unfortunately, that’s more or less the way I feel about the new $50 volume Comics Between the Panels by Steve Duin and Mike Richardson, published by Dark Horse Comics. Here’s why: I freely admit it: When a new book about the history of comics comes out, I follow pretty much the same procedure that most professionals I know do. Namely, the first thing I do is look up any references to myself and the material I’ve worked on, to see if they got those right. From there, my reading radiates out in concentric circles to other topics I feel I know something about, and from there to the ones I want to know something about. By this point, I figure I have a rough idea of how much I can trust (or will like—not necessarily the same thing) the rest of the book. Like other pros, of course, this approach naturally means I must always brace myself for evaluations of my work and career which may rub me the wrong way (as in much of Jones and Jacobs’ The Comic Book Heroes) or even for being downright ignored (as in Maurice’s Horn’s ponderous tomes on comics about women and the Old West, wherein he managed to go on at great length about Red Sonja and Red Wolf and mention everyone connected with those characters by name except me—I suspect because we didn’t exactly hit it off in the early ’70s). So let me say up front that I certainly can’t complain about the tone of coverage of ageing comics writer/editor Roy Thomas in Comics Between the Panels. I could quibble about the fact that a two-column entry on the subject spends 60% of its space on my first two weeks in the industry, and almost all the rest on how I became Marvel’s editor-in-chief in 1972, with nary a single mention of Conan the Barbarian, The Avengers, or any of the other work I did in three decades at Marvel and DC. But then, the book’s dust jacket declares that “the authors take an irreverent, idiosyncratic look” at comics, and Duin in his introduction says the book “was never intended to be a comprehensive reference work.” So I’ll take them at their word, with no complaint. Having written their own mission statement, they’re under no obligation to serve up anything more about any person or area in the comics field than they want to. But it seems to me that they do at least have a responsibility to try to be reasonably accurate. Winter 1999

COMIC BOOK ARTIST

Okay, so since I know a bit more about Roy Thomas than I do about, say, Will Eisner or Magnus, Robot Fighter, I turned to the entry under my name. Let’s go by the numbers: 1) In the very first sentence, my first real comics boss Mort Weisinger is referred to as “perhaps the only DC editor Thomas hadn’t bombarded with fan mail over the years.” Bzzzz. Wrong. To the contrary, I never wrote more than one or two letters to any DC editor except Julius Schwartz, and there’s no evidence anywhere that I did. A minor error, sure, but one that bodes ill for what follows. 2) Next paragraph, I’m quoted as saying Weisinger was a “malevolent turd.” Now, I can’t say my conversation never verges toward the scatological, but never at any time have I ever referred to Mort as a “turd.” What I did say, as quoted in Bill Schelly’s The Golden Age of Comic Fandom and elsewhere, is that he reminded me of a “malevolent toad.” A small but real distinction. Still, maybe I was misquoted somewhere, and Duin and Richardson managed to stumble across the one place where someone got it wrong. The sentiments toward Weisinger are pretty much the same, whatever the phrasing. 3) Final paragraph of the entry: “Thomas survived [as editor-in-chief] two years before Shooter took him out.” Bzzz. Wrong again, and more significantly this time. Jim Shooter wasn’t even working for Marvel when I stepped down as editor-in-chief in 1974. The authors are only about six years off— and that’s ignoring the fact that, far from being “taken out,” I simply left Marvel when my contract ran out in 1980, despite an offer from Shooter of continued contractual full employment. 4) Later in that same final paragraph, I’m said to have ventured out from Marvel and DC “to adapt Dracula and Jurassic Park for Topps in the ’90s.” Bzzz. Nope. Bram Stoker’s Dracula... Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein... Jack Kirby’s Secret City Saga... Cadillacs and Dinosaurs... Hercules: The Legendary Journeys... Xena: Warrior Princess... The X-Files: Season One... the fact is, Jurassic Park is damn near the only Topps Comics series of any duration that I didn’t work on! Not once! Who did the research for this book, anyway? All right, so that’s maybe four mistakes on what amounts to a page. Not too bad, perhaps—though I wonder if one reason the entry is as accurate as it is is the fact that way over half of it is continued on page 51

Cool cover design by Tom Gould, who also laid out the interiors— nice work! Can you name the comics whence the letterforms came from? Me, I missed “G” (sorry, Sergio & Mark!)—JBC

Comics Between the Panels. By Steve Duin and Mike Richardson. Edited by Jackie Estrada. 504 pp, 500+ color images. $49.95 hc. Published by Dark Horse Comics, Milwaukie, OR. 5

Edited by ROY THOMAS The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

2012 EISNER AWARD Nominee Best Comics-Related Journalism

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-beforepublished STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, & DITKO/GIORDANO cover!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #109

ALTER EGO #110

ALTER EGO #111

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! Interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art! DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, TUSKA, SEKOWSKY, TALLARICO Part 3, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Spectre/Hour-Man creator BERNARD BAILY, ‘40s super-groups that might have been, art by ORDWAY, INFANTINO, KUBERT, HASEN, ROBINSON, and BURNLEY, conclusion of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH, MIKE PEPPE interview by DEWEY CASSELL, BILL SCHELLY on “50 Years of Fandom” at San Diego 2011, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, PÉREZ cover, and more!

SHAZAM!/FAWCETT issue! The 1940s “CAPTAIN MARVEL” RADIO SHOW, interview with radio’s “Billy Batson” BURT BOYAR, P.C. HAMERLINCK and C.C. BECK on the origin of Captain Marvel, ROY THOMAS and JERRY BINGHAM on their Secret Origins “Shazam!”, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LEONARD STARR interview, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

GOLDEN AGE NEDOR super-heroes are spotlighted, with MIKE NOLAN’s Nedor Index, and art by MORT MESKIN, JERRY ROBINSON, GEORGE TUSKA, RUBEN MOIRERA, ALEX SHOMBURG, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and part II of JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age artist LEONARD STARR! Cover by SHANE FOLEY!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

ALTER EGO #112

ALTER EGO #113

ALTER EGO #114

ALTER EGO #115

ALTER EGO #116

SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARV WOLFMAN talks to RICHARD ARNDT about his first decade in comics on Tomb of Dracula, Teen Titans, Captain Marvel, John Carter, Daredevil, Nova, Batman, etc., behind a GENE COLAN cover! Art by COLAN, ANDERSON, CARDY, BORING, MOONEY, and more! Plus: the conclusion of our LEONARD STARR interview by JIM AMASH, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art by KIRBY, AVISON, SHORES, ROMITA, SEVERIN, TUSKA, ALLEN BELLMAN, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by BELLMAN and MITCH BREITWEISER!

3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (includes free glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

JOE KUBERT TRIBUTE! Four Kubert interviews, art by RUSS HEATH, NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, MICHAEL KALUTA, SAM GLANZMAN, and others, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive, FCA’s Captain Video conclusion by GEORGE EVANS that inspired Avengers foe Ultron, cover by KUBERT, with a portrait by DANIEL JAMES COX!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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Carmine Infantino’s Rebuttal Carmine Infantino New York, New York CARMINE INFANTINO’S REBUTTAL When the editor of this publication approached me about an interview I initially refused. My instincts suggested I keep away. But my friends finally talked me into doing it. I, unfortunately, listened to my friends. I had advised this editor I would not be involved with any publication if a certain recreator of comics history, the Californian “King” of Con, was involved. They assured me he was not. But it seems that this “comics-savant,” Tom Stewart, certainly used such people as his sources. How sincere are they…? It took an attorney’s letter to get Mr. Cooke to admit that he wrote the malicious “The Battle Over ‘Jericho’” piece. This despite the fact that he spent hours with me in my home and never asked for my version of the Jericho fiasco or about the rest of the misinformation concerning my tenure. Is that balanced reporting? Here are the true facts— REBUTTAL TO "ALONG CAME GIORDANO" It was my decision to hire Dick Giordano. I introduced Dick to Irwin Donenfeld as one of my choices for editor. Irwin was favorably impressed. The main reason I hired him was that he had a working relationship with Steve Ditko, Denny O'Neil and Jim Aparo. It was my assumption that they would continue to work with him on DC projects. That was what I meant when I talked about a "package deal," in my interview. The arrangement I made with Dick was that he could do freelancing inking afterhours and weekends while he held a DC staff position. With his four-hour commute, I assumed he would not do much of that kind of work. My assumption was wrong, and after a time I felt Dick was doing more inking than editing. The basic idea for The Hawk And The Dove was not Steve Ditko's. It was mine. See my interview in Comic Book Artist number one. Was I in the right job? You bet I was! I learned my craft from the bottom up, after years drawing scripts that did not translate well visually. I had a point of view about what made good comics. I never saw Dick as a threat to my position. He was always too tired from inking to be a threat. Did Dick Giordano quit DC? Absolutely not—I fired him! I kept him on as an inker because he was good at that, and it would be a shame to lose him as an inker. I did not fire him over his choice of Gray Morrow for this particular western story. I suggested that Gray would be more suitable for other kinds of books. The fact that Gray was still there on "other things" proves my point. Why should I harass Dick into quitting, when I could easily fire him? All of Dick's books lost money—period! I had to find out why. The day I decided to fire him was when I called him into my office to "pick his brain" about the editor's role in the creating of a comic book. Dick's answer stunned me! I quote. "Well, Carmine, I feel an editor's role doesn't matter since fifty percent of a comic Winter 1999

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book print run doesn't see the newsstands, it remains in the distributor's warehouse. The remaining fifty percent, maybe the retailer puts out half of that and half of that gets sold, regardless of what's in it." I was astounded—Charlton Press mentality! It was then and there l removed Dick as an editor. That evening, after I removed Dick as editor, I called in two editors to assume his books, one of whom still exists. Did I get everyone to "toe the line”? As an artist I knew that would be the wrong way to encourage creativity. To obtain "good creativity" you must create an atmosphere of experimentation without fear. In this atmosphere it's okay to make a mistake—but only once in a project. You must be ready to change directions and have a strong editorial point of view, but in Dick's case it never succeeded. About clarity in storytelling—I complained to Dick about Neal Adams’ layouts. How he was sacrificing storytelling to show off his art skills, which were considerable. When I saw a repeat in the next issue, I decided to give some visual panel layouts that would be acceptable to my storytelling standards. I should have never been put in that position, but then I realize Dick probably could not tell his future "business partner" to clean up his act. So much for allowing an editor to freelance. Dick should have fought as hard for clarity as he did for getting the word "flicker" printed in a comic book. It has been charged that I killed books even though they were selling well. That is a really dumb lie! Why would I kill a book that was selling? I will not go into why a lie like that was spread around, but I can tell you that I worked with distributors' figures. A book lived or died by these numbers. DC was paid by distributors on the first return number. We got to keep that money, or give some back if the book did not live up to the first return. Sometimes we received more money when, final sales exceeded the first return number, and other times we had to give back money if the book fell short of the first number. I had to answer, good or bad, to someone above me. As I said in my original article for this periodical, Bill Gaines insisted I make and save copies of all my memos, notes and sales figures in case the day came when some malcontent would try to re-invent my tenure at DC Comics. Well—I'm ready. Which leads to... THE BATTLE OVER "JERICHO" It is implied by the writer of that piece, editor Jon Cooke, that discrimination, the Viet Nam war and pollution were issues DC Comics were exploiting during the sixties. I always urged my 7

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The Marvel Years

Interview by Arlen Schumer In the 1960s, I was a DC Comics fan: The Weisinger Superman line, Julius Schwartz’s sci-fi super-heroes, and, of course, Batman (the debut of the ’66 TV series was a seminal event in my childhood). Marvel didn’t appeal to me; they seemed too complicated, too busy-looking (too many words!) compared to the somewhat banal simplicity of DC’s line. My brother, though, was a Marvelite and devotee of Jack Kirby. I was a fan of newcomer Neal Adams, who had every DC follower excited by his work on “Deadman.” We would argue endlessly about who was “better,” and daydream about company crossovers, like what if Kirby went to DC, or Adams worked at Marvel. In those days, it was unheard of for any artist to be working for more than one company at a time (we didn’t know then that Marvel’s new “Sub-Mariner” artist, Adam Austin, was DC’s war artist Gene Colan, or that Marvel’s “Mickey Demeo” was a pseudonym for DC’s Mike Esposito!). It was a shock when DC stalwart Gil Kane drew a few issues of “The Hulk” in 1967, but nothing prepared us for that day in 1969 when Neal Adams began drawing the X-Men! The X-Men? According to my brother, the title had been going downhill ever since Kirby stopped drawing it years earlier, and, save for a few recent issues drawn by the great Jim Steranko and new kid on the block Barry Smith (then a Kirby clone), the title was all but forgotten and destined for discontinuation. Suffice to say, even my diehard brother became an Adams believer because of his breathtaking X-Men work. Above: Portrait of Back then, I was too enamored by what Adams was doing at DC with Batman and Green Lantern/Green Neal Adams from the Arrow to notice what a body of incredible work—in addition to his X-Men—Adams was compiling at Marvel. 1970 Comic Art Convention Program book. Doing this interview as a follow-up to “Neal Adams: The DC Years” was an eye-opening experience for a self-styled Adams expert like myself, as revelations of the breadth of his storytelling achievements came to light. Just as his Batman became the modern standard, influencing Frank Miller years later to do The Dark Knight Returns, which in turn influenced the movie portrayals, making Batman DC’s franchise character, so too did Adams’ X-Men, with far less fanfare, go on to become the new model of the characters, influencing a new generation of Marvel artists and writers to create their versions of the X-Men based on his, which became the cornerstone of Marvel’s hegemony in the ‘80s (and “spawned” Image’s super-hero line). So one might argue Adams’ Batman and X-Men are the twin pillars upon which today’s DC and Marvel rest. Like his contemporary Steranko, Adams’ relatively small body of Marvel work stands in direct converse proportion to its enormous influence. So I was not surprised by Neal’s answer to my first question, “Why did you go to Marvel Comics?” [The following interview was conducted in two sessions during September and October 1998 and was transcribed by John Morrow and Jon B. Cooke.] Winter 1999

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Arlen Schumer: Why did you go to Marvel Comics? Neal Adams: I was inspired to come to Marvel to a great degree by Jim Steranko. He dropped in to DC’s offices months before and caught me there—I was there nearly every day—and after we had a good-humored yuck over my “Hey, it’s a Jim

Steranko effect” panel in “Deadman,” [Strange Adventures #216] he described the Marvel style to me: Basically, they just let you free to do whatever you wanted to do, and you just went ahead and did it. If you did it wrong they’d correct you, but he hadn’t been corrected along the way, so he was pretty happy; Stan had given him carte blanche to do anything he wanted to do storywise, within certain boundaries. It seemed to me to be a wonderful way to do comics. Certainly, coming from DC Comics, there was nothing at DC that even resembled what happened at Marvel Comics. We wrote scripts, we wrote descriptions, we wrote balloons, and the artist was expected to fit them into the pictures. Arlen: What’d you think of Steranko? Neal: I thought Steranko’s stuff was fantastic, and Steranko did a very similar thing that I did but within his style. Maybe what I did put the exclamation mark on what Steranko did, or maybe I just took it another way. Arlen: It was about a year after Steranko did his SHIELD epics; did the competitor in you see these works and say, in a sense, “How can I top what Steranko did at Marvel?” Neal: Not really. Part of what I did was say, “I like this Marvel style; it’s a little scary. I wonder what I would do with it if I had it available to me?” I didn’t know what I could do; when I came from comic strips into comic books, I felt a tremendous amount of freedom—so much so that I never turned back to illustration, which I was headed for. I felt this freedom and I thought it was wonderful. The next step in this freedom would be the Marvel style. Arlen: Was the discontinuation of “Deadman” the impetus to go to Marvel? Neal: I’m sure that it wasn’t. I was happy with the “Deadman” stories but at the end, I was writing, penciling and inking the book. After “Deadman,” others inked and most often others wrote with rare exception which I enjoyed, but I did feel the need to be “the storyteller” and the “Marvel Style” presented that opportunity. Arlen: Had you talked to Stan before this meeting? Did he know of you because of the splash you were making at DC? Neal: When I went over to see Stan, I didn’t go over to get the X-Men; I didn’t know what was going to happen and whether he would pick me up. I had no idea.When I went in to meet him, he told me that he was glad I came over and he COMIC BOOK ARTIST

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was Adam Austin. Neal: There were so many things that were wrong in comic books that had nothing to do with conscious efforts to be bad—but it’s almost like going to another country where they haven’t discovered fire and they’re eating raw meat. So you teach them to cook meat and they don’t necessarily like it at first but after a while they find that their digestive systems work a little bit better with it. Above: Oft-printed but still impressive rejected cover design (X-Men It was sort of the same way #56) by Neal Adams for his first Marvel comic book job. Neal says, “I in comic books; the things they did this cover and handed it in. Stan took it to [Marvel publisher were doing wrong would have Martin] Goodman and afterwards, Stan called me in, saying, ‘I really have to reject the cover, but if it were up to me, I would say go with it. been so evident to somebody But I’m told we can’t do it because the figures obliterate the logo.’ I from advertising or book publishing—any of these worlds said, ‘Stan, when it’s colored, the figures aren’t going to obliterate the logo.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s just not acceptable. You’ll have to do it over or outside of comic books—but I can get someone else to do it.’ I said, ‘No, no, Stan, I’ll do it.’ I comics were so insulated, they thought, they’re going to kill the book in two issues, and they’re worried didn’t know they were wrong; if anyone can identify the logo because of sales! If you obliterate the they didn’t know that they logo and make it hard to read, you might actually pick up sales! That’s were backward and foolish. not a thing I could argue, so I did the cover over because you can’t argue past a certain line.” ©1998 Marvel Entertainment. So, for me, it was perhaps an adventure in breaking these rules down but at the same time it was my day-to-day existence. It wasn’t like “I’m going on this adventure to break down this rule”; it was more “I think I should try to do this and see what happens and maybe I’ll get something else out of it.” My motives weren’t so clear, but certainly that little piece stuck in the back of my head when I went to ask Stan if I could do a book for Marvel. I had seen those altered names of artists in the Marvel books, and felt that passing back and forth from Marvel and DC would be good for creators. And I didn’t like the way creators were treated in general. Arlen: Didn’t Gil Kane do it about a year-and-a-half before you, in 1967 when he went to Marvel to do the “Hulk” for Stan Lee? Neal: Oddly enough, it seemed when Gil Kane went to Marvel and used the name “Gil Kane” that, for whatever reason, there wasn’t a significance to it; perhaps it became clear that Gil was “changing companies”! Somehow when I went, it seemed to make a statement. I’m not saying that going back and forth to Marvel and giving my name was my goal. It just seemed it was silly to hide it; I guess because of whatever position I held in the comic book field, my going and being so overt about it, and being so comfortable and willing to talk about it—which of course I did— had more of an impact. 15

wanted me to do something for Marvel. One of the reasons was that “Deadman” was the only DC Comic that the Marvel guys read. So he asked what title did I want to do. I said, “Well, I’m sure there are titles I can’t do.” And he said, “No, you can do any title you want.” Arlen: He would have given you any title? At the time, Kirby was still there and, other than his titles, you had the pick of anything? Neal: Yeah, but I don’t necessarily think he meant it, though he certainly was generous in his approach. I said, “Tell me what your worst selling title is.” And he said, of course, X-Men. Werner Roth had done the story just before me; they were giving it to anybody who would wander in. They gave the job to Barry Smith (and of his story, I would say the job he did on it was not his best); they gave the job to Steranko, but it was dribbling down. Not that I want to insult anybody but it didn’t seem that anybody was giving it much attention at the time. So I said I’d love to do it. Arlen: You did it only because it was a loser? You had no affinity for the characters? Neal: Not at all. Arlen: You were reading the books? Neal: Sure, I read all the Marvel and DC books at the time; I read everything. I had no idea what I would do with the X-Men. I just knew that I had this pile of stuff that nobody seemed to care about. Perhaps intentionally because nobody cared about them, I could remold them. So the process was to remold them from the core that Jack had begun. Arlen: Looking back on it now, if you had your druthers, what would you have drawn? Neal: Whatever their lowest seller was. Stan asked me why I would do that and I said, “If I do the X-Men, your worst selling title, would you pay that much attention to it?” He said, “No, you can do what you want.” So I said that’s probably a pretty good reason for me to want to do it. He said, “I’ll tell you what: I’ll make you a deal. You do X-Men for two issues—or however many issues you’re going to do—and after that you do a good selling title like The Avengers.” So I said, “Fine, I’ll do that.” And that was the deal between Stan and I. Stan then said, “How do you want to be known at Marvel? Do you want us to give you a different name?” I said, “No, my name will be just fine.” So Stan said, “Well, you know, here at Marvel we don’t like people working for the other company.” I said, “Well, I guess you can’t let me do the X-Men.” But Stan said, “No, no, no. That’s fine. It’s not a problem.” I said, “Good.” And he said, “Hey, how about I give you a nickname? How do you feel about ‘Nefarious Neal?’” I said, “Well, if you feel like doing that, I guess it’s okay. I’m not really prone to nicknames; I never had one, but if that’s what you’d like to do.” So I agreed to do the X-Men. Arlen: Your working at Marvel represents the whole breakdown in that pseudonym game, where for instance, Gene Colan

Comic Book Artist #3