Saturday, December 9, 2006

Remembering Martin Nodell

Here's a link to a half-hour video excerpt from a panel I co-hosted at the 2000 Comic-Con International in San Diego. The eminent writer Ron Goulart and I interviewed Harry Lampert, who was the artist on the first stories of The Flash, and Marty Nodell, who did the honors for Green Lantern. Mike Catron edited this two years ago when Harry passed away so it favors him...but there are some nice moments with Marty in there, too.

• Posted at 9:42 PM · LINK

Buyer Beware, Round Two

The fellow selling those drawings on eBay has just changed the listings. They now say...

I was asked the question on who had drawn these. I thought it was Mark Evanier, but informed that they were drawn by Sergio Aragone's and then signed by Mark Evanier. So These are being sold as drawn by Segio Aragone's and signed by Mark Evanier. Wish Sergio had signed them to.

To make it clear: They were not drawn by Sergio. They're so amateurish, I can't believe anyone would think they were drawn by Sergio. I've e-mailed the seller and informed him, and I bet he'll do the right thing and cancel the auctions. But this is a great example of how you need to be cautious when purchasing artwork.

• Posted at 8:02 PM · LINK

Martin Nodell, R.I.P.

Martin Nodell, the artist co-creator of Green Lantern, died this morning less than a month after his 91st birthday. I'm afraid I have no further details other than that Marty had been in poor health lately.

Marty was born 11/15/15 in Philadelphia. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later, Pratt Institute in New York. It was in New York that he began working as a freelance artist, in or around 1938. He soon started freelancing for several comic book companies that either didn't pay or didn't pay well. As he later told the story, he got tired of being stiffed by the smaller firms and decided to make an all-out effort to break into the majors. He called at the offices of the biggest publisher, DC Comics, and was told they were full up but that there might be work at an affiliated company, All American. The editor there was Sheldon Mayer.

Mayer gave him a little work. When Nodell asked what it would take to get steady assignments, Mayer, who was looking for a new feature for the company's signature title, All-American Comics, told him to come up with a character. Nodell returned a few days later with sketches and the germ cell of a strip called Green Lantern. He said the idea had come to him on the subway when he saw a man waving — you guessed it — a green lantern. Nodell also said he wrote and drew the first few pages of the first story...but he wasn't a writer so Mayer brought in one of comics' top writers, Bill Finger, to rewrite and finish the first tale. The result was that Green Lantern, by Bill Finger and "Mart Dellon," debuted in All-American Comics #16, cover dated July of 1940. The character, which drew inspiration from the legend of Aladdin, was an immediate hit on the magnitude of the firm's other new superstars, The Flash and Wonder Woman, and soon received his own comic. (The All-American company was later absorbed by DC Comics. A new version of Green Lantern was created in 1959 and that version remains popular today, though the original Nodell incarnation has also been known to reappear.)

Nodell was very proud of his creation and its longevity. Asked why he'd opted for a pen name on the early stories, he once explained, "A lot of us did that back then. We thought of comics as a way to earn money before we moved on to real illustration work. If you used a fake name, you could disavow the work. Now, of course, I don't want to."

Marty worked for DC until 1947, then did a brief stint at Timely (Marvel) where he drew Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner in some of their final appearances before the declining popularity of super-heroes brought about cancellation. He took that as a cue to get out of comics and around 1950, made the move into advertising work, which he found more satisfying, at least in terms of pay and stability. He was also good at it. Marty was widely credited, here and elsewhere, with designing several iconic characters including the Pillsbury Doughboy. Apparently, some of these attributions are arguable, at least insofar as giving him sole credit is concerned. But he was definitely a major contributor and was responsible to some extent for a lot of memorable cartoon figures.

In the eighties, following his retirement from advertising, Marty was rediscovered by comics. He and his delightful wife Carrie could be found on the convention circuit, selling his sketches and often being interviewed by me. Carrie passed away in April of 2004 (reported here) and as one might expect, life was rough for Marty after that. They had been married for 63 years.

He was a fine gentleman and I always enjoyed our conversations. If and when I find out anything more about his passing, I'll post it here.

• Posted at 4:09 PM · LINK

Buyer Beware

An awful lot of stuff gets sold on eBay and most of it, from what I can tell, is legit. One of the categories that seems to attract some amount of fraud, or at least bogus info, is that of original comic book and strip artwork. There's a lot of inaccuracy and occasionally some out-and-out lying in that area. At any given time, for example, you can bid on an awful lot of Charles Schulz sketches that Helen Keller could have spotted as fakes. (I loved the one a few months ago where Schulz signed his name "Schultz." Someone actually offered good money for that, and not a small amount of good money.) To be charitable, some of the sellers seem to have been duped and to be honestly unaware they're not only selling fakes but vowing for the authenticity of them...but some of this is just Art Forgery. There are also a lot of animation cels, recently painted in by the guy who's now selling them, claiming they were were used in production at some studio a few decades ago.

Another category is artwork that is not exactly phony...but if you skim the ad too quickly, you might get the wrong impression. Currently up for bids on eBay are two drawings of Groo and unless you read the listings carefully, you might get the idea that I'd drawn them. I did not. Nor did Sergio Aragonés, the gentleman who draws the Groo comic books.

The listing says, "This is Original Art work of Groo. Signed by Mark Evanier. This was done sometime in the early 1980's. Groo was created by Sergio Aragonés in 1981. Mark Evanier was recruited to do the art work." That's inaccurate. Sergio has done all the artwork for the comic book. I handle words...but the erroneous statement plants the idea that I draw Groo, which I don't. Three people have already e-mailed me to ask me about these drawings and all three thought the listing said they were my drawings.

They aren't. They're tracings of drawings Sergio did for the cover of Groo the Wanderer #27, which came out early in 1987, which is not "sometime in the early 1980's." I don't know for sure who did them. My sense is that Sergio and I were appearing at some bookshop — I'm thinking it was the Page After Page shop, now defunct, which used to be in Las Vegas — and the proprietor did these or had someone do them as part of a store display to promote our appearance. While there (or maybe later), I was asked to autograph them and I did. Those look like my signatures.

Unless you buy them — and I doubt anyone will — this is no big deal, and I'll give the seller the benefit of the doubt and presume he didn't intend to mislead anyone. But I was planning to post something here about the bogus Schulz drawings and this seemed like as good an opportunity as any. I know I was crushed when people started raising questions about my original Elzie Segar drawing of Popeye using a cell phone as he microwaved his spinach.

• Posted at 3:23 PM · LINK

Down in the Mouth

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Carolyn and I spent a day at the Los Angeles Zoo where, thanks to a special "in," we got to go into the hippopotamus compound and feed the hippos. This mostly consisted of lobbing apples and heads of Romaine lettuce into yawning mouths...and if you've never done this, let me describe the experience...

You ever play Skee Ball? Of course you have. You would have lived a sheltered, deprived life if you'd never played Skee Ball. Well, this is just like Skee Ball except that instead of a wooden ball, you're using a head of lettuce...instead of rolling the ball, you're tossing the head of lettuce...and instead of trying to get it into the little round hole that says "100," you're trying to get it into the gaping maw of a creature the size of a Mazda. The hippo just stands there, wanting more, more, more even if hasn't bothered to swallow or even chew the last forty things you hurled at his uvula.

And then the real strange/cute thing comes when they close their mouths for a moment. I don't know if you can tell it from the above photo but they have these massive folds of skin on both sides of their yaps and when they close them, the folds curl up...and it's like the hippopotamus is smiling at you. (But not for long because they immediately open their mouths again and you can almost hear a little voice going, "In here, stupid" as you reach for another volley of Romaine. By the time the hippo has "enough," your pitching arm could be like Sandy Koufax's used to be after nine scoreless innings, swollen to Popeye dimensions.)

I posted some photos of this before but I just came across this one I took that day and I decided you needed another, closer look. In fact, you can see the above photo even larger if you click on this link. You might want to wait until after dinner to do this.

• Posted at 2:37 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Don't click below unless you're prepared to watch fourteen minutes of vintage commercials, starting with Rocky Graziano playing an old sea captain who sells Sugar Crisp. Later on, you'll hear comedian Jack E. Leonard as a mailman who sells Post Alpha Bits and a spot with Rory Raccoon (who I think is voiced by Mel Blanc with a "speed up" assist) selling Post Toasties Corn Flakes, plus there are a lot of great ABC promos and Marx toy commercials and things that may make you say, "Hey, I remember that one..." But don't click 'til you're ready.

By the way: I think a couple of these are repeats from other recent compilations to which I've linked. Don't complain. It's free.

• Posted at 12:02 PM · LINK

About David Frye (and others)

I'm hearing from an awful lot of David Frye fans. They're directing me to this outta-date article about him, reminding me that he did a comedy CD about Bill Clinton and repeating rumors about him retiring well on a family inheritance. But so far, no one's actually seen the guy in more than ten years...which leads me to believe he hasn't performed anywhere in at least that long.

I see also that a company has taken two of his old vinyl records — I Am the President and Radio Free Nixon — and reissued them on a single CD. I Am the President was the better seller but I thought Radio Free Nixon was a funnier album.

Not much more to add but perhaps we'll hear something now that I've posted my wonderings on the 'net. Almost every time I ask a question here, I hear from someone who has an answer. Sometimes, it's immediate. Sometimes, it takes a while.

While I'm at it: Does anyone know if A. Whitney Brown is still performing? How about Ed Bluestone, a comedian who may have set some sort of record for having the most jokes stolen and quoted of anyone who had such a brief career? (Ed's the guy who described himself as a Quadrisexual, meaning "I'll do anything with anyone for a quarter." And of course, he devised the famous National Lampoon cover — "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog.")

I ask because there are some comics out there who manage to continue lucrative careers without turning up on Comedy Central every month or three. Their absence from such venues make you think they're out of the business but, for instance, Gary Mule Deer is out working somewhere every week, often opening for Johnny Mathis — another star who appears constantly but has dropped off the TV listings. Some folks may think that one of my favorite stand-ups, Kevin Meaney, has stopped performing...but he's actually been appearing for a couple of years in productions of the musical, Hairspray. (He's currently in the New York company, playing several featured roles and understudying Edna.) Maybe we need a Department of Missing Comedians.

• Posted at 12:00 PM · LINK

December 10, 2006 • Current • December 8, 2006