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QUALITY 1 TIME!

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No. 34 March 2004

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CRANDALL • ARNOLD • CUIDERA COLE • EISNER • FINE NORDLING • GUSTAVSON POWELL • DILLIN • FOX • WARD TOTH • AMASH • NOLAN KURTZMAN • GILBERT & MORE!

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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

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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 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. 34 / March 2004

™

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

QUALITY TIME (Side One)

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists Reed Crandall Charles Nicholas (?)

Cover Colorist Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to: Ger Apeldoorn Dick Arnold Bob Bailey Mike W. Barr Michael Baulderstone Jack Bender Bill Black Jerry K. Boyd Lee Boyett Sam Burlockoff Gary Carlson Ray A. Cuthbert Teresa R. Davidson Al Dellinges Roger Dicken & Wendy Hunt Jay Disbrow Shel Dorf Chris Ecker Will Eisner Michael Feldman Elliot Fine Gill Fox Bill Fugate Ron Frantz

Carl Gafford Janet Gilbert Al & Belle Grenet George Hagenauer Jennifer Hamerlinck Peter Hansen Ron Harris Mark & Stephanie Heike Tom Horvitz Dave Hunt Brian Kotzky Adele Kurtzman Mark Lewis Scotty Moore Michelle Nolan Larry Ripee Ethan Roberts Marc Swayze Greg Theakston Dann Thomas Mort Todd Alex Toth Jim Vadeboncoeur Hames Ware John Yon

Contents

Writer/Editorial: I Love Theme Issues! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Men of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dick Arnold, son of company founder Busy Arnold, talks to Jim Amash about Quality Comics (with a sidebar by George Hagenauer on Arnold’s “men’s sweat” mags).

“IChuck Created Blackhawk!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Cuidera voices his opinions (and how!) on just about everything! Better Read Than Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Michelle Nolan tells about Blackhawk’s 1950s transition from Quality to DC. “Another Fine Talent Lost”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 One Golden Age great re another: Alex Toth about Reed Crandall. Comic Crypt: The Unknown Kurtzman (Part Two) . . . . . . . . 39 Michael T. Gilbert (and Ger Apeldoorn) on Harvey Kurtzman’s work for Varsity. Quality Time (Side Two). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: Because it’s one of the relatively few examples of Golden Age work by the fabulous Reed Crandall still in existence, this gorgeously horrific cover art done for Doll Man #42 (Oct. 1952) has been reprinted several times—including by Michael T. Gilbert in Alter Ego #30, from Gary Arlington’s early-’70s Nickel Library. We decided it was high time it saw print as a cover again—if not on an actual comic book, then on this magazine about comic books. [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] Above: Without a doubt, another of the most talented artists ever to work in the comic book field was Lou Fine. The Flame, Doll Man, Black Condor, The Ray, covers—he excelled at all of them. But when publisher Greg Theakston put together his Lou Fine Comics Treasury in 1991, he chose Fine art featuring the Quality Comics version of Uncle Sam as his cover (see p. 10)—and he reprinted, with restored art, the lead tale from National Comics #12 (June 1941) as the book’s example of Fine’s work on that editorial-cartoon-cum-super-hero. Though the byline on the splash art reprinted above read “by Will Eisner,” and Eisner probably did oversee its production in his studio, this art looks like pure Fine to most aficionados. [Uncle Sam TM & ©2004 DC Comics; retouched art ©2004 Pure Imagination.] 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

I Love Theme Issues!

Our cup runneth over…

Hence our coverage of several stalwarts who labored for Quality Comics from the 1940s through its demise in 1956, which begins on this side, behind a Doll Man cover by one of the company’s most outstanding artists, Reed Crandall, and ends on our flip side, headed by a cover that may have been drawn by the lesser-known Charles Nicholas, but might instead have been done by the historically ubiquitous A. Nonymous. How many issues ago was it that I said, defiantly, “I hate theme issues”? Over the past few years, slowly and surely, I’ve come first to accept their nigh-inevitability… and finally to embrace them, as a way to make one issue of a now-monthly mag stand out from those before and after it. And no defunct comics company—not even EC or Fawcett—ever deserved an issue centered around it more than Everett “Busy” Arnold’s Quality Comics line, which was officially titled Comic Magazines (look at any Quality indicia). And this despite our coverage of Quality and some of its major talents in #12 (Gill Fox), #17 (Lou Fine), #21 (the Eisner-Iger studio), and #25 (Jack Cole). As it happens, and though he didn’t suspect it then, Jim Amash began assembling this issue more than a decade ago, when he taped a long conversation (see our flip side) with artist Alex Kotzky that dealt more with his Quality work and the people he had known there than with his long-running newspaper comic strip Apartment 3-G.

In the past three years, since he became Alter Ego’s associate editor and ace interviewer, Jim has talked with every Quality alumnus he could locate—including Chuck Cuidera (“Blackhawk” creator or co-creator), Al Grenet (Busy Arnold’s last comics editor), and Dick Arnold (Busy’s son, who also worked for years at Quality). At one point recently, we decided to bite the bullet and devote most of an issue to Jim’s interviews with these three and the late Alex Kotzky, who passed away in 1996—as well as with his son Brian. By coincidence, Jim had earlier sent me a two-page essay that legendary artist Alex Toth had written about Quality/EC giant Reed Crandall, and that went into the mix, as well. I had one brainstorm of my own: I’d always been intrigued by the fact that Blackhawk was the one Quality “hero” title to make an immediate jump to another company (DC) when Busy folded his tents, and I knew that comics historian Michelle Nolan would be just the person to examine the all-important transitional period. I was right. You’ll see. As for Michael T. Gilbert’s “Comic Crypt” section continuing his focus on the early work of Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman—well, it may not have any direct connection to Quality Comics, but read it anyway. You’ll be happy you did. In fact, you may even laugh because you did. Kurtzman was and remains, after all, one of the most influential humorists of the twentieth century, and that isn’t gonna change at this late date. Bestest,

P.S.: Our squeezed-out letters section will be back next issue!

COMING IN APRIL

# ™

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MARVEL!

LEE, ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, & JAFFEE on the 1940s-50s at Timely/Marvel!

c. cters, In

hara arvel C 004 M

Art ©2

• Full-color covers! JOHN ROMITA’s first-ever Captain America drawing—never before printed!—plus a new cover by Timely’s (& Mad’s) amiable AL JAFFEE! • STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, DICK AYERS, RUSS HEATH, & ROY THOMAS on the 1953-55 Timely super-hero revival—with rare art by ROMITA, AYERS, HEATH, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BOB POWELL, MORT LAWRENCE, & others! • AL JAFFEE talks candidly about the 1940s Timely Bullpen (and Mad) in a humongous interview with JIM AMASH! Plus plenty of vintage art! • FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LES TREMAYNE, BIG BANG COMICS (Part 2)— ALEX TOTH on comic art—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on unpublished 1950s covers— BILL SCHELLY on South African fandom in the 1960s—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS • 108 PAGES!

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Quality Time-- part one

Men of Quality

DICK ARNOLD Talks about Himself, His Father BUSY ARNOLD, and the Other Talented Men (and a Few Women) of Quality Comics [INTRODUCTION: Everett (Busy) Arnold was more than just the owner and publisher of Quality Comics, one of the best comic book companies of the Golden Age, which gave us Plastic Man, Blackhawk, Doll Man, and many others. He also hired the artists and the writers, proofread scripts, and looked over the finished art. By all accounts, he fostered an atmosphere of creativity for his employees that allowed them to do their best work, and was exceedingly generous with his staff and freelancers to a degree that few before or since have matched. In order to help complete the picture of Busy Arnold, I have spoken to many people who knew him. Now, for perhaps the most intimate look of all, let’s talk to Dick Arnold—who has the unique circumstance of having been both a loyal employee—and a loving son. —Jim.]

“As a Little Kid, He Was Always Doing Something” JIM AMASH: When was your father born? DICK ARNOLD: May 20, 1899, in Providence, Rhode Island. His father’s name was Earl and his mother’s name was Ada. He was an only child. The family was pretty well off. My father’s grandfather was a wealthy man who had all sorts of businesses, like a textile mill, and owned real estate all around Providence. My grandfather was a junior Phi Beta Kappa and was the chairman of the math department at Brown University, though that doesn’t mean he was a real good businessman. During his lifetime he managed to lose a great deal of what his family had. He died of influenza during the plague while my father was in college, in 1919. JA: What can you tell me about your father’s childhood? ARNOLD: The principal thing I can say was that his nickname was “Busy.” He got that nickname as a little kid because he was always doing something. He never sat still. He was a world-class long distance runner in college and ran against the best in the world. I don’t remember the name of the world’s champion at the time, but he wasn’t an American. My father beat him in a race. My father played ice hockey in school and was a goalie. In college he was a history major. I was a history major at Brown, as was my son. JA: So it runs in the family. Then you can appreciate why I’m so interested in history. ARNOLD: In that regard, the interesting thing is that we are related to Benedict Arnold. When Benedict Arnold’s nephew, at the end of the American Revolution, tried to go to West Point, he was treated very shabbily. He couldn’t take that, so he got on his horse and went back to Providence. On his way back, he stopped at New Haven, Connecticut, and enrolled at Yale, but everyone in the next generation on down went to Brown.

[Above left:] Quality founder/publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold, seen at right in photo, with Gill and Helen Fox. Dick Arnold couldn’t provide photos of himself or his father, so we’re all the more grateful that Quality artist/editor Gill Fox sent us this one of Arnold, Sr., for Alter Ego #12, which featured a blockbuster interview with Gill. Check it out! [Above:] According to The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books, Gill drew the covers of Police Comics #1-12 in 1941-42—including this one for #5 (Jan. ’42). This was the first issue wherein Plastic Man usurped the feature spot from the original cover boy, Firebrand. See DC’s Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1... although that fine collection lists the cover artists of Police #2-16 as “Unknown.” [Heroes TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

My father finished college in 1921, and left Providence for New York. He met my mother, Claire, soon after he got to New York and they were married in 1923. She was a model of some sort... she modeled gloves or something. My father got a job in the printing press business, with Goss Printing Company, and became a very successful printing press salesman. When I was very young, we moved out to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and my father commuted to work. People would come to him for advice on how to start up printing plants. He told them what equipment they should buy. He’d go and help people, just as a pal, so to speak. He was that kind of guy. He left that business in the early 1930s and went to work for a guy named Walter

Dick Arnold collectors who think so. When I ran a comic shop, I never had trouble selling the old Quality comics. They are still very desirable and valuable magazines.

Koessler, who printed the comics sections of the Sunday newspapers. The company was The Greater Buffalo Press, and there was only one newspaper east of the Mississippi River that they didn’t do the Sunday comics section for. Then Koessler started cutting my father’s paycheck and he didn’t like that very much. Koessler had all the business he could get and didn’t need my father to bring in any new accounts. My father left and started a comic book called Feature Funnies [later retitled Feature Comics].

ARNOLD: When I was moving one time, I had in the attic all the bound volumes of what my father published. I got tired of moving them and had the garbage man haul them away. Later on, I was blowing my brains out because I threw away a lot of money. JA: Ouch! When you were young, did you spend much time at the offices?

JA: What gave your father the idea of starting his own comic book? ARNOLD: He probably saw it was the coming thing. DC Comics was publishing comics with new material, and others were starting up. My father started off imitating Famous Funnies, which was reprinting the newspaper strips. He knew all the people in the business, so it was easy for him to line up features like Joe Palooka and Mickey Finn. This was in 1937. He would bring home the comics when they were printed, and he also brought home the comics produced by the competition. JA: Your father also helped a couple of men named Bill Cook and John Mahon start up a comic book company, but they didn’t last long. I think that’s when your father decided to get into the business.

ARNOLD: It wasn’t too long after my father went into this business that he moved the offices from New York to Stamford, Connecticut. I remember, before I’d go to see a movie, going to the offices to get a couple of nickels so I could buy a couple of candy bars to eat while I was at the movies. I saw people working on comics up there then. JA: Did your father have a business partner? The cover of Busy Arnold’s first comic book, Feature Funnies #1 (Oct. 1937) spotlighted Ham Fisher’s ultrapopular Joe Palooka, although the cover art is credited in Gerber to another famous comic strip artist, Rube Goldberg. Arnold and Harry “A” Chesler were most likely partners at this time. [Art & characters TM & ©2004 the trademark and copyright holders.]

ARNOLD: That could well be. My father was always helping people. He must have thought he had a chance to do better.

“That Was Him Being ‘Busy’” JA: The first editor your father hired was a cartoonist named Johnny Devlin. He was replaced by Ed Cronin. Do you remember either of them? ARNOLD: I vaguely remember Ed Cronin, but not the other one. JA: Then Ed Cronin hired Gill Fox to be his assistant, and Gill became the editor when Cronin left. ARNOLD: I wasn’t aware that was how it worked. I don’t know much about how things worked in the early days. When I worked at Quality years later, my father read all the scripts and was hands-on with everything. That was him being “Busy,” I guess. JA: Is it fair to say that your father was a very detail-oriented man? ARNOLD: Yes. He took great pride in the fact that he thought the artwork in his magazines was much better than anyone else’s. I think it was, but whether it really was or not, he thought it was. JA: I’ll say this to you: he had four of the greatest artists who ever worked in comics. Will Eisner, Jack Cole, Lou Fine, and Reed Crandall. ARNOLD: Absolutely. I consider Eisner the greatest genius who ever worked in comics, along with Jack Cole. JA: Quality Comics sure lived up to its name. There are a lot of

ARNOLD: When he first started, he got the people who owned Look magazine [Mike and John Cowles of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate] as partners. I think they originally put up the money to get things started, and my father ran the company. Henry Martin was the liaison with the company that owned half the business with my father. JA: Did this business partnership last until Quality stopped publishing? ARNOLD: No. That’s where the Des Moines Register and Tribune [Syndicate] was smarter than my father. Around 1950, they told my father that they ought to get out of the comic book business. They said, “We’ve seen its best days.” So my father bought them out and he owned the whole thing. I don’t think he paid them much. JA: Jim Steranko’s History of the Comics says the amount was $140,000. So your father didn’t get hurt that much, after all. ARNOLD: In that sense, no. But the business didn’t make nearly as much after that. My father did well, but not like he had done during the peak war years. He published more magazines per month after the war, but the profit per magazine was pretty small.

“[The Spirit] Took Off like Gang Busters” JA: Did Will Eisner have any part of the business? ARNOLD: At one time, Eisner and Jerry Iger were partners, and my father hired them to do most of the work for the magazines. He’d tell them to fill up the pages of Military Comics, so they did. Originally, my father didn’t pick out the stories or the artists that did the magazines, though that soon changed. And Eisner split from Iger, whom my father didn’t like, when The Spirit started. My father got the idea to do a Sunday comics supplement. The Spirit, “Lady Luck,” and “Mr. Mystic” were the features. It took off like Gang Busters and ended up in many newspapers all across the country. For a

Man of Quality

To bolster interviewer Jim Amash’s point that Busy Arnold’s big little company boasted “four of the greatest artists who ever worked in comics,” here are samples of that colossal quartet’s Quality work. [Clockwise:] A Will Eisner Spirit splash for Feb. 5, 1950, as reprinted in black-&-white in Kitchen Sink’s The Spirit #23 (1980)—Jack Cole’s first-ever Plas cover, for Police Comics #19 (May 1943), as per The Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 1—Lou Fine doing a luminous job on a dim-bulb of a hero on Hit Comics #9 (March 1941)—and Reed Crandall’s “Blackhawk” splash for Military Comics #19 (May 1943), from a photocopy of the original art sent by Ray A. Cuthbert, and once owned by Alex Toth. [Spirit art ©2004 Will Eisner; Plastic Man, Neon the Unknown, Blackhawk, & King Cobra TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Quality Time-- part two

“I Created Blackhawk!” A Controversial Interview with the Late Artist CHUCK CUIDERA

Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Charles (Chuck) Cuidera, who passed away in 2001, only two days after this interview was completed, was an interesting character: feisty, opinionated, and talented. He was instrumental in the creation and development of Quality Comics’ best-selling character (and later title), Blackhawk. After a stint in the military during World War II, he returned to Quality, primarily as an inker on “Blackhawk” and other features. When DC Comics bought out the Quality line in 1956, Chuck went along as Dick Dillin’s inker on the Blackhawk title; the pair remained a team on the comic until it was canceled in 1968. Afterward, Dillin and Cuidera drew a few issues of Hawkman before Chuck retired from comics. [It must be noted that some of the statements Chuck has made below (and elsewhere) about Blackhawk, The Blue Beetle, and his art director status at Quality have been questioned by others. In fairness to Chuck’s memory, we have decided to present his side of the story pretty much as he related it, with appropriate editorial comments. —Jim.]

“I Had Nothing to Lose” JIM AMASH: We’ll start by playing To Tell the Truth. Tell me when and where you were born. CHUCK CUIDERA: I was born in Newark, New Jersey, September 23, 1915. I have my mother to thank for my artistic talent. She was the one who was artistic in the family, and one of the nice things about that was that we were the best-dressed kids on our street. [laughs] I started drawing comics in grammar school. My mother heard about the Northpine Art School on High Street, and she got me up on Saturday mornings to attend. We drew from sculptures, and most of the instructors were from Germany. My mother had thirteen children, but I only remember six of them. It’s harder to remember the oldest ones. My mom was quite a woman, and she kept a barber strap on the knob of the kitchen door. When we didn’t follow orders, she’d swing at us, and of course she’d start crying. Pop never touched that strap. He’d lecture to us, but he never hit us.

Chuck Cuidera (left) and fellow pro inker Dave Hunt, in a photo taken several years back—juxtaposed with the cover of Blackhawk #40 (May 1951), repro’d from a photocopy of the art which Stephanie Heike of AC Comics restored for Cuidera from the partly-destroyed original art a few years ago. This cover is usually credited to Reed Crandall, but Chuck swore he had done the entire thing—which was why he had the original artwork! Thanks, Mark & Stephanie Heike—and Dave—for this pair of artifacts! [BlackhawK TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Those were the days of the Great Depression. My father came from Sicily, and he had one cousin who was a doctor and taught my father the English language. Pop also learned how to speak Spanish and French. Most of the poor unfortunates who lived in the neighborhood had no money but could always find some money to make wine. They’d pay my father off in five-gallon jugs of wine. My father was politically connected to a couple of Italian lawyers who looked to Pop to send them applicants to their office. Those poor unfortunates were trying to get their citizenship papers. JA: What were your favorite newspaper strips? CUIDERA: Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, and Milton Caniff were my favorite artists. As a kid, I used to love The Katzenjammer Kids and all the funny strips. JA: After Northpine, you went to Pratt Institute, didn’t you? CUIDERA: Yes. I had a scholarship there. I got that while I was at Eastside High School. One of my art teachers was a lovely woman who did watercolors, and I tried to emulate her work. She took a real big interest in me and was responsible for me getting into Northpine Art School. I started at Pratt in 1936 and graduated in 1939. Pratt was an

“I Created Blackhawk!”

17 Kirby was nothing but a cleaner boy. He erased pages, made art corrections, paste-ups, and anything else that needed to be done. JA: Did you meet Victor Fox?

CUIDERA: And how! He was a big clip artist. When I was working for Fox, he asked me to do him a favor. He had this big box of liquor and wanted me to bring it up to his apartment, which was in the same building his office was. I got up there and this pretty little wench, wearing only a slip, invited me in for a cup of coffee. I said, “No, thank you.” I couldn’t wait to get out of there. [laughs]. Old man Fox always had a wench around him. Fox was an older man than the rest of us. He was short, had a full head of hair, and smoked a cigar, and had a tremendously loud voice. Very impressive, and he scared everybody. He wasn’t fat and he always liked women. JA: I heard he was a crook and cheated people out of money. CUIDERA: Oh, boy! He stuck Simon and Kirby for a lot of dough. Most of the other publishers paid a good wage per page, but not Fox. He only paid $5 a page, if you could get it from him. JA: What did he do, hide out on payday? “Lou Fine… was my boy,” said Chuck Cuidera of his artistic colleague and friend. Above are a Fine page from the origin of The Flame in Wonderworld Comics #8 (Dec. 1939), and a panel of the searing super-hero in costume from #6 (Oct. 1939), courtesy of Greg Theakston from his 1991 Lou Fine Comics Treasury. [Restored art ©2004 Pure Imagination.]

architectural and engineering school. For the women, it was a dressmaking school. I expected to paint after I graduated, and I wanted to be a pictorial illustrator. JA: How did you break into comic books? CUIDERA: After I got out of Pratt, I went to all the publishing companies in New York and struck out. I saw an ad in the paper that Fox Features was looking for artists. I had nothing to lose, so I went there. The art director, Joe Simon, hired me on the spot, so I was making 35 bucks a week, between the staff pay and freelancing.

“Old Man Fox Always Had a Wench Around” JA: Had you read comic books before you went to Fox? CUIDERA: I don’t think I did. Comic books were just really starting out, and they became big and fat. Now, Joe Simon was an artist. He and Jack Kirby became partners and were working together even at Fox. Kirby was the artist and Joe was the writer, although Joe could draw, too. Joe was easy to work for. I worked in the office. Al Harvey was there, too. The office was small.

CUIDERA: Yes, something like that. Since I was on staff, I was pretty sure I’d get my week’s salary and all the freelance work I could handle. JA: Lou Fine worked there, too, didn’t he? CUIDERA: Yes, he did. And he was my boy. He was real good. At that time, I thought nobody drew anatomical figures better than Lou Fine. He was the first to draw “The Flame.” We all admired him, especially when he drew the covers. He was a very nice man. We used to go to lunch together and sometimes went bowling. He had a game leg because he had suffered from polio when he was a kid. Sometimes he’d grab my arm when we went to lunch. I remember when he had a fight with Will Eisner, who was working behind the scenes at Quality Comics. I wanted to knock Eisner on his butt like you wouldn’t believe. Lou was a quiet, even-balanced guy, and after he left Eisner and went to work directly for Busy Arnold [Quality’s publisher], we stopped seeing each other. JA: Do you remember what features you did for Fox? CUIDERA: Yes. I did “The Flame,” but “The Blue Beetle” was where I started. I took over “The Flame” when Lou Fine left Fox. JA: You’ve said you created “The Blue Beetle”... CUIDERA: Yes, I did. Then there was a Polish fellow, Charles Wojtokowski, who followed me on the feature, using my name.

JA: What was Jack Kirby like in those days?

JA: Your full name is Charles Nicholas Cuidera. Why did you use the name Charles Nicholas instead of using your last name? Were you asked to do that?

CUIDERA: Jack came from a poor family. He was supporting his family. The funny part was that, when I started working for Joe Simon,

CUIDERA: No. I just used Charles Nicholas because I thought it was a better name to use. No one told me to use a pen name. Everyone used

Chuck Cuidera

(Left:) Among the last of the Dillin/Cuidera collaborations was their work together on Hawkman in 1967-68, after Murphy Anderson departed the mag. This cover illustration is repro’d from photocopies of the original art for an unpublished version of the cover of Hawkman #24 (Feb-March 1968), provided by Tom Horvitz; check out his original-art website at <trhgallery@earthlink.net> or phone him at (818) 757-0747. Thanks to Carl Gafford for the issue-number ID. (Right:) Cuidera’s most memorable work by far, however, will always be those unbeatable “Blackhawk” exploits in Quality’s Military Comics #1-11, as per this splash from #4 (Nov. 1941). Together, Cuidera and Crandall make The Blackhawk Archives, Vol. 1, one of the very best of DC’s irreplaceable Archives line. [©2004 DC Comics.]

CHUCK CUIDERA Checklist [NOTE: Thanks to Dr. Jerry G. Bails for providing information from the online Who’s Who of 20th-Century American Comic Books, which can be accessed at www.nostromo.no/whoswho/, but alas, not yet at the Grand Comic Book Database site, as was reported in A/E #31. The following is a slightly abridged version of the Who’s Who listing. Additions or corrections to this information are invited. Names of features and comic books below are generally not placed in italics or quotation marks because in some cases, such as “Blackhawk,” there was both a comic with that title and a feature in Military/Modern Comics. Some of the information below was supplied by Chuck Cuidera. Key: (a) = full art; (p) = pencils only; (i) = inking only. In one or two cases, this information may conflict with statements in the foregoing interview, because based on other sources.] Full Name: Charles Nicholas Cuidera (1915-2001) - artist. Pen Name: Charles Nicholas (one of several to use this pen name). Nickname: Chuck Education: Pratt Institute Staff: Quality (art director?) c. 1950-57 SYNDICATED CREDITS: The Spirit (ghost) - (specifics unknown) COMIC BOOK CREDITS (Mainstream U.S. Publishers): DC Comics & related imprints: Batman and Hawkman (i) 1967; Blackhawk (i/some p) 1956-68, 1975, 1989; Blackhawk Combat Diary (i) 1964; Blackhawk Detached Service Diary (i) 1964-66; Blackhawk World War II Combat Diary (i) 1965-65; covers (i) 1957-67; crime (a) 1968;

Flash and Spectre (i) 1967; Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told (i) 1990 reprint; Hawkman (i) 1967-68; Our Army at War (a) 1968; Spectre and Flash (i) 1967 Fox Comics: Blue Beetle (?) (a) 1939; D-13 (a) 1941; Secret Agent Z-5 (a); Yank Wilson (a) 1942 Holyoke & related imprints: Captain Aero (a) 1941-42; Red Cross (a) 1942 Quality Comics: Blackhawk (a; plotted first story) 1941-42, (i) 1945-56; Captain Triumph (i) 1940s; covers (a) 1942; Love Letters (p) 1951; Love Scandals (a) 1950; Love Secrets (a) 1953-54; Plastic Man (i) 1940s; Uncle Sam (a) 1941; Web of Evil (i) 1953 Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books: America at War: The Best of DC War Comics (a) 1979 - reprint of Blackhawk origin

Quality Time-- part three

Better Read Than Dead How the Blackhawks Made a Radical Transition from Quality to DC by Michelle Nolan

The Torch Is Passed

That was the issue in which Police changed its cover and lead characters from pliable Plastic Man to hard-boiled Ken Shannon, “Crime-busting Private Eye,” who also starred in ten issues of his own title from 1951-53.

By the time Quality Comics went out of business at the end of 1956, the Blackhawks were the only surviving team of Golden Age costumed heroes. They had spent nearly that entire year fighting “Commies” and “Reds,” as Soviet-bloc peoples were bluntly dubbed even in the early era of the Comics Code Authority.

DC, however, had no use for either TMan or the long-canceled Ken Shannon. Plastic Man, too, was buried for ten years, nor was there any discernible interest in Doll Man, last published in 1953—though both these heroes (and of course Doll Man’s spiritual descendant The Atom) would be of real importance to DC Comics in decades to come.

Then, in 1957, everybody’s favorite flying aces made one of the quickest stylistic changes in comic book history, after DC bought the rights to several popular series from Quality publisher Busy Arnold and began publishing the Blackhawks’ jetpropelled adventures. DC, then known as National, had long been loath to involve the company’s multitude of super-heroes and costumed characters against real-world villains. Even during World War II, at least after a spate of reviling what DC termed the “Japanazis” on covers in 1942 in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, most of DC’s justly famous patriotic covers tended to be positively symbolic, rather than violent and aimed at the Axis foe. As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, that reality rarely touched the world of DC’s heroes outside the pages of the company’s war comics, which began in 1952 and mostly dealt with World War II themes.

But DC made long-running successes of Quality’s G.I. Combat and romance title Heart Throbs, though another Quality carry-over, Robin Hood Tales, lasted only through #14 in 1958 after DC picked up the television-inspired feature with #7. What a difference a year can make! In the August 1956 issue of Blackhawk, the dark-clad aviators were battling die-hard Nazis (as per the cover of #103, top left) and, in #105 (Oct.), their Cold War cousins, the Communists, in Quality Comics. By August of 1957 the Blackhawks were fighting aliens from other dimensions and other planets, over at DC, as on the cover of #115. But the art team remained Dick Dillin on pencils, Charles “Chuck” Cuidera on inks. Oh, and unless otherwise noted or picked up from Ernst & Mary Gerber’s invaluable Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books, all art for this article was provided by the author from her extensive Silver Age collection. [Blackhawk TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

Meanwhile, rival Quality Comics’ Blackhawk and T-Man titles, not to mention G.I. Combat, continued to feature anti-Communist themes in the vast majority of stories all the way through 1956.

T-Man (the “T” stood for Treasury Dept., of course) apparently had been a successful title, running 38 issues from 1951-56, after the twofisted Pete Trask made his debut in Police Comics #103 (Dec. 1950).

And, most importantly, DC never missed a single monthly issue of Blackhawk, seamlessly picking up the title with #108 (Jan. 1957). The last seven Quality issues of Blackhawk (#101-107) were among the comics I most cherished in 1956 during my first year as a reader and collector at age eight, so I had developed a pretty good feeling for the character by the time DC took over.

I remember being startled to see the beloved “Superman DC National Comics” circle in the top left corner of Blackhawk #108. The cover— featuring “Killer Shark’s Secret Weapon—Killer Whale!”—didn’t seem that much different from the Quality issues, and the art looked the same. (I would learn later that it was by the previously Quality team of Dick Dillin, penciler, and Charles Cuidera, inker.) Even so, it didn’t take many

Title writer/editorial

Clenched Fists, Clenched Teeth Welcome to the flip side of our most heavily Quality Comicsoriented issue ever! By now, unless you’re the kind of rebel without a cause who reads material out of the suggested sequence out of sheer perversity, you’ve already seen what Busy Arnold’s son Dick and “Blackhawk” artist/originator Chuck Cuidera had to say about that company, its personnel, and related matters. On this side of the issue, we open with Jim Amash’s 1992 interview with artist Alex Kotzky, who toiled at Quality (and sometimes for Will Eisner’s related shop, which produced The Spirit weekly comics supplement) from 1942 through 1954, only a couple of years before Arnold left the field. Of course, that’s hardly the end of Kotzky’s tale, since he went on to become the original artist of the comic strip Apartment 3-G, which he drew until his death in 1996. Recently, however, Jim got in touch with Alex’s son Brian, who assisted his father on 3-G for years and drew the strip himself for three years after his father’s death. Jim’s original purpose was to get additional insights from Brian on his dad, but what Brian had to say, even if not directly about Quality Comics, was interesting enough that we decided to run the two interviews together.

artist or writer or editor is speaking for longer without interruption than happened in real life (This Our mascot, Alter Ego. [Art ©2004 Ron Harris; is usually, but not always, Alter Ego is TM of Roy &^ Dann Thomas.] done for length.) Of necessity, we excise certain statements by interviewees that are potentially libelous, occasional foul language (matter of taste), and the like. And yet, if we edit out too many of an interviewee’s opinions, outrageous and unsupportable though some of them may be by any rational measure, we inevitably alter our presentation of that person. So we naturally prefer, as much as possible, to let you read the creator’s words and make up your own mind about him or her—merely tossing in clearly-marked editorial comments from time to time when we believe they’re warranted or necessary. In the case of the Cuidera interview this time around, we felt obliged to insert several, because Chuck, sadly, passed away not long after this issue’s interview was conducted, so Jim Amash was unable to check back with him and seek clarification on certain key points. Even so, we’ve tried to avoid taking sides in any disputes to the extent we can. Frankly, we think that Al Grenet and Chuck Cuidera and Dick Arnold and the Kotzkys in this issue, Gill Fox back in A/E #12, and Will Eisner in an upcoming A/E interview, speak eloquently enough to defend themselves, without our having to say overmuch in their behalf.

Then there’s Al Grenet, who entered the comics field in 1946 as a letterer and colorist, and wound up as Quality’s editor from 1951 through the end in 1956 (or 1957, if you go by final cover dates). Grenet and the Kotzkys naturally had quite different perspectives, so it’s instructive to see where they (and the gents on our flip side) agree… and disagree. We think this dialogue by Roy’s childhood favorite Doll

Maybe I should just be glad that, for all the info also included in this section’s pieces written by Bill Schelly and those edited by P.C. Hamerlinck, there’s nothing overtly controversial about them. That doesn’t make them any less interesting or important.

Unavoidably, there are liable to be Man says it all. Let us know what you think about this clenched teeth at some point in the editorial, about the interviews and articles in this issue, and whatever else crosses your mind. Thanks to Jerry Bails proceedings. One or two interviewees for this art, though its precise artist and 1940s comic book downplay Al Grenet’s skills, for instance… After all: for all the comments made in (Feature Comics? Doll Man?) are uncertain. Jerry thinks and Al even inadvertently suggests some interviews and articles in Alter Ego about Bill Ward may have drawn it. Any other suggestions out reasons why that’s all but inevitable… while the myriad things wrong with the comic there? [Doll Man TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] Chuck Cuidera’s well-publicized one-way book industry from the 1930s right up feud with Will Eisner over the creation of through the present (Will Gil Kane and I receive screen credit as creators Blackhawk seems to have continued unabated right up to Chuck’s death of “Iron Fist” in the projected film, for instance—and what possible in 2001, even though, when they shared a panel at a San Diego Comicethical or moral justification could there be for our not receiving it, as I Con, the promised fireworks most definitely failed to materialize. Matter have formally requested?), we are first and foremost boosters of the comic of fact, Chuck Cuidera—for all that most folks in this issue seem to have book and comic art medium, warts and all. genuinely liked him, and there must have been ample reason for that— As we’ve said before, Alter Ego was conceived by Jerry G. Bails in was full of enough contrary opinions to sink the Good Ship Lollipop 1961 to celebrate the comics medium, not to dwell on criticism of it… with all hands. and that’s basically the way we intend to keep it. That’s one of the problems with putting together a mag like Alter Ego. Yes, we edit the interviews—I at this end, and often the interviewers before I ever see them—for clarity and interest, often taking out redundancies, or omitting an interviewer’s brief question or two so that the

But we’ll do so with our eyes open. Yours, too, we imagine. Bestest,

Quality Time-- part five

“When Anything Happened, I Was Working On A Comic!” Golden Age Artist ALEX KOTZKY Talks about Quality, Apartment 3-G, and All the “Characters” in the Comics World

Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTRODUCTION: Alex Kotzky (19231996) was a hard-working artist, devoted to his craft, a fact which once prompted his wife to say to fellow artist Gill Fox: “He hasn’t left the attic for 35 years.” His major claim to fame was one of the better soap-opera comic strips, Apartment 3-G, which he drew from its debut until his death. I originally interviewed Kotzky because I wanted to learn more about Lou Fine and Jack Cole, as well as about his own work. On June 27, 1992, Kotzky, busy as could be, gave me two hours of his time which he didn’t really have... mainly because he felt that Lou Fine, in particular, hadn’t been remembered as fully as he deserved. Alex really didn’t want to talk about himself much, but I managed to get him to, in spite of himself. And his own career is definitely worth all the coverage we can give it! This interview was previously printed in the limited-circulation apa-zize CFA-APA (#29, Jan. 1993). It has been re-edited for Alter Ego by —Jim.]

“I Answered an Ad in the New York Times” JIM AMASH: Newspaper strips were your first exposure to comics? ALEX KOTZKY: Yes. I was still in public school when the first comic books came on the stands. I thought it was like something from heaven. I was always interested in comics like Flash Gordon and Milton Caniff. I didn’t necessarily want to be a comic book artist. But I had to make a living when I got out of high school. I was 16, but I had a couple of art scholarships and I couldn’t even afford to take them. JA: So if you could have gotten a job doing illustration, you would have never gotten into comics? KOTZKY: Well, I never really penciled before I did comics. I went to Music and Art High School. I think I did my best work when I painted, so comics were something I had to learn immediately. My son is an illustrator and he’s doing fairly well. He does paperback covers and is represented by an agent. He’s doing the type of thing I would have enjoyed doing. He worked very hard to get where he is. JA: So you gave up painting?

(Center:) Alex Kotzky’s “Manhunter” in a panel from Police Comics #10 (June 1942)—flanked by photos of the artist. (Top left:) This 1960s Polaroid snapshot, says his son Brian, is “one of thousands of reference photos taken for Apartment 3-G.” (Right:) Alex holding his granddaughter Kim in 1992—the year Jim Amash interviewed him. Photos courtesy of Brian Kotzky. Kotzky and writer Tex Blaisdell created Quality’s “Manhunter”; this art has been retouched, and grey tones added, for AC Comics’ new 150-page volume Golden-Age Greats Spotlight, Vol. 2. See ad on p. 8. [Retouched art ©2004 AC Comics; Manhunter TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

KOTZKY: Yes. Immediately. I never went back to painting. JA: How did you start in comics? KOTZKY: I got out of high school in 1940 and couldn’t find a job. I answered an ad in the New York Times to do penciling for a comic artist. It was Chad Grothkopf at DC Comics, and I began penciling for him. It

Quality Time-- part five-a

“I Didn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G!” Interview with BRIAN KOTZKY, son of Alex Kotzky Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash (Left:) Alex Kotzky and young son Brian at the drawing board, 1958. (Below:) Margo and Tommy—two of the three “G’s” in Apartment 3-G—in strips drawn by Alex Kotzky, probably with the assistance of son Brian, for Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 1989. (Right:) Brian with daughter Kim, 2001. Unless noted, all art and photos accompanying this interview were supplied by Brian Kotzky. [Art ©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]

[INTRODUCTION: Brian Kotzky is more than the son of a great comic artist. An artist in his own right, Brian’s paintings graced many a paperback cover over the years. He also became his father’s assistant on Apartment 3-G, taking over the art chores upon Alex Kotzky’s death. Now a teacher, Brian looks back at his father in an honest portrayal of a man totally dedicated to his craft. —Jim.]

“I Was Seven Years Old When He Got the Strip” JIM AMASH: Tell me about your father’s beginnings. BRIAN KOTZKY: He was born in the Bronx on September 11, 1923. He was one of four kids. He had an older half-brother Milton, also a sister and a brother. His father was a widower when he met my grandmother. My grandfather died right after my father graduated from the High School of Music and Art, so, though I understand he had a chance to go to college, that changed his plans, as he had to support the family to a large extent. Then, there was a rupture in the family dynamic, so he wasn’t close to his family. I know he took classes at the Art Students League, probably on the weekends. JA: How many children did your parents have? KOTZKY: Two—me and my brother Bruce. I was born in 1954, Bruce in ’58. Bruce lives out in Las Vegas. He did inherit some artistic talent, and while in college it appeared he was going into a career in theatre set design. But he changed his mind and now does retail work.

JA: Your first memories of your father’s work would be Apartment 3-G, wouldn’t it? KOTZKY: Yes. I was about seven years old when he got the strip. I have very vague memories of him working in an upstairs studio before then. We lived in a couple of different houses, and he converted an upstairs bedroom into a home studio. In the late ’50s—before 3G—I remember he did other kinds of work, like comic strip advertisements such as Duke Handy. I was proud of the fact that my father was doing something that he was good at. I was interested in art, so I could identify with what he did. He wasn’t like other kids’ fathers: they left home to go to work,and my father didn’t. That made me feel a little self-conscious. He was an extreme example of a workaholic. That’s not a healthy thing. Working at home allowed him to develop a lifestyle where all he did was eat, sleep, and work. He had no hobbies. He allowed the comic strip to fill up all his available time. He was always upstairs working on Apartment 3-G. In terms of being a parent and doing things with the family—like fatherand-son activities—there was virtually none of that. I can remember maybe one or two occasions when he took time out and we threw the ball around. I do believe that, when I was two to five years old, he was able to be more of a family man. We have home movies of family outings from that time period. But later he worked all the time. We’d call him down for supper, which was the one time of the day when the four of us were together. Other than that, he was home around the clock, but he was upstairs.

“I Didn’t Want to Do Apartment 3-G !”

“He Was a Real Perfectionist” JA: When I interviewed your father, he said he worked all the time because he was a very slow artist. Do you think he was that slow? KOTZKY: If you mean that he was slower than other cartoonists... well, I don’t know if he was slow in that way. What was so time-consuming is that he spent a huge amount of his work week preparing to do the finished art. He had enormous reference files he collected from magazines and newspapers, and spent a lot of time looking over that material before he started to draw. He was a real perfectionist. If he was dissatisfied with the results, he’d keep erasing and reworking the pencils until he got it right. That will make you slower. His studio was filled with filing cabinets full of reference material, which I inherited when I took over 3-G. There was just enough space for his drafting table and a second drafting table, where I worked. I tried to duplicate his working methods at first, but it was extremely frustrating. For instance, let’s say I had to draw an ambulance. I’d find a folder that was labeled “vehicles,” which was the size of a couple of phone books. I’d have to flip through hundreds of pictures to find what I needed. Maybe I’d get lucky and find one in ten minutes, but it could take 45 minutes to find a shot of an ambulance. If you wanted to draw that vehicle from a particular point of view, but don’t have the necessary reference, what do you do? Keep looking, hoping you’ll find the shot you need? Or use the information from the shot you have and invent the detail needed to make it look the way you envisioned it? You have to come up with a strategy. JA: Since he didn’t have spare time for hobbies, I take it that he wasn’t much of a reader. KOTZKY: The only time I remember him taking time to read anything was in 1978, when his kidneys failed and he was hospitalized for several months. Other than that, he would read the newspaper and Time magazine each week, and that was it. But he watched TV or listened to the radio around the clock. He didn’t start working until late morning or early afternoon. For most of the time while I was growing up, he worked until around 3 a.m., and then went to sleep. He’d listen to the radio for a few hours, mostly to classic songs from the ’40s and ’50s and scores from Broadway plays. He loved to listen to Frank Sinatra. By late afternoon, he’d turn on the television to catch the news and segue into the evening sitcoms or dramatic shows. If there was a good movie on, he’d make a point of watching it.

more of Dad in the early years? I’ve talked to cartoonists who knew him in the ’40s and ’50s. In the 1950s he was a freelance advertising artist and cartoonist. He was out getting jobs and spent a lot of time in Manhattan dealing with art directors. So he was out of the house and led an active life until he started doing Apartment 3-G, which dramatically changed the pattern of his life. The guys who remember seeing my father in the flesh are those who knew him before 3-G. JA: Sam Burlockoff said he loved listening to radio talk shows. KOTZKY: Yes. There used to be a mid-day show on New York City radio with a very opinionated guy named Jack O’Brien, who had a lot of celebrity guests. JA: Was your father interested in politics? KOTZKY: He wasn’t politically active, but had conservative political opinions. With me being a teenager in the 1960s, there was the classic generation gap between the parent and the rebellious kid of the ’60s. Frankly, he was exaggerating the degree to which I was rebelling. My hair was a little long, but that was about the extent of it. I think he felt threatened by the change in society that the 1960s brought. I think he felt he was part of President Nixon’s “silent majority.” He did not vote that I remember, largely because, in New York, the jury duty notices were taken from the voter registration lists. He couldn’t chance being called for jury duty. My father never drove. He depended on my mother to do that. That contributed to his reclusiveness. When he did get out, he’d immediately go to his studio when he returned home.

“He Had No Time” JA: Did he employ any assistants before his kidney problems in 1978? KOTZKY: Yes. Ben Oda was his letterer from the beginning. He was Japanese; a very gracious guy. He’d stop by once a week to pick up the strips and scripts, and return a few days later. I think it may have been an Asian custom, but at Christmas time he gave both my brother and me presents. He was the letterer for a number of cartoonists, so he must have had quite a budget for buying presents for all the kids of the guys he was working for!

I’d come over a few nights a week and work for a few hours in mid-evening, like 8 to 10 o’clock. Sometimes, he’d tell me about a movie he saw... but that movie wouldn’t come on until one a.m. sometimes. [laughter] If he mentioned it, it was usually because he was observing the camera angles or the visuals, like in an old John Ford western. He made a point of watching baseball games on TV. Most of the time he was concentrating on what he was drawing, but if something caught his attention, he’d look up and watch a little, then go back to work. My dad did get out of the house once a week, because he was a religious man. He’d walk to church and attend on Sunday mornings. JA: But people would come over to see him. Gill Fox told me he used to do that on occasion. KOTZKY: Gill lived several hours away, and they’d talk on the phone from time to time. Maybe Gill saw

After Alex Kotzky’s death in 1996, Brian Kotzky drew Apartment 3-G for three years. These dailies are from Oct. 28-29, 1998. On the syndicate proofs, the typeset credit is “By Brian Kotzky and Lisa Trusiani.” [©2004 North America Syndicate, Inc.]

Marc Swayze

A modified one-two combination adapted to more than one customer, in Wow #40 (Jan. ’46).

Young Mickey delivers a straight left to the solar plexus in Wow #45 (July ’46)—and an uppercut to the chin, same issue!

’Tis better to give than to receive—but in Wow #45 (July ’46), Phantom Eagle took on the chin... from new Fawcett hero Radar the International Policeman, who soon became an ally.

And, in the final example, Phantom Eagle’s overhand roundhouse right stops Cecil, the San Danito heavyweight, in Wow #67 (Jan. ’48). Handy with his fists, that Mickey Malone!

P.E.’s left uppercut is brought up from the floor on the cover of Wow #61 (Dec. ’47)—and again in the panel at right from Wow #57 (Aug. ’47).

Captain Gary’s Big Bang

Captain Gary’s Big Bang An Homage to Ages Golden and Silver by P.C. Hamerlinck

Part I: GARY CARLSON Over a decade ago, Gary Carlson’s long-time collaborator Chris Ecker showed up one day bemoaning his frustration at failing to find any comic book penciling work, and always being told by publishers and editors that you “draw like an old guy.” His simple solution: to draw some old-time comics! The duo had worked together on Carlson’s Megaton comic during the 1980s, in which an older generation of heroes were to be replaced by Megaton and his friends. Ten years later, Carlson and Ecker decided to tell some of the back stories of those older characters, and a whole mythology– to be published under the banner of Big Bang Comics—seemingly began to write itself. Many people perceive Big Bang as merely a retro comic or parody book, but a closer look reveals something more unique. Heartfelt tributes are paid to the source material, rather than satirization or injecting an “isn’t this stupid?” attitude into the stories. Also, BB does not retell or do new versions of classic old stories. “We try to write and draw ‘new old comics,’ in the styles of the creators who created the original, classic iconic characters,” says chief Big Bang writer and editor Gary Carlson. “For someone who has read all the old stories of their favorite character, it‘s like finding an issue that they’ve never read before.” Carlson has even used veteran artists for BB covers whenever possible. Shelly Moldoff and Marty Nodell each drew a cover, and Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson teamed up for another (signing it “Swanderson”). At one time Kurt Schaffenberger—and more recently Nick Cardy—were set to do covers, but had to withdraw for health reasons. Even modern masters such as Alex Ross, Rich Buckler, and Terry Beatty have rendered Big Bang covers.

Just for a zane, we’ve stuck the title of this article on this cover art for the Big Bang Comics 2003 Summer Special #1, with art by Mark Lewis and veteran artist Karl Kesel. Kinda reminds one of an old early-1940s All-Star Comics cover by E.E. Hibbard, nicht wahr? [©2004 Gary Carlson & Chris Ecker.]

Alan Moore describes Big Bang Comics as “a loving pastiche of everything good about comics.” Indeed, Big Bang brings home the love for old comic books, neatly wrapped with new characters with Golden and Silver Ages all their

Alter Ego #34