Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 21, 2024 | 4 comments

The celebrated Mr. K’s 50th ANNIVERSARY salute to a comics treasure…

By PAUL KUPPERBERG

To fans of a certain age, The Charlton Portfolio is homage to a very special time and place in comics history: the Charlton Comics superhero revivals of the 1960s and ’70s. Originally spearheaded by editor (and artist) Dick Giordano, Charlton attempted to jump back into competition with venerable DC Comics and upstart young Marvel by bringing back such Golden and Atomic Age characters as Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, along with a slate of new creations, including Steve Ditko’s the Question, Pete (P.A.M.) Morisi’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, Frank McLaughlin’s Judomaster, and Nightshade by Jim Aparo.

Almost a decade later, the editorial team of George Wildman and Nicola Cuti took another shot at adding superheroes and action heroes to Charlton’s line-up of genre titles, with such classics as Nick and Joe Staton’s E-Man and Joe Gill and Warren Sattler’s Yang. Both attempts were famously short lived, but much loved, runs from the little Derby, Connecticut, comic book company that could, and nowhere was that love on display more than in CPL Double-Issue #9 & #10, aka the Charlton Portfolio, published, with the cooperation of Charlton Comics, out of Indianapolis by the CPL Gang in 1974.

Comic book fandom and the fanzines of the 1960s and ’70s were a mimeographed Oort cloud where a lot of the talent of the coming decade would be created and take shape before being released into the wider professional universe. Fans turned pro included Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, Allen Milgrom, Bernie Wrightson, Rich Buckler, Don Newton, Bill DuBay, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Carl Gafford, Anthony Tollin, Paul Levitz, and many others, me included.

CPL = Contemporary Pictorial Literature, or one of those fannish attempts at coining a term to replace the derogatory sounding “comic” book (I believe it was founding fan father and comics historian Jerry Bails who came up with the earlier “panelologist”). Originally published by Bob Layton as a sales catalogue using his own art on the covers and featuring customer-written reviews, by the fifth issue CPL had morphed into a full-blown comics fanzine with art, articles, comic strips, interviews, and columns produced by the so-called “CPL Gang” — a line-up of fans that reads like a latter-day convention pro guest list: Layton, Roger Slifer, Duffy Vohland, Tony Isabella, Don Maitz, Michael Uslan, Steven Grant, and John Byrne.

Twelve issues of CPL would appear between 1972 and 1975, including contributions from comics professionals like Gil Kane, Alex Toth, Paul Gulacy, Mike Vosburg, Dan Adkins, P. Craig Russell, and Joe Sinnott.

Al Milgrom

CPL and the Portfolio was followed by The Charlton Bullseye in late ’74/early ’75, a slick fanzine with (mostly) color covers with a focus on Charlton, produced with the approval of the publishers, who allowed them to run other unpublished material from their files, including work by Ditko, Jeff Jones, Sanho Kim, and Byrne on such features as Captain Atom, E-Man, and Doomsday +1. In its fifth and final issue, they ran a new Question story drawn by Alex Toth and written by future Batman film producer Michael Uslan. (It was reprinted in 2007’s The Action Heroes Archives Vol. 2, from DC).

Along with Rog-2000, the zine’s robot mascot created by Byrne, the rest of the CPL Gang turned pro, Byrne and Rog to Charlton Comics, the rest off to Marvel, DC, and, in the case of Maitz, the world of fantasy, science fiction, and advertising (he’s the creator of the Captain Morgan rum “Captain” character).

Here then, in celebration of its 50th anniversary, MY 13 FAVORITE FEATURES FROM THE CHARLTON PORTFOLIO:

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Wraparound Cover by Don Newton and Bob Layton. A whole lot of the Charlton Comics gang were represented, from heroes Captain Atom, E-Man, Blue Beetle, Peacemaker, Judomaster, Peter Cannon, and Yang to horror hosts Baron Weirwulf, Dr. Graves, Countess Von Bludd, and Mr. Bones.

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The Blue Beetle in “A Spectre is Haunting Hub City,” by D.C. Glanzman and Steve Ditko. The heart of the Charlton Portfolio is the unpublished cover and 18-page Blue Beetle story originally intended to appear in Charlton’s The Blue Beetle #6 in 1968.

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“Tough as Steel” Text Story by Roger Stern and Pin-Up by Dick Giordano. Future Marvel writer Roger Stern supplied a hardboiled prose feature starring the Charlton U’s tough private eye with a fist of steel that appeared with an illustration by Steel creator Dick Giordano.

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Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt by P.A.M. One-time New York City cop and longtime Charlton Comics creator Pete Morisi’s mind and martial arts master.

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Judomaster by Frank McLaughin. Artist McLaughlin called on his own experience as a practitioner of judo to create Rip Jagger, the undisputed Judomaster.

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Captain Atom Pin-Up by Don Maitz and Duffy Vohland. Created by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko in 1960, Captain Atom is ably represented by Maitz and Vohland. (In case you’re curious about the little known Mr. Vohland, read this.)

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E-Man and Nova Kane Pin-Up by Joe Staton. Another son (and a daughter) of the Atomic Age, Cuti and Staton’s E-Man.

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Nightshade by Jim Aparo. The daughter of a U.S. Senator and a mother from another dimension, Eve Eden is the martial artist with the power to transform into a living two-dimensional shadow. Nightshade was created by Dave Kaler and Ditko, but is best remembered for her solo feature by Jim Aparo.

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The Peacemaker by Joe Gill and Pat Boyette. One of my favorite Pat Boyette pieces, the origin of the original Peacemaker, a character for reasons both fannish and professional near and dear to my heart.

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The Question Pin-Up by John Byrne and Vohland. Another Ditko creation, this time ably executed by future superstar artist Byrne and inker Vohland.

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Charlton Checklist by Don Rosa. What comic fan doesn’t love a checklist, this one a three-page rundown of the Charlton superhero titles by superfan Don Rosa.

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“Wander” Pin-Up by Jim Aparo. “Sergius O’Shaugnessy” (Denny O’Neil) and Jim Aparo’s alien-in-the-Old-West feature. The original team only did six seven-page back-up stories with “The Man From Sirius 5” in the back of Cheyenne Kid, but it remains a beloved feature.

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Gorgo Pin-Up by Dave Cockrum. Charlton published almost two dozen issues of Gorgo, based on the 1961 film, between 1961 and 1965, including eight issues featuring the art of Steve Ditko. Artist Dave Cockrum contributed his interpretation of the classic monster lizard for the Charlton Portfolio.

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MORE

— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite 1960s CHARLTON COMICS House Ads. Click here.

— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite DICK GIORDANO CHARLTON Covers – In Black and White. Click here.

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PAUL KUPPERBERG was a Silver Age fan who grew up to become a Bronze Age comic book creator, writer of Superman, the Doom Patrol, and Green Lantern, creator of Arion Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion, and slayer of Aquababy, Archie, and Vigilante. He is the Harvey and Eisner Award nominated writer of Archie Comics’ Life with Archie, and his YA novel Kevin was nominated for a GLAAD media award and won a Scribe Award from the IAMTW. He also wrote an essay for DC’s Aquaman: 80 Years of the King of the Seven Seas. Check out his new memoir, Panel by Panel: My Comic Book Life. 

Website: https://www.paulkupperberg.net/

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