Alter Ego #56 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas’ Superlative Comics Fanzine

6.95

A Sensational Symposium of Super Men!

JERRY SIEGEL No.56 AND JOE SHUSTER The Men Who Midwived

In the USA February 2006

An Industry

NEAL ADAMS & JACK JOE ADLER Production KUBERT &DCColoring Guru Artists Extraordinaire HOWARD STERN Radio/TV Iconoclast

(Oh, Yeah--And Comics Fan!)

Vol. 3, No. 56 / February 2007

™

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

Contents Writer/Editorial: Faster Than A Speeding Bullet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 “‘Superman’ Grew Out Of Our Personal Feelings About Life”. . . . . . . 3

Cover Artist & Colorist

A previously-unpublished 1975 interview with Jerry, Joanne, & Laura Siegel.

Neal Adams

“I Didn’t Want To Know [What Other Companies Were Doing!” . . 22

And Special Thanks to:

Corey Adams Joe Kubert Neal Adams Henry Kujawa Jack Adler Michael Lark Heidi Amash Steve Leialoha Manuel Auad Mark Luebker Bob Bailey Paul Levitz Matt D. Baker Alan Light Alberto Becattini Bruce MacIntosh Dean Becker Glenn MacKay John Benson Darrell McNeil Murray Bishoff Jason Millet Bill Black Bruce Mohrhard Bob Brodsky Brian K. Morris Tim Burgard Frank Motler Mike Burkey Mark Muller Pete Carlsson Will Murray Bob Cherry Mike Olzewski Shaun Clancy Jerry Ordway John Costanza Jake Oster Howard Leroy Jason Palmer Davis John G. Pierce Al Dellinges Robert Pincombe Joe Desris Trina Robbins Shel Dorf Alex Ross Harlan Ellison Charlie Roberts Bertil & Cecilia Falk Malcolm Schwartz Shane Foley Joanne Siegel Prof. William H. Joe Sinnott Foster III J. David Spurlock Carl Gafford Jim Steranko Janet Gilbert Howard Stern Dick Giordano Bhob Stewart Scott Goodell Marc Swayze Matt Gore Dann Thomas Andreas Gottschlich Maggie Thompson Jennifer Hamerlinck Anthony Tollin Jack C. Harris Alex Toth Merlin Hass Michael Uslan Daniel Herman Jim Valentino Denys Howard Hames Ware Jon Jensen Ted White Bob Hughes Tom Wimbish Elaine Kane Rodrigo M. Zeidan Keegan Eddy Zeno Rita Kelly Michael Zeno

This Issue Is Dedicated To The Memory Of

Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster and Tom Gill

Jim Amash interviews DC coloring guru Jack Adler on three dynamic DC decades.

Jack Adler’s Cousin–––Howard Stern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 The radio/TV iconoclast says: “Jack, to me, was the star of the family.”

“Coloring Really Started To Come Back With Jack Adler” . . . . . . . . . . 52 Legendary artist Neal Adams talks about working with DC’s king of coloring.

Joe Kubert On Jack Adler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 A Golden Age great, about school and coloring and 3-D—and friendship.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt: Fred Kelly Remembered, Part I . . . . . . . 63 Michael T. Gilbert and Robert Pincombe pay tribute to an artist of Canada’s Golden Age.

“Vive La Différence!” – Alex Toth On Comic Art––– Your Way! . . . 69 The Year of (Nearly) THREE New York Comicons –––Part IV . . . . . 70 Bill Schelly introduces a 1966 Q&A session with the Comics Code’s Leonard Darvin.

Tom Gill (1913-2005): “His Influence Changed Many Lives” . . . . . . . 76 re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) #115. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze, Michael Uslan, & more Brazilian goodies. About Our Cover: Three years back, artist Scott Goodell mailed us a photocopy of a piece of Neal Adams art that really knocked our super-hero socks off—and if you didn’t somehow manage to get this far without first noticing this issue’s cover, you already know why it did! But the funny thing is—neither Neal nor Scott nor Jason Millet, who’d provided Scott with that nice photocopy, has any idea of precisely where (or if) this stellar “3-S” drawing was previously published! All the more reason why Roy is grateful to his former and valued collaborator Neal for allowing us to print it for our decidedly un-stellar rates—and for even coloring it especially for this issue of Alter Ego! [Art ©2006 Neal Adams; Superman TM & ©2006 DC Comics.] Above: Maybe even the Man of Tomorrow himself is wondering where Neal’s cover illo first appeared, in this nice Curt Swan/Al Williamson panel from Superman #416 (Feb. 1986)! Reproduced from a photocopy of the original art, sent to us by Eddy Zeno. [©2006 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: $9 ($10 Canada, $11.00 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $72 US, $132 Canada, $144 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

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet T

hat’s about how quick we’ll have to be, if we want to squeeze in even a few words before launching into this chock-full issue of Alter Ego.

shorter pieces on that all-important team. Nearly before we began work on it, the issue was full—especially when we counted our regular features, which include a tribute to the late Fred Kelly.

Jack Adler was the kernel of it. Several people, including longtime DC staff colorist Anthony Tollin, said we absolutely had to interview Jack, a kingpin of coloring and production there for several decades, starting in the mid-1940s. Equally important, they insisted, were the myriad photos Jack has taken over the years of comic book talents, including some DC staffers (such as romance editors Phyllis Reed and Zena Brody) whose likenesses had not surfaced elsewhere.

A famous quote comes to mind, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s immortal novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, concerning a certain high-spirited slave girl:

Jack was agreeable to an extended interview with Jim Amash (with Jim, nearly all interviews are “extended” ones—not that we’re complaining!). In the meantime, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Jack myself at the 2004 San Diego Comic-Con. (On a bittersweet note, that’s also where I met artist Tom Gill, who passed away recently; a tribute to him is featured in this selfsame issue.) Jack, in turn, asked us to contact artists Neal Adams and Joe Kubert, plus his own cousin, radio/TV personality Howard Stern, for additional comments on his career. And, truth to tell, we’d already thought of the perfect Adams-drawn illo for the cover—one of Superman carrying his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster on his ample shoulders. This, in turn, spurred us to utilize a previously-unpublished 1975 Siegel & Shuster interview sent to us by Alan Light—as well as two

“Topsy just growed.” So did this very special issue of Alter Ego. Bestest,

P.S.: Jim Amash sent us the following paragraph, which he hoped could be included in this month’s edition, as well. Sam Huffine (1931-2005) was one of my dearest, closest friends. He erased my pages, occasionally filled in my solid black areas, and ruled my panels for most of my comic book career. He helped make what is often a lonely job fun and vibrant with his enthusiasm. He loved comics all his life and was fascinated by its history. Sam represented the very best of comics fans and was the kind of friend one seldom meets in life. The loss is great, but what was gained from his strength is immeasurable. His family and mine will always miss him. –Jim Amash.

COMING IN MARCH

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MARVEL––1939 to 1957! FROM THE HUMAN TORCH TO THE YELLOW CLAW! A Lavishly-Illustrated Index Of Every Timely/Marvel Super-Hero Tale From Comics’ First Two Decades!

• Great new cover! JACK KIRBY’s Captain America, painted by PETE VON SHOLLY! • MIKE NOLAN’s Timely Hero Index—Revised & Updated! Ever hear of The Blue Blaze? The Witness? Captain Terror? Two dynamic decades of story titles & page counts—plus a colorful compendium of additional info provided by ROY THOMAS & A/E’s ever-researching readers! • Rare art & artifacts from and about Timely/Marvel in the 1940s & 50s, by SIMON & KIRBY, EVERETT, BURGOS, LEE, SCHOMBURG, SHORES, AVISON, WOLVERTON, SEKOWSKY, ROMITA, BUSCEMA, AYERS, HECK, COLAN, LAWRENCE, SEVERIN, MANEELY, FELDSTEIN, POWELL, BELLMAN, HEATH, KANE, ROBBINS, FRENZ, BUCKLER, KUPPERBERG, HOOVER, ANACLETO, WEEKS, & others! • GENE COLAN talks (and JIM AMASH listens) about drawing Timely super-heroes in the 1940s! • Plus—FCA with MARC SWAYZE & the JACK BINDER SHOP—MICHAEL T. GILBERT— & MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Twelve Issues in the US: $72 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $144 Surface, $192 Airmail). NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

“‘Superman’ Grew Out Of Our Personal Feelings About Life” A Never-Before-Published 1975 Interview With JERRY, JOANNE, & LAURA SIEGEL Conducted by Murray Bishoff & Alan Light

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

A/E

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following interview with the original writer and co-creator of Superman (as well as his wife and daughter) occurred at the San Diego Comic-Con in August of 1975. At this time, Alan Light’s DynaPubs was publishing The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom as a combination advertising and news journal. The tabloid having only recently become a weekly, Alan was attending numerous comics conventions in its interests. Fan/collector Murray Bishoff wrote a regular column for it. Murray writes: “Someone whose identity will never be known mailed TBG a photocopy of a legal journal’s documentation of the [1948] end of Siegel and Shuster’s longrunning lawsuit against DC over the Superman copyright.” The April 1, 1975, edition of TBG, which was definitely not an April Fool’s issue, carried a column by Murray containing what he calls “the only published account of the story anywhere.” Reading that column led Shel Dorf, co-founder of The Superman Family the San Diego ComicThis photo of Jerry, Joanne, and Laura Siegel was taken at the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con— the selfsame convention at which Alan Light and Murray Bishoff taped this issue’s interview. Photo courtesy of Alan Light. The script page and drawing shown—both courtesy of St. Louis collector Bruce Mohrhard— were done on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper, probably in the very early 1940s, at the latest! The script must be from one of the radio interviews which Jerry mentions he and artist Joe Shuster did in the early days of “Superman”. “Heidt” was probably Horace Heidt, who, as Jim Amash reminds us, was a well-known orchestra leader of the 1930s and’40s who had his own radio show from 1932-53. As to the nice vintage Shuster pencil sketch, Roy Thomas wants to assure one and all that he is not the “Roy” to whom the drawing was dedicated—more’s the pity! [Materials ©2006 the respective copyright holders; art ©2006 Estate of Joe Shuster; Superman TM & ©2006 DC Comics.]

Con (which was then only five years old) and the Convention Committee to invite Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to the August event in Southern California. Jerry and his family accepted the invitation. Murray feels strongly that: “It was from this experience at the San Diego Convention that Jerry Siegel got the strength to get back in the fight. For the first time he had felt the support he always should have known from fans. A little over two months later, he went to the national press with his story.” As partly documented in Jim Amash’s interview with artist/writer Jerry Robinson in Alter Ego #39, this set in action a chain of events that led to the announcement circa Christmas 1975 of an agreement between DC Comics and Siegel & Shuster of an annual pension for Superman’s co-creators, and restored credit in both comics and the forthcoming major Superman film. Murray’s fuller account of these happenings, too detailed for inclusion in this issue, will be printed a few issues from now. Meanwhile, our thanks to Alan Light (who provided the 30-year-old audio tape, never before transcribed)

“I Didn’t Want To Know [What Other Companies Were Doing]!” Veteran Coloring Guru JACK ADLER On Three Decades At DC Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Tom Wimbish

ack Adler’s prestigious career has its roots in the earliest days DC Comics’ first big success, Superman. Those roots took hold, as Jack became one of the mightiest oaks in the DC forest. His name may not be familiar to some readers, but in those pre-computer coloring days, Jack Adler was a revolutionary innovator (his introduction of wash covers at DC being one example): the “color guru” of DC Comics. In later years, Jack became the production department head, perhaps training more people than anybody else in comics history. He did it all with hard work and a hearty sense of humor, which has only sharpened during the years. Jack and I had a lot of fun doing this interview, and I’m grateful for the comics education he gave me, and for setting up my conversation with his cousin, Howard Stern. An influential man in both words and deeds, Jack witnessed a lot of DC history, and here he is to tell you about it. All photos taken by Jack that appear with this interview are ©2006 Jack Adler. –Jim.

Look! Up In the DC Comics Offices… Jack Adler in the 1970s and as a child with his parents—juxtaposed with art from easily the most important comic with which he was ever associated: Action Comics #1 (June 1938), which introduced “Superman” to an astonished universe of youngsters. Jack painted the plates for the engravers of that classic issue. To learn more about what that entailed—read the interview! Script by Jerry Siegel; art by Joe Shuster. [Art ©2006 DC Comics.]

“I Have A Job For You Painting On Plates” JIM AMASH: When and where were you born, and how did you get interested in art? JACK ADLER: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 16, 1918, which makes me 40 years old now. When I was six, my mother was called to the school and told that her son was an artist, but this information meant absolutely nothing to her. We lived in the back of a grocery store, and that was her interest. She didn’t do anything with the information that I was an artist. JA: But you did something about it. ADLER: Absolutely! I drew and sculpted constantly; I was always making things. I was always good with my hands, and still have a complete workshop. I built a lot of the furniture in my house. Here’s how I got into the art field: I graduated from high school when I was 15 and

“I Didn’t Want To Know [What Other Companies Were Doing]!”

system possible, and I eventually changed that system. It was a peculiar way of working. We were painting on the metal plates with ink and opening up areas so the engraver could put the dots down for flesh tones. On the Sunday Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip, the engraver spent one week on one page. You can’t do comic books that way. The company was owned by Emil Strauss, who was a marvelous innovator. Both he and his son were very knowledgeable, and I learned from them. So that was my job, which I did for a couple of years before I changed our working system. I was working for a union engraver where the minimum scale was $63 a week. I was getting $6 a week, which was legal. Finally, our Color-Separated At Birth? company decided not to take in any work from the outside, This photo appeared, courtesy of Jack Adler, in Amazing World of DC Comics #10 (Jan. and to use only union engravers to do the comic books, 1976), where it was labeled: “The separations room at 487 Broadway in the 1940s. Sol which meant there was no way for us to do the books. Emil [Harrison] is on the left, standing by a cabinet. Jack is sitting in the middle of the front Strauss told all of us—Sol Harrison, Ed Eisenberg, and me— that we didn’t have jobs any more, because the union went to college, but I couldn’t afford it, so I went to night school. I went wouldn’t let us do the work. “They want union men to do the work, and looking for a job, and for the first year of school, I worked in our I don’t know how they’re going to do comic books.” grocery store. Then I pushed a wagon in the garment district on Seventh Avenue, supplying furriers with their materials, for $14 a week. A cousin that I went to school with knew Sol Harrison, and Sol said, “Tell Jack that I have a job for him at Photo-Chrome Engravers.” Sol had been in my art class in high school, and my art teacher in school got Sol into that company. He told me, “I have a job for you painting on plates.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I took the job at $6 a week, painting plates for the engravers. I wanted to be an artist, and using a brush and inks made me an artist. I worked on the engraving plates for Action Comics #1, in 1938. The company did newspaper strips as well as comic books. JA: Obviously, this was the first time you saw the Superman character. Did you have an opinion about what you were seeing? ADLER: I don’t recall having any kind of reaction to him then. I hadn’t read comic books, and had no frame of reference for Superman. I was classically trained, as far as my reading went. I went to Brooklyn College, and also to Hunter College. I switched schools in order to take the art classes Brooklyn didn’t offer. I went to school at night and worked in the daytime. I got a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and my minor was in education. My classes at Hunter were credited to Brooklyn, which was where I graduated. I also went to New York University. JA: Explain how you worked on the plates at Photo-Chrome Engravers. ADLER: I worked on the plates for the color. In other words, I painted red for the solid red areas and opening up the area for the faces. This was for printing; I wasn’t doing color guides, which was a separate issue. We were doing very limited color work. The engravers worked in the most arcane

I asked Emil, “Does your contract specify the process we use to do the Ben-Day and solid plates?” He said it did, so I read the contract. I went home, thought about it, and revolutionized the process. When I came in the next day, I had worked out another way to do it so that the engraver would have to accept our plates. I realized that the engraver would accept black-&-white work, which we would do. They could accept black-&-white plates, but each plate would be marked red, blue, or yellow. There was nothing that the union could do about it. With this new process, we went from doing one page a week to doing four pages a day. And this idea started a revolution that became a standard all over the world.

“Touché!” JA: One of the features you worked on was the Prince Valiant newspaper strip.

The Valiant Also Dye For a joint interview with himself and DC Vice President/Production Manager Sol Harrison in Amazing World of DC Comics #10 in 1976, Jack supplied the above photo of himself hard at work in 1937 doing “color separations” for Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant Sunday strip for Oct. 16 of that year. One of that day’s six lush panels is reproduced at left from Rick Norwood’s beautiful, giant-size Manuscript Press folio Prince Valiant: An American Epic – Vol. 1: 1937. [Art ©2006 King Features Syndicate.]

ADLER: I didn’t do the coloring, just the separations. The New York Journal-American was run by William Randolph Hearst, who submitted the Prince Valiant Sunday to my boss. I did four of them, and Hearst came into the place, a giant of a man who awed me because I had learned about him in school. My boss introduced him to me. My boss was a peculiar man: he liked to experiment and move on, so I only did four Sundays. Shelly Mayer ran the All-American Comics line. [NOTE: The AA company was originally co-owned by M.C. Gaines and National/DC publisher Harry Donenfeld.] We got to be close friends, and used to have dinner together. Shelly asked me what I thought about the coloring on his comics, and I told him that I didn’t like it, because coloring wasn’t advancing the story. He wanted to give me freelance coloring jobs, but couldn’t take work away from his regular colorist. I was dying for the extra work, but there was nothing I could do. One day, I got

Veteran Coloring Guru Jack Adler on Three Decades at DC

of successes. We did the first cover for Ms. Magazine. JA: Tell me about Murphy. ADLER: Murphy is probably the nicest man I know. We’ve been very close for years, and I like working with him. I did many projects with him, and many were firsts. When Murphy was freelancing, he asked me for space to work in the office, and he worked every day, as if he were on staff. He came in early in the morning, around seven, and he left at about seven at night. He just liked working where people worked, and didn’t want to work at home. With Murphy, everything is correct. He has never said a dirty word. He’s very polite, and I’ve always loved hearing that booming voice. I taught Murphy my system of color reproduction, and when I didn’t want to do color separations anymore, he did them. I trained him in how to do that, and he trained his crew. He’s probably the most modest man that I know, and also one of the most gentlemanly. I adore him, and his family, too. If Murphy used up his pencil while he was working, he would go over to my desk and take a pencil. The next morning, he would bring in a new pencil to replace the one he took. He’d stop off at the art supply store and pick up a pencil. Any time he borrowed anything—a piece of chalk, anything—he brought a new one in the next morning. He didn’t have to do that, but that’s his nature: total, total honesty. He was very correct about everything. He never understood how important he was; he never understood what his talent was. He’s like a baseball player who doesn’t know how great he is: he thinks his job is to get up there, hit the ball, get a good batting average, and that’s it. We worked together on P.S. magazine. I did the color separations on it every month, and he did the drawing. He was always on time. Murphy is never late. I worked on P.S. every week until I began to have problems with my vision. JA: In the ’70s, they went from printing comics on metal plates to plastic plates. Did that have any effect on what you did?

all the bases in the commercial art field. I set it up and the state of New Jersey immediately gave Kubert a state license to run the school. The students come out with a formidable background in art, ready to go to work in their chosen field. Joe is one of the most impressive men that I’ve ever met and a knowledgeable, direct, tough teacher. He makes sure his students are ready to work by the time they leave his school. JA: Howard Stern is your cousin. Tell me about him. ADLER: David Letterman is a friend of Howard’s. One time, Letterman called Howard, and told Howard a personal story. Next thing he knows, it’s on the air. He calls Howard and says, “Howard, I told you something so personal! Why did you do it?” And Howard said, “I can’t help it.” That’s true of him. Howard and I are very close. I said to him the other day, “Howard, I’m watching the show, and it’s getting raunchier and raunchier. I’ve known you since you were born. I know everything about you, and I can’t figure out who’s the real Howard Stern.” Know what he said? “I can’t, either.” JA: What do you think was your biggest contribution to coloring? ADLER: I was totally responsible for every change in coloring that happened. Totally responsible, every step of the way. When I decided to make a change, I just did it; it was part of my daily job. I didn’t even think of these things as changes. When I wanted to do something new, I would go to Sol Harrison, say, “This is what I want to do,” and he would say, “Do it.” He would always ask me to show it to him first, and then I would just do it. JA: When you look back on your comic book career, what was your greatest achievement, the one that brought you the most satisfaction? ADLER: My greatest achievement was being there, and being able to do the things I did. I just considered them to be things that I had to deal with at work. I was totally unaware of the importance of what I did until I was a guest of honor at San Diego Comic-Con International. When I saw the compilation of all the things that I did, I was impressed with me. [laughter]

ADLER: Absolutely none, no.

“I Was Totally Responsible For Every Change In Coloring That Happened” JA: What did you do after you left comics? ADLER: I went on to become the clinic administrator at a mental health facility, The Institute for Research in Hypnosis and Psychotherapy. The guy who ran it was Dr. Milton Klein, who was the author of many books on hypnosis. The Institute worked with hypnosis, and that was my area of concentration at that point. As clinic administrator, I administered the clinic, of course, and I was their art director at the same time. I set up all their meetings, learned how to do hypnosis, and took care of the sessions in which hypnosis was taught to psychologists and psychiatrists. It was a famous institute. The founder passed away recently, and I think the company’s now defunct. JA: Tell me about your involvement in setting up Joe Kubert’s school. ADLER: Joe called me because I had a degree in fine art and he knew my background in production at DC, plus the fact that I was also an artist. Joe asked me what kind of courses should run at the school at train students at the school. The courses that I had Joe lay out covered

Jack Of All Trades (Left:) Jack Adler and Sol Harrison appeared together photographically on the color cover of Amazing World of DC Comics #10—juxtaposed with superheroes drawn by Murphy Anderson. [©2006 DC Comics.] (Above:) Jack, a few years back—all tuxedo’d up, probably for some awards ceremony. He won a lot of ’em. Photo courtesy of Jack Adler.

Jack Adler’s Cousin— HOWARD STERN The Radio/TV Iconoclast Says: “Jack, To Me, Was The Star Of The Family” Interview Conducted & Transcribed by Jim Amash

s everyone knows, Howard Stern is one of the major successes in broadcasting history. Just this once, however, he takes a back seat (happily, I imagine) to his cousin—Jack Adler! Jack had told me how nice a guy Howard is, and while I most certainly believed him, it was a pleasure to find out for myself. After our telephone interview, I called Jack and told him how gracious, warm, and funny Howard was with me, and Jack replied, “Say that in your interview!! Put that down in print!” Okay, Jack: I just did! And to Howard: a great big “Thank You” for your time and consideration, and for helping us give Jack the appreciation he so richly deserves. —Jim

HOWARD STERN: Jack is a very special, special guy who was always very good to me, and obviously, a close family member. It was exciting to be his cousin, because, as a kid, to have a cousin who painted the covers to comic books and was an artist... it was very, very glamorous and exciting and quite magical. Jack was one of those people who was very good to me. I used A Stern Taskmaster to go to summer camp and was a huge fan of comic Jack Adler’s cousin Howard Stern—seen above in books; I had a massive a production still from his 1997 film Private Parts. Howard says that, as a kid in the 1960s, he collection of books because liked all the DC titles staring the JLA heroes—so of Jack, who sent me all the chances are he wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with first issues. He even sent me this great Neal Adams cover for Justice League of an issue of Superman America #66 (Nov. 1968). Repro’d from an image written in Arabic, and I had of the original art, as seen in a Sotheby’s art never seen anything like it catalog. [Art ©2006 DC Comics.] before. He knew I was a true fan of comics and knew I appreciated [the books], and I sent him a letter every summer from summer camp that said, “Jack, none of my bunkmates think that you’re really working for DC Comics,” and of course, that meant “Send some comic books to prove it.” [Howard laughs] He knew what was going on and was great about it. Jack turned me on to Mad magazine, which was a huge influence in my life. What happened was that I was begging my mother for a subscription to Playboy magazine... I was about 12 years old. Jack heard about it and he sent me a Playboy in the mail. I opened it up and it had all these weird little cartoons in it. I was looking at this thing and thinking, “I thought Playboy was filled with naked women.” What Jack had done was to glue the cover of a Playboy onto a Mad magazine. So when I opened it up, instead of Playboy, I had gotten Mad, which I had never seen before. I got quite turned on by Mad magazine, more so than Playboy because Mad reflected my whole sensibility about humor and revolting against authority. [laughs] My feeling about Mad magazine is that it was the beginning of the hippie movement, the counter-culture, and standing up to authority for young people. Jack was responsible for that. JIM AMASH: There’s quite an age difference between the two of you. Was he more like an uncle rather than a cousin? STERN: Yeah, I was always confused by that. I thought, “How could a guy that old be my cousin?” [laughter] You know what I mean. My mother would say, “No, that’s your cousin Jack.” That actually made him kind of cooler, because I didn’t have to think of him as an uncle,

“Coloring Really Started To Come Back With Jack Adler” Artist & Legend NEAL ADAMS Talks About Working With DC’s King Of Coloring Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

hile I was talking with Jack Adler, he suggested I interview Neal Adams about him. Well, I know a good idea when I hear it, and since I had never interviewed Neal (but had always wanted to), Jack didn’t have to do any arm-twisting. I also saw this as an opportunity to ask Neal about DC’s editorial mindset of the 1960s, and how he (and Jack) coped with it. This interview is not just about Jack Adler, but also about the company he was working for when Neal Adams’ art exploded onto the comics scene, spearheading a dynamic and groundbreaking look that still influences today’s comic book artists. —Jim.

“To Me, Working At DC Comics Was A Step Down” JIM AMASH: Tell me about the first time you met Jack. Do you remember that? NEAL ADAMS: I don’t remember the first time I met Jack, because Jack was in the production room at DC Comics, and I reckon I met everybody when I was introduced around DC, when they decided to let me bring my ungracious self into the production room and sit at one of their vacant desks. This was at a time when they were not bringing new people into DC Comics, so my coming in and sitting at an empty desk was quite an occasion. I don’t think anybody new had come into the production room at DC Comics since Mort Drucker left. It had been something like, I don’t know, 7-8 years since that had happened. JA: Since nobody new had come in there for so long, how were you received? ADAMS: Well, you have to remember that there were many, many dichotomies going on. First of all, I was young, but I had had a syndicated strip [Ben Casey] for 3 years, and I had done commercial art for several years before that, starting at 18 years old. From my point of view, I was a working professional, and to me, working at DC Comics was a step down from what I had done before. So using a desk in the production department was pretty much the way it was all the years that I had worked professionally. What you

“My Favorite Adams” That’s what Jack Adler calls the above photo, which he took. At right is a pencil sketch of Superman drawn by Neal in the 1970s, repro’d from a Heritage Comics catalog; check out the latest Heritage goodies at <www.HeritageComics.com>. [Photo ©2006 Jack Adler; art ©2006 Neal Adams; Superman TM & ©2006 DC Comics.]

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris do is, if you have an artist come in and there’s some reason for him to be sitting there, like maybe knocking out a cover or something, you make, courteously, whatever desk is available and you allow him to sit there and to do his work. So there were people who would come in and sit at a desk. Not very often, you know. Maybe a Russ Heath or somebody like that, but they would be guys who had been there a long time. JA: Like Murphy Anderson. ADAMS: Right. I was a new guy and nobody quite knew what to make of me, so there was a kind-of scoping me out and trying to understand who I was, what I was doing there, what planet I had come from. [mutual laughter] Jack Adler made it his business in a very short period of time, maybe a day or so, to come over and say hello and to be a bit more genial than everybody else. Most everybody else was pretty standoffish, except for the letterers. A guy named Joe Letterese was pretty easygoing, and certainly Sol Harrison was not friendly, but Sol Harrison wasn’t paid to be friendly. [mutual chuckling] If you asked Sol, that’s what he would have said: “I’m not paid to be friendly.” Eddie Eisenberg was pretty friendly. He was not quite as friendly as Jack, but he was open and comfortable, and I kind-of liked Eddie. JA: On a side note, I’m not quite clear on what Eisenberg did. ADAMS: Neither am I. You know, it’s a weird thing. [chuckles] What did Eddie Eisenberg do up at DC Comics? It’s one of those—if Sol Harrison was head of production, and all those other guys were production guys, what did Eddie Eisenberg do? I don’t know, because I never saw him color. I think he probably had a lot to do with scheduling. He worked as Sol’s assistant, but he wanted to be equal, and I don’t think he liked that he wasn’t.

“Coloring Really Started To Come Back With Jack Adler” Well, anyway... so Jack made himself known to me and I, of course, because he was that way, I would come over to his desk and say, “What’re you doing?” “Coloring this,” he’d answer. Now, Jack did spend an awful lot of the time doing the color separations on the covers, so I found his job to be particularly interesting relative to the other guys around there who were doing, probably, the most atrocious coloring I’ve ever seen in my life. If there was a club for atrocious coloring, there they were. [chuckles]

53 dots get bigger. When you get down to about a hundred thousand copies, you’re pretty much printing as if you were printing on blotter paper. But that was the process that DC Comics used. JA: You had colored your Ben Casey Sundays, weren’t you?

ADAMS: Yes, and I did color illustration, too. I understood color separation. Color separation today is way, way different than it was then. In those days, you basically broke down your colors into red, yellow, and blue, and you And they didn’t know, poor signified what percentages of red, guys. If you only have the yellow, and blue that you wanted “I’m Late, I’m Late, For A Very Important Date” production guys around you to on every color that you put down. draw from, then there’s nobody The caption accompanying this photo in Amazing World of DC Comics #10, The color guides had a fair amount in 1976, reads: “Lillian Mandell hands Jack Adler a layout to a late book.” there to set a standard and say, of color on them, but it wasn’t She was Jack’s secretary at the time. “Well, you know, if you have a giant very sophisticated. And all the lobster come from the sea, and he’s colors had numbers on them, indicating what color they were, so that going to attack your boat, you don’t color him the same color as a the separator would not pick the wrong color and give you a purple face. cooked lobster. A cooked lobster is red, but a live lobster is kind-of seagreen, blue-greenish, so you don’t color him red.” But they didn’t have somebody who’d say that, so they’d color the lobster red, because the only lobster they saw was when they went out to eat lobster. [laughs] What you have to do is read the caption, and if it says, “Then the moon came up and the flier could see by the silver light of the moon that this isn’t daytime and that’s not the sun...” then you’ll know it’s nighttime. And over here on this page it states, “Seven, that’s now daytime.” And they didn’t do that, so you really couldn’t tell day or night if you were reading some of those comics, unless the artist made the sky black. That’s one of the things that Alex Toth did that I thought was so good. The scene is set at nighttime? Make the sky black—then how can you miss?

“In A Group Of Barbarians, [Jack Adler] Was The Civilized Man” JA: Right. So what was Jack like when you started interacting with him? ADAMS: Well, he was friendly. He was cautious and careful for his job, but he was more conscientious than all the other guys, and because he was doing the covers first of all, there were people who’d kind-of complain that he was doing the covers. I guess they couldn’t understand it, but when Jack had a daytime scene, he’d color it like a daytime scene. [chuckles] In a group of barbarians, he was the civilized man. [mutual laughter] Jack naturally attracted my attention because he had the aura of civilization about him, so I could at least sit and talk with him about color, and why this works better than that, and all the rest of it. We had a lot of conversations about the use of color, and about the printing process that we were using at DC, and compared to the rest of the world, which was out of the Stone Age and DC being in the Stone Age. You know, they printed with what we call, in the business, “relief presses.” Relief presses are pretty much what Benjamin Franklin used. It’s slightly more sophisticated in its machinery. Basically, it was a press where you put ink on the plate—and the plate is this raised metal—and you put the ink on the raised metal, and it stamps it onto your paper. At the beginning of the run, that’s not so bad because the process isn’t so terrible. But then, after a while, the stamping of the metal starts to wear on the metal and it starts to flatten out around the edges, and then your

JA: You say that Jack was more conscientious than the others. That’s why he did the covers, because DC thought that’s what sold the magazines back then. ADAMS: A civilized man in a room full of barbarians is going to be chosen to do the most important stuff. So complain as the other guys may have done—and they did—Jack was heads and shoulders above them, quality-wise, enough so that there was no comparison. And to release a cover to somebody else... that would almost be like committing suicide. But also, Jack understood more about separations because the color separations for covers were not done in color. He would make a color guide. Nor were they done the way the women in Connecticut that we referred to as “the women in Connecticut who did the color separations for the comic book pages.” It wasn’t done even by the same methodology. What Jack would do is, he would take what we call “blue lines” of the cover that were all exactly the same size and he would color the various layers of color—red, yellow, and blue—in tones of gray. Now if you know that, for example, a flesh tone is 25% red and 25% yellow, you learn after a time how to lay down a gray that represents 25% from white to black, what that tonality is. And so you take the red plate and you do that tonality on the face. Then you take the yellow plate and you do the tonality on the face. Then, when these gray tone sheets are sent to the printer, or the separator, what they do is they photograph the grays through a dot plate, and they get a metal plate, and the difference is that on their red plate that’s metal and was made from gray, they put red ink and that’s what prints. And on the yellow plate, they put yellow ink and that’s what prints. And on a blue plate, they put blue and that’s what prints. So Jack’s grays then became the various colors, and that’s how you used to get color on your covers. So Jack not only had to be a good colorist, he had to know through his grays what percentage of his grays actually equaled the colors that he expected to get. That’s a pretty sophisticated understanding. You can have that understanding, and not do it well, and get some really bad mixes of color. So essentially, you’re doing these separations on these blue lines that will give you exactly what you want on the cover. And that’s a skill that, once you’ve set somebody down, hopefully, you’ve got the right guy to do it. Nobody’s going to step easily into that job.

Joe Kubert On Jack Adler

RT: So it looks as if the school may work out, after 30 years? [mutual laughter] KUBERT: I’ll tell you, I’m amazed that it’s lasted as long as it has. RT: I think you’ve spent more time at running this school than you spent before as just an artist. [laughs] Or about 50-50, anyway. KUBERT: It’s about 50-50 now. But on the other hand, I’ve been able to do my work while the school has been in existence. And if push came to shove—if I was in any way hampered by the school, not doing the work, I would have closed the school up a long time ago. RT: Yeah, it wouldn’t be a substitute for the drawing you do. But as long as we’re talking about Jack, do you remember when or where you might have become aware of him up at DC? KUBERT: He was one of the first guys I met when I went up to DC, but I’m not sure exactly when I met him. I know I’d met Julie Schwartz when he was still working up at All-American Comics. That’s when Shelly Mayer was still editor up there, when I first started doing “Hawkman” and stuff like that. I’m not sure whether I met Jack before I went up to DC. I don’t even remember the first time I went up to DC.

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RT: Oh, sure, because, in 1944-45, AllAmerican was at a different address from DC proper….. KUBERT: Right, that was at 225 Lafayette Street. I’m not sure exactly where, but I know I’ve known Jack for a long, long time. In fact, I met the three guys—Jack and Sol Harrison and—what the hell was the other guy’s name? RT: Ed Eisenberg, maybe? KUBERT: Eisenberg, right. You’re much younger than I, but you knew these guys real early on.

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Anyway, I think Jack is one of the brightest, one of the smartest guys, especially when it came to the technical aspects of the business—production and printing and the plate-making, all those things that were involved. Well, he was head of production, and the reason he was head of production is because he knew it so damn well. Yeah, there’s a lot I want to tell you about

Joe notes that Jack Adler had developed “the best kind of 3-D” for National/DC in 1953—although DC may not have taken full advantage of it, since Roy remembers the company’s Superman 3-D and Batman 3-D comics as being relatively flat compared to St. John’s and Harvey’s. Seen here is the 2-D back cover of Superman 3-D, featuring art by Wayne Boring, et al. [©2006 DC Comics.]

Jack. Let me start out at really the beginning. I met Jack when he was involved in production and doing the colors. And Jack and Eddie used to color my stuff, and they did the best kind of work on my stuff that I knew, especially Jack. The other thing was that, when Norm [Maurer] and I came out with the 3-D comics [for St. John Comics, in 1953]—the guy that came out with the best kind of 3-D, and really tossed us in the ashcan with how good he was doing, was Jack. He was the one that created the 3-D process for DC Comics. And his was way far ahead, far beyond what we were trying to do. He was able to get some sort of a twist so that you could get depth within a figure. Now, DC may not have applied that full effect in their comics. A lot of stuff we saw that he did do was just terrific. It’s funny, I heard the story from Jack later on: they had dumped the responsibility of creating this 3-D on him, and said, “Can you do it? Go ahead and do it.” And Jack just sat down and did it—plus the fact that Jack, as you probably know, is one of the best photographers I know. He’s got stuff that’s absolutely beautiful; pictures that he had taken were absolutely beautiful. And Jack has been, above and beyond everything else—I know a lot of guys in the business, but not a lot of people that I can call friend, and Jack is one of them. Jack is absolutely one of them.

Above: Michael T. Gilbert and Fred Kelly at the 2004 Paradise Toronto Comicon. Below: The Globe’s respectful, if not-entirely-accurate obituary (see next page).

A Comic Fandom Archive Special Multi-Part Series...

Leonard Darvin Speaks (About The Comics Code)–– & Ted White Answers! Part IV of “1966: The Year Of (Nearly) THREE New York Comicons!” Interview Edited by Bill Schelly

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

hold the post for n issue #53, the Comic something like two decades. At Fandom Archive began this point, we pick up right running a series after Thompson related to what asked the we believed to be audience if they three comics had any conventions held questions. They did, of course…and in New York City in 1966: an earlysome of them proved to be quite in-the-year “mini-con” sponsored by pointed. We’ve had to edit for space, Calvin Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein but have tried to preserve the feel of magazine —a larger convention the exchanges…! hosted by EC fan John Benson—and, only three weeks after the latter, a comicon put on by David Kaler, who AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: Mr. had produced the “Academy Con” Darvin, I have here a piece of the year before. However, I recently original art by Wally Wood from learned that my memory had played T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2, which tricks on me—and that the Beck con shows a picture of a robot striking a was actually held not early in 1966, as policeman. This was rejected by the I’d recalled—but early in 1967, Comics Code. Do you several months after the believe, or does the Code Benson and Kaler cons. Swat Team – Comics Code Style believe, that if kids see Despite the mis-recolWe couldn’t find either a robot or a cop in all of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2—but could the above this, they’ll go out and hit lection, this approximately page from issue #3 (March 1966) being eyeballed by moderator Don Thompson (right) and policemen? Is that why it Leonard Darvin (left) be the one a fan asked Darvin about on the Benson con panel? As it half-year period did see was rejected? turned out, though, reporter Don was not destined to be Comic Code administrator Darvin’s three comicons in New principal antagonist that day in July ’66! York—only now, by sheer DARVIN: No. That’s a Actually, the attackers aren’t really robots—just subterraneans in armor—but they sure look like happenstance, we’ll be very good question. The robots. It’s easy to imagine the policeman in the middle panel being swatted in the next one— covering them in chronoCode has a specific even easier to imagine the Code “requesting” that that drawing be changed to something less logical order! provision which says that “disrespectful” of law enforcement officers. Art by Dan Adkins & Wally Wood, as repro’d in policemen and other DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives, Vol. 2; scripter unknown. [Art ©2006 John Carbonaro.] Parts I & II presented government officials shall an overall view of the not be put in an embarBenson con at the Park Sheraton Hotel rassing or undignified position. [laughter] Normally, in Manhattan on July 23-24, 1966; and we can allow some violence when police are involved. Part III, last ish, featured a But this is an area where we are very careful. We transcription of the first part of a probably suggested that they change the policeman into debate between Leonard Darvin, an a [security] guard. As long as this provision is in the attorney who in 1966 was the acting Code, we don’t allow cops to be mauled too much, and administrator of the Comics Code we don’t allow police cars to be battered up too badly. Authority, the organization that passed As I say, a criminal can resist arrest, but he can’t judgment on comic book material submitted to it, and Don Thompson, More Than Smoke Gets In Your Eyes journalist and comics fan (and later, In pre-Code days, even cops who didn’t actually get shot with wife Maggie, the longtime coby the robbers were liable to get hurt, as per this panel from editor of Comic Buyer’s Guide). a (coverless) copy of an issue of Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Darvin would soon be officially Not Pay. Art by Fred Kida. Thanks to Jim Amash. appointed administrator, and would [©2006 the respective copyright holders.]

Leonard Darvin Speaks––& Ted White Answers

71 DARVIN: First of all, at the time the Code was started, practically every publisher that is in business today was in the business then. A great many of those publishers published material that could not meet the standards of the Code. Because they wanted to remain in the comics field, they adjusted their material [to fit] within the confines of the Code. WHITE: What the Code had—

Three Cheers For the Ted White & Blue By the latter 1960s, science-fiction fan Ted White—already a contributing editor and columnist for the jazz magazine Metronome—was beginning to sell his sf stories and novels, as well; a few years later he would become editor of the sf mag Amazing. Above is a caricature of Ted drawn by his then-wife Sylvia for his article on DC Comics in Dick & Pat Lupoff’s fanzine Xero #2 (1961). [©2005 the respective copyright holders.] At right is the (uncredited) cover of the 1968 paperback Captain America: The Great Gold Steal written by White—the second novelization starring a Marvel super-hero (the first had been Otto Binder’s Avengers novel a year or so earlier). Roy Thomas recalls Stan Lee having him “vet” the C.A. manuscript. [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

overcome the policeman in too direct a fashion because of the Code. Some of the major areas where we feel that a child might be badly influenced by what he sees are, for example, when it comes to poison. We don’t usually allow the story to delineate what kind of poison, especially if it’s a kind that’s available to a kid. Another example: we had a story the other day in a humorous context where a kid, a baby about three years old, took the key and opened a parking meter and the money fell out, quite accidentally. [audience chuckles] Meanwhile, something like that had happened in the news. So we asked the publisher to eliminate that sequence, and it involved getting rid of the whole story, because this is big news today, and people will say he found it in a comic book. So, fighting police—we tone that down, although not always, and depending on the situation. THOMPSON: There’s a hand in the back there. TED WHITE: Are you prepared to defend the harassment of EC comics by the Code, which destroyed EC? [audience applauds loudly] DARVIN: Well, if I were Bill Gaines, I would contribute to the government at least 10% of what I made as a result of the Code activity, because he made a great success out of Mad magazine when it was eliminated as a comic and became a satire magazine. WHITE: That had nothing to do with the Code. Going to magazine format was Harvey Kurtzman’s own idea. Can you defend how you managed to put the best science-fiction, the best war, and some of the other best magazines out of business? DARVIN: Let’s answer that in its proper context. We did not put anybody out of business ... [interrupted by audience reaction] WHITE: You directed their distributors that they would not be carried, you censored stories, you tried to remove Negro characters from stories where the whole point was tolerance. I’m well aware of these examples. Let’s see you defend them. [audience applauds]

DARVIN: Now wait a minute! You asked the question, and I’m trying to answer you. I may not answer to your satisfaction, but I’m trying. Now, those companies managed to stay in business and be very successful, working within the self-imposed Code. Secondly, there remained other publishers who did not join the Code, who have still not joined the Code. There was no coercion that could be applied to them. When you say EC was forced out of business—first of all, your sympathies are misdirected, because EC has done very well for itself. They haven’t been lost, because they’ve since been published in paperback book form. Finally, if EC felt very strongly about remaining in the comics field, they could have done it without the Code, just as Dell did, just as Classics did, just as Western has done since. So when you say that we burned them out, that is ridiculous. Actually, it was a fortuitous circumstance, because [EC] put out Mad as a satire book, and it became tremendously successful. They eventually sold it for a million and a half dollars, and now National owns it. And it’s still edited by the same people, so where is the loss? WHITE: Would you really like to know, or are you just professing platitudes? DARVIN: Well, where is the loss? WHITE: Where is the EC Comics line? Is it alive or is it dead? DARVIN: It’s in the form of paperback books. WHITE: It’s in the form of reprints, but they’re reprints of material done in the early ’50s. Why is there no opportunity for that kind of material to be done today? DARVIN: I’d say that, if Bill Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman wanted to put out comics, … they could have worked within the Code and still created significant creations just as Marvel has done, just as National’s done, just as Archie and Harvey and American Comics Group and Western are doing. WHITE: Can you acquaint me with the work of these other companies that is on the level of what EC was doing in terms of artwork and stories? DARVIN: I certainly can. I think you have many in this room today that are doing far better work than EC ever dreamed of. I think you people just have a sentimental attachment to— WHITE: I defy that you find one example of artwork of the quality of Wally Wood or Al Williamson of that period, to say nothing of Bernie Krigstein. DARVIN: I assure you I can show many examples.

Hollywoodchuck – Part II Batman Begins Co-Producer MICHAEL USLAN On Being a Filmmaker— & A Junior Woodchuck by P.C. Hamerlinck

NTRODUCTION: Part I of this article, in A/E #54, dealt with Michael E. Uslan’s youthful discovery of comic books in New Jersey, his experience with friend Bob Klein on the fabled “DC tours” in the early 1960s (including pleasant run-ins with future Shazam! editor Julius Schwartz), and with his attendance of the 1965 David Kaler comicon in Manhattan. It also recorded his visits to the home of Golden Age “Captain Marvel” scribe Otto Binder in Englewood, NJ. While attending Indiana University, he persuaded the folklore department to let him initiate an accredited course on comic books. By a skillful use of publicity, he parlayed this into first obtaining considerable cooperation from Marvel editor/writer Stan Lee—and was soon called by DC vice president Sol Harrison, who was eager to fly Uslan to New York and “talk about ways you might be able to work with us.” Ere long, Uslan found himself in the DC offices of Sol and editorial director Carmine Infantino. “As a longtime fan,” he said, “it was an incredible feeling….”

The Junior Woodchucks Sol Harrison was a key figure in Uslan’s life. He mentored the younger man into the business, paving the way towards Uslan’s life dream one day coming true: to produce a dark, serious version of “Batman.” Harrison had three programs he felt Uslan could help them with. The projects became a part of Uslan’s duties during his early involvement with DC Comics.

One was a program to get comic books distributed via college bookstores, as DC found their market was growing older and older each year. The second was the development of a series of educational comics to teach learning-disabled children to read and to teach English as a second language, utilizing the services of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. DC worked with a team of researchers from the Graduate School of Education of Harvard. DC asked Uslan to work on the program with the goal of selling it to the New York City Board of Education, which was ultimately achieved. The third program was Harrison’s experiment involving a new way to distribute comics called “The Comic Mobile”—selling comic books à la an ice cream truck selling its treats up and down neighborhood streets. “I tried to make use of every second while I was there,” Uslan said. He was inducted into a new group within the company. Since the term “interns” didn’t exist at that time for comics workers, the group was named “The Junior Woodchucks.” Members included Paul Levitz (who arrived at DC several months before Uslan), Guy Lillian, Carl Gafford, Allan Asherman, Jack Harris, Anthony Tollin, Steve Mitchell, and later Bob Rozakis, who replaced Uslan when he went back to school in Indiana. One of the Junior Woodchucks’ many duties was to produce the scholarly fanzine The Amazing World of DC Comics. “DC saw us as the first generation of real fanboys who had futures in the business in various capacities,” Uslan said, “and we were being developed in that way.”

Woodchuckin’ It Michael Uslan (above right) with FCA editor P.C. Hamerlinck—flanked by the covers of two of the nearly 20 issues of Amazing World of DC Comics. That inhouse DC fanzine was put together by Michael Uslan and the other “Junior Woodchucks” between 1974 and 1978. #2 & #17 featured Captain Marvel and other Fawcett-derived heroes on the covers… and #17 (it says “#16” in the indicia) was a mostly-Shazam! issue. Art by Kurt Schaffenberger and Alan Weiss, respectively. [Art ©2006 DC Comics.]

Hollywoodchuck –– Part II

85 Uslan tried to dig up something quick. “Uh ... it’s about ... smuggling ... from Canada to the United States,” Uslan exclaimed.

In addition to Woodchucking, Uslan made time to become friendly with many of the DC staff. One in particular was Gerda Gattel. “She was one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever met in my life,” Uslan recalled. “I would talk to her about the old days at DC. At the time she was in charge of DC’s library. She knew how interested I was in comic book history. Most days around lunchtime Gerda would let me go into the library, and she would pull down volumes of books for me. Ultimately, over my summers with DC, I wound up reading every comic book they had ever published. I also had a chance to talk to Ira Schnapp, who had designed virtually every DC logo. He had refined Joe Shuster’s logo for ‘Superman.’ Amazing people ... it was a phenomenal time to be there.”

“Smuggling what?” O’Neil asked. “Uh ... uh ... drugs ... smuggling drugs!” Uslan said. “Well, what’s the catch? How do they do it?” “Well, you know how in the ’30s and ’40s people were going over the Falls in barrels ... well, the smugglers would go over the Falls with false bottoms on their barrels and they would wash over to the Canadian side from the American side ... that’s how they're doing it.”

O’Neil was satisfied with the scenario: “Great—can you have the story on my desk by 6 o’clock tomorrow?” Uslan told him no problem, and started writing the script on the train back to Jersey. A full pot of coffee was made as he put in an allnighter ... and was still writing on the train back to the city the next morning. Splash of Mike Uslan's first pro script—The Shadow #9 Uslan “cut a deal” with one of the secre(Feb.-March 1975). Art by Frank Robbins & Frank McLaughlin. Each Woodchuck was assigned to Thanks to Mike. [∫©2006 DC Comics.] taries and continually fed her pages to assist a different DC editor: Bob Rozakis type, and by 6 p.m. that day a “Shadow” was with Julie Schwartz; Paul Levitz with Joe Orlando; Jack Harris with script was on O’Neil’s desk. Uslan overnight had become a comic book Murray Boltinoff; Alan Asherman, Levitz, and writer. Uslan with Denny O’Neil. “I was there summers A few weeks later, walking down a DC hallway, through 1974, and then I started writing for DC,” he was approached by Julie Schwartz: “Hey, kid, I Uslan said, “so when I went back to school in read your ‘Shadow’ script.” Indiana I would send in my scripts through the The Junior Woodchucks were more than just a working group; everyone socialized and hung out together on weekends. “Allan Asherman would show up with his 16 mm film collection of old science-fiction movies,” Uslan said. “We’d have BBQs and swim parties. There was real camaraderie amongst us.”

mail, working closely with O’Neil, Asherman, and Rozakis. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. The Woodchucks knew everything that was going on behind-the-scenes at DC in those days.” How did Uslan transform from Junior Woodchuck to Writer? It was around 6 p.m. one evening when he heard screams of anguish coming from O’Neil’s office. Carmine Infantino had cancelled The Shadow comic. Then revised sales figures came back showing a spike in sales for the book. Suddenly, The Shadow was uncancelled, but weeks behind schedule. “Denny was going crazy,” Uslan recalls. “He was under deadline pressure ... he was writing ... he was editing ... and he needed a Shadow script immediately.” Uslan heard opportunity knocking as he stood in O’Neil’s office. “Denny, I have an idea for a ‘Shadow’ story,” Uslan said. Actually, he didn’t, but knew he had to seize the moment. Uslan and his wife had just returned from a vacation up in Niagara Falls. With that in mind, he described to O’Neil a visual: set in the ’30s, a time when it was in vogue for the ambitious to walk across the Falls on wires, The Shadow is seen balancing on top of a wire fighting a guy over the Falls. O’Neil loved it: “That’s a great visual. OK, what’s the story?”

“You did?” Uslan asked. Then, as only Julie Schwartz could express it: “Yeah. Didn’t stink.” Then Schwartz asked Uslan if he wanted to take a crack at ‘Batman.’ “I had to head back to school,” Uslan said, “so, in collaboration with Bob Rozakis—who was working with Julie at the time—we developed an idea I had into a 3-part ‘Batman’ story that I co-wrote. It was a dream come true.”

“The Closet”

Guilty Pleasures? This Dave Manak illustration of Superman and Captain Marvel accompanied Michael Uslan’s article “When Titans Clash… in Court.” From Amazing World of DC Comics #17 (16?) (April 1978). [©2006 DC Comics.]

During Woodchucking at DC, one of the tasks Sol Harrison asked Uslan to do was to clean out “the closet.” Uslan compares “the closet” to something like the last scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Located between the offices of Carmine Infantino and DC advisor/original EC publisher Bill Gaines, the closet, according to Uslan, “looked as if a tornado had hit it, with stuff just pouring out of it. It took me weeks to go through it.” Uslan uncovered a huge treasure trove ... a virtual museum of DC Comics history: “Everything was in there. I found George Reeves’ Superman costume ... I found Adam