Number 332
Steve Gerber and Ronn Foss' Little Giant
This strip was drawn on spirit duplicator stencils by Ronn Foss and used in the first issue of Steve Gerber's 1962 fanzine, Headline. Gerber wrote it under a pen-name, S. G. Ross.
Foss was a popular fan artist and got a lot of requests to do artwork. He was older than Gerber or me, working with teenage fans too young to have drivers licenses. At the time he drew this he was a Post Office employee living in Suisun, California.
Like me, Gerber was young. He wrote "Little Giant" when he was 15 and it shows. No originality here. He even borrowed the War Wheel from Blackhawk.
In looking at the story now I'm struck by how "Comics Code" it reads. It reflects the type of thing we were reading in the mainstream comics of the early 1960s. Steve Gerber went on to bigger and better things, and made his name in the business. Ronn Foss never hit it big in the comics biz. He always drew, though. He moved east to a farm and did artwork for various publications right up until his death in 2001.
I don't have the second part to this story, but I'll bet the Little Giant wins.
Stuff like this is always interesting, but the anecdotes included are even better than the story.
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