In the winter of 1942, former assistant animator Vince Fago left the Fleischer/Paramount stable of artists and returned to New York looking for work in the comic book business.
In the preceding six months, Martin Goodman had begun expandingTimely's nascent
super- hero lineup of titles in an attempt to cash in on the now booming costumed
hero trend. From 1939 to mid-'42 Timely had (in order) Marvel Mystery Comics,
Daring Mystery Comics, Mystic, Red Raven, Human Torch , Captain America, Sub-
Mariner, All Winners, Young Allies, U.S.A. Comics, and Tough Kid Squad
Comics. With a cover date of April 1942 Daring, after eight issues,
would change its name to Comedy Comics; simultaneously a second title,
Joker Comics, would debut. These two bimonthlies would launch a genre (humor)
that would, by the postwar period, eclipse the super-hero titles in sales.
Comedy
Comics #9 (Apr. '42) continued the numbering of the aforementioned Daring
Mystery and is actually a dual-genre book. Part of its contents, and that
of #10 (June '42), consisted of super-hero features continuing from Daring
#8: Ben Thompson's "Citizen V" and Bill Everett's "The Fin." (Both these stories
are reprinted in the excellent trade paperback The Golden Age of Marvel Comics,
Vol. Two.)
To this were added humor features like Basil Wolverton's
"Splash Morgan," Ray Houlihan's "Tubby an' Tack," and Clyde Don's "Trinket." The
cover would sport a wacky humor motif and blare "A Riot of Fun!" under the title
lettering.
Comedy #10 (June '42) would be similarly split between hero and
humor, with Don Rico's "The Fourth Musketeer" and Ernie Hart's "Victory Boys"
accompanying Art Helfant's "Educatin' Otto," Art Gates' "Cannon Ball Brown," and
Lily Reney's "Wheezy." The cover again sports a "Riot of Fun" blurb, this time
in the familiar Timely Comics shield at the lower right hand corner.
Both of these covers (#9 and #10) are unsigned but if I had to hazard
a guess, I'd pick Mike Sekowsky to have possibly pencilled them. I'm discovering
more and more that the incredibly fast Sekowsky was an unheralded workhorse of
this period. He never signed his name but Vince Fago suggested to me that Sekowsky
was a good candidate to have drawn them, as he was used everywhere on many diverse
features.
Comedy
#11 (Sept. '42) sports (finally!) an almost-all-humor lineup, with Chick Winter's
"Maise Martin in Hollywood," the sole serious strip accompanying humor features
like Lou Paige's "Otto Bragg & Snippy," Ed Winiarski's "The Vagabond" (inked seemingly
by George Klein), Harry Fisk and Doug Grant's "Stuporman," Louis Ferstadt's "Casey
McKann," Red Holmdale's "Snigger," Sekowsky's "Percy" (inked by Klein), and what
looks to be a very early George Tuska freelance piece called "Maymee Hazzit.".
Tuska took a look at this feature at the wonderful White Plains, NY convention
in 2000 and vaguely recalled drawing it. . He suggested that it "may" have been
inventory from a shop, though, and this thought immediately makes some sense--
in fact, it makes me consider that many of these strange "one-shot" humor features
peppering these earliest Timely humor issues were possibly bought by Martin Goodman
from a source outside his early bullpen staff. As it stands now, more research
is pending into this scenario. The cover of #11 is an image of Sekowsky/ Klein's
"Percy" taken right from the one-page feature inside.
Joker
Comics #1 (April 1942) consisted of all humor features by creators like Ernie
Hart, Art Gates, Ed Winiarski, Al Fagaly, and Red Holmdale. #1 also saw the debut
of Basil Wolverton's "Powerhouse Pepper" and the start of features like "Snoopy
and Dr. Nutzy," "Trinket," "Tommy Gunz," "Eustice Hayseed," and "Stuporman" (which
would shortly continue in Comedy Comics). Many of these features would
continue to run through this title for most of its run.
Joker
Comics #1, pg. 1 (April 1942)
First Powerhouse Pepper by Basil
Wolverton
Early issues also saw the debut of "Tessie the
Typist," as well as "Squat Car Squad," "Scottie," "Dippy Diplomat," and the peculiar
yet very long-running "E. Radicate de Bugs," a feature that for part of its run
sported art by Dennis Neville, the Golden Age 
Hawkman's
first artist. Finally, by the cover date of July '42, we see the debut of Timely's
funny animals, with the publication of Krazy Komics #1.
What was
unique about Krazy Komics was the fact that actual credits were printed
on the inside front cover, usually with the creators being given joke titles or
designations! These credits continue up through issue #13 (Jan. '44) and, along
with similar credits in Terrytoons, and in issue #13 & 14 of Comedy
Comics, give us a valuable insight into the Timely humor bullpen of 1942-43.Many
of these credit designations were phony and done tongue-in-cheek but allow us,
at the very least, to place certain creators in particular issues at particular
times.
Krazy Komics #1 lists Stan Lee as "managing editor"
and begins with a cover by Chad Grothkopf (noted then and later, 
respectively,
for work on DC's "Sandman" and Fawcett's "Hoppy the Marvel Bunny"). "Silly Seal
& Ziggy Pig" makes their debuts separately, done by Al Jaffee... much the way
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy did solo work before Hal Roach decided to team them
up. Other features include Baldy
by Dave Berg Dave
Berg's "Baldy" and two features by Ernie Hart, "Pookey the Poetical Pup" and "Ding-a-Ling
the Little Bellboy." Chad seems to draw the feature "Snappy," and Moss Worth is
the likely artist on "Chester Chipmunk and Toughy Tomcat," while Ed Winiarski
and inker George Klein seemingly are the team on "Little Pan."
The debut of
"Posty the Pelican Postman," a feature that will be long- running Vince Fago vehicle,
is a bit of a tough guess. While Fago's name is not on the credit page, this art
has enough Fago elements to lead me to believe that it in fact his work. Add to
this the distinctive lettering by Vince's brother Al (who years later would do
Atomic Mouse for Charlton) and the fact that Vince debuted as a freelancer,
a status that would possibly preclude his name from being on the credits page
with those of the staff artists.
Posty
and Lolly by Vince Fago
By the cover date of Nov.-Dec. 1942 Vince is listed in the credits of both Krazy
Komics and Terrytoons, the latter which debuts with a cover date of
Oct. '42.
Smelling success with funny animals, Goodman procured the
rights to publish the comic book adventures of Paul Terry's animated characters
and quickly got out the first issue. The features in that debut issue would continue
almost without change through 1945.
Gandy
and Sourpuss by Mike Sekowsky
The cover to #1 featuring the characters Gandy and Sourpuss, appears to be
the work of Mike Sekowsky, who will draw them inside. Sekowsky's inker is probably
George Klein, who seems to have primarily "inked" for Timely during this period.
Klein did contribute pencilled and inked story illustrations to Goodman's 
pulp
and magazine line though: American Sky Devils, Vol. 1, #1 (July/42), Vol.1,
#2 (Sept/42) and Vol. 1, #5 (Apr/43) all sport Klein illustrations (as well as
by Stan Drake and David Gantz). Klein also drew pulp illustrations for pulp titles
as diverse as Complete War Novels (May/43 ), Best Love (July/43)
and Western Short Stories (Apr/49).
Next we have Ed Winiarski
on "Oscar Pig." Vince Fago will carry two features in Terrytoons: "Dinky"
and "Frenchy Rabbit." Jim Mooney is on "E. Claude Pennygrabber and the Ginch,"
and Ernie Hart carries two features, "Wacky Willie" and "Andy Wolf & Bertie Mouse."
Except for a 4-page war bond propaganda feature in issue #2 titled "Hello! We
Want to Talk to You!" by Lee, Winiarski, and Klein, these character lineups will
likewise remain unchanged in this title up to 1945.
Vince
Fago and the Timely Funny Animal Dept.
continues on the next page...
where
I'm holding the original cover art to the Timely comic ALL SURPRISE #2 (Winter/44).
I toted this cover up to Vince to get his input about who the artist/artists might
be. I then made the long trek back down to my parents and family, just making
the ferry with 5 minutes to spare and arriving back at about 9:00 P.M . With
the visit fresh in my mind I sat down and spent the next 3 hours writing the Fago
article below that originally ran in the August/02 ALTER EGO #13 (the following
is an updated version of that article). By 1: A.M. I was through and my Fago day
over. The photos went undeveloped for 9 months as the roll of film seemed to vanish.
I thought my brother had accidentally brought the roll home with him to Minneapolis
but he swore he had not. The roll finally turned up this past April/02 and happily
the two photos are safe and sound.
