Issuu

Roy Thomas' Hard-Driving Comics Fanzine

FROM HELL-RIDER TO GHOST RIDER! FROM SGT. FURY TO–SGT. DARKK!?

GARY FRIEDRICH

RIDES AGAIN!

Art TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

82658 00434

HANG LOOSE, HERBIE!

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In the USA

No. 169 May 2021

Vol. 3, No. 169 / May 2021 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor)

Comic Crypt Editor

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

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

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With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Richard J. Arndt Bob Bailey Carol Bierschwal Danny Bierschwal Ray Bottorff, Jr. Len Brown Jean Caccicedo Aaron Caplan Nick Caputo John Cimino Jim Clark Comic Book Plus (website) Chet Cox Brian Cremins Justin Fairfax Albert Fisher Shane Foley Jean Friedrich Janet Gilbert Grand Comics Database (website) Robin Green

Beverly Hahs Kirk Hastings Robert Higgerson Sean Howe Jim Kealy Troy R. Kinunen Katy Kirn Tyler M. Koenig Mark Lewis Jim Ludwig Mears Auctions (website) Peter Normanton Barry Pearl Warren Reece Scott Rowland Joe Rubinstein Matt Scullin John & Martha Short Ken Steinhoff Dann Thomas Mark Voger Brandon Williams Kent Wilson

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Gary Friedrich

Contents Writer/Editorial: My Best Friend—Gary Friedrich . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Gary Friedrich And I Were Part Of Each Other’s Lives For Over 60 Years” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

A conversation with Roy Thomas about those six decades, conducted by Richard Arndt.

Remembering Gary Friedrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Wife Jean Friedrich and nephew Robert Higgerson on the Marvel writer’s later years.

From The Tomb Presents: The Friedrich Monsters . . . . . . . 61 Peter Normanton on Gary’s horror/mystery comics at Marvel, Charlton, et al.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Frazetta Covers That Never Were . . 67

Michael T. Gilbert displays some exquisite Frazetta EC covers that didn’t quite happen.

FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #228 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 P.C. Hamerlinck showcases Mark Voger’s fond look at Golden Age great Ken Bald.

On Our Cover: The first and probably most famous image ever drawn of the hard-driving Ghost Rider is Mike Ploog’s cover for that supernatural hero’s Devil-may-care debut in Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug. 1972). Yet, important as Mike was to the killer look and instant popularity of that Marvel stalwart, he was basically the brainchild of writer Gary Friedrich—so we’ve replaced the eldritch biker’s skull/visage with a photo of the scribe, who is this issue’s chief topic of discussion. Thanks to John Cimino for first putting this image together for us, and to Chris Day and John Morrow for the final version. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Above: We figure you won’t get far in this edition of Alter Ego before you understand why we parked the splash of Sgt. Fury #70 (Sept. 1969) atop this page. “The Missouri Marauders” was (were) the creative offspring of aforementioned scripter Gary Friedrich, artistically realized by the stellar talents of penciler Dick Ayers and inker John Severin. Far as Ye Editor knows, the only one of the seven Marauders Gary named after an actual fellow denizen of the Show-Me State was Pvt. Paul Schade (pronounced “shod-dy” rather than “shade,” not that it really matters). Their adventures alongside the Howling Commandos continued into the following issue. Thanks to Barry Pearl for the scan. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter Ego TM is published 6 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. Six-issue subscriptions: $68 US, $103 Elsewhere, $27 Digital Only. 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

My Best Friend—Gary Friedrich

n some ways, this is the most personal issue of Alter Ego I’ve ever put together.

Sure: because of this magazine’s franchise to deal with (a) comics and their creators from the Platinum Age through the mid-1970s, and (b) any project in which I myself was involved, even if it occurred long after the Gerald Ford Administration; there’ve been far more interviews in it with me than with anyone else. This time, however—even though the long interview Richard Arndt conducted with me clearly reflects my POV rather than that of my longtime close friend and colleague Gary Friedrich, as how could it not?—nearly every topic covered therein is one concerning both of us. Not just myself, of course, but not even exclusively Gary, because I can know only what he said and did—not what he thought, except to the extent that he expressed himself to me or to others. When Richard’s questions turned to things Gary did during periods when we weren’t in close contact, such as the latter 1970s when he was writing for Atlas/Seaboard and Marvel UK, I had little to add to the public record, and I said so. On the other hand, probably no one now alive can speak as knowledgably as I can about the time he and I spent performing rock’n’roll in an amateur and later quasi-professional capacity. Of course, it did occur to me at the outset that A/E’s readership may not be even as interested in Gary’s and my rock-band days (such as they were) as it was in, for example, Don Glut’s amateur hero films or Jim Steranko’s career in stage magic. The thing is—I decided I was going to talk about what I felt I should talk about. For, this would be a conversation about Gary’s and my relationship, going back to the day we met in 1956 or ’57… so I let it take Richard and me wherever it led us.

Naturally, I hope that, when you’ve read that interview—plus the extended, loving recollections Richard recorded from Gary’s wife Jean and his nephew-in-law Robert Higgerson about his later life back in Missouri—and the dissection of Gary’s mystery/horror work by From the Tomb’s Peter Normanton—you’ll feel you have a reasonably rounded view of Gary’s life both in and out of comics. I’d like to think you will.

Oh, and I should add—before we spoke, both Richard and I steeped ourselves in the one long interview Gary ever gave, which was conducted by our colleague Jon B. Cooke for his magazine Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001). That issue is long out of print in hardcopy edition, but anyone interested can swiftly obtain a digital copy for $5.99 by ordering at https://bit.ly/3psv9x7. It will make a nice addendum—or even prelude—to reading this issue. All of the above seems rather cut and dried, perhaps. But, in the end, even more so in preparing this issue, I realized that I loved Gary Friedrich as I’ve loved few people during my eight decades on this planet… more than I ever really thought about it at the time… and, at this late stage, I guess this memorial issue was the best I could do: an affectionate, warts-and-all report about both of us, from the Eisenhower years up through the era of Trump. Hope you’ll take it for what it may be worth.

Bestest,

P.S.: To squeeze in all our Groovy Gary-related material, plus “Comic Crypt” and FCA, we really stripped down the rest of this issue—no “re:” or John Broome, alas—and, just this once, virtually no house or freebie ads. Reminded me of the climax of that great old movie The Marx Brothers Go West, in which Groucho, Chico, and Harpo shovel the whole remainder of the train into the furnace to keep a locomotive’s engine going!

COMING IN JUNE

170

It Had To Happen! The

JACK “KING” KIRBY Cover-To-Cover Issue Of A/E!

• Never-before-printed cover by JACK KIRBY & JOE SINNOTT! • WILL MURRAY on KIRBY’s crucial contribution to Iron Man! • FCA celebrates KIRBY’s Captain Marvel & Mr. Scarlet tales at 1940-41 Fawcett! • SIMON & KIRBY horror sections by MICHAEL T. GILBERT & PETER NORMANTON! • KIRBY & the 1960s fanzines, featuring LEN WEIN—collected by AARON CAPLAN! • STAN LEE’s colorful quotes about “The King,” compiled by BARRY PEARL & NICK CAPUTO! • How KIRBY helped bring the Marvel Age to Britain—in 1972—by ROBERT MENZIES! • “From JASPER SITWELL to HOUSEROY!” ROY THOMAS on his fannish (& pro) love affair with JACK KIRBY—from 1946 to the 1990s! • All this—& MORE!!

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“G O R

“GARY FRIEDRICH And I Were A Part Of Each Other’s Lives For Over 60 Years”

” Y R A I G T Y R V PA

Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: This interview is intended to be an examination and a reminiscence of a long friendship between comicbook professionals Gary Friedrich (Aug. 21, 1943-Aug. 29, 2018) and Roy Thomas (b. 1940). Besides covering Gary’s considerable comics career, it also reveals how their relationship intersected with that career. In that respect, it’s an adjunct to Jon B. Cooke’s informative conversation with Friedrich for TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001). Gary’s early years in a small Midwestern town, and his return there in his later life to enjoy a successful marriage and family life and eventually to receive national recognition for his contributions to the field, are every bit as noteworthy as his comics work. The music he loved

“Groovy” Gary Friedrich & “Rascally” Roy Thomas (on right & left, respectively) at the 2011 Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina. This snapshot taken by Bob Bailey accompanies splash pages from Friedrich’s two trademark Marvel series: Sgt. Fury #56 (July 1968), with art by Dick Ayers & John Severin, and Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug. 1972), with Mike Ploog drawing a brand new Ghost Rider! Thanks to Barry Pearl & Nick Caputo for the scans. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

and performed, as well his work in later years for Alcoholics Anonymous, not only in overcoming his own addiction but in helping others cope with theirs, are all crucial parts of Gary’s life—aspects that should be as celebrated as his writing career.

T. EP D

A Conversation with ROY THOMAS About Their 6-Decade Friendship

Born and raised in Jackson, Missouri, he honed his writing talents circa 1964 as editor Gary Friedrich and lead writer for the local newspaper. In late 1965, Roy, a friend and fellow Jacksonian who’d recently become a writer and editorial assistant at Marvel Comics, suggested Gary might find profitable work freelancing in the comics. Soon the two were sharing an apartment in New York City, and before long Friedrich was writing comics for Charlton.

A Conversation With Roy Thomas About A 6-Decade Friendship

Roy Thomas, Jr.

Suddenly, At The Palace… The long-gone Palace Theatre in Jackson, Missouri, where Gary and Roy first met in 1956 or early ’57. This photo, from a 2016 edition of the town’s CashBook Journal newspaper, probably dates from 1954; the film that would be playing that night, but not at this kids’ matinee, is Suddenly, wherein Frank Sinatra portrayed a would-be Presidential assassin. That’s the year Roy, around the time he graduated from eighth grade, first went to work at the “picture show.” Gary signed on a couple of years later. Thanks to the boys’ JHS schoolmates Beverly Hahs & Kent Wilson; his family owned the movie house. [© the respective copyright holders.]

met in 1956 or early ’57, despite my misstating in Alter Ego #162 that it might’ve been a bit later.

When I was growing up, everybody seemed to have nicknames. Mine was “Junior,” since I was Roy Thomas, Jr., and Gary was “Butch” to some folks. But never once in my life did I ever call him that. RA: How soon did you become outside-of-work friends?

THOMAS: Pretty quickly. In By early 1967 he was on spring of ’57 I got my driver’s staff at Marvel, scripting a revival license, so I had wheels—a of the 1950s-era Western Ghost two-tone blue ’52 Chevy. The pics of both lads are from Jackson High School’s 1957 Silver Arrow Rider. He wrote several very funny Actually, it was the family car, yearbook, and were probably taken around the time they met. stories for Not Brand Echh, before but I managed to commandeer And, just for good measure: below is a Kurt Schaffenberger panel from assuming writing chores on the it much of the time, since Fawcett’s The Marvel Family #45 (March 1950), a comic both guys probably title on which he’d have his longest my dad was on the road in a read back in the day, in which Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain run—Sgt. Fury, beginning with Marvel Jr. are flying an entire Palace Theatre to safety! Script by Otto Binder. panel truck a lot for his job. As #42 (May 1967). For it, he Thanks to P.C. Hamerlinck. [Shazam heroes TM & © DC Comics.] long as my buddies and crafted a number of stories I kept the car gassed up, known today as the “The” we could drive around series—tales that related most evenings. We’d pool Fury’s World War II exploits our loose change to buy a with the sensibilities of the buck’s worth of gas, which 1960s. He wrote Sgt. Fury took you a fair distance in until #116 (Nov. 1973), though those days. Gary was along some of the latter-day stories on a lot of those rides; after alternated with reprints. Other he turned 16, we took his Marvel characters he wrote family’s car sometimes. included the Hulk, Captain I can hardly picture him America, Daredevil, Black back then without a bottle Widow, Iron Man, X-Men, of Pepsi in his hand. He’d Captain Marvel, the Monster drink a six-pack or more of of Frankenstein, and Nick it a day. Fury as Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. He also memorably co-created both a new Ghost Rider (the supernatural motorcyclist) and the Son of Satan. I had friends in my own “class of ‘58,” of course, but I also hung out with several guys from two grades below after I began During 1970-71, Gary wrote for the short-lived Skywald dating a girl in that class, Linda Rahm. Our informal little ridingPublications. In 1975-76 he wrote for Martin Goodman’s equally around group gave ourselves a nickname that somebody—but not short-term comics company Atlas/Seaboard, and “Captain Britain” for Gary or me—ran across in a dictionary: the Gaberlunzies. Several Marvel’s British imprint. His last work in the field was done for Topps centuries ago, it meant “a wandering beggar.” That was us, all right, Comics in 1992. In addition, he co-wrote several paperback reference works pooling our quarters to buy gas. We rarely got up to anything really on rock’n’roll and country music. This interview was conducted by phone bad—although whenever we did, I’m afraid Gary was likely to be at on March 31 & May 15, 2020. the center of it, as he’d have been the first to admit. RICHARD ARNDT: You two both came from the same small town, Jackson, Missouri, is that correct?

RA: What kind of trouble are we talking about?

ROY THOMAS: Yes. I was born there. I think Gary was, too. It’s the county seat of Cape Girardeau County, 10 miles or so from the Mississippi. We both went to Jackson High School, but we only met when he came to work at the local movie house—the Palace Theatre—where I’d been working for a couple of years as usher and popcorn boy. He said in his Comic Book Artist interview that he was thirteen and in the seventh grade when he started there; that means I’d have been a sophomore—about sixteen. So we must’ve

THOMAS: Well, for example, one Halloween—I don’t recall if I was still in high school, or maybe by then commuting to college in Cape Girardeau—several of us were riding around in my car, and Gary and another guy had us drop them off for a little while. After we picked them up again, we drove by a local milling company that had a big open yard with a 15-foot-high pile of sawdust. And it was smoking… it was on fire! We duly alerted the cops. Later that night, Gary admitted to me that he and the other guy had started the fire as a Halloween prank. They hadn’t meant any real harm, of course.

“Gary Friedrich And I Were Part Of Each Other’s Lives For Over 60 Years!”

That’s about the only halfway dangerous stunt I can recall him pulling, though. Another prank of his was a lot funnier. In the early 1960s, Jackson’s city fathers built this big fountain in front of the county courthouse. They were going to officially turn it on for the first time at a big dedication ceremony. Gary and a pal sneaked up to the empty fountain the night before and dumped in a bunch of bubble-bath pellets. Next day, the dignitaries turned on the fountain, the water started gushing in—and in a couple of minutes the fountain was overflowing with foam and bubbles. I don’t think they ever figured out who did it. RA: I know you were a comicbook fan at the time, but was Gary? THOMAS: Not when we first met, though he said in CBA that as a kid he’d liked Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel—and The Fox and the Crow. Apparently, he’d even read Mad when it was still a color comic. Then, one night in ‘59, we were both working a shift at the Palace and I split for a few minutes to walk a few doors down to Fulenwider’s drugstore. I came back with an unexpected treasure: the first Showcase “Green Lantern.” I was already collecting the Silver Age Flash, of course. Both of us read that new “GL,” and afterward, Gary kept up with some DC comics, too... and later with Marvel’s comics. But he never became a real “fan” like I was. We also had other interests in common, especially movies. We’d often drive to “Cape” to see movies two weeks before they could legally play in Jackson, with its smaller population of 5000 or so. Some we’d go see multiple times between the two towns, like Giant, King Creole, Rio Bravo. Of course, during that period we got in to see movies for free at the Palace, which helped. And we both loved popular music… not just rock’n’roll. We were both huge fans of Sinatra, who was and is my favorite singer ever. Gary, who played drums in the high school band, also liked 1930s-40s swing; I think his dad got him into it. I didn’t really appreciate swing without vocals till later. RA: Your homecoming article in Alter Ego #162 mentioned the band you and Gary were in. I’m assuming it was a rock’n’roll band? That would’ve been fairly common for that period.

few of us started spitballing, trying to come up with a skit to promote Tom in the assembly held just before the election. Somebody suggested we do a skit centered around George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge. Only, instead of starving and freezing, we’d show them having a high old time—playing ping-pong and I forget what else. Then, my friend John Schuch remembered I’d sung a couple of Bill Haley and the Comets songs in the sophomore play, and he knew I was a big Elvis Presley fan Let There Be [Green] Light! since the day I first heard Gil Kane’s cover for Showcase #22 “Heartbreak Hotel.” So he (Sept.-Oct. 1959)—the first appearance said, why didn’t I do an Elvis of the Silver Age “Green Lantern,” and number in the skit? I’d be the the start of Gary’s revival of interest singer in a USO troupe that in comics. Thanks to the Grand Comics was there to entertain the Database. soldiers. So I lined up Gary to [TM & © DC Comics.] play drums and Pal Hacker, a sophomore friend, on piano, for a makeshift trio—“Evitz Pretzel & the Transjordanaires,” named after Elvis’ backup group, the Jordanaires. I used a toy ukulele as a stand-in for Elvis’ guitar—it was rigged so it’d shatter into pieces while I was singing and gyrating and banging on it. We did two numbers, and they went over really well. The first, I recall, was “Let’s Have a Party” from [the Elvis movie] Loving You. The closest to rock ‘n’ roll any live band had ever played at our school dances in those days was stuff like “Dance with Me, Henry” and, believe it or not, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” [chuckles] None of those bands ever had a guitar... just sax, piano, drums, maybe a trombone. So, purely by accident, we created a mild sensation when we did some rock songs in that culture-starved environment. And our buddy Tom won the election!

THOMAS: Maybe common in other places, but not in Jackson, Missouri! Not when our first “band,” if it even deserves that name, came about in early ’58. A bunch of us seniors—not Gary; he was a freshman—were working on some class project at a classmate’s home and got to discussing the upcoming election for the next year’s student body president. Tom Heyde, a junior who worked at You Can Fight City Hall! the Palace, was running. A good The Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson, MO—with its guy—he later fountain visible in the foreground, though it’s not spurting—or frothing—at the moment. But it definitely did both one day in the became an Air early 1960s, courtesy of Gary F. Force jet pilot. A

RA: So that started off your musical career? THOMAS: Such as it was. I never claimed to be a great singer, but I was okay. Gary was a very good drummer, far as I’m any judge. Once or twice later, when we were a real band and he couldn’t make a gig, we had to have a friend of ours take his place, but he couldn’t keep a beat all that well. Still, somehow, we never came up with a better alternative. Anyway, a night or two after that assembly, for the school dance held to celebrate the election, Gary, Pal, and I were asked to perform a couple more songs. The photo in Alter Ego #162 [also seen on the second page following] was snapped at that dance. It’s a shame Gary can’t be seen in that picture, just Pal and me. Far as I could ascertain, not a single photo exists of Gary ever playing the drums, even though he was also in the high school marching band for years! Over the following months, we got invited to perform at several events outside school, like a Rotary Club luncheon. Then there was this big dance for employees of the local hosiery mill, where my mother

A Conversation With Roy Thomas About A 6-Decade Friendship

Gary and [artist John] Verpoorten also did a great takeoff on the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” album, and he and Herb worked up a wonderful spoof of R. Crumb’s cover for that Janis Joplin album with “Piece of My Heart.” RA: Around the time the first issue of [Not] Brand Echh came out, Gary began his stint on Sgt. Fury, which is, alongside of the motorcycle Ghost Rider, the book that he’s most associated with. THOMAS: Right. I’d been writing it, but if Stan wanted me to script more super-heroes, I was happy to give it up. Gary’d always been interested in World War II. I think his dad had been in the service then. Gary soon put his own spin on Sgt. Fury and turned out some very interesting work. And you’re right, it’s the work he’s most known for, except for co-creating the 1970s Ghost Rider. RA: I noticed that, in one of the first issues he wrote, you’re credited with writing the wrap-around story while Gary’s credited with the main story. The main story’s actually a flashback telling the previously unknown history of Fury’s first adventure with his Howling Commandos. THOMAS: That issue [#44] was also John Severin’s debut as the full artist on the book, and I admired Severin’s work. Gary had just taken over the title, but I wrote this wraparound introduction, just so I could say

I’d worked with John Severin. Within a couple of issues, Gary was doing his own thing. I worried he might be straying too far from what Stan, and the readers, wanted to see. And, while it never truly became a real anti-war title, some of Gary’s stories did kind of flirt with that. Stan would’ve been very sensitive about that, so Gary was walking a kind of tightrope there. He was writing war stories, but they weren’t just the “shoot-up-the-Nazis” stories that were so prevalent at the time. RA: That brings us to a question or anecdote that artist-letterer John Workman told me about—essentially that Gary’s story in Sgt. Fury Annual #3 (1967), which featured the 1960s Colonel Fury going to Vietnam, had irked some Army general who threatened to pull the title from the Army PXs. That “banning from the PX” thing actually happened to Warren’s Blazing Combat, and the loss of that major market for war comics had played a significant part in its early demise. According to Workman, Stan had to quickly smooth over the waters (and the general) to keep the book on the military bases. Do you know if that story is accurate?

John Severin

THOMAS: Sorry, I’ve no memory of any of that. Stan had told me about a similar thing that had happened in the Atlas days, probably during the Korean War, but I

Hell Hath No Fury… (Or Maybe It Does!) (Left:) Friedrich’s first scripting on Sgt. Fury was for #42 (May 1967), in conjunction with Dick Ayers & John Tartaglione. (Right:) Two issues later, when John Severin was piped aboard as resident artist beginning in #44 (July ’67), recent Fury scribe Roy Thomas wrote a severalpage framing sequence, so Gary’s first team-up with “Long John” began on that tale’s fourth page. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“Gary Friedrich And I Were Part Of Each Other’s Lives For Over 60 Years!”

Teams Supreme (Left:) With Sgt. Fury #47 (Oct. 1967), the long-running combo of Friedrich, Ayers, & Severin was born. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Above:) Okay, so the Sarge never really went “over the top” alongside Captain Ego, the A/E “maskot” created by Biljo White in 1964, as per this colored drawing by Shane Foley—but we didn’t have room for a letters section in this issue, and we didn’t want to deprive you of Shane’s fine illo! [Sgt. Fury TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.; Captain Ego TM & © Roy Thomas & Estate of Bill Schelly.]

don’t remember what you mention.

left the book over his own dissatisfactions with it.

I know that Severin didn’t like at least one of Gary’s stories, “The Deserter.” He complained to Gary that no American soldier really got shot for deserting during World War II, that it had only happened once, and that had been in World War I. [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: This is incorrect, by the way. Private Edward Slovik was executed for desertion on Jan. 31, 1945—the only American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for that crime. See pp. 44, 51, & 52 for more on “The Deserter” and the other tales in the so-called “The” series written by Gary F.]

RA: If he did, he waited three years to do so, because he was the inker on the book until 1970. By that time, the run of the “The” stories was nearly over. I think there was only one more after Severin’s departure. To be fair to John Severin, as mentioned in A/E #164, he did illustrate the Mike Friedrich story “22 Hours to San Francisco” for DC Comics’ Our Army at War, which managed to be both pro-military and anti-war at the same time and was quite highly praised for it at the time.]

By this time, Ayers had returned to penciling the book and John went from doing full art to inking. John was busy doing art for Cracked, the main Mad imitator, so he didn’t care. The reason for that switch was that Severin was a fantastic artist, but didn’t pencil as excitingly as Stan wanted for Marvel’s comics… so after an issue or so, Stan teamed him up with Ayers. Dick would pencil the action, then Severin would give it that wonderful finish. They made a wonderful team. RA: They certainly did. I should mention that the Sgt. Fury Annual set in Vietnam would not have likely been a story Severin would’ve complained about, since Ayers penciled that annual and John Tartaglione inked it. THOMAS: I was supposed to oversee Gary’s stories to some extent, but of course he also dealt directly with Stan. As long as the book sold, Stan didn’t pay that much attention anymore to Fury. He was getting more used to just inspiring people to come up with their own ideas, rather than having them just try to please him by imitating what they thought he might’ve done. As long as we didn’t get a lot of complaints from readers—and I don’t remember there being many—Gary could largely go his own way. I don’t think John

THOMAS: I don’t remember that story, because I rarely read any war comics. But Gary put real work into those Sgt. Furys—I remember the medic story as another good one. And “The War-Lover.” I think that was the title of a movie around that time, too, but Gary’s story was completely different. Before we leave Sgt. Fury, I should mention the infamous “Casablanca” story from Sgt. Fury #72. That was a close call! [laughs] I guess I wasn’t overseeing Gary closely enough. He wove that issue’s story around events in [the 1942 Warner Bros. film] Casablanca, and got Ayers and Severin to do these wonderful likenesses of Humphrey Bogart and the rest of the cast. When Stan saw the issue, after it was all finished and set to go to the Code and the printer, he hit the ceiling: “You’re gonna get us sued!” Even if Warner hadn’t owned DC Comics, they’d have sued, because we couldn’t just stick Marvel characters into the plot of a copyrighted movie. This was on a Friday. Stan got the new guy on staff—Allyn Brodsky—to spend the weekend rewriting dialogue to change Casablanca to Marrakesh, etc. Stan had Dick change all the facial likenesses. And we had to replace lyrics from “As Time Goes By,” which would’ve got us sued by whatever music-publishing

A Conversation With Roy Thomas About A 6-Decade Friendship

Hell-Rider; Blazing Six-Guns (ed/art dir) 1971; The Bravados (ed/ art dir) 1971; Butch Cassidy (w) 1971; Butch Cassidy (ed/art dir) 1971; Butterfly (w) 1971; Crime Machine (ed/art dir) 1971; Hell-Rider (w) 1971; Hell-Rider (ed/art dir) 1971; Jungle Adventures (ed/art dir) 1971; Nightmare (w)(ed/art dir) 1970-71; Psycho (ed/art dir) 1971; Sundance Kid (w) c. 1971; Sundance Kid (ed/art dir) 1971; Tender Love Stories (ed/art dir) 1971; Wild Bunch (w) 1971; Wild Western Action (ed/art dir) 1971 Topps Comics: Bombast (w) 1993 Western Publishing: Tweety and Sylvester (w) 1978 [unconfirmed]

“Groovy Gary” and Stan “The Man” Lee in a panel from the lead-in to the 1970 Sgt. Fury Annual… plus the splash page of “The Deserter” from Sgt. Fury #75 (Feb. 1970). Script by GF, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by John Severin. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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With a facsimile of Giant-Size X-Men #1

“G O R O ” Y R A II G T Y R V PA

Wife JEAN FRIEDRICH & Nephew ROBERT HIGGERSON On the Marvel Writer’s Later Years— With Echoes of His Earlier Ones Conducted & Transcribed by Richard J. Arndt

NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Jean Ellen Friedrich was married to Gary Friedrich from 1988 until his death in August 2018. Robert Higgerson, Jean’s nephew, whose interview directly follows Jean’s, was Gary’s nephew-by-marriage. Both of them met Gary some years after he had largely stopped writing comics, but each was able to give an informative account of Gary’s later years. The interview with Jean took place on January 11, 2020… the one with Robert Higgerson on January 4, 2020.

Jean & Gary Friedrich and their granddaughter Ava, a few years back—juxtaposed with a Ghost Rider poster drawn by Herb Trimpe especially for Gary to sell at comics conventions. The poster hangs in their home; they also have the original art. Thanks to Jean Friedrich for both scans. [Ghost Rider TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Interview #1: JEAN FRIEDRICH RICHARD ARNDT: Today we’re welcoming Jean Ellen Friedrich, the late Gary Friedrich’s wife. Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Jean. JEAN FRIEDRICH: Roy was a very good friend of Gary’s, so I’m happy to do this. RA: Both you and Robert met Gary after he left the comics field, by and large... so I don’t expect you to know the ins and outs of his comics career. This will be more of a character study. FRIEDRICH: Okay, good, I’m much more comfortable with that. I met Gary in 1986 at an AA—Alcoholics Anonymous—meeting. RA: Before we get too far on that—is it OK with you to mention AA? I want to be sure you’re comfortable talking about it before we get too far in depth about that. FRIEDRICH: It’s fine with me. Both Gary and I felt that, as long as we weren’t breaking someone else’s anonymity, it would be fine— we can break our own. Gary was of the opinion that it’s very hard to help people if you’re completely anonymous. He totally believed in that. RA: So then I guess my first real question is: “How did you meet Gary?” [both laugh] FRIEDRICH: Well, it was at an AA meeting. It was so funny, because I had returned to St. Louis—I had been raised in Perryville, Missouri, but I’d been living in Texas for some time. Anyhow, I

came back and started going to the local AA meetings. I was going to them in Jackson, Missouri, which was Gary’s hometown. I walked into the meeting and sat down and Gary was chairing the meeting. It was just—BOOM! RA: I’m guessing it was a good BOOM? FRIEDRICH: Well, yeah! [laughs] It was. Our marriage lasted 30 years and only ended because Gary passed away. RA: So you met Gary when he was about 43, is that right? FRIEDRICH: Yes! That’s exactly right. We got married in 1988. RA: Do you know when he moved back full-time to Missouri? Because he

T. EP D

Remembering GARY FRIEDRICH

Jean Friedrich & Robert Higgerson On The Marvel Writer’s Later Years

was living, off and on, in New York for much of his years writing comics. FRIEDRICH: I don’t know if he lived in New York all that long. Roy could probably tell you more about that than I can. What Gary was doing when I met him—and it was still in arts and entertainment—was, he was a manager at a video store, back when everyone was watching videos on their VCRs. RA: Yeah! Before Blockbuster wiped them out by undercutting them pricewise, the mom-&-pop video stories were actually treasure troves of different, often oddball, movies. Waaaay better than anything we have today, including many of the streaming services. FRIEDRICH: That’s right! Gary was a manager, so he was picking out the videos to buy for that particular store. He worked there quite some time, from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. RA: I don’t think people today realize what great places video stores were from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s or so. When you go to, say, Redbox today, each kiosk has the exact same movies in them. Back then, you could have as many as 10-15 little video stories in your immediate vicinity, even in rural areas—some of them run out of a garage; I remember one in my small hometown that was set up in the back of a camper trailer—and none of them would feature the exact same films. Like Redbox does today, Blockbuster—no matter which store, or where it was located—had the exact same recent movies taking up most of the store, along with a quite small selection of older films. Most times, the managers and service people who worked there weren’t really movie buffs and didn’t care anything about or know enough about older films to recommend them to customers. FRIEDRICH: That’s right. Each one of the little video stores was completely different from the next one! They really were! RA: Yep, you’d walk into one and it would be focused on Japanese, Chinese, and Korean chop-socky movies. The next might have Westerns and romance titles. The next might be heavy on horror. And there wouldn’t only be mainstream Westerns or foreign or horror films. There would be very weird stuff there that you not only wouldn’t see in any other video store but films that would never play in any theatre around you. There was often no rhyme or reason to what was on the shelves, other than that the manager or owner saw something in the catalog that they thought was interesting to them and would be interesting to their customers. FRIEDRICH: Those video stores were customer-oriented, not movie-oriented. They got stuff they thought their customers would like. Not just the recent big pictures but all the little odd stuff, too. Gary was very good with keeping up with what was out there, reading reviews, making those choices. He was a very artistic person, and I think that came through whether he was writing comics or newspaper articles or selecting movies that he thought were worth watching, no matter what they were about.

could care less about. I think people miss having a lot of choices in entertainment. When everything is the same, it’s boring. RA: Comics, to some extent today, are the same way. You can get into comics and find beautifully done children’s books, and then you can also find straight-out pornographic material. There really is something for everyone there. FRIEDRICH: [laughs] I think Gary sold a fair amount of that range of material, too! RA: Well, sure. Nearly every little mom-&-pop store had a little back room where you could look over the latest X-rated movies. That doesn’t happen in any mainstream corporate store—ever. FRIEDRICH: For a lot of those shops, that’s where the money was. Gary loved working in the video store. RA: Back to his writing: What, if anything, did you know about his comics career? FRIEDRICH: I knew nothing at the start. That’s not what he was doing at the time I met him. Gary was, how should I put this, very nonchalant about his work in comics. Well, perhaps not nonchalant, but more like humble than anything else. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. RA: Looking at his credits, he probably ended his career for the most part in 1975 or 1976, although he wrote one comic in the early 1990s for Topps, which is more remembered as a bubble-gum card company than as a comicbook company. But he had largely left comics as a regular career by the late 1970s. FRIEDRICH: I think a large part of leaving comics was because he’d gotten sober. You may have heard this before, but there are a lot of writers who can’t write or produce writing while sober, if they’re used to writing when they’ve been drinking. It takes them out of the groove, or something like that. Understand that, when I met Gary, he’d been sober for probably ten years. And that ten years started just about the time he quit writing comics. Pretty close, within a year or two. I know that he stopped drinking on New Year’s Day, but I don’t remember, if I ever knew, the exact year. I think he had a spiritual epiphany—not

RA: You might be surprised to learn that a fair number of comicbook professionals, writers at least, worked in or managed video stories of that sort after their comicbook days were over. It might be that the freedom of being allowed to pick and choose whatever movies their customers might like, from high-class films to lowbrow ones, was exciting to them… was perhaps a bit or part of what moved them into both the comics and video businesses in the first place. FRIEDRICH: Yeah, you would find these little films, from film companies or even countries, that you’d never heard of before, and there they’d be, in your hometown, and they’d be the most interesting movie you’d ever seen. I remember when Gary would get a new movie in and he’d bring it home and preview it. He was really, really into movies. Music, too. Movie and music stories were both kind of like that then. Not today, though. I think that’s why Netflix is exploding right now. You can find all kinds of stuff there. Some you might have been searching for years to see, and some you

A Blockbuster—At Blockbuster The cover of a South American Ghost Rider VHS tape—which Gary would’ve sold in his video store, if he’d still been in that biz in 2007— and if VHS hadn’t been discontinued in the U.S. the year before. [Ghost Rider TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Remembering Gary Friedrich

a religious thing—but one of spirituality, that let him make that decision. RA: I heard Gary had been married a number of times before he met you. FRIEDRICH: I was the fifth and final wife. [laughs] RA: That’s a good way to put it. Yours was the one that worked. FRIEDRICH: A lot of that was that Gary had changed quite a lot, from things he’d told me about his past. He had matured. And getting sober was a big deal! Not being sober had caused a lot of problems between him and other people. Those four previous wives, from what he told me, were very good people. They just couldn’t live with the drinking and the irresponsibility. When I met him, he’d already been through all that stuff and wanted a different life. RA: Is it possible that his writing career in comics was wrecked, at least in part, by his drinking? He either lost, or left, all of his Marvel titles within a very short time-frame. Now, mind you, I might be wrong on that. I admit I’m speculating to some degree. He really was a good writer. He wrote some very good stories for

Sgt. Fury. He wrote a superb adaptation of Frankenstein—in fact, I personally believe that his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, which was illustrated by Mike Ploog, is the best graphic adaptation of that novel to date. Marvel’s missing a bet by not putting those Friedrich/Ploog stories out as a hardcover collection for libraries and readers. The first six issues of [The Monster of] Frankenstein are very strong in both art and story. In addition, he wrote good stories for the early issues of Ghost Rider. I liked his Hulk stories as well. He didn’t really concentrate on super-heroes. I don’t know if it was because he wasn’t particularly fond of that genre, but there aren’t any long, sustained runs on any super-hero titles. He did work on quite a number of them, but those four issues of The Incredible Hulk and the double-sized special, all published in 1968, were probably his most-sustained work in the super-hero genre, with the exception of his parody work in Not Brand Echh. We should also point out that at one point of time, in 1968-1969, he was writing both Sgt. Fury and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the same time—neither of which was a super-hero title, though. However, even though his runs were not for very extended periods, the stories themselves are generally pretty good. He did seem to last the longest on either war or horror comics. FRIEDRICH: I really liked his Sgt. Fury stories. I thought those were pretty brilliant! RA: They are, with the exception of Ghost Rider, what he’s most known for, and he wrote them for quite some time—from 1967 to 1973. FRIEDRICH: I’d like to help you more on that, but the truth is that comics were not a big part of Gary’s life during the time I knew him until the movie—Ghost Rider—came out, or was going to come out, in the early or mid-2000s. It wasn’t until then that he started getting invited to comicbook conventions. That was when he started being rediscovered, because he was out there, being seen by the fans and the professionals again. Going to those comicbook conventions was fun, because I got to see people that he’d worked with many years ago. Herb Trimpe was one, and we became really good friends. Flo Steinberg. I had never met Roy Thomas until we got together at a convention. We also met, briefly, Mike Ploog. Ploog was living in England at the time. He may still be living there, but he actually showed up at a convention over here, which I guess was kind of unusual for him. It was through those comic conventions that I really got introduced to Gary’s work and influence and the people that he actually worked with in comics. RA: How would you describe Gary’s personality?

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” That’s what the splash page of the comicbook officially titled Frankenstein #1 (Jan. 1973) promised—and that’s what writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog delivered, albeit within a framing sequence set in 1898, a century after the events of the novel. The early issues of Frankenstein may not yet have been collected in hardcover, but at least they have been preserved in a quality softcover volume. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

FRIEDRICH: In the years I was with him, I saw Gary go though some personality changes. When I first met him he was impatient, had a temper, but his true nature was as a loving and giving person. He had a lot of anger, though, just from his past. It took him a while, but later on, he was a much more mellow person. The first ten years of our marriage were kind of rough, because in some things we were really opposites. I was a neat freak. Gary was a slob. Finally, though, we both came to the conclusion that it was ridiculous fighting over those kinds of things. One day he just told me that he loved me and that he wanted me to be happy and he was really going to try to do better. And he did! RA: Good! FRIEDRICH: I know! Gary went from being an atheist to being a very spiritual man. Again, I’m not talking a religious man, but a spiritual one. He really tried to live a spiritual life because, I think, it made him a better person. He was always reading books on the subject. He was a reader! From the moment we came together, he

Jean Friedrich & Robert Higgerson On The Marvel Writer’s Later Years

Atlas Escapades (Above left:) Actually, Gary didn’t script Atlas/Seaboard’s The Cougar #1—but he was piped aboard to do the werewolf story in #2 (July 1975), which turned out to be the final issue. Art by Frank Springer. (Above right:) GF also scribed the third and final issue of that company’s The Brute (July 1975), with art by Alan Weiss & Jack Abel. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

enough for Gary. He described some of their characters—particularly Superman and Batman—as pieces of cardboard. I didn’t agree with him myself, but he personally had told me that on a number of occasions. RA: When he was starting out, in 1966 or 1967, he would have been absolutely right on every observation he was making. By 1975, when his career was winding down, he would have been on much shakier ground, although both Batman and Superman were going through somewhat of a fallow period at that particular time. HIGGERSON: A lot of DC titles from that period didn’t read all that well to me next to the Marvel titles, but today I find a great deal to be interested in by them. However, back in the day, DC titles like Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane did not appeal to me at all. I did like the cover of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen where he had his head stuck in the Phantom Zone. You can’t accuse DC of not being creative in certain ways. [laughs] RA: Gary was coming from a period at both Charlton and Marvel where the writers had a considerable amount of freedom to write whatever they wanted to. DC didn’t allow that sort of freedom at that time. The DC editors of the late 1960s had an iron grip on what was going to come out in their books. HIGGERSON: That flexibility at Marvel and Charlton would have been something that Gary would have liked.

“Groovy Gary” Friedrich will be especially remembered, perhaps, for two co-creations—Ghost Rider and the Son of Satan (a.k.a. Daimon Hellstrom). Following the full-face-frontal debut of “Son of Satan” in Marvel Spotlight #13 (after foreshadowing in Ghost Rider #1 & 2), the two supernatural stalwarts shared a dramatic splash page in Ghost Rider #3 (Dec. 1973), Gary’s penultimate issue of that mag, shown above. Both heroes have achieved a long afterlife in comics and elsewhere— as witness the 2007 and 2011 Ghost Rider films with Nicholas Cage (plus a stint by a later incarnation on TV’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Daimon Helstrom in the recently streaming Hulu series Helstrom. (Hey, what’s an extra “l” between friends?) The latter starred Tom Austen as Daimon and Sydney Lemmon as Ana (read: Satana). That series’ credits laudably listed “Roy Thomas, John Romita Sr., Gary Friedrich, & Herb Trimpe” as creators of the two lead characters—though Stan Lee surely deserved a shout-out as well. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“G O R O

Headline

” Y R A II G TI Y R V PA T. EP D

Headline 2 Author

by Peter Normanton

ary Friedrich was one of the first names I got to know when, as a teenager, I became obsessed with comics—essentially those of the Marvel ilk. He was the scribe assigned to [The Monster of] Frankenstein and The Incredible Hulk, and my rapport with his writing was almost immediate. Soon after Gary arrived on the scene in 1966, the wind of change was once again billowing through the industry, thus ensuring this period would be every bit as exciting as those which had gone before. My interest in comics had been growing for some time, so it was no surprise when, in February of 1975, having picked up a copy of the British Marvel reprint Dracula Lives #19, comicbooks became my thing. Amid the contents of this issue, which included “Tomb of Dracula” and “Werewolf by Night,” were the last six pages of “The Last Frankenstein” from Frankenstein #10, a tale originally published some months before in May of 1974. For those of you unfamiliar with these British reprints, their black-&-white pages were appreciably larger than their US counterparts. Those released in the mid-1970s ran to 36 pages, with only three of them given over to in-house advertising, leaving another couple

The Frankenstein Monster and Ghost Rider, both drawn by Mike Ploog, from the covers of Frankenstein #1 (Jan. 1973) and Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug. 1972). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

From The Tomb Presents

of pages reserved for readers’ letters. The lack of colour never detracted from the impact of these stories; rather, the artistry of Messrs Colan, Palmer, Ploog, Kane, Sutton, and Buscema was showcased in a format befitting their masterly line. In allowing the art to thrive in this way, the stories penned by Gary and his compatriots appeared all the more impressive. Just before he began freelancing for Topps in the mid-1960s, working for Woody Gelman and Len Brown, the same warped minds that only a few years before had conceived the Mars Attacks! bubble-gum cards, Gary received an offer of work from Charlton Comics, following a conversation between Roy Thomas and editor Dick Giordano. It was towards the end of his brief sojourn with Charlton, a period spent largely on their romance titles, that he ushered in the first of his monsters, the avaricious Gertrude Partridge. Ghostly Tales #60’s “If I Had Three Wishes,” cover- dated March 1967, observed the grieving Gertrude’s refusal to listen to her imploring husband as she schemed to use one of the wishes alluded to in the title to resurrect her deceased son. In but six pages, Gary’s endeavour would help lay the foundations for Charlton’s revival as a horror comics publisher, in due course elevating them to a deservedly loftier status. Mr Dedd served as master of ceremonies, as he had for almost 12 months, introducing a piece which outshone everything else on show in this issue, neatly penciled by Steve Ditko before being embellished by the brush strokes of Rocke Mastroserio. This same artistic team joined forces for Gary’s finale at Charlton, coming just one issue later in Ghostly Tales #61’s “The Wee Warriors,” cover-dated June 1967. It was a riveting excursion that surely bode well for both Gary’s and Charlton’s future. Alas, this duo of horror stories would be his last for the company, as Marvel Comics were offering him an abundance of better-paid work, originally on their Westerns Kid Colt Outlaw and Two-Gun Kid. With only a couple of horror stories to his name, Gary had revealed a clear understanding of what it took to chill his spirited readership. However, it would be another two years before he stepped anew into this darkened world, beholden to the success of his Westerns, along with a bounty of tales for The Incredible Hulk, Not Brand Echh, and Sgt. Fury. He was enjoying the moment, as were his employers, who continued to reap the rewards felicitous with their enormous popularity, yet remained rightly conscious of the competition. They would have been all too aware of how well-received their rivals’ horror/ mystery titles had been on the newsstands.

(From top of page:) Pablo Marcos’ cover for the premiere of the UK edition of Dracula Lives, in October 1974, left the reader in no doubt as to that which lay within… followed by the Gil Kane/Tom Palmer collaboration for Dracula Lives #19 released at the end of February 1975, a cover first seen adorning the US Tomb of Dracula #29, published for that same month. (Right:) Rocke Mastroserio’s Mr Dedd cover for Charlton’s Ghostly Tales #60 (March 1967), and Don Heck’s Marvel splash for Chamber of Darkness #1’s “Always Leave ’Em Laughing!” [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders & Marvel Characters, Inc., respectively.]

The Friedrich Monsters

Not wanting to get left behind, Marvel made their foray into this domain in the summer of ’69, commencing with Tower of Shadows, cover-dated September 1969, before launching the first issue of Chamber of Darkness just one month later. It was in these pages that Gary made his return to comicbook terror, banding together with Don Heck, an artist whose reputation had been forged prior to the Comics Code on the covers to Comic Media’s Weird Terror and Horrific. The hideous spectacle once relished by Don’s brush strokes was no longer permissible, outlawed by the Code’s inflexible attitude towards horror, but this didn’t prevent Gary setting loose another monster, one who journeyed into the past in a foolhardy bid to prove his worth in “Always Leave ’Em Laughing!” He was then promptly lined up for an appearance in Tower of Shadows as it prepared for its second issue, cover-dated November 1969. “Look Out, Wyatt... Automation’s Gonna Get Your Job!” paired him alongside the formidable draughtsmanship of John Buscema as they confronted a bully and his fear of automation at the mine where he was employed. A couple of months down the line Tower of Shadows #3 hit the newsstands. “Midnight at the Wax Museum” promoted Gary to the position of host for a seven-page piece rendered by comicbook veteran George Tuska. Here he drew upon his time working almost singlehandedly for his local newspaper to uncover a series of bizarre events following the appearance of an unearthly wax museum. This episode would have made the headlines on any national newspaper, but not necessarily one destined for publication on this world. In each of these tales, Gary went light on the narrative, thus priming each of his highly talented artists to deliver the action, while keeping the dialogue just the way Marvel Comics preferred, sharp and snappy. In a short space of time he had very swiftly matured, standing proud amongst Stan Lee’s finest creative teams. Elsewhere in the comicbook world, the fledgling Skywald Publishing Corporation was about to take its first tentative steps. In the latter months of 1970, their baptism of fire came with a couple of horror magazines, Nightmare (cover-dated December 1970), then just weeks later the provocatively entitled Psycho, each of them plainly influenced by Jim Warren’s pioneering terrors Creepy and Eerie. Those early months weren’t exactly earthshaking for the new kid on the block, established by a man synonymous with basement-budget reprints, Israel Waldman, together with former Atlas and Marvel production man Sol Brodsky. The advent of the Alan Hewetson-inspired Skywald Horrormood in the spring of 1972 would eventually give rise to their ascendancy as a distinguished publisher of horror.

At the top of the page: Marie Severin & Frank Giacoia’s cover for Marvel’s Tower of Shadows #3 (Jan. 1970), followed by John Romita’s chilling image promoting the debut of its companion title Chamber of Darkness (Oct. 1969). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] To our left: John Buscema’s unmistakable artwork for “Look Out, Wyatt ... Automation’s Gonna Get Your Job!,” as inked by John Verpoorten—first seen in Marvel’s Tower of Shadows #2 (Nov. 1969)—followed by Steve Ditko’s depiction of the mourning Gertrude Partridge’s desperate attempt to raise her dead son in Ghostly Tales #60’s “If I Had Three Wishes” from Charlton, cover-dated March 1967. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc., & the respective trademark & copyright holders, respectively.]

From The Tomb Presents

this venture, [The Monster of] Frankenstein debuted with a cover dated January 1973. Mike Ploog’s cover paid homage to James Whale’s film Frankenstein (1931), with Roy Thomas pre-empting the film’s most famous line of dialogue (“It’s Alive!”), while the art itself avoided any visuals too close to Universal’s interpretation of the Monster. Upon turning the page, it was obvious Gary had been truly inspired by Mary’s style, making use of her words wherever possible, yet doing all he could to make it palatable for his young audience, who would have been over-awed, if not bored, by the original text. The four issues that accounted for this retelling would rate as some of Gary’s finest moments attributed to his time in comics, surpassing even his laudable work on Marvel’s war titles. Unfortunately, the way forward could not match the sense of anticipation amongst the readership, when with issue #5 the Frankenstein Monster travelled on into the world of 1898 to seek out the last of the Frankenstein family. Hampered by the Marvel Universe’s inability to blend with the 19th century, the series would soon struggle, cast adrift from the rest of the company’s illustrious cast. Issues #7-9 would see the Frankenstein Monster in a problematic crossover with Dracula, prompting questions about continuity. All the while, pressure was mounting to channel this troubled creature into the 20th century, as had been done in the “Frankenstein 1973” saga in the pages of Marvel’s black-&-white comic magazine Monsters Unleashed. This was all too much for Mike Ploog; he parted company with the series, unhappy about the prospect of bringing Frankenstein into a 20th-century New York. Gary would eventually follow in his footsteps, after the release of the eleventh issue of Frankenstein, cover-dated July 1974. His time writing horror comics for Marvel was now at an end; the industry was once again going through a process of change. Lured by the prospect of greater creative control and a better rate of pay than he had enjoyed at Marvel, Gary went to freelance for Atlas/Seaboard Comics in 1975. After having sold Marvel Comics to Cadence Industries in 1970, publisher Martin Goodman had set up a new company in 1974 to rival the monolith he had once owned. Goodman’s new line never really got the chance to take on its eminent predecessor, folding in the summer of 1975. However, Gary’s creation with artist Frank Thorne, “Son of Dracula,” featured in the only issue of Fright, cover-dated June 1975, would acquire a cult following fans of the genre, with his supernatural-styled scripts for The Brute #3 and “The Man-Monster” from Tales of Evil #3, both appearing for July 1975, attracting some interest. These entries paled before his work on Marvel’s supernatural brethren, for they were never given the time in which to develop. As Gary was moving away from horror comics, I was about to get into them, and the work he produced between 1969 and 1974, oblivious to the fact that both he and Marvel were momentarily becoming distanced from the genre. Although he will be best remembered for his work on Marvel’s war titles and The Incredible Hulk, I am one of those readers who remains eternally grateful for the horror comics he wrote in his time at Marvel. Few horror comics will compete with his work on those first four issues of Frankenstein, and at the last I consider myself amongst the Ghost Rider readers who firmly believe those early appearances were definitely authentic tales of terror. In 1975, several Marvel regulars were working for Martin & Chip Goodman’s Atlas/ Seaboard. Gary contributed scripts to Fright #1 (introducing “Son of Dracula”), with the cover as well as interiors rendered by Frank Thorne… The Brute #3 with Pablo Marcos on tap… and Tales of Evil #3, which ran with a Rich Buckler “Man-Monster” cover. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.] Herb Trimpe supplied the frenetic cover of Marvel Spotlight #12 (Oct. 1973), with Gil Kane & Ernie Chan’s handiwork embellishing that of Supernatural Thrillers #6 (Nov. 1973). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

(Above:) The 1965 Tales of the Incredible paperback. [Art © the respective copyright holders; Incredible Science Fiction log & EC sigil TM & © Wm. M. Gaines Agent.]

NEW BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS

OLD GODS & NEW A COMPANION TO JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD

For its 80th issue, the JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine presents a double-sized 50th anniversary examination of Kirby’s magnum opus! Spanning the pages of four different comics starting in 1970 (NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, MISTER MIRACLE, and JIMMY OLSEN), the sprawling “Epic for our times” was cut short mid-stream, leaving fans wondering how Jack would’ve resolved the confrontation between evil DARKSEID of Apokolips, and his son ORION of New Genesis. This companion to that “FOURTH WORLD” series looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to determine how it came about, where it was going, and how Kirby would’ve ended it before it was prematurely cancelled by DC Comics! It also examines Kirby’s use of gods in THOR and other strips prior to the Fourth World, how they influenced his DC epic, and affected later series like THE ETERNALS and CAPTAIN VICTORY. With an overview of hundreds of Kirby’s creations like BIG BARDA, BOOM TUBES and GRANNY GOODNESS, and post-Kirby uses of his concepts, no Fourth World fan will want to miss it! Compiled, researched, and edited by JOHN MORROW, with contributions by JON B. COOKE. (160-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4 • SHIPS MARCH 2021!

OR -COL FULLDCOVER HAR RIES SE nting me f docu ecade o d y! c ea h s histor comic

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES The 1950s

MARVEL COMICS IN THE 1970s (Expanded Edition)

PIERRE COMTOIS’ sequel covers how STAN LEE became publisher, JACK KIRBY left Marvel, and ROY THOMAS rose as writer & editor! New edition with 16 extra pages! (240-page trade paperback) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 INCLUDES 16 EXTRA PAGES! NOW BACK IN STOCK!

REED CRANDALL ILLUSTRATOR OF THE COMICS

(Softcover Edition) ROGER HILL’s history of Crandall’s life and career, with never-seen photos and unpublished artwork! NOW IN SOFTCOVER! (256-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $39.95 (256-page Digital Edition) $13.99 NEW SOFTCOVER EDITION IN STOCK NOW!

The 1990s

BILL SCHELLY tackles the Atomic Era of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis: EC’s TALES FROM THE CRYPT, MAD, CARL BARKS’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, the FLASH in Showcase #4, return of Timely’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, HUMAN TORCH & SUB-MARINER, & FREDRIC WERTHAM!

KEITH DALLAS & JASON SACKS detail the decade X-MEN #1 sold 8.1 million copies, IMAGE COMICS formed, Superman died, Batman broke his back, Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN led to the VERTIGO line of adult comics, and gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers ruled!

(240-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $46.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 NOW BACK IN STOCK!

(288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $48.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 NOW BACK IN STOCK!

Coming Fall 2021: American Comic Book Chronicles: 1945-49 and The Charlton Companion

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History. TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

Other volumes available: 1940-44 1960-64 1965-69 1970s 1980s Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com Don’t miss exclusive sales, limited editions, and new releases! Sign up for our mailing list:

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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 Go to www.twomorrows.com for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #158

ALTER EGO #159

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BLE

AVAILA

ALTER EGO #155

ALTER EGO #156

ALTER EGO #157

Golden Age artist/writer/editor NORMAN MAURER remembered by his wife JOAN, recalling BIRO’s Crime Does Not Pay, Boy Comics, Daredevil, St. John’s 3-D & THREE STOOGES comics with KUBERT, his THREE STOOGES movies (MOE was his father-inlaw!), and work for Marvel, DC, and others! Plus LARRY IVIE’s 1959 plans for a JUSTICE SOCIETY revival, JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY and more!

All Time Classic Con continued from #148! Panels on Golden Age (CUIDERA, HASEN, SCHWARTZ [LEW & ALVIN], BOLTINOFF, LAMPERT, GILL, FLESSEL) & Silver Age Marvel, DC, & Gold Key (SEVERIN, SINNOTT, AYERS, DRAKE, ANDERSON, FRADON, SIMONSON, GREEN, BOLLE, THOMAS), plus JOHN BROOME, FCA, MR. MONSTER, & BILL SCHELLY! Unused RON WILSON/CHRIS IVY cover!

Interview with JOYE MURCHISON, assistant to Wonder Woman co-creator DR. WILLIAM MARSTON, and WW’s female scriptwriter from 1945-1948! Rare art by H.G. PETER, 1960s DC love comics writer BARBARA FRIEDLANDER, art & anecdotes by ROMITA, COLAN, JAY SCOTT PIKE, INFANTINO, WEISINGER, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and others! Extra: FCA, JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, & more!

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

ALTER EGO #162

ALTER EGO #163

ALTER EGO #164

FCA SPECIAL! Golden Age writer WILLIAM WOOLFOLK interview, and his scripting records! Art by BECK, SCHAFFENBERGER, BORING, BOB KANE, CRANDALL, KRIGSTEIN, ANDRU, JACK COLE, FINE, PETER, HEATH, PLASTINO, MOLDOFF, GRANDENETTI, and more! Plus JOHN BROOME, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and the 2017 STAR WARS PANEL with CHAYKIN, LIPPINCOTT, and THOMAS!

Peter Cannon–Thunderbolt writer/artist PETE MORISI talks about the creative process! Plus, read his correspondence with comics greats JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, AL WILLIAMSON, CHARLES BIRO, JOE GILL, GEORGE TUSKA, ROCKY MASTROSERIO, PAT MASULLI, SAL GENTILE, DICK GIORDANO, and others! Also: JOHN BROOME’s bio, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and BILL SCHELLY!

WILL MURRAY presents an amazing array of possible prototypes of Batman (by artist FRANK FOSTER—in 1932!)—Wonder Woman (by Star-Spangled Kid artist HAL SHERMAN)—Tarantula (by Air Wave artist LEE HARRIS), and others! Plus a rare Hal Sherman interview—MICHAEL T. GILBERT with more on artist PETE MORISI—FCA— BILL SCHELLY—JOHN BROOME—and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY!

The early days of DAVE COCKRUM— Legion of Super-Heroes artist and co-developer of the revived mid-1970s X-Men—as revealed in art-filled letters to PAUL ALLEN and rare, previously unseen illustrations provided by wife PATY COCKRUM (including 1960s-70s drawings of Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes)! Plus FCA—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on PETE MORISI—JOHN BROOME—BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Spotlight on MIKE FRIEDRICH, DC/Marvel writer who jumpstarted the independent comics movement with Star*Reach! Art by NEAL ADAMS, GIL KANE, DICK DILLIN, IRV NOVICK, JOHN BUSCEMA, JIM STARLIN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, FRANK BRUNNER, et al.! Plus: MARK CARLSONGHOST on Rural Home Comics, FCA, and Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Justice League of America cover by NEAL ADAMS!

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

ALTER EGO #165

ALTER EGO #166

ALTER EGO #167

ALTER EGO #168

WILL MURRAY showcases original Marvel publisher (from 1939-1971) MARTIN GOODMAN, with artifacts by LEE, KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, MANEELY, BUSCEMA, EVERETT, BURGOS, GUSTAVSON, SCHOMBURG, COLAN, ADAMS, STERANKO, and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt with more on PETE MORISI, JOHN BROOME, and a cover by DREW FRIEDMAN!

FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA) Special, with spotlights on KURT SCHAFFENBERGER (Captain Marvel, Ibis the Invincible, Marvel Family, Lois Lane), and ALEX ROSS on his awesome painting of the super-heroes influenced by the original Captain Marvel! Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s “Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt” on Superman editor MORT WEISINGER, JOHN BROOME, and more! Cover by SCHAFFENBERGER!

Salute to Golden & Silver Age artist SYD SHORES as he’s remembered by daughter NANCY SHORES KARLEBACH, fellow artist ALLEN BELLMAN, DR. MICHAEL J. VASSALLO, and interviewer RICHARD ARNDT. Plus: mid-1940s “Green Turtle” artist/creator CHU HING profiled by ALEX JAY, JOHN BROOME, MICHAEL T. GILBERT and Mr. Monster on MORT WEISINGER Part Two, and more!

Two RICHARD ARNDT interviews revealing the wartime life of Aquaman artist/co-creator PAUL NORRIS (with a Golden/Silver Age art gallery)—plus the story of WILLIE ITO, who endured the WWII Japanese-American relocation centers to become a Disney & Warner Bros. animator and comics artist. Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, and more, behind a NORRIS cover!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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

store@twomorrows.com

Order at twomorrows.com

KEN BALD Saw Battle In The Comics—And In Real Life! by Mark Voger

Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

e was a Marine who saw battle during World War II… a super-hero artist during the Golden Age of Comics… a commercial artist who illustrated everything from movie posters to advertisements to syndicated comic strips… a family man married for 75 years… and a presence in Fawcett publishing history. So Kenneth Bruce Bald had already amassed plenty of career accolades by 2016, when Guinness World Records named him the oldest living comicbook artist still working. “There’s not many of us left,” he then said of fellow artists from his generation. Bald was born in New York City on August 1, 1920, and died in Mount Arlington, New Jersey, on March 17, 2019. He was 98. Bald grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. “My father had been a policeman in Pelham Manor, and got a job (also as a police officer) in Mount Vernon in 1925, I think it was,” he once told me. (I interviewed the affable artist

on four occasions, in 1997, 2002, 2012, and 2016. His wife, Kaye Bald, sometimes contributed her reflections to our conversations.) As with most artists of his era, Bald was introduced to the world of illustration by way of newspaper comic strips. “I started to draw, like so many kids. At the beginning, I used crayons or whatever I could get ahold of,” he said. “I noticed the artwork of Hal Foster, who did Tarzan. Then later, of course, he did Prince Valiant. The first thing I can recall was [the storyline] ‘Elephants’ Graveyard’ in Tarzan.”

Kenneth Bruce Bald in a press photo from 1962—the year he began writing and drawing the Dr. Kildare syndicated strip for King Features, whose Sunday title panel for Jan. 31, 1971, is seen below. At left is his “Bulletman” splash from Master Comics #26 (May 1942), although other artists of Jack Binder’s shop may also have worked on it; script by Otto Binder. [Bulletman & Bulletgirl TM & © DC Comics; Dr. Kildare panel TM & © Kim Features Syndicate, Inc.]

Alter Ego #169