Julius Schwartz obit -- New York Times

[FlyingDonut]

Julius Schwartz, 88, Editor Who Revived Superhero Genre in Comic Books, Dies

By ERIC NASH

 

Julius Schwartz, a comic-book editor who rescued the superhero genre from near extinction in the mid-1950's and helped shape popular characters including Batman, the Flash and Green Lantern, died on Sunday in Mineola, N.Y. He was 88 and lived in Queens Village.

 

The cause was pneumonia, said Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics.

 

In the 1930's, before becoming a comic-book editor, Mr. Schwartz had a career as a top science-fiction literary agent. He helped revive this moribund segment of the comic-book industry when he, along with the writer Gardner Fox and the artist Carmine Infantino, revived the Flash, who had been mothballed since 1949, with a sleek, scarlet costume for DC Comics in 1956.

 

The new Flash was a runaway hit, and Mr. Schwartz went on to modernize Green Lantern, the Justice League of America, Hawkman and the Atom for a new generation of readers, with the help of a stable of DC artists including Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane and Joe Kubert.

 

Mr. Infantino, who worked with Mr. Schwartz for more than 35 years, recalled their creative process. Mr. Infantino would try to stump Mr. Schwartz for story lines by drawing covers with impossible cliffhangers. "It became a real game between us," Mr. Infantino said.

 

For one cover in 1961, Mr. Infantino drew the original Flash racing against his modern-day counterpart. "I said, `Here, figure this one out,' and he said, `I will,' and he did," Mr. Infantino said. "I could never top him." Mr. Schwartz solved the conundrum by introducing parallel Earths, now a staple of science-fiction and comic books, for a story he called "Flash of Two Worlds."

 

"I loved science fiction!" Mr. Schwartz wrote in his autobiography, "Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics," written with Brian M. Thomsen in 2000. "It was the real reason I wanted to be an editor."

 

Born in the Bronx on June 19, 1915, and a self-described "library kid," Mr. Schwartz was in on the ground floor of science fiction in America. A graduate of the City College of New York, he joined up with Mort Weisinger, who later became the editor of DC, to found the first literary agency to specialize in science fiction and fantasy.

 

Their roster of clients included H. P. Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman, Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett. A number of their authors also had secret identities as comic-book writers, including Otto Binder (Captain Marvel), Alfred Bester (Green Lantern) and Edmond Hamilton (the Legion of Super-Heroes).

 

Mr. Schwartz is survived by a son-in-law, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

 

Colleagues recalled Mr. Schwartz as a demanding, meticulous editor who was generous with his artists and writers.

 

"He edited very heavily," Mr. Infantino said. "He had one rule: don't ever be late on the job."

 

Mr. Schwartz wrote his own epitaph in the first chapter of his autobiography: "Here Lies Julius Schwartz. He met his last deadline."