Number 2474: Al Williamson races for the moon

A story was told by Al Williamson of the time he went looking for work after the big comic book crash in the 1950s. He went to Harvey Comics, where they gave him some penciled pages to ink. The penciling was done by none other than Jack Kirby for Race to the Moon #3 (1958). At first Williamson did not think that their styles meshed, but like Kirby he was a solid professional, and what might have seemed unusual for Williamson looks very good to me.

Heritage Auctions has this and other stories from Kirby/Williamson at their web site, which is where I appropriated the story. To make it more legitimate I am also giving Heritage a plug: Go to the Heritage Auctions website, sign up and behold the many wonders of what Heritage is selling and has sold, in sharp reproductions that make even the most finicky collector or casual browser swoon with joy. According to the details, the auction company sold this original art in 2013 for $15,535.

This and other artwork from Race to the Moon on the Heritage site came from the Joe Simon estate.

Number 2387: Uncle Sam is just Fine!

This exquisite collection of original art is all one story of Uncle Sam, from National Comics #13 (1941). I have used the scans from Heritage Auctions. They did a beautiful job showing near-pristine artwork by Lou Fine; very few globs of white paint, no pasteovers — or at least none that I can readily see — and what blue pencil marks I see are very light.

Lou Fine is credited with the artwork for this story, and Will Eisner with the writing. Seeing the original art is depriving you of seeing it in full eye-blasting color, but here is an example from the printed comic book of the phantasmic look it gives to the story.

Blue boulders? Egad. Other pages have bright red skies, and other color anomalies. Like most comic book publishers of the time, Quality Comics’ “quality” in printing left much to be desired, even with the oddball coloring. The colors cover up the delicate line and feathered brush work that Fine was known for, which is why I am showing the original art and not the comic book version.

Heritage Auctions sold the artwork in 2013 for $53,755.00. Thanks to them for providing the art on their website.

Here is the origin story from National Comics #1. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2202: America’s future patriotic hero

Like Robert Webb, who drew Sheena, featured a couple of days ago, Dan Zolnerowich was a journeyman comic book artist who began his career with the Eisner and Iger studio. He sometimes signed his name Zolne. Also like Webb, I can’t find much information on him. Fiction House Comics stood out on the racks because of the covers Zolnerowich drew for them during the war years and beyond.

I have noticed online some paintings he did, reproducing some of his early covers, done as late as 1977. If anyone has information on him I would appreciate you sharing it.

Heritage Auctions showed all but the last page of Zolnerowich’s artwork for Super-American, which originally appeared in Fight Comics #17 (1942). My thanks to Heritage for posting these pages. My appropriation of them is shameless, but that’s just the kind of stuff I do and who I am. The last page I took from scans of the printed comic available at the Digital Comics Database.

Super-American appeared in only four issues of Fight Comics, numbers 15 through 18, then disappeared. Fiction House had never been totally comfortable with superheroes, not like their competition. They had many characters who appeared year-after-year, but most of them were like comic book versions of characters out of pulp magazines, which Fiction House also published. Super-American was brought from the future to help America fight their enemies. I have shown a couple more of his stories; check the links below.

As promised, two earlier Super-American stories, including his origin. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1935: Ghastly's real-life horror

Graham “Ghastly” Ingels’ gothic and moody artwork for EC Comics can still send a shiver to anyone encountering his work for the first time. But Ingels struggled with alcoholism, and it was (according to some) at EC that his drinking got worse. In an article in Filmfax Outré #5 (1996), author/interviewer Don Vaughn tells of Ingels’ drinking: “Ingels quickly became one of EC’s premiere [sic] talents, drawing the lead story in . . . Haunt of Fear, secondary stories for the two other horror title and the occasional crime tale. It was a grueling schedule, but Ingels was fast with a brush and had little trouble keeping up, says fellow EC alumni [sic] George Evans.

“It was during this period, associates recall, that Ingels’ drinking started to get out of hand. His work never suffered, but he occasionally missed deadlines, forcing EC editor Al Feldstein to give him advanced deadlines so that publishing schedules wouldn’t be affected. Sometimes, say friends, Ingels would disappear for days at a time — often with the completed artwork under his arm. Amazingly, he never once misplaced it.”

In the article Evans describes a ride home with Ingels after Ingels had imbibed several beers. “We would be tearing along at 65 miles per hour on the parkway and I would see lights a mile ahead and he would suddenly hit the brakes. Then we would be approaching traffic and he would put his foot on the gas pedal. At a given point, I would say, “Hey, Graham, you’re coming up on that pretty damned fast!” And he would say, “Not to worry, George, I’ve got everything under control.”

So Ingels drove drunk. He is lucky he and his passengers — or innocents in another car — didn’t end up looking like the cadaverous creatures he sometimes drew. As the article goes on, in later life Ingels backed off drinking so much, but by then it had ruined his marriage and his relationship with his children. Before he died in 1991 he reconciled with his daughter, but not his son. Alcoholism was the horror story Ingels lived. But there is some sort of happy ending: Ingels became a respected art teacher in Florida, and author Vaughn quoted some comments from Ingels’ students praising his teaching and artistic ability.

In a more traditional sense, Ingels’ paper nightmares, those he drew for EC Comics, are readily available in various forms, deluxe hardcover compilations to the original pre-Code comics to reprints of those comics. In the case of “Nobody There!” from Haunt of Fear #16 (1952), these are scans of the original art I am posting with grateful approbation to Heritage Auctions, who sold these eight pages for $28,680.