“Cardy becme the primary DC cover artist from the early to mid-1970s.
“A popular but apocryphal anecdote, told by DC editor Julius Schwartz, concerned Cardy being fired by DC editorial director Carmine Infantino for not following a cover layout, only to be rehired moments later when Schwartz praised the errant cover art. Cardy said in 2005: ‘At one of the conventions ... I said, ‘You know, Carmine, Julie Schwartz wrote something in [his autobiography] that I don't remember at all and it doesn't sound like you at all.’ And I told him the incident ... and he said, ‘That's crazy. You know I always loved your work. Gee, you were one of the best artists in the business. The guy's crazy.’ So I said, ‘Okay, come on.’ We went over to Julie Schwartz's table and we told him what our problem was. And Carmine and I said, ‘We don't remember the incident.’ So Julie said, ‘Well, it's a good story, anyway.’ [Laughs] And that was it. He let it go at that. [Laughs] He just made it up.’”
Cardy did this story for DC. Nice artwork, and he did some excellent drawings of the monsters in the story. In those days at DC it seemed to me that every comic, super hero, mystery or even some of the kids' comics, had some sorts of monsters. This issue of House of Secrets #40 (1961) is one I found in my basement in a box of all coverless comics from that era which I bought (cheap) years ago. When I flipped through them I noticed a story drawn by Nick Cardy, so I read it. The story itself is loopy...the hero goes after a girl from a myth, which is not a good place to look for girls. But the artwork is representative of Cardy’s usual good job regardless of the quirky story, which is why I am showing it.
