Jolly Joe

Saturday Leftover Day.

One of these days Fantagraphics will publish The Secret History of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman's Empire (proud candidate for the Longest Titel Which Still Doesn't Tell You What The Book Is ABout Award at San Diego), a long awaited and magnificent book by Michael (Doc) Vassallo and Blake Bell about the other magazines Martin Goodman published besides his comic book line. You know, the succesful ones... until Spiderman and The Fantastic Four and all that came along. I urge everyone to get a copy, if only to be able to invite myself to Michawel's lovely home agian sometime in the future.

Even more awaited is Michael 's other book, the on ehe has been working on even longer: a tell all, show all history of possible the best forgotten artist of the fifties, Joe Maneely. Joe Maneely was Stan Lee's workhorse at Martn Gooman's Timely/Atlas company. He did every genre that counted in that period: western, horror, war, romance and humor, with the odd bit of Arthurian legends and Chinese masterminds thrown in.Joe Maneely's art was impressive, captivated, mannered and gripping. At times, he is like Mort meskin, composing his pages only with trick that work... nb=but the trick here, is that they do work indeed and they work together.

All that was cut shot when Joe Maneely died from a tragic accident in 1958. If you want to know more about, you'll have to wait for Michael's book, which will also have more on his youth, his family life and what became after. It also has tons of personal material, donated by the family and unearthed by Michaeel himself. And hopefully a goo checklist, so we won't have to be surprised anymore whn we find stuff like this...