One Springboard for Two Stories

As EC's publisher, Bill Gaines would read at home as much as he could to bring in "springboards" to story conferences with editor Al Feldstein. Generally they would take ideas, including some from Gaines's reading, to come up with plots and build new new stories around them. Famously, Ray Bradbury differed with them on the definition of "new" when they hewed too closely to a couple of his stories.

If comic book writers do any reading at all, of course others' ideas may resurface even unconsciously as springboards for scripts. Where is the line crossed into plagiarism?

C. M Kornbluth's story "The Little Black Bag" was published in Astounding Stories, July/50. The situation involves a doctor finding a bag of surgical instruments from the future. I've recognized that situation in two comic book stories that came out a few years later.

"Little Black Bag" is from Marvel Tales 134 (May/55); artist Robert Q. Sale, and writer unknown. "The Strange Package" is from Strange Suspense Stories 36 (March/58); art by (of all people, at Charlton) Gene Colan and script by Joe Gill. [CORRECTED FROM SSS 33 PER PAUL BRIGG'S COMMENT]

Neither follows the Kornbluth story's plot at all closely; that had a grisly ECish ending, and these two stories came out under the Comcs Code. Still, (especially considering the Marvel story's title), it's obvious the writers were familiar with the prose story. I wonder if Edmond Hamilton springboarded it even further into "The Burglar Kit from the Future" in Jimmy Olsen...

As to Joe Gill's style, in "The Strange Package" there's a good example of his joining two sentences with an "and" but no comma in a caption: The hospital was close and he walked through the early, gathering darkness toward it!

Binder Records: Timely--Link to Art Lortie's Transcription

Art Lortie has transcribed Otto Binder's pay records, separating them by company. The first list he's posted is Binder's work for Timely, which covered 1941-48. Like William Woolfolk, Binder gave his scripts working titles that in many instances the editors changed. A few times the working title gives away the ending, so you can see the editors' point. At any rate, a number of stories in the records still have to be connected to the ones published.

This is the link:

http://thebookstork.wikispaces.com/Otto+Binder%27s+Pay+Records+Part+1+-+Marvel

Comparing Binder's records with Woolfolk's from the same era, it would seem that at Timely each was paid for quite a few more scripts than ended up drawn and published (I'm pretty certain it will prove so with Binder once all the published stories have been IDed). It happened most notably to both men on Captain America and Young Allies.

One difference between the two writers' work at Timely is that as it became apparent that the superheroes were destined to fade away for a while, Binder switched over to the teen titles there. This tier is from the Hedy de Vine story "Disguise the Limit" in Millie the Model 15 (Dec/48). I never looked for Binder's work among these stories, but knowing now that he was paid for this one (his title was "Incognito"), I can see the characteristic elongation of "Sighhhh."

Girls' Romances 101-120 Artists

This is Jack Miller's first run on Girls' Romances; he returns after Barbara Friedlander edits the title. I picked this run because much of John Rosenberger's work at this point on DC's romance books gets mistaken for Gene Colan's, and Frank Bolle gets no recognition at all. Nor do Colan and J. Scott Pike get any love for inking themselves. I haven't seen issues 105 and 110. I've left out the reprints that come in toward the end of the run. And I've put aside the question of writers for now.

Bernard Sachs signs one story here on his own (he does the same on a story in Girls' Love Stories 111 and one in Young Romance 133, also 1965 issues). I'm going to take the signature at face value. His pencils, then, certainly remind you of an earlier Mike Sekowsky's, but in the latter's stories inked by others at this time Sekowsky's style has already become more exuberant.

There's one inker I can track from story to story for whom my best guess is Frank McLaughlin, although he's not known to be at DC this early. And if Art Peddy has any work here, I just can't ID him this late.

In "Too Handsome to Hold" in #104, where a young man happens to look just like actor Richard Chamberlain, I believe Tony Abruzzo rather than penciller Mike Sekowsky draws most of the Chamberlain faces.

Girls' Romances edited by Jack Miller

Jun/64	101	Tears for Sale	a: John Rosenberger
		Dreamers Love Their Dreams	a: Rosenberger
		Dear Peter...	a: Frank Bolle
		Come Back My Heart	a: J. Scott Pike
Jul/	102	Something in Common	p: Mike Sekowsky  i: Frank   Giacoia? & Joe Giella?
		Out of a Dream	a: Bolle
		The Day My Heart Died	p: Tony Abruzzo  i: Giacoia
Sep/	103	Port of Hope	a: Bolle
		Let's Fall in Love	a: Bernard Sachs
		Too Late for Tears	a: Gene Colan
Oct/	104	A Change of Heart	a: Sachs
		Tell Him Tonight	p: Abruzzo  i: Frank McLaughlin
		Too Handsome to Hold	p: Sekowsky   i: ?
Jan/65	106	Stand-In for Love	a: Bolle
		I'll Be Around	a: Sachs (signed)
		I'll Never Love Again	a: Rosenberger
Mar/	107	Come Back to Yesterday	p: Werner Roth  i: McLaughlin
		The Love I Lost--Twice	a: Gil Kane
		Alone in Love	a: Rosenberger
Apr/	108	I Was the Last to Know	p: ?  i: Sachs
		Come Home to Heartbreak	p: Abruzzo?  i: McLaughlin
		Take My Love	a: Colan
Jun/	109	Why Would Anyone Love Me?	a: Sachs
		A Bedtime Story	a: Bill Draut
		When My Dreams Come True	a: Colan
Sep/	111	How to Lose Your Boyfriend without Really Trying	a: Rosenberger
		He Only Loves Me--When He's Kissing Me	a: Colan
Oct/	112	Too Much in Love?	p: Roth  i: Bolle
		All for the Love of Ronny	p: Abruzzo  i: McLaughlin
		Give Me Back My Love	a: Rosenberger
Dec/	113	If I Ever Love Again--(I'll Keep a Lock on My Heart)	a: Rosenberger
		I'll Love You Forever	p: John Romita  i: ?
		Careless Heart--Careless Lips	a: Pike
Jan/66	114	Phantom Love	a: Colan
		Heartbreak Follows Me	p: Abruzzo  i: Sachs
		Kiss and Tell	a: Romita
Mar/	115	Please, Somebody--Love Me	a: Rosenberger
		Love at Second Sight	a: Win Mortimer
Apr/	116	How Can He Love Me Now	a: Pike
		My Divided Heart	p: ?  i: Sachs
June/	117	Girl in Trouble	a: Colan
		The Wrong Side of Love	a: Rosenberger
July/	118	He Couldn't Trust Me	a: Rosenberger
		Say Goodbye to Love	a: Colan
Sep/	119	Love Wasn't Enough for Him	a: Colan
		One Ticket--to Romance	a: Sachs
		Ask Me about Love--I'm an Expert	p: Dick Giordano  i: Sal Trapani
Oct/	120	Can You Tell Someone to Love You?	a: Manny Stallman
		Maybe He'll Love Me Tomorrow	a: Rosenberger

Dr. Varsag's Experiment 2.1

The story "Dr. Varsag's Experiment" in DC's Plop! 12 (May/75) loosely adapts a pulp prose story published over 30 years earlier, but not the story with precisely the same title, "Dr. Varsag's Experiment" (Amazing Stories, Jan/40). The basis for the comic-book piece about creating a mole man is "Dr. Varsag's Second Experiment" (Amazing Stories, Aug/43).

Both Varsag pulp stories were credited to Craig Ellis, but that pen name covered a different writer on each one (see the ISFDB; I found the info in the 1952 Day Index.). The first is the only SF story that Lee Rogow had published, as far as I know. The second is by David V. Reed. He used the pen name Coram Nobis for his Plop! scripts like the "Dr. Varsag" refry. (The artist is Lee Marrs.)

The first Varsag experiment in Amazing involved giving someone superspeed with mongoose-based injections. Does that sound as if some comics writer lifted it a lot sooner than 1975?

A 70s Marvel Artist's First Stories at Timely (UPDATE: Well, One of Them)

In 1948-49 as Timely started moving away from superheroes, their new crime and horror books had talky scripts and bland art; many of the artists have gone unidentified for the better part of seventy years, and may never be known.

Among the artists are some just starting out, who haven't developed the styles we recognize from the Marvel Age. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo has tracked Gene Colan's Timely work, for instance, to the artist's first stories, by working backwards month by month from his earliest signed work later in the Fifties—Colan's style is just the tiniest bit different a month before, and just a tiny bit more different the month before that, until at last it would be just about unrecognizable around 1948 if one didn't follow it step by step through the increments of change.

But Don Perlin's style seems to have sprung forth fully grown, as if from the brow of Zeus. This page is from "He Dreamt of Doom." So far I've looked at only the first two years of the crime books; they're something of a chore to go through before the scripts and arts become more appealing.

The Grand Comics Database has Perlin doing two one-page pieces in Western Winners 6 (Aug/49), but there I must confess I can't see him. When most of the artists start signing their work, Perlin does too; for instance, he has a story in Marvel Tales 110 (Dec/52) signed with inker Abe Simons.

UPDATE: Per Doc V.'s comment, I've dropped the other two stories ("Her Night of Peril" in Lawbreakers Always Lose 8 and "The Witch's Son" in Marvel Tales 96) that I'd listed here originally. I let myself see something Perlinesque in one or two panels in those, but I think "He Dreamt of Doom" shows Perlin in every panel.

early Don Perlin at Timely:
All True Crime Cases

Sept/49

35

He Dreamt of Doom

Star Spangled War Writers Before Kanigher

Star Spangled War Stories was the one DC war comic not edited by Robert Kanigher at the start, so there are no records extant for its first issues' writers and artists. Reportedly it was Murray Boltinoff, solo, behind the indicia's editing credit to Whitney Ellsworth.

This page from "The Sad Sack Squad" in #9 provides four or five clues to Jack Miller. In some other SSWS stories he uses a sound effect he doesn't need that much in mystery or superhero scripts: Peeow for the sound of a shell. As usual, there are other stories in this run that I'm only half-convinced could be Miller's or Herron's; maybe on another pass I'll be better sure of some and add to the list.

Kanigher takes over editing with issue 13. The one story whose writer is not on his records, "Gen. Hunger" in #19, evidently is inventory from Boltinoff. The art is by Howard Sherman, who had a couple of stories in the earliest issues of SSWS but none that I can think of otherwise in the Kanigher books.

Early Star Spangled War Stories writers

Nov/52	#3	"Hundred-Mission" Mitchell	Jack Miller
		Booby-Trap	Ed Herron
Dec/	#4	Buy Your Way Out	Herron
Jan/53	#5	Take Hill 21--Or Else!	Herron
		Combat Cowboy	Miller
Feb/	#6	Operation Davy Jones	Herron
Mar/	#7	The Rookie Ranger	Miller
Apr/	#8	I Was a Hollywood Soldier	Miller
May/	#9	The Sad Sack Squad	Miller
		Diary of a Dogface	Miller
		Double Trouble	Miller
Jun/	#10	The G.I. and the Gambler	Miller
		The Last Bullet	Miller
Jul/	#11	The Flag and the Fort	Miller
		The Fighting Hick	Miller
		The Girl They Left Behind	Miller
Mar/54	#19	Gen. Hunger	Miller

The Dinosaur Island Artist on Sub-Mariner

The "Dinosaur Island" artist (1946-48 at DC), Paul Cooper, works on Sub-Mariner at Timely before moving over to Batman. He has more than one inker here (possibly one of them is himself—who knows?). The figure poses are the better way to find Cooper's pencils when close-ups of faces show more of the inker's style.

There are a few other stories from this period that I've spent days considering and finally decided to leave off the list, and it's the inking that's made it hard to tell.

For what it's worth, in every story below, the final panel closes as you see in "Horror Island"—with "End", rather than "The End" as in the other features in these issues.

Paul Cooper pencils on Sub-Mariner
in Marvel Mystery Comics

Sep/45	66	Sub-Mariner vs. the Murderous "Zako"
Nov/	67	The Lost Soldier

in Human Torch

Fall/45	20	The Carnival Murders
Win/46	21	Murder in Blackout

in All Winners

Sum/45

16

The Fabulous Racket

in All Select

Sum/46

10

Horror Island