posted March 29, 2003 12:14 PM    

And speaking of laughable... here’s a flashback to the Seventies that should make you laugh (or more likely cringe) a bit...

*******

ACTION COMICS # 457 (March 1976)
"Superman, You’re NOT Clark Kent—and I Can PROVE It!"

Writer: Gerry Conway
Artists: Curt Swan and Tex Blaisdell

"High above the suburbs of METROPOLIS, a familiar red-and-blue costumed figure zooms through the afternoon sky, his expression GRIM... his eyes almost UNSEEING!"

Unseeing what? Why, a genuine flying saucer, hovering above the bridge on which a cargo train is crossing the river... and blasting the bridge just ahead of said train with destructive energy beams. Atop this saucer stands a gaudily garbed super-villain (think striped pants and pointy mask). "Of all the rotten BREAKS--!", snarls this mysterious figure. "Our first job, way out in the middle of NOWHERE, and look who shows up!"

The villain du jour’s henchmen pop their heads out of the saucer’s hatchway nervously. They want to abandon their robbery-in-progress of these oil-tank cars below, and get while the getting is good. But the boss will not hear of it.

"This is our moment of TRUTH! If we can beat SUPERMAN, we can beat ANYONE! Ever since I first developed my POWER, I’ve been PRIMED for this ENCOUNTER—SO BACK OFF!"

The bad guy’s power, it seems, is spinning himself around really really fast (without making himself dizzy, I suppose). "I POSSESS THE FORCE OF A HURRICANE AND THE SPEED OF A WHIRLWIND-- AND NOTHING CAN STOP A WHIRLICANE!"

The blast of compressed air that his spinning act generates wallops a totally surprised Man of Steel as he flies past above. Supes had been so preoccupied he hadn’t even NOTICED the robbery in progress below until now. (Yes, not a shining moment for the world’s greatest hero.)

Superman backflips out of the path of the onrushing air funnel, and swiftly swoops down below the glowing saucer that holds Whirlicane and his men aloft. "If they hadn’t attacked me, I’d probably have passed them BY!", thinks Super-Daydreamer.

"Was I TOO overconfident?", the Whirlicane actually asks himself. "My wind-blasts DIDN’T stop him!" He orders his men inside the craft to flip a switch, causing nozzles beneath the saucer to squirt streams of molten metal that covers Superman. Not just any metal: lead that blocks his x-ray vision, and prevents him from seeing where they zoom off to. The clueless criminal actually grins to himself and thinks: "Next time we meet, I’ll blast that muscle-bound KRYPTONIAN out of the sky!"

Meanwhile, Superman flies into the SUN to melt the lead coating off of his invulnerable body, and returns to Earth seconds later. That’s right, the SUN. It’s just ordinary lead, so why would he do such a ridiculous thing as flying all the way to the sun and back to get rid of it? And why couldn’t he use his super-hearing to follow the escaping villains, or do any of dozens of other things that his powers (and common sense) would allow? Well, ask Gerry Conway. Julius Schwartz certainly didn’t. Even more absurdly, he flies all those millions of miles to the sun, and then returns to the EXACT same spot on Earth, to continue flying normally to his original destination from THERE, instead of just returning to earth AT his destination point. Yeesh.

Nonetheless, Superman does arrive at that destination, flying in through the open window of an upper floor at Truman Memorial Hospital. (Hospitals always leave windows open... to let the germs in, you see.) It seems that Supes is answering an urgent summons from his old boyhood friend Pete Ross, who he sees conversing with an unidentified physician in the hallway. The urgency concerns Pete’s young son, Jonathan, who I presume was named after Jonathan Kent. "JONATHAN ROSS is DYING, SUPERMAN," pronounces the doctor gravely. "... and only YOU can SAVE HIM!"

(Hey, there you go… let’s call him Doctor Gravely!)

Anyway, the Man of Tomorrow is taken aback by this dilemma, and asks just what he is supposed to do. After all, even Kryptonian medicine can’t solve everything (just ask anyone who ever came down with Caribbean plague fever... Oh! Cheap shot there! Sorry!)

It seems that young Jon-boy’s problem is as much psychological as medical. "Physically, Jonathan is weak, ill-- deteriorating RAPIDLY! Yet, according to our tests-- he SHOULDN’T be! The fact is, in some way we can’t EXPLAIN, Jonathan has lost the WILL to survive!"

Off in private, Pete whispers to Superman, explaining why he believes that only he can provide the cure. There is one slim chance Pete has been holding onto... Superman is Jon’s hero, and all he ever talks about, it seems. He has always wanted, more than anything, to KNOW SUPERMAN’S SECRET IDENTITY. Pete knows it’s a great deal to ask, but...

Superman muses to himself while making one of those patented Curt Swan anguish-faces. This is a moment he has always dreaded would come... a choice between safeguarding his secret identity and saving a human life. "Not just ANYONE-- the son of my BEST FRIEND!"

(Say what? I thought Jimmy Olsen was his best friend? Or Batman? Hell, even Krypto? But Gerry decides that this old hometown buddy he now barely ever sees is Superman's bestest friend ever, and so he is. Still, when would it matter to Superman WHO it was he needed to save, anyway? Would he let a stranger die if he could do something to stop it?)

Superman enters the dark room where an ailing freckle-faced youth is asleep in bed. Jon wakes to see his idol standing before him. Not only that, but Superman informs his young fan that he’s about to learn one of the world’s best-kept secrets... and changes at super-speed into TV newscaster Clark Kent, before his very eyes!

Instead of amazement, Jon’s reaction is one of anger. He collapses sobbing into the Man of Steel’s arms. "Why did you have to LIE to me?", he bawls. "I TRUSTED YOU-- not like the others, not like those DOCTORS telling me I’m going to get well—I trusted you—but how could you expect even a KID to believe SUPERMAN is CLARK KENT?"

Superman is astonished. Jon insists that back when Lois Lane used to try exposing Clark as Superman, Superman ALWAYS proved that such a thing was impossible. "ANYBODY can wear a dumb BLUE SUIT, Superman! And you’re a SUPER-VENTRILIQUIST, so your VOICE doesn’t fool me EITHER!"

As he changes back into his costume, Clark is at a loss for words. All these years of hare-brianed ruses have backfired on him. Now that he WANTS to reveal his secret, he can’t prove it.

Superman tells Jon to get dressed, and soon is flying him straight through the window of Clark Kent’s office at the Galaxy Broadcasting Building. As he dons his Kent clothing once again, the desperate Man of Steel offers to let Jon witness that no one working at Galaxy will be able to tell the difference between him and the Clark they know. Jon is willing to wait and see, but at just this moment, Steve Lombard (sporting a VERY Ford-era haircut and outfit) happens to be eavesdropping through Clark’s slightly open door!

Steve decides that Superman must be trying to turn the tables on him for all the mean practical jokes that the ex-jock sportscaster has played on the mild-mannered "real" Clark. So he’ll play along just long enough to turn the tables on Superman himself, and expose this lame impersonation of Clarkie!

(I’m tempted to summarize the rest of the story merely by saying "Hilarious hijinks ensue!", but let’s go on...)

In the hallway, Steve greets Clark and his "little chum" with a handshake and a big smile. Then he escorts them into the GBS news studio, and suddenly... rips Clark’s shirt and jacket right off in front of everyone! Lois Lane and a blond guy I suppose must be Josh Coyle are there to witness the whole embarrassing display. Of course this means it’s all a big gag and Clark isn’t REALLY Superman.

Jon demands to know why Superman keeps lying to him. "If you don’t WANT me to know your secret identity, just say so!" Even Lois is appalled. "Trying to trick a CHILD-- that’s DISGUSTING, Superman!" "Absolutely ROTTEN!", laughs Steve.

As he discards the rest of his civilian attire and flies off with Jon in his arms, the Metropolis Marvel tries desperately to think of how he can convince the boy of the truth. Fingerprints and voice prints won’t work, and birth records are nonexistent. "How can I prove I’m ME?", he wonders.

Just then, his super-vision spies a cargo jet overhead under attack by the Whirlicane’s hovercraft. He wraps Jon tightly in his indestructible cape for protection, and then decides to give him a thrill by taking him along on a real crimefighting mission.

Flying in through the jet’s open cargo hatch, Superman clouts all three of the Whirlicane’s henchmen in the jaws at super-speed with one motion. (Whirlicane and his men are all wearing oxygen masks allowing them to breathe comfortably at this altitude... I guess the cape somehow magically supplies Jon Ross with enough oxygen?)

Enraged, Whirlicane starts spinning again, blowing Superman back against the ceiling of the jet. "Can’t I pull ANYTHING off without your interference?", snarls the irate villain. "Am I to be HOUNDED like some ORDINARY THIEF-- me-- the WHIRLICANE-- MASTER OF WIND AND HURRICANE!"

Wanting to finish the battle before Jon gets hurt, the Action Ace kicks a recovering henchman away, and starts puffing away mightily at the Whirlicane, who yells, "Your super-breath-- COUNTERING my whirl-blast? UNFAIR!"

Then Superman "ricochets" his super-breath off a wall to knock the villain down from behind, and subdues the rest of his still-dazed henchmen. Trembling, the Whirlicane fumes angrily: "I’ll-Get-You-For-This-If-- It’s-The-LAST-- Wha-What’s- - Happening--? FREEZING- - Can’t- -Move!!”

"What did you EXPECT," asks Superman, "100 MILES STRAIGHT UP?"

At Jon’s suggestion, Superman had been pushing the jet upward with his flight power all along, until it was high enough into the stratosphere, where Whirlicane’s power-inducing costume was frozen into uselessness by the intense cold.

After dropping the bad guys off at jail, Supes is ready to admit defeat to Jon. Since his young friend has an answer for everything, he asks how JON would prove that Superman and Clark are one and the same.

Jon tells him to fly to Clark’s apartment (how does he know Clark HAS an apartment?), so he can reveal the answer. The reader is treated to one of those can-you-guess-the answer-first panels... and Jon heads straight for Clark’s bathroom. No, not for the usual reasons one goes to the bathroom after a long flight, but to inspect Clark’s medicine cabinet.

There, Jon is finally satisfied that Superman has been telling the truth all along! For you see, Clark has no toothbrush there... or toothpaste, or mouthwash, or aspirins, band-aids, razors or shaving cream. We don’t learn whether he needs toilet paper, though.

Being invulnerable, and incapable of growing his hair under a yellow sun, Superman would need none of these things available. "Jon, in one way, you proved you’re MORE SUPER than I am!"

But wait, there’s more! When they return to the hospital, the doctor happily informs Pete and Superman that Jon will pull through his inexplicable illness after all! Now that he knows the Man of Steel’s secret identity, that is. Superman apologizes to Pete for still having to keep his secret ID from his old friend, but says that at least one of the Ross family will know the magic name now.

Pete and Jon wave to Superman as he flies off, while the elder Ross keeps his thoughts to himself. Pete thinks that Superman has done enough, "especially since I learned your secret LONG AGO, when we were kids! I promised myself NEVER to tell... and I’ve KEPT that promise! Now Jon and I will continue to keep your secret safe-- ALL IN THE FAMILY!"

********

Somebody give Pete Ross a Father of the Year award! He was willing to let his own son DIE just to keep a promise. Not a promise he made to Sperman or anyone ELSE, mind you... a promise he made to HIMSELF! Whatta Dad he was.

But that’s not the worst part. Jon Ross has some bizarre lethal illness that can ONLY be cured by knowledge of Superman’s ID? What the fudge is that about, Gerry? He seemed fine to me. Superman whisks him all over Metropolis and the kid doesn't so much as cough softly. All the kid needed was a good spanking and someone to tell him to get over himself already. Not every kid can have everything he wants, you know.

By the way, the Whirlicane did return not long after, in SUPERMAN #303... written by: you guessed it, Gerry Conway. As two-shot Seventies villains go, he was better than the Purple Piledriver, but that’s not saying much, is it? I would rate him below even Karb-Brak, and he was definitely no Galactic Golem. (Somebody at DC needs to hire Len Wein to write another Galactic Golem story, and fast! Make it an Elseworlds, do whatever you want, but give me Golem. My Precioussss...) Whirlicane’s temper-tantrums might make for an amusing bit of characterization, if he wasn’t presented as so uselessly self-delusional. As it is here, he could be any old goofball.

Gerry might have killed Gwen Stacy over at Marvel, but he really MURDERED some Superman stories for DC. Still, I suppose he managed to tug some heart-strings somewhere with this one, and Jon went on to become fairly popular for awhile.

******

posted March 29, 2003 03:16 PM    

Really, I mean it. It hurts to think about some of the things Conway got away with.

Myself, I was a devoted DC reader at the time and rarely read the Marvelous Competition--so I didn't quite understand why DC rolled out the carpet for Conway. It seems like they gave him everything a guy could want--more than any writer (even Kirby) had gotten from DC before. Heck his comics were lovingly referred to as Conway's Corner--as if that was supposed to impress us.

But being DC was being flattened by Marvel--and no doubt after the ouster of Carmine Infantino, incoming publisher Jenette Kahn wanted to make a big impression on the bosses at Warner Communications--I gather in hindsight that they tried to steal Conway away from Marvel because he had lots of success over there (with Spider-Man I assume).

posted March 29, 2003 05:12 PM    

quote:

---

Continental Op:

It’s good to see I haven’t completely killed off this thread with my feeble attempts at humor.

---

I got a chuckle out of your (somewhat perverse) post, so maybe I should have said something about it so you didn't feel it went unappreciated.

posted March 29, 2003 07:41 PM    

quote:

---

Continental Op:

....he really MURDERED some Superman stories for DC.

---

True. Don't get me started on Gerry Conway and his terrible writing for Superman.

I had a bit of a rant on this page...

http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040-16.html

quote:

---

Posted by Aldous, 16 June 2002, 1:36am

This is the piece of abysmal S*H*I*T that relegates this comic to near the bottom of the whole Superman comic book realm. It's what makes this comic one of my LEAST favourite Superman comics.

This tripe should never have made it past the editor.

There's another tale I'd have to find amongst my collection (it may also be written by G.C.) where Kent interviews Superman in front of a TV camera in a mocked-up set (Superman has been enlarged to giant size), and the reason he can do this is he is moving back and forth between each identity (including, of course, changing clothes) at super-speed, making it seem to the human eye that Kent and Superman are, in fact, sitting together in the room.

I also consign this piece of garbage to the super scrap-heap.

---

...in response to your review of another Gerry Conway story (on the same page), "Solomon Grundy Wins On A Monday."

posted March 29, 2003 07:49 PM    

I vaguely remembered there was some discussion of a Gerry Conway story way back in the thread, and probably a review of a Solomon Grundy story by Conway.

Imagine hunting through thirty pages of this thread to find what I was looking for!

I went directly to the Select Character and Subject Index on p. 28 of this thread, glanced at the Solomon Grundy entry, which sent me immediately to p. 16 of the thread. In less than a minute I found what I was looking for.

posted March 30, 2003 05:03 PM    

*******

I don't mean to bash Gerry Conway mercilessly, by the way. True, he came up with some dreadful hackwork, and I have to wonder why Schwartz let him get away with it so easily and so often. But I think he was a wildly uneven writer, not a wholly bad one.

That first Conway story from #301 actually is a big favorite of mine. (I'm sure the art by JLGL and Oksner deserves a lot of the credit for that, though.) Yes, there are a few things...like the "nova-hot" heat vision and the Steve Lombard impersonation of Clark... that make me want to yell "OH, COME ON!!!", and throw the comic across the room. (Even when I was a 6-year old reader thumbing through comics at the drugstore, they did!) But on the whole, I really enjoy that Slaughter Swamp story for some reason.

Conway had his ups and downs on other titles. I very much liked his Batman stories, for example, and just look how many Firestorm fans there are on the DC Message Boards. But DC shouldn't have let him go anywhere near Superman as far as I'm concerned.

Conway's problem was he didn't seem to have any idea how to write a uniquely "Superman" story.

Like Denny O'Neil, he seems to have had problems imagining challenges for such a powerful character. But while Denny came up with the Sandman Saga as a result, Conway came up with a Superman who acts... well, STUPID. There's no other way to put it. Time and again, his Superman acts like a real idiot and that really bothers me. Either he does absurdly unnecessary things, or he can't figure out something obvious for pages and pages.

Plus, he's something of a generic hero... Conway doesn't seem to have any sympathy for what makes Superman tick, what makes him special. For the most part, his Superman stories could be easily rewritten to feature other heroes, and that's their biggest failure. I have to wonder just how much of Superman he had read before arriving at DC.

(For example, see the SUPERMAN #307-309 trilogy where the "Conway-Idiot" Superman is so easily fooled into thinking he was an Earth-born mutant,not a Kryptonian. Conway's dialogue had Clark thinking that the reason he had never fully commited to Lois Lane was that he had thought himself to be an alien from a different planet. For all those decades, that had NEVER been a reason for Superman to avoid settling down with Lois! Plenty of other reasons were given, yes, but Superman never once gave any thought to that one as far as I know. The man once proposed to a MERMAID, remember? The species thing wasn't an obstacle.)

posted March 30, 2003 06:48 PM    

quote:

---

Continental Op:

Conway doesn't seem to have any sympathy for what makes Superman tick, what makes him special. For the most part, his Superman stories could be easily rewritten to feature other heroes, and that's their biggest failure. I have to wonder just how much of Superman he had read before arriving at DC.

---

posted April 03, 2003 12:34 AM    

But before I take it off life-support I thought I would salvage some of the more valuable bits on this thread--at least the bits that haven't been already replicated here.

Here's one item that I don't think I've brought up on this thread...

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:

...I'm starting to try and fill out my sixties collection--buying copies of old books I've lost or damaged to heck, and copies of all the rest that I never got to read.

Surprisingly there are some good copies out there for under ten dollars (at least good enough for my needs). But it does mount up. I went to a swap meet yesterday and couldn't believe how many Actions from the sixties there were. I bought a pile and spent near two hundred dollars. Had to force myself to leave, before I broke myself. But it was painful to leave so many other Actions still in the boxes.

One of my favourite stories from the sixties was the story of Van-Zee and Sylvia--reprinted in an 80 page Giant which I bought back in the late sixties (but now it's missing a cover and with damaged pages). They were my favourite couple. I always perk up when I see them in the background in some other story.

I remember being totally fooled by that story--when the turn about of the story (re: Van-Zee & Sylvia) was revealed, I was surprised. Had to read the story all over again.

It's too bad that story hasn't been reprinted since then.

That story and the Mr. and Mrs. Superman stories (by ENB and Schaffenberger) sort of made up for the unmarried status of Lois and Clark in the sixties and seventies.

I'd like to think (especially the way things were going later in the seventies, with stories by Bates, Maggin, and Pasko), that eventually Lois and Clark would have gotten married--if they hadn't been rebooted out of existence--but in any case they were married in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow."

---

Some corrections/additions...I did obtain a better copy of that Giant afterwards (although the cover isn't in excellent condition). Superman 207 (G-48), June 1968, with a 30th anniversary celebration cover by Neal Adams. Another one of my favourite Giants--they all seem to be favourites.

posted April 03, 2003 07:46 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by RonaldHeld:
In my opinion, this thread is worthly of being continued for quite some time.

---

posted April 04, 2003 05:08 PM    

The comic book itself is actually "Superman Presents SUPERGIRL Comic" No. 6 published by the K.G. Murray Publishing Company Pty. Ltd. of Sydney, Australia. The book is undated, but the Supergirl story is undoubtedly from the early 70s, as is the Superman one in the middle pages.

The cover shows Supergirl in a sort of Fay Wray role, being held by a big android at the top of a tall building with fighter planes swooping in for the attack. My guess for cover artist is Bob Oksner... Supergirl has that pretty and feminine Oksner look and her legs are very shapely and sexy... (You know I love those Oksner women!)

"The Last Moa On Earth!" is one of Cary Bates' most bizarre tales! The story opens with a hunter carrying a rifle in the "untamed New Zealand jungle". Right here at the start we have New Zealand and Australian readers scratching their heads: it's actually the untamed New Zealand bush, or (rarely) forest. It is never referred to as jungle. But I guess Cary, when researching this story, didn't want to confuse his American readers with an unfamiliar term.

A creature suddenly charges at the hunter, a creature that looks like a giant wingless bird with powerful legs and massive clawed feet. The hunter shoots and kills the bird then squats beside his kill, alarmed and amazed at what he has before him.

Back at the local "game preserve" (another term never used here... maybe Cary lifted it from a documentary on Africa) in the "village" (nope... no one calls 'em that) of Hawera, the hunter, Jon Halaway, discovers that what he killed was, indeed, a moa -- a creature supposedly extinct for the last 500 years.

Halaway believes he has killed the last moa on Earth, and berates himself for causing such a tragedy. But, as he says, the creature was charging him; he had no choice but to shoot.

As an aside, I do wonder what, exactly, Halaway was hunting in the New Zealand "jungle"... It certainly wouldn't have been any native animals whatsoever. In the bush he may have been hunting possums (why?)... More likely he would have to be a deer hunter or some-such, ie. after introduced species that interest North Americans.

Anyhow, before Halaway leaves for the United States, he rescues the giant moa egg from its home over a hot underground spring in the bush. This was the site the attacking adult moa had been protecting. As he takes the egg, he notices "strange fumes".

He charters a jet to take the egg, now protected in an incubator, back to the U.S.A. (In actual fact, nobody but nobody would ever be allowed to take such a thing out of the country. It would be an impossibility -- unless he smuggled it out illegally somehow. But on with the tale...)

Landing at Metropolis airport with his prize, Halaway is met by TV reporter Clark Kent who is interested in the egg. Clark is concerned that Halaway seems ill, and when the hunter offers to let Clark come along to the private museum where the egg will be kept, Clark suggests that he drive while Halaway rests. Driving along, Clark at the wheel, it is soon apparent that Halaway has become obsessed with the successful hatching of the egg, in atonement for his killing of the mother. Suddenly Halaway has a serious attack of weakness ("like my very life were being sapped out of me") and faints. Simultaneously, in the back of the station wagon, the moa egg starts to hatch. The very next moment a young, but still very large moa erupts from the rear of the car onto the highway, and the car plummets through the barrier, over an embankment and into a lake.

In a flash, Clark becomes Superman and rescues Halaway. Superman detects that the hunter is seriously ill, with a weakening heartbeat, and somehow senses that the affliction is connected to the escaped moa.

At a local clinic, Superman quickly discovers that Halaway is emitting millions of unidentified micro-organisms, micro-organisms which he also finds in the fragments of moa eggshell, and deduces that the moa has "set up an organic link" between itself and the hunter, a link which is sapping Halaway's life-energy.

The Man of Steel goes on a moa hunt and very soon crosses aerial paths with the huge bird which has "doubled in size the past few hours!" (er... WHAT few hours, Cary?? Hardly any time passed from when the car crashed into the lake till Superman found the moa.)

Moving right along from the silly to the painfully absurd, the moa is flying by thrashing its clawed feet at super-speed. (Maybe Cary could've had the moa thrashing its rudimentary wings at super-speed. But FEET?) The moa shoots feathers at Superman which cause him considerable distress. (Artillery shells? No problem. But FEATHERS... look out!)

The moa grabs Superman's shirt with its clawed feet and, due to the physical contact with the creature, Superman gets a mental picture of the area where Halaway found the egg in the first place. Superman grabs hold of the moa's legs but they come off (!!) just like a little lizard's tail, and he is left holding two moa legs while the moa immediately grows (regenerates) two new legs and starts super-speed thrashing them again!! (I'm not making this up! This is really in a 1970s Superman comic drawn by Curt Swan! Maybe they got him drunk or something....)

Our bumbling Superman finally figures out that the moa wants only to get home to the area of bush, with its "strange fumes", back in New Zealand. The Man of Steel decides to set up a protective fence around the area as a "moa preserve" which will enclose both the moa and the unique underground fumes that gave it its powers.

The moa, overjoyed at being back home in New Zealand, severs its life-energy link with Halaway and, presumably, everyone lives happily ever after.

The End.

posted April 05, 2003 12:44 AM    

quote:

---

India Ink:
You might want to take a peek there to see what I said in passing, if you haven't already.

---

I hadn't...

...but now I have.

posted April 05, 2003 04:23 PM    

All of the stories I've seen reprinted from that period looked perfectly great as inked.

I don't pretend to understand why this is, I can only make some guesses.

There was lots of art in the forties that was inked so-so. Even all that Quality stuff everyone admires is inked with a certain energy and will to do good work, but not always turning out so handsome as the inker might have wanted.

In the sixties, and even moreso in the eighties, inking was hit and miss.

Yet in the fifties, guys like Giacoia and Giella did perfectly good work.

My guess is that all the fifties artists, both pencillers and inkers, were of a certain generation that had come up in the forties. The forties was time for experimenting and learning the craft. But by the fifties, all the artists had learned their tricks. Someone like Giacoia never matured as a penciller (unlike his childhood pal Carmine Infantino) but he was in the business enough time to learn how to ink in that house style that DC had back in the fifties. A kind of modified Milton Caniff style of inking.

posted April 08, 2003 03:01 AM    

India, I think Curt Swan was becoming very sophisticated as a "realistic" superhero artist by the 70s. You know a lot more about the subject than I do. I don't really know anything about Curt. I remember you talked about a book you had, a retrospective on his life and work, I think... I have a lot of catching-up to do. But, hey, that's why I enjoy your posts... I learn a lot. In the 70s I don't think there were many inkers around who could do Swan justice. Even ones I don't mind so much like Blaisdell were clearly inadequate. Chiaramonte was another one who wasn't up to it. (Only my opinion here, of course.) Murphy was God's gift to Swan...

I still can hardly believe what I read somewhere, that Swan was self-taught. I find that amazing.

posted April 08, 2003 03:45 PM    

The really great thing about the book is the pictures--many of those great Swan images we all can remember, but also some of his pencils that we never saw. It's when you see the pencils that you realize how amazing the man really was, and how so few inkers could capture that magic.

Anderson was a great penciller himself and I think he enhances Swan's pencils, adding some of his own personality to the work. Which is why Anderson could fake a good Swanderson on his own full art, or over the pencils of others like John Calnan and Howard Chaykin.

Other than his Lois Lane, I think Bob Oksner's inks are rather close to Swan's own style. A Swoksner image is probably closer to the real Swan pencils underneath. But sometimes you want that added flavour that an inker like Murphy Anderson (or George Klein) can bring to the work.

But when evaluating inks, I try to look at them in two ways. For instance I don't like what Jack Abel's inks did to Swan, but if I evaluate the art on its own merits I can't discount it. Abel is clearly talented and offering us a unique image. Some of Abels work over Swan on Superboy and the Legion still haunts me to this day. A compelling vision.

posted April 10, 2003 12:24 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:

The Amazing World of DC Comics, vol. 1, no. 2, September-October, 1974. copyright 1974 National Periodical Publications, Inc., pp.26-27.

"remembering" by Alan Asherman

At first glance there is nothing alarming about Kurt Schaffenberger. He sports a neatly trimmed mustache, a chin cleft and a pair of spectacles. He bears more than a slight resemblance to the dignified characters who keep turning up in the backgrounds of his panels. He almost always carries a large, black, artist's folio with his monogram boldly inscribed in white ink. Kurt's a perfectly typical comics craftsman with an atypical technique and a lion's share of talent. But there IS something curious about Kurt Schaffenberger that few people ever discuss in tones above a whisper.

While others in the industry have lost hair, gained weight, acquired additional chins and achieved those signatures of professional dignity known as wrinkles, Kurt has looked virtually the same for over 20 years! True, there are small twin grey streaks in his sideburns, but these have doubtless been deliberately applied by the artist, probably renewed along with the monogram on his folio. How he has accomplished this stunning non-change that defies the laws of science is not known.

It may be due to a strange and mysterious secret or it might be connected with the fact that his background figures DO age, but chances are that the secret is Kurt's outlook on life; he's an enjoyer of things.

His enjoyment of comics goes back to reading strips like "Ella Cinders," "The Katzenjammer Kids," "Maggie and Jiggs," and "Tarzan." Like most of us interested in this industry, Kurt drew his own interpretations of his favorite comic-strips. After decorating countless sheets of paper, cardboards, paper bags and walls, Kurt found himself old enough to enroll at Pratt institute in New York City. He graduated in 1941 and found a job working at Jack Binder's studio.

Binder had started a literal assembly-line for comics. When Kurt started working there, the operation was in full-swing, turning out features for Fawcett.

"One artist would be doing figures, another would do the backgrounds. I started at the bottom, doing background work. The first thing I worked on was a CAPTAIN MARVEL story, drawn by Bill Ward and Bob Butts. After awhile I got my first big chance, and worked solo on a one page feature called 'Blitzkriegs of the Past;' It was a story of Attila the Hun. I don't recall if it was ever used." Kurt also worked on features such as BULLETMAN, BLACKSTONE THE MAGICIAN and FIGHTING YANK. Soon after that the artist himself became a Fighting Yank when he became one of the millions of people to become caught up in the turmoil of World War Two.

"The army really didn't know what to do with me. I wound up in the Special Services division. We planned the entertainment for all the other outfits." Then Kurt began to draw posters advertising the entertainment. His work began to attract attention quickly, and was finally noticed by an inspector general. When the going really began to get rough and the Air Force was sent to the European theatre, Kurt went back to the drawing board. "The most famous poster I did was of a soldier helping himself to more food than he really needed. Super-imposed over him was the spectral form of Hitler, cheering him on to waste the food."

Kurt ultimately found himself working for an outfit called the O.S.S. "They wanted men to go behind enemy lines, on a voluntary basis, of course; I said "NO!" The O.S.S. later became known as the C.I.A., the military intelligence unit! Kurt, drawing a Master Sergeant's pay by this time, became a translator.

"I would sit and translate the information coming from our boys behind enemy lines. There were many agents trained for infiltration behind the German lines, but the most effective of the guys were those who spoke German as their native language. Each man was dropped by parachute, together with a small transmitter-receiver. It was about the size of a flashlight and didn't really have all that great a range, but it was the most advanced piece of equipment we had at the time.

"For each of our men, there was always the possibility of capture. If the enemy caught one of our people, they usually tried to force him to transmit false information to us and, in turn, to try and get as much information from us as possible. In that event, it became our responsibility to keep him alive, feeding him just enough false information to keep the enemy convinced that he was still useful to them. We arranged special codes with all our agents. If they were being forced to transmit they'd use their code phrase. We'd know they'd been caught and would start feeding them false information to humor their captors.

"One of our best agents was a professor in civilian life; a very soft-spoken man. He never cursed. So we arranged that if he was captured, he would slip some swear-words in his messages. He WAS eventually caught, but our false information kept him alive."

The rest is history and it's probably all top-secret, too!

After the war, Kurt went to work for C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza at their studio in Englewood, New Jersey. "That was in October of 1945 and the job only lasted a couple of weeks." Kurt then began to land freelance assignments from Fawcett. For a year, he worked on IBIS and other features. Then came CAPTAIN MARVEL, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. and THE MARVEL FAMILY. Besides C.C. Becks's work, the most remembered interpretation of CAPTAIN MARVEL is Kurt's. He stopped drawing just long enough to get married on March 30,1946.

After his work at Fawcett and during his early days at D.C., Kurt found time to put his talents to work elsewhere. For instance, the Classics Illustrated book, "Soldier of Fortune."

"The rates at Classics Illustrated were terrible; I think they paid something like 22 dollars per page for finished art."

For a short time, Kurt did some one-shot books for Timely Comics. Then came his work at the American Comics Group (ACG).

Kurt created the characters "Magicman" and "Nemesis" and drew the covers for the "Magicman" books. "Pete Costanza did the interiors on 'Magicman,' and Chic Stone worked on 'Nemesis.'" For a while, Kurt did not wish to sign his real name, for fear of jeopardizing his connections at D.C. So he signed his work "Lou Wahl" (his grandfather's name). Of course, everybody in the industry recognized his distinctive style immediately, so he went back to signing his works Kurt Schaffenberger.

What's Kurt's favorite feature, out of all the books he's ever worked on? "I'm very partial to LOIS LANE and really enjoyed working on her comics. At the time I was assigned to LOIS LANE # 1 the only standard for the character was Wayne Boring's Lois. The first thing I did was re-do her hair and work up a series of sketches as a guide for other artists."

Today, Kurt does the JIMMY OLSEN stories in THE SUPERMAN FAMILY, for editor Murry Boltinoff. If the work he does on Jimmy is any guide, Kurt enjoys the book considerably...JIMMY OLSEN's hair will probably turn grey long before his artist's, which will doubtless spark a new series of whispers about Kurt Schaffenberger's mysterious talent for staying young!

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posted April 12, 2003 08:02 PM    

I transcribed the whole darned interview with Bates & Maggin, by Guy H! Lillian, from that issue onto the "Backdoor..." thread. But much later, the Superman through the Ages site gave its own transcription of the interview. Which currently can be found at this link:

posted April 26, 2003 06:29 PM    

I included a link to "Superman through the Ages" related to "Who took the Super out of Superman" (Superman 296 - 299) and copied part of a conversation with Elliot S! Maggin from that site, related to his argument with Schwartz over changes that the editor insisted upon--including changes to a Perry White back-up story. Which then generated this (edited down) exchange...

BuddyBlank
Member posted July 31, 2002 12:44 PM
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quote:
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Originally posted by India Ink:
[Maggin:] All the changes were dictated by Julie Schwartz. The most significant one was the one I quit over. At some point, I did a story involving Perry White and the idea that as a young reporter he had uncovered the story of the Manhattan Project. Julie changed the ending not for any artistic or narrative reason, but because he wanted to use the story to make a point to me about editorial supremacy. I told him to take my name off the story and he didn't, so I went into the production room and brushed out my name with black ink, and that's how the story was printed. It was a backup story of some sort (maybe a Private Life story) and was attributed to no writer. I'm sure it must not be on your list because it never had my name on it, but it came out toward the end of my first run on the character.

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The next question in the interview should have been something along the lines of, "How did the story originally end, and what did Julie change?" Ah well, maybe someday we'll know...

If anyone ever finds out what this story is or what issue it was in, please lemme know!

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India Ink
Member posted July 31, 2002 04:28 PM
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It was in Action 461, July '76. A five or six page Perry White back-up story, with some of Tex Blaisdell's worst inks over Swan.

In some ways terribly underwhelming. I re-read it just a few days ago, before I realized its history. Checking it again last night I found indeed that there's a big rectangle of black where the writer credit should be--the tip-off that this is indeed the story Maggin is referring to.

While the Manhattan Project connection might have made for a slightly better story, the scope of the story is so small (a simple anecdote told by Perry to his grandkids) that it doesn't seem to deserve such an epic struggle between writer and editor.

[posted July 31, 2002 06:21 PM]

"The Toughest Newsboy in Town," 6 pages.

The GCD index erroneously credits this one to Bob Rozakis... http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=29970

Easy mistake to make, as the writer credit isn't there, while Bob Rozakis is credited as "cub editor" in keeping with the "cub reporter" angle of the Perry White tale. But Bob here obviously is working as an assistant editor to Schwartz--not as a writer. Pity poor young Bob Rozakis caught in the middle of so much drama between his boss and a fellow comics fan-writer--so early in his career at DC!

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BuddyBlank
Member posted July 31, 2002 07:50 PM
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So could Rozakis have done the re-write to Maggin's story? In which case, it's entirely possible that the GCD happens to be correct...

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India Ink
Member posted August 01, 2002 02:42 PM
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It's possible that Rozakis did the re-write--although even then it wouldn't mean that he should get full credit for the story.
There seem to be several possible scenarios for what happened with this story--and we only have Maggin's perspective to go on.

Schwartz could've re-written the story himself (which I assumed to be the case, after reading Elliot's comments). Or he could have handed it over to Rozakis--here's a throwaway back-up story, Bob, see what you can do with it. It's even possible, given the shortening of page lengths in DC books at the time, that the story had to be edited down to 6 pages.

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Aldous
Member posted August 01, 2002 03:20 PM
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You can probably pick a Rozakis story based on content alone.

I don't think I have this story -- but Rozakis was the worst writer at DC, and maybe even the worst writer in comicdom.

Rozakis rewriting Maggin is surely an insult. Maybe an insult is what J.S. intended.

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posted April 26, 2003 06:34 PM    

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