Woolfolk Records 1951/10

Orbit, Fawcett, and Quality.

This is the last Monte Hale story William Woolfolk writes. I'm pleasantly surprised that I could identify the publication of as many as 14 out of the 35 in these records, considering that Hale's comics haven't been extensively indexed. (darkmark identified the 15th through 18th.)

The Grand Comics Database has mislisted the "World's Most Unpopular Boy" Captain Marvel Jr. story as "World's Most Popular Boy."

There was only one Dr. (not Mr.) Science story published, one explaining rockets written by Otto Binder, in CMJ 108, Apr/52.

October 1951 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	No Man's Woman	girl who regards men only as competitors
		"I'm No Man's Woman" Love Diary 25, Feb/52
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	Professor Edgewise's happy smoke
		"Professor Edgewise's Happy Smoke" CMJ 112, Aug/52
7	Monte Hale	sea of flame
		"The Sea of Flame" MH Western 75, Aug/52
6	Ibis	isle of forbidden fruit
		"On the Isle of Forbidden Fruit" Whiz 147, July/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	the derby donkey
		"CMJ and the Derby Donkey" CMJ 110, June/52
10	Doll Man	the ghastly giants
		"DM and the Giants of Crime" DM 40, June/52
7	Doll Man	the bleeding statue
		"The Bleeding Statue" DM 40, June/52
7	Girl Trap	true crime of car robberies of pick-up girls
		"Girl Trap" Wanted 46, Mar/52
8	Captain Marvel Jr.	Jr. becomes a space ambassador
		"Ambassador to Pluto" CMJ 111, July/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	gigantic buzzsaw
		"CMJ and the Gigantic Buzzsaw" CMJ 110, June/52
7	Doll Man	Mr. Magnet
		"The Mysterious Mr. Magnet" DM 40, June/52
10	Kansas City Killer!	the story of Binaggio
		"Kansas City Killer" Wanted 46, Mar/52
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	world's most unpopular boy
		"CMJ, World's Most Unpopular Boy" CMJ 110, June/52
4	Mr. Science	explains the H bomb
		[unpublished]

A Couple of Dick Wood Titles at Gold Key

Dick Wood wrote mainly (although not exclusively) for Gold Key in the Sixties. Having found his work on longer-running series like Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Man from UNCLE, as well as the mystery books like Boris Karloff and Twilight Zone, as I go farther afield among the companie's titles I find a few more of his scripts.

Wood's extravagant expressions give him away; I'll lay a bet that "Great galloping Selenites" never figured in the shooting script of First Men in the Moon. There's the same sort of expression in the Lancer tier shown here.

Movie Comic is a title of convenience that never appears in the indicia and in fact on First Men doesn't even appear on the cover. That's an adaptation of the Ray Harryhausen movie of the H.G. Wells novel; Lancer presents original stories of the TV western with a ranch-and-family setup reminiscent of Bonanza.

Movie Comic

Mar/65

First Men in the Moon

w: Dick Wood  a: Fred Fredericks

Lancer

Feb/69	#1	Circumstantial Evidence	w: Wood  a: Luis Dominguez
June/	#2	The Diamond-Studded Steer	w: Wood  a: Dominguez
Sept/	#3	The Water Rustlers	w: Wood  a: Dominguez

Woolfolk Records 1951/9

As regular readers know, William Woolfolk kept ongoing records of writing and selling comic book scripts in the late Forties and early Fifties. The notebook pages were scanned awhile ago by Marc Svensson, with the cooperation of Donna Woolfolk. I've tracked down the dispositions of the scripts—the published titles and issues of publication—and added them in bold.

The publishers of this month's stories: Quality, Orbit, and Fawcett.

UPDATE: darkmark found the over possessive gal story in Love Journal, in which title I suspected it lurked, in the publication month I guessed it would fall in.

September 1951 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Doll Man	sinister safari
		"The Sinister Safari" DM 39, Apr/52
7	Doll Man	ticket of terror
		"Ticket of Terror" DM 39, Apr/52
7	My Sister's Shadow	rival sisters
		"My Sister's Shadow" Love Diary 26, Mar/52
8	Captain Marvel Jr.	the planet hunter
		"CMJ and Yblees the Planet Hunter" CMJ 109, May/52
8	I Knew What I Wanted	over possessive gal
		"Wanted--a Man to Love Me" L Journal 13, Mar/52
7	Blackhawk	blood on the Sphinx
		"Blood on the Sphinx" BH 52, May/52
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	Freddy Freeman's nightmare
		"CMJ and the Horrible Nightmare of Freddy Freeman" CMJ 109, May/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	the littlest giant
		"CMJ Meets the Littlest Giant" CMJ 109, May/52
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	a day in the life of Jr.
		"A Day in the Life of CMJ" CMJ 111, July/52
7	Blackhawk	Death's comet
		"Death's Comet" BH 53, June/52

Who Was Going to Play the Role of Gulliver?

Dell's Gulliver's Travels 1 (Sept-Nov/65) was scripted and drawn as a licensed property, but then the license was lost to Dell or dropped by them. My only evidence is in the comic itself.

An animated-cartoon style for this comic seems an odd choice when Dell did other such classic story one-shots with art by the likes of Jack Sparling. Lemuel Gulliver's short proportions are the first odd thing I noticed. But when eventually I zeroed in on the thicker ink lines on Gulliver's face throughout, I realized he'd been redrawn, and then the nickel dropped.

Gulliver was drawn, at first, as Quincy Magoo.

Magoo's cartoonishly bulbous nose has been replaced with a more nearly realistic one and the bags under his eyes gotten rid of. But the one time an ear is seen under Gulliver's long hair, it's Magoo's—the top is folded down—and his jowls and chin are still obvious. The cover Gulliver's face doesn't much resemble the interior Gulliver's—his chin is not at all as pronounced; the cover was no doubt drawn after the licensing fell though.

The 1962 TV special "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol," in which he acted the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, was successful enough that after the special's 1963 repeat "The Famous Adventures of Mister Magoo" came out as an ongoing primetime series in the 1964-65 season. Magoo (probably wearing contact lenses as an actor, as his nearsightedness was not in evidence) played such characters as D'Artagnan, Gunga Din, and Victor Frankenstein. Dell's Gulliver's Travels was published after the last of the original episodes was shown in 1965, but it had to have been begun as a tie-in to the show. Magoo never played Gulliver on the series; the comic was an original story in that sense.

The fact that the artist of Gulliver's Travels drew Dell's Mister Magoo numbers 4 and 5 two years earlier is obscured by that facial retouching but is, I think, evident in the supporting characters.

I wonder if the artist was someone moonlighting from Dik Browne's studio or Mort Walker's, or with some other syndicated connection. The fact that the Grand Comics Database credits the coloring on Mister Magoo 4 (June-Aug/63) to Kelley Jarvis, who wasn't born until 1966, leaves me uninclined to take its second-hand artist guess seriously. For the record, it passes along a credit from a reprint (which I imagine Jarvis did color, decades later), a credit to J. R. Chilly, whom I take to mean Dell's art director, John Chilly (as he's named in the Who's Who).

UPDATE: Mark Evanier suggests longtime Mort Walker assistant Bob Gustavson as a possibility, and I think that's exactly who drew Mister Magoo 4 and 5 and Gulliver's Travels.

Woolfolk Records 1951/08

Captain Marvel Jr. 108 is the point in the Grand Comics Database records at which my William Woolfolk CMJ credits from his writing style came from a run I'd seen on Jerry Bails' microfilm.

I can't find "Sky High Witness" in Wanted, the book for which, judging by the pay rate as well as the genre, it was intended. A few Orbit scripts were held back for rewrites (Woolfolk will note rewriting some himself), and the magazine's cancellation may have come before this one was judged ready.

August 1951 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Monte Hale	man exchanges his identity for a killer's
		MH Western
10	Blackhawk	the earth planes
		"The Hell Divers" BH 49, Feb/52
4	The Last Supper	guy he envies is having last meal in death house
		"His Last Meal" Wanted 49, Sept/52
8	T-Man	to get shipment of grain to India
		"The Devil's Agent" Police 113, Mar/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	world's mightiest whale
8		"CMJ and the World's Mightiest Whale" CMJ 107, Mar/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	world of Babel
8		"CMJ and the World of Babel" CMJ 108, Apr/52
6	Sky High Witness	man on bridge girder to lose assassin
		[unpublished]
10	Doll Man	horror weed, the world's worst narcotic
		"The Death Drug" DM 39, Apr/52
7	Monte Hale	man who cried murder
		"The Man Who Cried Murder" MH Western 75, Aug/52
7	Passion's Fool	farmer & fading actress
		"Passion's Fool" Love Journal 12, Feb/52
7	Monte Hale	the stolen sixgun
		"The Stolen Six-Gun" MH Western 75, Aug/52
6	Ibis	peril from the pyramids
		"Peril from the Pyramids" Whiz 146, June/52
6	Captain Marvel Jr.	Freddy Freeman's lost weekend
		"CMJ and Freddy Freeman's Lost Week End" CMJ 108, Apr/52