The Artist on Gold Key's Wally

I had no idea who did the art on Gold Key's teen title Wally (#1, Dec/62–#4, Sep/63). I wondered if I'd seen it on a syndicated strip like Penny, but that one didn't match up.

Some time later I saw the same artist's work on a couple of fillers in Standard's Kathy--but that still didn't give me a name. And some time after that I found it again, in more of those fillers, on Standard's Intimate Love 25 (Nov/53). Here, however, James Vadeboncoeur, Jr., had already IDed the artist: Paul Robinson.

Robinson did do a sydicated strip--Etta Kett--for almost half a century: from 1925 to 1974. The day's strip here is from 1966. On the four issues of Wally he drew the Wally stories, backup Yvette stories, covers, and text headers; this tier is from "Ballots and Belles" in #2.

Are there any assistants involved? I don't know. The Wally writer is hardly likely to be John Stanley as the GCD guesses; he was pretty busy over at Dell at the time. UPDATE: Jake Oster has told me that in an Alter Ego interview Herb Rogoff recalled writing Wally for editor Wally Green.

These are Robinson's fillers in that issue of Kathy at Standard:

June/53	15	How's About That!! Starring Beezey!!
		Justeen and Bucky

Gunsmoke Western's Antedi-Lee-vian Kid Colt Writer

In an interview where Joe Gill was describing how he wrote at such a sustained pace, his example was not any one of the many Charlton characters but Kid Colt at Timely/Atlas. One sign of his scripting is "This was [situation]," as here on the splash of "No Place to Turn," as well as the splash caption of "The Gunhawks of Terror Street" and the first caption after the splash in "Showdown Street."

Jetta by Dan DeCarlo--But Not Exclusively

Dan DeCarlo started out Standard's Jetta but did not do the entire three-issue run. "What a Specimen" is indisputably DeCarlo--down to the dog--but "Pardon My Power (the bottom tier here) is just as indisputably not. The girl in the foreground in the second panel sure looks like a Joe Edwards one to me.

I think the inker on most of the Jetta stories and covers is Rudy Lapick, which would help explain the different pencillers' work being taken for that of one; Lapick and DeCarlo have a Leroy story signed together at Standard in Roger Dodger #5 (Aug/52).

Fred Eng signed the Zoomer back-up in #5. His inking credits on #4 are from the Grand Comiucs Database.

I picked out the writing style of Joe Archibald--at this point Standard's editor--on Supermouse, comparing it with his signed work a decade earlier at Ace; when I'm sure of more of his stories for the Mouse of Might I'll start posting those. The ones I've given question marks here are not 100% certainties but fairly good possibilities.

Jetta

Dec.52	5	[cover]	p: Dan DeCarlo
		Man Trouble	w: Joe Archibald  p: DeCarlo
		Jet Jaunt	w: Archibald? p: DeCarlo
		Frat Race [ZOOMER]	a: Fred Eng
		My Cosmic Hero	w: Archibald  p: DeCarlo
Feb/53	6	[cover]	p: DeCarlo
		What a Specimen	w: Archibald  p: DeCarlo
		Music from Afar	w: Archibald?  p: not DeCarlo  i: Eng
		Time Out for Trouble [ZOOMER]	w: Archibald  p: not DeCarlo  i: Eng
		Pardon My Power	w: Archibald  p: Joe Edwards
Apr/	7	[cover]	p: DeCarlo
		Act Your Age!	w: Archibald  p: Edwards?
		Double Trouble [ZOOMER]	w: Archibald? a: Eng?
		Atom and Evil	w: ? p: same as "Music" in #6
		Celestial Celebrity	w: Archibald?  p: Edwards

Leo Dorfman's Four-Color Classics

Now that I've seen all the Four-Color movie issues, I believe this is close to a full listing of Leo Dorfman's scripts on them--a handful out of the grand total of over a hundred produced by Western before the numbering ended in 1962. (I don't find any Dorfman movie comics after the switchover to Gold Key.)

These tiers from "The Boy and the Pirates" (art by Tom Gill) showcase a typical Dorfman caption: In the next frightening moment... and the like. In this issue he uses Just then... a couple of times, and a number of captions beginning with As.

I've mentioned before how an early-Seventies Murray Boltinoff letters page referred to "The Vikings" and others as "classics in comics," instantly leading fandom to conclude that Dorfman had written for Gilberton when it was Western and Fawcett he did movie adaptations for.

Leo Dorfman scripts on
Movie Four-Colors

Jun/56	709	The Searchers
Sep/	741	The Fastest Gun Alive
Jan/57	762	The Sharkfighters
Jul/	815	Dragoon Wells Massacre
Sep/	831	No Sleep Till Dawn
Jun/58	910	The Vikings
Jun/60	1117	The Boy and the Pirates
Jun/	1118	The Sword and the Dragon
Oct/	1148	I Aim at the Stars

A Paperback Cover Swipe -- Look Closely

Erstwhile comics artist Gray Morrow's cover for the Perry Rhodan book Fortress Atlantis (1974) reminded me of something else, and I finally realized it was the general layout of Robert Foster's cover for Davy (1964). A closer look shows that parts of it are actually swiped -- the torsos and legs of the figures are exactly the same on the two covers.

Nor a swipe, but possibly inspired by the same source I can't pin down, here is another Perry Rhodan that made me say, "Where have I seen that before?" The Wallace Wood page is from Dynamo #1 (Aug/66).

Jack Oleck Stories in Three Atlas Titles

Writer Jack Oleck came to Atlas right around the time the Comics Code was instituted, in 1955. His output there was steady but not prolific; his average on the fantasy titles wasn't much more than a story an issue.

Here are a couple of the titles that started up at the beginning of the Code era, and one that started later. Around the beginning of 1959 the writing was being turned over to pretty much Larry Lieber (with Stan Lee), leading into the monster era. Oleck had no stories in the newest titles, Strange Worlds or Tale to Astonish, and only this one in Tales of Suspense. World of Suspense ended with #8; World of Fantasy continued to #19 in 1959 with no more from Oleck.

Jack Oleck scripts
in World of Fantasy

Jul/56	#2	One Night
Nov/	#4	The Only Clue
Jan/57	#5	Back to the Lost City
May/	#7	Someone in the Flames
Feb/58	#10	The Secret Men
Jun/	#12	The Next World
Oct/	#14	Lost in the City That Didn't Exist
		The Mole Mystery
Dec/	#15	Mystery of the Mountain
		Strange Doings in Cell 4-B

in World of Suspense

Aug/56	#3	The Man Who Couldn't Be Touched
Oct/	#4	Something Is in This House
Dec/	#5	Menace Below
Feb/57	#6	Come into My Parlor
		Foster's Fear
Apr/	#7	The World's Strangest Crime
		The Lost Island
Jul/	#8	Prisoner of the Ghost Ship

in Tales of Suspense

Jan/59

#1

The Day I Left My Body

Some Mickey Klar Marks Comics Stories, from the Records

These are the comic book stories I could positively ID in the online listing of the Mickey Klar Marks papers in the University of Southern Mississippi's collection, having already posted her Zany Giraffe ones. The majority of her work in comics is text pieces, so USM notes which among her papers are comics scripts.

There are a good number not here, ones that are identified only by the feature (another Flip-Flap, more Pug & Curlys, and so on) and others whose titles were changed too completely to find, if they were indeed published. In the case of her Millie, Nellie, and Mitzi scripts for Timely, the relevant issues may well not be available to index yet.

On all listed here except for Little Audrey, the publisher is Parents' Magazine, so when something sold to Funny Book is published in Calling All Kids it's just been shifted among the publisher's titles.

The lines in bold are the descriptions of the scripts as given in USM's listing.

SOME COMICS STORIES WRITTEN BY
MICKEY KLAR MARKS

"Billy Boy," sold to "Funny Book," 20 March, 1946, 2 pp.

"Musical Comics: Billy Boy" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46

"Comin' Thru the Rye," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 2 pp.

"Musical Comics: Coming Through the Rye" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47

"Flip Flap and the Crying Hyena," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.

"Flip-Flap and the Crying Hyena" Calling All Kids 7, Feb/47

"Flip Flap Joins the Navy," sold to "Funny Book," 1946, 4 pp.

"Flip-Flap Joins the Navy" Calling All Kids 18, Apr/48

"The Hobo Dog," sold to "True Comics," 1946, 3 pp.

"Butch the Bum" True Comics 60, May/47

"Kid Sister," sold to "Sweet Sixteen," 1947, 4 pp.

"Kid Sister" Sweet Sixteen 9, Sep/47

"Little Audrey and the Petticoats," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 5pp.

"Little Audrey and the Petticoats" Little Audrey 8, Jan/50

"Little Audrey -- The Big Help," sold to "St. John Pub.," 1949, 6 pp.

"The Big Help" Little Audrey 9, Mar/50

"The Needle in the Haystack," sold to "Funny Book," 1947, 2 pp. (rebus)

"The Needle in the Haystack" Calling All Kids 4, Jul-Aug/46

"Mystery of Croak Pond," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.

"Croak Pond Mystery" Funny Book 8, Jun-Jul/45

"Pug & Curly," sold to "Calling All Kids,"

"Crossing Stream," March 1947, 4 pp.

"Pug and Curly" Calling All Kids 11, Aug/47

"Sailboat," May 1947, 4 pp.

"Pug and Curly in Trouble at Sea" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47

"Sally's Slanguage," sold to "Polly Pigtails," 1945, 1 p.

"Sudie's Slanguage" Polly Pigtails 7, Aug/46 (2 pp.)

"Sea Shell Maker," sold to "Funny Book," 1945, 4 pp.

"The Sea-Shell Maker" Calling All Kids 5, Sep-Oct/46

"Twinkle: Amusement Park," sold to "Calling All Kids," 1947, 5 pp.

"Twinkle Makes a Merry-Go-Round" Calling All Kids 12, Sep/47

"The Yankee Clipper," sold to "True Comics," 1947, 8 pp.

"Joe Di Maggio--The Yankee Clipper" True Comics 71, May/48

Unnamed series for "Sweet Sixteen" and "Polly Pigtails"

"Teen Age Columnist," 1947, 4 pp.

"Kid Columnist" Polly Pigtails 25, Feb/48 (2pp.)

"Spot Sees Spots Before His Eyes," sold to "Novelty," 1945, 3 pp. has to be a Zany Giraffe story, although unidentified in the collection as such (in the published story the character is named Spots; Spot is the dog in Novelty's Speck, Spot and Sis series). I've updated my Zany post to reflect that.