Spy Fighter Written by (Mostly) Robert Bernstein

Clark Mason, Spy Fighter is a feature at Atlas written, all but two stories, by Robert Bernstein, including the origin in issue 1, "The Snake of Saigon," as seen here (art by George Tuska). The "Eaaaa" was my signal to look for other Bernstein mannerisms among the stories. Remember that he was writing Black Rider for Atlas at the time; there he actually got a number of credit lines thanks to artist Jay Scott Pike.

I can ID a few of the backup stories, ones written by main feature writers Bernstein or Hank Chapman. The one art ID I'll put forth is a story by the "Dinosaur Island" Batman artist, Paul Cooper.

Jumping on the war magazine bandwagon for a while, Clark Mason is in uniform as an Army lieutenant and then a captain, in combat in Korea in #9 through #13.

Clark Mason writers in Spy Fighters

Mar/51–Jul/52	1-9	(all Clark Mason stories)	Robert Bernstein
Sep/52	10	P-38	Bernstein
		The Vision	Hank Chapman
		Suicide Flight	Bernstein
Nov/	11	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Silent Death	Bernstein
		The Strange Enemy	Chapman
		Captured!	Bernstein
Mar/–Jul/53	13-15	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein

Backup stories in Spy Fighters

Sep/51	4	Deadliest of the Species	pencils: Paul Cooper
Nov/	5	Arsenal for R-Day	wr: Bernstein
Mar/52	7	The Tower of Terror	wr: Bernstein
Sep/	10	Secret Weapon	wr: Bernstein
Nov/	11	The Destroyer	wr: Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Human Target	wr: Chapman

Morrow After Kirby

Having looked through the Perry Rhodan covers earlier, I didn't make this connection until I was rereading Fantastic Four from the beginning. This Jack Kirby panel is from FF 66 (Sept/67), the first half of the Citadel of Science story that culminated in the revealing of Him. Notice what Gray Morrow used and didn't use in the 1973 A World Gone Mad painting--he incorporated the technician into a shape in the tech.

Oleck and Davis: The Gunsmoke Kid #1 That Never Was

I would think that the Gunsmoke Kid was meant to be an ongoing series like the Kid from Dodge City and the Kid from Texas. Those two had their own 1957 titles that lasted all of two issues apiece; the Gunsmoke Kid didn't even make it as far as a number one issue before the Atlas Implosion struck. His four stories were printed out of inventory two years later in three of the post-Timely, pre-Marvel company's surviving Western titles.

As I was looking through Gunsmoke Western the last time, only one Jack Oleck backup story jumped out at me, but as I was going through Wyatt Earp I did notice his style on the Gunsmoke Kid story, and a closer look at the others showed he'd written all four. These tiers from the origin in WE 25 give us captions with the typical Oleck narration reflecting as much as reporting on past events.

Although Oleck left Atlas as of the Implosion, Davis would return a few times; as it happens, the cover to Gunsmoke Western 54 is a new Kid Colt/Wyatt Earp one by him.

Gunsmoke Kid
Written by Jack Oleck, art by Jack Davis
in Gunsmoke Western

Sep/59	54	When Gunslingers Meet
Nov/	55	Hired Gun

in Wyatt Earp

Oct/59

25

[Origin of the Gunsmoke Kid]

in Kid Colt

Nov/59

87

Secret Weapon

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