Shoot-Out at the More Than OK Corrall

Saturday Williamson Archives. 

 The fourth story Al Williamson did for Stan Lee at Atlas. Published in Wyatt Earp #2, January 1956. Some of WIlliamson's stylistic elements start appearing; like the borderless panel (or in this case the splash) or the long panels.

Inkslinger

 Saturday Williamson Archives.

Here the third story Al Wilamson did for Atlas. It's from Outlaw Kid #8, published in November 1955. Judging by the job numbers I would say he picked up the first two together and got this one later, probably when he delevired the first two.

Go West, Young Al

 Saturday Williamson Archives

Continuing my attempt to show all 130+ stories done by Al Williamson for Atlas Comics, here is the second one, from Western Outlaws #11, October 1955. The dialogue has some of the characteristics of Stan Lee's writing, but he didn't sign it.

Russ Hour

Friday Comic Book Day.

It appears my war books on Ebay will be going for next to nothing. If you want to join in and have a look, here's the (lengthy) url: http://www.ebay.com/sch/gerapeldoorn/m.html?item=151797114639&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562.

You'll have a chance to get the earliest issues of War Comics. After this I will sell the best of the Korean war run of this book and after that it'll be WWII stories and great battles from history. All great stuff from the best Atlas artists, like Russ Heath.

War For Sale

Friday Comic Book Day.

This week I have started selling my Atlas war books on Ebay. The first series to go is War Comics, which will include many of the stories mentioned here when I did the Hank Chapman series this summer. The first lot will be up by Sunday and will include two of the three Russ Heath stories with consecutive job numbers I showed a fe weeks ago. It also has one issue that has two of the nineteen job numvers that were issues after #9999, when Stan Lee decided to change to a letter plus number system and found out he had ordered but not numbered nineteen stories (which then became #10001 to 10019). Three of those are in War Comics #10 two illustrated stories and atext story).

From 1945, all stories produced for Timely/Atlas were identified by a job number. They were given out when the script was bought and probaby used as an accounting tool - to track the progress of a story, assign it to a book and see who would get paid for it. Late in 1951, the four number system ran out and Martin Goodman and/or his editor Stan Lee decided to start again with a one letter-four number system, with the first story to be assigned a number that way numbered A-1, the next one A-2, etc. But as with any system, there were a few holes to plug. Some stories that had already been given to artists but had vailed to get a job number came in late and for some reason it was decided not to give them a new numer, but to make an exception and give them a five figure number. Or at least, that is one way to explain why there were nineteen stories numbered 10001 to 10019. Another could be that the idea to start a new system was invented only after juggling the zeroes was found to difficult. The 'nineteen' that got away' were not in any particular genre and fom a nice cross section of all of Timey's output. The stories appeared in books in early 1952. This is one of those books, which doesn't only have job number #1004 but also the first 'new' one, A-1. Most of these stories have been 'found'. The only ones missing are 10001 and 10002.

War Is Hell (But Necessary) Part 1

Day One.

From tomorrow I will bring you part of a text I presented at a Comics Conference at the University of Amsterdam last month. I tired to use my podium among the scolars to highliight the importance not to rely on the information that has been given us by comic book heistorians before us, but to go back to the original sources as they arre gievn us these days trough reprint books and sites such as The Digital Comic Book Museum and blogs like that of Ken Quattro, Michael Vassalo, Paul Tumey and myself. As a sample, I presented the case of Hank Chapman, one of the most fascinating and forgotten comic writer sof the fifties, who wrote some of the most cruel and anti-war comics of his time. I illustrated the talk with images taken from Hank Chapman's war comics of 1951-195. To be able to do that I collected 70+of his stories from various scan sites. I will represent the best of these along with the text in a chronological order. That is not the order that they are used in the text, so I will try and keep the original illustrations as well. But if you read the stories along with them, over the next few weeks you will get  good impression of Chapman's work and maybe. like me, you will have a new appreciation of his aristry and his place in the history of comics.

Crop of the Creme

Friday Comic Book Day.

Common knowledge has it that Stan Lee wrote all of the stories in Menace because he wanted a book of his own. If that is true, these three stories from Marvel Tales #113 may have been the impetus. They are from the same creative period with job numbers slightly before those of Menace. And as with those titles, he only used the best artists for himself: here he works with Mike Sekowsky, Werner Roth and Russ Heath.