Woolfolk Records Update 5

This Captain Marvel story was easy enough to track down—the problem was that I missed posting it to begin with. Three Cap stories in a row in the notebook looked like two, I guess, until I happened to look at the scan again much later and didn't remember dealing with this story.

I haven't seen the issue, but this seems the only place where the Moon Girl story could fit. International Comics didn't even occur to me as a Moon Girl venue when I posted; this was her only appearance in the title.

Readers helped find two of these: darkmark tracked down the Captain Midnight story after I posted it as unknown. SangorShop found the conspiracy of Pontiac story very shortly after I posted; it was reworked to 12 pages in publication, from 15 in script form.

The companies are Fawcett, EC, and Orbit.

May 1945

8 pg	Captain Midnight	tunnel of terror
		"Tunnel of Terror" Capt Mid 39, Apr/46

November 1945

7	Captain Marvel	visits Balt. & boy violin prodigy
		"CM Visits Baltimore" CM Advs 68, Dec/46

August 1947

6	Moon Girl	man lives beyond death
		"Beauty and the Beast" International 6, Spr/48

January 1948

15	Western Outlaw	conspiracy of Pontiac
12		"The Fighting Westerner" The Westerner 15, Aug/48

Kirby Analyzes Your Dreams

 

The Strange World of Your Dreams is a short-lived companion to Black Magic from Prize; Simon & Kirby are doing romance and crime comics for the company at this time as well. Dream analysis is an esoteric subject indeed (and in my opinion, the longer pieces here that use it in story plots work better than the short analysis-only ones.)

Jack Kirby's distinctive writing style is a little subtler than it will be twenty years in the future, but there's no mistaking him on most of these stories. There are few quoted words, but there are some. He emphasizes words that other writers probably would not, but at this point in his career most notably he emphasize entire sentences—generally final ones in long captions.

In the tiers comparing "Send Us Your Dreams [Julie Pendleton]" (SWOYD 1) and "X-Pit" (Mister Miracle 2, May-June/71, DC), note the triples: It was strange! Unexpected! Humiliating!; Explosion! Shock! Flame! Those were what made me take these as examples, but then I noticed these commas after conjunctions: "And, I thought I liked her!"; Then, the panic of aftermath!

 

If other writers submitted scripts rewritten by Kirby, or coplotted, I don't see any way of telling. Jack Oleck had some scripts published without rewriting at Prize (easier to find in Black Magic); Kirby doesn't script all the S&K stories, just the great majority—other artists' as well as the ones he draws. I'll emphasize that I'm IDing only the final script as used in the comic book.

On the art side, it would take a better eye than mine to point out specifics of Joe Simon's work, if any, here. I'm not very sure of the inks on Kirby's pencils or on Mort Meskin's, but I wonder if George Roussos inks a number of stories.

“The Dreaming Tower” in #1 takes H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider” (uncredited) and makes a rather different story out of it; Lovecraft’s shock ending becomes a throwaway plot point on the comic book story’s second-to-last page.

The Strange World of Your Dreams

Aug/52	#1	I Talked with My Dead Wife	w: Jack Kirby  p: Kirby
		You Sent Us This Dream [unnamed]	w: Kirby  p: Mort Meskin
		Don't Wake the Sleeper	w: Kirby  a: Bill Draut
		Send Us Your Dreams [Julie Pendleton]	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Dreaming Tower	w: Kirby  p: Meskin
S-O/	#2	The Girl in the Grave	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		You Sent Us This Dream [Betty L.]	w: Kirby  a: Bob McCarty
		You Sent Us This Dream [Ellen K.]	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		I Lived 200 Years Ago	w: Kirby  p: Meskin
		Send Us Your Dreams [Walter W.]	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		A Dream Saved His Life	w: Kirby  a: ?
N-D/	#3	The Woman in the Tower	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		Send Us Your Dreams [Edith Beck]	w: Kirby  a: Draut
		Edge of Madness	w: Kirby  p: Meskin
		You Sent Us This Dream [Patricia S.]	w: Kirby  a: George Roussos
		You Sent Us This Dream [Thomas R.]	w: Kirby  p: Kirby  i: Roussos?
		You Sent Us This Dream [John W.]	w: Kirby  a: McCarty
J-F/53	#4	Show Us Your Face	w: Kirby  p: Meskin
		The Moon and You *	w: Jack Oleck?  a: McCarty
		Romance in the Stars *	w: ? a: McCarty
		Send Us Your Dreams [many readers]	w: Kirby  a: ?
		The Skeleton in Your Closet *	w: ? a: McCarty
		You Sent Us This Dream [Paul R.]	w: Kirby?  a: ?
		4L-523	w: Oleck?  a: ?
		* Special Horoscope Featurette

Woolfolk Records 1948/08

William Woolfolk's publishers this month: Orbit, Fawcett, and Quality.

There are two 2-page features indexed in Wanted 18 (I haven't seen the issue)—which of the two is Woolfolk's is anybody's guess.

UPDATE: see darkmark's comment—he found the Monte Hale

August 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

15 pg	Death Rides the Silver Trail
14	as Wild Bill Pecos	"Death Rides the Silver Trail" The Westerner 18, Feb/49
7	Ibis	Gog and Magog at peace conference
		"The Menace of Gog and Magog" Whiz 108, Apr/49
11	Doll Man	Darrel Dane gets amnesia
		"The Doll Man Loses His Identity" Feature 132, Mar/49
9	Monte Hale	man who hated Indians
		"The Man Who Hated Indians" MH Western 35, Apr/49
9	Captain Marvel	god of chance intervenes against Marvel
		"CM's Long Chance" CM Advs 95, Apr/49
13	Kid Eternity	man gets tomorrow's newspaper
		"Tomorrow's Crimes Today" Hit 59, July/49
15	Dead Man's Street	14 pg "Dead Man's Street" Wanted 18, Feb/49
2	Wanted feature	Wanted 18, Feb/49

Tales of the Greene Freighter

Although in the real world, unlike in Watchmen, superhero comics were not completely replaced by pirate comics, a few publishers did test those waters. Quality's Buccaneers took over the numbering of Kid Eternity with issue 19 and lasted to 27.

Some of Sid Greene's work at Quality has been noted—the Inspector Denver story in Police 104, a romance story here and there—but his only series here that I know of is the second half of Eric Falcon's run in Buccaneers. Falcon was a soldier of fortune in Colonial times; not every adventure involved pirates.

Other artists work on the series in Buccaneers 19-23 before Greene comes aboard. He most likely inks himself in 25 and 26; I didn't even recognize the story in 24 as his until I looked over the series again before writing this post.

Eric Falcon stories drawn by Sid Greene in Buccaneers

Nov/50	#24	An Empire of Pirates	w: ?
Jan/51	#25	The Surrender of Eric Falcon	w: ?
Mar/	#26	Bloody Fingers of Fate	w: Joe Millard
May/	#27	The Code of Treachery	w: ?

Woolfolk Records 1948/07

 

Quality, Fawcett, and Orbit are the publishers, as usual. William Woolfolk is assigned Lance O'Casey scripts in fits and starts; the last time he submitted some was in August 1946.

Woolfolk usually notes text pieces as "fiction"; the Wanted "feature" is a short comics story.

July 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

11 pg	Doll Man	man can open any lock
		"Tom Thumb, Miniature Master of Menace" DM 22, May/49
9	Lance O'Casey	pygmy king who hates pygmies
		"LO'C Meets Longo of the Congo" Whiz 105, Dec/48
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	the singing donkey
		"The Singing Donkey" CMJ 71, Mar/49
9	Lance O'Casey	the festival of pirates
		"LO'C and the Pirate's Festival" Whiz 109, May/49
11	Blackhawk	the sunken atoll
		"Kauno . . . Atoll of Mystery" BH 26, Aug/49
11	Doll Man	meets the Minstrel
		"The Minstrel" DM 23, July/49
8	Monte Hale	under a peace bond
		"MH and His Peace Bond" Western Hero 76, Mar/49
15	The Shotgun Kid	"The Shotgun Kid" Wanted 17, Jan/49
11	Kid Eternity	Master Man with similar powers to Kid E
		"Master Man" KE 15, May/49
2	Wanted feature	"Wanted: Heber Ayers" Wanted 17, Jan/49
7	Captain Marvel	the hypochondria epidemic
		"The Phantom Plague" CM Advs 94, Mar/49
11	Plastic Man	last man on Earth
		"The Last Man on Earth" PM 17, May/49

Swipe While the Iron Is Hot

Tying together the previous two posts: Blackhawk 24 (Apr/49) with two William Woolfolk stories, and Ken Shannon, here in Police 104 (Feb/51).

A few Reed Crandall Blackhawk covers were recycled into later Blackhawk ones, as I recall was pointed out in Alter Ego. This Police cover artist is so far unidentified, but probably the editors instigated this swipe so soon after publishing the original.

Woolfolk Records 1948/06

Continuing my transcriptions of William Woolfolk's script sales records, scanned by Marc Svensson through the good graces of Donna Woolfolk; my additions of publication data are in bold.

Quality, Fawcett, and Orbit are still the steady buyers.

UPDATE: I assumed "The Fighting Cabbie" fitted into Wanted 16; but now that I've seen the issue, I find no cabbies.

If the Monte Hale stories are being published in roughly the order received, the only issue of Real Western Hero available for either of these is the unindexed issue 75; the stories in 74 and (the slightly changed title) Western Hero 76-78 are Woolfolk's, written in other months. With more slots to fill in each Monte Hale Western, that would be the better possibility. UPDATE: darkmark found the tournament story in the February MHW.

June 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

11 pg	Blackhawk	crime conspiracy to take over the U.S.
		"Criminal Number One" BH 24, Apr/49
9	Ibis	Taia becomes an enchanted maiden at King Arthur's Court
		"The Enchanted Maiden" Whiz 106, Feb/49
7	The Fighting Cabbie
7	Captain Marvel	world's greatest lawyer
		"The World's Greatest Lawyer" CM Advs 93, Feb/49
10	Doll Man	Darrel Dane's double
		"Darrel Dane's Double" Feature 133, Apr/49
7	Monte Hale	gun runners
		MH Western or Real Western Hero c. Feb/49
9	Captain Marvel	book that contains all knowledge
		"The Book of All Knowledge" CM Advs 93, Feb/49
11	Blackhawk	the phantom bombers
		"Captain Suicide" BH 24, Apr/49
9	Monte Hale	tournament for marksmen
		"The Killers' Tournament" MH Western 33, Feb/49
15	The Pony Express
14	as Wild Bill Pecos	"The Pony Express" The Westerner 17, Dec/48
7	Ibis	the gorgon's sisters
		"Labyrinth of the Lost" Whiz 107, Mar/49

Ken Shannon and the Aquaman Artist

Private eye Ken Shannon took over Plastic Man's lead slot in Police Comics at the end of 1950 and within the year received his own title as well. I index Ken Shannon in this post; I haven't seen a complete run of the post-Plas Police.

Shannon's main penciller was Reed Crandall. Sam Burlockoff has said he inked Crandall on the feature; Burlockoff's major credit that I know of is early war stuff at DC, but I'm not familiar enough with his style to credit him with particular stories here. Chuck Cuidera has been linked to Crandall here in much the way George Klein was once credited with inking every Superman story Curt Swan ever pencilled, be they inked by Kaye, Moldoff, or Forte if not Klein. I'll just put aside the question of Ken Shannon inkers altogether on this list.

I believe two stories are pencilled by W.G. Hargis, who got to sign a number of his Inspector Denver stories in Police. One story's penciller I can't figure at all.

The penciller just behind Crandall in terms of quantity (counting the appearances of the strip in both Police and KS) has been a mystery. The inking obscured his style as seen earlier at other companies.

I see the work of John Daly. The young man shaking Shannon's hand is the best example of Daly's style in faces, showing through the inking; Ken Shannon himself is inked heavily to match Crandall's face for the character. The next panel's rather stodgy staging of the figures comes closest to the staging on the Aquaman page, the staging that typefies Daly to me.

All ten covers were pencilled, if not inked as well, by Crandall.

The William Woolfolk credits are a sneak preview into his script records for 1951-52. In brief: Woolfolk and Joe Millard share use of the scream "Eeeahhh," but Millard uses his standby "Owoooff" that Woolfolk never does. "Q," a Quality writer of the Fifties I can't yet name, opts for variations of "Urghh" and "Iiieee." UPDATE: "Q" is Robert Bernstein

Ken Shannon 1-10 Writers and Pencillers

Oct/51	#1	The Evil Eye of Count Ducrie	w: Joe Millard p: Reed Crandall
		The Playful Pickpocket	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		The Carrier Pigeon Case	w: Robert Bernstein  p: W.G. Hargis?
Dec/	#2	Cut-Rate Corpses	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		Invitation to a Murder	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		Front Man for Murder	w: Millard  p: Crandall
Feb/52	#3	The Corpse That Wouldn't Sleep	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		The Case of the Butchered Butcher	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		One Day I'll Kill You	w: Millard  p: Crandall
Apr/	#4	Stone Hatchet Murder	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		Stand-In for Murder	w: William Woolfolk p: Crandall
		The Case of the All-Seeing Eye	w: Millard  p: Hargis?
June/	#5	The Case of the Carny KiIler	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		The Man from Nowhere	w: Woolfolk  p: ?
		Doctor of Death	w: Woolfolk  p: John Daly
Aug/	#6	The Vampire Mob	w: Millard  p: Crandall
		Dead Man's Alley	w: Millard  p: Daly
		Dee Dee Can't Be Dead	w: Bernstein  p: Daly
Oct/	#7	The Ugliest Man in the World	w: Bernstein  p: Daly
		Murder on Account	w: Bernstein p: Daly
		Too Many Killers	w: Bernstein p: Daly
Dec/	#8	Mansion of Mangled Men	w: Woolfolk  p: Daly
		The Chinatown Murders	w: Bernstein  p: Daly
		The Doom Express	w: Bernstein  p: Daly
Feb/53	#9	The Flame of Doom	w: Millard  p: Daly
		Necklace of Blood	w: Woolfolk  p: Daly
		Day It Rained Money	w: Millard  p: Daly
Apr/	#10	In the Shadow of the Chair	w: Millard  p: Daly
		Your Money or Your Blood	w: Millard  p: Daly
		[untitled]	w: Bernstein  p: Daly

The back-up feature in 1-9 is Angles O'Day (Not-So-Special Investigator), not only wriiten and drawn but lettered by Jack Cole, and 10 presents a Flatfoot Burns by Al Stahl, the last of that series from Police and The Spirit.

Woolfolk Records 1948/05

Fawcett, Quality, and Orbit are the familiar publishers here.

Monte Hale stories aren't that easy to track down, with his comics spottily collected or indexed; but this will be one of William Woolfolk's frequent assignments for four years. I did find one of this month's five in Real Western Hero; the unindexed Monte Hale Western 32 came out in the same month. These descriptions don't fit any of the story titles indexed in 31. UPDATE: darkmark IDed two of the Monte Hale stories, #32 having since been indexed on the GCD. I've corrected my transcription of "overage" here, which I'd put down as "average." Now that I've seen the issue itself, I can add the other two stories. "Indian chief" might be better described as "Indian warrior," but a chief is a character in it.

Likewise these Wanted stories fit between known stories in issues 15 and 17. They may have been published under titles other than Woolfolk's. UPDATE: They were. Now that I've seen Wanted 16, I've changed the titles here as the editors did there, and added the text story title.

May 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Captain Marvel	the chameleon stone
		"The Chameleon Stone" CM Advs 91, Dec/48
9	Marvel Family	world's greatest magician
		"The World's Greatest Magician" MF 30, Dec/48
14	Doll Man	Undertaker's coffin crimes
		"Coffins for Crime" DM 20, Jan/49
8	Woozy	becomes general of a S. American country
		"Commander in Chief" Plastic Man 15, Jan/49
7	Ibis	the skull of a sorcerer
		"The Skull of Evil" Whiz 105, Jan/49
8	Monte Hale	crooked judge runs town
		"Outlaw Town" Real Western Hero 74, Jan/49
15	The Musical Murders	a mad pianist
		"The Musical Demon" Wanted 16, Nov/48
7	Monte Hale	the overage sheriff
		"The Over Age Sheriff " MH Western 32, Jan/49
7	Monte Hale	outlaw stallion
		"Pardner--Outlaw Stallion" MH Western 32, Jan/49
12	Plastic Man	Beau Brummel
		"Beau Crummel" PM 15, Jan/49
9	Monte Hale	alone with 5 killers
		"Terror Trek" MH Western 32, Jan/49
9	Monte Hale	Indian chief
		"Tribe of the Tomahawk" MH Western 32, Jan/49
10	Double for Death	playwright becomes character he writes about
		"Double for Destiny" Wanted 16, Nov/48
2	fiction	"What Happened to the Cyclops?" [text] Wanted 16, Nov/48

Writers: Aquaman in Adventure 247-284

247 would be an arbitrary start to a run of any comic except Adventure; the significance lies in the Superboy story, of course, not with Aquaman or the other back-ups. A number of my attributions here were circulated through fandom in the Nineties by Rich Morrissey, but on this list I've filled in the gaps in the run.

Jack Miller typically uses the captions Just then..., Before long..., The answer comes the next instant..., and In the next [adjective] instant...; Robert Bernstein typically the caption Moments after... instead of Moments later.... But these are not hard and fast differences, of course; in "The Robinson Crusoe of the Sea" (252) there's a Moments after..., but more clues point to Miller. If so, he happened to use that style of caption once.

"A World without Water" (251), out of all the Aquaman stories, uses the exclamations "Owoofff" and "Eeaahh" (also used in only one Green Arrow story: "The Man Who Hated Arrows" in 249). These are seen throughout the Dale Evans and Sierra Smith stories by Joe Millard, at DC, as well as the myriad of stories he did at Quality. The "Y-i-i-i-i" in both turns up in 250's "The Guinea Pig of the Sea."

All Aquaman art in these Adventure issues is by Ramona Fradon except 284, which is by Jim Mooney.

"How Aquaman Got His Powers" in 260 is the new origin. "The Manhunt on Land" in 267 is the crossover with Green Arrow, the other back-up, also written by Robert Bernstein at the time; the two villains switch land and sea theatres of operation. "The Kid from Atlantis" in 269 introdues Aquaman's new partner, Aqualad.

Aquaman begins appearing in the forerunner to his own book, four Showcase appearances, in the same month as Adventure 280. With 281, the back-up space that held Aquaman and Congorilla stories is devoted to double-length stories of either one, alternating, so Aquaman doesn't appear in 281 or 283. After Adventure 284 his back-up slot moves to Detective and then to World's Finest.

The Superboy story in 280, by the way, "Superboy and the Mermaid from Atlantis" (written by Jerry Siegel), takes two panels to account for the difference between Aquaman's Atlanteans with legs and Lori Lemaris's fishtailed merfolk.

Aquaman in Adventure 247-284 Writers

Apr/58	#247	Aquaman's Super Sea-Squad	Jack Miller
May/	#248	The Traitor of the Seven Seas	Miller
June/	#249	Wanted—Aqua-Crook	Robert Bernstein
July/	#250	The Guinea Pig of the Sea	Joe Millard
Aug/	#251	A World without Water	Millard
Sept/	#252	The Robinson Crusoe of the Sea	Miller
Oct/	#253	The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.	Bernstein
Nov/	#254	The Menace of the Electric Man	Miller
Dec/	#255	Aquaman's Double Trouble	Bernstein
Jan/59	#256	The Ordeal of Aquaman	Bernstein
Feb/	#257	The Imitation Aquaman	Bernstein
Mar/	#258	The Incredible Fish of Doctor Danton	Miller
Apr/	#259	The Octopus Man	Miller
May/	#260	How Aquaman Got His Powers	Bernstein
June/	#261	Aquaman Duels the Animal-Master	Bernstein
July/	#262	The Undersea Hospital	Bernstein
Aug/	#263	The Great Ocean Election	Miller
Sept/	#264	Aquaman and His Sea Police	Bernstein
Oct/	#265	The Secret of the Super-Safe	Bernstein
Nov/	#266	Aquaman Meets Aquagirl	Bernstein
Dec/	#267	The Manhunt on Land	Bernstein
Jan/60	#268	The Adventures of Aquaboy	Bernstein
Feb/	#269	The Kid from Atlantis	Bernstein
Mar/	#270	The Menace of Aqualad	Bernstein
Apr/	#271	The Second Deluge	Bernstein
May/	#272	The Human Flying Fish	Bernstein
June/	#273	Around the World in 80 Hours	Bernstein
July/	#274	Aqua-Queen	Miller
Aug/	#275	The Interplanetary Mission	Bernstein
Sept/	#276	The Aqua-Thief of the Seven Seas	Bernstein
Oct/	#277	The Underwater Olympics	Bernstein
Nov/	#278	Aqualad Goes to School	Bernstein
Dec/	#279	Silly Sailors of the Sea	Bernstein
Jan/61	#280	The Lost Ocean	Bernstein
Mar/	#282	One Hour to Doom	Bernstein
May/	#284	The Charge of Aquaman's Sea Soldiers	Miller

Woolfolk Records 1948/04

 

The scripts William Woolfolk wrote this month were bought by Fawcett, Orbit, and Quality, plus a publisher I hadn't heard he worked for: Prize (content supplied by Simon & Kirby on this title). This would be his sole known story for the company and his first romance story (whose publication data I couldn't track down from his description). In fact, in an interview decades later, he recalled he hadn't worked for Simon & Kirby.

As a sign of where the times are going for superheroes: Real Western Hero has taken over the numbering of Wow Comics, and Monte Hale Western, which will figure in May's listings, has taken over that of Mary Marvel.

April 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Captain Marvel	Capt. Marvel's hand commits crime
		"The Hand of Captain Marvel" CM Advs 90, Nov/48
8	Captain Marvel	Titans beneath the sea
		"The Mightiest Sea-Mortal" CM Advs 91, Dec/48
9	Young Romance	spoiled rich girl
		Young Romance
14	Kid Eternity	the living dead
		"Obeah-Brutes" KE 13, Jan/49
7	Ibis	magic tapestry
		"The Tapestry of Terror" Whiz 104, Dec/48
15	True Western	the taming of Tombstone
14	as Wild Bill Pecos	"Terror in Tombstone" The Westerner 16, Oct/48
15	Plastic Man	Plas thinks Woozy a crook
		"Woozy's Reputation" Police 86, Jan/49
9	Captain Marvel Jr.	Sivana Jr.'s dream machine
		"Sivana Jr.'s Dream Machine" Master 98, Dec/48
10	Tom Mix	the crime showboat
9		"The Crime Show Boat" Real Western Hero 73, Dec/48
12	Monte Hale	the hangman's scroll
		"The Hangman's Scroll" RWH 71, Oct/48
9	Captain Marvel	war between the planets
		"The War between the Planets" CM Advs 91, Dec/48

Writers: Batman 141-150

Bill Finger is the main Batman writer at this point, but not the only one. The sound effects Whapp or Whammp, and the spelling "Aaah" instead of "Ahhh," among other indications, show Jerry Coleman scripting. I had assumed Finger wrote all the Bat-Mite stories in Batman and Detective until I saw "Batman and Robin's Magical Powers"; Coleman, as I'd seen earlier, wrote Bat-Mite in a couple of World's Finest team-ups with Mr. Mxyzptlk.

The expression "Jumping Jonah" appears in the three stories I've attributed here to Arnold Drake. See also, among others, the splash page of "Captives of the Alien Hunter" in Challengers of the Unknown 25, April-May/62. The "Ayeee" in "The Deadly Curse of Korabo" is another clue to Drake.

Except for 148/1 and 150/3 (pencils by Jim Mooney and inks by Sheldon Moldoff), art is by Moldoff, penciller, and Moldoff and Charles Paris, inkers on different stories. Dick Dillin pencilled the covers of  143 and 150.

Batman 141-150 Writers

Aug/61	141	The Crimes of the Clockmaster	Jerry Coleman
		The Race of Death	Bill Finger
		Batwoman's Junior Partner	Finger
Sept/	142	Batman's Robot-Guardian	Finger
		The Crimes of the Ancient Mariner	Finger
		Ruler of the Bewitched Valley	Finger
Nov/	143	The Twice-Told Tale of Batman and Robin	Finger
		The Blind Batman	Arnold Drake
		Bat-Hound and the Creature	Finger
Dec/	144	The Alien Feud on Earth	Finger
		The Man Who Played Batman	Drake
		Bat-Mite Meets Bat-Girl	Finger
Feb/62	145	Hunt for Mr. 50	Finger
		The Tiniest Villain in the World	Finger
		The Son of the Joker	Finger
Mar/	146	Batman and Robin's Magical Powers	Coleman
		The Secret of the Leopard Boy	Finger
		The Deadly Curse of Korabo	Drake
May/	147	The Plants of Plunder	Finger
		The Secret of Mystery Island	Finger
		Batman Becomes Bat-Baby	Finger
June/	148	The Alien Force Twins	Coleman
		The Boy Who Was Robin	Finger
		The Joker's Greatest Triumph	Finger
Aug/	149	The Maestro of Crime	Coleman
		The Invaders from the Past	Coleman
		Batman Tunes In on Murder	Coleman
Sept/	150	The Secret behind the Stone Door	Finger
		The Girl Who Stole Batman's Heart	Coleman
		Robin, the Super Boy Wonder	Finger

Woolfolk Records 1948/03

The usual suspects—Fawcett, Timely, Quality, and Orbit—bought from William Woolfolk in March '48. These were his final stories for Timely. Two Blonde Phantom scripts were published in more pages than he submitted them.

The True Crime story noted in January '48 must have been for Wanted (and by the timing, Wanted 14; the title is bimonthly at this point). It was paid at the same page rate as this month's True Crime, and the same as that month's Western Outlaw; after I posted, SangorShop noted that the latter was published in Orbit's companion magazine, The Westerner. I think it pretty safe to say now that all the crime stories Woolfolk has written so far were for Wanted; his rate there stabilized in January.

March 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

9 pg	Marvel Family	Sivana tries to drive Marvel crazy
		"Captain Marvel's Dilemma" MF 28, Oct/48
7	Blonde Phantom	an ambitious orchestra leader
8		"Rhapsody in Death" BP 19, Sept/48
10	Doll Man	crook uses modern witchcraft
		"The Hag" DM 19, Nov/48
15	True Crime	society of Black Hand
		"The Black Hand" Wanted 15, Sept/48
4	Blonde Phantom	vaudeville crime
		"Curtain Call for Crime" Namora 2, Oct/48
6	Ibis	the zoo of men
		"Lo-Kar's Circus" Whiz 103, Nov/48
3	Blonde Phantom	man framed for murder
5		"Justice for Jimmy Sullivan" BP 19, Sept/48
14	Blackhawk	men from the asteroid
		"The Men from the Asteroid" BH 22, Dec/48
5	Blonde Phantom	test pilot loses his nerve
		"The Test of Fear" Sub-Mariner 28, Oct/48
11	Doll Man	crimetown U.S.A.
		"Crimetown, U.S.A." Feature 130, Jan/49
9	Tom Mix	the pony express
		"The Ride to Doom" Real Western Hero 72, Nov/48
8	Captain Marvel	world run by atomic power
		"The World of Mr. Atom" CM Advs 90, Nov/48
11	Doll Man	candid microphone program
		"The Stork" DM 20, Jan/49

Another Trapani Ghost; Collect Them All

The Dell TV tie-in Hogan's Heroes, like Get Smart, has Steve Ditko on a couple of issues, ghosting for inker Sal Trapani. Ditko's style is so distinctive that any young reader at the time could recognize his work. After his issues, though, Trapani's ghosts are more harder to spot—and at some point, who knows? Trapani may even pencil for himself.

Hogan's Heroes 4 (Mar/67), "Operation Flick Flack,"  comes after a first issue pencilled by Dick Giordano and then Ditko's two issues. The place to expect Trapani to find his ghosts is at Charlton, and the artist I see pencilling here did work there in the later Sixties, although he's best known for his series work at Marvel in the Seventies.

The likenesses called for by a TV comic can stifle the artist's style; every time Colonel Hogan smiles throughout the issue, it's the same smile, as if only one photo were available of Bob Crane using that expression. In the panels here, the effort at making Lebeau look like Robert Clary seem strained (and not fully successful).

For some reason, there's no attempt (or a failed one) at using Richard Dawson's likeness as Newkirk, and that's where I see distinctive faces very much in penciller Don Perlin's style. UPDATE: It's not Perlin.

Woolfolk Records 1948/02

The publisher roll call this month: Fawcett, Quality, and Timely.

As usual, some Timely stories were published longer than William Woolfolk recorded the submissions in his notebook—the information in bold, such as those new page counts, forms my additions to the records.

My Tom Mix story identification is an educated guess from seeing the issue indexed, but not seeing the issue itself. UPDATE: It wasn't "The Tale of the Lonesome Cowboy" in Tom Mix 9, as I'd thought possible--it's this one. Now that I've seen "Bullets Can't Spell," I can see that the blurb uses the phrase "tale of the desert rats."

Speaking of descriptions vs. published titles, I had to flip through a number of Timely stories in this timeframe to track down all four of this month's; the Arizona Annie was the only one where the editors' title came anywhere near the notebook description.

February 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

9 pg	Captain Marvel	meets Fear
		"CM Faces Fear" CM Advs 89, Oct/48
13	Kid Eternity	meets the Brute
		"The Brute" Hit 55, Nov/48
8	Captain Marvel	Neptune's freak show
		"Neptune's Freak Show" Marvel Family 27, Sept/48
9	Human Torch	man framed for murder, escapes
		"Double-Cross in Death" HT 32, Sept/48
7	Ibis	legion of walking dead
		"The Legion of the Walking Dead" Whiz 102, Dec/48
5	Sub-Mariner	Houseboat Row
6		"My Son Is a Thief" Captain America 68, Sept/48
15	Plastic Man	Lucky Seven
		"Lucky Seven" Police 84, Nov/48
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	horse that can't be ridden
		"The World's Greatest Horse" Master 96, Oct/48
5	Arizona Annie	the "lady" outlaws
6		"Annie Rides the Owl Hoot Trail" Wild Western 3, Sept/48
7	Captain Marvel	hero's melancholia
		"CM's Melancholia" CM Advs 89, Oct/48
12	Plastic Man	criminal who uses words
		"Words" PM 14, Nov/48
5	Human Torch	old time gangster returns
		"Bargain of Death" Captain America 69, Nov/48
8	Woozy	becomes a walking atomic bomb
		[untitled Woozy story] PM 14, Nov/48
8	Tom Mix	desert rat's story
		"Bullets Can't Spell" Real Western Hero 71, Oct/48

Doug Roea: The Cover Artist Who Never Existed

I'll be blogging with fewer resources for awhile—I've moved and my Mac, with Photoshop, will take time to follow me. My PC laptop doesn't even want to unzip files. So, with a couple of images I already had on the PC:

Ever since fandom has been indexing, the Classics Illustrated and World Around Us covers by this artist have been credited to Doug Roea. It certainly looks as if he signed his name that way; the E would be a stylized one without a downstroke. (Click to ensmallen; thanks, Blogger.)

However, there was a paperback cover artist at the same time who didn't sign his covers, that I've seen; he did a few early Doc Savages at Bantam: The Land of Terror and The Lost Oasis. But he was credited on the copyright pages at Avon on the Tros series and the A. Merritt fantasy novels, and on the back cover of Lancer's Magnum imprint publication of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. His name was given as Doug Rosa.

Occam's Razor—the simplest solution is the best—would suggest that instead of two Sixties cover artists, Doug Roea and Doug Rosa, there's only one: Rosa, whose name the paperback publishers didn't have to decipher from the signature. The supposed stylized E without a downstroke on the left could be a stylized S without downstrokes on the upper left and lower right.

UPDATE: Jake Oster sent me a link to a painting by Doug Rosa, done for the Marine Corps, with this signature. Case closed!

That would make two D. Rosas in comic books.

Woolfolk Records 1948/01

Another month from William Woolfolk's records book of scripts sold; the companies who bought them were Timely, Quality, Fawcett, and Orbit.

Woolfolk's true crime stories in this period were paid at a number of page rates. Two that I can track down to Orbit's Wanted ("Jay Jostyn" in April 1947 and "The Black Hand" upcoming in March 1948) were paid at $7 and $8 the page. Of the stories I couldn't find, October's "Seeress of Murder" was $6, and November's two undescribed stories were $9 (the 7-pager) and $7 (the 13-pager). This month's was $8 per page. I'll note that Timely consistently paid Woolfolk $9 a page for the superhero and western stories; Fawcett and Quality's rates shifted with the feature or total number of story pages. I don't know if conclusions can be drawn.

UPDATE: SangorShop found the Pontiac story that I couldn't before I posted. My most likely suspect, in this paragraph before updating, was Orbit's The Westerner (the story was paid at $8); I believe this issue's details have only just made it to the Grand Comics Database.

As usual at this point, some Timely stories had pages added or subtracted by the time the script got to the artist. That may mean nothing more than that the number of panels per page was shifted about.

FURTHER UPDATE: I found the society gal Tom Mix story when I finally examined the issue; the title wasn't a help in IDing it!

January 1948 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

5 pg	Human Torch	medium brings back past
6		"The Man Who Could Foresee Doom" HT 31, July/48
15	Western Outlaw	conspiracy of Pontiac
12		"The Fighting Westerner" The Westerner 15, Aug/48
13	Blackhawk	Madame Butterfly
		"Madame Butterfly" Modern 78, Oct/48
5	Arizona Annie	cardboard town
		"The Town That Wasn't There" Wild West 2, July/48
9	Two-Gun Kid	the peace loving marshal
10		"No Guns for a Killer" Wild West 2, July/48
6	Ibis	the vampire twins
		"The Vampire Twins" Whiz 101,  Sept/48
7	Sub-Mariner	phantom troubadour
8		"Troubadour of Terror" HT 31, July/48
9	Captain Marvel	Captain Marvel's funeral
		"Captain Marvel's Funeral" CM Advs 88, Sept/48
7	Captain Marvel	Billy Batson's boyhood
		"Billy Batson's Boyhood" CM Advs 88, Sept/48
11	Doll Man	Tom Thumb grows up
		"Tom's Thumb" Feature 128, Nov/48
7	True Crime	Wanted?
9	Captain Marvel Jr.	the Sky Hawk
		"Meets the Sky Hawk" Master 95, Sept/48
9	Sub-Mariner	a statue of mariner
8		"Monument to Murder" S-M 27, Aug/48
14	Doll Man	secret identity exposed
		"The Noose" DM 19, Nov/48
9	Tom Mix	society gal goes west
11		"Gunfire Decision" Real Western Hero 70, Sept/48

J'onn J'onzz Writers: House of Mystery 143-158

J'onn J'onzz' name at this point in his career is pronounced John Jones, not a French-style Jean Jeans as per the animated Justice League. Not only that, he's an actual Martian, rather than a member of an extra-solar race residing on Mars, as later "realism" demanded.

Previously the series was titled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars, but Manhunter had to abandon his secret identity of Detective John Jones in his last story in Detective (#326, Apr/64), the introduction of the Idol-Head of Diabolu. The story-line of new menaces spawned from the Idol-Head with each full moon continued through HOM 158. (A few issues like #153 and 154 took a break from the ongoing Diabolu storyline.)

A new arc (vs. crime organization Vulture) began in #160 and ran for the remainder of the feature, through HOM 173.

So far the only two writers I've seen on Manhunter from Mars are Miller and Wood, although that's from only a sampling of the Detective run. If, as sheer rumor has it, Joseph Samachson had anything to do with the first story (in Detective 225, Nov/55), it was not in scripting it—Jack Miller did that, to judge by the style.

The artist on every story in the Manhunter from Mars series in the Fifties and Sixties was Joe Certa.

J'onn J'onzz, Manhunter from Mars in House of Mystery 143-158—Writers

June/64	#143	The Giant-Maker	Jack Miller
July/	#144	The Weird World of Gilgana	Miller
Sept/	#145	Secret of the Purple People	Miller
Oct/	#146	The Doom Shadow	Dave Wood
Dec/	#147	The Orchestra of Doom	Miller
Jan/65	#148	The Beings in the Color Rings	Wood
Mar/	#149	The Man-Thing That Unearthed Secrets	Wood
Apr/	#150	The Supernatural Masterpieces	Wood
June/	#151	The Doom from Two Worlds	Miller
July/	#152	Iwangis—Creature King	Miller
Sept/	#153	The Giants Who Slept 1,000,000 Years	Miller
Oct/	#154	The Mirror Martian Manhunter	Miller
Dec/	#155	The Giant Genie of Gensu	Miller
Jan/66	#156	Look What Happened to J'onn J'onzz!	Miller
Mar/	#157	Manhunter, World's Greatest Clown	Miller
Apr/	#158	Origin of the Diabolu Idol-Head	Miller

A Mort Leav Captain America Story

A while ago in one of his Four-Color Shadows posts, Booksteve presented the Captain America story "Double Identity" from All Winners 1 (Aug/48—the only issue in volume 2) and noted that the Grand Comics Database attributed the art to Syd Shores, but it didn't look much like Shores' art. I was certain the Shores ID was wrong, but had no better guess to offer at the time. Now I do.

Mort Leav is supposed to have done a handful of Captain America stories around 1946-48. This looks like one of them. Leav's work at Orbit (where he went in 1948) looks very much like the art on "Double Identity." This Wanted story, signed over the open "S" in the first page's blurb (click the final scan below to decipher at larger size), is "International Enemy No. 1" from #13 (May/48). The amoeba-bordered vignette panels opening both my examples, where the figures end at the edges of the neckties, present a very obvious similarity, and are a choice I don't recall Shores using.

At Timely, the editors couldn't help "fixing" artwork with work by other hands. The Cap and Bucky figures on the splash page could be Shores' sole contribution to this 10-page story; see the first Captain America story in the Fifties revival (Young Men 24, Dec/53), where John Romita's splash has been famously jettisoned for Mort Lawrence's work.

So IDing this one story leaves a handful (minus one) of Mort Leav Caps to track down.

Woolfolk Records 1947/12

Quality, Fawcett, Timely, and EC bought William Woolfolk's comics stories this month.

Note that the Two-Gun Kid scripts were expanded by a page apiece for publication. The four Moon Girl pages in a story published at twelve must have been Woolfolk's beginning or finishing someone else's (most likely Gardner Fox's) script.

Woolfolk recorded two Christmas bonuses this month, showing how valuable a couple of companies (not named) considered a superior freelancer.

December 1947 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

14 pg	Kid Eternity	Keeper's evil twin brother
		[untitled 3rd KE story] KE 11, Sept/48
7	Ibis	the forbidden pool
		"The Forbidden Pool" Whiz 100, Aug/48
8	Captain Marvel	the volcano men
		"The Volcano Men" Marvel Family 26, Aug/48
8	Tom Mix	stagecoach ride
		"Death Rides the Stagecoach" Wow 69, Aug/48
8	Captain Marvel	the iron horse
		"The Wonderful Iron Horse" CM Advs 87, Aug/48
14	Doll Man	versus Stunt Man
		"Stunt Man" DM 18, Sept/48
11	Doll Man	versus Gloves, hand of death
		"Gloves" DM 18, Sept/48
4	Two-Gun Kid	vanishing railroad
5		"The Train That Wasn't There" TGK 2, June/48
6	Two-Gun Kid	outlaw city
7		"Trapped in Outlaw City" TGK 2, June/48
7	Captain Marvel	the stolen city
		"The Stolen City" CM Advs 87, Aug/48
11	Captain Marvel Jr.	meets the outlaw
		"CMJ Duels with the Outlaw" CMJ 64, Aug/48
12	Plastic Man	Mr. Hazard, crime gambler
		"Mr. Hazard" PM 13, Sept/48
8	Tex Taylor	girl ranch owner
		"Blazing Six-Shooters and the Thundering Herd" Wild West 2, July/48
4	Moon Girl	most daring man in the world
12		"The Most Daring Man in the World" MG 2, Win/47-48