A Crowded Life in Comics –

 ★Remembering a Comics Magazine That Never Was★

by Rick Marschall

You see before you an issue of GROG, The International Comics Magazine.

Dated September of 1976, it is one the rarest items in the genre. Since it only existed as a prototype – and never published – there are but a handful of copies that ever existed. The preceding has been a tease. But the whole story of the Comics Magazine That Never Was is an episode in a Crowded Life that involved some of the unlikeliest figures in comics to collaborate. Up to a point.

In publishing, a successful venture usually happens at the ratio of 10 or 20 legitimately terrific other concepts that die stillborn; perhaps that is the case in all fields of endeavor. So GROG never went anywhere outside the long-term dreams and short-lived operations of memorable friends.

In 1975 I was hired as Comics Editor at Publishers Newspaper Syndicate in Chicago – the aggregation of other syndicate operations – Field Enterprises, the Sun-Times Syndicate, Hall Syndicate, Post-Hall, Publishers Syndicate Inc,  Adcox Associates, and possibly some others I have forgotten. Through wise stewardship and a manic acquisitive appetite, the outfit had become the second-largest syndicate in the… field.

Our stable of comics included BC, The Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, Steve Canyon, recently Pogo, Miss Peach, Momma, Grin and Bear It, Steve Roper, Mary Worth, Kerry Drake, Apartment 3-G, Rex Morgan, Judge Parker, Big George, and a passel of smaller quality strips and panels. Jules Feiffer, Bill Mauldin, and Herblock.

When I was offered this job, created for me (there had been no Comics Editor previously), I was also offered the job of Assistant Comics Editor at King Features Syndicate in New York, which also would have been a new position; but essentially to be understudy of Sylvan Byck, long-time Comics Editor there. An interesting and excruciating dilemma for me. But I headed to Chicago.

Dick Sherry was the president, a former Promotion Manager whose interest in foreign comics was marked by two qualities. One: he had wide-ranging tastes; he knew about comics and cartoonists in many countries; he was impressed that I had contributed major portions of Maurice Horn’s World Encyclopedia of Comics. His other motivation as a connoisseur of international comics and cartooning talent was – I soon became convinced – a cheap means of scratching his itch to travel, which he did, twice a year. He declared it necessary to his superiors in the Marshall Field hierarchy that he scout for talent; and that he visit foreign contributors on their turfs.

The result? No screaming successes. We tried making Asterix a daily strip. We ran a daily panel scribbled by England’s Mel Calman. We launched the Australian strip Fingers and Foes. We tried several creations of Denmark’s Werner Wejp-Olsen (I never let on that I know the “secret” that his strips were written, badly, by Sherry himself).

But a positive result of his semi-larcenous internationalism was the idea for an international comics magazine, an American version of Linus, Eureka, the first Charlie, and other Italian and French magazines. A magazine of native and imported content; reprints; interviews and features. I was familiar with the European magazines and that “scene” (many of my 60+ trips to Europe have been to comics festivals and book fairs); and frankly Sherry’s description of this proposed magazine was a major appeal of the job.

How the magazine would come together was, or would have been, unique. I would have been the Editor (I’m sure Sherry would have reserved the Foreign Correspondent duties for himself, at least partly). The other partners, or investors – such details are foggy after, gulp, 45 years, until I find my old files – were Johnny Hart and Stan Lee.

Yes, probably the only time their names appeared in the same sentence. The working title (appropriately random and only vaguely germane) was to be GROG after the strange beast in BC whose only word was a resounding “Grog!” He would have been the magazine’s “mascot.” Johnny loved this idea despite being largely clueless about foreign comics – he just loved the idea of spreading the gospel of comics.

Johnny Hart had serial enthusiasms, God bless his memory; and he was passionate about them all. Of course Wiz followed BC; and his buddy Brant Parker with Johnny over his shoulder launched Crock. Johnny once visited the office with someone with whom he wanted to collaborate on another strip – and this will be the first time you will see these two names in the same sentence: Johnny Hart and Henny Youngman. It never happened, of course, but Johnny’s interest (in, um, non-BC humor) is what made him the quintessence of Cool.

Marvel Comics would have been the co-producer and publisher/distributor. This is how I met Stan Lee – the many meetings in Chicago and New York; the brainstorming – and Stan of course was known as the human pinwheel, forever throwing off sparks of ideas, variations, spinoffs, new concepts, different themes, partners, and out-of-left-field projects. God bless his memory.

I share here the cover of the dummy issue, and some interiors. It was a true proposal; type was greeking; headlines were of generic titles to display the range of topics; runs of strips “foreign and domestic” were laid out; even ads were placed. I remember suggesting that we could maximize interest and profits by separating the magazine in blocs, with partner countries providing insert-sections for their own content.

On the basis of our contacts and discussions, I remained close to Stan and he hired me a year or two later to edit the magazine line at Marvel. He gifted me one day with his prototype of GROG, out of his files, and had earmarked my undiplomatic suggestion, among scores I trotted out, that the magazine could commission Joe Brancatelli to write an article criticizing contemporary superheroes. What was I thinking?

I cannot remember whether GROG came up in the early discussions with Stan when EPIC was conceived and planned. It was different, of course, but maybe not that different (Stan did send me to hunt talent in Europe, and early issues had international content). I was EPIC’s first Editor.

Through it all – what happened, did not happen, and what almost happened – I have one dummy issue, and a ton of memories. Remember that ratio, of 10 or 20 concepts for every one that happened. At least I can claim to be the “dummy,” so to speak, at the center of a unique dummy issue in comics history.

 

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

★ 30 ★

107

A Crowded Life in Comics – Stan Lee

❦

“I always thought I’d quit in a couple of years.
 But it never seemed to happen…” – Stan Lee

❦

‘Nuff Said: Memories of Stan Lee

by Rick Marschall

Stan Lee died this week. As if he were invulnerable like many of his superheroes – or the usual superheroes, not the Marvel Universe head-cases – many fans likely thought he would simply live on and on.

He did, in a way that few others in the comic-book field did. Even Steve Ditko, so closely linked to Stan and who also died this year, began his career when Stan was well established. Heck, Stan was a veteran in comics when I was born. Eventual retrospectives will assess his career as spanning the Adolescent Age (of the comic-book format, not only readers’ ages) to extravagant SFX Hollywood exploitation.

There have been a plethora of tributes and appraisals of Stan this week, starting within hours of his death. Media canned obits; fans’ fond memories; critics jumping on his grave before he could even occupy it – carping, criticism, iconoclasm, deconstruction, revisionism.

I think Stan’s contributions were enormous, and I can avoid hagiography to say so. His personality was enormous, and so were his talents and instincts and ego and modesty. With great power comes great contradictions.

Instead, I will offer some aspects and anecdotes that might not be found elsewhere. And they can be added, perhaps, to the assessments other will make in the future. They are personal, but not mine alone.

I met Stan when I was Comics Editor of Publishers Newspaper Syndicate in the mid-1970s. It was in Chicago, in the Sun-Times Building, across the river from the virtual cathedral known as Tribune Tower. Stan was in town I think as a guest of Chicago Con, but also to speak with my syndicate’s president Dick Sherry. Not about a Spiderman strip; another syndicate, another time, would do that. No, Stan and Dick had been discussing a European-style magazine, along the lines of Linus, Eureka, or the original Charlie – new contents, international material, articles, interviews, news, reviews, all about comics.

I don’t remember whose idea it was, originally, but Marvel (or Stan himself?) and Publishers Syndicate would co-produce. A major investor would have been Johnny Hart (BC and Wizard of Id), who did not join us for lunch or back at the office. My familiarity with European comics and cartoonists was a major reason Sherry hired me, and I would have been the editor. The working title (appropriately random and only vaguely germane) was to be GROG! after the strange beast in BC. He would have been the magazine’s “mascot.”

We made dummy copies and got to second base, but never to third or home, for various and sundry reasons.

But Stan and I kept in touch. A couple years later, with Chicago (and the third of the syndicates where I edited comics) in the rear-view mirror, I wrote to Stan about working for Marvel. I had never been a particular fan of superheroes, which I did not, um, stress in our correspondence. It seems that it would not have made a difference, however, because I was indeed hired, but initially to handle the magazine line – black and white comics, one-shots, “Super Specials,” movie adaptations, and such. The Hulk was a hit on network TV then, and the process-color magazine stories I hatched or edited were supposed to be “more like the TV Hulk.”

Eventually I was given the privilege of conceiving (with many Stan conferences), designing, naming, and charting the course of what became EPIC magazine.

This brief column will correct some of the conceptions and misconceptions about this Marvel period, and Stan. The Editor in Chief at the time was Jim Shooter, and he has written some memoir about my hiring, and the birth (and birth-pangs) of EPIC. I would like to say that I have read and enjoyed these. I would like to say that, but I cannot, because they are mostly tripe. He wrote that I was hired “cold” by him, yet I had known and (almost) worked with Stan previously, as I have related.

The same with EPIC: it was to be more like Heavy Metal than GROG!, of course; and I took the position that, like HM and the European magazines, we would have to grant creators’ rights and sign royalty agreements.

This argument was resisted in higher echelons at Marvel, of course. Shooter came on board but was not father to the idea, despite his revisionist history. And it did happen: in the Marvel Universe, EPIC was the entry-way to royalty deals. Stan eventually sent me to Europe, to the Lucca Festival principally, to scout for artists. (Shooter was steamed, just as he complained about my invitation to lunches and meetings when European publishers came to New York. But. I had previous relations with many of them; and as one executive said, “We don’t want to scare them off.”)

Back to Stan, and some more pertinent things to share. He was, in the office, just what people saw in conventions and TV commercials. Dashing about in warp-speed. Gregarious. Yes, nicknames. There were many meetings, and chats, in his office; but he often came into the office of me and Ralph Macchio, my assistant. Sometimes business, of course, but – this was cool – sometimes to talk about nothing. Not quite like Seinfeld, but… old comics, newspaper strips, “what ever happened to this-or-that old cartoonist” who I might have known. Once when Burne Hogarth came up to visit me, I took him down to meet Stan, who acted (and surely was) blown away to meet the Tarzan artist.

If memory serves, when Tom Batiuk visited New York once (I had edited Funky Winkerbean at Publishers) he was awed to be in the Marvel offices, and met Stan. My Connecticut friend Chad Grothkopf (who was my first landlord after I married Nancy) requested that I arrange an audience with Stan. They had worked together decades earlier, and were friends whose wives shared the same first name.

Ralph thought these visits to my desk were out of the ordinary, by Marvel standards; usually editors were called to his large office if at all. But these were social calls. One thing he shared I never forgot. Out of the blue, one day he talked about his early, and surviving, dreams for Marvel: he always held up Disneyland, the theme parks; and what they represented. Not so much the characters except “the way Disneyland, the whole Disney thing, is tattooed on everyone’s brain... There are other cartoons, but Disney is first. There are other funny animals, but the Disney ones are what people think of. Mickey Mouse is the most famous character in the world! Disneyland! A whole city!” I wondered, years later, after Marvel was swallowed by Disney, how ironic that was to him – maybe bitter, since Stan was long-gone by then.

More than that, is something I can share, and it seldom is mentioned about Stan. His instincts. He loved comics as an art form, but never got artsy about it (believe me, friends here and in Europe can and do) (so do I). By the end of my time at Marvel, Stan knew little about the Marvel titles or new characters. Enough – no; actually, not enough – to answer fans’ questions at conventions. That was the real reason he gave talks with no questions, or arranged signings alone, with no presentations.

But he never lost his technical-editing (if I can use that term) chops. As I said, I had been a cartoonist, had edited comics, churned ‘em out at Marvel after all; and studied strips. The “Language and Structure,” as my course would be called as a teacher at SVA. Stan, however, held “classes” every day.

– How to construct a page? He would explain how to lead the reader’s eye through a page.

– Balloon placement? He was brilliant, seeing designs like parts of jigsaw puzzle, making the reader look here and notice that, via balloons, sound effects, visual elements, “camera” angles. 

Covers and colors? This was what Stan held onto longest – approving every single cover. The drawing, usually roughs AND finishes, and especially the colors. Contrasts and values, logos and figures. He would never merely reject out of hand; he would correct and show and discuss. By my time, the assembly-line of cover roughs had Marie Severin execute the final versions for Stan, and her own talent as well as years-with-Stan, virtually assured their OKs. But there was almost always one little tweak, at least, and spot-on irrefutable.

Every chat was like going to school.

Whatever is said, or speculated, about Stan Lee’s collaborations, what is seldom said and less often acknowledged is the undeniable effect that such “lessons” – his instincts, not just about what would make young readers flip – but how to do it, in a million subtle ways… could not have been lost on Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others. Even Drawing the Marvel Way does not give a full impression of the passionate love affair Stan had with the comic-book page. And his visceral analyses. I would ask John Buscema if he realized the same things about Stan. “Oh, sure,” he would wave his hand. He acknowledged picking up countless tips from Stan.

Memorable characters? Stan created or wet-nursed them; all with his DNA. Strips? He loved comics, so launched several newspaper strips. Other genres? He loved humor, as well as teenage, girls, parody, fumetti, and romance themes. Merchandising, movies, theme parks… we know them all. Astounding, really.

In one dynamic man, he was what other publishers needed staffs for. He always seemed a bit uncomfortable in person, however affable, as if fighting eternally blocked nasal passages; and – during my time – I used to wonder how painful those hair plugs were. Yet nothing slowed him down. I even remember hearing that when he moved to Los Angeles, his place was so big that he skated around on roller skates, even answering the door with them on. True? Even if not, it fit the man perfectly. Legends imitate life.

In that regard, finally, one time he bounded into my office, and related an idea he had for a Silver Surfer story in the planned EPIC. He was full of life, gesticulating, doing action poses, loudly building to a crescendo ending. After he left, Ralph Macchio and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes and stifling laughs. We had the common impression – the story hung on the sort of speculation that we both had as kids, young kids, and therefore many readers probably would too; and therefore the pitch seemed mundane, not special.

Eventually I realized that the story idea, I won’t recount here, was pure Stan. If it was juvenile… it touched on ordinary fantasies. A good thing. If it was simple… it meant it was universal. If it was child-like…

… well, that was Stan Lee. A brilliant child – maybe several brilliant kids rolled into one – who never lost the joy of childhood. Everything could be fun, if you dreamed it right, planned it right, told it right, drew it right, and sold, or shared it, right. At the root of it all, whatever the genre or project, Stan Lee asked “What if…?”

And I ask: What if there had been no Stan Lee?

Topper: Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four, Marvel Treasury Edition, 1976
Bottom: Stan Lee, 1969

❦

16