Saturday, August 22, 2015

The Final Siegel & Shuster Story

ME's Funnyman in 1948 was bylined Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; I myself can't see any Shuster work there. If he did, for instance, any layouts, they're overwhelmed by finishes that look like full art by the likes of John Sikela.

The GCD inexplicably attributes "You Can't Escape" in Atlas's Adventures into Terror 6 (Oct/51) to Joe Shuster when it isn't by him. His signed work at Charlton in the mid-Fifties is ghosted by Bill Molno. Attributions to Shuster on crime at St. John in the same time period are back-formations from the Charlton work; those St. John stories are drawn by Molno.

Shuster did have work at St. John, though. Their Approved Comics reprinted Ziff-Davis features, but issue 2 (March/54), Invisible Boy, is evidently inventory. The Who's Who puts Jerry Siegel's Invisible Boy scripting at Z-D, where he was an editor, and attributes the feature at St. John to Paul S. Newman. As far as I can tell, the scripter on the book is indeed Siegel.

I have no idea who drew the issue's three other stories, although the style feels familiar. But the art on the first one, "The Secret Formula," is by Joe Shuster; his style hasn't morphed into something dramatically different from the early Superboy stories. This, not those Charlton stories, would be his final work in comic books, and unlike the Superboy feature, teamed him one last time with Jerry Siegel.

Invisible Boy in Approved Comics 2

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Schaffenberger Romance at DC

GLS 178 Where the Action Is

I'm surprised Kurt Schaffenberger didn't do much more romance at DC than these stories (there are issues I haven't seen yet, so maybe there are a few). He does have a credited story later, in Young Love 124 (Mar/77).

Evidently others aren't expecting him there either, because his pencils on these two stories have gone unidentified. Nobody's made a guess on "Look before You Love;" and "Where the Action Is" (as seen above) has been attributed to Jay Scott Pike on pencils. Up to a point you can say "Vince Colletta" to explain it, but there's plenty of credited Schaffenberger/Colletta art on the superhero books in the Seventies for comparison; also for comparison, the story before "Where the Action Is" in GLS 178, "Play with Fire," is indeed (as attributed) Pike/Colletta.

Kurt Schaffenberger pencils on DC romance:

Falling in Love


Oct/72 137  Look before You Love w: Jack Oleck  i: Vince Colletta

Girl's Love Stories

Jul-Aug/73 178  Where the Action Is i: Colletta

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Pete Riss Candy

Candy 1 The Firebug

Pete Riss does a few Candy stories at Quality when there are suddenly more needed—she gets her own book in addition to her feature in Police Comics. (Riss doesn't have any Candys in Police that I can see.)

I'd say the feature's main artist, Harry Sahle, is inking at least the faces of Candy and her boyfriend Ted on these stories. On the archery story in #10 and the love in the stars one in #11 it looks more as if he's doing full inks over Riss pencils, but one or two minor characters like a soda jerk are distinctively Riss's, and in a few long shots Candy's arms look like hinged sticks. Sahle signs many of his solo stories, but he signs none of these—they're not being ghosted per se.

There are other stories in this run that strike me as not penciled by Sahle (one between these two in #11, for instance), but I have no idea who the pencillers other than Riss might be.

Pete Riss
Candy Pencils


Autumn/47 [The Firebug] "Gee, Ted..."
[The Book Shop] "Isn't it wonderful..."
Feb/49 [Babysitting Caspar] "I'm glad..."
June/     10  [Archery] "Tina, why..."
Aug/     11  [Phineas Burnham, the Circus Man] "Candy! That tiger..."

[True Love in the Stars] "They say..."
Oct/     12  [Buying Herman a Car] "Candy, when I..."