Hero Gets Girl! The Life & Art of Kurt Schaffenberger Preview

Written and designed by: Mark Voger With photos by: Kathy Voglesong Publisher: John Morrow Front cover art: Kurt Schaffenberger Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, Billy Batson, Mr. Tawny, Dr. Sivana, Ibis the Invincible, Taia, Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Superboy, Supergirl, Krypto, Jor-El, Lara, Zor-El, Jonathan Kent, Martha Kent, Lana Lang, Lucy Lane, Lex Luthor, Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Aquaman, the Spectre, Metamorpho, ‘‘Dial H for H-E-R-O,’’ Catwoman, Scarecrow, Isis, the Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna TM & © DC Comics. Nemesis and Magicman TM & © Best Syndicated Features Inc. Barnabas Collins TM & © Dan Curtis Productions. The Spirit TM & © Will Eisner.

Dr. Kildare and Beetle Bailey TM & © King Features. Daughters of Time TM & © Jack C. Harris. Roma TM & © John Workman.

Simple Simon and the Pieman TM & © Howard D. Johnson Company. Famous Comic Book Creators © Eclipse Enterprises. Photos credited to Kathy Voglesong © Kathy Voglesong.

Copyright acknowledgments:

All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from Mark Voger, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Inquiries should be addressed to Mark Voger c/o: TwoMorrows Publishing.

Published by: TwoMorrows Publishing 1812 Park Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27605

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Illustrator of Lois Lane and Captain Marvel

Contents

Foreword by Ken Bald ———————————————————— Introduction ——————————————————————————— One-of-a-Kind ————————————————————————— Zella-Mehlis ——————————————————————————— Connecticut —————————————————————————— Pratt Institute —————————————————————————— The Binder Barn ———————————————————————— Dorothy ————————————————————————————— The War Years ————————————————————————— Wedding Bells ————————————————————————— ‘‘Holy Moley!’’ —————————————————————————— Ibis the Invincible Gallery —————————————————— Captain Marvel Gallery ———————————————————— Master Comics Cover Gallery ——————————————— Captain Marvel Jr. / Marvel Family Cover Gallery ——— Post-Fawcett Scramble ——————————————————— Premier Cover Gallery ——————————————————— ACG Cover Gallery —————————————————————— Play Ball! ————————————————————————————— Gridiron Greats ————————————————————————— Custom Comics Gallery ——————————————————— Front-Page Romance ———————————————————— Faces of Lois —————————————————————————— Lois Moments —————————————————————————

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CONTENTS

‘‘Hero Gets Girl! The Life and Art of Kurt Schaffenberger’’ ©2003 Mark Voger

‘‘Letters to Lois’’ ———————————————————————— Lois Lane Cover Gallery ——————————————————— Susan Kelly ——————————————————————————— Karl Schaffenberger ————————————————————— Dual Tragedies ————————————————————————— Christmas Cards ———————————————————————— Oh, Baby ————————————————————————————— Shazam! ————————————————————————————— Writing a Wrong ———————————————————————— Burning Question ——————————————————————— Kurt’s Kameos ————————————————————————— Schaffography ————————————————————————— Mystery Art ——————————————————————————— The Dark Age —————————————————————————— ‘‘Our Stuff Was Hopeful’’ ——————————————————— Ken Bald ————————————————————————————— Victor Dowd ——————————————————————————— Will Eisner ———————————————————————————— Carmine Infantino ——————————————————————— Julius Schwartz ———————————————————————— Joe Kubert ———————————————————————————— Murphy Anderson ——————————————————————— Ramona Fradon ———————————————————————— Joe Giella ———————————————————————————— Jack C. Harris ————————————————————————— Mort Walker ——————————————————————————— Dave Hunt ———————————————————————————— John Workman ————————————————————————— Mike Carlin ——————————————————————————— Howard Bender ———————————————————————— Graham Nash ————————————————————————— Alex Ross ———————————————————————————— Farewell ————————————————————————————— Epilogue ————————————————————————————— Index ——————————————————————————————— CONTENTS

ISBN 1-893905-29-2 First Printing, November 2003 Printed in Canada

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For Kathy

MY HEARTFELT THANKS to a few people without whom this book would not exist: Kurt and Dorothy Schaffenberger for inviting us into their lives, telling us their story and entrusting us with their photos, original art and comic book collection; Howard Bender, the comic book medium’s biggest booster; my publisher John Morrow; and my beautiful wife and best friend, photographer Kathy Voglesong, who has navigated countless punishing field assignments with me.

I thank the comic-book pros who provided materials, support and/or allowed me to pick their brains: Murphy Anderson; Ken Bald; Mike Carlin; Nat Champlin; Victor Dowd; Will Eisner; Ramona Fradon; Frankie Giella; Joe Giella; Victor Gorelick; Jack C. Harris; Dave Hunt; Carmine Infantino; Joe Kubert; Alex Ross; Julius Schwartz; Curt Swan; Mort Walker and John Workman.

I also thank my wonderful family; my colleagues at the Asbury Park Press and Home News Tribune; Kaye Bald; Joni Bender; Michael Benson; Steve Breen; Peggy Burns; Gary M. Carter; Mildred Champlin; Mike and Sue Frankel; Jennifer T. Go; P.C. Hamerlinck; Bill Janocha; Ron Jordan; Larry and Susan Kelly and family; Nathan Melby; Steve Muoio; Graham Nash; Karl Schaffenberger; Art Scott and Karen Plunkett-Powell; Kathryn Leigh Scott; David Siegel; Wallace Stroby; Roy Thomas; Martha Thomases; the National Cartoonists Society; Comic Book Marketplace; the Comics Buyer’s Guide; the Comic Shop News; Comics Scene; Starlog Communications; TwoMorrows Publishing; the gang at Comics Plus in Ocean, N.J. (support your local comic shop!); The Burners; and of course, the pioneers who created “Supie,” “Cap” and company. — MV

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Lois always had a big head when it came to her reporting skills, but this is ridiculous! From Lois Lane #27 (1961).

[© DC Comics ]

Introduction: The comics legend next door

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE KID MOMENTS FROM THE middle 1960s: a birthday party; a herd of children hopped up on cake, soda and M&Ms running around like maniacs; noise, noise, noise; finally, parents begin showing up to collect their offspring; my folks will be here any minute; I’m starting to crash after that sustained sugar high; I open a toy chest in the basement of this strange house; there’s a comic book on top — a great way to chill out while I’m waiting.

This is the weird thing about comic books — they are powerful memory triggers. A 40-something can look in a comic he hasn’t laid eyes on since he was 8, and it all comes flooding back. Not just the artwork on the page, but where he was, what he was doing, the weather, you name it.

I’m not the first to comment on this phenomenon. It works with comic book artists, too. John Romita once told me he can look at an old Amazing Spider-Man page of his and remember what song was playing on the radio when he drew it, perhaps 30 years earlier.

Anyway, there I am at this birthday party reading this tattered comic book while my glucose levels are scrambling to stabilize.

Wouldn’t you know it? It’s an issue of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane — #27 (1961), to be exact. In “Lois Lane’s Super-Brain!,” the plucky heroine gets a cerebral jolt from a “fantastic computer that absorbs electrical brain wave impulses from the minds of brilliant people and stores them up,” an invention of a Professor Holt, who never should have left Lois alone with that machine.

Lois became super-smart — she could identify distant constellations and cheat at roulette by calculating mathematical permutations — but there was a catch. Her hair fell out and the top of her head grew to more than double its size. When you’re trying to snare Superman as a husband, this can be a terrible disadvantage in the

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looks department.

Young, innocent and none-too-bright as I was, I got lost in the moment of Lois’s shock and despair when she first spotted her creepy new melon in the mirror. That memory got filed away along with all the other wonderful, but ultimately useless, pop culture milestones of my boyhood.

FAST FORWARD TO 1989. I’D RECENTLY REACQUIRED the comic book habit, and I was not alone. Through some superhero synchronicity, there was a renewed interest, nationwide, in this venerable medium. Tim Burton’s movie Batman triggered a comeback for the tights-clad detective. Comic shops, heretofore found only in big cities, were popping up in neighborhood shopping centers (especially here in New Jersey, where the slogan “the Garden State” threatens to be replaced by “the Strip Mall State”).

I had been writing a sporadic column about comics for the Asbury Park Press, my base of operations since 1983. I profiled a local artist, Howard Bender, who drew Superman earlier in the ’80s and was now stumping for his independent title, Mr. Fixitt. Bender shares my jones for old-school comics, particularly what we comic book geeks refer to as the “Silver Age.” * “Guess who moved into town?” Bender said one day. Kurt Schaffenberger, the guy who drew Lois Lane. What luck! A comic book legend right around the corner!

I called Kurt and set up an appointment to interview him in his home in Brick, New Jersey, where he’d moved from River Edge, also in N.J., earlier that year. My wife Kathy, a freelance photogra* The Silver Age: A whimsical era of comics triggered by the comeback of the superhero genre with Showcase #4 (1956), ending in and around the early ’70s.

INTRODUCTION

A true, bona fide, one-of-a-kind original WHAT MAKES A COMIC BOOK ARTIST GREAT? When he makes something his own.

When he does something that no one before him ever has — and no one after him ever could. Will Eisner’s The Spirit comes to mind.

Or Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four.

For Kurt Schaffenberger — a prolific, giant talent — that something was Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane.

Yes, he drew hundreds of Captain Marvel and company pages during Fawcett’s glory days. But there was something about Kurt’s decade-long run on Lois Lane that made it a true, bona fide, one-of-a-kind original.

In Kurt Schaffenberger art from Lois Lane #39 (1963), our heroine makes no attempt to mask her emotions. [ © DC Comics]

Opposite: The artist in 1941, the year he unwittingly entered the comics field.

Kurt turned DC’s simple Superman spinoff into something romantic and operatic. He humanized Lois — gave her a discernible personality. So animated is the character in Kurt-drawn stories, that she became a comic-book version of I Love Lucy (with Lois’s penchant for getting into hot water akin to Lucy’s desire to “be in the show, Ricky!”).

And Kurt, that rascal, never shied away from rendering the feminine form in all of its natural, linear beauty. Lois had one tight waist, rounded hips and pin-up perfect gams (always in heels). The artist often poked fun at his own heroine when he depicted the gamut of emotions she couldn’t mask: curiosity when on the scent of a “scoop”; jealousy when Superman paid too much attention to rival Lana Lang; anger when confronting him about said crime; elation when wrapped in the Man of Steel’s bulging arms.

But Lois aside, German-born Kurt Schaffenberger truly did it all in his half-century of drawing comics. From his beginnings drawing backgrounds for Captain Marvel stories in the early ’40s, through his rise as one of that character’s leading artists, to his resurgence as a top Superman artist from the Silver Age through the ’80s, Kurt’s distinctive style has graced thousands of comic book pages.

And Kurt holds a solitary place in comics history as the only artist to

A ONE-OF-A-KIND

draw Captain Marvel in the Fawcett days who went on to become a major Superman artist. It’s too late for another artist to knock Kurt from that lofty perch; it’s his and all his.

Besides these high-profile tenures at big-gun publishers, “Schaff” had been around, too; the artist drew superhero, adventure, weird, crime and romance comics and covers for Classics Illustrated, American Comics Group, Premier, Atlas, Archie and others, rendering his resume allencompassing — and uniquely so.

But Kurt paid dearly for it. He was a workaholic who spent much of his life hunched over that drawing table, often sequestered from his family in his own home. And his life was not without drama — a bumpy courtship, a world war, some scary career dry spells, a family tragedy and a heartbreaking decline in health.

In the end, though, it is Kurt’s art that remains. His wholesome, allAmerican, instantly recognizable style is characterized by distinctive faces, flawless anatomy, uncluttered panels, clean layouts and especially, a whimsical sense of humor.

But what shines through in any examination of Kurt’s body of work is that he is a great illustrator who just happens to have drawn some of the most memorable comic books in the history of the medium.

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The little boy with the serious expression “In preparation for my career as a cartoonist, I tended geese, herded goats and hoed potatoes.”

CENTRAL GERMANY’S SCENIC Thuringerwald — the lush Thuringian Forest — is a magnet for artists, poets, hikers and skiers. Here, on a small farm in the village of Zella-Mehlis, Kurt Paul Schaffenberger was born on December 15, 1920. His father, Ernst Schaffenberger, was likely born in 1894. His mother was born Emma Wahl in 1896. According to the artist, both parents were natives of Zella-Mehlis. The blond little boy with the serious expression was their only child.

The idea to emigrate from Germany had already struck Ernst, thanks to a powerful impetus: He took a bullet in the lung while serving in the German army during World War I. Wishing to spare his son a similar fate, Ernst departed for the United States in 1927, followed the next year by Emma and 7-

Emma and son in Germany in 1927.

Opposite: A portrait of Kurt taken in the old country when he was 4... The imprint in the lower right reads ‘‘Schuller Zella-Mehlis.’’

YOUNG KURT PAUL

Young Kurt (circled) at a 1927 family gathering in the old country: Zella-Mehlis, Germany. At back left is Emma. year-old Kurt Paul.

“I remember sailing into New York harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline,” Kurt once told John Coates. “It was very exciting for a boy from a small town, but I was more excited to be reunited with my father after a year apart.”

The Schaffenbergers first landed in Hartford, Connecticut, but soon after settled in West Hartford. Ernst was hired by the Royal Typewriter Company, where he worked as a toolmaker for more than 25 years. (Kurt held onto his father’s retirement gift: an engraved typewriter.)

“Kurt’s father wanted him to work in a machine shop. He didn’t want him to be an artist,” Kurt’s future wife, Dorothy, would later remark.

But young Kurt’s aptitude for art was becoming increasingly apparent. “I did a lot of drawing as a kid,” he once told Howard Bender. “Drew all the time. Cowboys, mostly.”

Kurt loved going to the movies (“Saturday afternoons, 10 cents”), where he thrilled to exploits of Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson. “Never even got on the back of a horse until I was grown up,” Kurt later said. “But hey, everybody wants to be a cowboy.”

Young Kurt also absorbed the newspaper funnies. His early idols in art were Harold Foster, Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. He read Ella Cinders, Tailspin Tommy, Maggie and Jiggs and Tarzan. He told Coates: “I loved the funny pages. Each week, I would read them repeatedly and try to copy the different art styles. It was great practice.”

With a zeppelin toy his father made him in 1930.

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The war years “I’ll see you when I get out,’’ Kurt remembers telling his boss, Jack Binder, before entering the Army during World War II.

“I didn’t know how long it was going to be,” Kurt later told Howard Bender. “I didn’t know if I was coming back. You know, you could get killed in a war. It’s happened.”

Kurt called World War II “a totally different war than any we’ve had since. The last wars we’ve had have not been exactly popular, but World War II, well, we had to make the world safe for democracy again and get rid of that sunuvabitch Hitler.”

Does that mean Kurt couldn’t wait to join the service?

“I could wait! Oh, I could wait!” Kurt said with mock alarm. “I was drafted.”

In June of 1942 — exactly one year to the day after leaving Pratt — Kurt was drafted into the Army.

“When I first got in there, they didn’t know what the hell to do with me,” he recalled. “I got infantry training crammed in a couple of months, and then I was assigned to a unit that was already scheduled to go overseas. They needed a couple more guys to make out their complement, and I became one of those guys.”

By September, Kurt was in a troop ship docking in Liverpool. He spent the next three years in England, initially with the First Special Service Unit, eventually attaining the rank of master sergeant.

Kurt’s unit organized entertainments, including USO shows and film programs for which Kurt drew posters. “That brought me to the attention of a Major Winter, who was organizing an art branch for the service,” he said.

Kurt told me he then joined the art branch of the Adjutant General’s Office, “mostly doing artwork, posters, layouts and whathave-you for the Army.”

He told Allan Asherman: “The most famous poster I did was of a soldier helping himself to more food than he really needed.

Superimposed over him was the spectral form of Hitler cheering him on to waste the food.”

He told a DC publicist: “You wouldn’t believe how many Class A and Class B garbage cans I lettered.”

But if this period of Kurt’s Army stint sounds “cushy,” things got much more intense after Kurt learned that the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunA Schaffenberger WWII-era poster. ner of the CIA) could

THE WAR YEARS

A WWII-era self-portrait by Kurt Schaffenberger.

utilize another of his talents.

Kurt told Bender: “Towards the end of the war, I heard through the grapevine that this outfit was looking for German-speaking Army personnel to drop behind German lines, infiltrate Germany, and bribe Germans into helping the Allies win the war. “(If) you drop a guy behind the lines, he needs money to ‘buy’ people with. I don’t recall exactly, but the average agent that we dropped had about $5,000 or $10,000 worth of British currency on them. And a good many of them we dropped, we never heard from again, because they just took the money and ran.”

Kurt told Asherman: “They wanted men to go behind enemy lines on a voluntary basis. Of course, I said no.”

Added Dorothy: “The government offered Kurt $10,000 in jewels. They wanted to drop him behind the lines in civilian clothes. He said, ‘No way. You can send me any place you want in uniform, but I’m not going without it.’ One reason was he didn’t want to do it.

Another reason was that he got a shafting in the service.” (Dorothy explained that Kurt had applied to officers’ training school, but was stonewalled when he inquired about being admitted.)

But even though Kurt didn’t go behind enemy lines, there was still quite an element of excitement, and even danger, to the desk job he took with the OSS. Kurt told Asherman: “I would sit and translate the information coming from our boys behind enemy lines. There were many agents trained for infiltration behind the German lines, but the most effective of the guys were those who spoke German as their native language.

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Wedding bells

WORLD WAR II HAD COME TO AN END, BUT the OSS wanted Kurt Schaffenberger to stay on just the same. “I wasn’t interested,” Kurt said. “I figured the war’s over — I’m gettin’ the hell out.” In September of 1945, he The big day: departed in a troop ship from Southhampton, England, and March 30, 1946 headed back to the United States.

The man who four years earlier had entered the comics industry unwittingly was now eager to re-enter the field. “Well, it was one thing I was knowledgeable in,” he told Howard Bender. “I made up samples and took ’em around.”

After working briefly for the BeckCostanza Studio founded by Captain Marvel artists C.C. Beck and Pete leave from the Navy, so that he could give her away. (At the time, Costanza, Kurt interviewed directly Dorothy’s parents William and Ethel were divorced, and Dorothy with Fawcett Publications, publishers was estranged from her father.) As it turned out, William’s leave of the Captain Marvel line, for a freewas cancelled. “He was going through the Panama Canal while I lance position. was getting married,” Dorothy said.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “the The wedding was held at St. Paul’s Chapel in Englewood. Rev. editor there for comics was Wendell Frederick E. Thalmann officiated at the 5:30 p.m. candlelight serCrowley, who had worked with us at vice. Dorothy’s matron of honor was Ione Binder, wife of prolific Jack Binder’s studio. So through him, I Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder and sister-in-law of Kurt’s old got my first assignboss Jack Binder. Ken Bald and ments when I got Jack were in the wedding party. out of the Army.

(Back then, newspapers That was Ibis (the spared no detail when reporting Invincible).” on a wedding, as this excerpt Meanwhile, Kurt attests: “The bridal dress was and Dorothy were white satin with sleight train. growing closer as a It’s front panel, an entire hem, couple. was in crewel hand embroidery “Then one day,” done by the bride’s mother. Her Dorothy recalled, fingertip veil fell in four tiers “we went for a ride from a coronet.”) up in Connecticut.

Dorothy recalled one panThere was this icky moment: “I’m sitting in the mountain that had a limousine with my mother’s drive-off where you cousin, who was giving me could stand and look away. All of a sudden, I hear at the view. We were ‘The Wedding March.’ And there and he said, ‘You know, we’ve been going we’re still sitting in the limoutogether for quite a while, and I feel that I want sine! I grab the flowers and my to settle down, and I’d like it to be with you.’ headpiece and we dashed out!”

“I told him I’d have to think about it. Because It wasn’t hard to guess why by this time, I needed time. With Kurt, first it Kurt’s pals were so bleary-eyed was yes, then it was no, then it was yes — so I during the ceremony. needed time. It wasn’t just uncertainty about “They had a bachelor party,” Kurt. My mother wasn’t working, my brother Dorothy said. “Of course, they was younger and I was supporting them on had the stripper and the whole $16.50 a week and saving 50 cents. bit. In those days, you always “So I gave it a little time, and I decided that did it the night before, which is Mr. and Mrs. Schaffenberger at their reception this was what was to be. So we got engaged.” really stupid when you think held at the American Legion Clubhouse on The couple set the date for March 30, 1946, about it. So all of his friends when Dorothy’s brother William would be on Knickerbocker Road in Englewood. were in the back, hungover.”

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WEDDING BELLS

‘‘Holy Moley!’’

From 1946 until Fawcett Publications cancelled its Captain Marvel line in 1953, Kurt Schaffenberger illustrated the exploits of Cap and company.

Right: A panel from Whiz Comics #112 (1949). Above: A detail from Kurt’s cover for Captain Marvel Jr. #80 (1949). [© DC Comics ]

THE WARMTH, THE INNOCENCE AND INDEED THE family feel of Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel line of comic books is no mystery. For one thing, Captain Marvel and his cohorts Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, Ibis the Invincible, Taia and even Marvel Bunny were reflecting the upbeat national mindset the history books have labeled “post-war optimism.” For another, the folks who created those charming comic books way back when actually enjoyed each others’ company.

“After the war, after Dot and I got married, a gang of us would get together every Saturday night,” Kurt once told me. “It would be (C.C.) Beck and his wife, Hilda; Jack and Olga Binder. We’d go bowling and then go back to different houses and socialize, play cards, what-have-you.

“That was our first year after we got married. But then, children started arriving and made it a different ballgame altogether.”

As a freelancer for Fawcett beginning in March of 1946 (the month he and Dorothy wed), Kurt landed the first-ever regular solo assignment of his career: turban-wearing, wand-brandishing, do-

‘‘HOLY MOLEY!’’

gooding magician Ibis the Invincible. (“EYE-bis!” Kurt would snap when he heard the name mispronounced.)

Kurt’s early Ibis stories appeared in the shortlived solo title Ibis the Invincible (1946-48). An early Schaffenberger cover appeared on the sixth and final Ibis issue. Kurt also drew Ibis backup features in Whiz Comics (through 1948). Then Kurt got a promotion of sorts; he was assigned to draw the lead Captain Marvel stories — and an occasional cover — for issues of Whiz Comics (from 1948 through ’53). Kurt drew stories and covers for Master Comics (1948-53), Captain Marvel Jr. (1948-51) and The Marvel Family (1947-53).

(In fact, Kurt drew the covers and lead stories for the final issues of Whiz and Marvel Family, and the cover for the final issue of Master, making him truly the last of the great Fawcett artists.)

When Fawcett put Kurt on the Captain Marvel stories in Whiz Comics, it proved a pivotal moment in his career. During this period, Kurt’s own style — what the artist once referred to as a “caricatured realism” — began to emerge. Though Kurt emulated C.C. Beck in his Captain Marvel figures, the earmarks of Kurt’s style

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temporary job lasted almost 25 years. It was a good thing, too, because I got benefits. My policy covered Kurt. He had no coverage. So that was lucky.”

The Schaffenbergers’ first child, daughter Susan, was born on September 19, 1947. Son Karl came along on February 1, 1950. Proud papa Kurt commemorated the occasions with cartoon birth announcements.

Recalled Dorothy: “Kurt was one of those husbands you hear about — when I went into the hospital to have Susan, he was in the wheelchair and I was carrying the suitcase.”

Another Dorothy zinger from that day: “The doctor came out and said, ‘You’ve got a beautiful girl.’ Kurt said, ‘A girl?’ The doctor said, ‘You’ve heard of them.’’’

Kurt knew many fellow freelance cartoonists who had horror stories of their children spilling ink on finished artwork — one downside to working at home. But the Schaffenbergers never allowed this to happen.

“We didn’t bug him,” Karl recalled.

“He was making a living, and we didn’t bug him unless we had to. If you went in the studio, you just didn’t touch stuff. I remember one time making that mistake and I got a talking-to, and never made that mistake again.”

KURT’S VERY LAST assignment for Fawcett, although he didn’t know it at the time, was illustrating a story starring the Marvel Family, Fawcett’s version of a “superteam” featuring Cap, Junior and Mary. Kurt was two pages into the Marvel Family story in June of 1953 when Wendell Crowley called with bad news: Fawcett was cancelling Captain Marvel and company.

The seeds of Captain Marvel’s demise were sewn a decade earlier, when a cease-and-desist action was filed against Fawcett by DC Comics, then known as National Periodical Publications.

National called Captain Marvel a Superman knockoff, but many in the industry saw the move as sour grapes over Captain Marvel’s healthy circulation, which may have cut into that of Superman.

Wrote Beck of the nasty episode in the fanzine Fantasy Unlimited #26 (1975): “The publisher of Action Comics in which Superman appeared did not like Captain Marvel at all.

He brought suit against Fawcett, claiming that Captain Marvel was a ‘carbon copy’ of Superman. Readers laughed. . . .

Captain Marvel was exciting, funny and pretty down to earth in nature, while Superman was stern, humorless and actually not even human, having been born on another planet. How can any judge or jury be stupid enough not to see the difference?”

Fawcett fought and fought the action. But by 1953, with the comics industry at a low ebb anyway, Fawcett gave up the ghost.

“I remember it well,” Kurt told me of that time. “I suddenly lost my income, totally! It was a scary time.’’

‘‘HOLY MOLEY!’’

Above: A detail from Kurt’s cover for Master Comics #95 (1948). Below: Kurt’s splash panel for Whiz Comics #146 (1952). [© DC Comics ]

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Whiz Comics #95 (1948)

Whiz Comics #94 (1948)

Whiz Comics #99 (1948)

Whiz Comics #99 (1948)

Whiz Comics #94 (1948)

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Unpublished Ibis art (circa late ’40s)

Ibis #5 (1946)

Whiz Comics #99 (1948)

IBIS THE INVINCIBLE GALLERY

Whiz Comics #112 (1949)

Whiz Comics #136 (1951)

Whiz Comics #112 (1949)

Whiz Comics #131 (1951)

CAPTAIN MARVEL GALLERY

Whiz Comics #151 (1952)

Whiz Comics #130 (1951)

Whiz Comics #136 (1951)

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Post-Fawcett scramble

“I was dismayed, to say the least. I would have been totally horrified had I known at the time that it would take me almost two years to re-establish myself in the art field.”

FAWCETT PUBLICATIONS FOLDED ITS CAPTAIN Marvel line in 1953, an ominous time for comics. But the following year was very nearly the nail in the coffin.

Dr. Fredric Wertham is a name that lives in infamy in the comic book world. In 1954, Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book which detailed psychological damage purported to have been inflicted on the youth of America by comic books. That same year, testimony about the negative influence of comics was given during widely reported hearings by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.

Comics became another victim of the social paranoia that pervaded 1950s America. Publishers began dropping left and right.

“We were considered like procurers if we drew comics,” Kurt told Howard Leroy Davis and Dave Sim in 1981. “Ah, but that’s all gone by the board.” (When his interviewers commented that comics are almost respectable now, Kurt remarked: “Somewhat in the same classification as pimping.”)

Kurt said of his mid’50s scramble for work: “I do know that rates went down considerably at the time and took a long time to build up again.”

During this period, Kurt recalled that he “worked for just about everyone in the field.” Publishers who hired the artist included Gleason, Gilberton, Premier, Atlas and Max C. Gaines’ EC Comics.

For Atlas (better known For ACG, Kurt created by its later moniker, Marvel the Silver Age superComics), Kurt reckoned he heroes Nemesis (above) inked “four or five” Captain and Magicman (right).

America stories for editor [© Best Syndicated Stan Lee, and contributed art Features Inc. ] to Adventure Into Mystery, Astonishing, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Mystical Tales and World of Fantasy. Kurt told John Coates: “Stan Lee never said it, but I always got the impression that his attitude toward me was like, ‘Well, Kurt, you’re a nice guy and all but it’s a shame you can’t draw.’”

Kurt told me of Gilberton, publishers of Classics Illustrated: “I only worked for them as a last resort. I couldn’t get any other work. A very poor-paying outfit. Their pay was so bad that the artists they got were usually the dregs.”

Did Kurt include himself in that category? “Well,” he laughed, “I couldn’t get any other work at the time!”

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Kurt with ACG editor Richard E. Hughes in New York in 1957.

But the undeniably beautiful result, published in 1954, was a cut above many other Classics Illustrated books. Kurt adapted Richard Harding Davis’ ‘‘Soldiers of Fortune’’ to the comics medium.

“I read the book after I knew I was doing the story,” he told me.

“The breakdowns of the book were done in the script.”

He called Premier, for whom he drew some absolutely exquisite crime and romance covers in 1955, a “small organization that I did a couple of jobs for. More or less one-shot deals.”

Kurt also took on an agent (one the artist felt became a financial albatross later on) and pitched a comic strip to the syndicates.

“That’s what I tried to sell years ago, back in the ’50s,” Kurt told Howard Bender. “It was a sports strip — high school baseball. The character it revolved around was the coach of the high school team.

I liked baseball and I thought it would be interesting. Didn’t sell.”

In 1955, Kurt finally landed steadier work. At American Comics Group, Kurt worked under Richard E. Hughes, who was to become one of his two all-time favorite editors (the other: Julius Schwartz of DC Comics).

ACG began as Creston Publishing in 1943. Five years later, ACG released Adventures Into the Unknown which became, according to The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the firstever regularly published horror comic book, preceding even Entertaining Comics’ famous titles such as Tales From the Crypt and Vault of Horror.

Among comic collectors, ACG is a publisher with a cult following. This tenacious, albeit minor, publishing house — best known for its adventure, mystery, weird and humor titles — survived the comics “witch hunt” of the ’50s and employed some notable artists during its reign: Bald, Ogden Whitney, Chic Stone, Pete Costanza, Al Williamson, John Buscema, Johnny Craig and Steve Ditko.

According to Edwin Murray in his article “ACG: The Underdog” published in the 1978 fanzine The Comic World #17, Hughes wrote most of ACG’s stories after a certain point, but used pseudonyms to make it appear as if ACG was fully staffed. Hughes elaborated on the deception by writing biographies for all of his non-de-plumes.

POST-FAWCETT SCRAMBLE

Samples from a comic strip about high school baseball which Kurt proposed to syndicates in the 1950s.

Then he had Kurt draw caricatures of the phony writers to go with their phony biographies!

“I was the top artist in Dick Hughes’ studio,” Kurt told me. “I had desk space at ACG on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’d go into the city and do my thing.”

Kurt drew many covers for such ACG titles as Forbidden Worlds, Unknown Worlds, Adventures Into the Unknown and Calling John Force: Magic Agent. By the mid ’60s, when ACG hoped to cash in

POST-FAWCETT SCRAMBLE

[© Kurt Schaffenberger]

on the superhero craze, Kurt created the super-characters Nemesis and Magicman. “I drew the originals for them,” he said, “but I never did any of the (interior) stories.”

(Years later, while Kurt was freelancing simultaneously for DC Comics and ACG, DC editor Mort Weisinger objected to Kurt’s signature appearing on the cover of ACG comic books. Kurt then used the pseudonym “Lou Wahl,” the name of his maternal grandfather.

His fans weren’t fooled.)

31

The artwork from Kurt Schaffenberger’s ‘‘tryout’’ page, which he produced in 1957 for DC editor Mort Weisinger, who was then fishing for an artist for DC’s newest comic book Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane.

The figures represent the first time Kurt ever drew Lois Lane, Clark Kent and Superman. The original is owned by rock star Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young fame.

[Characters © DC Comics ]

Front-page romance WHILE KURT SCHAFFENBERGER EKED OUT A living in other genres, superheros were making a sudden and unexpected comeback. In 1956, DC editor Julius Schwartz ignited the so-called ‘‘Silver Age’’ of comics with Showcase #4, which featured a revamped Flash in a story by Robert Kanigher and artwork by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert. Little did Kurt — who cut his teeth in the superhero genre 15 years earlier — realize at the time, he would be making a comeback, too.

Showcase, DC’s “tryout” title, was created in the hopes of dis-

FRONT-PAGE ROMANCE

covering new avenues of circulation. From issue to issue, Showcase could be about anything its revolving team of editors dreamed up — firefighters, frogmen, explorers, robots with human personalities, whatever.

If a particular idea proved Lois’ first solo flight, in Showto be a hit with readers, it case #9 (1957). [© DC Comics ] would “spin off” into its own title. Some that made the plunge: The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom, Metal Men and of course, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane.

In fact, the latter — which debuted in Showcase #9 (1957) — became the first Showcase character to win its own series.

By 1957, Kurt’s old buddy Otto Binder — undoubtedly the most prolific author of Captain Marvel stories in the Fawcett days — was writing for DC. When DC decided to spin off Lois Lane, the editing assignment naturally went to Mort Weisinger, the longtime editor on all of DC’s Superman titles: Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superboy and Adventure Comics. When Weisinger began fishing for a permanent Lois Lane artist, Binder suggested Kurt, who was then vacationing in Maine.

“At Otto’s suggestion, I called Mort Weisinger,” Kurt told Howard Bender.

“He asked me to draw up some samples. So when I got back from Maine, Mort had sent me a copy of Showcase #10, the second Lois Lane issue.”

Kurt’s tryout page — which featured his first stabs at Lois, Clark and Superman — gave only a hint at what would follow, and actually resembled the artwork of Wayne Boring, who was DC’s top Superman artist for much of the 1950s.

“At the time, I was trying to match my style to his,” Kurt told me. “But the Lois Lane that Wayne Boring did was a very Busted again in unfeminine-looking girl, so I changed it.

Kurt’s cover art Boring, for instance, only had one facial expression. I tried to make her for Superman’s more human.”

Girlfriend Lois Kurt told Allan Asherman: “At Lane #53 (1964). the time I was assigned to Lois [© DC Comics ]

43

Lane #1, the only standard for the character was Wayne Boring’s Lois. The first thing I did was redo her hair and work up a series of sketches as a guide for the other artists.”

Kurt’s first Lois story, “The Bombshell of the Boulevard,” appeared in Lois Lane #1 (1958). Kurt’s Lois Lane tenure would last 10 years.

The Lois Lane stories were very lighthearted and often romantic. Lois was indeed Superman’s girlfriend, but marriage seemed like an unrealistic hope. Plus, she was always jealous of Lana Lang, who Superman dated when he was Superboy back in his hometown of Smallville.

Whenever Lana figured in the plot, Kurt would draw Lois as the villain, with arched eyebrows and nails ready to claw. Kurt once chuckled at the observation. “Whatever the script called for,” he said with his usual air of understatement.

When I asked Kurt what it was like to work for Weisinger, the artist dispensed with diplomacy. “He was a sadist,” Kurt said matter-of-factly. “He would do anything to make you cringe. Never give you credit for anything you accomplished. He was a bastard to work for.”

He told Bill G. Wilson in 1974: “I used to upset Mort Weisinger no end when I tried to jazz things up a bit by inserting some innocuous humorous touch in the Lois Lane books. ‘This is too comicky,’ was a recurring admonition.

Too comicky for comic books?”

He told Howard Leroy Davis and Dave Sim in 1981: “It didn’t make much difference who wrote (the Lois

44

Uneasy alliance: Lois Lane #52 (1964).

Teen angst: Lois Lane #42 (1963).

[© DC Comics ]

Lane scripts), because Mort would get the script and work it over until it came out a ‘Mort Weisinger.’ Weisinger never did any writing in the sense of signing his name to a script, but he rewrote everything to fit his mold.

“In the days of Mort Weisinger, when I would get a script a couple pages at a time and had to get to work on it without knowing the ending, I’d get to the last page and find out that there was a gimmick that I’d left out of the early part, not knowing it was important to the story.

Then I’d have to go back and draw it again.”

Kurt said of Weisinger’s working relationship with Binder: “He practically drove Otto out of the comic book business.” (C.C. Beck once made the same observation.)

In any case, Weisinger apparently admired Kurt’s artwork. The editor always complimented the artist in his letters page, and once designated Kurt as his favorite Lois Lane artist.

Binder, who died in 1974, held Kurt’s Lois in similar regard.

He once told Matt Lage: “I think he made Lois Lane by making her much more human, appealing and alive.

The expressions he put on her face were really great. More importantly, he tells the story with his art. Many artists kill the story or make it dull by failing to make good transitions from panel to panel.

To keep the continuity intact, choosing how (to illustrate) each scene is vital, and Kurt always chooses right.”

Kurt was one of the few artists that DC allowed to sign his work during the ’60s. “It’s something you had to work up to,” he once told me. “I asked could I sign and they said no, and eventually it got to be yes.”

Who gave

[© DC Comics ]

FRONT-PAGE ROMANCE

‘‘Letters to Lois’’: A spanking good time for readers

SPANKING. HAIRSTYLES. Kurt recalled the whole hairy situation Fashion. The Lois/Lana/Superman love in the British fanzine BEM #34 (July 1981). triangle. These were some of the hot “Mort said we’ve got to keep it the old topics of “Letters to Lois,” the lively way, because we can’t rerun the old stories fan page found in the Silver Age clasif we change,” Kurt said. “But I guess wiser sic Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane. heads prevailed. I did a whole page of dif(Of course, there were the usual smart ferent hair-dos on Lois Lane. They had a alecks pointing out bloopers, which contest, write in which is your favorite. would trigger some inspired backpedalThey said, ‘Draw it like this one.’ I don’t ing from editor Mort Weisinger.) know if it was really the most popular or Lois’s unwavering, decidedly ’50s not. We’ve changed it a couple of times hair-do became a pressing concern. since. We have been drawing her without Wrote Mary Lee Bagley of Renton, bangs since the contest. Now Margot Wash., in Lois Lane #20 (Oct. 1960): Kidder came in the (1978) movie with “How about giving us a ‘new’ Lois bangs, so now Lois has bangs again.”

Lane now and then? I mean that we Meanwhile, some budding de Sades out should see her with different hairstyles there demanded that Superman give Lois a and keep up with the latest fashions in “super-spanking.” Weisinger did his best to her dresses and various clothing outspare his heroine’s derriere. fits.” Weisinger’s reply: “Okay. We’ll Wrote F. Twill of Falmouth, Mass., in work on Lois’s wardrobe and hair-do.” Our heroine got a new hairstyle in Superman’s Lois Lane #21 (Nov. 1960): “I love Lois, But progress was too slow for but I think she needs to be taught a lesson Girlfriend Lois Lane #72 (1967). [ © DC Comics ] Matilda Grey of Salt Lake City, who she won’t forget for a while. The next time wrote in Lois Lane #23 (Feb. 1961): “Several months ago, you Lois fouls up Superman’s plans, why doesn’t he bend her over his promised to change Lois’s hairstyle. Well, what gives? When do we knee and give her a super-spanking?” Weisinger’s reply: “Superman see her with a new hair-do?” Weisinger’s reply: “So many readers is too much of a gentleman to strike have requested a new hairstyle for Lois that we have assigned the a lady.” artist who illustrates Lois Lane, Mr. Kurt Schaffenberger, to draw up Wrote Sharon Bush of Mt. a page in which she is shown in a variety of hairstyles. When we Clemens, Mich., in Lois Lane #26 run this page, readers will be invited to vote for the hairstyle they (July 1961): “A number of readers like best. Fair enough?” have requested that Lois Lane get a Schaffenberger dutifully drew six new looks for Lois (including good spanking from Superman the “Bouffant,” the “Ruffle-Cut” and the “Pinwheel Bang”), and a because of the way she is always contest was announced in Lois Lane Annual #1 (Summer 1962). trying to pry into his private life and

By Lois Lane #38 (Jan. 1963), Weisinger reported that over guess the secret of his identity. I 6,000 contest entries were received, a number he upped to 20,000 agree. She should be treated like (!) three issues later. From Lois Lane #41 (May 1963): “The any spoiled child who raids the results of the contest were a complete surcookie jar too often.” Weisinger’s prise to the judges. The majority of our reply: “If the Man of Steel ever readers voted to keep Lois’s hairspanked Lois, she’d go right Contest announcement style exactly the way it is. through the time barrier from in Lois Lane Annual #1 However, because some of the force of the very first (1962). [ © DC Comics ] the other styles received stroke. We agree with you, thousands of votes, though, that Lois does get pretty impossible at times.” we will have Lois Betty Makohan of Pacoima, Calif., suggested a looptrying them out in hole in Lois Lane #27 (Aug. 1961): a dose of red krypfuture stories.” tonite. “That way, Lois will have received her punishTwenty-five ment, and no one can accuse Superman of not contestants being a gentleman.” Weisinger’s reply: “But won onehow could we keep using further Lois Lane year substories when we would be unable to show scriptions. her sitting down for at least two months?”

Jerry Smith of Phoenix won Don’t worry, folks, it’s only a the first prize: robot doling out punishment in an original LL this fetishy scene from Lois cover.

Lane #14 (1960).

‘‘LETTERS

TO LOIS’’

[ © DC Comics ]

49

Dual tragedies Emma and Ernst Schaffenberger in the living room of their Connecticut home in 1948, the year after they became grandparents.

DUAL TRAGEDIES STRUCK THE SCHAFFENBERGER family one fateful weekend in November of 1961.

It began with a phone call from a cousin of Kurt’s, who was concerned about his mother Emma’s condition. Would Kurt and Dorothy drive up to check out the situation? With Kurt’s father Ernst now suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, he wasn’t much help to his apparently ailing wife.

Dorothy left Susan (then 14) and Karl (then 11) with a neighbor until her mother could arrive to take care of the kids. Kurt and Dorothy then made the 95-plus-mile trek from River Edge, New Jersey, up to West Hartford, Connecticut.

When Dorothy walked into her in-laws’ kitchen, she sensed right away that Emma’s condition was grave. Kurt and Dorothy immediately summoned a doctor.

Recalled Dorothy: “So the doctor comes and he says, ‘You’re not feeling well, Mrs. Schaffenberger?’ She says, ‘I’m fine,’ which was typical for those days. He told her she should just take it easy, and he’d check on her the next day.”

After the doctor left, the two couples went into the living room.

“She would nod off and her breathing would be labored, and then she’d cry out and she’d wake up,” Dorothy recalled.

The doctor was summoned again. On Dorothy’s insistence, he reluctantly called an ambulance.

Kurt decided to follow the ambulance to the hospital in his car.

Dorothy instructed the driver to keep her husband in sight in his rear-view mirror, because the roads had changed so much since Kurt last lived in the area that he might get lost.

56

“So they get in the ambulance and they’re driving along,” Dorothy recalled, “and all of a sudden, this thing takes off. His mother died.

“His mother had always said, ‘I really don’t feel so well today.’

Well, when they did the autopsy, everything in the entire world was wrong with this woman. She’d had gall bladder attacks, her heart was bad, everything.”

Eventually, Kurt and Dorothy returned to break the sad news to Ernst.

Recalled Dorothy: “Well, when Dad heard this — I can hear him even now — he cried, ‘Emma, Emma.’ They were always going to travel. They were going to do all these things. But they never got around to it, because he got Parkinson’s Disease.

“So we said, ‘Dad, we’re going to go to bed now.’ He said, ‘No, I want to sit down here for a little while.’ So we said, ‘OK.’ Of course, neither one of us went to sleep.

“We heard him go into the kitchen, and then we heard him move, and then we heard him fall. We rushed downstairs. He’d taken cyanide.

“It’s funny when you think about it, because he went and took a shot of liquor first, and then he took the cyanide. And so Kurt lost both of them in that short period of time.’’

Detectives soon arrived to investigate the suicide of Ernst Schaffenberger.

“They asked me if I had any idea where he had the cyanide hidden,” Dorothy said. ‘‘Well, I think he figured that if it ever got that bad, that’s what he’d do. Because when we went to check in the

DUAL TRAGEDIES

(1942)

(1946) 58

(1947) CHRISTMAS CARDS

(1950) CHRISTMAS CARDS

65

You can’t keep a good superhero down WITH THE END OF THE ’60s — A decade that saw sometimes turbulent social change — came inevitable shifts in the look and tone of comic books. To give Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane a more contemporary look, Mort Weisinger began using newcomer Neal Adams (an artist Kurt admired) on the covers. Kurt’s final Lois Lane cover was #76 in 1967; the following year, after Lois Lane #81, Kurt was pulled off the book altogether. ‘‘Then they gave me Supergirl to do,’’ Kurt told me. ‘‘I was not particularly happy with drawing Supergirl, but it was an assignment. Then they brought in the Rose and Thorn. That was real garbage. ‘‘That was about the time Carmine Infantino came in as big cheese up at DC, and Mort Weisinger went out. When Carmine first took over, I was out at DC for about two years. Why, I still don’t know. I think it was because I was involved in trying to Captain Marvel organize some kind of a flies again in guild or union at DC. I art by Kurt. was the only artist, real[© DC Comics ] ly, that was involved in trying to organize a union.’’

(Infantino respectfully denies the allegation; see page 108).

Nothing came of the attempt at forming a union (‘‘that thing died’’), but it was apparent that the rights of artists and writers needed to be addressed.

As Kurt told me: ‘‘Back in those days, on the back of every check you got from DC — it was National Comics at the time, by

the way — where you endorsed the check, you had signed away all of your future rights, whether it was artwork or writing or whatever. Right on the check.’’

In the early ’70s, DC was padding out its family of Superman comic books with reprints, many of them featuring artwork by Kurt. This was happy news for readers — it increased their chances of seeing some of Kurt’s best work — but unhappy for the artists, since they received no payments for reprints. (‘‘Since then, we not only get reprint money, we get royalty money,’’ Kurt told me in 1989. ‘‘After it reaches a certain point in sales, we get royalties. The whole situation has improved tremendously since I first started in the field, or since I first even started with DC.’’) In any case, Kurt once again found himself scrambling for work — the bane of a freelancer’s existence. For whatever reason, DC Comics no longer required his services. ‘‘For those two years, I did work for Archie, American Comics, whatever I could grab hold of,’’ Kurt said.

He drew for Archie Comics for about a year around 1971. ‘‘I found doing Archie refreshingly simple compared to the exacting realism demanded by the Superman line or romance or mystery stories,’’ Kurt told John G. Pierce. ‘‘I would describe my favorite and natural style as a sort of caricatured realism. At Archie, I worked directly with Dick Goldwater or his assistant, Victor Gorelick.’’ ‘‘I remember him coming up and bringing his work in,’’ Gorelick said shortly after Kurt’s death. ‘‘Richard Goldwater was the managing editor at that time. He was working more directly with Kurt, giving him scripts and so forth.’’

How did Gorelick feel Kurt adapted to the Archie ‘‘house’’ style? ‘‘Well, it still had a little bit of an ‘adventure’-type look to it,’’ Gorelick said with a laugh. ‘‘I mean, he was a very good artist. It was a little different style.

He did draw all the characters the way they were supposed to look — the heads and so forth. But he did have a little bit more of a realistic approach, actually.’’

But Kurt’s banishment from DC didn’t last long.

He told me: ‘‘After about two years, Carmine said, ‘You’re forgiven. Come back.’ ’’ One reason may have been that around this time, ’70s Supergirl art by Kurt: ‘‘It was an assignment.’’ [© DC Comics ]

80

SHAZAM!

Writing a wrong

‘‘A GOOD MANY WRITERS CAN’T REALLY visualize what they have written, and what it’s going to look like pictorially. So they sort of say, ‘Hey, I did this,’ when they see it (the finished artwork).”

That quote, which Kurt Schaffenberger gave Dave Caruba in 1981, expresses a long-held pet peeve of Kurt’s. It’s all well and good for writers to let their imaginations run wild, but do they ever consider the poor artist who must execute, sometimes laboriously, their flights of fancy?

One afternoon in 1998, Kurt, Howard Bender and I were sitting in Kurt’s dining room pawing through his collection of vintage, tattered Fawcetts for a piece I was doing for Comic Book Marketplace #59.

As soon as Kurt came across Marvel Family #31 (1949), Bender and I knew what was coming: Kurt’s “four horsemen of the apocalypse” speech.

As Kurt told us: “The script called for me to ‘show the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding roughshod over downtrodden humanity with the Marvel Family flying to the rescue.’ Well! It took me four days to draw. That was somewhat longer than it took the writer to type it, I assure you.”

Kurt named names in a profile of Fawcett editor Rod Reed, which ran in Comics Interview #18 (1984). “When I was drawing Captain Marvel Jr.,” the artist was quoted, “and any time I would get a script by Rod Reed, I could be sure that there were at least a dozen crowd or mob scenes in each one. One day I told him I thought he was a frustrated Cecil B. DeMille, and that he threw in mob scenes whenever he ran out ideas, inspiration or both.”

Reed told John G. Pierce in the same issue: “The ‘DeMille complex’ has been a running gag between Kurt and me for some time. Often when writing to him, I sign my name as ‘Cecil.’ But gags, at base, have a grain of truth. You can picture the artist at his lonely drawing board picking up his script and saying, ‘Good grief, another scene from Ben Hur.’ One sheds a tear.

An assignment Kurt never forgot, from “In any case, his bleats didn’t fall on deaf ears. I modified my DeMille comMarvel Family #31 (1949). [© DC Comics ]

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Kurt and friends make their point to writer Rod Reed in a cartoon that appeared in Comics Interview #18 (1984). [© DC Comics]

plex. I put in lots of one-head closeups. I always put in as little description as possible — except in key scenes where it was important to have action, settings and background for the story.

“I’m sure I got over what Schaffenberger accused me of — trying to stuff too much business into a scene — pretty quickly. Kurt kidded me about my complex, but never complained to management. C.C. Beck never squawked about my scripts, either.”

Kurt expressed a related peeve — and paid writer Cary Bates a compliment — to Pierce in It’s a Fanzine #20 (1983): “You know, some people will always try to drag remote comics characters from the past into a story.

It’s always a job to try to adapt these characters of 40 years ago into the style which we use today, which is a more refined style than we had back in the ’40s. ‘‘I enjoy doing Cary Bates’ scripts. He knows what he’s doing. He can picture a comics page in his mind while he’s writing.

That makes it much easier for the artist.”

WRITING A WRONG

Burning question Who was Kurt Schaffenberger’s favorite character to draw, Captain Marvel or Lois Lane?

In a rare instance, Kurt Schaffenberger drew both of the famous characters associated with his career, Captain Marvel and Lois Lane (with Superman and himself thrown in for good measure), in The Collector #29 (1974). [© DC Comics]

HE WAS AN IMPORTANT CAPTAIN MARVEL ARTIST her own book. And I got a chance to do something more creative.” and the definitive Lois Lane artist, but which character did Kurt In 1999, he told Howard Bender: “My favorite was always Schaffenberger like best? Trouble is, the artist himself didn’t seem Captain Marvel, then Lois.” so sure.

When talking favorites with Bill G. Wilson in Asked his favorite character in 1973, he The Collector #29 (1974), Kurt flip-flopped told Martin L. Greim: ‘‘I would have to say between “Supie” and “Cap” in the same breath. that my favorite is still Lois Lane.’’ The folSaid the artist: “As for which of the two characlowing year, he told Allan Asherman: “I’m ters, Supie or Cap, that I prefer to work on, I very partial to Lois Lane. I really enjoyed have somewhat mixed emotions on that. I have working on her comics.” always felt that Cap was a better strip for me In 1981, he told Dave Caruba: “I to work on, in that it was done with humor, think I like Captain Marvel the and after all, aren’t they supposed to be best. It was a little more slapstick. comic strips? Whereas I always felt that I’ve always felt that Superman was Superman was taken much too seriously a little heavier, especially now. It is by the editors concerned. . . . I must say, so realistic. It takes you twice as long though, that the years I spent doing Lois Lane were to draw as it used to. Where on the other very gratifying to me.” hand, Captain Marvel is done tongue-inKurt later told Wilson: “Other than Lois cheek.”

Lane, one character is about the same as In 1989, when I asked Kurt his another to me. They all involve a great deal all-time favorite assignment, he of time and effort which, when broken told me: “Lois Lane. It was just a down on an hourly basis, afford me about Kurt the referee in art that accompanied a secondary character in the the same salary as a competent, or even fanzine interview (1974). [© DC Comics] Superman series, and they gave her not so competent, plumber.”

BURNING QUESTION

85

Kurt’s kameos

Like portly suspense director Alfred Hitchcock, Kurt Schaffenberger was known to toss a cameo (or should we spell that ‘‘kameo’’) of himself into his comic book panels.

Here are some panels featuring the mustachioed artist.

Above: Kurt and wife Dorothy join Ibis and Taia in Whiz Comics #87 (1947). Right: Whiz Comics #129 (1951). [© DC Comics ] Left: Kurt and Dorothy mingled with Jimmy Olsen and Perry White when they crashed the wedding of baby Lois Lane in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #42 (1963). [© DC Comics ]

From The Atom, Electricity and You! (1968).

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Kurt the reporter in Lois Lane #14 (1960).

[© DC Comics ]

KURT’S KAMEOS

A selected index of comic books illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger

A 100% complete index of Kurt Schaffenberger’s comic book work, we can say without apology or excuse, is a virtual impossibility. The following selected index, compiled by Kurt’s friend and fellow artist Howard Bender, is derived from Kurt’s own collection and recollections; Bender’s collection and research. ‘‘It’s a good start,’’ says Bender of this attempt to shed a small light on Kurt’s massive body of work.

American Comics Group ■ ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN # 129 (Dec.-Jan. 1961) Cover art # 145 (Dec.-Jan. 1963) Cover art # 146 (Feb. 1964) Cover art # 147 (Mar. 1964) Cover art # 148 (Apr.-May 1964) Cover art # 149 (June-July 1964) Cover art # 152 (Oct.-Nov. 1964) Cover art # 153 (Dec.-Jan. 1964) Cover art # 161 (Dec.-Jan. 1965) Cover art (w/Nemesis app.) # 163 (Mar. 1966) Cover art (w/Nemesis app.) # 164 (Apr.-May 1966) Cover art (w/Nemesis app.) # 168 (Oct.-Nov. 1966) Cover art # 169 (Dec.-Jan. 1967) Cover art # 172 (Apr.-May 1967) Cover art # 174 (Aug. 1967) Cover art ■ CALLING JOHN FORCE: MAGIC AGENT # 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1962) Cover art # 2 (Mar.-Apr. 1962) Cover art # 3 (May-June 1962) Cover art ■ CONFESSIONS OF THE LOVELORN # 93 (May 1958) Story art: “Superstitious Sweetheart”

■ FORBIDDEN WORLDS # 39 (Dec. 1955) Story art: “The Davy Crockett Mystery” # 50 (Jan. 1957) Cover art # 114 (Sept. 1963) Story art: “Experience in a Swamp” # 119 (May-June 1964) Cover art # 120 (July 1964) Cover art # 122 (Sept. 1964) Cover art # 123 (Oct. 1964) Cover art # 124 (Nov.-Dec. 1964) Cover art # 125 (Jan.-Feb. 1965) Cover art

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(partial; w/first Magicman); story art: ‘‘Missing: Frederick Forbes” (w/ACG editor Richard E. Hughes app.; reprint) # 135 (May-June 1966) Cover art (w/Magicman app.) # 138 (Sept. 1966) Cover art (w/Magicman app.) # 139 (Oct. 1966) Cover art # 140 (Nov.-Dec. 1966) Cover art; story art: “The Cure From Beyond” (reprint) # 141 (Jan.-Feb. 1967) Cover art # 143 (May-June 1967) Cover art # 144 (July 1967) Cover art # 145 (Aug. 1967) Cover art ■ GASP! # 1 (Mar. 1967) Cover art # 4 (Aug. 1967) Cover art

■ HERBIE # 15 (Feb. 1966) Cover art # 17 (Apr.-May 1966) Cover art # 20 (Sept. 1966) Cover art (w/Dracula app.) # 22 (Jan. 1967) Cover art # 23 (Feb. 1967) Cover art ■ MIDNIGHT MYSTERY # 4 (July 1961) Cover art # 6 (Sept. 1961) Cover art

■ UNKNOWN WORLDS # 1 (Aug. 1960) Cover art # 10 (Sept. 1961) Cover art # 28 (Dec.-Jan. 1963) Cover art (w/Kurt ‘‘kameo’’) # 29 (Feb. 1964) Cover art # 30 (Mar. 1964) Cover art # 31 (Apr.-May 1964) Cover art # 32 (June-July 1964) Cover art # 33 (Aug. 1964) Cover art # 35 (Oct.-Nov. 1964) Cover art # 36 (Dec.-Jan. 1964) Cover art # 37 (Feb. 1965) Cover art # 38 (Mar. 1965) Cover art

# 39 (Apr.-May 1965) Cover art # 40 (June-July 1965) Cover art # 41 (Aug. 1965) Cover art; story art: “If I’m Alive or Dead” # 42 (Sept. 1965) Cover art # 43 (Oct.-Nov. 1965) Cover art # 44 (Dec.-Jan. 1965) Cover art # 45 (Feb. 1966) Cover art # 46 (Mar. 1966) Cover art # 48 (Apr.-May 1966) Cover art # 49 (June-July 1966) Cover art # 50 (Sept. 1966) Cover art (w/Abraham Lincoln app.) # 51 (Oct.-Nov. 1966) Cover art # 53 (Feb. 1967) Cover art # 57 (Aug. 1967) Cover art

Apple Comics

■ MR. FIXITT # 2 (Mar. 1990) Story art (inks, partial): “The Lincoln Log!”

Archie Comics

Kurt drew for Archie Comics around 1971 for about a year; issues unknown

Atlas Comics In 1956, Kurt drew for Adventure Into Mystery, Astonishing, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Mystical Tales and World of Fantasy

Claypool Comics

■ PHANTOM OF FEAR CITY # 4 (Oct. 1993) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 5 (Nov. 1993) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 6 (Jan. 1994) Story art (inks):

“The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 7 (Feb. 1994) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 8 (July 1994) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 9 (Sept. 1994) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 10 (Nov. 1994) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox” # 11 (Feb. 1995) Story art (inks): “The Curious Casefiles of Tiberius Fox.” Note: Kurt’s final comic art

Custom Comics

Note: Custom Comics was a division of American Comics Group that produced promotional comic books for corporate clients. For clarity, we are presenting the books alphabetically using the clients’ names.

■ Al-Anon: “Jane’s Husband Drank Too Much!” (1972) Cover art; story art ■ American Character Doll Corp.: “The Story of the New Betsy McCall and Her Fabulous Fashions” (1958) Cover art; story art ■ American Character Doll Corp.: “The Story of the New Toni Doll, Her Play Wave Kit” (1958) Cover art; story art.

■ American Dental Association: “D is for Dentist” (1961) Cover art; story art ■ American Dental Association: “Dudley the Dragon” (1961) Cover art; story art

SCHAFFOGRAPHY

The Dark Age

YOU’VE HEARD OF THE ‘‘GOLDEN AGE’’ AND THE “Silver Age” of comics? A series of events in the mid ’80s triggered what more and more people are calling the “Dark Age” of comics.

It’s an apt name for a period of grim, violent and dark — literally and figuratively — comic book content.

In 1985 — the year Kurt received the Best Comic Book Cartoonist award from the National Cartoonists Society — DC released Crisis On Infinite Earths, which, depending on your viewpoint, was either an exhaustive or exhausting miniseries that aimed to streamline the DC universe for the increasingly anal-retentive comic-reading public, which adamantly demanded strict continuity.

The following year, three series debuted that forcefully heralded comics’ Dark Age: Frank Miller’s Batman redux Batman: The Dark Knight Returns; Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ superteam saga Watchmen; and John Byrne’s Superman facelift Man of Steel.

The latter — lovingly executed and, in its way, rather traditional — was unfortunately part of a series of events that brought the careers of the two KCurts, Schaffenberger and Swan, to an ignominious crawl.

One fateful day at the DC office, Kurt and his fellow longtime Superman artist Swan (who, like Kurt, was still producing a lot of work by the mid-’80s) were summoned to a meeting that Dave Hunt, an inker for both artists, will never forget.

“We’re in (then-executive editor) Dick Giordano’s office,” Hunt recalled. “It’s me, the two KCurts, Cary Bates, Julie Schwartz and maybe two or three other people. And Dick said, ‘Well, you know, you’re not doing Superman any more, all of you.’

“And, I mean, to tell Curt Swan that was really — I mean, it was stunning. It was stunning.

Dead silence in the office.

“A couple people asked about assignments.

We were all promised that work would continue, different stuff. Didn’t happen for any of us, really. It A super send-off: Swan’s cover for was really spotty after Action #583 (1986). [© DC Comics ] that.

“And then they took us up to (the restaurant) Top of the Sixes to eat. And that was it. But it was really brutal. It was stunning. You know, to me — I knew I’d survive. But to see that happen to people like Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger was just stunning. ‘‘That started a long, bumpy trail for a lot of us. We depended on the Superman stuff, and suddenly it was taken away from us.”

Kurt went home to his wife that evening and broke the news.

Recalled Dorothy: “What he said was, ‘I guess they want to give it a whole new look.’’’

THE DARK AGE

John Byrne’s artwork for Man of Steel (1986).

[© DC Comics ]

As a gesture of consolation, the old Superman team was given a send-off in print. Action Comics #583 (1986) featured a farewell story by Alan Moore edited by Schwartz, penciled by Swan and inked by Schaffenberger. The cover, by Swan and Murphy Anderson, showed a distraught Superman flying away as a group of old friends (including Lois, Jimmy, Captain Marvel and even Swan and Schwartz) wave from the roof of the Daily Planet building, calling out in unison: “Good-bye, Superman! We’ll miss you!”

Wrote DC editor E. Nelson Bridwell in that issue: “And now we come to an end — and a beginning. . . . New hands will be at work on the first and greatest of the superheroes. We’ll see a lot of changes. And yet, deep down, he’ll still be the same hero Jerry (Siegel) and Joe (Shuster) gave us in Action #1.”

Inking assignments for Kurt came in the late ’80s in the form of MASK (non-super do-gooders in high-tech vehicles, over Swan pencils) and Hero Hotline (a wacky storyline by Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStefano that appeared in Action Comics Weekly). Kurt wasn’t kidding himself that this was choice work.

“It’s a job that a very well-trained orangutan should be able to do,” he told me of that inking phase. “There’s nothing creative about it, particularly. An inker can ruin a job, but I don’t think he can improve it all that much.”

For all intents and purposes, Kurt Schaffenberger had officially entered the twilight of his career.

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The artist at his nadir: ‘‘Our stuff was hopeful’’

Above: Kurt Schaffenberger at the drawing board as usual, at the New York office of American Comics Group in 1957.

Right: Kurt pencils a panel in 1989 at his new studio in the back porch of his home in Brick, New Jersey, where he moved that year.

[Photo by Kathy Voglesong ]

1989 WAS A GREAT YEAR FOR THE COMICS BIZ. Thanks to a superhero resurgence triggered by Tim Burton’s movie Batman, the medium was alive and well. Comic book writers and artists were beginning to enjoy a new, widespread adulation — even old-timers like Kurt Schaffenberger.

That same year, Kurt and Dorothy moved out of their River Edge “starter home” (after four decades) and headed south to Brick, a sprawling New Jersey burg on the Atlantic Ocean packed with modest homes, shopping centers, waterfront properties and cookie-cutter retirement communities. Kurt, still inking Hero Hotline, considered himself semi-retired at this point. After he and Dorothy settled in Brick (setting up Kurt with a cozy studio on the back porch), they contacted two DC colleagues who lived nearby in Ocean County: artist Howard Bender and writer-editor Jack C. Harris.

Kurt was growing less and less active in the field, due in part to his health. (In recent years, the artist had suffered a heart attack, and it would not be long before he was diagnosed with diabetes). But Bender threw Kurt a little lifeline: At every invitation to a comic book show, Bender would scoop up his older friend and plop him down in front of an adoring public.

The two artists appeared at shows all over the area: Bordentown, Woodbridge, Raritan, Atlantic City, Ramapo, Philadelphia. The shows ranged from grand conventions (in Atlantic City, Kurt was on a bill with Clayton “The Lone Ranger” Moore,

‘‘OUR STUFF WAS HOPEFUL’’

Adam “Batman” West and Bob “Gilligan’s Island” Denver) to small in-store appearances. One bonus: Kurt caught up with old cronies such as Julie Schwartz, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.

Kurt seemed to enjoy himself — even as he was perplexed at the fact that people remembered him. “Absolutely stunned,” is how he put it to me once. Because Kurt always thought of comics as a disposable medium — that after he did his bit on the page, it was read, discarded and forgotten. “Something like a daily newspaper,” he said. “After the news is no longer applicable, you throw it out.”

In 1991, Kurt illustrated what became his final full-length comic book: Daughters of Time, written by Harris. That same year, while going through a stack of old original artwork with Kurt, Bender spotted Kurt’s heretofore unpublished 1957 ‘‘tryout’’ page of Lois Lane and Superman figures. Kurt played down Bender’s discovery with characteristic nonchalance, but Bender rightly sensed that he stumbled onto something historic. The art was published for the first time — 35 years after it was drawn — accompanying an article I wrote titled ‘‘DC’s Silver Age Front Line!’’ in Comics Scene Spectacular #7 (1992).

On September 30, 1992, through Bender’s efforts, Kurt’s tryout page and other originals went up for bid at Sotheby’s second-ever auction of comic book art in New York. A total of 12 of Kurt’s originals were auctioned alongside those of such artists as Jack Kirby,

Left: Kurt and Dottie ’toons from the Schaffs’ 1990 Christmas card.

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Binder studio alum Ken Bald: Lifelong chum THE ‘‘DARK SHADOWS’’ CULT REVERES HIM AS THE artist behind the syndicated strip based on the creepy exploits of 18th-century vampire Barnabas Collins. More conventional comic strip fans remember his long-running “Dr. Kildare.” And B-movie aficionados may recall his wife’s appearances in mid-’40s programmers such as “They Live in Fear,” “She’s a Soldier Too” and “I Love a Mystery” opposite the likes of Ann Miller, Otto Kruger and Hugh Beaumont. But to Kurt and Dottie Schaffenberger, they’re lifelong friends Ken and Kaye Bald.

Bald met Kurt on the Pratt Institute campus in 1938 and was a member of his wedding party. Bald married Kaye Dowd, a modelactress (and the sister of another Binder studio alum, Victor Dowd).

The semi-retired Bald still does occasional commercial storyboards.

Q: What was Kurt like when you two were college chums?

BALD: We teased each other all the time. He had a great sense of humor. He was always a lot of fun. He was an “up” sort of person. I remember traveling up to Hartford to meet his mom and dad. After Pratt, we both worked for Jack Binder’s studio out there in Englewood. In fact, both Kurt and I roomed together there. I had lived in Mount Vernon (N.Y.). The trip for that first month — I traveled from Mount Vernon to Englewood, but that was before I got a car — involved a trolley ride, a subway ride and a bus and everything else (laughs). So it used to take me two hours to get in!

And Kurt lived in Connecticut, except he roomed some place in Brooklyn when he was attending Pratt. But we both shared a room at Mrs. Bogert’s place there in Englewood. I was there when he first met his wife, Dot. Q: Of course, like Kurt and many of the artists at the Binder studio, your career was interrupted by World War II. Were you drafted?

Ken Bald in the late ’40s.

BALD: No, I joined the Marine Corps. I went in exactly one year after Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1942.

Within the year, I was overseas with the Fifth Marines, the First Marine Division. We were on Guadalcanal, we were on New Britain and Pelelu and Okinawa, and then we went to China just before I came home.

I was overseas for 25 months.

Q: What did you do after the war?

KEN BALD

BALD: After the war, we came right back and for the first couple of months, Jack Binder had tied up with Clarence Beck, C.C. Beck,

Kaye and Ken Bald today.

[Photo by Kathy Voglesong]

who was the originator of Captain Marvel. I worked for them for a while as an art director, but I wanted to get going on my own stuff, so I sort of got out of it to a certain extent. I did syndicated stuff and then advertising. Kurt stayed in the comic business. He kept working on Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel for a long time, and then I know he worked for DC doing Superman for many, many years. I have several of his originals, which are cute — his covers which I’m very happy I have. In the war years, I really didn’t see Kurt or hear much about him. As soon as we came back, we were two young married couples, so we saw a lot of each other. At any party we threw, he and Dot were always there.

Q: When was the last time you saw Kurt?

BALD: That was at his 80th birthday party that Dot threw.

He seemed fine then.

Looked the same. He was a very good-looking man. He remained so until the end, I guess, until everything just fell apart on the poor guy. But that was in December of 2000.

I’m so glad I got to see him again.

Above: Ken Bald’s ‘‘Dark Shadows’’ art.

[© Dan Curtis Productions] [© King Features]

Right: ‘‘Dr. Kildare.’’

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Artist-onetime boss Carmine Infantino: Politics, Shazam!

IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY, SAYS CARMINE Infantino. When he assumed the editorial director’s job at DC Comics, Infantino — once a leading DC artist — had his share of brouhahas. Infantino now addresses two of them: Kurt Schaffenberger’s contention that Infantino blackballed him for two years, and DC’s unsuccessful ’70s re-launch of Captain Marvel (which resulted in not a little finger-pointing).

Infantino — who made comic book history when DC editor Julius Schwartz assigned him to pencil a new Flash for the experimental title Showcase #4 (1956), the book that would ignite the Silver Age — stresses one thing repeatedly during the following conversation: his personal and professional admiration for Kurt Schaffenberger.

And there’s a revelation in store for Infantino, too.

Q: When did you first meet Kurt?

INFANTINO: The first time I met him, I was up at DC. I was still an artist at that time. I was in the production room. He came over to me — I was touching up something — and he asked if he could borrow an eraser. I said, “Sure.” And then he said, “By the way, who are you?” (Laughs) He says, “My name is Kurt Schaffenberger.” I introduced myself and we went from there.

But we weren’t that close, I must be honest with you. Because I only saw him when he came in the office. Of course, when I took over as editorial director (in 1966), Kurt was concerned. He came in one day and he said to me, “Am I going to have problems?” I said, “Not with me, you’re not.” And that’s how it went. Everything went well.

Q: How do you remember Kurt as a professional?

INFANTINO: He was a very talented guy. Never made a rumpus or a fight. He was a pro through and through. At deadlines, he was immaculate. This man never missed a deadline.

Never. That was one of the things I liked about him. Not only that, but the quality of his work. It was quality and punctuality. So this was mark of a true, true professional.

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[ Photo by Kathy Voglesong ]

Silver Age legend Carmine Infantino.

And a pure gentleman. I enjoyed working with him and knowing him all those years. You know, he did work on Captain Marvel all those years ago. And, of course, Superman. That was his mainstay. He worked on both those characters.

Q: When you took over as editorial director, you shifted things around a little. You took Kurt off Lois Lane and put him on Supergirl (in Action Comics and Adventure Comics), essentially keeping him in the Superman “family.” Is it safe to say you valued Kurt as a Superman artist?

INFANTINO: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. His stuff was wonderful. The fans loved it. There was quality to it.

There was a clean, sharp look to his work. I was a fan of his. I knew the kids were, because we got lots of nice mail when he did Supergirl.

Q: You were instrumental in DC’s revival of Captain Marvel in Shazam! during the ’70s. I know that the C.C. Beck thing didn’t quite work out. But Kurt was there, and he had such a history with the character.

Infantino’s cover art for Showcase #4 (1956), the first Silver Age Flash, and Detective Comics #327 (1964), the first ‘‘New Look’’ Batman. [ © DC Comics ]

CARMINE INFANTINO

A Joe Kubert Hawkman.

[ © DC Comics ]

WHILE KURT SCHAFFENBERGER WAS CRANKING out those Lois Lanes during the Silver Age, his books appeared on the stands alongside Joe Kubert’s Hawkman and Sgt. Rock. Kubert — who runs the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphics in Dover, New Jersey — reminisced about his fellow Silver Age artist.

Q: What can you tell us about Kurt as a professional?

KUBERT: As far as his ability was concerned, there’s no question that the quality of his work was tops. He probably had more to do with the success of Superman than most. The thing was that when the Superman character and was being published in so many different forms, so many different books, Kurt became involved and was doing a lot of that. His was always the most outstanding. Always.

Artist Joe Kubert: ‘‘Kurt was a cartoonist, one who was able to tell his story’’

kind of a business — we’re communicators. We’re storytellers. We tell our stories with pictures rather than with words, or a combination of words and pictures.

There are a lot of tremendously talented people in the business, but who perhaps focus their efforts on doing beautiful pictures and less on using those pictures to communicate.

Kurt was one of those people, as you’ve very aptly described, who was terrific in communicating. He was a cartoonist. I mean, really one who was able to tell his story and connect with his readers by making his pictures — not so much “simple,” because simple is a very tricky kind of a description.

It’s easy to put a lot of stuff into your drawing. It’s much more difficult to get down to the crux and the core of what you want to do, to simplify your work to the extent that anything extraneous is just discarded, and the important things are left. It’s a heck of a lot tougher to do that.

And Kurt was terrific at it.

Q: Did you know Kurt well?

KUBERT: The socializing that we did was — perhaps once a month, we’d get together, the cartoonists in New Jersey would meet, the members of the National Cartoonists Society. And that was where I had an opportunity to be with Kurt.

I met him originally — oh, it had to be at least 30 or 40 years ago. During that time interim, I really can’t say I knew him all that well. When we’d bump into each other at the office, or when we’d get together perhaps at comic book conventions, we’d sit and talk.

Q: As a kid, I thought Kurt Schaffenberger and Curt Swan were the same artist. I didn’t know their names; I connected their styles.

KUBERT: Well, it’s funny. I knew both KCurts, and there was a marked similarity between the two guys. They were gentlemen.

They even looked a little bit alike. They were both big guys, broad shoulders, light-skinned, light hair, almost Nordic or Norwegian. So there was very much a similar look between the two guys. Both of them were extremely talented, and they were both guys who were very, very admired in my business.

Artist Joe Kubert.

[ Photo

by Kathy Voglesong ]

Q: As a proponent of storytelling yourself, what would you say about Kurt’s storytelling?

KUBERT: Kurt was a practitioner of what this business, what comic books and cartooning and syndication, is all about, and has been forgotten, perhaps, in some cases. But we are in the

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JOE KUBERT

Artist Alex Ross: ‘‘He was the stylistic holdover from a more carefree era’’ AY GREW THE HOTTEST COMIC BOOK ARTIST TODA ger ’s Captain Marvel stories. (And up reading Kurt Schafffenber fe we’re not just talking about Schafff ’s ’70s DC stufff; we’re talking about his ’40s-’50s Fawcett stufff, too.) Alex Ross — a superstar s in the industry thanks to his painted graphic noveels Marveels Kingdom Come, Uncle Sam, Superman: Peace on Earthh an on Crime — produced the outsized volume Shazam! Power of Hope in 2000, which presented Ross’ very human, very realistic conceptionn of Captain Marvel. Ross now talks about an arrtis who helped introduce him to Captain Marvel.

Q: You read Kurt Schafffenberger ’s Captain Marv stufff when you were a kid in the ’70s. What did d h work mean to you?

ROSS: Oh, boy. Well, probably Kurt has one of o th cleanest styles ever seen in the history of com mics (laughs). Not a “rough” comics artist, for sure. H was the stylistic holdover from a simpler, morre c free, child-driven era of comics into a very aduult of comics. He was one of the few people who ma that journey unchanged. He worked on Superggirl Action and Adventurre Comics) for years, as weell Marve having the opportunity to go from Captain Ma one end of his career to Captain Marvel on thee la of his career again. He was kind of unchangedd — like the character of Captain Marvel — from tthe adolescence and maturing of comics that occuurred in the ’60s.

ent styles. He had to be the one to counter accurately both a Mac Raboy Captain Marvel Jr. and a C.C. Beck Captain Marvel.

C.C. Beck’s style wasn’t necessarily representative of what Kurt Schafffenberger ger would have done. done Kurt had ha to “ape” it. And probably his truer style would come forth in his h DC work. there aggain, you’ve got, say, Curt and Way ayne yne Boring’s influence over man thatt has to be accounted for. So e Kurt was w only able to be free he did Super S girl (laughs)? o you’re saying that Kurt’s Captain vel stufff wasn’t necessarily “true” afffenberger g .

SS: But he h was there and he was id. Like, any time they needed artork relateed to classic Captain Marvel in the years following when hey relaunched relau unched the character, they would goo to Schaf chafffenberger. Beck was kind d of in and out in that first year, I th hink, of the Shazam! comic book. He H pretty much had to be replaced d, in efffect, by Schafffe fenber enberger ’s effforts.

Q: Peoople forget how big Captain television on show and DC’s revival.

ROSS: He deeply pervaded the ’70s periood. The comics at that time IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINKp that old were still actuaally y trying y g to capture o ’40s essence of storyTHIS BOOK! telling, so it looked like it was the old material from the ’40s. Here,

Q: Often, one can spot influences in a given arrtist’s work. In yyour BELOW ORDER case, one can’t literally see Kurt or C.C. Beck in your TO Captain Marvel. But in a more philosophical sense, maybe that’s where you first fell in love with the character? Could you talk about ways — not necessarily artistic ways — in which Kurt’s work may have Illustrated bio of KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, the precrept into your subconscious?

HERO GETS GIRL!

they have Schaf afffenberger and C.C. Beck working together, and the stufff looked like it ever did. Also, they started to reprint just a ton of the old material at that time. So I was definitely exposed to old classic 1940s Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. stories. So I was very much aware of the true origins of the character.

artist who ROSS: (Laughs) Well, justtain likeMarvel anything, it’s abrought case ofa touch — he’ofs humor and whimsy to super-hero comics! amongst the first work I was seeing of Captain Marvel. Covers And I KURT’S was LIFE AND CAREER from the 1940s to his passing in such an avid Captain Marvel fan because of the Shazam!

(TV) show 2002 (with hundreds of NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS & in the ’70s. I was buying the comics as early as Ifiles), wasincludes aware recollecof the ILLUSTRATIONS from his ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 80TH BIRTHDA AY, ON A character. So Kurt’s wouldtions have by been family,among friends the and very fellowfirst artistsstories such asI cloudy Friday afternoon in December 2000, some friends of Kurt MURPHY ANDERSON, WILL EISNER, saw of Shazam! He was essentially the guy who came afterCARMINE the periSchafffenberger met he and wife Dorothy at one of his favorite INFANTINO, JOE KUBERT, ALEX ROSS and MORT od where you had C.C. Beck doing his thing on Captain Marvel, joints, the Ocean Queen Diner on Route 88 in Brick, New Jersey, WALKER! Written by MARK VOGER with a Foreand then Mac Raboy doing his thing on Captain Marvel Jr. and so word by KEN BALD. for one of his favorite treats, Belgian wafffles. fles The artist wasn’t on. When the characters would come together (in one story), they getting around too well then, and didn’t have too much to say to do theirEdition) parts. $6.95 actually would get the individual artists Like, if (128-page Digital that day. But he perused every page of Shazam! Power of Hope, up in a Captain Marvel story, Captain Marvel Jr. was going to show http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=510 Alex Ross’s then-new, large-format, painted graphic novel about he would be drawn by Mac Raboy in his figure. the superhero Kurt first drew six decades earlier. The veteran So in the case of later years of when Schafffenberger was taking artist’s two-word review of Ross’s work: “Beautiful stufff.” the place of C.C. Beck to some degree, he had to mix all the difffereminent Lois Lane artist and important early Cap-

Kur t Schaffenber ger on Alex Ross

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ALEX ROSS