Working Backwards from the Who's Who--Sam Citron

The Who's Who credits Sam Citron with Girls' Love Stories 1968 at DC. It gives him stories at Gold Key around the same time  in Ripley's Believe It or Not and The Twilight Zone. On the Grand Comics Database the latter stories, uncredited in the comics themselves, have been identified. But possibly the art spotters who paid attention to the weird anthologies at one company didn't cross over to the romance ones at another.

That art of Citron's for Girls' Love Stories is on "Don't Leave Me Again" in number 138 (Oct/68). As with the Gold Key stories, he's inking himself here; at ACG three or four years earlier, all his stories (credited in the comics, as per usual at that company), were inked by Pete Costanza or Tom Hickey. This story's splash page has been correctly noted in the GCD as a reprint of the Infantino & Giordano cover.

I spent some time looking though the Sixties DC romance books to see if Citron had any work obscured by inkers, but finally had to admit to myself that the handful I found were by perhaps Werner Roth or Tony Abruzzo. DC did try to homogenize art into a house style at times via the inking.

The Ghost in Operation Bikini

"Operation Bikini," a 1963 AIP movie with Frankie Avalon, might sound like a Beach Party movie, but it came out before the first of that series; it was a World War II frogmen story. Until 1946 and the A-bomb tests there inspired a name for the new "atomic" swimsuit style, "Bikini" would have meant only the Pacific atoll. (AIP's publicity department didn't let that bother them for the posters.)

A number of the Movie Classics (and other Dell titles) included among their artists combinations of Vince Colletta, Dick Giordano, Joe Sinnott, John Tartaglione, Frank McLaughlin, Sal Trapani, and various Trapani ghosts. Operation Bikini (Oct/63) most obviously features Colletta's inks on the entire issue.

I can tell myself that I see a few Giordano poses or faces on later pages. That may just be because I expect to see him there, but certainly there were multi-artist jams among this loose group of artists at Dell. His deciding the poses would make those pages his pencils, of course, not inks. On one or two of the later pages I could admit the possibility of pencils by, say, Sinnott.

Most pages' pencils, though, belong to none of that group, it seems to me. Giordano or Sinnott's pencils usually show better through Colletta's inks, overwhelming as the inks are. There's one touch that I don't recall seeing Sinnott or Giordano use that made me consider a particular artist.

I believe the penciller on most of the book, certainly the first part, is Sam Citron. Note the distinctive motion lines around the head of Malone in the second panel of the Dell page. Compare with the same from "Menace of the Renegades" in Quality's Exploits of Daniel Boone 6 (Sept/56).  And see the lines used to indicate not head-swiveling but confusion in "Strange Planet" from ACG's Adventures into the Unknown 146 (Feb/64). On the latter story, Citron's pencils are credited (Pete Costanza is the inker).

At least those various artists' Dells would give indexers something to pore over for half a century—and beyond...

Blackhawk Backups 1956

For their final year publishing comic books, Quality dropped the Chop-Chop reprints in Blackhawk as of #95 and instituted a series of aviation backup stories; "Rescue from the Sky" concerns civilian aviation, but after that they're all military-related.

The art credits are straightforward: Sam Citron on all. He was Quality's artist of choice that year on Robin Hood Tales, and inked others into his look on Exploits of Daniel Boone.

The writers are the Blackhawk writers and, in point of fact, the remaining Quality writers. For what it's worth, the Who's Who lists John Broome, of all people, on 1956 Blackhawk backups, but I can't see him on the any of the three I haven't been able to attribute to Bernstein or Millard.

Blackhawk Backups 1956
Art by Sam Citron

Jan/56	96	Rescue from the Sky	w: ?
Feb/	97	War in the Sky	w: Joe Millard
Mar/	98	David and Goliath in the Sky	w: Millard
Apr/	99	Fear and Flight	w: ?
May/	100	The Ghost Plane	w: Robert Bernstein
June/	101	The Incredible Exploits of Baron von Richtofen	w:  ?
July/	102	Critical Target	w: Bernstein
Aug/	103	Fighter for Freedom	w: Bernstein
Sept/	104	Caged	w: Bernstein
Oct/	105	Winged Menace	w: Bernstein
Nov/	106	Sam's Sixth Sense	w: Bernstein
Dec/	107	Red Helicopter Ambush	w: Bernstein

Robin Hood Tales

Quality's companion title to Exploits of Daniel Boone was Robin Hood Tales—they were not only the company's last major titles at around a year's duration apiece, but each accompanied a number of other companies' late-50s versions of the public-domain heroes on the stands. The two titles shared the writers Joe Millard and Robert Bernstein, as far as I've seen the only two working for Quality by then.

Ogden Whitney not only drew #1's interior Robin Hood stories, he did the cover, a move uncharacteristic for Quality; the other covers are by the expected team of Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera. Whitney was about the only artist who got to sign his work at the company at this point, although over in the romance titles, not here. The artist of #2-6 is the main artist on Daniel Boone: Sam Citron. (Note his typical speed lines as Maid Marian turns her head.) For all the decades in which fandom attributed to Citron much of Pete Riss's work earlier at Quality (he's still given the credit for many of Riss's Superman stories), some of the work he actually did has gone unidentified.

I believe the artist on #2-6's back-up stories is Harry Anderson (as seen in the second tier here, from #2). I'd now ID him on the back-up frontier story in Exploits of Daniel Boone 6 (Sep/56), "War to the Finish."

Robin Hood Tales
#1 a: Ogden Whitney; #2-6 a: Sam Citron

Feb/56	1	The Trapping of Robin Hood	w: Joe Millard
		The Wrath of Robin Hood	w: Millard
		The Black Knight of Castle Fury	w: Millard
Apr/	2	Rescue of Maid Marian	w: Millard
		The Scourge of the Bailiff	w: Robert Bernstein
		The Golden Rain	w: Millard
Jun/	3	The Scroll of Doom	w: Millard
		The Miserly Miller of Mimms	w: Millard
		The Knight in Red Armor	w: Bernstein
Aug/	4	Ambush of the Merry Men	w: Bernstein
		Little John's Peril	w: Bernstein
		An Arsenal of Hate	w: Bernstein
Oct/	5	Menace of the Royal Assassins	w: Bernstein
		The Baron's Tyranny	w: Bernstein
		The Capture of Robin Hood	w: Bernstein
Dec/	6	The Plot to Destroy Robin Hood	w: Bernstein
		The Ransom of Maid Marian	w: Bernstein
		The Knight Who Hated Chivalry	w: Bernstein

Miscellaneous Medieval Stories in
Robin Hood Tales
#1 a: Citron; #2-6 a: Harry Anderson

Feb/56	1	Engines of War	w: ?
Apr/	2	Saracen Ambush	w: ?
Jun/	3	The Recue of King John	w: Millard
Aug/	4	Sir Guy's Worst Fate	w: ?
Oct/	5	The Miser's Secret	w: Bernstein
Dec/	6	Sir Darton's Deal with Doom	w: Bernstein

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

G.I. Combat 1-5

G.I. Combat began at Quality. Much later, after DC bought the title, the WWII stories of the Haunted Tank headlined; but in 1952-3 this anthology presented nothing but contemporary Korean War stories.

I can identify the three writers by style but can name only one of them, Joe Millard. "Q" worked on Ken Shannon, T-Man, Blackhawk, Exploits of Daniel Boone, Robin Hood Tales, and Web of Evil—and wrote a couple of stories for Doll Man—from 1951 or '52 to Quality's demise at the end of 1956. "GIC A" I've so far found scripting only on this title. The first story here uses "damn" and "dammit" but that experiment in precode adult-aimed writing ends before the issue and the title get any older. UPDATE: "Q" is Robert Bernstein.

Indexers have reflexively named Chuck Cuidera as Reed Crandall's inker on most of his stories at Quality, no matter the actual style (or the reports of other inkers like Les Zakarin or Sam Burlockoff on some of his strips). In the case of the first G.I. Combat story, however, Crandall's inker is indeed Cuidera. Note the faces of the lieutenant in the top tier panels as examples of Crandall's pencils and the sergeant's face in the bottom tier's middle panel as most obviously Cuidera's inks.

 

My impression is that Pete Morisi and Sam Citron ink themselves on this title, but the difference between John Daly stories' inks at DC and Quality suggests he didn't ink himself at both. After the obscuring inks over Charles Nicholas's pencils in #1, the inking of his stories here is pretty consistent, and so although I've never seen his inks credited later at Charlton or DC, I'll venture that he does ink himself from #2 on.

The cover pencils are by Crandall: #1, 3-5, and Dick Dillin: #2.

G.I. Combat 1-5

Oct/52	1	Beyond the Call of Duty	w: Robert Bernstein
			p: Reed Crandall
			i: Chuck Cuidera
		Killing Pitch	w: "GIC A"  a: Pete Morisi
		The Runt Breaks Through	w: Bernstein  p: Charles Nicholas
		Trumpet of Death	w: "GIC A"  a: ?
Dec/	2	Operation Massacre	w: Bernstein  p: John Daly
		Prison Camp Slaughter	w: Bernstein  a: Morisi
		Behind Enemy Lines	w: "GIC A"  a: ?
		The Human Fly on Heartbreak Hill	w: "GIC A"  a: Nicholas
Feb/53	3	Havoc behind Red Lines	w: Bernstein  p: Daly
		An Indestructible Marine	w: "GIC A"  a: ?
		No Grandstand in Hell	w: Joe Millard  p: Crandall
		Suicide Decoy	w: Bernstein  a: Nicholas
Mar/	4	Bridge to Bloody Hell	w: Millard  p: Dick Dillin
		Vengeance Raid	w: Millard  a: Sam Citron
		The Lieutenant Attacks	w: "GIC A"  a: ?
		One Man Army	w: "GIC A"  p: Crandall
Apr/	5	Vindicated under Fire	w: "GIC A"  p: Dillin
		Glamour Guys of Hell	w: Bernstein  a: ?
		Hell Breaks Loose on Suicide Hill	w: Millard  a: Citron
		Death of a Coward	w: Bernstein  p: Crandall