Dick Wood and Mr. Crime

Dick Wood was credited for any number of stories in Crime Does Not Pay at Lev Gleason, but by no means all. This is a list of his anonymous ones that I've found. There are CDNP issues missing here that haven't been scanned yet. Scarce due to Forties paper drives? Fifties comic book burnings?

Dick Wood is recognizable by expressions like "Suffering Hannah," and in Crime Does Not Pay he has an even easier-to-spot characteristic on some stories. Starting with the bylined story "The True Life Story of 'Pretty Boy Floyd'" leading off #27, when he uses narrator Mr. Crime, very often the latter prefaces a speech or caption with "Ho, folks," or "Ho, Pretty Boy" to the protagonist, or just "Ho," all with a comma--"Ho, and where is he now?" The tiers are from the bylined story "One-Man Crime Wave" in #35.

I've mentioned Wood's use of the exclamation "Kazar" in The Claw, Jigsaw, and The Phantom; here he uses it in, for instance, "The True Story of Jean Cavillac" in #31 and "Wild Beasts of Paris" in #38--and it's after seeing it here that I realize it's meant for "Huzzah."

Dick Wood scripts without byline
in CRIME DOES NOT PAY

May/	27	The Dead-Eye Romeo
		The Strange Saga of Rafael Red Lopez
Sep/	29	The True Story of "Two-Gun" Crowley
Nov/	30	The Texas Terrors
		Crime Close-Ups
Jan/44	31	The True Story of Jean Cavillac
		The Million Dollar Robbery
Mar/	32	The Man Who Loved Murder
		Señorita of Sin
		Playboys of Crime
Jan/45	37	10 Years of Terror: Vincent Piazzero
		Case of the Confident Killer
		The Singing Slayer
Mar/	38	The Meek Murderer
		Murder by Night
		Wild Beasts of Paris
May/	39	Blonde Queen of Crime
		The Case of the Tell-Tale Watch
		The Crime of Terry Almodovar
Sep/	41	The Cocksure Counterfeiter
		Who Dunnit?
Jan/46	43	Case of the Love Sick Clown
		Doctor of Evil
Mar/	44	The True Story of "Legs" Diamond
		Death on the Tracks
May/	45	The True Story of John Dillinger
		The Fire Fiend
		Crime of the Friendly Enemy
Sep/	47	Thug's Throne
		The Horrible Halzingers
Jan/47	49	The Case of the Voodooed Hangars
Mar/	50	The Belmont Bandit

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

Mr. District Attorney Writers III--"How in Hannah?"

Here are the writers that jumped out at me on a sweep through these issues. The panel from "Blueprint of a Traitor" shows how Dick Wood can be easily spotted more often than not. As with France Edward Herron and Jack Miller, and of course other writers, he may have more stories in these issues, but ones where he hasn't been quite so obvious.

Mr. District Attorney writers Part 3

Sep-Oct/50	#17	The Bachelors of Crime	Ed Herron
Nov-Dec/	#18	The Phantom Thief	Herron
May-June/51	#21	The D.A. Pounds a Beat	Herron
July-Aug/	#22	Blueprint of a Traitor	Dick Wood
Sep-Oct/	#23	Diary of a Criminal	Wood
		The Big Basketball Fix	Wood
		The Gang with 1,000 Gimmicks	Herron
Nov-Dec/	#24	The Killer in the Iron Mask	Herron
Jan-Feb/52	#25	I Hired My Killer!	Herron
Mar-Apr/	#26	The Case of the Wanted Criminals	Wood
		The Prisoner in Cell 13	Herron
May-June/	#27	The Crimes of Caesar Torro	Wood
July-Aug/	#28	The Sound Waves of Crime	Wood
Sep-Oct/	#29	The Crimes of Mr. Jumbo	Wood
		The Case of the Outlaw Broadcasters	Wood
Jan-Feb/53	#31	The Hot Money Gang	Wood
Mar-Apr/	#32	The Case of the Bad Luck Clues	Wood
		The T.V. Gang	Jack Miller
July-Aug/	#34	The Amazing Crimes of Mr. X	Herron
Sep-Oct/	#35	This Crime for Hire	Herron
		Gangland's Rubout Squad	Herron
Nov-Dec/	#36	The Chameleon of Crime	Herron
		The Life and Death of a Criminal	Miller

Casebook Mystery in Mr. District Attorney

May-Jun/53

#33

The Case of the Night-Shift Scandal

Miller

This Is Not the Wood Brother You're Looking For

Big Town was DC's tie-in to the radio/TV show about crusading newspaper editor Steve Wilson. When Julius Schwartz took over editing from Jack Schiff in the process of putting together #3, he inherited the records of scripts and artwork bought. I can't say how, but somewhere along the lines it seems a mistake has been made in crediting the writer of a few of those scripts.

Dave Wood would write Big Town stories for Julie, and wrote other features for him like Strong Bow. But from the evidence of the stories themselves, he didn't write all the stories he's supposed to have in issues 1-3. Some were actually by his brother Dick, who was at DC writing Vigilante and such.

"Deadline Nightmare," the very first story, sports such interjections as "Great Hannah!" and "Suffering cats!" "Steve Wilson's Disgrace" in issue 3 sports "Great Hannah!" again and "Great suffering—!" These are the sort of Dick Wood expressions rampant in Man from UNCLE and Star Trek later at Gold Key. If Dave used them on a story added to the records by Schwartz first-hand, or in his credited stories much later for Murray Boltinoff, I haven't run across that story yet.

Dick and Dave did share some tells. "Phantom from the Past" in Big Town 2 uses "Great thunder" and "Great ghosts," so lacking more obvious Dick Woodisms, at this point I'd say crediting Dave is correct.

Big Town stories written by Dick Wood

Jan/51	1	Deadline Nighmare
		The Forgotten Men of Skid Row
Mar/	3	Steve Wilson's Disgrace

Dick Wood at Charlton, 1956

Dick Wood was credited for scripts at Charlton, but that was in 1969. He had a run of Phantom stories just after the company took over the title from King Comics. Those may have been inventory scripts, or Charlton may have hired him for his familiarity with the character; three of his scripts were illustrated by Charlton artists like Jim Aparo. The fourth, the only one drawn there by Bill Lignante, I'd imagine was completed at King and so looks an inventory story on all counts. But to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to talk about 1956.

Scanning Charlton's Fifties output for Carl Memling stories, I couldn't help seeing some by Dick Wood; his style is so colorful: "Great suffering Hannah!" or in the case above, "Jumping cats!" I find a handful of his stories, all in the one year. Before anyone asks, I haven't IDed the writer on the four other new Blue Beetle stories of the period, in BB 20 and 21 (June and August, 1955).

Dick Wood 1950s Charlton Scripts

Blue Beetle
in Nature Boy

Mar/56

3

Unmasked

p: Charles Nicholas  i: Sal Trapani

anthology stories:
Out of This World

Aug/56

1

The Mission from Outer Space

a:  Nicholas

Racket Squad in Action

Feb/56

20

The Portrait Racketeers

p: Bill Molno  i: Trapani

Strange Suspense Stories

Aug/56

30

Lost Child

p: Molno  i: Trapani

A Couple of Dick Wood Titles at Gold Key

Dick Wood wrote mainly (although not exclusively) for Gold Key in the Sixties. Having found his work on longer-running series like Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Man from UNCLE, as well as the mystery books like Boris Karloff and Twilight Zone, as I go farther afield among the companie's titles I find a few more of his scripts.

Wood's extravagant expressions give him away; I'll lay a bet that "Great galloping Selenites" never figured in the shooting script of First Men in the Moon. There's the same sort of expression in the Lancer tier shown here.

Movie Comic is a title of convenience that never appears in the indicia and in fact on First Men doesn't even appear on the cover. That's an adaptation of the Ray Harryhausen movie of the H.G. Wells novel; Lancer presents original stories of the TV western with a ranch-and-family setup reminiscent of Bonanza.

Movie Comic

Mar/65

First Men in the Moon

w: Dick Wood  a: Fred Fredericks

Lancer

Feb/69	#1	Circumstantial Evidence	w: Wood  a: Luis Dominguez
June/	#2	The Diamond-Studded Steer	w: Wood  a: Dominguez
Sept/	#3	The Water Rustlers	w: Wood  a: Dominguez

Blackhawk Writers 1955

The fewest gaps in my writer IDs on Blackhawk at Quality are in 1955-56, the final two years of Quality Comics; those gaps fall in 1956, and I'll try to fill them in the near future.

See if any Dick Wood or Bill Finger flags jump out at you in these tiers from #84's "The End of Blackhawk Island" and "The Race of Doom."

Unless I've missed an anomalous story, by this point Dick Dillin (pencils) and Chuck Cuidera (inks) are doing all the art on Blackhawk, including the covers. The Chop Chop back-ups by other hands are reprints.

Blackhawk Writers 1955

Jan/55	84	The Dreaded Brain Beam	Dick Wood
		The End of Blackhawk Island	Wood
		The Race of Doom	Bill Finger
Feb/	85	The Fiendish Impersonator	Wood
		The Fire-Wheel	Wood
		The Super-Sonic Menace	Wood
Mar/	86	The Human Torpedoes	Wood
		The Weapon for Conquest	Wood
		Suicide Decoy	Wood
Apr/	87	Inferno from the Sky	Wood
		The Sea Wolf	Wood
		The Ordeal of a Blackhawk	Wood
May/	88	Thunder, the Indestructible	Wood
		The Incredible Silencer	Wood
		The Phantom Sniper	Wood
June/	89	The Super Communists	Wood
		The Fight for Survival	Wood
		The Ghost Raiders of the Sky	Wood
July/	90	The Storm King	Wood
		The Bubbles of Doom	Wood
		Villainess Who Smashed the Blackhawk Team	Wood
Aug/	91	Treason in the Underground	Wood
		The Statue That Attacked Blackhawk Island	Wood
		The Steel Colossus	Finger
Sept/	92	Prisoners of the Black Dungeon	Wood
		The World Traitor	Wood
		The Flying Cutlass	Wood
Oct/	93	Garg the Destroyer	Joe Millard
		The Floating Fortress	Wood
		Breaking through the Time Barrier	Wood
Nov/	94	Web of the Black Widow	Millard
		Blind Victory	Millard
		The Prophet of Doom	Millard
Dec/	95	Madame Fury, Queen of Pirates	Millard
		Terra, the Trapper	Millard
		Lhala, Tigress of the Desert	Millard

Kirby and Company's Alarming Tales

Jack Kirby's place in comics history is assured by other accomplishments; but in addition he came up with possibly the Platonic ideal of comic book story titles:

In this Alarming Tales list, note the scripters switched around (from what you might expect from the artwork) on the first two stories in #3.

There were two single-page text stories in each issue (#1's were Black Cat stories); I've entered here only the ones whose author I could tell; Jack Oleck's captions style (Almost, ___...; In the end, ___....) is so distinctive that it's carried through into prose, which is not at all always the case.

There seem to be a number of inkers on the different Kirby stories, or even on diferent pages. Some of the GCD's art attributions on other stories to people like Bob Brown (or, on "12,000 to 1," Jack Kirby) I can say are wrong, but I can't supply a better guess. Reed Crandall had nothing to do with "The Strange Power of Gary Ford," and here I can give the artist's name: Norman Nodel.

I would agree with the GCD indexers that the covers of #1-4 are mostly the work of editor Joe Simon, even if some Kirby material got used in them. When the title returned after a hiatus, like Simon's other Harvey titles at the time, John Severin did the covers to #5 and 6. And Simon did the intro pages to #1-4 (Bob Powell drew #5's and Bernard Baily #6's).

UPDATE: Robin Snyder sent along the Carl Wessler scripting credits, from Wessler's account books (kept like William Woolfolk's). I still see Bob Powell's writing style, as in The Man in Black and Henry Brewster, on "The Monster from 1977 A.D."; I suppose he massaged Wessler's script. The same thing happened with Wessler, Jack Oleck, and Otto Binder at EC for awhile, as Al Feldstein rewrote their scripts into his style at first.

Alarming Tales
Harvey Comics

Sep/57	1	The Cadmus Seed	w: Jack Kirby  p: Kirby
		Logan's Next Life	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Fourth Dimension Is a Many Splattered Thing	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Last Enemy	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		Donnegan's Daffy Chair	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
Nov/	2	Hole in the Wall	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Hero	w: Jack Oleck  a: ?
		The Big Hunt	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Fireballs	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		The Traitor [text]	w: Oleck
		I Want to Be a Man	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
Jan/58	3	This World Is Ours!	w: Oleck  p: Kirby
		They Walked on Water	w: Kirby  a: Doug Wildey
		Get Lost!	w: ?  a: Ernie Schroeder
		The Strange One	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
		Larsen's Lens [text]	w: Oleck
		The Man Who Never Lived	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
Mar/	4	Forbidden Journey	w: Kirby  p: Kirby
		Secret Weapon	w: Oleck  a: Wildey
		The Monster from 1977 A.D.	w: Carl Wessler & Bob Powell
			a: Powell
		The End of a Sinister Man	w: Wessler  a: Wildey
		The Feast of the Rag Dolls	w: ?  a: Wildey [pg 1 by another artist]
Sept/	5	Half Man-Half What	w: Dick Wood  a: Matt Baker
		Defeat	w: ?  a: Paul Reinman
		My Robot Plants	w: ?  a: Fred Kida
		The Fountain of Age	w: Wood  a: Wildey
		12,000 to 1	w: ?  a: ?
Nov/	6	Ambassador from Venus	w: Wood  a: Bernard Baily
		Moon Descent	w: ?  a: Reinman
		Who Knows?	w: ?  a: ?
		The Emotion Maker	w: Wood  a: Kida
		King of the Ants	w: Wood  a: Al Williamson & Angelo Torres
		The Strange Power of Gary Ford	w: Wessler  a: Norman Nodel

Doll Man Writers 1952-53

Doll Man comes to the end of his run embracing the horror boom of the early Fifties.

These attributions to William Woolfolk come from my seeing his style in the scripting; I haven't seen the pages of his notebook that, if I'm correct, record these stories.

"Q" is a writer I can't name, who wrote quite a lot for Quality in the Fifties: war, horror, some Robin Hood, some Daniel Boone; not to mention Blackhawk just before DC took over the title. UPDATE: I'm replacing the letter with the writer's name, now that I've figured out who he is: Robert Bernstein.

As for IDing the artists on these stories, I'm throwing my hands in the air and walking away.

Doll Man Writers 1952-53

Feb/52	#38	The Druid Death	William Woolfolk
		House of Vampires	Woolfolk
		Doll Man and the Voodoo Master	Woolfolk
Apr/	#39	The Death Drug	Woolfolk
		The Sinister Safari	Woolfolk
		Ticket of Terror	Woolfolk
June/	#40	Doll Man and the Giants of Crime	Woolfolk
		The Mysterious Mr. Magnet	Woolfolk
		The Bleeding Statue	Woolfolk
Aug/	#41	The Headless Horseman	Woolfolk
		Darrel Dane's Bodyguard	Woolfolk
		The Beast Man	Woolfolk
Oct/	#42	The Mind-Monster	Woolfolk
		The Spectre in Steel	Woolfolk
		Diary of Death	Woolfolk
Dec/	#43	The Thing That Killed	Woolfolk
		The Emerald Eye of Evil	Woolfolk
		Satan's Sculptor	Woolfolk
Feb/53	#44	Radioactive Man	Woolfolk
		The Raiser of the Dead	Robert Bernstein
		Wanted: Darrel Dane	Bernstein
Apr/	#45	The Man with the Iron Face	Woolfolk
		The Killers from X-T-B-2	Woolfolk
		The Doom Box	Joe Millard
June/	#46	The Monster from Tomorrow	Millard
		Flame of Evil	Millard
		The Killer Hawks	Millard
Oct/	#47	Midget of Murder	Dick Wood
		The Mad Hypnotist	Wood
		Crime's Mr. Magic	Wood

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.

Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants

On these two titles from Gold Key—tie-ins to science fiction TV shows produced by Irwin Allen—the writer credits are as straightforward as on Girl from UNCLE: one writer on each.

Art on both titles came from Tom Gill. I can't tell how much was contributed by John Verpoorten, who's known to have assisted Gill on Time Tunnel; Ted Galindo pencilled for Gill on Land of the Giants. The Time Tunnel covers were paintings by George Wilson; Giants used photo covers.

The Time Tunnel

Feb/67	#1	The Assassins	Paul S. Newman
		The Lion or the Volcano?	Newman
		Mars Countdown	Newman
July/	#2	The Conquerors	Newman
		The Captives	Newman

Land of the Giants

Apr/68	#1	The Mini-Criminals	Dick Wood
Jan/69	#2	Countdown to Escape	Wood
Mar/	#3	Giant Damsel in Distress	Wood
June/	#4	Safari in Giantland	Wood
Sep/	#5	Operation Mini-Surgeon	Wood

UNCLE Act II

With Gold Key's comic of the spin-off UNCLE series, and the back-ups, there are no surprises among the writers.

I can see Bill Lignante's art on Girl from UNCLE 3-5, but I don't see the same art as on the Phantom. Since Sparky Moore says he ghost-pencilled for Lignante, on at least some of the Phantom and on Secret Agent 1, those don't make a good example of full art by Lignante. On these panels from Girl 3 I wonder if I see Mike Peppe inks—for want of a better guess—on at least some faces.

Girl from UNCLE Written by Paul S. Newman

Oct/66	#1	The Fatal Accidents Affair	a: Alden McWilliams
Apr/67	#2	The Kid Commandos' Caper	a: McWilliams
June/67	#3	The Captain Kidd Affair	a?: Bill Lignante
Aug/67	#4	The One-Way Tourist Affair	a?: Lignante
Oct/67	#5	The Harem-Scarem Affair	a?: Lignante

Leopold Swift—Courier in Girl from UNCLE Written by Newman

Oct/67

#5

Bubble-Trouble

a: Joe Certa

Jet Dream and Her Stunt Girl Counterspies in Man from UNCLE
Written by Dick Wood

July/66	#7	The Spy in the Sky	p: Mike Sekowsky  i: Mike Peppe
Sept/66	#8	The Spider and the Spy	p: Sekowsky  i: Peppe
Nov/66	#9	The Super-Tiger of Targan	p: Sekowsky  i: Peppe
Jan/67	#10	Ting-a-Ling—Enemy Agent	p: Sekowsky  i: ?
Mar/67	#11	Death Plunge	a: Jack Sparling
May/67	#12	The Powder-Puff Derby Caper	a: Certa
July/67	#13	The Achilles Heel	p: Sekowsky  i: Peppe
Sept/67	#14	Splash-Down to Death	a: Certa
Nov/67	#15	The Set-Up Sultan	a: Certa
Jan/68	#16	Day of Infamy	a: Certa
Mar/68	#17	The Farmer Brown Fiasco	a: Certa
May/68	#18	The Captive Jet	a: Certa
July/68	#19	Fall to Freedom	a: Certa
Oct/68	#20	Menace of the Feathered Warrriors	a: Certa
Apr/69	#22	The Demon Dogfight	a: Certa

Jet Dream Written by Wood

June/68

#1

D-Day for the Generalissimo

a: Certa

The Man from UNCLE Affair

Above is a panel from Gold Key's The Man from UNCLE 3, pencilled by George Tuska.

Following up on Mark Evanier's comment about likenesses: although in some cases the license holders insisted on extra work for that fidelity, in other cases the contracts forbade comic books from using likenesses. After the comic book's first two issues, the powers-that-were recognized the popularity of David McCallum's character Illya Kuryakin, and so he and Leo G. Carroll's Alexander Waverly became recognizable in the comics. In those first issues, only Napoleon Solo's face was reinked or redrawn, for the sake of Robert Vaughn's likeness—as in the Tuska panels below, from #2.

On the entire series, it looks to me as if Mike Peppe inked more than the Sekowsky issues attributed to him previously; I'm not sure if #1-2, apart from the Solo faces, were inked by someone other than pencillers Heck and Tuska respectively. (Update: read Mark's comment on this post.)

If Marshall McClintock wrote the Man from UNCLE for Gold Key as the Who's Who says, he didn't do final scripts; they're all by Paul S. Newman or Dick Wood. Wood's are filled with his trademark exclamations such as "Great suffering Hannah." Wood errs in his first script, as many have, by referring to UNCLE as the United Network Command for Law Enforcement—it's the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

Man from UNCLE Written by Paul S. Newman

May/65	#1	The Explosive Affair	p: Don Heck  i: ?
Oct/65	#2	The Fortune Cookie Affair	p: George Tuska  i: ?

Written by Dick Wood, Inked by Mike Peppe

Nov/65	#3	The Deadly Devices Affair	p: pg. 1-26 Tuska, pg. 27-32 Heck
Jan/66	#4	The Rip Van Solo Affair	p: Werner Roth
Mar/66	#5	The Ten Little Uncles Affair	p: Heck
May/66	#6	The Three Blind Mice Affair	p: Mike Sekowsky
July/66	#7	The Pixilated Puzzle Affair	p: Sekowsky
Sept/66	#8	The Floating People Affair	p: Sekowsky
Nov/66	#9	The Spirit of St. Louis Affair	p: Sekowsky
Jan/67	#10	The Trojan Horse Affair	p: Sekowsky
Mar/67	#11	The Three-Story Giant Affair	p: Sekowsky
May/67	#12	The Dead Man's Diary Affair	p: Sekowsky
July/67	#13	The Flying Clowns Affair	p: Sekowsky
Sept/67	#14	The Brain Drain Affair	p: Sekowsky
Nov/67	#15	The Animal Agents Affair	p: Tom Gill
Jan/68	#16	The Instant Disaster Affair	p: Gill
Mar/68	#17	The Deadly Visions Affair	p: Mike Roy
May/68	#18	The Alien Affair	p: Roy
July/68	#19	The Knight in Shining Armor Affair	p: Roy
Oct/68	#20	The Deep Freeze Affair	p: Roy

The Man from UNCLE stories in #21 and 22 were reprints. #5-8 were reprinted in the British Man from UNCLE World Adventure Library in late 1966.

Twilight Zone 16-20 Writers

These are my IDs of the writers of most of the stories in the next five issues of Gold Key's Twilight Zone. "TZ 2" and "TZ 3" did earlier stories ("TZ 1" didn't write any more stories that I've seen, after the earliest issues); I can't put names to them.

I defer to the Grand Comics Database for the art attributions—except for the Jerry Grandenetti pencils credited to ghost-employer Joe Orlando. "Nightmare for an Astronaut," "The Man Who Mastered Yoga" (one of its panels is shown here), and "The Plague" were pencilled by Grandenetti. Orlando merely inked them. Orlando did pencil "The Masquerader."

The Twilight Zone 16-20 Writers

July/66	#16	Nightmare for an Astronaut	Dick Wood
		The Ghost Gunner	"TZ 3"
		The Wisdom of the Beast *	"TZ 2"
		The Perfect Criminal	Leo Dorfman
		When the Ball Is Over	Paul S. Newman
Sept/66	#17	The Masquerader	Dorfman
		Once upon a Dream	"TZ 3"
		He Walked on Water *	"TZ 2"
		The Ship That Knew *	"TZ 3"
		Crystal Clear	"TZ 3"
		Mars: Dead or Alive	Wood
Nov/66	#18	Second-Hand Clothes	Dorfman?
		When the Lights Go Out	Dorfman
		Dead Man's Train *	"TZ 3"?
		The Man in the Green Coat *	"TZ 3"?
		Programmed Vacation	Wood
		The Impressionist	Wood?
		Strange Reunion *	Dorfman
Jan/67	#19	The Crime-a-Day Town	Wood
		Into Worlds Beyond	"TZ 3"
		Big-Foot *	"TZ 3"?
		The Man Who Mastered Yoga	?
		Our Man on Planet Ergo	Wood
Mar/67	#20	The Plague	Dorfman
		The Prodigy	Dorfman
		The Day That Couldn't Get Lost	?
		The Portal	Dorfman
		* (single-page stories)

Twilight Zone 11-15 Writers

"Way Out West—On Mars" in Gold Key's Twilight Zone 13 lifts the plot of Ray Bradbury's short story "Mars Is Heaven!"

The art attributions are on the Grand Comics Database. I don't see myself how Reed Crandall's art looks any different on "Way Out West" than on any other story he inked himself; naming Alden McWilliams as inker strikes me as way out of left field. And "Moment of Decision," as I said last week, is pencilled by Jerry Grandenetti, inked by Bill Draut and Joe Orlando.

"TZ 3" is a writer who will show up in later TZ issues and in Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery on more four-page "strange but true" stories.

The Twilight Zone 11-15 Writers

May/65	#11	The Gremlins	Dick Wood
		The Island Vision	Wood
		The Wanted One *	Wood
		(Wanted...Alive!) Doomsday in Dusterville	Wood
		Ghost Ship of the Skies	Wood
		The Vision *	Wood
Aug/65	#12	The Shadow with Claws	Leo Dorfman
		The Revolt of the Machines	Dorfman
		The Voice in the Mist *	Dorfman
		They Dwell among Us	Dorfman
Nov/65	#13	The Man Who Could Read the Future	Wood
		The Man with My Face	Wood
		Way Out West—On Mars	Wood
Feb/66	#14	The Day That Vanished	Wood
		The Death Car	"TZ 3"
		The Lost Genius	Wood
		The Lost Oasis	Dorfman
		A Nightmare Tale *	?
May/66	#15	Moment of Decision	Wood
		Wipe Out the Future	Paul S. Newman
		The Wheel of Light *	Dorfman
		Perfect Preservation	Wood
		The Vision of Mystir	Dorfman
		The Prophet *	?
		(* single-page stories)

Leo Dorfman names a character Mystir at least one more time: in "The Voodoo Doom of Superman" in Action Comics 413 (June/72)--a story for which he was credited only in the letter column in 417.

Explorers in the Unknown

This Gold Key series about the spaceship Hunter I, the back-up in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, serves as a dress rehearsal for the company's Star Trek for writer Dick Wood, artists Alberto Giolitti and company, Nevio Zecarra, and José Delbo. Star Trek 1 was cover-dated the month after Voyage 9.

Delbo's work here went unrecognized for a few decades. Here's a panel from his story.

Only the Explorers back-up story is new in issue 15; the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea story is a reprint.

Explorers in the Unknown—written by Dick Wood—in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Nov/66	#6	Manhunt in Space	Giolitti Studio
Feb/67	#7	The Demons of the Deep Space	Nevio Zeccara
May/67	#8	The Hostile Asteroid	Zeccara
Aug/67	#9	The Graveyard of Space	Zeccara
Nov/67	#10	Mystery of the Magnetized Planet Chapter II	Zeccara
Feb/68	#11	Mystery of the Magnetized Planet Chapter III: Uncertain Lift-Off	Zeccara
May/68	#12	Prisoners of the "Jelly" Planet	Zeccara
Aug/68	#13	Chapter II: Prisoners of the "Jelly" Planet	Zeccara
Nov/68	#14	Prisoners of the Jelly Planet—Chapter 3	Zeccara
June/69	#15	Runaway Asteroid	José Delbo

Twilight Zone 1-10 writers

This list indexes the writers of the first ten Gold Key issues of The Twilight Zone. There were four earlier issues, which I've yet to see, published by Dell in 1961-62; Gold Key restarted the numbering with #1.

Those cited by the Who's Who as writing mystery stories in the early Sixties for Western (which would include the Dell TZs, then Boris Karloff as well as TZ, at Gold Key) include Leo Cheney, Royal Cole, and Marshall McClintock. There are no specific stories they're known to have done, so I can't match up the unknown writers' styles with particular authors.

Technically one story in each issue is not a Twilight Zone; there's no logo, no appearance by Rod Serling, and the copyright owner is Western rather than the TV production company, Cayuga.

A stat of Rod Serling's head was used in any number of stories beginning with the third issue. Above, on the left, is the head's first appearance, in a Mike Sekowsky story—and I don't think the head itself is by Sekowsky—then, on the right, it's definitely a stat in an Alex Toth story. Below are two examples from Frank Thorne stories; in earlier ones, he got to draw Serling.

The art attributions are on the Grand Comics Database.

The Twilight Zone Writers

Nov/62	#1	Perilous Journey	"TZ 1"
		Do Not Touch Exhibit	"TZ 1"
		Voyage to Nowhere	Leo Dorfman
Feb/63	#2	The Lost Colonie	"TZ 2"
		Journey into Jeopardy	Dorfman
		The Ray of Phobos	Dorfman
May/63	#3	The Last Battle	"TZ 2"
		Birds of a Feather	"TZ 2"
		The Queen Is Dead—Long Live the Queen	"TZ 2"
Aug/63	#4	The Secret of the Key	"TZ 2"
		Experiment in Purple	"TZ 2"
		The Captive	"TZ 2"
		The Ordeal of Bluebird 3	"TZ 2"
Nov/63	#5	The Legacy of Hans Burkel	Dorfman
		Poor Little Sylvester	Dorfman
		The Shadow of Fate	Dorfman
		The Fortune Hunters	Dorfman
Feb/64	#6	Captives of the Mirage	Dick Wood
		The Night People of London	Wood
		The Last Sixty Seconds	Wood
May/64	#7	The Shield of Medusa	Wood
		The Menace from Out There	Wood
		The Man Who Haunted Himself	Wood
Aug/64	#8	Hamilton's Creature	Wood
		The Night Striker of Paris	Wood
		Iron Man No. 1	"TZ 2"
Nov/64	#9	The Street Where Evil Dwelt	Wood
		The Doom Days	?
		Creatures on Canvas	Wood
Feb/65	#10	The Bewitching Window	Wood
		Lost Acre	Wood
		The Patient Workers *	Wood
		The Demon Light	Wood
		The Mystic Book	Wood
		The Midas Wheel *	Wood
		(* single-page stories)

A Mandrake Writer

Dick Wood became known as a scripter on the King Features heroes in comic books when Phantom stories for Charlton credited him.  I imagine his first scripts for Charlton were passed along out of inventory when King's own short-lived comic book line ended operations.

Wood wrote King Comics' early Mandrake stories.

The singular expressions in these panels from the two stories in Mandrake 2—"Suffering Hannah" and "Great suffering Caesar" more so than "Great grief," which you can find from a number of other writers—are the sort I mentioned in my post on Dick Wood's Plastic Man stories at Quality in the Fifties. They don't show up in the first issue, but its "Y-yipes" and "Thunderation," among other things, are interjections Wood uses elsewhere.

Out of my handful of Mandrake issues, I come to writers I can't put names to in issues 4 and 6. (Jerry Siegel, by the way, told the Who’s Who that he wrote one Mandrake.) I would say that Wood wrote the Mandrake back-up in Flash Gordon 1. The inking credits here are Alberto Becattini's from the GCD; I hadn't recognized LeBlanc by myself.

some Dick Wood Mandrake stories

Sept/66	#1	Menace of the City Jungle	p: Don Heck  i: Andre LeBlanc
		The Flying Phantom	p: Werner Roth  i: LeBlanc
Nov/66	#2	Specter from Space	a: LeBlanc
		The Phantom Casino	a: LeBlanc

a Dick Wood Mandrake in Flash Gordon

Sept/66

#1

Midnight with Mandrake

p: Heck  i: LeBlanc