Mighty Samson 1970s Index

The original run of Mighty Samson, from 1964 to 1969, was written entirely by Otto Binder—both Samson and backup Tom Morrow stories. Frank Thorne drew issues 1-7's Samson stories, Jack Sparling the Samson and Tom Morrow in issues 8-20; Mike Sekowsky pencilled and Mike Peppe inked the first Tom Morrow story in 7. Mo Gollub (among others?) painted the covers of issues 1-4, and George Wilson those of 5-20.

21, 22, and 32 were reprint issues.

1970s Mighty Samson Revival Writers and Artists

Mar/74	#23	In the Country of the Blind	w: Gerry Boudreau
			a: José Delbo
Jun/74	#24	The Manchu of C'nal Street	w: Boudreau
			a: Delbo & Jack Abel
Sep/74	#25	The Fugitives	w: Boudreau
			a: Delbo & Abel
Dec/74	#26	The Pollution People	w: Boudreau
			a: Delbo & Abel
Mar/75	#27	Noah's Ark	w: Allan Moniz
			a: Delbo & Abel
Jun/75	#28	Samson's Masters	w: Paul S. Newman
			a: Abel
Sep/75	#29	Journey into the Past	w: John David Warner
			a: Abel
Dec/75	#30	The Balloon Gods	w: Arnold Drake
			a: Abel
Mar/76	#31	The Attack of the Lepidop-Terror	w: Drake
			a: Abel

in Gold Key Champion

May/78	#2	The Night Glowers	w: Drake
			a: Don Heck

The covers of 23, 24, and GK Champion 2 were painted by George Wilson; those of 25-31 by Luis Dominguez.

The Comic Reader 96 (Apr/73) said "...Mighty Samson is returning to the stands in a new title by Gerry Boudreau and José Delbo...", meaning 23. Issues 28-30 contain writer and artist credits. The rest of the credits here are my IDs of the respective styles.

The Grand Comics Database credits Abel with writing 23, nobody with pencilling, and Delbo with inking.  The GCD says that art experts see Delbo ghost-pencilling for Abel on 28, but 24-27 (a page from 25 is shown here) are the ones where I see Abel's inks, and they let a lot of Delbo's pencils show through. Abel's style overwhelms 28, if there's anybody but himself to overwhelm.

Woolfolk Records 1945/08

The printer's foul-up I mentioned in the post about July 1945 meant that the Mad Hatter 1 cover illustrated the story that ended up in issue 2.

Sales to Fawcett, Quality, Timely, and Holyoke/Aviation Press; and another Mad Hatter unpaid-for because it was written for Woolfolk's own company, OW.

The Sybil feature was paid for, at the same rate as Black Raiders and Chin Chop, so I imagine it went unpublished like those stories—I can't find it anywhere. I couldn't track down the Super Rabbit story's publication. UPDATE: I found the Manhunter falcons story since first posting.

Woolfolk crossed out one entry in the notebook: what would have been his last Spirit story (thus making one he wrote in October 1944 his last sold). Instead of "payment received" on this one he noted "duplicate plot" but gave no description.

August 1945 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

8 pg	Captain Marvel	man who made earthquakes
		"The Man Who Made Earthquakes" CM Advs Wheaties Giveaway, 1945
12	Captain Midnight	goes to Arabia
		"Adventure in Arabia" Capt Mid 51, May/47
6	Swing Sisson	banquet for absent guests
		[untitled] Feature 96, Mar/46
12	Captain Midnight	Albright's treachery
		"Captain Albright's Treachery" Capt Mid 51, May/47
15	Plastic Man	Dr. Erudite's double
		[untitled] Police 53, Apr/46
8	Black Raiders	bird master
		[unpublished]
8	Super Rabbit	duplicator machine
		All Surprise or Comedy or Comic Capers or Ideal or Movie Tunes or Super Rabbit
11	Mad Hatter	date with M H
		"A Date with the Mad Hatter" MH 1, Jan-Feb/46
6	2 outlines—Merlin & Miss Espionage
		[never scripted; unpubl]
12	Young Allies	pygmies & Quex crown
		"The Crown of Quetzacoatl" YA 20, Oct/46
6	Chin Chop	fake diamonds
		[unpubl]
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	the zombie master
		"CMJ and the Zombie Master" Master 75, Dec/46
10	Manhunter	Houdini under water
		[untitled] Police 53, Apr/46
12	Ibis	jaguar men
		"Menace of the Jaguar Men" Ibis 3, Win/45
6	Sybil	mistaken for rich gal—fortune hunter
6	Sybil	lady wrestler
10	Manhunter	the falcons of death
		"The Vengeance" Police 56, July/46
12	Ibis	Sir Hector's shield
		Ibis 4, Spr/46
8	Tommy Tomahawk	the Tasmanian plot
		[untitled] Contact 10, Jan/46

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...

Woolfolk Records 1945/07

Here's my transcription of William Woolfolk's July 1945 sales records of comic book scripts. Bold indicates my additions of publication data. The original notebook was scanned by Marc Svensson through the courtesy of Donna Woolfolk.

Most of the sales this month are divided between Fawcett and Quality, and one story is sold to Hillman. And then one script, the Mad Hatter, has no payment marked received in the notebook because Woolfolk published that comic book himself (as an owner of OW Publications). This first story of the character appeared in the second issue because the printer fouled up badly; the first issue was planned for 52 pages but came out at 36.

UPDATE: I found this Manhunter story in Woolfolk's style after posting; the next one he writes, in August 1945, is published in Police 53.

July 1945 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

13 pg	Doll Man	Feature
10	Manhunter	[untitled] Police 52, Mar/46
13	Doll Man	crime city
		"The City of Crime" Feature 100, July/46
10	Ibis	return of Titans
		"The Revolt of the Titans" Ibis 6, Spr/48
8	Captain Marvel	greatest actor
		"CM Meets the World's Greatest Actor" Marvel Family 6, Nov/46
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	whistle wouldn't stop
		"The Whistle That Wouldn't Stop" Master 72, Sep/46
15	Mad Hatter	man who becomes gorilla
		[untitled] MH 2, Sep-Oct/46
8	Captain Midnight	centenarian sky ride
		"Ten Tickets to Terror" Capt Mid 55, Sep/47
8	Sally O'Neil	National
10	Sky Wolf	Orien & one winged bird
		"The Bird with One Wing" Airboy vol. 2 no. 11, Dec/45
6	The Whistler	namesake murders
		"Another Namesake Murder" National 54, June/46
6	Swing Sisson	Feature

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.

Woolfolk Records 1945/05 and /06

William Woolfolk's scripts went to Fawcett and Quality in these two months, plus one to MLJ.

These Kid Eternity stories are the next ones published at these lengths—the ones in Hit were 15 pages—so even if undescribed here, have to be from issue 2 of the Kid's own title. UPDATE: Likewise the Manhunter story has to fit in Police 51; the stories before and after it in the run are other Woolfolk scripts (per these records) or Joe Millard scripts, and #51's is in Woolfolk's style. Later update: darkmark found the Captain Midnight "Tunnel of Terror" story.

The Grand Comics Database attribution to Woolfolk on "Uncle Marvel's Wedding" originated some years ago with my seeing his writing style on the DC reprint of the story. The same goes for "Jives Becomes a Jockey," the Mary Marvel story on the March 1945 list.

May 1945 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg	Captain Marvel Jr.	Greybeard dies
		"The Death of Graybeard" CMJ 39, June/46
14	Kid Eternity	"The Man Who Controlled the Past" KE 2, Sum/46
11	Kid Eternity	"Pogo" KE 2, Sum/46
8	Mary Marvel	Sindbad the sailor
		"MM Meets Sinbad the Sailor" Wow 47, Sept/46
8	Captain Midnight	tunnel of terror
		"Tunnel of Terror" Capt Mid 39, Apr/46
7	Destroyer 171	National
13	Doll Man	Feature
9	Captain Marvel	Aunt Minerva
		"Uncle Marvel's Wedding" CM Advs 59, Apr/26/46
7	Captain Marvel	Milady the pigeon
		"CM Meets Milady" CM Advs 59, Apr/26/46
13	Doll Man	Feature
10	Manhunter	"Crime Declares an Armistice" Police 51, Feb/46

Update: I couldn't read the second word here, but darkmark's comment led me to the story. I've added it below after originally posting it as "vanishing b___," Captain Midnight, no issue known. A number of stories featuring Sergeant Twilight (Midnight's assistant Ichabod Mudd) were given the Captain Midnight logo.

June 1945

9	Black Hood	Sleepytime Sam
		"The Case of the Sleeping Bandit" Black Hood 17, Win/46
7	Sergeant Twilight	vanishing fossil
8	Captain Midnight	"The Vanishing Fossil" Capt Mid 40, May/46
7	Captain Marvel	dinosaur
		"CM and the Marvelous Dinosaur" Marvel Family 3, July/46
6	Swing Sisson	Feature

Grass Green Hidden in Plain Sight

Richard "Grass" Green was a Big Name Fan in the beginnings of super-hero fandom in the 1960s. He was one of the major fanzine writer-artists; his signature feature was "Xal-Kor, the Human Cat." But he also did some pro work: in the 70s, for the undergrounds, but in the 60s, some work for Charlton. There he did humorous strips such as "Bestest League of America" in Go-Go and "The Shape" in the first issue of Charlton Premiere (September 1967). I believe the inker "Mac" would be Frank McLaughlin, and the "Friends" would be creator, designer, and plotter Roy Thomas (who had, by the way, originated the "Bestest League" in the fanzine Alter Ego).

Grass Green also ghosted the script and pencils on "Sinistro, Boy Fiend," in Charlton Premiere 3 (January 1968). The splash page credit read: "Art by Henry Scarpelli," and if I haven't missed it this time, he's the only creator who's been connected with the issue since.

I've only seen Scarpelli's pencils on teen features where he was emulating Stan Goldberg's style, but I can't see why he'd try to imitate Green's style here. The writing as well as the penciling style are Green's. Notice, for one thing, the reference to "It's a bird, it's a plane" in both features.

Why Green didn't get credit here is another mystery lost to time.