A Trapani Ghost on the Ghost Who Walks, and Writers

"The Secret of the Golden Ransom" in Charlton's first issue of The Phantom--#30--may or may not have been a ghosting job as far as the editors knew, but it certainly ended up one for fandom, as the pencils as well as the inks have ever since been attributed to Sal Trapani. The penciller is José Delbo, artist on Billy the Kid at Charlton at the time.

The script was evidently passed along out of inventory from King, like Gary Poole's in the same issue and Dick Wood's in the next few. The writer is Pat Fortunato, who wrote the earlier Girl Phantom story, "The Riddle of the Witch," in #24. Note the profusion of exclamation points and question marks in one panel; this would be a noticeable characteristic of Fortunato's work in her credited (and uncredited) work on UFO Flying Saucers at Gold Key.

This post was just going to ID that one Charlton story, but upon seeing how other issues have been attributed on the Grand Comics Database, I ended expanding it by a lot. On the Gold Key issues, the GCD notes that some 40 years after these were published, Bill Harris said he wrote all the Phantom stories. The Comic Reader 40 is cited for attributing the story in #11 as by "Dick Wood?" in addition to "Bill Harris?" That story's note does suggest that actually Harris said he wrote the adaptations of Lee Falk strip stories, which makes more sense. TCR 32 also mentions Wood: "Dick Wood is still scripting SOLAR, and he'll be handling the original PHANTOM scripts." The source of the contemporary Gold Key news at TCR? Gold Key editor Bill Harris.

For your perusal: panels from the Claw story in Daredevil Comics 22 (Feb/46, Lev Gleason), "Interplanetary Olympics" in Jigsaw 2 (Dec/66, Harvey), and "The Terror Tiger" in Phantom 21, all with the use of "Kazar" for "Huzzah"--like "Great suffering Hannah" elsewhere, a sign of Dick Wood's scripting.

I suppose most of the stories not listed here through #30 are indeed by Bill Harris.

Some Phantom writers
Gold Key/King/Charlton

Apr/65	11	Blind Man's Bluff	Dick Wood
June/	12	The Beast of Bengali	Wood
Aug/	13	The Phantom Chronicles	Wood
Nov/66	19	The Astronaut and the Pirates	Wood
		The Masked Emissary	Wood
Jan/67	20	The Adventures of the Girl Phantom	Wood
		The Invisible Demon	Jerry Siegel
Mar/	21	The Terror Tiger	Wood
Mar/	22	The Secret of Magic Mountain	Wood
Mar/	23	Delilah	Wood
Aug/	24	The Riddle of the Witch	Pat Fortunato
Oct/	26	The Pearl Raiders	Wood
Nov/	27	The Story of Hero	Gary Poole
Dec/	28	Diana's Deadly Tour	Wood
Feb/69	30	The Secret of the Golden Ransom	Fortunato
			p: José Delbo  i: Sal Trapani

in Mandrake the Magician
King

Nov/66	2	The Pirate Raiders	Wood
Mar/67	4	The Girl Phantom	Wood

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

Sal Trapani Pencils for Himself?/Not Yet, He Ain't

On Gold Key's TV tie-in The Wild, Wild West #3, here's yet other Sal Trapani ghost that I can identify. Try to unimagine the Trapani inks; apart from the poses, the faces of James West in the second and sixth panel are probably the places where José Delbo's style best shows through. Delbo's first work in the U.S.A. was in 1966 at Charlton and Dell; he didn't show up at Gold Key without Trapani inks until around 1970, so I think we can assume that these are ghost pencils paid for by Trapani.

On his blog Lee's Comic Rack Lee Hartsfeld has identified Bill Molno as Trapani's ghost on issue 4. After that issue, I have yet to ID the pencillers.

Leo Dorfman uses captions like A startling moment later... and In the next astonishing moment... throughout the series.

The Wild, Wild West—written by Leo Dorfman

June/66	#1	Outlaw Empire	a: Alden McWilliams
Nov/	#2	The Phantom from the Past	a: McWilliams
June/68	#3	The Stolen Empire	p: José Delbo  i: Sal Trapani
Dec/	#4	Montezuma's Gold	p: Bill Molno  i: Trapani
Apr/69	#5	The Night of the Tongs	p: ?   i: Trapani
July/	#6	Maximilian's Treasure	p: ?   i: Trapani
Oct/	#7	The Night of the Buccaneer	p: ?   i: Trapani

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

Trapani and Friends at ACG

Sal Trapani and his ghost pencillers come aboard for ACG's final two years of operation. Bill Ely is his sole ghost there for nine stories as of the 1967-dated issues. Ely's regular assignment at DC, Rip Hunter, ended in late 1965.

My impression is that Rocco Mastroserio penciled the first page of "The Mirror of Mystery"; Dick Giordano certainly did the remaining three. What do you think?

There were six other Ditko/Trapani stories at ACG after "My Ancestor—the Indian Scout," all credited to both artists, so not on these lists of ghosted ones. I daresay that Richard Hughes said "Oh, come on!" to the idea that the readers wouldn't recognize that particular penciller. (For what it's worth, after ghosting the pencils on Nukla 1 at Dell, Giordano gets a signature along with Trapani's on #2 and 4, as does Ditko on #4.)

Adventures into the Unknown

Dec-Jan/67	169	Two Vials from Vidalia	p: Bill Ely
Jun-Jul/	173	Miss Hepzibah Takes a Trip	p: Ely

Forbidden Worlds

Nov-Dec/65	132	The Mirror of Mystery	p: Rocco Mastroserio, Dick Giordano
Jul/67	144	"Click, Click," Went the Machine	p: Ely

Gasp!

Mar/67	1	The Terrible Teen-Agers	p: Ely
Apr-May/	2	Vengeful Spirit	p: Ely
Jun-Jul/	3	Sorry, You've Got the Wrong Ghosts	p: Ely
Aug/	4	You've Got to Relax	p: Ely

Unknown Worlds

Feb/66	45	My Ancestor—the Old Indian Scout	p: Steve Ditko
Mar/	46	That's My Partner	p: Giordano
Mar/67	53	The Haunted Brush	p: Ely
Aug/	57	When the Gizmo Blew a Gasket	p: Ely

Interestingly enough, there's an ACG story ghosted by rather than for Sal Trapani. The art on the other new story in Unknown Worlds 53 is credited solely to Bob Jenney, but Trapani is inking Jenney's pencils.

Unknown Worlds

Mar/67

53

Ghost Girls Don't Play Football

i: Sal Trapani

Second Try on a Trapani Ghost

Artist- and writer-spotting is more an art than a science, but the more it can be treated like a science, the better. If more and better evidence leads to a different conclusion, a theory evolves.

In other words, I saw (here) Don Perlin-type faces under Sal Trapani's inks on Hogan's Heroes 4. But after finding the same penciller's style under Trapani inks in other comics, with some panels a bit more obvious, I revise my identification. Trapani's ghost penciller here is Bill Ely.

The funny thing is that I was led to this in a Trapani-less Charlton issue. The unsigned first story ("The Witness") in The Many Ghost of Dr. Graves 1 (May/67) was obviously by Ely but didn't seem to match up with the early-Sixties art of his at DC I was accustomed to. My first thought was, "He's using the same ghost penciller as Sal Trapani," and then I applied Occam's razor—it's simpler just to accept Ely as penciller in both instances.

The figures of Colonel Klink falling (especially in panel 3) on this Hogan's Heroes page are the clue to Ely's style here; that style peeks through on the cop in panel 1 of the Superheroes page, and more noticeably in the figure of Dan's father in panel 3.

Another penciller (or two) did Superheroes 3 and 4 for Trapani. Ely did more ghosting for him outside Dell, and I'll list those in the next post.

Bill Ely pencils on Hogan's Heroes

Mar/67

4

Operation Flick Flack

On Superheroes

Jan/67	1	The Origin of the Fab Four
Apr/	2	The Clowns
		Nutt's Revenge
		Enslaved

Another Trapani Ghost; Collect Them All

The Dell TV tie-in Hogan's Heroes, like Get Smart, has Steve Ditko on a couple of issues, ghosting for inker Sal Trapani. Ditko's style is so distinctive that any young reader at the time could recognize his work. After his issues, though, Trapani's ghosts are more harder to spot—and at some point, who knows? Trapani may even pencil for himself.

Hogan's Heroes 4 (Mar/67), "Operation Flick Flack,"  comes after a first issue pencilled by Dick Giordano and then Ditko's two issues. The place to expect Trapani to find his ghosts is at Charlton, and the artist I see pencilling here did work there in the later Sixties, although he's best known for his series work at Marvel in the Seventies.

The likenesses called for by a TV comic can stifle the artist's style; every time Colonel Hogan smiles throughout the issue, it's the same smile, as if only one photo were available of Bob Crane using that expression. In the panels here, the effort at making Lebeau look like Robert Clary seem strained (and not fully successful).

For some reason, there's no attempt (or a failed one) at using Richard Dawson's likeness as Newkirk, and that's where I see distinctive faces very much in penciller Don Perlin's style. UPDATE: It's not Perlin.

Trapani Ghost: Can You See Who?

It looks like this has been a question mark for 45 years (if not, the attribution hasn't gotten onto the Internet): the penciller under Sal Trapani's inks on Dell's Movie Classic of the John Wayne Western, El Dorado (Oct/67).

Trapani's inks are pretty overwhelming on most of the book; I think it helps to narrow things down to a few panels and sequences, ones where the penciller's style shows through as best it can.

This is not Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Charles Nicholas, Bill Molno, Jack Keller, Wayne Howard, or Jack Abel.

I've left this penciller's name on the comment screen so you can guess the artist with a fresh eye and without the influence of glimpsing my ID.

Dial H for Hero and G for Ghosts

It seems Jack Schiff, some time after the Sixties, recalled that Jack Miller had written Dial H for Hero. But then, Julius Schwartz remembered that he himself had used Gardner Fox as one of his writers on Superman. The credits on the Superman stories he edited (and the timing of Fox's being let go from DC) show Schwartz was mistaken. The writing style of the uncredited Dial H stories suggest that Schiff was equally mistaken. Schiff also noted, if I remember correctly, that Bob Kane actually did all the Batman artwork he supplied DC; I hate to think how many attributions on the Grand Comics Database would have to be changed if Schiff's recollections are taken for gospel on all subjects.

Jack Miller certainly did write for House of Mystery when it carried Dial H, but he wrote the Martian Manhunter stories. He and Dave Wood share some ways of writing—both use "Great ghosts" and Tense moments later..., but they differ in other ways. Where Wood uses "O-oh," Miller makes use of "Oh-h-h-h." The first Dial H story, among others, has a couple of instances of Wood's pausing after a first word: "I'm...back to normal again!" and "He's...entering an escape hatch of some kind!"

The two Otto Binder stories contain his old standby "Ulps." The Bill Finger story uses "Wha-aat." The Dick Wood stories boast "Great suffering cats" and "Howling horrors." Since these are the only stories of his I've seen for DC at this time—he had moved over to Gold Key, King, and Harvey—I wonder if he ghosted them for his brother Dave.

And I believe the final Dial H for Hero story is another example of Charles Nicholas' ghost pencilling for Sal Trapani. The pose of the policeman in the middle panel is typical Nicholas.

Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery

Jan/66	#156	Dial H for Hero	w: Dave Wood  a: Jim Mooney
Mar/	#157	The Marauders from Thunderbolt Island	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Apr/	#158	Dial V for Villain	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
June/	#159	The Clay-Creep Clan	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
July/	#160	The Wizard of Light	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Sept/	#161	The Mummy with Six Heads	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Oct/	#162	The Monster-Maker of Littleville	w: Bill Finger  a: Mooney
Dec/	#163	Baron Bug and His Insect Army	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Jan/67	#164	Dr. Cyclops—the Villain with the Doomsday Stare	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Mar/	#165	The Freak Super-Heroes	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: George Roussos
Apr/	#166	The King of the Curses	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
June/	#167	The Fantastic Rainbow Raider	w: Otto Binder  p: Mooney i: Roussos
July/	#168	The Marauding Moon Man	w: Dave Wood  p: Mooney i: Roussos
Sept/	#169	The Terrible Toymaster	w: Binder  a: Mooney
Oct/	#170	Thunderbolt's Secret Weapon	w: Dave Wood  a: Mooney
Dec/	#171	The Micro-Monsters	w: Dick Wood  a: Frank Springer
Feb/68	#172	The Monsters from the H-Dial	w: Dick Wood  a: Springer
Apr/	#173	Revolt of the H-Dial	w: Dave Wood  p: Charles Nicholas  i: Sal Trapani

Covers by Jim Mooney except #163: Carmine Infantino/Joe Giella; 171: Nick Cardy; 172: Frank Springer; and 173: Jack Sparling.

Sal Trapani Metamorpho Swipes

In his comment on my first Sal Trapani post, Mark Evanier mentioned the artist's work on DC's Metamorpho containing many swipes from Ramona Fradon's earlier work on the title. The example that hit me when I then reread the series was the figure of Simon Stagg that Trapani swiped three times. The first detail here is from Fradon's cover to issue 5 (Mar-Apr/66). She stopped doing story art with issue 4, but continued with the covers, as far as I can tell, through 8. The next three details are from the stories in 11 (Mar-Apr/67) and 12 (May-June /67) and a contest page in 15 (Nov-Dec/67). The inker on the cover and story pages is Charles Paris; Trapani may have inked himself on the contest page.

Booksteve posted on his blog a Trapani Metamorpho swipe from a Jack Kirby Captain America panel. In my comment I cited swipes from Kirby's Fantastic Four. To illustrate with the correct FF story (my memory was off by a couple of issues), here are details from FF 65 (Aug/67) and a tier from that Nov-Dec/67 Metamorpho 15. The Metamorpho dialogue is by Bob Haney.

The Kirby swipes in this issue are limited to the sequence of Metamorpho and Element Girl in a sub-atomic world, including the page and a half before this one.

The rest of the issue you could take for Trapani actually pencilling for himself—I don't offhand see any more Fradon swipes—but I wonder if I don't see some of Bill Fraccio's style there, as in Dell's Super Heroes where he ghosted for Trapani. This bears further looking into!

Trapani Pencillers

So far I've called the pencillers on some Sal Trapani stories ghosts, since I've inferred that these Charlton artists were not hired directly by Warren (Bill Molno going uncredited there) or by Gold Key (no one getting credited there at the time).

This post's Gold Key stories, I believe, could have been actual inking assignments given Trapani by the editors; he didn't hire the artists and present the entire art job as his own. I make the assumption because these weren't artists associated with Trapani's "talent pool," Charlton.

In a way they have been ghosts, though, because readers like the Grand Comics Database indexers have attributed the full art to Trapani.

The pencils for "Happy Weekend" in Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery 38 (December/1971) are by Paul Reinman. (I'm not sure who the writer is.)

The penciller on "World-Wide Woman Hunt" in Secret Agent 2 (January/1968) is Bob Jenney. The first issue of this TV tie-in was drawn by Bill Lignante; more than a year elapsed between the two issues with their very different art styles. Both issues were written by Dick Wood.

Sal Trapani's Ghosts: Wayne Howard

Wayne Howard worked for DC and did some inking for Marvel, but his chief work was at Charlton. He created the anthology Midnight Tales (1972-76) with its hosts The Midnight Philosopher and Arachne. Each issue had a theme; for instance, the stories in #7 are "Ooze," "Goo," "Sludge," and "Muck."  Professor Cyrus Coffin and his niece Arachne were featured not only in the frame stories but in a number of the main stories as well. Although the series started with scripts by Nicola Cuti and with stories drawn by other artists as well, by the end of the run Howard was writing and drawing the entire issue. The covers were all gags unrelated to the interiors; he got to sign them and thus the book "Created by Wayne Howard."

He's another Charlton artist who showed up at Gold Key ghost pencilling for Sal Trapani. In Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery 43 (Oct/72), Howard pencils "Forbidden Rituals."

My comparison is from Midnight Tales 2 (Feb/73) and the frame story "The Class of '76." The hand to face, little finger separate, is a typical female character's gesture throughout the artist's work.

Wayne Howard also pencilled for Sal Trapani on "The Stalking Time Bomb" in Boris Karloff 42 (Aug/72). Both BK stories were written by Dick Wood. I believe Howard pencilled for Trapani on the story "My Granddaughter Will Haunt You" in Shadow Play 1 (June/82). Shadow Play and Shroud of Mystery were one-shot last gasps by Western (their comics called no longer Gold Key but Whitman). The stories came out of the recently-cancelled mystery anthologies' inventory. If I'm correct that the writer on "Granddaughter" is Leo Dorfman, then that story was in inventory for about ten years, somehow shelved when Dorfman left as sole author of the Ripley's Believe It or Not title.

Sal Trapani's Ghosts: Jack Keller

The last of Sal Trapani's ghosts on Mod Wheels at Gold Key (after Jack Abel and Charles Nicholas) was Jack Keller. He pencilled both stories in issue 6 (June/1972) with Trapani's inks. Again, with no credits, everything was ghosted here as far as the readers were concerned; but Charlton artists Nicholas and Keller didn't do anything else for Gold Key that I've found, so I'm betting Trapani subcontracted the pencils as he did elsewhere, unknown to the editors.

Here's a panel pencilled and inked by Keller from "Showdown at Horseshoe Flats" in Kid Colt 74 (July/57). Kid Colt is probably Jack Keller's best-known work; he drew the strip for about fourteen years at Atlas/Marvel. But his next-best is a similarly long-lived body of hot rod comics at Charlton, to my mind his connection to Sal Trapani. He also appeared in DC's short-lived Hot Wheels, with hot rod filler pages. Coincidentally, one Hot Wheels story was written by Mod Wheels' Len Wein.

Sal Trapani's Ghosts: Rocke Mastroserio

Another artist whom I'm sure Gold Key editors had no idea they were getting when they assigned work to Sal Trapani is Rocke Mastroserio—like Charles Nicholas and Bill Molno, a Charlton workhorse. (I have to watch myself in writing his name because I first encountered it in the credit lines at Warren as Rocco, even though he signed himself Rocke.)

Mastroserio pencilled the Trapani chapters in Gold Key's UFO Flying Saucers 1 (October 1968).

Here are more panels from different pages that echo a layout choice of Mastroserio's.

Notice in all three panels the faces in the foreground shadowed on the reader's side. On the second and third panels, note the slant on the face in the background. Compare these panels from different pages in Charlton's Space War 17 (July 1962) story, "The World Where Man Has Wings," full art by Mastroserio (script by Joe Gill). Mastroserio signed the cover duplicating the splash page.

The other artists on different chapters of the double-size UFO Flying Saucers 1 are Joe Certa, Luis Dominguez, and Alberto Giolitti. The entire issue is written by Leo Dorfman—note the caption "In the next fantastic moment...." He served as sole writer on weird "true fact" anthology comics for runs of Ripley's Believe It or Not at Gold Key and then Ghosts at DC.

Sal Trapani's Ghosts: Charles Nicholas

Sal Trapani's inks on Mod Wheels for Gold Key make all the stories involved look pretty much alike—at first glance. Jack Sparling's pencils on the first issue are pretty hard to hide, though. After that, Jack Abel's angular faces show through, even without the later ruler-straight inking he gives his own pencils when Trapani leaves.

Amid the Abel stories, issue 5's first story ("The Midas Run," February 1972) is pencilled by an artist who at that point was working solely for Charlton—officially. Charles Nicholas had worked for a number of companies before settling down at Charlton in the mid-Fifties. He'd end up at DC in the later Seventies and early Eighties.

The Gold Key editors who, as Len Wein told Mark Evanier, didn't realize they were getting Jack Abel's work when they hired Sal Trapani, doubtless had no idea they were getting work from Nicholas as well.

Charles Nicholas' art is so undistinctive as to be distinctive. His stock poses are geometrically set within the panels. In the same issue's second story, Abel has a couple of faces set solidly in the foreground, at panel's edge and facing directly across the reader's line of sight; that's one that Nicholas uses all the time, as in the sixth panel here. But Abel doesn't use Nicholas' trademark pose, seen here in the second panel. The character faces directly toward the reader as if set there with surveying equipment. Abel's poses are more dynamic. (And he's much better at car-and-road perspective, a useful skill on a comic book about automobiles.) This story would be even more typically the work of Nicholas only if in panel 5 Wheels faced front as solidly as Houston does in panel 2; the faces at a precise ninety-degree angle would be a quintessential Charles Nicholas layout.

Abel and Nicholas aren't the only ghosts Sal Trapani used at Gold Key. More to come...

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.