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b yJ J N W WE by OOHHN ELLLLSS
Dedication Dedicated to the memory of my parents Don and Darlene Wells, who believed in me then, and to my friends Sharon Hemm and Mike Tiefenbacher, who believe in me now. Writer: Editor: Logo Design: Layout Design: Cover Design: Proofreader Publisher:
John Wells Keith Dallas Bill Walko David Greenawalt Jon B. Cooke Rob Smentek John Morrow
TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com • 919-449-0344 email: store@twomorrows.com Second Printing • January 2015 • Printed in China ISBN 978-1-60549-045-8 American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-64 is © 2015 TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. All rights reserved under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical. Photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. All reproductions in this historical overview of comic books are copyright by the respective copyright holders, and are used here strictly for historical purposes. Attempts have been made to properly attribute copyrights for use in this book; if you are a valid copyright-holder and have not been properly credited, please contact TwoMorrows so that this can be corrected in any future printings. The viewpoints expressed in the text are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TwoMorrows Publishing. Mutt and Jeff TM and © AEdita S. de Beaumont. The Beatles TM and © Apple Corps Ltd. Archie, Betty, The Black Hood, Fly-Girl, The Jaguar, Josie, Little Archie, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats, Veronica TM and © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. Family Circus TM and © Bil Keane, Inc. Bullwinkle TM and © Bullwinkle Studios. Beverly Hillbillies TM and © CBS Broadcasting Inc. Casper, Hot Stuff, Stumbo, Richie Rich, Wendy TM and © Classic Media, LLC. The Shadow TM and © Condé Nast. James Bond, Doctor No TM and © Danjaq LLC and United Artists Corporation. Adam Strange, Aqualad, Aquaman, The Atom, The Atomic Knights, Bat-Girl, Batman, Batwoman, Bizarro, Blackhawk, Blue Beetle, Bonnie Taylor, Captain Atom, Dr. Fate, Doll Man, The Doom Patrol, Eclipso, The Elongated Man, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, The Haunted Tank, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, Hourman, Johnny Cloud, Johnny DC, Johnny Thunder, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Kid Flash, King Faraday, Legion of Super-Heroes, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Mad, Martian Manhunter, Mera, Metal Men, Metamorpho, Plastic Man, Rip Hunter, Robin, Scribbly, Sea Devils, Sgt. Rock, Solomon Grundy, Space Ranger, Spy Vs. Spy, Strange Sports Stories, Sugar and Spike, Superboy, Super-Chief, Supergirl, Superman, Tomahawk, Tommy Tomorrow, The War That Time Forgot, Wonder Girl, Wonder Woman, Yankee Doodle, Zatanna TM and © DC Comics. Cracked TM and © Demand Media, Inc. Buck Rogers TM and © The Dille Family Trust. Beagle Boys, Donald Duck, Ludwig Von Drake, Mad Madam Mim, Mickey Mouse, 101 Dalmations, The Phantom Blot, Uncle Scrooge, Wart and the Wizard is TM and © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Tarzan, Korak is TM ≠and © ERB, Inc. Cave Kids, Fred Flintstone, Huckleberry Hound, Magilla Gorilla, Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Yogi Bear TM and © Hanna-Barbera. G.I. Joe TM and © Hasbro. The Fly TM © Joe Simon. Thirteen (Going On Eighteen) TM and © The John Stanley Estate. Blondie, Buz Sawyer, Dagwood, The Phantom, Popeye TM and © King Features Syndicate, Inc. Ant-Man, The Avengers, The Black Widow, Captain America, Daredevil, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, Dormammu, Fantastic Four, Fin Fang Foom, Giant-Man, Groot, the Howling Commandos, Hawkeye, The Hulk, The Human Torch, Iron Man, J. Jonah Jameson, Linda Carter, Magneto, The Mandarin, Millie the Model, Patsy Walker, Rawhide Kid, The Scarlet Witch, Sgt. Fury, Spider-Man, The Sub-Mariner, The Thing, Thor, The Wasp, Willie Lumpkin, Wonder Man, The X-Men TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Miss Peach TM and © Mell Lazarus. Creepy TM and © New Comic Company. Three Stooges TM and © Norman Maurer Productions, Inc. Pogo TM and © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. Peanuts is TM and © Peanuts Worldwide LLC. The Aliens, Doctor Solar, Freedom Agent, Little Monsters, Magnus Robot Fighter, Mighty Samson, Space Family Robinson, Turok TM and © Random House, Inc. Herbie Popnecker TM and © Roger Broughton. Alter Ego TM and © Roy & Dann Thomas. Sad Sack TM and © Sad Sack, Inc. Bugs Bunny, Gay Purr-Ee TM and © Warner Bros. The Spirit TM and © Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Zorro TM and © Zorro Productions, Inc. Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories TM © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Zorro TM and © Zorro Productions, Inc. Gay Purr-Ee TM and © Warner Bros. Adventures of Jerry Lewis, Ben Casey, Back Cat, Bonanza, Clyde Crashcup, Combat, Dobie Gillis, Drag Cartoons, Fightin’ Five, The First Family, Gabby Gob, Ghost Stories, G.I. Juniors, Goodman Beaver, Gunmaster, Kid Montana, Konga, Leave It To Beaver, Midnight Mystery, The Outer Limits, Sick, Tales from the Tomb, Teenage Hotrodders, Three Nurses, Toka, Treasure Chest, Unknown Worlds, Yak Yak, Young Doctors TM and © respective copyright holders.
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Table of Contents Introductory Note about the Chronological Structure of American Comic Book Chroncles......... 4 Note on Comic Book Sales and Circulation Data......................................................... 5 Introduction & Acknowlegments................................. 6 Chapter One: 1960 Pride and Prejudice. .................................................................. 8 Chapter Two: 1961 The Shape of Things to Come................................................... 40
Chapter Three: 1962 Gains and Losses...................................................................... 74
Chapter Four: 1963 Triumph and Tragedy. ..........................................................114 Chapter Five: 1964 Don’t Get Comfortable. .........................................................160 Works Cited.......................................................................214 Index...................................................................................220
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1960
Pride and Prejudice
In 1960, comics were unavoidable. Outside of snobby holdouts like the New York Times, every newspaper worth its salt had a healthy representation of what parents liked to call “the funnies.” A handful of recent comic strips like Pogo, Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, and Marmaduke were even showing up in paperback collections on book racks. Kids magazines might feature a comics story at any time and Boy’s Life had maintained a clutch of recurring features like “Scouts In Action” and Dik Browne’s Tracy Twins. Older readers might gravitate to the automotive-themed CARtoons or the subversive black-and-white comics magazines like Mad and its recent rival Cracked.
Will Eisner, the innovative genius who produced the weekly Spirit comic book section for newspapers between 1940 and 1952, now headed up the American Visuals Corporation. Built around the fact that comics were a powerful educational and commercial tool, the company counted the United States Army as its best-known client. In the pages of a monthly magazine titled PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly, Eisner was charged with conveying technical information to soldiers about the upkeep of their weaponry, vehicles, et al. Even some members of the clergy seemed to give the form its conditional blessing. David C. Cook’s Sunday Pix featured a serialized adaptation of the Bible amidst other recurring features in a weekly Sunday School pamphlet while the biweekly Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact comic book was distributed at Catholic parochial schools. Evangelist Oral Roberts’ organization was producing a subscription-only monthly comic book of their own titled Junior Partners. And certainly, the traditional four-color comic book was readily available at every newsstand, grocer, drugstore, and candy shop. Many California-based fans—among them writer/historian Mark Evanier—speak of buying their comics at liquor stores. However much those might have sounded like dens of iniquity, the 1960 model was actually more of a small convenience store. The price was certainly right. The typical 32-page color comic book still retailed for 10-cents, the same price that an issue had been in the 1930s. Significantly, though, those bygone comics had generally boasted 64 pages. Two decades of inflation had necessitated that most magazines raise prices but comics had held firm, cutting back the page count to hold the line at a dime. By 1960, most comics carried around 25 pages of actual story content with the rest given over to advertising. Dell Comics was a notable exception in mostly eschewing advertising, but the pricetags on their covers had ominously read “Still 10-cents” since 1958 (following regional test-marketing of a 15-cent price-point).
CHAPTER ONE ACBC1960-64 2015.indd 8
As ubiquitous as comics were, there was a line of demarcation between two of the primary formats, one even made by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham in his notorious 1954 tome Seduction of the Innocent. For a quarter-century, color comic books had been looked upon as the ugly stepchild of newspaper comic strips—at best, a simple-minded counter8
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his own comic strip. Throughout the 1950s, he’d managed to sell two strips— My Friend Irma (with artists Jack Seidel and Dan DeCarlo) and Mrs. Lyon’s Cubs (with the late Joe Maneely)—but both ended quickly. On December 7, 1959, Lee and DeCarlo launched a humor strip starring young mailman Willie Lumpkin in the hope that the third time would be the charm.
part; at worst, an active threat to a child’s mental development. Ah, but it was adults who bought the newspapers that carried comic strips and, regardless of the content of an individual feature, the daily funnies had a built-in level of respect which their lowly sibling could never aspire. Comic book artist Carmine Infantino had experienced that first hand when he joined the comic strip-centric National Cartoonists Society: “Even there, the newspaper strip artists commanded the most respect. I think the advertising cartoonists and comic book artists were only allowed in because the club needed the dues money. Especially during and after the Congressional hearings, we were actually ashamed to tell people what we did for a living. Joe Orlando used to tell people he drew children’s books.” (Infantino 44-45) Ask any comic book artist of the era and chances are that they’d tried to sell at least one comic strip concept into syndication. A successful strip and placement in key metropolitan newspapers could mean a small fortune in profits, far more than any of them were eking out in comic books. To cite one example, 1940s/1950s comic book artist Irwin Hasen had successfully transitioned into newspapers with his Dondi strip in 1955.
Many artists— Although signed by Charles Schulz, the Peanuts among them Faw- comic book was produced by Dale Hale. Peanuts is TM cett Comics’ Marc and © Peanuts Worldwide LLC. Swayze, E.C.’s Johnny Craig, and Green Lantern creator Mart Nodell—had long since opted to abandon comics in any traditional form for a more lucrative career in advertising. On the other hand, when artist Pete Morisi became a New York police officer in 1956, he maintained his comic book work as a secondary source of income. Aware that the NYPD would frown on moonlighting, Morisi opted to use only his initials (first PM and later PAM) if he signed his stories at all.
There was no guarantee, of course, particularly for the adventure and science fiction comic strips that were giving way to an up and coming breed of contemporary humor strips like Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey, Johnny Hart’s B.C. or Mell Lazarus’ Miss Peach. Murphy Anderson spent 11 months on the struggling Buck Rogers comic strip in 1958 and 1959 before deciding that the headaches weren’t worth the money. Meanwhile, artist Jack Kirby found himself in a legal nightmare over royalties on the Sky Masters strip he’d created with writers Dick and Dave Wood that obligated him to take better-paying jobs from comic book publishers Archie and Marvel while he continued to draw the strip.
The comic book industry was becoming, if not an old-man’s game, at least a middle-aged man’s one. [Women, notably DC Comics’ Aquaman artist Ramona Fradon and Dell Comics President Helen Meyer, were rare exceptions.] With only ten active color comic book publishers in the eastern U.S., there was a finite amount of work to go around and it went to people already within the industry. Even Murphy Anderson’s year-long absence on Buck Rogers put him
Even Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics company man who’d hired Kirby back, wanted nothing more than to create
Original Sunday page for August 21, 1960. Courtesy Heritage Auctions. Willie Lumpkin TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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1960 TIMELINE A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events. February 29: The Family Circus, by Bil Keane, debuts as a daily newspaper cartoon with a distinctive circular format.
January 22: Aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste, Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy lieutenant Don Walsh set a world record when they descend 10, 911 meters (35,797 feet) into the Mariana Trench, the lowest point on Earth. The event is referenced later in the year in Superman #139.
JANUARY
March 6: The United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War begins to escalate with the announcement that another 3,500 troops will be deployed to the region.
FEBRUARY
April 1: The final episode of the LucyDesi Comedy Hour airs on CBS, bringing an end to the groundbreaking comedy that began in 1951 as I Love Lucy. A month earlier, star Lucille Ball had filed for divorce from Desi Arnaz.
MARCH
April 22: Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould receives the Reuben Award for 1959’s cartoonist of the year at the National Cartoonists Society 14th annual ceremony in New York City. Other winners include Wally Wood (comic book category, Mad), Dik Browne (newspaper strips, Hi and Lois), and Jimmy Hatlo (newspaper panels, They’ll Do It Every Time).
APRIL
February 18: The Winter Olympic Games begin in California’s Squaw Valley Ski Resort, the first time the sporting event has taken place in North America since 1932. Airing on CBS, the Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies are produced by Walt Disney.
February 1: A quartet of black students stage a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The incident inspires further peaceful demonstrations elsewhere in the Southern United States.
March 28: Writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby revive the Rawhide Kid comic book with #17, recreating the character’s look and background. It’s the first time that the collaborators will work together on an ongoing character.
Superman, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Hawkman, and Aquaman TM and © DC Comics. Family Circus TM and © Bil Keane, Inc. Rawhide Kid TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
at risk when he tried to return to National Comics (better known as DC) and found every assignment filled. “For nearly two or three months,” he recalled, “I was nearly workless” (Anderson 60).
May 24: Following a successful tryout in the Showcase comic book, DC’s Green Lantern #1 goes on sale.
May 11: Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, now using an alias and working as a foreman at a Mercedes-Benz facility in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is captured by agents of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet.
M AY
JUNE
May 1: An American Lockheed U-2 spy plane is shot down by the Soviets, leading to the capture of its pilot (and CIA operative) Francis Gary Powers. A summit meeting in Paris later in May collapses in part over President Eisenhower’s refusal to apologize for the incident. In August, Powers is convicted of espionage against the Soviet Union and sentenced to a prison near Moscow.
June 23: DC’s Superman Annual reprint collection inaugurates a long-running string of 80-Page giants.
June 16: Psycho, an Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation of Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, makes its theatrical premiere. An artfully staged sequence in which actor Anthony Perkins’ character Norman Bates stabs Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane becomes the best-remembered part of the movie, which will become the top-grossing picture of the year.
EC Comics line of titles aimed at a more adult audience. Serendipitously, publisher William M. Gaines had assented to editor Harvey Kurtzman’s desire to convert their 10cent satire/parody comic Mad to a 25-cent black and white magazine format in 1955, a move that instantly bought the title more respect and success (and incidentally freed it from Comics Code scrutiny). A grinning, big-eared mascot named Alfred E. Neuman (his credo: “What? Me Worry?”) quickly became the public face of the magazine on its covers.
If things were tough for established creators, they were impossible for newcomers. Fresh out of college, Neal Adams arrived at DC’s offices in 1959 with sample pages of a war story and their Adam Strange feature and high hopes of a place in the company. As he tells it, things didn’t play out as he expected:
Following Kurtzman’s 1956 departure, Al Feldstein became the magazine’s new editor, and the next few years saw regular material by cartoonists Don Martin and Dave Berg, along with work by writers Gary Belkin, Frank Jacobs, Al Jaffee, Tom Koch, Paul Krassner, Sy Reit and artists Bob Clarke, Mort Drucker, Joe Orlando, Wally Wood, and George Woodbridge.
“I couldn’t get past the front door. They sent a nice man out named Bill Perry, and it was as if my old school had given him a tape recording of what to say, ‘You’re wasting your time, you’re a very talented young man, you should do something else, blah, blah, blah…’ He wasn’t even allowed to take the samples in to the editors. Then, strangely, he quietly apologized.” (Schumer 20)
By 1960, Mad was the best-selling comic book in the United States, with its yearly average of 1,048,550 per issue even slightly surpassing Dell’s four-color Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories as well as DC’s Superman (Miller).
It’s a Mad World Only five years had passed since the content of comic books had come under scrutiny by a Senate subcommittee. The establishment of a Comics Code Authority—whose standards expressly banished most of the grisly excesses of all crime and horror comics—also nearly wiped out the entire
The magazine’s anti-establishment attitude and skewering of everything from TV shows to politics had made it a household name. Fred Astaire donned an Alfred E. Neuman costume for a dance number on November 4, 10
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July 11: “Alley Oop,” a novelty song by the Hollywood Argyles inspired by the V.T. Hamlin comic strip about a time-traveling caveman, is the number one song on the Billboard Top 100 chart. The tune, originally performed by Dallas Frazier in 1957, is also covered by both the Dyno-Sores and Dante & the Evergreens during 1960.
J U LY
NOVEMBER 8: John F. Kennedy is elected President of the United States in a narrow victory over Richard Nixon. The 43-year-old Kennedy is the youngest man ever to be elected to the office and the second youngest (after Theodore Roosevelt) to serve there.
August 25: Justice League of America #1 arrives at newsstands and becomes the first successful superhero team comic book since All Star Comics dropped the Justice Society and became All Star Western in 1951.
July 11: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s classic story of race relations in the 1930s American South, is published. It is subsequently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 1960’s best American novel.
August 1: The Beatles (consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe, and Pete Best) first perform in Hamburg, Germany.
AUGUST July 25-28: Sitting Vice-President Richard M. Nixon is nominated for President at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Henry Cabot Lodge is tapped to run as Nixon’s Vice-President.
July 13: At the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for President of the United States. In his acceptance speech, he talks of the challenges of the “new frontier” that are ahead for all Americans.
September 5: At the Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, the gold medal in lightheavyweight boxing is awarded to Cassius Clay of the United States.
1959 TV special and Tony Randall reenacted several of Mad cartoonist Don Martin’s gags for NBC’s Four For Tonight broadcast on February 24, 1960. Superstar comedian Sid Caesar (Your Show of Shows) had even written four pieces for Mad, culminating with “The Jackie Talented Story” in #55 (June 1960), and penned the introduction to 1960’s hardback Golden Trashery of Mad. Gaines was more than capable of generating press coverage on his own, as in September of 1960 when he gathered many of his staffers for an impromptu trip to Haiti—where he’d discovered that Mad had exactly one subscriber. Arriving at his door, Gaines and company begged him to re-subscribe (Jacobs, 250-251). Mad had also found a valuable means of keeping the best of its earlier comics in print by reformatting them for paperback collections. “The Organization Mad” and “Like, Mad” became the eighth and ninth additions to the
DECEMBER 10: Disney’s live-action Swiss Family Robinson (starring John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, James MacArthur, and Tommy Kirk) premieres and eventually becomes the secondhighest-grossing film of 1960.
September 25: John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appear in the first live televised Presidential debate. Not yet cognizant of how his physical appearance would translate on film, Nixon refuses to wear make-up and seems sickly and ill-at-ease to many TV viewers, even as radio listeners believe the Vice-President has won the debate. OCTOBER 13: For the first time, a home run determines the winner of baseball’s World Series. Thanks to Bill Mazeroski, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeat the New York Yankees 10-9.
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER October 3: The Andy Griffith Show premieres on CBS, quickly making stars of its title character as Mayberry sheriff Andy Taylor, Don Knotts as bumbling deputy Barney Fife, and Ronnie Howard as Andy’s son Opie.
September 19: “The Twist,” the Chubby Checker song that also inspired a dance craze, is the number one song on the Billboard Top 100 chart.
September 14: OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is formed by the nations of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Bugs Bunny TM and © Warner Bros. Fred Flintstone TM and © Hanna-Barbera.
DECEMBER 5: In its Boynton v. Virginia ruling, the Supreme Court declares any segregation on public transportation in the United States to be illegal.
October 2: The Bugs Bunny Show, a compilation of Warner Bros. theatrical short cartoons, begins on ABC as a weekly primetime series.
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER 10: In the Brave and the Bold #34, writer Gardner Fox and artist Joe Kubert reintroduce Hawkman, the third 1940s hero to be modernized.
DECEMBER NOVEMBER 26: Disney launches the first of its annual Christmas newspaper comic strips, short stories that conclude each December 24. The initial tale (“Peter Pan’s Christmas Story”) is written by Frank Reilly and drawn by Manuel Gonzales. NOVEMBER 24: Long-standing DC back-up character Aquaman becomes a leading man for the first time in Showcase #30, the first of a four-issue run.
September 30: The Flintstones, a prime-time animated cartoon from Hanna-Barbera, debuts on ABC. The series overlays the personalities of the cast of Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners characters with those of two families living during the Stone Age.
series in 1960. That same year, Alfred E. Neuman costumes were available for the first time at Halloween. While the latest pocket books were reprinting material from 1956 and 1957, the magazine was up to the minute. TV series 77 Sunset Strip (starring teen heartthrob Edd “Kookie” Byrnes), The Rifleman, and Lassie came in for mockery in Mad #52, #53, and #59 respectively, as did folk music (#52), beatniks (#53, #57), monster movies (#53), violence on TV (#58), and the Summer Olympics in Rome (#56). Elizabeth Taylor’s fourth marriage—this time to Eddie Fisher— earned her a personalized comic valentine in a feature in issue #53, also featuring Cuba’s Fidel Castro, F.B.I. chief J. Edgar Hoover, and labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev appeared on the back cover in a Kelly Freas-painted Kodak film ad parody that showed the pictures of top secret facilities he’d snapped during his 1959 visit to the United States.
The ubiquitous advertisements being churned out for print and television were fertile territory for the Mad men, and ad parodies were a staple of the magazine, both on Freas’ color back covers and the black and white interiors. Issue #54’s “My Fair Ad-Man” (written by Nick Meglin and drawn by Mort Drucker) not only tackled the advertising geniuses of Madison Avenue but presented the story in song (all based on tunes from Broadway play “My Fair Lady”). It was the first musical parody in Mad’s history. Another musical sequence (“Mad Comic Opera”) appeared in #56, featuring scores of comic strip characters—including Dick Tracy, Tarzan, Dagwood Bumstead, and a voluptuous adult Little Orphan Annie —realistically rendered by Wally Wood. Alfred E. Neuman entered the 1960 U.S. Presidential campaign in issue #55, where a (real) ad offered a kit (including a button, poster, hat, et al.) for one dollar to support his candidacy. Elsewhere in the issue, a magazine
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1961
Shape of Things To Come The
In 1961, now moving an average of 1,209,918 copies per issue, Mad broke the previous year¹s virtual tie with Uncle Scrooge to become the best-selling comic book in the United States and never looked back (Miller). Much like baseball player Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record the same year, it was an achievement that would be acknowledged only grudgingly. The Babe, critics argued, had made his record in a 154 game season. Maris did it in a 162 game season. Likewise, some would say, a real comic book was in color and packaged in a rectangular format. Mad, on the other hand, was a black and white magazine. No matter. William Gaines’ team continued to skewer television, politics, advertising, and more, laughing all the way to the bank as they fiddled with the issue-to-issue features. Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side,” a series tackling a different subject each issue, began in Mad #66 (October 1961) while a pantomime feature dubbed “Spy Vs. Spy” debuted in #60 (January 1961). Focusing on a pair of beak-nosed spies, one dressed in black and the other in white, the feature had a distinctive look and, as the first installment revealed, a creator who’d endured considerable peril before drawing them.
Antonio Prohías had gained equal parts fame and infamy in his native Cuba for his anti-Castro cartoons. Fleeing the country on May 1, 1960, the cartoonist eventually made his way to New York City. On July 12, 1960, he showed up at the Mad offices. Observing that anyone who didn’t support Fidel Castro was automatically classified by the Cuban leader as a conspirator, the cartoonist had begun to play with the whole spy concept. Speaking to a Miami Herald reporter in 1983, by which point “Spy Vs. Spy” had been running in Mad for more than two decades, Prohías declared that “the sweetest revenge has been turning Fidel’s accusation of me as a spy into a money-making venture” (Prohías, 14). The world was becoming a scary place in 1961. On multiple fronts, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was heating up. Russia had won the race to put the first man in outer space. Communist-controlled East Germany began erecting the Berlin Wall to prevent further defections to the west. In October, the Soviets created the largest explosion in recorded history when they detonated a 58-megaton hydrogen bomb. And the ongoing war between North Vietnam’s communist forces and South Vietnam was a dark cloud on the horizon.
CHAPTER TWO ACBC1960-64 2015.indd 40
Closer to home, a C.I.A.-sponsored attempt at removing Castro backfired in spectacular fashion. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion not only helped the Cuban leader silence insurgents but pushed the country directly into an alliance with the Soviet Union. 40
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Within the continental U.S., the struggle of black Americans to turn back the entrenched racism of much of the southern states had turned violent. In the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that banned the segregation of blacks and whites on interstate buses, groups of black men and women dubbed Freedom Riders organized a series of bus trips to defiant states like Alabama and Mississippi. Inevitably, the activists met opposition from forces that included the hooded white supremacists known as the Ku Klux Klan, who firebombed one bus and attacked other riders with baseball bats and chains. Certainly, the news wasn’t all bad for the United States. President Kennedy’s ambitious Peace Corps initiative was conceived as a means of improving America’s image on the world stage. The program would send volunteers throughout the world to help beleaguered communities and hopefully cultivate a better understanding between cultures in the process. And if Russia had put the first man in outer space, the U.S. could at least boast having the second and third men to do so. Moreover, President Kennedy vowed that the United States would put the first man on the moon by the end of the decade.
Original art for Antonio Prohias’ first Spy Vs. Spy page. Courtesy Heritage Auctions. Spy Vs. Spy TM and © DC Comics.
For all that, most Americans went on with their day-to-day lives, preferring not to dwell on things that didn’t affect them or which they couldn’t change. From the perspective of new Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow, too many people were already taking refuge from such issues by flopping down in front of the TV. In a speech on May 9, he delivered a sharp rebuke to the commercial television industry that he characterized as overrun with mindless, often violent content: “When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspa-
pers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland” (Chase 360).
A month later, James V. Bennett, director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, added his voice to the crusade for programming in the public interest. Much as comic books had been targeted a decade earlier, violent television shows were now blamed by Bennett for an upswing in juvenile delinquency. In the short term, the rest of the year saw a surge in political documentaries on TV and, thanks to nervous producers, “the 1961-1962 season got under way with the largest number of one-year contracts in TV history.” (Chase, 360) In the midst of the debate, Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly was commissioned by the govern-
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1961 TIMELINE
April 17-19: A Cuban invasion primarily launched from southern Cuba’s Bay of Pigs and meant to oust Fidel Castro ends with the defeat of rebels trained by the C.I.A. and supported by President Kennedy. In the aftermath, hundreds of people who acted against the government–both Cuban and American–are executed and Castro moves towards an alliance with the Soviet Union. May 4: Challenging segregation in the American south, Civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders begin a series of interstate bus expeditions.
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events.
January 3: The United States severs diplomatic ties with Cuba, the latest in the U.S.’s responses to the small country’s nationalization of American businesses within its borders.
February 23: Batman #139 features the debut of Robin’s teen counterpart Bat-Girl while Justice League of America #4 belatedly adds Green Arrow to the series.
April 21: The commemoration of the centennial of the United States’ Civil War begins with a series of reenactments throughout the country, scenarios reflected in comic books such as Life With Archie #10 and Superboy #91 as well as a few short-lived newspaper strips like Jack Davis’ Beauregard (which began April 3).
January 20: John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States.
JANUARY
January 25: One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Disney’s animated adaptation of Dodie Smith’s 1956 children’s book, arrives in theaters and eventually becomes 1961’s top-grossing picture.
FEBRUARY
MARCH
February 12: Motown Records celebrates its first millionselling single, the Miracles’ 1960 hit “Shop Around.”
March 1: President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps, whose volunteers would travel abroad to assist disadvantaged communities and promote cultural understanding between themselves and those they helped.
May 5: During the Freedom 7 mission, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the second man in outer space and the first American. His colleague Gus Grissom becomes the third man in space on July 21. May 8: Apartment 3-G, an Alex Kotzky-illustrated comic strip centering on three young women, makes it debut and becomes the third successful newspaper “soap opera” created by psychiatrist Nicholas P. Dallis (following his earlier Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker). May 25: President Kennedy announces his intent that the United States put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
APRIL
M AY
April 12: After his spacecraft completes an orbit of Earth, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is recognized as the first human being to travel to outer space.
April 25: Illustrator Ronald Searle accepts the Reuben Award for 1960’s cartoonist of the year during the National Cartoonists Society’s annual gala. Other winners include Bob Oksner (comic book category, Adventures of Jerry Lewis), Dik Browne (humor newspaper strips, Hi and Lois), Leonard Starr (story newspaper strips, On Stage), and George Lichty (newspaper panels, Grin and Bear It).
March 11: At the American International Toy Fair, Ken is introduced as the boyfriend for Mattel’s two-year-old Barbie doll.
JUNE
June 16: During a European tour, renowned Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects to France.
February 5: Animation sensation Yogi Bear is the star of a new comic strip overseen by Gene Hazelton. The Atom, Bat-Girl, the Flash, Green Arrow, Justice League of America, Supergirl, Superman TM and © DC Comics. 101 Dalmations TM and © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Yogi Bear TM and © Hanna-Barbera. Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
ment’s Children’s Bureau to produce the Pogo Primer For Parents (TV Division), a 24-page pamphlet essentially advocating that parents pay attention to what their children were watching and not use television as a babysitter.
been replaced by the young husband next door, complete with a pretty wife and adorable daughter. The youth of John, Jacqueline, and Caroline Kennedy made the First Family accessible to the American public in a way that hadn’t existed before. Three-yearold Caroline was a weapon that no one could withstand, whether a reporter in the White House press corps or Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Newspapers feared television less for its content than for being a direct competitor. Recalling the October 1961 launch of the Flintstones comic strip, animator and cartoonist Gene Hazelton noted that “editors were hesitant to run a Flintstones comic strip. They [the characters] were from television; TV was hurting newspapers and they were worried about competition.” Despite those qualms, Hazelton continued, “the strip really took off” and was even “voted one of the top five comic strips in the country” at one point (Province, 87). The line between entertainment and politics had begun to blur during the 1960 Presidential campaign. The image of the President of the United States as a grandfatherly figure had
In 1961, Walt Kelly’s famed Pogo comic strip was syndicated to around 600 newspapers. Pogo TM and © Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc.
A testament to the public’s fascination with the toddler can be found in the fact that Charlton Comics actually published a Caroline Kennedy comic book in 1961. Moreover, the respectful barrier that had traditionally (if not exclusively) existed in the portrayal of sitting American presidents in children’s comic books had begun to break down. As recently as 1960, President Eisenhower had appeared in episodes of Charlton’s Captain Atom series and DC’s Superman #134 with his features judiciously shadowed or obscured. It was startling, then, to see President
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September 27: The Alvin Show, a cartoon starring Ross Bagdasarian’s Alvin and the Chipmunks, begins its primetime run on CBS. An hour later, Top Cat, an animated series from Hanna-Barbera based in part on the Sgt. Bilko character from the Phil Silvers Show, makes its own debut on ABC. September 27: Primetime medical dramas establish a foothold after NBC’s Dr. Kildare (starring Richard Chamberlain) revives a character previously featured in a theatrical (1937-1942) and radio (1949-1951) series. ABC’s Ben Casey, featuring a surgeon played by Vince Edwards, premieres five days later on October 2. July 20: The Flash #123 goes on sale as the modern-day Flash meets his 1940s namesake on a parallel world later known as Earth-Two, setting the stage for a multitude of character revivals in the years to come.
October 1: At the end of a baseball season that saw New York Yankees baseball players Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris challenge Babe Ruth’s 1927 record of 60 home runs in a single season, Maris hits his 61st. The landmark is tainted by criticism that Ruth’s achievement took place in a 154 game season while Maris’ occurred in 162 games.
July 27: Showcase #34 introduces the Atom, a modern, doll-sized version of the 1940s hero.
October 2: The Flintstones spins off into newspapers in a new comic strip illustrated by Gene Hazelton and Roger Armstrong. October 3: The Dick Van Dyke Show debuts on CBS, its eponymous star cast as Rob Petrie, the head writer of a comedy-variety TV show and husband of Laura (played by Mary Tyler Moore).
J U LY August 8: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #1 goes on sale, laying the foundation for Marvel Comics’ transformation of the entire superhero genre.
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
August 13: Construction begins on the Berlin Wall, an infamous barrier created on orders of the Soviet-dominated East German government to prevent further emigration to democratic West Germany. September 14: Superman #149 features a renowned “imaginary novel” that details the circumstances surrounding “the Death of Superman.”
November 11: Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s satirical book about bureaucracy and self-contradictory military logic, is published. The story is subsequently recognized as one of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th Century.
December 2: Cementing his country’s ties with the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro announces that Cuba will adopt socialism.
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
September 28: Shrinking incredibly, scientist Henry “Hank” Pym becomes “the Man in the Ant Hill,” a story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Tales to Astonish #27 that will be resumed as the Ant-Man series later in 1962.
November 6: Fading country singer Jimmy Dean revives his career as his “Big Bad John” begins a five-week stay as Billboard’s number one pop song in addition to claiming the top spots on the country and easy listening charts.
DECEMBER December 28: Action Comics #285 caps an eight-month serial with a full-length story in which Supergirl’s existence is revealed to the world.
October 18: West Side Story, the theatrical adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical, premieres with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer cast as the doomed lovers Maria and Tony. The film is ultimately the year’s second-highest-grossing production. October 16: Sam’s Strip, a newspaper comic by Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas, debuts. The fourth-wall-breaking feature professes to show the behind the scenes world of comic strips with frequent appearances by past and present comics characters.
Kennedy and his wife unflinchingly depicted in Lois Lane #25 (May 1961) with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his own wife behind them. JFK would pop up in more Superman stories during the year, capped in December’s Action Comics #285 when the President and First Lady greeted Supergirl at the White House. Nikita Khrushchev had a cameo in that story, too, following on the heels of a tale in Action #283 wherein the
Russian and American leaders were each impersonated by shape-shifting aliens (resulting in two panels where Superman appeared to be slapping each dignitary into unconsciousness).
ences hadn’t morphed into a lightweight TV talk show (as in Gary Belkin and Mort Drucker’s “Jack Kennedy Show” in Mad #65) but things were definitely changing.
The confluence of the Kennedys’ youth, good looks, and glamour with the increasing dominance of television coverage of the Presidency and the First Family had placed them in the same strata as other celebrities of the day. The President’s press confer-
That shift was implicit in comics dated October, 1961. Marvel’s Patsy Walker #97 put John and Jacqueline Kennedy amidst the likes of rock-androller Elvis Presley, musician/TV host Mitch Miller, and actress Elizabeth Taylor. Elsewhere, a story including a JFK cameo in Jimmy Olsen #56 was followed by another in which Superman’s pal seemed to meet many of the major starlets of the day—Marilyn Monroe, Tuesday Weld, Gina Lollabrigida, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield—before revealing them as celebrity look-alikes.
Curt Swan and Stan Kaye drew Superman’s out-of-context assault on Kennedy and Khrushchev.
Celebrities (and world leaders) may have been fair game but the charged topic of race relations was essentially off-limits in 1961 outside of the admirable Jack Schiff-written public
Superman TM and © DC Comics.
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1962
Gains and Losses
Color comic book publishers went into 1962 braced for falling sales. The price hike from 10¢ to 12¢ (with Dell issues still at 15¢) was a virtual guarantee that kids were going to be buying fewer comics. Before the year was over, industry leader Dell fractured, splitting into two less dominant publishers. One researcher speculated that DC Comics’ cumulative 1962 sales may have been $678,237 less than those in 1961 (Tolworthy). Gilberton, known for its literary comics, ceased publishing new material effective with Classics Illustrated Junior #576 (“The Princess Who Saw Everything”) and Classics Illustrated #167 (“Faust”). A 1962 New York Times article by Peter Bart tossed out discouraging statistics, noting that the industry was selling an estimated 350,000,000 comic books versus 800,000,000 a decade earlier. “The comics industry, once a major advertising medium for reaching the teen-age and younger market, today has lost much of its revenue to rival media,” Bart continued. “Even National Periodical, Superman’s publisher, presently derives only about $176,000 a year from advertising compared with nearly $1,000,000 a decade or so ago” (“Superman Faces New Hurdles” 166). The magazine industry in general was struggling, with the Curtis Publishing Company—whose periodicals included The Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal— reporting losses in excess of $15,000,000 for the first nine months of 1962. The news that Congress had passed a bill increasing postage costs (to begin January 7, 1963) was also greeted with concern. “The bill was milder than one originally considered,” Peter Bart wrote, “but it would still increase distribution costs by many millions of dollars” (“Publishing” 426). For other comic book publishers, there’s little doubt that tales of woe were also being told in the offices of Charlton, Harvey, Archie, ACG, Prize, and Hallden. In every office, that is, but Martin Goodman’s. The publisher of “MC,” the company restricted to publishing a handful of titles and tentatively grasping for a new corporate identity, came out of 1962 smiling. His sales were up.
The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine
CHAPTER THREE ACBC1960-64 2015.indd 74
Much of the credit could be laid at the feet of writer-editor Stan Lee and penciler Jack Kirby, the dream team that had created Fantastic Four in 1961. Although inspired by DC’s Justice League of America, the FF had departed from convention in then-radical ways with its characters clad in street clothes and not bothering with secret identities. Readers immediately began to write in to insist that the Fantastic Four be changed into something more familiar. 74
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Effective with Fantastic Four #3 (featuring the comic book’s first letter column), Lee and Kirby assented. The FF received matching blue costumes (with the monstrous Thing’s outfit soon scaled back to shorts), an official headquarters atop a skyscraper (identified as the Baxter Building in issue #6), and an aerial Fantasticar (soon nicknamed “the flying bathtub”). Rejecting a previously-commissioned cover that spotlighted the issue’s monster menace, Lee had Kirby draw a new cover that loudly touted the changes. On the same issue, a less-than-humble tagline—“The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World”—was added, revised to “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” on the cover of issue #4 and every issue thereafter. Lee’s desire to please readers was not always the wisest narrative step but, at this early juncture, it helped forge the personal bond between the writer and his readers. In 1990, historian Greg Theakston published rare original art and artifacts related to FF #3 that revealed that the team originally sported an overlapping “FF” on their shirts. Doodling alternate logos, Lee devised a three-dimensional “4” that became the team’s official symbol. The team’s costumes had initially included masks, a detail that was revised before the story was published. Since the quartet’s identities were already public knowledge, the masks were unnecessary and, as Theakston noted, impractical: “It must have occurred to Stan that the Torch didn’t need a mask, and that Ben couldn’t hide under any mask, and the Invisible Girl needed a mask least of all. That left Reed, and if the other three didn’t need masks, neither did he. Stan plays with the idea when he has the Thing tear off his new outfit halfway through the third issue. After all, he was far more interesting to look at than any uniform.” (Theakston 32) If the Fantastic Four wanted to star in the World’s Greatest
The color scheme of the FF’s outfits was chosen by Stan Comic Magazine, they needed to dress accordingly. Goldberg. “I decided that I couldn’t really put two or Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. three colors on those costumes. It had to be one color. form at will as his teammates do” was something else. Since the Thing was orange and the Human Torch burst Lee and Kirby not only rejected the idea but played up the into flames, we had enough color there and didn’t have to situation’s tragedy by including scenes like those in FF #2 worry about the dull, blue color of the costumes” (Amash and #4 where Ben Grimm regressed to his human persona 21). and had only moments to tearfully rejoice before involunAdding superhero trappings was really only a modest tarily becoming the Thing again. Elements like these and concession. The suggestion of reader Bill Sarill (in FF #3’s the friction between the four heroes were soon prompting letter column) that “the Thing ought to revert to human responses like this one from Len Blake in FF #4:
Scenes like this one from Fantastic Four #2 accentuated the inherent heartbreak at the core of the Thing. Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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1962 TIMELINE
April 23: Editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin receives the 1961 Reuben Award at the annual National Cartoonists Society ceremony. Other winners include Ernie Bushmiller (humor newspaper strips, Nancy), Irwin Hasen (story newspaper strips, Dondi), George Clark (newspaper panels, The Neighbors), and, for the second consecutive year, Bob Oksner (comic book category, Adventures of Jerry Lewis).
A compilation of the year’s notable comic book industry events alongside some of the year’s most significant popular cultural and historical events. January 30: The Metal Men make their debut in DC’s Showcase #37, by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito.
March 1: The first K-Mart department store opens in Garden Center, Michigan. The first Target and Wal-Mart stores—both future competitors of the K-Mart chain—open on May 1 and July 2, respectively.
April 24: DC Comics’ tiniest hero is awarded his own title with the Atom #1.
March 6: Adam Strange meets the Justice League of America in Mystery In Space #75’s Alley Award-winning “Planet That Came To a Standstill.”
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
February 8: The Sub-Mariner, one of Timely Comics’ most popular characters of the 1940s, returns as a quasivillain in Fantastic Four #4.
APRIL
March 27: Elvis Presley records “Return To Sender,” eventually becoming the highest charting song of the year.
February: Creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put an atom-age spin on the Jekyll and Hyde story in the Incredible Hulk #1.
May: The symbol for a new generation is born when put-upon teenager Peter Parker becomes the iconic misunderstood hero Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
M AY
April 10: Doctor Doom, the definitive villain of the soon-to-be Marvel Comics universe, makes his first appearance in Fantastic Four #5. Jack Kirby’s pencils on the story are inked by Joe Sinnott, who will return as the series’ regular embellisher in 1965.
JUNE June 25: Mandatory prayers in public schools are ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. June: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby transplant Thor, the Norse god of thunder, into the present-day in Journey Into Mystery #83. Soon after, oneshot hero Henry Pym is revived in the costumed persona of the Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish #35.
Adam Strange, the Atom, Legion of Super-Heroes, Metal Men, Superboy TM and © DC Comics. Doctor Doom, the Hulk, the Human Torch, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Sub-Mariner, Thor TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc. Doctor Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter, Space Family Robinson TM and © Random House, Inc.
“Great art, terrific characters, and a more adult approach to the stories than any other mag I’ve read (except ‘Amazing Adult Fantasy,’ which is yours too, I understand). You are definitely starting a new trend in comics—stories about characters who act like real people, not just lily-white do-gooders who would insult the average reader’s intelligence.”
In terms of adversaries, the series initially stuck close to the monsters populating most of the company’s anthology books. Issue #2 featured green-skinned, shape-shifting “Skrulls From Outer Space” while FF #3 included a seeming “monster from Mars” who’d been conjured up by a hypnotist named Miracle Man. They were unique among the early Fantastic Four villains in that the team actually
Duped by clippings from Journey Into Mystery and Strange Tales comics, the Skrull leader called off his invasion of Earth in FF #2. Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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use, Inc.
July 9: At a Los Angeles exhibition, Andy Warhol’s painting “Campbell’s Soup Cans” is unveiled. It is one of the seminal examples of the pop-art movement, in which everyday objects are transformed into works of art.
July 10: Telstar—the first communications satellite created for commercial use—is sent into orbit and is used to transmit television signals around the world in some 250 tests between July and November.
J U LY
August: Following its inaugural release of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #265 and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #1 in July, Western’s new Gold Key imprint completes its break from Dell Comics with a diverse selection of new and continuing titles.
September 23: The Jetsons, Hanna-Barbera’s futuristic counterpart to The Flintstones, makes its premiere and is the first ABC series to be broadcast in color.
September 26: The Beverly Hillbillies, a CBS comedy about a backwoods family that strikes it rich and moves to California, begins its nine-year run.
August 1: The Family Circus newspaper panel welcomes a new addition when P.J. is born.
AUGUST
September 30: In what will later be regarded as the end of the “Golden Age of Radio,” the dramas Suspense (1942-1962) and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (1949-1962) make their final broadcasts on CBS radio stations.
SEPTEMBER
August 26: In the Dick Tracy comic strip, industrialist Diet Smith unveils a space coupe, a compact spacecraft incorporating magnetic force and atomic energy.
August 5: Glamorous actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead of an apparent drug overdose.
captured them—even hypnotically transforming the Skrulls into cows!— unlike issue #1’s more sympathetic Mole Man and several of the series’ subsequent major adversaries. The series kicked into high gear with FF #4 (May, 1962). Fed up with being belittled by the Thing, the Human Torch had quit the team at the end of the previous issue. Taking refuge in a homeless shelter, Johnny Storm picked up an old Sub-Mariner comic book. Encountering an amnesiac bum with super-strength, the Torch decided to give him a shave and a haircut. Recognizing that the stranger was the pointy-eared Sub-Mariner himself, the teen hero decided to dunk the aquatic hero in the ocean to see what happened. Almost instantly, Prince Namor’s memories were restored and he went swimming off towards the undersea city of Atlantis. Learning that no good deed goes unpunished, the Torch was thunderstruck when the Sub-Mariner
October 14-28: The discovery that nuclear missiles are being installed in Cuba leads to a grim stand-off between the Soviet Union and the United States and the threat of nuclear war. The crisis is ultimately averted when Premier Khrushchev agreed to remove the Cuban missile sites. Unknown to the public, President Kennedy had agreed to dismantle U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange. October 15: Dr. Kildare, a comic strip by Ken Bald based on the TV series, begins its 21-year run. Neal Adams’ competing Ben Casey strip premieres on November 26.
December: In South Vietnam, munitions manufacturer Tony Stark escapes from guerrillas by creating the armored persona of Iron Man. Plotted by Stan Lee with a costume design by Jack Kirby, the origin story in Tales of Suspense #39 was scripted by Larry Lieber and drawn by Don Heck.
December 10: Director David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole as real-life British Army officer T.E. Lawrence, makes its theatrical premiere. Directed by David Lean, the sweeping epic becomes the year’s top-grossing production.
October 20: Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” novelty song begins the first of two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER December: Archie Comics’ She’s Josie #1, based on an unsold newspaper strip by Dan DeCarlo, goes on sale.
October 12-14: The brutal “Columbus Day Storm” inflicts torrential rains and devastating winds on northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia with 46 reported dead in its wake. Later in the month, on October 25, 769 people are killed (and another 142 listed as missing) when tropical storm Harriet strikes southern Thailand.
July 26: The Legion of Super-Heroes receives an ongoing series in Adventure Comics #300.
July 23: A Bullwinkle newspaper strip by Al Kilgore, based on the animated series, makes its debut.
October 1: Johnny Carson becomes the official host of NBC’s Tonight Show, beginning a thirty year run.
October 5: Sean Connery stars as suave British super-spy James Bond in the London premiere of the film Dr. No, an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s 1958 novel. The movie reaches U.S. theaters in May 1963.
returned to the surface to announce that his kingdom had been destroyed by atomic tests and that he was declaring war on the human race. The balance of the story found the Fantastic Four reunited and essen-
October: Gold Key’s Space Family Robinson #1, by Del Connell and Dan Spiegle, goes on sale.
November: Written and drawn by Russ Manning, Gold Key’s Magnus, Robot Fighter #1 goes on sale and features the adventures of a lone man against corrupted robots in 4000 A.D.
December: Seven months after its eponymous hero’s debut, The Amazing Spider-Man #1 goes on sale.
tially fighting Namor to a draw. Now smitten with the FF’s Susan “Invisible Girl” Storm, the Sub-Mariner vowed to bolster his strength and return. In the span of six months, Lee and Kirby had revived two of Timely
An ad in Incredible Hulk #1 touted Fantastic Four and Amazing Adult Fantasy as “the two greatest new fantasy magazines in the world!” Fantastic Four TM and © Marvel Characters, Inc
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1963
Triumph and Tragedy
Very few parents hope their children grow up to become professional cartoonists. The parents of Mexican artist Sergio Aragonés were no exception. Despite demonstrating a passion and skill for drawing from an early age, Aragonés knew his mother and father regarded his craft as merely a hobby on the way to a real job. “When I left for the United States at 24,” he recalled, “unable to speak English and with no money, to pursue a career in cartooning, they were devastated” (Meglin 11). In New York City, Aragonés had minor successes but was unable to get that big break. A fan of Mad since he saw his first copy in 1955, the young man resisted approaching them. “It was a satire magazine that poked fun at American life,” he explained, “and [included] not one pantomime gag” which he specialized in (Meglin 10). Inevitably, though, he gave Mad a try. Aragonés’ instincts were correct. The magazine’s editors didn’t think his sight gags were right for them. Associate editor Jerry DeFuccio saw something in the cartoonist, though, and recalled how they had been able to integrate Antonio Prohias into Mad. So editor Nick Meglin took another look. “I came across a series of astronaut gags,” he remembered. “Each one delivered a laugh visually, without relying on a caption or dialogue balloon. I quickly roughed out a spread of the strongest panels and brought them to the Art Department.” After further tightening of the layout by Mad’s art director John Putnam, the two-page spread was approved by editor Al Feldstein, and Sergio Aragonés was on the magazine’s payroll (Meglin 9). “A Mad Look at the U.S. Space Effort” (Mad #76: January 1963) began a half-century relationship between Aragonés and the magazine. Tiny sight gags by the cartoonist also peppered the edges of many pages in the issue, thus introducing cartoons eventually dubbed “Marginals” that would become a Mad staple. “After my appearance in Mad,” the cartoonist recalled, “my father mentioned it to his colleagues at the movie studio. Their reaction must have been positive because he called me afterwards and I could hear the pride and tears in his voice” (Meglin 11).
CHAPTER FOUR ACBC1960-64 2015.indd 114
It was not easy being a comic book writer or artist in the early 1960s. The pay was low. The product they produced was looked on by most adults as juvenile at best and subliterate pornography at worst. Despite it all, most of them brought a sense of professionalism to their jobs and the best imbued their work with a personal touch that they could take pride in. But if anyone had forgotten what the general public thought of comic books, Roy Lichtenstein was there in 1963 to remind them. 114
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He was part of the Pop Art movement that began in the late 1950s characterized by incorporating common objects and cultural images into paintings, sculptures, et al. Perhaps the best known example of Pop Art may have been Andy Warhol’s 1962 painting Campbell’s Soup Cans, which was simply a portrait of each of the 32 varieties of soup offered by the company at the time.
Roy Lichtenstein’s “Whaam!” was largely based on this 1961 Irv Novick panel from All-American Men of War #89.
It was Lichtenstein who made a name for himself in the art community with a series of paintings that were massively enlarged comic book panels, complete with word balloons, sound effects, and oversized orbs of color that simulated the tiny Ben-Day dots used on the comics page. To artists like William Overgard, the images were also familiar. Noting the painter’s remarks in the May 3, 1963 issue of Time that he used real comics panels as his inspiration, Overgard felt obliged to send a letter to the magazine that appeared in its May 17 issue:
Johnny Cloud TM and © DC Comics. Lichtenstein painting TM and © respective copyright holder.
currently being shown at the Guggenheim comes pretty close to the last panel of my Steve Roper Sunday page of August 6, 1961. Very flattering...I think?” Overgard was far from the only artist whose work had been transferred to canvas without credit. Among Lichtenstein’s 1963 works were “Drowning Girl” (based in part on the Tony Abruzzo splash page from 1962’s Secret Hearts #83), “Whaam!” (recreating panels by Irv Novick and Russ Heath from All-American Men of War #89), and “Image Duplicator” (inspired by Jack Kirby art in X-Men #1).
“As a cartoonist I was interested in Roy Lichtenstein’s comments on comic strips in your article on Pop Art. Though he may not, as he says, copy them exactly, Lichtenstein in his painting
To the artists affected, the paintings were insulting on many levels. The recreations were crude and primitive, suggesting that the original better-drawn artwork was the same. In the eyes of many in the art community, the paintings were meaningful and ironic, a statement on the comparatively irrelevant comic books. And the paintings were selling for increasingly large sums of money. “[London’s] Tate Gallery bought Lichtenstein’s “Whaam!” for £7,000,” cartoonist Lee Elias raged in a December 1970 interview. “If it wasn’t so stiff, I’d recommend that they roll it up and sell it as toilet paper” (Penman 12). John Romita, one of the DC romance artists whose work had been appropriated, recalled the furor: “A lot of the guys—Bernie Sachs and a few others—wanted to get together and file a class action suit against Lichtenstein and some of the other artists. I was not too interested. I said first of all, I don’t want to contribute money to lawyers. I didn’t want to get involved in it. I even foolishly told them that I was somehow flattered by the fact that they would consider these panels so good that they felt it was worthy of a painting. And, of course, they thought I was crazy. ‘Flattered?! They’re ripping you off!’ I never felt ripped off. I felt like it was a different art form. I
Lichtenstein also used a Russ Heath image from All-American Men of War #89 as the basis for a painting. All-American Men of War TM and © DC Comics. Lichtenstein painting TM and © respective copyright holder.
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