DC VS VICTOR FOX: The Testimony of Iger & Fox

This is the second installment of testimony from the transcript of the legendary lawsuit pitting plaintiff Detective Comics, Inc. against upstart publisher Victor Fox (Bruns Publications) and his distributors for copyright infringement of DC's franchise character, Superman.

I'm going to step back and let Jerry Iger and Victor Fox speak for themselves, but I quickly want to say "Thank you" to all the folks who have contacted me over the past few days regarding my publication of this historic document. Once again, the thanks should go to the actual finder of the transcript; I only provide the forum for its viewing.

-- Samuel M. Iger & Victor Fox, defense witnesses herein referred to as The Witness
-- Asher Blum & Raphael Koenig, attorneys for defendant Brun Publications (Fox)
-- Samuel Fried, attorney for co-defendants Kable News Co. and Interborough News Co.
-- Horace Manges, attorney for the plaintiff Detective Comics, Inc.
-- Judge John Woolsey, herein referred to as The Court

[note: the "Mr. Stolz" referred to in the first portion of this testimony was the vice-president of Interborough News. The court was trying to subpoena Stolz to testify to his sending of a letter to various people connected with distribution for his company.]

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TESTIMONY OF JERRY IGER & VICTOR FOX


Iger, pg. 1

Iger, pg. 2

Iger, pg. 3

Iger, pg. 4

Iger, pg. 5

Iger, pg. 6

Fox, pg. 1

Fox, pg. 2

Fox, pg. 3

Fox, pg. 4

Fox, pg. 5

Fox, pg. 6

Fox, pg. 7
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COMMENTS

After wading through some preliminary side-talk, it doesn’t take long to realize that Jerry Iger’s testimony was crafted to bolster what Eisner had said earlier. As Wonder Man’s creator (à la Victor Fox), Eisner was tapped to carry the weight of the defense’s case.

The direct questioning of Iger hoped to establish the defense’s contention that Eisner had created “The Wonderman” in January 1938 and had presented his rough sketch to Fox at that time. This was crucial to their case. The implication that The Phantom was a common source for both Superman and Wonder Man was offered and just as quickly dismissed by Judge Woolsey, who seemed to be losing his patience.

The plaintiff’s attorney, trying to find an exploitable fracture between Eisner and Iger’s testimonies, elicited this humorously coy response:

Manges: When did you first read the script “Superman” in Action Comics?

Iger: After the question of whether we had copied the character in Action Comics called--what do you call him? I don’t recall. As a matter of fact, I very seldom read--I don't read all the comic books. We do read the comic books that we supply.

Iger got off relatively easy as opposed to the grilling that Eisner received. Things got a bit more interesting, though, when Victor Fox took the stand.

Almost overlooked in light of the shock of Eisner’s earlier testimony, were references to a proposed comic titled, KID COMICS. Under questioning, Fox goes into detail:

Blum: Did you take up this matter of this Kid Comics magazine with Mr. Donenfeld?

Fox: I suggested to him that I would manufacture a so-called tabloid sized comic magazine which would be twice the size of those ordinarily sold by other publishers of 28 or 32 pages, I don’t recall which, and I submitted this dummy to him and I said, “I want you to put this out for five cents, as a five-cent seller. There is no other one in the market for five cents. I would like you to distribute it for us.” He said, “Let me have the dummy. I will talk it over with my associate and we will let you know.”

This proposed publication (which was new to me) sounds quite a bit like Eisner/Iger’s JUMBO COMICS, which was itself a reworking of the material they had produced for J.B. Power’s overseas tabloid, WAGS. What makes this different is Fox’s suggestion to Donenfeld (if he is be believed) that it be priced at five cents.

Questions abound: was this proposal actually made to Donenfeld by Fox? If so, when? Was KID COMICS an earlier version of JUMBO with the same contents, or was it a later creation, containing new material?

In any case, KID COMICS was key to the defense’s position that DC was the real plagiarist:

Mr. Blum: Just a minute please, I am replying to the Court. He (Fox) verifies this affidavit in March, 1939, and he says, “I find that a number of ideas that were embodied in the dummy of Kid Comics which I left with Donenfeld are being used in a number of Donenfeld’s comic magazines; to wit, Action Comics,” and then he referred to two other magazines.

The Court: In other words, your position is switching around and claiming that in effect Mr. Donenfeld’s organization was plagiarizing something that they saw--I don’t know the names of the people that were on the stand yesterday--that were drawn and submitted to you; that is what you are claiming?

Mr. Blum: That is correct.

This startling accusation was apparently just a ploy to put the DC on the defensive. Nothing other than Fox’s words support the claim and to this point, no dummy copy of KID COMICS has yet been found.

Next installment, the plaintiffs speak.

The Wonderful WAGS of Oz

(A special thanks to Frank Motler for help with the Denis Gifford portion of this post.)
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I chased this unicorn for over 30 years.

I’d heard it was out there. I’d seen fuzzy pictures of one. And once, I saw one in person--on a backboard at a comic book convention.

My unicorn was WAGS.

WAGS was the comic tabloid that achieved legendary status for its hosting the earliest efforts of the equally legendary Eisner-Iger comic shop.

The publication itself had a unique history. It was a transcontinental production: conceived, put together and printed in the U.S., but sold and distributed in Great Britain and Australasia.

The tabloid was the brainchild of publisher’s representative Joshua Bryant Powers. Powers, who had carved out a unique niche for himself as a man who represented American syndicates overseas, had a colorful past. A University of Texas graduate and WWI era flying cadet, he had once run the United Press bureau in Buenos Aires in the 1920s. He maintained his close ties to South America much of his life and reportedly acted as an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency on that continent.

Powers had founded Editors Press Service in the Thirties to do the above mentioned work of syndicating American newspapers, columnists and comic strips to foreign countries. (Editors Press may have also provided another service. It has long been suspected of being a CIA front.)

As a way of lowering the costs involved with four-color printing, Powers came up with the idea of the export only publication. Entitled WAGS--a name he came up with because he thought it sounded “typically English”--the paper was 16 pages of American strip reprints.

According to British historian Denis Gifford, the first issue went on sale in Australasia on September 8, 1936 and was an immediate hit. The British edition debuted shortly thereafter on January 1, 1937. The success of both publications prompted Powers London agent, T. V. Boardman, to split off and start his own reprint tabloid--OKAY COMICS WEEKLY.

Boardman had the British rights to some of the American strips and took them to start OKAY. This left Powers with a hole to fill in his publication, so he contacted a small outfit just starting out to produce material for him. Eisner and Iger had the first major client of their Universal Phoenix Features.

Gifford states that the first issue to carry the new UPF features was #17, dated April 23, 1937. What is not clear, though, is whether these strips appeared in both editions of WAGS simultaneously. From the date and issue number Gifford cites, he was looking at a British issue. Confounding the situation even more is the fact that the Aussie version didn’t carry a date, only a volume and issue number.

Aside from the facts above, there has been little information uncovered about the WAGS of Oz. Until now.

Thanks to the goldmine that is eBay, I have been able to purchase several issues of the Australasian WAGS over the past few years.

The earliest issue in my possession is volume 2, #13 (the issue number appears on the back cover). It takes a bit of work to determine the approximate date.

If the Aussie WAGS indeed began on September 8, 1936, then that should place this issue sometime in 1937. A few of the reprinted strips have a date of “4-11-37”, while Little Orphan Annie is dated “8-1-37”. Obviously, this issue appeared after that. If WAGS was a weekly, then one year plus 13 weeks after its September 8th start would place it in mid-December,1937.


WAGS vol. 2, #13
The cover features Moon Mullins, but is unsigned and certainly not by its creator, Frank Willard. My guess it is drawn by Eisner. The stock characters in the image resemble some of the earliest Eisner art I’ve seen and it’s unlikely he would trust a cover drawing to anyone else in his shop at this point of its existence.

Inside the front cover is a small indicia:


WAGS indicia
As already noted, the bulk of the tabloid is made up of four color reprints of various American strips. The Eisner-Iger shop provided 7 pages of content, all printed in black and white.

(Gifford reported that the shop supplied 8 pages per week, but the only other black and white printed strip in this issue was a page of John Hix’s Strange as it Seems and John Hix’s Scrap Book, neither of which was a UPF strip.)

Eisner’s own Hawks of the Seas leads off the new material. This episode is numbered with a “10” in the final panel. Each of the other UPF strips that carry a number are also designated with a “10”. This brings up the possibility that the UPF contributions are only ten weeks in--which would mean they began in about June of 1937. If so, that could mean that the Aussie version of WAGS ran the Eisner-Iger material two months later than its British counterpart.


Hawks of the Seas
Bob Kane’s Peter Pupp is a revelation to those who only know him as the early artist of Batman. Kane supposedly spent some time at the Fleischer Studio circa 1934 and that animation experience shows in this strip. Like Hawks and most of the other UPF features in WAGS, Peter Pupp was reprinted in JUMBO COMICS. Eisner and Iger had bought the printing plates from Powers and re-sold them to Fiction House.


Peter Pupp
Next up is the first of Don DeConn’s offerings in this issue. It is The Adventures of Tom Sherrill. The graphic technique DeConn used seems to be derivative of advertisements from that era. His geometric forms were rendered so similarly from panel to panel, that it’s possible he employed woodblocks or something akin to them.


The Adventures of Tom Sherrill
DeConn’s Puzzle Phun was illustrated with the same static graphic style. DeConn’s features were also reprinted in early issues of JUMBO COMICS and then he seems to have left the industry. The only other credit I can find for him was as the illustrator of a 1940 children’s book entitled, THE HUMPTY-DOTS, by Susan Holton.


Puzzle Phun
Like all of the contributors to this issue of WAGS, Les Marshall had worked on WOW, WHAT A MAGAZINE!, the seminal Henle publication that provided the original staff of the Eisner-Iger shop. Marshall’s contribution here was Modern ‘Planes, a one large panel strip devoted to that subject. Apparently that was also Marshall’s only interest, as every feature he is known to have drawn is a variation on this panel.


Modern 'Planes
Spencer Steel was credited to “Dennis Colebrook”, which was a shop pseudonym. In this case the likely artist was Eisner himself.


Spencer Steele
The final UPF strip is also one of the most interesting. It was The Hunchback of Notre Dame by the great Dick Briefer. Briefer‘s Hunchback appeared initially in WOW! in 1936, years before he brought Frankenstein to life.


Hunchback of Notre Dame

Subsequent issues of WAGS would feature other strips by other artists, but that’s a subject for a future post.

Who Am I? Why Am I Here?

There's a very good chance you won't know me. Although I've been involved with comic books as a reader and fan for 50 years (it hurts to even write that), until the invention of the Internet I was just a face in a convention crowd.

I've always been fascinated by the history of this medium, going back to the Sixties and the typewritten, hand-stapled copies of The Panelologist I ordered from Jerry Bails. In many ways, Jerry is responsible for this blog. I grew up in the Detroit area and attended some of the earliest comic shows, The Detroit Triple Fan-Fairs, organized in part by Dr. Bails. I bought some of my first Golden Age comics from him as a shy kid at these conventions. I eagerly read and re-read his scholarly take on what most adults disregarded as childish trash. Years later, Jerry helped me on many occasions when I had run into a wall in my own comic history research or just needed to run some of my theories by him. He's gone now and I miss him. But I want to thank him just the same.


The Panelologist vol. 1 #1
This next part is uncomfortable for me as I hate to talk about myself, but probably should at this point.

I've been referred to as a comic historian, but that sounds like a frightening combination of Jerry Lewis and Stephen Ambrose, so I prefer comics detective. Maybe you've read some of my writings on my Comicartville website. Or maybe you've seen some of the articles I've had published in ALTER EGO, THE COMICS JOURNAL and Craig Yoe's ARF FORUM. Greg Theakston used an abridged version of one article for the text of his book, WILL EISNER: EDGE OF GENIUS. I've been an unnamed contributor to numerous publications over the years, a named contributor to OVERSTREET'S PRICE GUIDE, cited by Bob Andelman in his Eisner bio, A SPIRITED LIFE and in the credits of the Eisner documentary film, “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist”. And yeah, that's a copy of my Merry Marvel Marching Society membership card and kit in THE MARVEL VAULT book from a few years back.

I'll probably refer back to some of these from time-to-time as my research doesn't end when an article does. I'm currently finishing up a long piece on the life and career of Bernard Baily, a much shorter piece on Matt Baker and a half-dozen other writings in various stages of completion. I plan on featuring previews of articles as they develop and will often seek advice and information from YOU, the reader. I'm fortunate to have friendly relations with some of the most thoughtful and generous people involved in the study of this medium, and hope to feature their words and insights upon occasion.

As for comments--I welcome them all! But please follow these rules of the road:

1) Always be respectful. No insults, no name-calling, no airing of grudges.

2) No adults-only language. In other words: don't curse or use language you wouldn't use in front of children. I want this blog to be viewable by as many curious comic book fans as possible and that includes the young.

3) No political, religious or other divisive posting. There are plenty of sites and discussion lists devoted to those pursuits. This isn't one of them.

I have the ability to moderate comments here on my end, so any comment that violates the above will be summarily deleted.

Please follow these easily followable rules and we can all have a good time and perhaps learn something.