Alter Ego #179 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas' Fantastically Forgetful Comics Fanzine

Celebrating the FANTASTIC FOUR’s

61st Anniversary 10.95 $

(’cause we sure blew their 60th!)

& STAN LEE’s 100th Birthday!

In the USA

No. 179 January 2023

DOUBLE BONUS!

KLEIN GEORGHE & “W EN THE INER SUB-MAR A

82658 00472

Fantastic Four, Sub-Mariner TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

WAS BOWERY BUM!”

EXTRA! Will Murray, et al., on

THE EARLY F.F.

and John Cimino on

STAN’S GREATEST STORIES!

Vol. 3, No. 179 January 2023 Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editor Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)

Comic Crypt Editor

Contents

Michael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor Roll

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

Writer/Editorial: A Celebration For The Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Fantastic Four #1—A Patchwork Classic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Startling speculations by Michael Feldman—plus a sidebar by Roy Thomas.

Proofreaders

Origin Of The Origin Of The Fantastic Four? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Cover Artists

Was The Fantastic Four CANCELED In 1961? . . . . . . . . . . . .13

William J. Dowlding David Baldy

Ken Quattro uncovers a possible source in a 1940 Marvel Tales pulp mag.

Will Murray probes some mysterious lapses in the early Marvel schedule.

Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky

Under The Microscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Tom Ziuko

When The Sub-Mariner Was A Bowery Bum . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Nick Caputo analyzes the original art from FF #3—including its backside.

Cover Colorist With Special Thanks to: Heidi Amash Bob Bailey Diane Boden Tom Brevoort Nick Caputo John Cimino Eileen Clancy Pierre Comtois Chet Cox Bob Cromwell Courtney Boden Ellender Mark Evanier Justin Fairfax Michael Feldman Shane Foley Joe Giella Janet Gilbert J.T. Go Keith Gleason Grand Comics Database (website) Heritage Art Auctions (website)

Ben Herman Jim Holden James Kealy Michael Kelly The Jack Kirby Estate Charles Kochman Richard Kolkman Larry Lieber Art Lortie Ralph Macchio Frankie Mastropaolo Brian K. Morris Will Murray Barry Pearl Ken Quattro Trina Robbins Randy Sargent David Saunders Alex Saviuk Dann Thomas Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Mike Zaloudek

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

George Klein, Stan Lee, & Jack Kirby

Bob Cromwell takes a close-up look at a primary (and colorful) locale in FF #4.

First & Four-most . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Ben Herman’s brief bio of FF #1 & 2 inker (and veteran comics artist) George Klein.

The Lee/Thomas Spider-Man E-mails–Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Cyber-messages from Stan the Man to Roy the Boy (2000-2018… esp. 2003).

The Top Ten Greatest Stan Lee Stories Of All Time! . . . . . . 56 John Cimino lists some of the tales that defined the Marvel Universe.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! That’s Just Sick! . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Michael T. Gilbert on Joe Simon’s longtime challenger to Mad magazine.

re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America #238] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 P.C. Hamerlinck presents critic Stanley Kauffmann’s account of early-1940s Fawcett.

On Our Cover: Our esteemed publisher John Morrow came up with the precise concept for this issue’s cover, and put together a montage of Jack Kirby art: The Fantastic Four from the head shots on an old MMMS (or was it Marvelmania?) T-shirt, and the Sub-Mariner from a house ad in The Avengers #2 (Nov. 1963). Inking by an unidentified inker & most likely Sol Brodsky, respectively. Ye Editor has said it before and he’ll say it again: “Jack Kirby drew the second-best Namor ever (after creator Bill Everett, of course)!” Above: Ben Grimm, having just mutated into the Thing for the first time, goes on a mini-rampage on p. 12 of The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961). Script by Stan Lee; pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by George Klein. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan from his copy of the original comic. In fact, we’ve tried to utilize scans from the first newsstand editions for all art spots in this issue related to FF #1-4. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM issue 179, January 2023 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. 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: $73 US, $111 Elsewhere, $29 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. FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

A Celebration For The Ages A ll his life, Stan Lee was 38+ years older than 1961’s Fantastic Four, his most important co-creation (with all due respect to The X-Men, The Avengers, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man, et al.—the latter three of whom celebrate their 60th anniversaries this year). As is the case with all enduring creations, however, that monumental first issue and its ongoing importance to the comicbook industry (and indirectly to film and other visual media as well) will continue to have anniversaries—or birthdays, if one prefers to call them that—while Stan’s eventful life ended a few weeks before what would have been his own own 96th birthday. Still, we celebrate the 100th, 200th, or even far more distant birth dates of various folks who have walked this planet, so why not celebrate Stan’s centennial as well? (He was born on December 28, about the time this issue will hit comics stores.) Since we were too distracted at A/E last year, what with one thing and another, to salute the FF’s 60th anniversary, we figured we’d combine it with Stan’s 100th and laud them both this time around. And, since we’ve had two big Stan Lee issues in the past few years (#150 & #161), I contented myself with presenting an opening salvo of the e-mails he and I exchanged between 2003 and 2018 while I was ghost-writing the Amazing Spider-Man comic strip, plus a subjective listing of his “top ten stories” by John Cimino. But Stan’s presence, just like Jack Kirby’s, hovers iconically over the rest of this issue’s commemoration of The Fantastic Four, and I’ve long since given up any attempt to pretend respect for the nutcases who’d try to deny Stan an equal share in the creation of the super-hero group that spawned what would soon be known as Marvel Comics. Comics researcher Michael Feldman and a few others have posited, over the years, that FF #1 might’ve been

assembled at least in part from artwork originally produced for a different story, one that may not have featured anyone with cosmically induced powers. I’ll admit up front they’ve never convinced me—but hey, I’m a fallible human being just like everyone else on planet Earth, so I wanted to let Michael and company have their shot at convincing you. Even so, in the end, I couldn’t resist inserting my own brief “Interlude” between his piece and the next, just as I let my own not-totally-uninformed opinions seep over into a few of the art captions or even as the occasional “editor’s note” in the text of this writer or that. Ken Quattro has a different take on FF #1, suggesting a source from which Lee and/or Kirby could’ve got the notion of gaining super-powers from a bombardment by cosmic rays. Not as potentially myth-shattering as Michael’s thesis, but still intriguing and worthy of inclusion. Will Murray, who yields to few in his deep dives into the history of comics, suggests that, whatever the FF’s origins, the whole Marvel Comics Group may have come within a hairbreadth of slipping into total oblivion in late ’61—which would have wiped out much of the four-color footprint of these past six decades, including maybe the entire industry. To cap it all off, Nick Caputo takes us on a guided tour of the original art for FF #3, the earliest Marvel issue for which any original art is known to exist (it yields a few revelations all its own)—Bob Cromwell gives us welcome background on issue #4— and we welcomed the opportunity to run Ben Herman’s study of George Klein, now almost universally acknowledged to have been the inker of the first two issues of “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” If all the above contents together don’t constitute a celebration for the Ages... Silver, Marvel, and more… well, frankly, we’ll probably never know what does!

Bestest,

COMING IN FEBRUARY #180

YOUNG ALL-STARS SPECTACULAR!

Murray.

• Brand new cover of “Iron” Munro and friends by YAS artist BRIAN MURRAY! • ROY THOMAS talks about his 1987-89 DC All-Star Squadron sequel series THE YOUNG ALL-STARS—and RICHARD ARNDT interviews three of its prime artists: BRIAN MURRAY, HOWARD SIMPSON, & LOU MANNA! Includes rare illustrations and never-before-seen art! • “The YOUNG ALL-STARS covers that never were”—courtesy of JOHNNY BLAZE LEAVITT— plus more of the All-Star Squadron post-#67 fan-covers commissioned by JOHN JOSHUA (continued from A/E #175)—& a few all-star surprises! • Not to mention (which we will!): FCA presents Part 2 of STANLEY KAUFFMANN’s early1940s Fawcett memoirs—MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s 2023 comic art portfolio—& MORE!!

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.

Subscribe! Six 80-page issues: $73 Economy US, $100 Premium US, $111 International, $29 Digital Only

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: twomorrows.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The FANTASTIC FOUR Turns 61! — Part 1

FANTASTIC FOUR #1– A Patchwork Classic? The Story—& Some Speculations—Behind “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” by Michael Feldman A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: As I mentioned in this issue’s writer/editorial (see facing page), the possibility that The Fantastic Four #1 was some sort of Frankensteinian hybrid, cobbled together from a combination of new material and a pre-existing SF/fantasy story of some kind, was first brought to my attention a decade or two ago, during correspondence with fan/researcher Michael Feldman. A year back, I invited him to revisit and expand upon that theory and analysis in this issue of Alter Ego, and he accepted the offer. However, after sending me the introductory material below, in the end he felt that he did not have the time, inclination, or whatever to finish it… so I’m presenting the part of it that he sent, to underscore his chronological primacy in this particular “debate,” following with the speculations of Ken Quattro, Will Murray, and Nick Caputo on the same and related subjects….

ome years ago, British artist, author, and educator Steve Whitaker and I entered into a long dialogue about various aspects of comicbook history… an exchange cut off by my friend’s premature death a few years back.

Steve was exceptionally knowledgeable and insightful with regards to comics. He had an uncanny and unerring eye for the individualistic styles and nuances of many comicbook artists. He could look at a piece of work and pick out something like a Ditko ink line or a Kirby panel design. And he would be invariably right. Most artists have a sort of signature [style] that differentiates them from their peers no matter how much they may be trying to draw like someone else or adapt a new style. Execution of line, the mathematics of composition, and the combinations of detailing and approach are unique, just as writing styles can be. I bring this up because I want to make clear at the outset that many of the statements and claims you will read here are the observations of Steve Whitaker, or were activated by things he pointed out to me. At some later date I will backtrack and quote him directly from e-mails we exchanged back around 2004-5. We both agreed there were some very-difficult-to-explain aspects of The Fantastic Four #1—and of the second issue, for that matter. For starters, in our view, a number of panels simply are not the work of Jack Kirby or any recognizable artist of the small freelance regulars [at Timely]. On the very first page, the third panel is a rather poorly executed image of Reed Richards seen through a window after having just fired the flare gun that sent the words “THE FANTASTIC FOUR” into a cloud above the city. Noticeably, the face is in shadow and undefined. The anatomy is crude and very un-Kirby-like, with overly large hands, the disproportional arm at an impossible angle, etc.

It Came From The Subway! The cover that rocked the comics world forever—Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961)! Jack Kirby’s penciled vision of mayhem in Manhattan produced under the direction of editor Stan Lee, who also provided the cover text. Inks by George Klein. Thanks to the Grand Comics Database & Marvel Tales Annual #1 (1964). [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Jack Kirby Significantly, most of the other questionable panels in the issue are likewise in shadow. For example, the third panel on page 11, in the origin sequence, has another Stan Lee group picture with no faces distinguishable and equally poor delineation that is not Kirby even at his most rushed. Two pages later, the fourth panel on page 13 is another apparently inserted panel, all in silhouette and looking more like it was drawn by Stan Lee rather than Jack Kirby. There are a number of other places where the drawing attributions are questionable, and in a future installment we’ll assemble them for easier reference. It is pretty clear Stan and Jack were rushed in putting this issue together and a lot of slack is given for hasty, last-minute corrections, possibly even Comics Code demands for alterations, though that seems unlikely. But there are just so many small points that are internally conflicting, don’t make sense, or just defy common sense. Let’s start with the cover. The monster rising out of the ground and grabbing an available female figure is a staple of pulp fiction and comicbooks. One does have to wonder why Reed Richards is tied up with ropes and who did this to him. The clawed monster? And why does Johnny Storm say “Just you wait and see, sister!” Now, in vintage street parlance, calling a woman “sister” is not unusual—but your own sister—?

The Story—& Some Speculations—Behind “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”

trenchcoat, hat, and shades we saw him in initially. Odd for a guy having trouble finding clothes that he has a spare set there. Far more oddly, in continuity on Monster Isle, he’s seen in a couple of panels wearing generic climbing gear with brimmed cap. A couple of pages later he’s back in trenchcoat, hat, and shades, which he dramatically removes to reveal himself as the Thing in preparation for battling a spined monster threatening Sue. Now, what the logic is of Ben Grimm wearing a disguise to mask his monstrous form among the people who already know his secret, on an isolated island [peopled] with monsters—eludes rationality. We’ll call this an oversight and move on. Ben puts back the trenchcoat, hat, and shades and for a third time dramatically tears them away to reveal himself as the Thing near the end of the issue. In the outfitting department Johnny Storm also goes through a few transformations that are difficult to rationalize. When we first see him, he’s wearing mechanics’ overalls, working on his car in a service station. He torches up to respond to the FF call and is saved from falling in the sky by an outstretched Mr. Fantastic. But after the 5-page origin, we see a more schoolboyish Johnny wearing a sweater and tie. One has to wonder, too, what the emergency was for them to rush to the meeting and risk life and limb as Reed

“The First Time I Have Found It Necessary…” (Above:) Michael Feldman and his late associate Steve Whitaker were some of the first folks to become convinced—and they may well be right—that the final panel on p. 1 of the first “FF” story was the first of a number of panels in the issue that were not the work of penciler Jack Kirby. Certainly Ye Editor (Roy T.) thinks Reed Richards more nearly resembles a figure drawn by EC/Mad artist Jack Davis than one by Kirby. Art scan courtesy of Jim Kealy. If Messrs. Feldman & Whitaker are correct, that panel (slightly enlarged above) is quite possibly an interpolation drawn at writer/editor Lee’s behest by one of the two artists who were reportedly handling most of the Marvel/ Timely production chores in the very early 1960s: Stan Goldberg (the Millie the Model artist who did, at least, color the issue)—or Sol Brodsky (who would soon officially become the company’s production manager, who designed the FF cover logo, and who inked #3 & 4). It could even be totally by inker George Klein! Roy’s bet is on Sol… and he only wishes he’d known enough to ask him about the matter sometime between mid-1965 and mid-1976, when the two often worked in close proximity.

We’ll give Stan the benefit of a doubt that these things were the result of dramatic license, but when we get inside there are quite a few anomalies. Let’s start by tracking the Thing’s activities. He is first seen in a clothing store being told by the salesman that they have nothing available in his size. It does beg the question of where Ben Grimm got the coat and trousers he’s wearing and why didn’t he get outfitted by that source. Then, when the salesman sees the sign in the sky out the window, Ben shucks off his coat and breaks through a narrow door to get outside, complaining: “Why must they build doorways so narrow?” Well, apparently, he had had no trouble getting through the door into the store initially. Again, we’ll call it dramatic license. Ben shows up at home base, where he’s again in the same

Silhouettes On The Shade (Above:) These two “silhouette shots,” as they were often called in the comics industry, looked to Feldman and Whitaker as if they’d been added by someone other than Jack Kirby. Again, the most likely candidate for the redrawing, if redrawing there is, is Sol Brodsky (or maybe George Klein). Art scans courtesy of Jim Kealy. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Below:) The final word on this kind of panel had already been said circa 1955 by Pogo creator Walt Kelly when he drew the panel below, in order to fill out a page of collected daily comic strips in his third Simon & Schuster tradepaperback volume, Potluck Pogo. This art had not appeared earlier in a daily. [TM & © Estate of Walt Kelly.]

Fantastic Four #1—A Patchwork Classic?

Who’s That Behind The Foster Grants? (Above:) The Thing’s first appearance in the interior of Fantastic Four #1, complete with dark glasses, hat, and trenchcoat—and (right) he’s back in the discarded items at the FF’s headquarters… but who says it’s the same dark glasses, hat, and trenchcoat? He could have a whole closet full of ’em. He doesn’t shed them a second time till he reaches Monster Isle a few Lee/Kirby/Klein pages later. As for the Feldman-questioned “logic” of wearing his disguise even when he’s around his buddies—well, chances are that Stan and Jack just saw it as more of that “dramatic license” Michael Feldman mentions three times in the course of his article. Scans courtesy of Jim Kealy. (Top right:) If any formal concept sketches for the FF were drawn, it seems not unlikely that they formed the basis of the hero pin-ups that appeared in the next few issues… like this one of the Thing from issue #2. By Kirby, Klein, & Lee. Thanks to Bob Bailey. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

announces: “I called you together because I have some pictures to show you!” But again, we’ll write it off to dramatic license. On the island Reed and Johnny fall into a pit engineered by The Moleman. They awake from unconsciousness in full-body protective coverings that Reed describes as “strange adhesive-type suits” that are open to expose the mouth and eyes. They cannot see anything, and The Moleman tells them they are blinded by the glare of the Valley of Diamonds. How cut polished diamonds got there and how they can reflect so much light in an underground cavern is not explained. Reed and Johnny as captives of The Moleman hear his story, and Reed fights him with a pole. From a storytelling point of view, the suits contribute nothing. They are not protective. Reed just takes his off when he wants to stretch, and Johnny burns through his. I think there’s a reason they are shown wearing these outfits, with the storyline originally being somewhat different, but we’ll get to that in time.

Nice Suit! Reed and Johnny’s “adhesive-type suits” don’t seem to serve much of a purpose, leading Feldman and Whitaker to suspect that these panels are left over from a story in which a non-super-powered team were the original folks who faced The Moleman (later spelled “Mole Man”) on his home turf. Could be. It’s impossible to prove, one way or the other, especially in the absence of viewing the original art from FF #1, which may or may not still exist somewhere. Thanks to Jim Kealy. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The actual sequence of events and pacing of the entire issue raises some questions…. At this point the first part of Michael Feldman’s article ends. Alter Ego will be pleased to present the remainder of it at any time it is received.

MUST-HAVE

VOLUME FOR COLLECTORS AND FANS The complete, first-ever collection of Marvel Value Stamps 400 pages including source material and archival images

AVAILABLE WHEREVER

BOOKS ARE SOLD

With text by ROY THOMAS and cover art by ALEX ROSS

abramsbooks.com • @abramsbooks

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books 1928-1999

Art by John Romita. Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Nope, this isn’t The Fantastic Four! Actually, it’s a quartet of evil Skrulls masquerading as the FF early in #2 (Jan. 1962). Not to worry—three of them get turned into cows by issue’s end! Script by Stan Lee; pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by George Klein. Thanks to Bob Bailey, who says he bought this one off the stands in late ’61. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Online Edition Created by Jerry G. Bails FREE – online searchable database – FREE www.bailsprojects.com – No password required

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The FANTASTIC FOUR Turns 61! — Part 2

Origin Of The Origin Of The FANTASTIC FOUR?

Did “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” Have Its Roots In An Old Timely Pulp? by Ken Quattro

ow do you determine the germ of an idea?

There has been much gnashing of teeth, vituperative prose, and verbal bloodshed over who should get credit for the creation of The Fantastic Four. Jack Kirby fans are steadfast in their belief that their man brought the concept to Stan. Kirby had, after all, just finished a John L. Chapman run on the Challengers of the Unknown for DC Comics. In their eyes, Ace, Prof, Rocky, and Red had just been reimagined as Ben, Reed, Johnny, and Sue. Stan Lee, however, saw it differently. The story goes that publisher Martin Goodman had noticed that National’s (DC’s) new Justice League of America comic was selling particularly well. He then ordered Stan to create a super-team to headline a new comic for their company. “I would create a team of superheroes if that was what the marketplace required,” Lee wrote in Origins of Marvel Comics. “But it would be a team such as comicdom had never known. For, just this once, I would do the type of story I myself would enjoy reading if I were a comic-book reader.”1 Lee’s words are red meat to Kirby fans. Personal biases aside, perhaps there is some truth to both versions. And perhaps there is a third person deserving of credit, as well: John L. Chapman. “If momentary exposure to the cosmic rays beyond the Heaviside Layer made a super-man of an ordinary mortal--what fabulous titan of strength and intelligence might the human become who’d spend hours under such forces!” So reads the blurb accompanying the short story “Cycle” by the above-mentioned Mr. Chapman in Marvel Stories, Vol. 2, #2, dated Nov. 1940. Chapman was an early science-fiction fan from Minneapolis who had made it into the professional ranks by the ’40s. His rather unremarkable career as a writer likely wouldn’t even be under consideration if it were not for this barely six-page effort that bears some interesting similarities to the origin of an iconic comicbook team some twenty years later. “Cycle” was the story of a man named Drake, who had been sent in a rocket on a trip to the moon, the “first man to leave the earth’s atmosphere.” Suddenly, the “jets” on his ship misfired, “in

A Pair Of Marvels The cover of the Timely pulp Marvel Stories, Vol. 2, #2 (Nov. 1940), doesn’t mention “Cycle” by John L. Chapman, one of the various science-fiction tales within; but it’s in there, just the same… and Ken Quattro wonders if it might have had a seminal influence on the first issue of Fantastic Four, 21 years later. Cover painting by John W. Scott; scans from Ken Quattro & David Saunders; thanks to DS for the artist ID. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

the vicinity of the Heaviside Layer,” and he began plummeting back toward the ground. (Note: The Heaviside Layer is one of several layers making up the ionosphere.) Apparently, upon reaching this point, Drake was exposed to

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ GREATEST HEROES— NOW IN FABULOUS ONLINE COMIC STRIPS!

NEW SEQUENCES CONSTANTLY BEING ADDED! Official Website: http://edgarriceburroughs.com/comics/ Website now also features ongoing comic strips of John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar, Land That Time Forgot, and many others— only $1.99 per month!

by ROY THOMAS & BENITO GALLEGO

ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR ADVENTURES —NOW PLAYING ON AN INTERNET NEAR YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The FANTASTIC FOUR Turns 61! — Part 3

Was THE FANTASTIC FOUR CANCELED In 1961? Some History & Conjectures

by Will Murray

he groundbreaking Fantastic Four is remembered more than 60 years later as the single comicbook that revitalized Marvel Comics after approximately a decade of its being virtually moribund. Although the monthly Amazing Adult Fantasy was also launched later that same month, using the same quirky lettering style meant to signal that this title, too, was pitched to an older audience, AAF soon fell by the wayside, while The Fantastic Four rapidly shifted from a tentative bimonthly to a monthly title. It was not a smooth launch, however. In fact, there exists circumstantial evidence to indicate that The Fantastic Four might easily have ended with issue #2, along with the rest of the company’s line, which had just been rebranded with a modest “MC” in a box on the covers. [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: See p. 69 of this issue “re:” section for an informative letter about the mysterious “MC” marking.] A recap of the state of Martin Goodman’s otherwise-nameless comics line is in order here. It was in sorry shape. Jack Kirby recalled coming into the office at some point in the late 1950s and finding Stan Lee visibly upset and talking about the whole line shutting down. Did this visit occur very shortly after artist Joe Maneely’s tragic passing in June 1958? That’s one theory. At any rate, Kirby resumed working at Marvel on a steady basis that summer, around the time Maneely

Highway 1961 Revisited

Martin Goodman

(Left:) This “cover production Photostat” of Fantastic Four #1, according to the huge and welcome volume Marvel: August 1961 Omnibus, “was shot before final revisions. After slipping into reprints, it became known as the ‘missing man’ cover for the missing police officer added to the final print artwork.” Actually, there are two more bystanders on the cover as printed (see p. 3). In addition, one of the men there has been totally redrawn, in a different stance.

Alas, this photo published in 1964’s Strange Tales Annual #2 came out therein a bit darker than those of Lee, Kirby, and the rest of the Marvel Bullpen. Thanks to Bob Bailey & Justin Fairfax.

(Above:) On sale within a few weeks of Fantastic Four #1—in late August to early September of ’61, depending on locale—was Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (Dec. ’61). This was actually the first issue of the all-Stan-Lee-&-Steve-Ditko comic chock-full of short stories with supposedly “surprise endings.” Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

passed away. The first Kirby work of this return appeared in Strange Worlds #1, which went on sale September 1, 1958; it would have gone to press in August. The art had to have been prepared over June and July. An examination of the release dates of Goodman’s comics in that year shows that no Timely comicbooks went on sale in the

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The FANTASTIC FOUR Turns 61! — Part 5

When The Sub-Mariner Was A Bowery Bum A Historical Look At A Primary Setting Of Fantastic Four #4 by Bob Cromwell

A/E EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Back in issue #138, journalist Paris Liu provided a history of 177A Bleecker Street and environs in New York’s Greenwich Village—the address, in Marvel Comics, of Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts (and, not so incidentally, the real-world locale where fellow pros Gary Friedrich, Bill Everett, and Roy Thomas had dwelt for half a year in 1965-66). That article and his own interests led A/E reader Bob Cromwell to take a long and informative look at an even earlier, basically true-life Marvel landmark—the “flophouse” in the Bowery sector in lower Manhattan where, in Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962), a disgruntled Johnny Storm, a.k.a. The Human Torch, decided to temporarily hide out from the other members of that fledgling super-hero team. Only, it wasn’t really a “flophouse” (not that Johnny or scripter Stan Lee used that precise phrase), as Bob explains below.

The Prince On The Bowery How do the two above images tie together? Well, the one on the right, of course, is the cover of Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962) by penciler Jack Kirby & inker Sol Brodsky—the issue that brought the Golden Age antihero known as the Sub-Mariner into the earliest days of the a-borning Marvel Universe by having him discovered living on what was often called “the Bowery.” FF #4 cover courtesy of the Grand Comics Database. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] The photo depicts the location where, decades earlier, the family of Jacob Kurtzberg/Jack Kirby reportedly lived for a time. That address, 147 Essex Street, was just a few blocks east of Bowery, and is the red brick building with the blue “Lazar Mechanical” sign. The photo, of course, is from a more recent day, courtesy of Bob Cromwell.

Unfortunately, we were forced to abridge Bob’s article slightly, and to utilize only half or so of the numerous photos that accompanied it when it was first posted online at https://cromwell-intl.com/namor—but, if you want, you can revel in the entire piece and all the images by clicking on that still-valid URL. Meanwhile, here is the Alter Ego version, with thanks to Bob C. for making it accessible to our ever-questful readers….

was at a Ukrainian dive on the Lower East Side when the guy on the adjacent bar stool asked me a question that led to American history throughout the 20th century, the return of Namor the Sub-Mariner in the Silver Age, and, just possibly, Thor’s search for Odin. Who said the comics weren’t educational? I was at Karpaty Bar on Second Avenue near 9th Street. Dave on the adjacent stool asked me if I lived in the neighborhood. “No, I’m from out of town, but I get to New York fairly often,” and my

local home away from home at the time was the White House nearby on Bowery. Dave was surprised to hear that, as he knew what the place was like when we’re told that the Sub-Mariner lived there or somewhere very similar.

The White House had been home for indigent men since 1899. Around 2000 it was converted, half for permanent residents and the other half a hostel for independent travelers. It was a few years afterward that I started staying there, on the hostel side. It was a little scruffy, but you got a tiny private room for only $30 in Manhattan. But—the Sub-Mariner?

Prince Namor In The Bowery In Fantastic Four #4, cover-dated May 1962, Johnny Storm has left The Fantastic Four. He goes to the Bowery to find a place to stay. This was during a period when Marvel was moving toward a realistic New-York-based setting. No more Central City, but actual New York City settings and details. Johnny selects a place “no worse than the others.” Once inside, things become very self-referential. He finds an old comicbook from two decades before—an issue of Timely’s Sub-Mariner. It’s an “old, beat-up comic mag… from the 1940s.” But Johnny remembers his older sister Sue Storm talking about Namor as an actual person.

“When The Sub-Mariner Was A Bowery Bum”

(This was from the early days when Sue Storm had been supposed to be alive during the Second World War.) One of Johnny’s fellow flophouse bums comments that someone very similar is living there at that very moment.

Hang On—What’s The Nomenclature? First, “the Bowery.” That’s the English spelling of a now-archaic Dutch word “Bouwerij.” The Dutch established the settlement of Nieuw-Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan island in 1624. By the mid-1600s there were several large farms north of the settlement. The Dutch called the area and the road leading through it “Bouwerij,” meaning “farm.” The British took over the territory in 1664, renaming it “New York” and spelling that Dutch name “Bowery.” By the early 1800s the city had grown. Wealthy residents’ homes replaced farms, and the Bowery became the theatre district. The city continued to expand, with the wealthy moving to follow the northern edge. By the 1860s, the Bowery’s classy theatres were changing to lowbrow music halls, beer gardens, dime museums, gambling parlors, and brothels. Now, “flophouse bum.” Low-cost residential choices of SROs, dormitories, and flophouses were occupied by hobos, tramps, and bums. Hobos were skilled laborers who rode freight trains to follow seasonal work. Western expansion had scaled back through the 1910s, starting with the addition of Arizona and New Mexico as the

Rules Of The Road (Above:) In FF #4, Johnny Storm, on the lam from his teammates, winds up in the decidedly low-rent Bowery area of Manhattan, and soon discovers that his new digs stock at least one 20-year-old comicbook, a Sub-Mariner Comics whose cover doesn’t match any actual Golden Age illustration. Script by Stan Lee; pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by Sol Brodsky. Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.] (Right:) The sign on the wall in panel 3 may have its equivalent in the one seen in this old photo, which was taken in The White House, a similar locale mentioned in his text by Bob Cromwell. These house rules, he says, probably date back to the 1930s and 1940s. By the 2000s, a newer sign on the permanent resident side started with “NO SCREAMING, NO FIGHTING.”

47th and 48th states in 1912. Then the Great Depression began in 1929, bringing an end to most itinerant work. Tramps, some of them recently unemployed hobos, traveled by freight train but didn’t work, at least not very much. Bums didn’t even travel; they were the stationary unemployed. An SRO or “Single-Room Occupancy” hotel had small private compartments, maybe just six by four feet. They were often called “cage hotels” because the compartment walls didn’t reach the floor or ceiling. Wooden lattices or chicken wire mesh kept men from crawling or climbing into adjacent “cabins.” The cage design greatly simplified (and thus cheapened) heating, ventilation,

“They Say Such Things, And They Do Such Things, On The Bowery…” Or at least so went the lyrics of the once-popular song “The Bowery,” from a musical play that opened on Broadway back in 1891—after several years on the road. “Reginald Marsh,” writes Bob C., “painted scenes of Depression-era New York. His painting ‘The Bowery’ (1930), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows a typical scene. The Third Avenue Elevated line runs overhead, making things even darker, dirtier, and noisier. The ‘El’ ran down Third Avenue and the Bowery from 1878 until 1955. Wolverine Noir (2009) [the Marvel Comics limited series by writer Stuart Moore and artist C.P. Smith] is set in the Bowery in 1937. James Logan is a private detective with an office under the 3rd Avenue El.” Marsh’s painting shows a sign that advertises rooms for 30 cents. This, says Bob, would be a small SRO “cabin.” The second panel from the FF #4 page reproduced at left, showing Johnny selecting a place to stay, features a sign reading “Mens Hotel” and what might be “25¢” for a bed in the dormitory. That would probably be a rather low price for 1962, but then he was in the heart of Skid Row. The panel before that, where Johnny is entering the Bowery, shows what might be the Third Avenue Elevated in the background. So, some of the details of that story’s setting might have been left over from about ten years before.

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY To STAN LEE – Part 1

The LEE/THOMAS Spider-Man E-Mails Cyber-Messages From STAN THE MAN To ROY THE BOY (2000-2018) – Part I

Presented & Annotated by Roy Thomas

N UNFORTUNATELY NECESSARY INTRODUCTION: In the early months of 2000, Stan Lee Media, as a well-publicized part of the now-infamous “dotcom boom,” seemed to be going like Gangbusters. Stan, from his Beverly Hills office and Hollywood Hills mini-mansion, presided over a company with more than 100 employees and an on-paper worth at one point of many millions of dollars. In the meantime, while nobody was throwing benefits for my wife Dann and me, ensconced as we were on our 40-acre, two-house spread in rural South Carolina, I had seen much of my work from Marvel, and virtually all from DC, gradually evaporating, to the point where I felt I could use another, more reliable source of income than writing comicbooks. The previous year, Dann had persuaded me (against my better instincts) to take a job teaching high school English again, and the year before that (1998) I’d accepted an offer from Jon B. Cooke to re-start Alter Ego as the flip side of his new TwoMorrows publication Comic Book Artist, for which I produced an average of 14 pages per edition for five issues. By ’99 A/E had already been spun off as a separate quarterly magazine, Alter Ego, Volume 3… but that was merely a pleasant avocation, not a serious attempt at earning a living wage. So, sometime around the spring of 2000, eager to end my brief second go-round as a teacher of surly teenagers, I decided to approach my old mentor Stan, with whom I’d nearly always had good relations, even during the six years I’d been under contract to DC. I sent him an e-mail, not my first to him as head of Stan Lee Media—but this time making it politely clear that I was looking for work and hoped that perhaps there might be some available, on one project or another, from his dotcom behemoth. After all, it had only been half a decade since I’d written several issues of a comicbook series for his aborted “Excelsior” Marvel imprint.

Smiley & Rascally (seated & standing, natch) at a September 2005 recording session for the book Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe, which Roy wrote and for which Stan provided audio clips that could be accessed by touching an icon therein. (A full transcription of those sessions appeared in Alter Ego #104.) Behind them is the book’s editor, Jenna Land Free. This photo is one of the closest in time to the date of Lee’s 2003 e-mails which shows the two Marvel madmen together. Seen below are the second and third Amazing Spider-Man dailies scripted by RT (since the first was mostly just a footnote to the previous adventure), penciled by Larry Lieber & inked by John Tartaglione. The dates are July 18 & 19, 2000. Thanks to Art Lortie for all color strip scans that accompany this article. Ye Editor is not aware quite when dailies started being printed in color, like the Sundays, in many newspapers. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Stan quickly replied—with a phone call. He informed me right off the bat that he felt one had to live in Southern California (which I hadn’t, since late ’91) in order to work for SLM. His words were hardly unexpected, and I was quietly appreciating the fact that he’d called me personally instead of just e-mailing me with the bad news. However, he then surprised me by quickly going on to say that he had a separate proposition for me. He said that former Marvel (and Topps) editor Jim Salicrup had been

The Lee/Thomas Spider-Man E-Mails

comic strip for nearly two years from 1978 to 1980, so I wasn’t exactly a novice in this area. But the Spider-Man strip was different. Whereas I’d been mostly my own (and the artists’) boss on Conan, with the syndicate and Marvel basically accepting whatever I wrote, this time I’d be working directly for Stan—not for the syndicate (now King Features), not even for Marvel. He, either in person or through his hardworking assistant Mike Kelly (my only other source of contact re the strip, ever), gave me my marching orders. And Stan, not Marvel, wrote the checks once a month.

Jim Salicrup ghost-scripted the Amazing Spider-Man comic strip for a time at the turn of the 21st century, working with creator Stan Lee. Later he founded his own comics company, Papercutz, which in 2007 launched an authorized revival of EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt, featuring an initial cover by Kyle Baker. [TM & © William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., or successors in interest.]

ghostwriting the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper comic strip for him for the past little while, and while Jim was a talented guy (obviously), writing scripts was less his forte than were other areas. (In Back Issue #136, Jim says he had already decided to quit the strip, and the two men’s versions of events aren’t mutually exclusive.) Stan assured me he had “a zillion other things” that Jim could do for SLM, so he could keep him plenty busy elsewhere—if I wanted to become the uncredited scripter of the strip. I probably said yes almost before he had put a verbal period to his sentence. “Wait a minute,” he went on hastily. “Don’t say yes till you hear the offer. It’s so little money, it might not interest you. It pays $300 a week, for six dailies and the Sunday. That’s not very much money.” I couldn’t help laughing, or at least chuckling. “Stan,” I said, “you have no idea how little money it takes us to live out here. When do I start?” Immediately, as it turned out—with my first daily strip (written two or three months earlier, of course) appearing on Monday, July 17, 2000. Stan’s brother, Larry Lieber, had been penciling the Mondayto-Friday strips since 1986, with John Tartaglione inking. The Sundays, which had to be drawn and prepared several weeks earlier than the dailies (since they were printed in color in separate supplements), were penciled by Alex Saviuk and inked by an otherwise retired Joe Sinnott. I had to submit to Stan at least two weeks of scripts at a time, which always began with a Monday strip and ended with a Sunday. The story itself had to be told in the Monday-to-Friday dailies, since the syndicates assumed that fewer people read newspapers (and thus the funnies) on Saturday. In fact, neither the Saturday nor the Sunday strip was really supposed to advance the plot, since some papers carried only the dailies, while others printed only the Sundays. (How the hell any reader could possibly hope to follow the storyline if he/she saw the strip only on Sunday, no one ever bothered to even try to explain to me.) I’d written Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian

Michael Kelly Stan’s personal assistant since the mid-1990s.

Speaking of checks: I’ve estimated that I spent an average of two days each month writing for my $1200 fee… plus another 3 or 4 days a year plotting, for no extra payment. After a few years, it occurred to me that being paid 12 times a year for 4 weeks each time added up to payment for 48 weeks’ worth of strips… leaving me one $1200 paycheck per year short. I brought that to Stan’s attention and was swiftly allowed to play catch-up till things were evened out. Thereafter I received 13 checks a year—each sporting a “Stan Lee” signature, and thus worth a bit of additional coin, once Dann discovered the joys of banking by e-mail, which allowed us to keep the physical checks. For the first few years of my ghost-writing (for such it was—a time-honored tradition in the world of comic strips), Stan was very much a hands-on employer. This remained true despite some turmoil in his own professional life—for, to my (and his) great shock, Stan Lee Media abruptly tanked around the end of 2000, the result of much-reported fraud (not Stan’s, of course) and the general bursting of the “dotcom bubble.” Luckily for him, he quickly resurfaced with POW! Entertainment. For my part, all of a sudden I was still working for Stan—but Jim Salicrup wasn’t. (Jim, however, was a resilient and resourceful fellow, and soon re-emerged with his own small comics-publishing company Papercutz, which endures to this day. Way to go, Jim!) Working directly for Stan in his (and my own) later decades, as I’d discovered during the brief half-life of the Excelsior line in the mid-’90s, was rather different and generally less enjoyable than working for him at Marvel Comics in the 1960s and ’70s had been. Or maybe it’s partly that by the turn of the 21st century I’d been around long enough that I’d

Stan & Roy’s Partners In Crime, 2003

Larry Lieber

John Tartaglione

Alex Saviuk

Joe Sinnott

Stan’s younger brother had been penciling the dailies since 1986.

“John Tartag,” as he was known around the Marvel offices, unfortunately passed away on November 12, 2003.

This veteran artist had been penciling the Spidey Sundays since 1997 and would ink them as well beginning in 2018.

inked most Sunday Spideys for decades until his full retirement in 2018. He passed away in 2020.

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY To STAN LEE – Part 2

The TOP TEN Greatest STAN LEE Stories Of All Time! The Tales That Defined The Marvel Universe According to John “The Mego Stretch Hulk” Cimino Stan Lee & John Cimino (not necessarily in that order) at the Chicago Con in 2007, four years after John had retired from the legendary hardcore rock band Grimlock. Not that Smiley had any particular reason to remember that Kodak moment when the two of them met for a second, and last, time in November of 2018. Remind us to have John tell you the hilarious tale of that first brief encounter sometime! Photo courtesy of JC, taken by Keith Gleason.

project. Hey, the guy started writing comics at the tender age of 18 with his text-filler debut in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941). Even in that little diddle, Stan had Cap throw his mighty shield for what was apparently the first time ever. Stanley Lieber was bound to go only up in the crazy new world of comicbooks. Turns out he had an infectious energy that, in the 1960s and early ’70s, brought out the best from his collaborators Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, and so many others; in fact, it can be argued that some, if not all, of those artists never reached that peak again without him.

While any “top ten” list is, of course, strictly subjective, I based my choices on how I felt at the time I first read them, and how they impacted me and the decisions I made in my life (yes, Stan Lee’s comics were that important to me). I’ve tried to select stories largely, though not solely, on the quality of Stan’s contribution as scripter. That eliminated some of the biggest cosmic Kirby battles, where all that any scripter could’ve hoped to do was to complement the visual excitement on the page (even if, in some of those cases, much of that “visual excitement” might’ve been drawn by direct instructions from Stan). These are stories that are at least as dependent on the quality of the writing as on that of the art.

(Below:) John mentions Stan’s professional debut as writer of a two-page text story in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941)—which was also apparently the occasion of The Man’s first team-up with artist Jack Kirby, who seems to have at least penciled the illo that headed that mini-yarn. All scans and photos accompanying this article were provided by John Cimino, unless otherwise noted. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

ack in Alter Ego #170, the Jack Kirby issue, editor Roy Thomas asked me to write a now infamous article on “The Top Ten Jack Kirby Marvel Slugfests (1961-1970).” It was tough to pull such an article together, because of the level of awesomeness of Kirby’s illustrated battles, plus the sheer volume of his work I had to go through to rank a mere ten of them. But I must’ve done something right, since Roy invited me to do another soon-to-be infamous write-up on his own mentor and Jack Kirby’s greatest collaborator, the big kahuna himself, comicdom’s most eminent editor/writer and most famous face-fronter, Stan “The Man” Lee—and to rank his ten greatest stories ever… gulp. I should be primed and ready for this, because I did my first book report on Stan back in the fourth grade when assigned to write about my favorite writer (it was glorious to read that in front of the class with my chest out and chin sticking way up high). But now, all these years later, I find it far more intimidating. Since his death in 2018, Stan has ascended into the realm of myth; and regardless of what you think of him, the guy simply changed everything when it came to super-heroes with words, stories, and phrases that captured the imagination of the world… and had a crucial role in founding the comicbook Marvel Universe which now forms the basis of the biggest movie franchise in the history of… well, movies. Yeah, nothing to be intimidated by. Sheesh! But how to rank Stan’s “best of the best”? Stan wrote so many magical tales that listing just ten of them is truly a mind-boggling

I hope you have as much fun reading this article as I did writing it, because, regardless of what your own favorite stories may be, Stan Lee always kept us smiling—and always kept us wanting more. Excelsior!!!

The Top Ten Greatest Stan Lee Stories of All Time!

a “Man without Fear” and take on an opponent far more powerful than himself. Stan and artist/ co-plotter Wally Wood craft a mighty fine yarn here of an underdog fighting to his last breath and turning back an adversary because of the lengths he is willing to go—despite his inevitable physical defeat.

8) THE INCREDIBLE HULK #1 (1962) – “The Coming of the Hulk” I’ve never been shy about my love for the Hulk! Marvel’s physically strongest character entered the scene after the debut of The Fantastic Four. But where his brutish counterpart, the Thing, hated what he had become, the ever-incredible Hulk reveled in his absolute power. At first, the meek

Daredevil #7 (April 1965) Artist Wally Wood would soon depart the title, feeling he didn’t get enough credit or pay for co-plotting the stories… and maybe he didn’t… but is it really likely that the yarn’s climax, in which the Man without Fear is defeated yet unbowed by Prince Namor, was his idea rather than editor/ scripter Stan Lee’s? After all, the pair always conferred on the tales in Lee’s office before the immensely talented Wood began to draw them. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967) The most iconic moment in the issue is surely this full-page shot of Peter Parker walking away (in the rain, yet!) after depositing his Spidey costume in a trashcan. Script & editing by Stan Lee; art & co-plotting by John Romita. Inked by Mike Esposito (as “Mickey Demeo”). Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

10) THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #50 (1967) – “Spider-Man No More!” Aside from The Kingpin making his first appearance in this classic issue, this is a Stan and Johnny Romita story that resonates with all of humanity. It’s about the internal battle we all face when the pressures of life are closing in all around us. Do we have the will to do what’s right, despite everything? Peter Parker has always been his own toughest critic, and here he puts a tremendous amount of pressure on himself. In this story, he has a moment of weakness and gives up the mantle of Spider-Man, walking away from that life. But when the city calls for a hero, Peter knows he must reassume his destiny as Spider-Man and save the day, because that’s what heroes do.

9) DAREDEVIL #7 (1965) – “In Mortal Combat with… Sub-Mariner!” When the Sub-Mariner goes to New York to find a lawyer to sue the human race for depriving the Atlanteans of their birthright of a place upon the surface, he comes into contact with attorney Matt Murdock. Not getting his way through the system, Namor takes out his rage on the city. Now Daredevil has to truly become

The Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962) One of the Hulk’s early transformations—due strictly, as it happens, to a lighting effect thrown in by colorist Stan Goldberg—is the only panel in the issue in which he’s green, though that would become his color of choice with the second issue. Script/editing: Stan Lee; pencils/co-plotting: Jack Kirby; inks: Paul Reinman. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

The Tales That Defined The Marvel Universe

Yeah, Stan Lee’s greatest story ever is a timeless and relatable origin of a flawed hero that would usher in the new wave of super-heroes that Marvel was pushing in the 1960s and which would eventually capture the imagination of the world. And as a result, Spider-Man became the arguably most popular super-hero ever created (take that, Superman and Batman). As I said in the introduction, Stan Lee was bound to go up in this business of funny books— and none has ever soared higher. Thanks for everything Stan, RIP.

Fantastic Four #50 (May 1966) The story arc that fans almost immediately crowned “the Galactus Trilogy” actually consisted of only the last half of FF #48, the entirety of #49, and the first half or so of #50… but it sure seemed like three whole issues! Here, Stan gives Galactus some parting words that may (or may not) have been inherent in what Jack penciled and wrote notes about in the margins. And to think that this tale of tales was taking place simultaneously with the Thor/Hercules/Pluto saga which placed as “#4” on John Cimino’s list! Stan & Jack (and inker Joe Sinnott) were really racing ahead on all cylinders! Thanks to Barry Pearl. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962) Jack Kirby penciled and Steve Ditko inked the cover of the comicbook that introduced Spider-Man… under the direction, of course, of editor/scripter Stan Lee, who (either on his own or in conjunction with publisher Martin Goodman) had rejected Ditko’s original rendition. And, excellent as Ditko’s drawing and storytelling were in that origin, it was Stan’s up-front informing surprised readers that pros in “the comic mag business” often referred to superheroes as “long underwear characters” that more than anything set the stage for the two-man tour de force that followed. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan from AF #15. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Steve Ditko This post-World War II newspaper piece on a young Ditko emphasized that he “would like to draw a comic strip.” Stick with it, Steverino—you’ll make it yet! (But seriously—how many comic strip, comicbook, or other commercial artists ever co-created something as enduring as “Spider-Man”?)

(Above:) Joe Simon and Sick’s mascot, Huckleberry Fink, poke fun at Mad on the cover of Sick #56 (Nov. 1967). [TM & © Estate of Joe Simon]

“Album of Comic-Book Life” by Stanley Kauffmann

Stanley Kauffmann in a 1957 photo (taken by Richard Avedon)—flanked by C.C. Beck’s cover for Captain Marvel Adventures #26 (Aug. 1943) and that of Kauffmann’s 2007 memoir Albums of a Life. Since the celebrated stage and film critic reports that he was employed as a Fawcett (well, okay, “Tappan”) comics editor beginning in December 1942, a CMA issue with such a date might well include some of his earliest efforts there… though the Grand Comics Database lists Rod Reed as editor through #29, Will Lieberson for #30-33, and J.B. [or sometimes “Janice,” a.k.a. Jane] Magill starting with #34. Some of the GCD’s editorial data is clearly inaccurate, since the contents page of CMA #34 lists “Stanley Kauffmann,” not Magill, as line editor. [Photo © Richard Avedon; Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]

INTRODUCTION: Stanley Kauffmann (1916-2013) was a renowned New York theatre and film critic. A 1935 graduate of New York University, he began writing novels—his first was published in 1941—and also spent a brief period in the prospering comicbook industry, first at the B.W. Sangor Shop (1942), then as an editor at Fawcett Publications. But his true passion was drama, theatre, and film. In 1958 he was hired by The New Republic to write movie reviews, a position he held with them right up to August of 2013, just weeks before his death at age 97. Kauffmann’s novels included The Hidden Hero (1949) and The Philanderer (1953); his later books were comprised of critique collections: A World on Film (1966), Living Images (1975), Regarding Film (2001), and two memoirs: Albums of Early Life (1980) and Albums of a Life (2007). In this issue of FCA (and concluding next issue), we excerpt a chapter from the latter memoir titled “Album of Comic-Book Life,” in which Kauffmann delightfully describes his succinct time in the comics field, primarily with Fawcett, where he immediately became one of their top editors. In an effort to “protect the innocent,” Kauffmann had used pseudonyms for all places, people, and things throughout this chapter. (Fawcett was called “Tappan”; Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang was referred to as “General Jack’s Jamboree”; Captain Marvel became “Major Mighty”; Captain Midnight was “Nick Noonday”; Editorial Director Ralph Daigh was re-named “Horace Knight”; chief comics editor Rod Reed was simply called “Hap”; editor Jane Magill became “Peg Molloy”; editor Henry “Lynn” Perkins was rechristened the notorious “Colin James”; and so on.) For the benefit of our readers, I’ve taken the liberty of including the characters’ true names in brackets following the false ones; all information between brackets in what follows has been added by Ye FCA Editor. Aliases aside, Stanley Kauffmann’s chronicle of his time during the Golden Age of Comics is a candid, precious look at that celebrated bygone era. The text is © 2007 Stanley Kauffmann,

and is reprinted with permission of Stanley Moss/Sheep Meadow Press. It was edited slightly, as per above, for this edition of FCA by —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

PART 1

became a success in December of 1942. For the previous ten months I had been an editor and staff writer for a small company [the B.W. Sangor Shop] that supplied comic-book pages, all lettered and ready for engraving, to a magazine publisher [Better/Nedor/Pines Publications]. We were subcontractors.

Now, after less than a year in the business, I had been hired as an editor at Tappan [Fawcett] Publications, a huge firm whose comic-books, which were just one division of their line, were among the biggest in the field. My friends in the comic trade were agape. Not only had I zoomed to the top in less than a year, I wouldn’t even have to write scripts any more. This was prestige—just editing. I was given three magazines at Tappan [Fawcett]: Major Mighty [Captain Marvel Adventures], which was one of the big three in the country, Nick Noonday [Captain Midnight], which was a runner-up, and another one [Wow Comics]. And, said my trade pals, I was still in my twenties. What would I not accomplish! I liked their wonderment all the more because this was only the secondary part of my life, as a few of them knew. Every morning I got up at five-thirty and for a couple of hours worked on writing of my own before I went to the office. I arrived at nine or so feeling invigorated because I had got up early and had already done some of my own work. And here I was, sparkling at my Number Two job, pushing ahead of people to whom it was Number

“Album Of Comic-Book Life”—Part 1

Three To Get Ready… Besides Captain Marvel Adventures, two other titles Kauffman edited were Captain Midnight and Wow Comics. Seen here are Shelly Moldoff’s cover for Captain Midnight #14 (April 1944) and Jack Binder’s for Wow #21 (Jan. ’44). [Shazam heroine, Mr. Scarlet & Pinky TM & © DC Comics; Captain Midnight, Phantom Eagle, & Commando Yank TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]

One, Number Only. I felt luxurious. I enjoyed the praise, enjoyed it doubly because I had private superiority, and I enjoyed the job, too, as one always enjoys to some degree any work that one can do well. The earlier comic-book job, which I had taken after my first novel [The King of Proxy Street (1941)] had been published in relative secrecy, had meant some pleasure and much drag. I liked working with the three or four old men, freelancers, who did the hand-coloring on the “silver prints.” These were small photostats of the artists’ large black-and-white pages which were hand-colored as guides for the engraver. The old men were Hitler refugees, painters down on their luck. I particularly liked old Schlosser [real name unknown] whose father had been chief prompter of the Vienna Opera for years and who had many stories about singers and conductors who were mythical to me. But I disliked having to grind out three or four five-or-six-page scripts a week. Nowadays, when I see James Bond films with pits of alligators, with cannons concealed in hubcaps, I recognize that they are doing now what I was doing then, and see once again a dominant element in my life: bad timing. My best pleasure in that first job had nothing to do with the job itself. I got my draft-call in April—there was a war on—and the boss hired someone to replace me. I was given a 4-F rating by the examiners because of an operation I’d had a few years before, and when I went back to tell the boss, there was someone else at my

desk. Times were good, the boss was feeling flush, so he kept both me and Fred B., the new man. [FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: The Sangor staffer referred to in Kauffmann’s text as “Fred B.” is one of the few people mentioned in this chapter that no one has been able to positively identify.] Fred had done some newspaper work and later went back to journalism—today he is a well-known television correspondent— but he had another talent. In the months we worked together, he taught me something about billiards during the lunch hour. A quick sandwich or a frank-and-beans pot at the Automat on Sixth Avenue, then upstairs to the billiard parlor. Not pool, which he thought vulgar and debased, but classical billiards. It was Fred who passed on the tip about the opening at Fawcett, which didn’t interest him because he wanted to get back to journalism, and it meant the end of my billiard lessons when they hired me. What I remember most vividly about that earlier job—I can’t remember the name of one of the magazines [FCA EDITORS NOTE: One was Thrilling Comics]—is the smell of chalk and the rich way those three heavy balls rolled over the green cloth and the way they clicked—for Fred much more than for me. My new office at Tappan [Fawcett] was high in a high Broadway office building, a large room with a fine view and seven other desks, the entire editorial staff of the comics department. I had been hired by the editorial director of the whole company [FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: “Horace Knight,” a name standing in for editorial director Ralph Daigh] and had met the head of the comics