The Annotated Will Eisner Dreamer

The Dreamer is a graphic novella set during the dawn of comic books written and drawn by Will Eisner

Annotations by Jerry Stratton…. also a host of tens. As I receive more and more comments, this becomes more and more of a group project. I’m still dictator-in-res, however.

The Dreamer was published by Kitchen Sink Press in 1986. See your comic book store for details. Or, you might be able to purchase The Dreamer^• from Amazon.Com.

Spoiler

Oh, come on. You expect annotations without spoilers? Don’t read this until after you read the book. Part of the fun is recognizing all the characters. Don’t blow it by reading this thing first.

Disclaimer

This isn’t my disclaimer. I haven’t much got one, except to say that this is completely unauthorized and thus cannot stand in any way as authoritative.

In the Foreword, Will Eisner says

The Dreamer, intended as a work of fiction, ultimately took on the shape of a historical account. In the telling, it was inescapable that the actors would resemble real people. Their names, however, are fictitious…

However, it seems that most of the names are surprisingly similar to names of actual people involved in similar situations in the early days of comics. Now, I have no way of knowing whether The Dreamer is historically accurate. I suspect not. But I also believe that the similarities between this work and the real history of comics make it a useful book for the comic book historian.

This is still a work of fiction. Because I’m interpreting in terms of who the fictional characters could be in real life, it may seem as though I’m putting words into Eisner’s pen, that, in fact, I’m changing the meaning so that his words apply to real people, not fictional people. Try to avoid that feeling, if you could, please?

Page 1

According to the credits, the newspaper clipping is copies from the actual New York Times paper from that day. Note that the paper costs two cents, giving you an idea of what money was then.

The “time of gray foreboding”, taken literally, is the coming of the second World War. 1937 is the year of appeasement towards Germany, and the beginning of an aggressive Japanese war policy. The United States passed (and Roosevelt signed) the U.S. Neutrality Act. [th, p. 512]

The depression remained in full swing.

Horn’s Cafeteria

I hate to bring out the speculation so early, but despite Eisner’s disclaimer, few of the names seem to have been made up. Maurice C. Horn has written a number of books about comics, including one of my references for this, A History of the Comic Strip, by Pierre Couperie and Maurice C. Horn.

Then again, this may be based on a real cafeteria that Eisner used while he was trying to “make it”. Which Mark Mayerson has discovered is probably true:

A real chain of restaurants in New York at the time was Horn and Hardart’s. They included the automat, where the food was on display behind glass. You’d put your money in a slot, the glass would open and you’d take the food.

Page 3

Davis Printing Co.

Despite the fact that Mr. Davis and his printing company don’t show up later at all, it sounds awfully familiar. Scott Nichols reports that, according to Yronwode’s Art of Will Eisner, Eisner did take a job as a Printer’s Assistant in late 1933 or early 1934.

Billy

So the lead character’s name is “William”. Imagine that.

Page 4

Sex Comics

Sex comics involving other people’s characters are still popular, I’m told. Pick one up the next time you’re in Tijuana.

Actually, most of them are probably made in America. “Tijuana Bible” sounds more intriguing than “Phillie Funnies” or eh… you get the idea. From the COMIX mailing list (note especially how far back they go—at least to 1939):

From: MHCampos
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 23:43:37 -0400
Subject: Tiajuana Bibles: Reprints!

Interested in high-quality reprints of those dirty little eight pagers? Starhead Comix recently put out a series of six or eight comic book sized reprints; each volume contains several eight pagers of varying quality.

There’s one issue featuring TBs dealing with the World’s Fair of 1939, another featuring the Duchess of Windsor, and several issues are a mixed agglomeration of characters from stage, page, and news. (My favorite is the Marx Brothers TB.)

Note that Starhead is not in business any more, so you’ll still have to search around back issues bins.

Page 5

Comic Reprints

Yes, in 1937 most comics were still reprints of the dailies. They’d chop ’em up into panels and order them onto the page. The first was Funnies on Parade, a promotional stunt by Proctor & Gamble in 1933. The first serial was Famous Funnies, from Eastern Color Printing, May, 1934. (hocs, p. 65)

However, he should also have been seeing a few originals as well: New Fun had been around for years, and Detective Comics had just come out with a January cover.

Page 7

Ken Corn

Ken, whose last name is “Corn” (see page 8 of the comic), seems to be in a mentor relationship with young Billy. We’ll find out later that “Ken Corn” is, at least in some respects, Bob Kane.

Eyron

Which makes our hero’s full name “William Eyron.” We’re seeing this historical fiction through the eyes of a fictional Will Eisner.

Pumice Handsoap

Either this is really Lava, or there was a time when Americans thought volcanoes produced soap. Interestingly, Art of Will Eisner reports that Eisner’s first paid artwork was a comic strip ad for another hand cleaner, “Gre-Solvent” (Scott Nichols).

Judge, Liberty, and College Fun

Scott Nichols: Judge and Liberty were real magazines. College Fun “probably refers to the magazine College Humor”.

Don Zirulnik: I have a copy of College Fun Volume 1 Number 1 May 1950. Full of risque humor—text and cartoons—reprinted from various college humor mags. Kind of like national lampoon. [That would have been a bit too late, I think, to be the College Fun that Eisner is mentioning at this point in the comic.—Jerry]

Further Research

• Cartoonists’ Union Effectiveness
• Mister, the Magazine of Men’s Fashion (Mister? Sounds a lot like Esquire. Was it around in 1937?)

Page 8

Socko

Socko, the Fun Mag is based on Wow. [sd90] Wow’s subtitle was “What a Magazine” (Scott Nichols). It’s possible that Eisner is combining Wow with such comics as More Fun and New Fun to create Socko. Wow’s editor was…

Jimmy Samson

No, Wow’s editor was Jerry Iger. [sd90] We’ll be seeing more of Samson/Iger later. “Jerry” Iger is listed as “S.M. Iger” by Jeff Rovin. [esh, p. 260]

Henry Fabric

Henry, of Henry Fabric is John Henle [jc]. John Henly owned Wow, What a Magazine (Scott Nichols).

Further Research

• The Union Resolution
• Tallyho

Page 10

Further Research

• Stout Engraving/Engravers

Page 11

Hawk

Eisner’s first strip appearing in a comic book was Hawks of the Sea. Conflicting reports. I’ve heard that the strip ended when Wow closed down, and (Scott Nichols) that it continued in foreign markets and Jumbo.

Four years later, presumably unrelated, one of the best swashbuckling movies made was The Sea Hawk, with Errol Flynn and Alan Hale. It came out in 1940. [vg92, p. 105] The movie was based on, and the comic was presumably inspired by, Rafael Sabatini’s novel The Sea Hawk (Scott Nichols).

Eisner wrote Hawks of the Sea under the pseudonym Willis Rensie.

The $30 Stake

Eyron is starting out $5 poorer than Will Eisner, who started with $35. [sd90, p. 6].

Page 12

Eyron & Samson

Eyron & Samson, of course, is actually Eisner & Iger. They sold to foreign newspapers and other publishing companies. One of their first products was a collaboration between Eisner and Kirby: The Count of Monte Cristo. [sd90, p. 6] Don’t worry, Kirby will show up later.

Eisner & Iger started in 1936 in the real world. [cwc, p. 75]

Eisner & Iger persuaded T.T. Scott of Fiction House to enter the comic book field, and then sold material to Fiction House (Scott Nichols).

Further Research

• Ace Diner

Page 14

The Pulps are Dying

Yes, the pulps were dying. And one of the things that Eisner & Iger did was package comics for publishers trying to replace their pulps. [sd90, p. 6]

Willis Rensie

Willis Rensie is one of Will Eisner’s pseudonyms. Read the last name backwards, homey. Presumably, this also means he made up the names “Spencer Steel” and “J. Morgan Thomas” as well. Maybe he was reading a newspaper about J.P. Morgan at the time? W. Morgan Thomas was the “house pseudonym for the author of Sheena”. Spencer Steele became an adventure feature—not an author’s pseudonym—in Jumbo. Authorship was credited to Dennis Colebrook (W. Morgan/Steele info from Scott Nichols).

Agent X

Secret Agent X-9 was Alex Raymond’s answer to Dick Tracy back in 1934, [hocs, p. 61] and presumably had nothing to do with “Spencer Steele’s” Agent X. The W. Morgan Thomas pseudonym wrote ZX-5, Spies in Action, beginning with Jumbo #1 (Scott Nichols). Later, Eisner did a strip called Espionage with Black X (Mark Mayerson). It appeared in Feature Funnies and Smash (Scott Nichols).

Pulpo Publishing

According to Javier Coma, Pulpo was Fiction House Publishing Co. Fiction House, however, was also a later name for Eisner & Iger. Perhaps they merged later on?

Mark Mayerson again:

Eisner and Iger supplied material to Fiction House, but they’re two separate companies. E&I was a shop. When a company bought a feature from a shop, they owned all rights and sometimes continued the strips on their own. The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner were produced at a shop called Funnies, Inc. and bought by Marvel. Then Marvel took over the strips and continued them without Funnies, Inc.

(At the time, “Marvel Comics” was “Timely Comics”.)

Mr. O’Brien

Thurman T. Scott, according to Javier Coma [jc].

Page 15

Donald Harrifield Printing Co.

Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz owned Independent News Company (or National Periodicals Publications). Liebowitz was the accountant. [vsi] These were the predecessors of DC Comics. “Donald Harrifield” is the second-most obvious parallels in the book, possibly tying with Lew Sharp.

Harry Donenfeld supposedly served on FDR’s “brain trust”. The legend goes that he gave the prez a hot foot. [vsi]

Making a pseudonym for Liebowitz of “Lovecraft” has got to have some editorial value, especially given that Liebowitz is still alive, or at least was when this was written. Sullivan described him as a “colorless character”, though this may have been in comparison to the Major [vsi].

Page 16

Famous Funnies

Judging from the way people like Will Eisner and Vince Sullivan talk, Famous Funnies must’ve been the only comic that was doing great at the time. Everybody else was dropping out left and right, until Action.

Capt. Montrose B. Wilson

The “Major”, Malcolm-Wheeler Nicholson, has been demoted by Eisner. Nicholson had been a major in the army. [vsi]

Along with Whitney Ellsworth, they published More Fun Comics, New Comics, and da-dum… Detective Comics. However, they didn’t do well financially. [vsi] Why Donenfeld and Liebowitz wanted to buy ’em out, I don’t know. Everyone seems to think they can do better comics. Some things never change.

Page 17

The Flamboyant Captain

Will Eisner presumably agrees with Vince Sullivan:

Nicholson, he was sort of a flamboyant character. He had been a major in the army, but he was very continental in his thinking and in his appearance. He favored beaver hats and a cane, big cigarette holder. Spats. So he was a character. But he had a good idea. He had an idea of starting a book filled with original art. [vsi]

The Major passed away in 1968. [vsi]

Page 18

Fun

One of those comics Harrifield is tossing in the air is “Fun”, probably a copy of More Fun Comics. You could buy Liverpool with that comic today. Or any of the comics that Nicholson, Ellsworth, and Sullivan were doing. DC kept More Fun going at least until 1940—that’s when they introduced Aquaman, in issue 73. [esh, p. 8]

Chuck Maxwell

Known alternately as “Max” Gaines, “Charlie” Gaines, and “M.C.” Gaines, because his name was Maxwell Charles Gaines, and he figured he ought to use them all. [vsi] He became the third major character in National Periodical Publications, but I don’t think it happened quite this soon. Gaines was with McClure Newspaper Syndicate.[vsi]

Gaines is the person who let DC know about Siegel and Shuster trying to sell a strange action strip called Superman.

Coastal Press

Eastern Color Printing Co., with the help of M.C. Gaines, put out the first comics. (Scott Nichols).

Further Research

• Former Schoolteacher

Page 19

Big Hero from Ohio

McClure was presumably not one of the biggest syndicates. They were the last syndicate that these two kids from Ohio submitted their science fiction adventure strip to: they had indeed been “turned down by everyone in town”. Those two kids, of course, were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman.

By this time, Siegel and Shuster had given up hope of syndicating Superman, and were probably glad to get any money at all out of it, let alone steady work. A lot of people made a lot of mistakes over this character.

Siegel and Shuster had already done business with the original Nicholson-Ellsworth-Sullivan company, writing Monsieur Duval and Slam Bradley. They were keeping Superman a secret—syndication was the big time, and they didn’t want to lose Superman to the comic books.

Bang Comics

Action Comics, of course, was the first comic to carry Superman. Comics were “traditionally” 64 pages at that time. No wonder they cost a whole ten cents.

My own books

Up until now, Gaines had been helping other people put out comics: Eastern, now DC. “In late 1938 M.C. Gaines formed All-American Comics, which became part of National (DC). In the ’40s he founded Educational Comics, which became E.C.” (Scott Nichols)

For All Rights and Title

“This would seem to be the standard contract which was stamped on backs of payroll checks for most comic book companies until recent years.” (Scott Nichols)

Page 20

Rodentman

Bats are rodents, and Rodentman is Batman. This was only six months after Superman appeared in Action, but it was already a big hit. Kane thought that “Jerry and Joe” were making lots of money on Superman (which they weren’t: National was), and wanted to come up with a new feature that would make him “a barrel of money”. [vsi]

DC put Batman in Detective Comics #27, where he pretty much took over. Kane was aided by Bill Finger on many of the original issues.

Puppy Dawg

According to Javier Coma, Puppy Dawg was Peter Pupp. No relation to the Offissa! Peter Pupp was inspired by Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse strip. Pupp was drawn by Bob Kane, for Wags and Jumbo (Scott Nichols).

Page 21

We only need 15!

“By 1938 the shop had about 15 artists, inkers, pencilers, and letterers.” [sd90, p. 6]

Doggy, the British Comic Weekly

Mark Mayerson:

This is Wags, the Australian Comic Weekly. It was the first place that Eisner and Iger sold to, and I think that Hawk of the Seas was actually created for this and was later reprinted in North America.

Page 22 & 23

Lew Sharp

Lou Fine, according to Gil Kane, was one of the two standards in the comic book business until Jack Kirby’s expressiveness took over. Until they started swiping from Jack Kirby, they swiped from Lou Fine. [jsy]

Page 24

Armand Budd

There was an Armand Broussard working for Fiction House in 1948, but this was long after Eisner left, and Broussard was presumably writing.

Blaisdell [sl] and Coma [jc] state that Armand Budd was Alex Blum. And from Scott Nichols:

In an interview with Gil Fox in the Will Eisner Quarterly Eisner describes Blum as an artist whose background had been in fine art illustration. Blum had been the original artist for Kaanga in Jungle Stories, the pulp predecessor of Jungle Comics. He was a regular artist in most of the Fiction House titles and did more than 25 of the original Classics Illustrated comics.

Andrea Budd

The major writer (later editor) of Eisner & Iger was Ruth Roche. She sometimes used the pseudonym “Rod Roche”. She “probably wrote more comics during the ’40s than any other woman who was not also drawing her own strip.” [cwc, p. 83] However, Trina Robbins places Ruth in “Fiction House” from 1940, when she was twenty, to 1961. By 1940, Will Eisner had already left Eisner & Iger.

Andrea Budd is presumably the same person who originally wrote Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, as we’ll see later.

No, Andrea Budd is almost certainly Audrey “Toni” Blum, the daughter of Alex Blum [jc]. Audrey was a shop writer for Eisner & Iger and Quality. “She wrote whole issues of Feature and Hit, and scripted Lady Luck, The Spirit, Dollman, Manhunter, and Espionage. Women and the Comics by Robbins and Yronwode includes a picture of Blum which very closely resembles Andrea Budd’s appearance in The Dreamer.” (Scott Nichols)

Page 25

Big Gar Tooth

According to Tex Blaisdell, who worked for Eisner “back then”, Gar Tooth was George Tuska[sl].

A later page indicates that Gar reciprocates Andrea’s crush. However, she later married Bill Bossert, another artist in the Eisner & Eiger bullpen (Scott Nichols).

“Tuska worked for virtually everyone on many different features from the ’40s well into the ’80s.” (Scott Nichols)

Page 26

Jack King

I said that Donald Harrifield is the second most obvious parallel. Welcome to the first. The world of adventure comics weren’t made for Jack “King” Kirby. They were made by Jack Kirby.

And King is a ghetto kid: born and raised on New York’s Lower East Side. [sd90 p. 10]

Page 27

Jungle Girl

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle was an Eisner creation and appeared in Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics, rather than their presumably more appropriate Jungle Comics. Sheena later received her own title. [esh, p. 260]

Bo Bowers

Bo Bowers was actually Bob Powell, according to Tex Blaisdell [sl]. Bob later moved on with Eisner when he moved from Eisner & Iger. According to Lou Mougin he did in fact do Sheena (and Sheena was based on, according to Cat Yronwode, an athletic girlfriend of Iger’s). Bob Powell later did some work on Cave Girl for Magazine Enterprises [vsi].

Page 28

Jack Klingensteiner

Jack Kirby’s original name was Jacob Kurtzberg. Many folks with Jewish names changed their last name: Stan Lee from Lieber, for example.

Bo “Stanislaus” Bowers

Bob Powell went by “S. R. Powell”. The R would have been Robert; the S was probably Stanley, easily changed to Stanislaus by Eisner. (S.R. info from Mark Mayerson, blown out speculation my own. Lou Mougin says Bob’s original name was Stanislaus Pulaski, or something like that. Michael T. Gilbert clarifies that Powell’s name was Stanley Robert Pawlowski; he gets this info from Powell’s son Seth.)

Further Research

• Lou Fine Jewish name?

Page 29

Fake House Names

Eisner & Iger produced comics for other companies, which then sold the comics as their own. Later, possibly after they became Fiction House, they produced their own books.

Page 30

Going out for a beer

This might indicate that Jack Kirby, Lou Fine, and Bob Powell were closer friends than others at the shop.

It might also indicate that, due to his position as boss, Will Eisner didn’t hang out with the others as often as he might have liked.

Page 32

Marriage is not in my plans now.

You know, I’ve never heard anyone mention a wife or ex-wife in relation to Eisner, until I wrote this. It seems he is currently married, and was married after the war—late forties, early fifties (Mark Mayerson).

Page 33

Big Hero, Man of Iron

One of Superman’s more common nicknames is the man of steel. Big Hero, presumably, rusts more easily.

Note that while “Big Hero’s” costume is nearly identical to Superman’s (with an ‘H’ instead of an ‘S’), Rodentman looks more like Robin.

Mr. Reynard

Reynard is French for fox. We’ll find out on the next page that Mr. Reynard’s first name is Vincent. Victor Fox was “the first publisher to imitate Superman’s success” [sd90, p. 27] with Fox Features Syndicate, which brought us such heroes as Blue Beetle and the Black Fury.

If DC was investing in stocks at the height of the depression, they probably were giving their accountant quite a bit of free reign—and they also would have made a lot of money when the depression ended. Bethlehem Steel, at least, should have been hot stock during the war, and AT&T would have been hot right afterwards, as the telephone became a standard in every American home.

Rumors are that Victor Fox did indeed work for DC previous to starting Fox Features Syndicate. He was their accountant. [jkt98]

There was also a Vincent Sullivan working for National around this time. He’d been one of the three who started More Fun, Detective, and other ‘DC’ comics that pre-dated National. When Donenfeld and Liebowitz bought Sullivan, Nicholson, and Whit Ellsworth out, Sullivan stayed on as editor. He did, however, get into a scuffle with the new management over World’s Fair Comics, and left, first to help McNaught Newspaper Syndicate form Columbia Comics, and later to form Magazine Enterprises on his own. [vsi]

World’s Fair eventually became World’s Finest.

Vince Sullivan talks more like a dreamer than an accountant: like one of those who “gave up” in Eisner’s story:

Audience: You drew on some of the earlier covers, like More Fun. Was this something you pursued at all? Had you harbored ambitions of being a cartoonist?

Vince: I sure did. I wanted to become a cartoonist very much. But I could never succeed—I never came up with a good strip. I liked to draw. I guess I did a lot of cartoons, real cartoons for More Fun and some of the early editions.

I think the type of humor that, well, kids don’t particularly like humorous things, they prefer the action stories. So, that was out of my range, I couldn’t do any of those, I mean draw them. Although I did draw the first cover of Detective Comics.

Page 34

64 Wow 10¢

That 64 is the standard size of a comic book back then: 64 pages. When Vincent Reynard says that the “Big Hero” feature is a smash, that’s because Supermen was just one feature among many in Action.

Publishers were under a three-month gun right from the beginning. Vince Sullivan says he put Superman on the cover of the first Action Comics because “it looked very good, different, to have a fellow come in, doing those unusual things.” [vsi] However, they wouldn’t have known until the third issue came out that a particular feature was a big draw, and that’s why the second and third issues of Action didn’t have Superman on the cover.

Presumably, “Bang Comics” has figured it out by this page, since they’re already publishing a “Big Hero” Comic to supplement “Bang”, just as DC did, bringing out Superman to supplement Action.

Further Research

• Fox Photo Comics?

Page 35

Heroman

Fox Features Syndicate came out with Wonder Man, in Wonder Comics in 1939. Wonder Man was drawn specifically by Will Eisner while he was at Fiction House. Jeff Rovin [esh, p. 337] describes Wonder Man’s origin and powers:

While vacationing in Tibet, Carson meets a yogi who gives him a magic ring with which to battle “in the name of humanity and justice.” Carson’s boss is the gruff Mr. Hastings, whose daughter, Brenda, is a nurse. Headstrong and spoiled, she is nonetheless the girl of Fred’s dreams—though she is engaged to the stuffy playboy, Reggie Berold. As Wonder Man, Carson can leap vast distances, repel bullets, and possesses super strength.

Care to guess which parts were designed by Fox and which by Eisner?

Page 37

Petty Cash

Thirty dollars is what Billy Eyron had when he started E & S back on page 11. It’s also a hell of a lot of money for one night in the thirties, I would think.

Page 38

Heroman on Trial

Yes, Fox Features Syndicate may well have had the dubious honor of being the first company to get sued for infringing on the Superman copyright. Wonder Man appeared only once, in Wonder Comics #1, before the lawsuit ended the hero’s career. [esh, p. 337]

Note the “M” on Heroman’s chest. Wonder Man had a “W”. The “M” might be a tip of the pen to the most famous loser in the Superman legal wars, Captain Marvel. That lawsuit, however, didn’t happen until 1953. [esh, p. 57] Of course, an ‘M’ is also an upside-down ‘W’.

If there really were two other issues plus a few pages, I wonder if they still exist? A Superman look-alike by Will Eisner is something I’d like to see!

Page 41

Zip Comics

Zip Comics started in 1940, and was published by the forerunner to Archie Publications, who were big into adventure features back then.

Our Own Syndicate

The first books coming out under the Fiction House label date from 1940, the same year that Fox lost the lawsuit.

The Count of Monte Cristo

As previously mentioned, one of Eisner’s first comics was a collaboration with Jack Kirby on The Count of Monte Cristo.

Page 42-43

The Old-Line Newspaper Syndicate

In 1939, the Register & Tribune Newspaper Syndicate asked Eisner to develop a comic book for their newspapers: sixteen pages once a week.

Adults as well as Kids

If the devil ever went into the comic book desert to tempt Will Eisner, that’s the line he’d use. Through decades of comics as “junk”, Eisner has “always felt that comics are a literary form”. [pad, p. 186] Today he’s planning to be there when the kids currently reading “teenage fantasy” decide they want “some content of greater complexity”. [pad, p. 187] If that doesn’t spell “d-r-e-a-m-e-r”…

Ownership

Beansy Everett is well aware of the differences between “comic books” and “comic strips”. The stuff that the staff of E & S do is owned by E & S. Once it’s sold to someone else, that someone else owns it. In comic strips—syndication—the creator maintains ownership, even to the point of sometimes hiring their own staff.

Mike Henny

According to Javier Coma, Henny was Henry Martin.

Beansy Everett

Beansy Everett, meanwhile, was Everett “Busy” Arnold. [jc]

Page 44

You’ll be Drafted

Eisner was, in fact, drafted, and was gone from his strip from 1942 to 1945. Of course, since he had his own staff at that point, he left it in the hands of them—Lou Fine and others. [sd90, p. 6]

Page 45

You’re our break out

And, on schedule, here’s Lew “Sharp”—along with “Bo Bowers” and “Chuck Mann” volunteering to be Eisner’s staff. Being on the staff of a syndicated artist is at least one step closer to syndication itself.

One of the artists on his staff was Bob Powell, whose name is vaguely similar to Bo Bowers. Tex Blaisdell claims that this was indeed the case[sl].

Javier Coma says that Chuck Mann was actually Chuck Mazoujian.

Interesting aside, Lou Mougin says that the Blackhawks were based on these shop artists:

• Stanislaus: Bob Powell
• Andre: LeBlanc
• Chuck: Cuidera
• Chop-Chop: Chuck Majouzian (Cat is authority on this one)
• Olaf and Hendrickson: haven’t figured them out yet.

And Michael T. Gilbert adds that Powell co-wrote the first Blackhawk story. “Being Polish-American, Powell undoubtedly related to the Polish member of the crew, Stanislaus.”

Page 46

War!

Britain and France are at war, but the United States isn’t, and won’t be for another two years. Once the war starts, Will Eisner will be drafted, but two years is enough time for him to become “a success at his chosen career”.

The sixteen page supplement collapses, but the comic strip that he created for it—The Spirit—lives beyond it, even surviving Will’s sojourn in the military.

Lou Fine would not have been drafted if, as was “Lew Sharp”, he’d been crippled by polio in his youth. Eisner handed over to Lou while he was in the military.

Many other comic book and strip creators had similar problems. Gil Kane remembers going to work for Jack Kirby at sixteen, filling in while Jack was in the military.[jsy] And Trina Robbins notes that, during the war, women started doing many more adventure strips and books to fill in the gap. [cwc, Chapter 4]

Penny Fortunes

While he’s carrying different things, he’s wearing the same damn clothes.

The Citations

cwc

A Century of Women Cartoonists^•, by Trina Robbins

esh

The Encyclopedia of Superheroes^•, by Jeff Rovin.

hocs

A History of the Comic Strip^•, by Pierre Couperie and Maurice C. Horn

jc

Javier Coma, from a list posted to Rec.Arts.Comics.Misc by Rodrigo Baeza

jsy

2 - Friday, by Jerry Stratton. An overview of the San Diego Comic Convention, Friday, 1994.

pad

Previews, April 1995, “Avenue of Dreams”, interview with Will Eisner by Len Sullivan.

sd90

San Diego Comic Convention Souvenir Program Book 1990

sl

by way of Steve Lieber on Rec.Arts.Comics.Misc

th

Timetables of History^•, The New Third Revised Edition, by Bernard Grun

vg92

Video Movie Guide^•, by Mick Martin and Marsha Porter

vsi

Vince Sullivan Interview, from the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con.

jkt98

From Joe Simon at the Jack Kirby tribute at the 1998 San Diego Comics Convention.