Alter Ego #80 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Roy Thomas’ Barbarian Comics Fanzine

No.80 August 2008

6.95

In the USA

SWORD-&SORCERY

IN THE COMICS

82658 27763

PLUS:

EXTRA! CLASSIC LOU CAMERON

Vol. 3, No. 80 / August 2008 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

Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich

Circulation Director Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Productions

Cover Artist & Colorist Rafael Kayanan

With Special Thanks to:

William B. Jones, Jr. Jack Adams Rafael Kayanan Rob Allen Gene Kehoe Sergio Aragonés Robert Kennedy Heidi Amash Sam Kujava Ger Apeldoorn Henry Kujawa Bob Bailey Alan Kupperberg Jean Bails Richard Kyle Matt D. Baker Arthur Lortie Manuel Barrero James Ludwig Nick Barrucci George Wilson Beahm Dan Makara Leonard Maltin Alberto Becattini Bruce Mason Jack Bender Ulises Mavridis John Benson Pat Mason Alex Bialy Christopher B. Boyko Doug McCratic Brian K. Morris Adam Brooks Jake Oster Chris Brown John G. Pierce Len Brown Bud Plant Frank Brunner Gene Reed Ken Bruzenak John Romita Mike Burkey Fred Robinson Lou Cameron Paul Samms Nick Caputo Ben Samuels Ray Cuthbert Steve Sansweet Al Dellinges Scott Sheaffer Anthony DeMaria Dave Sim Michaël Dewally Philip Simon Betty Dobson Atula Siriwardane Peter Duxbury Ted Skimmer Mark Evanier Anthony Snyder Michael Feldman Marc Swayze Shane Foley Dann Thomas Todd Franklin Mike Tiefenbacher Bruce J. Friedman Anthony Tollin Dave Friedman Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Carl Gafford Dr. Michael J. Vassallo David George Joe Vucenic Janet Gilbert Hames Ware Don Glut Bill Warren Bob Greenberger John Wells Lawrence P. Guidry Jennifer Hamerlinck Barry Windsor-Smith Alex Wright John Haufe Spiros Xenos Bob Hughes

This issue is dedicated to the memory of

Jim Mooney

Contents Writer/Editorial: The Savage Sword of Robert E. Howard. . . 2 Sword-And-Sorcery In The Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Overview of Robert E. Howard’s legacy in four colors, and in black-&-white, by John Wells.

“What Am I Doing Here?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Part II of Jim Amash’s interview with the colorful, controversial, and talented Lou Cameron.

Secret History of All-American: Lightning Striking Again! . 55 Remember when Superman was revived and revamped in 1956? Bob Rozakis does!

Found! “New” Photos From The 1965 New York Comicon! . . 61 Bill Schelly annotates Jerry Bails’ treasure trove of pics from that granddad of conventions.

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! The DC Alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Michael T. Gilbert & Arthur Lortie look at some alphabetized ads from the 1940s.

Jim Mooney: “The 1960s ‘Supergirl’ Artist” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 74 FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) #137 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 P.C. Hamerlinck presents Marc Swayze—and John G. Pierce on “The Cult of the Curse.” On Our Cover: One of A/E editor Roy Thomas’ happiest collaborations during the 1990s was with artist Rafael Kayanan on Marvel’s short-lived Conan the Adventurer… so we’re naturally over the moon (iron shadows and all) that Raf let us use this powerful barbarian painting as our cover—even though it’s not specifically REH’s swashbuckling Cimmerian. Alas, since we’ll be covering that ’90s title in a near-future edition of our “Sword-and-Sorcery in the Comics” series, there’s nothing else by Raf in this issue—but that just gives you something to look forward to, right? [©2008 Rafael Kayanan.] Above: If this half-inked drawing looks familiar, it’s because it was John Buscema’s unfinished preliminary sketch of the cover for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #44 (Nov. 1974), which gueststarred Red Sonja, who was based on a heroine in a non-Conan short story by REH. Maybe Big John didn’t finish Big Red (including her “iron bikini”) or the heroes’ weapons because he decided to depict them atop a huge skull, as per the published cover. End result: 34 years later, we get a great “new” illustration, courtesy of original art dealer Anthony Snyder, whose ad appears on p. 82. [Conan TM & ©2008 Conan Properties International, LLC; Red Sonja TM & ©2008 Red Sonja, LLC.] Alter EgoTM is published 8 times a year 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 US ($11.00 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Twelve-issue subscriptions: $78 US, $132 Canada, $180 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. ISSN: 1932-6890 FIRST PRINTING.

writer/editorial

The Savage Sword Of Robert E. Howard Y

ou’d have thought I’d have done this a long time before now, wouldn’t you? Devote an issue of Alter Ego to sword-and-sorcery in comics, I

mean. Somehow, though, despite touching on the subject in the interviews Jim Amash did with me for issues #50 & 70, in covering the career of the late great John Buscema in #15 & 16, and in a few other places from time to time—well, I just kept putting it off. It’s a big subject, after all, because, much as I’d like to think otherwise, comic book s&s didn’t start with Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #1 in 1970—or even with the couple of forerunners at DC (“Nightmaster”) and Marvel (“Starr the Slayer”) in the previous twelvemonth. In fact, since “sword-and-sorcery” is itself an outgrowth in part of Arthurian legend, and of the myths of ancient Greece and even Mesopotamia, the genre itself—or at least something very much akin to it—has been around since the dawn of literature, just waiting for Gutenberg to invent the printing press and for Harry Wildenberg and/or M.C. Gaines to think up a way those presses could produce magazine-size pages sporting four-color images. Still, Gilgamesh and Hercules and Gawain aren’t quite what we think of as true sword-and-sorcery. That had to wait for a young Texan named

Robert E. Howard to come along in the late 1920s and early 1930s and think up first Solomon Kane—then Bran Mak Morn and Kull—and, most importantly, a bronze-hued barbarian called Conan—so he could write the tales of sword-slashing adventure that he loved… and have a Khitaiman’s chance of selling them to a pulp mag titled Weird Tales, which specialized in things that went bump in the night (and even during the day). And thank Crom he did! “Sword-and-Sorcery in the Comics” proved way too big a subject to cover in one issue—the more so since we also had our regular features, and the second half of Jim Amash’s in-depth interview with 1950s comic artist Lou Cameron, to accommodate. In the end, because we wanted to illustrate nearly every one of the examples of the game we were discussing, we found ourselves with only room for the s&s overview I talked John Wells into writing especially for this magazine. Not to worry, though—only three issues from now, in A/E #83, Part Two will be slashing its way toward you. After that, we’ll keep the s&s segments coming, every few issues, till we’ve covered the genre the way we always intended to! We figured it’s high time. Bestest,

COMING IN OCTOBER

OUR HALCYON HAUNTED HALLOWEEN ISSUE! From Web Of Horror To The Man-Thing— To Everett Raymond Kinstler! • Fearful and frightening cover by Formerly Far-Out FRANK BRUNNER! • Caught in a WEB OF HORROR! Spooky spotlight on the fabled late-1960s horror mag that helped launch the careers of FRANK BRUNNER, DAVE COCKRUM, HOWARD CHAYKIN, JEFFREY JONES, WALT SIMONSON, BARRY WINDSORSMITH, & BERNIE WRIGHTSON, among others—plus an interview with WOH editor (and sf writer) TERRY BISSON—courtesy of RICHARD ARNDT! • Comics and fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINSTLER interviewed by JIM AMASH! • ROY THOMAS talks about Marvel’s Man-Thing—complete with his 1971 origin synopsis! • Plus: More of BOB ROZAKIS’ “Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc.”— MICHAEL T. GILBERT on BOB POWELL’s art for The Shadow—FCA—BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive—& MORE!! Edited by ROY THOMAS vel Characters, Inc.] [Man-Thing TM & ©2008 Mar

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Sword-And-Sorcery In The Comics Part I Of A Study Of Robert E. Howard’s Legacy In Four Colors—And In Black-&-White Article by John Wells

“A

nd at the last, O Prince, there came to pass that which all the plots of Ascalante the Rebel had failed to bring about, and for which the grim shade of Xaltotun had been conjured in vain from the moldering dust of his Acherontic tomb, and which even the hell-spawned sorceries of Yah Chieng, the Yellow Wizard of nighted and demon-ridden Khitai, had failed to accomplish; and Conan of Aquilonia gave over the crown and the throne of the mightiest kingdom in all the West, and ventured forth into the Unknown, wherein he vanished forever from the knowledge of man.” —The Nemedian Chronicles (as interpreted by Roy Thomas, in the Marvel b&w comic Conan the Savage)

The King Is Dead! Long Live The Barbarian! 1936: Robert E. Howard was dead, and with him had perished a host of literary creations from the rough-and-tumble pulp magazines, among them Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane, Atlantean-turnedking Kull, the Pict ruler Bran Mak Morn, and, greatest of all, a barbarian from a fictional land called Cimmeria. His name was Conan. Conan had been the pinnacle in Howard’s prolific career, building on rejected stories—nine of his eleven Kull tales were turned down for publication in Weird Tales pulp magazine during the writer’s brief lifetime—and a mutual admiration society with fellow writer H.P. Lovecraft and his own combination of weird horror and swashbuckling adventure. What Howard conceived was an entire world, a Hyborian Age where magic and strange lands and barbaric action all intertwined. Overlaying this concept on an unsold Kull adventure, the younger writer struck gold. “The Phoenix on the Sword” (Weird Tales, Dec. 1932) was the first of seventeen Conan stories to appear over the next four years. The precise nature of what Robert E. Howard had created wasn’t actually christened for a few more decades. In 1961, a print conversation between Michael Moorcock (who would soon create his own sword-and-sorcery series hero Elric of Melniboné) and Fritz Lieber (whose Howard-tinged Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser dated to 1939) culminated in the latter’s suggestion of the phrase “sword and sorcery.” It was an apt description and one that quickly took hold.

REH: A Man And His Myths Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), surrounded by four (or, some would say, five) of his most famous creations. (Clockwise from top left:) Solomon Kane… Bran Mak Morn… Conan the Cimmerian… Red Sonja… and King Kull. Sonja, of course, is a comic book (originally Marvel) permutation of a heroine named Red Sonya who appeared in a single quasi-historical pulp-mag adventure written by REH. The illustrator, Atula Siriwardane, is a commercial artist in Sri Lanka, who has done comics work forthcoming from two independent publishers. [Solomon Kane TM & ©2008 Solomon Kane, Inc.; Bran Mak Morn TM & ©2008 Robert E. Howard Properties, Inc.; Kull TM & ©2008 Kull Productions, Inc; Conan TM & ©2008 Conan Properties International, LLC.; Red Sonja TM & © Red Sonja, LLC.]

Robert E. Howard’s Legacy In Four Colors—And In Black-&-White

soon need new worlds to conquer. Anyone surprised to learn that he traveled to the planet Zutar in issue #20?

Valiant Is As Valiant Does Sorcery was abundant in the early days of Harold R. Foster’s Sunday strip Prince Valiant. In this panel from April 23, 1939, Val faces Time itself (himself?). [©2008 King Features Syndicate, Inc.]

The Prince Valiant influence assured regular appearances by Merlin and/or King Arthur and company in all sorts of comics throughout the 1940s. They showed up with everyone from the Young Allies (Young Allies #11) to Kid Eternity (Hit Comics #32) to Batman (Batman #36). The most notable, though, was a time-lost fellow called The Shining Knight, whose early adventures took place exclusively in the 1940s (starting in Adventure Comics #66, Sept. 1941). Eventually, however, Sir Justin was able to make return visits to the days of King Arthur, complete with occasional stories which were pure sword on sword with just a dollop of sorcery—tales like 1950’s “The Ten-Century Lie” (Adventure #150) and “Duel of the Flying Knights” (Adventure #153), both illustrated by a guy named Frank Frazetta who would figure significantly into the future of sword-andsorcery.

Fortune Favors The Valiant In the late 1930s and 1940s, though, the general public might well have called it “that Prince Valiant stuff.” Conceived by writer-artist Hal Foster, Prince Valiant (which debuted the year after Howard’s death) was one of the loveliest things on the newspaper page, and likely as not the first place many a young reader discovered the legends of King Arthur and Merlin. There was plenty of swordplay therein as young Val grew up to take his place among the Knights of the Round Table. And there was sorcery, as well, starting with the early Sunday page wherein the witch Horrit prophesied that the teenager’s adventurous life would be tempered with great sorrow and discontentment. Most of Prince Valiant would be played straight with realistic situations (albeit with major and intentional anachronisms), but magic was far from unknown, most conspicuously in the presence of Merlin himself. The sorceress Morgan Le Fey showed up for the first time in March of 1938, while the enchanted Singing Sword fell into Val’s possession later that year. Soon after, Horrit recoiled at the sight of the blade, revealing it as a sister to King Arthur’s Excalibur. Its magnificent power was wonderful if used by the pure of heart for a noble cause, she declared, but a ghastly curse if used for ill. Prince Valiant, of course, had nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, the infant comic book field was getting its footing with multiple genres often represented in the pages of each title. And while there were no Conan types among them, there were a few strips that could fairly be called sword-and-sorcery. Such was the case with a feature called “The Golden Knight,” credited to Grieg Chapian and appearing from Fox’s Fantastic Comics #1 (Dec., 1939) to 20 (July, 1941), with a final installment in The Eagle #2 (Sept., 1941). The Golden Knight, otherwise known as Sir Richard of Warwick, was a Crusader in the Holy Land whose battles with the Saracens gave way to menaces like witches and sorcerers. Luckily, Sir Richard received an enchanted cloak and a magic ring from a mage named Kara, and that more than evened the odds. Led to routs, really, as in #6, where the magic ring enabled the Knight to brush aside monsters conjured by Bdula Khan, incapacitate his warriors, and finally humiliate the wizard himself by transforming him into a statue of a hyena! Clearly, Sir Richard would

It Was A Dark And Golden Knight Richard (no “Sir” in this tale), the titular Golden Knight, battles a reptilian sea monster from a 1940 edition of Fox Publications’ Fantastic Comics. Sorry, we don’t know the exact issue number, since Ye Editor’s copy is coverless. Art by Grieg Chapian. [©2008 the respective copyright holders.]

Sword-And-Sorcery In The Comics

since infancy. Sandra and Geoffry had only one more issue to search for answers before the comic was cancelled. Though primarily a publisher of paperbacks and comics, Avon had its roots in the pulps and explored a hybrid in 1950 with a short-lived fantasy/sf pulp called Out of This World Adventures. The twist was that a 32-page color comic was inserted in the middle of the prose magazine—a mix of futuristic space opera, present-day fantasy, and ancient sorcery. The former two categories were ably brought to life by a young Joe Kubert, a circumstance that made John Giunta’s journeyman art on the third pale in comparison.

A Knight In Shining Armor Though Creig Flessel and others drew him first in the 1940s, DC’s “Shining Knight” is most remembered for a handful of latter-day exploits drawn by a young Frank Frazetta, before his glory days as a Conan cover painter. This tale first appeared in Adventure Comics #155 (Aug. 1950). Scripter unknown. [©2008 DC Comics.]

Avon Calling—With Slave Girl And “Crom The Barbarian” Avon’s Slave Girl Comics #1 (Feb. 1949) was a basically sorcery-free comic (penciled by Howard Larsen) but for one key element—a signet ring that could bridge time, at least in a virtual-reality sense. The ring was owned in the story’s opening sequence, set in 1948, by flame-haired socialite Sandra Worth; but archaeologist Geoffry Garth instantly recognized its power and knew the ancient spells to prove it. So it was back to the past for the duration of the comic, where Garth, an emissary of the kingdom of Ormuz, discovered their long-lost Princess Malu (Sandra) as a slave girl in the hostile realm of Tarko. Over five stories, the couple escaped and rode towards Ormuz, freeing other slave girls from a tyrant and being targeted by villains seeking the hidden powers of Malu’s ring. By the end of the issue, Malu had been freed from slavery again and now faced the task of proving her identity to the father who hadn’t seen her

Slaving Away Since the sorcerous signet ring in the story isn’t all that visually exciting, we’ll settle for showing you Howard Larsen’s splash for Avon’s 1949 Slave Girl Comics #1—and John Severin’s illustrative cover for the IW reprint done as Malu in the Land of Adventure in 1964. Severin, of course, would later be a prime delineator of Howard’s King Kull, and even of Conan. Thanks to Gene Kehoe. [©2008 the respective copyright holders.]

“Comics Were A Stop On The Way To Somewhere Else” Part II Of Our Interview With The Colorful, Controversial— And Talented—LOU CAMERON Conducted by Jim Amash

Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

ou Cameron’s career as a comic book artist during the 1950s began, as he related last issue, with his work for Story/Master/ Premiere/Merit, Ace Periodicals, and St. John Publishing. We pick up the interview at the point where I was asking him about some of the artists and other creative types he met while doing work for Ace. And thanks again to Hames Ware and Arthur Lortie for their contributions, as detailed last month. —Jim.

“I Wasn’t Working On The Superman-Type Things“ JA: Tell me about [artist] Lin Streeter. CAMERON: He worked for Archie, and for Ace. We used to meet at Ace. Lin lived in New Jersey. I think he and his wife lived in a fairly large place. because he came in with a bunch of tomatoes for everybody during tomato season. When you’re growing tomatoes, you don’t know what to do with them—or zucchini, either. [mutual laughter] He was very popular. He used to come into the city in a station wagon. We all had kids, but Lin used to bring all his kids with him. He had like four or five kids, and they were well behaved. He’d leave them out in the reception room when he went in and talked to the editor. He was a very nice guy—a blond, Scandinavian-type guy. He’d been a lifeguard, and he and his wife, among other things, grew Christmas trees over in Jersey. About 1956, I think it was, he had a sudden heart attack. He just suddenly dropped dead. It shocked us all. There was no sign, no warning—he’d had no health problems. He was a big, healthy guy. He looked like [movie actor] Wayne Morris. At one point, he said he could get a couple of us into Archie Comics, but their rates were not that good. And you had to draw in the “Archie style,” and I decided not to work there. Later, I had a similar problem at DC. I had my own style, which editor Jack Schiff was happy with, but they wanted to me to do the tight underwear-type guys. Every strip that they had—I wasn’t working on the Superman-type things—but everybody in all of their strips had to look like that. It was the same style of inking. JA: At that time, DC’s house style was kind-of like Dan Barry or Alex Toth. Would they actually tell you to draw like Dan Barry or Toth? CAMERON: Yes, they wanted that style. I preferred to do highcontrast art, but they liked the color-separation type of work. For instance, Alice Kirkpatrick, whom we talked about before, was a great inker, and inked her own stuff. And I saw her pencils. It would be at Bob MacLeod’s

Fated To Be A Comic Book Artist—For A While As a reminder of what Lou and Jim talked about last issue: here’s our sole recent pic of Lou Cameron, eyeing his splash page for Ace Periodicals’ The Hand of Fate #19 (Aug. 1953). Thanks to Lou for the photo, and to Michael T. Gilbert for the page scan. [©2008 the respective copyright holders.]

being lettered, and the panels were full of stick figures. There was practically nothing there, just basic indications of where the balloons went. And then she would take these figures and, working freehand—she had sort-of a semi-dry brush effect--she would just put dots in and they would turn into a face and she’d have no outline. The coloring people had trouble

“Comics Were A Stop On The Way To Somewhere Else”

listed in the Checklist following this interview. —Jim.] JA: Do you remember any of the writers at Ace? CAMERON: No. The writers were trying to go on to greater things, too. They were getting $50, $75 a script, hoping to get into grownup writing, and they didn’t sign their stuff. A lot of stuff was not signed. This is what makes it so difficult in talking to guys in your generation, because a lot of the work that I did—a lot of the people involved, no names were exchanged. They were like people you meet in the whorehouse. [mutual laughter]

“I Went Down To The Kefauver Hearings” JA: Except all the guys are “John Smith” there. Do you remember how much Ace paid you? CAMERON: They paid $30 a page, and they went to $32. Then they cut back when things got tight, and they went back down to $30, and that’s about the time I left. Things got tight because of Dr. Wertham and Senator Kefauver, and that crap. Now that was disgusting. That, more or less, caused me to ask myself, “What am I doing here?” I went down to the Kefauver hearings. I went down to testify against Dr. Wertham because I had done a Classics Illustration adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. And Wertham, on the radio—we were listening—said, “In this Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde murders this little girl, and he’s not brought to justice.” I said, “Schmuck! I mean, he’s killed! He’s lying dead on his laboratory floor. What do you mean, he wasn’t brought to justice? Plus, he never killed any little girl. I drew the damned thing! It may be in the book, but I didn’t draw a picture of a little girl being killed.” So I took a copy of it down there, and they didn’t want to hear from me. I wanted to put it in as evidence. I said, “I want to put this in as Exhibit XYZ,” and they wouldn’t let me play. JA: When you went down there, who did you talk to?

The Strange Case Of Dr. Wertham And Mr. Hyde Cameron’s splash page for the Classics Illustrated #13 re-adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, originally published for Oct. 1953. Lou says that, when he heard Fredric Wertham discussing that comic book on radio, he wondered if he’d ever actually read it—but maybe the good Doctor was talking about the earlier version of that tale drawn for CI (then still called Classic Comics) by Arnold Lorne Hicks. That edition took a few more liberties with the original story. For a quintessential history of the CI series, order a copy of William B. Jones, Jr.’s, book Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History, with Illustrations, from McFarland Press. [©2008 First Classics, Inc.; by permission of Jack Lake Productions, Inc.]

with her stuff, because it was more like a pulp illustration from the old pulp magazines. She would have been better at that stuff. And a lot of times, instead of drawing a lapel on a suit, she would just have one shadow. You could tell the guy had a lapel because you could see the shadow, but when you looked closer, there wasn’t any lapel drawn in. She would ink the slash down the chest, and then the notch. She would do two little dashes of black, and that was it. She was a fantastically good artist. JA: While you worked for Ace, you said your first writing was with Bernard Baily. Did you write any of your stories for Ace Comics? CAMERON: No, I don’t believe I did. For Bill Friedman [at Story] I did mostly horror stories. I’d tell him what I was going to do. And then I went home and did it. I wrote a couple of Westerns: “Pawnee Bill,” and I did a “Something-Arrow.“ I guess it was “Golden Arrow,“ a feature about a kid that grew up as an Indian, but he was a white kid and he had blond hair. [“Golden Arrow“ was a Fawcett feature; either Lou drew that character or else a similar one for Friedman—probably the Golden Warrior title

CAMERON: The bailiff. You couldn’t get to Kefauver. He was very important. Whomever I talked to didn’t want to be confused by facts. Then the Army-McCarthy thing came up, and the Kefauver Committee never found anything out. They left! They went to lynch McCarthy, and the case against comics was never decided one way or the other. The publishers chickened out. They set up this board to certify that the stuff was pure, nobody was being bad in the thing, no pornography, and a lot of the stuff that Wertham had sobbed about. I was loaded for bear. I wanted to know how many comic books Billy the Kid or Attila the Hun or Jack the Ripper ever read. Comic books were causing all the crimes, and I said, “Sure!” Yes, a deranged person could read a comic book or hear a joke—I mean, these terrorists in the Middle East right now, they’re reading the Koran. There’s nothing in the Koran that tells them to blow themselves up, but they’re doing it. I was disgusted with the Wertham business. I was also disgusted with the wimpiness of the publishers, and I said, “Why don’t they fight?” Well, Fred Gardener tried to fight them. Fred Gardener was a prince of the Catholic Church. He had some title, and the Archdiocese of New York went into a thing about the romance comics, and so forth and so on. [chuckles] As a matter of fact, Gardener called the Archbishop and said, “Your Holiness, this is Fred Gardener at Ace Comics. What’s this crap about our comics being bad for kids? Where in our comics have any rapes occurred? We have never done that stuff ! For Christ’s sakes, they’re put out by Ma Wyn! There are no illegitimate children, there’s no incest, there’s nothing going on! This is pure housewives’ escapism, for housewives who can’t read.” They got carried away there for a very short time and it was the fad; comics were causing all the bad things that were happening.

The Colorful, Controversial—And Talented—Lou Cameron

Gilberton (Classics Illustrated): The Bottle Imp (with “The Beach of Falesa”) (a) 1954; Classics Illustrated Special (a) 1956; The Count of Monte Cristo (a) 1956; covers (a) 1955; Davy Crockett (a) 1955; The Downfall (a) 1955; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (a) 1953; The Hurricane (a) 1954; The Life of Christopher Columbus (a)(no date); The Story of Great Britain [series] (a) 1955; The Time Machine (a) 1956; The War of the Worlds (a) 1955 Marvel/Timely Comics: Astonishing (a) 1956; Journey into Mystery (a) 1956; Journey into Unknown Worlds (a) 1955; Love Tales (a) 1957; Mystic (a) 1956; Uncanny Tales (a) 1956; World of Suspense (a) 1956 St. John Publishing: horror (a) 1953; The Texan (a) 1952; also some scripting Story Comics: Dark Mysteries (a) 1951; Fight against Crime (a) 1951; Golden Warrior (a) 1951; Mysterious Adventures (a) 1951-52; romance (a) 1951; Western (a) 1951

Life’s A Beach Lou Cameron may not have drawn super-hero comics, but is there any doubt he could’ve held his own in that genre, too? This explosive full-page scene is from Classics Illustrated #116 (Feb. 1954)—titled The Bottle Imp, after the Robert Louis Stevenson story—but is actually a scene from a second RLS tale likewise adapted therein, “The Beach of Falesa.” Thanks to William B. Jones, Jr. [©2008 First Classics, Inc.; by permission of Jack Lake Productions, Inc.]

The WHO’S WHO of American Comic Books (1928-1999) FREE – online searchable database – FREE http://www.bailsprojects.com No password required Created by Jerry G. Bails

A quarter of a million records, covering the careers of people who have contributed to original comic books in the US.

hat if... instead of selling his share of All-American Publications to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz in the mid-1940s, M.C. Gaines had bought DC Comics from them?

Just imagine... a comic book industry in which Green Lantern and The

Flash and Wonder Woman are the premier early heroes—stars of comic books, radio, movies, and television—rather than Superman and Batman. Not a dream, not a hoax… just an imaginary story of an alternate universe and...

The Secret History of All-American Comics, Inc. T

heodore Paul (“Ted”) Skimmer worked in the editorial and production departments of All-American Publications from 1944 through 1997. During his 53-year career, he had a front-row seat for the history of the company, a history he has agreed to share with me… and you. All artwork on the next six pages, by the bye, is ©2008 DC Comics.

This chapter, adapted from an article that appeared in The Dynamic World of AA Comics #2 in 1974, was co-written by Ted and yours truly, based on his memories of the events leading to the Silver Age of Comics. —Bob Rozakis.

Book One – Chapter 4: Lightning Striking Again! “Maybe we should try bringing back one of our super-heroes,” said Julie Schwartz during an editorial meeting in early 1956. The other editors did not react, but instead looked at their publisher at the head of the conference room table. “It’s your issue to fill,” said Shelly Mayer, the editorial director. “There’s certainly a market for Green Lantern, thanks to the TV show….”

A Nine-Pack Of Serial Speaking of Green Lantern—here’s a choice item composed by archivist Alex Wright that we couldn’t squeeze into A/E #79: a montage of lobby cards from Chapter 2 of Columbia’s 1948 Green Lantern movie serial, featuring blond-wigged Kirk Alyn as Alan Scott/GL, Noel Neill as Irene Miller, and Edward Brophy as Doiby Dickles. Only Neill would return in the hit TV series a few years later—as Irene’s successor, Cathy Crain—and even Noel had to wait for the show’s second season! The other two actors were replaced on TV, of course, by George Reeves and Joe E. Ross, as related last issue.

“I’d like to think that I have something to do with those sales,” interrupted Mort Weisinger. “We’d still only have him in two titles if I hadn’t pushed to expand—“ “Yeah, yeah, Mort,” snorted Robert Kanigher, “all those pimply tenyear-olds wait breathlessly for every issue of Doiby Dickles.”

Lightning Striking Again!

Kirby At DC—The Final Days (Left:) The Jack Kirby-penciled “Challengers of the Unknown” was delayed till Showcase #9 by Mort Weisinger’s Machiavellian machinations. It still became an instant hit, but its postponement led to resentment on the artist’s part. (Above:) It’s rumored that Kirby quit drawing Sensation Comics’ “Wildcat” in the middle of this story because of dissatisfaction with editor Jack Schiff, which is why we have this roughly penciled panel. The tale as printed was finished by Gil Kane. Repro’d from a photocopy of the original art, from the collection of Shane Foley.

consecutively, to see if they would hold the audience.” This argument was most probably also the reason Julie was told to prepare two more Showcase issues of “Superman” rather than one. Then there is the matter of the rumors about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster reviving the original version of the character. Few people knew it at the time, but Siegel was secretly writing scripts for Weisinger from the mid-1950s and into the ’60s. If anyone would have had the knowledge to dispute the rumors, it would have been Mort. According to Julie Schwartz, it is far more likely that Weisinger himself was the source of those rumors. —BR. Next: “MORT-ification!”

A Flash In The Pan? Some imaginative souls have wondered, “Suppose history had been different, and DC’s Donenfeld and Liebowitz had bought Gaines’ AA, instead of vice versa—and Superman had endured as the company’s flagship hero? Would the Silver Age then have begun, perhaps, with Julie Schwartz reviving Green Lantern—or Starman—or The Flash? Here’s an artist’s speculative rendering of what a cover of the latter concept might have looked like, with penciling by Carmine Infantino and inking by Joe Kubert. It seems unlikely, though, that Kubert, primarily a full-art guy, would’ve wound up embellishing someone else’s pencils.

Comic Fandom Archive

Found! “New” Photos From The 1965 New York Comicon! A Recently Discovered Time Capsule of Pics From “The First Full-Service Comics Convention”

by Bill Schelly

everal years ago—in Alter Ego #20 (Jan. 2003), to be exact—we offered extensive coverage of what seems to us to qualify as the first full-service comic book convention. We were able to present transcripts of the panels at the comicon which featured such professionals as Gardner Fox, Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Gil Kane, and many others. And in the text, along with a full recounting of the events of the three-day affair, and the inclusion of memories of many of its attendees, we were able to recreate the atmosphere in the seedy Hotel Broadway Central where this seminal event took place in Manhattan on July 31 and Aug. 1, 1965.

But the one area where we met with a certain frustration in our researches was finding photographs. Yes, we had a few in A/E #20—and they were good ones—featuring Fabulous Flo Steinberg and Dave Kaler cutting the comicon cake, and primo “Captain Marvel” writer Otto Binder posing with Phil and Carole Seuling, who were garbed as Captain and Mary Marvel…. but there were a mere handful.

Thus, we were thrilled when Jean Bails discovered among her late husband’s effects a cache of photos that had evidently been tucked away somewhere and had managed to elude Jerry’s searches over the years. Yes, folks, in a way, these photos represent Jerry Bails, in a sense the founder of modern comic fandom itself, reaching across the abyss of time, through his lovely wife, to contribute once more to the pages of this magazine which he founded in spring of 1961. The images are a variable lot, and some of them are slightly out of focus, alas. But among them are some superb pictures, and some provide visual evidence of things that are relatively important from a comicshistorical point of view. A few, we hasten to add, have previously seen print, but have been reprinted here for completeness. We’ve included photos taken of the con itself first, while those of its precedent-setting first comicon masquerade will be seen next issue. Unfortunately, we cannot provide photo credits. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the mostly “lost photos” from the 1965 New York comicon! (Left:) A good place to begin is with this shot of our fearless founder, Jerry G. Bails, ensconced behind his own dealer’s table at the con. During this period, Jerry often sold off Golden Age comic books after he had committed their pages to microfilm, so that he would have funds to buy other vintage issues for similar purposes. Too bad no one can ID any of the fans talking with him—or can they?

(Right:) Rick Weingroff (on left) and Mark Hanerfeld. Weingroff was best known in fandom as the editor and publisher of the fanzine Slam-Bang, and as the writer of the “Rocketeer Gossip” column for Rocket’s Blast-Comicollector (RB-CC). Seated next to him in front of the official comicon cake is Mark Hanerfeld, a mainstay of New York fandom who assisted Dave Kaler in organizing this and future comic book conventions. Mark was later an editorial assistant at DC and scripted at least one “Spectre” story.

The Cult Of The Curse The Story Behind The Other Golden Age “Captain Marvel” Serial by John G. Pierce Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

The Coming of “The Cult Of The Curse”

ack in the 1940s, there were three great sources of entertainment for kids. One was comic books, while the other two were radio programs and the cliffhanger movie serials. This last-named, also known as chapterplays, presented a story spread out over 12 or more episodes—with each chapter except the last ending on a dramatic moment, usually with some imminent danger posed to the hero or leading lady, with the escape being revealed only at the beginning of the following week’s episode. Fawcett Publications’ Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher both starred in excellent chapterplays from the king of the serialmakers, Republic Pictures. And Fawcett licensees Captain Midnight, Nyoka, and Don Winslow also appeared in movie serials.

Cover Me! C.C. Beck’s cover for Captain America Adventures #61 (May 24, 1946). Having the cover spot got “The Cult of the Curse” off to a fine start, but, alas, it soon fizzled—at least by comparison to “The Monster Society of Evil.” But then—what wouldn’t have? [©2008 DC Comics.]

But the cross-pollination worked both ways, as such serials not only borrowed from the comics (and radio, for that matter), but also influenced them. In particular, Captain Marvel Adventures had two comic

book serials, the first being “The Monster Society of Evil” which appeared in CMA #22-46 (1943-1945). This serial, designed (from its splash page onward) to call to mind the great movie serials, introduced one of Cap’s most notable villains, the tiny worm named Mr. Mind—who still fires up writers’ imaginations these many decades later (as witnessed by Jeff Smith’s recent mini-series). But there was a second, shorter, less-remembered serial, running from CMA #61 (May 1946) to #66 (Oct. 1946). After an opening splash panel designed to simulate the Saturday matinee movie viewing experience (similar to the feel of the beginning of the previous “Monster Society” epic), this second serial, “The Cult of the Curse,” and its first chapter, “The World’s Mightiest Mortal versus the World’s Mightiest Immortal,” begins with the discovery of a temple in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. A prospector, who claims to own the mountain, is confronted by a strange being with pointed ears and wearing a toga, who introduces himself as Oggar. (Perhaps Otto Binder, the author of the story, named him Oggar as a play off the word “ogre,” which would be a good descriptive for this villain.) Oggar claims to have come from ancient Egypt, labels himself “the World’s Mightiest Immortal,” and is ready to launch something he calls

Ifs, Ands, & Butts (Above:) In this panel from the first chapter of “The Cult of the Curse” serial, in Captain Marvel Adventures #61 (May 1946), Oggar kicks butt. (Right:) Later in that same chapter, Cap and Oggar are about to butt heads this time. In all panels reproduced for this article, the story/script is by Otto Binder, the art by C.C. Beck and staff. [©2008 DC Comics.]