Alter Ego #71

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No. 71August2007

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THE GREATCANADIAN

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THE GREATCANADIAN

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Roy Thomas’ Canuck

Comics Fanzine

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Captain Canuck TM & ©2007 Comely Comix; Vindicator & Wolverine TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Mr. Monster TM & ©2007 Michael T. Gilbert; other heroesTM & ©2007 Nelvana Unlimited

Alter EgoTM is published monthly by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: [email protected]. 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 charactersare © 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.

This issue is respectfully dedicatedto the memory of

Arnold Drake

ContentsWriter/Editorial: Of (49th) Parallel Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2The Great Canadian Comic Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Lavishly illustrated! The full text of the 1971 classic work by Michael Hirsch & Patrick Loubert.

“The Last Remaining Guy On The Ship” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Golden Ager Al Schutzer talks to Jim Amash about writing Superman, Blue Beetle, et al.

“One Minute Later!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Michael Finn’s offbeat approach to art commissions—and to The Invaders!

Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! Kooky Krossovers! (Part I) . . . 63Michael T. Gilbert on crazy intra-company crossovers of the Golden Age.

In Memoriam: Arnold Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71re: [comments, correspondence, & corrections] . . . . . . . . . 73FCA (Fawcett Collectors Of America) #130 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Marc Swayze, C.C. Beck, Raymond Miller, and P.C. Hamerlinck in a fantasy phantasmagoria.

On Our Cover: To accompany our colossal “Canadian content” this issue, we were determinedto find exactly the right artist to transform Jack Kirby’s cover layout for What If? #9 (June1978)—done for the issue that introduced the 1950s “proto-Avengers” assemblage which hasreappeared a time or two of late in Marvel comics—into a grouping of Canadian heroes, both“Golden Age” and modern. And who better to do it, suggested publisher John Morrow, thanthe talented north-of-the-border artist George Freeman, who has drawn not only CaptainCanuck but also the likes of Elric, Secret Origins (Golden Age Green Lantern), Avengers West Coast, et al.? Nobody, that’s who! [Captain Canuck TM & ©2007 Comely Comix;Vindicator & Wolverine TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Mr. Monster TM & ©2007 Michael T. Gilbert; Nelvana, Thunderfist, The Dreamer, & The Penguin TM & ©2007 NelvanaLimited. All rights reserved.]

Above: A vintage drawing of Nelvana of the Northern Lights and her faithfulhound–slash–brother Tanero, by Adrian Dingle. [©2007 Nelvana Limited. All rights reserved.]

Vol. 3, No. 71 / August 2007EditorRoy Thomas

Associate EditorsBill SchellyJim Amash

Design & LayoutChristopher Day

Consulting EditorJohn Morrow

FCA EditorP.C. Hamerlinck

Comic Crypt EditorMichael T. Gilbert

Editorial Honor RollJerry G. Bails (founder)Ronn Foss, Biljo White

Editor EmeritusMike Friedrich

Production AssistantChris Irving

Circulation DirectorBob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

Cover ArtistGeorge Freeman,from a layout by Jack Kirby

Cover ColoristTom Ziuko

With Special Thanks to:Heidi AmashBob BaileyDave BakerDavid M. BeckRod BeckJohn BellBill BlackJohn ByrneNick CaputoVic CarrabottaErnie ChanRichard ComelyGerry ConwayCorus EntertainmentMichaël DewallyMichael FinnShane FoleyGeorge FreemanBenito GallegoJanet GilbertDaryl GoldSteven GrantMike GrellGeorge HagenauerDavid HajduJennifer HamerlinckFred HembeckMichael HirshChris IvyJack Kirby EstateHenry KujawaAlan KupperbergRichard Kyle

Jerry LazareSteve LeialohaMark LewisRon LimStephen LipsonPatrick LoubertNelvana LimitedMichael E. MannyBruce MasonSteven E. McDonaldJosh MedorsRaymond MillerBrian K. MorrisMark MullerJoe PetrilakRobert PincombeFrancis A. RodriguezLeo SaAl SchutzerDave SimClive SmithRonn SuttonMarc SwayzeJeff TaylorDann ThomasHarold TownMichael UslanJim Vadeboncoeur, Jr.Alan WalkerJim WardenHames WareSteve WhitakerRandy Witten

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

n 1971 I purchased a copy of a brand new hardcover book—TheGreat Canadian Comic Books, assembled and mostly written byMichael Hirsh and Patrick Loubert—and the result was a bit like

what happened the day Barry Allen discovered there was this parallelEarth—“Earth-Two”—on which a different Flash lived and fought anddashed around.

Just as cartoonist Jules Feiffer had opened the eyes of much of theAmerican public to the existence of 1940s super-hero comic books inhis 1965 volume The Great Comic Book Heroes, Hirsh and Loubert(and cohorts Alan Walker and Howard Town) wanted to make theirfellow Canadians aware of their own proud heritage of World War II-era comics, long moldering in attics and largely unknown to a newgeneration. To those of us in the USA and elsewhere who smuglyconsidered ourselves pretty knowledgeable about the super-heroes ofthe 1940s, TGCCB was a kick in the pants and our first clue that,north of the 49th parallel, there had been “an Age undreamed of” bythose of us who sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” instead of “OCanada” at public events. (The Canadian tome actually dealt in detailonly with the output of a single company—Bell Features—but sincethat line was virtually the DC Comics of the Great White North,learning of its existence was still a revelation.)

Ever since reviving Alter Ego in 1999, and even though youngercomics historian John Bell has written about the “Canadian Whites” of65 years ago both in two books of his own (see p. 43) and in the still-available A/E #36, I’ve wanted to reprint the entire text of The GreatCanadian Comic Books in this magazine, along with much of the artfrom the volume that we didn’t utilize in that 2004 issue. And, with the

kind cooperation of Randy Witten, VP of Legal Affairs for CorusEntertainment, the current owners of the book’s copyrights, we’vefinally managed to do just that. (We’ve avoided repeating more than abare, inevitable handful of art spots that appeared in #36.)

Actually, this seems to be an A/E issue devoted to parallel worlds—as UK collector Michael Finn (with whom Dann and I shared a table atdinner at a comicon in Bristol, England, in 2006) regales us with someof the art he has specially commissioned which purports to depict whathappened “One Minute Later” with regard to various key covers of the1970s Invaders and related series… but we’ll let him tell you aboutthat in his own words, beginning on p. 54.

Hmm… come to think of it, Michael T. Gilbert’s “Comic Crypt”segment on “Kooky Krossovers” at MLJ and Quality partakes to someextent of a parallel universe, as well, since some of those adventures, asyou’ll see, were unreal even compared to the usual comic book fare—and, in FCA, Fawcett’s Colonel Porterhouse has adventures that are analternate reality to those of the heroes of 1940s Whiz Comics!

All that, plus Jim Amash’s interview with Al Schutzer, a Golden Agecomics writer so unknown by most of fandom right up to the presentthat he might as well be on a parallel Earth! As this issue went to press,his vital stats still weren’t listed even on the Who’s Who of AmericanComic Books 1928-1999 website (though they may well be by the timeyou read these imperishable words)!

Bestest,

Of (49th) Parallel Worlds

FUNNY-ANIMAL SUPER-HEROES!They’re Not Just For Breakfast Anymore!

Edited by ROY THOMASSUBSCRIBE NOW! Twelve Issues in the US: $78 Standard, $108 First Class

(Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $180 Surface, $216 Airmail).NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUB, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

COMING IN SEPTEMBERCOMING IN SEPTEMBER

[Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew, Starro TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

• Brand new Starro-studded cover by SCOTT SHAW!

• ROY THOMAS & SCOTT SHAW! on the 1981 creation of Captain Carrot! Plus an overview by MIKE CURTIS—& rare art by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG,MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, CAROL LAY, et al.!

• Golden Age DC humor-mongers LARRY & MARTIN NADLE!

• DICK ROCKWELL, comic book artist (Crimebuster, Black Diamond Western, etc.) and36-year ghost of MILT CANIFF on Steve Canyon—interviewed by JIM AMASH!

• “The Great Unknowns!” JIM VADEBONCOEUR, JR., & HAMES WARE in search of artist L. BING!

• Plus—FCA with C.C. BECK & MARC SWAYZE—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on “Kooky Crossovers” at MLJ & Quality, Part II—BILL SCHELLY on fan-editor BOB SCHOENFELD—& MORE!!

CAPTAIN CARROTAND HIS AMAZING TRUE CREW!

#72

2 writer/editorial

II

Original cover by Clive Smith.[Unless otherwise noted, all art and story on pp. 3-42 are ©2007 Nelvana Limited. All rights reserved, and used by permission.]

The Classic 1971 Work On The Bell Comics Company—Reprinted In Its Entirety!

3

IntroductionHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

by Alan Walker

Most of the entrepreneurs and artists who produced Canadiancomic books during the Second World War had no previous experiencein printing or publishing anything, let alone comic books. But whenthe Canadian Government banned foreign comic books, as a wartimeeconomy measure, these men sensed an opportunity to profit by fillinga void.

They took risks; they worked with feverish and tireless haste; andthey managed to create and sustain a praiseworthy Canadian comic art.

Some also managed to make some medium-sized fortunes. But atwar’s end, Canadian comics undeservedly disappeared, and much of themoney they had earned disappeared with them. A remarkable era ofCanadian art and economics was over—an era that contained all theelements of the comic books themselves: drama, suspense, humor—andeven pathos.

North American children in the late 1930s had no television to helpthem idle away their time, but there was still free entertainment aplentyfrom radio—hours and hours a week of comedy and suspense serials.Then, in 1937, in the United States, there appeared a markedly newform of entertainment for youngsters: comic books (the first wasDetective, which appeared in March). [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE:Comic books actually debuted a decade earlier, and regularly-published specimens with new material commenced in 1935 withNational Allied Publications’ New Fun.]

Kids had long read comic strips innewspapers and Sunday supplements,and some such strips had been reprintedin book form, but their parents readstrips, too, and somehow that made adifference: strips weren’t something thatkids could look upon as part of theirown secret world. True “comic books,”however, were made up of longer stories,with consistent themes, and were drawnespecially for the books, and kidsadopted them instantly. Within a fewmonths, American publishers wereselling millions of comic books a monthat home, and many thousands in Canada.

The littlest kids read the funny comicbooks, like Disney’s, and the older kidsturned with passionate involvement tothe super-heroes: Superman, Batman andRobin, Captain Marvel. What days thosewere! And “all in color for a dime”(though, at first, most Canadian storesmarked US comics up to 15¢).

Canadian publishers before theSecond World War were even lesseconomically healthy—and a good dealless enthusiastic—than they are today[1971]. Consequently, none had thefaintest interest in a Canadian comicbook industry, not when so many sleekAmerican books were packing Canada’snewsstands every month. But that wasall to change with the knowledge that

the burden of US competition was to be removed.

On December 6, 1940, the War Exchange Conservation Act forbadethe import of certain “non-essential” items into Canada from non-sterling countries, thus helping to conserve Canada’s foreign exchangecredits. Its list of barred foreign material included “periodical publica-tions, unbound or paper-bound, consisting largely of fiction or printedmatter of a similar character, including detective, sex, western andalleged true confession stories, and publications, unbound or paper-bound, commonly known as comics, but not including bona fidesupplements used with newspapers.”

Canadians, as they liked to phrase it back then, “tightened theirbelts.” If Father didn’t go off to war himself, at least he had to make hiscar last an extra couple of years, and he suffered the annoyances ofgasoline rationing. Mother retailored her old dresses and hoarded meattokens. And, for their part, the innocent children, who hadundoubtedly never even heard of the War Exchange Conservation Act,discovered in the winter of 1940-41 that their neighborhood candystore no longer displayed the marvelous adventures of Batman, TheHuman Torch, Captain Marvel, or any other of the familiar fantasticcharacters.

Though the kids’ wartime sacrifices were more banal than theirparents’, they were no less irksome; the kids had become enthralled bycomic books, and it was a depressing period for a whole generationwhen they discovered that something had gone wrong.

If ever there was a captive audience, this was it. American publishershad done all the experimenting and test-marketing, had taken all therisks, and had managed to get Canadian kids thoroughly hooked oncomic books. Now their products were barred.

“Each playing a big game of solitaire—each delighting in dealing themselves pat hands mites andmotes in maple leaf make believe.” —after Krazy Kat.

The original dedication, by the 1971 book’s designer, Clive Smith, showcased various of Bell’s characters—including Nelvana, Speed Savage, Captain Wonder, and Fred Kelly’s hero Mr. Monster, some years before

Michael T. Gilbert discovered Doc Stearne’s one-shot alter ego. Despite the “Designed and Illustrated” creditfor Smith on the preceding page, alas, only the book's original cover and this single drawing of his could be utilized in this reprinting. Oh, and a special thanks to Brian K. Morris for retyping the text on pp. 4-42!

4 The Classic 1971 Work On The Bell Comics Company—Reprinted In Its Entirety!

shedding layers of blue andyellow.

Nor is the color qualityconsistent. “Fair Loraine,”whom Dart saves fromvarious perils, wears redtights on one page andpurple ones on the next. Buteven from a printer’sviewpoint, Wow #1 was farbetter than just a good try—and it is unlikely that anykids complained, particu-larly during the enforcedabsence of Batman, MickeyMouse, and others of theirilk.

In the distribution ofnational, monthly period-icals, publishers generallycannot count on knowinganything definite about thesales success of a particularissue until the next one hasbeen distributed, and untilthe one following is ready togo to press. But less than amonth after Wow’s debut, inthe late summer of 1941,

Cut-Outs And Cut-UpsAn “Elaine Kenyon Cut-Outs” page and a “Dart Daring” splash, featuring that valiant swordsman—both from Wow Comics #1.

An “Incredible Monster,” A “Helpless, Terrified Girl,” And Whiz WallacePages from the “Whiz Wallace” story in Wow #1. The 1971 tome printed ten pages of this tale in color, duplicating the color problems of theoriginal—but the registry, etc., weren’t really much worse than in a lot of American comics of that period. “Whiz Wallace,” of course, washeavily influenced by the US newspaper comic strip Flash Gordon—as were countless American comic book stories in those day, as well!

The Great Canadian Comic Books 7

congratulations began to reach Bell from newsstand distributors inToronto, and from other publishers who belatedly realized thepotential of what Bell had done. Sure enough, when results were in,Wow #1 had sold all of the 52,000 copies printed. The next few issuesalso sold out, and it wasn’t long before Bell realized he didn’t own anycopies of these first historic books. He promptly advertised in his owncomics, offering kids 50¢ if they would turn in their back issues. (If thekids had hung on to them, they could get $15 to $50 for each of themfrom collectors today.)

For a few weeks, Bell’s only artist was Legault, who worked in alonely warehouse on the third story of Bell’s plant at 165 York Street.“But we naturally realized that we couldn’t manage with just one artist,so we started to recruit others,” Bell says. “We also decided to savetime and money by dropping down to three-color printing, then totwo-color, and finally by dumping all the color.” Wow #2-5 wereprinted in garish orange, blue and black, which gave an illusion of fullcolor. Wow #6-8 were in orange and blue only. After that—everythingwas in black-&-white. Bell’s shrewdness was borne out: with noAmerican comics available, Canadian youngsters bought anything thatfaintly resembled them. The more enterprising young readers producedtheir own full-color comic books by using Bell’s black-&-white ones ascoloring books. (Other kids who had friends or relatives in the US, orwho managed to visit there themselves, read smuggled American comicbooks—and used them to make new friends.)

Bell’s first idea was to gather all his artists under one roof where hecould keep an eye on them, so he had cubicles built in his warehouse,and installed in them such major talents as Leo Bachle, Ross Saakel,Ted Steele, and Murray Karn. Leo Bachle remembers that Bell paid him

$25 a week, “whichcertainly made me acapitalist, because Ihad been makingonly $10 a weekbefore that.” ButBell’s scheme wentawry, becausenearly all of hisartists were in theirteens—some asyoung as 15—andto persuadeteenagers to beproductive in whatBachle called “theBlack Hole ofCalcutta” wasnearly impossiblewhen they wereguaranteed a regularsalary. So Bellcanceled hispermanent stable ofartists, declared hewould pay them forpiecework fromthen on (Bachle, forinstance, earned$6.50 a page), andsent them home towork. “Thatstopped thetomfoolery,” Bellsays. “At least itstopped it where Icould see it, and I

didn’t have to pay for any mischief they got into on their own time.”

Both Bells were passable cartoonists, knew several other artiststhrough their Commercial Signs of Canada, and today recall that manyof those artists harbored semi-secret ambitions to draw comic strips.Bell found it easy to channel their interests into his books; then theseartists recruited others, and the Bell group gradually grew to numberssufficient to allow Bell to publish the seven different monthly titles thatwere his during his peak years. Many artists drew a “filler” or two,then moved on, and are forgotten—but Bell calculates that he hadabout 60 different artists working for him, in a significant way, duringthe war.

The artists drew for love as much as for money—they loved comicart for itself. Most had only recently been raised on comic books, orindeed were still being weaned from them. Comic books had promptedmany of them to become artists in the first place, and they founddrawing comic books to be just plain fun. They drew their own faces,or faces of friends (and foes) into their strips; they concealedsometimes-obscene messages in them; they even drew caricatures of CyBell. (When really desperate, they copied from other artists’ work.They called such exercises in plagiarism “swipes.”)

“Let’s face it, it was great for us,” Leo Bachle says. “We werecelebrities. I drew Johnny Canuck, and he had my face, and everybodyat my school [Danforth Tech] read it, and I was popular. I drew theteachers, and all the kids read the books to see whose name I was goingto mention.”

Mondays were deadline days at Bell Features (as Bell’s company was

A Couple Of Colorful CanucksLeo Bachle said he drew his hero Johnny Canuck to look like himself. At left is a feature page on the artist—at right, the splash page ofa “Johnny Canuck” story—both from Dime Comics—er, excuse us, “Dime” Comics. (We’ve generally omitted the quotation marks in the

names of several of Bell’s comics in this reprinting.)


called after March 1942), and the young artists, often half-asleepbecause they had stayed up most of the previous night to finish theirassignments, traveled to 165 York Street and turned in their work. Itwas duly praised or criticized (rarely rejected, because there wasn’ttime to draw anything twice), and Bell would sign checks for eachcontributor on the spot. Then most of the artists, along with the Bellsand art director Adrian Dingle (now a noted Canadian painter) wouldmove on to the dining lounge of the nearby Piccadilly Hotel, on KingStreet, to cash their checks, drink beer, swap story ideas—and maybeeven eat something.

Many of the Bell strips were serials, a practice not generallyfollowed in US comic books of the day, and Bell’s artists often wroteand drew one month’s strip without having any idea of how the wholething would turn out a couple of months later. “Often the boys wouldget a hero in a bad spot, and we’d all suggest ways to get him out,” saysBell.

Of Bell’s seven monthly titles, two (Joke and Dizzy Don) weredevoted to pure humor for younger kids. The other five were melangesof adventure strips, with the odd chunk of comedy or prose and anassortment of other material: contests; simply-coded “secret messages”;advertisements for hardware like Johnny Canuck pencil lights; promo-tional pages for the Panthers, Bell Features’ sponsored amateur hockey

All-Canadian HeroesAlan Walker mentions “Nelvana of the Northern Lights,” “Dixon of the

Mounted,” and “Derek of Bras d’Or” as a trio of “All-Canadians”—i.e., “menand women irrevocably part of the Canadian scene”—plus “Johnny Canuck,”

of course. The “Nelvana” page is from her story in Dingle’s self-publishedTriumph-Adventure Comics, which he soon sold to Bell.


Active Comics, the Club News and Views printed a list of newmembers.

The club appealed to every boy and girl “to help defeat Hitler”;spending a summer on a farm to offset the labor shortage was avaluable contribution to the home effort. Active Jim, the club director,exclaimed: “Isn’t it just grand to live in a country of the British Empirewhere we can enjoy sports, entertainment, recreation, and all theprinciples of democracy, where our country is as much for us as we arefor it!”

“Active Jim” had his own adventure story in every issue of ActiveComics. Joan Brian was his girl friend—and also the club secretary. Ina number of adventures drawn by Ross Saakel, Jim proved to be themost sensational sportsman of all time. The war over, he editorialized:“If every boy and girl does his best to do all things fairly and squarelywith good neighborliness, there will be no more war. Yes sir, it’s up tous. The new generation! Yours for health and fair play!”

“Penny’s Diary” was the only feature in the Canadian Whitescreated especially for girls. It was also both drawn and written bywomen. The comic book story was based on Pat Joudry’s successfulradio show of the same name, which was broadcast on CFRB Toronto,Sundays at 8 p.m. Penny primps herself in the mirror: “Don’tcha think

Anything For A Laugh“Penny’s Diary” (above), by “Joudry and Slater,” was the Canadian equivalent of Timely/Marvel’s Patsy Walker (and later Archie titles like Betty and Veronica)

—while, in “Billy Beaver and His Pal Chubby Jones,” the buck-toothed rodentgot top billing.



The ancient theatre pursues its harmonies and apportions... itsidylls.

—Rimbaud

The word of Tarzan is the law of the jungle.

—Edgar Rice Burroughs

“Jeff Waring,” ably initiated by Murray Karn and later shoulderedby Jerry Lazare, was a world-wide adventure strip which struggled forspace with “Whiz Wallace” and “Dart Daring” in the early editions ofWow Comics (#7-14). The stories too often presented the reader with apainful progression of animal aggressors, lost cities (gold, emerald, andplatinum), and harried native peoples, and suffered from a sense ofsameness. In the first installment, Jeff takes Kay, Prof. Allen’s lovelydaughter, to be his faithful companion, and together they thwart theprofessor’s enemies and preserve the treasure of the lost city for theproper authorities.

“Steve Storms,” the clear-thinking, monocled diplomat commis-sioner of Kilbary, was Fred Kelly’s attempt to portray a more humanand realistic jungle. The strip was, however, extremely short-lived,despite certain fine qualities which should have stayed its perfunctoryexecution.

Before he entered the war, Edmund Legault drew two short jungleepisodes, both of which concerned a slightly more obvious and humanjungle menace: the Japanese and the Germans.

“Betty Burd,” a young authoress writing a book on jungle life, goesbikini-native in Ju Ju Swamp to gather material. She divides her timebetween narrow escapes from the jungle wildlife and battles against thesly advances of Dick Lake, her publisher and hopeful suitor.

In general, the strip was a poor imitation of its more illustriousAmerican predecessors, “Sheena” and “Jo Jo the Congo King.”

Chapter 10ADVENTURE

I have long abandoned myself to the pursuit of honor.

— The Nibelungenlied

Will wundas never seeze.

—Krazy Kat

Foremost among the adventure strips were “Whiz Wallace” and“Dart Daring,” the backbone of Wow Comics for almost two years.

“Whiz Wallace” was probably inspired by Alex Raymond’s FlashGordon, but lacked both the dramatic scope and the draftsmanship ofthe latter. Nevertheless, the first edition of Wow Comics presented50,000 fortunate fans with a full-color story tightly packed with

I kinda resemble Ann Sheridan with this hairdo?”

The adventures of “Billy Beaver and his pal Chubby Jones” beganwhen Chubby ran away from home. Falling into quicksand, he was

saved by a beaver. Chubby was surprised to hear the beaver say: “Theshock of sinking in the quicksand must have upset your brain waves sothat you can understand animal talk.” Billy was adopted by the Jonesfamily and lived telepathically ever after.

Chapter 9JUNGLE

Gee, Whiz!“Whiz Wallace” rescues Dale Arden—er, we mean, Elaine Kenyon—in

the first, color issue of Wow Comics—plus the final clinch from another issue.Art & story by E.T. Legault.

Four For TheRain Forest

(Clockwise from top left:) Jeff Waringis the titular “King

of the Amazon” in this Murray Karnsplash from an issue

of Wow Comics—Fred Kelly’s “Steve

Storms,Commissioner of

Kilbani” somehowwound up in JokeComics—Betty Burd

(what a name!) was Kelly’s jungleentry in Triumph—

while the story“Burma Blockade”

by E.T. Legaultcombined jungleand war in Wow.


“Action, Thrills and Adventure.” The strip, drawn by EdmundLegault, featured a handsome young aviator and his fair companionElaine Kenyon rocketing their way through scripts which containedsuch pitfalls as the Invisible Planet, the River of Fire, the Valley of Fear,the Swamp of Dread, the Grottos of Green Death, and the Kingdom ofAwe, wherein they battled their way past the Gargantaurs, the HorribleNine-headed Centipede, the Jellied Gargoyle Monster, the Black FireDragon, the Monster Horned Toad, the Serpentine Ferns, theCarnivore Weeds, the Cold Flames, the Female Zombies, the WildDevil Birds, the Gigantic Sabre-Toothed Serpent—and somequicksand. All this amazingly enough in the first three chapters.Wallace charted his square-prowed jaw through the sea of troublesthat constantly threatened to engulf him for 17 issues of WowComics before becoming victim to the war effort when Legaultjoined the Canadian Army.

As Legault was forced to work more quickly (he carried two fullserials and filled in on others in order to make a living), his artsuffered through a process of reduction. Backgrounds disappeared,as did the delicate feathering technique which graced his earlierwork. All of this resulted in a much-simplified version of the strip.At the same time he switched from bold, full-panel newspaper stripformat to the more constricted multi-paneled page favored by theAmericans, and towards the end of his comic hitch, Whiz and Elaineseemed to become little more than phantom prisoners of the financesthat had given them birth.

“Dart Daring,” drafted along the same fine lines as “WhizWallace,” was a long-haired, muscular 18th-century romancer wholeaned heavily on his sword to battle with the roaming bands ofpirates, Indians, and cannibals that struggled continually to lay theirhands upon his lovely lady, Loraine Knight. The strip is marred inplaces by an inordinate amount of romantic foreplay that has Dartand Loraine restate their fanciful fidelity three or four times eachissue. The locales were often Canadian, ranging from Fort Craige tothe shores of the St. Lawrence, as Dart and Loraine hacked their wayeast.

Both series had dropped from sight by Wow #18, but the rankswere quickly filled by “The Penguin,” “Jeff Waring,” and others. Ofthe other pure adventure stories (none so pure as Dart and Loraine),which included “Doc Stearne,” a savage “swipe” (Doc Savage was apulp hero of the 1930s); “The Blade,” a dull, short-lived “sword ’n’saga” complete with a Buck Rogers “suspended animation” origin;

and “Scott Stewart: Planet Pilot,” adismal one-shot sci-fi story of fanzinequality.

Perhaps the most interesting was“Rex Baxter,” originated by EdmundGood, a Dingle protégé. The story ran inserial form in Dime Comics, with Goodsupplying the pens until Dime #14,when it was taken over by AdrianDingle, who transformed the character, asoldier of fortune, into a counterspy forthe United Nations, leaving artistClayton Dexter to bring him to a well-deserved rest in Dime #28. Baxter’sadventures took him undersea to the lostcity of Xlanta, where he faced hazardson the Island of Doom. In the sequencereproduced, Rex and the lovely MissGail Abbot are made aware of thepresence of the friendly Xlantians, and

set off with them for their undersea empire, taking time out only to zapan errant enemy sub, popping it open like “a rotten egg,” before theydisappear down a gaping hole into 14 issues of sumptuous subterraneanfare that included a queen with a villainous half-brother (Lerzal), whodecides to invade the surface world with a deadly green bacteria germ.


Dart Agnan?Though Dartner “Dart” Daring (above and below) was basically a swashbuckler in the 1700s, his Wow Comicsstories, often set in Canada or the wild of Africa, sometimes looked more like Last of the Mohicans or Tarzan

of the Apes than The Three Musketeers!

orn January3rd, 1922, inBridgeport,

Connecticut, Al Schutzeris one of the moreeducated writers the comicbook business has known.And one of the moreunknown, as well. One ofthe most difficult things injudging who did what inthe Golden and Silver Agesof comics concerns thescripting. Writers hardly ever got a byline. and it’s tougher to discerndifferent writing styles in comics than art styles. Luckily for us,writer David Hajdu (whose upcoming book The Ten-Cent Plague:Comic Books, Crime, Kids, and the Birth of Postwar PopularCulture will be must reading) told me about Al Schutzer’s comicbook career and gave me his contact information. And here’s Al totell you the rest. —Jim.

“[Writing] Was Something… I Could Make A Living At”

AL SCHUTZER: I was always interested in writing. It was somethingthat I was good at, I could make a living at, and I had other options. Icould have got into engineering or God knows what else. But writingwas always an old interest. It was always there.

I got a Bachelor’s degree in English at Brooklyn College, and myMaster’s at New York University. I also studied MechanicalEngineering for a while at the University of Oklahoma.

JIM AMASH: Engineering? Were you torn about making writing a career?

SCHUTZER: I was in a specialized training program in the Armywhere they sent GIs to various universities for special training. It wascalled the Army Specialized Training Program, and at a certain pointthey closed the program down. They discovered that they were losing ahell of a lot more infantrymen than they had planned on losing. Thegreat General Marshall had miscalculated. To solve the problem, theytook a full generation of college-age guys who were in the Army in thevarious Engineering and Language programs, and just rolled them overinto the infantry.

JA: Were you drafted, or did you volunteer?

SCHUTZER: I was drafted into the service May 3, 1943, and servedfor three years.

JA: How much about your war experiences do you want to talkabout?

SCHUTZER: War experiences? I have a Purple Heart, I have a BronzeStar, and I was once Missing In Action. But I don’t know if there’s anypoint going into too much detail about it. It’s a long story. Ancienthistory.

I was a staff sergeant in combat in the European Theater ofOperations. I was in a rifle platoon in Company A, 410th Infantry

Faraway Places With Strange-Sounding NamesAl Schutzer’s been keeping busy in his retirement, as you’ll read near

the end of this interview; the above photo was snapped in 2002 inTianammon Square in Beijing, China, with the Mao Zedong Museum in the

background. Since Al doesn’t recall details about precise comic book issuesand stories he wrote, we’ve juxtaposed the snapshot with a splash from a

series he co-created; he probably wrote this page from MagazineEnterprises’ Dogface Dooley #5 (1951), which has its own exotic locale and

delights. Artist unidentified. Thanks to Rod Beck for the scan, and of courseto Al for the photo. [Art ©2007 the respective copyright holders.]

45

“The Last Remaining GuyOn The Ship”

Comics Writer AL SCHUTZER On Freelancing In The Golden AgeInterview Conducted by Jim Amash Transcribed by Brian K. Morris

BB

Regiment, the 103rd Division,Seventh Army. We landed inMarseilles, about October 20, 1944.And we went on line November 11.We ended up in Innsbruck, Austria,before the war ended. We were with atank infantry spearhead and about amile outside of Innsbruck when westopped. The reason: the Mayor ofInnsbruck had taken a taxi out to meetus and surrender his city.to us. Theoffer was accepted. And that’s why thatbeautiful old city was not destroyed incombat.

JA: What were your thoughts whenyou first heard about the atom bombbeing dropped on Japan?

SCHUTZER: I had no objection then, I have no objection now,because I think the casualties in Japan would have been horrendous ifwe had invaded. I was in Innsbruck when the war ended. I ended up inthe Army of Occupation.

JA: What did you do once you were discharged?

SCHUTZER: [chuckles] I got out of the Army. I took a couple ofweeks off, then I did a stint as production manager for a small fashionmagazine, and I started getting my Master’s degree at night at NYU[New York University]. It was too much, holding a job down andgetting a degree, so the job went by the board and I got the Master’s.You want to know what my thesis was on? “The Dramatic Techniqueof John Millington Synge,” the Irish playwright.

“We Were In High School Together”JA: You were great friends with Ivan Klapper, who was a comicbook editor and writer. Tell me about him.

SCHUTZER: Ivan was a wonderful guy, very bright, very talented;terrific sense of humor. We were in high school together, in the sameclass. It was Ivan, myself, George Rabin, and Bill Gaines. I don’t knowif you know how the comic book industry originated. Bill’s father wasMax C. Gaines. He was advertising director for the Borden MilkCompany [NOTE: ?] and he used comic strips in his ads. One day itoccurred to him to put a book together, consisting of nothing butcomic strips. He put those books on a shelf in a candy store on AvenueU in Brooklyn. And they sold out overnight. So that was the beginningof the comic book industry. But you were asking about Ivan.

JA: Yes, but let me extend that to Bill Gaines, too. What was it likegoing to school with those guys?

SCHUTZER: Well, Bill Gaines was a diamond in the rough—bright,very down to earth, nothing phony about him. Ivan was sports editorof the high school newspaper. George Rabin was our staff photog-rapher. I suppose I was good in languages and mathematics in highschool. Also, I did some writing in high school, everything from poetryto articles for the paper. We also had two Nobel Prize winners in ourclass. One was Robert Solow, the economist, and the other one wasStanley Cohen, a biology researcher. Ivan and I were close, George andBill Gaines were close. Bill Gaines used to have the use of his father’s30-foot cabin cruiser, and the four of us used to go out on it quite oftenin Jamaica Bay and managed, one time, almost to turn the boat over. Itwas a good period in our lives.

JA: I didn’t realize that Bill’s association with Ivan Klapper wentback that far, though I knew Klapper had been an editor for EC

Comics in the ’40s.

SCHUTZER: Educational Comics? They used to put out PictureStories from the Bible, and similar stuff. A very successful publishingoperation. Ivan did a very brief stint up there and then left. I suspectedat the time that he and Bill couldn’t get along together in the office, butI don’t know what the reason was. I know Ivan parted company withEducational Comics at a certain point.

JA: What was Bill’s father like?

SCHUTZER: He didn’t really have that much to do with us. He wassort-of a closed-mouthed guy with strong minded opinions. You knowhow he was killed, don’t you?

JA: Yes, a boating accident on Lake Placid.

SCHUTZER: Do you know who was at the wheel of the boat? It wasJudge Proskower’s daughter, and she rode over him. They never foundhis body.

Soldiering OnHere are a pic of Al a few years earlier—and another splash from DogfaceDooley #5. Of the photo, Al writes: “We had broken through the German

main line of resistance in Alsace on March 15, 1945, and then headed for theRhine. This picture was taken in April, when we went into Division reserve

in Eberbach, Germany, a town on the Neckar River, not far fromHeidelberg. We had a peaceful, restful 10 days or so when this picture was

taken. Then we went back on line and the fire fights started up again. A lotof good guys died before the war ended on May 8—in Innsbruck, for us.”

Photo & art courtesy of Al and Rod Beck, respectively. [Art ©2007 therespective copyright holders.]

46 Comics Writer Al Schutzer On Freelancing In The Golden Age

“One Minute Later!”Report On An Offbeat Approach To Art Commissions

by Michael Finn

fter 34 years of comic book collecting here inEngland, I branched out into original art only afew years ago. I quickly realized I could neverafford the wonderful Silver Age covers that

excited my younger self decades ago—but I was amazedto discover that I could commission artists to re-createthose pieces. However, I wanted the illustrators to be ableto demonstrate their own originality, rather than do aline-for-line re-creation. What to do? Inspired by twogreat theme collectors—Chris Caira, who collects villainsdisplaying their trophy walls, and Brian Sagar, whofocuses on having Marvel Two-in-One artists re-createfamous MTIO covers and scenes—I came up with theidea of a “One Minute Later” theme.

I would commission artists to draw a scene whichtakes place one minute after the action depicted on theoriginal cover. My goal was to have an homage of sorts tocovers I loved, but also to allow talented artists ampleroom to improvise. I launched my theme re-creations byfocusing on a number of Invaders and Invaders-relatedcovers. (Of course, all heroes and villains depicted in thispiece are TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.). So we’llcall this first assemblage:

AA Part ITHE INVADERS

The Avengers #71 (Dec. 1969). All right, so the original cover (bottom left) pre-dates The Invaders by half a decade. Still, it was writer/editor Roy Thomas givingpenciler Sal Buscema (with inker Sam Grainger) a chance to drawTimely/Marvel’s 1940s “Big Three” battling a trio of Avengers, and is a favoritecover of mine.

For the “One Minute Later” sequel, I turned to G.I. Joe artist Josh Medors,who turned in the fantastic piece directly below. The amount of detail he put in togetting the Eiffel Tower right really makes the piece sing!

54

The Invaders #2 (Oct. 1975). This issue, whose cover (at right) was penciled byRich Buckler (inker uncertain) featured aliens who imagined they were Teutonicgods right out of Richard Wagner’s operatic Ring Cycle!

Because of his long history of drawing sword-wielding barbarians, I thoughtErnie Chan would be the perfect artist to depict a battle-axe-swinging Norse god.The character placement is spot-on! Bucky is recovering nicely, but poor Toro isfalling to the ground! (The art was colored by pro artist Chris Ivy.)

“One Minute Later!” 55

arry Allen, the Silver AgeFlash, first met Jay Garrick,his Golden Age

counterpart, in DC’s Flash #123.Barry’s predecessor supposedly livedon “Earth-Two,” an alternatedimension adjacent to our own. Thishistoric September 1961 crossoverproved so popular that other DCheroes soon got into the act,especially in the pages of the JusticeLeague of America, where suchcrossovers became an annual event.Eventually DC’s heavy-hitters battledheroes from a number of alternatecomic book “universes,” includingthose of Marvel, Charlton, andFawcett.

And in JLA #207, DC’s heroesmet Quality’s Freedom Fighters.

Discovered on “Earth-X,” thenewly-formed group consisted ofGolden Age greats Uncle Sam, TheHuman Bomb, The Black Condor,The Ray, Doll Man, and PhantomLady. Most readers naturally assumedthis October 1973 gathering was thefirst such pairing of Qualitycharacters.

However, that wasn’t quite true.

In fact, the first such crossoveroccurred decades earlier in Quality’sUncle Sam Comics #2 (Winter 1941),in a bizarre tale entitled “The Villains’Revolt!” The story isn’t credited, butmay have been illustrated by Madmagazine’s Dave Berg and written byWill Eisner.

Kooky Krossovers! (Part 1)By Michael T. Gilbert

BB

[Heroes TM & ©2007 DC Comics.]

64 Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!

[Reprinted and slightly edited, with permission,from Mark’s website newsfromme.com.©2007 Mark Evanier.]

rnold Drake, one of comics’ mostacclaimed writers, died on the morningof March 12, 2007. He collapsed a few

days after attending the New York Comic BookConvention (Feb. 23-25) with, as they said at thetime, “a touch of pneumonia.” Complicationswere found, and he never left the hospital.

During his career, he wrote all the majorcharacters for DC Comics, but distinguishedhimself especially with his co-creations“Deadman,” “Doom Patrol,” and “Stanley andHis Monster.” He was also known for long stintswriting the comic book adventures of Bob Hopeand Jerry Lewis, most of which were drawn bythe also-recently-deceased Bob Oksner.

Drake was born on March 1, 1924. At age 12,a bout with scarlet fever kept him confined to hisbed for a year. He spent much of that timedrawing his own comics. Though he later didsome cartooning, he found his primary interestwas not in drawing characters but in decidingwhat they’d say and do. His interest in writingled him to study journalism at the University ofMissouri and later at New York University.

Then he met Bob Kane, official creator of“Batman,” a neighbor of Arnold’s brother. Heworked with the artist on a few projects, andKane introduced him to the editors at DC Comics. Drake was soonwriting for such DC fare as House of Mystery, My GreatestAdventure, Space Ranger, “Mark Merlin,” “Batman,” and “TommyTomorrow.” Most of his creations in the 1960s came about because aneditor said to him, “This comic is in sales trouble and needs a newfeature.” My Greatest Adventure was down in sales, so Drake,working with artist Bruno Premiani and fellow writer Bob Haney,invented “The Doom Patrol.” Strange Adventures was in salestrouble, so Drake, working with artist Carmine Infantino, came upwith the acclaimed Deadman character. The Fox and the Crow wasdown in sales, so Drake, teamed with Bob Oksner, fashioned “Stanleyand His Monster”—a highly imaginative kids’ comic that containedmany of the elements of the later newspaper strip Calvin and Hobbes.

But Drake was a feisty guy who had trouble getting along witheditors. In the late ’60s, he fought with the management at DC, partlyover what he considered inept editorial direction and partly over

business matters. He was a loudvoice in a writers’ revolt duringwhich several of the firm’slongtime freelancers demandedhealth insurance, reprint fees,and better pay. Many of themwere ousted, including Arnold.He worked for a time at Marvelbefore settling down at GoldKey, for whom he wrote manycomics, including The TwilightZone, Star Trek, and a particu-larly long and delightful stinton Little Lulu.

Arnold wrote other things,including plays, movies (WhoKilled Teddy Bear?, The FleshEaters, et al.), and novels. Inthe 1950s, he authored a longcomic book in book formcalled It Rhymes with Lust fora small publisher and latertouted it, with some justifi-cation, as the first graphicnovel. (Dark Horse will soonreissue it.) He also workedextensively with a group calledthe Veterans Bedside Network,writing materials to aid in therehabilitation and nursing ofmen and women who’d servedin the armed forces.

Very active on the comicsconvention circuit in recent

years, Arnold crusaded for the industry to establish a Bill FingerAward. Finger, hailed by Drake and others as the unbilled co-creator of“Batman,” died in poverty, and Arnold felt there should be an award toshame people and companies that mistreated talent. In 2005, quiteindependently, a Bill Finger award was created to honor veteran writerswho had not received proper recognition for their work. The firstrecipient of the award was Arnold Drake.

I was privileged to get to know Arnold and to spend many aconvention panel and telephone conversation hearing him discourse onhis favorite subject in the world, which was creativity. At the time ofhis death, he had several projects in the works, and the urge to writesomething wonderful was undiminished. We are all a little worse offthat Arnold isn’t writing, and I can’t begin to measure what those of uswho considered him a good friend have lost.

Mark Evanier is a longtime writer for TV, comics, andother media.

Arnold Drake(1924-2007)

“The Urge To Write Something WonderfulWas Undiminished”

by Mark Evanier

In Memoriam 71

Arnold On PatrolArnold Drake may have passed on, but his creations live on.Here he’s seen at the 2000 All-Time Classic New York ComicBook Convention—flanked by a splash page from The Doom

Patrol #98 (Sept. 1965). Art by Bruno Premiani. Thanks to JoePetrilak for the photo, and to Bob Bailey for the page scan.

[DP page ©2007 DC Comics.]

AA

[FCA EDITORS NOTE: From 1941-53, Marcus D. Swayze was atop artist for Fawcett Publications. The very first Mary Marvelcharacter sketches came from Marc’s drawing table, and he illus-trated her earliest adventures, including the classic origin story,“Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel (Captain MarvelAdventures #18, Dec. ’42); but he was primarily hired by FawcettPublications to illustrate Captain Marvel stories and covers for WhizComics and Captain Marvel Adventures. He also wrote manyCaptain Marvel scripts, and continued to do so while in the military.After leaving the service in 1944, he made an arrangement withFawcett to produce art and stories for them on a freelance basis outof his Louisiana home. There he created both art and story for ThePhantom Eagle in Wow Comics, in addition to drawing the Flyin’Jenny newspaper strip for Bell Syndicate (created by his friend andmentor Russell Keaton). After the cancellation of Wow, Swayzeproduced artwork for Fawcett’s top-selling line of romance comics,including Sweethearts and Life Story. After the company ceasedpublishing comics, Marc moved over to Charlton Publications,where he ended his comics career in the mid-’50s. Marc’s ongoingprofessional memoirs have been FCA’s most popular feature sincehis first column appeared in FCA #54, 1996. Last issue Marcpondered on the aging of comic characters and the evolution ofMary Marvel. This issue, he presents another one of his syndicatedstrip tryouts: Clem of the Circle M. —P.C. Hamerlinck.]

omewhere, along about 1950, I must havebegun to suspect that the funnies of the past …those old laugh-a-day comic strips we grew up

with … were making their way back onto thenewspaper pages and into the hands—and hearts—ofthe readers. Else why would such a thing as a Westernever have come to mind? And a subject so far astrayfrom the original goal: a realistic, unending adventure-romance like Buck Rogers and Terry and the Pirates?

It had been nagging away at me for weeks … thatcharacter, the mental image firmly fixed. Now there hewas on the drawing board before me, sketched for thefirst time … a little bow-legged cowboy … looking for

a range to ride. Without considering any other name, I called him“Clem.”

In order to confront the newspaper syndicates, Clem would have tohave a supporting cast, a specific environment, and … a reason.Reason? For being … on a range, on a ranch … in a comic strip!!!Syndicates frequently wanted to know the latter.

The cast would surely include Clem’s bunkhouse pals “Silo,”“Crawfish,” and others … plus little “Peso”! Problems were simplifiedwith the question of environment … Clem’s locale. A ranch, of course… but what kind of ranch? Why not a modern-day dude ranch? Itmight be a source of inspiration for that daily hoped-for readerchuckle. The name of the place? The Circle M … for no better reasonthan it rhymed!

And so it went. The scene opens with dialogue between Clem and hispal Silo. Silo is busy painting a … but here, let them tell you about it …

[All art for this piece ©2007Marc Swayze.]

[Art & logo ©2007 Marc Swayze; Captain Marvel © & TM 2007 DC Comics]

By

SS81

82 FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America]

The Porterhouse StakesWhen Whiz Comics Parodied Fawcett’s Favorite Features

by Raymond Miller Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

awcett Publications’ Whiz Comics had a stable line-up for itsfirst 34 issues. The roll call of its first issue was “CaptainMarvel,” “Ibis the Invincible,” “Lance O’Casey,” “Spy

Smasher,” “Golden Arrow,” “Dan Dare—Private Detective,” and“Scoop Smith—Ace Reporter.” “Scoop” was soon dropped andreplaced in Whiz #7 (Aug. 1940) with “Dr. Voodoo.” The career of“Dan Dare” ended with Whiz #22 (Oct. 41), but the strip was neverreplaced, as Fawcett simply added more pages to the “Captain Marvel”and “Ibis” stories … so from Whiz #23 on, the contents with the topfive heroes and “Dr. Voodoo” had remained the same for a year.Suddenly, with Whiz #35 (Oct. 1942), “Dr. Voodoo” was replaced by afat old blowhard by the name of “Colonel Porterhouse,” a storytellerwho enjoyed reminiscing about his own alleged “real-life” adventuresin vivid detail.

The feature was drawn by George Storm, who, amongst many otherfeatures, had also drawn DC’s humorous Buzzy strip and straight-faced super-heroes like “The Hangman,” “The Whip,” and “The BlackOwl.” But it’s apparent that Storm excelled most when illustrating theColonel’s tall, exaggerated tales.

Only five different episodes of this feature appeared in Whiz, eachsatirizing a Whiz character, and all followed a similar format, beginningwith a scene of two little kids reading an issue of Whiz, with theColonel sitting nearby making it clear that the particular story the kidswere reading was purely fictional. Then he’d begin to tell the childrenhow he himself had lived the “real” story that they happened to bereading.

(The identity of the two little kids was never revealed, nor was theirrelationship to the Colonel ever explained. The kids were evidentlybrother and sister, as the boy called the girl “Sis” on one occasion. It’sdoubtful the Colonel was their father, since he looked old enough to betheir grandfather. The Colonel did have a wife, who would intervenetoward the end of her husband’s hooey-filled stories.)

The first CP tale, “Colonel Porterhouse and the Port of the MissingMen” (Whiz #35) found the kids reading the “Lance O’Casey” story inwhich the sea adventurer was captured by an Amazon queen (based onthe “O’Casey” story from that very same issue of Whiz!). The Colonelinforms the kids: “Under similar circumstances I was one of the fewmen to have visited the dreaded land of Amazons and lived to tell

A Major Precursor Of The ColonelAs you’ll see below, Fawcett’s short-lived Colonel Porterhouse bore astriking resemblance—both in appearance and personality—to MajorHoople, the star of the daily panel Our Boarding House, which ran in

newspapers from 1923 through 1981. The feature’s creator was Gene Ahern.[©2007 NEA Service.]

FF

Maybe They Should’ve Called The Feature “Lance Boil”? Colonel Porterhouse stands in for Lance O’Casey, in Whiz Comics #35 (Oct. 2, 1942). All “Porterhouse” art accompanying this article is by

George Storm (who also illustrated the teen feature “Willie Wynn” in early issues of Captain Marvel, Jr.), and is ©2007 the respective copyright holders.

84

[A previously unpublished FCA-SOB essay from 1981 byCaptain Marvel’s co-creator and chief artist – from the vaults ofPCH’s Beck estate files.]

omic heroes are the present-day watered-down representa-tives of a line of heroic characters reaching far back intoprehistoric times. Every country has its myths which tell of

the adventures of heroic mortals who fought giants, monsters, andvarious supernatural beings, sometimes winning their battles but asoften losing them.

The thing that distinguishes the ancient heroes from most comicbook heroes of today is that they were not totally invulnerable,super-humanly strong and wise, and totally without human short-comings. Many of them were thieves and robbers, adulterers, andnot overly endowed with either brains or muscles. They won manyof their battles by trickery or bribery or with the help of unprin-cipled gods and goddesses, magicians, or traitors.

The heroes of folk tales were just medium-size, averagecharacters. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women orchildren or animals. They got into situations where they had to actlike heroes for a time, not the other way around.

King Arthur was illegitimate, as were many of the old-timeheroes. He was often bested in fights, as were Robin Hood andothers. Gulliver found himself captured by the Lilliputians andkept in a cage by the giants of Brobdingnag. Ali Baba was a rascal,as were many others. And Luke Skywalker of today’s movies is nosuper-hero at all; he’s just an average mortal caught up in a world ofgiants and monsters and supernatural forces.

In comic books some people who don’t know any better try tomake their heroes inhumanly strong and super-heroic. They give themthe power to fly, to see through walls, to defeat whole armies with noeffort. They never show them at a loss, flustered, or embarrassed. Thisis the wrong way to build a heroic character with lasting qualities.

Heroes who have lasted for centuries were ordinary little guyspitted against evil kings, rich men, fat priests, giants, ogres, andmonsters. But when your hero is bigger and stronger and wiser thananyone else he meets, what can he do to entertain the readers?

Name any successful hero, from King David to Archie Bunker, andyou’ll be naming a hero who is flawed and human. David foughtGoliath, a giant, while Archie Bunker fights anybody he meets, large,small, stupid or wise. Neither one is a very admirable character, butboth are believable!

If King David were to be put into a comic book today he’s probablybe at least a cubit and a span taller than Goliath and completely invul-nerable. If Archie Bunker goes into the comics he’ll have to stopcursing, grow a foot taller, and lose his paunch and his bald head beforeappearing in the first panel.

Either one will then be as uninteresting as the othersuper-heroes of today.

Heroes And Super-Heroes: From King David To Archie Bunker

by C.C. Beck Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck

88

CC

Write to: Robin Snyder, 3745 Canterbury Lane #81,Bellingham, WA 98225-1186

Monthly! The Original First-Person History!

Still Another Kind Of HeroArchie Bunker make a cameo (unnamed) in Shazam! #5 (Sept. 1973).

Art by C.C. Beck; script by Elliot Maggin. At the time of that issue, All in the Family was at the height of its popularity on TV. [©2007 DC Comics.]

Alter Ego #71

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