Speed Carter, Spaceman Writer

Hank Chapman's getting writing credits at Timely/Atlas in the Fifties puts him ahead of all the other writers except Stan Lee, but the crediting was inconsistent. Spaceman shows this: Chapman's name appears on just two stories, the second and third ones in issue 3, but he scripted the entire series.

The splash page layouts that I mentioned in my post on the Human Torch stories written by Chapman appear among these stories: a splash panel taking almost the entire page, with one story panel; and a tier of story panels before the splash.

The contemporary-sounding "Holy smokes" in Chapman's Torch and mystery stories doesn't appear here; the futuristic "Great galaxy" and "Holy atoms" substitute. "Ow-w-w," with some variations of length and hyphenation, appears throughout.

The Famous Explorers of Space back-ups take place in Speed Carter's past. The Eadeh and Savage art guesses I pass along from the GCD.

Speed Carter, Spaceman—written by Hank Chapman

Sept/53	#1	Speed Carter, Spaceman, and the Pirate Planet	a: Joe Maneely
		Slaughter on a Star	a: Maneely
		The Robots' Revenge	a: Maneely
Nov/53	#2	[The Birdmen of Uranus]	a: Maneely
		The Half-Horrors of Hyades	a: Maneely
		Who Stole the Sun	a: Maneely
Jan/54	#3	[Grave-Robbers from Outer Space]	a: Maneely
		[The Core People]	a: Maneely
		[The Bems]	a: Maneely
Mar/54	#4	[The Positpeople and the Neganatives]	p: Mike Sekowsky  i: Jack Abel
		[The Jet-Men]	p: Sekowsky  i: Abel
		[The Mosquito Men]	p: Sekowsky  i: Abel
May/54	#5	Die, Spaceman, Die!	a: George Tuska
		[Beastmen of Space]	a: Tuska
		A Slaughter in Space	a: Tuska
July/54	#6	The Thing in Outer Space	a: Bob Forgione
		The Kiss of Death	a: Forgione
		[Spaceworld of the Scorpeople]	a: Forgione

Famous Explorers of Space in Spaceman—written by Chapman

Sept/53	#1	Venus: Earth's Twin Sister	a: John Romita
Nov/53	#2	Mercury: The Red-Hot Planet	p: Bill Benulis  i: Abel
Jan/54	#3	Mars: The Dying Planet	a: Al Eadeh?
Mar/54	#4	Jupiter: The Giant Planet	a: Maneely
May/54	#5	Ceres: The Biggest Little World in the Asteroid Belt	a: Bill Savage?
July/54	#6	How Saturn Got Its Fourth Ring	a: Benulis

Woolfolk Records 1947/02

This is the final month of the three where William Woolfolk left his scripts undescribed in his notebook. Some stories I've narrowed down to the likely title by page number; at this point the Blackhawk stories in Modern were 15 and then 13 pages, so this month's 12 and 14 pagers wouldn't fit there. "The Robe of Lucifer" is the only 12-page Doll Man from this period not already in Woolfolk's records (and it is in his style).

This 7-page Ibis has to be Part Two to last month's 6-page Part One in Whiz 88, featuring the Cat. The Ibis stories by Woolfolk in Whiz Comics' 80s and 90s are described in earlier and later months in these records; 85's is the sole story by someone else, as I interpret the styles. 88-90 have to fit in December-February's lists of scripts.

Stories sold to Timely, Quality, EC, and Fawcett this month.

February 1947 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

12 pg	Doll Man	"The Robe of Lucifer" DM 14, Autumn/47
12	Sub-Mariner	Marvel Mystery or S-M
11	Doll Man	Feature or DM
4	Hector the Inspector	[untitled] Animal Fables 6, Sep-Oct/47
12	Human Torch	Marvel Mystery or HT
12	Blackhawk	BH
8	Captain Marvel	Whiz or CM Advs or Marvel Family
8	Freddy Firefly	[untitled] AF 6, Sep-Oct/47
14	Blackhawk	BH
7	Ibis	"Death of the Cat" Whiz 89, Sept/47
13	Kid Eternity	Hit or KE

Dark Shadows Writers: Full Update

Updating my earlier post, here's a writers' index of the entire run of Gold Key's Dark Shadows; thanks go to darkmark for my seeing the issues filling in the first half of the list. The artist was Joe Certa.



D. J. Arneson had an uninterrupted 17-issue tenure on the feature (and then one more issue). This article by Jeff Thompson quotes editor Wallace Green on  how, after finishing the first issue's script, Arneson had to hustle with six more pages—they went with an epilogue instead of a second story—when it was decided to publish the issue with no ads.

Arneson is probably best known for graphic novels (as they had yet to be labeled in the Sixties) like The Great Society Comic Book, bylined along with artist Tony Tallarico. With Bill Fraccio's and Tallarico's art at Dell, he wrote the monster superheroes, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Werewolf; I misattributed those books' uncredited scripting some time ago to Don Segall.

To touch very briefly upon writers' styles here, when the scream "Augh" appears for the first time in the series in issue 18, I know that John Warner has come aboard; he's the only one of these four early-70s Gold Key writers to use that particular exclamation (although not in his every issue).

The issue numbers in boldface indicate the ones new to this update.

Dark Shadows Writers

Mar/69	#1	The Vampire's Prey	D. J. Arneson
Aug/69	#2	The Fires of Darkness	Arneson
Nov/69	#3	Return for Revenge	Arneson
Feb/70	#4	The Man Who Could Not Die	Arneson
May/70	#5	The Curse of Collins Isle	Arneson
Aug/70	#6	Awake to Evil	Arneson
Nov/70	#7	Wings of Fear	Arneson
Feb/71	#8	The Vampire Trap	Arneson
May/71	#9	Creatures in Torment	Arneson
Aug/71	#10	Souls in Bondage	Arneson
Nov/71	#11	The Thirteenth Star	Arneson
Feb/72	#12	The Glove	Arneson
Apr/72	#13	Hellfire	Arneson
Jun/72	#14	The Mystic Painting	Arneson
Aug/72	#15	The Night Children	Arneson
Oct/72	#16	The Scarab	Arneson
Dec/72	#17	The Bride of Barnabas Collins	Arneson
Feb/73	#18	Guest in the House	John David Warner
Apr/73	#19	Island of Eternal Life	Arneson
Jun/73	#20	Quentin the Vampire	Warner
Aug/73	#21	The Crimson Carnival	Gerry Boudreau
Oct/73	#22	Seed of Evil	Arnold Drake
Dec/73	#23	The Cult of the Dasni	Warner
Feb/74	#24	On Borrowed Blood	Drake
Apr/74	#25	The Immortal	Warner
Jun/74	#26	The Witch Dolls	Drake
Aug/74	#27	My Blood or Yours	Drake
Oct/74	#28	The Visitor	Warner
Dec74	#29	Stolen Centuries	Warner
Feb/75	#30	The Weekend Witch Hunters	Drake
May/75	#31	The Doom of Helgi Kolnisson	Warner
Jun/75	#32	The Secret of the Lighthouse	Warner
Aug/75	#33	King of the Wolves	Drake
Nov/75	#34	Collinwood Possessed	Warner
Feb/76	#35	The Missing Manuscript	Warner

Woolfolk Records 1947/01

This is the second of three successive months where William Woolfolk went back to leaving the scripts undescribed in his records notebook. All boldface, as usual, shows my guesses at publication.

As I said on the December 1946 post, the 13-page Blackhawk stories this month and last may have been written in the opposite order, but the Modern 63 and 64 stories are in Woolfolk's style and their writing would have to fit in December-January.

Woolfolk wrote the 14-page story in Kid Eternity 7 but not 6 or 8, by the style, and the next 14-pager he wrote, in July 1947, is described—it's in number 9.

This 6-page Ibis story's direct sequel is next month's 7-pager, both involving the villain the Cat.

The Miss America and Sub-Mariner stories of these lengths in Blonde Phantom 13 read like Woolfolk's style to me and the ones in 14 don't. Although a Spring cover date, on sale in Winter, meant almost no turnaround time for art and production, I feel these are the stories. If the on-sale date was much earlier than the very end of Winter quarter (late March) then, my seeing his style or no, this month's scripts couldn't have gotten into that issue. Blonde Phantom dropped from 52 pages to 36 with issue 13; I presume the editors had to hustle to fill a space with non-BP material.

Scripts sold to Timely, EC, Quality, and Fawcett this month.

January 1947 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

5 pg	Miss America	"Burning Witness" Blonde Phantom 13, Spr/47   ?
4	Sub-Mariner	"Cruise of Death" BP 13, Spr/47   ?
2	Fable	Animal Fables
13	Blackhawk	"Thunder Bird" Modern 65, Sep/47
11	Doll Man	Feature or DM
9	Captain Marvel Jr.	Master or CMJ
14	Kid Eternity	"Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum..." KE 7, Autumn/47
14	Doll Man	DM 13, Sum/47 or 14, Autumn/47
9	Blonde Phantom	Marvel Mystery or BP if cut by at least 1 page; otherwise unpublished
6	Ibis	"The Man with Nine Lives" Whiz 88, Aug/47
7	Blonde Phantom	Mar Mys or BP
8	Captain Marvel Jr.	Master or CMJ
7	Sergeant Twilight	Captain Midnight
12	Kid Eternity	KE

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

Woolfolk Records 1946/12

For December 1946 through February 1947 in his notebook, William Woolfolk went back to leaving his scripts undescribed.

Here are stories that sold to Fawcett, Quality, and Timely; and stories that had to have been directly commissioned from EC (Land of the Lost being an established title), after it had been buying Woolfolk's inventory of stories meant for his own company, OW.

The 13-page Blackhawk stories this month and next may have been written in the opposite order, but the Modern 63 and 64 stories are in Woolfolk's style and would have to fit here.

This is the only Ibis slot in Whiz where a story will fit amid the described ones written in earlier and later months; January and February's, at 6 and 7 pages, will form a two-parter.

December 1946 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

11 pg	Doll Man	Feature or DM
2	Aesop Fable	Animal Fables
8	Land of the Lost	Land of the Lost 8, Nov-Dec/47 or 9, Spr/48
7	Blonde Phantom	Marvel Mystery or BP
11	Doll Man	Feature or DM
8	Freddy Firefly	"Firefly Battles the Red Ants" AF 5, July-Aug/47
9	Captain Marvel Jr.	Master or CMJ
6	Ibis	"The School for Sorcerers" Whiz 90, Oct/47
8	Blonde Phantom	Mar Mys or BP
13	Blackhawk	"Invaders from the Moon" Modern 64, Aug/47
7	Captain Marvel Jr.	Master or CMJ or Marvel Family
7	Mary Marvel	Wow or MM or MF

The First Human Torch Writer (of the Fifties)

Hank Chapman wrote the Human Torch in the Forties, if only as one of those remembered pitching in on the marathon weekend putting together a Torch/Sub-Mariner battle issue. I haven't yet run across his other stories in that decade. Luckily for me in tracking down his style, Chapman in a number of Fifties stories at Timely/Atlas was uncharacteristically (for a writer at the time) given a credit line. He was probably best known for his war stories, and he continued writing that genre in the Sixties at DC.

Uncredited, Chapman wrote the first two Torch stories in the Fifties revival, in Young Men 24 (Dec/53) and 25 (Feb/54).

Art on the YM 24 story is by Russ Heath, with the exception of a splash panel pasteover of the Torch by Carl Burgos.

The first clue to Chapman's writing a story is "Ow-w-w"—most often hyphenated exactly like that, but not always. That's best as an indication when the other writers at the particular company and time aren't using it, of course. And "Holy Smokes" in the splash panel helps lead me to Chapman here. The following panels are from a story with Chapman's credit line, "My Brother . . . the Ghoul" in Adventures into Weird Worlds 6 (May/52), with art by George Roussos.

Another occasional clue to Chapman is seen by comparing the first page of Young Men 25's Torch story with the first page of "My Brother . . . the Ghoul" (and note "Holy Smokes" again in the Torch splash).

The tier of panels before the splash in each case is something Chapman uses off and on; also, for that matter, the splash with a single story panel following, as in YM 24.

Other writers did the rest of the superhero stories in Atlas's short-lived revival experiment of the mid-Fifties.