Fawcetts Greatest Hits #47

10CC- Greatest Hits 1972-1978

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Just a reminder to all newbies: Neuss near Cologne ,Germany. Downunderland Left Hand Side. FrankenStrat , Feb 4, The bottom of the cynical cesspool. On The Very Best of , it sounds like they used needle-drops for the UK-era material, and not very good ones at that. The Best of 10cc is my favorite compilation of them. Cheepnik , Feb 4, Grant , Feb 4, In fact, I had forgotten about the tune until I played the cd the first time. FrankenStrat , Feb 5, You must log in or sign up to reply here. Your name or email address: Do you already have an account?

Beck to evoke a feeling of mystery. The talents of Cap and Billy are totally wasted in this story of a town councilman who discovers that gold is hidden on the premises of an abandoned mansion and attempts to frighten away all prospective buyers. In this early transitional tale, Captain Marvel is shown as still susceptible to poison gas, a weakness he was to permanently overcome in later stories. The evil duo of Captain Death and Professor Skull work a fleecing scheme by kidnapping millionaires and defrauding their heirs of the inheritances that they subsequently receive when it is assumed by all that the missing victims are dead.

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Billy manages to get kidnapped and arrives at the prison ship to find the victims alive. As Captain Marvel, he frees the hostages and captures the villains, depositing their prison ship in the center of an empty stadium. The novelettes were initially printed in limited runs to capitalize on the popularity and sales of the Dell Fast-Action and Big Little Books of the s. But where the other two companies were successful in finding distribution in bookstores and five-and-dime outlets, Fawcett was limited solely to newsstand and occasional drug store sales. The Fawcett Dime Action novels successfully matched the style and format of the Big Little Books; but though they carried brand new adventures, they had only half the number of pages that their competitor used; hence the stories were much shorter and less thoroughly developed.

Perhaps the writer overlooked this fact by his distraction in creating lines like the following: The cover illustrations were based on designs seen previously in the comic book line, and each novelette was devoted exclusively to one of the four Fawcett super-heroes: One glaring inconsistency in this story occurs when Jack Weston is thrown half-nude into a jail cell, yet manages to escape in full starspangled costume as the Minute-Man: Beck Although Captain Marvel was one of the biggest things in America in the Forties, he never made it into the syndicated strips.

Around or writer Rod Reed and I put together some samples When Otto Binder and I tried to syndicate our own strips, including one of Mr. Tawny, we were told: You fellows are way behind the times! Sivana, the greatest enemy of civilization ever known, makes a dread vow: To become the Rightful Ruler of the Universe.

He knows, however, that Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, the boy that Captain Marvel changes back into, have always defeated his plots with their great powers inherited from the ancient wizard, Shazam. He therefore kidnaps Mr. But he fails, due to Mr. Billy starts an evil chuckle, then whips off his Billy Batson disguise, revealing himself as Sivana who now puts the bracelet on his own wrist. He and the old wizard fly to the Rock of Eternity, which Sivana takes over as his new headquarters.

But Sivana shows up instead.

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And now even Captain Marvel is powerless against the old villain! Time marches on, and soon there are only a few hours left until Shazam will die and Captain Marvel will disappear into limbo along with his creator. At the very zero moment old Shazam is restored and all the duplicate Sivanas are reduced to fragments. Sivana is put behind bars and all seems quiet From Captain Marvel Adventures Beck with some assistance by Pete Costanza.

The stories and their variety really knocked me out when I was a kid; there was science-fiction, fantasy and scary stuff The villains were a grand assortment. There was superstrong Slaughter Slade and his giant gorilla, Dr. There were two villains in neat stories, one about a haunted house and one about a track meet.

Best of all, Dr. Sivana and Beautia were there in a great tale involving rocketships, a trip to Venus, a weather-making machine, a spacetraveling cyclone, and giant bugs. And the cover by C. What more could a kid have asked for in ? Every story had dazzling action. Scarlet tangled with no less than seven costumed foes.

Skeleton resembled a long dead corpse with decayed flesh clinging to the bones. He was a blindly evil force, out to destroy American for his own mad reasons. Fawcett experimented with metallic ink on the covers of a few early issues. The villains in this issue were a remarkable lot: Add the presence of the ravishing Princess Taia— and a beautiful cover by Raboy—and you have another Fawcett classic.

I prefer 22 which has Bulletman, Captain Marvel Jr. Besides Captain Marvel, what were some other Fawcett titles that you wrote scripts for? What was your last piece of Fawcett work? Scarlet, Captain Marvel Jr. I also wrote several short story text pieces for Captain Marvel Jr. The last Captain Marvel work I did was probably two different issues of Captain Marvel Storybook; these were printed in comic book format but in straight story form with a page of text and a page of illustration alternating.

I must modestly say that I was proud of all my Fawcett writing. You were a comic book writer who did many humorous scripts. But these scripts had to have some editorial guidance. What Fawcett editor do you believe had the greatest story sense? Wendell Crowley was a marvelous comics editor. He was dedicated, a keen student of the field, a critic whose integrity was above suspicion and a warm and helpful man.

Did you enjoy your job as a Fawcett editor more than writing? I did enjoy being a Fawcett editor. Great, wonderful place to work with fine people. Ralph Daigh, my immediate boss, was a fine gentleman. The Fawcett brothers were amiable. There were also a lot of beautiful women in the organization! When I bowed out the US Government had put a freeze on pay raises and I knew I could make more money as a freelance writer than as editor. As a Fawcett editor, what were the grounds for a story to be rejected? Stories were rarely maybe never rejected. Sometimes a writer would be asked to fix up his script, here and there.

Any taboos being violated would have been discovered in the outlines. As a Fawcett editor, were you in charge of all the comics or just the main titles such as Captain Marvel Adventures, Whiz Comics, etc.? In one of your letters you stated that the comic book story conference was overrated. A giraffe is a horse put together by a committee. My motto was to turn the writer loose and let him put his talent, imagination, and ingenuity to work without interference.

While you were the editor of Downbeat magazine, you were freelancing Fawcett comics scripts. An eight-page story about so-and-so is requested. Writer submits one or more outlines. Editor okays outline s with maybe a couple of penciled suggestions or changes. Writer does story and submits it, hoping to get a check pretty quick. All was usually done by mail, though there may be an occasional phone call. You quit Fawcett in the middle of June of , months after the serial started. Fiction shows things the way they ought to be, not the way they are.

Otto, you must clearly remember what you were working on that day in when Fawcett comics folded? When we got the bombshell news that all Fawcett comics were being discontinued, out of depression I wrote a parody of my serial in which each of the Marvels, in turn, get killed off. My Fawcett friends thought it was funny, but not that funny Otto Binder with his wife, Ione, in the early Fifties. Beck says that this was a big mistake. What are your thoughts about a feature which you and Beck both created and killed off and having it resurrected?

Even today, when fans who were kids in the Forties meet me they almost always mention Mr. Mind and how great a character he was. The only way I can figure it is that he was a surprising contrast to all other villains, who were generally big, devilish hulks I was startled myself at the enormous amount of fan mail that came after the chapter which showed what Mr.

Mind really was, resulting in many subsequent chapters. Beck really put in a labor of love on that work as the art attests. Editor Wendell Crowley told me it was my greatest work. Were you sorry to end the serial? The sadness over killing off Mr. Mind was brief, along with the serial, but the sadness over Captain Marvel and friends being tossed into limbo was much more painful—particularly to my pocketbook. But money was not the only factor; I really had a lot of fun doing the Captain Marvel stories.

When it all ended it took the sunshine out of my life for a long time. And my reaction to DC as being the executioner was hardly of a friendly nature. In fact, we were all pretty sore and bitter about it. The memory of Captain Marvel faded, but not rapidly. Was this serial as fun for you to write as the Mr. The Oggar serial was really a flop, to be frank.

It was again one of my ideas and it seemed to be great in my mind, but when it came to writing and developing the theme, it just sort of went nowhere and it was quickly killed after six chapters. That was how it worked: For every good idea, there were a couple of so-so ones. We wanted the Mary Marvel feature distinctive from the other two Mary was my pride and joy, an idea which originated from upstairs.

Or perhaps Will Lieberson was told simply to add another good title and suggested combined adventures of the three Marvels—a real blockbuster idea in those days. Again I was given the assignment to launch it all and Sivana was the logical villain, or rather, the Sivana Family. I think both Georgia and Junior both concepts of mine were already in existence so it was a natural to pit the two families against each other. Ma and Pa Potter were my creations, as was Dexter Knox, to tone down the super-heroics. We were always creating new side characters, most of which became just one-shots if they turned out to have no appeal.

Steamboat was the creation of Ed Herron, the greatest early Captain Marvel editor. We never meant to degrade them, merely play them for humor. Since you created Mary Marvel and your brother Jack illustrated the majority of her stories, there must have been many Binder-Binder collaborations? Yes, in fact, most of the time it was the case of it being a Binder-Binder collaboration. I think from about on, after Jack moved to upstate New York, he did all of the Mary Marvel stories until the end.

Ginny, when did you begin your career at Fawcett Publications? I went to work for Fawcett Publications in April If anyone had ever told me that I would be an editor of comic books, I would have laughed since I never read a comic book before, only the comic strips in the newspapers. That was the beginning of a wonderful association with a great company.

What were your main duties as an editor?

I was responsible from cover to cover for each magazine that carried my name as editor. This was also true of the other editors. I had to get the scripts for each issue, which meant the story synopsis, written script, and artwork. I would ask one of my writers if he had any plot ideas for the character. Will, as the editor-in-chief, had to give the final OK for all the comics. I used to keep a file handy of story ideas. The plot was then given to the writer. Who were some of the other editors when you started and what was one of your first assignments? I was given wartime Spy Smasher stories to re-write at home and when Barb Heyman left the company, they gave me the production of the comic books to handle.

When did you become a full-time editor? What were some of the comic books you handled? Soon after Jane left, Rod Reed left and Will Lieberson became head of the department as executive editor. Some time later, Mercy Shull left to run a dude ranch with her husband so I got her books as well. I soon learned who the artists and writers were and what characters they worked on. Did you like working with Reed and Lieberson?

Did they both give you a lot of creative freedom?

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Rod Reed and Will Lieberson were nice guys, good bosses, and gave me the opportunity to be as creative as I wanted to be. Happily so, the circulation of the books I was editor of were very high. I had good writers and good artists and we all worked together to make our comics. Master Comics 92, edited by Ginny Provisiero. Cover by Kurt Schaffenberger. Ginny dressed as Nyoka for a company skit at an advertising convention. He came to the United States as a boy and got into the comic business by accident, as many did. He had studied illustration in art school but found that book, pulp and magazine illustration work had subsided due to the rise of the comic book.

As an illustrator, Kurt is one who illustrates his comic book stories instead of drawing fancy pictures with no meaning. Like all experienced artists, Kurt has done commercial and advertising work and can handle a T-square and a rubber cement brush with skill and ease. He has no illusions about the comics field, which he has worked in since the early Forties. When did you start drawing? I have been drawing pictures for as long as I can remember.

Were any of the artists of the early days influential on your style? Did you try to emulate any particular artist? I admire craftsmanship in any field, be it art or plumbing, and such illustrators as Norman Rockwell, J. Leyendecker and Harold von Schmidt and such comic artists as Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff and Harold Foster were not only great artists but fine craftsmen. I admired them very much. What was your first job as a cartoonist? My first job was inking backgrounds for a Captain Marvel story while I was an employee of the Jack Binder shop.

Did you want to work in comics? I really wanted to be a magazine illustrator but by the time I was ready to go to work practically all the illustrated magazines had disappeared and only the comic magazines were hiring artists. It was quite a wonderful time for all of us. We were all young, just out of art schools most of us just out of Pratt Institute , and the world was going to be our oyster. We had softball and touch football games, and all of us and our girls would go out as a group. That was just after Pearl Harbor.

In June of I went into the army, along with many of the other fellows, and the Jack Binder Studio broke up sometime around After the war was over what did you do? I worked at the Beck and Costanza studio for a while.

They were handling all of the Captain Marvel stories for Fawcett. Other artists were doing Captain Marvel Jr. Out of all the Fawcett artists, writers and editors, which were outstanding in your opinion? Beck was head and shoulders above the rest of the artists. Raboy drew exquisite, pretty, but meaningless pictures. As for the editors, if I got along with them they were great. Swayze is one of those special, multi-talented guys who make a lasting impression on everybody he meets. Artist, writer, musician, athlete He was also a newspaper comic strip artist and writer.

And he was, and still is, a professional jazz musician. In addition, he has a beautiful wife and family, a fine Southern mansion, and a marvelous sense of humor. Last time I saw him he was working as a gypsy fiddler in a tearoom and loving every minute.

I have before me the number one issue of her very own magazine and her garb is amazingly mod with short skirt and boots almost to the knees. Which specific feature did you do the greatest amount of work on? It would probably be a toss-up between Captain Marvel and Phantom Eagle. I was hired in specifically to. Except for the time it took to do the original drawings for the Mary Marvel character and drawing the first one or two stories for that feature, plus an occasional illustration for the non-comics magazines, Captain Marvel was all I did until I left for the armed forces in Of all the Captain Marvel artists, with C.

Fawcett Comics

Beck as chief artist heading the list, where do you believe you rate? Did you work on any other hero characters besides Captain Marvel and the Phantom Eagle? Considering Beck the number one Captain Marvel artist, I considered myself number two, probably because they told me I was.

While on the Fawcett art staff, from to , nobody produced more Captain Marvel art than I did. And as I look back over the books that were published at the time, I am convinced that I contributed more Captain Marvel scripts than any other artist, and more than some of the writers. During the several months while these negotiations were being made, I drew two stories, one featuring Ibis the Invincible and the other featuring Mr.

I considered it my responsibility and privilege as an artist-writer to alter a story line here and there, to shorten dialogue and so on, when necessary to improve the feature. Were stories submitted to you with description by description of what should be shown in each panel, or were you given a general idea and told to take it from there?

Fawcett stories all followed the formal format of description plus dialogue for every panel. I believe it was strict policy that stories be submitted first in outline for approval, the completed script to follow. That was my procedure for writing for them. The writers varied in style and detail in the matter of descriptions. Naturally, some stories afforded more graphic challenge than others. Remember, though, a story had to go past the editor first before it reached the artist. There were some highly qualified, dedicated people on the comics editorial staff at Fawcett.

Wendell Crowley and I had a laugh at a remark one of the writers made about how he generally left the description blank on Phantom Eagle stories because he knew I was going to present the story the way I wanted anyhow. Swayze Fawcett romance art from Life Story 2, Also, while digging out the old comics I noticed that in one of the Fawcett romance comics featuring my work, Life Story 21, , all three stories were done by me, except for the lettering which was done by my sister Daisy Swayze who did just about all my lettering from on. She was one of the greatest letterers according to Roy Ald, Will Lieberson, and other Fawcett editors.

There were quite a number of Fawcett romance comics containing two stories an issue where I did the art. Was research mandatory in your work, or was imagination the rule of thumb? My approach was to rough in the planes the way I wanted them in relation to the story, then get out the file material for detail. I suppose that would be employing both imagination and research. Therefore all the fussy detail was omitted from the plane. Did you enjoy the romance comics work since it was such a change from superhero plots and situations? I enjoyed doing them except for their depriving me of the satisfaction of drawing my own writing.

I never had any desire to write the romances. From the art standpoint they offered a number of challenges: More emphasis on and time for character development and emotional expression, more realistic art style as opposed to the. My parents were in the restaurant business, which got me into the habit of eating. When I got into the comic book business in the early Forties.

Who would have thought that six or seven years later Beck himself would come walking out of the Fawcett art department on the 22nd floor of the Paramount Building and hire me as an artist on the Captain Marvel staff? Also he assisted on some Mr.

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Robbins is the only man I know with enough sense to get out of the comics business and into another. I hope he prospers and becomes rich, and sets up a home for old comic artists like myself. The other day I committed some golfing with Ed Robbins who was one of the early Captain Marvel artists. He is in robust health and is a manager of a real estate firm. Later he wrote and drew the Mike Hammer syndicated strip, also written by Mickey Spillane who also wrote for Fawcett comics.

How old were you when you first started in comics? How did you get your first job? What year did you start at Fawcett comics and how long were you with them? Did you work in the Fawcett art department or in the Beck studio? He was a good boss. Of course it has taken me some years to achieve this, but I believe I have succeeded. I guess I was 20 years old when I got my start in comics and got my first job as a result of a couple of friends who were working for Lloyd Jacquet at Funnies, Inc. I did up some admittedly crummy samples and Lloyd began feeding me some kind of work around or The last work that I did on Captain Marvel was in the spring of Subsequent to that, I did romance and western comics Bob Steele for Fawcett and continued with them until about What were your main duties at Fawcett and what other characters did you draw?

Did you do any writing? Ed Robbins was one of the best layout men in the business. He was so good at storytelling and composition that we seldom allowed him to pencil and ink, keeping him busy laying out stories for other men to tighten and finish. He was so fast at layout that he could make more in a day or two than other men made in a week He also worked for other companies where I believe he did more complete work. When did you first start at Fawcett Publications?

Did you become the executive editor right after Rod Reed resigned? I first went to work for Fawcett Publications some time in the late Summer of He asked me to come and work on the comics on a regular basis. The humor books were dying anyway and, with the paper shortage, Fawcett was dropping them in favor of expanding the comics line. Rod asked me if I would like to try my hand at a comic book. He asked me to handle the Don Winslow of the Navy comic book, which was based on the newspaper strip.

So Reed was the one who actually hired me, although the final approval came from Fawcett editorial director Ralph Daigh. I became executive editor right after Reed resigned. This came as much of a surprise to me as it must have been a shock to everybody else on the comic staff since.

Up to that point I had only worked on Don Winslow. I remember the very the first story that I bought as a comic book editor was from Joe Millard. However, since comics were like a new toy to me, I decided to try something fresh. I contacted the Office of War Information for the official citations of the Navy men being decorated for bravery beyond the call of duty. The stories for Don Winslow were based on these and obviously it must have impressed everyone at Fawcett. As I said, except for handling the short text features which the post office required in comic books for second class entry, Don Winslow was the only comic book that I ever edited before becoming Fawcett comics executive editor.

In speaking about oneself there is always a danger of sounding overly modest or conceited. Well, I guess the truth of the matter is that Rod Reed, and in turn, Ralph Daigh and the Fawcett brothers all felt that I had a great sense of story. Also, with my playwriting background, I was an ideal choice to head the comics since I thought in terms of visual expression rather than literary expression. Did you ever write any stories for Fawcett comics? Fawcett had a rule that no member of the editorial staff would be paid for anything he wrote for in fear that editors might be buying bad stories from each other.

Nevertheless, when I took over the comics from Rod Reed, I did write at least one story for each of our major characters, really to define in my own mind with their major characterizations and their differences. The same is true for the villains that were created to go along with these heroes. While many of the writers, editors and readers can remember particular stories which they thought were great,. No one story ever made or broke a comic book.

The same is true in the movies. A Paul Newman or a Steve McQueen are more important than any of the particular movies in which they appear. In my interview with Rod Reed, he said that subject to Ralph Daigh, the Fawcett brothers, and the Fawcett circulation department, the executive editor was responsible for all the comics.

If sales were in a slump, was the circulation department on your back, especially during the Fifties? Things may have changed after I took over from Reed. The only one I ever reported to was Ralph Daigh. He was a stickler for protocol. My editors could only approach him through me and in turn, could only approach the Fawcetts through him. The only thing Ralph Daigh ever did on a regular basis concerning the comics was to okay the covers. Outside of that, he never Art: As for the circulation department, we would hear from them indirectly through Ralph Daigh. Fawcett had a reputation for starting magazines very quickly and dropping them just as fast.

A magazine had to really do well—and not just make a small profit—for Fawcett to continue publishing them.

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