Roy Thomas' Unfettered Comics Fanzine $9.95 In the USA No.158 May SPOTLIGHT ON GOLDEN AGE GREAT 2019 & PRESENT: WILLIAM WOOLFOLK BIG-BANG BONUS! 40-YEAR STAR WARS TM COMICS Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics REUNION PANEL! With HOWARD CHAYKIN CHARLES LIPPINCOTT & ROY THOMAS! 1 82658 00360 9 Vol. 3, No. 158 / May 2019 Editor Roy Thomas Associate Editors Bill Schelly Jim Amash Design & Layout Christopher Day Consulting Editor John Morrow FCA Editor P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Assoc. Editor) Comic Crypt Editor Michael T. Gilbert Editorial Honor Roll Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Contents Mike Friedrich Writer/Editorial: Ghosts . 2 Proofreaders William Woolfolk Remembered . 3 Rob Smentek Donna Woolfolk Cross talks to Richard Arndt about her celebrated writer father. William J. Dowlding Cover Artist For The [Golden Age] Record . 24 C.C. Beck A brief & illustrated look at Woolfolk’s script-records journals. Cover Colorist The 2002 San Diego Comic-Con Golden Age Panel . 29 Glenn Whitmore Mark Evanier moderates the reminiscences of Bill Woolfolk, Bob Oksner, Nick Cardy, With Special Thanks to: Bob Lubbers, Lew Sayre Schwartz, & Irv Novick. Heidi Amash George Hagenauer Richard J. Arndt Rich Harvey A Century Of Zorro . 45. Bob Bailey Jim Kealy Audrey Parente & Rich Harvey celebrate 100 years of the first costumed hero ever. Alberto Becattini Paul King John Benson Dominique Leonard “Squinkers” . 53 Ricky Terry Mark Lewis Part IX of scripter John Broome’s 1998 memoir My Life in Little Pieces. Brisacque Charles Lippincott Bernie Bubnis Art Lortie Mr . Monster’s Comic Crypt! The PAM Papers, Part 4 . 57 Mike Burkey Jim Ludwig Michael T. Gilbert showcases Pete Morisi’s origins of Peter Cannon... Thunderbolt. Nick Caputo Doug Martin Howard Chaykin Mike Mikulovsky Comic Fandom Archive: John Cimino MinuteMan/ Shaun Clancy DarthScanner Jim Warren’s Code-Free Comicbooks . .63 Comic Book Plus (website) Bill Schelly tells how he came to write a book about the birth of a black-&-white empire. (website) Patrick Moreau Pierre Comtois Russ Morisi Tributes to Russ Heath, Marie Severin, & Gary Friedrich . .70 James Colville Val Morisi Chet Cox Bill Morrison re: [correspondence, comments, & corrections] . 75 Donna Woolfolk Mark Muller Cross Joe Musich The Star Wars Comics Reunion Panel . 79 Leonardo de Sà Ken Nadle 40 (or is it 41?) years on, Howard Chaykin, Charles Lippincott, & Roy Thomas reunite to Craig Delich Martin O’Hearn discuss their roles in one of the most important comicbooks ever. Diversions of the Leo Pond Groovy Kind Audrey Parente On Our Cover: In late 1939, Fawcett Publications printed a very limited “ashcan edition” of what it (website) Barry Pearl called Flash Comics #1 (see p.13 for scan), intended not for general circulation but merely to secure Sean Dulaney Paul Power Duane Eddy Gene Reed copyright and trademark. The cover art by Charles Clarence Beck spotlighted its new super-hero Mark Evanier Scott Rowland Captain Thunder, who wasn’t named thereon. When it turned out DC had beat Fawcett to the Flash Justin Fairfax Randy Sargent Comics moniker, there was a second “ashcan,” identical except for being titled Thrill Comics. When Jean-Michel David Saunders they lost that race to Pine/Nedor’s Thrilling Comics, Fawcett launched its now-named Whiz Comics Ferragatti Sai Shankar with a “#2,” and with the hero rechristened Captain Marvel. They never utilized the ashcan’s cover Melodie Figueroa David Siegel art in a regular comic; so this may well be the first time it’s ever seen print as the cover of a magazine Shane Foley Louise Simonson Four-Color Robin Snyder actually on sale in stores. [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.] Shadows Bryan Stroud Above: As publisher and writer (and probably editor) of O.W.’s Mad Hatter #2 (Oct.-Nov. 1946), (website) Marc Svensson Dan Friedman Dann Thomas William Woolfolk scribed a creepy story in which his oddly named super-hero battled The Gargoyle, Martin Gately Steven Tice who a couple of panels from now will turn out to actually be a gorilla with the transplanted brain of a Jeff Gelb Boris Vallejo human murderer. Art by John Giunta. Thanks to the Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © the respective Janet Gilbert John Wells trademark & copyright holders.] Michael Grabois Ryder Windham Grand Comics Alter EgoTM is published 6 times a year by TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Database Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: [email protected]. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $67 US, $101 Elsewhere, $30 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © This issue is dedicated to the memory of their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy William Woolfolk, Russ Heath, Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM Marie Severin, & Gary Friedrich of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. ISSN: 1932-6890. FIRST PRINTING. A WOOLFOLK AT THE DOOR: part one 4 WILLIAM WOOLFOLK Remembered A Conversation with DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS Conducted by Richard J. Arndt Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck NTERVIEWER’S INTRODUCTION: Donna Woolfolk Cross A Couple Of Marvels is the daughter of William (Bill) Woolfolk and Dorothy Roubicek I (Above left:) William Woolfolk with daughter Donna, circa mid-1960s, Woolfolk. Like her parents, she is a writer and has written a number during her college years. Photo courtesy of Donna Woolfolk Cross. of nonfiction books as well as one international best-seller titledPope (Below:) Woolfolk was sometimes called by his Golden Age peers “The Joan. We talked with her to gain further insights on her father, who began Shakespeare of Comics.” Among many other major stories, he wrote his comics-writing career working at MLJ (on “Archie,” “The Hangman,” “Captain Marvel Meets Mr. Atom,” the tale that introduced that nuclear “Steel Sterling,” “Black Hood,” “The Shield,” “The Wizard”) before super-villain, for Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Adventures #78 (Nov. 1947). a prolific period freelancing for Fawcett (“Captain Marvel,” “Captain Art by CM co-creator C.C. Beck. [Shazam hero & Mr. Atom Marvel Jr.” “Mary Marvel,” “Marvel Family,” “Captain Midnight,” TM & © DC Comics.] “Ibis the Invincible,” “Spy Smasher”). At the same time, the highly in-demand writer also scribed stories for Timely (“Captain America,” “Human Torch,” “Sub-Mariner,” “Young Allies,” “Blonde Phantom”), Quality Comics (“Blackhawk,” “Kid Eternity,” “Plastic Man,” “Doll Man”), Orbit (Wanted), Hillman (“The Heap”), and others. During World War II he wrote The Spirit scripts while creator Will Eisner was in the Army and, after the war, tried his hand as a comicbook publisher with the short-lived O.W. Comics (Mad Hatter). In the early 1950s he wrote “Superman” stories for National (DC) at the same time he was writing “Captain Marvel” tales for Fawcett. When Fawcett closed down its comics division, he wrote primarily for DC (“Superman,” “Superboy,” “Batman,” Our Army At War) until late 1954, when he left comics altogether and moved on to magazine publishing (Inside Story, Space World), became an Emmy-nominated television writer (The Defenders), and a successful novelist (My Name Is Morgan, The Beautiful Couple). The comments by William Woolfolk referred to in the following interview with his daughter (conducted in September 2017) were drawn from the essay “Looking Backward… from My Upside-Down Point of View” by William Woolfolk (Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #6) and “William Woolfolk: The Human Side of the Golden Age”—an interview by P.C. Hamerlinck (A/E, Vol. 3, #24). RICHARD ARNDT: We’re welcoming Donna Cross, the daughter of comics writer William Woolfolk and comics editor/writer Dorothy Woolfolk. Welcome, Donna! DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS: Thanks, Richard! I don’t know how much I can help you. My brother Donald was twelve years older than I. So he could have told you more about Dad’s comic book writing. Alas, he died in 2015. I myself was only eight years old when Dad left comics. RA: Knowing that, we’ll do what we can. One of the challenges of interviewing children of comicbook creators is that they often don’t know the minutia of their parent’s work, or the co-workers they associated with, William Woolfolk Remembered 5 unless those people were also friends of the family. CROSS: Professionally, I may not know what you need, but personally I, of course, knew my father pretty well. RA: Well, shall we try a few names and see if they stir any memories? One of the names your father mentioned quite a lot in the interviews I’ve read was Seymour Reit, who co-created “Casper the Friendly Ghost” with Joe Oriolo. Defenders All! CROSS: That was my Uncle Sy! I (Left:) When this photo was first printed in Alter Ego, Vol. 3, #6 (2000), in conjunction with an article written adored him! Dad and Sy were very by Woolfolk, he said of it: “This is a recent photo of the senescent Four Musketeers. The combined years of close friends. Actually, they were our friendship total over 200 years. Reading left to right: Reginald Rose, screenwriter of Twelve Angry Men and many others, also the producer and creator of the once-famous Defenders TV show on which I served two-thirds of a triumvirate of close as story editor and chief writer; myself; Miles Cahn, owner of Coach Leather, which he sold for $20 million; friends, with the third person being and Seymour Reitt, who created Casper the Friendly Ghost and wrote two bestselling novels.” Unfortunately, Reggie [Reginald] Rose. Uncle Reggie Rose’s name accidentally got rendered as “Ross” back in 2000, but we’ve corrected it here.