Best! Weekend! Ever! (or, "Tales of TerrifiCon 2019, Part Two") ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post

Don't worry, I'll explain the above notation later in this post!

As I warned you last time, the stories-within-a-story comprising my five posts about TerrifiCon 2019 will not be in chronological order. Instead, the various anecdotes will be arranged to suit my own idiosyncratic narrative style.

It's a pretty good guess that the two oldest comic pros at the con were Sy Barry and Joe Giella, both of whom are ninety-one years old. Both were pencilers and inkers who were better known as inkers. Both worked for both Timely Comics and DC Comics during their careers. They both worked on comic strips as well as comic books.

Sy Barry inked (and sometimes penciled) The Phantom comic strip for King Features Syndicate. His run on the strip lasted over thirty years, from 1961-1995. Sy's brother Dan (1923-1997) drew the Flash Gordon strip from 1951-1990, for King Features as well.

Joe Giella is probably best known for inking the Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman. But during his long career, he also assisted both Barry brothers on their respective strips.

Fittingly enough, Sy Barry's table was next to Joe Giella's. I approached Mr. Barry first, holding a copy of King Comics' The Phantom #22. It was the first and only comic featuring that hero which I'd owed in my youth, although the copy I own today is not that same one. Mr. Barry carefully flipped through the issue, commenting that the penciled and inked art on the inside of the book was not by him, but was by another artist (Bill Lignante, according to Grand Comics Database).

Oops.

I nervously asked him if he had at least drawn the cover. He had. That was good enough for me to have him sign it, of course. Minor catastrophe averted.

Next was Joe Giella's turn. Last year, at TerrifiCon 2018, I'd had him sign three different comics. One of those was the first and only Flash Annual from the Silver Age. This year I brought another Silver Age issue from that series, The Flash #145. This was my first exposure to a villain called the Weather Wizard, one of my childhood favorites from the Flash's fabled "Rogues Gallery" of villains.

The next book I gave Joe to sign was Green Lantern #26, the second appearance of the villainess Star Sapphire. It seemed only fair to bring this particular comic, since last year I'd had Joe sign Green Lantern #16, her very first appearance!

Finally, a real treat... for me! In the mid-1960s, the success of the Batman TV show goosed the popularity of superhero titles, and that ABC-TV program is generally given credit for the proliferation of guys and gals running around in tights for the next couple of years in the world of comic publishing.

But shortly before that TV show premiered, the Archie Comics Group revived several of its superheroes from the early 1940s. Most of these characters banded together as a group called The Mighty Crusaders. Bluntly put, the art by Paul Reinman in issue #1 of The Mighty Crusaders was just okay, and the stories by Jerry Siegel (Yes, the same Jerry Siegel who had co-created Superman roughly thirty years earlier!) weren't all that great, either. But I was nine years old, and hardly a discerning critic.

Anyway, as I learned shortly before the convention, much of The Mighty Crusaders #1 was inked by Joe Giella! And although I was aware of the fact that he'd worked for many different publishers during his long career, I had been under the assumption that his 1960s work was all for DC. So, my secret is out. I don't know everything.

Another guest at TerrifiCon 2019 was Colleen Doran, who first came to prominence as the creator/writer/artist of A Distant Soil. But listing only that among all her other credits is like saying Stan Lee wrote Fantastic Four. Well yeah, sure, but...!

I brought only one comic for Colleen to sign, a stand-alone Sandman issue written by Neil Gaiman which tied up a loose end from DC's Silver Age. (In fact, it's one of the books pictured above in Colleen's TerrifiCon photo collage.) And when she asked if I wanted it personalized to me, I said yes. I generally don't ask for someone to include my name with their signature (to save them time), but if they offer, I always say yes. That shows them I don't intend to turn around and sell my signed item.

Over the years, I've owned, read, and enjoyed a lot of comics by Michael Golden, but the only comic I could think of which is currently in my collection is the 1984 Batman Special #1, featuring a great story pitting Batman against a villain called The Wrath. The Wrath was a villain whose origin and m.o. was similar to Batman's, except his career was devoted to killing lawman instead of capturing criminals. Fascinating story written by Mike W. Barr, but boy am I getting sidetracked here!

Before I got to speak with Mr. Golden, I got to talk with Renee Witterstaetter, who is evidently Mike's manager. However, as you can see if you read what's listed under her photo above, Renee's credentials in comics (and elsewhere) involve quite a bit more than being someone's manager.

After asking her what Golden charged for signatures, I couldn't resist telling her that I already had hers.

To make a long story short -- well, as much as I can ever accomplish that -- in 1994, Dick Ayers (Yes, that Dick Ayers!) and I submitted an original comic concept to Ms. Witterstaetter, who was then an editor in Topps' relatively-short-lived comic book division. Her initial enthusiasm and desire to see more from us was unfortunately curtailed by Topps' unexpected decision to stop buying new concepts.

When  I told her all this (in much greater detail, me being me), she began to apologize, but I ended up telling her the apology was unnecessary because 1) it wasn't her fault, ultimately, and 2) being a comics pro is like being a professional actor. If you can't take rejection, you have no business being in that line of work.

So that explains the illustration at the very top of this post.

And oh, before I forget! I actually did get my Batman Special signed.

More TerrifiCon news coming very soon!

And if you read this, please comment? Especially if you came here from Facebook. Thank you.

And thanks for your time.

Green Chicken?!? ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post

Sorry, fellow babies! It's been a very hectic  week for me, and I just haven't had the time to finish writing Part Two of my series on Terrificon 2018. I'll have it done soon, I promise!

Today I'm just going to reprint the above cover to DC's Green Lantern #76 (April 1970), which began a run of incredible and influential stories by Denny O'Neil (writer) and Neal Adams (artist). That cover is considered to be a classic cover, and has been used as the model for at least three "tribute" covers.

Here are two of them:

This tribute to Neal Adams was drawn by... Neal Adams. (No, really.  But it wasn't his idea!)

And to those we add the following illustration, which relates to my recent post about Kentucky Fried Chicken!

Thanks for your time.

P.S. ~~ COMING SOON! (Watch for it!) A Re-Posting of One of the Best (and Longest) Stories I Ever Posted on This Blog!

TerrifiCon 2017 ~~ Part ONE of a Very Lengthy "Comical Wednesday" Post!

This is the cover to TerrifiCon's guide and souvenir booklet. All of the
superheroes pictured are the property of DC Comics, except for the guy in the
red and yellow costume who's wearing shades and saluting. He's the official
mascot of TerrifiCon. Looking him up on the internet, I saw him referred to as
both Captain TerrifiCon and Colonel Terrific. Strange.

Friendly warning: Today's a long mofo.

Well, it had been approximately twenty years since I had attended a comic book convention, but on Saturday, August 19th, my friend John and I went to TerrifiCon 2017 in nearby (well, nearby to me, that is) Connecticut, where we spent a few hours making our way through huge crowds of people crammed into a set-off section of the Mohegan Sun complex in Uncasville, CT.

This year's TerrifiCon was planned to be an extravaganza celebrating the Batman television show of 1966-1968. As the following ad shows, TV's Batman and Robin, Adam West and Burt Ward, were scheduled to attend. Sadly, as you know, Mr. West died last June.

Instead, the con became a tribute to Adam West. Among dozens of celebrities from the entertainment field and various comic book creators, the convention was attended by Burt Ward and Lee Meriwether, the latter being an actress and former Miss America (1955).

By the way, this is totally off-topic, but I had to share this with you! The following is one page from a pictorial featuring a very Robinish-looking Burt Ward. It's from -- and you'd better sit down for this -- a 1984 issue of Hustler! This is one of the pages that I can show you!

Miss Meriwether is known for various acting roles, including her one-time appearance as Catwoman in the 1966 Batman film based on the TV series. Just for the record, she never played Catwoman on the TV show; that role was filled by Julie Newmar and later by Eartha Kitt.

 As Miss America 1955.

Personally, I'm a fan of Lee Meriwether's from her co-starring role on the 1966-1967 series, The Time Tunnel (a photo of which immediately follows).

You know, I always hate it when someone talks about an actress, singer, etc., who's in her sixties or seventies, and says "She still looks like she's twenty," or some similar remark. Come on, now. They never do. They may still be attractive, but people age, for cryin' out loud.

Having said that, take a look at the following photo, taken when Lee was eighty-one. I mean... Damn.

With Ben Mankiewicz and the late Adam West, in April of 2016.

Hm. After all those shots of Ms. Meriwether, you're probably wondering why I didn't meet her and get her autograph. So am I, now...

Moving right along...

In addition to those two, the convention also featured the original 1966 Batmobile (well, one of them), the Batcycle, the Batboat, and the Batcopter!

Among other guests, the convention also had Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick, both co-stars of Netflix' Iron Fist and The Defenders series, which both feature the Marvel Comics character who debuted in 1974.

There were a lot of movie and TV people, but contrary to what you'd expect of me since I'm such a celebrity nut, I didn't approach any of those celebs! No, we were only there for a few hours, so I planned to meet (and get autographs from) only three comic writers, and only one comic artist!

Of course, there were hundreds of costumed attendees (known as "cosplayers") all over the freakin' place. You know, the kind of people who get all the attention whenever a TV station does a short feature about the convention on the local news broadcast?

I must admit, some of those costumes are pretty impressive!

Anyway, I mentioned above that I had my sights set on meeting just a handful of comic pros. The first one I met (and the first one I'll tell you about, but I'm giving you a warning that this four-person list will not be in order) was writer Marv Wolfman. And to the non-comic-reading portion of my audience, I should point out that Wolfman is his real name.

Marv's been writing professionally since 1968. His multiple credits (in no order whatsoever) include the original Teen Titans, Spider-Woman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, The New Teen Titans, Green Lantern, Batman, Omega Men, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the critically-acclaimed Tomb of Dracula (1972-1979). (And yes, there were a lot of contemporary jokes about a "Wolfman" writing about Dracula.)

Sorry about the photo which omits part of the text, but that's the way it appeared on the internet!

I had assumed that writers and artists would charge for their signatures, especially because so many fans get autographed copies of books and other materials just to resell them. Therefore, I decided to limit myself to one signed item per creator. I had Marv Wolfman sign Tomb of Dracula #69, perhaps my favorite issue of the seventy published. (Wolfman had authored the series since #7. During his run on the book, he co-created Blade with artist Gene Colan.)

As a brief explanation, here's why I think so highly of TOD #69. After a multi-part storyline where Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, had been turned into a mortal, Dracula has again become a vampire. However, he is not automatically returned to his position as the vampires' leader, so a large group of the undead creatures are chasing him, intending to destroy him. He seeks refuge in the home of a European family of children whose mother has had to leave them home alone in order to bring a severely ill child to a doctor in a nearby town. Dracula considers making a "meal" of the kids, you might say, but when the vampires pursuing him arrive and threaten both Dracula and the children...

I was quite impressed by this scene. Causing himself intense agony,

Dracula picks up a cross and uses it to chase the other vampires!

Anyway, that's the issue I handed to Marv Wolfman. And he signed it for free. I was hoping he'd make a comment about the issue in question, but he didn't. He just signed his hard-to-read name on it, and off I went.

The third person I got an autograph from -- and yes, of course I'll get back to the second -- was artist Jerry Ordway. 

Another unfortunately-cropped photo from the internet.
By the way, when I met Mr. Ordway, he did not have the beard.

I became a fan of Ordway's during the 1980s. He did extensive work on the Superman character, then recently revamped. During his involvement with Supes, Ordway took inspiration from this classic cover from 1942...

And gave us this!

He also did the pencils and inks for the adaptation of 1989's Batman movie starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. His talent for drawing recognizable likenesses is uncanny.

One thing Ordway did in this adaptation which I absolutely love is the following sequence from the film, which shows the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents. In the movie itself, they had actor Hugo Blick play Jack "the Joker" Napier as a young man, but instead of drawing Blick, Ordway simply drew a young Jack Nicholson.

Hugo Blick as the young "Jack Napier."

I decided to have Ordway sign All-Star Squadron #20. I've always been a big fan of the Golden Age (World War II era) DC characters, especially the original Green Lantern, as told here.

In this unforgettable issue, set in 1942 (as most All-Star Squadron issues were), Green Lantern has been placed in kind of a "dream state" and hallucinates that his friends and allies in the Justice Society and All-Star Squadron have all been killed.

The enraged "Emerald Gladiator" attacks the Japanese military...

He then follows by devastating the civilian population as well.

In short, his actions anticipate the destruction later caused by the atomic bombs the USA dropped on Japan in 1945. Pretty eerie. Luckily, before the remorseful superhero can harm himself, he is freed from his hallucination by several team members in the real world.

So, that's the reason I wanted Jerry to autograph this issue.

I couldn't help but smile when I saw the sign on his table which charged one dollar for each item signed. "That's, like, free," I told him, and he replied that famed comic artist Neal Adams (who was also at TerrifiCon) had advised him to do that years ago. Y'see, comic artists often agree to do sketches for fans, and drawing and selling these sketches can be quite lucrative. The artists often work on these commissioned items during down-time at the cons. However, if an artist has huge stacks of things to sign for convention-goers, it basically takes time away from a paying job.

Jerry Ordway turned out to be a very nice guy, very easy to talk to. He talked about getting over a recent cold, and things like that. Not a lot of "shop talk," but that was fine with me.

Coincidentally, one of the comics I had with me that day was the 93rd issue of The Avengers, drawn back in 1971 by none other than Neal Adams. I considered having him sign it, until I saw that he charged $50.00 for his signature.

*  *  *  *  *

Let me interrupt myself here.

As I write this, the bottom of the "page" doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon. So I'm going to take pity on both you and myself and make my TerrifiCon post a two-parter. Part Two will appear next Wednesday, September 6th, and the "Superboy Meets Bonnie and Clyde" post I'd originally planned for that date will be shoved back by seven days!

Hope to see you then. Hell, you made it this far, didn't you?!?

Thanks for your time.

Comical Wednesday: How Green Was My... errr... Lantern?

In my last post, I wrote an overly-dramatic and tongue-in-cheek story about my figuring out that Skip Simpson had "padded" the votes for my poll about what the very first subject for Comical Wednesday* should be. I decided that either The Golden Age Green Lantern or the actual winner, Long Underwear Characters, would be first, depending on which post got finished first. I really "got into" the writing of the post that follows, so... Green Lantern won. (Besides, the Long Underwear post promises to be a lengthy one despite my best intentions, so I need to make it a multi-parter... and I didn't want to start my Comical Wednesday entries with one of those!) Next week: Long Underwear Characters... Part One!

Maybe you saw the recent Green Lantern movie. Maybe you didn't. Maybe -- if you saw it -- you liked it. Maybe you didn't.

No matter.

You see... Today's post isn't about that Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (although he will be mentioned here and there). It's about the first Green Lantern of the comic book world, Alan Scott. And although I could easily supply you with an overly-wordy, in-depth history of the character -- come on, you know I could -- this is going to be a relatively text-light (for me) roller-coaster of images, where I tell you only the very basics of what you "need" to know!

So hang onto... errr... whatever you want to hang onto, fellow babies, because here we go!

First, here is an absolute, bare-bones, reader-friendly history of comic books, and DC Comics in particular. I'm purposely leaving out a ton of crap information! You're welcome:

1. Comic books in the format by which we know them today (more or less) started out by reprinting popular comic strips of the 1930s. These (mostly) 64-page comics ate up a lot of material quickly, necessitating the creation of stories specifically for this new medium.

2. The 1938 debut of Superman in DC's Action Comics #1 started a wave of super-powered (mostly), costumed (almost always) "mystery men" in comic books. In the years preceding and during World War II, DC Comics alone (along with its "sister" company, All-American) introduced scores of new characters, including Batman, Wonder Woman, the Sandman, the Flash, the Spectre, and others. This ended up being called "The Golden Age of Comics" several years after the fact.

3. During the Golden Age, several of the DC and All-American heroes banded together in a group called The Justice Society of America, which made its home in All-Star Comics.

4. Superhero comics were the rage during WWII -- although hardly the only kind of title published, of course -- but sales started dropping drastically, roughly coinciding with the end of the war. By the early 1950s, most of the superheroes were gone. "Big guns" such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman survived. The superheroes were mostly replaced by horror stories, "crime" comics, adaptations of famous novels (most notably the Classics Illustrated series), Western titles, movie adaptations, sports comics, "teen" comics (notably the entire Archie Comics line), anthropomorphic "funny animals," romance comics, etc.

5. During the mid-1950s, DC began re-tooling some of its 1940s concepts for a more intellectual, "science-minded" readership. Thus began the "Second Heroic Age," better known as "The Silver Age of Comics." New versions of Green Lantern, the Flash, the Atom, Hawkman, and others began appearing throughout the rest of that decade and well into the 1960s. During the early 1960s, the former Timely Comics, now re-christened Marvel Comics, revived and/or re-vamped some of their 1940s characters like Captain America, the Sub-Mariner (that's pronounced sub-MARR-in-er, not sub-ma-REEN-er, btw), and the Human Torch, as well as introducing new concepts like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, and the "incredible" Hulk.

6. Sometime soon after this Silver Age began, the comic book writers -- urged by young adult readers/fans who still remembered the original versions of their heroes -- started bringing the older characters back, integrating their 1940s-1950s fictional histories with the new breed.

7. And that's where I came in. As I've (partially) explained before, the pre-adolescent, nowhere-near-Silver Fox branched out from the Superman and Batman titles (which made up my earliest attempts at reading) to the early Marvels, as well as others in the DC line (plus the "lines" of numerous other comic publishers, too).

*  *  *  *  *

Okay, as promised, now I cut down on the words (as much as possible), and start throwing the pictures at you!

Unfortunately, I missed the following four key issues... barely.

And why were those issues "key" issues, you wonder?

Briefly, The Flash #123 ("Flash of Two Worlds") re-introduced the original Flash, and explained that his 1940s and 1950s adventures had occurred on another, parallel world, which became known as Earth-2. ("Our" characters lived on Earth-1.)

The two Justice League of America issues pictured above brought back some of the Justice Society's members, in the first of many inter-dimensional JLA/JSA crossovers to come.

And finally, Green Lantern #40 was the first team-up of Earth-1's Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan and Earth-2's Alan "Green Lantern" Scott in the Green Lantern title itself. 

At this point, I was well aware that comic books had been around longer than I had, and wanted to learn more about the so-called Golden Age.

DC was nice enough to reprint "Flash of Two Worlds" not long thereafter, by the way.

By the time of the second JLA/JSA crossover, I was buying JLA regularly. The yearly team-up of both groups was my favorite event!

I missed the following issue of Green Lantern too... but isn't this a great cover?

Well, fellow babies, although I've always loved the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, I developed an affinity for his oddly-garbed (to say the very least!), apparently color-blind, Golden Age, Earth-2 counterpart, Alan Scott. But I had to content myself with Scott's occasional GL and JLA appearances until the early 1970s.

In late 1971 or early 1972, y'see, I found (and purchased) a virtual treasure trove of books about comic book and comic strip history, in the markdown section of my local Waldenbooks. (More on that some other time, I'm sure!) My favorite was, no doubt, Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes from 1965.



Feiffer's nostalgic tome reprinted several Golden Age comic stories of Superman, Batman, the Human Torch, Captain America, Will Eisner's The Spirit, Plastic Man.. and the very first Green Lantern story from All-American Comics #16!

Here's a little-seen treat for you, by the way! It's a never-published, preliminary page for the Green Lantern origin!

And here's the very first page (sans color) of GL's fabled premiere story.



And here's the cover to that same issue!



Green Lantern was created by artist Martin Nodell (1915-2006). In 1984, by the way, Martin Nodell drew a few pages for the All-Star Squadron Annual. Here's one of them, before it was "fixed" by the DC editors.

And then, for Green Lantern's 50th anniversary in 1990, Nodell was once again allowed to draw his most famous creation in this special issue.



Here are two pages from this, the last new Nodell drawings to appear in the GL title.

Back to Green Lantern himself. As the series went on, he proved to be incredibly popular. He appeared regularly in All-American Comics, All-Star Comics, Comic Cavalcade, and of course, his own title, known as... errr... Green Lantern.

For quite a while, he had a comic relief sidekick, a cab driver with a heavy Brooklyn accent named Doiby -- "Brooklynese" for "derby" -- Dickles. Eventually, Doiby was phased out. Stories relied more and more on a super-villainess called the Harlequin, who was actually Alan Scott's secretary, Molly Mayne. She had a crush on him, and began a half-hearted life of crime to get his attention!

Unfortunately, with the slow-but-sure fall of the superhero titles, Green Lantern himself was eventually supplanted in billing by a Rin Tin Tin wannabe named Streak, the Wonder Dog! Oh, how the mighty [had] fallen!

The less said about that canine kibitzer, the better!

Anyway, fellow babies, if you're wondering whatever became of the Alan Scott & Molly Mayne romance, it took almost forty years for it to reach its logical end!

And they lived happily ever after... pretty much.

After that, I watched with a gradually-growing disinterest as DC tried to keep Alan Scott as a major player. They played with his aging process, and even tried giving him a new identity as "Sentinel," as if there was a problem in having one more damned Green Lantern in a universe which contained 3600!

Thankfully, the Sentinel bit didn't "take." 

They've done a lot more to the character since I stopped reading new comics, but as for me? I'm finally done with my own reminiscences!

By the way, I should probably mention that all of the Golden Age cover scans (and interiors) were taken from the internet. I only own one Golden Age Green Lantern appearance, the All-American Comics #99 which embarrassingly states on its cover that it contains "An exciting adventure featuring Streak the Wonder Dog and Green Lantern!" (Second billing to a freakin' mutt! Who'da thunk it?)

Why did I mention that I only own one of these valuable Golden Age comics? I guess I didn't like the thought of any of you turning... errr... green with envy!

*  *  *  *  *

And on that note... Thanks for your time.

*And many thanks to Alan Burnett for the unsolicited but otherwise ideal "Comical Wednesday" title. Next time you visit the USA, Alan, swing by Massachusetts and I will buy you a beer... or two!