CATWOMAN WEEK and MORRISON MONDAYS collide — for a Sheldon Moldoff birthday salute! — Welcome to CATWOMAN WEEK! One of the greatest characters in comics history debuted 85 years ago, in Batman #1, on April 24, 1940 — and we’re celebrating with a series of features saluting the Feline Fatale. Next week, it’ll be JOKER WEEK! For the complete index of CATWOMAN WEEK features, click here. — By BILL MORRISON I’ve spent much of my art career as a “ghost,” a term for an artist who draws characters in the style of their original creator, and under the signature of that creator. I was credited for my work at Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics, but whenever I draw The Simpsons or Futurama characters for Fox (which has been way more than I did for Bongo) I do it anonymously, ghosting for Matt. Because of this, I identify quite a bit with Sheldon “Shelly” Moldoff, one of Batman co-creator Bob Kane’s most prolific ghosts. Shelly had his own style, of course, and he employed it before World War II on DC features such as Hawkman, Green Lantern, and All-Star Comics. After serving during the war, he returned to comics and continued drawing for various publishers, including Standard, EC, and Fawcett. And in 1953, he returned to DC and began his long, anonymous stint with the Dynamic Duo, secretly drawing stories for Detective Comics and Batman until 1967. Subsequently, thanks to the lifting of the veil that concealed Bob Kane’s ghost artists, Moldoff is more closely identified with Batman than he is with the comics he drew in his own style. And as much as I love his work on the Dark Knight Detective’s adventures, I’m fascinated by Shelly’s work in the horror genre. So, to salute the anniversary of Sheldon Moldoff’s birthday, April 14, 1920, and to celebrate CATWOMAN WEEK here at 13th Dimension, I was inspired by the cover to Fawcett’s This Magazine is Haunted #5, published in 1952 and drawn by Shelly in his own realistic style. My reimagining of this chilling pre-code horror cover, which features my favorite Batman villain in the foreground, comes complete with not one, but two staggering “What If’s?” First, what if Sheldon Moldoff had been allowed to draw Batman in his own style, instead of having to pretend to be Bob Kane? And second,...
MORRISON MONDAYS! By BILL MORRISON Before The Simpsons came into my life, I was a movie poster illustrator, working in Hollywood. And although I painted dozens of images that were displayed in theater lobbies and on billboards, I also got lots of assignments to create images that were not meant for the general public. These were either preliminary paintings and drawings known as comps (short for comprehensive) for advertising executives and producers to review, or art that was designed to sell a film or TV series to investors, or get a show into syndication. One such project was for a first-run syndicated, late-’80’s TV series titled Force III. I painted the illustration for a press kit cover that features three tricked-out vehicles bursting through what looks like a concrete wall, appearing undamaged and freshly Turtle Waxed! From the press kit copy we know that the show was about three Vietnam vets — a stock broker, a cowboy, and a martial arts instructor — who are enlisted by the CIA to execute dangerous missions in three distinct super-cars. They take their orders from a CIA officer who they never see, and have a liaison who directs and helps facilitate their missions. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because the premise borrows heavily from three other very successful shows of its day. I imagine the pitch for the series went something like “It’s Knight Rider meets The A-Team meets Charlie’s Angels.” If you were a fan of action/adventure shows in the 1980s and are wondering why you haven’t heard of this show, it’s because it never saw the light of day. That’s not uncommon though. Plenty of shows have pilots filmed and then don’t get a series order and are lost to history. But Force III was a bit different. By all available accounts, 65 episodes were ordered, not just the pilot, and it’s possible that some or all of them were actually filmed! But nobody seems to know for sure. Galoob Toys did announce a partnership with the producers to sell toy vehicles and action figures, so there was a merchandising plan in the works. But little else is known, and the question of why the series never aired with a full season of half-hour episodes ordered is a complete mystery. One of the cars, the Trans Am, was...
CATWOMAN WEEK and MORRISON MONDAYS collide — for a Sheldon Moldoff birthday salute!
MORRISON MONDAYS!
