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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1958) The Path of History
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Started by Prince Namor,

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS MARCH 1958

I don't know if they 'retired' H.G. Peter or what, but DC decided to 'modernize' Wonder Woman with Robert Kanigher (under house name Charles Moulton) continuing to write and the art team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

Why did H.G. Peter always use his initials? His name was Harry Peter. I guess that's why.

(Incidentally, I always liked HGP's art on WW. I can see why they felt the need to update it. But I always liked his unique style. The cover to #97 is by... Irwin Hasen?)

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS APRIL 1958

For April Stan Lee wrote:

 

Homer the Happy Ghost #21 - art by Dan DeCarlo 

Millie the Model #86 - art by Dan DeCarlo 

Patsy Walker #78 - art by Al Hartley

Two Gun Kid #43 - 3 stories with art by Joe Maneely

Kid Colt Outlaw #80 - 3 stories with art by Jack Keller

 

Atlas released 8 titles in February. The other 3 were:

Navy Combat #19

World of Fantasy #13

Miss America #92

 

Things look pretty bleak for Marvel....

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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On 8/9/2022 at 10:29 PM, Zonker said:

I believe H. G. Peter continued to draw WW until his death.

Wow, you're right... his last issue came out in February 1958, meaning he would've had to complete it sometime in early December 1957 at the latest... he DIED on January 2nd at the age of 78! He died not long after the last issue he did... 

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Prince Namor

Prince Namor

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ON NEWSSTANDS APRIL 1958

It makes sense now...

I had always been led to believe that Maneely was Stan's 'best' friend and that he worked there until his death... that they were doing so much work, side by side and then one day he was gone and Stan was unsure what to do...

But Joe Maneely was already GONE from Atlas... for almost 8 months before this death. If he would've lived, he most likely would've settled in with DC (which paid much higher), as his art was a perfect fit, or he would've continued on with Cracked where he made even better page rates.

At least until the mid-60's, when he could've come back and been an inker for Herb Trimpe (like Stan had John Severin do) or work on genre titles, like Stan had John Severin do. 

Stan liked both of those guys a lot. In their last year together at Atlas, Severin did 100 covers (including 7 #1's), compared to Maneely's 60 covers (including 2 #1's). Severin was as much of a go to guy for Stan as Maneely was... (to be fair though - Maneely did 4X, that's FOUR TIMES the number of Interior pages as Severin that year...). It only makes sense they'd do similar work if they had returned to marvel together in the mid-60's....

Looking at this closely... it looks like Maneely did a large amount of inventory stories right before he left.... Hmmm... I mean, I GET IT... who WOULDN'T have done that for their friend? Let them know, "Hey I think Martin is going to shut this down, at least for awhile and make me use inventory stories only... do as much as you can before you leave, I'll pay you for it, and you can freelance until this hopefully blows over..."

History sure looks a lot different when you get all the information...

I'm just talking' out loud - I'm going to run this by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo (Timely Atlas Blog) to see what he thinks...

 

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Doc V.

Doc V.

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On 8/10/2022 at 10:34 AM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS APRIL 1958

It makes sense now...

I had always been led to believe that Maneely was Stan's 'best' friend and that he worked there until his death... that they were doing so much work, side by side and then one day he was gone and Stan was unsure what to do...

But Joe Maneely was already GONE from Atlas... for almost 8 months before this death. If he would've lived, he most likely would've settled in with DC (which paid much higher), as his art was a perfect fit, or he would've continued on with Cracked where he made even better page rates.

At least until the mid-60's, when he could've come back and been an inker for Herb Trimpe (like Stan had John Severin do) or work on genre titles, like Stan had John Severin do. 

Stan liked both of those guys a lot. In their last year together at Atlas, Severin did 100 covers (including 7 #1's), compared to Maneely's 60 covers (including 2 #1's). Severin was as much of a go to guy for Stan as Maneely was... (to be fair though - Maneely did 4X, that's FOUR TIMES the number of Interior pages as Severin that year...). It only makes sense they'd do similar work if they had returned to marvel together in the mid-60's....

Looking at this closely... it looks like Maneely did a large amount of inventory stories right before he left.... Hmmm... I mean, I GET IT... who WOULDN'T have done that for their friend? Let them know, "Hey I think Martin is going to shut this down, at least for awhile and make me use inventory stories only... do as much as you can before you leave, I'll pay you for it, and you can freelance until this hopefully blows over..."

History sure looks a lot different when you get all the information...

I'm just talking' out loud - I'm going to run this by Dr. Michael J. Vassallo (Timely Atlas Blog) to see what he thinks...

 

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. 

 

 

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