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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!

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Vol. 3, No. 37 / June 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

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artists/Colorists Wayne Boring C.C. Beck

And Special Thanks to: Neal Adams Bob Bailey Brian H. Bailie Mike W. Barr Sy Barry John Benson Luciano Bernasconi Doug Bost Chris Brown Gary Brown Garrie Burr Mike Catron Bob Cherry Leone Cimpellin Shaun Clancy Russ Cochran John L. Coker III Ray A. Cuthbert Brian Cutler Teresa R. Davidson Al Dellinges Joe Desris Wayne DeWald John Doliber Al Feldstein Shane Foley Joe Frank Keif Fromm Jean-Peal Gabilliet Janet Gilbert Dick Giordano Scott Goodell Walt Grogan Jennifer Hamerlinck David G. Hamilton Keith Hammond Wally Harrington Ron Harris Hurricane Heeran Jan Alan Henderson

Bob Hughes Alan Hutchinson Richard Kolkman David Anthony Kraft Richard Kyle Tom Lammers Bob Lane Pat Lang Michael Lark Jean-Marc Lofficier Chris Malgrain Andy McKinney Tobi L. Miley Jason Millet Sheldon Moldoff Will Murray Lee Nail Franco Oneta John G. Pierce Richard Pryor Jerry Ordway Ed Rhoades Charlie Roberts Ethan Roberts David Siegel Marc Swayze Dann Thomas Anthony Tollin Alex Toth Jaume Vaquer Jyrki Vainio Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Mark Waid Tom Watkins John Wells Marv Wolfman Glenn Wood Joanna Martine Woolfolk Michael Zeno

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Philip Wylie, & Rudy LaPick

K-METAL & GLADIATOR Section

Contents Writer/Editorial: Our Cup Runneth Over––and Spilleth! . . . . . . . . 2 Gladiator of Iron, Man of Steel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Will Murray on how a 1930 novel by Philip Wylie probably influenced Superman— plus a visual synopsis by Ron Harris & Roy Thomas.

The Kryptonite Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Secret origins of the 1940 “K-Metal” story that could have changed Superman forever! “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s––Noel Sickles!”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Alex Toth tells how the genius behind Terry and the Pirates nearly drew Superman. ComicCrypt:“My World:The Al FeldsteinInterview––PartI” . 33 Michael T. Gilbert talks to the man behind Tales from the Crypt—about Ray Bradbury, et al. RudyLaPick:“RudyLovesEverybody&EverybodyLovesRudy!” . 39 A brief tribute by Jim Amash to a renowned Archie artist. Gary Brown, Comic Book Reporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bill Schelly converses with a major editor from the Golden Age of Comic Fandom. Sy Barry: His Life and Times Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flip Us! About Our Cover: During his retirement, Wayne Boring—either the first or second person hired by creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to help produce Superman material—began to draw and paint re-creations and new color paintings like this one featuring the Man of Steel. Thanks to Charlie Roberts for supplying, from his own collection, this 4th of July artwork drawn in 1981 by the man who became Superman’s most influential artist during the 1950s. [Art ©2004 Estate of Wayne Boring; Superman TM & ©2004 DC Comics.] Above: So-called “ashcan editions” of comic books were published quickly, often virtually overnight, by publishing companies to secure the trademark for titles of projected new magazines. The art on ashcan covers didn’t really matter—and neither did the precise contents—only the name was important. This Superman Comics ashcan from 1940, for instance, utilized (in black-&-white—no sense wasting money on color!) Joe Shuster’s cover art from Action Comics #7, and interior story and art from #8. Nowadays, however, possession of such publications is a rarity; only two copies of this particular ashcan edition are known to exist! [©2004 DC Comics.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. 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

Our Cup Runneth Over–and Spilleth! Sheesh (as somebody I know used to say)! These issues of A/E seem to get more and more crowded, with less and less space for my erudite writer/editorials. (Not that I’m complaining, mind you—nor, last time I looked, was anybody else.)

This time, we had no room for any editorial at all on the flip side of the issue, so we’ll use this space to say how overjoyed we are to present there Jim Amash’s in-depth interview with Golden Age comic book artist and longtime Phantom illustrator Sy Barry. Not only was The Phantom (as created by writer Lee Falk with the aid of artist Ray Moore, back in 1936) influential on several generations of super-hero costumes that came after—The Ghost Who Walks even sports the trunks-over-tights look!—but Seymour “Sy” Barry restored the newspaper strip to its rightful glory when he began drawing it in the 1960s. Our only regret is that, because his interview appears in an issue which was already scheduled to front Captain Marvel art by C.C. Beck, we couldn’t feature any of Sy’s Phantom work in color—an oversight we hope to find an excuse to remedy at some time in the future.

As for the rest of this issue—well, we got in all our regular departments, with a double-size FCA section, Bill Schelly on comics fandom’s Golden Age, Alex Toth on Noel Sickles, and Michael T. Gilbert’s interview with Al Feldstein, one of the most important writers and editors in the history of comic books—and, to boot, we’re spotlighting not one but two articles by the esteemed Will Murray. What’s more, they’re on a pair of topics of real significance to comics history—the “KMetal” story of 1940, which nearly introduced Kryptonite into comic books before it so famously made its debut on the Superman radio series, and a close look at major author Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator, which many believe (Will Murray and myself most definitely among them) to have been a major influence on the creation of Superman, and thus on the entire history of the American comic book. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite to read both sides of this issue—well, we hear there’s an interesting sex survey in Cosmopolitan this month. (It’s totally different from the sex survey they featured last month.) Bestest,

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COMING IN JULY NOW MONTHLY!

ALLSCHWARTZ COMICS!

Special Full-Issue Tribute to JULIUS SCHWARTZ! He Left His Mark on the Golden Age—and Spawned the Silver!

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Gladiator of Iron–Man of Steel How a 1930 Science-Fiction Novel by PHILIP WYLIE Probably Influenced SUPERMAN by Will Murray

The two fathers of the super-hero! Philip Wylie (left) and Jerry Siegel—flanked by their landmark creations. The Wylie photo appeared on the dust jacket of his 1972 novel The End of the Dream, Siegel’s in Les Daniels’ exhaustive 1995 tome Superman: The Complete History—one of whose few flaws was its failure to mention either Gladiator or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars as potential influences on Superman.

Siegel, Science-Fiction, Superman— and Philip Wylie

The cover of Manor Books’ 1976 paperback reprint of Gladiator (left) seems to acknowledge the connection with the phrase “American superman”—while 1/3 of its back cover is taken up by the two words “Super Powers.” Too bad that somehow the hero’s name got rendered on the covers as “Henry Danner,” not Hugo—and that a superfluous “The” was added to the book’s title. Joe Shuster’s Superman illo at right, from an early issue of Action Comics, shows some vestigal suggestion of his original laced-up sandals; they’re certainly in evidence in Action #1. [Superman art ©2004 DC Comics; Gladiator cover ©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

On those rare occasions when he talked freely about creating Superman, Jerry Siegel was pretty consistent.

In 1941, he said, “I am lying in bed counting sheep when all of a sudden it hits me. I conceive a character like Samson, Hercules, and all the strong men I ever heard tell of rolled into one.” Years later, he put it like this: “The idea came to me in bed one night. A champion for good with the strength of Atlas, as invulnerable as a perfect Achilles, plus the morals of Galahad.” There are some who believe that Siegel should have been citing more contemporary pulp fiction characters like Zorro, John Carter of Mars, and Doc Savage. Regarding the Doc Savage influence, Siegel deflected the issue by saying, “I read enormous quantities of eerie-hero-oriented pulps like The Shadow.” That may be, but the early Superman demonstrates some very specific Doc Savage tricks, such as putting people to sleep via pressing on a neck nerve and climbing brick walls by the sheer strength of his fingertips. Several early “Superman” plots are lifted straight from the pages of Doc Savage magazine with minimal changes. In the case of Clark Savage, the Man of Bronze, vis-à-vis Clark Kent, who eventually became known as the Man of Steel, I suspect Siegel of being disingenuous, if only out of legal necessity. Then there’s Philip Wylie. As far as I know, Siegel never commented in print on the impact that reading Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator had on his own formative hero. It

has been rumored for years that he reviewed it glowingly in the May 1933 issue of his fanzine Science Fiction, but no one to date has ever produced the review.

That Siegel did read it, and was influenced by Wylie’s prototypal superman, Hugo Danner, seems an inescapable conclusion. If there was a seminal influence on Superman, more than any other work, Gladiator almost has to have been it. Wylie’s biographer Frederick Keefer says as much in his book: “One of the main challenges to Wylie in writing Gladiator was the need to devise spectacular feats for Hugo to perform and then to make them seem probable. Our exposure to the Superman comic strip unfortunately obscures the originality of many of these inventions, which, according to Wylie, as well as recent scholars, were ‘borrowed’ from Gladiator. Hugo hurtling across a river in a single leap, bounding fifty feet straight up on the air, holding a cannon above his head with one arm, killing a shark by ripping its jaws apart, felling a charging bull with a fist between the eyes, lifting an automobile by its bumper and turning it around in the road—all of these were, in 1930, fresh and new and very exciting to read about.”

The Coming of Hugo Danner The story behind Gladiator is intriguing. Philip Wylie wrote the book in 1927. It was his first novel. Perhaps wisely, his publisher held it back, thinking that before releasing such an improbable work, Wylie should first establish himself. When finally released by Alfred A. Knopf in 1930, Gladiator constituted Wylie’s third published opus:

How Philip Wylie's 1930 Novel Gladiator Probably Influenced Superman

Bonomo, or Charles Atlas. Just as baby Clark Kent will do in his first published story, baby Hugo breaks his crib apart. (A cage of iron replaces it.) And, like the young Superman, he learns that he is not simply stronger than normal, but possesses unbelievable speed, endurance, and leaping abilities. Hugo is only ten when a run through the woods turns into a paroxysm of self-discovery: In those lonely, incredible moments Hugo found himself. There in the forest, beyond the eye of man, he learned that he was superhuman. It was a rapturous discovery. He knew at that hour that his strength was not a curse. He had inklings of his invulnerability. After Hugo demonstrates his powers to his father, Professor Danner tells him of his earlier experiment, and explains: (Above:) This 1934 house ad for Street & Smith’s Doc Savage Magazine suggests one place Jerry Siegel might’ve picked up the idea for a character called Superman—except that Siegel’s prose story “The Reign of the Superman” appeared in a science-fiction fanzine dated January 1933, while Doc’s pulp only started with a March ’33 cover date! Of course, the word “Superman,” a translation of the German term “Übermensch” coined by philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche, had already been around since the late 19th century. [©2004 Condé Nast Publications, Inc.]

“That medicine changed you. It altered the structure of your bones and muscles and nerves and your blood. It made you into a different tissue from the weak fibre of ordinary people. Then—-when you were born—you were strong. Did you ever watch an ant carry many times

At the turn of the 20th century, Colorado scientist Abednego Danner is fascinated with the disproportionate strength possessed by certain insects. Ants are capable of lifting several times their weight. The grasshopper can jump the equivalent of a mile. Can these attributes be transferred to other species? Danner’s successful experiments with creating supernaturallystrong tadpoles lead him to inoculate a newborn kitten he dubs Samson. At six weeks, Samson can bring down a full-grown cow as prey. Danner finally decides to inject this serum into his unborn child. His goal? “To produce a super-child, an invulnerable man.” He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Later, when Hugo proves to possess astonishing power, Professor Danner tells his wife: “He’s strong. Stronger than a lion’s cub. And he’ll increase in strength as he grows until Samson and Hercules would be pygmies beside him. He’ll be the first of a new and glorious race. A race that doesn’t have to fear—because it cannot know harm.” The parallels between Professor Danner and Jerry Siegel talking about their super-offspring are striking, but possibly coincidental. It’s interesting that neither invokes folklore figures such as Paul Bunyan or John Henry, or a professional strongman like Eugene Sandow, Joe

Wylie biographer Frederick Keefer states that, in 1930, the idea of a man “killing a shark by ripping its jaws apart” was “fresh and new and very exciting to read about”—and Marvel writer/editor Roy Thomas felt that story deserved to be told in comic books, even 4 H decades later. Thus, in the black-&-white Marvel Preview #9 (Winter 1976), Roy scripted the first of his three comics-style adaptations of Gladiator—although that issue’s 53 comics pages covered only half of Wylie’s novel, and there was never a “part two.” Since Marvel’s Daredevil had a villain named Gladiator, and since there’d been Titans (of the Teen variety) at DC, it was decided to title the Marvel version “Man-God.” Cover painting by Earl Norem; interior art by John Buscema & Tony DeZuniga. Thanks for the nice scans to Garrie Burr. [©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Gladiator of Iron––Man of Steel its weight? Or see a grasshopper jump fifty times its length? The insects have better muscles and nerves than we have. And I improved your body till it was relatively that strong. Do you understand?” “Sure, I’m like a man made out of iron instead of meat.” “That’s it, Hugo. And, as you grow up, you’ve got to remember that. You’re not an ordinary human being. When people find that out, they’ll—they’ll—“ “They’ll hate me?”

Strongman Eugene Sandow, born in Germany in 1867, first gained notoriety by breaking Try-Your-Strength machines, and came to America in 1893. He died suddenly of a hemorrhage at age 58 after single-handedly lifting a car out of a ditch. Note the laced-up sandals which were carried over, along with elements from the garb of circus acrobats, into the early Superman costume.

“Because they fear you. So you see, you’ve got to be good and kind and considerate—to justify all that strength. Some day you’ll find a use for it—a big, noble use—and then you can make it work and be proud of it. Until that day, you have to be humble like all the rest of us. You mustn’t show off or do cheap tricks. Then you’d just be a clown. Wait your time, son, and you’ll be glad of it. And—another thing—train your temper. You must never lose it. You can see what would happen if you did. Understand?”

He might have been Jonathan Kent counseling his adopted son Clark.

Men and Supermen There had been inhumanly strong characters in fiction before—those whose powers bordered on superhuman. John Carter, future Warlord of Mars, gained superior strength and the ability to leap great distances after being translocated to the weaker gravity of the red planet in the first novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A similar idea drove John W. Campbell’s Aarn Munro, the hero of his 1934 novel The Mightiest Machine. Having been born on heavy-gravity Jupiter, Munro possessed inhuman strength on Earth. Pulp precursors like Frederic Dey’s Nightwind and Max Brand’s Whistling Dan Barry had pushed the limits of human pulp potential into tall-tale territory. Outside of the pulp magazines, an obscure turn-of-the-century newspaper strip character called Hugo Hercules could lift a fire engine and outrun a streetcar, and once kicked a house into the next block. (This particular case of parallelism would seem to be pure coincidence.

Roy T.’s second adaptation of Gladiator was a one-issue affair in The Young All-Stars #10 (March 1988), as related in a journal written by Hugo Danner—and read by his son, “Iron” Munro, of whom more on p. 6. The cover depicts Hugo in battle during the World War I; the interior panels show him revealing his powers to his father, building his own early “fortress” of solitude (see p. 12), and working briefly as both boxer and strongman. Art by Brian Murray—though the cover may have been inked by Dick Giordano. Thanks to Bob Cherry. [©2004 DC Comics.]

Philip Wylie

Gladiator

SOLD OUT

Title Comic Fandom Archive

GARY BROWN, Comic Book Reporter The Editor of Comic Comments, et al., Talks about Fanzine-publishing, C. C. Beck, and the “Lost” 4th Issue of FATMAN! by Bill Schelly Introduction To state the obvious, we wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the fans who stepped into the breach when Jerry Bails, Ronn Foss, Biljo White, and other early pioneers lowered their fannish profiles. In the mid-1960s, a new generation of enthusiasts rose to the fore, thus ensuring that comics fandom would become an ongoing, selfsustaining movement. A large influx of such individuals—dealers, fanzine editors, writers, artists, convention organizers, and collectors—bid fair to propel fandom’s Golden Age toward the decade’s end. The Comic Fandom Archive would be neglectful indeed if it didn’t plumb the memories of this group of torch-carriers, and chronicle their indelible contributions to fandom and comics alike. One such second-generation fan was Gary Brown, whose name will be familiar to fanzine fanatics of the late ’60s and early ’70s, including Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector, where he was a regular columnist for several years. Although I’ve known Gary for decades through the mails, it was a great pleasure to finally meet him at the 2002 San Diego Comic-Con and to interview him at length a year later. So multi-faceted was Gary’s fan “career” that Roy and I decided to split this chat into two halves. The interview was conducted by telephone on October 2nd, 2003, and was transcribed by Brian K. Morris. BILL SCHELLY: Let’s start with when you were born and related details. BROWN: I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, February, 1947. My mom was a housewife for a while; then she worked for as a secretary for Goodyear

Alan Hutchinson’s intricate illo for Gary Brown & Wayne DeWald’s Gremlin #2 fanzine was a parody of the cover of the Beatles’ legendary 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. [©2004 Alan Hutchinson; characters TM & ©2004 the respective trademark and copyright holders.]

in Miami for a year when we moved there. My dad was a carpenter and worked for several places in Cleveland. After we came down to Miami in 1956, he worked for Eastern Airlines until he retired. I have one sister, two years younger than I am. BS: Why the move to Miami? BROWN: One branch of the family moved down there, and really liked it. We came down to visit with them, and my mom and dad said, “Hey, let’s do this. We’re tired of shoveling the snow, and ice, and sleet.” So we did. We moved, and I grew up not in Miami, but in Hialeah, which is sort of a suburb in Dade County. BS: I have a lot of friends who were born in 1950, ’51, ’52 … so our pasts of the comics, the distance we reached back in the ’50s with our memories, were about the same. But you remember buying earlier comics off the stands than I did, because you’re a bit older. When did you first discover comics, and what were they? BROWN: My parents always bought comics for me to read. They were never against them. My dad read them in World War II, and occasionally picked up some throughout the other years. We had sort of a ritual. Every Saturday night, we’d go down to the corner Both Gary and his dad loved Blackhawk, but Gary really started collecting comics after he picked up Action Comics #256 (Sept. 1959). The circa-1960 Blackhawk cover is by Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera; “Superman” pencils by Wayne Boring. [©2004 DC Comics.]

“I Got To Realize My Dream!” SY BARRY on His Career in Comic Books— The Phantom—and His Big Brother DAN Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash [INTERVIEWER’S INTRO: Sy Barry was known as one of the best inkers in comic books, lending his unique talents to heavyweight pencilers such as Alex Toth, Gene Colan, and his own brother, Dan Barry. Sy’s work, from Lev Gleason to Timely to DC Comics and other publishers, was imbued with a lushness that few could equal. And let’s not forget that Sy often penciled, as well, providing top-notch work for a host of comics well-remembered to this day. But Sy had other ambitions. The dream of most comic book artists of his time was to draw a newspaper strip. Though he had assisted his brother Dan on Flash Gordon, it was The Phantom with which Sy was to make his mark in syndication. For over thirty years, Sy gave life to “The Ghost Who Walks,” keeping the adventure strip a vital commodity in newspapers. In this interview, Sy gives life to the days in which most of the men who created comics now seem just as ethereal as The Phantom. —Jim.]

JA: You were born in 1928, so you were the right age to discover comic books when they started. BARRY: I sure was. I remember when “Superman” first appeared in Action Comics in 1938. Before that, I had seen other adventure features, like Flash Gordon and Hal Foster’s Tarzan, which they put into Big Little Books, too. I was very torn, because I did want to be an illustrator, but I just had the drive to do comics. It was my second year in high school when I decided to go in that direction and study cartooning. Of course, cartooning took in the illustrative style as well as the humorous stuff. When my anatomy teacher saw that I was switching to this, he was furious with me; he felt I would make it as an illustrator. But I stuck it out and got to meet people like Al Scaduto, who did They’ll Do It Every Time. Al was in my class at the time, as were Joe Giella and Emelio Squeglio, who liked being called Mel. He looked like New York’s Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia... he absolutely did not look like a “Mel” to me. He still calls me “Seymour” and I still call him Emelio; I

“I Can Do That Stuff” JIM AMASH: What got you interested in becoming a cartoonist? SY BARRY: I originally wanted to be an illustrator in high school and attended the School of Industrial Arts, which is now the School of Art and Design. I took an illustration course and my anatomy teacher liked my work very much. I discovered that artists I had known were making money in cartooning, doing adventure work. It looked very illustrative to me and I thought, “I can do that stuff, so why not get into it and make some money a little quicker?” It also had a certain excitement to me, because I felt that comics had more flair to them than illustration did. There were more themes to explore and lots of action, as opposed to illustration, which I felt was a little too quiet for me.

(Top left:) Sy Barry hard at work circa 1990, in a photo by Ed Rhoades—and primo specimens of his comic book and comic strip art. (Above left:) Sy’s splash from Strange Adventures #22 (Oct.-Nov. 1954), for what editor Julius Schwartz called in A/E #26 one of his science-fiction titles’ “Earth-in-a-strange-position” stories. With thanks to Chris Brown. (Above right:) This 2001 drawing of The Phantom and Devil was used as the cover of the 23rd issue of Friends of The Phantom magazine (Fall 2002), published by his friend Ed Rhoades. Thanks to Sy, and to Ed Rhoades for his assistance with scanning, for all photos of Sy which appear with this interview, unless otherwise noted. [Strange Adventures art ©2004 DC comics; Phantom art ©2004 Sy Barry; The Phantom TM & ©2004 King Features Syndicate.]

“I Got To Realize My Dream!”

can’t bring myself to call him “Mel.” [NOTE: Emelio Squeglio will be interviewed in A/E #41.] JA: You’re unusual in the sense that your older brother Dan was also a cartoonist. How much older than you was Dan? BARRY: Five years. That’s a big difference when you’re young, because he was hanging out with an older crowd. There was another brother in between us. My parents had eight children—five boys and three girls. The only ones left now are my youngest sister and me. Dan and I were the only artists in the family. My younger brother Ray went to the School of Industrial Arts, but he didn’t like it and went to another school. He became a plumber and was more successful than Dan and I put together. [laughs]

“I Pounded the Pavement” JA: I never asked Dan this, but I always assumed he wanted to be a cartoonist at an early age, too. Did he influence you at all?

Smilin’ Ed’s Gang was a popular kids’ radio show in the 1940s-50s, hosted by “Smilin’ Ed” McConnell, with, er, help from Froggy the Gremlin. It also featured short radio melodramas starring heroes such as Ghanga and his elephant Teela (inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s “Toomai of the Elephants” and other stories from his Jungle Books and the pre-Disney films of same), little Kulah and his Jinni, and other rotating concepts. The sponsor was Buster Brown Shoes. Here are a pair of covers drawn by Dan & Sy Barry for giveaway issues of Buster Brown Comics. Thanks to Sy & Ed Rhoades. [©2004 the respective copyright holders.]

BARRY: Yes, he did. First, let’s go back to when Dan was in high school at Straubenueller Tech, in Brooklyn. He left there while in the twelfth grade to draw comics. But I mainly looked at pulp illustrations and full-color ones in magazines. I read books and wasn’t an avid comic book fan.

probably bit all his nails off, always worried about pleasing his boss. A couple of times, around Christmas, we’d play tricks on him, making him think his boss was on the verge of firing him. It was very zany stuff and we’d tell his boss, so he wouldn’t fire him.

Dan got out of the service around 1946, before I graduated from high school that year. He was already married and had a child while in the service. They were living in Brooklyn then. I was doing spot black-&white illos for a furniture company. I also started doing little fillers for Quality Comics, Standard Publications, and I think for DC, too; they were called National back then. Actually, I started doing this work in 1945, when I was seventeen.

We’d put work on his desk that we did for other companies, to make it look like Ed was moonlighting in his own office. [laughter] To Ed, it was like the roof had fallen in; he was afraid of what his boss would say if he saw it.

For Quality I was doing full-page fillers. Some were ads that advertised future books. I’d draw a couple of name characters in the ads, like the Blackhawks, and I’d leave room for dialogue.

JA: What were the Hillman offices like, and who was Cronin’s boss?

George Brenner was the one who hired me to do this, but my memory of him is very vague. I was only working there intermittently, because I was doing work for other places, too. I’d call him up and get work when I could. There wasn’t any steady work there, so I pounded the pavement and did those fillers when they became available.

“Ed [Cronin] Did Have Something Going On…” BARRY: I can’t remember his name. The offices were just a little bit smaller than DC’s. In those days, DC’s offices at 480 Lexington Avenue were small… just a few editorial offices and one reasonably-sized art room where art production was done. Cronin had a secretary. He did have help, but whether it was an actual assistant editor, I can’t say. I did crime comics for him.

JA: In 1946, you did a feature called “Treasure Keeper” for Crestwood Publications.

Actually, Ed did have something going on that his boss didn’t know about. Ed was an agent for Buster Brown comic books. Buster Brown was a shoe chain, and with every pair of shoes that were sold to a child, they’d give out a Buster Brown comic book with three 8- to 10pagers in each one. Dan and I did some stories for those books, around 1948. Ed would line up the printer and a couple of people to letter and do production. Dan and I made the color work-ups, and the printer followed them.

BARRY: I think they were called Feature at that time, but I don’t remember anything about it. By 1947, I was working for Charlie Biro and Bob Wood at Lev Gleason Publications, as well as for [editor] Ed Cronin at Hillman Publications. Ed was a wonderful guy, but uptight and extremely anxious about his job. He was the kind of guy who

There are two more funny stories about Ed. Whenever I brought work in, it had to be at the exact proper moment, because his staff couldn’t be around. Ed didn’t want them to know about the outside work he was agenting out. He had to be totally by himself. On one occasion, I was actually in the supply closet, can you believe it? He had

JA: Did you happen to meet Jack Cole? BARRY: No, but I did ink a couple of “Plastic Mans,” and they asked me to imitate his style. I got to be known as an inker, but I also penciled. I never worked steadily for Quality. I’d just do a couple of stories a year, but this was later, in the early 1950s.

Marc Swayze.

ately acclaimed. When I met him in 1939, a decade of professional experience had been added to the original talent and training. I was impressed... not only by his proficiency with pen, brush, and pencil, and his knowledge of the work... but the ease and pleasure with which he performed it. In 1945, when it became necessary that he go for further hospital tests, the work left on his drawing board bore no signs that it had been accomplished when he was enduring constant pain. Instead, it was characterized by all of the qualities that had so impressed me when we first met ... the life in his characters, the spontaneity in his drawing ... his talent. Keaton... Raboy... Beck... and there were others. The three were regaled at the mention of “talent.” There was another trait they held in common that is difficult to identify... like a refusal to back away from a challenge. I’ve never heard it expressed in words, but in drawing board language it might sound like: “Bring it on ... I can do it! May take a little more time... a little more research... but let’s have it! I can do it!”

[Marc Swayze will be back next issue with more memories from the Golden Age of Comics.]

COMICS’ GOLDEN AGE LIVES AGAIN!

COMMANDO YANK BLACK TERROR AVENGER PHANTOM LADY CAT-MAN DAREDEVIL CRIMEBUSTER CAPTAIN FLASH MR. SCARLET SPY SMASHER SKYMAN STUNTMAN THE OWL BULLETMAN FIGHTING YANK PYROMAN GREEN LAMA THE EAGLE IBIS The Original GHOST RIDER The above is just a partial list of characters that have appeared in AC Comics’ reprint titles such as MEN OF MYSTERY, GOLDEN AGE GREATS, and AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS. Virtually all issues published to date are available at $6.95 each. To find over 100 quality Golden Age reprints, go to the AC Comics website at <accomics.com>. AC COMICS Box 521216 Longwood FL 32752 Please add $1.50 postage & handling per order.

The World’s Finest Big Red Cheese Captain Marvel’s “New Look” by John G. Pierce Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck New Looks for Old The mid-1980s saw unprecedented changes in longstanding comics characters, as the old gave way to the new. This was particularly true at DC, where new versions of Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and others were brought in to replace the previous ones. The idea of injecting a fresh spark of life into old characters by revamping them is nothing particularly “new.” However, what was different was the method DC chose to accomplish the task: either killing off a character, or completely ignoring his/her previous existence, in order to introduce the new version. It was sometimes specifically stated that “the previous stories never happened,” or “haven’t happened yet.” Basically, stories previously done were mainly just ignored. This wasn’t always the case. Beginning with Batman in 1964, a “New Look” philosophy implemented by the company took existing features and revised them by introducing a new artistic style, usually in concert with a different

[Left:] Don Newton, drawn by C.C. Beck, 1980. [Above:] Newton artwork from the 1970 Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector “Captain Marvel Special,” combining realistic and traditional styles in drawing the World’s Mightiest Mortal. [Art ©2004 Estate of Don Newton; Captain Marvel TM & ©2004 DC Comics.]

writer (and often editor), and perhaps some costume changes, in an attempt to boost sales. With Batman, this surely succeeded, and for a number of years the sleeker Infantino-illustrated figure became the standard. With the Blackhawks, a few years later, an attempt to transform this long-standing para-military team into costumed heroes can only be deemed ill-advised, and doomed—deservedly so, many would say—to an early death. But with the original Captain Marvel (the term “original” might have been called into question by DC at the time), his saga is well-known: one of the most popular comic book characters of the 1940s, as published by Fawcett Publications, he eventually fell prey to the public’s changing

[Left:] In 1972 editor Julius Schwartz hired original “Captain Marvel” artist/cocreator C.C. Beck to draw Shazam!—but it wasn’t Beck’s best work any more than it was Julie’s or writer Denny O’Neil’s. Sometimes, even with an assemblage of such talent, things just don’t work out. We’ll have more to say about the DC Shazam! series next issue. This is the final newly-produced page for issue #1 (Feb. 1973). [Above:] Golden Age aficionados generally concur that the stories written by E. Nelson Bridwell under editor Joe Orlando came closest to catching the spirit of the 1940s/early ’50s “Captain Marvel” stories, as in Shazam! #28 (March-April 1977). Art by Kurt Schaffenberger. [©2004 DC Comics.]

Paul Bunyan and Other Great Blue Bores by C.C. Beck Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck [This article was written circa the mid-1980s by Captain Marvel’s original chief artist, and was first published in FCA #59, 1998.] “Tall Tales,” stories about fantastically exaggerated heroes like Paul Bunyan and John Henry, have always bored me. Even the stories in Greek mythology have always seemed pretty overdone to me and I’m glad that hardly anyone bothers with them anymore. When the comics came along, they took the place of all the old classic children’s tales, most of which were pretty silly if not downright stupid when you think about them. Tall tales are lies. Huge, utterly unbelievable lies. There are (or used

to be) societies whose members vied with each other in contests to determine who could tell the Bunyan by Beck, 1987. most completely unbelievable lie. [Art ©2004 Estate of C.C. Beck.] In telling a tall tale, the storyteller didn’t have to be interesting to tell his story well, nor even to be in the least entertaining. All he had to do was be completely unbelievable. For that he got a prize? Even more boring are the itty-bitty-cutesie-wootsie stories about adorable little talking animals and fairies and that sort of drivel. I have never had any objection to stories about talking animals and magic; I object only to those stories whose writers seem to be saying, “You feeble-minded little readers, I’m really poking fun at you and you’re too stupid to know it!” These writers are doing the same thing as the tellers of tall tales, that is, downgrading their audience. Personally, I don’t enjoy being downgraded, do you? The kind of story I liked as a boy, and still like today, is a story in which strange, wonderful, exciting things happen to the hero. Gulliver’s Travels, The Three Musketeers, the Tarzan and Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, all kept me enthralled for years. I still have these stories, and I read them again from time to time. They’re still fine stories!

Notice that I said “a story in which strange, wonderful, exciting things happen to the hero.” I didn’t say “ a strange, wonderful, exciting hero.” The heroes of my favorite stories were Gulliver, D’Artagnan, Tarzan, and John Carter. All were ordinary men who found themselves in strange situations. Gulliver found himself among people only six inches high, among people seventy feet tall, among wizards and magicians, and among talking horses. D’Artagnan found himself in a world of nasty villains and wonderful heroes quite unlike his (and my) backwoods home. Tarzan found himself among apes and savages, among men the size of ants, among beastly villains and lovely heroines and godlike men in ancient civilizations. John Carter found himself on the

Paul Bunyan and Other Blue Bores

planet Mars among horrible beasts and villains and heroes of all sizes, shapes, and colors. What these heroes did in their strange situations was what made the heroes! And that made great stories! But the average comics publisher never seems to have grasped the simple truth that the readers want to find out what a hero pretty much like themselves will do when placed in a tight situation. He can have a knife, like Tarzan did, or a sword and a gun as Gulliver and D’Artagnan had, or all three, as John Carter had. He does not need to be able to fly, or to crash through steel walls and tear down mountains and all that silly Paul Bunyan stuff. On Mars, John Carter found that his earthly muscles enabled him to leap and run much better than his enemies could. This was because he was in a strange setting, not because he was strange himself. Gulliver was a huge giant in Lilliput, a tiny doll in the land of the giants. But he was always himself. Tarzan was a weakling as compared to the giant apes among whom he lived. D’Artagnan was a mere lad of eighteen when he went to Paris to face villains in their thirties and forties. Not one of these heroes had any special powers at all. They were often beaten up (D’Artagnan), sick to the stomach (Gulliver), horribly mangled (Tarzan), and even stripped down and thrown into dungeons (John Carter). “How will the hero get out of this mess?” was the reader’s question. “I know he will... but how? Wow! This is really exciting!” But in comics we start off with a hero who is impervious to everything, who has two or three dozen stupendous superhuman powers, who is made of steel, rock, fire, rubber, or who perhaps was put together by a demented scientist. Comic heroes must lead boring lives. “Ho-hum,” they must say, “not much happening today. I think I’ll go out and kill all the

crooks in town. Or maybe I can destroy some bad guy’s army. Let’s see, what bad guy’s army needs destroying today?” When Superman started, he was a being from another planet who found himself on Earth. Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians or John Carter among the Martians, he had powers that others didn’t. He was able to do strange, wonderful, exciting things... for a while. Then the publishers made a Paul Bunyan of him. Superman became so huge and so fantastic that he became a big, blue bore. He still is. When Captain Marvel started, he was a small boy, Billy Batson. He had the powers of certain ancient gods and heroes given to him by the wizard Shazam so that he could turn into a big, powerful man, “the World’s Mightiest Mortal.” Captain Marvel didn’t fly until his publisher made the writers put that and other nonsense into the scripts. As Billy Batson, he got into all sorts of scrapes and tight situations, some of them pretty fearsome. Every kid would like to have a big brother or a big father or a big uncle he could call on when the going gets rough. Captain Marvel was Billy’s big brother... in the days when big brothers were nice to have around. But they made a Paul Bunyan out of Captain Marvel, too. He had to fight Hitler’s army, Hirohito’s army, and fly and crash through steel walls and rip up fortifications and generally make a big, boring nuisance of himself. Finally everybody got sick of him and he went out of business. Twenty years went by. The comics were worse than ever. All the heroes were flying around aimlessly, trying to find something to do. People stopped buying new comic books and turned to reading old ones. “What do you know? These old comics are really great!” the readers said. “Why doesn’t some publisher bring them back?”

Alter Ego #37