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Doc V.

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  1. Chuck, I'm going to do this from memory as I'm at work at the moment....... Atlas imploded in April of 1957. At the time of the work stoppage there was enough inventory across the fantasy, war, western and teen titles to last a full year. There were also about 100+ fantasy scripts bought and not yet drawn. Stan was left alone in a small office to put together the 8 books a month published (down from 70+) using this inventory. Joe Maneely saw his main source of income evaporate overnight and went over to DC and Charlton. He also joined the original Cracked staff assembled by Sol Brodsky, contributing to the first 5 (I believe, issues. In fact, I own some of the original Maneely Cracked art shown up thread). But by the end of 1957 inventory ran out in the teen and western titles and "new" work was commissioned. You can identify this new work by the P and S job numbers on these stories. (Q & R were jumped over). The new Teen material debuted in Miss America (Patsy Walker stories by lee and Al Hartley). In the westerns, Joe Maneely returned to draw the Two-Gun Kid after the Chuck Miller inventory ran out. This is all new material beginning around (I'm guessing now) issue #40. Maneely continued to draw this feature for 4 or 5 issues until his death on June 7, 1958. Maneely was also drawing the syndicated strip Mrs. Lyons' Cubs with Lee, launched in January of 1958. Within a day or two of Joe's death the company changed direction and Jack Kirby was launching Strange Worlds #1's (Dec/58) "I discovered the Secret of the Flying Saucers!", job #T-76. Maneely's last work was the splash to the Two-Gun Kid story in issue #45 (Dec/58), "The Revenge of Roaring Bear!" job #T-67. Jack Davis finished the story following Maneely's death. So all the stories Joe did with S and T job numbers in the first half of 1958 were "new" stories, not inventory. Now the job numbers T-67 and T-76, job #-wise, are literally next to each other, assigned within a day of each other. I know this because Dick Ayers' records recorded an inking job between those numbers on June 6. The set-up is this... the company is plodding along, slowly re-opening and accepting new work. Joe Dies, Jack is back within a day, and the company changes direction towards a genre, science fiction, that Goodman detested and never sold for him. Jack was coming over from science fiction and heroic fantasy at DC (as well as his syndicated strip Sky Masters) and I will always feel he was the impetus for the change in direction. Doc V.
  2. Just came across this scan while surfing the site. The story "Over The Hill" in Battle #7 is drawn by Bill LaCava. Doc V.
  3. The woman in the UNCANNY TALES #2 cover is Betty Jean Maneely, Joe's wife. Doc V.
  4. Oh! before I forget, what is the issue number and date of those scans? Doc V.
  5. Thanks for the scans. The Vince Alascia inks make Mike Becker's pencils almost completely unrecognizable. The man in the very last panel on the very last page is a typical Mike Becker face, the only really recognizable one in the entire story. This makes me realize that what I know to be the Timely becker may in fact be almost pure Becker. Doc V.
  6. Let me know and I can send you the complete Becker story scanned from that issue of Murderous Gangsters. I'd love to see them! Doc V.
  7. Replying to a nearly year-old post, that ADVENTURES INTO TERROR cover you posted is the only Timely Atlas cover by Sam Kweskin. Doc V.
  8. I wrote: 9790 Reign of Terror - That looks to be an artist by the name of Sy Grudko. Grudko was on the Timely staff starting in about 1947. Scrooge wrote: Never heard of him! No wonder I didn't figure out who it was. Thanks. It'd been driving me nuts. Glad that the same week as the Scream was found again so is Grudko. I've found about 12 Grudko freelance stories: ADVENTURES INTO TERROR 30 Apr/54 ASTONISHING 11 Spring/52 ASTONISHING 12 Apr/52 ASTONISHING 15 July/52 BATTLE 9 June/52 BATTLE 12 Sept/52 SPORTS ACTION 12 May/52 STRANGE TALES 6 Apr/52 SUSPENSE 23 Oct/52 UNCANNY TALES 19 Apr/54 WAR ACTION 4 July/52 WILD WESTERN 41 Feb/55 I've not been able to pin down anything from his Timely staff days, though. Yes I was on the old list and yes I've rejoined last week already. I tend to lurk and listen there and don't dare come in with my ignorance and ask for help with ID over and over again. I guess I should speak up then, huh. Of course you should! What's your real name? Have you ever posted there? That's what the list is for. Exchange of info. Nothing I enjoy more than having an outlet for all the useless information I have! Doc V.
  9. Scrooge wrote: Doc, thank you for your welcome comments in this thread Thanks! Glad to be here! The errors above, IIRC, come from the Wikipedia's entry for Alascia. I don't claim to know enough to correct them. I was all too happy at the time to hear more about Vince about his pre-Charlton days. I try to cite the sources I use for the write-up and certainly didn't intend to 1) take credit for the statements above or 2) repeat and distribute false information. I'm all too glad you stepped in to correct this mis-information. Had I had time to read it over more closely I would have noticed the odd reference to Powell as an inker! That would explain it. Whoever wrote that entry up "definitely" culled it from the GCD. And thus the errors get propogated into online encyclopedias now! $%#@$#!!!! I was particularly glad to see Alascia's inking over Mike Becker. I know recently on the Timely - Atlas that Becker's name came up but I've never seen any of his jobs for Timely so was glad to catch him in Murderous Gangsters. I like Mike Becker's art agreat deal and not having those Murderous Gangster issues, I now look foward to tracking them down. Becker was a staff artist at Timely (along with Alascia) and I never have been able to connect his work with a discernible inker there (there were so many on staff, both good and bad). His style is a strong one and easily recognized. Also, thank you for the Bellman ID. I knew I had seen that penciller somewhere and you IDing Allen, I see his work there now. Yeah! Allen doesn't have a clue as to why he signed only some of his stories. It wasn't something he really thought of (signing) and perhaps he signed the stories he thought he did a better job of. Now, I wish you could help me with the ID on another post from a year or more ago, it's from Astonishing # 11's third story: 9790 Reign of Terror. Who pencilled that? These are the kind of questions I wish I could ask on the Timely-Atlas list all the time and not become a pain plus the board are a lot easier at handling image hosting. Could you please help ID this work? I can scan more of this 4-pager if you'd want me to. That looks to be an artist by the name of Sy Grudko. Grudko was on the Timely staff starting in about 1947. He was there until the staff was let go and he freelanced for Stan Lee up through about 1952-53. The very first thing he did at Timely was a 2-page Human Torch filler that may or may not have ever been published. Were you on the old Timely-Atlas list? Artist ID questions were a big part of that list that I loved to answer when I could. I say "were" because the 8 year-old Timely-Atlas list was inexplicably deleted from the Yahoo servers 3 days ago taking the largest collated Timely-Atlas archive in the world with it. It is with 100% certainty that I can say it was the largest repository of accumulated Timely-Atlas knowledge and data in the entire world. We don't know what happened but it's an enormous tragedy and loss. The list archives have been saved by several listers so the data is not gone forever but the ability for someone to scroll through the list's history is now gone. But...not to worry! I've started a spanking new Timely-Atlas group with myself as the list-owner and moderator and I invite anyone interested with the history of Timely-Atlas from both a creator standpoint to the actual publications themselves, to join us! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Timely-Atlas-Comics/?yguid=1238939 Most of the participating list members have re-joined and in addition we've pulled in some new blood. Doc V.
  10. Thanks! I'm not used to these types of boards so I think I replied to a post from over a year ago without mentioning what I was replying to. Doc V.
  11. Howdy folks, Sorry about replying a year late to this thread but in case no one has commented by now, the unsigned story above "The Man in the Lake" is by Allen Bellman. The -script is by Carl Wessler. Doc V.
  12. Scrooge wrote: After Captain America creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left Timely after issue #10 of the eponymous book, Alascia penciled Cap's adventures in the sister title All Select Comics #2-10 (Winter 1943/1944 to Summer 1946), generally inked by Allen Bellman, and in several issues of All Winners Comics, with a variety of inkers, starting with #11 (Winter 1943/1944). Syd Shores and Al Avison had taken over art duties on Captain America Comics following the departure of creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby after issue #10 (Jan. 1942), and Alascia shortly afterward filled-in as Shores' inker while Avison did his World War II military service. Allen Bellman started his career doing backgrounds on Captain America stories pencilled by Syd Shores. Vince Alascia was Shores' primary inker. Bellman "never" inked any stories pencilled by Vince Alascia. Alascia later went into rotation as one of the various Captain America artists in any given issue. Examples of his work in Cap's flagship title include the story "Ali Baba and His Forty Nazis" in Captain America Comics #32 (Nov. 1943), inking Ken Bald, and "The Crime Dictator" in Captain America Comics #47 (June 1945), which Alascia penciled. It was Alascia, inked by Bob Powell, who drew the Captain American and Bucky chapter in the landmark book-length, all-star stories of the All-Winners Squad in the (non-hyphenated) All Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946) and #21 (Winter 1946; there was no issue #20). Additionally in issue #19, Alascia inked Shores on the Miss America chapter. In issue #21, he additionally pencilled both the Whizzer chapter and the final chapter, and inked Avison's Sub-Mariner chapter. Ok, I think I may see where this came from. If you got a lot of these Timely credits from the GCD I'm going to advise everyone to take them with a grain of salt. Many years ago when the GCD first started, the indexer who entered Timely credits put in pretty much whatever he wanted including made-up credits, and the result has been promulgated errors for years and years across printed material and web pages. It drives me absolutely up the wall how much damage has been done to accuracy. I've been slowly and systematically trying to correct the damage. Above, if "you" identified Alascia inked by Powell or if the credit is in the actual book, I'd have no problem. I could challenege you but at least it would all be opinions. But if the credit was from the GCD it is 100% likely wrong! Alascia was almost exclusively an inker on the Timely staff and Powell was inking no one. Powell was a penciller with his own stable of inkers and background artists like Howard Nostrand, Marty Epp and George Seifringer. Powell did no inking for Timely. He was never on staff and could not have ever inked Vince Alascia who was exclusively an inker and not even a penciller. When I went over the first ALL WINNERS masterworks after publication I saw the same incorrect Timely credits culled from the GCD. For the second upcoming volume I'm going over the credits in advance of publication for Marvel. Doc V.