Issuu

MAKE WAY FOR JOLTIN’

JOE SINNOTT

THE MAN WHO INKED THE MARVEL AGE!

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No. 26 July 2003

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(NOW WITH 16 COLOR PAGES!) “AllInterview Issue”! Part 2 of an exclusive STEVE ENGLEHART interview (continued from ALTER EGO #103)! “Pro2Pro” interviews between SIMONSON & LARSEN, MOENCH & WEIN, and comics letterers KLEIN & CHIANG. Plus JOHN OSTRANDER, MICHAEL USLAN, and longtime DC color artist ADRIENNE ROY! Cover by Englehart collaborator MARSHALL ROGERS!

“Gods!” Takes an in-depth look at WALTER SIMONSON’s Thor, the Thunder God in the Bronze Age, “Pro2Pro” interview with TOM DeFALCO and RON FRENZ, Hercules: Prince of Power, Moondragon, Three Ways to End the New Gods Saga, exclusive interview with fantasy writer MICHAEL MOORCOCK, art and commentary by GERRY CONWAY, JACK KIRBY, BOB LAYTON, and more, with a swingin’ Thor cover by SIMONSON!

“Liberated Ladies” eyeing female characters that broke barriers in the Bronze Age: Big Barda, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, Savage She-Hulk, and the sword-wielding Starfire. Plus a “Pro2Pro” interview with JILL THOMPSON, GAIL SIMONE, and BARBARA KESEL, art and commentary by JOHN BYRNE, GEORGE PEREZ, JACK KIRBY, MIKE VOSBURG, and more, with a new cover by BRUCE TIMM!

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THE BEST IN COMICS AND LEGO MAGAZINES!

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DRAW! #22

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, GIORDANO cover, and more!

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! SHEL DORF interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

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

Interview with inker SCOTT WILLIAMS from his days at Marvel and Image to his work with JIM LEE, and PATRICK OLIFFE demos how he produces Spider-Girl, Mighty Samson, and digital comics. Also, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ “Comic Art Bootcamp”, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work by BOB McLEOD, art supply reviews by “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS, and more!

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LEE & KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS (KIRBY COLLECTOR #58)

Special double-size book examines the first decade of the FANTASTIC FOUR, and the events that put into motion the Marvel Age of Comics! New interviews with STAN LEE, FLO STEINBERG, MARK EVANIER, JOE SINNOTT, and others, with a wealth of historical information and Kirby artwork!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #59

BRICKJOURNAL #17

BRICKJOURNAL #18

BRICKJOURNAL #19

“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ‘69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!

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

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

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

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Vol. 3, No. 26 / July 2003

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Editor Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

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

Production Assistant Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Joe Sinnott Wayne Boring

Spotlight On JOE SINNOTT

Cover Colorists Joe Sinnott Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to: Bob Bailey Ken Bald Bob Beerbohm Bill Black Frank Bonilla Ray Bottorff, Jr. Tom Brevoort Roger Caldwell Mike Catron Nat Champlin John Costanza Craig Delich Al Dellinges Scott Deschaine Joe Desris Jay Disbrow Mark Evanier Carl Gafford Mark Glidden Walt Grogan George Hagenauer Richard Halegua Paul Handler Tom Horvitz Jon B. Knutson Tim Lapsley Michael Lark Mike Leach Stan Lee Paul Levitz Don Maris

Richard Martines Michael Mikulovsky Brian K. Morris Edwin & Terry Murray Will Murray Michelle Nolan Bruce Pritchard Trina Robbins Dorothy Schaffenberger Julius Schwartz Dave Siegel Jeff Singh Joe Sinnott Marc Svensson Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Michael J. Vassallo Mark Voger Mark Waid Hames Ware Alan Weiss Andy Yanchus Ken Yodowitz Eddy Zeno Mike Zeno Bernie Zlotnik

Contents Writer/Editorial: Happiness Is Just A Guy Called Joe . . . . . . . . 2 “You Do the Best You Can...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Joe Sinnott—Marvel’s primo Silver Age inker—interviewed by Jim Amash. Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Spot That Style!!. . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 A querulous quiz conducted by Michael T. Gilbert. The Iger Counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Additions and corrections to Jay Disbrow’s The Iger Comics Kingdom. re: [comments, correspondence, & even more corrections] . . . . . . 43 Henry Enoch Sharp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Part I of a new series on Golden Age Unknowns by Hames Ware & Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. DC & The Donenfelds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Joe Sinnott tells us that our color-splashed cover has never seen print in this form before. If we heard him a-right over the phone, he drew much of the basic artwork for a commercial ad—toothpaste or something—some years back. Later, he added the drawing of himself, blotting out most of a Dr. Strange figure—and filled in the space where the product had been advertised with that huge Ben Grimm head. Either way, it’s a winner, Joe! [Basic art ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.; self-caricature ©2003 Joe Sinnott.] Above: A pencil study of Thor that our feature interviewee drew in 2000. [Art ©2003 Joe Sinnott; Thor TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: Rt. 3, Box 468, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Single issues: $8 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $60 US, $120 Canada, $132 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Title writer/editorial

Happiness Is Just A Guy Called Joe Perhaps it’s just as well that, because of our long, long Joe Sinnott and Irwin Donenfeld interviews this issue (on top of our other regular features and the much-awaited “Iger Counter”), I only have room for a half-page editorial. Because anything I could say about Joe Sinnott would be superfluous. Maybe it wasn’t quite fair to a number of other excellent embellishers of the 1960s to call Joe, as I did in #25’s “next-issue” ad, “Marvel’s premier Silver Age inker”—but that’s just what he’s generally considered, and I’d have to concur in that opinion. Yes, it’s partly because, among other series, he worked over the pencils of a guy named Jack Kirby on the company’s flagship title, Fantastic Four—but Joe earned that appellation by being the perfect Kirby inker on that mag. The twin facts that he was never late with an inking job, and that from him was never heard a discouraging word by production managers Sol Brodsky and (later) John Verpoorten, are just the icing on a helluva tasty cake.

™

But of course, Joe’s career didn’t begin with F.F. #5 in 1962, or with his return in #44 (Nov. 1965)—which was coincidentally being proofread in the Marvel offices around the time I started working for Stan Lee. Joe had entered the comics field more than a decade earlier, and both ace interviewer Jim Amash and a mountain of art document those years, and Joe’s work for other companies, as well. (Ever hear of a comic called Treasure Chest?) Nor did Joe exactly shrivel up when King Kirby renounced his Marvel throne for another at DC. He continued as inker of John Buscema’s F.F. and later Thor, and in the 1980s had a great run on the latter with Ron Frenz, to boot. So enjoy! Bestest,

# COMING IN AUGUST 27 NOW VIN SULLIVAN MONTHLY! GOLDEN AGE GODFATHER TO SUPERMAN & BATMAN —Plus the JACK KIRBY Covers That Never Were—TILL NOW!

• In-depth interview with VIN SULLIVAN, Superman’s first editor—and the man who egged BOB KANE into creating Batman! Art by JOE SHUSTER, CREIG FLESSEL, SHELLY MOLDOFF, FRED GUARDINEER, JACK BURNLEY, & others! • The “lost” KIRBY covers—and more! MICHAEL T. GILBERT & company show what might’ve happened if The Incredible Hulk hadn’t been canceled in 1963! • The 1948 New York Comics Convention! It never existed, but it should have! Journey to A/E’s own personal “Earth-2” with STAN LEE, SIMON & KIRBY, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, HARVEY KURTZMAN, ROY THOMAS, et al.! • The great unknowns! BUNNY KAUFMAN (the woman who wrote “Batman” in the 1940s)—MIKE SUCHORSKY—LES ZAKARIN! • Plus: FCA (with DISBROW, BECK, & SWAYZE)—ALEX TOTH—BILL SCHELLY —JIM AMASH—& MORE!!! Edited by ROY THOMAS • 108 PAGES!

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Joe Sinnott

“You Do The Best You Can...” Joltin’ JOE SINNOTT—Marvel’s Primo Silver Age Inker—Interviewed by JIM AMASH Interview Conducted and Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTERVIEWER’S NOTE: Without a doubt, Joe Sinnott was a solid professional from the moment he started at Timely Comics, producing quality work in various genres. Joe’s art at this time was good enough to make us remember him, but his real fame comes from his work from the 1960s onward. When he took over the ink chores on Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four pencils, the quality level of that art reached the highest levels possible. Considering Kirby’s amazing talent, that’s no small achievement. As much as anyone, Joe Sinnott defined the Marvel art style with razor-sharp, efficient inking, setting the style that other inkers still follow. No matter who penciled Fantastic Four (or the many other comics Joe inked for Marvel), it was through the prism of Joe’s slick brush work that we came to know and love those characters. And now you get the chance to do the same for Joe Sinnott, the man, as if you didn’t already. —Jim.]

“My Earliest Memories Are of Drawing” JIM AMASH: Here’s the toughest question of the interview, Joe. Where and when were you born? JOE SINNOTT: Right here in Saugerties, New York, Oct. 16, 1926. Can you imagine that? JA: Joe, you’re older than the Empire State Building. SINNOTT: I am. And I’m older than many of New York’s bridges. In fact, when I was born, I don’t think there were any bridges between New York and Albany. Everything was done by ferries. Most of the bridges came into being around 1930 or ’31. JA: They built them just for you, Joe. They knew you’d be stopping by someday. Now, what got you interested in cartooning? SINNOTT: My earliest memories are of drawing. My mother had a boarding house and school teachers boarded there. For my third birthday, one of them gave me a box of crayons with a drawing of a big Indian on it. I used to copy that Indian and used those crayons down to the nub.

Joe in 1995, with a pencil drawing of the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing—plus the inked version of the same art. We’re just sorry we couldn’t repro Joe’s coloring! All photos printed with this interview are courtesy of Joe Sinnott. [Art ©2003 Joe Sinnott; The Thing TM & ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

We had another boarder there, Bill Thiesen, who was a cook in a restaurant. He was from Germany and an interesting character. He was in the German submarine service in World War I and used to come home at night, wearing white pants and a white shirt. I used to sit next to him as he drew all over his pants. He’d draw Indians, cowboys, and soldiers. He was my first big influence and encouraged me to draw. He moved away a few years later, and it was like losing a close relative. I never saw him again and I’ve often wished down through the years that he could have seen what I was able to do. I think he’d have been proud of me. I was a fan of Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon, and Secret Agent X-9. Tim Tyler’s Luck was a favorite of mine at the time. I loved the adventure strips, and they got me interested in comics. I used to copy the Sunday strips, and the dailies, too. It was an interesting period for a kid to be growing up. As you know, the early comic books were reprints from the newspapers and I read those, too. When new characters like Superman started appearing, all the kids I knew bought and traded them. Big Little Books were popular, too, of course.

“You Do The Best You Can...”

JA: Did seeing the super-heroes fuel your imagination like the newspaper adventure strips? SINNOTT: To a big extent, yes. When the comic books came out, they were secondary to the newspapers. But when “Superman” and “Batman” came out, they developed a big following. “Batman” was my big favorite; maybe because it was better drawn. I was always looking for good art, even at that time. Batman was one of the best-drawn books of that early period. JA: Yeah, Bob Kane and all his ghosts. SINNOTT: I don’t know who all ghosted it, but all the stories were good. I listened to radio shows and knew what time all my favorites were on. I Love a Mystery, Jack Armstrong, Little Orphan Annie... all the adventure shows came on around five o’clock. Later on, around seven, The Lone Ranger, Mr. District Attorney, and stuff like that came on. I was happy when they made Terry and the Pirates into a radio show, but The Lone Ranger was probably the most popular show for kids around eight to fifteen years old and my favorite show. And The Shadow was on Sundays. You couldn’t listen to them all because sometimes the shows were on at the same time. I was a big Shadow fan, so I missed whatever else was on. They had great voices on radio. When Earl Graser, who was playing the Lone Ranger, died, Brace Beemer took over and did a great job. Radio shows were great for making you see the action in your head. It was great for the imagination.

“Tom Gill Had Many Accounts” JA: It still is. I listen to those old shows when I work. When did you decide to make art your profession? SINNOTT: That came much later. I drew all the time, even when I was in school. I was editor of my high school yearbook and we had a school newspaper called the Ulsterette, which I was the editor for. I took art in school, but we didn’t have much. We had a design class and representation class where we drew still lifes and some perspective work. No

figure drawing at all, which was what I wanted to do. When I came out of the Navy, I knew I wanted to go to art school. I was procrastinating, playing a lot of baseball. I was only 19 when I got out of the service in 1946. I worked for about 2H to 3 years in a cement plant. I was working in their rock quarry, and it was extremely cold there. In the winter of 1948, I decided to get out of the quarry and go to art school. I was looking through the New York Times for art schools, and I came across an illustrators school that sounded ideal. I got my portfolio together and went to the School of Visual Arts and showed it to Burne Hogarth. He thought it was terrific, but I thought he was pulling my leg. I figured he needed students, so that’s why he was telling me how good my portfolio was. I thought I wanted to be an illustrator, but a lot of magazines were folding then. Hogarth told me that a lot of comic book companies were looking for artists, and that my style would fit there. He encouraged me to take the cartooning course. One of my instructors was Tom Gill, who had many accounts, like Timely, which later became Marvel. He was working for Fawcett and was doing the Lone Ranger newspaper strip, too, and teaching eight hours a day. He’d go home at night and work on his accounts. He liked my work and asked me to be one of his assistants. There was an another fellow at the school, Norman Steinberg, who drew horses extremely well. We started doing a lot of the movie western stories for Tom, who was doing this work for Dell Publications. Tom drew and inked the heads, so it’d look like his work. Tom was paying us very well, and I was on the G.I. Bill, so I’d been living on a shoestring before I started with him. Working for Tom was great because I was gaining experience. I was still attending school and worked for Tom at nights and weekends. Norman and I went over to Tom’s house on the weekends and worked. He was mainly drawing westerns, like Red Warrior and Apache Kid for Stan Lee at Timely. He was also doing Kent Blake and a couple of other FBI agents. It’s amazing when I look back on the work that Tom Gill was doing; he was

Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, who generously sent us these photocopies, writes that, though signed by Tom Gill, the art at left was actually all ghosted by Joe Sinnott, for Kent Blake of the Secret Service #1 (May 1951). The splash at right from Justice Comics #24 (Nov. ’51) is signed by Joe. The artist says his first work for Timely/Atlas/Marvel was in 1950, but in those days stories often sat on the shelf for some time before being published. [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Joe Sinnott

A montage of genres by Sinnott—all done for the company most readers then called “Atlas”—so we will, too. (Top row:) Love Tales #50 (Jan. ’52)... Astonishing #10 (May ’52)... Astonishing #11 (Spring ’52)... (Bottom row:) Amazing Detective Cases #13 (July ’52)... Battlefront #9 (Jan. ’53)... Bible Tales for Young Folks #1 (Aug. ’53). Doc V., who sent these splashes, points out that the romance story shows a “strong George Klein influence”... ironic, since in the late 1960s, Klein, who by then had long inked “Superman,” et al., for DC, was assigned to embellish John Buscema’s Avengers primarily because his inking resembled Joe’s! [©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

turning out so much work that it was unbelievable. I have to give all the credit to Tom for giving me my start in comics. JA: Did he have much time to give you pointers in storytelling, since he had all that work to do? SINNOTT: I really don’t recall him doing that. I think you pick things up as you go along. We’d watch him as he drew the stories. Storytelling just seemed to come naturally to me. Of course, in those days, we worked from full scripts, so it was easy. I mean, it just goes hand in hand with being an artist. You have visualize the story like a movie director and pick out the most interesting way to tell a story. Storytelling never seemed to be a problem with the artists I knew. Some may have told the story better than others, but I never recall hearing anyone saying that storytelling was hard. JA: What was Burne Hogarth like as a teacher? SINNOTT: He was the best. I can’t imagine anyone being any more dynamic as he was. He was so forceful. Even when he wasn’t drawing, just his speeches alone were so intelligent. He knew what he was talking about. Can you imagine sitting in his class watching him draw? It was unbelievable to watch. Other students would sneak away from their classes just to watch him. He was a great character. Did you ever meet him? JA: Yes, at a San Diego Convention. He was talking comics with Gil Kane, and you can imagine how that went. Nobody near them could get a word in edgewise. We just stood and listened, and loved it!

SINNOTT: And of course, neither man was ever wrong about anything! [laughter] But I think Hogarth would have won an argument with anyone. I liked his early work on Tarzan, but he got too decorative. He put in every detail in the jungle and on the vines and leaves; it got too busy.

“I’ve Worked for Stan for 53 Years” JA: Did you go to work at Timely or St. John Publications after you worked with Tom Gill? SINNOTT: The first place that ever paid me directly was St. John’s. Somebody in class told me that there was a woman editor (I don’t remember her name, but she looked like a model) over there who was looking for someone to do a Millie the Model type of feature. I didn’t have any of that type of work in my portfolio; I had mostly adventure stuff. But I took it over to her and she must have liked it because she gave me a five-page script for Mopsy. Mopsy was actually quite a famous feature at that time, but I did a filler called “Trudy.” It couldn’t have been any simpler. But this was when I started working for Tom Gill, so I only did that one story. Tom was paying me more than St. John, and he was doing the type of stories I wanted to do. Most of what I did for Tom was for Stan Lee, and I did that for about nine months. We had two weeks off from school, and that’s when I got married. Even though I was making good money from Tom, I wanted to do my

Number 12, Summer 2003 • Hype and hullabaloo from the publisher determined to bring new life to comics fandom • Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington

Gorgeous, George! Hot on the heels of our first top-selling ALAN DAVIS volume comes MODERN MASTERS VOLUME TWO: GEORGE PÉREZ by our own ERIC NOLENWEATHINGTON! This new series of trade paperbacks spotlights the best talent working in comics today, and ol’ George is a prime example, turning out some of his most gorgeous work ever! This squarebound book provides a compelling account of Pérez’ stellar career, including an all-encompassing interview! It also contains reams of rare and unseen artwork from George’s personal files, a deluxe sketchbook and gallery section, & more! This 128page Trade Paperback NOW SHIPS IN SEPTEMBER (Diamond forgot to list it in PREVIEWS for August!!), and is $17 POSTPAID in the US.

FREE WOOD! There’s still time to get your FREE COPY of the WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST when you order either the Softcover or Hardcover edition of AGAINST THE GRAIN: MAD ARTIST WALLACE WOOD directly from TwoMorrows by August 1! ATG is the most comprehensive book ever produced on Wood, done with the full cooperation and participation of his estate! It features a biography by friend BHOB STEWART, plus essays from a veritable Who’s Who of industry pros who knew and worked with Woody! It also includes hundreds of pages of Wood’s finest art, much unpublished and direct from his own files, courtesy of executor BILL PEARSON and ROGER HILL! The deluxe hardcover edition includes an EXTRA 16PAGE COLOR SECTION spotlighting Wood’s science-fiction paintings, plus custom endleaves and dustjacket! Order either and get the heavily illustrated 68-page WOOD CHECKLIST (documenting his comics, fanzine, advertising, and unpublished work, and more—normally $7 postpaid in the US) FREE! The 336-PAGE SOFTCOVER is $44 POSTPAID in the US, or $64 POSTPAID for the HARDCOVER. BOTH SHIP IN SEPTEMBER!

Coming Soon!

Raw Kirby!

Alter Ego #27 (August) CBA #25 (Now, final issue) DRAW! #7 (August) Jack Kirby Collector #39 (August) Write Now! #5 (July)

CAPT. VICTORY: GRAPHITE EDITION presents Jack Kirby’s original 1976 Captain Victory graphic novel (before it was broken up for the Pacific Comics series), reproduced from Jack’s uninked pencils! NOT SOLD IN STORES! All proceeds from this 52-page book go to scanning and preserving the 4000+ page Kirby pencil xerox archives! $8 POSTPAID in the US. NOW SHIPPING! AVAILABLE BY MAIL ONLY!

Got LEGIONitis?!

If you have a bad case of hankering for more info on the history of the Legion of Super-HeroesTM, we’ve got the cure! THE LEGION COMPANION is a 224-page trade paperback by Legion nut Glen Cadigan, sure to make your flight ring shiny! It offers a complete look at the history of the 30th Century’s greatest heroes, through interviews with DAVE COCKRUM, MIKE GRELL, JIM STARLIN, JAMES SHERMAN, PAUL LEVITZ, KEITH GIFFEN, STEVE LIGHTLE, MARK WAID, JIM SHOOTER, JIM MOONEY, AL PLASTINO, and more, including rare and neverseen Legion art by the above, plus GEORGE PÉREZ, NEAL ADAMS, CURT SWAN, and others! It sports a new cover by DAVE COCKRUM and JOE RUBINSTEIN, unused Cockrum character designs and an UNUSED TIMBER WOLF STORY, introduction by JIM SHOOTER, and more! It’s only $29 POSTPAID in the US., and SHIPS IN SEPTEMBER!

Pull No Punches!

This month, we say “sayonara” to COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and “Whoa, Nellie!” to BACK ISSUE, the newest TwoMorrows mag! Work on BI is at a fevered pitch, getting ready for its debut in LATE OCTOBER (filling CBA's spot on our schedule)! The first issue of our new bi-monthly, edited by MICHAEL EURY (former editor and writer for DC and Dark Horse Comics, and author of our CAPTAIN ACTION book, plus our upcoming biography of DICK GIORDANO) focuses on “DC vs. Marvel”, and we’ll be covering their battles on the comics page and behind-the-scenes from the 1970s, ’80s, and on up to today! When you see what we’ve got planned for this slugfest, you’ll agree it’s the knockout new mag of the year! Stay tuned next issue for all the details and ordering info!

T H E U LT I M AT E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

Capt. Victory: Graphite Edition (Now!) Wertham Was Right! (Now!) Life & Art of Murphy Anderson (Now!) The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore (July) Against The Grain: MAD Artist Wallace Wood (September) Wallace Wood Checklist (September) Modern Masters V2: George Pérez (September) Legion Companion (September) COPYRIGHTS: Legion of Super-Heroes TM & ©2003 DC Comics. Captain Victory TM & ©2003 Jack Kirby Estate. Pérez characters TM & ©2003 CrossGen Ent. Inc. All others TM & ©2003 the respective artists.

SOT Goes Boom! BECK & SCHAFFENBERGER: SONS OF THUNDER, our split bio of two greats of the Golden & Silver Ages, is cancelled! Due to the tremendous amount of material we've tracked down on both artists, it would do fans a disservice to bundle them together into one book as originally planned. So we're splitting it up into two separate, longer books! Look for details on our expanded KURT SCHAFFENBERGER solo book by year's end, and a separate C.C. BECK book for 2004. Refunds to anyone who preordered SONS OF THUNDER have been sent out. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we're confident fans will be even happier with the end results!

CONTACTS:

John Morrow, publisher, JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR editor, & for subscriptions: twomorrow@aol.com Mike Manley, DRAW! editor: mike@actionplanet.com Roy Thomas, ALTER EGO editor: roydann@ntinet.com P.C. Hamerlinck, FCA editor: fca2001@yahoo.com Danny Fingeroth, WRITE NOW! editor: WriteNowDF@aol.com

SENSE OF WONDER just sold out, but you can find it at www.billschelly.com if you hurry! • I’d order COMIC BOOKS & OTHER NECESSITIES OF LIFE, PANEL DISCUSSIONS, and DRAW! #1 and #2 REAL SOON if I were you... • Fan of old Monster Mags? Watch for CHGGGWOM in October! • Roy’s ALL-STAR COMPANION VOL. TWO in the works! • MODERN MASTERS VOL. THREE? Do the initials B.T. mean anything to you? • Bye, y’all!

Tidbits:

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The Iger Counter

The Iger Counter Additions & Corrections to Jay Disbrow’s

THE IGER COMICS KINGDOM by Roy Thomas In Alter Ego #21 we were pleased to feature basically the entire text (plus lost material) of The Iger Comics Kingdom, plus beaucoup art. Golden Age artist Jay Disbrow’s 1985 book told the story of S.M. (Jerry) Iger and his studio/”shop” of comic book personnel, which lasted from circa 1937 through at least the early 1960s. As explained therein, both Jay and Ye Editor knew that, despite latter-day efforts to weed out errors, some mistakes and omissions were still bound to remain in a work of that scope, culled as it had been from the fading memories of Jerry Iger, with relatively little black-&-white documentation to back it up. Still, we felt TICK deserved to be republished as a “work in progress,” with a footnote on both the Iger and the earlier Eisner & Iger shops added from info supplied to us by Jerry G. Bails; and we invited knowledgeable collectors to send us their comments and corrections, for printing in this issue. A number of comic art aficionados took us up on our challenge, and their remarks follow—illustrated, wherever possible.

Author and artist Jay Disbrow drew numerous illos for the 1985 edition of his book, but few made the final cut, so we printed many of them in A/E #21. Here’s one that accidentally got left out, depicting a major Quality hero originated by Will Eisner and Lou Fine. [Art ©2003 Jay Disbrow; Doll Man TM & ©2003 DC Comics.]

First, though, there was the question of copyrights. We asked Bill Black of AC Comics, who supplied many of the art scans and who has reprinted much of the material the Iger shop did for Fiction House, Quality, Fawcett, and other companies, to fill us on his company’s relationship to the Fiction House art he reconstructs and prints:

Bill Black Publisher: AC Comics In 1987, Frank Zeneau (who was working for AC Comics at the time) located T.T. Scott, President and Publisher of Fiction House. Mr. Scott granted reprint rights to the entire Fiction House line—except for Sheena, which was previously sold to Aratow/Columbia—to AC Comics. Thanks for the info, Bill. And keep those great AC reprints coming! They’re one of the great worthwhile projects in today’s comicdom. Roy well remembers meeting producer Paul Aratow, the man whose dream it was to make a Sheena film, on the Warner lot (it was then called the Burbank Studios) when he and partner Gerry Conway were selling screenplays together back in the first half of the 1980s. The Sheena movie was already vaguely in the works, and Paul told them, a bit ruefully, how the star had been cast: “[Columbia studio head] Frank Price just walked into my office one day and announced, ‘Tanya Roberts is Sheena!’” Not surprisingly, Price and Roberts were an “item” at the time. Still, Charlie’s jungle Angel looked great walking down to that African pool, didn’t she, guys? Price, of course, later became known for being dethroned at least partly because of the mammoth egg laid by the film version of Howard the Duck. Incidentally, at present, it seems that the rights to Sheena are in dispute between Aratow and Columbia. Next, the man who co-edited the 1970s Who’s Who of American Comic Books with Jerry G. Bails had this to add about the Iger shop:

Hames Ware Let’s not forget that Jerry Iger was an artist before (and after) he ran his comics shop. Here’s an Iger commercial illustration, autographed in the 1970s for Ken Yodowitz, who shared another one with us in A/E #21. [©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

I have spent my life researching and documenting all areas of the early comics, but none more so than the shops and their staffs. Those Iger and Eisner & Iger shop listings in Alter Ego #21 were my personal contribution to Vol. 4 of the original

writer/editorial

Donenfeld Times Two! Ever since the 1960s and the early days of comics fandom, I’ve heard the name “Donenfeld.” Harry Donenfeld, the original publisher of DC Comics—or National, as we usually called it then. Irwin Donenfeld— whose name was then appearing in Statements of Ownership, those intriguing once-a-year boxes in comic books that maddened us by leaving blank the space for reporting sales figures, because they could. I, like many others, soon learned that Irwin was Harry’s son and heir. A fullblown dynasty, no less.

1965, I was walking down the hallowed halls of National/DC with my new boss, Superman editor Mort Weisinger, when a dapper and dignified-looking man approached from the other direction. Knowing it was publisher Irwin Donenfeld, I was understandably nervous. Mort introduced me thus: “This is my new assistant, Roy Thomas. He comes from the fanzines.” (An odd choice of words, to be sure!) Mr. Donenfeld nodded a vague sort of approval, said something-orother, and walked on. It’s great to feature you— and even, in a super-rare 1940 recording, your father—in Alter Ego, Mr. D.—and it was nice talking with you two or three times recently, as well. Hopefully, the next time, we won’t let 38 years go by between conversations.

Even better than that: continuity. What could be dearer to a dyed-in-the-wool comics fans than continuity? When I spoke with Irwin Donenfeld this April about the panel/interview Bob Beerbohm had arranged for A/E to print, and queried him about photos he might provide, he countered with a question of his own: “I’ve heard your name for years. But did we ever meet?” Well, we did, as it happens— exactly once, and for about five seconds. Fresh out of small-town Missouri, during my two-week tenure at DC in the summer of

Irwin Donenfeld—Harry Donenfeld—Jerry Siegel—the great radio comedian Fred Allen— and current writing star Mark Waid, with a look at an amazing “lost” adventure of Superman. In this issue, former DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld discusses “urban legends” about Little Archie #1 (1956)— and a certain golf game involving Justice League of America #1 (1960). [The two covers are ©2003 Archie Comic Publications and ©2003 DC Comics, respectively.]

Submit Something To Alter Ego! Alter Ego is on the lookout for items that can be utilized in upcoming issues: • Convention Sketches and Program Books • Unpublished Artwork • Original Scripts (the older the better!) • Photos • Unpublished Interviews • Little-seen Fanzine Material We’re also interested in articles, article ideas, or any other suggestions... and we pay off in FREE COPIES of A/E. (If you’re already an A/E subscriber, we’ll extend your subscription.) Contact: Roy Thomas, Editor Rt. 3, Box 468 St. Matthews, SC 29135 Fax: (803)826-6501 • E-mail: roydann@ntinet.com

Submission Guidelines Submit artwork in one of these forms (in order of preference): 1) Clear color or black-&-white photocopies. 2) Scanned images—300ppi TIF (preferred) or JPEG (on Zip or floppy disk). 3) Originals (carefully packed and insured). Submit text in one of these forms: 1) E-mail (ASCII text attachments preferred) to: roydann@ntinet.com 2) An ASCII or “plain text” file, supplied on floppy disk. 3) Typed, xeroxed, or laser printed pages.

I feel like I’m in good company. Bestest,

Advertise In Alter Ego! FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall • $300 HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $175 QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875" Tall • $100

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Irwin Donenfeld

“There’s A Lot Of Myth Out There!” And DC Publisher IRWIN DONENFELD Tries to Set It Right—as Interviewed by MARK EVANIER & ROBERT BEERBOHM—oh, yeah, & JULIUS SCHWARTZ Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

Edited and Slightly Abridged by Roy Thomas

Irwin Donenfeld in the early 1960s—surrounded by a montage of National/DC highlights during the years of his tenure as publisher from 1948-1969—including the comic he’s proudest of, Shelly Mayer’s Sugar and Spike. Photo courtesy of I.D. Thanks to Bob Bailey for the scan of the cover of Star Spangled Stories #90 (April-May 1960), and to Bob Beerbohm for Sugar and Spike. [Art ©2003 DC Comics and/or the respective copyright holder.]

“There’s A Lot of Myth Out There!” brother. You have to understand, in those days, in the ’30s and the ’40s, jobs were hard to come by. So when anybody had something going, they hired all the relatives. So my father hired all of his nephews and nieces to work for the company. Jack Liebowitz hired his brother, Mack Liebowitz, and I worked for him.

There may have been photos taken of the Irwin Donenfeld panel in 2001, but none surfaced in time for this issue, so here are (left to right): Irwin Donenfeld today... Bob Beerbohm looking casual at the 1997 Fandom Reunion Luncheon in Chicago, 1997... and Mark Evanier at a Kirby memorial panel at a fairly recent San Diego Comic-Con. I.D. photo courtesy of I.D., Beerbohm photo courtesy of Jeff Smith; Evanier photo courtesy of Tim Lapsley.

[NOTE: The following panel/interview was taped Friday, July 20, 2001, at the San Diego Comic-Con, by Mike Catron and Mark Svensson, assisted by Blake Bell. It was copy-edited by Robert Beerbohm and Roy Thomas, and tweaked by Mark Evanier. —Roy.]

“They Hired Me Because My Father Was the Boss” MARK EVANIER: I’m probably Mark Evanier, and I do a lot of these panels, but this is the one I’ve looked forward to most, because, like probably everyone here, I have a fascination with comics history, particularly DC Comics history. And this gentleman was at the center of an awful lot of it in the years when I started reading the comics and fell in love with them. Joining me to cross-examine our subject is a historian and a person who’s working on a book about comics— maybe he’ll tell us about it later. Mr. Bob Beerbohm, ladies and gentlemen. [applause]

We were in charge of production. That is to say, we created the schedule. In those days, the comic books, the insides, were printed in Bridgeport [Connecticut] and we had our own cover press called Donny Press, and my job was to make sure that the covers would arrive at the bindery at the same time as the insides. I suppose, in the beginning, it must have been tough figuring that out. But after a while, it really was easy, and then I had a lot of time on my hands.

My next big job was working on the Fawcett trial. You may have heard that we sued Fawcett on “Captain Marvel,” and first we lost in the lower courts. On appeal, that’s when I came into it. I worked with the attorney, Louis Nizer, quite a bit. Whit Ellsworth, our editor, went absolutely nuts picking out these “Captain Marvels” and finding in his research on the artwork in them, that they copied everything we did. And it was true. And my job was to find them and show them for the judge. I found one panel that was absolutely beautiful. It showed Superman going into a Nazi dirigible. He leapt through it and out. “Captain Marvel,” a couple months later—the exact same scene. Captain Marvel through the dirigible and out. You could lay one over the other and see the same thing. Mr. Nizer had a gentleman who taught art at a university class, so I said to him, “Take your class”—about fifteen people—“and tell them (the description was from our writer), ‘Superman goes through a dirigible.’ Don’t give any other direction. See what you get.” He came

Our guest was the editorial director of DC Comics in the late ’40s through 1969. He’ll tell us later what that encompassed, but essentially, he ran the place. His father founded the place. We’ll be talking about him, as well. There are a lot of people in this business whose names you know because they wrote or drew the stories. There are other people who are less famous to the readers, because their skills were a little less easy to define, but they had a major effect on what appeared in the books. This gentleman has never been to a convention before, so we’re delighted to have him here... Mr. Irwin Donenfeld. [applause] The first obvious question is how did you get your start? When did you get into a management-type position at DC and how did that come about? DONENFELD: In 1948, I was already married and had a child. I graduated from college and I went up to DC and I showed them that I was a college graduate, I had a keen intellect, and they hired me because my father was the boss. [laughter] I remember one of my first jobs was in this big production room, and there’s piles and piles of artwork. Nobody wanted any of it, so I stood there and I chopped it all up, and that was the first thing I did. Of course, I chopped up about a jillion dollars’ worth of stuff, today, but I had a clean office. You can’t go wrong with that. My first job was with a man named Mack Liebowitz—my father’s partner, Jack Liebowitz’s,

The Superman-Captain Marvel lawsuit is still being argued out of court after sixty years! We didn’t feel like scrounging through hundreds of old comics to find a drawing of the two heroes smashing through a dirigible—and A/E’s editor freely admits to being skeptical of specific art claims, though who’s to say that some Fawcett artist didn’t swipe a “Superman” drawing sometime, out of sheer laziness? Still, as we opined a couple of issues back, it did seem like waving a red flag (or red union suit) in front of a bull for Captain Marvel to smash a car on his very first cover, when Superman had done the same thing a year and a half earlier on that of Action #1! Strangely enough, both covers are now ©2003 DC Comics!

Irwin Donenfeld

Louis Nizer, one of DC’s attorneys during much of the lawsuit against Fawcett, was a famous trial lawyer during the 1940s and ’50s. His 1961 memoir My Life in Court was a bestseller. It was rumored in the ’60s that in a future book he would write about the Superman-Captain Marvel lawsuit, but it never happened. [©2003 Doubleday & Co.]

“You May Not Know the Story...” ME: Not everyone knows the story. Will you brief us? DONENFELD: There was a man by the name of Major [Malcolm Wheeler-]Nicholson, and he was the first man to produce a comic book that had original art in it. Prior to that, all comic books were reprints from the newspapers. So Nicholson had a great idea, worked hard at it, but he was not a good businessman and he went broke. And when he did, Dad had a lot of stuff that he’d already printed for Major Nicholson and he didn’t know what to do with it. Dad knew a man by the name of Paul Sampliner. Paul Sampliner owned the company that distributed Major Nicholson’s magazines, and in those days—I don’t know about now—everybody got an advance. If a publisher brought in his magazine, and the distributor figured it was going to sell 50%, he got his 50% ahead of time so he could pay the printer. So when Major Nicholson went broke, he already had the advance money, and there was nothing there for the distributor. Dad got hold of him and said, “Let’s start a new one.” And Paul Sampliner said, “Yeah, but where are we going to get the money from?” And Dad said, “From your mother.”

back the next day with fifteen versions of Superman going through a dirigible, proving that these [Fawcett] guys just followed, just copied everything that we did. And my feeling is that it broke the case, because they settled shortly thereafter. BOB BEERBOHM: Just because none of these panels matched up to the one that was in “Captain Marvel”?

And it’s a fact. Mrs. Sampliner gave them the money to start Independent News Company, and Dad’s first jobs, in those days, were to try to get the wholesalers of all the various towns to handle the magazines, because if they didn’t handle them, there was no place to go. That was his job, to go all around the country—and I never saw him for weeks at a time—making sure that these people knew who he was and that they would take care of his magazines. His first magazines after that

DONENFELD: Yeah, nothing looked the same [in the student drawings], everything was different, fifteen different versions of how Superman would go into a dirigible. BB: Why don’t you tell us about your father, Harry Donenfeld? DONENFELD: My father was quite a character. He started—well, going way, way back, my father had three brothers. The first one was Charlie. He was the oldest and he started over at Donny Press. And then he had two other brothers, Irving and Mike. And Dad was the salesman for Donny Press. Mike worked for the paper company and sold the paper to us, and so that’s how he got paid. Irving worked for the ink company, and that’s how he got paid. BB: And Irving was never known as Irwin. DONENFELD: No. BB: There’s a lot of myth out there. DONENFELD: I was the only Irwin. My uncle Irving had a problem. He had a terrible stutter. One day, Dad was at the counter. A man came in and said, “I’m looking-guh-guh for M-m-mister D-D-Donenfeld.” Dad went back and said, “Irving, someone wants to talk to you.” So Uncle Irving with the terrible stutter went back, heard what this man said, came back to Dad and said, “What do you want me to do, g-g-get killed?” [laughs] But that’s how the thing was set up. Dad was the salesman. He worked with Hearst Magazines and the Ladies Garment Union, and he sold them and he did all the printing for them. And of course, the story’s that Major Nicholson went broke, stuck Dad with a whole bunch of magazines and a lot of debt.

Harry Donenfeld, looking like a movie studio mogul. Photo by I.D.

K-Metal

K-Metal: The “Lost” Superman Tale The Most Important Superman Story Never Told by Mark Waid To be fair, I’d been wondering about it since I was ten years old. That made it easier to recognize. On my tenth Christmas, I received a copy of The Steranko History of Comics, Volume One, my first real exposure to the vast tapestry that is comic book history. “Absorbed” doesn’t begin to describe how obsessed I was with the information contained in its gigantic tabloid-size pages; by spring, I had the book practically memorized. Steranko’s reportorial prose style was colorful and vivid, and I had no problem following the sometimes-labyrinthine histories of characters and creators both popular and obscure. The only bit of information that left me puzzled came on page 35, where the author had reproduced “four pages from an unpublished ‘Superman’ story, circa 1939.” At age ten, I couldn’t understand why in the world any “Superman” story would be “unpublished,” but it certainly made an impression. Sixteen years later, I was a guest at the 1988 Superman Expo, held in Cleveland, Ohio, to mark the Man of Steel’s fiftieth anniversary. Among the exhibits was an assemblage of pages, far more than simply the four in History of Comics, from that same unprinted story. In fact, an exhibitor had borrowed and assembled from several sources all its known extant artwork; and, while the collection was far from complete—with the

beginning and ending notably missing—it surprised me to glean from the lettered page-numbers that the story had been over twenty pages in length. That was a remarkable anomaly given that almost without exception, all “Superman” stories of the early 1940s (all of them) were exactly 13 pages long, presumably so that each installment could either fit the lead slot in an issue of Action Comics or serve as one-fourth of a Superman line-up. That this tale had been axed because of its odd length seemed pretty unlikely, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

One of various posters created to advertise the 1948 Columbia movie serial Superman. This one, unlike the others, utilized art from the comics (that sure looks like a Winslow Mortimer Superman to Ye Editor). So what’s that serial got to do with a “lost” comic book story? Read on, MacDuff...! [©2003 DC Comics.]

Until. In ’88, as a staffer at DC, one of my responsibilities was overseeing the company’s library. That wasn’t where I worked; we had a staff librarian, and I was busy serving one editorial function or another on Secret Origins, Action Comics Weekly, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Doom Patrol, Justice League, Wonder Woman, and the various Who’s Who series, and serving as Roy Thomas’ in-house liaison on Infinity, Inc. and Young All-Stars. One of my “side duties,” however, was to assist and guide the licensors who had arranged to microfiche DC’s rarer comics, a task that often involved identifying some of the weird lost treasures that would still turn up from time to time in the library’s giant filing cabinets. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving of that year, DC had closed the offices early, but (having no family plans) I was in no mad rush to leave. Good thing. Milling around the library afterhours (always far more a

The “Lost” Superman Tale

(Above:) As copiously described in a 1994 Sotheby’s catalog, “the surviving three panel section of the original art from Jerry Siegel’s and Joe Shuster’s historic first Superman daily,” showing among other things the destruction of Krypton. Two panels are apparently missing missing between the first two shown, and were probably cut off to be used in Action Comics #1 in 1938, while the action shown here was redrawn for the comic. (Below:) The first page of Siegel’s synopsis for this 26-page “first Kryptonite” story in 1940 begins with a fragment of what will be called “K-Metal” approaching Earth years later. [Art ©2003 DC Comics; synopsis ©2003 the respective copyright holder.]

joy than a chore), I was stunned to come across a dusty, forgotten ream box filled with faded, blurred carbon copies of typewritten manuscripts. And not just any manuscripts. Jerry Siegel “Superman” scripts from the late 1930s and early 1940s. Hmm. That adventure looked familiar... and that one... and that one... but what if...? For the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening, I laboriously matched each hazy carbon to its corresponding published story, all the while hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, one script would be left over at the end of the day. And one was. One dated August 7, 1940. One that weighed in at a conspicuously hefty 26 pages. Page 8 looked familiar. Page 15, I recognized. I knew instantly what I’d found. It was a copy of the full manuscript for that lost story I’d seen as a boy. And what a story. It opens with Clark Kent interviewing Professor Barnett Winton, an astronomer whose telescope detects a passing meteor that Winton is “quite certain” is a fragment of an exploded planet he had studied years earlier, a world he called (for no given reason, by the way) “Krypton.” This means nothing to Clark, of course; as far as he’s concerned, he might as well be covering a flower show. Things gets marginally more exciting for poor Kent when, while covering a museum opening, he’s able to surreptitiously use his powers to protect attendees during the robbery of a painting, but it’s

Alter Ego #26