Kirby and Company's Alarming Tales

Jack Kirby's place in comics history is assured by other accomplishments; but in addition he came up with possibly the Platonic ideal of comic book story titles:

In this Alarming Tales list, note the scripters switched around (from what you might expect from the artwork) on the first two stories in #3.

There were two single-page text stories in each issue (#1's were Black Cat stories); I've entered here only the ones whose author I could tell; Jack Oleck's captions style (Almost, ___...; In the end, ___....) is so distinctive that it's carried through into prose, which is not at all always the case.

There seem to be a number of inkers on the different Kirby stories, or even on diferent pages. Some of the GCD's art attributions on other stories to people like Bob Brown (or, on "12,000 to 1," Jack Kirby) I can say are wrong, but I can't supply a better guess. Reed Crandall had nothing to do with "The Strange Power of Gary Ford," and here I can give the artist's name: Norman Nodel.

I would agree with the GCD indexers that the covers of #1-4 are mostly the work of editor Joe Simon, even if some Kirby material got used in them. When the title returned after a hiatus, like Simon's other Harvey titles at the time, John Severin did the covers to #5 and 6. And Simon did the intro pages to #1-4 (Bob Powell drew #5's and Bernard Baily #6's).

UPDATE: Robin Snyder sent along the Carl Wessler scripting credits, from Wessler's account books (kept like William Woolfolk's). I still see Bob Powell's writing style, as in The Man in Black and Henry Brewster, on "The Monster from 1977 A.D."; I suppose he massaged Wessler's script. The same thing happened with Wessler, Jack Oleck, and Otto Binder at EC for awhile, as Al Feldstein rewrote their scripts into his style at first.

Alarming Tales
Harvey Comics

Sep/57	1	The Cadmus Seed	w: Jack Kirby  p: Kirby
		Logan's Next Life	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Fourth Dimension Is a Many Splattered Thing	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Last Enemy	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		Donnegan's Daffy Chair	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
Nov/	2	Hole in the Wall	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Hero	w: Jack Oleck  a: ?
		The Big Hunt	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Fireballs	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Traitor [text]	w: Oleck
		I Want to Be a Man	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
Jan/58	3	This World Is Ours!	w: Oleck  p: Kirby
		They Walked on Water	w: Kirby  a: Doug Wildey
		Get Lost!	w: ?  a: Ernie Schroeder
		The Strange One	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
		Larsen's Lens [text]	w: Oleck
		The Man Who Never Lived	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
Mar/	4	Forbidden Journey	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		Secret Weapon	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
		The Monster from 1977 A.D.	w: Carl Wessler & Bob Powell
			a: Powell
		The End of a Sinister Man	w: Wessler  a: Wildey
		The Feast of the Rag Dolls	w: ?  a: Wildey [pg 1 by another artist]
Sept/	5	Half Man-Half What	w: Dick Wood  a: Matt Baker
		Defeat	w: ?  a: Paul Reinman
		My Robot Plants	w: ?  a: Fred Kida
		The Fountain of Age	w: Wood  a: Wildey
		12,000 to 1	w: ?  a: ?
Nov/	6	Ambassador from Venus	w: Wood  a: Bernard Baily
		Moon Descent	w: ?  a: Reinman
		Who Knows?	w: ?  a: ?
		The Emotion Maker	w: Wood  a: Kida
		King of the Ants	w: Wood  a: Al Williamson & Angelo Torres
		The Strange Power of Gary Ford	w: Wessler  a: Norman Nodel

Woolfolk Records Update 6

These are stories mostly from Fawcett and Orbit whose publication data I wasn't able to add in boldface in my original posts of these months transcribed from William Woolfolk's script sales records. The Captain Aero is from Holyoke's Continental imprint. Some page counts were changed by the time the stories were drawn.

darkmark's comment on my Woolfolk Update 2 correctly posited "Swamp of Death" as this Captain Midnight story, although he hadn't the issue itself at the time; he since got it and uploaded it at the Digital Comic Museum. He found the iron mask Monte Hale story too. I had entered the gold rush Monte Hale story as "The Great Gold Strike" in issue 40, but that was published long before this one was written. UPDATING THE UPDATE: I'd reverted my bad guess at the story to the possible comic book titles and month here--I was close--but darkmark since found the specific story.

In the January 1945 records Woolfolk described only a few of his stories; I found this undescribed Captain Aero in Woolfolk's style—"Good glory!"—with a likely month's cover date. January 1947 was one of the three later months where he didn't describe any of the stories. But Howard Keltner's Index reminded me that in this timeframe there were no Sergeant Twilight stories for half a year after Captain Midnight 55, so I checked its story's style; it's Woolfolk's. It's under a CM logo but called "A Sergeant Twilight Story" above the title.

On the CMJ story notation I read Woolfolk's "phone" as "plane" (I think anyone would have) and transcribed it that way in the original post; but it was the editors' changing 4 dimensions to 5 that made the likely story difficult to track down with the Grand Comics Database search engine. Note that the story languished in the production process a good year or so longer than it should have, and ended up two pages shorter than the script called for.

The Wanted 16 stories' final titles I didn't get correct until I saw the comic book itself (in a scan). The GCD listed both of issue 18's 2-pagers as comics stories, but one turns out to be a text piece, so this untitled piece Woolfolk wrote right after longer stories for 18, the one that he calls a feature and not fiction (see 16's listing), has to be this one.

I found the Rocky Lane story listed by looking outside the GCD—at the MyComicsShop site.

January 1945

8 pg

Captain Aero

"Bombs, Balloons and the Barnstorming Blonde" Capt Aero 24, Nov/45

April 1945

7	Captain Midnight	Casey James in swamp
		"Swamp of Death" Capt Midnight 39, Apr/46

January 1947

7

Sergeant Twilight

"Kilroy Was There" Capt Midnight 55, Sept/47

September 1947

9	Captain Marvel Junior	4th dimensional phone
7		"The 5th Dimensional Phone" CMJ 77, Sept/49

May 1948

15	The Musical Murders	a mad pianist
		"The Musical Demon" Wanted 16, Nov/48
10	Double for Death	playwright becomes character he writes about
9		"Double for Destiny" Wanted 16, Nov/48
2	fiction	"What Happened to the Cyclops?" [text] Wanted 16, Nov/48

August 1948

2

Wanted feature

"Wanted: Be on the Lookout for Walter Joseph Landreth" Wanted 18, Feb/49

January 1950

7	Rocky Lane	Rocky Lane's bodyguard
		"RL and His Bodyguard" RL Western 17, Sept/50

February 1950

7	Monte Hale	fake gold rush to raise price of beef
		"MH Battles the Great Hunger" Western Hero 94, Sept/50

July 1950

7	Monte Hale	man in the iron mask
		"MH Battles the Human Fort" MH Western 58, Mar/51

Exploits of Daniel Boone

When I first looked at Quality's Exploits of Daniel Boone, I could see that the covers were by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera, and that the writers were the company's mainstays in its final year, Joe Millard and "Q" (whom I now know is Robert Bernstein). I could find John Forte's work on some of the back-up stories, but on the Boone stories themselves I had no idea of the artist.

When I looked at the title again after IDing artists on G.I. Combat, I knew who drew Daniel Boone: Sam Citron. His style at Quality matched up with credited work at ACG in the Sixties.

But when I took a third look, I realized that the artist ID wasn't quite so simple after all. The Boone stories' art in all six issues looked similar because of the inking. The layout of the figures in some stories, though, was more awkward than Citron's usual work.

The penciller on most of issues 3-5 I'd come to recognize on other Quality features like T-Man, and Fawcett's Monte Hale; fittingly enough, Edmond Good was the first artist on DC's frontiersman series, Tomahawk. At times his figures look like Bob Kane's filtered through Sheldon Moldoff's ghosting; usually it's the hand placement that tells, but see the full figure of the farmer in the second panel here from "Master of Magic." The first two stories in issue 5 look different enough that I'd give a very tentative guess at John Daly's pencils.

UPDATE: I thought "War to the Finish" in #6 might be drawn by John Rosenberger, but I believe now that it's by Harry Anderson.

Exploits of Daniel Boone

Nov/55	1	Doom at the Stake	w: Joe Millard  a: Sam Citron
		Raid in the Scioto	w: Millard  a: Citron
		Assault on Boonesborough	w: Millard  a: Citron
Jan/56	2	The Ghost of Dan'l Boone	w: Millard  a: Citron
		Duel at Dawn	w: Millard  a: Citron
		Web of the White Savage	w: Millard  a Citron
Mar/	3	Island of Doom	w: Millard  p: Ed Good  i: Citron
		Rescue from the Redskins	w: Millard  p: Good  i: Citron
		The Honor of Daniel Boone	w: Millard  p: Good  i: Citron
May/	4	Master of Magic	w: Millard  p: Good  i: Citron
		Rendezvous with Disaster	w: Millard  p: Good  i: Citron
		The Pilgrims from Pennsylvania	w: Millard  p: Good  i: Citron
July/	5	Treaty of Doom	w: Robert Bernstein  p: ?
			i: Citron
		The Cunning of Blackfish	w: Bernstein p: ?  i: Citron
		Mission of Peril	w: Bernstein  p: Good  i: Citron
Sept/	6	Menace of the Renegades	w: Bernstein  a: Citron
		Through the Indian Wall	w: Bernstein  a: Citron
		Desperate Mission	w: Bernstein  a: Citron

Miscellaneous Frontier Stories in
Exploits of Daniel Boone

Nov/55	1	How the Cheyennes First Got Guns	w: Millard  a: John Forte
Jan/56	2	Rain of Fire	w: Millard  a: Forte
Mar/	3	The Wizard of the Water	w: Millard  a: Citron
May/	4	Sons of Courage	w: Millard  a: Forte
July/	5	Four-Footed Menace	w: Bernstein  a: ?
Sept/	6	War to the Finish	w: Bernstein
			a: Harry Anderson

Woolfolk Records 1950/07

William Woolfolk's stories are split between publishers Fawcett and Orbit in July.

Again, the 2 pages of "Dorothy's love story" for Dorothy Woolfolk constitute a plot, not script pages; the record-book entries for similar pieces a few months later add that detail.

UPDATE: darkmark found the Monte Hale sacred arrow story, and when I went to enter it I found a better match for the iron mask story (in the following issue of Western Hero) than darkmark's earlier suggestion made from the data available at that time.

July 1950 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Captain Marvel Jr.	menace of medicine man
		"CMJ Fights the Menace of the Medicine Man" CMJ 94, Feb/51
9	Wild Bill Pecos	Nuggets Nugent's feud
		"WPB Combats the Killin' Cappers" The Westerner 31, Dec/50
9	Captain Marvel Jr.	the demon fencer
		"CMJ Battles the Demon Fencer" CMJ 95, Mar/51
11	Wild Bill Pecos	ghost town raiders
		"Ghost Town Raiders" The Westerner 31, Dec/50
7	Monte Hale	sacred arrow in stone
8		"The Guardian of the Arrow" Western Hero 100, Mar/51
5	Calamity Kate	return of the Gaucho Kid
		"The Return of the Gaucho Kid" The Westerner 31, Dec/50
10	Citadel of Crime	gangster organizes his home town for crime
		"Citadel of Crime" Wanted 33, Jan/51
8	Dead Man's Witness	a horse provides clue to capture killer
		"Dead Man's Witness" Wanted 32, Dec/50
2	Dorothy's love story	Love Diary
7	Monte Hale	man in the iron mask
		"The Man with the Iron Mask" Western Hero 101, Apr/51
8	Web of Crime	take the first step and there's no way out of crime
		"Web of Crime" Wanted 33, Jan/51
9	Ibis	a lost Roman galley looking for Cleopatra
		"Ibis and the Twist in Time" Whiz 131, Mar/51

George Ziel's Two Comic Book Covers

George Ziel was a cover artist for the paperbacks; by the early Seventies the genre he was called upon most often to illustrate was Gothic romance.

He painted the covers of DC's first Gothic comic book, Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love 1 (Sept-Oct/71), and one more, Sinister House of Secret Love 3 (Feb-Mar/72).

 

Lynn Monroe's Ziel checklist includes those comic book covers, as well as the Paperback Library cover (The House of Terror, as it happens) with the same figure of the candle-holding woman used on Sinister House 3.

Writer "Q" Gets a Name

In my Ken Shannon and G.I. Combat posts I identified one writer only as "Q"—I could see his style in story after story in Quality's last couple of years, but I couldn't put a name to him. He wasn't any of the writers listed in the Who's Who as working there; for all I knew, he never worked anyplace else and would remain unknown.

I found him at Atlas in the early Fifties. Robert Bernstein had a number of Black Rider stories signed for him by artist Jay Scott Pike. Bernstein scripted more Atlas stories at the time, but uncredited.

"Q" stands out at Quality by so many captions precise as to time: Ten minutes later..., Twenty minutes later.... Exclamations like "Iiieeee," "Eeiii," and "Urghh" distinguish his scripts from, say, Joe Millard's or Dick Wood's there at mid-Fifties Quality. These are details that jumped out at me when at last I read those Black Rider stories.

The problem is that these scripts don't sound much like Bernstein's half a decade later at Archie with the Fly and Jaguar, sat DC with the Superman family, or even at Marvel with Thor, Iron Man, and the Human Torch. His captions Moments after..., when the other writers use Moments later..., don't show up in the earlier stuff.

Writers' styles can change over the years, but my methodology depends on their not changing completely. I felt better about my IDing "Q" as Bernstein when I found a few of his later quirks sprinkled through these stories. One difference between Bernstein and Otto Binder on Superman: Binder uses "Omigosh" only; Bernstein uses "Migosh" as well. "Q" uses "Migosh." The clues that led me years ago to Bernstein on Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Congorilla were certain sound effects used on Superman, the Archie Adventure heroes, and the Marvel heroes. Pwanng connects this Two-Gun Lil story from Crack Western 83 (March/53) with the Aquaman story from Adventure 260 (May/59).

The Who's Who has Robert Bernstein working at Fawcett, strips unknown; I hope I can track him down there eventually, too.