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Vol. 3, No. 17 / September 2002
™
Editor Roy Thomas
Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash
Design & Layout Christopher Day
Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke
FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck
Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert
Editors Emeritus Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich
Cover Artists Luis Dominguez Lou Fine
Cover Colorists Luis Dominguez Tom Ziuko
And Special Thanks to: Neal Adams Murphy Anderson Henry Baba Tim Barnes Dennis Beaulieu Ray Bottorff, Jr. Bart Bush Pearl Cherry J.R. Cochran Teresa R. Davidson Fred L. deBoom Al Dellinges Jay Disbrow Luis Dominguez James Doty Arnold & Lillian Drake Gill Fox Elliot Fine Laurie Fine Shane Foley Ron Frantz Michael R. Grabois David G. Hamilton Paul Handler Bill Harper Hank Harrison Daniel Herman Bob Hughes
Steve Hurley Chris Irving John Jacobson Ken Kaffke Al Krackow Joe & Nadia Mannarino Richard Martines Tom Morehouse Michelle Nolan Eric NolenWeathington Joe Petrilak John G. Pierce Ethan Roberts Benno Rothschild Alvin Schwartz David Siegel Marc Svensson Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware John Yon Ed Zeno Mike Zeno
— In Memoriam —
Robert Kanigher Tom Sutton
Contents Writer/Editorial: Well, This Is Another Fine Mess Youve ’ Gotten Us Into! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “Lou Fine––A Comic Book Artist of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dennis Beaulieu on the colorful career of a true comics master. A Fine Influence.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Jim Amash examines the long, long shadow of Lou Fine. ...And A Fine Family! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Three who knew and loved Lou Fine talk about his life—and theirs. Murphy Anderson on Lou Fine and Fiction House . . . . . . . . . 34 The Golden/Silver/Bronze Age super-artist on two fascinating topics. Toth on Fine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Alex Toth says Fine just got “better and better.” Arnold Drake, FCA, Comics Crypt, & More . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Our sincerest thanks to collector John Yon, who sent us a full-size photostat of the original art of Lou Fine’s fantastic “Ray” splash from Smash Comics #31 (Nov. 1941) so we could get the best reproduction possible for our cover. You can see the whole splash page on page 3 of this section. [©2002 DC Comics.] Above: Shane Foley sent us the above “Black Condor” splash from a black-&-white comic published in Australia some years back. The story from Crack Comics #18 (Nov. 1941) was printed in full, along with a Fine “Ray” adventure as well, in the giant-size Superman #252 in 1972, which featured flying super-heroes. [©2002 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10.00 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Arnold Drake interview ©2002 Marc Svensson & Arnold Drake. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.
Title writer/editorial
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“Well This Is Another FINE Mess You ve Gotten Us Into!” well! As for Alex Toth—it’s always great to hear from one of comics’ greatest designers.
And with the above punnish play on one of the most famous of Laurel-and-Hardy lines, we welcome you to another of those issues which, happily, got out of hand.
The only thing that would have made things more perfect would have been if Gil Kane, another of Fine’s greatest admirers, were still around to have added his own colorfully eloquent opinions to the mix.
It started out because both Jim Amash and I—along with a lot of our readers—wanted to know more about Lou Fine, the Golden Age great who, despite the relatively short time he spent in comic books, became one of the most influential artists in the medium’s history.
Now, because any added words I write might mean a piece of Lou Fine art that wouldn’t get printed, I’ll step aside and let the issue begin— after this note:
Jim did most of the work. First, in between inking assignments, he tracked down Lou’s son Elliot. Elliot, in turn, put him in touch with his sister Laurie and with their aunt, painter Pearl Cherry. Between what the three of them have to say, and the wealth of photos Elliot was able to provide, this issue of Alter Ego will doubtless tell you more than you ever knew about what made Lou Fine tick, and about the strong positive feelings that his son, daughter, and sister-in-law have about him, decades after his untimely death.
This is the first issue in which Bill Schelly, who’s been on A/E’s masthead as associate editor since the very beginning (and whose work concerning the early days of comics fandom led by an indirect route to the revival of Alter Ego a few years back), isn’t represented by an article under his “Comic Fandom Archive” banner. Pleading the need to spend more time on other pursuits, Bill will remain as an associate editor and will continue to contribute to A/E, though not quite in every issue as before. Hmmm... Bill and Roy are hard at work in tandem on one of next issue’s major features, a lengthy study of the great early ’60s science-fiction fanzine Xero and its famous seminal comics-related series “All in Color for a Dime”—and the pair are also readying coverage of the 1965 New York Comics Convention for an issue or two after that— so tell us, Bill, where’s all this copious “free time” going to come from? Sounds to us like you’re gonna be busier than ever!
In addition, along with a generous heaping of art featuring Black Condor, The Ray, The Spirit, Doll Man, and other heroes drawn by this Gargantua among heroic comics artists, we present four looks at Fine’s career—first, by collector Dennis Beaulieu... then by Jim himself... and finally by Alex Toth and Murphy Anderson, two comic book legends in their own right. Murphy, despite feeling a bit “interviewed out” of late, kindly consented to talk about his greatest artistic influence—and when the subject turned to the Fiction House comics of the 1940s and early ’50s, Mr. A. had a few cogent comments to make about them, as
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A Comic Book Artist of Quality
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Lou Fine A Comic Book Artist of Quality by Dennis Beaulieu [Text 2002 Dennis Beaulieu.] ©
Louis Kenneth Fine was born in Manhattan (New York City) in 1915. A sensitive, quiet youth to begin with, his personality became even more introverted during his early teens after his left leg was crippled as a result of a polio epidemic. Since he could no longer participate in sports and other activities common for boys his age, Lou Fine channeled his youthful energy into developing his God-given talent to draw. He completely immersed himself in studying the great magazine illustration artists of his day. Heinrich Kley, the German pen artist sensation, was one of his
A super-rare photo of Lou Fine, taken by his friend and fellow artist Gill Fox in downtown Stamford, Connecticut, circa 1942. (For pics of Fine and Fox together, taken on the same occasion, see our Gill Fox interview in Alter Ego V3#12 and p. 19.)
earliest—and most intense—influences. Fine was also very heavily influenced by J.C. Leyendecker and Dean Cornwell, as well as by Saul Tepper, Harvey Dunn, Frank Reilly, and John R. Neill. He also studied the paintings of Frank Brangwyn. His formal art training came from attending the Grand Central Art School, the Art Students League, the Pratt Institute, and the New York School of Technology (where he was studying engineering at the time that he began his career moonlighting as an artist in the emerging field of comic books). It was during his time at Pratt that Fine began to truly master his ability to draw the human figure in action.
Transition As great a comic book artist as Lou Fine was, he worked in the industry for only a very brief period of time. From late 1938 to early 1943 he produced a prolific amount of covers and interior stories for Fiction House (’38–’40), Fox (’39–’40), and Quality Comics (’39–’43). Short in stature with red hair and steel rim glasses, he entered the comics field in 1938 when, as a temporary means to earn a steady ($10 a week) income, he began working for the Eisner & Iger shop. The Eisner & Iger shop was a comics production When Gill Fox sold John Yon the original art to this Fine page from Smash Comics #31 (Feb. 1942), the one-time Quality artist/editor wrote: “The enclosed Lou Fine ’Ray’ splash is absolutely pure Lou Fine. ’The Ray’ title lettering is my lettering!” Undoubtedly so—but A/E’s associate editor Jim Amash is convinced that another, less polished artist did some of the penciling in the trio of panels at bottom. “Just look at the perspective in the first panel!” Jim insists—and indeed, that small table in the background couldn’t be standing in that relation to the desk in the foreground unless there’d just been an earthquake! Most likely Fine counted on tying the whole thing together with his inking. [©2002 DC Comics.]
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Lou Fine house (a “sweat shop”) that had recently been started by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger to create and produce entire comic books for publishers who would then print, distribute, and own the final product. Comic Magazines, Inc. (the official name of the entity otherwise known as Quality Comics), was one such publisher.
In 1941 Everett M. “Busy” Arnold, the owner and publisher of Quality Comics, hired Fine away from the Eisner & Iger shop by tripling his salary and giving him his Art by Heinrich Kley (1863-1945). own studio. It is well known among his many admirers that, during his comic book days, Fine was a slow, methodical draftsman. Because of this trait, he would often have to work overtime—frequently all night—to reach his required page quota at the Eisner-Iger shop.
“The Doll Man” started in Feature Comics #27 (Dec. 1939); even in #32 (May ’40) Fine was still drawing four rows of panels per page. In panel 8’s “stipple effect,” Darrel Dane’s body gives the visual appearance of turning to sand as he transforms into the diminutive hero. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, courtesy of Dennis Beaulieu. (A “saliva-drenched” page from Feature #32, referred to in this piece, was reprinted in A/E V3#12.) [©2002 DC Comics.]
Unlike the Eisner & Iger quota that had to be met on a regular basis, Busy Arnold did not demand that Fine produce any particular number of pages. This approach worked to Arnold’s advantage, as the artist proceeded to produce a very large amount of some of his very best work during his time as a member of the Quality staff. His beautiful interior stories and explosive covers for Quality are revered by both professionals and collectors as representing the ultimate in artistic achievement during the early years of the comic book industry.
Style In his History of Comics, Jim Steranko comments that “Fine... developed an uncanny knowledge of the human figure in action. His heroes were Olympian in stature, classically featured, and exquisitely, almost delicately, proportioned. Fine lavished a wealth of stipple, lineshaded, and cross-hatched detail with a brilliant brush-line technique [giving his work a spectacular, illustrative look of which many details were often lost in the final reproduction. —DB] not found in comics up to that point. An expert adept at nuance of character, he lingered over faces and hands to produce a gallery of expressive portraits etched in fear, hatred, avarice, and death.” This circa-1943 Lou Fine-drawn Spirit page, repro’d here from a photocopy of the original art, is from the personal collection of Daniel Herman, author of the recent Gil Kane: The Art of the Comics and Gil Kane: Art and Interviews. For information, contact Hermes Press at (724) 652-0511 or e-mail <Geerherm@sgi.net>. [©2002 Will Eisner.]
Lou Fine had a gifted ability to draw the human figure in a number
A Comic Book Artist of Quality
5
of stylish poses and in a variety of unique and offbeat situations that were completely foreign to other comic book artists of his day. He embellished his characters’ anatomy with a kind of grace and beauty seldom seen—even today—in comic art. While most super-hero artists followed an approach that emphasized power, Fine’s figures stressed motion and energy. His drawings were often intensely detailed, and he would express the motion and energy of his full—and even partial— figures by using extensive cross-hatch feathering, line shading, and even stipple technique. This stipple technique enhances the simple yet beautiful image of Darrel Dane transforming into The Doll Man as seen in the accompanying page from Feature Comics #32 (May 1940). To this day Fine remains one of the most influential figures in the history of comics for his sense of anatomy and excellent draftsmanship. A well known anecdote relating to Lou Fine’s style is the story of how Will Eisner, in an effort to save money, purchased a gross of Japanese brushes at five cents apiece instead of the typical Winsor & Newtons at 75¢ apiece. Eisner quickly realized that the needled-sized brush point and the stiffness of the bristles made the Japanese brush very difficult for his staff to control. Therefore, they were unable to use these new brushes. The only two exceptions were Eisner himself and Lou Fine. For Fine, these brushes enabled him to produce an extremely delicate inking style that allowed for more detailed cross-hatching and increased shading/texture lines on the smoothplate bristol board upon which he customarily worked. In fact, Eisner and Fine once competed as to who could draw the longest and thinnest straight line using a Japanese brush. By now it should be obvious who won. In an interview with artist and one-time Quality editor Gill Fox which appeared in CFAAPA #29 (Jan. 1993), Fox excitedly remarked: “Lou Fine was absolutely superb.... Lou came up with a great way to draw a hood or a stetson on a man’s head. There were black shadows over both eyes, and the nose would be just a white spot sticking out. Lou created that, and I still use that today.” Fine’s hood technique can be seen in the nine-page “Black Condor” story from Crack Comics #17 (Oct. 1941), various pages and panels of which are reproduced in this issue of Alter Ego.
At one time Dennis Beaulieu owned the original art to the entire “Black Condor” tale in Crack Comics #17 (Oct. 1941). Both Dennis and current owner Henry Baba generously sent us photocopies of the original art— Henry at the original humongous size! [©2002 DC Comics.]
Another interesting fact about Lou Fine that relates to his uniqueness and creativity is that he was the first to introduce saliva to the comic book industry. He did this to achieve an enhanced dramatic effect. Whenever Fine was working on a figure that had an open mouth (especially a villain’s, and usually during a very dramatic moment), he would draw a narrow thread of saliva between the upper and lower teeth. Fine’s dramatic use of saliva can be seen even in the mouth of an underwater shark in a “Doll Man” page from Feature #32 [and on the cover of this issue of Alter Ego. —Roy.] “Ghastly” Graham Ingels and Bernie Wrightson would later utilize this same effect with similar success.
Early Comic Book Work Lou Fine’s earliest documented comic book work appeared in Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics #4 (Dec. 1938). Coincidentally, it was in this issue that Fine took over artistic chores from a young Jack Kirby on “Wilton of the West,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,” and “Diary of Dr. Hayward” (also known as “Stuart Taylor”). Even during this very early period, Fine’s skillful artistry and rendition of the human figure make his work stand out from that of his contemporaries. In the “Count of Monte Cristo” page reproduced here, Edmond Dantes, our long-suffering hero, patiently displays his confidence, grace, and skill as a master swordsman as he battles his archenemy Mondego in a dramatic fight to the death. In the same way, Lou
8
Lou Fine
Epilogue Of the many artists who have worked in the comic book industry, only a handful have actually helped to create the standards against which all other artists and their work are inevitably judged. Lou Fine was such an artist. He was a pioneer, a pathfinder, an early explorer who cleared the way for others to follow but who, unfortunately, never became fully aware of the magnitude with which his legacy helped influence the comic book medium for generations to come. Lou Fine died of a heart attack in the summer of 1971.
[Dennis Beaulieu, who has 19 years of extensive marketing, sales, and operational experience in the cable wireless, broadband, and telecommunications industries and has a degree in English and teaching, is a nationally known Lou Fine and Quality Comics collector, researcher, and historian. He, his wife Wendi, and their three children recently moved to the Seattle, Washington, area, where Dennis is now a Research Director for Hebert Research, a leading market research company. This article has been slightly edited from a version which appeared in CFA-APA #47 (Fall 1998).]
Bibliography The Encyclopedia of American Comics, edited by Ron Goulart (Promised Land Productions, 1990). The Lou Fine Index by Bart Bush (March 1987). The Art of Lou Fine by Gill Fox (published by Al Dellinges and Bill Sheridan, a.k.a. Cartoonews, 1979). Special Edition Series 2—The Ray and Black Condor, created by Alan Light (Special Edition Reprints, Inc., 1974). History of Comics, Vol. 2, by James Steranko (Supergraphics, 1972).
One of Lou Fine’s advertising accounts was drawing “The Adventures of Sam Spade” (featuring Dashiell Hammett’s seminal private eye from The Maltese Falcon, then big on radio until Hammett got in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee). This full-pager ran in DC (and other?) comics dated October 1947 (such as All-American Comics #90). Naturally, this story-ad for Wildroot Cream-Oil Hair Tonic was often the best-drawn feature in the comic book in which it appeared! Thanks to Tim Barnes for sending us a full listing of all “Sam Spade” ads. Tim’s address is 103, Tredworth Road, Gloucester, Glos GL1 4QU, England—and he’d love to hear from fellow Fine fanatics. [©2002 the respective copyright lder.]
A Fine Influence...
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A Fine Influence... Notes on Lou Fine’s Style and His Importance to the Comic Book Field by Jim Amash There was a great sensitivity in the lyrical line work of Lou Fine that few ever equaled. If Fine had spent his all too brief comics career just inking, he still would be remembered to this day. Happily for us, he penciled and inked much of his own work (though he never wrote a script), influencing scores of comic book artists to follow. And not just by his ink lines. His approach to figure drawing and page layout set a new standard that others follow even today. Lou Fine started in comics at the Will Eisner & Jerry Iger shop. Fine’s storytelling was not up to the standard of the number-one man in comics history, Will Eisner, but his draftsmanship was. Fine wanted to be an illustrator in the tradition of John R. Neill, J.C. Leyendecker, Joseph Clement Coll, and Saul Tepper, as well as other past and contemporary artists. He also understood the dreamy imagery of Winsor McCay and the Art Deco movement. What Fine took from those artists
and passed down to other comic book artists was a graceful and naturalistic way to tell a story graphically. Fine’s earliest comic book work, while exhibiting the roughness of a beginner, was functional and his superior design sense evident. Most comic book artists of the time were working off of the styles of newspaper strip artists, some of whom were entering the fledgling business. At best, most of these beginners were cheap carbon copies of the greats, while other old-time newspaper cartoonists hadn’t made the cut and needed whatever work they could find. Lou Fine, who had studied art since childhood, wanted more than that for himself. Fine’s earliest work, as was employer Will Eisner’s, was in the old school tradition. However, the two men learned from each other and each fed off the synergy present in the Eisner & Iger shop. Eisner spent a fair amount of time trying to develop Fine into a storyteller. Fine, for his part, began developing techniques from his influences, which now included Flash Gordon artist Alex Raymond. His brush line became
Both Will Eisner (as “Willis Rensie”) and Lou Fine (as “Jack Cortez”) initially told stories in single-page dollops imitative of Sunday comic strips of the day, but appearing in early comic books. Jim Amash suggests the two of them learned from each other as they went along. This 1938 “Hawks of the Sea” page is repro’d from the Kitchen Sink’s 1986 hardcover collection edited by Dave Schreiner—while the final “Count of Monte Cristo” page, repro’d from a photocopy of the original art courtesy of Jerry Bails & Hames Ware, dates from 1940. [©2002 the respective copyright holders.]
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...And A Fine Family
15
...And A Fine Family! Candid Interviews with the Son, Daughter, and Sister-in-Law of Louis K. Fine Conducted and Transcribed by Jim Amash JIM AMASH: When was your Part I: ELLIOT FINE father born? [INTRODUCTION #1: For my money, Lou Fine was one of the greatest comic book artists and illustrators who ever lived. I’ve long been fascinated and influenced by his work, as have many other comics artists, including Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, and Murphy Anderson. Until now, however, we have not had the luxury of knowing much about Lou Fine, the man... and that’s always bothered me. Now, thanks to his son, Elliot Fine, we have a chance to change that. I’m extremely grateful to Elliot for his time and for the opportunity to share with you a little history about an artist whose influence extends to today’s generation of comic book artists... whether they know it or not. —Jim.]
ELLIOT FINE: November 26, 1914. He was like Louis Armstrong in that we have different dates for his birth. At one point we weren’t sure. He was probably born in Brooklyn. My father was very close to his mother. His father was a house painter and probably a Russian immigrant, though I Elliot Fine. [Photo ©2002 Elliot Fine.] don’t know where he was born. His mother died when Dad was at Cooper Union, studying engineering. He went there because his father didn’t want him to be an artist. After his mother died, my father decided he was going to do what he wanted to do. That’s the basic story. His father’s name was Meyer. I don’t know what his mother’s name was, but my step-grandmother’s was Lena. I think the relationship between my father and his father was a bit difficult. JA: Most parents don’t want their children to be artists because it’s a hard life and usually very little money in return. FINE: Tell me about it! My father wanted me to be a banker. JA: Mine wanted me to be a lawyer, but I wanted to be an artist. My father was an immigrant and had a practical outlook on life. Immigrants usually have it tough when they come to America. FINE: My dad’s father probably had a tough life, too. My father had been drawing since the age of five, but part of that was due to the polio he contracted as a child. I think he had it from the age of two. It prevented him from playing ball and doing what other kids did. JA: Your father had a brother, didn’t he? FINE: Yes. His name was Sam, who was older than my father; he died in October 2000 at the age of 86. He also had a sister, but I don’t know much about her. My father came from a modest home in East New York, which was called Brownsville in those days, in Brooklyn. It was a tenement Jewish neighborhood back then. If any of the Fine family had a tough life as immigrants or during the Depression, it couldn’t have been much rougher than that of “Hack O’Hara,” the New York cabbie drawn by Lou Fine in early ’40s Quality comics. Thanks to Ron Frantz and Bart Bush, who repro’d this 5-pager from photostats of the original artwork in the 1987 comic The Art of Lou Fine and in the 1987 Lou Fine Index, respectively. For information about the Golden Age artwork reprinted by Ron Frantz, contact him at <Magilla445@aol.com>. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]
16
Elliot Fine
JA: Even though your father had polio, he still went to public school. Was he a good student? FINE: He probably was, because he went to Cooper Union Engineering School, and that was a hard school to get into. Cooper was a publicly funded school and one of the best schools in the city. I think my father must have had some connections when he left Cooper, because he got into the comics field fairly easily. JA: Did your father talk about his childhood much? FINE: No. I don’t think it was a happy childhood. My grandfather was a stern character. JA: Do you know when your parents married? FINE: Written on a picture I have of them is “Second day of our honeymoon, June 1941.” They were up in Nantucket. My mother’s maiden name was Mary Sussman. [See photo on p. 20.] JA: That must have been right before they moved to Stamford, Connecticut. FINE: I think it was. You know, my father was involved in his comics work, but I don’t know if he connected to it the way some others might have. He was a pretty straight guy.
Lou Fine “was considered to be one of the top two artists at Quality”... the other being Reed Crandall. Part of the reason for Fine’s ascendancy was covers like this one for Hit Comics #17 (Nov. 1941), courtesy of Dennis Beaulieu. [©2002 DC Comics.]
JA: When were you born? FINE: December 7, 1944. I have an adopted sister, Laurie, who came along after I did. In terms of my father’s work, my earliest memories are of our family living in East Rockaway, a suburb of Long Island. My parents did what many urban couples of the time did. After the Second World War, they moved to a new development. They bought a ranchstyle house that had a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright design in it—stone and natural material—so it was a little more interesting than the typical development type of house, and the neighborhood attracted artistic types. The neighbors were art directors and other artists, and initially it was a pretty close community. It was a one-level house, but my father built an upstairs studio addition. It was really beautiful; it had red wood paneling and was very big. At least 800 square feet. He had his work area in one corner, and across from that was a living room area which I used to hang out in. Against the adjacent wall was a huge picture file collection, which was housed in specially built cabinets. Those are my earliest memories... just hanging out there. JA: Your father was considered to be one of the top two artists at Quality, and also one of the best in the comics business. A Fox Comics ad spotlighted Fine’s cover for Fantastic Comics #1 (Dec. 1939). Thanks again to Ron Frantz and his The Art of Lou Fine. Richard Kyle, in his great early ’60s fanzine article entitled “The Education of Victor Fox” said that Samson’s fur loincloth looked more like “pubic hair with delusions of grandeur”; you can learn more about Fine’s Fox work in Kyle’s study, still available in Hamster Press’ Comic Fandom Reader. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]
FINE: Right. He did very well early on, but I don’t think he made his money from the comics. I think he made it from advertising, because he’d left comics long before this. We moved out there around 1950.
...And A Fine Family He was a great father, very warm and generous. I was a very spoiled kid. My parents really doted on me and I had a great childhood. We lived in an area that was suburban, but still kind of rural. We lived on a creek and my father had a boat and then I got a boat. All these “arty” guys got boats as soon as they moved there. It was a big adventure for these people to move from the city into this kind of life style. They saw themselves as pioneers.
Lou Fine and Elliot as a boy. [Photo ©2002 Elliot Fine.]
JA: I assume, because of the polio, that he really couldn’t go out and play catch with you.
FINE: No, he could do that. He just couldn’t run or play a real game, but he had a great deal of strength. He walked with a limp but was quite mobile. We didn’t make a big deal about it. He didn’t use a cane, but it prevented him from being active in sports. He had a big physique and was very strong. JA: People have told me that he had been a weightlifter.
17
FINE: That could be. He was very broad-chested, but that was probably before my time, when he was younger. He was around the house all the time. That was the huge difference. He worked at home in that great studio, and that’s where I developed my artistic eye, by osmosis, by his work and by looking at his picture collection, which was very extensive. He had a ton of Big Little Books and an incredible file of Life, Look, and other magazines. He also had a darkroom because he was interested in photography, but at this time he was probably using it for making comps and blowing up photos. JA: You’re a photographer, so I assume this was part of your early influence. FINE: The picture file, yes. His darkroom, no. I had all these incredible diversions: other kids, woods, and creeks. And I was just out there having a blast. At that point, I had no interest in artistic things. JA: What did you think about the work your father was doing? Did other kids express interest in your father because he was an artist? FINE: That really wasn’t the case. I think I kind of knew that people had a certain regard for what he was doing, but I had no special interest in it. There are pictures of me drawing, but I don’t remember wanting to do what he did at that age. At that time, in that environment, we were really part of the new American materialism. I wanted to own stuff, and my friends were the same way. JA: Did your father encourage you to do well in school? FINE: Somewhat. Because his father was really strict, my father was more laid back, tolerant of whatever I wanted to do. He was supportive,
“He just wanted to draw.” And draw Lou Fine did—beautifully—as per these “Doll Man” splash pages. Thanks to Ken Kaffke. Incidentally, “William Erwin Maxwell” was a pseudonym of Will Eisner, who had conceived the Mighty Mite in ’39. [©2002 DC Comics.]
34
Murphy Anderson
Lou Fine and Fiction House A Conversation with MURPHY ANDERSON Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash
I. “He Was Just Head and Shoulders above Everyone Else”
[INTRODUCTION: Murphy Anderson’s comic book career stands as a testimony to great comic art. He is also one of the classiest gentlemen I’ve ever met. In discussing Lou Fine and his influence on Murphy, I discovered that the subject intertwines with Murphy’s beginnings at Fiction House. Murphy graciously agreed to expand the interview so that we could present a fuller picture of what Lou Fine meant to him... and to some others, as you are about to see. Murphy... thank you for the insight. —Jim.]
JIM AMASH: Do you remember the first time you saw Lou Fine’s work? MURPHY ANDERSON: Well, he didn’t sign his work, for the most part. Eventually, I figured out a name for him and I came pretty close. He was “Kenneth Lewis,” who was signing “The Black Condor”—and when I got it all figured out, he was Louis Kenneth Fine. Fiction House, Fox, and those companies had Will Eisner working there. Will had several pen names for himself, like Willis B. Rensie. Jack Kirby didn’t sign his work for Will, either; he was Jack Cortez, among other names. The use of pen names was a common practice. Lou was doing covers and interiors when I was started seeing his work. He was also illustrating interior text pages. All this came from the Eisner & Iger shop. Jack Kirby, Lou Fine, Chuck Mazoujian, Dan Zolnerowich, and Bob Powell worked there. It must have been quite a place to be.
Murphy Anderson (seen above in a recent photo, courtesy of the artist), flanked by (somewhat fuzzy) splash pages of origins of “The Black Condor”— from that initial appearance, drawn by Lou Fine, in Crack Comics #1 (May 1940), and from Murph’s re-telling of same in DC’s Secret Origins #21 (Dec. 1987). The late Dan Zolnerowich assisted Mr. A. on the Fine-style backgrounds. [Art ©2002 DC Comics.]
Lou Fine and Fiction House
35 had breakfast and sat around for a few hours, talking. As far as I know, it was the only interview Dan ever granted. He was influenced by Will Eisner and worked in his shop when Lou Fine was there. He was one of the artists that took over Blackhawk. He drew it almost until Dick Dillin took over the feature. He worked for Hillman and did “Airboy.”
Ruben Moreira.
JA: What was it about Lou Fine’s work that attracted you?
JA: The main reason I do these interviews is so we’ll have more information on people like Dan, who never got much attention from the comics press.
ANDERSON: He was just head and shoulders above ANDERSON: And it’s everyone else. I even liked his nice to know about stuff in many, many ways, these people. They were even better than Hal Foster real people. The guy and Alex Raymond. Fine had who followed Dan on a flair to his work. Gil Kane the Fiction House called him the most lyrical covers was Joe Doolin. artist around. “Lyrical” is a He’s another guy no good word to describe his one really knows about. work. Fine had a light touch He was an old pulp to his work, nothing heavy. artist who came to When he had to do heavy Fiction House, Along with his work on such features as the long-running “Impossible but True!” drama, it wasn’t as believable primarily to work on series in Detective Comics, in 1946-47 Ruben Moreira spelled artist Burne Hogarth on as Will Eisner’s. When one of the pulps. He came the Tarzan Sunday strip, under the name “Rubimor.” At one time Moreira also drew the Will’s characters hit from Chicago. He did a “Kaanga” jungle-hero series for Fiction House. This photo and art are reproduced from somebody, he was knocked lot of covers and the excellent “Volume 15B” of Flying Buttress’ multi-volume series reprinting all the Tarzan flat. Same with Jack Kirby: work of Hogarth and Harold R. Foster. [©2002 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.] interiors for Weird you had to pick up the pieces Tales, among other of Jack’s characters when they landed. [laughs] pulps. Quite a few guys came from other fields and went into comics. Some didn’t stay and some never got out. Lou’s stuff had impact, but it was different. It was luscious and beautiful to look at. He did it with such detail and didn’t gloss over Like Ruben Moriera. I didn’t get to know him very well, but he was anything. Unfortunately, he wasn’t inking everything he penciled, good friends with Al Plastino. I remarked to Al once, “You know, you though I didn’t understand that at first. Later on, of course, I did. I remind me of a guy I met when I first got into the business.” Al said, could see that the buildings and trees and things were rendered more or “Who’s that?” I said, “Ruben Moriera.” He laughed and said, “Ruby and less in his style, but they weren’t quite the same as the main work. I’m I shared a studio.” I could see why they got along well, because they had sure Lou penciled them, but he had others assisting in the inks. a similar outlook and were both snappy dressers. They were fun guys to be around: always joking and laughing. I penciled the “Black Condor” story for DC’s Secret Origins comic [#21, Dec. 1987], written by Roy Thomas. Dan Zolnerowich was still working with me, and he inked the backgrounds for me. Dan even penciled some of backgrounds, and we more or less copied what Lou JA: You started working in comics in 1944 at Fiction House. How did Fine had done in his version. I wanted it to be as close to Lou’s work as you get that job? possible. Then, when Dan inked them, I got to looking at them and I’d swear to this day that Dan did the backgrounds on Lou’s original stuff. ANDERSON: I started school in the fall of 1943 at the University of Dan was a terrific artist and did many features after Eisner stopped North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In those days, the school was on the doing them, like Uncle Sam and “Black X.” Dan also worked with Will quarter system, but they had accelerated courses, so I had achieved on P.S. magazine for many years. credits for three quarters of work instead of two. I had been co-editor of High Life at Greensboro Senior High School and had visited New York. JA: There hasn’t been much written about Zolnerowich. Our school paper had won some awards from the Columbia Scholastic ANDERSON: You know Steve Duinn? He did that book Comics Press Association, and we were invited to a convention at Columbia between the Panels, and I set up an interview with him and Dan. We University. As editors, two of the paper’s staff went to receive awards
II. “Have You Talked to Anyone at Fiction House?”
PLUS:
$$
5.95
In the the USA USA In
No. 17 September 2002
Doom Patrol TM & ©2002 DC Comics.
Roy Thomas ’ E Electrifying lectrifying Comics F anzine Comics Fanzine
DOOM PATROL/DEADMAN CO-CREATOR
Arnold Drake SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE SILVER AGE OF COMICS!
Vol. 3, No. 17 / September 2002
™
Editor Roy Thomas
Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash
Design & Layout Christopher Day
Consulting Editors John Morrow Jon B. Cooke
FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck
Comics Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert
Editors Emeritus Jerry Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White, Mike Friedrich
Cover Artists Luis Dominguez Lou Fine
Cover Colorists
Contents
Luis Dominguez Tom Ziuko
And Special Thanks to: Neal Adams Murphy Anderson Henry Baba Tim Barnes Dennis Beaulieu Ray Bottorff, Jr. Bart Bush Pearl Cherry J.R. Cochran Teresa R. Davidson Fred L. deBoom Al Dellinges Jay Disbrow Luis Dominguez James Doty Arnold & Lillian Drake Gill Fox Elliot Fine Laurie Fine Shane Foley Ron Frantz Michael R. Grabois David G. Hamilton Paul Handler Bill Harper Hank Harrison Daniel Herman Bob Hughes
Steve Hurley Chris Irving John Jacobson Ken Kaffke Al Krackow Joe & Nadia Mannarino Richard Martines Tom Morehouse Michelle Nolan Eric NolenWeathington Joe Petrilak John G. Pierce Ethan Roberts Benno Rothschild Alvin Schwartz David Siegel Marc Svensson Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Hames Ware John Yon Ed Zeno Mike Zeno
— In Memoriam —
Robert Kanigher Tom Sutton
Writer/Editorial: What’s Sauce for the Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 My Greatest Adventures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Arnold Drake talks to Marc Svensson about life, Deadman, and The Doom Patrol— plus Drake on memos to Irwin Donenfeld, a Deadman graphic novel, and Western Publishing.
I,A 1965 Robotman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 fan-article by Roy Thomas about Cliff Steele’s boiler-plate predecessor.
EC Confidential, Part II: Jack Davis and George Evans . . . . . . 33 Michael T. Gilbert continues his series on the non-EC work of EC greats. A Tribute to Dave Berg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 A Tribute to Vince Fago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze, Jay Disbrow, Alvin Schwartz, E. Nelson Bridwell, and the ever-irascible C.C. Beck.
Special Section on Golden Age Great LOU FINE . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: As he relates within, Arnold Drake often sketched out cover ideas for comics he wrote, including for the first “Doom Patrol” story. Bruno Premiani made a few changes when penciling the cover of My Greatest Adventure #80, so artist Luis Dominguez painted this version a few years back; it’s closer to Arnold’s sketch (printed on page 3). [Art ©2002 Arnold Drake & Luis Dominguez; Doom Patrol TM & ©2002 DC Comics.] Above: Neal Adams drew this superb new figure for the slipcase of DC’s 350-page Deadman Collection; you gotta see it in color! [©2002 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10.00 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $80 Canada, $88 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Arnold Drake interview ©2002 Marc Svensson & Arnold Drake. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.
Title writer/editorial
2
Whats Sauce For The Drake All I have to say to any true comic book cognoscenti are these words:
Arnold Drake is an important but sometimes underrated figure in the Silver Age of Comics at National/DC. We all know how Julius Schwartz, with writers John Broome and Gardner Fox (and, once in a while, Robert Kanigher) and artists Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, and others, launched a revival and updating of Golden Age heroes which revitalized the field. And few would deny that Mort Weisinger and his Superman features, particularly “The Legion of Super-heroes” (currently into an eleventh volume of DC Archives!), were influential on the younger set from the ’50s through much of the ’60s. But Arnold Drake was a one-man revolution all his own, conceiving two of the very best series to come out of DC Comics during the 1960s, and pointing the way to what that company would have to do to compete with Stan Lee’s upstart Marvel Comics Group.
The Doom Patrol. And Deadman. The rest I’ll let Arnold himself tell you about, both in a colorful interview conducted by Marc Svensson, and via some documents Arnold himself provided. Myself, I enjoyed my contacts with Arnold, casual as they were, when he came to write for Marvel in the mid-to-late 1960s on mags like Captain Marvel and X-Men. For the latter, Arnold dreamed up Scott (Cyclops) Summers’ brother Alex, and planted the story seeds that Alex was either also a mutant, or at the very least something more than human (so that Neal Adams and I could evolve Alex, a couple of issues later, into Havok). Arnold worked for Marvel for only a fairly brief period of time, but he left his mark. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know him better when I lived in New York, as he and his wife still do. My loss. He’s a fascinating guy—but hey, Arnie, do you still smoke those odiferous Turkish cigarettes? I want to thank him publicly, here and now, for going the extra mile to provide documents, photos, whatever he could, in connection with his work—particularly because he was doing so at a time when his beloved wife Lillian was ill and I hated to put him to even a modicum of trouble. Mrs. Drake is doing well, I’m happy to say... and so is Arnold Drake, as you’ll see on the following pages... Oh yeah—and our ever-liltin’ letters section (as we used to say in Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins) will return next issue!
[L. to r.:] Alvin Schwartz (see p. 47), David Siegel, Roy Thomas, and Arnold Drake at the All Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention in June 2000. Alvin and Roy were given the first Paul S. Newman writing awards by presenter Arnold; David had arranged for a number of the Golden Age guests to be present. Photo courtesy of con organizer Joe Petrilak.
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My Greatest Adventures
3
My Greatest Adventures A Candid Conversation with ARNOLD DRAKE, Co-Creator of Deadman and The Doom Patrol Conducted by Marc Svensson Transcribed by Christopher Irving
camera and drive down to NYC. I [INTERVIEWER’S INTROwas supposed to be accompanied by DUCTION: It was the San Diego my good friend Rich Morrissey, but Comic-Con in 1999. I was out there Rich had to cancel, due to work. I with my whole family, which Our esteemed interviewee writes that this photo from years past is was alone on this one, but I was the included our new baby Scott, who of himself (at right), his wife Lillian, and their “good friend and big Doom Patrol fan, so Rich was just a couple of months old. Per great jazz pianist, Walter Bishop, Jr., who died far too young.” thought it was appropriate. usual, I had brought along a bunch [Photo courtesy of Arnold Drake.] (Unfortunately, Rich has now left of video equipment to capture us for good—a hard fact that still footage of the idols of my youth. (Left:) Arnold’s pencil sketch for the first-ever “Doom Patrol” cover, from brings tears to my eyes. It has been Shockingly, I had not paid close which Luis Dominguez produced the painting used as a cover of this over a year and I still have trouble attention to the guest list for the issue of A/E—and (right) the cover of My Greatest Adventure #80 as talking about him.) convention, and had completely rendered from the sketch by Bruno Premiani (with an unidentified inker) failed to notice that Arnold Drake for that June 1963 magazine, and reprinted in The Doom Patrol Archives, [I should take the time to do a was attending. Worse—I had Vol. 1, published in early 2002. [Sketch ©2002 Arnold Drake; Doom Patrol couple of “Thank You’s.” Most of and cover TM & c 2002 DC Comics.] scheduled away the time when his my video stuff never sees print, but spotlight panel was going to appear. thanks to the indomitable David Siegel, I was able to meet Chris (I had to spend some time with my wife and our new baby in San Irving. Chris, a multi-talented guy, is one hell of a transcriber, and I Diego—or face divorce proceedings!) I was in a fix, and I could not have him to thank for banging out this transcript from my videotape. get anyone to fill in for me—not even fellow video hound Mike I should thank Martin O’Hearn, whose expertise I am sure shaped Catron! This was painful, because I am a true Doom Patrol fan. this interview, even if not directly—and Rich Morrissey. The thanks Growing up, my older brother Chris and I used to pass around the to Arnold should be obvious. This tape is dedicated to Lillian Drake. DP’s early adventures. DP villains like Animal-Vegetable-Mineral As much as I am an Arnold Drake fan, I’m a Lillian Drake fan. — Man became household names. (We especially took to AVM Man; Marc Svensson (who is recovering from an operation to remove a after all, our father was 100% Swedish—and this was the first cyst from his spine as he writes this.)] Swedish super-villain we had ever encountered. We began wondering if our dad could turn into a giant broccoli stalk.) Anyway, you could not be a Doom Patrol fan without being an Arnold Drake fan. What was I going to do? [I took time out from taping and ran down to Arnold’s table at the con, explaining my dilemma, and that the only way I could make up for it was if he would let me come down to New York City where he lived and interview him on film for no less than two hours. Arnold must have thought I was out of my mind. Fortunately, he and his lovely wife Lillian agreed. (The next shock I got was when I found out that Arnold and Lillian lived less than five blocks from where I used to live in Manhattan.) [A couple of months after the convention, I made my final preparations with Arnold, and my own lovely wife allowed me to pack up my
ARNOLD DRAKE: [holding up a copy of It Rhymes with Lust] This is one of Matt Baker’s very first commercial works. It’s something I invented along with a guy named Les Waller, an American novelist. We called it the “picture novel.” Today they’d call it a graphic novel. That was too fancy a phrase in 1950. I was still at New York University. It’s black-&-white on the inside. The idea was that we created this to sell to literate people who just haven’t read books, and we thought this was a way to get them to read books. We also thought that, if you’d print it in color, it would look like a comic book, and we didn’t want it to. It was a crossover, and we didn’t think it’d cross over well if the insides looked like a comic book. One of the things we insisted on was that the insides be black-&-white, not color. We didn’t have to fight too hard when the publisher saw how much money he’d save on the inside.
4 MARC SVENSSON: Comic books were on the way out then. Were you worried about the Kefauver Commission [the Congressional commission which investigated comics very publicly and infamously in 1954].
Arnold Drake Arnold says this (color) sketch he did is a “3 a.m. mock-up I did that sold St. John Publishing on ’Picture Novels’ (“graphic” was too highfalutin’ a word in 1950).” During this period, he says, “while still attending NYU on the G.I. Bill, I earned pocket money freelancing: two pulp private-eye stories near the end of that era; The Steel Noose, a mystery novel, and some comics.” [©2002 Arnold Drake.]
DRAKE: No, I wasn’t. Comics were going down, but TV was the villain. I think everything was being affected, Hollywood in particular, by television. It was really starting to take a bite out of the box office in 1951 or ’52. MS: It wasn’t censorship so much as television impeding? DRAKE: I don’t think censorship means anything after about six months. That’s about how long those things last. Unless we’re talking about a totalitarian system. And we’re not. Also, if you want to get a kid
even in his early stuff. He was also probably paid below even the lousy pay scale of that time, because Matt was black. And there were hardly any black artists in the field at the time. A brilliant artist. Also one of the sharpest dressers I ever saw! MS: He did incredible covers for Phantom Lady. You may be the only person with a copy of that! DRAKE: I think there are at least two others. MS: You were at NYU [New York University] at the time? DRAKE: Yes. At that same time, anything for a buck, I wrote several stories in what I call “naughty comics”: Candid Tales and Bold Stories. I think the level of this is demonstrated by an ad on the back. These are not highclass advertising layouts. [holds up the two magazines] This was published by a guy named Red Kirby. We called him Red; I think his real name was John, but I’m not sure. It’s probably most famous for the fact that it has a couple of Wally Wood’s first stories: “Ogre of Paris,” and “I Married a Freak.” These two books are also extremely rare. MS: Wood was very fantastic, such a good artist. DRAKE: Yeah, and this was very early. He was still to get about 200% better. It was issued in March 1950, meaning I wrote it in 1949.
Courtesy of Arnold: the front and back covers of the 1950 Arnold Drake-Les Waller opus It Rhymes with Lust...
to do something, tell him he can’t do it. They told the kids, “These books are bad for you,” so the kids paid an arm and a leg to get their hands on them. Anyhoo, that was when we thought we could turn former comic book readers into picture novel readers. But it didn’t get a long enough test. And then the publisher died. MS: Who published that? DRAKE: Archer St. John. I’m told that Archer died of an overdose, early on, but I don’t know that as a fact. MS: So you got Matt Baker to do the art. After Phantom Lady, he was one of the top artists in the field. How did you meet him? DRAKE: I didn’t; the publisher did. Archer apparently got Baker for a very low price, because I think Matt was really just getting off the ground. He was a great artist, and it shows,
...and a couple of pages from the interior. Arnold tells us that “Les(lie) Waller was the author of such novels as Hide in Plain Sight (from which a film was made) and The Family (a pre-The Godfather mafia novel).” Art by Matt Baker of Phantom Lady fame—or infamy, if you believed Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1950s tome Seduction of the Innocent. [©2002 the respective copyright holders.]
My Greatest Adventures
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LILLIAN DRAKE: Nice guy. DRAKE: Real nice guy. MS: When you say “we,” it was you and which other writers? DRAKE: Ed Herron, Gardner Fox, Dave Wood, Bob Haney. MS: You were actually writing at DC? DRAKE: Very often, before I took my own office. MS: That was 575 Lexington? DRAKE: Yeah. DC had moved. They had originally been down around 44th Street, and they moved to 49th, a new building. MS: I think the advertising was 205 East 42nd. That’s not what it was? DRAKE: It may have been, because it was around that part of town. [Co-publisher Jack] Liebowitz had been most strongly in favor of moving; he thought it was good for the industry. I don’t think that [copublisher] Harry Donenfeld liked the idea; he thought it’d be too expensive. He was a very down-to-earth kind of guy; Liebowitz was not. I used to call Liebowitz “the Jewish Neville Chamberlain.” Chamberlain (or “Chamberpot”, if you prefer, and I did!) was the British Prime Minister who handed Czechoslovakia over to Hitler: an ultra-conservative who was also ultra-proper. They said he carried his umbrella even to bed. Open! And that was Liebowitz.
Arnold’s says his script for the cover story for House of Mystery #51 was “my first DC story (or second, after ’Batman Meets Jules Verne’).” Thanks to Michelle Nolan. [©2002 DC Comics.]
MS: This is when the covers were dated three months ahead? DRAKE: If you bought a magazine that was cover-dated two months early, you would say, “I’m not going to buy an old magazine like this.” MS: 1953 is when you showed up at DC Comics? DRAKE: I think so. MS: The first story you did was “The Second Death of Abraham Lincoln.” That was for [editor Jack] Schiff, or— DRAKE: Weisinger. MS: You did work for Mort Weisinger! After that came the “Fireman Farrell” [The Brave and the Bold #1], and you did a couple of stints on “Tommy Tomorrow.”
So the first morning after the move I got in very early. Sitting at my machine, I hear Harry Donenfeld come down the hall shouting, “$280,000-a-year rent and I can’t even take a s***! They locked the executive bathroom on me!!” Harry was no “Neville” Liebowitz. Anyway, those expensive new quarters made them a bit more professional. It was a separation from their early beginnings. Back then they never felt totally professional. It was like they were doing something sneaky. MS: Given some of the characters around then, I can see why.
DRAKE: That was a while later. There was a period where I refused to work with Mort, and so I worked with Schiff only. MS: You actually came into conflict with Mort? [laughs] Amazing! DRAKE: Oh, yes, his attitude was very clear to me: “The only way I can stand tall is to kick somebody in the nuts, and that makes me a big man.” I decided I didn’t need that. MS: But you did work in between on “Space Ranger” and “Tommy Tomorrow”? DRAKE: We didn’t like “Space Ranger,” and when I say “we,” I mean all the writers. It was a Schiff invention, and Schiff inventions were much too tame. “Dial ’H’ for Hero” was a Schiff invention and was essentially the same thing. We weren’t crazy about it. We would have to flip a coin to see who was going to write the next damned “Space Ranger.” It would fall to me, and the entire afternoon I would sit at the typewriter, singing, “Space Ranger, I hate you, Space Ranger, you’re mine.” [laughter] MS: Did you know Jack Schiff? DRAKE: Sure.
The covers of the two “naughty comics” to which Arnold—and a young Wally Wood— contributed. [©2002 the respective copyright holders.]
20
Arnold Drake
LILLIAN: There was no workers’ solidarity.
Arnold says that he came up with this Jonah Hex illo idea, and Luis Dominguez executed it, for “Walt Parrish, who has a unique collection of sketches by many top comics artists all on that one theme, The Hanging Man. I wanted the woman to be saying, ’Call me squaw just one more time, white man!’ But Walt said, ’No balloon!’” [Art ©2002 Luis Dominguez; Jonah Hex TM & ©2002 DC Comics.]
He said, “You’re right. I’m going to talk to my attorney about it.” With $2 and the promise that he would find a way to work something out with us, we walked out. Perhaps it didn’t break the back of what we had done, but it certainly sapped it of vitality. Years later Carmine told me that Liebowitz instantly called his golf-buddy, Martin Goodman, the boss at Marvel, and warned him that some writers were trying to start a union. MS: Over the next couple of years, you were at Marvel, Broome wasn’t sending in scripts anymore, and Fox was only writing novels. DRAKE: You’ve got a couple of things happening at once. Was it because they felt they didn’t want a bunch of disgruntled writers on staff? You could probably attribute it to that. Were we going through a major change in the market, and therefore the need for major changes in product, and they were beginning to think we needed to shape up? “Who among these guys are going to be able to take us to the next plateau?” They just kind-of gradually dropped everybody. I don’t think there’s a single answer to the question. But knowing we felt very exploited, of course, contributed to it.
In recent years Arnold Drake has been active in the volunteer Veterans Bedside Network, “a nationwide organization of show business professionals [who] circulate among eight metropolitan area VA [Veterans Administration] hospitals with TV camera and radio equipment, letting the patients entertain themselves through the hospitals’ closed-circuit radio and TV hookups.” He also drew this program illo for its “Hospital Show Tours #9,” which featured the music of Fats Waller and Duke Ellington. [Art ©2002 Arnold Drake.]
MS: Unfortunately, it sounds like the structure from the beginning. It would have seemed, in today’s world, especially in the arts, that you’d have been able to do that. There’s a different thing going on now.
DRAKE: You could do it now, since you don’t need it. We couldn’t do it then because we desperately did. It’s like, you can only borrow money from a bank if you can prove you don’t need it. MS: You didn’t have medical, you didn’t have reprint rights. The copyright laws have thankfully gotten better for writers, post-1976. DRAKE: At any rate, it’s a different world. Ours was different from the world before us. There were guys who, if they were still alive, would think what we had in the ’60s was heaven compared to what they had in the ’40s.
MS: Believe it or not, the tape light’s flashing, so that’s it! Thank you very much. LILLIAN: Thank you very much. DRAKE: Buenos noches! Or, as my people say, “Buenos buchas!”
“This ’genuine’ Doom Patrol Club certificate,” says Arnold, “was done on a computer by good friend and comics buff Al Krackow.” The four good friends in the photo (l. to r.: Hal Sherman, Jerry Robinson, Seymour Reit, & Arnold Drake) worked between them on classic “Star Spangled Kid,” “Batman,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” “Doom Patrol,” et al.). [Doom Patrol art ©2002 DC Comics.]
A Memo to DC’s Publisher
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A Memo To DCs Publisher-A Window on the Silver Age of Comics by Arnold Drake [EDITOR’S NOTE: Some time after the preceding interview was taped by Marc Svensson, Arnold Drake located a carbon of the majority of the memo he had written to DC’s co-publisher, apparently on February 3, 1966. Arnold writes: “The memo to Irwin Donenfeld was 7 pages long, but this is all I’ve been able to find. It’s historically interesting if incomplete. Irwin’s reaction to my belief that Marvel was about to give DC real competition was, ’You’re full of s*** as a Christmas turkey! We outsell them 3-to-1!’ The man was not exactly a prophet.” Actually, as John Romita and Ye Editor were aware from their time at DC, the older publishing company had been having meetings about the competition from DC-distributed Marvel as early as summer of 1965—but had decided that Marvel’s secret was the ’bad drawing’ of guys like Kirby and Ditko. The fact that Drake’s memo was given short shrift even half a year later shows much about the mindset at the time. [Now, without further ado, here is the text of the four (of seven) pages of the memo that Arnold Drake sent Alter Ego in 2002— 36 years after it was written, with Arnold’s underlining and other stylizations kept to retain the flavor of the original. The “he” referred to in the second sentence was obviously Stan Lee—and the subtitles are AD’s own. —Roy.]
The Marvel “Miracle” What Marvel was attempting to do began to be apparent about three years ago. They (or rather, he) were bringing “sophistication” to the comics. The antihero was lifted from the hardcover books and slick magazines and brought to the kids. The present idiom was applied, not the idea of bobby soxers and “swing” music and Betty Grable, etc. They combined iconoclasm with nonsequiturs and “in” jokes and got what we call (part of what we call) “camp.”
For Sick magazine, a long-running “shoestring-budget contender for the Mad market” originally started by Joe Simon, Arnold scripted—and did rough story breakdowns for—many features, including a several-part parody of a certain green-skinned Marvel hero in “The Incrudible SULK!” [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]
They succeeded for two reasons primarily. First, they were more with what was happening in the country than we were. And perhaps more
important, they aimed their stuff at an age level that had never read comics before in any impressive number—the college level (let’s say ages 16 to 19 or 20). That second fact is important in view of the fewer titles that Marvel publishes. They could afford to aim all (with the exception of the Romance books— and the Westerns, which—by the way—are now “swinging” or beginning to “swing” also) of their titles at this age level and pull an equal number of readers from lower age groups happy to tag along.
If DC’s co-publisher in 1966 wasn’t taking Marvel seriously, his editorial successors were by the mid-’70s or so, as per this story for Sick magazine scripted by Arnold Drake and illustrated by Jack Sparling: a page from a chapter of “Ego-Man”—Stan Boreman, definitely a standin for Stan Lee—while the Marble “child-editor” could be Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Archie Goodwin— or a composite of all four. Most prominent at the B.C. Comics meeting, from left, are caricatures of Joe Orlando, Joe Kubert, Paul Levitz, Murray Boltinoff, and Julius Schwartz—with production manager Jack Adler taking pics while dangling overhead. [©2002 the respective copyright holder.]
If Marvel had the number of titles that we have, they could not use this approach across the board!
(I believe, if Marvel continues to add titles and finds it wise to begin aiming at the 12 to 10, 10 to 8, and 8 to 5 market, they will not apply the same orientation to these books as to Spiderman, Fantastic-4, etc.)
Zeroing-In On Markets The idea that all our books should swing-like-Marvel is erroneous. Superman and most of the Superman family is and should remain aimed at the lower age levels—5 to 10. Books like Batman and the Flash should be picking up the kids at age 9 or 10 and carrying them forward to 12 or 13. Beginning at about age 14 and carrying them right on up to college level should be books like Metal Men, Doom Patrol, Challengers, Metamorpho, etc. (Adult concepts, adult language; a little cheesecake, a little idol-breaking, a little “think” stuff now and then—plus the grotesqueries and the much-much-bigger-than-life villains, etc.) There is lots of room for disagreement as to precisely which titles belong in which age groups—but that essential notion should be accepted and each book age-slotted in an editor’s mind. There is much to
32 time when I had long since given up the sport as too dangerous). And through it all, I was now alone. Chuck Grayson had become an infrequent visitor during my latter days in Star Spangled, and now I saw no more of him. Joan Carter, too, had faded from the picture; for all I know she ended up marrying Steel Sterling and living metally ever after. And of course Robbie was gone... Still, there were other robots in the Detective series now and then. In #177 I met Robotgirl—only to discover eventually that she was nothing but a lady journalist of the standard Lois Lane type, masquerading as my female counterpart to capture a crook; what a frustrating experience that was! And then there was Robotcrook in #150, controlled by Gimmick Gus; Robotrobber in #158 (who would commit a crime for a 50¢ inserted fee); and a “second Robotman” who was just like me except that his human brain turned out to be that of a wanted murderer, so that he had to be electrocuted. In one story I even had my own robot, à la Superman, when “Paul Dennis” was quarantined during a big-city crime wave.
I, Robotman and knees. Cliff is pretty much a chip off the old girder, though, complete to sacrificing parts of his body at least once an issue. And, boy, that Rita Farr. That’s a whole lot of woman there, Yancy... Say, I’ll have to take a glance and see if there’s still a Joan Carter listed in the city directory. There just might be a dance left in the old tin can yet! [EDITOR’S NOTE 2002: As I look back over an intervening 37 years at this light-hearted piece, I recall little about writing it except that I mostly relied upon the then-extensive collection of my friend and A/E’s art editor Biljo White in Columbia, Missouri, taking notes from his Star Spangled and Detective runs. Biljo did four nice illustrations to accompany the article, based on art in the comics themselves. One of them been retained as the title illo.
[There is a slight lapse in style in the article from time to time, since it is written as a first-person narration by Robotman, yet several times mentions that his adventures are appearing in comic books and are even drawn by particular artists. By the way, while we’ve learned since that Jerry Siegel was the writer of at In fact, I’d say that I, least the earliest “Robotman” Robotman, was all things to all tales, beginning with Star people during these years. I was a Spangled #7 (April 1942), the one-man restaurant, a six-armed artist was not Siegel’s fire department, a police“Superman” co-creator Joe controlled guided missile, a Shuster, as stated, but rather “human” armored car, and even a artists in the Siegel-Shuster racing-car driver (long before this shop, possibly without Shuster’s Cliff Steele)! And my artists and direct participation. According writers managed to pack enough to collector Bob Hughes, the gadgets into my metal chestplate origin’s “first 5 or 6 pages were to fill Green Arrow’s quiver— penciled by Leo Nowak and and that’s going some! In this 1953 tale, reprinted with art credit added in World’s Finest Comics #223 (Maythe rest of the story is clearly June 1974), the metallic manhunter even had to buy a license! [©2002 DC Comics.] But nothing lasted. It was the the work of Paul Cassidy. The same old story. In Star Spangled inker... was either Cassidy or [Ed] Dobrotka, or maybe they split it. I my 12-page origin had had the misfortune to appear at the same time as don’t see any [John] Sikela there (although he may have worked on Simon and Kirby’s Newsboy Legion; just about the time they left the later stories)... So I would say that the usual gang of Shuster ghosts scene, a kid named Robin moved in to hog all the glory. Not only was I worked on this series in the usual manner—pages flying everywhere never cover-featured; I was speedily and permanently cramped into sixand everyone grabbing a pencil, pen, or brush. The miracle is that it page stories—and, in one black issue, into 3 1/2 pages for possibly the all turned out looking more or less consistent.” (Thanks to Bob, and shortest super-hero tale of all time. It’s really a shame, as I made a handy to Jim Amash, who relayed his info.) guy to have around in a fight and would have made a great recruit for the Justice Society—except that I lasted longer in comics than they did. [Incidentally, while scripting All-Star Squadron in the 1980s I tried The importance of being obscure, I suppose. to get Jerry Siegel to write about Robotman’s creation for the letters section. He politely declined, because, he said, DC Comics had never Eventually I decided to retire. My last appearance (Detective #203) acknowledged him as the hero’s co-creator. The Golden Age was as a “human war machine,” capturing some bank robbers in the Robotman’s last appearance, in Detective Comics #203, was covermidst of some war games by becoming a human cannonball. What an dated January 1954. ignominious end from such a promising beginning! My only consolation was that in the final panel of my last story I was decorated for valor; the [Knowledgeable comics and/or science-fiction fans will recognize medal was held to my chest by a hidden magnetic plate. I was replaced the references to “Adam Link,” the first “sympathetic robot” in sf by one Captain Compass, about whom the less said the better. He didn’t literature, whose exploits have occasionally been adapted into comics. even have a costume or a secret identity—just a purple uniform and a Adam Link had been created in the late 1930s by Otto (Eando) nondescript smile. Binder for a series of short stories and novellas in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories, beginning with “I, Robot,” a title to which that of So now I sit here in the Home for Retired Robots, playing checkers my article was an homage. Robotman owed a considerable debt to with Adam Link and chatting about the “good old days” of comics and Adam Link in several areas, including to some extent his origin—and science-fiction. Every now and then I pick up a copy of Doom Patrol to especially “The Trial of Robotman” in Star Spangled #15, as per the see how my modern-day successor is doing. Not too bad, that Cliff note accompanying one of the illos a few pages back. —Roy.] Steele—although I haven’t adjusted yet to his orange body and I would have felt naked appearing in public without metal joints at my elbows
[The EC logo is a TM of William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.]
33
IN SEPT.: THE LEGEND OF GOLD KEY COMICS!
g, stern Publishin us ©2002 We
setting aside our regular columns for a complete look! Behind a beautiful, new
ce Timm. Magn
Cover art by Bru
CBA #22 unlocks the secrets of GOLD KEY! This one is so big, we’re
BRUCE TIMM cover painting featuring a certain fave robot fighter, there’s features and interviews on the oft-overlooked comics company, including a comprehensive history, interviews with and/or looks at RUSS MANNING and his amazing Magnus
Inc
and Tarzan work, PAUL S. NEWMAN and ALBERTO GIOLOTTI’s Turok, WALLY WOOD’s Total War, JESSE SANTOS and DON GLUT’s Dr. Spektor and Dagar, and more! Plus we have a peek at the great children’s Gold Key comics with CARL BARKS,
THOMAS McKIMSON, MARK EVANIER, and others. Also PAUL NORRIS, DAN SPIEGLE, unpublished art and more! Come share in the treasure!
Subscribe to COMIC BOOK ARTIST today and save nearly 15% off the newsstand price! Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $72 Surface, $96 Airmail).
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Frank is now accepting art commissions for covers, splash panels, or pin-up re-creations! Also, your ideas for NEW art are welcome! Art can be pencils only, inked or full-color (painted) creation! Contact Frank directly for details and prices. (Minimum order: $150) Write now (be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope!) and receive FREE with my reply an autographed Brunner “Star Wars Galaxy” trading card! Contact the artist at his NEW address:
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Previously Unpublished Art ©2002 Frank Brunner
Mortella (of the New Gods) TM & ©2002 DC Comics
ATTENTION: FRANK BRUNNER ART FANS!
No. 76
In this issue:
C.C. BECK MARC SWAYZE ALVIN SCHWARTZ E. NELSON BRIDWELL JAY DISBROW [Art ©2002 Jay Disbrow; Captain Marvel TM & ©2002 DC Comics.]
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Marc Swayze
[Art & logo ©2002 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2002 DC Comics]
[FCA EDITOR’S NOTE: From 1941-42, Marcus D. Swayze was a top artist for Fawcett Comics. He designed the character Mary Marvel and drew her first two adventures, but he was primarily hired to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers, and also wrote numerous Captain Marvel scripts for Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. After serving in World War II, he produced art and stories for Fawcett on a freelance basis from his home in Louisiana, where he created both art and story for The Phantom Eagle in Wow Comics, and also drew the syndicated newspaper strip Flyin’ Jenny, originated by his friend and mentor Russell Keaton. After the cancellation of Wow, Swayze drew for Fawcett’s romance comics and eventually ended his comics career with Charlton Publications in the 1950s. Having covered the above aspects of his career in broad strokes since his popular ongoing column first appeared in FCA #54 in 1996, he now turns his attention to particular aspects of the Golden Age—beginning with this overview of the World’s Mightiest Mortal. —P.C. Hamerlinck.] Writing or drawing, when we were busy doing our thing in the Golden Age, there didn’t seem to be much concern over the effects our efforts might have on the readers, the youngsters of the ’40s. There were no comments tossed around as to whether the work might result in a child’s growing up to be a better person… or the other kind. The sole
“A perfect guy for a kid to run around with.” A line from Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away by Milton Hartsell... and the first of several old rough sketches recently inked by Marc. [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze; Capt. Marvel TM & ©2002 DC Comics.]
responsibility, as seen from my corner, was storytelling… with pictures and words… providing entertainment of a sort… relaxation, amusement, excitement… and, for the publisher, of course, money. There wasn’t a lot of teaching or preaching to it. Eventually criticism did emerge… of the influence comic books were having on children... and the opinions weren’t all good. You know about that. Ended up with steps taken by the industry to control itself, à la the Hayes Office of Hollywood. A comforting afterthought to all that may be the unlikely possibility of a kid getting into trouble…with his nose buried in a comic book. There has never been much said about the “good” influence of the comics. But I’ll bet there was. A heartwarming novel, Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away by Milton Hartsell, tells of a little farm boy whose life changed when his uncle brought him a grocery sack full of used Captain Marvel Adventures comic books, the first he’d ever seen. “They must have cost Uncle Charlie well over a dollar.” Author Hartsell’s young character goes on: “After absorbing a few of the super adventure stories, I knew when I grew up, without a doubt, I wanted to become ’Captain Marvel,’ or at least his side-kick. He was “The World’s Mightiest Mortal” and a very good guy, with no use for mean people. A person couldn’t miss seeing him. His dazzling uniform featured an eye-catching thunderbolt across his chest. “Captain Marvel could zoom across the horizon, like a shooting star. His dynamic cape fluttered in the wind with vigor. It was such a beautiful sight to behold, something akin to an American flag flailing proudly in a snappy
Mary Marvel landing and running. Recently rendered by her original artist, Marc Swayze. [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze; Mary Marvel TM & ©2002 DC Comics.]
We Didn’t Know...
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my hero; maybe it was Billy Batson and his magic word…” So mused Kesey’s character. Now try to convince me that those weren’t also the thoughts of the author… and I’ll not believe you. Interesting to us, naturally, that the Golden Age comic book super-hero in both instances was our boy, Captain Marvel. Interesting, also, that emphasis in each case fell on the word Shazam. Shazam… from Gomer Pyle, eh? No. Gomer likely picked it up from the script. Coined by a member of the writing staff? No? From Captain Marvel? Billy Batson? The old sorcerer? Mythology? No, no, no, and nope. Where, then? The word “Shazam”... today a part of our language, I’m told… came from the typewriter… from the head… of one man alone… Fawcett writer/editor Bill Parker. Incredibly, Parker, who originated Captain Marvel, née Captain Thunder, wrote the entire first issue of Whiz Comics, plus creating a half dozen other characters to go in it. All that, in a comic book career that lasted scarcely more than one year! He must have had a magic word of his own. Maybe it was Shazam! In “The Haunted Halloween Hotel,” Cap was actually scared... of Mr. Morris’ mean sister-in-law! An old sketch, recently inked, of a scene from Whiz Comics #36 (Oct. 1942). [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze; Capt. Marvel TM & ©2002 DC Comics.]
windstorm for all to see. “His super calling card was his costume. It sported flashy, skintight, crimson clothes, including a glistening white cape that was trimmed in yellow and appeared to be made of velvet. It made him masterful in flight. His marvelous dark yellow calf-high chukka boots would put any Oklahoma cowboy’s colorful dress boots to shame, even those of a rhinestone rodeo star.
The records tell us that Parker took the editorship of Fawcett’s Mechanix Illustrated magazine when he returned from the military in 1945. Why, we wonder, did he not resume his place as mastermind of the World’s Sellingest Super-hero? Surely he sat high enough in the Fawcett editorial dugout to have a say about his future with the company. Why not, then, the comics? Could there have been a lack of confidence in the comic book? Take a squint at the history of our American newsstand literature… the Dime
“He was a giant of a man, always helping folks in need, and a perfect guy for a kid to run around with and to marvel at. His headquarters was some big American city, like Tulsa or Texarkana.” Granted, the comic book influence in this example does not pertain to real people, but hasn’t it been accepted for a long time that inner thoughts expressed by fictional characters are generally those of the author? Milton Hartsell makes no bones about it in the foreword: “My plan, my goal, was to be just like my hero, ’Captain Marvel,’ who transformed the miracle word ’Shazam’ into an electrifying event that enlightened my spirit.” And there may have been others. Ken Kesey, legendary author of the popular book and movie of the ’60s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, featured in a later novel an individual influenced by a Golden Age super-hero. In Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, a character, alone in the room of his boyhood, discovers a box of ancient comic books: “There were more Captain Marvels in the box than all the various other assorted marvels put together… Captain Marvel… still my favorite over all the rest of the superdoers.” The story continues about the World’s Mightiest Mortal, then: “Shazam. I said the word softly…smiling at myself but thinking: maybe it wasn’t really Captain Marvel that was
“Maybe it was Billy Batson and his magic word.” From Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion. Another old sketch recently inked by MS. [Art ©2002 Marc Swayze; Billy Batson TM & © 2002 DC Comics.]