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No. 12 January 2002

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

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LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!

Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!

LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!

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Vol. 3, No. 12 / January 2002

™

Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus Jerry Bails (founder), Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich

Cover Artists (& Colorists) Paul Reinman, Bill Ward

Mailing Crew Russ Garwood, Glen Musial, Ed Stelli, Pat Varker, Loston Wallace

Writer/Editorial: Don’t You Know There’s a War On? . . . . . 2

And Special Thanks to: Bill Alger Darren Auck Murphy Anderson Mike W. Barr Dennis Beaulieu Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Bob Brosch Rich Buckler Nick Cardy Alex Chun Dan Clowes Lynda Fox Cohen Gary Crowdus Ray A. Cuthbert Theresa R. Davidson Al Dellinges Shel Dorf Scott Foss Keif Fromm Will Eisner Shane Foley Gill Fox Ron Frantz Karl Gafford Marvin Giles Dick Giordano Jennifer T. Go Martin L. Greim Fred Guardineer Bob Harper Ron Harris Mark & Stephanie Heike Daniel Herman Dennis Kawicki John Kelly Jim Korkis Harry Lampert

Contents

Mitch Lee Carl Lundgren Dan Makara Joe & Nadia Mannarino Jean-Francois Massé Hugh McCann Tom McNally Brian K. Morris Roger Mortimer Eric NolenWeathington Jerry Ordway Chris Overton Jon Park Bill Pearson Richard Pryor Ethan Roberts Steven Rowe Eugene Seger Kevin Sharpe Dave Siegel Jeff Smith Robin Snyder Tim Takeuchi Joel Thingvall Dann Thomas Hames Ware Bill Warren Len Wein Marv Wolfman Ed Zeno Michael Zeno

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Ronn Foss

There’s no Black Terror to deal with the terrorists... so we’ll have to do it!

Written Off - 9-30-49, Part II: Reconstructing Reinman . . . . . . 4 Focus on a never-before-seen “Green Lantern” story from the 1940s—and more!

That 1965 Newsweek Article: A Triptych in Prose . . . . . . . . . . 17 Bill Schelly examines a landmark media piece and its “lost” interviews.

Hail, Hail, This Time’s the Gang’s Really All Here! . . . . . . . . . . 28 Roy Thomas talks to Len Wein and Rich Buckler about All-Star Squadron.

re:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Playing catch-up, with loquacious letters & cogent corrections concerning recent issues.

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America #71) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 P.C. Hamerlinck presents another Fawcett foray with C.C. Beck & Marc Swayze.

Gill Fox and “Quality Control” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: The cover of Comic Cavalcade #6 (Spring 1944) was either a joint effort by Paul Reinman (Green Lantern), H.G. Peter (Wonder Woman), and Martin Naydel (The Flash)—or else of an artist carefully emulating the styles of all three. This Reinman-executed version, like Bill Ward’s Blackhawk art on our flip cover, is one of the 1970s re-creations sold by Collectors Book Store in Los Angeles, and is likewise from the collection of Roy Thomas. [Art ©2002 estate of Paul Reinman; GL, Wonder Woman, & Flash © & TM DC Comics.] Above: If the caption-writer of this Reinman-drawn panel from Comic Cavalcade #15 (JuneJuly 1946) thinks that wood is GL’s “implacable enemy,” he should’ve met the DC honchos who “wrote off” several unpublished “Green Lantern” stories back in 1949! Luckily, Fate spared at least the artwork printed in this issue. [©2002 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 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 Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

Don t You Know There s a War On? For all of my more than six decades of life, there has been one “date that will live in infamy,” and one only: December 7, 1941, the Sunday morning when the Japanese struck at military installations at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu. Now there’s another one. September 11, 2001. The differences between the two events loom as large as the obvious similarities. Even more Americans were killed on the more recent date— and many hundreds of visiting or resident foreigners, as well. This time, it was only three airplanes which did all the damage—and they were our planes—and commercial aircraft filled with passengers, to boot. In addition, a very small number of the enemy took direct part in the actual attack—less than two dozen. Another key difference is that, when the smoke cleared in 1941, we knew where the enemy was—in Japan, east Asia, and the Pacific (and, within a couple of days, in Occupied Europe and Africa, as well)—but we were ill-equipped to take the battle to them at once. This time, we had a lot of firepower at our disposal, and could quickly rush it nearly anywhere in the world—but we couldn’t be certain precisely where (or even to some extent who) our adversary was. As these words go to the printer in early December 2001, I—like many Americans and others around the world—still mentally relive, several times a day, the horror I felt when, circa midnight in Sidney, Australia, my wife and I woke up and turned on the TV in our hotel room, to see one of the World Trade towers aflame—only to see a second plane crash into the other one, a couple of minutes later. During the ensuing weeks, the horror remains... but another emotion has grown up alongside it in my mind.

Anger. Anger—and a desire, not so much for revenge, though that is present, too, and I’m not particularly ashamed of it—but for justice. American justice, western justice (in perhaps more than one sense of the term)—to be meted out to those who perpetrated the act. Our President said it best: “Wanted—dead or alive!” Yes, I’ve heard the arguments, whether given out by the Taliban or by well-meaners in the US or elsewhere, that America was partly if not solely to blame for what happened. After all, we helped arm those guys a decade or so ago, and did nothing while they took over a prostrate country, etc., etc., etc. Besides, there are bound to be more civilian casualties if attacks continue against the Taliban in Afghanistan, for shielding Osama bin Laden and his cohorts—so, hey, why not try sanctions or negotiations, or even just cut our losses, rather than risk getting the entire Moslem world mad at us by making it seem as if we’re warring with Islam itself? Bullsh*t. The asterisk is company policy, but you get the idea. I’ll not be the loudest person in defending everything the United States has done, God knows. We’ve made some blunders—or at least our elected or appointed representatives have, and that makes them “our” blunders, as well—and there’s no denying it. But that’s beside the point here. We may have given the forerunners of the Taliban weapons—but it was their own choice to use them against us. We didn’t put a gun (or a cardboard-cutter) to the heads of anyone— Moslem, Jew, Christian, or other—and order him to hijack an airliner filled with men, women, and children and fly it into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.

writer/editorial That was their own idea. When you see a mad dog, you don’t stop and try to reason with it. You don’t negotiate with it, and you sure as hell don’t roll over and play dead hoping it won’t bite you (again). You kill it by any means possible, and only then do you take time for sober reflection to see what you can do to avoid more canines catching rabies in the future. Yes, there will be civilian casualties. In fact, there already have been— well over 3000, last September—and most of them have been ours. We face a cowardly enemy (and I do not use the term inadvisedly) who will not admit to what they have done—who strike at our entire population via plane crashes and whatever means they can find—who disperse their fearful army amid their own civilian population in the hope of protecting themselves from our missiles, because they know we figure the un-sophisticates of the world will deem it our fault if civilians are harmed, and no responsibility of theirs.

one, will feel that we deserve anything we get in the future. I have no way of knowing, of course, what the world situation will be when this editorial sees print in early 2002. I can only hope that America has not really changed from the “land of the free, and the home of the brave,” into what many people at home and abroad already think it is—a nation that embodies the Short Attention Span Theatre, with its populace wondering (as some homegrown commentators already were when these words were written in late October) why the war wasn’t over and done with already, since it had been six or seven weeks since the destruction of the World Trade Center, and three whole weeks since US-led coalition forces began targeting those ranged against us in Afghanistan. Three whole weeks! My God in heaven.

I was no great admirer of Richard M. Nixon—in fact, I voted against him in two Presidential elections—but in his later book The Real War he postulated that the effectiveness of a country is “force times will.” Not “force plus will,” where even a lack of will still leaves you the force—but “force times will.” And any quantity, if multiplied times nothing—equals nothing.

It took the larger part of four years from Pearl Harbor to the surrender of the Japanese imperialists in Tokyo Bay. And Great Britain had been fighting the Nazis for two years before that. The behind-thescenes plotting that climaxed on 9-11 was evidently several years in the making, as well. We should be thinking in terms not of weeks, not even of months, but, sadly, of years.

If we, by lack of will power or savvy or whatever, allow our sworn foes, these unholy holy warriors, to obfuscate and confuse not just the more backward people in the world but even ourselves, so that we are paralyzed by guilt and inaction, then we have already lost. And I, for

I want—and I have let my elected government representatives know that I want—America and its friends to win this war on terror, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes. I don’t want one civilian or even military casualty more—on either side—than it takes to rid the Earth of those whose twisted minds spawned the events of September 11, 2001, and of those who would shield them. But neither do I want one less casualty—on either side—than it takes to win.

Everyone deserves a

Golden Age!

Neither during World War II nor during the present conflict have there arisen any super-powered heroes to do this job for us. There is no modern-day Black Terror to stamp out the Terrorists, as he did the Nazis. There is no Batman to seek out what President Bush calls “the evil ones” in their dark caves. There is no Human Torch to roast them alive in their labyrinthine tunnels, as the newly-invented flamethrower did enemy troops who refused to surrender during the early 1940s. This war against terror and terrorists is for us to win, and us alone—or else we are not worthy to inherit the world bequeathed to us by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I’d like to think we are. End of editorial.

GiVE BACK TO THE CREATORS WHO GAVE YOU YOUR DREAMS.

P.S.: It is not my intention to allow Alter Ego to become a vehicle for arguments either for or against the position taken above. I probably won’t print any letters either pro or con my stated viewpoint. However, as the magazine’s co-founder and editor, I felt readers should know where I stand, whether they agree with me or not. I’ve never been one to read an opinion poll to decide what I should think or say.

Written Off – 9-30-49

Part II by Roy Thomas

Reconstructing Reinman [Except where otherwise noted, all original-art reproductions accompanying this article are from photocopies courtesy of Marv Wolfman.] Skip ahead a bit if you’ve heard this one before (especially if you’ve read the fuller account back in A/E V3#10): In 1949 National Comics Publications, Inc. (a.k.a. DC), elected to “write off” what may have amounted to hundreds of pages of unpublished comic art and story, no doubt in order to get a one-time tax break. Many of these pages were stamped “Written Off – 9-30-49” on that date or later. Prominent among them seem to have been never-used stories from recently defunct (or totally revamped) titles such as Flash Comics, All-Flash, Comic Cavalcade, All-American Comics, Green Lantern, the stillongoing Sensation Comics, and at least one probably-completed but longshelved Justice Society of America tale (“The Will of William Wilson”) from 1945-46... in other words, the majority of the All-American line which had once been M.C. Gaines’ sister company to National/DC, and which had been purchased outright by DC circa 1945. Along with this, apparently, went at least one “Superman” story drawn in the early 1940s by the Joe Shuster studio.

enlightened DC management, beginning in the late ’60s and early ’70s in the company’s “giant” anthologies. Most of them, however, almost certainly do not exist en toto, or, if they do, the pages and panels are at the very least scattered to the winds and probably impossible for either ourselves or DC to completely reassemble. We’ve had fun trying, though, in the interests of historical scholarship—oh yeah, and because we dig the stories and art, as well.

In the second half of the 1960s, on at least two occasions, future comics writer and editor Marv Wolfman and several fellow fans were fortunate in being allowed, by production chief Sol Harrison, to cart off what amounted to hundreds of pages and demi-pages of original DC artwork from the 1940s-’60s period, much of the earlier work from the material “written off” in 1949. Under circumstances explained in full in A/E V3#2, many (but not all) of the latter pages had been cut by Marv into thirds (rows, or “tiers”), since in the 1940s most DC comics had three even rows of panels on all pages except the splash. A few of these “lost” stories have since been printed complete by a more

These Carmine Infantino-penciled panels are from an unpublished circa-1948 encounter between The Flash and The Thinker, complete with editorial notes in the margin. [Flash & Thinker © & TM 2002 DC Comics.]

Reconstructing Reinman

This penultimate page from the third, mostly-unpublished Flash vs. Rose & Thorn exploit, scripted by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Joe Kubert, previously appeared—in color—in Lois Lane #113 (Sept.-Oct. 1971). It, like other pages from this story previously printed in Alter Ego, was also seen, in black-&-white, in Robin Snyder’s The Comics. [©2002 DC Comics.]

Some of this art has seen the light of day in the newly-resurrected Alter Ego, occasionally in other magazines, as well. In the basically outof-print All-Star Companion I assembled and edited for TwoMorrows in 2000, more than a dozen pages’ worth of the unpublished mid-’40s JSA story were gathered together for the first time. And only two issues ago we printed all the art we could find (approximately six pages’ worth) from a Carmine Infantino-penciled, never-before-seen late-’40s “Flash” story, “The Garrick Curse!” This time around, we’ve attempted to reconstruct what we could of another of those “rescued” stories—a “Green Lantern” tale drawn by the late Paul Reinman (though the writer, alas, is unknown).

Reinman, who in the 1960s would ink many Jack Kirby stories for Marvel and illustrate the “Mighty Comics” material for Archie, was for a brief time in the 1940s a minor luminary at DC/AA. His “Green Lantern” work generally headlined All-American Comics from 1943-47, but also appeared occasionally in Comic Cavalcade and even in AllStar Comics, and he drew at least a cover or two for Green Lantern... though, oddly, no interior stories. Putting together all the known extant art from this tale was not unlike doing a jigsaw puzzle—which is appropriate, since it deals with a radio program called “Dr. Cypher, the Puzzle King”!

Written Off – 9-30-49

Anyway, to wind things up before we take up this entire issue showing tiers and panels from one incomplete story to illustrate our point about the “written off” material: If someone reading this piece has additional art panels which might belong to this Cypher/Limbo story—even that page once sold by TriState—we hope he’ll share them with us. One of our hopes in all this is that one day DC will decide to print all this artwork, either in an 80page giant or perhaps as part of some future Golden Age Green Lantern Archives—probably around Volume 25! My great-great-grand-

nephews may enjoy seeing it. And if anyone mails Alter Ego a photocopy of unpublished art that probably isn’t part of this story—maybe because it was drawn by Infantino or Kubert or Arthur Peddy or Lee Elias or whoever—or maybe ’cause it features The Flash or Hawkman or The Ghost Patrol instead of Green Lantern? Well, that’s quite all right, too.

The denouement of a “Ghost Patrol” story penciled by Arthur Peddy (and probably inked by Bernard Sachs, who would embellish the first few years of Justice League of America). [Ghost Patrol © & TM DC Comics 2002.]

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People Do Their Jobs!” Comic“I LetFandom Archive

That Newsweek Article A Triptych in Prose [INTRODUCTION by Bill Schelly: 1965 was a watershed year for comicdom. 1964 had witnessed three regional fan gatherings (in Detroit, New York City, and Chicago) and the first major article on the comic fandom movement (in The New York Times); but the following year brought the first true comic book conventions, publication of The Guidebook to Comics Fandom, and a slew of articles on the hobby—including, most notably, truly national exposure in Newsweek magazine. [Entitled “Superfans and Batmaniacs,” the latter page-plus article appeared in the February 15, 1965, issue of the periodical, which boasted a circulation of over a million readers. Comics fans, alerted by the fandom grapevine, eagerly snapped up copies of the issue to see what sort of treatment their hobby received. [To say that the response was one of mild disappointment is probably the best way to characterize fans’ overall reaction. While there was no denying the giddy thrill of seeing comics depicted and discussed in national media, the article managed to get almost as many facts wrong as it did right—not the best batting average for a highlyrespected periodical.

with Phil Seuling (and possibly others) in New York City, and with a group of several Detroit fans at Jerry Bails’ home in a Michigan suburb. Of the Seuling interview, no record has come to light, though it was probably Seuling—a prominent fan and comics dealer in Brooklyn who later became a convention entrepreneur and a coestablisher of the direct sales market—who provided the magazine with the cover reproductions of five Golden Age comics which accompanied the article, as well as the notion that a copy of Action Comics #1 would sell for $100, then an astronomical sum for a mere comic book. Fan gossip at the time was that Seuling seemed to resent Bails, and that this animosity began when Newsweek mentioned Bails, Shel Dorf, and the Bails-founded fanzine Alter Ego by name, but not Seuling. [Be that as it may: It’s clear that the interview with the Detroit collectors was the primary source of information used for the article. Accordingly, we are here pleased to reprint three artifacts of 1965: the rarely-seen Newsweek article itself (with the kind permission of the publishers); the Detroit interview; plus, as an offbeat footnote, a spoof of the article which Roy Thomas wrote a few weeks later.

[It was widely known that a Newsweek reporter had met with fans in two cities:

Jerry Bails, in a photo first printed in Alter Ego [Vol 1] #5, 1963. As founder of Alter Ego and other fanzines in the early ’60s, as well as of the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors, Jerry was a seminal figure in the beginnings of comics fandom.

[First, the article itself:]

The 2-15-65 issue of Newsweek cover-featured Indonesia’s President Sukarno. What? No blurb trumpeting the comics fandom piece in its “Life and Leisure” section? Regarding upset fan reaction to the article, Don & Maggie Thompson wrote in Capa-alpha: “Now come on, people, what did you expect? What reactions have you been getting from the ‘outside’ world when you’ve talked about your hobby, anyway? Respectful interest and ‘where do I go to sign up’ reactions?” Thanks to Tom McNally & Roger Mortimer of Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina. [Cover ©2001 Newsweek, Inc.]

Phil Seuling may not have been directly quoted in the Newsweek piece, but he was still a major force in 1960s-70s fandom. Here he hosts the 1969 Comic Art Convention in New York City, as seen in Alter Ego [Vol. 1] #10 in 1969-70.

The All-Star Squadron Chronicles

Chronicles

Part III

Hail Hail Now The Gangs Really All Here!

by Roy Thomas [WRITER/EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re baaaack! Due to the wealth of contributions with which Alter Ego has been happily deluged in recent months, it’s been four issues—the larger part of a year—since we presented Part II of this ongoing series, which detailed how in late 1980, in developing the World War II-era title I had conceived for my new employer, DC Comics, I chose the Golden Age heroes who would be most strongly featured in the initial issues. Onward:]

I. Editors And Enigmas Things were proceeding apace. Several aspects of All-Star Squadron were already fairly well established in my mind. Among other things, I already knew: That my first story arc (not that I used that term then, or like it much now) would commence on Saturday, December 6, 1941—the night before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled America into World War II; That it would open with most of the then-active Justice Society of America—plus honorary members Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman—being captured by time-tossed supervillains masterminded by Per Degaton, so that lessdeveloped DC stars could shine in their place; That Hawkman, Dr. Mid-Nite, and The Atom would evade Degaton’s net and join forces with several other heroes who had never been JSAers, to form the nucleus of the Squadron. Also that, just as in 1975 I had had British Prime Minister Winston Churchill give both name and mission to The Invaders over at Marvel, this time I wanted the group to be assembled and christened by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself. Around this time, DC finally got around to assigning an editor to All-Star Squadron.

Len Wein and I had first met not too long after I became an assistant editor at Marvel in the mid-1960s... and I’m dead certain that, whenever it happened, I met Marv Wolfman that same day. These two longtime

“Hawkman, Dr. Mid-Nite, and The Atom would evade Degaton’s net and join forces with several other heroes”—such as Robotman and Johnny Quick on this page from All-Star Squadron #2 (Oct. 1981). Repro’d from photocopies of the original Buckler-Ordway art, courtesy of Jerry Bails. [©2002 DC Comics.]

Hail, Hail, Now the Gangs Really All Here! friends were involved in various fan activities together; even their early writing assignments at DC soon afterward would be done in tandem. By 1974, as editor-in-chief, I had lured both Len and Marv over to Marvel as full-time associate editors—of the color and black-&-white comics, respectively, though Marv was basically de facto editor of the latter. I’ve been told that being my associate editor back then didn’t look like a job with a lot of room for career advancement, since most people figured I’d stay at Marvel, like, forever. Still, in point of fact, after little more than two years at the helm I opted out for a writing-and-editing contract—at which point Len suddenly found himself editor-in-chief of Marvel’s color comics, with Marv at last inheriting the black-&-whites officially. Health considerations, however, led Len to step down after half a year or so, and by the time I made the move to DC in late 1980 he was firmly ensconced there as full editor of several titles. Quite logically, the projected All-Star Squadron was added to Len’s pile. Since DC didn’t allow “writer/editors” at that stage (nor did Marvel, any longer, which is partly why I’d left), I was pleased when I learned Len would edit the book—although both Dick Giordano and I remember dimly that at one stage Dick, then a “line editor” like Len, was slated to handle All-Star and Len my planned sword-and-sorcery series. Len, however, has no recollection of ever being told he would edit the title that eventually became Arak, Son of Thunder. All three of us agree, however, that the switch in assignments made more sense, since Len had been a self-confessed “big fan” of the Justice Society ever since the JLA-JSA team-ups began in 1963, and was already editing Justice League of America—so why not its new 1940s counterpart? For his part, Dick, as he reiterated over lunch last spring in New York City, was far more enthusiastic about heroic fantasy in general than about super-heroes in particular.

The stage had been set, via this “failure to communicate,” for some real problems if Len (or Dick) and I ever found ourselves at loggerheads on the direction, plots, or dialogue of either title. Fortunately, they and I were nearly always “on the same page,” as they say. “I wouldn’t have dreamed of interfering with whatever you wanted to do with the book,” Len told me recently. While I, in turn, respected Len’s expertise, especially as a prospective sounding-board, even if I understandably felt that it was merely my duty to advise him of what I was going to write, not to ask for his consent or accept his creative input. This had nothing to do with Len, of course; I’d have felt the same whether the editor of the two new titles was he, Marv, Dick, Gerry Conway, Julie Schwartz, or anybody else. Naturally, I realize now (and did then) that, in the event of “creative differences” with my editor, I wouldn’t have had a legal leg to stand on, since, as Sam Goldwyn was reputedly fond of saying, “An oral contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”—and neither are oral amendments to a written one. But hey—anyone who knows me knows that would hardly have stopped me from raising serious Cain over being misled, however inadvertently. After all, it was over a less defensible misrepresentation that I was leaving Marvel—but that’s another story.

Oddly, when this photo depicting “writer/editor Len Wein in his mentor’s office” appeared in Amazing World of DC Comics #3 (Nov. 1974), Len was editor-in-chief of Marvel’s color comics! The “mentor” at left? DC legend Julius Schwartz, who else? On the verge of turning pro writer in ’67, Len drew the illo below for a 1967 New York comics convention. Thanks to Mike Friedrich. [Art ©2002 Len Wein; heroes & photo ©2002 the respective copyright holders.]

When I spoke with Len by phone last October, he confirmed another thing I suspected out loud back in A/E V3#8: Neither publisher Jenette Kahn nor editorial director Joe Orlando nor anybody else ever breathed so much as a word to him concerning the verbal promise that had been made to me before I signed a three-year writing-only contract with DC—namely that, though house editors would be assigned to both new mags I would create, their direction, storyline, and dialogue would be basically in my purview, and that the editors would merely be there to “help” me, end-quote. Len swears that no one ever so much as hinted to him of such a hands-tying agreement, and I’ve no reason to doubt his memory. I had long suspected as much.

II. “The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not In Our Stars...” Anyway, I threw myself into All-Star Squadron and Bloodwolf (the mag that at the last moment we would all decide, I think wisely, to retitle Arak, Son of Thunder.)

For the former I pored over my bound collection of All-Star Comics and re-read numerous vintage DC and Quality comics, both actual and on microfilm. At Marvel I had played fairly fast and loose with 1940s continuity in The Invaders, since Timely comics had never possessed the internal consistency and character history that DC and Fawcett had. However, I had definitely decided that I wanted to keep the heroes of the All-Star Squadron consistent with what they had been in the wartime mags, though hopefully with added character development, in keeping with the way I’d written X-Men, Avengers, Defenders, F.F., Invaders, et al. Since the Golden Age super-doers had been mostly two-dimensional at best, and I wanted to make them three-dimensional (or more nearly so), I decided I would find, or else develop, character traits within them on which I could build.

Marc Swayze

Occasionally the Fawcett romance comics would carry two stories from the Swayze drawing board. In Life Story #21 (Dec. 195) there were three— including one that could have fit snugly into Cowboy Love. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]

I enjoyed illustrating the romance comics. It was much more interesting to depict a character’s expressions of emotion than the ability to fight or fly. Of course, going around wearing those expressions sometimes made the artist look stupid.

Who could ever have doubted that the artist who had drawn Mary Marvel so fetchingly in her very first story (in Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Dec. 1942) could draw appealing romance stories a few years later? [©2002 DC Comics.]

My family understood. When we gathered for a meal, and I wore a glazed expression, my wife would explain to the children, “Daddy’s not with us. He’s worried about that poor girl whose heart is broken because her sweetheart left her!” And we’d all laugh. But it was true.

[Marc Swayze’s memoirs of his days in comics will continue next issue.]

A Twilight Of The Gods

A Twilight Of The Gods C.C. Beck’s On Top of Ol’ Lympos by Ron Frantz Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck The religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct. The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There, they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion. —Thomas Bulfinch, Mythology

Arnold Toynbee, the eminent historian, wrote: “History grew out of mythology. It has been said of the Iliad that anyone who starts reading it as history will find that it is full of fiction; but anyone who starts reading it as fiction will find that it is full of history.” Mythology has endured the passing of time because the stories deal with problems that have not changed. The problems haven’t changed because people haven’t changed. The same human foibles that Homer observed 3000 years ago are as real now as they were then. Every epoch has certain outstanding characteristics that help explain what men did at the time they were written. The forms of modern literature that are familiar to us today took their beginnings from these ancient tales. The late C.C. Beck knew these things well. Beck, of course, is no stranger to most comic book fans. Best known as the Golden Age Captain Marvel’s chief artist, he left behind a legacy of wonderfully illustrated stories that have entertained millions. Beck thought of himself as a cartoonist. However, he was something more. Beck was a humorist in the classic tradition who knew how to tell a good story.

From 1939-1953 Charles Clarence Beck and the Big Red Cheese made it through 150 issues of Captain Marvel Adventures and 155 of Whiz Comics, although, alas, neither would fare as well at DC in the 1970s and since. [©2002 DC Comics.]

There are few things more difficult to write than humor. Critics and humorists have debated the subject for centuries. Theories about the composition of humor are endless. One popular belief is that the best humor is blended with pathos until the two become one, becoming a juxtaposition of laughter and tears. Some contend that the essence of good humor is that it be presented without malice or harm. One can look to the cartoons of Charles Schultz or the novels of William Saroyan as contemporary examples. These elements glisten in the artwork and writing of C.C. Beck. His stories were an ingenious mixture of hyperbole and myosis. One easily detects a sweeping grandeur in the style of writing,

For Ace Comics (and Jerry de Fuccio) in the 1980s, Beck “re-created” (i.e., penciled and inked) numerous pages of 1940s comic art, mostly by artists other than himself—e.g., “Fantomah,” Homer Fletcher’s (“Barclay Flagg’s”) flying superheroine from early issues of Fiction House’s Jungle Comics, and Lev Gleason’s epic Daredevil Battles the Claw, originally drawn by Jack Cole. [Re-created art ©2002 the estate of C.C. Beck.]

writer/editorial

A Matter Of Quality B

y sheer coincidence, this first issue of Alter Ego to be assembled after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, features a pair of covers related to World War II—and thus to an earlier “date that will live in infamy,” just as the more recent one shall and should. I’ll have a bit more to say on this subject in our “flip section,” but, right here and now: Our cover illustrations by Golden Age artists are 1970s re-creations dealing with twin aspects of WWII—the battle overseas (the Blackhawks) and the Home Front (Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Flash). The Paul Reinman one was chosen because the longest item in our “flip section” is a study of the extant art from a never-published “GL” story Paul drew circa 1946. Bill Ward’s re-do of the cover of Military Comics #29, for its part, is the perfect lead-in to this issue’s centerpiece: a long and rewarding interview with Gill Fox, a talented and generous man who, besides being a cartoonist ever since the late 1930s, was also the editor of Busy Arnold’s wonderful Quality Comics Group for three crucial years—1940-43.

Quality, most of whose characters are now the property of DC Comics, was a company that truly deserved its name. A perusal of the first few names listed on our cover will suffice to demonstrate that: Jack Cole, creator of Plastic Man... Reed Crandall and Lou Fine, two of the ablest draftsmen in the history of comics... Will Eisner, the genius behind The Spirit... Chuck Cuidera, who co-created Blackhawk. And the rest of the Quality Golden-Agers listed out front aren’t exactly chopped liver, either— including Bill Ward, who besides drawing “Blackhawk” tales also created the fondly remembered Torchy, who made adolescent male hearts beat just a wee bit faster during the postwar years.

join him till months later, and who knew neither much English nor anyone in the States. Dann and I were more than willing. Not long after Yoshi (as we’ll call him) moved in, he and we exchanged a few notes left in each other’s mailboxes. This allowed him to read our carefully-worded invitation to take him out to dinner, rather than forcing him to understand our speech right off the bat. His acceptance note mentioned that he loved to fly model airplanes, and had won several competitions in Japan. This gave Dann and me a smashing idea. Near the Torrance Airport a few miles away was a good restaurant with the name “Lafayette Escadrille,” where we had eaten once or twice, a year or so earlier. As the name implies (to them as knows), the place had a “World War I flying” theme, complete with a biplane out front, and lots of authentic WWI aero-decor inside. Yoshi would be able to enjoy the atmosphere as well as the food; truth to tell, we hoped that would take a bit of the pressure off both him and us to totally understand what the other was saying, as well.

If the names of Gill Fox and others on our cover are a bit less familiar to you than those of Cole, Eisner, and company—well, I never meant A/E to deal only with people with whom all readers were already familiar. Part of the joy of comics history is the joy of discovery. So I’ll get out of the way and let you revel in Jim Amash’s in-depth conversation with Gill about his own life and work, and about the colorful and talented comics stalwarts he’s known along the way.... But no—I can’t take my leave until I tell you of an incident of which I’m reminded every time I look at that Ward Blackhawk painting, hanging on a wall in my office: The time was the late 1980s. My wife Dann and I were living in a cozy hillside neighborhood in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. One day the landlord of the house next door asked Dann and me if we could make a special effort to be nice to his new renter: a young Japanese man being brought to the U.S. by his company there, whose wife couldn’t

At that point, since I had spent years writing comics set in World War II, in which, contrary to the earlier conflict, Japan and America had been deadly enemies, Dann and I set about to make our living area “offense-proof.” This consisted primarily of taking Ward’s color Blackhawk re-creation—which prominently featured a dead Japanese soldier sprawled near a fallen Rising Sun flag—off a wall. I hadn’t bought the painting because of that aspect—it was simply the only Blackhawk re-creation I’d seen to date—but I didn’t want to offend Yoshi’s sensibilities. After all, how would we have liked it if we’d entered a home in Japan and seen a blood-stained WWII American flag hanging there?

A few nights later, soon after Yoshi knocked on our door and we’d made a bit of small talk (with our guest consulting his Japanese-English dictionary every few seconds), we set off in our car for the Torrance Airport, with Dann in the back seat with Yoshi, making an attempt to explain to him the “theme” idea of the restaurant to which we were going. I drove confidently along the dark, narrow road on the airport grounds, and saw stationery lights getting brighter. I drove nearer, nearer.... And then I kept right on going, passing the restaurant. Dann’s reaction was swift: “You missed it!” (A not totally unreasonable assumption; I’d done such things from time to time, lost in thought about some comics or film plot.) “I think we should go somewhere else,” was all I could manage. This vague statement did not mollify my red-haired wife. She insisted that we turn around. There weren’t a lot of restaurants in that area, Torrance being a smallish airport compared to LAX—and besides, we had already told Yoshi where we were taking him. So okay, I turned around and headed back, my mind racing.

writer/editorial

When we’d parked the car and were walking toward the restaurant, Dann, who was still playing dutiful hostess to Yoshi, at first only halfnoticed the new sign which had replaced the one signifying “Lafayette Escadrille”—with the WWI aeroplane no longer in evidence.

rarely-seen artwork which led to his quitting Mad magazine. Neither he nor we mean any disrespect to Mad editor Al Feldstein or to talented replacement Bob Clarke by examining this crucial turning-point in Wally’s checkered career.

As we entered the restaurant, it suddenly sank in on Dann, who didn’t live much of her mental life in WWII as I did, exactly what the new name implied. The interior of the eatery had been totally redecorated... in keeping with its new name and theme:

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say a few words of my own about my late friend Ronn Foss, one of the best and earliest fan-artists of what Bill Schelly has christened “The Golden Age of Comic Fandom.” As the second editor/publisher of the first volume of Alter Ego (issues #5-6 in 1963-64), Ronn initiated a number of “firsts” in the fanzine: the first use of photos of fans as well as their art and writings... the (as Bill says later) “first amateur hero strip in a photo-offset fanzine”... the magazine’s first “mascot” (“Joy Holiday,” whom he created and drew)... the first pro interview in A/E (a by-mail affair with Joe Kubert)... the first A/E cover which featured pro artwork (part of Kubert’s cover for a 1950s issue of Tor, flanked by a vintage photo of Joe himself)... along with a more art-oriented approach in general. Together, he and founder Jerry Bails (in #1-4) were greatly influential on the style of comics fanzines since, including my own #7-9 in 1964-65.

“Doolittle’s Raiders.” I had realized the instant I’d seen the sign—and now, so did Dann— that the eatery had been rechristened and redecorated to honor the April 1, 1942, bombing run made by sixteen B-25s to drop their lethal eggs on Tokyo and four other Japanese cities—America’s first homeland retaliation since Japan’s forces had sneak-attacked Pearl Harbor four months earlier. The force had been commanded by U.S. Army Air Force Lt. Colonel “Jimmy” Doolittle, and had been styled “Doolittle’s Raiders.” As it turned out, Dann and I couldn’t have chosen a worse place to take Yoshi if we’d spent years researching the project.

Ronn and I were in constant contact via the mails during much of the first half of the 1960s, and we got along well; he was only about a year older than I, and we shared many tastes, including The first thing that stared you in the those for Kubert and Kirby. Yet I always thought face as you entered the door was a of him as older and more mature, partly because newspaper facsimile (or original?) tacked he often drew himself looking that way, puffing to a wall, with a humongous headline: away in a sophisticated manner on a pipe—and he TOKYO BOMBED! had a moustache, to boot! In the late 1960s I was able to give him a chance to draw a short feature And Reed Crandall’s art in “Blackhawk” stories was so It was as if Dann and I had moved to for Marvel’s Not Brand Echh just before it was good that it almost softened the inherent stereotyped Japan and a local host had taken us to a cancelled, and Ronn was always happy that, at racism of Chop-Chop... almost. But at least Chop was restaurant called “Pearl Harbor.” The rest one of the “good guys” during World War II! least once, he had some work printed in a pro of the place more than lived up to its new [©2002 DC Comics.] comic. (If NBE had lasted a little longer, I had theme, with torn Nipponese Rising Sun plans to work in Grass Green and Biljo White, as flags, models of B-25s—and the entire story of the raid related on the well.) I’m proud to have the original art of his Eclipse cover for A/E back of each menu. Dann and I spent much of the dinner trying to make (Vol. 1) #5, reprinted two issues back, hanging up in our gym. sure that Yoshi understood that the restaurant’s theme had changed radically since we had last been there, and he nodded and smiled a lot. Ronn and I met only once—when he was passing through St. Louis, But neither then nor in the decade-plus since have we ever had any real probably after visiting Biljo in Columbia, Missouri, on his way to Ohio. glimmering of what he thought. He stayed overnight in my apartment, and while I recall little about the The story had a happy ending of sorts. When Yoshi’s wife joined him a couple of months later, we invited them to dinner again, and they accepted. This time we took them to a seafood restaurant out on the pier at Redondo Beach, and they seemed enjoy themselves. A few months later much of the pier, including that restaurant, burned down. When Mr. and Mrs. Yoshi moved (to a different L.A.-area location) a few months later, Dann and I finally put the Blackhawk re-creation back on our wall.

occasion other than that we talked a lot and then he stayed up most of the night perusing my complete run of All-Star Comics, I’ve always been glad our friendship wasn’t entirely by mail. In recent years he kindly gave Bill Schelly and me permission to utilize anything from his two issues of Alter Ego, first in our 1997 Best of volume, then in the revived A/E itself. Besides his tribute in this issue, Bill also features—in his soon-forthcoming Hamster Press book Comic Fandom Reader—the only substantial interview Ronn ever gave (from 1992), accompanied by copious art and photos. (See the full-page notice elsewhere in this issue.)

But I’ve never looked at it since without thinking of Yoshi, “Lafayette Escadrille”—and “Doolittle’s Raiders.”

Though he drew far less in recent years, a few issues ago Ronn contributed a drawing of Joy Holiday wishing A/E a happy 40th anniversary, and his last letter to me was one that wished both the magazine and me well.

(By the way, the Gerbers’ Picto-Journal Guide to Comic Books lists the original art of the cover to Military Comics #29 as being by Alex Kotzky, not Bill Ward... but Ward definitely drew the re-creation.)

We wished you well, too, Ronn. We wish you had taken better care of yourself and that you were still with us... but we’re grateful both for your contributions to comics fandom over the years—and just for the chance to have known you.

The rest of this issue’s first half is well worth your time, as well. Michael T. Gilbert, who wrote a masterly overview of the life of the late great Wally Wood back in issue #8, returns to the subject to present the

Bestest,

Alter Ego #12