Molno's Other Dell Heroes--and This Time a Writer

Continuing on from my ID a few posts ago of Bill Molno as one of Sal Trapani's ghost pencillers on Dell's Super Heroes, here he is on two issues of Hogan's Heroes. This time I have a writer, too--Alan Riefe, who took over after Paul S. Newman wrote #1.

The thing that set me on to Alan Riefe at Dell earlier (on <i>Get Smart</i>)--he wasn't previously known to have been there--was Kerblam, Kerblamo, and Kerbammo on a number of stories, which I recalled from the final run of Jerry Lewis at DC a little later. When I compared I found more matches like "Heyyyy" and "Halllp" and so on.

Speaking of Super Heroes, Riefe is yet another writer at late-'60s Dell who I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with that feature.

Hogan's Heroes

Sep/66	2	Operation Double Klink	w: Alan Riefe
Dec/	3	Operation Goat	w: Riefe
Mar/67	4	Operation Flick Flack	w: Riefe
Apr/	5	Fly Now...Crash Later	w: Riefe
		Cheese It	w: Riefe
May/	6	Klink Must Go	w: Riefe  p: Bill Molno
		Driving Klink Koo Koo	w: Riefe  p: Molno
		Secret Weapon	w: Riefe  p: Molno
July/	7	Klink, Klank, Klunk	w: Riefe  p: Molno
		General Nuisance	w: Riefe  p: Molno
		Klink's Office Party	w: Riefe  p: Molno
Sep/	8	The Great Stone Klink	w: Riefe
		Klink's Housewarming	w: Riefe
		General Klink	w: Riefe

Molno on Dell's Superheroes

I'd IDed Bill Ely ghosting pencils for Sal Trapani on Dell's Superheroes #1-2, and my best guess at the time at #3-4 was Bill Fraccio.  In his blog, though, Lee Hartsfeld was tracking down Bill Molno ghosting Trapani, and suggested him as the penciller for Superheroes #3. Lee didn't get to pursue that on his blog before he discontinued it, so I'll back him up with this post and say that Molno ghosted #4 too.

I've repeated my IDs of Ely so these lists cover all the data not on the Grand Comics Database. #3's cover is the only one I 'd commit to Molno on, but I wouldn't be surprised if he and Ely pencilled their respective covers on 1, 2, and 4 too.

The writer looks the same for all four issues. But is it someone whose sole credit is this series or is it one of the usual suspects going for a more "with-it," caption-heavy style (and more in the manner of Bob Haney than Stan Lee)?

Superheroes

Jan/67	1	The Origin of the Fab Four (3 pts)	p: Bill Ely
Apr/	2	The Clowns	p: Ely
		Nutt's Revenge	p: Ely
		Enslaved	p: Ely
May/	3	(cover)	p: Bill Molno
		Meet Coalman	p: Molno
		The Mad Magician	p: Molno
		Nepto of the Reef	p: Molno
June/	4	The Hypno-Trap	p: Molno
		Metamorphosis	p: Molno
		Meet Mr. Mod	p: Molno
		Endsville	p: Molno

Trapani and Company on Flying Saucers

Sal Trapani had a signed story in each issue of Dell's Flying Saucers (#5 reprinted #1). Who ghosted the pencils for him? I'd say two artists we're familiar with.

I believe I see the generic Charlton style of Bill Molno under three stories; the tier from "Swamp Gas" uses the man-at-the-steering-wheel shot I compared in stories signed by Molno and those Molno ghosted for Joe Shuster.

In the fourth Trapani-signed story the penciling style changes and reminds me of the scratchy effect in mid-seventies Charlton work by Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico. The clouds from the flying saucer in "Space Spiders?" show it most obviously.

There are two FS stories which Trapani left unsigned because he had nothing to do with them, but the general Charlton feel seems to have connected him with them. They're both pencilled by Dick Giordano. I can't say who inked them; not only do I not see Trapani work, I can't say I see Giordano himself or Frank McLaughlin on the inks either.

Flying Saucers Trapani or Giordano art

Apr/67	1	Strange Shoot Out	p: Bill Molno  i: Sal Trapani
July/	2	Swamp Gas	p: Molno  i: Trapani
Oct/	3	The Fear of Death	p: Dick Giordano  i: ?
		A Nightmare in Broad Daylight	p: Molno  i: Trapani
Nov/	4	Trust Your Eyes	p: Giordano  i: ?
		Space Spiders?	p: Bill Fraccio  i: Trapani

Joe Shuster's Charlton Ghost

Bill Molno was a Charlton mainstay for a decade or more on the anthology books; I see his occasional series entries mostly on the Westerns. Unless I've missed earlier stories, his debut at the company in 1954 was ghost pencils for Joe Shuster. Mark Evanier gives Dick Giordano's explanation of the ghosting in a comment on the previous post .

Here's a page from "The Well of Fear" in Strange Suspense Stories 21 compared with one from about three and a half years later—after Joe Shuster's credits are long gone—"The House of Man," Out of This World 7 (Feb/58). Molno is inking himself on this one

There are a few more stories with Shuster's credit at Charlton that I haven't seen—hot rod ones, for instance. Unsigned 1954 stories penciled by Molno and inked by others include "Food for Thought" (SSS 20, Aug), "Who Will He Be?" and "This Bite Is Sweet" (SSS 21, Sept), "Mental Wizard" and, possibly, "The Crusher" (The Thing 16, Sept), and "Where Do They Lurk?" (This Magazine Is Haunted 19, Aug). I mention them thinking of the uncredited Jerry Grandenetti pieces in the mid-Sixties that have been misattributed to Joe Orlando, for whom he was ghosting elsewhere at the time. There are other "Shuster" stories in the GCD that could be looked at a second time.

Bill Molno Stories Ghost-Penciling for Joe Shuster
(Inked by Ray Osrin except as noted)

Crime and Justice

July/54	19	The Death Watch [RADIO PATROL]
Sep/	20	The Anniversary Gift [MR & MRS CHASE]
		A Deadly Circle [RADIO PATROL]
Nov/	21	The $64,000 Question [MR & MRS CHASE]
		Road Pirates
		Finale for Fingers

Racket Squad in Action

A-S/54	12	Robbery by Appointment
		The Ransom Swindle
		Protection Game
O-N/	13	Malignant Model Agency
		The Basketball Scandals

Space Adventures

M-J/54

11

Interplanetary Safari (inked by Dick Giordano)

Strange Suspense Stories

July/54	19	Give Back My Body (no inker signature)
Sept/	21	The Well of Fear
Nov/	22	The Secret of the Box

The Thing

Sept/54

16

Death of a Gambler (inked by Vince Alascia)

This Magazine Is Haunted

July/54	18	The Last Earl (inked by John Belfi)
Sept/	20	Quest of the Beyond

Sal Trapani's Ghosts: Bill Molno

Sal Trapani used a lot of ghost pencillers in the Sixties. A number of Charlton artists were published at DC, Gold Key, and Warren, in many cases I imagine without the publishers ever knowing. Dick Giordano's and Steve Ditko's first stories at DC were ghost pencils for Trapani. Giordano's was the Flash-Doom Patrol team-up in The Brave and the Bold 65. Ditko considers his first work for DC to be the The Creeper (although he had two Strange Adventures stories, in numbers 188 and 189, published earlier) because he was working for Trapani on the latter. At ACG, on the other hand, Ditko was credited for the work he did with Trapani.

Giordano and Ditko's work appeared at Dell, I believe, only when inked by Trapani, so I suspect it was ghost work as far as the publisher was concerned. Super Heroes was pencilled by Bill Fraccio. Although Fraccio worked anonymously for Dell with Tony Tallarico's inking on Frankenstein, Dracula, and Werewolf, Super Heroes is signed by Trapani, making Fraccio a ghost.

At Warren, in Creepy 16 (August 1967), the credit line to the story "There Was an Old Lady" says "Art by Sal Trapani"; he signs the splash as well. The Grand Comics Database indexers suspect a ghost penciller here, and they're correct. The penciller is Charlton mainstay Bill Molno.

For comparison, here's a page from "Nightmare" in Charlton's Haunted 16 (June 1974). Here Molno is inked by Wayne Howard, with both credited. The face at the lower left of each page is the obvious point of similarity, but even the jagged panel corners used by no one else in that issue of Creepy suggest the same artist.

Trapani had work in later issues of Creepy, getting the sole credit in the GCD; I haven't seen those stories.

Certainly Sal Trapani inked a lot of art directly for the publishers, and if credit was given at all, the pencillers were credited. At some points he even did his own pencilling, as far as I can tell. But there were at least three Charlton artists with some work at Gold Key that I don't imagine the editors knew they were getting; I'll get to them in later posts.