Thursday, June 23, 2005

Sam Kweskin, R.I.P.

Veteran comic book artist Sam Kweskin passed away this morning at the age of 81. His career in comics was brief and almost wholly spent at Marvel. He began drawing (and occasionally writing) for the company in 1952, back when it was called Atlas, and appeared in books like Adventures Into Terror and Wild Western until the amount of available work declined around 1957. The cover pictured above is reportedly the only published cover he ever drew for comics.

Thereafter, Kweskin built a solid career in advertising art and storyboarding for commercials, returning to comics only for one short story — a war back-up for the 1967 Tod Holton, Super Green Beret. Around 1972, he did a small amount of work for Marvel — some of it under the pen-name, "Irv Wesley" — on Daredevil, Dr. Strange and Sub-Mariner. On Sub-Mariner, he worked with the strip's creator, Bill Everett, who was then having health problems. Kweskin was being groomed to take over the book but it was cancelled, and Marvel's editors were not impressed enough with the work he was then doing to offer him more. Kweskin returned full-time to advertising work and also dabbled in illustration work, most of it involving old airplanes and war scenes.

Some historical articles refer to Kweskin as having been a ghost artist for Bill Everett, even before their 1972 collaborations. This is apparently not true, even though Everett told it to interviewers. Years later, when comic historians tracked down and interviewed Kweskin, he said he had never ghosted for Everett or anyone, and couldn't understand how that rumor got started. Well, it got started because Everett apparently had some names confused. In any case, Kweskin was a good artist even if he wasn't Everett's assistant, and it's a shame there wasn't more room for him in comics.

• Posted at 10:26 PM · LINK

Rickles Tonight

I hear Don Rickles was in fine form on this evening's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which was just taped. There's a story about Sinatra in Vegas and a bit of Carson remembrance that are supposed to be wonderful. He does not, however, call anyone a hockey puck.

• Posted at 5:29 PM · LINK

Must-See Me

A few guests' names will be added to panels as they confirm but for now, you can get an idea of what you'll want to see at the Comic-Con International...

• Posted at 5:19 PM · LINK

Paul Cassidy, R.I.P.

Paul Cassidy, who was among Joe Shuster's first assistants on the Superman comic books and strip, has passed away at the age of 94. Cassidy spent most of his career as an art teacher but from around 1938 to 1940, he worked in Cleveland for the Siegel and Shuster shop, helping Joe to produce an ever-growing volume of stories and covers featuring their new creation. Scholars have argued over which work from this period is Cassidy's and which is Shuster's, but it would appear that many stories were done as follows: Shuster would do a rough layout of the pages, then Cassidy would tighten up the pencil art on the main figures. Then Shuster would ink main figures or, at least, heads. Finally, the page would be completed by Cassidy. The two Action Comics covers shown above are believed to be all or mostly all Cassidy's work, and he is said to have contributed several enduring refinements to the famous Superman costume and design.

Later Shuster employees — and there were many — had to deal with the fact that Joe was losing his eyesight. But Cassidy was around when Joe could still draw, so he assisted more than he ghosted. He left the job in 1940 and never ventured back into comics. This article tells more about his career.

• Posted at 2:41 PM · LINK

More of Daly and Wallace

I'm sure I'm making more of this than the event was worth but, heck, that's what weblogs are for. Rick Scheckman sent me a batch of newspaper clippings about the John Daly/Mike Wallace tempest. It's interesting that in those days, it was permissible for John Daly to work all week as an exec in the ABC news department...then, some Sunday nights, he would put on his tuxedo and brave the puns of Bennett Cerf to host a game show on a competing network. (Wallace had his own game show connections. He hosted several, including the pilot of To Tell the Truth, and even turned up as a panelist on some of the imitations of What's My Line? produced by the same production company, Goodson-Todman.) Although the dispute was over the Mickey Cohen interview in particular, one does get the feeling that there was also a breach of styles fanning the flames. Mike Wallace was then a kind of in-your-face TV host who supposedly — it didn't happen as often as people later remembered — got someone in the guest chair and cross-examined them until they revealed something they might have preferred not reveal on television. Daly was an enormously polite man — What's My Line? was sometimes so thick with etiquette as to be laughable — and he clearly resented what others called "rude journalism." He didn't think it was journalism at all.

In another clipping Rick sent me but which is too big to post here, Daly defends his position by noting that What's My Line? was a live, ad-lib show. Therefore, he said, there was the chance that the Mickey Cohen interview might somehow come up in conversation, and Daly didn't want that.

Interesting to note that in the article, Mr. Cohen is referred to as an "ex-gangster." In 1957, there were those who would have quibbled with the "ex" part. Four years later, he was in Alcatraz, serving his second sentence for income tax evasion.

• Posted at 2:01 PM · LINK

Two Times Daly

Jeff Boice was nice enough to send in this additional info about an item I posted here the other day...

You talked about the What's My Line? episode where John Charles Daly objected to having Mike Wallace appear as the Mystery Guest. The back story is this: Mike Wallace started the Mike Wallace Interviews show on ABC the previous month (4/28/1957). Wallace was hired by Leonard Goldenson over the objection of Daly, who was the head of ABC News at the time. Daly made it clear that he considered Wallace to be a "mere interviewer" and not a real journalist, and that ABC News would have nothing to do with him. He also warned Goldenson that the Mike Wallace Interviews show would end up getting ABC in lots of trouble

And that trouble occurred on the show which aired the week after Mother's Day, 1957. Wallace had as his guest the gangster Mickey Cohen, who made a number of slanderous comments about L.A. Police Chief William Parker. Parker sued ABC for $2,000,000 (it was settled out of court for $45,000 and an on-air apology). As Wallace notes in his book, Close Encounters, "In the aftermath of the Cohen experience, he (Daly) was able to say 'I told you so' — and did."

If your date for the What's My Line? show was correct, it was the week after the Mickey Cohen interview. Daly probably felt that appearing with Wallace would have been seen as a display of support for Wallace from both him and ABC News. Of course, he should have also known that refusing to appear in public with Wallace would also be newsworthy, and he should not have been so upset when it made the papers.

• Posted at 2:33 AM · LINK

June 24, 2005 • Current • June 22, 2005