As John’s 1965 résumé mentions, he wrote scripts for comic books in the late ’40s and early ’50s. One of the editors he worked with was Jerry Siegel, one of the creators of Superman — as John recalled, this was a thrill for him, since he’d been a Superman fan as a boy.
Much comic book work of the time was strictly buyouts without bylines, so John’s work is hard to trace. However, his own file of published material included this copy of Cinderella Love #10, published in 1950 by Ziff-Davis, and edited by Siegel.
Elly Graham falls hard for Clay Rickard, a carefree and unsuccessful artist. But then she finds out that he has a rich family and a fiancée, and flees, eyes streaming. By the fifth page, they’ve reconciled; his paintings are selling; and she accepts his marriage proposal as she melts into his arms. John, of course, lived in Greenwich Village, and loved the neighborhood and its history.
Here’s the rest of it, as well as a short story John wrote for the same comic, “Love’s Confession,” with his marginal comments.
What a great find! To write a comic set in Greenwich Village must have made John giddy happy. He was an amazingly prolific writer. Comics, television shows, plays, magazine articles, books and of course those dodgy newsletters…he took a crack at about everything. He was fearless. I think my favorites are his earliest writings where he reveals and predicts his great passion for writing and his later work examining his writer’s block. Thanks for sharing these treasures.
Comment by Angela — May 28, 2010 @ 8:54 am
[…] As you may have noticed, I’ve changed to a different theme for this site. This one permits wider and more legible scans: the former one had frustrating limitations on image size. With the change, I can now post typewritten pages that can actually be read by the humanoid eye. I’ll also be going back and upgrading earlier posts, so do browse through the backlog. I’ve just revamped the unpublished 12th issue of Anomaly, and redone an earlier post on John’s comic book work: you can now enjoy the whole story of “Love in Greenwich Village.” […]
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