Beck & Costanza Bring Mickey Marks to Canada

In the inventory of comic book writer Mickey Klar Marks' papers at the University of Southern Mississippi there are stories noted as sold to "Bech and Cortaza" and "Bill and Cortazar" (with the collection's transcriber putting a "(?)" after those names). To comics fans, as SangorShop has pointed out, this is obviously "Beck and Costanza" written in the records themselves.

The C.C. Beck-Pete Costanza Studio supplied scripts to Canadian publisher Anglo-American in the mid-40s (importing American artwork wasn't allowed). Otto Binder's scripts for AA may or may not have gone through the studio. But per her records, Mickey Marks' text pieces certainly did. They were published anonymously. Three formed a series about private detective Britt Nielson.

There's a text piece called "The Gold Seal" sold to Beck & Costanza in 1946 that I can't track down. Marks also sold two untitled comics stories to them in 1945 for a series called Dink, but if these ever came out (under a different series title, perhaps?), who can tell? Just to confuse things, there was a Dink series by Milt Hammer at the U.S. publisher Novelty, cheek by jowl at times with Marks' credited text pieces there.

Britt Nielson text pieces by Mickey Klar Marks
published at Anglo-American
(all anonymously)

THREE ACES	Feb/46	51	Hear No Evil
THREE ACES	Sep-Oct/46	54	The Plastic Madonna
ROBIN HOOD AND CO.	Oct-Nov/46	33	In the Groove

Miscellaneous text pieces 

FREELANCE	Apr/46	31	Vermont Comes to Texas
ROBIN HOOD AND CO.	Jun-Jul/46	31	The Wrong Signal
GRAND SLAM	Aug-Sep/46	54	"Daisy" Rafferty

Some Mickey Klar Marks Comics Stories, from the Records

These are the comic book stories I could positively ID in the online listing of the Mickey Klar Marks papers in the University of Southern Mississippi's collection, having already posted her Zany Giraffe ones. The majority of her work in comics is text pieces, so USM notes which among her papers are comics scripts.

There are a good number not here, ones that are identified only by the feature (another Flip-Flap, more Pug & Curlys, and so on) and others whose titles were changed too completely to find, if they were indeed published. In the case of her Millie, Nellie, and Mitzi scripts for Timely, the relevant issues may well not be available to index yet.

On all listed here except for Little Audrey, the publisher is Parents' Magazine, so when something sold to Funny Book is published in Calling All Kids it's just been shifted among the publisher's titles.

The lines in bold are the descriptions of the scripts as given in USM's listing.

SOME COMICS STORIES WRITTEN BY
MICKEY KLAR MARKS

"Billy Boy," sold to "Funny Book," 20 March, 1946, 2 pp.

"Musical Comics: Billy Boy" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46

"Comin' Thru the Rye," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 2 pp.

"Musical Comics: Coming Through the Rye" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47

"Flip Flap and the Crying Hyena," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.

"Flip-Flap and the Crying Hyena" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47

"Flip Flap Joins the Navy," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.

"Flip-Flap Joins the Navy" Calling All Kids 18, Apr/48

"The Hobo Dog," sold to "True Comics," 1946, 3 pp.

"Butch the Bum" True Comics 60, May/47

"Kid Sister," sold to "Sweet Sixteen," 1947, 4 pp.

"Kid Sister" Sweet Sixteen 9, Sep/47

"Little Audrey and the Petticoats," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 5pp.

"Little Audrey and the Petticoats" Little Audrey 8, Jan/50

"Little Audrey -- The Big Help," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 6 pp.

"The Big Help" Little Audrey 9, Mar/50

"The Needle in the Haystack," sold to "Funny Book," 1947, 2 pp. (rebus)

"The Needle in the Haystack" Calling All Kids 4, Jul-Aug/46

"Mystery of Croak Pond," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.

"Croak Pond Mystery" Funny Book 8, Jun-Jul/45

"Pug & Curly," sold to "Calling All Kids,"

"Crossing Stream," March 1947, 4 pp.

"Pug and Curly" Calling All Kids 11, Aug/47

"Sailboat," May 1947, 4 pp.

"Pug and Curly in Trouble at Sea" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47

"Sally's Slanguage," sold to "Polly Pigtails," 1945, 1 p.

"Sudie's Slanguage" Polly Pigtails 7, Aug/46 (2 pp.)

"Sea Shell Maker," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.

"The Sea-Shell Maker" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46

"Twinkle: Amusement Park," sold to "Calling All Kids," 1947, 5 pp.

"Twinkle Makes a Merry-Go-Round" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47

"The Yankee Clipper," sold to "True Comics," 1947, 8 pp.

"Joe Di Maggio--The Yankee Clipper" True Comics 71, May/48

Unnamed series for "Sweet Sixteen" and "Polly Pigtails"

"Teen Age Columnist," 1947, 4 pp.

"Kid Columnist" Polly Pigtails 25, Feb/48 (2pp.)

"Spot Sees Spots Before His Eyes," sold to "Novelty," 1945, 3 pp. has to be a Zany Giraffe story, although unidentified in the collection as such (in the published story the character is named Spots; Spot is the dog in Novelty's Speck, Spot and Sis series). I've updated my Zany post to reflect that.

Mickey Klar Marks's Zany Giraffe

Mickey Klar Marks donated her papers to the University of Southern Mississippi, and an inventory is online. These are not records like William Woolfolk's notebook, but rather copies--I suppose carbons--of her scripts, with a notation on each as to the publisher who bought it.

For comic books Marks wrote mostly fiction text pieces, but she did write a few comics stories. The Zany Giraffe series in Novelty's, later Premium's, Frisky Fables is hers. Although the installments were published without titles, these are her working ones. The only byline on each was "art by Jim Adams."

The story hook in each episode is that Zany is the only one who can solve a problem for the forest creatures but since giraffes have no vocal cords, it takes some effort to get his idea across.

Zany Giraffe's strip appeared on-and-off. I believe these are all of the strip's original appearances. There are a handful of scripts in the USM collection that seem to have gone unpublished: Zany Earns a Badge; Zany Giraffe, American; A New Twist; and Zany Takes a Stand. I can't reconcile any with the Spots story. [UPDATE: It wasn't labeled as a Zany story in the collection; here's Marks's working title replacing my description. The character is named Spots in the published story itself; Spot is the dog in Novelty's Speck, Spot and Sis series.] However, the collection of papers may not not complete; there are some bylined text pieces of hers published whose typescripts are not at USM (at least under the published titles).

Zany Giraffe in Frisky Fables
written by Mickey Klar Marks

Win/46	v1 #3	Zany Engineers a Rescue
Apr/	v2 #1	Zany Solves a Mystery
July/	v2 #4	Zany Furthers Education
Sept/	v2 #6	Zany Almost Talks
Oct/	v2 #7	Zany and the Tigers
Nov/	v2 #8	Zany Starts a Trading Post
Feb/47	v2 #11	Zany Debunks a Ghost
Apr/	v3 #1	Zany Sticks His Neck Out
May/	v3 #2	The Taffy Pull
Aug/	v3 #5	Spot Sees Spots Before His Eyes
Oct/	v3 #7	Zany Giraffe Becomes Mayor
Dec/	v3 #9	Zany Helps Heat a House
Feb-Mar/49	v4 #7	Zany Stars in a New Role
Aug-Sept/	v5 #3	Zany Turns Nautical