Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Woolfolk Records 1952/12

Another month, like last, of only five stories entered in the records book; for the only time, a single publisher: DC.

The authorship of William Woolfolk's war stories is already known, from Julius Schwartz's pay records for the books he and Robert Kanigher each edited.

Detective 196--City without Guns

December 1952 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

12 pg  Batman city without guns
"City without Guns" Detective 196, Aug/53
10  Superboy Superboy's manager
"Superboy Hired a Manager" Superboy 26, June-July/53
The Milk Run "Pappy" of an air squadron in World War II
"Ghost Ace" Our Army at War 13, Aug/53
10  Superman Clark Kent goes to prison
"Clark Kent—Convict" Superman 83, July-Aug/53
Drummer Boy boy drummer at Waterloo
"Drummer of Waterloo" OAAW 14, Sept/53

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

While We Wait for Doctor Strange: Marie Severin Art

The Atlas Tales website lists a good handful of text page illustrations in the late Fifties at Timely/Atlas/Marvel attributed to Marie Severin (over twenty, but at least a few of the later ones are reprints; more, if titles were changed).

Many Atlas text pieces reused art from comics stories, but a few were original; Joe Maneely initialed some of his with an "M". Atlas Tales cites Marie Severin's first known text piece there as signed (Astonishing 54, Oct/56), but I can’t see any initials or signature on it. The site attributes only the pencils on her spot illos, but I think it's a safe bet to say that she inked herself. As an example:

Cartoon Kids 1 text page illos

These two Severin pieces of spot art, like a tree falling in the forest without being posted on YouTube, haven't yet been cited on the Internet that I can find. They're from Cartoon Kids 1, no month, 1957. Joe Maneely did the rest of the issue; he's been the best guess so far as the artist on the text piece.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Woolfolk Records 1952/11

Superman 82

Stories for Orbit and DC; and William Woolfolk's final story of three for Standard.

There seems to be almost no production time for the Unsolved Crimes, but there it is. Only one of the two pages had to be drawn and lettered, at least—the second was text that merely had to be typeset. Wanted was cancelled before #54, for which "Date with Danger" (noted as an Orbit buy) must have been intended.

November 1952 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

2 pg  Unsolved Crimes murder of a spinster
"Murder for Aunt Martha" Wanted 52, Feb/53
12  Superman the super telethon
"The Super Telethon" Action 180, May/53
10  Superman Lois Lane becomes a WAC
"Lois Lane Joins the WACS" Superman 82, May-June/53
Date with Danger mystery of a vanishing corpse
[unpublished]
The Evil Cornucopia a cornucopia owned by a demon
"The Evil Cornucopia" Advs into Darkness 10, June/53

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Heroes for Hire from Harvey

Some time in the future I hope to concentrate a few posts on the Harvey Thrillers, but at the moment I want to mention one story of interest. In Unearthly Spectaculars 3 (March/67) the story "Rent-a-Hero from Miracles Inc." carries on the Miracles Inc. feature from issue 2, and with a completely different writer-artist team (in issue 2 that "team" was pretty much Wallace Wood).

Unearthly Spectaculars 3--Miracles Inc.

The Harvey Thrillers line in the mid-Sixties was edited by Joe Simon, who called in a rosterful of people, many of whom had worked for him before as well as some new ones. His writers on the various features included Dick Wood, Otto Binder, France Herron, D. J. Arneson, and Jim Steranko.

But "Rent-a-Hero" stands out as the only story I've recognized at Harvey as written by Joe Simon himself. I had to look ahead to his work at DC in the Seventies to find a starting point in creating a list of his scripting characteristics; at Harvey in this period, and in the earlier Sixties and the Fifties there, as well as at Archie and Prize and Crestwood, it looks like he was busy enough editing that he relied on writers including Jack Kirby, Jack Oleck, Carl Wessler, Bob Powell, and so on.

As far as the art on this story goes—I can relate to convincing oneself of seeing the work of an artist who isn't there, but I'm going to suggest that that's exactly what's happening when "Rent-a-Hero" is attributed to Joe Orlando. It's certainly easy to see why it is: folks are working backward from Orlando's credited work at Warren and DC from this period.

I would have thought his use of ghosts in those years is notorious by now, but I hope eventually it will sink in.

I can't make out a hint of Orlando on this story. Jerry Grandenetti pencilled it. Period. Is he being inked by someone else? If so, it doesn't much look like Joe Orlando. The latter did work for Simon earlier, but I don't see his art anywhere at Harvey.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Woolfolk Records 1952/10

Frogman 10 splash--'Frogman in Purple' Fawcett, Orbit, DC; one final story for Hillman, after writing Sky Wolf some years ago; and a new publisher for William Woolfolk: Standard (I had no idea he'd worked for them).

UPDATE: I couldn't identify the Superman story; darkmark has supplied the citation. The reason I missed it: I had misidentified an earlier script as "Super Manor"—going by the cover, it seems to me now; I IDed most of these in a batch almost two years ago.

Woolfolk has evidently been told there are no more Captain Marvel Jr. stories needed, but this month sees the last Captain Marvel-related story he writes, as Fawcett's reign of comic book publishing nears its end.

"Murderous Cargo" is an instance where, instead of changing a title, Orbit changes a character name: real-life Lucky Luciano becomes fictional Louie Lusto in the published story.

October 1952 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

6 pg  Captain Marvel thief from the past
"CM and the Thief from the Past" CM Advs 147, Aug/53
Prescription for Happiness girl loves a gambler
[untitled PFH]  Love Diary 33, Feb/53
12  Superman town that didn't want Super
"Super Manor" Action 179, Apr/53
Frogman his majesty, frogboy
"Frogman in Purple" Frogman 10, Apr/53
10  Killer Guns supplier of guns to the underworld
"For Hire . . . Guns for Killers" Wanted 53, Apr/53
The Mirror Man a man in a mirror
"The Man in the Mirror" Out of the Shadows 8, Apr/53
Nothing Can Save Her doctor loves a vampire
"Nothing Can Save Her" Advs into Darkness 9, Apr/53
Wanted script "Raymond Wilt" Wanted 53, Apr/53
12  Batman underworld bank
"The Underworld Bank" Detective 194, Apr/53
Moll story of a girl who falls for a gangster
"Moll!" Love Journal 18, Apr/53
Murderous Cargo Lucky Luciano wants to get back to the U.S.A.
"Murderous Cargo" Wanted 53, Apr/53