« The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of. » — Bram Stoker
Comics fans of my generation might be forgiven for not fully appreciating Lee Elias‘ artistic assets if they encountered him, say, in Mystery in Space when he took over its lead feature, Adam Strange, from visionary Carmine Infantino. The series was mercifully soon discontinued, the victim of a game of editorial musical chairs designed to save the Batman titles, then — believe it or not — facing cancellation thanks to Jack Schiff‘s mismanagement.
So Schiff and Julius Schwartz traded workloads, Infantino grudgingly took over the Bat, and disaster was averted. But Adam Strange was the casualty.
While I do have a soft spot for Elias’ work on Ultra, the Multi-Alien (in Mystery in Space) and Eclipso (in House of Secrets), it wasn’t until I found out about his earlier, far edgier pre-Code shenanigans at Harvey Comics (with art director/designer/co-conspirator Warren Kremer) and, more directly and subtly his handful of stories for editor Murray Boltinoff‘s spooky titles (Ghosts, The Unexpected, The Witching Hour) in the 1970s, that I came to discern his light.
Boltinoff wisely played to Elias’ strengths in interests, handing him historical gothics to play with, and he delivered some of the finest work of his career.
Editor Boltinoff had this amusing idée fixe, commissioning purported ‘true’ stories wherein famous authors were “inspired” to pen their immortal works by some supernatural encounter earlier in life. From what I recall, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and — in this case — Bram Stoker were among the elected.
-RG
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“Comics fans of my generation might be forgiven for not fully appreciating Lee Elias’ artistic assets if they encountered him, say, in Mystery in Space when he took over its lead feature, Adam Strange, from visionary Carmine Infantino. The series was mercifully soon discontinued, the victim of a game of editorial musical chairs designed to save the Batman titles, then — believe it or not — facing cancellation thanks to Jack Schiff’s mismanagement.”
I was fortunate enough to be a comics fan in the Sixties (and on) so I was able to have an earlier experience with both Lee Elias’ work on Black Cat, and Jack Schiff’s work on Batman. Elias’ Black Cat was fine, easily comparable to Caniff. Schiff? Let me mention Rainbow Batman and Buzz-saw Batman — it’s hard to think about those Batmen. I was told back then that Schiff’s heart was with educational comics. I can understand that; I’ve done some of them myself. Fortunately, I didn’t try to add a storyline — Schiff wasn’t too good at that, either. He wasn’t the best fit for his job — I wish he’d found a better.
I met some of the DC editorial crew back then, though not Schiff. Julie Schwartz was the real prize among them, a fine man and a fine editor. Mort Weisinger did a decent job on the comics, but he told dirty-old-man jokes and didn’t always hold to the promises he made in his comics. Didn’t much like Bob Kanigher, but that was mostly some of his editorial tics, like stories that began with forboding nightmares, to be dealt with in the rest of the story. Julie Schwartz and I occasionally ran into each other at SF/comic cons and said hello. I’m too old for cons now, and Julie’s too dead, but it was good while we lasted.
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Hi Ellen — Thanks for the insights and recollections! I can believe what you mention about Schiff; those public service pieces that ran in DC Comics in the Silver Age were nicely done.
It’s clear that Schwartz’s superiority as an editor is that he did as much writing, behind the scenes, as the credited writers.
And he held them and himself to high standards. And as he told Shelly Mayer, he knew nothing about art, so he apparently didn’t second-guess them much, unlike his colleagues.
I guess I’ll always be conflicted about Kanigher: while I adore some of his work (Enemy Ace, Ragman), any time he wrote women was one time too many. His claiming himself to be an expert on romance is pretty telling.
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