HEROIC EXPLOITS THE HELL OF WAR HORROR & TERROR SCIENCE FICTION TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD by Roger Hill ...........................................................................................................................4 ONE: A Young Boy Develops Artistic Roots .........................................................................6 TWO: The Cleveland School of Art ...............................................................................................14 THREE: New York City Beckons ......................................................................................................23 FOUR: Surviving in the Iger Shop...................................................................................................36 FIVE: Working for Busy Arnold .......................................................................................................54 SIX: The Arrival of the Blackhawks ............................................................................................62 SEVEN: Faces, Forms, and Figures .................................................................................................74 EIGHT: The Military Artist Goes Military ...........................................................................86 NINE: Big Changes on the Horizon ...............................................................................................98 TEN: Public Taste Keeps Changing ............................................................................................110 ELEVEN: The Way of All Good Things ..................................................................................124 TWELVE: Freelancing on the Outside ........................................................................................139 THIRTEEN: Those Entertaining (and Controversial) Comics .............................150 FOURTEEN: The Great Recession ...................................................................................................180 FIFTEEN: A Treasure Chest of Classics................................................................................195 SIXTEEN: The Edgar Rice Burroughs Years .....................................................................204 SEVENTEEN: The Comics Bounce Back ...................................................................................218 EIGHTEEN: Flash Gordon and Squa Tront .......................................................................230 NINETEEN: The Spotlight Dims ......................................................................................................238 TWENTY: A Personal Remembrance: The Final Chapter ....................................251 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and ABOUT THE AUTHOR ..................................................................254 Reed Crandall: Illustrator of the Comics CHAPTER ONE A Young Boy Develops Artistic Roots t was on the quiet and secluded numerous woodworking industries, wagon, farmlands of Indiana that and carriage shops, machine shops, glove I one of America’s most and canning factories, a creamery, talented comic artists and a grain elevator. Today, Jasper found both his first home and is a community of a little over inspiration as an artist. Reed fifteen thousand people and Leonard Crandall, Jr., was only often referred to as the “Wood 4 years old when his artistic Capital of the World,” boasting talent took root on the family a very large number of furniture farm in Jasper, Indiana. It is companies. here, amidst the rhythms of rural living, that a young boy The connection to Judge launched his flight into the Dillon came through Crandall’s fantasy world of comic art — a mother, Delia Louise Highwood, journey that lasted for nearly 50 who was born on December years — and came to an end in a 23, 1891, in Princeton, Indiana. Wichita, Kansas, retirement facility Very little is known about her early in 1982. But, during his prolific career, childhood other than she was orphaned comic art enthusiasts enjoyed some of his at a young age and separated from a best “illustrative comic art,” which still awes brother living in Newton, Kansas. Judge Dillon and inspires comic art devotees today. eventually adopted the young Delia, who came to live with him in Jasper, learning the tempo of farm living by Born on February 22, 1917, in a log cabin in Dubois helping the hired hands with the endless chores. During the County, near Jasper, Indiana, Reed Leonard Crandall, Jr. was summer of 1913, the 22-year-old Delia’s simple life took a turn the second child of Delia and Rayburn Crandall. The young when she made a trip to Newton to visit her brother. There couple lived on a farm belonging to the honorable John F. she met Rayburn Leonard Crandall, a handsome young man, Dillon, a part-time farmer and local judge who sat on the who at 23 years of age became quite fond of Delia. When the bench in nearby Bloomington. Judge Dillon, whose ancestors young couple met, Rayburn was working as a plumber for had helped settle the little town of Jasper in 1830, owned a the Mort Linthicum sizable acreage of land in Jasper, the seat of government for Plumbing Shop, Dubois County situated in the heart of southern Indiana in Newton, and on the Patoka River. Located 122 miles southwest of was a man of many Indianapolis, the town is rich in heritage and noted for its interests, beyond the heavily German Catholic ancestral roots. During the period pipes and fittings of that Reed lived there, the people of Jasper made their living by the plumbing trade. farming as did so many people residing in America’s heartland This young man, who in the early 20th century. The city was also the home of had been born in Newton on August 19, 1890, the eldest Above inset: Delia Louise Crandall and her two sons. Lower right: The Crandall brothers on the farm with their collie, King. son of Reed and Eila (Herrick) Crandall 6 Chapter Two: The Cleveland School of Art CHAPTER THREE New York City Beckons Photo is ©2017 EC Fan-Addict Productions and may not be reproduced in any form. eed stayed at NEA R through the fall of 1940, and then decided to head for New York City. Both he and Frank Borth knew that New York was the publishing capital of the world and, if one expected to break into the field of professional magazine illustration, this city held the key to a successful career. According to Borth, when Reed left for New York, he became the scout (so to speak) for himself as well as for Borth, to find work in the illustration field. Before leaving Cleveland, the two artists made an agreement: if Reed ran out of money in the one in particular to show he had a good command of male Big Apple, he could count on Frank to send him some more anatomy and composition. This watercolor, depicting several until he was able to find work. acrobats performing gymnastics, could have appealed both to magazine or comic book editors. Reed’s plan was to become The boys had heard about the success of Jerome Siegel an illustrator of magazines and books, but if he had to draw and Joe Shuster, two Cleveland teenagers who, since 1935, comics for a period of time to get by, so be it; he knew the had been promoting and trying to sell their “Superman” money was substantial, one way or the other. More than 55 character idea as a newspaper comic strip. In early 1938, they years later, this gymnastics watercolor original surfaced in an finally made the sale to New York’s DC Comics, which put internet auction. The seller had found it in a flat file in a New “The Man of Tomorrow” into the first issue of Action Comics. York City poster and art frame shop, recognized the name, Within months, this new blue-and-red garbed super-hero had and purchased it. That piece is reproduced in this book. become the greatest hit in American comic books. By the time Reed was ready to leave Cleveland, super-heroes had become Upon arriving in the Big Apple by train, Reed began the hottest properties in comics, and he was certainly aware of visiting various magazine publishers. As he soon discovered the money then being made in this ever-growing new field of the illustration market was an overcrowded community, art. Preparing for the venture, Reed packed his portfolio with with a plethora of good artists already established to do the several examples of work that he had created at the school, work. Even as early as 1940, the field of illustrative art was an endangered market and history has shown that it never Above: After settling into his first New York apartment, on 37th Street, recovered. With color photography gradually becoming in late 1940, 23-year-old Reed Crandall sent home this photo to his more popular with both consumers and magazine editors, Newton relatives. Here he’s working on the first page of what is the demand for magazine illustration was on the decline. believed to be his first comic job, a five-page “Samar” story, published in Feature Comics #43, April 1941. Photographer unknown. However, as is the case in many success stories, Lady Luck 23 Reed Crandall: Illustrator of the Comics throwing them in the trash after they were printed. one could have predicted or known that years later He kept a large barrel in his offices specifically original comic art would gain substantial value for that purpose. The reason behind this and become a hobby for thousands of collectors eccentricity was to prevent artwork from falling around the world. During the 1940s, comic art into the hands of anyone who might try to was generally discarded or put into warehouse re-use it. He discontinued this practice