War Picture Library - The Early Covers

Some stunning cover artworks for Fleetway's War Picture Library and Air Ace Library by Italian maestro Giorgio De Gaspari. The artworks were painted between 1958 and 1961 and show De Gaspari at the peak of his powers.

Steve Ditko's Mr A - A Lecture in Objectivism

I well recall the slight frisson of surprise I had when I first read Steve Ditko's first Mr A story in Witzend Issue 3. Here was a comic strip that seemed jarringly at variance with the rest of the comics (including much if not all of Witzend) that seemed to typify the late sixties counterculture which was essentially politically liberal and anti establishment.

When Steve Ditko created Mr A, he'd already had a bruising experience with Marvel Comics, which led to him walking out on any further involvement with his most successful creation; Spiderman. He'd worked on a couple of features for DC - The Creeper and The Hawk and the Dove, neither of which had worked out for Ditko either. He was still working for very modest returns as Charlton on features such as The Blue Beetle and The Question (almost a watered down Mr A), but again these were destined to be relatively short lived.

Mr A, which was to provide Alan Moore with the springboard for his Rorscharch character from Watchmen was very much a distillation of Ditko's absorption of the writings of Ayn Rand - a really excellent investigation of Rand's writings and Ditko's reaction to them can be found on the perenially fascinating Dial B For Blog.

In the meantime here's Mr A:

P.G., Wulf and The Exacting Science of Restoration

Paul Gravett is probably (sparing his blushes) one of  the most media savvy promoters of comics as an art form in the UK. I first came across his work when in 1985 I sent off for a trial copy of his "Escape" zine which with sundry talents such as Hunt Emerson and a very young Rian Hughes was like a breath of fresh air with a definite "bande desinee" vibe about it, which in my book couldn't be a bad thing.

Anyway I've long been aware of Paul's works and his rise to something of celebrity status amongst comic critics and historians. He is a networker par excellence and if there's any kind of comics event either here in the U.K. or further afield, you can be sure that Paul will pop up amongst the assembled luminaries. But in addition to his networking talents Paul has got an uncanny ability to divine other comic enthusiasts interests and probably has more of an idea of what's in their collections then they have.

A few years ago I received an email from Paul apropos of a new book he was working on which was a history of British comics. He needed some material on Ron Embleton's "Wulf the Briton" and he had divined by either esp or superb journalistic detective work that I had a couple of Wulf originals in my care. Could I possibly, if it wasn't going to be too much trouble scan them and send him hi-res copies? Complimentary copy of the book, credit on publication etc, etc.

Well, of course I was delighted to be in any way involved with such a project, but there was one little snag and that was that of the two pages, one was a second page with no significant appearance of Wulf and the other was from later in the strips run, when it was occupying a full page on the back of the comic. It had the advantage of being a magnificent example of Embleton's ability to draw horses and warriors at full tilt with Wulf prominent in the action but and it was a BIG but ... it was faded.

Historical note here but much of the "Wulf the Briton" artwork was mysteriously removed from the vaults of Express Newspapers some thirty plus years ago and has turned up in collections all over the UK and beyond. People have shelled out lots of money for it and eager to enjoy their investment have framed it and hung the work on their walls. If you are one of these people and are reading this, then be warned, Ron Embleton used Pelikan inks for most of his work and whilst they are superb in terms of color they are not, repeat NOT "lightfast". This means that the sun will leech all the colors out of the artwork. starting with the yellows first, followed by reds, until everything goes. You have two options, either take the artwork down and get it re-framed with ultra violet resistant glass (not THAT expensive) or just take it down and store it in a folio or plan chest. Or if you really want to be be an accomplice to the destruction of a piece of beautiful artwork leave it as it is.

Anyway the piece concerned had suffered quite badly whereas the page 2 (with no Wulf) showed no excessive evidence of such deterioration. I got back to Paul with the warning that the most appropriate page was chromatically compromised, but he was as ever very enthusiastic and keen to use the page in question, give or take a bit of fade.

So I scanned the artwork in and painstakingly assembled the multiple scans (A4 scanner as opposed to A2) and emailed the results to Paul. He was a little disappointed with the results; "the colors look really dull", "well yes they are Paul, I did say it was badly faded, but I'll give it a tweak in Photoshop."

Now ethics began to creep into my thinking, I considered the fact that I did have a copy of the original comic in my possession, but I was keen to see the original artwork in Paul's book as it was, so back I go into Photoshop and start playing with sliders and color balance. Feeling that we'd got some appreciable improvement I re-emailed Paul the results. Close but no cigar, was pretty much the response.

Hmmmmmm ... OK ethics out the window, in desperation I scanned in my copy of the comic and after restoring that page to it's original chromatic values (or as near as possible) I then re-sized it to the same dimensions as the original art scan and carefully laid it as a transparent layer on top. I then painstakingly worked over both layers and hey presto - we finally had an original looking almost as good as the day it left the artist's studio without too much interference or supposition by the restorer.

Looked pretty good to me when I eventually happened on a copy in that enchanted glade of bibliophile heaven otherwise known as erm ...  Waterstones. Honors even as they say. And if all of this is getting your "Wulf" juices flowing I've got some very exciting news on that front which I'll let you know about shortly.

The Genesis of Creepy Part 8 - Cattlemen, Money and a Party

With the launch of a second horror title "Eerie", the mood in the Warren camp was high. Money however was still an issue and Warren anxious to keep his talent as motivated as possible, speculated that if - big IF, sales were strong enough then perhaps they could reconsider the page rate, perhaps even $100.00 per page might be up for discussion. Warren was at times paranoid about losing his talent to rival publishers, even if Fass wasn't a contender there were others, there were always others. His at times obsessive need to win the approval of those within his employ manifested itself in the weirdest of ways and was often counter productive to the results he sought.

Take for instance another of Warren's soirees at the Cattlemen restaurant, where after launching into an address about what was really going to motivate the assembled talents, he walked around the table peeling off crisp and newly minted dollar bills, throwing them down one at a time next to each stunned artist as he jabbered on, "This is what it's about guys and this is what you're gonna get". As Russ Jones put it, "Frank (Frazetta) looked like someone had eaten his lunch. I mean, the expressions - I thought Gray Morrow was going to get up and leave. Evans, old George, he looked completely bewildered".

In fairness to Warren the desire seems to have been that if sales returns looked sufficiently vigorous, then a generous hike in the page rate was on the cards. As was mentioned previously, sales returns on bi-monthly magazines couldn't be assessed with any degree of certainty until at least the third or fourth issue, amounting to a wait of eight months. By the time the sales returns from Kable News did come through for Creepy, Warren's confidence in his new venture did seem vindicated, the problem was that by then other parts of Warren's magazine empire were looking distinctly creaky. "Screen Thrills" had to be axed and even "Famous Monsters of Filmland" was struggling, things were getting so bad that Warren's production man Harry Chester was having to fob off an increasingly irate printer and in the end had to go elsewhere when the printer refused to carry Warren any further until the now large bill was settled.

And the delays in payment weren't just confined to Warren's production crew, artists weren't getting paid and as Jones related, as editor of "Creepy" and "Eerie" he was their first port of call. The problem for Jones was that for the moment there wasn't a second port of call as Jim Warren had temporarily gone to ground, he just wasn't taking phone calls anymore and with an increasingly disaffected work force, Jones decided that a meeting with Warren was now called for. The upshot of the meeting was that Jones left having resigned his editorship, stung by Warren's accusation that he just couldn't take the heat and feeling that the job was no longer worth the grief of the $325.00 he was receiving for putting each issue together.

But there was an element of hurt being nursed by both parties to this contretemps. Jones had during the time he was living in New York met a girl and since they'd started seeing each other was no longer as available as he was a year earlier to engage in the 24/7 devotion to duty that Warren expected of his editors and if Jones had to choose between ministering to James Warren or his girlfriend, then it was going to be the girl every time. Added to which Jone's girl couldn't stand James Warren and when at around the time of their engagement they threw a party with many of the movers and shakers in the comics industry as guests, including Frank and Ellie Frazetta, Al and Arlene Williamson, John and Cathy Prentice, Irwin Hasen, Stan Drake, Leonard and Betty Starr, James Warren was left off the list. Despite Jones intercession on Warren's behalf his fiancee was having none of it - there was no way that "that man" was going to be invited. Warren was deeply hurt by this rejection and the event definitely soured their relationship.

Jones's career was however not in jeopardy and whilst the avuncular Archie Goodwin assumed editorial control of Warren's horror comics, Jones amongst myriad other activities, went on to produce three issues of a Hammer film centric magazine titled "Monster Mania". There were only three issues but they were brilliantly put together at a time when the U.K.'s Hammer Film Studios were making real waves internationally. Compared and contrasted with the bulk of U.S. monster magazines (including Warren's "Famous Monsters") which were still fixated on Universal Studios now distinctly dated output, there was no contest. The magazines caught the eye of Hammer Films executive producer Anthony Nelson Keys and before too long Jones was over in the U.K. working as a scripter for Hammer Films.

Warren in the meantime airbrushed Jones out of corporate memory, even in interviews avoiding mentioning him by name although he wasn't above occasionally recycling some of Jones artwork as in the case of the somewhat superior re - presentation of Jones' portrait of Christopher Lee as Frankenstein's monster, originally published as 50% of the "Horror of Dracula/ Curse of Frankenstein" movie comic.

More on the creation of Monster Mania and Russ Jones other activities can be read at his fascinating site located thisaway.

P.S. I may well come back to this story as although I having fulfilled the original brief to throw light on the creation of James Warren's line of horror comics the tale has a lot more of interest and perhaps a continuation of this sequential history might be an idea if you the reader would be interested.

I should also point out that much of the research for this series was drawn from Jon. B. Cooke and David Roach's extensive interviews and writings on the key players, much of which (but not all) was contained in the now long out of print "Warren Companion".

Images  © New Comic Company LLC 2010


Check out the ongoing series of reprints from Dark Horse Comics here for US readers.

And here for UK readers.

The Genesis of Creepy Part 7

Creepy was launched and to celebrate the event Warren held the first of several gatherings at the Cattlemen Restaurant. For Warren it was the first chance to meet many of the contributors to the magazine and as ever he was on great good form as he played host to the assembled creatives. There were other projects  to be considered and as initial sales returns started to filter through from Kable News, Warren felt sufficiently emboldened to consider a war magazine much in the vein of EC's "Two Fisted Tales" and "Frontline Combat".

Thus was born "Blazing Combat" but unlike "Creepy", Warren's war magazine was gravely mistimed. With the U.S. sucked into the morass of Vietnam, BC's anti war stance and at times overt critique of America's conduct of that war, created a news stand backlash and problems with their distributors. The covers by Frank Frazetta which in the case of issue 2, was particularly brutal didn't help things either. With the full details of sales returns often coming in three months after a magazine hit the stands, it meant that on a bi-monthly schedule and allowing for pick up to kick in after a second issue, it wasn't until issue 4 was print ready that Warren decided to pull the plug on the project.

But there were other even more immediate problems, Warren had picked up on the grapevine that one of his arch rivals Myron Fass was about to launch a "knock off" version of "Creepy", with Fass's baby going under the title "Eerie". This Warren couldn't and wouldn't countenance, Fass was in may ways similar to Warren, only whereas Warren had drive and vision, Fass just had drive, in fact Fass was so driven he was like a squirrel on crack. Fass had also been greatly influenced by Bill Gaines and when "Mad" magazine was turning into a runaway success, Fass launched his own copycat version of "Mad" titled "Lunatickle". A few years later when it was becoming evident that Warren's "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine was doing great business Fass launched his own horror rag under the name of "Shock Tales"although "Schlock Tales" might have been more apt. Whereas the Ackerman edited "Famous Monsters" had some kind of cinematic reference points, Fas's product had none, the pictures being sourced not from film stills but from Fass's own scantily dressed secretaries being menaced by co-workers in horror make up with lurid text adding a final tasteless flourish. Fass's output was like a kitsch barometer of every bizarre and salacious fad that assailed the U.S. public, when Kennedy was assassinated Fass's prurient outpourings netted him a reputed 4 million dollars. For Warren hearing that this periodic thorn in his side was about to create a travesty of his newest and most promising magazine was not a situation he was prepared to accept without a fight.

Warren with the help of Archie Goodwin and Gaspar Saladino  managed to knock out over a frantic weekend the first issue of what was destined to be "Creepy" magazine's companion "Eerie". Utilizing some of the inventory of unpublished Creepy stories and a cover taken from Jack Davis's unused cover for issue 2 of Creepy they literally threw together 20 "ashcan" edition of "Eerie" number one - now a highly prized collector's edition. Russ Jones was deputed to get the 200 copies onto as many newstands as possible thereby stealing a march on Fass and claiming title and copyright for themselves.

But for Jones and Warren a parting of the ways was looming ...

Creepy & Eerie  © New Comic Company LLC 2010


Check out the ongoing series of reprints from Dark Horse Comics here for US readers.

And here for UK readers.

Meanwhile all four issues of Blazing Combat have been superbly reprinted by Fantagraphics available here for UK readers.

And here for US readers.

The Genesis of Creepy Part 6

So now the magazine had a title and Warren who had his own links to the old EC gang had petitioned Jack Davis to create a cover. Davis had previously worked for Warren on Kurtzman's "Help" magazine and in addition had created the sensational looking six foot high Frankenstein poster available available from ... yup! you guessed it - Captain Company. Not only a cover but following very much in the tradition of EC's three "ghoulunatics", Davis was also persuaded to create a tongue in cheek horror host who would provide intros and outros for the plots that Jones and Orlando were spinning at Jones studio apartment at the Clifton building.

With Al Williamson's enthusiastic endorsement of the project artists such as Gray Morrow, Angelo Torres, Reed Crandall and George Evans were at least semi on board with the project, but there was a sticking point. Warren's page rate was $30.00 and not a cent more, Dell and the newly formed Gold Key comics were offering $35.00 a page and for artists of the caliber that were in the frame for Creepy magazine, it was top rate or no go. Warren wasn't budging on this. So out of the $500.00 Jones was receiving for each bi-monthly issue he put together, the young editor decided to dig into his own fee and make up the five dollar shortfall that way. A painful sacrifice when one considers Jones overheads, his rent and utilities at the Clifton were costing him $225.00 per month and reducing his Warren income to $325.00 every two months was injecting yet another fillip of financial uncertainty into his freelance existence.

The artists were now on board and even though the script budget was set at a miserly $5.00 a page, the troupe of young writers Ivie, Goodwin and possibly Bill Pearson, working from the springboards that Jones and Orlando were feeding them were more than up for covering all necessary writing chores. Ben Oda one of the premier lettering talents in the business was brought on board and even Frank Frazetta was persuaded to provide a strip for one of Ivie's scripts on the understanding that he could launch himself onto cover assignments as the magazine gathered steam. Warren would have been more than happy to give Frazetta cover assignments from day one, but ever mindful of the Comics Code Authority he wanted to give the debut issue a light touch and Jack Davis's cover fulfilled that function admirably.

Jones was in an agony of anticipation but as the artwork arrived at the Clifton he became more confident that he was going to be able to meet Warren's high expectations. There were some neat in jokes too as in Al Williamson's "Success Story" the springboard for which was not, as has been occasionally surmised Batman's semi-detached co-creator Bob Kane, but instead Don Sherwood, who's subcontracting of penciling, inking and scripting duties on Dan Flagg had become something of an in-joke amongst Jones and most of the artists contributing to that first issue of Creepy. Williamson puckishly drew himself into the Baldo Smudge/Sherwood role and drew Archie Goodwin as scripter, Angelo Torres as inker and Al McWilliams (possibly) as penciler.

And as James Warren and Russ Jones finally got to leaf through the freshly arrived copies of Creepy whilst Kable News distributed the thing to news stands the length and  breadth of the nation, the magazine did indeed seem to have a heady aura of success about it.

Yet more tomorrow...

Images  © New Comic Company LLC 2010

Check out the ongoing series of reprints from Dark Horse Comics here for US readers.

And here for UK readers.

Russ Jones, Woody and the Genesis of Creepy Part 5

Now as you will recall from previous postings Woody had stepped back from any further professional involvement with James Warren , partly as amongst all his other work, he had to rack out a major project creating a new line of superhero comics for an outfit by name of Tower Comics. Phone calls were going out from Wood H.Q. located at East 74th Street - up five flights of stair and no elevator! Russ Jones empty chair was now occupied by another young ex serviceman with a lot of drive and a love of comics - Dan Adkins.

Adkins, who along with friend and fellow fanzine contributor Bill Pearson had moved to New York several years earlier, was by this time well into the network of aspirant young creatives who were hungrily seeking to further their careers in the comics industry. A key player amongst these young turks was Larry Ivie, whose apartment located in the down at heel Chelsea neighborhood, became a default crash pad for many of the aspirant artists. Ivie who had recently graduated from the New York School of Visual Arts was one of a group of artists who regularly attended a privately run Saturday life drawing class which included such luminaries as Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel and a young man by name of Archie Goodwin. Angelo Torres and Frank Frazetta would also occasionally put in an appearance inviting the whole troupe over to Central Park for a game of baseball afterwards.

Ivie you may recall had aroused the ire of Woody when instead of merely ruling in panel borders on a Captain America story, had actually redrawn the Cap and Bucky in their Golden Age costumes and returned the inked pages to the Wood studio as he felt that the current Marvel version was somewhat inferior to it's Timely predecessor. Ivie's missionary zeal didn't just stop there, he would regularly petition editors with analysis of where he thought they were failing their readers, he would even go so far as to spotlight artist's swipes in one instance devoting a slide show at one of New York's sci-fi conventions to the art of the swipe, starting with Adkins, through Virgil Finlay, through to The Saturday Evening Post, etc, etc and ad infinitum.

The ever industrious Ivie managed to get himself onto Russ Jones' radar at about the time Warren had finally assented to Jones idea for a black and white horror comic. Now sourcing artists (and in Jones mind artists with the right sort of EC provenance) became a priority. Woody was again canvassed but the answer was still no and besides Woody was snowed under. Nevertheless Jones had Woody's old colleague Joe Orlando (who'd helped put together some of the black and white horror movie adaptations they'd recently created for Warren) set up with a desk at Jones spacious apartment at the Clifton. Ivie, who was as enthused about the project as anyone could be, helped spread the word and with the enthusiastic endorsement of Al Williamson, who was with typical generosity doing all he could to further the career of the young Ivie, a gathering of artists was beginning to assemble itself around what was being  referred to as "Project D".

Jones was initially tasked with the brief of putting together a 64 page comic including of course Warren's Captain Company adverts (which was a vital part of the funding of Warren's magazine empire it has to be noted). The magazine was ultimately shrunk to 48 pages but as far as Jones was concerned he had a lot of work to pull in over a relatively short period. The network of artists that Jones had met, many via Al Williamson along with a pool of young writers including Ivie himself and many of the regular faces at Ivie's apartment such as Bill Pearson and Archie Goodwin were beginning to coalesce around the project.

The project that still had no name. According to Jones, it was late one evening as he was mulling over old EC tearsheets that the phone rang and a very irate James Warren called wondering why this magazine still had no title. Jones had been distractedly looking at the work of Graham Ingles.  Jones would have dearly loved to secure Ingles artistry for the project but at the time the maestro of gothic decay and dissolution was rumored to be somewhere in the Florida swamps, having walked out on wife and family some two years previously. Ingles was therefore as publicity shy as a man in that position could reasonably be expected to be. The page that Jones was  fondly looking at was a classic Ingles rendition of the Old Witch and featured in one of the speech balloons was the word "Creepy". Thus was a publisher placated and thus was a legend born.

Part 6 of this epic saga tomorrow  - all this from a posting that was originally going to be devoted to an unusual Wallace Wood Creepy tale - you see how truly serendipitous this blog really is!!!

Artworks included today include Ivie covers  from Larry Ivie's very own " Monsters and Heroes" and his time as editor of "Castle of Frankenstein" a magazine that drew much inspiration from a certain Mr James Warren's "Famous Monsters of Filmland".

Creepy © New Comic Company LLC 2010

Check out the ongoing series of reprints from Dark Horse Comics here for US readers.

And here for UK readers.