Veteran DC writers in the late 60's - blackballed or not?

[John Dunbar]

Over at the Comics Should Be Good website, they have a regular Friday feature called "Comic Book Legends Revealed". The most recent one was all about the late Arnold Drake. Here's a link:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/04/22/comic-book-legends-revealed-257/

It was pretty interesting to me, learning that the Cliff Steele version of Robotman was not inspired by the Golden Age version - Steele was originally and briefly called Automaton, and Drake had never heard of the Golden Age Robotman. As well. Drake came up with the brilliant Deadman in a weekend when faced with a deadline. Both neat facts, but what caught my attention most was the final legend, that Drake was supposed to appear on panel in the final issue of Doom Patrol with artist Bruno Premiani and editor Murray Boltinoff , but Boltinoff actually erased Drake from the story. The writer of the feature, Brian Cronin, attributes this to "some acrimony between Drake and Boltinoff" over Drake heading for Marvel. In the Deadman legend, Cronin makes reference to Drake and other veteran writers:

"Drake only stayed on the title for a couple of issues, as he was on his way out of DC at the time (part of the exodus of veteran DC writers over a mixture of new blood coming in in editorial and most likely some ill will over the veteran writers threatening to unionize - along with Drake, Bill Finger and Gardner Fox ended their DC tenures at around this time, as they would later describe as being effectively blackballed from the company - although do note that none of the writers were specifically blacklisted or anything like that. Fox, for instance, still could have had work at DC, just not on the same terms he used to have, so he felt it was not worth it)."

I am sure that on our previous site, Cap had talked about this, and Mr. Cronin may have the story a little confused. If I am recalling it correctly, the veteran writers wanted a page rate increase and health benefits, DC said no to both, and the writers were more or less pushed out the door - they weren't being given any more work, which isn't quite the same as voluntarily leaving. I don't think Brian Cronin is trying to defend what DC did, I just think the whole thing was a little more nefarious than he seems to think.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[ClarkKent_DC]

It sounds like Mr. Cronin has accepted and parroted the company's spin on what occurred.

[Philip Portelli]

It probably a mix of wanting benefits and DC's books losing sales and being compared as old-fashioned to Marvel's "hipness"!

[Luke Blanchard]

I don't know the answer. In the earlier 60s the DC editors I'm most familiar with cultivated their own writer and artist stables. I'd assume at the end of the decade whether writers and artists were able to get work partly depended on their relationships with particular editors. On the other hand, I understand somewhere along the line some artists got contracts guaranteeing them a certain amount of work, beginning with Irv Novick.

I would think Bill Finger's departure from the Bat-books has something to do with Schwartz's taking them over, although he did write some "New Look" stories. I think I've read Siegel stopped writing for Weisinger because he couldn't stand him any longer. But those events both occurred a bit earlier.

Joe Orlando's account of his run in with Arnold Drake over Stanley and his Monster in this interview gives some idea of how things worked at DC.

[Luke Blanchard]

As for Robotman, I think Mr. Cronin has missed a couple of points. Firstly, the Doom Patrol's Robotman looks like he was based on the Golden Age Robotman. Secondly, I wouldn't assume all the Doom Patrol characters were Drake's ideas. For example, the editor, Murray Boltinoff, may have contributed ideas. To be fair, Drake may, for all I know, have addressed this in interviews.

I think Negative Man must derive from the story "The Negative Man" in House of Mystery #84, but I've only seen a page of this. The story was drawn by Kirby, but the GCD lists the writer as unknown. So for all I know it could've been Drake, but instead Boltinoff, who had been Schiff's assistant, may have remembered it.

Boltinoff began working at DC in the 40s. I don't know if he ever worked on a comic in which the Golden Age Robotman appeared, but he could easily have been aware of him. Between Robotman's Star-Spangled and Detective runs he appeared for over ten years. If the DC editors ever discussed in the early Silver Age which characters they might revive next, his name might've been one of the ones to come up.

On the other hand, it could be e.g. that Drake had an idea for a brain-in-a-robot-body character, and Boltinoff said "oh, we already have one of those, Robotman".

Drake was born (Wikipedia tells me) in 1924, and the Golden Age Robotman debuted in 1942.

[Philip Portelli]

The two Robotmen had similar origins (brain placed in robot body) but the Golden Age version had very human features, a new human identity (Paul Dennis) and a lot more peace of mind than Cliff Steele had. But I fondly remember the reprints I read as a child such as one where he had to get license plates. Strange that both co-existed in the 80s in "All-Star Squadron" and "Doom Patrol"!