The Archie Pilot

This is a rerun of an item that first ran on this blog on September 27, 2003. It's about two pilots that were done in the seventies that attempted to turn the Archie comic books into an hour-long live-action prime-time TV series. I was peripherally involved as they were done by the company for which I was writing Welcome Back, Kotter.

Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, I was not a writer on either, though I turned down an offer to work on the second. I was an unbilled consultant on the first. What happened was that the Komack Company had obtained the rights to do these special-pilots and Jimmie Komack had this odd notion of how to approach doing an adaptation of an existing property. His view was that it should be done by writers and producers who were completely unfamiliar with the source material so their minds were uncluttered by what had been done before.

While I was working there, he also did a pilot that brought back the not-dissimilar character of Dobie Gillis. Dobie's creator Max Shulman had co-written a pilot script for the revival — a real good one, I thought, that updated the property but still captured what was great about the old series. ABC assigned the project to Komack's company and Komack used the Shulman script to attract the necessary actors from the original version — Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, Frank Faylen and Sheila James. Then, once they were committed, he tossed out the Shulman script and had a new one written by two writers who'd never seen the original show. (If you think I'm making this up, read Dwayne Hickman's autobiography.)

Jimmie took a similar approach to turning Archie into a TV show. The creative staff he engaged were not totally unfamiliar with the property but he urged them not to read the old comics and to instead work from a rough outline someone had written about who they were. This did not sit well with John Goldwater, who ran and co-owned the Archie company and who regarded himself as the creator of the feature. One day, Komack called me in and said, "You know all about comic books, don't you?" I said I did. He said, "Archie Comics?" I said I did. Later that day, he brought me into a meeting with Mr. Goldwater, who was visiting from New York, and introduced me as his resident Archie expert and consultant.

The meeting went roughly like this. I was introduced to Mr. Goldwater and I managed to get in that I'd written many comic books and that I'd apprenticed with Jack Kirby. Mr. Goldwater was impressed at the mention of Jack, who'd worked for his company a few times. We spoke for a few minutes and somehow, I managed to wedge in a nice nugget of trivia. Kotter was sharing a stage then with a new ABC sitcom called Fish, a spin-off of Barney Miller starring Abe Vigoda. I mentioned that Abe Vigoda's brother Bill Vigoda had been a top artist for Archie. "Is that true?" Jimmie asked. Goldwater nodded it was true…and since he was impressed that I knew a lot about Archie Comics, Jimmie decided to quit while he was ahead and send me back to work. So I never got to talk much with John Goldwater. Later, Jimmie did consult with me on a number of points including some of the final casting. But I didn't write on the shows, nor was I credited on them. Here's the interesting (I think) story I posted here about them in 2003…

encore02

Okay, I promised this story. But first, let me note that Gary DeJong did some research and unearthed the info that the first of the two Archie pilots done in 1976-1977 aired on December 19. 1976 and starred Audrey Landers as Betty, Hilary Thompson as Veronica, Mark Winkworth as Reggie, Derrel Maury as Jughead, Jane Lambert as Miss Grundy, Susan Blu as Midge, Jim Boelson as Moose, Whit Bissell as Mr. Lodge, Michelle Stacy as Little Jinx, Tifni Twitchell as Big Ethel and Amzie Strickland as Mrs. Lodge. Byron Webster played Mr. Weatherbee and Gordon Jump (whose passing started this discussion) played Archie's father. In other words, referencing the earlier anecdote, Gordon Jump came in to audition for Mr. Weatherbee and got the part…then, since the producers couldn't properly cast the role of Archie's father, they moved Jump to that slot and put their second-choice in as Mr. Weatherbee. As I recall, the role of Archie's father was much larger than the role of Mr. Weatherbee so that may explain the decision.

Who played the title role of Archie Andrews? Well, that's the story I wanted to tell. After extensive auditions and screen tests, they picked a young man with brilliant red hair but no real acting experience, at least on television. Somehow, things didn't work out. I never heard exactly what happened but suddenly, the role of Archie was being played by the producers' second choice, an actor named Dennis Bowen who had appeared a few times on Welcome Back, Kotter. (Kotter was produced by the same company. Dennis played the recurring role of Todd Ludlow, an honors student who sometimes heckled the Sweathogs.)

archiepilot

The Archie pilot was an odd mix of sitcom and variety show. It was an hour in length and there were blackouts and little, self-contained storylines of about ten minutes each. Between these, the focus would shift to a rather generic rock band that played bubble-gum style music. The whole thing was being targeted for the 7:00 Sunday evening slot and I recall a lot of argument over how many scenes there could be of Betty, Veronica and a number of good-looking female extras in swimwear and sleepwear. The writers had scripted a number of quick jokes at a swimming pool, and one of the short stories involved the boys crashing a slumber party that Veronica was throwing at the Lodge mansion. Both had been planned expressly to get the ladies into scanty outfits, which the ABC programming department encouraged. At the same time, their Standards and Practices folks ran around demanding less-revealing bikinis and nighties. Some of the best jokes in the show wound up being cut because the girls were showing a half-inch too much of their physiques.

The mix of sitcom and sketches didn't quite work. There was a second pilot with the same cast and pretty much the same idea and it didn't work, either. As I recall, the main change from the first one was that they replaced the generic rock band with one comprised of Archie, Betty, Jughead, etc. Danny "Neil's brother" Simon was the head writer on this try.

Anyway, the great story, the one I wanted to get to, was what happened because they replaced Archies in the first pilot. Somehow, the ABC publicity department never got the word and all the p.r. they issued for the show contained the name of the first actor, the one who was replaced during rehearsals. Poor Dennis Bowen had to endure publicity photos that displayed his face but identified him as the first guy. A few years ago when the Archie comic book folks published a book on the character's history, they said the first guy had played the role.

What happened to that first redheaded guy? Well, he eventually got a TV series, then he left it and made some movies. Now, he's back with another TV series. Can you guess who it is?

Everything's Archie

George Gene Gustines in the New York Times writes about the empire that is Archie Comics. I'm linking to this piece because it's relevant and it's timely but most of all because it quotes me.

The Archie Pilot

Okay, I promised this story. But first, let me note that Gary DeJong did some research and unearthed the info that the first of the two Archie pilots done in 1976-1977 aired on December 19. 1976 and starred Audrey Landers as Betty, Hilary Thompson as Veronica, Mark Winkworth as Reggie, Derrel Maury as Jughead, Jane Lambert as Miss Grundy, Susan Blu as Midge, Jim Boelson as Moose, Whit Bissell as Mr. Lodge, Michelle Stacy as Little Jinx, Tifni Twitchell as Big Ethel and Amzie Strickland as Mrs. Lodge. Byron Webster played Mr. Weatherbee and Gordon Jump (whose passing started this discussion) played Archie's father. In other words, referencing the earlier anecdote, Gordon Jump came in to audition for Mr. Weatherbee and got the part…then, since the producers couldn't properly cast the role of Archie's father, they moved Jump to that slot and put their second-choice in as Mr. Weatherbee. As I recall, the role of Archie's father was much larger than the role of Mr. Weatherbee so that may explain the decision.

Who played the title role of Archie Andrews? Well, that's the story I wanted to tell. After extensive auditions and screen tests, they picked a young man with brilliant red hair but no real acting experience, at least on television. Somehow, things didn't work out. I never heard exactly what happened but suddenly, the role of Archie was being played by the producers' second choice, an actor named Dennis Bowen who had appeared a few times on Welcome Back, Kotter. (Kotter was produced by the same company. Dennis played the recurring role of Todd Ludlow, an honors student who sometimes heckled the Sweathogs.)

archiepilot

The Archie pilot was an odd mix of sitcom and variety show. It was an hour in length and there were blackouts and little, self-contained storylines of about ten minutes each. Between these, the focus would shift to a rather generic rock band that played bubble-gum style music. The whole thing was being targeted for the 7:00 Sunday evening slot and I recall a lot of argument over how many scenes there could be of Betty, Veronica and a number of good-looking female extras in swimwear and sleepwear. The writers had scripted a number of quick jokes at a swimming pool, and one of the short stories involved the boys crashing a slumber party that Veronica was throwing at the Lodge mansion. Both had been planned expressly to get the ladies into scanty outfits, which the ABC programming department encouraged. At the same time, their Standards and Practices folks ran around demanding less-revealing bikinis and nighties. Some of the best jokes in the show wound up being cut because the girls were showing a half-inch too much of their physiques.

The mix of sitcom and sketches didn't quite work. There was a second pilot with the same cast and pretty much the same idea and it didn't work, either. As I recall, the main change from the first one was that they replaced the generic rock band with one comprised of Archie, Betty, Jughead, etc. Danny "Neil's brother" Simon was the head writer on this try.

Anyway, the great story, the one I wanted to get to, was what happened because they replaced Archies in the first pilot. Somehow, the ABC publicity department never got the word and all the p.r. they issued for the show contained the name of the first actor, the one who was replaced during rehearsals. Poor Dennis Bowen had to endure publicity photos that displayed his face but identified him as the first guy. A few years ago when the Archie comic book folks published a book on the character's history, they said the first guy had played the role.

What happened to that first redheaded guy? Well, he eventually got a TV series, then he left it and made some movies. Now, he's back with another TV series. Can you guess who it is?

ASK me: The Western Advantage

Marty Golia has a question about Western Publishing…

I have a question about Western Publishing, but realize it concerns a section of their business that you may not have had much/any contact with.

During the 50s and 60s, Dell and Gold Key put out a lot — a lot — of comics based on TV shows and movies, either as their own title or as part of the "Four-Color" series, and many of these seem short-lived. Some were based on shows that had some "kid-appeal" (The Danny Thomas Show, any number of Westerns), but others were based on more adult fare (Burke's Law, The Gale Storm Show).

So, my question is: To arrange licenses for so many titles at a pretty rapid pace, did Western have contacts at the networks or studios who were able to set up a "standard" deal as shows were announced? And was this part of a strategy to keep the pipeline filled, whether there seemed to be an audience for things or not?

I think I can answer this…and also point out that the Burke's Law comic book was published by Dell after it had severed ties with Western. And to respond to the last question first: They put out what they thought would sell and a lot of that was based on knowing what had sold for them in the past.

When it came to landing licenses for comics based on movies and TV shows, Western had at least three tremendous advantages over companies like DC, Marvel and Archie…four if you count the fact that some companies simply weren't interested in publishing characters and properties they didn't own. But here are the other three that come to mind…

1. Western had an office in Los Angeles. Actually, for most of the fifties and sixties, it was located in Beverly Hills on the same prestigious block as the local branch of the Friar's Club, hangout of a lot of folks in show business. DC and Marvel had no such offices. Representatives of the movie and TV studios could visit those offices and Western staffers could visit the studios. That made for closer relationships.

Before Alex Toth (based in Los Angeles) drew that comic of The Danny Thomas Show, he visited the set of The Danny Thomas Show. Before Dan Spiegle (based in Santa Barbara, an easy drive) drew the Maverick comic book, he visited the set of Maverick. DC was not going to pay to send an artist to Hollywood.

2. Western did more than comic books. Let's say you were working for a TV show or movie and it was your job to arrange for merchandise and promotional marketing for that movie or TV show. If you went to DC or Marvel or any of several other comic book publishers, they might make you an offer to a do a comic book. If you went to Western, they might make you an offer to do a comic book, a coloring book, some activity books, some hard or softcover kids' books, a "color by number" book, a "paint with water" book, a jigsaw puzzle, a paper doll kit, a Big Little Book, etc. Comic book companies that published only comic books didn't make all those deals.

At one point, Western even did "scratch-and-sniff" books.  Winnie the Pooh could sit down to eat some honey on a page of the book and you could scratch a little patch on that page and smell the honey.

3. Western was with Disney. And if you were in that line o' work, you were constantly studying what the Disney organization did because they were the undisputed masters of merchandising a movie or TV show. Nobody did it better and the core of much of that was their close relationship with Western Publishing, aka Western Printing and Lithography. If the guys at Disney trusted 'em, so would you.

And I suppose there were other reasons. If you had a property that appealed to kids, it made sense to deal with the company that handled that kind of thing not only with Disney but with Warner Brothers, Walter Lantz, Jay Ward, Hanna-Barbera and others. Those animation firms were pretty happy with their relationships with Western.

The company had a good rep. In the seventies, though Western was on the downslide, the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate very much regretted moving their licenses from Western to DC and then to Marvel. The Hanna-Barbera folks very much regretted moving their licenses from Western to Charlton and then to Marvel. (I was involved in recovery efforts from both of those disasters.)

Western was an amazing company. I used to say — and I guess I still say — they did a lot of things right that other comic book companies did wrong but eventually, they were done in by doing a lot of things wrong that other comic book companies did right. I'll probably be elaborating on those right and wrong moves in future posts on this blog.

Did you know that Western, alone among the major comic book publishers, was as far as I know alone in having pension plans for some of their freelance writers and artists as well as incentive plans that paid bonuses to such people…and they did this at a time when DC or Marvel would have laughed in your face if you suggested such a thing?

ASK me

Today's Video Link

It's 1959 and someone thinks — not for the last time and maybe not even for the first time — it would be a good idea to adapt Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series into a weekly TV show. So they cast Kurt Kasznar (not a bad choice) as Nero Wolfe and William Shatner as his sidekick, Archie Goodwin. Not a bad attempt if you ask me…

ASK me: The Comics Code

The Comics Code Authority came into existence in 1954 because many comic book publishers feared that government regulation of their product was a' comin'. Most of the major publishers formed an organization called the Comics Magazine Association of America, drew up rules as to what could and could not appear in a Code-approved comic and hired someone to whom each comic had to be submitted for approval before publication.

It was technically a voluntary measure but a lot of smaller publishers quickly found out that it was tough to get distribution and/or advertising if they didn't join. One example: At about the time The Code was instituted, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were attempting to start a new comic book publishing firm called Mainline. According to both men, their distributor, Leader News, told them that if they didn't comply with the C.M.A.A., their books would never get on newsstands.

They went along with it and Mainline's books still didn't get decent distribution, at least in part because Leader News had also distributed Bill Gaines' E.C. line of crime and horror comics like Tales From the Crypt. Those books were largely killed by The Code but both Joe and Jack felt that the major publishers still had it in for Gaines and his distributor. Several other small publishers also folded despite displaying Code approval. Both Joe and Jack felt that was one of the reasons the major publishers banded together: To drive out smaller publishers.

But there were at least two companies then publishing that thrived despite refusing to sign onto The Code. Those two were Gilberton (which put out Classics Illustrated and other somewhat educational comics) and Dell (which put out Disney and a lot of TV and movie-based comics). Both those firms felt that the content of their books protected them and that they should let the wholesomeness of their lines be used to help the companies that had, as one editor who'd worked for Dell back then put it, "damn near destroyed our entire industry."

Later, when Dell Comics split into two lines — Dell and Western Publishing's Gold Key Comics (explained here) — neither outfit subscribed to The Code. Several times in interviews, whoever was the spokesperson for The Code at the moment would be asked about those two holdouts and they'd say something like, "Those companies choose not to participate but they've assured us they unofficially follow our guidelines," whereupon someone from Dell and/or Western would fire off a letter to the C.M.A.A. which said something like, "That's a lie and if you say it again, we'll sue your sorry asses!"

The Comics Code seal of approval/compliance was designed by the great designer of logos for DC Comics, Ira Schnapp. It appeared on the other publishers' wares until Marvel dropped it and stopped submitting their books in 2001 and the other companies withdrew over the next decade. And that was the end of the Comics Code.

A reader of this site, C.K. Bloch, wrote to ask me a whole bunch of questions about the Comics Code and I answered most of them in the above paragraphs. But he also wanted to know…

Do you know of a lot of cases where good stories or art were ruined by the Comics Code demanding changes?

Nothing in my career but I started in 1970. At the inception of The Code, that seems to have happened a lot. The C.M.A.A. had to prove that its rules had teeth and so they demanded way more changes than they did later. Arnold Drake, who started writing for DC around 1956, said that the editors there sometimes put in dialogue or images that were specifically intended to give The Code something to cut. There was also this problem: At the moment The Code was instituted, every publisher had a lot of material in the pipeline that was written and maybe drawn when those rules did not exist. Much of that material had to be laundered to pass The Code.

At Marvel, the guy stuck with making a lot of the alterations on as-yet-unpublished material was the Production Artist, Sol Brodsky. He not only relettered and redrew a lot of stories then in the works, he was told make "before" and "after" stats that the C.M.A.A. could put in press releases to show how the new standards were cleaning up the business.

In the mid-seventies, I had a long talk with Sol about how The Code had affected the business and I came to the conclusion — this is my view but he agreed with it — that the main impact The Code had was that editors, writers and artists more-or-less censored themselves. And they may at times have erred too much on the side of timidity.

Comic books have always been a business where things are being sent to press at the last moment and there were penalty fees if your book got to the engraver or to press late. So people tended to also err on the side of caution. Most did not try things that they were afraid might cause the Code Administrators to demand changes. Changes took time that they often did not have.

I experienced something similar when I worked in animation for Hanna-Barbera or Ruby-Spears or other companies making Saturday morning cartoons. Most shows operated on tight deadlines. If production on a show had to be halted to make changes demanded by the Standards and Practices divisions at the networks, a few days might be lost…and those few days might cost the show a lot of money. It might even jeopardize an episode making its air date.

At least a half-dozen times when I worked for H-B, the network folks (especially at ABC then) would ask for changes and I would talk them out of them…and even if it was only took a day or two to get them to say, "Okay, leave it in," Bill Hanna would already have made the alterations in a rush to get the show off to Korea or Taiwan or wherever it was being animated.

In that conversation with Sol, he admitted to me that Stan Lee or someone else in the office would decide to rewrite something or have something redrawn…and perhaps it was a creative decision or perhaps they were afraid something might not get past The Code and the book was running late. But the change would be made and if anyone asked or the writer or artist objected, the excuse was "The Comics Code made us change it!"

Over the years, I asked several folks who edited comics in the sixties and seventies, the following question: "Did you ever make a change in story or art and when the writer or artist complained, you fibbed and said the Comics Code had demanded it?" Offhand, I recall asking that of Julius Schwartz, George Kashdan, Joe Kubert, Len Wein, Archie Goodwin and maybe one or two others. All of them said yes. And of course, I asked Stan Lee and of course, his answer was, "I don't remember but probably." You got that answer a lot when you asked Stan a question about almost anything. He once said it when I asked him if he'd gone to lunch yet.

I am not saying the Code did not at times insist on changes…and often stupid changes. I am saying that I think it got blamed for a lot of changes it did not demand, especially in later years. And I think its main damage was that its mere presence — the fact that someone was going to look over the work and look for things that were in questionable taste — inhibited a lot of writers and artists and editors.

Ever since that conversation with Sol, I've been skeptical when I hear, "Oh, the Comics Code made us change that" or the assumption by readers that when something was changed that it was the restrictive, puritanical Comics Code at work. Here's an example. At left below, you see the cover of Captain America #101 as it first appeared, drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Syd Shores. At right, we see the cover of an issue that reprinted the same material years later. You will notice that the head of the villain, The Red Skull, is different…

Click above to enlarge these images.

Comic book scholars noticed the difference and the theory/assumption or whatever you wanted to call it, went like this: Jack forgot and drew the old, uglier version of the Red Skull from the forties. When the artwork was submitted to the Comics Code, they thought the villain looked too scary and demanded that it be redrawn…which it was, not by Kirby or Shores. Years later, when the material was reprinted, Marvel used a stat of the cover as it stood before submission to The Code and whoever was at The Code then saw the material differently and let it pass.

That is all entirely possible but I have an alternate theory. When Syd Shores was inking Kirby on Captain America, he often made changes in Jack's work which Stan didn't like. Mr. Shores had been told that any issue now, he would stop being just the inker on the comic and it would take over the penciling of the book so that Kirby could be rotated to another project. That transfer of power never happened but when it was the plan, Shores took some liberties with Jack's art from time to time. And more than a few times, Stan had the work retouched back closer to the way Jack did it.

I don't think we know which artist — Kirby or Shores — made the Red Skull look like he did in the forties when both men drew him. If I had to, I'd bet on Shores but I think this was retouched before the folks at the C.M.A.A. offices saw it. Stan Lee often (very often) would look at a cover that was being ready for publication and ask to have the character's face redone by a staff artist, usually John Romita Sr. If you can't spot a lot of touch-ups on Marvel covers of that era, you aren't paying attention. Romita redraws abound and when they aren't by him, they're by Marie Severin or Herb Trimpe or someone else. Some editors just love to tamper.

Later when the reprint was sent to press, a pre-retouch stat was used but Stan wasn't in charge of covers by then…and if he did see it, by then he didn't care. And the Comics Code never cared.

There was plenty wrong with the Comics Code and we can talk more about that at another time. I just think that arguably-necessary-at-one-time institution didn't make all the obvious changes that comic fans think. And again, a lot of changes were made (or work softened) because someone was afraid of what The Code would say…which is not the same thing as The Code demanding something be changed. That's what I think.

ASK me

And In This Corner…

As everyone knows, the character of Spider-Man debuted in the fifteenth and final issue of Amazing Fantasy, which reached newsstands on or about June 5, 1962. Amazing Fantasy was only Amazing Fantasy for that one issue. Before that, it was called Amazing Adventures for a while and then it was called Amazing Adult Fantasy. The change of titles and formats were (obviously) because it didn't sell all that well.

Stan Lee used to always say that since his publisher, Martin Goodman, had decided #15 would be the last issue, he and artist Steve Ditko decided to get a little experimental. With the attitude of "What do we have to lose?" they gave the first half of #15 over to this new character called Spider-Man. They did that one story and when the issue got the reaction it got, the publisher was willing to launch the character in his own comic book. Amazing Spider-Man #1 came out on or about December 12 of 1962.

That's how the story is always told and I tend not to believe it. There is evidence supporting the theory that when Lee and Ditko did that first story, they had no idea that that would be the last issue of Amazing Fantasy; that that decision had not been made yet. There is, in fact, a blurb in that issue urging you to purchase the next issue. I believe the decision to terminate the title was made not only after they'd finished the story in #15 but after they'd finished a Spider-Man story for #16 and done at least some work on one for #17. When Spider-Man got his own comic, those stories appeared in that book.

The reasons some of us historian-types believe this will be discussed at some later date. It is a fact though that Amazing Spider-Man #1 came out around 12/12/62 and that Amazing Spider-Man #2 followed on (approximately) 2/12/63. Here are the covers of those issues. See if you can notice the big change between #1 and #2. Go on. I'll bet you can find it…

You see it? Starting with #2, the comic — in fact, every comic published by Marvel — featured a little box in the upper left-hand corner with an image of the star(s) of the comic and the word "Marvel," which was not seen on their comics until then.

(Oh — and before we leave that first issue, let me point something out. See where it says "2 Great Feature-Length Spider-Man Thrillers"?  Well, in case anyone asks you, "feature-length" at Marvel in those days was 10-14 pages.)

Moving on: Those corner boxes were important in establishing Marvel as a brand.  Before they came along, if you liked the comics they put out, you didn't really know what company it was that had put them out.  They had a little "MC" on the cover but you had no idea what that meant.  If you looked inside the comic in the little legal stuff text, it only told you which of Goodman's many shell companies the comic was officially being published through. There was some sort of legal and/or tax advantage to doing it that way.

So Amazing Spider-Man #1 was officially published by Non-Pareil Publishing Corp. while the same month's issue of Fantastic Four — which obviously was published by the same firm — was officially from Canam Publishers Sales Corp. Meanwhile, The Incredible Hulk was published by Zenith Publishing Corp. and that comic with Thor in it was published by Atlas Magazines, Inc. and that same month, the Hulk was guest-starring in the Fantastic Four comic and all those books seemed to be from the same folks and they all cross-plugged each other and…

This kind of thing can be very confusing when you're ten years old. Especially since I liked to file my comic book collection: The DCs in this pile, the Dells in that one, the Archies in that one…

Stan Lee once said that the idea for the corner boxes came from artist Steve Ditko and that once they adopted them, it caused sales to soar. Ditko, it is said, got the idea when he went to his local newsstand in New York to buy comics and found it difficult to find the ones he wanted on those racks. Most racks did not display the full cover of each comic. A lot of them only showed you the top left corner of the comic.

So the story is that Mr. Ditko thought something like, "Hey, we should put a little picture of Spider-Man in that space on the Amazing Spider-Man comic and a little picture of Thor on the comic he's in…" and I think I know where he got that idea. If he was browsing newsstands for comics, he would have seen such pictures on comics from the Harvey Comics Group. In 1962, they'd been doing this for about eight years. Look at this…

And while you're at it, look at this…

Beginning around 1954, Harvey put those little "stamp" images on all their comics that featured recurring characters. A few years later when they began marketing cartoons of some of those characters on television, the stamps changed into little TV screens but the principle was the same: Put a picture of the character(s) in the upper left hand corner to attract potential buyers.

Ditko couldn't helped but see this and he also would have seen Gold Key Comics and Charlton Comics and maybe a few others putting the name of the comic in the upper left hand corner. He especially couldn't have missed Charlton doing it because he was drawing for that line and even drawing a lot of their covers.

And were those little pictures then the key to Marvel's sudden spurt in sales? I suspect not…and I base that suspecting-not on the fact that other companies did not race to do likewise. The industry since Day One had been a place where publishers looked at what was selling for their competitors and shamelessly aped what seemed to be selling. Everyone had easy access to other companies' sales figures and DC especially would have noticed a sudden spurt in Marvel's sales because DC was then Marvel's distributor. But DC didn't try anything of the sort on their covers until 1970 and they gave it up after less than a year.

No, I think three things began steadily raising sales at Martin Goodman's company around the time of Amazing Spider-Man #2. I think it was the quality of their comics, the sense that that line was expanding (which was kind of exciting) and, most of all, that they finally put a name on that line. Suddenly, us kids buying them could say, "Hey, have you seen the new Marvels?" It was Basic Branding 101. If you have a product people want, give them a name by which they can ask for it.

They say that one picture is worth a thousand words…and maybe some pictures are. But in this case, I think one word was worth a thousand pictures. And an awful lot of money.

The Ivar – Part 1

I have occasionally mentioned the Ivar Theater in Hollywood on this site. It's an unremarkable little theater that at various times has seated between 250 and 350 and has gone through many changes.

It was built in 1951 by a gent named Yegishe Harout who owned various restaurants in the area and for twenty years, it featured plays that online sources tell me included The Barretts of Wimpole Street, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Pajama Game. I believe Billy Barnes had one of his famous revues at the Ivar in the early sixties.

Bill Bixby played there in The Fantasticks and later in Under the Yum-Yum Tree. Stop the World, I Want To Get Off played there, as you can see in the above photo. And I know of two other plays that graced its stage. I know because I saw them — one of them twice.

In the late sixties, my parents took me there to see a production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. Jesse White starred as Oscar, Roy Stuart played Felix and it was directed by Neil's brother Danny Simon, who was in some ways the inspiration for Felix. I've written about it a few times here (here, for instance) and guessed then it was in 1967. I also reproduced this ad…

It later dawned on me that the ad gave me a clue as to when I saw the play. It says, as you can see unless the image is missing, that the play opened on Thursday, August 24.  In the late sixties, August 24 only fell on a Thursday in 1967…so I was right.  We saw it not long after it opened and it was a wonderful production. A lot of my love of live theater and that play and its playwright came from that evening at the Ivar.

The musical You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown played there from March 12, 1968 to November 9, 1969, which was one of the longer runs a play ever had at the Ivar.  This is the one I saw twice.  I no longer have or can find my Playbill from either visit but I found online this list of the cast members: Gary Burghoff, Judy Kaye, Russ Caldwell, Hal James Pederson, Nicole Jaffe and Robert Towers. I have no idea if that's the cast from opening night or closing night or if any roles changed hands in-between. Probably, some did.

And yes, playing Charlie Brown was the same Gary Burghoff who played Radar in the movie and the TV series, M*A*S*H. According to IMDB, the movie filmed from April 19, 1969 to June 22, 1969…so Mr. Burghoff either took time off from the play or was working two jobs for a while. I'm about 80% certain he was in it when I saw it the second time, which I'm 100% certain was its next-to-last performance on Saturday evening, November 8.

The first time, I went with my parents. The second time, I took a girl named Lynne on a first date. It was my third first date and while I would never claim I ever got real good at first dates — or second or third, etc. — I was a lot worse when I was 17 than I was later. And before your imagination runs away with you: No, nothing happened that would have riled the Comics Code had it happened in an issue of Archie.

Still, I had a great time and I made a mental note to keep an eye on what was playing at the Ivar for future dating purposes. Alas, I never took another date there. Two years after Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy departed, naked women and porn queens took the stage at the Ivar and it turned into…well, certainly not the kind of place your parents would take you or you'd take a first date or any date. And now that I have your attention, I'll tell you that this is a two-part story and the conclusion should appear here in the next few days. Maybe.

ASK me: MAD does Marvel

"Tam" wrote to ask…

Obviously those great early MAD parodies of DC superheroes, such as "Superduperman" and "Bats Man" from the 1950s are pretty well known but did MAD ever parody Marvel comics (prior to them appearing on the screen) and if so, what were the earliest examples?

Nope. MAD pretty much gave up parodying comic books of any sort when MAD became a magazine and when Al Feldstein took over from Harvey Kurtzman as its editor. For those who don't know, MAD was a 10-cent comic book sold on comic book racks for its first 23 issues and in those issues, Kurtzman as editor-writer did "Superduperman" (MAD #4), "Black and Blue Hawks" (#5), "Melvin of the Apes" (#6), "Bat Boy and Rubin" (#8), "Woman Wonder" (#10), "Starchie" (#12), "Plastic Sam" (#14") and a few others, plus a number of parodies of newspaper comic strips.

There were no Marvel parodies because in those years, Marvel wasn't publishing anything worth parodying. When MAD became a magazine, they began aiming at more widely-read (or widely-watched) targets. Newspaper strips were okay. Comic books weren't. Feldstein, in fact, was very pleased to be out of the comic book business and didn't even look at what other companies were publishing. When they did spoof something like Superman, it was the Superman newspaper strip they were parodying, not the concurrent comic books. They did almost nothing about Marvel until, long after Feldstein had retired, they took on a few Marvel movies.

If you'd asked Al just before he left why they didn't do comic book parodies, I suspect he'd have said something like "MAD is selling over a million copies per issue. The best-selling comic book sells 300,000 or less. Most of our readers won't be familiar with what we'd be making fun of."

ASK me

How 2 Write Comic Books

As I have said several times on the blog, there are many different ways to write a comic book…and here I'm talking about page format and the way a writer conveys what he or she wants the artist to draw. Let me repeat that and put it in boldface for emphasis: THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO WRITE A COMIC BOOK. It has been my experience in 50+ years of working in this industry that most writers and editors know a grand total of two, if that many.

In this article, I'm going to tell you about one method but first, an anecdote: One day in the eighties, I was at a comic book convention and I happened to have a copy of a script that Carl Barks (i.e., The Great Carl Barks) had written for Gold Key's Junior Woodchucks comic book. I showed it to Julius Schwartz, who most of you know was a longtime editor of comic books for DC. It was in the format that I'm about to describe.

Mr. Schwartz looked at it and said, "Hey, that's an unusual way to write a comic book!" I said, "No, it isn't. Thousands of published comic book stories have been written this way, especially funny comics, especially of the 'funny animal' variety." Julie looked at me like I'd just told him I was from the planet Twylo and was here to enslave mankind with walnuts. He said, in an incredulous tone, "Really?"

This is Julius Schwartz, who then had been editing comic books since the original lungfish crawled onto dry land. And he had no idea a lot of comic books were ever written that way.

Most everyone in or around the field knows of The Full Script Method in which the writer types out a script which specifies how many panels go on each page and then describes what is to be drawn in each panel and he or she supplies the captions, word balloons and sound effects. Within this format, there are many variations of how this information is arranged on a page but it's basically one method. Zillions of great comics have been done this way along, of course, with some not-so-great.

There's also The Marvel Method, which most of you know about. In this method, the comic starts with a plot which may be very detailed or fairly loose or it could even be one sentence like "[Name of Hero] fights [Name of Villain]." It may even be verbal.

This "plot" may have come from the writer, it may have come from the artist or in some cases, it may have come from a third, perhaps uncredited person or a committee meeting. The penciler draws the comic before dialogue and captions are written and may, depending on how detailed the plot is, make up a little or some or most or even all of the story. The writer composes the words later to fit what the penciler has drawn. Again, this system has yielded countless great comics along with the not-great.

But in all my years of writing about comic books or discussing them with others, I've seen precious little mention of what I am calling here The Sketch Method. That's the name I've given it because, like I said, very few people ever discuss this method and so I've never heard of a commonly-used name for it. It is most easily explained by showing you an example. Here is the script for a page from a Bugs Bunny comic book. It's on the left and next to it is the printed page that was drawn from that script. If you click on the image below, it will get much larger on your computer screen…

Click above to enlarge.

Let me get some credits out of the way here. The finished page was penciled by Tom McKimson, who I wrote about in this message. I'm not sure who inked it but there's a good chance it was a gent named Joe Prince. The editor markings on the script were done by Chase Craig, who was the Senior Editor for many years at Western's Los Angeles office and most of the time I wrote for them, he was my boss. The lettering was by Bill Spicer, who was the main letterer for that office for a long time.

The script on the left was by John Brady…and I'm afraid I don't know much about Mr. Brady other than that he was a cartoonist, he sometimes drew comics instead of just writing them and he was amazingly productive. I can't back this up with any hard numbers but it wouldn't surprise me if he belongs in a list of The Ten Most Prolific Comic Book Writers of All Time.

He sketched his scripts out like you see…on 8-and-a-half by 11" typing paper and he often partially colored them with colored pencils. This puzzled me when I first saw his scripts in the Western Publishing office since those scripts were never seen by the mysterious people who colored Gold Key Comics. (I'll tell you about them one of these days. Wanna know their names? So did I but even Chase didn't know.)

I asked Chase why Brady's scripts were colored like that and he said, "John enjoys doing them that way." That, he assured me, was the only reason.

Anyway, as you've no doubt figured out by now: In what I call The Sketch Method, the writer just draws out the comic page in rough form. An awful lot of the writers who wrote Dell and Gold Key comics for Western Publishing worked this way. It was more common on the "funny animal" comics but it was done on adventure titles, too. There were issues of Magnus, Robot Fighter done this way. It was used a lot at Archie and Harvey…and even sometimes at DC, though apparently not often enough for Julius Schwartz to notice.

With The Sketch Method, the artist who pencils the page for publication is free to follow the writer's staging or ignore it. My observation, seeing pages go through the Western office, is that most artists would use some of the writer's staging but not all.

McKimson, for example, decided to draw Bugs in a walking pose in the first panel, which I think was a good change. It suggests the idea that Bugs and Porky have just arrived and that we are not coming in on the middle of a conversation. On other pages, he may have deviated a little or a lot.

Tom McKimson also drew Bugs Bunny stories that I wrote. When I was selling scripts to Western, most of them were typed, though in a format I've never seen used elsewhere. In some future post, I'll show you that format. I did do a few Sketch Method and sometimes, I'd type a script but also sketch out what I saw in my head for a certain panel or sequence. Looking just at the published comics, I do not think it would be possible for anyone to discern which stories were drawn from which method of script-writing.

This method, like the two described above, has its good points and bad points, and they have a lot to do with the skills of the writer and artist involved. Of course, one big consideration is whether the writer can draw or whether they can type. If the writer can do both, then you have to ask how good is that writer's staging? Can the artist improve on it? There's also the matter of time…

When I did scripts via The Sketch Method, it took me twice as long (or longer) to finish one as opposed to typing it out. Don R. Christensen, who wrote in both formats for Western Publishing, told me that sketching was usually faster for him than typing. And Roger Armstrong, who drew scripts for Western by both Don and myself said that he preferred working off typed scripts. He said that once he saw a writer's staging of a scene, it inhibited his ability to "tell" the story his way.

Roger's view reminded me of certain actors who like their scripts to not tell them how a certain line should be read, or of some directors who like minimal description from the writer. Some in both job descriptions like to know everything the writer had in mind and some like to feel free to react to the material however they react.

Another very prolific writer for Western was Vic Lockman, who certainly belongs on that imaginary list I mentioned of The Ten Most Prolific Comic Book Writers of All Time. Lockman might be in the Top Three. He wrote his scripts via The Sketch Method and often complained when the artist changed his staging. But Chase told me that sometimes, Vic would write a script and then be assigned to pencil the story also…and he'd change the staging the writer (that is to say, Vic Lockman) dictated.

Watching all of this at the various companies for which I've worked led me to a conclusion which I'd kind of like to sell to anyone who works in comics or is interested in how best to create them. It's not only that there are many ways to write a comic book — including ways unmentioned in this post — but that the method should be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of the creative personnel.

Even if the writer can't draw or can't type, there are many variations within what they can do. John Brady and Vic Lockman and all the other folks who worked via The Sketch Method did it the same way, no matter what the assignment was or who was going to draw it. In those cases, they had absolutely no contact with the artist (unless they were the artist) and I think that may not have been the ideal way to make good comics.

I've worked for 40+ years with a brilliant artist named Sergio Aragonés who possesses a flair for visual humor that, to put it bluntly, most other comic book artists do not have. It would be such a waste of that talent to handcuff him into working via a method that did not take advantage of that or his great facility with plots and storylines.

For a few years of my life, I was simultaneously working on Groo with Sergio, a book called The DNAgents with Will Meugniot (and later, other artists) and also on Blackhawk — and later, Crossfire — with Dan Spiegle. Sergio, Will and Dan had a few things in common. They were all excellent artists. They were all friends of mine so we talked a lot and had lunch together when we could. Day or night, they could get me on the phone and ask, "What the hell is this thing I'm supposed to draw on page 8?"

They were all guys who turned in work that never disappointed me in any way…but they were all different people with different skills.

Sergio came up with (and still comes up with) almost all the storylines for Groo. Will contributed lots of storylines and ideas for characters in the comics we did together and would sometimes take a sequence I'd figured out and then figure it out a different, better way to handle it.

Dan would have told you he contributed absolutely nothing to the plots of the comics on which we collaborated. He kind of took the "it's not my job, man" attitude about that and put all his attention into drawing what I wrote as well as he could. When Marvel called and tried to get him to draw for them, they usually wanted him to pencil (only) from a loose plot and that was not the way to use him best. He had to have a full, complete script and he had to ink the comic himself. That's if you wanted to get the best work out of him.

The method I worked with each of these three artists — and also many more including Scott Shaw!, Gene Colan, Erik Larsen, Jack Manning, Roman Arambula, Pete Alvarado, Doug Wildey and dozens of others — varied to suit the artist and, of course, the material. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that great or even good comics were always the result because I don't think that way and I also don't want to sound like one of those YouTube Chefs who insists that everything they cook is The Most Delicious Thing Ever. But I will tell you that I think better comics resulted from custom-fitting the way I worked with each of those creative partners.

In some future piece here, I'll talk about still other ways writers and artists have collaborated and how I think it impacted the end product. Mostly, I'd like to encourage other writers and artists to come forth with ways they discovered to work as a team…or even ways they wished they'd been able to work as a team. It has always bugged me that when people write books or essays about how to write comics, they so often talk about the only way they've done it, the only way they know. That might be fine if every story had the same creative elements and every artist had the exact same skill set.

There's a saying that when all you have is a hammer, every job you have to do looks like a nail. I think better comics might result if some people had a larger toolbox. It doesn't have to be huge but it should have more in it than just one hammer.

Today's Video Link

This is one of my favorite episodes of The Phil Silvers Show aka You'll Never Get Rich aka Sgt. Bilko. Writer-Producer Nat Hiken had worked for some unstable comedians in radio and early TV. He'd also dealt with a lot of sponsors and ad agencies who didn't let knowing nothing about comedy stop them from critiquing everything. So this installment about an unstable comedian and his know-nothing producers and sponsors was probably a lot of fun for Hiken and his co-writer Billy Friedberg to write.

And it works to a large extent because of the man in the above photo, Danny Dayton, who I consider one of the great unsung comic actors of stage and screen. You may not know his name but he was all over TV and occasionally in movies for many years, always great but never quite becoming as famous as I think he deserved. Here — before we get to the Bilko episode, here's Danny Dayton in the movie version of Guys and Dolls, performing with Stubby Kaye and Johnny Silver. Mr. Dayton played Rusty Charlie, the horseplayer in the tan suit…

Recognize him now? I didn't think so. But he had showy parts on lots of programs you watched including a recurring part on All in the Family and Archie Bunker's Place as Archie's pal, Hank Pivnik.

He was on the Bilko show in other roles but his best appearance was in this one. He played the neurotic comedian Buddy Bickford, who combined the worst traits of Red Buttons, Milton Berle and a few others. In so doing, he did the impossible. He actually stole an episode from Phil Silvers. I'm not sure anyone else ever managed that…

In addition to being a great comic actor, Danny Dayton was also a director for the stage and television. He was a cast replacement and stand-by for many of the roles in the original Broadway production of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Zero Mostel was the original Pseudolus and then when he left the show, he was replaced by Dick Shawn. After Shawn left, he was replaced by Danny Dayton.

After the show closed on Broadway, Dayton played Pseudolus in some national tours and regional productions, often doubling as director. More people probably saw him in the role than saw Mostel and Shawn combined. In the mid-eighties when he was mainly directing for TV, I got to see him do what may have been the last time he did Forum on stage. He was as fine in the lead as anyone else I ever saw…and I've seen a lot of Pseudoluses. So I wanted to call attention to him.

Also in the Bilko episode, you may have noticed a cameo by Virginia Ruth "Jennie" Lewis, a popular TV personality of the fifties known professionally as Dagmar. She turned up on a great many programs as a dumb blonde type and there were a great many jokes made about her voluptuous figure. At the time this episode of Phil Silvers' show was done (it first aired on 2/12/57), she was also Mrs. Danny Dayton.

From the E-Mailbag…

The fine writer of comic books and other things, Kurt Busiek, has this to add to my piece on why the X-Men comic was almost certainly not an imitation of DC's Doom Patrol…

In addition to the stuff you've pointed out, I can't see where someone thinking the Doom Patrol was a cool idea would decide that the bits to copy were the wheelchair and the name of a group of villains.

The Brotherhood of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants also debuted the same month, which would make it even harder to swipe, even if either party thought it'd be a good idea. I mean, I can see someone thinking, "Brotherhood of Evil is a great name, I want something like that," and inventing the Monastery of Menace or the Lodge of Licentiousness. But just adding a word to a name the other guy's using is…pretty obvious. Not to mention that everyone involved was more creative than that.

And if Goodman wanted another book like F.F., as he did, Lee and Kirby didn't need to hurry-up and swipe a book that had just come out. Kirby (if not Lee, as well) had been reading pulp S.F. with stories of mutants feared and hated by ordinary people, fighting against worser mutants to save the world (and themselves) in the form of Kuttner's Baldy stories (which featured bald telepaths, even), Van Vogt's Slan, Sturgeon's More Than Human, Shiras's Children of the Atom…they had lots of other material to draw from, and they'd even both done stories about mutants before.

Some people have pointed out that the X-Men's blue-and-yellow costumes and the Doom Patrol's red-and-white costumes have a similar design — but the X-Men had theirs first; the D.P. started out in F.F.-like coveralls.

It doesn't make any sense from the POV of a creator.

It sure doesn't. And something else I might have emphasized is that folks who did comic books back then rarely read what their competitors were doing. Devout comic book fans read everything but don't realize that most comic book creators didn't and probably still don't.

I have no trouble believing that Stan Lee hadn't seen The Fly from the Archie company before the creation of Spider-Man. Heck, an editor at DC Comics almost never read the books supervised by the other editors there, even the ones with whom he shared an office. Publishers looked at their competitors' sales figures and would sometimes order up similar books because of that.

There seems to be an ongoing debate among some historians as to how Martin Goodman at Marvel found out that Justice League of America and before that, Challengers of the Unknown were selling well for DC. There was this fabled golf game between Goodman and Jack Liebowitz at DC in which the latter supposedly bragged about the numbers, prompting Goodman to race back to his office and tell Stan Lee he wanted a super-hero team book.

That golf game almost certainly never occurred. Goodman never said it did and Liebowitz said it didn't. What I think happened was that someone asked Stan how they came to start Fantastic Four and he said something like, "Oh, Martin found out DC had this book that was selling well. He probably had lunch with Jack Liebowitz or played golf with him or something," and the part about playing golf became enshrined in Marvel history. The simpler explanation is that the sales figures were no secret. Anyone who cared could find them out…and DC and Marvel then had the same distributor which made it even easier.

Here's what Goodman's company would put out when he saw the numbers on Pine Comics' Dennis the Menace comic and Harvey's Casper the Friendly Ghost

He did not find out they were hits by playing golf with anyone. And that kind of thing came from someone looking at sales reports, not someone looking at a competitor's comic book and saying, "Hey, that's a great idea for a comic! Let's steal that!" There might be an exception somewhere in history but that would be rare.

And to some extent, what was happening here was not theft of an idea but an attempt to confuse buyers into purchasing your knock-off instead of the other company's real thing. It was like all those records in the sixties that hoped the customers would think they were buying The Beatles when it was actually The Beetles or The Fab Four. Anyway, thanks, Kurt.

ASK me: Marvel Inkers

I have a bunch of questions about inkers in comics like this one from Joe Frank. Those of you who have no interest in this stuff just skip these posts…

Loved both recent columns about Jack Kirby and his Marvel era inkers. Plenty I didn't know, especially that Steve Ditko would've ever recommended or requested George Roussos. I thought George did him no favors, to put it mildly, on both Dr. Strange and the Hulk. Nor Jack, for seven months, on the Fantastic Four. I am curious about two other inkers of that general time frame.

First, Wally Wood. If he was inking others, towards the end of his roughly one year Marvel run, why not Jack on the Fantastic Four or Thor? I know he did the Daredevil figures in F.F. #39 and the cover to Journey Into Mystery #122. He inked a number of Jack's covers and they were beautiful. Really standouts. Because they worked together so well on Challengers of the Unknown and Sky Masters, why not a reunion or a regular gig? Did Stan think Wally was of greater benefit over Don Heck (the Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #71 and a three issue Avengers run in #20-22)?

Secondly, Frank Giacoia did wonderful work over Jack: F.F. #39, Journey Into Mystery #115 and many episodes of the Captain America strip. Why not enlist him? I've heard he was easily distracted. Was that it? I look at the Cap art and it was tremendous. Joe Sinnott was my favorite but Frank often came very close.

A lot of the questions as to why didn't this inker ink that comic have to do with two factors: Money and schedules. Frank Giacoia was working for several publishers at the time, most of which paid better than Marvel. He was trying to keep all his accounts happy and sometimes he had to say no to someone and sometimes, that someone was Stan Lee.

If he had promised to always make time for Fantastic Four, I'll bet he could have been the regular inker from #39 on…but he couldn't. It's the same reason that sometimes your plumber has to say, "Sorry, I can't fix your leaky faucet today. How about next Monday?" And you have to get someone else. If Marvel had paid better then, Frank might have been more willing to say no to the editors at DC or Western or wherever.

Also: Readers forget that all the comics that came out in the same month weren't always drawn the same month. At times, Kirby was way ahead on his books. He might be penciling the issue of Fantastic Four that would come out in November at the same time someone was drawing the issue of Sgt. Fury that would come out in August.

So maybe Wally Wood has just finished an issue of Daredevil. He turns it in and they have some time before he needs to start on the next one. And maybe Stan is too busy with other matters to discuss what's going to be in that next issue…but Wally wants to go home with some work so he can earn money. There's no issue of Fantastic Four ready to be inked but there is an issue of The Avengers sitting there that Dick Ayers is too busy to get to.

That's how an awful lot of these decisions were made. Wood was not assigned to draw Daredevil in the first place because Stan thought, of all the books Marvel was putting out, that was the best place for Wally. Wood was assigned to the comic because it needed a new artist the day he came by to look for work.

Here's an actual example. Around this time, Stan very much wanted to have Joe Sinnott start inking Fantastic Four but Joe, as I mentioned in another post, was working for Archie and Treasure Chest and Dell. When Marvel raised their rates a bit, he agreed to ink some things for them and one day, he called up and said, "Hi! I'll be ready to take on some work from you on Wednesday if you have anything."

But there was no issue of Fantastic Four waiting for an inker at that moment. Colletta was inking what would turn out to be his last issue, #43. Kirby hadn't drawn #44 yet or maybe it hadn't been dialogued and lettered yet. So that's why Sinnott inked X-Men #13 and the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #71 before they had an F.F. for him to ink.

You can't always coordinate these assignments the way you want. If you look at the first issue of The Avengers that Wally Wood inked (#20) and at that Iron Man story you mentioned and at the Human Torch story Wood inked in Strange Tales #134, you may be able to discern something they all have in common…

In each case, Wood's name in the credits was lettered in by Wood himself. That's his lettering in there, not that of the man who lettered the rest of the credits. That means that when the story was lettered — the last step in the assembly line before it goes to an inker — they either didn't know who'd be inking it or they put someone else's name in there and Wood had to change it. Again, it was a matter of "This artist needs work right now and that story needs an inker."

It wasn't always that way. Stan (and Sol Brodsky who had some say in who inked what during this period) did have preferences but sometimes they couldn't assign their first choice or someone suddenly needed work.

As for Thor, people keep asking me why Stan kept Colletta on as its inker for so long. They don't seem to want to accept the obvious answer: Stan liked the way Thor looked when Colletta inked it. That was a creative decision, not one necessitated by scheduling concerns.

It may have helped that Colletta got a slightly lower page rate, thereby freeing up some bucks in the budget that could be spent on better-paid inkers like Sinnott, Wood or Giacoia. But Colletta inked Thor for many years for the same reason Carmine Infantino hired him to ink all of Jack's work for DC in 1970. The guy in charge thought Colletta was the best choice for the job. It involved him being cheaper but it also involved him being super-reliable and, as I keep telling people, they liked the way the art looked after Colletta inked it.

The fact that you might not doesn't mean that they didn't, just as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby liked the way their work looked when George Roussos inked it.

ASK me

ASK me: Joe Sinnott

Curtis Burga read this item, then sent me this…

In your article, you stated that Joe Sinnott was not working for Marvel when Avengers #4 was created. However, a year earlier, Sinnott's work was very much apparent in Fantastic Four #5.

Was Sinnott freelance? Or had he worked at Marvel and then quit? I ask because he was probably my favorite inker on many artists (he really made George Perez's artwork shine!). His work on F.F. #5 is (ahem) fantastic.

Joe Sinnott did excellent work. He was the kind of artist that editors feel blessed to have available to them. He met every deadline on every job and there were times when someone else did less-than-wonderful or less-than-complete pencil art and Stan Lee could say "Joe will save it." Sinnott was also one of the nicest men you could ever meet.

But I'm not sure he ever qualified as an employee at Marvel in any legal sense of the word. Folks are very loose with the language about this kind of thing and there have been times when comic book companies — as well as other enterprises — found it beneficial to keep things ambiguous. Joe was a freelancer most of the time, probably all of the time.  He did not report to the office each day or any days for work.  He worked at home, many miles away, and only visited the Marvel offices briefly every eight or nine years, if that often.

A lot of folks are confused by this because Stan Lee kept referring to "The Marvel Bullpen," suggesting that all its writers and artists worked in some sort of grouping not unlike a baseball team. While Marvel did have a few artists who worked in the office, something like 90%+ of the people who wrote and/or drew and/or lettered and/or colored comic books worked at home or in their own offices or studios.  Much of the time, saying "he works for Marvel" really meant he did freelance work for Marvel, perhaps among other clients. That was certainly the case with Sinnott during the period you mention.

Around the period when Fantastic Four #5 was done, Joe was freelancing for several markets, not all of which were comic books. For comics, he worked in the sixties for Dell and did a lot for a comic book called Treasure Chest of Fun & Fact that was produced — at times, twice a month — for the "parochial" market, meaning Catholic schools and gift shops. Here are two issues that featured Joe's art on the cover…

He also inked for Archie and ghost-penciled for certain friends. And the following is kind of a theory on my part but I'll bet it's not far from the truth. Fantastic Four #1 and #2 were inked by George Klein, who at the same time was freelancing for DC Comics and sometimes other firms. Then he suddenly stopped working for Stan Lee and it's pretty easy to guess why.

A gentleman named Stan Kaye had been inking most of Curt Swan's art for DC and for a few other artists, as well.  Then in 1962, he stopped doing that and, according to online sources, moved to Racine, Wisconsin to work in his father-in-law's manufacturing business. Most of his assignments thereafter went to Klein, who of course grabbed them. DC paid way better than Marvel and the company was on much firmer ground. When Klein inked those two Fantastic Four issues, there were still rumors around that Marvel would go out of business any day, whereas inking Swan on Superman might have been the most secure job in comics.

The next two issues of F.F. were inked by Sol Brodsky, who was functioning as Production Manager at Marvel then, though when I asked him when he officially got that title, he wasn't sure. Basically, he came in a few days per week to handle the artistic editorial chores that were beyond Stan's limited abilities in that area. And here's an example of how it's often hard to ascertain whether someone actually works for a company as opposed to being a freelance contributor. Sol was paid by the day when he did that work. If he inked a cover or a story during one of those paid workdays, he probably did that as an employee. If he did that inking at home — or even in the office on a day when he wasn't being paid for that day — it was almost certainly freelance work. And during this period, he also did freelance art or production work for other outfits.

See the problem? And like I said, sometimes publishers liked keeping it ambiguous. At times when it might be financially beneficial for your publisher to say they had numerous employees, you might be called an employee. But if you asked about things like sick pay or paid vacations or severance pay or other benefits that employees received, they would of course say, "You don't get those. You're not an employee. You're an Independent Contractor!" Of such fuzziness are lawsuits born.

Joe Sinnott

Brodsky was busy and, as I mentioned in that previous ASKme, a slow inker…so they needed someone to ink Fantastic Four #5.  So Stan (or perhaps Sol) called Joe and at that moment, Joe had time to fit the job into his work schedule. After he did that, he started inking F.F. #6 but he wasn't even a day into it when other assignments came in and he realized he wouldn't be able to make all his deadlines. So he called Stan (or Sol) and arranged to send the issue back. #6 was finished by Dick Ayers who did around 99% of it but if you look real careful, you can find the 1% or so that Joe inked on the first few pages.

Thereafter, Joe was offered other work by Marvel and he said yes to a few things — he penciled and inked five early Thor stories, for instance — but no to others. As a freelancer, you sometimes have to pick and choose based on factors like how much you think you'll enjoy a given assignment and how long it will take you and how much it pays. As mentioned, Marvel paid very low rates to its inkers. Joe told me that inking a page of a Jack Kirby super-hero story took twice as long as inking a page of Archie by someone like Dan DeCarlo but they paid about the same.

In 1965, Marvel Publisher Martin Goodman was unhappy with the art for Fantastic Four Annual #3. According to Brodsky, that made Goodman persuadable to raise the budget for artwork on the comics. The inking rate only went up a couple of bucks per page but it was enough to get Sinnott to begin inking again for Marvel. A year or two later when the rate was raised again, he cut back more on his work for other outfits.

He was so valuable that at some point, they gave him some sort of freelance contract that made him exclusive to Marvel. I suspect you'd have to read it to say that he worked for Marvel, rather than that he was self-employed and freelanced for Marvel…but there's no reason for us to make that distinction. When I said he wasn't working for Marvel when Avengers #4 needed inking, I meant that he was unavailable to do freelance work for them…and at other times, he was. It was not a matter of him quitting a job.

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ASK me: Scooby and Non-"Violent" Cartoons

Warren Scott sent me this question…

There was an article floating around social media for a while that suggested the Scooby Doo series resulted from the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and an effort to reduce violence on television. It seemed to be oversimplifying things to me, but what is your take on it? And what do you think of the show using real ghosts versus fake ones? There seems to be some debate over that among fans.

From the dawn of TV for kids, there were always groups that wanted those shows to be more uplifting and educational and which mistook slapstick for violence. There probably still are such groups, though I would imagine they're pretty ineffectual these days. A lot of my career in animation involved dealing with network folks who were trying to appease those groups…while at the same time, putting on shows that kids wanted to watch. At times, it seemed hard to achieve both at the same time, especially at ABC.

My understanding is that Scooby Doo came about because Fred Silverman (then at CBS) thought there might be an audience for a whodunnit and they did it in the style they chose, rather than a more adventure style, because the Archie cartoon show was a recent hit. Also, in the early development, the focus of the show was almost wholly on the kids and the dog was kind of an add-on tagalong. As the show took shape, mostly in the hands of Joe Ruby and Ken Spears with Silverman and Joe Barbera participating, the dog seemed to be stealing the show. Joe Ruby told me once about a day when he and Ken decided to make the dog more of the star and even to name the show after him.

And with that decision — with the show now more about a scared, almost-talking pooch — that further cemented the lighter style. They may have said that it was part of an effort to reduce violence because of the R.F.K. killing but I think that was just good public relations. I heard about the show from both Joes, Ken and even a little from Silverman. I don't think they really had that in mind at the time though the network may have decided there was some value in saying they did.

As for the switch from fake ghosts to real ghosts: I think the show quickly got into a rut with the ghosts always turning out to be fake. At some point, even the most open-minded kid had to be asking why Scooby and Shaggy were so terrified about this week's alleged ghost when the last eighty alleged ghosts all turned out to be someone they'd met who had put on a mask and maybe rigged up some cheapo special effects.

Plus, the writers had come up with every conceivable fake ghost and it was necessary to be open to real monsters and goblins and such just to get a story that they hadn't done eleven times before. So I was fine with it.

And before anyone asks me what I think about the announcement that Velma is now officially gay…I don't care. I don't even care whether actual people I know or work with are gay or straight. Either way, they're still human beings who deserve to be treated with respect — whether they're gay or straight, "out" or not. I guess it matters if you might find yourself in a dating or mating situation with someone…but it's been my experience that when that's an issue, you find out soon enough.

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