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YOU’VE SEEN ALL 3 FILMS! NOW READ ABOUT-TM

THE X-MEN MOVIE THAT NEVER WAS!

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No. 58 May 2006

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AWESOME Art & Artifacts by:

Vol. 3, No. 58 / May 2006

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Editor

Roy Thomas

Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash

Design & Layout

Christopher Day

Consulting Editor John Morrow

FCA Editor

P.C. Hamerlinck

Contents

Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert

Editors Emeritus

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

Production Assistant

Eric Nolen-Weathington

Cover Artist

Gil Kane (layout) & Mark Sparacio (painting)

Cover Colorist

Chris Irving tells how The X-Men became the nucleus of Marvel Comics.

“X” Marks the Sprocket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The 1980s X-Men movie that might have been—but never was.

“The Kon-Tiki Statue Blowing Its Nose Was Our Favorite Scene!” . . . 16 Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas talk turkey about their 1984 X-Men screenplay.

Bob Brant And The Trouble-Shooters—Plus Lance Brant . . . . . . . . . . 30 A 1953 Timely/Marvel series that had kids & mutants—by Thomas C. Lammers.

Tom Ziuko

And Special Thanks to:

Neal Adams Heidi Amash Bob Andelman Brent Anderson Ger Apeldoorn Sergio Aragonés Terry Austin Bob Bailey Allen & Roz Bellman John Benson Daniel Best Dominic Bongo Jerry K. Boyd Will Brehm Chris Brown Frank Brunner Orlando Busino R. Dewey Cassell Brent Canavan Nick Caputo Vic Carrabotta Don R. & Ivy Carol Christensen Dave Cockrum Gene Colan Carla & Cara Conway Gerry Conway Mike Costa Phil Couto Ray A. Cuthbert Shelton Drum Shane Foley Greg Gatlin Jeff Gelb John Gentil Janet Gilbert Mark Glidden Matt Gore Jennifer Hamerlinck Jack C. Harris Heritage Comics Daniel Herman Christopher Irving Martin Jukovsky

Writer/Editorial: An X-Rated Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Children of the Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Adele Kurtzman Richard Kyle Thomas C. Lammers Arthur Lortie Mark Luebker Don Mangus Christie Marx Bruce Mason Dave McDonnell Angel Medina Craig Miller Brian K. Morris Frank Motler Will Murray George Olshevsky Gary Owens John G. Pierce Bud Plant Ethan Roberts Steven Rowe Scott Shaw! Robin Snyder Flo Steinberg Bhob Stewart Dann Thomas Leona Thomas Frank Thorne Alex Toth George & Dorothy Tuska Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Jim Valentino Dr. Michael J. Vassallo Alan Waite Hames Ware Bill Warren Robin Waugh Len Wein Steve Whitaker Ted White Malcolm Whyte Rodrigo M. Zeidan Eddy Zeno

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Mort Leav & Bill Fraccio

Riddle Of The Rabble Rouser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Will Murray on the eerie relationship between Rabble Rouser and Hate-Monger.

“Jack [Kirby] Says You’re A Good Artist” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 1950s Timely artist Vic Carrabotta tells Jim Amash about drawing for Stan Lee, Charlie Biro, et al.

A Cruise And A Comicon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Another 1950s Timely staffer—Allen Bellman—still keeps busy!

When Is An “Unknown” Not Unknown?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Hames Ware on the life and career of artist Ray Willner.

A Silver Anniversary For A Silver-Ager & Spouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Roy & Dann Thomas celebrate their 25th—with art & photos from a four-color 1981wedding!

Comic Crypt: Russ Manning – The Fan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Michael T. Gilbert & Ray Cuthbert examine the Tarzan/Magnus artist’s pre-pro work.

“Ball’s In Your Court Now—And No Text To Help You” . . . . . . . 67 Incomparable artist Alex Toth on silent sequences in comics.

Tributes to Mort Leav & Bill Fraccio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The Forgotten ’50s: Will Comics Ever Again Be As Exciting As EC? . 70 Bill Schelly spotlights a 1966 panel with Archie Goodwin, Bhob Stewart, & Ted White.

re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections on our Will Eisner issue:]. . 75 FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America] #117 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze & C.C. Beck—plus Captain Marvel & The Human Torch!

About Our Cover: It was a natural choice to utilize the late great Gil Kane’s half-cover of the classic 1975 Giant-Size X-Men as this basis of this issue’s cover. Working from a copy of its oft-reprinted rough (reprinted yet again, above!), artist Mark Sparacio painted a truly stunning cover especially for Alter Ego. Talk about combining beauty and power! [Painting ©2006 Mark Sparacio; rough ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.; X-Men TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Alter EgoTM is published monthly, except Jan., April., Sept., and Nov. 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 ($11.00 outside the US). 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

An “X”-Rated Movie

ep, that’s right. The X-Men screenplay Gerry Conway and I wrote in 1984 for what could’ve become a major Hollywood movie a decade and a half before the 2000 big-budget blockbuster might easily have been rated “X.”

Still, as a snapshot of what it was like, in the mid-1980s, to be working on the screenplay of a potential studio movie at a time after most of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, but before Tim Burton took on Batman—and in an era when Marvel had had zero success in getting any of its properties transmuted to the big screen—we thought you might enjoy listening in on Gerry’s and my recent phone conversation. And reading what Chris Irving has to say about both our X-Men screenplay and the comic book, by way of introduction.

“X” for: extraordinary… exciting… exuberant… excessive… exaggerated… exasperating… exceptional… expressive… explosive… Execrable? We hope not. And, finally… exterminated. ’Cause, like the vast majority of screenplays written—even purchased, as this one was—by motion picture producers, it never got made. As you’ll see in the last of the three X-Men-related pieces in this issue, we two veteran comic book writers/editors found the experience (another “X”!) of writing that script to be all the above adjectives, at one time or another… all over a period of a few months in 1984. Still, we deemed it interesting, even amusing, to look back on it more than two decades later… and hope you enjoy our dissection of the event. Like most things in life, our joint remembrances of writing that script often resemble nothing so much as the classic Japanese film Rashomon, in which several people recall the same events through different eyes, with different minds—and wind up occasionally with wildly varying conclusions.

Even with this issue’s focus on Professor X’s exceptional students, though, we still managed to squeeze in plenty of other material, much of it Marvel-related this time… plus our regular departments and another feature or two. We won’t claim this issue of A/E contains “something for everybody”—but if you have any real interest in the history of the comics field, we kinda suspect you’ll find something in it to your taste. From mutants to Manning to MegaCon to Man Comics, and, yes, marriage—this one’s got a little bit of everything. Read two articles—maybe three—and e-mail us in the morning. Bestest,

COMING IN JUNE

DARK NIGHTS & STEEL!

Batman, Superman, & More In The Golden & Silver Ages! • Mind-blowing new Batman cover painting by award-winning artist ARTHUR SUYDAM! • Interviews Galore! ARTHUR SUYDAM on his early comics career—modern legend NEAL ADAMS on 1960s/70s DC—SHELLY MOLDOFF on Batman, Hawkman, & BOB KANE—major Superman artist AL PLASTINO—& Golden Age illustrator FRAN MATERA (Doll Man, Steve Roper, etc.) talks to JIM AMASH! • When Superman co-creator JERRY SIEGEL wrote The Spider! (No, not that one —or that one, either!) Article by ALBERTO BECATTINI. • “Superman and the Third Reich!” by DWIGHT DECKER—MURRAY BISHOFF on SIEGEL & SHUSTER! • Plus FCA with MARC SWAYZE, JERRY ORDWAY, RUBEN PROCOPIO, et al.— BILL SCHELLY‘s 1966 Benson Con Report—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on RUSS MANNING—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS ©2006 Arthur Suydam.] Comics; other art elements [Batman TM & ©2006 DC

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The X-Men Movie That Never Was! part one

Children Of The Atom

Or: How THE X-MEN Mutated To Become The Nucleus Of Marvel Comics by Christopher Irving

Lee & Kirby

he X-Men weren’t always a strong part of the core of Marvel Comics. In the 1960s, they started out as weaker electrons, orbiting a nucleus composed of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.

Led by the bald and wheelchair-bound Professor X, Marvel’s X-Men were brought to life by the legendary team of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby in The X-Men #1(Sept. 1963). With field leader Scott (Cyclops) Summers, Hank (Beast) McCoy, Bobby (Iceman) Drake, Warren (Angel) Worthington III, and the lovely Jean (Marvel Girl) Grey, The X-Men were mutants—each born with an “extra” power. Working under the cover of Professor X’s School for Gifted Youngsters headquarters, the group were assembled to deal with potentially dangerous mutants. In their first appearance, with Charles Xavier leading them from afar via telepathy, they fought Magneto, the Master of Magnetism.

The Men Behind The Mutants Images of X-Men co-creators Stan the Man and King Kirby from F.O.O.M. #1 (1973) & #11 (1975)—plus a flashback page from a never-published fill-in issue of The X-Men! The latter, produced circa 1990 by “new X-Men” co-developer Dave Cockrum (penciler), Joe Rubinstein (inker), & Roger Stern (scripter), includes this truncated look at the early days of the mutants’ original mag. Thanks to Dave for providing photocopies of the original art. The cover of F.O.O.M. #1 was, we assume, conjured up by editor/wizard Jim Steranko by doing weird and wonderful things to a photo of Stan Lee, while the one celebrating Jack’s return to Marvel in the mid-’70s is by John Byrne & Joe Sinnott. Byrne, of course, became the fourth artist of major importance to The X-Men, the previous three being Kirby, Neal Adams, and Cockrum. [Art ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Stan and Jack continued to produce X-Men in the “Mighty Marvel Manner,” and the extra-powered teens continued to face off against misunderstood and downright criminal mutants: The Vanisher, The Mimic, The Blob, Unus the Untouchable, and Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (The Toad, Mastermind, Quicksilver, and The Scarlet Witch). Within the first year, readers saw the five students “graduate,” with Cyclops becoming the field leader. Stan and Jack also introduced Cerebro, the device used to track down new mutants, and the Savage Land, where the Tarzan-like Ka-Zar lived amongst dinosaurs and cavemen. The bimonthly X-Men slowly started to come into its own after the second year, with the introduction of Xavier’s step-brother Cain Marko, The Juggernaut, in #12 (July 1965); the layouts by Kirby and finishes by the also-legendary Alex Toth still manage to shine, despite Vincent Colletta’s heavy-handed inking. Kirby stayed on the book through issue #17, by which point he’d also helped Stan introduce the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots, and had ushered in the return of Magneto with help from Werner Roth (using the pseudonym “Jay Gavin”).

How The X-Men Became The Nucleus Of Marvel Comics

The X-Men would typically have three-issue story arcs that would flow from one to another, with several running story threads. The most noted thread would be the beginnings of “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” which would ultimately go down as one of the most memorable longrunning stories in super-hero comics, and would push the limits of mortality in that genre.

“[Claremont] comes in the next day, and says, ‘We’re gonna kill her,’” Shooter stated in A/E #24’s transcription of a 2000 convention panel. “He thought I would never go for this, that there was no way I would ever agree that a major Marvel character could be killed. I said, ‘Okay, done.’ Looking back on it, it’s a huge story. It was really the thing that catapulted The X-Men to Number One.”

Throughout several issues, Jean Grey’s powers increase, while her humanity slowly begins to slip away. As she is psychically manipulated by the villain Mastermind, she comes in touch with her dark side. Where Spider-Man will eternally teach that “with great power there must come great responsibility,” The Dark Phoenix will always be a prime example of “absolute power corrupting absolutely.”

Byrne would stay on X-Men through #143 (March 1981), which included the anti-climactic yet memorable “Days of Future Past” storyline. Arguably more than any other period in the book’s 42-year existence, the era from 1969 to 1981 is still being mined for both the current X-books and film and animation projects. Jean has died yet again (turning her into a walking cliché) and has become The Phoenix in the comics, while the third X-Men film features numerous elements from the Dark Phoenix Saga era, even down to the inclusion of Kitty Pryde and Colossus. (Alas, no Dazzler, but the early ’80s Disco Queen may get her time in the limelight... er, mirrored ball... someday.)

Dark Phoenix & Aftermath Jean’s corruption from Phoenix to Dark Phoenix results in the death of an entire solar system, and leads Jean to commit suicide by means of a very deux ex machina cannon on #137’s battleground on the dark side of the moon. Sacrificing herself to keep her evil side from re-emerging, Jean Grey became one of comicdom’s first martyrs.

Certainly, despite a slow start, The X-Men eventually redefined the super-hero genre. It is now a nucleus of the Marvel atomic universe, and other series revolve around it.

Interestingly enough, the Dark Phoenix Saga was meant to end with Jean’s redemption and return to The X-Men. A disagreement between Marvel’s then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and the X-Men creative team, however, resulted in Jean’s sacrifice. “Shooter felt, as editor-in-chief, issue 137 [the issue wherein Dark Phoenix destroys a planet] was making a moral statement about crime and punishment that he felt was wrong,” Claremont recalled in A/E #25. “As editor-in-chief, he decided to tell us to fix it. That’s the job! I disagreed vehemently with the decision at the time, but time has proven him right.”

Chris Irving, who has written for The Comics Buyer’s Guide and other publications in the past, also functions as associate editor of Comic Book Artist magazine, and is hard at work on a book about The Blue Beetle for TwoMorrows. He also writes FemForce for AC Comics and lives in Richmond, Virginia, with a black cat and a lot of books. Chris Irving

The X-Men Movie That Never Was! part two

“X” Marks The Sprocket

The 1984 X-Men Movie That Might Have Been by Christopher Irving

Mutants, Mutants Everywhere Screenwriters Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas can be seen in a 1981 photo on p. 16. So here we’ve juxtaposed the opening scene of the 7/20/84 “Revised 1st Draft” of their screenplay for X-Men with a great piece of art by Brent Anderson & Terry Austin. This was the wraparound cover of George Olshevsky’s ambitious 1981 Marvel Comics Index, Vol. 1, No. 9A. [Art ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.; screenplay ©2006 Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas.]

984 would have been an interesting year for an X-Men film. Six years prior, Superman: The Movie had brought an unforeseen legitimacy to the super-hero as a film genre, and had already garnered two sequels by that point. The highly acclaimed Incredible Hulk TV show had gone off the CBS airwaves in 1982, after enjoying a four-season run.

A revised first draft of an X-Men movie, by writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, was done—with Orion Pictures as its projected distributor—with a July 20, 1984, date. That month’s issue of The Uncanny X-Men featured the writing of Chris Claremont with the art of John Romita, Jr. While X-Men had yet to become a household name at that point, it had achieved high sales marks at Marvel, and was at least on the verge of passing up The Amazing Spider-Man as Marvel’s top seller. Gerry and Roy themselves will tell how their screenplay came to be written, in the piece that follows. But first, what about the story itself? That’s what I’m here to convey, after reading what was officially called the “rewrite” of the first draft as opposed to the “second draft”:

The X-Men Movie That Never Was! part three

“The Kon-Tiki Statue Blowing Its Nose Was Our Favorite Scene!” A Conversation Between GERRY CONWAY and ROY THOMAS About Their 1984 X-Men Screenplay For Orion Pictures

Conducted (Feb. 6, 2006) by Roy Thomas

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

animated Fire and Ice (1982), produced by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta—and Conan the Destroyer (1983), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Grace Jones, for which we scripted the first five drafts and received “Story by” screen credit—plus royalties which still trickle in, each and every year. During this period, we also wrote six other screenplays (all live-action), for which we were paid, though they were never produced: Snow Fury (a horror/sciencefiction film based on a 1950s novel)… Cage (also for Bakshi; a film in the “Indiana Jones” mode)… Spy vs. Spy (based loosely on the Prohias feature in Mad)… Doc Dynamo (a send-up of World

ow that you’ve read Chris Irving’s overviews of both the X-Men comic book series and of Gerry Conway’s and my screenplay for a proposed movie starring same, it’s time Gerry and I discussed the latter just between the two of us— actually, for the first time since we scribed it, more than two decades ago. When you’ve finished reading this piece, you’ll know about as much as my early-’80s writing partner and I do about the background of that project and script. Between 1981 and 1985, Gerry and I co-wrote eight screenplays for a variety of production companies and studios. Only two of those were filmed in any form: the

Our Colorful Cast of Characters Gerry Conway (left) and Roy Thomas (right) a decade before their X-Men screenplay, in photos from 1973’s F.O.O.M. (Friends Of Ol’ Marvel) magazine #1. At that time, Roy was in the middle of his two-year run as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, and 20-year-old Gerry was writing key titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Marvel Team-Up, and Fantastic Four. Seen between them is later Marvel & Image artist Jim Valentino’s frontispiece for George Olshevsky’s 1978 X-Men Index. The grouping of mutants employed in the 1984 screenplay is the quintet seen at bottom, plus Cyclops and new creation Yoshi Akia, a.k.a. Circe. [Art ©2006 Jim Valentino; X-Men TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“The Kon-Tiki Statue Blowing Its Nose Was Our Favorite Scene!” War II movie serials; this screenplay was published in 2005 by Black Coat Press—see p. 84)… The Last Warriors (an sf adventure set in the far future)… and X-Men, based on Marvel’s madcap mutants. Gerry, of course, was a writer (and sometimes an editor) in the comics field from the late 1960s through the 1980s, and co-created The Punisher, Steel the Indestructible Man, Power Girl, and Firestorm, among others. As a teenager he authored the sf novels Midnight Dancers and Mindship. He has been a consulting producer on TV’s Hercules and is currently co-executive producer of the series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He has been nominated for several Emmys and an Edgar Award. —Roy. ROY THOMAS: Do you know how we first got in touch with the people for whom we did the film? Was it [our agent] Dan Ostroff who would’ve lined it up for us? GERRY CONWAY: Yeah, it was Dan. As I recall, it was right after our Conan script went into production. And he got the call, or he was negotiating with or talking to people at Orion, and our names came up. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to pay our rates, so we made a sweetheart deal with them that turned out not to be as much of a sweetheart deal as we’d hoped. [mutual laughter] THOMAS: So even though we were actually working for these two independent producers, you think Dan negotiated with Orion, rather than with them? CONWAY: Yeah. I’m not sure, but I think Orion actually paid the fee. Of course, no one wants to pay any money out of their own pockets. [laughs] So the reason we got less than our usual rate may have been because the [independent] producers were, in fact, paying it out of their own pockets. THOMAS: But at least we got paid... something. [mutual laughter] Do you recall if Michael Hirsh’s company was already called Nelvana by that time? CONWAY: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was. He had that animation company up in Canada. THOMAS: I had heard of him because he’d co-written a book about Canadian comics, and Nelvana was a Canadian comic book character as well as an authentic folk legend. I only recently remembered the name of the other person involved in our plotting. Or, more accurately, I accidentally ran across the name on the back

Laugh And The World Laughs At You As seen in X-Men features in Alter Ego #24 & #25, Dave Cockrum, original artist of the revived “New X-Men” in 1975, often amused himself by doing humorous mutant-related drawings. Here are two of them—including one of Nightcrawler, a character Dave created. As this interview moves along, you’ll see why Gerry and Roy feel they could’ve used a good laugh while writing their X-Men screenplay. [Art ©2006 Dave Cockrum; Nightcrawler & Wolverine TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

of another card in my Rolodex file: Jane Kagen. So was it at her house that we had the meetings? CONWAY: No, I think it was the partner’s house—the attorney. Remember there were three of them? He had a house in Santa Monica where we met, and I guess she was in Malibu. THOMAS: No, I didn’t recall that. I’d forgotten any third person entirely. [NOTE: Judging by a name on a contract-related deal memo I ran across recently, the attorney’s name was Bob Kaplan. Both he and Jane Kagen—I think—represented a company called Film Development Fund. –Roy.] CONWAY: I remember the attorney had apparently read Syd Fields’ book on screenwriting—and he kept asking us things like, “Where’s your plot point A?” And we’re like, “What?” [mutual laughter] THOMAS: Had we read Fields’ book by this point, do you know? CONWAY: I think we read it after that—because this guy kept talking about it. But we looked back at our scripts and it turns out we actually had been doing it. THOMAS: Yeah, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing for these guys. [laughs] Maybe for us, too. CONWAY: I do recall that Jane was apparently from a wealthy, well-connected L.A. family, and that her father had bought a lot of property up in Palmdale for development. This was, I think, right during the middle of one of the depressions in the housing market. So she was making bitter comments about how Palmdale was her inheritance. [laughs] THOMAS: You know what Hemingway said: “Nobody feels sorry for a girl crying on a yacht.” [mutual laughter] They seemed all right, though, basically. I still have no memory of the attorney. We don’t have photos, so I don’t have any picture in my mind of any of them… and probably vice versa. Do you know what their arrangement with Orion was? CONWAY: I think they’d sold the project to Orion, or had some kind of an option on it. And we were their last chance to get it off the ground, as I recall. THOMAS: Why were we their last chance? CONWAY: Because they had run through all their development money. THOMAS: [laughs] So maybe we weren’t the first people to try

Timely/Atlas/Marvel Biography Series # 1

Bob Brant And The Trouble-Shooters ––Plus Lance Brant by Thomas C. Lammers

ith this issue, Tom Lammers and Alter Ego launch a new and occasional series of Timely/Atlas/Marvel “biographies” of short-lived features from the 1950s. It seemed appropriate to begin with the above-named series from 1953, which is not only about a bunch of teenagers only slightly younger (at most) than The X-Men—but which even has a “mutant connection.” We’ll let Tom take over from this point, starting with his list of the stories covered in two related series, starting with the coded Timely “job-numbers” listed on their splash panels (as explained by Tom back in issue #49, in his in-depth article on the Timely/Atlas “Implosion” of 1957):

Appearances: C-293 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: “Behind the False Face!” (9 pp.) Man Comics #26 (May 1953) C-378 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: [“The Dead Ringer!”] (9 pp.) Man Comics #26 (May 1953) C-379 Lance Brant: “The Tarantula’s Web” (5 pp.) Man Comics #26 (May 1953) C-511 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: [“Rocket to the Moon!”] (9 pp.) Man Comics #27 (Jun 1953) C-560 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: [“The Faceless Man!”] (9 pp.) Man Comics #27 (Jun 1953) C-621 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: “The Crawling Things!” (9 pp.) Man Comics #28 (Sep 1953) C-622 Lance Brant: “Death Is a Spy’s Reward” (5 pp.) Man Comics #27 (Jun 1953) C-796 Bob Brant and The Trouble-Shooters: “Where Mummies Prowl!” (9 pp.) Man Comics #28 (Sep 1953) C-824 Lance Brant: “Toying with Death” (5 pp.) Man Comics #28 (Sep 1953)

Man and Boy This dramatic cover for issue #26 introduced the “Bob Brant” series. He, his buddies, and his family took over the mag for its final three issues. There’s something a bit odd about a comic called Man Comics that stars mainly young boys—but hey, they couldn’t exactly change the name to Boy Comics, could they? Lev Gleason and Charles Biro already had that title all sewed up! All art for this article supplied by Thomas C. Lammers. [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Biographical Notes:

[from Story # C-293 except where otherwise noted] Bob Brant is a high school student and “a typical American boy” who lives in New York City [C-560]. He is athletic, handsome, and blond, and is characteristically dressed in a red letter-sweater with a large “B” on the front. He drives a green 1920s-vintage touring car of uncertain reliability, and is a licensed pilot [C-378]. His pet is a semianthropomorphic raccoon named Reuben. Bob’s father is head of the United Nations Security Police. His mother was formerly “The Great Cecile,” a trapeze artist with Jingling Brothers Circus; she had her son on a trapeze before he could walk, and by his teen years he is a skilled aerialist. His mother was killed in a performance accident when Bob was six years old. Bob’s older brother Lance Brant is a troubleshooter for the UN, working for the UN Security Police [C-379], though his father does not seem to be his boss. Instead, he has received orders directly from the U.N. [Security?] Council [C-511]. Later, he receives orders from the Intelligence Department [C-621] and is described as a government agent [C-824] and a special investigator [C-824]. Perhaps this indicates that he left the employ of the United Nations and went to work for some agency of the American government.

Bob Brant And The Trouble-Shooters––Plus Lance Brant

Don’t Be A Wise Guy—Or Maybe You Should! See? Reading horror comics didn’t hurt kids, like Doc Wertham claimed! In the two panels at left from the lead story in Man #27, The Trouble-Shooters read Timely’s horror mags— though Menace and Strange Tales didn’t usually feature stories about a rocket to the moon. The Trouble-Shooters seem at least partly inspired, both in stories and visuals, by the Bob’s teenage friends are known as The Troublesuccess of “The Little Wise Guys” in Gleason/Biro’s Daredevil comic. The latter are depicted Shooters [C-378]; their hangout is a large building labeled at right, in art from an ad for a “Wise Guy Contest” featured in Daredevil #64 (July 1950). “Hanger Thirteen.” Daffy is a slim dark-haired boy who Daffy resembles Scarecrow, and Bomber is the size of Pee Wee. Which is even less surprising favors sweater vests and is not noted for his wit or intellect. when you realize that the artist of all the “Bob Brant” stories was Carl Hubbell, who often Feathers is an intellectual Native American with a large drew for Gleason’s comics. [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] vocabulary, who wears a headband with a single feather. arrive. Carter and the girls are rescued and most of the spy gang is Bomber is a red-haired boy, clearly younger and in a lower grade at captured, although False Face escapes. Bob and his pals slip out school [C-796]. Two female classmates are often around, too, although unnoticed, so that their role is unknown to authorities or the girls. they are not considered members of The Trouble-Shooters. Bob likes pretty redhead Carol Carter, but she won’t give him the time of day. In “The Dead Ringer!” [C-378], Mr. Brant is on a mission for the She thinks he’s “spineless” and a “sissy” [C-560], and criticizes him for UN to Idnshar, a small kingdom in the North African or Arabian desert. not being dashing or adventurous [C-378] like his older brother, on When the old king died, his teenage son ascended the throne as King whom she has a crush. Bess is her slim brunette friend, who wears Ibn-Taub. However, the boy’s mother (who died in childbirth) was an eyeglasses. She likes Bob but realizes he’s out of her league, so is content Englishwoman, and the young king “looks like an English boy.” For this to pursue Daffy, who doesn’t appreciate the attention. reason, his uncle Col. Faroun wants to dethrone him and rule in his stead. Because of their careers, Lance and Once he is on the throne, Faroun plans Mr. Brant are often involved in counterto become partners of the Soviets and to espionage and crimefighting. Bob and aid them in conquering the world. The Trouble-Shooters typically become involved as well, though this fact almost Because it is a school vacation and always is not recognized by Bob’s the government aircraft is large, Mr. brother or father, by the authorities, or Brant invites Bob, The Troubleby Carol and Bess. Shooters, and the girls along on the junket. Touring the local bazaar, the teenagers encounter American Willy Wonder, a salesman for Wonder In “Behind the False Face!” [C-293], Tractors, who was stranded in Idnshar Carol’s father John Carter is asked to when his company went out of business; serve as a proxy for the minister from he is trying to sell a tractor to get Norovia for an important vote at the money for his fare home. The only United Nations. If Norovia sides with person interested in the tractor is young the western democracies in this vote, it King Iba-Taub, who incredibly turns will swing things against the Communist out to be Bob’s exact double! No bloc. To prevent that from happening, sooner has the king placed his burnous the Reds dispatch a vicious spy known as on Bob’s head, to show how much they False Face, “the super crook with a resemble one another, than Col. million ugly faces” [C-621]. Faroun’s men arrive. Mistaking Bob for the king, they abduct him and lock him Coincidentally, Bob is selected by a in “the dungeon that shrinks,” a cell city committee to serve as this year’s where the ceiling and floor move “mayor for the day”; the reins of the city inexorably together. Fortunately, The are placed completely in his hands. Trouble-Shooters arrive in the nick of Knowing this, False Face and his gang time, using Willy’s tractor to free Bob. invade the mayor’s office and force Bob After Faroun’s attack on the palace is to send the police on a wild goose chase. repelled, thanks in part to the TroubleThey then abduct John Carter, as well as Shooters and Willy’s tractor, Faroun Carol and Bess, holding them captive in Enter False Face flees to a private airstrip near the an old Tong mansion in Chinatown. Bob Hubbell’s splash for the first “Trouble-Shooters” Dervish Oasis. Bob and the Troubleand The Trouble-Shooters track them story, introducing the villainous False Face. Shooters manage to get there first, there and fight with them until the police [©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Adventures:

“Jack [Kirby] Says You’re A Good Artist” VIC CARRABOTTA Talks About Drawing For Timely/Atlas, Biro, Et Al. Interview Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Teresa R. Davidson

don’t know whether it was Vic Carrabotta’s unusual name or his drawing style that first attracted my attention when I was a kid. It doesn’t matter, because I liked his crime and horror work for Timely, some of which Marvel reprinted in the early to mid-1970s. I always wondered about Vic, partly because he wasn’t drawing comics when I came of reading age. So when Roy Thomas discovered that Vic now lives in Columbia, South Carolina, within an hour’s drive from him, he passed the contact info along to me. Now, finally, I got to learn about Vic, and so will you. And if this interview isn’t enough, check out Vic’s website at www.quickvics.com. —Jim.

“They Used To Call Me ‘Carburetor’” JA: When and where were you born? CARRABOTTA: I was born in Eastchester, New York, in 1929. June 24. JA: I’m curious about your last name. CARRABOTTA: It’s Italian. Carrabotta. They used to call me “Carburetor” in the Marine Corps. [mutual laughter] JA: What got you interested in drawing? CARRABOTTA: There’s quite a lot of art in my family. When I went to Catholic School, I was only 5 or 6 years old and I was the only Italian kid in the school. The sisters always sat me in the back of the class. When I was in the 2nd grade, the sisters called my parents and said that there must be something wrong with me because I wasn’t learning anything. It turned out that I couldn’t see the board because I needed glasses. While the other kids were learning, I was sitting there with my head a few inches over my desk, drawing. That’s when I learned to draw. I actually drew very well; I had my own technique. I was in my own little world. I used to listen to radio shows like Little Orphan Annie. Drawing was my life. At the age of about 15 or 16, I heard there was a kid around the block, who was a little older than me, who worked for National (DC) Comics. His name was Jerry Grandenetti. I picked up with Jerry and he was very nice. He said, “I’m working with Will Eisner, but when I come home, meet me by the subway and I’ll teach you how to ink.” He was nice enough to teach me how to ink. I could always draw, I always had the ability, but Jerry taught me the technique of comics.

“V” Is For Vic Vic Carrabotta in a recent photo—and one of his recent illos. The latter illustrates his point, made in this interview, that he wishes he’d had a chance to draw super-heroes during his 1950s stint at Timely. Photo & art courtesy of the artist. [Art ©2006 Vic Carrabotta.]

From there, I didn’t take the art seriously because I had other things on my mind. I was also a musician, a guitarist. I ended up in the Marine Corps Dance Band. JA: When were you in the service? CARRABOTTA: 1948–1951. I was supposed to go out of Camp LeJune, but my wife Connie was pregnant at the time. There was no one at home to take care of her, so I applied for a discharge. They said they could keep me here if I wanted and they had wanted to put me on Leatherneck Magazine. I decided to go. So I missed a good opportunity there. I would’ve been stationed in Washington, DC. After the Marine Corps, I didn’t do too much drawing except going to the library and drawing horses, that kind of thing. I went to Music & Art High School and did a lot of drawing there. Joe Kubert went there. I went into construction doing bricklaying with my cousins, a typical Italian thing. I was also going to Cartoonists’ & Illustrators’ School (later renamed the School of Visual Arts), and Jerry Robinson was one of my teachers. I was laid off in the winter months, and my wife at the time suggested I get into the publishing field. She was instrumental in getting me into comics. I never thought I could do comics, even though Jerry Grandenetti had taught me and I had the

“Jack [Kirby] Says You’re A Good Artist”

41 JA: He didn’t criticize you? CARRABOTTA: No, not at all. We worked very large in those days. Most people used a #3 brush; I used a #2 brush. To my eye, it looked fine, but when it’s reduced, you lose the image. Today, I don’t use a brush. When I do storyboards I use Pentels, which I use as a brush. Anyway, Stan kept giving me more work. That’s when I met John Romita.

“You Know, You Sketch Pretty Good…” Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Bullpenner Vic in 1952, while working for Stan Lee at Timely Comics—and the splash from the very first story he did for Timely: “The House on the Hill” (not quite “The House on the Haunted Hill,” as he remembered—he probably had it confused with the movie!). The story appeared in Astonishing #13 (May 1952). Thanks to Chris Brown for the scan. Photo courtesy of the artist. [Art ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

ability. I got myself a little homemade desk and did a couple of samples. Connie and I would go from the Bronx to Manhattan with 20¢ in our pockets—she was pregnant—and we would go to publishing houses. We went to Magazine Management, where Stan Lee was. Nothing happened there. We went all over. We always went together. It was the winter and she was about 7 or 8 months pregnant. We went up to see Jack Kirby. Connie sat down in the lobby and I went to Jack’s cubicle in the back. Jack didn’t see her. Jack looked at my samples and didn’t seem that enthusiastic, because my stuff wasn’t that great in those days. He said, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Jack was very nice. I was just a kid back then, only 21. As he walked me out, I said, “By the way, this is my wife, Connie.” Connie stands up and Jack does a double-take up and down because she’s pregnant. He says, “Oh... how are you, Connie?” Jack said to me, “Have you seen Stan Lee?” I told him I tried, but I couldn’t get in because he didn’t know who in the hell I was. He said, “Sit here a minute, I need to go back to my office.” He writes a note and seals it, and tells me to go back to Stan with the note. I went back to Magazine Management with my wife on the elevator. Kirk Douglas was also on the elevator. I guess he was filming Detective Story at the time. [mutual laughter] Once in the Timely offices, the secretary addresses me to Stan and here I am meeting Stan for the first time. There’s Stan, casual as all, feet up on the desk, reading this note from Jack. Stan said, “Jack says you’re a good artist.” I said, “Oh, I don’t know. Would you like to see my samples?” He says, “No, that’s OK. Jack says you’re a good artist. I tell you what,” and he throws this script across the desk. He says, “ I want this back in a week.” It was “The House on the Haunted Hill.” God knows where it was published! I used my cousin as a model. I don’t even want to look at it, it was so bad. I didn’t know how thick the line needed to be for reproduction. It was so thin you couldn’t even see it. I was surprised Stan accepted it.

JA: Let’s go back before your days at Timely. What do you remember about Jerry Robinson as your teacher? CARRABOTTA: I had him for 2 or 3 classes. He was quiet, a very nice guy. He basically taught us to draw from the mind. I’ve been doing that ever since I was a kid. I can copy, but just to draw. People don’t do that today. It’s a dead thing. Jerry is a very good illustrator, a great cartoonist. I remember what he looked like, the glasses and so forth. He was a very good teacher. [NOTE: For an extended interview with Jerry Robinson, see Alter Ego #39. —Jim] JA: Did you take any classes from Burne Hogarth? CARRABOTTA: I took a couple, like Dynamic Anatomy or whatever the heck it was. He bawled me

A Silver Anniversary For a Silver-Ager & Spouse ROY & DANN THOMAS Celebrate Their 25th—With A Look Back At Some Friends’ Well-Wishing by Ye Alter Ego Editor

Most Photos by Alan Waite

ith a little bit of bloomin’ luck, this piece will be as much a surprise to my lovely wife Dann as it is to this issue’s other readers. To that end, I shamelessly sneaked a handful of photos out of the wedding album she’d so painstakingly assembled, made photocopies of a few pieces of relevant artwork, and kept everything under wraps as much as possible while prepping this issue.

But—did I say “day”? Actually, we were wed at the stroke of sunrise, on a hillside abutting Griffith Observatory, and overlooking Hollywood. Dann had chosen the place, for aesthetic reasons—and I’d concurred, partly because it had been the scene of the famous knife fight between Jamie Stark and Buzz Gunderson in the 1955 James Dean/Nicholas Ray movie Rebel without a Cause, which I’ve seen maybe two dozen times. I acquiesced in her desire to have the nuptials at sun-up, mostly ’cause I figured, hey, at least I’d never have to be up at that ungodly hour again. Little did I know!

For, May 3 of this year marks the 25th anniversary of the day in 1981 when Danette (Peck) Couto and I took the proverbial plunge into matrimony. (She didn’t make her first-name change legal till a year or so later, but I’ll still mostly refer to her as Dann herein. Force of habit.)

Dann and Roy exchanged vows, rings, et al., before the right reverend Jennie-Lynn Falk, minister of the Church of the Divine Light, who’d gotten herself ordained specially for the occasion. In another life, she was Dann’s UCLA roommate. Seen ’twixt her and the hapless (er, happy) couple is matron of honor Carla Conway (holding daughter Cara, Roy & Dann’s godchild); at right is best man Gerry Conway. Somewhere nearby, Christy Marx (soon writer/creator of Sisterhood of Steel) was playing the harp… and quite beautifully, too.

Two invitees who couldn’t quite make it to the wedding because they lived on the East Coast sent muchappreciated greetings. (Center:) A few words from Harvey Kurtzman—and if you have to ask who he is, you’re not really a comics fan so what’re you doing reading this mag, anyway? (Far right:) Though he somehow neglected to sign it, Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne sent slightly more words with his drawing. As to who “Rascal and Sam” are— read on. [Art ©2006 Adele Kurtzman & Frank Thorne, respectively.]

Griffith Observatory. Roy kept expecting the cops to screech up and gun down Sal Mineo! Actually, a Park guard did show, to ask if they had a permit to perform a wedding there. They didn’t, but their friend and photographer Alan Waite convinced him they did—then told them to hurry up the ceremony before he came back! As producer of countless TV commercials, Alan knew how to keep things rolling along.

A Silver Anniversary For A Silver-Ager & Spouse

Loaves and fishes it wasn’t—but, right after the ceremony, Dann and Roy dispensed a few early-morning edibles to the guests from the trunk of their Firebird. Seen at right is Bill Warren, author of Keep Watching the Skies, an exhaustive work on 1950s science-fiction films. (So why isn’t he looking up?) Magazine writer Craig Miller, in tie, is seen just past Bill’s left shoulder—with bearded comic scripter Len Wein behind him—and that’s cartoonist Scott Shaw! of Captain Carrot fame glimpsed past Dann’s head. As he took these pix, Alan Waite kept saying, “Move it! That guard’ll be back any minute!”

A celebratory cartoon by Don R. Christensen, comics writer (of Magnus – Robot Fighter, among many others). He and wife Ivy Carol attended. [Art ©2006 Don R. Christensen; Spider-Man TM & ©2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

This humongous greeting came from Australian-born artist Peter Ledger, who’d made Roy & Dann’s digs in San Pedro his first stop when he’d come over from Oz a few years before. At the wedding he ran into Christie Marx, whom he had briefly dated earlier…and they wound up getting married. Sadly, Peter is no longer with us, but he was a heckuva guy! [Art ©2006 Estate of Peter Ledger.]

A Comic Fandom Archive Special Multi-Part Series

The Forgotten ’50s: Will Comics Ever Again Be As Exciting As EC? A 1966 Panel With Ted White, Bhob Stewart, & Archie Goodwin

Part V of “1966: The Year Of (Nearly) THREE New York Comicons!” by Bill Schelly

Panel Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

Introduction

n Alter Ego #53 we initiated a series related to an approximately half-year period between mid-1966 and early 1967 which saw the new phenomenon of no less than three comics convention being held in Manhattan. The first of these, as per features in A/E #53-56, was hosted by John Benson on July 23-24, 1966. Just three weeks later, Dave Kaler would put on a sequel to his own “Academy Con” of 1965—and, in very early 1967, a “mini-con” would be sponsored by Calvin Beck’s magazine Castle of Frankenstein. We here continue the extended coverage of the “Benson Con,” utilizing audio tapes John was able to supply us. Transcriptions of these historic panels are worth printing both for their own sake, because of the people involved—and as a snapshot of “the way it was” almost exactly four decades ago. This time, it’s a three-man symposium on comic books of the 1950s, particularly those of EC (Entertaining Comics), moderated by Ted White and also featuring Bhob Stewart and (then) Creepy & Eerie editor Archie Goodwin. The latter, of course, would later write and edit, alternately for Marvel and DC, until his untimely death in 1998. In one of those puzzling conundrums, comics of the 1950s seemed

farther away to younger comics fans of the early 1960s than they do to collectors of today. In a time before comic book history was written or valuable collections were issued, the only way to find out about earlier times was via the oral recollections of Fans Who Were There. On this panel, three Fans Who Were There gathered to convey their knowledge to the mostly-younger set. They were unified by their mutual regard for EC, and their involvement in the fan activity that had sprung up around its publications—and around the work that EC artists did for other comics and magazines of the era. Panels like this (and articles on EC in the new fanzines) helped make EC’s horror and science-fiction output second only to super-heroes in popularity among those who formed the rank-and-file of 1960s comic fandom. The transcript has been slightly edited for repetition and length, but is essentially as it was seen and heard on July 23, 1966. The panel was introduced by convention organizer John Benson: JOHN BENSON: This panel is called “The Forgotten ’50s,” and consists of three people who are in the professional fields today and who were all very active in fandom during the ’50s. Ted White is a science-fiction novelist, and has just received a

Three To Get Ready… Unfortunately, no known photo exists of the “Forgotten ’50s” panel from the 1966 Benson Con, so we’ll have to make do with this trio of pics from that period. (Left to right): Ted White, moderator, shown here acting as auctioneer, probably at that same comicon. The photo appeared in Larry Ivie’s magazine Monsters and Heroes. Bhob Stewart in New York City, circa 1965. Photo by Martin Jukovsky. Archie Goodwin at the Benson Con, posing for photographer Jack C. Harris, who would later become (like Archie himself) an editor at DC Comics. [Photos ©2006 the respective photographers.]

A 1966 Panel With Ted White, Bhob Stewart, & Archie Goodwin

contract to write a Captain America novel for Bantam Books [The Great American Gold Steal]. Ted is also the assistant editor for Fantasy and Science Fiction. Archie Goodwin is the editor and chief writer for James Warren’s comics Creepy and Eerie. Bhob Stewart is the editor of Castle of Frankenstein magazine and also does most of the editorial material in the magazine. He’s also the movie editor in TV Guide, and writes the little squibs about the latenight movies that appear all over the country. TED WHITE: Thank you, John. This panel is based on the ’50s—let’s say, generally, 1950 to 1960, in the comics field. This is a period during which I think the comics showed more upheaval than at any time since the advent of the super-characters in the late ’30s, early ’40s. It was a very turbulent time. It was a time of some of the comic field’s best moments and certainly some of its worst moments, both before and after the Comics Code, which of course was another aspect of the ’50s. To start the panel off, Bhob Stewart has a prepared statement. BHOB STEWART: I’m going to read this because I do not trust my ability to speak spontaneously and there’s something very important that I would like to say. A decade has passed since the death of EC—only a decade—and that’s why I’d put it into a little niche in the overall levels of the graphic story form. There’s an important reason why this should be done. Consider this fact: isn’t it just possible that the comic book is mankind’s greatest art form? Now, if someone made that statement to me, my first immediate reaction would be “no,” or “It could be done with film.” Anything that can be done in any other art can also be done in film, including comics. But maybe it’s the other way around: “movies on paper, the final dream.” That’s the way Jules Feiffer saw comics when he was younger. The last chapter of his book [The Great Comic Book Heroes]—the grown-up chapter—is frightening, is disappointing, is disillusioning, and is sad, because he’s right. Comics are junk: “It has no one’s respect to lose, no image to endanger, its values are the least middle-class of all the mass media, and that’s why it’s needed so. Comic books were our booze.” Now, if you’ll multiply it, your booze is the same kind of booze that I had during World War II. When I was eight years old, I knew my father was fighting Hitler. I knew because I was fighting Hitler every day myself, with Spy Smasher and Green Lama and Boy Commandos, right? Today I walk by a newsstand and I see Captain America is still fighting that same war. Did anyone tell Captain America about D-Day? Then one day, Captain Marvel said, “Shazam!” and nothing happened. And pretty soon, I stopped reading all comics but one: Little Lulu. [audience laughs] After all, I was growing up, and Little Lulu was the most adult comic that I could find in 1946. I reached puberty, and I had my first love affair. Her name was EC. We went together for four years and then we broke up. She and I do not speak to each other very much any more. EC came out of Bradbury who came out of Lovecraft and Thomas Wolfe and Eisner. EC came out of Eisner, who came out of Fritz Lang and [Orson] Welles. And I thought [he pounds his fist on the table with each word], “Hey, maybe it’s not junk!” And I read a few of them next month and I thought, [pounds fist on the table] “Hey, maybe I’ll write in and join this. Maybe they don’t think it’s junk.” And I was right, they didn’t. Not only did they see it wasn’t junk, they tried to show it to me. Al Feldstein, in one monstrous breath, summed up the entire 30-year history of pulp science-fiction. Harvey Kurtzman pushed the Eisner tradition all the way over to the horizon line.

“Gimme a copy of Little Lulu.” “Little Lulu, I Love You-Lu Just The Same” Bhob Stewart mentions reading only Little Lulu at one point in 1946. By coincidence, in 1964, Roy Thomas had drawn the above cartoon for a spread in Alter Ego (Vol. 1) #7 which was influenced by the Playboy work of Shel Silverstein, which Bill Schelly finds equally appropriate in referring to a time two decades earlier. The newsstand dealer was drawn as one of Silverstein’s self-caricatures. [©2006 Roy Thomas.]

And one man, one artist, came along who saw comics the same way Marshall McLuhan does, simply as a medium, a medium with a troubled and artistically unexploited potentiality, a boundless medium. Not junk! A boundless medium, as exotic as an 8th-century illumination—and his name was Bernard Krigstein. He’s since proved his worth as both a fine artist and a classically influenced illustrator. While he was at EC, he functioned not as most writers, he functioned as an artist. Dig it! Every story was a different challenge, required a different kind of style. It prompted a completely new kind of story breakdown. He said, “I think I was striving to control these effects; that is, building up to dramatic climaxes and then realizing, as far as it was in my power to do so, all the emotional force of the climax. And I think I succeeded pretty well, because in working for something, I really feel as if I’d stumbled upon an important way to tell stories, to break down stories. As things worked out, I was unable to continue it.” And his point: Bernard Krigstein saw how much could be done with a graphic story. Imagery flowing across the page: “Something grabbed her eye and ripped it from the socket!” Some of these stories can be read dozens of times and still offer something new, some minute, fantastic detail that he consciously inserted. Yet for the most part, it was not illustration. One time, it was a picture. Another time it was a slap in the face. And more, you got a jigsaw page mosaic, shimmering, pulsating on the pages, and soon you’re engulfed and there’s a snap like a reel change in the projection booth. Krigstein showed that comics can be an

Alter Ego #58