MYSTERY COMICS: Charlton Anthologies • Black Orchid ...to revive the horror-comics genre. For example, in 1957, Harvey Comics published the comic book Man in Black, which ran for

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MYSTERY COMICS: Charlton Anthologies • Black Orchid •Madame Xanadu • and Scooby-Doo! featuring Aragonés • Evanier

Kaluta • Shoberg • Talaoc • Wrightson • and more!

This issue:

DC’s BRONZE AGE HORROR SERIES &HOSTS RISE FROM THE DEAD! 18265827762

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Volume 1,Number 52October 2011

Celebratingthe BestComics ofthe '70s,'80s, and Beyond!

EDITORMichael Eury

PUBLISHERJohn Morrow

GUEST DESIGNERJon B. Cooke

COVER ARTISTBernie Wrightson

COVER DESIGNERMichael Kronenberg

PROOFREADERRob Smentek

SPECIAL THANKSSergio AragonésMichael AushenkerDick AyersKaren BergerHoward BenderJerry BoydBruce BuchananCary BurkettJarrod ButteryCain and AbelDewey CassellKyle CassidyGary CohnGerry ConwayNicola CutiRufus DaygloDC ComicsTony DeZunigaScott EdelmanSteve EnglehartRich J. FowlksCarl GaffordGrand Comic-Book Database

Robert GreenbergerJack C. HarrisHeritage Comics Auctions

Stuart HopenAnson JewBenton JewMichael KalutaTodd KleinBill KunkelPaul Levitz

BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive,Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE,c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: [email protected] subscriptions: $70 Standard US, $105 Canada, $130 Surface International. Pleasesend subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by BernieWrightson. House of Mystery TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © theirrespective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2011 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing.ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

FLASHBACK: Hosts of Horror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Cain, Abel, and company owe a deadly debt to these guys and ghouls

INTERVIEW: Terror in the Mysterious House of Wrightson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9When it comes to Bronze Age horror comics, nobody does it better than Bernie!

INTERVIEW: The Scary/Funny Worlds of Sergio Aragonés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Comics’ coolest cartoonist discusses his terror toons

BEYOND CAPES: You Will Believe in Ghosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Editor Murray Boltinoff and writer Leo Dorfman’s spook-fest was dear to their hearts

INTERVIEW: Gerry Talaoc: From the Unknown to the Incredible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31In a BACK ISSUE exclusive, the underrated Bronze Age artist looks back on his career

FLASHBACK: The Many Lives of the Black Orchid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39DC Comics’ mysterious heroine and her journey through the mainstream, Vertigo, and theCartoon Network

BEYOND CAPES: Enter Freely, Unafraid: Madame Xanadu… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47DC’s breakout horror host Madame Xanadu with loads of Michael Kaluta artwork

INTERVIEW: The Hysterical Hippy Horror Humor of Lore Shoberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57How “Cain’s Game Room” cartoonist Lore Shoberg rode into (and out of) town

BEYOND CAPES: The Many Mystery Comics of Charlton Pubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65Chills and thrills, eight pages at a time, from the Derby, Connecticut, comics house

PRO2PRO: Mark Evanier, Dan Spiegle, and a Dog Named Scooby-Doo . . . . . . . . . . .71Scooby, Scooby-Doo, where are you? In comic books, that’s where!

BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79Reader feedback on issue #49

Alan LightVal MayerikDavid MichelinieDan MishkinDoug MoenchBill MorrisonNightscreamDennis O’NeilLore OrionJohn OstranderTom PeyerCarl PottsAmy ReederShannon E. RileyBob SchreckJim SimonSteve SkeatesRobin SnyderJoe StatonBryan StroudGerry TalaocCathy Ann ThieleMatt WagnerJim WardenJohn WellsBernie WrightsonLiz Wrightson

The Retro Comics Experience!

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Greetings, guys andghouls. Sit back, putyour feet up on thenearest implement of tor-ture, and prepare to perusethis penultimate prose aboutmy kindred spirits. Being a hostof horror is hard work, as you willundoubtedly deduce from the terror-ific tale that follows. But fear not, kiddies,for we horror hosts are always looking forfresh meat for the grinder, so to speak...

Why do you suppose it is that horror comics seemto demand a host, while other stories leave you all on your own?There always seemed to be something curiously contradictory aboutthe extension of hospitality in a tale meant to terrify. Then again, whowouldn’t want a hand to hold while walking through a hauntedhouse? But was that the purpose behind these polite purveyors offear?

To answer that question, we must first turn to their origins, andthe original hosts of horror were found on the radio. Starting in the1930s, radio was the perfect forum for dramatic horror and science-fiction stories because it fueled the imagination of the listeners.Imagining in your mind the horrors you were hearing described couldbe far more powerful than actually seeing them, as evidenced by thesuccess of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938.

One of the common characteristics of the anthology radio horror

programs was thatthey were typically

narrated by a host.Shows like Inner Sanctum

Mysteries, hosted byRaymond Edward Johnson in

the early 1940s, featured tal-ented actors like Agnes

Moorehead, Peter Lorre, andRichard Widmark. The radio horror

hosts typically exhibited a distinctive per-sonality that made them easily identifiable to

the listener. With his morbid sense of humor and hisominous laugh, Raymond provided a welcome break in the tension ofthe story. Other radio horror hosts included Boris Karloff andChristopher Lee. The stories themselves were often violent and gory,and the programs were eventually challenged by censors, althoughthe regulations imposed were difficult to enforce. Ironically, whatbrought about the demise of radio horror programs was television.

GHOULS RULEOne of the first, and arguably best, television horror hosts wasZacherley. In 1957, actor John Zacherle got a call from WCAU Channel10 in Philadelphia to host Shock Theater, a collection of horror filmsfrom the 1930s and 1940s being released to television by UniversalPictures. Dressed in an undertaker’s coat and sporting ghoulish make-up with his hair parted down the middle, Zacherle portrayed Roland,the “cool ghoul” who was host of the show and lived in a crypt.Roland introduced the late night movie, accompanied by the occa-sional severed head in a basket, and he also appeared in numerous“break-ins” or instances in which the cameraman would break to ashot of Roland wearing a curious expression and then back to the filmin progress. This approach to hosting the show proved to be wildlypopular and gained Roland thousands of fans. Numerous imitators fol-

by D e w e y C a s s e l l

Cry Uncle!(top) Creepy magazine’s host, Uncle Creepy, as

illustrated by this issue’s cover artist, Bernie Wrightson.© 2011 Warren Publications.


lowed, including Ghoulardi,Moona Lisa, and Marvin theNear-Sighted Madman.

But by the time Zacherleyand other television horrorhosts made their debut, thetradition of hosting horror sto-ries was already wellentrenched in comic books.The use of a host for horrorcomics, however, was preced-ed by a comic book fromanother genre, Crime Does NotPay. In 1942, starting withissue #24, editor Charles Birointroduced a host named Mr.Crime, who narrated the fea-ture stories in Crime Does NotPay. Mr. Crime was an etherealhost, whose top hat and flow-ing robe contrasted with hispointed ears and sharp teeth.In the stories in which heappeared, Mr. Crime typicallypopped up several times dur-ing the tale to provide a pithy

commentary on the characters or their predicament.Peak circulation for Crime Does Not Pay reached overone million copies a month.

When you think about the hosts of comic books inthe Golden Age, though, one group comes to mind:the Old Witch, Crypt Keeper, and Vault Keeper of theEC anthology horror comics The Haunt of Fear, Talesfrom the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror. Arguably themost recognizable of all horror hosts even today, theEC ghouls were the brainchild of editor, writer, andartist Al Feldstein and his publisher, Bill Gaines. As fortheir inspiration, in an interview for issue #9 of the leg-endary EC fanzine Squa Tront, Feldstein explained, “Wehad come on to this thing of doing horror and scarystuff. Bill and I had remembered The Witch’s Tale andLights Out from radio—this is all old hat, I know—andwe tried it out in the comics … I first came up with theCrypt Keeper and the Vault Keeper, who were directsteals from the witch in The Witch’s Tale. I don’t remem-ber the witch being as facetious, and with the puns,but she cackled.” Although originally designed byFeldstein, other artists became identified with the EChosts. “Ghastly” Graham Ingels rendered the definitive

Old Witch, Johnny Craig drew the Vault Keeper, andthe Crypt Keeper was most famously illustrated by JackDavis. Craig later created an attractive assistant for theVault Keeper named Drusilla. Craig even served as themodel in full makeup and costume for photographs ofthe EC hosts that were sold to fans through the comicsletters pages. The EC hosts appeared in house ads andEC Fan Addict fan club materials as well.

The hosts contributed to the recognition and grow-ing popularity of the EC horror comics. But the explicitviolence and gore of the EC horror comics led to theunwanted attention of Dr. Fredric Wertham in his infa-mous treatise, Seduction of the Innocent, and the subse-

Star of Shock Theatre

(above) TV’s Zacherley,as seen on the cover

of Famous Monsters ofFilmland #15 (Jan. 1962).

Famous Monsters of Filmland TM & © 2011 Philip Kim.

4 • B A C K I S S U E • M y s t e r y C o m i c s I s s u e

Certainly NoSamantha!(upper right)

“Ghastly” GrahamIngels’ Old Witch.

© EC Publications.

Uncle Creepy(right) Jack Davis’model sheets for

Creepy’s host. Courtesyof Jim Warden.

© EC Publications.

quent Senate Hearings on JuvenileDelinquency in 1954. It was in thosehearings that EC publisher BillGaines attempted unsuccessful-ly to defend his horror comics,leading ultimately to theComics Code and thedemise of the horror genrein comics for years tocome. The EC horror hostswere retired.

CREEPY COMEBACKSThere were several attemptsto revive the horror-comicsgenre. For example, in 1957,Harvey Comics published thecomic book Man in Black, whichran for four issues, featuring thehost Fate and his acquaintances Venusand Weaver. In 1959, comic-book icon JoeSimon published Weird Mysteries and Eerie Tales,black-and-white magazines not subject to the ComicsCode, featuring a horror host named “Morgue’n theMorgue Keeper.” Joe’s son, Jim Simon, recallsMorgue’n well, and his father’s inspiration: “On TV,Zacherley was a very popular monster-movie host withthe kids. My father knew my brother and our friendsstayed up late at night just to watch Zacherley host hismonster TV shows!” Unfortunately, Simon was ahead ofhis time. While they were well executed, both maga-zines only lasted one issue.

The real revival of the horror host came in 1964,when Jim Warren first published Creepy magazine.Creepy was a black-and-white anthology title, withcompelling horror stories by exceptional artists, manyof whom were veterans of EC Comics. The magazinewas hosted by “Uncle Creepy,” a tall, gaunt figure withthinning hair and dressed in a threadbare tuxedo, orig-inally rendered by Jack Davis. Uncle Creepy was soonjoined by Cousin Eerie and Vampirella in sister publica-tions of their own. Cousin Eerie was short and stout,bearing an almost toad-like appearance, and was alsoillustrated by Davis. By contrast, Vampirella was tall andshapely, poured into her iconic, revealing red costume,as first depicted by Frank Frazetta and later defined byJosé “Pepe” Gonzalez. However, in the early days of theWarren magazines, the hosts were often drawn bywhichever artist happened to be illustrating the story,leading to many different variations of the characters.

Recognizing the marketing opportunity, Jim Warrenran house ads in his magazines, offering a variety ofmerchandise bearing the images of his horror hosts,from Halloween masks to underwear, available throughhis own fulfillment house, Captain Company. Each hostalso had their own fan club.

However, the most popular, andmost enduring, of the Warren horror

hosts was Vampirella. Images ofVampirella were made into a

six-foot life-sized poster, stick-ers, calendars, a T-shirt, ajigsaw puzzle, and gracedthe covers of six Vampirellanovels by Ron Goulart.There was even an Auroramodel kit of Vampirella,and actress Barbara Leighappeared on the cover ofseveral issues of the

magazine, wearingthe famous cos-

tume. Leigh wascast to play

Vampirella in a motionpicture by Hammer Films

that was never made.[Editor’s note: See BI #36 for a

Vampirella history.]Vampirella was not, however, just a

host. Stories about Vampirellaappeared periodically in her title fromthe start, and in every issue begin-ning with #11 until the title’s cancel-lation with issue #112. The rights toVampirella were acquired by HarrisComics in 1983 and stories featuringthe character continue to appear inprint today, courtesy of DynamiteEntertainment. Vampirella spawned numerousimitations, the most successful of which was Elvira,published by Claypool Comics.

DC’s HOSTS OF MYSTERYWith the success of Creepy and Eerie, DC Comicsdecided to test the waters of horror comic booksonce again. House of Mystery had been a super-hero book since the mid-’60s, but with issue#174, in 1968, it returned to its horror rootsunder the tutelage of editor Joe Orlando, anotherveteran of EC Comics. The following issue,Orlando introduced a host in the form of an “ablecaretaker” for the House of Mystery named Cain,who introduced most of the stories in the antholo-gy series. Cain is a tall, thin character with glasses,upswept hair, and a pointed beard that give him adeliberately devilish appearance, accompanied bya pet gargoyle named Gregory. (Cain was mod-eled after writer Len Wein, who appeared asCain in a photograph in issue #4 of Elvira’sHouse of Mystery.) A caricature of Cain alsoappeared in humorous one-page filler piecesin House of Mystery like “Cain’s Game Room,”illustrated by Sergio Aragonés [see interviewin this issue]. Cain’s residence, the House ofMystery, is in the hills of Kentucky and thehouse itself is alive, containing an ever-chang-ing array of rooms (and mysteries).

House of Secrets had also been a superherotitle in the mid-1960s, but was canceled withissue #80 and lay dormant for three years. A yearafter the debut of Cain in House of Mystery, DCSpecial #4 featured a new horror host devised byOrlando named Abel, who took up residence in theHouse of Secrets, across the cemetery from the

The Lady is a Vamp!(right) Jose Gonzalez’s classic full-figure

color painting of Vampirella. This version isactually the rare promotional sticker that

was given away by Warren Publishing as asubscription premium.

Courtesy of Dewey Cassell.Vampirella TM & © DFI.


He is Your Host(left) BernieWrightson’s depictionof Cousin Eerie, hostof Eerie magazine.© 2011 Warren Publications.

It’s a Weird Mystery!(left) Detail from themuch-coveted 100-Page Super-Spectacular #4, titledWeird Mystery Tales.While featuring justso-so ’50s mysterybook stories, thispoorly distributed1971 giant remains alusted-after collectors’item, no doubt inpart because it sportsWrightson’s (ahem)spectacular cover art.TM & © DC Comics.


Bernie Wrightson? Simply the best in the horror field from the late ’60s to the mid-’80s.

Here he shares with us some recollections of the great day ofDC mystery/horror and afterwards. Got the cold chills already?

Good, kiddies … heehehee … good! (Most of the images provided came from Jerry Boyd and the

Swamp Thing recollections were kept to a minimum due to its being covered already in BACK ISSUE #6.) – Jerry Boyd

by J e r r y B o y dconducted February 3 and March 11, 2011

JERRY BOYD: You were at the perfect agewhen the EC Comics were making therounds. Can you put into words howstrong an effect Graham Ingels’ OldWitch strips had on you?BERNIE WRIGHTSON: I wouldn’tbe doing this today if it weren’tfor those comics … or even bethe person I am, I believe.They were a huge part of mylife then and shaped my artisticfuture.

In the late ’50s, theyreleased all the old Universalmonster movies to TV and I sawthem all. The time was right for hor-ror, y’know. In Baltimore, we had aguy named Dr. Lucifer who hosted—and interrupted—the movies now andthen with jokes, late at night, and thatadded to the fun. He was onFriday nights, 11:15.BOYD: When I look over yourearly fanzine work, it mostlyleans toward mystery/horror. Is itsafe to say that that was the only genrein comics that grabbed you, or werethere others?WRIGHTSON: I wanted to get intocomics. I didn’t know anythingabout fanzines. I went to the WorldScience Fiction Con in New York in1967. A friend suggested that we take

the train there and I met people like Jeff Jones,Mike Kaluta, and we just hung out. My first lovehas always been horror, graveyards, scary houses,and so on. I came into sci-fi late. The “science”part scared me! [laughs] I had the assumption thatyou had to be “smart” to get sci-fi. In my teensand twenties, I got over it and did some sci-fi.There’s not much science in it once you look intoit! [laughter]BOYD: There really isn’t! [laughter continues]Some authors, of course, really delve into scientifictheory, but a lot of the most acclaimed sci-fi is justhuman drama with wild scientific possibilitiesthrown in.WRIGHTSON: That’s it. Exactly!BOYD: How did you become a “resident” of TheHouse of Mystery and The House of Secrets?WRIGHTSON: At that con in ’67, I also met a lotof people in comics. I met Carmine Infantino andJoe Orlando and others … like Dick Giordano.Then I went home. A few months came and went.[Michael Wm.] Kaluta called me and said, “Listen,I heard, through the grapevine and roundabout—these guys at National [DC Comics] want you towork for them.” That knocked me on the floor! Ata con in 1968 that I attended with my new bud-dies, I met up with the DC guys again. TheBaltimore Sun was the newspaper where I was working,but I hit this summer con and they told me, “If youlived here, we’d give you work.” By August, afterthinking it over, I moved to New York. Shortlyafter that, Kaluta became my roommate.BOYD: What was Joe Orlando like to work with?What did you learn from him?WRIGHTSON: Joe was great. He was a teacher …

informally. He kept a pad of tracing paperand he’d redraw panels I’d done and helpme condense my storytelling. I thoughtmy job was to draw pretty pictures oneafter another. Joe would say, “No, no, no… it doesn’t work like that—you cancombine the action in these two panels

into one” and things like that. Ilearned an awful lot from Joe. Hewas the guy I most wanted towork with.

Joe edited my first stuff atDC. My strongest memory ofhim was us just laughing all thetime! Everything we saw in

those comics struck us as funny![laughs] I read some ridiculous

script and he had to clean it up,but we still laughed a lot. He’d say,

“This is too bad—too funny to be inhorror!” Eventually, those bad

scripts ended up in PLOP!They weren’t scaryenough to make theHouse books, but they

were perfect for PLOP![laughter]BOYD: Sergio Aragonés did hor-ror/humor one-pagers. Did youlike those? What stories of yourscame out especially well to you?WRIGHTSON: I loved Sergio’sstuff! I thought those were

great! Of my stuff, I liked the

It’s Not Easy Being Cain

(right) The proprietor of the

House of Mystery ponders “The

Gourmet” in the classic PLOP! #1 story

written by SteveSkeates and drawn by

our man Wrightson.Word is that the

macabre tale wasinspired by an infa-

mous S. Gross cartoonin National Lampoon,

where Bernie also contributed his artistry

in the ’70s.TM & © DC Comics.

Beginnings: First sale: DC’s “Nightmaster” in Showcase #83 (June1969) / First published art: “The Man Who MurderedHimself” in House of Mystery #179 (Mar.–Apr. 1969)

Milestones: Nightmaster in Showcase / Swamp Thing / numerouscovers and title pages for House of Mystery and otherDC titles / Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness/ Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella stories / Badtime Stories /PLOP! / Frankenstein / Creepshow / Spider-Man: Hooky

and The Thing/The Hulk: The BigChange Marvel Graphic Novels /Batman: The Cult / CaptainSternn / Batman/Aliens / ToeTags / Production designs forthe film Serenity / City of Others/ Dead, She Said

Cyberspace:www.wrightsonart.com

BERNIEWRIGHTSON

1 0 • B A C K I S S U E • M y s t e r y C o m i c s I s s u e

1970: It was a great time for horror. ABC-TV’s Dark Shadows was going as strong as ever,

and a horrific vampire movie culled from some of its ear-liest, greatest storylines came out that year. HammerFilms and its British cousin, Amicus Productions, broughtThe Vampire Lovers and The House That DrippedBlood to audiences worldwide. Marvel Comics hadjumped into the arena with Tower of Shadows andChamber of Darkness, blowing eyeballs out withwork by Steranko, Tom Sutton, Don Heck, JohnRomita, Neal Adams, Marie Severin, and theBuscema brothers. Charlton, Warren, and Castleof Frankenstein magazine added to the nocturnal chills.

But it was DC’s revamp of House ofMystery and House of Secrets, eschewing“Dial H for Hero” and “Eclipso” (respectively),that turned a lot of heads in the publish-er’s direction. I was one of those fans. DChad these two new guys, BernieWrightson and Neal Adams, who weredoing things with a pencil I didn’tthink were possible! And even more,they had Alex Toth, Jack Sparling,Gil Kane, and … Sergio Aragonés,that MAD magazine guy, who camein once in a while with those whimsi-cal, twisted humor/horror one-pagersthat none of the competition wasable to mimic! His brand of hilari-ous black humor continued on intothe ’70s, of course. Mr. Aragonésspeaks to us about those greatdays.

– Jerry Boyd

by J e r r y B o y dconducted November 13, 2010 and January 19, 2011

JERRY BOYD: Who contactedyou to do those great cartoonsfor House of Mystery and theother titles at DC? Was it JoeOrlando, and if so, what were hisreasons for wanting humor pages betweenthe stories?SERGIO ARAGONÉS: I just arrived from Europe in ’68.When I got back, [MAD publisher] Bill Gaines told meJoe Orlando wanted to see me. He needed two scriptsfor Young Romance. [DC art director] Vince Colletta wasthere in his office waiting for some scripts. I suggestedthat they go to lunch and I wrote the scripts. They wentalong with it. [laughs] Someone cleaned up the lan-guage because I was still learning English! [laughs] Joe

came back, looked them over, andsaid, “I didn’t know you wrote!” “Neither

did I!” I said. [laughter] It was the basic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl—and a little twist.

BOYD: So you were thinking about writing.What made you feel you were ready?

ARAGONÉS: It wasn’t that complicated. I was a fanof comics, so I didn’t really write it for Vince, I drewit out in layouts, and made it really loose. I went tothe library at DC and looked over a few comicsbefore that. One story I came up with was how Imet my first wife. That was the basis. [The malestory character] was a musician instead of a car-toonist, though. It was very basic, very innocentstuff—it wasn’t that difficult.

M y s t e r y C o m i c s I s s u e • B A C K I S S U E • 1 5

Brotherly “Love”Cain and Abel cameto half-dead life inthis convention illodone for the inter-viewer in 2006.TM & © DC Comics.

BOYD: DC was revitalizing horror/mystery in thelate 1960s. You were busy at MAD at the time. Didyou have the time to read the other material byWrightson, Alex Toth, Bill Draut, Gil Kane, NealAdams, Kaluta, and others? If you did, do youremember any stand-out favorites?ARAGONÉS: They gave me copies of the books. Itook them home and I just loved Gil Kane’s andSam Glanzman’s material. A lot of the guys who didmystery were very good.BOYD: Were you able to fraternize much with theDC mystery artists?ARAGONÉS: I met all of them in New York. I metevery editor, every writer, [and] every cartoonist. Ispent a lot of time in the office. Paul Levitz, JoeOrlando’s assistant at the time, was very nice andhelpful. I wrote more scripts which I enjoyed. But Iwanted to do humor pages.BOYD: Your “Cain’s Gargoyles” became a welcomeaddition to House of Mystery early on. But youwrote a serious story about gargoyles around thesame time as that feature, am I correct?ARAGONÉS: Yes. Neal Adams drew a gargoylescover during the HOM relaunch. The cover camefirst and they needed a story inside to match. Iwrote the story for House of Mystery #175 (Aug.1968). After a little while, I began the half-pagegags.BOYD: That was the best half-page feature DC

could have, luckily for us! [laughs] So the DC edi-tors liked it.ARAGONÉS: They liked it. Henry Boltinoff did half-a-page cartoons for years. DC put an ad below it.I think the door was open for me because theywanted more pages. Yes, it was perfect for the 52-pagers that followed and then I got full pages.[DC’s titles were published in a 52-page formatfrom 1971–1972.] And I was happy to do fullpages.BOYD: Actually, you were getting full pages duringthe 15¢ era, but I see what you mean. You did getmore pages that were spread out in House ofSecrets and HOM when the 52-pagers were goingon. They were great, by the way!ARAGONÉS: Thank you. They were a pleasure todo, also.BOYD: What was your inspiration for the “Page13” cut-ins? Did you enjoy horror movies and justsay to yourself, “There’s a joke in this scene!” orwhat?ARAGONÉS: It was just horror humor! [laughs] I wastrying to make it funny. Don’t forget Joe camefrom MAD magazine and EC Comics. From there,he understood humor! My interest was in publish-ing my own humor comics, but there were nohumor comics then … or at least the type I reallywanted to do. However, I did write for Jerry Lewisand Angel and the Ape.BOYD: I liked the crazy variety of things youbrought to the “Page 13” cut-ins. Some weremazes or games; some were precursors ofPLOP!–like situations, and so on.

How closely did you work with Joe? Did he giveyou much advice or just let you go? ARAGONÉS: The great advantage was that myscripts were approved and that led to [the Western

Lucky Page 13At the onset of therevamped House ofMystery, editor Joe

Orlando included afull-page Aragonéscartoon on “trecepágina,” though

sometimes, as thisHOM #178 (Feb.

1969) entry indicates,the stories themselves

would intrude.TM & © DC Comics.

Beginnings: First professional art: Began selling cartoons to Mexicanmagazines at age 17 / First sale in United States: “AMad Look at the U.S. Space Effort” in MAD #76 (Jan.1963)

Milestones: Comics: MAD (including “Marginal Thinking” cartoons)/ Bat Lash / Angel and the Ape / House of Mystery andHouse of Secrets / PLOP! / Groo the Wanderer / TheMighty Magnor / Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel /Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC / Sergio Aragonés StompsStar Wars / Fanboy / Actions Speak / Louder Than Words/ TV/Film Acting: Laugh-In (1977) / Speak Up, America /Norman, Is That You? / Futurama

Works in Progress: MAD / Bart Simpson / SimpsonsComics / Sergio Aragonés’ Funnies(Comic-Con 2011, BongoComics)

Cyberspace:www.sergioaragones.com

SERGIOARAGONES


During the 1960s, Leo Dorfman regularly con-tributed scripts to DC Comics’ Superman familyof comic books, but he often wondered if it wasworth the headache. Chafing at the treatmenthe endured under editor Mort Weisinger, thewriter dreamed of creating a new series for amore congenial editorial office. He envisioneda supernatural comic book with a very specificfocus and was certain it would be a hit. LeoDorfman believed in Ghosts, and he soon con-vinced Murray Boltinoff to join him.

For his part, Boltinoff missed the days whenhe was shepherding new series like DoomPatrol and Eclipso [in House of Secrets]. Thelongtime DC editor remained a reliable pres-ence who could be counted on to shore up andsustain preexisting books like The Brave and theBold and The Unexpected, but it wasn’t thesame as creating a new series from the groundup. Having lost the editorial reins on SteveDitko’s Creeper and E. Nelson Bridwell’s SecretSix series to Dick Giordano in 1968 after only asingle issue apiece, Boltinoff longed for anoth-er opportunity.

In Leo Dorfman, he saw both a kindredspirit and a consummate professional. He alsoempathized with the writer’s discomfort at DC.“Since I shared an office with the tyrannicalbut talented Mort Weisinger,” Boltinoff wrotein Robin Snyder’s History of the Comics vol. 2 #3(Mar. 1991), “I was privy to his humiliation ofLeo during their story conferences plottingSuperman and Superboy stories. To free himselfof Mort, Leo hoped that his introduction of anew title would earn him a new editor.”

[Unless otherwise noted, all Boltinoff quotesin this article are from the essay cited above.]

DORFMAN POSSESSEDBy 1971, Weisinger had retired, but Dorfman’sdesire to launch Ghosts was undimmed. “For along time,” Boltinoff continued, “[Dorfman]had been suggesting to me that DC publish aghost magazine. If Dell’s Ghost Stories could

flourish since 1962, it was evident that with itsabundance of talent, DC could produce a bet-ter mousetrap.”

Dorfman made no secret of his fascinationwith the supernatural, the occult, and UFOs,cited in an autobiographical sketch in 1970’sAction Comics #396. He indulged it in his scriptsfor Gold Key comic books like Boris Karloff Talesof Mystery, Twilight Zone, and Grimm’s GhostStories, and such elements were a staple of theSuperman scripts he wrote for Boltinoff startingin 1970.

Within a few years of Dell’s Ghost Stories #1,Charlton Comics editor Dick Giordano


by J o h n W e l l s

You Will Believe!Murray Boltinoff andLeo Dorfman’sGhosts sported ver-bose covers from thevery start and stillcover artist NickCardy made somevisually strikingefforts. Here’s thecover of the firstissue (Oct. 1971).TM & © DC Comics.

launched Ghostly Tales and The Many Ghosts of Dr.Graves, titles that were joined by Ghost Manor in 1969.At DC, Murray Boltinoff had revived thesupernatural/suspense genre in a 1967 makeover ofTales of the Unexpected, even as his intended lead fea-ture (“Secret Six”) was launched as a comic book of itsown. With the addition of the revamped or brand-newseries House of Mystery, The Witching Hour, and House ofSecrets, DC believed it had the spook genre well-repre-sented. Boltinoff and Dorfman persisted that none ofthose titles had the specific theme and visceral impactof Ghosts. “After a prolonged hard-sell,” Boltinoff con-tinued, “Carmine Infantino, then-editorial director, wasultimately persuaded to add the title to DC’s roster.

“For our enterprise, I was appointed editor andassigned Leo to write the entire [first] issue,” Boltinoffsaid. Rather than create the appearance that one writerhad a monopoly of the comic book, Boltinoff hadDorfman use the pseudonyms Geoff Browne and DavidGeorge on the first two stories in the issue. (The formerwas inspired by the writer’s son Geoff and his wife’smaiden name Brown.)

Boltinoff made a point of matching up artists in thatfirst issue to the genres that represented theirstrengths. Consequently, Sam Glanzman drew theWorld War II-based “Ghost In the Iron Coffin,” whileTony DeZuniga illustrated a Western five-pager entitled“The Spectral Coachman.” Jim Aparo, then the regularartist on The Phantom Stranger, was tapped to illustrate

the opening story (“Death’s Bridegroom”), a gothicchiller wherein two swindlers wandered into a castlefilled with a ghostly wedding party.

“The whole project was unusual,” former DCComics president and publisher Paul Levitz tells BACKISSUE. “Murray rarely launched anything (last bookbefore this that I think he more than nominallylaunched was Plastic Man, five years and a whole differ-ent DC culture before), and didn’t give over antholo-gies to a single writer. Leo was pretty weary-looking inthose years, but he seemed to really connect with thisproject. He’d had success with Gold Key’s ghostanthologies, and both he and Murray put more life intothis run. Murray even got some strong artists into theearly issues—guys like Nick Cardy, who rarely workedon the anthologies at that time. Sales were strong—probably Murray’s bestselling mystery book, andMurray usually outsold the other editors in that genre.”

Ghosts #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1971) debuted in the midstof a year-long expansion of the DC line that saw thepage count of every standard title increased with anattendant price hike from 15 cents to 25 cents. Theextra pages in each issue were designated for reprintsand Boltinoff found himself drawing on stories original-ly produced in the 1950s. Tales like those, which tend-ed to dismiss seeming supernatural incidents with plau-sible explanations, were at odds with Ghosts’ convic-tion that such things were real. Nonetheless, the editorresisted major revisions, mostly punching up the finalpanels with more ambiguous dialogue or newly insert-ed captions like, “Now do you believe in ghosts?”

For all the effort invested in the interior, Boltinoffknew that a strong cover image was essential. Heselected veteran artist Nick Cardy, whose simple, boldstyle had been increasingly put to use on DC coverssince the late 1960s. On other titles like The WitchingHour or The Unexpected, Cardy’s art mostly stood on itsown merits with little or no cover copy. For Ghosts,Boltinoff went to the other extreme, splashing text onthe cover with the zeal of a carnival barker.

At the top of the cover, the actual title of the comicbook was sandwiched in a longer declaration thatremained unchanged for 40 issues: “If you don’tbelieve in ghosts, we challenge you to read true tales ofthe weird and supernatural!” Meantime, the titles ofevery new story in the issue were run across the bottomof the cover. Thanks to Cardy’s artistic skill and thestock design that placed the words and pictures on anunrolled scroll, the cumulative effect was quite eye-catching. The scroll backdrop was finally dropped after#15 (June 1973), but Boltinoff maintained a virtualtable of contents on most covers until nearly the end ofhis editorial tenure in 1978. From his perspective, acomic book promoting multiple story titles had greatervalue to prospective readers.

One of the central hooks of the series was its asser-tion that the stories within its pages were based on realevents. Indeed, its original title was “True GhostStories” and the indicia for issue #1 contained only theword “Ghost” with conspicuous blank spaces where“True” and “Stories” would have appeared. One presumes the change was a consequence of Gold Keyregularly using the “True Ghost Stories” phrase promi-nently on the covers of Ripley’s Believe or Not, a seriesfor which (not coincidentally) Dorfman also wrote.

FACT OR FICTION?Helping to create the illusion, the typical storyemployed an authoritative tone, dutifully citing in the

They Believed In Ghosts!

With fidelity to itstagline, “True Tales of

the Weird andSupernatural,” Ghosts

repeatedly delvedinto the influence of

spectral beings onreal people. Here’s

Tony DeZuñiga’sevocative splash page

from #1, featuringtwo renowned

authors and one ofAmerica’s greatest

presidents. (opposite)Nick Cardy’s coversto issues #2 and 8.

TM & © DC Comics.


first panel the year a particular ghostly incident took place and record-ing an update in the last, documentary style. (Stories in #73, 76, and95 even referenced or actually depicted later writers Carl Wessler,Robert Kanigher, and George Kashdan interviewing eyewitnesses.)“What amused me were inquiries from readers regarding the veracityof the stories, which were purportedly true,” Murray Boltinoffremembered. “In some instances, the accounts were gen-uine, and when they were not, they were written in sucha style and manner as to appear to be real.

“To make a story seem authentic when I editedGang Busters [in the 1950s], I invented a ploy: mixfact with fiction, and the reader swallows the wholething as genuine. For instance, a character says,‘1945 was my best year. The war ended. Hoop Jr.won the Derby. And I met Larry O’Toole.’ The firsttwo really did occur, but the fact about O’Toole is alsogulped down. I thought I’d created a clever writer’strick until some time later I read that our govern-ment intelligence agents used a similar propagandastrategy in World War II.”

Dorfman possessed a personal library thatinspired awe in friends and family alike. “There’s enough space for thedoor to swing open,” one of the writer’s sons detailed in Superman’sPal, Jimmy Olsen #156 (Feb. 1973). “And then you come face-to-facewith tiers of books stacked to the ceiling. Books on space travel, onoceanography, exploration, history, pre-history, anthropology, medi-cine. You name it, he’s got it! And all those thousands of books are inconstant use. My dad’s always thumbing through them to verify somefact or scientific twist he’s planning to use in one of his story ideas.”

Dorfman and Boltinoff’s formula also included occasional appear-ances by recognizable historical figures. Ghosts #1 actually openedwith a Tony DeZuniga-illustrated page asserting that Abraham Lincoln,Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain had all believed in specters.Later stories would feature the likes of Julius Caesar (#22), Napoleon

Bonaparte (#16), Edgar Allan Poe (#26), Jim Bowie at theAlamo (#15), Grigori Rasputin and Josef Stalin (#8),

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (#34), Mata Hari (#24),James Dean (#44), and perennial favorite Adolf Hitler(#16, 18, 22, 24).

There was a particular fascination with ghost sto-ries linked to the president of the United States,including an astrological-themed text feature (#14),a page of vignettes entitled “The Haunting of theWhite House” (#37), and the tale of would-be assas-

sin John Schrank’s attempt on Theodore Roosevelt—because the ghost of President McKinley told him todo it (#61). Abraham Lincoln’s assassination heldspecial power, with pieces focusing on both hismurderer John Wilkes Booth (#4) and his death train(#30). Perhaps the most fascinating account was

#21’s “Shadow of Death” and its revelation that the slain leader’s son,Robert Todd Lincoln, had been on the scene of the subsequent assas-sinations of Presidents Garfield and McKinley. Issue #11’s “The DeathCircle” documented the eerie fact that, “since 1840, every presidentvoted into office in a year ending in zero … has died in office.”[Obviously, that ghastly chain of coincidence came to an end afterRonald Reagan—elected in 1980—completed two full terms in office.]

For all the fact-based accounts like those, Boltinoff didn’t necessar-


NICK CARDY


A TantalizingTaste of theTremendousTalent of Talaoc!Ka-Zar and his kitty,Zabu, take on apesky Pterosaur inthis dynamic paint-ing by our interviewsubject, Gerry Talaoc!Courtesy of theartist. Wow, indeed.TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Underrated Bronze Age Artist

GERRY TALAOC Raps About His Life & Career

Underrated Bronze Age Artist

GERRY TALAOC Raps About His Life & Career

by M i c h a e l A u s h e n k e r

Every BACK ISSUE piecehas a backstory, and theone behind finding theartist Gerry Talaoc formy article on TheUnknown Soldier forBACK ISSUE #37 is a realdoozy.

Among the artists ofthe so-called “FilipinoInvasion,” Talaoc wasnever as big a name asAlfredo Alcala, NestorRedondo, or TonyDeZuñiga, who—with edi-tors Joe Orlando andCarmine Infantino—led thecharge to travel to thePhilippines in the early1970s and enlist the SouthPacific island nation’s toptalents to work for DCComics for lower page ratesthan their American coun-terparts. And yet Talaoc, as apenciler and/or inker, creat-ed handsome art for DCComics (and later Marvel),most notably The PhantomStranger, various DC horroranthologies, The IncredibleHulk, and, above all, hislengthy run on The Unknown

Soldier (originally penciling and inking, but laterembellishing Dick Ayers’ breakdowns).

“Gerry is a very nice guy,” recalls Tony DeZuñiga(who has not been in touch with Talaoc for decades).He tells BACK ISSUE: “Gerry’s a very good craftsman.He was very dependable. You give him a deadline andyou don’t have to worry on getting the work. He’s areal pro.”

I didn’t know much about Talaoc when I went on aquest to find the artist in early 2007. Even the thor-ough Filipino Invasion issue of Comic Book Artist, edit-ed by Jon B. Cooke, had little to say biographically onthe artist or his whereabouts. To find him, I had totravel all over the world (by Internet, of course). Andso, my journey took me from the Philippines—whereElmer cartoonist Gerry Alanguilan led me to Talaoc’sson, Jeremy, who led me back to America—Alaska—where Talaoc lives today as an employee of the City ofJuneau. After a phone-number mix-up, I left a voicemessage on Talaoc’s landline. And then––nothing…

…Until several months later, on a radiant August2007 afternoon, I was at my then-girlfriend’s house inverdant, suburban

The Real DealFilipino artist Gerry

Talaoc’s US debut wasin the pages of Houseof Mystery #205 (Aug.

1972), starting offspectacularly with this

epic, suspensefulsplash page depicting

E. Nelson Bridwell’stale of terror! From

the collection ofBenton Jew.

TM & © DC Comics.

Beginnings: Filipino “komiks” work in 1960s / First work publishedin US: “Phony Face!” in House of Mystery #205 (Aug.1972)

Milestones: House of Mystery / Ghosts / The Phantom Stranger / TheUnknown Soldier / G.I. Combat / Incredible Hulk / AlphaFlight / Comet Man

Works in Progress:Paintings and commissions

GERRYTALAOC


Irvine, California (about an hour south of Los Angeles),where I received a phone call. It was Gerry Talaoc.

I dropped whatever I was doing to conduct ourinterview on the spot. After a half-hour’s conversationon Talaoc’s Unknown Soldier experiences, without anysolicitation, Gerry graciously offered to create a littlesomething extra special for our article. Six monthslater, I received a jpeg of a terrific painting of anunmasked Soldier in a trench fending off some potatomasher-lobbing Nazis (Talaoc was the first artist to ren-der the Joe Kubert creation sans bandages). The piecewas stunning. It was clear that, after about 12 years of

comics-industry dormancy, Gerry Talaoc still had hischops. We teased it on the cover of BACK ISSUE #37 andran the complete image inside.

After the issue came out, I soon discovered that notjust myself but a circle of my cartoonist peers weresmitten with the Talaoc style. Turns out my BACK ISSUEbrudda, writer Jerry Boyd, owns a Talaoc original artpage from House of Secrets. Meanwhile, my fellowCartoon Art Professionals Society members, Anson andBenton Jew, informed me that they had been fans ofTalaoc’s work since childhood (coincidentally, likeTalaoc, the Los Angeles–based twin brothers happen tobe of Filipino descent).

“I know Talaoc’s work primarily through the variousDC horror anthology comics stories he did in the late’60s and early ’70s,” says Anson Jew, who has createdindependent comics and storyboarded the Wolverineand the X-Men cartoon. “He was very much like AlexNiño in a lot of ways, but what he seemed to do reallywell was sinister. For creepy, jerk characters with skull-like faces, you could do no better than Talaoc!”

“My first exposure to Talaoc’s work was when I wasa preteen kid,” says Benton Jew, a storyboard artist(Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Pirates of theCaribbean: On Stranger Tides) who worked onWolverine: Agent of Atlas #1. “There was a story in TheSecrets of Sinister House #10 called ‘The Cards NeverLie!’ It was a ghost story set in the days of the Mob. Ihad also seen his work in The Unknown Soldier, as wellas his work replacing Jim Aparo on The PhantomStranger.

“Although I didn’t care for his work at first,” Bentoncontinues, “the images in ‘The Cards Never Lie!’ stuckwith me. As I got older, and my tastes matured, I gaveTalaoc’s work a second look and realized that I was acomplete fool! This guy’s work was incredible! Just asJordi Bernet’s work kind of looked like as if Joe Kubertinked Alex Toth, Talaoc’s work took on some of the bestqualities of Frank Robbins work as if inked by AlexNiño!”

Count London-based artist Rufus Dayglo (the Tank

Seeking Answers,Facing RealityTwo iconic Talaocpanels from his mostbeloved DC assign-ments. (left) ThePhantom Stranger,from PS #35 (Mar.1975), and (above)the UnknownSoldier, from StarSpangled War Stories#183 (Dec. 1974).The latter wasGerry’s debut onthat title, whichshifted the characterfrom a bandaged-faced hero to thisnew, grotesque,decidely more hor-ror-inspiring visage.What chills! What thrills! TM & © DC Comics.


Night FlightWe photo manipulatedthe proportions of this,Gaspar Saladino’s “BlackOrchid” logo and BobOksner’s bodaciouscover image fromAdventure Comics #430(Dec. 1973).TM & © DC Comics.


by S h a n n o n E . R i l e y

“It was midnight … a man … a good man …was in trouble … and she appeared! It was as sim-ple as that! She showed a strength that was impos-sible to believe … removed the man from danger …and then vanished! Nothing more wasknown about her, except thateveryone who saw her agreed thatshe looked like a huge flower—anorchid—a Black Orchid!”

So began the escapades of themysterious Black Orchid. BobOksner’s moody cover for AdventureComics #428 (Aug. 1973) depictsour heroine perched on a Gothicrooftop, set against the backdrop ofa full moon and a bat-filled sky.Below her, a gang of gun-totingcriminals peer out a window—unaware that they are about tobecome her prey. While it’s promi-nently touted as an origin issue, thetrue identity of the Black Orchidwould remain a puzzler for another15 years. She was a malleable cypher, with DCseemingly content to let the character shift in andout of stories with no attempt to define her. That is,until a newcomer named Neil Gaiman turned thatidea on its head and crafted a new mythology. Butbefore Gaiman could do that—the Black Orchidwould have to die.

TAKING ROOT IN ADVENTUREUnder the guidance of editor Joe Orlando, DC’slong-running Adventure Comics took a brief detouraway from traditional superheroics in the early ’70s.

Beginning with issue #425 (Dec.1972), the focus shifted to fanta-sy and supernatural adventuretales. It likely made good busi-ness sense to Orlando, given thesuccess of the company’s othermystery titles following theloosening of the Comics Code.Non-costumed protagonists—like Robert Kanigher’s and AlexNiño’s “Captain Fear,” andJohn Albano’s and Jim Aparo’s“The Adventurers’ Club”—appeared in the series throughissue #427 (May 1973).

Making her debut in issues#428–430 (Aug.–Dec. 1973),the Black Orchid brought thecostumes back to Adventure,

but with a twist of mystery: she was a mas-ter of disguise and, in effect, a blank slate. Uniquein DC’s stable of characters, her powers were unex-plained and even stranger, she left an aromaticorchid as her calling card. The first three stories—“Black Orchid,” “Challenge to the Black Orchid,”and “The Anger of the Black Orchid”—all followedsimilar arcs in that the heroine would mysteriously

A Fine Inspiration(left) Black Orchiddesigner Tony DeZuñigaexplains that the cos-tume was inspired byanother “black” charac-ter, Quality Comics’ theBlack Condor, Lou Fine’sGolden Age superhero.TM & © DC Comics.

appear, save a pro-tagonist, and thenshake down crooksby masquerading asan assortment ofdancers, waitresses,

or femme fatales. Asc o - c r e a t o r

T o n y

DeZuñiga relatesto BACK ISSUE, theOrchid was essen-tially Orlando’sbrainchild—and itwas DeZuniga andlongtime DC edi-tor/writer/cartoonistSheldon Mayer whoexecuted the idea.

This was the firstand only collaboration

between Mayer andDeZuñiga, and it was

Mayer’s health issues thatwould indirectly lead to thepartnership. Failing eyesighthad forced Mayer to abandonhis first love of cartooning, andbegin scripting stories for DC’smystery titles. He wrote suchtales as “This Evil Demon Loves

People!” for House of Mystery#207 (Oct. 1972), “Small Invasion”

in House of Secrets #101 (Oct. 1972),and “Death Laughed Last!” for

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #12(Sept. 1973).

DeZuñiga had left his home in the Philippines in1969 and ventured to New York City, where he beganworking for DC under Orlando’s guidance. His first jobwas as Ric Estrada’s inker on the story “For Love orMoney” in Girls’ Love Stories #153 (Aug. 1970), and hisfirst American penciling gig appeared in “Dark City ofDoom” in House of Mystery #188 (Oct. 1970).

DeZuñiga says, “Joe Orlando, for me—he’s the besteditor DC ever had. He gave artists free rein and he rec-ognized every artist’s [strengths].” Anyone familiar withDeZuñiga’s work knows that it exhibits a stunning real-ism and a strong command of the human form (as evi-denced by the pen and ink commissions he did for thisarticle). These traits would be put on full display in hisvisual interpretation of Mayer’s scripts.

DeZuñiga found the most obvious inspiration forthe Orchid’s garb from her flower namesake—Cymbidium canaliculatum sparkesii—a plant resplendentwith dark black-purple petals and sepals. It was aGolden Age Quality Comics hero that would furtherserve as a muse for the artist. DeZuñiga tells BI that inbrainstorming the design concept, he “read the charac-ter description and [recalled that] in the ’40s there wasthis character called the Black Condor, but [since] thatwas a male superhero, I took some ideas and revised [it]to a female form. I had fun working on it—I love thecharacter because [she] was beautifully, elegantlydesigned.” DeZuñiga acknowledges that while theissues didn’t sell that well, she’s fondly remembered bycollectors to this day. “Even now, I get a lot of commis-sions and people still ask me a lot of questions aboutBlack Orchid.”

THINGS GET STRANGERWhile not successful enough to graduate to her owntitle, Black Orchid was awarded the backup feature inThe Phantom Stranger, starting with issue #31 (July1974). Mayer and DeZuñiga stayed on as the creativeteam for the story “Island of Fear,” but this would betheir final joint effort on the character. With issue #32(Sept. 1974), Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley tookthe scripting reins, with Nestor Redondo handing pen-cils and inks for “The Crime of the Black Orchid.” Thetale sees the Orchid framed by a young couple leadinga life of crime. The woman, Myrna, pulls a bank heist in


Who’s That Girl?(right) The true iden-

tity of our hero ispondered in this niceDeZuñiga panel from

Adventure Comics#428 (Aug. 1973).

TM & © DC Comics.

Flower Child(above) Tony

DeZuñiga recentlycreated this lyrical

image of the sublimeBlack OrchidTM & © DC Comics.


by J a r r o d B u t t e r y

In the 1970s it was de rigueur for each mystery comic tohave a host. With its 1978 debut, Doorway toNightmare featured a host who didn’t simply introducethe stories but participated in each tale. The issues fol-lowed a formula: each wholly independent full-lengthstory featured lovers beset by occult forces seekingadvice from an enigmatic fortune-teller—whose other-wise-locked door always seemed open for those gen-uinely in need. Guided by the Tarot, Madame Xanaduwould advise, but allow her visitors to tread their ownpaths, reappearing for the denouement to ensnare thatissue’s supernatural antagonist in one of her Soul Jars.

Artist Michael Wm. Kaluta remembers beingapproached by DC editor Joe Orlando: “Joe’s exactwords were, ‘We’re developing a hostess for a bookcalled Doorway to Nightmare—she’ll act as a way tointroduce the stories, though, other than appearing atthe beginning, she won’t take part in the actual stories.I want a witchy, Gypsy–type woman; she’ll live inGreenwich Village where she has a fortune-tellingshop.’” Somewhere in development, MadameXanadu’s role expanded from host to participant.However, Orlando had approached the right person,for Kaluta had drawn a mystery hostess for seven issuesof Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion. “I adapted thenameless hostess from FToDM into Madame Xanadu,but Joe O. never asked me to do that specifically,”recalls Kaluta. “The woman who graced the indiciapage of FToDM was tall, dark, mysterious, and un-edit-ed; I drew the pieces as evocative mood images and theeditor had the words added afterward—it was as closeas I’d come to self-expression at that time. The agree-ment between me and the editor was she’d never benamed and she’d never act like the other, EC Comics-based hosts: never putting on funny hats and actinglike a carnival barker (until the final issue, where Ibelieve Mr. Chaykin put her in a Santa suit). She natu-rally morphed into the template for Madame Xanadu.”[Writer’s note: This character was eventually named“Charity” in Starman #2 (Dec. 1994).]

Joe Orlando edited the first two issues of Doorway

before Jack C. Harris took over. “The title was, from thebeginning, going to be a showcase for both new andestablished artists and writers,” reveals Harris. “Thethought was to combine new writers with establishedartists and new artists with established writers. I don’trecall the specific incidents leading up to the creationof Doorway or Madame Xanadu, except for the Tarotcards. They were at the very heart of the idea from thebeginning. The Soul Jars were added to the characterand her ‘look’ was 100% the work of Mike Kaluta.”

ENTER FREELY, UNAFRAIDKaluta states, “The cover for Doorway to Nightmare #1(Feb.–Mar. 1978) was certainly suggested by Joe O:‘Have her holding a Tarot Card.’ Whether he askedspecifically for the Death card from the Major Arcana, Idon’t recall.”

The debut issue was written by David Michelinie. “Ido remember that I was asked to write the firstDoorway to Nightmare; it wasn’t a project I brought toDC,” offers Michelinie. “I worked most closely withPaul Levitz, I believe, who was Joe Orlando’s assistant atthe time. [Mr Levitz declined to answer BACK ISSUE’squestions.] I’m pretty sure that the character, names,and general concept were there before I was broughtin. I think the idea was to have sort of a femalePhantom Stranger, a mysterious character who wasmore than she appeared to be, who took a more activerole than other hosts but let the individual charactersfrom the separate stories take center stage. So I basical-ly constructed a story that would establish things forother writers to follow, expanding on the specifics I wasgiven.”

And follow they did. Michelinie’s introductory storyshowed a young woman seeking to save her boyfriendfrom an Egyptian succubus, but also established con-cepts that have remained with Madame Xanadu overher 33-year history. The writer says, “I’m pretty sureChristy Street (a play on Christopher Street, an actualaddress in the Village), ‘Enter Freely, Unafraid’ (the signon her door), and the bit about the door being


Artist and ModelPerhaps second only

to The Shadow,Madame Xanadu is a

character foreverassociated specifically

with the singularartistry of one

Michael WilliamKaluta, certainly oneof the finest creators

ever to share his illus-trative talents with a

comic-book audience.Did you know the

hostess is based on areal person? Check

out the sidebar nearthe end of this article,“The Once & Future

Madame Xanadu.”The above photo

portrait of the artist isby and courtesy of

Kyle Cassidy.


WithdrawlSymptomsMain image is aslightly photo-manipulated pagefrom PLOP! #7 (Oct.1974), featuring thisLore Shoberg gag.Inset is a recentphoto of the multi-talented hombre,who now goes bythe brand of Loren Orion, pardnah.Page TM & © DC Comics.Photo ©2011 Loren Orion.

by B r y a n S t r o u d

Lore Shoberg, by his own description, arrived at theoffices of DC Comics via a circuitous route, beingreferred to Joe Orlando because of his “dark” humorillustrations that he’d been providing to NationalLampoon. Lore had originally gone to New York City fromSan Francisco to pursue publication of a children’s book,but while he was seeking that goal, began to try to get

any sort of work to keep body and soul together. He ulti-mately did get a publisher, so his time in comics was brief,beginning with a one-page gag strip for Cain’s GameRoom in DC Comics’ House of Mystery #192, (May–June1971). Lore also scripted two mystery stories during hisassociation with DC in 1971 and 1972.

– Bryan Stroud

BRYAN STROUD: You’ve had quite the colorfulcareer. You’ve gone coast to coast and points inbetween and done a lot of extraordinary things. Areyou driven or lucky or both?LORE (SHOBERG) ORION: I’m kind of like a monkeywith a shiny object. I go where the mood suits me, Iguess. You know, one thing leads to another, and hasled to another, and as I made the steps the first stepmade before led to the next one. So I guess it wasluck—being in the right place at the right timeand a blind determination not to work for aliving. [laughter]STROUD: I wish I could say I’ve beenas fortunate. I guess some of us getopportunities at an early stage andothers have to wait a little longer. SHOBERG: Well, I also grew up at apoint when it was okay to do that. Atime when following your nose, so tospeak, or to follow your own heart wasnot only accepted, but encouraged. Itwas “do your own thing,” where nobodywas criticized for not getting a job and[not] being like your parents. Now, I do thinkwe gained some bad things because of it, but alsogained some good things. I think we lost a lot of thingsthat should have been integral to the legacy of thatwhole time. I don’t mean “legacy” as some kind of big,important thing. “Residue” would probably be a betterword.

I live in Bandera, Texas, about 75 miles north of SanAntonio in the Hill Country and in this little town, percapita, there has been more people successful in themusic field than pretty much any other town. Theydon’t advertise it here. It’s the Cowboy Capital of theworld. There have been seven World Champion All-

Around Cowboys from Bandera. So that’s the big sell-ing point for the Chamber of Commerce. Guys likeJimmy Foster, who wrote “Eight in the Middle” andsome other songs for Diamond Rio and others. I’ve hadmy songs cut by Waylon [Jennings], Tim McGraw, andsome other people and a friend of mine, Bobby Boyd,just got a Grammy a couple of years ago for “Bless theBroken Road.” There are managers, one from here whomanaged Pat Green. Willie [Nelson] spent his time inBandera. So there has been a lot of people who’vecome from this town that are musicians. STROUD: I had no idea. SHOBERG: I grew up in Ramona, California, near San

Diego, on a ranch my grandparents owned when itwas a one-stoplight town. In fact, it didn’t

even have a stoplight. We’d come downout of the hills and ride the waves at

Pacific Beach and other places. Sothat’s some of my background. STROUD: You’re an artist in morethan one sense of the word. Whatdo you feel are your greateststrengths?

SHOBERG: Songwriting, I think.Writing, generally, but songwriting in

particular. It’s what I do and basicallywhat I do best. I’ve come to that realization

just in the last year or two. I’m 61 now andwhen I first started in the music business—which wasdirectly related to the art business because I was doingalbum covers—it was just fun to do. I’d been writingsongs for myself, so I figured I’d just go and write songsfor somebody else. So I went up to Nashville and fromthere it was a natural thing to decide I wanted to be arecording artist. So I went through that whole thingand wound up on MCA Records and all this while doingthe artwork at the same time. Eventually, the record-ing-artist thing went by the wayside and I just wantedto be a songwriter, and still at the same time trying towrite books and trying to do another children’s book


Purple Sage Haze(above left) Lore just

might be mostfamous for his NewRiders of the PurpleSage album covers.

(above right) He originally came toNew York City topitch a children’s

book. Before return-ing West, Lore pro-duced three books.Here’s the cover to

Machine (1973). TM & © the copyright owner.

Lore of Yore(inset) Young MasterShoberg, who still is

in a rock band today. TM & © Lore Orion.

by B r u c e B u c h a n a n

Perhaps you saw them at the bottom of a spinner rack at your

local newsstand. Or maybe they were tucked away on the bottom shelf

at your neighborhood pharmacy or grocery store. But if you were a

comics fan in the 1970s and early ’80s, chances are you encountered

one of Charlton’s ghost-story comics while picking up the latest issue of Fantastic Four or Batman.

If the quirky, off-brand comics attracted your attention enough to

actually pick up a copy, you would discover an amazing array of talent,

often working below the radar and for little pay. Contributors to

Charlton’s line of horror anthology books included Steve Skeates, Jim Aparo, Steve Ditko, Denny O’Neil (writing under the pen

name “Sergius O’Shaugnessy”), Pat Boyette, Joe Gill, NICK CUTI, MIKE ZECK, Joe Staton, and many more!

While published under a wide range of titles—mostnotably The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, Scary Tales,Haunted, and Ghost Manor—the Charlton books werelargely interchangeable in format. Each issue featuredtwo to four short stories, generally ranging from 8–12pages each. The stories were entirely self-contained—none of the characters in these stories had appearedbefore, nor would they appear later. And each title gen-erally had a unique, otherworldly host who introducedthe stories and perhaps served as a narrator. Some ofthese hosts included Dr. Graves, Winnie the Witch(Ghostly Haunts), Baron Weirwulf (Haunted), CountessVon Bludd (Scary Tales), Mr. Bones (Ghost Manor), andMr. Dedd (Ghostly Tales).

Unlike the infamous EC horror comics of the 1950s,the Charlton titles were light on actual violence andgore. Instead, they relied on suspenseful setups andtwist endings to deliver chills and thrills to readers.

THE BIRTH OF THE CHARLTON MYSTERY LINEThe mystery line started in 1966, with the publicationof Ghostly Tales. The first issue actually was numbered#55, taking over the numbering from a previousCharlton title [Editor’s note: oddly enough, Blue Beetle].The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves was added the subse-quent year, and Ghost Manor came on board in 1968.

One of the early writers to work on the Charltonhorror line was Steve Skeates.

“What I liked most about working for Charlton wasthe vast variety of genres I had the pleasure there towork within—that and the fact that I’d get assigned asmany pages as I could possibly handle,” Skeates recalls.“Sure, the pay was less than half of what the big com-

panies (and I do mean DC and Marvel) were shellingout per page, yet those guys tended to be downrightstingy as to the number of pages they’d toss in yourdirection; not so with Charlton!

“I was writing Westerns (Captain Doom, KidMontana, and the Sharpshooter); a forever-continuing,heavily captioned sword-and-sorcery period piece (TheThane of Bagarth); a private eye (Sarge Steel, in theback of the Judomaster comic as well as on his own insomething called Secret Agent); humor pieces (“Far-OutFairy Tales” for that teen-oriented comic called Go-Go,and the entirety of the Abbott and Costello comic book);I even got to create my own superhero group (the TyroTeam),” Skeates says. “And so it was that when editorDick Giordano one day suddenly (seemingly out of theblue) asked if I’d like to try my hand at a bunch ofspooky, ghostly, pseudo-horror-type stories, I of courseleapt at the chance!”

Giordano’s assignment to Skeates was the write twoeight-page “slightly frightening mood pieces” for thesecond issue of The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. As wasthe case with most Charlton stories, Skeates said he wasunder tight time constraints, although he was gratefulfor the work and the artistic freedom he had at thecompany.

“More often than not I’d start pounding those keyswith only a vague utterly bare-bones idea as to where Iwas going and then let the plot work itself out even asI was typing the tale up,” Skeates says.

The grind-it-out schedule also made collaboratingwith artists impossible. Skeates said Giordano didn’tassign an artist to the story until a completed script hadbeen turned in and, sometimes, the writer didn’t knowwhich artist had drawn his story until he saw the fin-ished comic on the newsstands. However, Skeatesfound Giordano’s choice of artists to be close to per-fect.

Skeates’ favorite Charlton horror collaborationsinclude “This Old Man,” drawn by Pat Boyette for TheMany Ghosts of Dr. Graves #8 (Aug. 1968). Skeates par-ticularly likes the title panel of the story: “It’s like thatpanel’s the very definition of ‘claustrophobic,’ whilefurthermore you can almost smell the mustiness!”

Other Skeates favorites include “The Best of AllPossible Worlds!,” with Jim Aparo in The Many Ghosts ofDr. Graves #5 (Jan. 1968), and “Routine,” with SteveDitko, in The Many Ghost of Dr. Graves #7 (July 1968).

“The beauty of this genre (this ghostly anthologystuff) was that I wasn’t boxed in by the constraints ofcontinuity—outside of the narrator, there were no con-tinuing characters here, and therefore I could do what-ever I wanted with those who were involved,” Skeatessays.

MR. DITKO COMES TO DERBYAfter leaving Marvel Comics in 1966, as well as theAmazing Spider-Man title he helped create, artist/writerSteve Ditko returned to Charlton, where he previouslyhad worked on a variety of titles. While he helpedlaunch the company’s “Action Heroes” line with suchsuperhero characters as the Blue Beetle (the Ted Kordversion), the Question, and Captain Atom, he alsobecame a regular contributor to Charlton’s line ofghost-story comics. Ditko would remain a frequentartist on these books for more than a decade.

Ditko found artistic freedom at Charlton, some-thing that had been a source of tension at Marvel. Healso had the opportunity to work closely withCharlton’s workhorse writer Joe Gill. Gill and Ditko had

Host GhostsSteve Ditko’s

renderings of the host character icons

that appeared onCharlton’s mystery

comics. On the left isHaunted’s Impy o

and, right, Mr. Bonesof Ghost Manor.

Courtesy of Heritage.© 1973 Charlton Comics.



by M a r k A r n o l d

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? premiered on televisionin 1969, and it has arguably become the most success-ful Hanna-Barbera cartoon TV show of all time, withmany, many various episodes and incarnations with thebasic central theme of four teenagers solving mysterieswith their large dog. According to Mark Evanier, “Thefour kids were based—in the same way The Flintstoneswas inspired by The Honeymooners—on the old TV showThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Fred was based onDobie, Velma on Zelda, Daphne on Thalia, and Shaggy onMaynard.”

The TV show was originally going to be called Who’sScared?, but network powers-that-be felt that this wouldbe too disturbing for smaller children, and that more com-edy should be introduced into the show, so the resultingchanges led to the addition of a Great Dane and the showto be christened Scooby-Doo. The show’s name is usual-ly attributed to Frank Sinatra’s 1965 hit “Strangers in theNight,” in which the crooner sings “scooby-dooby-doo,”but upon closer examination, the name may actually haveits origins from an old doo-wop song from 1963 called“Denise” by Randy and the Rainbows, in which the back-ing chorus sings “shooby-doo” over and over again.

Whatever the case, Scooby-Doo has also become amainstay on the comic-book shelves by various publishersfrom 1969–1979 and again from 1992 to the presentday.

Although many other artists and writers worked onthe various Scooby-Doo comic books that have appearedover the years, it is often considered that the teaming ofprolific writer Mark Evanier and premier artist DanSpiegle produced the best stories, and a working relation-ship that went on to other projects and as you’ll discover,an occasional return to the dog that originally broughtthem together.

Here, Evanier and Spiegle reminisce on the series thatfirst brought them together.

– Mark Arnold

INTERVIEW WITH MARK EVANIERConducted January 4, 2011

MARK ARNOLD: Tell me how you gotinvolved with Gold Key Comics, the firstpublisher of Scooby-Doo.MARK EVANIER: One of the first people Imet in comics was Mike Royer, who is still agood friend of mine. When I started work-ing with Jack Kirby, I helped Mike get thejob as Jack’s inker. Mike in turn recom-mended me to write comic-book stories fora department they had at Disney Studiosthat was producing material for foreignDisney comics … stuff that didn’t appearin the United States. At the time, thedemand for Disney comics overseas wasso great that it surpassed the quantity ofpages that Western Publishing, a.k.a.Gold Key, was having written and drawnfor the Disney comics they were pub-lishing in America. For instance, GoldKey was not producing new UncleScrooge stories and the Disney publish-ers overseas wanted new Uncle Scroogestories.ARNOLD: Is this similar to Egmont,the overseas representative for

Disney today?EVANIER: Yeah, sort of. I started writing Disney comicsthere. I worked with a fellow named George Sherman,who was a very nice, bright man, but he was in failinghealth at the time. He wound up dying at a very youngage and when I was working for him, he would be awayfrom the studio for weeks at a time due to illness andthen he would come back and find his desk piled highwith Evanier scripts, which I guess was injurious to hishealth. One day he was talking to Chase Craig, the edi-tor over at Western Publishing, and Chase mentionedthat some of his best writers were retiring or had died,and I suppose George thought, “Here’s a chance to getEvanier off my back,” or something of the sort. Forwhatever his reason, he recommended me to Chase.He said, “I’ve got a young guy here who’s very prolificand very familiar with the Disney characters, and I thinkyou’ll get along with him.” I had actually met Chasebefore this once but the subject of writing for thecomics he was doing did not come up. This time, it did.George sent him some of the scripts he’d bought fromme and Chase called me up and said, “Hey, can youwrite stuff like this for me?”ARNOLD: How did that transition to Scooby-Doo?Were you the “de facto” guy to go to to write all theWestern/Gold Key comics?EVANIER: Chase had me on the Disney books at firstand then, I don’t know … maybe he sensed that I wasbetter suited for other characters or maybe I said some-thing. He put me on Woody Woodpecker and then onBugs Bunny and all the Warner Bros. comics.

Oh, wait… My second or third job for him, he hadme do the first issue of a new comic based on a newHanna-Barbera show, The Amazing Chan and the ChanClan. But then it was back to the ducks and wabbits.

Then one day I was in there and he asked me if Iwanted to write Scooby-Doo. Dan Spiegle had takenover as artist on the book, which was unusual casting.A lot of people now think of Dan as doing that kind ofbook but at the time, no one did, including Dan. Hewas having a little problem making the transition from

Maynard isShaggy

Evanier explains thatas The Flintstones wasloosely based on The

Honeymooners, so toowas the popular

1959–1963 sitcomThe Many Loves of

Dobie Gillis the tem-plate for Scooby-Doo,

Where Are You? Here’sa couple of issues ofthe DC comic, with

cover art by BobOksner.

© 20th Century Fox Television.


BACK ISSUE #52Bronze Age Mystery Comics! Interviews with BERNIE WRIGHT-SON, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GERRY TALAOC, DC mystery writerLORE SHOBERG, MARK EVANIER and DAN SPIEGLE discussScooby-Doo, Charlton chiller anthologies, Black Orchid, MadameXanadu art and commentary by TONY DeZUNIGA, MIKE KA-LUTA, VAL MAYERIK, DAVID MICHELINIE, MATT WAGNER, anda rare cover painting by WRIGHTSON!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

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MYSTERY COMICS: Charlton Anthologies • Black Orchid ...to revive the horror-comics genre. For example, in 1957, Harvey Comics published the comic book Man in Black, which ran for