Issuu

Roy Thomas’ Spirited Comics Fanzine

8.95

In the USA

No.127 August 2014

WILL EISNER & “BUSY” ARNOLD LETTERS OF QUALITY!

82658 27763 5

Edited by ROY THOMAS The first and greatest “hero-zine”—ALL-NEW, focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America], MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY’S Comic Fandom Archive, and more!

EISNER AWARD Winner Best Comics-Related Periodical

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

ALTER EGO #118

ALTER EGO #119

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

ALTER EGO #115

ALTER EGO #116

ALTER EGO #117

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

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

GOLDEN AGE ARTISTS L.B. COLE AND JAY DISBROW! DISBROW’s memoir of COLE and his work on CAT-MAN, art by BOB FUJITANI, CHARLES QUINLAN, IRWIN HASEN, FCA (Fawcett Collector’s of America) on the two-media career of Captain Video, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, Cat-Man cover by L.B. COLE!

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

ALTER EGO #120

ALTER EGO #121

ALTER EGO #122

AVENGERS 50th ANNIVERSARY! WILL MURRAY on the group’s behind-thescenes origin, a look at its first decade with ROY THOMAS, STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, THE BROTHERS BUSCEMA, TUSKA, ADAMS, COLAN, BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, Golden Age Blue Beetle artist E.C. STONER, unused Avengers cover by DON HECK!

MARC SWAYZE TRIBUTE ISSUE, spotlighting FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America)! Salutes from Fawcett alumnus C.C. BECK and OTTO BINDER, interview with wife JUNE SWAYZE, a full Phantom Eagle story from Wow Comics, plus interview with 1950s Dell/Western artist MEL KEEFER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a SWAYZE Marvel Family cover art from the 1940s!

X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MMMS fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!

GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, BOB OKSNER, HOWARD PURCELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!

Farewell salute to the COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE! TBG/CBG history and remembrances from ALAN LIGHT, MURRAY BISHOFF, MAGGIE THOMPSON, BRENT FRANKENHOFF, “final” CBG columns by MARK EVANIER, TONY ISABELLA, PETER DAVID, FRED HEMBECK, JOHN LUSTIG, classic art by DON NEWTON, MIKE VOSBURG, JACK KIRBY, MIKE NASSER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

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

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

ALTER EGO #123

ALTER EGO #124

ALTER EGO #125

ALTER EGO #126

DENNY O’NEIL’s Silver Age career at Marvel, Charlton, and DC—aided and abetted by ADAMS, KALUTA, SEKOWSKY, LEE, GIORDANO, THOMAS, SCHWARTZ, APARO, BOYETTE, DILLIN, SWAN, DITKO, et al. Plus, we begin serializing AMY KISTE NYBERG’s groundbreaking book on the history of the Comics Code, FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY and more!

We spotlight HERB TRIMPE’s work on Hulk, Iron Man, S.H.I.E.L.D., Ghost Rider, Ant-Man, Silver Surfer, War of the Worlds, Ka-Zar, even Phantom Eagle, and featuring THE SEVERIN SIBLINGS, LEE, FRIEDRICH, THOMAS, GRAINGER, BUSCEMA, and others, plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s Comics Code history, M. THOMAS INGE on Communism and 1950s comic books, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Golden Age “Air Wave” artist LEE HARRIS discussed by his son JONATHAN LEVEY to interviewer RICHARD J. ARNDT, with rarely-seen 1940s art treasures (including mysterious, never-published art of an alternate version of DC’s Tarantula)! Plus more of AMY KISTE NYBERG’s exposé on the Comics Code, artist SAL AMENDOLA tells the story of the Academy of Comic Book Arts, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

Second big issue on 3-D COMICS OF THE 1950s! KEN QUATTRO looks at the controversy involving JOE KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, BILL GAINES, and AL FELDSTEIN! Plus more fabulous Captain 3-D by SIMON & KIRBY and MORT MESKIN— 3-D thrills from BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, JAY DISBROW and others— the career of Treasure Chest artist VEE QUINTAL, FCA, Mr. Monster, and more!

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

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at twomorrows.com

Vol. 3, No. 127 / August 2014 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Proofreaders

Rob Smentek William J. Dowlding

Cover Art & Colors

If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

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

www.twomorrows.com

Jason Paulos & David James Cox

With Special Thanks to:

Dr. M. Thomas Inge Heidi Amash Jim Kealy Dick Arnold Hans Kiesl Frank Balkin Mark Lewis Mike W. Barr Susan Liberator William Biggins Bill & Ulla Bossert Alan Light Jim Ludwig Bernie Bubnis Bruce Mason Bill Cain Robyn Dean Dewey Cassell McHattie Shaun Clancy Frank Motler John Coates Mark Muller ComicBookPlus Dr. Amy Kiste (website) Nyberg Brian Cremins Palantine News Michaël Dewally Network (website) Jay Disbrow Barry Pearl Rob Donnelly Jay Piscopo Shane Foley Michael Posner Ron Frantz J.C. Press, Jr. Janet Gilbert Ken Quattro Don Glut Herb Rogoff Jennifer T. Go Golden Age Comic Randy Sargent Vijah Shah Book Stories Art Spiegelman (website) Steve Stiles Grand Comics Database (website) Dann Thomas Dorothy Tuska Larry Guidry Hames Ware Barbara Harmon Steve G. Willis Bob Hughes

Contents

Writer/Editorial: The Doctor Is In! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Sincerely Yours, Busy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Ken Quattro on Golden Age letters from Quality publisher “Busy” Arnold to Will Eisner & Jerry Iger.

“My Comic Mom!!” – Part 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 More remembrances by Robyn Dean McHattie of artist and mother Vee Quintal Pearson.

Seal Of Approval: The History Of The Comics Code . . . . . . 42 Chapter 4 of Amy Kiste Nyberg’s 1998 work on comic censorship. Enter—Dr. Wertham!

“The Will of William Wilson”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Still more of the long-lost 1940s “JSA” story—first time in color.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Now That’s A Fan! (Part 3) . . . 59 Michael T. Gilbert showcases more fans who are nuttier than you are!

Comic Fandom Archive: He Remembered Comic Books . . 65 Bill Schelly introduces Jim Harmon's seminal comics nostalgia piece—from 1957!

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 71 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #187 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Otto Binder, Brian Cremins, C.C. Beck—and Pete Costanza.

On Our Cover: It’s pretty “busy,” isn’t it—as befits a cover that spotlights some of the most colorful characters of the 1940s Quality Comics Group owned and operated by Everett “Busy” Arnold. But the man towering over the super-heroes and lowlifes is Will (“Bill”) Eisner, as rendered by artists Jason Paulos and Daniel James Cox, the latter being the gent who provided the lush portrait of Joe Kubert for A/E #116 a couple of years ago. For more about this cover, see pp. 24. [Black Condor, The Ray, Midnight, Doll Man, The Sniper, Plastic Man, The Human Bomb, Firebrand, Blackhawk, Stormy Foster/The Great Defender, Phantom Lady, & Miss America TM & © DC Comics; other art elements © 2014 Jason Paulos & Daniel James Cox.] Above: One of the other features in this issue is the chapter in Amy Kiste Nyberg’s book on the history of the Comics Code that deals with that “scourge of the comics,” Dr. Fredric Wertham. This effective little caricature, done by Rob Donnelly, can be found on his art website RobDraw.com. Check it out, why dontcha? [© Rob Donnelly.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Eight-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $85 Canada, $107 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

The Doctor Is In!

ell, Alter Ego is finally doing an issue devoted in large part to the famous/infamous Dr. Fredric Wertham, who in the late 1940s and first half of the 1950s was the “scourge of comics.” Two issues, in fact.

years. Like many another fan-critic or fan-historian at the time, I accepted the received wisdom that comic books, despite their stylistic similarities to newspaper comics strips often read by adults, had become and would henceforth forever be a medium produced for and aimed totally at children—and at those relatively few grownups who were willing and able to enjoy unsophisticated stories and concepts that might (or might not) be accompanied and enhanced by reasonably sophisticated art.

This time around, we’re reprinting—with beaucoup photos and art examples—the chapter of Dr. Amy Kiste Nyberg’s 1998 book Today, of course, that child-centric comic book world that we Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code that deals with inhabited in the early 1960s is long gone, with the average reader Wertham’s life and career, including—but not limited to—his nowadays two or three times the age of the typical buyer of fifty indelible interface with comic books. Over the past two months, years ago. In my unabashed view, writer and editor Stan Lee, we’ve been made familiar, if we weren’t previously, with some of considerably aided but not simply carried by the artistic and story his early anti-comics articles, talents of Jack Kirby and Steve culminating in his 1954 book Ditko in particular, began that Seduction of the Innocent… then transition slowly and not too surely with his star-witness testimony at in 1961-62, with Fantastic Four and the spring ‘54 hearings of the The Amazing Spider-Man. Others Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile contributed in significant ways by Delinquency. And this issue, that the end of the decade, including Jim televised high point (or low point) Steranko, Neal Adams, Denny of what some have called his O’Neil, et al. Some seem to feel that “crusade against comic books” will I myself contributed in some slight be put in perspective by an degree to the “maturing” (in some overview of his life’s work. One ways, actually the re-maturing) of enterprising soul, Hans Kiesl, even comics; if so, I hasten to assure one did some fishing around in his and all that it was without any native Germany and came up with conscious aim on my part, except to Dr. Wertham’s birth certificate, sell comic books to whoever would which delighted us no end. Amy buy them and to keep Stan Lee Nyberg’s book does such an able happy and myself amused and job of relating the story of the employed at the same time. forces that led to the 1954-55 Probably the three other “youngadoption of the Comics Code that sters” mentioned two sentences we’re overjoyed when we can add back had not dissimilar motivato her research and analysis tions, whether working for Marvel, anything of which future comics DC, Warren, Charlton, or historians can make use. The Good, The Bat, And The Ugly whomever. A signal contribution by fan and cartoonist Steve Stiles to Don & And in A/E #128, we’ll not only Fredric Wertham wrote in his Maggie Thompson’s seminal comics fanzine Comic Art (#4, Dec. 1962). see AKN launch in earnest into the [© Steve Stiles.] follow-up 1966 treatise A Sign for tale of the early days of the Comics Cain: Explorations of Human Violence Magazine Association of America that comics books were “cheap, shoddy, anonymous.” and its Comics Code Authority, but we’ll also be presenting a piece of recent research into the good Doctor’s methodology, based in We—and many others who came after us—were determined large part on his own papers, which have only been accessible for that, whatever the cover price might be (“cheap” or rather less so), the past few years. For a bit more detail, and a sneak peak at a comics would not be “shoddy.” They would be as good as we brand new cover that features a new drawing of him and his could make them… and they would showcase, to the best of our chosen subject matter, see the next-issue ad on the facing page. abilities, material that we felt that open-minded adults, as well as wide-eyed kids, could enjoy. Increasingly, that seems to have come For my own part, over the years I’ve grown a bit more to pass, even if the “kids” part of that equation has been pretty ambivalent toward Fredric Wertham than I once was… but only a much discounted in recent years. bit. As a comics fan-writer and -editor in the first half of the 1960s, I was wholeheartedly antagonistic toward both Wertham and the As for that third Wertham charge: “anonymous”? Stan and DC Code to which his efforts had led. (When I learned that the psychieditor Julius Schwartz and publisher Jim Warren, among others, atrist himself was far from being an admirer of the CMAA’s Code, helped bring the writers and artists who produced the stories out that fact only made me think more of the latter.) of the deep shadows of anonymity by putting credits on the stories again, in greater profusion and with greater honesty than had At the same time, as I often said or wrote during that period, I generally been the case earlier. felt that many of the horror and crime comics of the early 1950s were examples of “wretched excess” that, however great the Numerous professionals of the 1940s and especially the ’50s artistic qualities of some of them, basically asked for the fate have related how they often avoided telling fellow adults what decreed for them in late 1954: total oblivion, at least for some they did for a living, fearful of their scorn. Perhaps because I

writer/editorial

didn’t live through the dark days that Dr. Wertham helped to bring down upon the comics, I never felt that way even in the ’60s, let alone afterward—and I don’t think Jim, Neal, Denny, or our fellow “first wave” of new pros in the field did, either. I was never ashamed to read a comic book in public or on the subway… or to tell someone (including prospective girlfriends) what I did for a living. If they didn’t like it, they could lump it. I was in it for the long haul… or as long as I could hang on, anyway. Talents like Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Frank Brunner, Jim Starlin, and others who came along a few years later are (and were, even in the late ’60s and early ‘70s) often referred to as “the young Turks,” and true it is that they pushed comics even further, and more power to them. But, not to take anything away from them, they didn’t step into quite the same comic book milieu that had existed in 1960. The years 1955-60 were perhaps as close as the Werthams of the world would ever come to remaking comic books in their own limited and limiting image. By the end of the 1960s, that mold would be cracked, soon to be broken—and nobody was ever going put it back together again. But, simply to say that is to acknowledge that Dr. Fredric Wertham was, for a time, a formidable force. And in this issue and the next, we’ll try to give him his due, for better and for worse. Me, I still think it was mostly for the worse.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a registered trademark of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D'Oro Entertainment, Inc.

Bestest,

P.S.: As for Ken Quattro’s astute, even enthralling annotation of letters exchanged between key Golden Age creators—just turn the page and read all about them!

COMING IN AUGUST

128

“Seducing The Innocent” With

DR. FREDERIC WERTHAM! • Seductive new cover by JASON PAULOS & DANIEL JAMES CRAIG!

• CAROL L. TILLEY’s 2012 exposé of DR. FREDRIC WERTHAM’s falsification of research in the 1950s—and the destruction it wrought on the comics industry! Featuring relevant art by EVERETT, SHUSTER, BIRO, WOOD, WILLIAMSON, BECK, COSTANZA, PETER, POWELL, BALD, COLE, DAVIS, DOOLIN, FAWCETTE, SCHOMBURG, FELDSTEIN, & of course BOB KANE! • AMY KISTE NYBERG’s Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code, continued! The early days of the Code—and JUDGE CHARLES MURPHY! © DC Comics; in, Wonder Woman TM & Superman, Batman & Rob 4 Jason Paulos & Daniel James Craig. other art © 201

• Plus—FCA starring DENNY O'NEIL & OTTO BINDER—MICHAEL T. GILBERT visits the “Superboy of 1940”—& MORE!!

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Eight issues in the US: $67 Standard, $82 First Class • (Canada: $85, Elsewhere: $104)

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

“Sincerely Yours, Busy”

Letters From Quality Publisher “BUSY” ARNOLD, 1940-42, To WILL EISNER & JERRY IGER

A/E

by Ken Quattro

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: This fascinating look at first-hand documents—letters sent by Quality Comics publisher Everett M. “Busy” Arnold to artist/writer/entrepreneur Will (aka Bill) Eisner and comics shop head S.M. Iger in the first years of their relationship was originally written by comics historian Ken Quattro for his blog thecomicdetective. The source for the correspondence contained in this piece is the Will Eisner Collection at Ohio State University, in Columbus, OH; Ken is particularly grateful to Susan Liberator for her help in obtaining these documents. The article is rich in information on events and judgments that went on behind the scenes in the early days of both Quality Comics and what would become The Spirit Comic Section; in the latter, done for newspapers rather than as newsstand comic books, Arnold and Eisner were essentially partners. Except for minor textual changes in the nonletter portions of the piece made in the interests of A/E’s “house style,” or occasional inserted information contained between brackets, we have preferred to limit any comments or additional information to our accompanying captions, and let Ken relate the story in his own way, italicized quotations and all….

The Spirit Of Quality A gag photo taken Oct. 13, 1941, showing (left to right) publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold, the comics feature editor of the Philadelphia Record newspaper (whose nickname was “Gap”), and artist/writer Will Eisner. This pic appeared in the 1983 Kitchen Sink volume The Art of Will Eisner. The official name of Arnold’s company was Comic Favorites, Inc.; but its cover colophon read “Quality Comic Group,” so that’s how it was known to readers. Eisner was interviewed for A/E #48, which came out shortly after his passing—while in A/E #34, an issue centered around Quality Comics, “Busy’s” son Dick Arnold, later a Quality editor, was likewise interviewed in depth by Jim Amash. [© the respective copyright holders.] The photo is accompanied by the first “Uncle Sam” splash page, from National Comics #1 (July 1940), apparently written and laid out by Eisner and finished by future Mad magazine artist Dave Berg… and by the very first Spirit page done by Eisner for the Arnold/Eisner partnership’s Weekly Comic Book newspaper supplement, which was only technically renamed The Spirit Section at a much later date. Thanks to the ComicBookPlus website for the former; the latter is reproduced from the 2000 hardcover Will Eisner’s Spirit Archives, Vol. 1, published by DC Comics. [Uncle Sam art © the respective copyright holders; Spirit page © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.]

“Sincerely Yours, Busy”

efore e-mail, before texting, when only birds tweeted, people wrote letters. Letter-writing was a craft, an art form in deft hands, wherein thoughts could be expressed with nuance not limited to 140 character bursts. For some, though, letters were a cudgel to prod the recipient down a certain path. Business letters were often of this type, and when it came to writing them, “Busy” Arnold was all business: Dear Bill, As I told you over the telephone today, Lou [Fine] has been changing his costumes from month to month especially on The Ray. In the first installment of this feature, he had The Ray wearing a peaked headpiece but in the second installment he left off the peak on this, later it was restored. In some installments The Ray wore slippers and in others he did not have any. Also the stars around the neck of The Ray were omitted in some instances, although Ed Cronin usually added these. I am enclosing a memorandum with some tear sheets and

would appreciate having you tell Lou to make the costumes of both The Ray and The Black Condor the same each month. Everett Munyan “Busy” Arnold was both Will Eisner’s business partner (in The Spirit comic section) and client of his comic shop. It was in that role as owner of Comic Favorites, Inc., that Arnold wrote (more accurately, dictated) this October 1, 1940, missive. They would always come typed and on company letterhead. This was a business, after all, and Arnold’s concern was for the product he was selling. The elegance of the artwork and the future status of Lou Fine as a Comic Book Legend wasn’t even a consideration. Try and build up the characters in both of these features so that they are more human and likeable. The Ray is in reality Happy Terrill, a reporter who works on The Morning Telegraph. His boss, the city editor, should have a definite name and other characters might be introduced from time to time. While Happy Terrill leads a normal life at most times, he has the power to change to The Ray when he goes in a beam of light and then can perform his wonderful deeds. As The Ray he can also bring people to him by means of the ray forces which he has in his hands. The same sort of build up should be given to The Black Condor and he should be a definite personality who operates as The Black Condor only in times of necessity. Originally you had The Black Condor brought up by birds when his parents (British) were killed by outlaws. I don’t believe that he should be British and in any “build up,” you should naturally assume that he is an American. I assume that you will finish the next HIT and NATIONAL covers within the next few days so that Lou can start working on The Ray for the February issue of SMASH COMICS. Sincerely yours, Busy Eisner once told interviewer Jim Amash, “Busy Arnold and I had a very interesting relationship. I regarded him as a partner and he thought of me as an employee” [Alter Ego #48, May 2005]. When it came to the content of the comic books, it appears there was little doubt as to who was the calling the shots. By the next issue of Smash, Happy Terrill was in more panels than The Ray, and not long after, his boss finally was given the first name of “Steve.” For his part, The Black Condor had soon forgotten his rarely mentioned British origins and apparently his name (Dick Grey), becoming instead an American named Tom Wright. A U.S. Senator, no less.

Ray Of Sunshine (Above:) The splash page of one of the exploits of “The Ray” in which artist Lou Fine drew him wearing his “slippers,” which apparently he sometimes neglected to do. The “stars around [his] neck” (meaning the star-like design) are evident here, too. Clearly, “Busy” Arnold was a stickler for detail—understandably figuring that, if a hero’s costume changed from issue to issue, it would undercut the realism of the stories. Thanks to the since-renamed Golden Age Comic Book Stories website for this image from Smash Comics #22 (May 1941). Lou Fine was covered in depth in A/E #17. Scripter unknown. (Incidentally, Ed Cronin, whom Arnold mentions as doing touchups on art, was one of his early editors at Quality, before he moved on to helm Hillman’s comics line.) [Art © the respective copyright holders; The Ray is now a trademark of DC Comics.]

Lou Fine, in a photo taken circa 1942 in Stamford, Connecticut, by his friend and fellow artist Gill Fox; it first appeared in A/E #17, through the good offices of interviewer Jim Amash.

Within a few months, the business arrangement of Arnold and Eisner had evolved even further. On January 20, 1941, the pair agreed to a joint publishing venture. On that day they signed contracts specifying their coownership of two new properties: Uncle Sam Quarterly and Army and Navy Comics, soon to be retitled Military Comics. While Arnold agreed to pay the artists for their work, Eisner was to receive no money for his editing. Both shared any profits equally. Despite the parity suggested by this new arrangement, however, the hierarchy seemingly didn’t change.

Letters From Quality Publisher “Busy” Arnold, 1940-42, To Will Eisner & Jerry Iger

The Wonder Years (Above:) According to his 12-26-41 letter to comics shop head Jerry Iger, “Busy” Arnold wanted future “Wonder Boy” stories to be drawn by artist Al Bryant, as per the top left splash from National Comics #15 (Sept. 1941)—but what he got, starting in #16 (Oct. ’41), was some of Nick Cardy’s less stellar work (above right). Just to show how good Cardy could be, however, we’re also displaying his “Quicksilver” splash from #15. Writers unknown; “Jerry Maxwell” was an Iger shop house name, utilizing Samuel Maxwell “Jerry” Iger’s middle name. Thanks to ComicBookPlus. [Art © the respective copyright holders; Quicksilver character now trademarked by DC Comics as Max Mercury.]

(Above:) Jerry Iger, circa 1942. Same source as Arnold/Hansen photo. (Above:) “Busy Arnold” and Quality editor Gwen Hansen, c. 1941. Photo from Jay Disbrow’s 1985 book The Iger Comics Kingdom, which was reprinted in its entirety in A/E #21. Thanks to Jay—and to Dick Arnold for the Hansen ID. (Right, from left to right:) Will Eisner, Bob Powell (artist of “Mr. Mystic” feature in the Weekly Comic Book), and Nick Cardy, nee Nick Viscardi (artist of “Lady Luck” therein)—photo taken at Eisner’s Tudor City studio, 1941. Thanks to John Coates.

“Sincerely Yours, Busy”

It’s A Smash! Arnold wrote about Smash Comics strips “Rookie Rankin” and “The Purple Trio,” but that mag’s more colorful features were in good shape. For example, behind Gill Fox’s cover for Smash #29 (Dec. 1941) were a Crandall-drawn “Ray” adventure, “Midnight” by Jack Cole, and “The Jester” by Paul Gustavson. “Midnight” was created (written and illustrated) by Cole because “Busy” wanted a second masked crime-fighter wearing a blue suit, hat, and gloves just in case something happened to Will Eisner. It was probably Cole’s impish sense of humor that gave Midnight a talking monkey for a buddy. [© the respective copyright holders; Ray, Midnight, & Jester are now trademarks of DC Comics.]

(Above:) Paul Gustavson, in a photo repro’d from Jud Hurd’s Cartoonist PRO-files magazine #36, back in the ’70s. Thanks to Shaun Clancy.

“My Comic Mom!!” – Part II Continuing A Daughter’s Memoir Of Her Artist Mother, VEE QUINTAL PEARSON by Robyn Dean McHattie Heroes All! (Clockwise from left:) Vee Quintal Pearson, 1944. A self-portrait of sorts, as she drew herself as a character in the modernday story titled “The Band Needs Flavoring” in one of the Catholic magazines for which she worked.

A/E

Two Vee Quintal splash pages for the first issue of Catholic Publications Company’s four-color comic book Heroes All – Catholic Action Illustrated: the stories of “St. Ignatius,” an early martyr in the Roman arena, and of Ferdinand de Lesseps, “the father of the Suez Canal.” Father Francis E. Benz, founder and head of CPC, had previously written a biography of de Lesseps. Robyn Dean McHattie says that Vee herself was “an avid horsewoman.” Photo courtesy of RDM. [Art © the respective copyright holders.]

EDITOR’S INTRO: Last issue, we began Robyn Dean McHattie’s look at the career of her mother, Vee Quintal Pearson (1918-1998), who, after some by-mail art instruction, found work in the early 1940s as a comic book artist at The Catholic Publications Company in North Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her first work was on comics material in the mostly-non-comics The Catholic Boy magazine, Mine Magazine, The Catholic Student, and The Catholic Miss of

America Magazine. The company was founded by Father Francis E. Benz, and its publications were distributed to Catholic grade schools in the U.S. In 1941 she briefly worked on a never-completed Paul Bunyan animated film short at the University of Minnesota. For a Sept. 1943 release date, Virginia “Vee Quintal,” who was not yet married, became the lead artist of a new four-color, monthly, all-comics magazine from CPC titled Heroes All – Catholic Action Illustrated….

“My Comic Mom!!” – Part II

Heroes All – Catholic Action Illustrated First Issue: September 1943

rom “Charlemagne” to “St. Olaf, King of Norway,” from “The Pony Express” to “The Al Smith Story,” Vee’s comic book settings spanned history on two entire continents. In her first comics for The Catholic Boy, The Catholic Miss, and The Catholic Student, the earliest characters all had a certain canned, squinty-eyed smile, but by the time she began the new title Heroes All – Catholic Action Illustrated—which was an all-comics format, not a magazine—her work had grown distinctive and versatile. Developing pencil layouts across four or more pages each issue, as well as inking and lettering multiple stories each month—that kind of workout would definitely lend mastery to anyone’s style. The increased weekly schedule for Heroes All beginning with Volume IV, Jan. 1946, also built a massive portfolio and promised a prolific career. In Vee’s collection of multipagers, there are 76 titles that represent more than 534 pages of work dated Sept. 1942 to April 1948.

Good Fencing Makes Good Neighbors (Above:) Vee may have had some influence on the writer of the story of St. Francis of Assisi in the March 1944 issue of Heroes All… turning him into a fencing master in his youth. [© the respective copyright holders.]

Vee was uniquely suited to the comic book task. From the beginning, her drawings took swashbuckling to new heights, as if pulled on fly wires by stuntmen. Vee would have made a fine stuntman, herself; she was an avid horsewoman and first-class gymnast at North High. She had seen Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940) about twenty times, not to mention everything starring Errol Flynn. You don’t even need to ask why she named one of her kids “Robyn.” My mother contended, if Padre Filipe or Friar Tuck—both played by Eugene Pallette—could be a fencing master, why couldn’t Francis of Assisi? That particular script-embellishment appears in Heroes All, Volume II, Number 3, for March 1944. Within her first few narrative comics in Catholic Miss, Boy, and Student, the beatific lives of Saints expanded with new energies, as Vee added cinematic swordplay to even the deadly dull “Song of Bernadette.” If you can add in swords and shields, or horses and spurs, my mom could turn any Christianity legend into something spectacular, worthy of the big screen and Technicolor. She directed the classic “cast of thousands” from the moment Hernando de Soto lined up in the panorama from here in town, down to the docks, in Catholic Boy, Sept 1943. Now in the pages of Heroes All, her layouts would challenge the limits of the page. Action

Don’t You Know There’s A War On? Vee also drew “war news” pages for both Catholic Boy (on left) and Catholic Miss (on right). [© the respective copyright holders.]

Seal Of Approval:

Dr. Amy K. Nyberg

The History Of The Comics Code Chapter 4 Of DR. AMY KISTE NYBERG's 1998 Work On Comic Book Censorship

A/E

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: We continue our presentation of the full text (with added art and photos) of the book Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code by Dr. Amy Kiste Nyberg, Associate Professor of Communications in the Department of Communication and the Arts at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.

the book—the original print edition of which can still be obtained from UPM at www.upress.sate.ms.us. Our thanks to Dr. M. Thomas Inge, under those general editorship the volume was originally published as part of its Studies in Popular Culture series… to William Biggins and Vijah Shah, acquisitions editors past and present at the U. Press of Mississippi… and to Brian K. Morris for retyping the text on a Word document for Ye Editor to edit.

As we’ve said before: Seal of Approval is extensively “footnoted,” in the MLA style which lists book, article, or author name, plus page numbers, between parentheses in the actual text; e.g., “(Hart 154-156)” refers to pp. 154-156 of whichever work by an author or editor named Hart appears in the bibliography… which will be printed at the conclusion of our serialization, a few issues from now. When the parentheses contain only page numbers, it is because the other information is printed in the main text almost immediately preceding the note. (In addition, there are a bare handful of footnotes treated in the more traditional sense.)

Chapter 3, last issue, covered the Spring 1954 hearings held in New York City by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which centered on comic books, mostly presided over by Sen. Estes Kefauver, and the testimony in particular of comics critic Dr. Fredric Wertham and EC Comics publisher William M. Gaines—the latter turning into a self-inflicted public-relations disaster for the industry. By the time the subcommittee issued its interim report in March 1955, a majority of the frightened comic book publishers had founded a new organization, the Comic Magazine Association of America, which would set up its own Comics Code Authority to promulgate and enforce stricter standards on comic books, which were deemed to be, de facto, aimed at children. This, they hoped, would keep Congress and state legislatures from enacting their own, even more severe, and possibly industrydestroying restrictions. But before we examine the first days of the new Code, it’s time to take a closer look at the most influential voice against comics during the 1950s….

We have retained such usages and spellings from the book as “superhero,” an uncapitalized “comics code,” “E.C.” and “DC,” etc.; in the captions we have added, however, we have reverted to our own style. Those captions, naturally, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Dr. Nyberg or the University Press of Mississippi, the original publisher of

Seductive Covers? Dr. Fredric Wertham, holding up some scurrilous reading matter, bookended by the U.S. (on left) and British covers of his signature work, Seduction of the Innocent. It was published in America in 1954, and by Museum Press in the UK in ’55. Wertham had originally wanted his book to have a less inflammatory title, but his U.S. publisher (Rinehart) insisted on Seduction. (Re the photo: the Seduction of the Innocent website informs us that the cover of Ed Brubaker’s comic Criminal, published some time after Wertham’s death in 1981, has been Photoshopped in. But otherwise it’s an authentic vintage pic of the good Doctor. He probably wouldn’t have liked Criminal, anyway.) [Covers © the respective copyright holders.]

Seal of Approval: The History Of The Comics Code

Chapter 4

Frederic Wertham And The Comics Crusade

redric Wertham is given the credit—or the blame—for “cleaning up the comics” in the 1950s, but he was not pleased with the outcome of the Senate hearings. The establishment of a self-regulatory code administered by the comic book publishers fell far short of the legislation he had pushed for since the end of World War II. To understand his role in the comic book crusade and his dissatisfaction with the effect he had on the outcome, one must place Wertham’s attack on comics in the larger theoretical framework of his ideas about violence and society.

Wertham’s work, especially his book Seduction of the Innocent, is often cited as an early example of media effects research, and social scientists today criticize Wertham for his lack of scientific methodology and for his failure to offer quantitative evidence to support his findings. For example, Lowery and DeFleur describe his project as a qualitative content analysis supported by clinical case studies and psychological testing. They suggest that Wertham was claiming that comic books had relatively uniform effects, which was “clearly a version of the old magic bullet theory.” They add that the major weakness of Wertham’s position is that it was not supported by scientifically gathered research data and that Wertham presented no systematic inventory of comic book content. They write, “Without such an inventory, the conjectures are biased, unreliable, and useless.” They conclude that Wertham’s book proposed a simplistic model of “direct and immediate relation between cause and effect” (262, 264). Patrick Parsons suggests that Wertham’s criticism was a “crude social learning theory model which either implicitly or explicitly assumed unmediated modeling effects, often accompanied by an equally simple Freudian interpretation of comic content” (82). Other detractors echo some, if not all, of these criticisms. Moreover, even Wertham’s motives are sometimes questioned, with some implying that he acted more out a desire for personal recognition and gain than any genuine concern for children. These critics, however, misinterpret Wertham’s work. Despite the fact that Wertham singled out comic books as a factor in juvenile delinquency, he was very careful to point out that there was no direct, linear relationship between reading comic books and delinquent behavior; comic books did not “cause” juvenile delinquency (although many of Wertham’s critics and his followers clearly believed he meant just that). His argument was much more complex. His project was to explore the relationship between culture and individuals, and his belief was that the social and cultural matrix in which individuals existed had been largely ignored by psychiatry in its efforts to understand individual behavior. Wertham’s goal was to establish a social psychiatry in which an understanding of the role of culture necessarily played a prominent part. When Wertham wrote of the “mass conditioning” of children by comic books, he never suggested that the medium had uniform effects. “A child is not a simple unit which exists outside of its living social ties,” he wrote (Seduction 118). Comic book reading was just one of a number of factors that needed to be considered when studying children’s behavior. His point was that comic books were part of the social world of children and should not be dismissed as harmless entertainment. He stressed that children did not learn only in school, but from play, from their entertainment, and from their social interaction with adults and with other children. He wrote: “A great deal of learning comes in

the form of entertainment, and a great deal of entertainment painlessly teaches important things” (Seduction 89). Wertham was not interested in a social science approach, with its emphasis on individual effects, in his study of comics. Rather, his aim was to understand the ways in which mass media shaped society. He maintained that psychiatry’s goal should be to understand social inﬂuences affecting individual behavior. Historian James Gilbert has argued, quite rightly, that Wertham’s views were consistent with the theories of mass culture and mass society that preoccupied American intellectuals during the 1950s (111). Wertham shared many of the concerns of the scholars of the Frankfurt School who settled in the United States in the 1930s and whose critique of American mass culture was quite influential in the intellectual community. Wertham was no stranger to their ideas and philosophy; he knew Theodor Adorno well and was familiar with the work of other critics in the same tradition, such as Arno Mayer and Siegfried Kracauer, and Gilbert argues the assumptions Wertham put forth are better understood from this perspective (234). A close reading of Seduction of the Innocent, coupled with an understanding of where this book fits into Wertham’s larger body of work, supports this position. Comic books presented Wertham with an ideal vehicle for his work on children, violence, and society, and his credentials as a leading psychiatrist enabled him to publicize his work in the popular media and thereby influence public opinion. He proved very effective in generating public outrage over the content of comic books and capitalizing on it to further his own agenda of social reform. A brief review of his career reveals why Wertham was quickly embraced by the media and the public as an expert in the controversy. Frederic I. Wertheimer was born in Germany March 20, 1895. Wertheimer earned his medical degree in Germany and did postgraduate work in Paris and in London. In 1921 and 1922, he served as an assistant to Emile Kraepelin, a distinguished psychiatrist. Wertheimer emigrated to the United States in 1922 when he was invited by Dr. Adolf Meyer, director of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, to take a

Four-Armed Is Forewarned! One of the comics cited by Richard Clenenden, executive director of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, in the hearings held in spring of 1954 had been Black Magic #29 (March-April 1954), though it wasn’t singled out in Nyberg’s text. Clenenden particularly noticed that one of the people on the cover had two faces and four arms. Well, wouldn’t you? Art, of course, by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby—with maybe a bit of help from their two-armed friends. You can read the story in the recent Titan Books hardcover The Simon Kirby Library: Horror, edited by Steve Saffel. [© Estates of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.]

“The Will Of William Wilson,” Continued Written by Gardner F. Fox and drawn by Martin Naydel, these panels from what was once scheduled to be the 48-page story in All-Star Comics #31 are reproduced from various collections. They have been especially colored for A/E by Larry Guidry. [© DC Comics.]

See more color pages from “The Will of William Wilson” in future issues.

Fawcett Collector’s Of America

Making Headlines The always-conniving Dr. Sivana even got into the act of writing by publishing and editing his own insidious tabloid into Otto Binder’s “Sivana’s Crime Newspaper” from Captain Marvel Adventures #50 (Dec. 1945); art by C.C. Beck & Pete Costanza. Stay tuned for another Binder-produced Sivana scheme in our article coming up next. [Shazam hero, Billy Batson, & Dr. Sivana TM & © DC Comics.]

There are any number of explanations of why writers are the way they are. And assuming there is one reader left who has unfortunately come this far with me, let me inform you that I am not a “typical” writer at all. Do you picture a writer as a free soul, who writes only when the mood (and a low bank account) seizes him? Who travels widely, gathering material for more stories? Who has a wide host of important friends in every walk of life? And who spurns money and spends it as lavishly as he makes it? Strangely enough, some of my writer friends are of that admirable caliber. They are perhaps typical. I’m not. I know one writer who, in the space of a few years, has had four different homes in three states and one foreign country. He writes pulps, comics, confessions, mysteries, everything. His life is wide and free. He’s really living, and tasting of all the many strange fruits of this earthly existence. Why not? And yet, I know other writers more like myself, who gravitate in only a slight orbit, and shun such wanderings and shifts of environment. I think there’s a large group of both such types. I don’t know which outnumbers which. I don’t know which is really “typical.” Anyhow, we can boil it all down to this… that the typical writer is one with two arms, ten toes, and is one of only two sexes. Next: INTRODUCING … YOU!

The World’s Mightiest Mortal Gets Psychoanalyzed C.C. Beck at 1982 Minneapolis Comics Convention; photo by Alan Light. Beck was proud of the fact that the new Smithsonian book had reprinted the lead story from Captain Marvel Adventures #100.

“Captain Marvel Goes Crazy!” & John Huston’s Let There Be Light by Brian Cremins

n “Real Facts about an Unreal Character,” the fifth essay C.C. Beck mailed to his Critical Circle on July 14, 1988 [published in A/E #14/FCA #73, April 2002], Captain Marvel’s chief artist and co-creator explains the “real secret” of the character’s success. Like his colleague Otto Binder, Beck understood Billy Batson to be the true hero of Captain Marvel’s adventures. In fact, Beck writes, the world’s most celebrated boy news reporter told about Captain Marvel’s exploits over his radio and television programs. In the very first episode, written by Bill Parker, Billy never revealed anything about Captain Marvel to Sterling Morris and instead said, “Boy, oh boy! Here’s where we go to town! Me and—”

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck “You and who else, son?” Mr. Morris asked. “—er, nobody, sir. Just me and the microphone. That’s all, sir—just me and ‘Mike,’” Billy said. As far as anyone ever knew, Billy may have made up every story he ever told over the air. Beck then pauses and reminds his Critical Circle colleagues that, of course, “Billy’s stories were all made up by Otto Binder and some other very talented writers” who understood “that children, and for that matter most adults, are far more interested in fantasy and magic and outrageous fiction than in facts, which are dull and stupid things.” But how does an “unreal character” behave when faced with an all-too-real set of circumstances? For example, how

Analyze This! Author Brian Cremins suggests that C.C. Beck’s cover for Captain Marvel Adventures #56 (March 1946) presents a presage towards the Kurtzman/Elder/Wood super-hero parodies launched the following decade in Mad, as evidenced by panels from Mad #4’s “Superduperman” by Harvey Kurtzman & Wally Wood. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics; Mad panel © EC Publications, Inc.]

Alter Ego #127