Al "EC" Feldstein vs. Russ "Galactus Schmalactus" Cochran!

[read_em-migration]

If you're signed up for Yahoo, you can view the thread here:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eccomics/

 

(Maybe you also have to join the group to read the thread? I dunno, it's there if you want to read it...)

[jim1968]

You do have to join, and the group is moderated.

I'm waiting to see if they let me in.

[spider9698]

I guess those two won't be exchanging holiday cards this year!!!!!!!!!

[originalisbest]

Would someone who has access be able to give a brief synopsis? Wonder what they're squabbling about...

[precodekeith]

Yeah really! Give us the dirt! I hardly have time for this board let alone joining another one!

[read_em-migration]

You got it! Here's what I believe is the first email I received from Russ Cochran (I get all postings to this EC group as an email, so you don't really have to read their "Board")

 

Date: 5/18/2005 6:37:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time

There are two sides to every story...

 

...and I am on Bill Gaines' side! In my humble opinion, Bill Gaines was generous to Al Feldstein in every way except one, and that was in allowing anyone else any part of ownership of the EC product. Bill wanted that all for himself and his heirs, and that's what he got. He paid his artists and writers and editors higher rates for their work in order to achieve this ownership, which was important to him for a lot of personal reasons which are beside the point here.

 

I think that Al Feldstein was treated fairly and generously by Bill, and when Bill sold MAD Al was not due any part of that sale, and Al continues to this day to [#@$%!!!] and moan about it! Al did not get royalties from the EC Library, either, and he had none coming to him. When Bill sold the EC art, which he had paid to store in a vault in New York City for 25 to 30 years, he split the money with the artists. This was ART which was being sold, and Bill felt that the artist deserved a share of the selling price, even though each artist had signed away all rights to it. Bill gave them this share, which amounted to a LOT of money for Al Feldstein, as well as Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, Jack Davis, et al, out of the goodness of his heart, not because he HAD to do it. And of all those artists, who was the only one who complained and whined that he was cheated?...Only one...Al Feldstein!

 

I sent sets of the EC Library to everyone, including Al, and everyone except Al thanked me for them. I didn't HAVE to send each artist sets of the EC Library, I did it out of respect. And each time I'd send a new set to Jack Davis or Johnny Craig, etc, I'd get a nice little note thanking me for thinking of them. Never heard once from Al.

 

Now add this: Al has been doing his re-creations of EC covers for fans, charging several thousand dollars for them, and keeping all the money for himself. Did he offer to pay the Gaines estate a percentage? Not that I know of. Did he place his own copyright mark on these paintings, despite the fact that all of these old EC covers were already copyrighted by the Gaines estate? He did.

 

Is Al appreciative of what Bill Gaines did for him? No. He is only bitter that he didn't get MORE. He is a selfish and self-indulgent man. Ask the old MAD staffers how many of them liked working for Al, see what they say.

 

Every time I visited the MAD offices in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, etc, I would spend hours talking with Bill, and did some visiting with Jerry or Nick or John Putnam or John Ficcara. Al would close his office door when I was there and he would never speak to me about the old days. He was too busy working on the next issue of MAD to give me any time at all.

 

I am getting very tired of hearing all this sad violin music about poor Al and how he has been mistreated by Bill Gaines and subsequently by the Gaines estate.

 

Bill was my friend. We went out to dinner every time I was in New York, over a period of over 20 years. I convinced him to let me do all the EC reprints in various formats, and I convinced him to sell the EC original art because by that time I had preserved it in the form of negatives shot directly from the originals. When he sold the art, he asked me for my opinion on splitting the sales proceeds with the artists, and I told him that it was a generous and magnanimous thing for him to do. He owned that artwork outright, 100%. He could have kept all of the money from the sale of the art, but he didn't. That's the kind of man Bill Gaines was.

Al "Sour Grapes" Feldstein would complain if you hanged him with a new rope! Without Bill, there would never have been an EC comics line.

[read_em-migration]

And then Al's reply...

 

My Reply To Russ Cochran's Vitriolic Letter About Me

Date: 5/19/2005 4:11:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time

 

Dear "eccomics" group:

I had been reading your recent discussions with much interest and amusement... until the arrival of Russ Cochran's vitriolic and insulting letter about me.

 

I have no idea why Russ Cochran would write such an demeaning and misinformed letter about me, but I suspect that it is because I had refused to accept the demand for 'censorship of the final text of my book' made by William M. Gaines, Agent (the Gaines Estate), despite Russ's pleadings that I acquiesce to Wendy Gaines Bucci's outrageous demands so that he could publish my book...which I adamantly refused to do on general principles. (No one was going to censor my recollections, my thoughts, my reactions and my quotes in my book!)... hence no book!

 

However, I feel that I must, in all conscience, answer Mr. Cochran's recent nasty attack that is filled with perplexing anger and total misinformation.

 

Mr. Cochran wrote:

 

"I think that Al Feldstein was treated fairly and generously by Bill, and when Bill sold MAD Al was

not due any part of that sale, and Al continues to this day to [#@$%!!!] and moan about it!"

 

I have never "continued to this day to [#@$%!!!] and moan about" the sale of MAD Magazine by Bill Gaines. When it happened, I went to Bill and made it clear that I was unhappy that he did not, at least, give me a small piece of this large 'pie' he had just had delivered. I explained that I was not Harvey Kurtzman and I was not asking for 51%...just a tiny slice!... for what I had done in resurrecting the magazine, bringing it on to a regular schedule and turning it into a best-seller.

 

And Bill Gaines, in response, gave me a new contract which included 10% of the gross sales of MAD Magazine!

 

Which is why I never "pissed and moaned" about the sale. Why would I? The deal made me rich...because at that point in time, MAD was selling 475,000 bi-monthly...which meant a $3500 a year raise for me...

 

...and following its sale I took the magazine to a sale high of 2,800,000... 8-times a year... with 11 Foreign Editions... 4 "Annual"... 250 Paperback reprint and original titles...etc.

 

Bill Gaines used to go around bragging that I was the highest paid Editor in the world!

 

What I have done, in subsequent interviews, is to voice my opinion that selling MAD Magazine back then was a bad business decision on Bill's part, fueled by his apparent lack of confidence in the future of the magazine and presented with the opportunity to make an immediate capital gains tax killing...something that I feel he came to regret more and more as the success of MAD skyrocketed.

 

 

"When Bill sold the EC art, which he had paid to store in a vault in New York City for 25 to 30 years,

he split the money with the artists. This was ART which was being sold, and Bill felt that the artist deserved

a share of the selling price, even though each artist had signed away all rights to it. Bill gave them this share,

which amounted to a LOT of money for Al Feldstein, as well as Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Graham

Ingels, Jack Davis, et al, out of the goodness of his heart, not because he HAD to do it. And of all

those artists, who was the only one who complained and whined that he was cheated?...Only one...Al

Feldstein!"

 

I have never "complained and whined" that I was cheated when Bill sold my original art through Russ Cochran's auctions.

 

Yes, Bill paid me...and the rest of the artists...a small share in the proceeds (It was not a LOT of money!)... and I was grateful. I thanked him for his generosity at the time. Russ's statement that I complained and whined that I'd been cheated is a total fabrication.

 

 

"I sent sets of the EC Library to everyone, including Al, and everyone except Al thanked me for them.

I didn't HAVE to send each artist sets of the EC Library, I did it out of respect. And each time I'd

send a new set to Jack Davis or Johnny Craig, etc, I'd get a nice little note thanking me for thinking

of them. Never heard once from Al."

 

When Bill made the E.C. Library deal with Russ, Bill informed me that, as part of that deal, I would be getting a

complimentary copy of each boxed set...which Russ was kind enough to send me.

 

I am under the impression that I have often, in our correspondences...or when he bought some of my original Fine Art...thanked him for them. If he remembers otherwise, then I offer my sincere apologies.

 

Thank you, Russ, for all of the boxed sets of The E.C. Library that you sent me as part of your deal with Bill Gaines. I am grateful. And forgive me for overlooking my thanking you in the past...if I did!

 

Now add this: Al has been doing his re-creations of EC covers for fans, charging several thousand

dollars for them, and keeping all the money for himself. Did he offer to pay the Gaines estate a

percentage? Not that I know of. Did he place his own copyright mark on these paintings, despite the

fact that all of these old EC covers were already copyrighted by the Gaines estate? He did.

 

Once again, Russ has made totally untrue, fabricated accusations.

 

Soon after my retirement, Jerry Weist asked me if I would do a "Cover-Revisited" painting of "Weird Fantasy #15" for his brand new "Sotheby's Comic Art and Memorabilia Auctions" that he would be running.

 

I called Bill Gaines and asked permission to do such a painting from my (E.C.'s) copyrighted original art.

 

We made a verbal agreement there and then that I could have permission to do any of my E.C. copyrighted original art as a painting providing that I pay a percentage of my sale price to E.C. (later William M. Gaines, Agent).

 

This verbal agreement was consequently spelled out in legal terms in a written contract between William M. Gaines, Agent, and myself.

 

I have been and I continue to pay a percentage of every "Cover-Revisited" commission sale I make to William. M. Gaines, Agent (the Gaines Estate)!

 

Sorry, Russ!

 

Is Al appreciative of what Bill Gaines did for him? No. He is only bitter that he didn't get MORE.

He is a selfish and self-indulgent man.

 

I have always been appreciative of Bill Gaines and what he did for me...affording me the opportunity to create successful titles and stories for him and for his paying me fairly for my efforts.

 

I have never complained about any of our business arrangements while I was working for him.

 

Toward the end of my tenure as Editor of MAD Magazine, when he an I were becoming more and more antagonistic as to the Magazine's future...when I was seeing the handwriting on the wall as far as magazine sales in general, and MAD's in particular, were concerned...I kept pressing him with suggestions about what I thought should be done.

 

Feeling like a Quarterback expected to successfully run plays without the blocking of his Linemen, I attempted to interest Bill in such things (and I have the "presentations" in my possession to prove it!) as:

 

(1) A MAD TV Show...based on the success of "Four For Tonight" of which one section about MAD was successfully written by Larry Gelbar ("Mash"). I made this suggestion in the early 1970's, long before "Saturday Night Live"!

 

(2) A traveling "MAD Show" that would visit colleges across the country, made up of a talented troupe like the gang that made the off-Broadway "MAD Show" so successful. And a resident writer, traveling with them, would keep the satirical material updated and fresh.

 

(3) Accept "Advertising" in MAD. Times had changed and Bill's paranoia about being controlled by any advertisers no longer applied. And I could get something I really yearned for in MAD...color!

 

(4) Offer a "D.J. VHS Tape service to help DeeJays across the country fill their air time with "MAD Moments."

 

(5) A VHS Edition of MAD Magazine (now it could be a DVD!) , to be sold at Book Stores, TV Movie Rental Stores, Supermarkets, etc.

 

(6) etc., etc.

 

All of which were rejected by Bill Gaines.

 

After all, why complicate things?! He'd already sold the magazine!

 

Which directly led to my considering retiring, which I finally did on December 31st, 1984 at the end of my then current contract, after giving Bill three months notice.

 

I walked away from a job paying me over $250,000 a year in discouragement and disgust.

 

"Ask the old MAD staffers how many of them liked working

for Al, see what they say."

 

The only two member of the MAD staff that I can conceive of having negative things to say about me are Nick Meglin...and De Bartolo.

 

Nick's motivations are easy to explain.

 

When I gave Bill my retirement notice, after his initial shock, he asked me who I thought should replace me as Editor...and I told him "John Ficarra"! (I had been grooming and training John for the job ever since I'd made up my mind to leave.)

 

"I cant' do that to Nick Meglin," Bill cried. "He's been with us 25 years!"

 

To which I replied, "All well and good...but he cannot do the job. He is not 'Editor" material!"

 

I will not, at this time, go into all of the reasons why I felt that Nick Meglin was not qualified to be the Editor of MAD Magazine and why I was certain he could not adequately do the job needed.

 

As a solution, Bill made Nick Meglin and John Ficarra "Co-Editors"...something I was violently opposed to.

 

After Nick found out about all this, he has had it in for me ever since.

 

As for De Bartolo...I have no idea what he has against me, considering that I nurtured him from the outset, tolerated his almost illiterate submissions until he'd become, under my guidance, an extremely valuable asset to MAD...and often lowered my own Editorial Standards to accommodate less-than-acceptable material so that could maintain his unbroken record of successive appearances in MAD.

 

Sure...ask those two guys.

 

Nick, who led the campaign to write me out of the history of MAD...and , who never mentioned me once in his book, "Good Days and MAD"!

 

Every time I visited the MAD offices in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, etc, I would spend hours talking with

Bill, and did some visiting with Jerry or Nick or John Putnam or John Ficcara. Al would close his

office door when I was there and he would never speak to me about the old days. He was too busy

working on the next issue of MAD to give me any time at all.

 

Am I missing something?!

 

Did my closing my door to extraneous outer office noise so that I could work...do my job...put material into the works to meet MAD deadlines... mean that I was deliberately snubbing Mr. Cochran?!?

 

Did I even know he was out there...visiting?!

 

Hey, Russ...! A gentle knock on my door might have enticed me into taking a break and talking to you about the old days.

 

Did you ever try it?

 

I am getting very tired of hearing all this sad violin music about poor Al and how he has been

mistreated by Bill Gaines and subsequently by the Gaines estate.

 

After I retired, I was interviewed by several documentary makers and magazine article writers...and I was frankly outspoken about why I had retired.

 

Which pissed off Bill Gaines...hence the campaign of retaliation, writing me out of E.C. and MAD's history.

 

When "E. C. Comics"...(NOT Bill Gaines himself!!)...was inducted into the "Television Horror Hall Of Fame" (A supposed Annual Event that only lasted two years), Bill did not even invite me to attend...ME, who created his Horror Comics!!!)...to partake of the Dinner and Award Ceremony!! And when he accepted the Award on behalf of E.C., he never even had the common courtesy of thanking me by name!!

 

Al "Sour Grapes" Feldstein would complain if you hanged him with a new rope! Without Bill, there

would never have been an EC comics line.

 

Of course there would. For a limited time, anyway...perhaps.

 

However...

 

Without Al Feldstein, there would never have been the famous, successful and collectable E.C. Comics line !

 

MAD-ly yours,

Al Feldstein

[read_em-migration]

And Russ' reply to the reply...

 

Re:My Reply To Al Feldstein's Vitriolic Letter About Me

Date: 5/19/2005 6:47:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time

 

A few years ago, Jerry Weist visited me here in West Plains, putting together a new Sotheby's auction, and asked to include some of the EC art in that auction. I had two thoughts at that suggestion:

 

1. No, I shouldn't let Jerry in on this. This was my pie, why should I share it with Jerry and Sotheby's? I got nothing out of it.

 

2. Yes, maybe I should do it, because Sotheby's had a world-famous venue and could reach buyers of the EC art that I didn't have access to, resulting in making more money for the artists and for Bill Gaines, and also increasing the respect for this artwork, which places like Sotheby's had sneered at for years.

 

I chose #2, and let Jerry have some of the best EC covers and stories for his auction at Sotheby's. While we were digging the art out of my large office safe, where it was stored after Bill sent it to me, lo and behold!...we discovered four almost complete issues of Picto Fiction art! We found the art for Terror #3, Shock #4, Crime #3, and Confessions #3. Not all of it, but most of it. When I called Al Feldstein to tell him of this exciting discovery, his first response was..."Did I get paid for editing those issues? Did Bill pay me for those, or do I still have money coming?" His only interest was whether he had been paid. Al became a millionaire because of Bill's generosity. Al is possibly the most mercenary person I have ever met.

 

Am I wrong, Al, about you placing your own copyright notices on your paintings taken directly from EC covers? Did you not do that? You must have known that you cannot copyright something that has already been copyrighted. What did those copyrights of yours mean?

 

The only reason that the Gaines estate insists on text approval for Al's "tell-all" book is to protect the good name of Bill Gaines. Bill's two daughters do not want Al writing a memoir which contains lots of negative opinions about their deceased father, who is no longer around to defend his position against Al's.

 

Yes, Al, I did try to talk to you in my visits to the MAD offices in the 1960s and 1970s, and you refused. You seemed to have no nostalgic feelings for the 1950-1955 EC period where all my interest was focused. All I got from you was, "Don't bother me, kid, I've got a job to do here, a magazine to run, and I don't want to talk about the old days of EC" and I respected that and stopped bothering him.

 

Al says that his share of the proceeds of selling the EC art was not "a LOT of money", and I guess if you are making hundreds of thousands as a magazine editor, it is not a lot of money to you. But I can assure you that it was a lot of money to guys like Graham Ingels, Johnny Craig, George Evans, John Severin, and so on. And Wally Wood's first wife, who got Wally's share.

 

I'm sorry if I have stepped on Al's toes here, but day after day, sitting down here at my computer and reading messages from the EC Yahoo group that seemed to be saying that Al was not treated fairly by Bill, coupled with the fact that Bill is gone and nobody wanted to speak up in his behalf, I finally couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer, and I had to speak out. I was not an original EC staffer, and therefore I have no direct knowledge of these matters, but each and every time I had dinner with Bill Gaines in New York over a period of over 25 years, we liked to talk about things that happened in 1950-1955, and recall with fondness the "old days" when the EC comics were being published and I was a kid in high school in Missouri. No doubt, I got the view of everything from Bill's angle and could never get Al's POV, even though I tried.

 

A year or so ago, I entered into a long series of frank and to-the-point e mails with Al. The reason is that I wanted to try to heal the scars that had formed between the old "Bill and Al" of the EC glory days. In these long rambling e mails, which I still have in my files, I said to Al, "Let it go, Al. Be grateful to Bill for what he DID give you and don't be so mercenary about what he DIDN'T give you. Yes, Bill was a control freak. Yes, he had his quirks, and yes, maybe he did sell MAD at the wrong time for too little money, but it is time to forgive and write your memoirs, and I want to publish them. I wanted to see a magnificent book, containing Al's recollections of the EC days along with tons of EC art by all the EC guys, a hardcover that would capture the magic that EC found in that short 5 or 6 year period in the early 1950s. I wanted to see that book as much as anyone reading this, and I wanted to publish it. I argued FOR Al with the Gaines estate, who of course is in control of any reprinting of EC artwork in any format. And the Gaines girls did not insist on censorship rights, just the right to approve the text in case Al said bad things about Bill, with Bill being unable to respond.

 

Believe me, I tried for a period of a few months, in this e mail exchange with Al, to get Al to agree to focus on the good stuff and forget about the rift that grew between Al and Bill in the 70s and 80s. But Al adamantly refused, and to this day he says he wants to be free to write his book in his way without approval from anyone. And I told him then that he certainly could do that, and that I would still be interested in publishing it, but the book would not contain the EC artwork which would have, in my opinion, made the book such a special memoir.

 

Al still says that his book, "The MAD Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein" is about to be published. I'm waiting to read it, Al. But I'm afraid it will never happen, and it certainly will not be the book that it COULD HAVE BEEN, containing all your great EC artwork, including your re-created covers, and that is purely because you refuse to give text approval to the Gaines estate. And that, as far as I know, is where it sits today. Al will be 80 years old this year, and if this book doesn't get written within the next few years, it will be a loss for all of us EC fans.

[read_em-migration]

And then there are several replies from EC Comics Group members - too many to include here. Then Russ posts again:

 

First, let everyone who reads this understand this: I am not speaking for the Gaines estate, I am speaking strictly for myself. No one at the Gaines estate (Cathy and Wendy, Bill's daughters) has authorized me to speak for them. But I have found myself in the middle of this brouhaha for the last several years, and I see both sides of the argument.

 

Al was never active in dealing with EC fans until after his retirement from MAD. After that, he started attending a few conventions, sat on a few EC panels at conventions (like San Diego) and made other public pronouncements in which he said some things which were offensive to the Gaines daughters, and to me as well. These were things like he said in his last posting, such as this direct quote from his 5/19/05 post:

 

Without Al Feldstein, there would never have been the famous, successful and collectable E.C. Comics line !

 

Statements like the above, while they might have a germ of truth in them, only serve to add fuel to this fire. Al is saying, in effect, that his contributions to EC were more important than Bill's.

As a writer, editor, and artist, we can all agree with that, but how important was it that Bill took his father's company and went off in new directions and gave talented people like Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig a chance to do what they wanted to do? Bill stayed up all night many times reading pulps and other stories to get "springboards" for the stories which he and Al plotted together. Bill was not a passive bystander in this process, who only provided the office space and signed the checks. He was the benevolent, paternalistic, leader of the pack at EC. He provided the platform from which Al and Wally and Jack and Johnny and Graham and the others "did their thing". And arguing about whether Bill was more important than Al or vice versa serves no useful purpose.

 

In the last posts from Robert Ridgeway and Steve Stiles, the question was posed: "How is the Gaines estate NOT guilty of censorship by refusing to let Al use EC art in his memoirs unless they have text approval?" Good question.

 

The answer is that a luxurious coffee-table book entitled "The MAD Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein", containing Al's memoirs together with a healthy serving of EC art alongside as illustrations would certainly sell better and bring in more money than a book written by Al without any EC art in it. Al would certainly profit more from the coffee-table version, and the Gaines daughters refuse to allow this unless they can approve the text. They want to be sure Al does not bad-mouth Bill and his contributions to EC. And since Bill is gone now, who is left to answer Al's accusations and arguments? Nobody.

 

I'm glad that all this is finally out in the open for all you fan-addicts to see. None of us wants to read a book about the greatest five years in the history of comic books in which TWO co-creators came up with the stories we love with the artwork we love, and in which one of the TWO co-creators is putting down the other one, especially when the other one has died and is no longer here to defend his point of view.

 

I still want to publish this book. Grant Geissman still wants to write it, I think, with Al. It's a real shame that it probably will never happen.

[spider9698]

[precodekeith]

Thanks for the posts!

 

Hard for me to side...

[PUNYHUMAN]

Interesting stuff!! Feldstein vs. Gaines,Kirby vs. Lee, Eisner vs. Fox, etc...

It's truly Sad, but I guess that's the Reality of it . When we were kids reading these Mags we thought it was one Happy Bullpen!! The child in me still wants to believe , but People change & so does Life!! If you work with people , the Reality of it is" Friction " in order to create & perform!! I can't take a side , because I wasn't there, only Bill & AL know the truth !! Again , what a Shame!!!

On a lighter note: Any of you guys picked up Foul Play yet?? I'm still reading it & I'm enjoying the Hell out of it ,so far.

[originalisbest]

Thanks for the postings - mm, guessed this was about what'd be about, didn't know that Russ would come down as so strongly opposing Al, but being that he was a very good friend of Bill's, I suppose it makes sense that he'd seek to defend him against what he felt were unjust Feldstein complaints.

 

Basically it boils down to everyone has an opinion, and these two have come down on opposite sides of it in theirs. Really it is too bad, as I truly owe each of these guys greatly for their efforts at superlative comics that have given me such reading and collecting enjoyment since I first discovered them (for me, a 1985 Russ Cochran EC CLASSICS color reprint.)

 

When I got to meet Mr. Feldstein a year ago at a Chicago show, it was my pleasure to sing his praises for his artistic and editorial efforts - but if I ever happen to meet Mr. Cochran, I would similarly be singing his praises for his many tireless efforts in preserving and furthering the EC legend. Given the exchanges detailed here, I wouldn't look for the two of them to be arm-in-arm at the next bigwig comic mixer.

[gpanalysis]

I had the pleasure of communicating with Al a few years ago and subsequently having him paint an EC "revisited" painting, which was eventually made into a lithograph (funny story, with lawyers from both sides getting involved as a royalty was sought by the Gaines estate and eventually agreed to. Al's not-yet-published book mentioned above was blocked as a consequence and that seems to be ongoing). I found Al to be an absolute gentleman, offering advise with the litho production and other artistic aspects of the relationship. His motivation was never money (in fact I think I stressed him out more than the money he did get for his painting was worth). I have the utmost respect for him, and the way he has repied to Cochran's letter in the yahoo forum is a testament to his character. Luv ya Al

[Dr_Neff]

yeah

[originalisbest]

Per my in-person experience with him - let me just say it was plainly apparent, he was none too fond of the Gaines' heirs.

[read_em-migration]

Al's next reply...

[eccomics] My Reply To Russ Cochran's Recent Letter

Date: 5/22/2005 1:51:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time

 

Dear eccomics group:

I have quietly and patiently let several days pass so that the anger and hurt and chagrin I felt at Russ Cochran's recent response to my explanatory reply letter (which he deemed 'vitriolic') had passed.

 

I even considered ignoring his continued attacks ... at my integrity, my motivations and my 'take' on historic events.

 

But I cannot, in all conscience, allow Mr. Cochran to continue to make his false, out-of-context statements, designed to demean me and to drag my name and my reputation through the mud, without answering them.

 

In his May 19th letter to the group, he wrote the following:

 

 

"While we were digging the art out of my large office safe, where it was stored after Bill sent it to me,

lo and behold!...we discovered four almost complete issues of Picto Fiction art! We found the art for

Terror #3, Shock #4, Crime #3, and Confessions #3. Not all of it, but most of it. When I called Al

Feldstein to tell him of this exciting discovery, his first response was..."Did I get paid for editing

those issues? Did Bill pay me for those, or do I still have money coming?" His only interest was

whether he had been paid."

 

I would like to remind Mr. Cochran that my first response to his call was in answer to his REAL purpose for calling me with the news! He was extremely excited that he had found the PictoFiction art for the unpublished four issues of our PictoFiction titles...and he wanted to know if I could reconstruct the stories...all of the stories!...that went with the art because he had not found them and wanted desperately to include those unpublished issues in his proposed upcoming PictoFiction boxed set.

 

I sadly confessed to Russ that, after 50 years, I would be unable to recall and re-write the stories...

 

...but that, if he had found the art work, then the mechanicals...the stories I had written or re-written and had set in type and pasted up in page layouts...would have to be there... or in Bill's storage vault...because I would never have been able to assign the art to the artists without know exactly what sizes each illustration would have to be to fit the layouts.

 

That was my first response!

 

Back in those days, whether it was PictoFiction or New Direction, Bill Gaines paid me for each completed issue... meaning that when each issue of a particular title was ready for publication...when I had written or re-written the stories, had them set in type, constructed the mechanicals, assigned the interior and cover art, accepted the finished interior and cover art, completed the mechanicals and was ready to send the assembled issue to the printer for publication...then and only then was I paid.

 

So I was naturally curious about the issues that had never been sent to the printer and had never been published. I wondered aloud if I had been paid for them anyway.

 

What in hell is wrong with me wondering about that?!!

 

If Russ Cochran was going to publish work of mine that I had not been paid for, I wanted to let him know that there was going to be a problem. Which is why I asked!

 

 

Al became a millionaire because of Bill's generosity.

 

No...Al became a millionaire because he delivered to Bill Gaines and E. C. Publications, issue after issue for 29 years, a growing-in-popularity, growing-in-sales, successful magazine...as per my contract, which spelled out my share of the profits MAD was making!

 

The contract, of which, had been given to me by Bill Gaines to pacify me when I angrily objected to his secretly selling the magazine for a huge amount of money, and not even offering me a small share of the windfall. It was given to me so that I would not quit then and there.

 

It was not "generosity," Mr. Cochran, but a good business move on Bill's part. It kept me on...working as MAD's Editor!

 

And, after all, he wasn't giving me a piece of anything he still owned!

 

Al is possibly the most mercenary person I have ever met.

 

What is it with you entrepreneurial Publishers?! Where do you get the idea that creative artists and writers should be grateful to have their products published?! Do you go to a special Publishers' school to learn the attitude that artists and writers should fall on their knees in appreciation of being paid pittances compared to the potential profit the products they have created could reap for you?!

 

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my Mother continually regaled me with "old saws"...proverbs and sayings... like "Haste makes waste!", etc.

 

One that I will always remember is: "If you're going to criticize someone for having dirty hands, make sure that yours are clean!"

 

Mr. Cochran...let's talk about the huge amount of money you have made over the years...first with the "E.C. Boxed Set Library" volumes...and then with the Gemstone Reprints of our entire E.C. line...all of which was originally produced for Bill Gaines by exceptionally talented artists, writers and Editors who received not one dime from you, not one cent of royalty, not one gratuitous payment out of the profits you poured into your own pockets!

 

If my demanding fair payment from a Publisher for my creating a product that he is going to sell at a profit is "mercenary," then I confess to being mercenary.

 

But what would you call a person who takes those artist-and/or-writer-created products that have already made large sums of money for one Publisher and who re-publishes them for further profits without rewarding the artists and writers who created the originals?

 

What would you call HIM??

 

Mercenary would be too kind!

 

Am I wrong, Al, about you placing your own copyright notices on your paintings taken directly from

EC covers? Did you not do that?

 

Absolutely! It is every artist's right to copyright his painting! It is part of the copyright law!

 

 

You must have known that you cannot copyright something that has already been copyrighted.

 

It is an artist's right to copyright his painting...even if it is a derivative of a previously copyrighted work...as long as he has permission to do so from the original's copyright owner. Which I have had and have now... in contractual form with William M. Gaines, Agent!

 

What did those copyrights of yours mean?

 

They mean, Dear Sir, that if you are contemplating reproducing my "Cover-Revisited" paintings in some future book about me that you might be planning to publish after I am dead because you own the reprint rights to the originals, forget it!! You will have to deal with my widow or my heirs.

 

The only reason that the Gaines estate insists on text approval for Al's "tell-all" book is to protect the

good name of Bill Gaines. Bill's two daughters do not want Al writing a memoir which contains lots

of negative opinions about their deceased father, who is no longer around to defend his position

against Al's.

 

First of all, it is absolutely absurd and ridiculous to assume that my book would only contain "lots of negative opinions" about Bill Gaines. It was and is my purpose to include a fair portrait of the man...with lots of positive opinions about him as well. He was, after all, my friend and collaborator, and any "negative opinions" only began to take form after I retired.

 

As of this writing, our "Freedom Of The Press" Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the free publication of opinions, both positive and negative...and anyone demanding censorship of those opinions is trampling upon my Constitutional right!

 

Yes, Al, I did try to talk to you in my visits to the MAD offices in the 1960s and 1970s, and you

refused. You seemed to have no nostalgic feelings for the 1950-1955 EC period where all my interest

was focused. All I got from you was, "Don't bother me, kid, I've got a job to do here, a magazine to

run, and I don't want to talk about the old days of EC"

 

First you wrote that I closed my door to you. Now you quote me...which means I must have finally opened my door to speak to you.

 

But I seriously doubt that I spoke to you exactly in that way... with exactly those words. I would love to hear a tape recording of what I said to you. Because what I probably told you was that I was really busy...and that I did not have time to reminisce about a period that was long gone...that had ended painfully...and that I had moved on from there with my life

 

Al says that his share of the proceeds of selling the EC art was not "a LOT of money", and I guess if

you are making hundreds of thousands as a magazine editor, it is not a lot of money to you. But I

can assure you that it was a lot of money to guys like Graham Ingels, Johnny Craig, George Evans,

John Severin, and so on. And Wally Wood's first wife, who got Wally's share.

 

Then maybe you can find it in your bleeding heart to pay those same guys some sort of royalties due them for originally producing the wonderful stuff that you have reprinted time and time again...lining your pockets with the profits.

 

I argued FOR Al with the Gaines estate, who of course is in control

of any reprinting of EC artwork in any format.

 

Obviously you were not very successful. And I sincerely doubt that your arguments FOR me were backed by any implied action on your part!

 

And the Gaines girls did not insist on censorship rights, just the right to approve the text in case Al said bad things about Bill, with Bill being unable to respond.

 

Like it or not, Mr. Cochran...THAT is censorship!

 

Al still says that his book, "The MAD Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein" is about to be

published. I'm waiting to read it, Al. But I'm afraid it will never happen, and it certainly will not be

the book that it COULD HAVE BEEN, containing all your great EC artwork, including your

re-created covers, and that is purely because you refuse to give text approval to the Gaines estate.

And that, as far as I know, is where it sits today.

 

Russ...I have "Good News" and I have "Bad News"!

 

The "Good News" is:

 

As a result of current ongoing discussions with Jack Albert, the Lawyer for William M. Gaines, Agent (the Gaines Estate), I have succeeded in having the "censorship" demands totally removed from any negotiations about reprints of my copyrighted E.C. cover art and interior stories for my proposed book, "The Mad Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein"! This is a direct quote from one of Mr. Albert's letters to me:

 

Dear Al:

I suggest that you may show the E-mail that I sent to you last week to any Publisher who questions your ability to obtain material from EC Comics, I can assure you that Cathy* has agreed that she will not insist upon any form of censorship. If your Publisher needs more, I will be glad to give him the assurance needed.

Jack

 

*Cathy Gaines Mufsud, current President of William M. Gaines, Agent

 

So I am now free to pursue my dream...an uncensored book about my life and my art.

 

I am currently talking to prospective authors and publishers about the project.

 

The "Bad News" is: You will not be publishing my book!

 

Can you guess why?!

 

Al will be 80 years old this year, and if this book doesn't get written within the next few years, it

will be a loss for all of us EC fans.

 

Hopefully, it will now happen.

 

And as for you guys in the "eccomics" group. This is the first time I have gone public with the news.

 

Wish me luck.

MAD-ly yours,

Al

[read_em-migration]

Al's next email...

[eccomics] Oh....One Further Letter In My Own Defense

Date: 5/22/2005 3:25:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time

 

Dear eccomics group:

 

Once again I must, in all conscious, answer one of the vitriolic, insulting, out-of-context statements Mr. Cochran is continuing to make about me in his ongoing barrage of letters to the group.

 

In his May 20th letter to the eccomics group, he wrote:

 

"Al was never active in dealing with EC fans until after his retirement from MAD. After that, he

started attending a few conventions, sat on a few EC panels at conventions (like San Diego) and

made other public pronouncements in which he said some things which were offensive to the Gaines

daughters, and to me as well. These were things like he said in his last posting, such as this direct

quote from his 5/19/05 post:

 

Without Al Feldstein, there would never have been the famous, successful and collectable E.C. Comics line !

 

Statements like the above, while they might have a germ of truth in them, only serve to add fuel to this fire. Al is saying,

in effect, that his contributions to EC were more important than Bill's."

 

Mr. Cochran is correct: After I retired from MAD...and after I began to perceive that I was deliberately being written out of the history of E.C. and MAD...I began to attend Comic Book Conventions and do Interviews because I wanted to set the record straight and claim the full credits due me.

 

I felt that E.C. and MAD fans were being denied the truth about my role in the success of both enterprises, and I wanted those truths brought to light.

 

And at those Conventions...and in those Interviews... I told my side of the story, the side that had begun to be systematically buried. The side that explained exactly why I walked away from a job paying me $250,000 a year, etc!

 

And maybe some of the truths I told (as I saw them) might have been offensive to Bill's daughters and to Mr. Cochran...

 

...but they were truths, nevertheless, as I saw them!

 

And I never said anything like the statement Mr. Cochran took out of context from a letter I wrote to the group, and

maliciously interpreted to suit his purposes!

 

What I had written in my May 19th letter to the group was in answer to just one of Mr. Cochran's multiple nasty statements and conclusions...and I reproduce it in its entirety, below :

 

Al "Sour Grapes" Feldstein would complain if you hanged him with a new rope! Without Bill, there

would never have been an EC comics line."

To which, I replied:

 

"Of course there would. For a limited time, anyway...perhaps.

 

However...

 

Without Al Feldstein, there would never have been the famous, successful and collectable E.C. Comics line !"

 

What I was saying, in effect, Mr. Cochran, was that there certainly would have been an E.C. Comics line...but NOT the famous, successful and collectable E.C. Comics line that, by my very presence, by my writing and by my editing, I was responsible for!

 

It stands to reason, Mr. Cochran, that if I wasn't there, Bill Gaines certainly would have published an E.C. Comics line without me.

 

And it stands to reason that it would not have been the same line that I contributed to!

 

But nowhere in my statement did I say that my contribution was "more important than Bill's"!

 

So stop pulling things out of context and maliciously interpreting them to demean me!

 

Shame on you!

 

MAD-ly yours,

Al

[read_em-migration]

Russ' last reply...

[eccomics] My Reply To Al's Recent Letter

Date: 5/22/2005 12:29:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time

 

Al,

 

That, indeed, is wonderful news!

This is what I have been hoping for, and working toward, for the past several years! All those long e mails we exchanged a year or so ago, all my arguing in your behalf to the Gaines estate, have obviously now paid off in the form of your now having permission to write your memoirs as you wish! You should be thanking ME for this, instead of writing nasty letters to the EC group about me. I seriously doubt that you would have the permission letter from Jack Albert today if I hadn't been behind the scenes, working in your behalf toward this very end result!

 

And now, now that you have the permission you wanted all along, which I helped you obtain from the Gaines estate, you are going to cut me out of the picture by not allowing me to publish it! Just because I called you mercenary, and because I always backed my friend Bill Gaines in our discussions and disagreements! So we can add "vindictive" to "mercenary" now and you can write another diatribe against me.

 

It was around 1970, Bill Gaines and I were having dinner at one of his favorite Manhattan restaurants, and I remember it like it was yesterday. We had finished eating, I thought, when Bill said,

"I'm still a little hungry. Want to split an order of spaghetti?", and I said, "Bill, I'm stuffed. I couldn't eat another bite". So Bill ordered the spaghetti and ate it all by himself. He was a man of enormous appetite, and that, combined with his loathing of any form of physical exercise, led to his untimely death of congestive heart failure. But I digress.

 

That night, as we were eating, I said to Bill, "Bill, those EC comics from the early fifties were just the greatest! Why don't you republish them now for today's comic fans?"

 

And Bill thought a moment or two and said, "No way. I'm very happy with just doing MAD right now, I'm doing fine, and I have a lot of bad memories from the mud that was slung at me because of my horror comics in the mid-fifties." Then he paused, between bites, and said, "Why don't YOU do it?"

 

And it really didn't hit me at first. On the plane, flying back to Des Moines, back to my job as a university professor and chairman of the physics department at Drake University, I replayed that conversation back in my head. Well, I thought, maybe I COULD do it! I had seen a pile of EC original art sitting in Bill's office and had marveled at the fine detail in the originals that would never have reproduced in the comics, so I decided to try a modest publication called EC Portfolio One, which was simply a reprinting of several EC stories in larger size and greater detail than anyone (except Bill and Al and the artists) had seen before. I thought I treated the art with respect in that short series of portfolios. And then, two paths crossed.

 

One path was continuing to be a professor. At this time I had been teaching for nearly ten years and it was getting stale. I was teaching the same courses over and over each year, I was already chairman of my department, and the only way for me to advance at the University would be to be "promoted" to a desk job, Assistant Dean, eventually Dean, perhaps Vice President or President some day. And that thought of that made me shudder. The part of professing that I always enjoyed was being in the classroom, interacting with the students. I hated the endless meetings to discuss staff, budgets, future plans, on and on...very boring stuff to me at that time. So the only way I could hope to go any further in my profession was to give up the classroom, at least partially, and take a desk job pushing papers most of the day. That was a disheartening thought.

 

And the other path was...I had invested around $2000 in publishing the first EC Portfolio, and when I took it to one of Phil Seuling's New York conventions in July, it was a hit. I sold around a hundred of them at $10 each and was able to wholesale the rest to Bud Plant and Phil at the end of the show. This was an exciting discovery for me. I had produced something to be proud of, something which other EC fans applauded, and I had made a little profit at the same time. I only printed 1000 copies of EC Portfolio One, and the total profit I made on it was perhaps $3000 or so, but that was a good return on my investment and I had fun doing it. So there I stood at this fork in the road facing me: I studied hard to earn my PhD in Physics, and now I seemed to be at a critical point in that career path, and the other road was much more risky, quitting my job at Drake in order to publish the EC Library and other EC publications. I had tenure at Drake. That means that I had a guaranteed job for the rest of my life. I resigned that position to publish comic books. My colleagues at Drake thought surely I had lost my mind. My wife and my family thought the same thing. It was not an easy decision, but one I have never regretted. I left my academic career behind me and plunged ahead as a stripling entrepreneurial publisher. And I have left thousands of sets of EC Libraries sitting on thousands of bookshelves and have succeeded in keeping the EC comics that I loved so much alive for future generations. I feel really good about that. Really good.

 

I was able to move back to my home town of West Plains, Missouri in 1975, where my parents were still living, so that my children could have the privilege of growing up in the same small-town atmosphere that I had enjoyed, and they could see their grandparents on a daily basis, and walk the same streets I had walked as a boy. That felt good, too.

 

So if Bill Gaines had never ordered that extra plate of spaghetti, and hadn't said "Why don't YOU do it?" to me, what would I be doing today? Possibly, I'd be a retired professor. There would be no EC Library. Bill Gaines gave me the power to choose the other path, and for that I will be eternally grateful and, like Sergio, because of this and the way I feel about Bill I can forgive any of his shortcomings.

 

Al likes to talk about money. Here's a little "Al story" that is 100% accurate: Standing around with Al and other EC artists at the San Diego convention a few years ago, the year that EC was honored, the year that Grant Geissman and I performed some songs for the dinner party in honor of Bill and EC, Al was talking about his wonderful ranch in Montana, describing all the space, the horses, what a virtual paradise it is, and he said to an EC artist standing there, " You should come out for a visit and spend some time at the ranch. You'd love it!" And as the EC artist started to show some interest at this kind invitation, Al adds, "And here's the rate card!" He had a card printed up with rates for visitors staying at his ranch! He expected an EC artist whom he had known for 45 years to pay for staying there! And I thought at the time, what a shame, that Al is so focused on money. But Al was born in 1925 and grew up during the great depression, and as a young man he didn't have money, so it did mean a lot to him. Still, I thought, it has really colored his entire outlook on life.

 

Now Al, if you want to talk about money, I will issue a challenge to you: I am willing to publicly publish my income tax returns for all of the years from 1975 to present if you will do the same. You would see that I have not made much money doing the EC Library, the EC reprints, the EC Classics, the EC Portfolios, etc, etc. I could probably have made more as a professor, and we all know how underpaid they are. But I did get to do exactly what I wanted to do, and call my own shots, and that was really important. If you look at my tax returns you will see that there was never a year that I made more than around $50,000. with all my EC projects, and in the early 1990s, with most of the EC Library published, I had just about milked the old EC cow dry. I was hurting, financially, when Steve Geppi came to my rescue and bought my entire collection of original art, comics, and collectibles along with my publishing company. That sale occurred in 1993, and I have been working for Steve (Gemstone Publishing) ever since. He saved my butt. Next month I will be 68 years old, so I am no spring chicken either, Al. And I have one, just one, shot left to fire in my EC gun: The EC Archives. This is the first announcement anywhere of this new project which I hope will occupy my remaining time on the planet. This is a proposed series of hardcover, full color books that will be distributed in major outlets around the world. Like the DC Archives.

 

But, you say, haven't you already done that with the EC Library? No, I haven't, because the print runs of the EC Library sets has always been very low and they were always aimed at the fan audience which could be reached through the "direct market"...that is, through comic book shops. Have you ever seen one of my books in a Barnes and Noble, a Waldenbooks, a B. Dalton store? Nope. Up to now I have done all my publishing for the EC fan, not for the general public. Are my EC books found in most libraries, schools, university collections? No. But the EC Archives will be. And not in "comic book color" produced by mechanical separations of a colorist's work, but rather by scanning the colored stats of a great colorist like Marie Severin. Full-range color, with subleties that could never have been achieved by the old process. Eye-popping color, combined with line art reproduced from the artists' originals. That's what the EC Archives promises. And most of all, worldwide distribution into all the major bookstore chains.

 

EC Lives!

 

Al, now that we have both vented our spleens against each other, how about we agree to cooperate on this new book project of yours?

You know that I am the publisher who should publish "The MAD Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein", and you know that Grant is the one who should work with you to write it. How about it, Al? Let's work on this one together. We don't have to LIKE each other in order to be respectful of each other's work. I have always been known as a publisher who paid special attention to detail and high quality of presentation. You have been known as perhaps the greatest comic book story writer and editor, plus one of the pre-eminent artists of the genre. For the past few days we have been calling each other names, throwing mudballs at each other. Now let's bury the hatchet and do this book together.

How about it, Al?

 

Russ Cochran

[read_em-migration]

If I ever happen to meet Mr. Cochran, I would similarly be singing his praises for his many tireless efforts in preserving and furthering the EC legend.

 

Yes, me too! Then I'd ask him why he [#@$%!!!] up Comic Book Marketplace so bad!