Comic Book Creator #13 by TwoMorrows Publishing

ALSO IN THIS ISH: ™ ™

$8.95

in the USA

Publication

No. 13, Fall 2016

The Shadow TM & © Condé Nast.

A Tw o M o r r o w s

01 1

82658 000634 82658 97073

also: THE AMAZING RAMONA FRADON: A CAREER-SPANNING INTERVIEW and more!

FALL

2016 NO. 13

$8.95 in the USA

Printed in China

All characters TM & © their respective copyright holders.

Fa l l 2 0 1 6 • Vo i c e o f t h e C o m i c s M e d i u m • N u m b e r 1 3

About Our Covers Art by M. W. KALUTA Colors by L. Kindzieski

Ye Ed’s Rant: An ode to the glory of benign neglect and the kindness of Kaluta............ 2 Comics Chatter The Wacky Pack Men: Underground comix legend Jay Lynch, creator of Nard ’n Pat and a founder of Bijou Funnies, discusses his “day job” at Topps Chewing Gum Company, where he helped produce the unforgettable, hilarious, and subversive Wacky Packages, along with stalwarts Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Len Brown, Norm Saunders, Bhob Stewart, and the great Woody Gelman. Included in this pack o’ parodiable pleasantness is an original illustration by Jay depicting the Topps Team. Chew on that, fanboy!..... 3

The Shadow TM & © Condé Nast

Otto on the Outside: An excerpt from Bill Schelly’s revised biography of Otto Binder detailing the most heartbreaking event in the renowned comics writer’s life ........ 10 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred accuses Michael W. Kaluta of deception!.......... 14 Comics in the Library: Rich Arndt proves good mythology comics are no myth.......... 15 THE AMAZING RAMONA FRADON!

Above: MWK’s cover for The Private Files of the Shadow [1989]. Colors by Lavern Kindzieski. Below: Please see page 18 for the story behind our flip cover!

The Eclectic Woman: Thought that her work on Aquaman, Metamorpho, and Plastic Man was all you needed to know about Ramona Fradon? Wrong! CBC is proud to present a fascinating interview with the renowned cartoonist about her amazing, eclectic, and captivating life, whether her stint in the golden age of radio, hobnobbing with The New Yorker crowd, protesting the Vietnam War, and scribing an important scholarly book on Faustian legend! Plus we get in a query or two about her masterful 65+ years in the American comic book industry........... 16 THE MAIN EVENT

Characters TM & © DC Comics.

The Art of Michael William Kaluta: CBC talks with the enchanting MWK about his childhood love for the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, beginnings in fandom, early success as the definitive artist on The Shadow, work on “Carson of Venus” and “Spawn of Frankenstein,” co-venture with Windsor-Smith, Wrightson, and Jones in The Studio, and reputation as the signature Vertigo cover artist. Plus Michael talks about his friendships with Frazetta, Krenkel, Al Williamson, and Dave Stevens, among others, as well as his little-known work in Hollywood......... 44 BACK MATTER If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

www.twomorrows.com

Comic Book Creator is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Coming Attractions: Definitive Kelly Jones interview and a ton of great features........ 77 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: The World’s Greatest Detectives!............... 80

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com! Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $60 International, $15.80 Digital. All characters © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2016 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

This issue is dedicated in memory of my brother from another mother (with the same last name), DARWYN COOKE ™

JON B. COOKE Editor & Designer

John Morrow Publisher & Consulting Editor

MICHAEL AUSHENKER Associate Editor

MICHAEL W. KALUTA Front Cover Artist

LOvern KindzieskI Front Cover Colorist

R. SIKORYAK (pencils/colors) & STEPHEN DeSTEFANO (inks) Reverse Cover Artists

DAVID COULSON Reverse Cover Logo & Lettering

GEORGE KHOURY RICHARD J. ARNDT TOM ZIUKO Contributing Editors

STEVEN THOMPSON BRIAN K. MORRIS Transcribers

J.D. KING CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK Greg PRESTON CBC Contributing Photographer

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE CBC Convention Photographer

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK GEORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists To contact CBC, please email jonbcooke@aol.com or snail-mail CBC, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 2

An ode to the glory of benign neglect and that mensch MWK beloved art form. Back in the late ’60s and early The best “corner” to hang out in ’70s, my younger brother, Andy, Seulingville? No less than the booth and I were raised by our single where sat two of the finest artistic mother, who, though in her upper talents in mainstream American comic thirties, had embraced the liberatbooks, Bernie Wrightson and Michael ing spirit of the “youthquake” of W. Kaluta. For whatever reason, the that time, and it’s fair to say we guys, especially MWK, took a shine had a hippie mom. In late 1970, to Andy, and while I was off seeking she whisked us away for a yearan audience with Jack “The King” long stay in Europe (where we Kirby, my brother was recruited as the lived on “$5-A-Day”), an advenpair’s gofer, scurrying off to get them ture that permanently transformed coffee in return for a sketch. As they us into creative persons, and the fended off snotty fanboys badgering two youngest Cooke boys remain for free art while offering unsolicited, forever grateful to mother dearest obnoxious opinions, MWK and Bernie for that amazing opportunity. allowed my diminutive sibling to sit Strangely enough, it was beside them—behind the table!—as there, across the pond, where serious a demarcation between Them we became avid comic book fans and Us as the Maginot Line. However (Mom would let us buy a single comic much I wanted to think otherwise, every day at Brentano’s, the American Andrew D. Cooke was now a cool kid. bookstore in Paris), and, when we Though the story is recounted in three made it to England, li’l bro and MWK’s interview herein, allow me to I would scour the news agents, on spotlight it here, with no small measure our own, in citywide searches to find of gratitude to the Man Behind The imported U.S. funnybooks. Shadow: Being (ahem) a rambunctious You need to understand that teen, one year—probably ’74—I got those years were an entirely into a scrape (there was some beers, different era for kids than the way Michael W. Kaluta by Ronn Sutton a few cops, and a girl… long story), it is today. Many of us (especially and my mother—gasp!—had the temerity to ban me as those with a counter-culture parent) thrived on a punishment from attending that year’s con. And so my sort-of benign neglect, where, so long as we were little brother went alone… without his elder brethren. home by dusk, we could be trusted to roam the planet The Saturday night of that particular convention (and, in our case, give wide berth to the truant officers was particularly tumultuous, as a wild and violent sumas, while we were becoming enormously educated mer storm, replete with incessant lightning and thunder through ravenous book reading and endless historical claps, appeared content to stand idle over midtown tours, we weren’t frequenting any classroom). The Manhattan. I remember worrying about Andy when he world seemed… well… friendlier and safer then. anxiously called home from a lobby phone to say there Today’s younger generation will likely be shocked was no way he could walk the 20 blocks to our sister’s to hear that, upon our return to the states, our mom apartment. I mean, geesh, he was my little brother and allowed her 11- and 13-year-old sons to travel via bus wasn’t keeping him safe my single most important job? by our lonesome for the 1972 July 4th weekend Comic I needn’t have stressed. Mensch that he is, Michael Art Convention, in big, bad New York City. Truth be stayed up the entire night with Andy, who was, after told, while we did sleep at least once under the chairs all, just a kid, as the two sat on the carpeted mezzanine during the all-night movie screening, our oldest sister had an apartment downtown. But, dude, this was early stairway, chatting about all things comic book until dawn broke over the city that never sleeps. At a time ’70s NYC, when Times Square weren’t no Disneyland! when I was powerless to protect him, my brother—a Despite its notorious reputation, while we attendperson I treasure with all of my heart—was kept safe ed Phil Seuling’s amazing con, the Big Apple was welcoming to us, and we felt safe in our neighborhood, from the deluge, safe from the mean streets, safe to come home again. Thanks, Michael William Kaluta. the palatial ballroom of the (pre-Trump) Commodore From one brother to another, I owe you. Hotel, among our kindred, the fans and creators of our

cbc contributors T odd Adams Richard J. Arndt Gregory Benton Michael Cassiello Andrew D. Cooke David Coulson Stephen DeStefano

Chris Duffy Michael Eury Richard Fowlks Ramona Fradon Drew Friedman Fred Hembeck Michael W. Kaluta

Lovern Kindzieski J.D. King Seth Kushner Terra Kushner Elaine Lee Sonny Liew Jay Lynch

—Y e Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Russ Maheras Chris Ryall & IDW Bill Schelly Robert Sikoryak Andrew Steven Ronn Sutton Jan Tabert

Roy Thomas Michael Turek John Watson Kendall Whitehouse Glenn Whitmore Rob Yeremian Tom Ziuko

#13 • Summer 2016 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

CBC Proofreader

The Kindness of Kaluta

Life at the Topps

The Wacky Pack Men Underground comix legend Jay Lynch remembers the “Titanic Topps Think-Tank”!

by JAY LYNCH Back in the 1960s, it is said, Marvel Comics had its legendary “Mighty Marvel Bullpen,” where the publisher’s artists and writers ping ponged their ideas back and forth off one another in their fancy midtown Manhattan offices. The comic fans were very much into who wrote or drew what in the comic books of the so-called “House of Ideas.” For bubble gum card collectors, however, it was a totally different story. It was characteristic of collectors of gum cards back then to not really care about who was behind the uncredited art and gags on the cards that came with their bubble gum. Yes, they were meticulous at collecting the trading cards, but they really had no interest at all in the folks who wrote and drew them. Yet I don’t think most of the people who worked on the gum cards felt slighted in any way about working in anonymity in those days either. It was a good-paying gig at the time, and, for us, that was the main thing that mattered. In an old factory by the Brooklyn Navy Yards, upstairs from the long abandoned Uneeda Doll factory, was the executive headquarters of the Topps Chewing Gum Company, where a small group of anonymous artists and gag writers labored, unknown and unsung, on various novelty bubble gum trading cards. The work was unsigned. Our identities were kept secret by the outfit, lest competitors should steal us away. Decades later, with the advent of the Internet, that all has now changed. The activities of the retroactively dubbed (by me, just now) “Titanic Topps ThinkTank” has since been chronicled and exposed to the new breed of trading card collectors. Following along the same path as comic book fans, the card collectors are now very interested in the history of the creative forces behind their favorite trading card sets of yesteryear. Now we, the writers and artists who worked on this stuff, have all become household words to these collectors… especially in households where they can’t figure out how to remove the old gum card stickers from their fifty-year-old refrigerators. Wacky Packages was the official name of one of Topps’ most popular products of the 1970s. To this day, Topps continues to churn out new “Wacky Packs,” as the collectors nicknamed them in their childhood days. The official name of the product though is—and always has been—Wacky Packages. “Wackys,” as was our inter-office term for them back then, were product-packaging parodies of popular consumer products. Devised in 1967 by Art Spiegelman, Len Brown, and Woody Gelman, these subversive sticker cards are reprinted today in book form (sans adhesive) by Abrams Comic Arts… in two volumes, yet! The first is called, appropriately enough, Wacky Packages and has a red cover with an introduction by Spiegelman. The second, with a blue cover, is called Wacky Packages New, New, New, with an introduction by yours truly. In the first collection, Art explains the method he devised for naming the parodied product: You go through the alphabet, substituting each letter for the first letter of the real product. If that doesn’t work, you go through the alphabet on the second letter of the real product. If the second letter is a vowel, you just restrict your choices to vowels…and so on until you eventually come up with a name. So if the product is, for example, TIDE, “Tied and Toad Wait For No Man” by Jay Lynch At right is a typical day at the Titanic Topps Think-Tank, circa 1973, where the Toppsters devise a Wacky Package parody. See next page for a guide to the luminaries immortalized by Mr. Lynch. Comic Book Creator • Summer 2016 • #13

Below: Caption to come.

Above: A few years back. Abrams published two hardcovers collecting Wacky Packages imagery. Below: Jay’s schematic for his illustration on the previous page.

in touch with today. (The numbers, natch, correlate to the schematic at left, which calls out our Topps Titans on the previous page.) 1. RICK VARESI From his office in Topps’ Product Development Department, Rick designed and executed all the packaging for most of the Topps products of the ’70s, including Wacky Packages. He designed the original WP logo that is used on them ’til this day. In addition to his lettering and layout skills, Varesi was also an extremely versatile cartoonist. When deadlines were tight, he often was called upon to duplicate the styles of the various freelance Topps cartoonists to finish off, in the nick of time, the cards needed to complete a series. In the ’80s, he more or less got out of the art biz and into the computer programming game. 2. BILL GRIFFITH Griffy wrote and did roughs for many of the original Wacky Packages. Kentucky Fried Fingers, Kick-a-man Soy Sauce… the list of Bill’s Wacky gags from the early years is a lengthy one. An early pioneer in the underground comix movement, his work appeared in early titles of that genre. It was in the early undergrounds that his most famous character, Zippy the Pinhead, was born. Griffith and Art Spiegelman also co-edited the comix magazine Arcade in the mid-’70s. Today, Zippy is syndicated by King Features, and appears in daily newspapers throughout the land. His graphic novel, Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Secret Love Affair with a Famous Cartoonist, was published last year, and it earned this year’s Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel. 3. STAN HART MAD magazine writer Stan Hart wrote a great deal of stuff for Topps in those early years. ’Twas he who set the tone for the MAD-ish flavor of the art on the Topps novelty cards in the late ’50s by bringing in Jack Davis, Wallace Wood, Basil Wolverton, and other MAD artists into the Topps lineup. By the time Wacky Packages came around, Stan was bi-coastal, traveling from Brooklyn to Burbank on a regular basis. He was writing for TV comedy shows such as The Carol Burnett Show and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. As a matter of fact, it was Stan’s off-Broadway hit, The Mad Show (the book of which was co-written by fellow MAD regular Larry Siegel), that supplied the format for Laugh-In. It was also in The Mad Show where future Laugh-In regular Jo Anne Worley got her start… but I digress. When Stan wasn’t busy with the higher paying TV gigs, he was no stranger to Topps’ Wacky Packs editorial meetings. 4. LEN BROWN Len was my main contact at Topps. He had written the renowned Mars Attacks gum card series with Woody Gelman. With Wallace Wood, Len created T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents for Tower Comics. Gelman hired Len to work at Topps when Len was but a teenager, just out of high-school. This was genius on Gelman’s part. Closer to the age of the gum card consumers, and in tune with the trends, Len knew what the kids wanted, with Mars Attacks being but one example. As the years passed, Len

#13 • Summer 2016 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Wacky Packages TM & © Topps Chewing Gum Company. Art © Jay Lynch.

then it’s “Aide,” “Bide,” “Cide,” “Dide,” etc. (all with a hard vowel sound for the “I”). Then it’s “Tade,” “Tede,” “Tide,” “Tode,” and so on. So easy, and yet few humans have been able to master it. The process is too esoteric for anyone to bother to devise a Wacky Pack naming computer program, however. Apparently, demand for such software is severely limited. Back in 1967, when the first Wacky Packages series came out, the satire industry in America was in its infancy. This was before The Onion. This was before Saturday Night Live. There were then only a handful of precedents. Ernie Kovacs, MAD magazine, Stan Freberg… The list was finite. There were but three TV networks, and they all constantly ran commercials for the same consumer products that we mocked in the Wackys. Thus, every TV commercial was in a sense an ad for or endeavor. Time proved the thing worked both ways, though. Although the Wacky Packs’ skeptical attitude got kids into thinking for themselves, causing them to question authority and consider the “spin factor” of the claims printed on product packaging before making their purchasing decisions, there remained a certain loyalty to the products we parodied that seems to have stuck with the youthful consumers well into adulthood. Today, the Wacky fan, now middle-aged, might ask his or her better half to pick up a six-pack of “Mountain Goo,” based on a fond memory of the parody version of the beverage. So the Wacky Packs turned out to be beneficial to the manufacturers of the real products as well. Who knew? Go figure. In the ‘70s, the phrase “Political Correctness” hadn’t yet been invented. It was a different time. It was the ’60s and early ’70s. It was a time of re-examining old values. It was a new generation with a new vibration! And, with the Wacky Packs, if there is one thing that we did that benefited society, it was getting kids to question the hype of manufacturers as touted on their packaging and hopefully to question their decisions in other aspects of life as well. The marketplace is the ballot box. But also…the ballot box is the ballot box! Umm… we’re in an election year, kids. These Wacky Packages were the work of many artists and writers over the past four decades. Here are the guys I remember from the earliest days of Wackys, many of whom I am still

#13: MARVEL HORROR

#14: TOWER COMICS & WALLY WOOD

#15: 1980s VANGUARD & DAVE STEVENS

#16: ATLAS/SEABOARD COMICS

#17: ARTHUR ADAMS

1970s Marvel Horror focus, from Son of Satan to Ghost Rider! Interviews with ROY THOMAS, MARV WOLFMAN, GENE COLAN, TOM PALMER, HERB TRIMPE, GARY FRIEDRICH, DON PERLIN, TONY ISABELLA, and PABLOS MARCOS, plus a Portfolio Section featuring RUSS HEATH, MIKE PLOOG, DON PERLIN, PABLO MARCOS, FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE, and more! New GENE COLAN cover!

Interviews with Tower and THUNDER AGENTS alumni WALLACE WOOD, LOU MOUGIN, SAMM SCHWARTZ, DAN ADKINS, LEN BROWN, BILL PEARSON, LARRY IVIE, GEORGE TUSKA, STEVE SKEATES, and RUSS JONES, TOWER COMICS CHECKLIST, history of TIPPY TEEN, 1980s THUNDER AGENTS REVIVAL, and more! WOOD cover!

Interviews with ’80s independent creators DAVE STEVENS, JAIME, MARIO, AND GILBERT HERNANDEZ, MATT WAGNER, DEAN MOTTER, PAUL RIVOCHE, and SANDY PLUNKETT, plus lots of rare and unseen art from The Rocketeer, Love & Rockets, Mr. X, Grendel, other ’80s strips, and more! New cover by STEVENS and the HERNANDEZ BROS.!

’70s ATLAS COMICS HISTORY! Interviews with JEFF ROVIN, ROY THOMAS, ERNIE COLÓN, STEVE MITCHELL, LARRY HAMA, HOWARD CHAYKIN, SAL AMENDOLA, JIM CRAIG, RIC MEYERS, and ALAN KUPPERBERG, Atlas Checklist, HEATH, WRIGHTSON, SIMONSON, MILGROM, AUSTIN, WEISS, and STATON discuss their Atlas work, and more! COLÓN cover!

Discussion with ARTHUR ADAMS about his career (with an extensive CHECKLIST, and gobs of rare art), plus GRAY MORROW tributes from friends and acquaintances and a MORROW interview, Red Circle Comics Checklist, interviews with & remembrances of GEORGE ROUSSOS & GEORGE EVANS, Gallery of Morrow, Evans, and Roussos art, EVERETT RAYMOND KINSTLER interview, and more! New ARTHUR ADAMS cover!

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(128-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#18: 1970s MARVEL COSMIC COMICS

#19: HARVEY COMICS

#20: ROMITAs & KUBERTs #21: ADAM HUGHES, ALEX #22: GOLD KEY COMICS & examinations: RUSS MANNING ROSS, & JOHN BUSCEMA &Interviews Magnus Robot Fighter, WALLY WOOD &

Roundtable with JIM STARLIN, ALAN WEISS and AL MILGROM, interviews with STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE LEIALOHA, and FRANK BRUNNER, art from the lost WARLOCK #16, plus a FLO STEINBERG CELEBRATION, with a Flo interview, tributes by HERB TRIMPE, LINDA FITE, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, and others! STARLIN/ MILGROM/WEISS cover!

History of Harvey Comics, from Hot Stuf’, Casper, and Richie Rich, to Joe Simon’s “Harvey Thriller” line! Interviews with, art by, and tributes to JACK KIRBY, STERANKO, WILL EISNER, AL WILLIAMSON, GIL KANE, WALLY WOOD, REED CRANDALL, JOE SIMON, WARREN KREMER, ERNIE COLÓN, SID JACOBSON, FRED RHOADES, and more! New wraparound MITCH O’CONNELL cover!

Joint interview between Marvel veteran and superb Spider-Man artist JOHN ROMITA, SR. and fan favorite Thor/Hulk renderer JOHN ROMITA, JR.! On the flipside, JOE, ADAM & ANDY KUBERT share their histories and influences in a special roundtable conversation! Plus unpublished and rarely seen artwork, and a visit by the ladies VIRGINIA and MURIEL! Flip-covers by the KUBERTs and the ROMITAs!

(104-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

#23: MIKE MIGNOLA

#24: NATIONAL LAMPOON COMICS

#25: ALAN MOORE AND KEVIN NOWLAN

Exhaustive MIGNOLA interview, huge art gallery (with never-seen art), and comprehensive checklist! On the flip-side, a careerspanning JILL THOMPSON interview, plus tons of art, and studies of Jill by ALEX ROSS, STEVE RUDE, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and more! Also, interview with JOSÉ DELBO, and a talk with author HARLAN ELLISON on his various forays into comics! New MIGNOLA HELLBOY cover!

GAHAN WILSON and NatLamp art director MICHAEL GROSS speak, interviews with and art by NEAL ADAMS, FRANK SPRINGER, SEAN KELLY, SHARY FLENNEKIN, ED SUBITSKY, M.K. BROWN, B.K. TAYLOR, BOBBY LONDON, MICHEL CHOQUETTE, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and more! Features new covers by GAHAN WILSON and MARK BODÉ!

Focus on AMERICA’S BEST COMICS! ALAN MOORE interview on everything from SWAMP THING to WATCHMEN to ABC and beyond! Interviews with KEVIN O’NEILL, CHRIS SPROUSE, JIM BAIKIE, HILARY BARTA, SCOTT DUNBIER, TODD KLEIN, JOSE VILLARRUBIA, and more! Flip-side spotlight on the amazing KEVIN NOWLAN! Covers by J.H. WILLIAMS III & NOWLAN!

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(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

ADAM HUGHES ART ISSUE, with a comprehensive interview, unpublished art, & CHECKLIST! Also, a “Day in the Life” of ALEX ROSS (with plenty of Ross art)! Plus a tribute to the life and career of one of Marvel’s greatest artists, JOHN BUSCEMA, with testimonials from his friends and peers, art section, and biographical essay. HUGHES and TOM PALMER flip-covers!

Total War M.A.R.S. Patrol, Tarzan by JESSE MARSH, JESSE SANTOS and DON GLUT’S Dagar and Dr. Spektor, Turok, Son of Stone’s ALBERTO GIOLITTI and PAUL S. NEWMAN, plus Doctor Solar, Boris Karloff, The Twilight Zone, and more, including MARK EVANIER on cartoon comics, and a definitive company history! New BRUCE TIMM cover!

(104-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #1

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #2

Previously available only to CBA subscribers! Spotlights great DC Comics of the ’70s: Interviews with MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN on JACK KIRBY’s Fourth World, ALEX TOTH on his mystery work, NEAL ADAMS on Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, RUSS HEATH on Sgt. Rock, BRUCE JONES discussing BERNIE WRIGHTSON (plus a WRIGHTSON portfolio), and a BRUCE TIMM interview, art gallery, and cover!

Compiles the new “extras” from CBA COLLECTION VOL. 1-3: unpublished JACK KIRBY story, unpublished BERNIE WRIGHTSON art, unused JEFF JONES story, ALAN WEISS interview, examination of STEVE ENGLEHART and MARSHALL ROGERS’ 1970s Batman work, a look at DC’s rare Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, PAUL GULACY art gallery, Marvel Value Stamp history, Mr. Monster’s scrapbook, and more!

(76-page Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $3.95

otto binder’s darkest chapter

Otto on the Outside

After an unimaginable family tragedy, writer Otto Binder leaves the comics “rat race” by Bill Schelly

Above: Cover for Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary by Bill Schelly. Published by North Atlantic Books, the biography features a forward by Richard A. Lupoff.

Ione Binder’s niece Patricia, daughter of her brother Frank and his wife Alice, was a regular guest at the Binder home in the mid-1960s, since her father and Ione were especially close. One of her most vivid memories is baking cakes with her aunt. Patricia recalled, “We lived in the New York area, so I celebrated quite a few birthdays with Uncle Otto and Aunt Ione. I was very close to their daughter Mary. They were excellent parents.”1 Mary Binder, born in September 1952, had outgrown the baby fat of her early years. “She was beautiful,” Patricia said. “She had long, straight blonde hair. She was angelic, almost.” With regard to Mary’s personality, Patricia added, “She had a beautiful personality. I always remember thinking I’d like to be like her. She was caring, sensitive, she loved animals…. She was just very attuned to what people needed, an all-around nice person. Very bright.” Though Mary was seven years Patricia’s senior, Otto’s

Below: From left, spouses Ione and Otto Binder and spouses Olga and Jack Binder, circa 1950. Otto and Jack were, of course, brothers. Photo is courtesy of Michael Turek.

#13 • Summer 2016 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

[Born in 1911 and brother of ambitious Golden Age artist Jack Binder, Otto Binder (rhymes with cinder) was a noted writer of science fiction classics as well as clever and revered comic book stories, with almost 1,000 Captain Marvel and Marvel family tales to his credit. Equally celebrated were his engaging scripts for DC’s Superman family titles, where he co-created Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and wrote what many consider the first “imaginary tale.” After some three decades in the business, the writer suddenly vanished from the field. In the following book excerpt (which combines two chapters) from Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary (just published by North Atlantic Books), author Bill Schelly shares the story behind that disappearance.—Y.E.]

daughter loved spending time with her young cousin. “We used to play games a lot, and play with Barbie dolls. We used to swim a lot in a neighbor’s outdoor pool. It was one of those that was above ground, you know? Everyone in our family swam very young so I was swimming by the time I was five. It wasn’t a problem with me going swimming but Mary, she was very attentive. You know, like she’d hold my hand when I was in the water, just to make sure I was okay.” The Binders had been no strangers to death in the family. In March of 1965, Otto’s mother Marie died. She was ninety-one years old, and had been in a nursing home for several years. More shocking was the news in October of the following year that Otto’s brother Earl, his writing partner in the 1930s, had passed away. The only known cause, which doesn’t fully explain what took him, was that he succumbed of deteriorating health due to chronic alcoholism. But nothing could have prepared them for the news they were to receive at 4:00 p.m. on March 27, 1967. Otto was on the telephone with publisher Calvin Beck (publisher of Castle of Frankenstein) when an operator broke in on the call with the news that Mary had been in a car accident. It isn’t known whether the Binders were informed by telephone that their daughter was dead. More likely they were summoned to Englewood Hospital where Mary was taken, or given the news by a minion of the law at their door. The accident took place at Dwight Morrow Junior High, just three blocks from the Binder home. Mary was kneeling to pick up some books in a school driveway when she was struck and instantly killed. The Bergen County Evening Record on the following day conveyed all the important details in the article headlined, “Car Kills Teen-Age Girl In Sight Of Classmates.” Patricia Turek added, “The boy [twenty-year-old Brian

comics in the library

Good Gods… It’s Good Comics! Quality mythology comics are no myth, thanks to the Graphic Universe series

by RicHard J. Arndt CBC Contributing Editor It’s not that it is difficult to find mythology graphic novels for a library; there a lot of them out there, from nearly every publisher you can look at. It’s that so many of them are freaking dreadful. None that I’ve examined are short on the actual details of various mythologies. That sort of information is readily available and generally authoritative from any publisher or author. No, it is the often abysmal artwork in these books that gives one pause and makes searching for a good set somewhat of a challenge. See, library booksellers, whether on the Internet or in a catalog, tend to present just the cover for potential buyers. It’s rare to be able to see examples of the interior art. Some publishers — and I’m looking at you, World Almanac Library — put their budget into an attractive cover and apparently scrimp on the inside art by hiring artists who appear to have only a slightly better knowledge of Photoshop, anatomy, and perspective than I do. And I have none. There are some truly terrible artwork in the many graphic mythology books out there. Most, if not all, by artists you’ve never heard of. Thankfully, there is a set that I can thoroughly recommend. Lerner Publications’ Graphic Universe series consist of 28 volumes, with each running 48 pages. The scripts feature top-notch, tight writing by writers that many will actually be familiar, including Paul D. Storrie, Dan Jolley, Jeff Limke, Justine and Ron Fontes, and Marie P. Croall. Storrie, Jolley, and Limke provide the bulk of the writing, and their work, along with their compatriots, is accurate, tightly written, and fairly witty. The artwork too, has many familiar names, including Thomas Yeates, Ron Randall, Sandy Carruthers, Anne Timmons, the team of Ray Lago and Craig Hamilton, Gordon Purcell, and John McCrea, as well as artists I’ve not heard of before, such as Steve Kurth, David Witt, Tim Seeley, and Clint Hilinski. It is perhaps no surprise to see longtime pros doing such excellent work on these books. Yeates’ style, in particular, is made for these types of stories and he delivers every time. I particularly like his work in Atalanta: The Race against Destiny, Perseus: The Hunt for Medusa’s Head, Robin Hood: Outlaw of Sherwood Forest, King Arthur: Excalibur Unsheathed, and Arthur & Lancelot: The Fight for Camelot. (By the way, somebody really needs to hire Yeates to do a full version of the saga of King Arthur.) Ron Randall gets to strut his stuff on such titles as Guan Yu: Blood Brothers to the End, Psyche & Eros: The Lady and the Monster, Beowulf: Monster Slayer, Tristan & Isolde: The Warrior and the Princess, and Thor & Loki: In the Land of Giants. I really enjoyed the last title there, which I first became aware of the original from the “Tales of Asgard” series Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did back in the days of Journey into Mystery. What is especially good about this new version is the subtle way author Limke and artist Randall let the reader know that Loki is actually the reasonable, thinking god here and that Thor is acting like a complete and utter jerk. Anne Timmons does a particularly fine job on Pigling: A Cinderella Story. Timmons’ art tends to project a nice warmth for the reader and this well-paced Chinese version of the Cinderella story greatly benefits from that.

Gordon Purcell turns in a bright, almost Wonder Woman-style version of the fall of Troy. Ray Lago and Craig Hamilton provide delightful art for the West African tale of Marwe: Into the Land of the Dead, which also has a sprightly script by Marie P. Croall. Sandy Carruthers, whom I’ve only just become aware of due to his stunning work on Charlton Neo’s revival of Pat Boyette’s The Spookman, delivers some finely-tuned pages for Sunjata: Warrior King of Mali and Yu the Great: Conquering the Flood. David Witt, an illustrator I’m not familiar with, does excellent work on such diverse titles as the Mayan myth The Hero Twins: Against the Lords of Death, the Aztec legend The Smoking Mountain: The story Of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl and the Egyptian centered Isis & Osiris: to the Ends of the Earth. His work reminds me a bit of a cross between Don Simpson and Dan Burr. I like it a lot. In fact, nobody here — whether writer or artist delivers anything less that top-notch work. I strongly recommend this series for any librarian looking for a good series of mythology and any parent who wants their child to become familiar with such myths. I mentioned the Lee/Kirby “Tales of Asgard” series and there is a nice six-volume hardcover set of the stories available from Marvel Spotlight. The first three books feature the early individual myth adaptations while the last three collect the first Fafnir the Dragon story as well as the final “Tales of Asgard” tale from the original team — the Arabian Nights-influenced “Tragedy of Hogun.” The books are very slim — only 24 pages each—but the stories and art are both vastly entertaining and well presented, with excellent covers by Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales. This would make another excellent addition to your school or public library. Although they so far have focused solely on the Greek gods, George O’Connor’s seven-volume (so far, an eighth is promised for this summer) mythology set is both well-written and decently drawn. The books focus on a single Greek god per volume and have to date covered Zeus, Athena, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Aphrodite (a very nice volume), and Ares. Plenty of the gods not yet showcased show up in the editions printed to date. It’s a good series that is quite popular among my students and I thoroughly recommend it.

Comic Book Creator • Summer 2016 • #13

Above: Cover of Atalanta: The Race against Destiny, drawn by the always excellent Thomas Yeates and but one of 28 volumes of mythological tales published by Lerner Publications’ Graphic Universe series.

Below: Detail from Anne Timmons’ particularly fine job on Pigling: A Cinderella Story.

Next: Marc Tyler Nobleman’s comics creator books! 15

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#13 • Summer 2016 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Michael William Kaluta, who first made an impact in the fertile climes of 1960s’ fandom, struggled when he initially broke into the field of mainstream American comic books. But, inspired by art nouveau, deco, and classic illustrators — and motivated by the swift progress of his peers’ abilities — very soon the convivial young man established himself as a formidable talent in the comics scene of the early 1970s. With his definitive version of ’30s pulp hero The Shadow, his cachet skyrocketed and the Virginia-raised artist has since never looked back. Today, MWK resides in the same Upper West Side Manhattan apartment where he has lived for decades, surrounded by a museumquality hoard of pop cultural ephemera, from ray-guns to aviator helmets, as well as in-progress commission artwork. Comic Book Creator visited the artist on a cloudy spring weekend for the following interview conducted between May 18–19, 2013.

quite sure. But I was born in Guatemala, and I was eventually a naturalized citizen. I was immediately naturalized because my parents were both Americans and it was the Panama Zone or whatever you call it. But when I was probably eighteen, I got to legally choose whether I’d be an American or a Guatemalan. I said, “I’ll be an American, thank you very much.” My dad put it more succinctly, he said, “Oh, son, you could become a Guatemalan. Hell, you could even become President of Guatemala for half an hour,” and he makes a gun with his finger and went “pow!” [laughter] After I was born, we then moved, I think, to Texas, Louisiana, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts… Pennsylvania, did I say? And then Alabama and Virginia, and then pretty much stayed in Virginia. My father was at the Pentagon at the time. He was in the Air Force. He had been, of course, in the Army Air Force during the war. So had my mother, as a matter of fact. They met in Russia at the Allied bomber bases that we had finally convinced Stalin to give us. CBC: Was your father a pilot? Michael: No, he was an engineer. He was born in America, but his dad was from Russia, so my dad spoke Russian, which, for a while, was something they didn’t let anyone know. So, technically, he was a spy. Everybody was a spy in those days. Because the Soviet Union was so paranoid (probably for good reasons on some level or another), but they just didn’t trust anybody. There were things that they wouldn’t allow their people to do around the Americans and that was act like an American. You weren’t allowed to act like an American [chuckles] or be friendly with an American or talk to them about anything. Of course, the G.I.s got around that. Everybody got around that. Anyway, my mother was an Army nurse and when they first met, she outranked him, which is something that she had a point of pride about. [chuckles] CBC: What was her name? Michael: Coltilde Gavony. She was of Italian extraction, born in America, though her parents both came from Italy. So my father was a first generation American with Russian heritage and my mom was first generation American with Italian parentage, and she lived in New England, my father lived in New York, and of course they’d never would have bumped into each other, completely different circles in America. But he went to Russia because they needed Russian-speaking Americans and they needed engineers to help build these bases and she went. There were twelve nurses sent, four for each of the three bases. There were two basically fighter bases and one bomber base and each had four nurses, their little M.A.S.H. units. I don’t know if they weren’t called “M.A.S.H.” at the time, of course, but that’s what they were. They met and were married in ’44 or ’45. His name is William. CBC: Is your father Slavic? What’s the ethnic background? Michael: Russian, from Belarus, near Minsk, a little town on the Polish border called Dubicze, where his father came from. CBC: And the family, what like social strata — were they peasants? Michael: I guess it’d be somewhat Russian middle class. [chuckles] I don’t really know. I’ll have to ask my older sister. She did a little more studying on it. I know that both my grandfather and grandmother, who didn’t know each other then — they were very young at the time of the Russian Revolution/World War I. When they left, they both basically snuck out. It turned out that my grandmother didn’t have to. Her way had been paid, but they just didn’t get to her to tell her that he was had been paid and that people had been bribed all #13 • Summer 2016 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comic Book Creator: I’ve been very much looking forward to doing this interview for a long time. We really do go back, whether you know it or not. I’m pulling out The Shadow #1 and [reading inscription] “To Jon and Andy, M.W. Kaluta,” on July 4 th, 1973. Michael W. Kaluta: That’s right when that first issue came out. The Shadow had a very, very weird effect on me, having been invisible at all the Seuling conventions since 1967-ish, to also be in a room with a line of kids around and out the door with the comic book, I wasn’t ready for it. It really was something. CBC: You always used to be at the table with Barry Windsor-Smith, right? Michael: That was later, after all this. Barry and I started hanging out during the Studio days, which had been between ’76 and ’78. CBC: I remember Bernie at the table. Michael: Bernie definitely. We were roommates right over here at 79th Street and we were pals, you know? And Jeff Jones, as well. Jeff lived at 79th Street originally and, when Bernie moved up to New York, he wanted to get a place near him because they had met back in ’67, like I said. So, in the Summer of ’68, Bernie got an apartment on West 77th Street, just two blocks south of where Jeff lived. I moved in with Wrightson about six months later, in January, ’69, and we’d visit Jeff on 79th Street. Then, about a year later, I came back from a trip and a place had opened up in Jeff’s building and we had already started to move without me even knowing it. So I ended up in there for a couple, three years, and I went up to West 92nd Street. Speaking of West 92nd Street, I found out from Will Eisner that he lived just around the corner on, let’s see, on 90th and Riverside Drive back in the Fifties. So that was cool. CBC: You guys were exceedingly friendly. I don’t know why my mother allowed us to do it, but my little brother and I came down from Rhode Island on the bus. We’d stay at my sister’s apartment downtown. You were very friendly and you put my little brother to work getting coffee and, in return, doing sketches for him. And there was one night where there was one year, probably ’74, where I was grounded and I wasn’t allowed to come because I’d gotten in a little trouble, so he came down alone and there was, on a Saturday night of the July 4 th weekend, there was a torrential downpour that took place and he couldn’t get out to walk the 20 blocks to get to my sister’s, you stayed up with him all night. He was probably thirteen years old and you spent the entire night with him. Michael: In the lobby, probably. Doing drawings and such. CBC: Yeah, until dawn broke and the rain subsided. Michael: I could do that back then. [laughs] CBC: And what a profound act of kindness it was. Michael: Well, yeah, I’m sure that I just wasn’t sleepy. [Jon chuckles] But that’s great. Like I don’t remember the downpour, of course, because I was staying inside. Convention time, there’s always a pumped-upness that, as years went by, I’d get more and more tired and not realize it because I was in convention mode and then just afterwards, you know, just be exhausted or in later years, get ill because you fly out, spend a week at the San Diego, and running around to do this, that, and the other thing, and then come back with having had, what, four hours of sleep a night … slam… collapse. [Jon chuckles] But anyway, back then, it was different. I was twenty-ish, twenty-one. CBC: Those are heady days and there was a great deal of creativity that was coming out of you group of guys, the young Turks who came into the field. But if we can start at the start, where are you from? Michael: I’m from a military family, so I’m not