Wonder Comics 2

[jbcomicbox]

I posted this on the GA forum because someone mentioned Wonder Comics 1

 

as a big history buff on comics i am delighted to have this piece

 

That was my copy of the book....

 

 

here is an interesting tid bit...

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece...at=0&UCat=0

 

 

AIN’T IT A WONDER?

 

By Jon Berk

 

I have been reading and collecting comics for many a year. I have become entranced not only by comics as a form of entertainment, but have become a fan of the history of the development of the art form and the characters that populate the art form. Forays into original art have brought me as close as I will ever come to be able to reach out across the years and “touch” an object created by pioneers of this craft that is a piece of that history and development of comicbooks.

 

My interests are diverse but I have always have had an affinity for the early development in the late 1930s. Some time ago, I began the pursuit of a piece of golden age art from that period that fit may of my collecting criteria, art by Will Eisner from 1939. I had inquired of an individual if he had any golden age art. He said he had a “Wonderman” page from Wonder Comics 1. This intrigued me and got my acquisition juices going.

 

“In the beginning” there was Superman. Taking the world by storm in Action 1, cover dated June 1938, the potential lucrative nature of this type of character did not go unnoticed by Victor Fox. Fox had been an accountant for National and decided that there was money to be made with a “super-hero”. Leaving DC and setting up his own company, he requested that the Eisner-Iger shop create for him a “superman”. The result was “Wonderman”, who appeared in Wonder Comics 1, cover dated May 1939. Here was another guy running around in a brightly colored costume with incredible strength and was able to jump over many a tall building with a single bound. Problem is that this was 1939, and no one else but Superman had this particular schtick. Accordingly, Detective Comics moved quickly. Cover dated May 1939 means that the book appeared in March 1939. DC obtained a preliminary injunction (a legal procedure to order a stop an act in order to prevent “irreparable harm”) March 16 followed by a permanent injunction hearing on April 6 which quashed there ever being a second appearance of Wonderman. As produced, Wonder Comics 2 contained no Wonderman but “Yarko the Great”.

 

Wow! It would be real neat to own a page of this historic book. Since I owned a copy of the book, I asked the owner to identify the page by the caption. He did and I could not find it. Strange. So I asked to reaffirm which he did. A bit suspicious I asked if he would mind sending a photocopy of the page. He did. The page (clearly marked page 3) was no where to be found in the comic. Then it hit me. Could it be….? Comicbooks on a monthly schedule would have to have the contents of the next issue in progress. Could it be that this page was intended for the second appearance of Wonderman which never saw the light of day? The context of the page clearly refers to past adventures of “Wonderman” and the interaction of Brenda with him. The owner never realized or thought about it. Without being a comic book collector or historian, he never gave it another thought. But I did.

 

I sent a copy of the art to Will Eisner. Not surprisingly, Eisner had no specific recollection of the page. (In fact all interviews with Eisner demonstrate that this whole episode was distasteful to him. He refused to lie for Fox and, accordingly, his shop and Fox parted ways.) He did, however, identify the art as his own. Comparing it to the art in the first issue, there is no question that the same artist did the art. Normally, “unpublished” art has less “value” than that which is published. But viewing art as “history”, what makes this unpublished piece of art historic is the fact (and why) it is unpublished. So another small piece of comic history-over sixty years later- now stands revealed.

[Sharkey]

Cool! Great story Jon. Thanks for sharing it -- and the excellent detective work.

 

BTW, your Kirby gallery is AWESOME....