“All of which is hypocritical rot, in that I’ve never been the least ashamed of comics … always thought the Comics Code people and their ilk the truly mentally crippled … and no one could be more gratified than I if comics do make a magnificent comeback. My other writings in non-fiction space science and such are a nice change-of-pace so that bread-and-butter comics would suit me just fine. The rates being paid nowadays are, in many cases, quite juicy.”
His first outside project was for Western Publishing. He’d heard they were looking for new, original titles when he nabbed a script assignment for Doctor Solar #8. Enamored with the legend of Samson (which he had used in a number of Superman stories, such as “The Superman of the Past” in Lois Lane #19), OOB (with editor Bill Harris) came up with a series called Second Samson. It was set in a post-nuclear holocaust world, on the island of N’Yark. The title was changed to Mighty Samson, and Binder was given an order for scripts for at least a run of twenty-four issues. The pay was much lower than at DC, but he could make it up by being able to work faster.
Binder felt Mighty Samson was similar to his Lords of Creation story. Note the Statue of Liberty on Morris Gollub’s cover to Might Samson #4 (December 1965). Mighty Samson ™ & © Random House, Inc.
Mighty Samson exists in a world in ruins, with mankind’s technological advances lost in the rubble, forgotten by the ensuing generations. Armed with only prodigious strength, garbed in a “Liobear” animal-skin toga, his damaged right eye covered with a patch, Samson (and his friends Mindor and his beautiful daughter Sharmaine) must battle all manner of giant, mutated monsters—as well as the brigands and pirates who scavenge in the surrounding lands. Samson even had an oath: “Whatever I can do, I will, to protect the weak from the powerful, the good from the evil! I promise.”
Binder’s Samson stories are full of action, and were often drawn by the talented Frank Thorne, whose artistic debt to Joe Kubert was noticeable. (The work of Frank Springer, the other major artist of the series, is less effective.) Mighty Samson was hardly inspired work, but it was fun and certainly not as bizarre as the similar Kona from Dell, which ran concurrently. Published quarterly, Mighty Samson sold well, stuck around until the decade’s end, and filled out the remainder of its thirty-one issue run with reprints in the early 1970s.171
Though the pay was no better than that of Western Publishing, in December 1964 Warren Publishing offered Binder a chance to work with some of the top names in the field. Regular artists for Jim Warren’s black-and-white Creepy magazine were Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, John Severin, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, Gray Morrow, Reed Crandall, and Frank Frazetta. Nearly all of them were EC alumni, so Otto fit right in.
Binder’s major contribution to Creepy was his adaptation of the Adam Link series, starting from the very beginning once more. Now Otto was not as lucky as he had been at EC, for while the artist was the same—Joe Orlando—the man’s artwork was no longer as focused and pristine. His artwork looked completely different than it had a decade earlier. Part of the difference was no doubt due to the fact that Jerry Grandinetti (former artist on “The Spirit”) ghosted all but the first chapter for him, a fact Orlando freely admitted to Jack C. Harris at the 1965 New York Comicon. This “I, Robot” series ran through six issues of Creepy, ending with a version of “Adam Link’s Vengeance” much inferior to the one in Fantasy Illustrated.
Binder also contributed an excellent one-off horror script for Warren, “Wardrobe of Monsters,” beautifully drawn by Gray Morrow. He enjoyed writing stories involving vampires and werewolves, because those types of horror characters were then banned by the Comics Code Authority. Not that Creepy was particularly gory. Compared to the excesses of some pre-Code comic books, its approach to horror was rather mild.
In a letter from OOB to Bails at the end of 1964, he wrote, “I see that comics fandom is on its way to a national [convention] effort, which in time no doubt will evolve into the sophisticated and quite impressive science fiction conventions and affairs.
First pages of the script and the second adaptation of “I, Robot” by Otto Binder and Joe Orlando. It appeared in Creepy #2 (January 1965). ™ & © Warren Publishing Co.
“One great crusade or message that might be a major motivation in Comfan activities could be to plug for publishers to put out adult comics, or at least a branch line with a wider appeal to grown-ups (other than the Yogi Berras).
Panel from Binder’s “Wardrobe of Monsters” from Creepy #2. Art by Gray Morrow.
™ & © Warren Publishing Co.
“Outside of EC-horrors of a decade ago and a few scattered items, where have the comics publishers essayed into worlds outside of the straight and narrow youngster-appeal? … mainly because mass sales and quick profits come handiest there.
“It may be that Jim Warren’s new Creepy (on sale now) will trigger a trend at least a cut above the standardized comics-for-kids-only format and approach smothering the field for lo these many years. Mind, I’m not agin kid-comics, but why not be democratic and spread the benefits to all sectors of society? Comfans, get going!”172
If Otto Binder thought the 1965 New York Comicon would be “sophisticated” in any sense, he knew better when he arrived at the seedy, dilapidated Hotel Broadway Central on the morning of July 31. It turned out that organizer David Kaler had selected what amounted to a fleabag hotel, a residence for winos, prostitutes, and impoverished senior citizens. Every time the subway passed, the building shook, and the cracks in the walls seem to widen. In fact, the hotel would collapse several years later, for no apparent reason.
For that weekend, however, the rundown hotel came to life with an influx of some two hundred mostly young, enthusiastic comics connoisseurs. They were dressed casually, some wearing the new Marvel T-shirts, others sporting Beatle haircuts. One of the reasons they came was to meet and listen to presentations by three of the top writers of the Golden Age of comics—Bill Finger (Batman co-creator and writer), Gardner Fox (principal writer of the Flash and Justice Society of America), and Otto O. Binder (best known for his Superman and Marvel family scripting).
The moderator of that event, the first of the con (taking place on Saturday morning) was Jerry Bails, who began, “We’re very honored today to have with us [a] gentleman whose work spans the entire history of the comics magazine field, Mr. Otto Binder, who most of you are aware was the man behind the Marvel Family, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior. … who’s now working on the Superman family of books, and the new book by Gold Key, Mighty Samson.
“Let me begin by asking Mr. Binder how it was that he broke into the comics field?”173
“Why don’t you call me Otto, Jerry?” Binder replied. “Otherwise, I’ll call you Dr. Bails.” Then he told the fans who were crowded into the room how he started with Dan Hastings in 1939, and a few other features, then “[in] 1940, I didn’t write any more. I didn’t think the comics would last.” He related how he finally got into comics full time in 1941 when they began paying better than the pulps.
“Sometimes I surprise myself at how many I wrote,” he continued, then nodded to the bespectacled man sitting next to him on the dais. “Gardner and I were saying before, when we looked over our old listings … ‘What? We wrote that?’ We’d forgotten.”
Then Binder asked Fox a question that was more revealing of himself than anything Fox said in response: “Just out of curiosity,” Binder queried, “in the beginning, let’s say the first year or two or three, were you constantly on the verge of quitting—and then they’d raise the rates? And then you got trapped in what we called the Golden Rut?”
When Bails asked Binder what was different about writing comics in the Golden Age versus the present day, he answered, “In those days, we worked much longer hours. The plotting wasn’t nearly as complex or with as much finesse in those days. It was mostly action. Bring in your villain, etc. Whereas today, a lot of stories are pretty well-plotted.
“Even then, it was established that you worked closely wi
th the editor. Very few stories were the prime, pristine product of the writer who just came in with the idea, and the editor said ‘Okay.’ Ideas were discussed between the editor and the writer, and the final plot was quite a collaboration. I did have quite a bit of freedom in the early days on certain features, let’s say … ‘side characters.’ There, the editor would pretty much let you on your own. But the more established characters were almost all plotted with editors.”
Binder said that since the death of Fawcett’s comics line, he was devoting about two-thirds of his time to non-comics work: “I turned more toward science writing which had been my real love anyway. This work ranges from articles for magazines like Mechanix Illustrated and Challenge for Men. I’ve done a lot of space science writing, including for NASA. They have a series called NASA Facts, it’s a folder that’s sent to high schools, and it unfolds about eight or ten or twelve times, with a lot of verbiage and pictures.” He also mentioned writing Careers in Space, Victory in Space, and other purely astronomical writing he had done in book form, like Riddles of Astronomy.
At that point, Jerry recognized that Mort Weisinger had entered and was sitting in the back of the room. Bails invited Weisinger to join the panel, which he did after a bout of mock modesty. (Binder playfully tweaked Roy Thomas at that moment, demonstrating not only his pixieish sense of humor, but his support for the young man, who had so recently jumped ship from DC to Marvel.) Weisinger’s comments mostly seemed to concern Binder.
“Otto has always been a tower of strength, a rock of Gibraltar for me, turning out a lot of the important Superman stories,” the editor began. He then related how he relieved his writers of having to think up plots, by coming up with the plot springboards by himself.
On a personal note, Weisinger added this enlightening statement: “I have a science fiction background. When I was offered the job of being head of Superman by the man who was, at that time, the editor of Superman, Whitney Ellsworth, I didn’t know how to write comics. And, while the job offered more money, I was completely Greek about it. So I called up Otto Binder, a good friend of mine, and I said, ‘Otto, how do you write comics?’ He simplified it. He said, ‘Well, you’ve gotta have action. The backbone of every comic story is action. It’s got to be interesting, and it’s gotta have humor. And you’re gonna have the hero knock the villain out with a lamp and say, Lights out for you!’”
Binder exclaimed, “I didn’t use corny ones like that!” to much laughter from the audience.
A telling point had been made: Binder had helped Weisinger when he was just getting into comics, explaining the basics. This had to have played into the dynamic between the two men. Perhaps more than anything, it was the reason Mort gave Otto work whenever he could in later years. It certainly cast his abuse of Binder in a more reprehensible light, although it does seem as if Weisinger was an equal-opportunity abuser.
Gardner Fox and Bill Finger had their time in the limelight in the course of the ninety-minute panel discussion. They held the crowd equally spellbound with their observations about the craft of comic book writing. But it was Otto Binder who encapsulated it all, and got the biggest laugh of the panel, when he quipped, “To be a writer in the comics, you don’t have to be a nut … but it helps!” Thus ended the first formal Comicon panel discussion, a format that became a staple of nearly every full-blooded comic book convention thereafter.
The Hotel Broadway Central had seen better days by the time it provided the venue for the 1965 New York Comicon, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the approximately 200 fans who attended.
Jack C. Harris recalled meeting Binder at that convention. “At one point, while the con committee was setting up for a film show or a panel discussion, I found myself sitting right next to Otto. I had about a half hour conversation with him, and it was a delight. I started talking to him about Adam Link because I was a real big fan of that whole series. He was very excited about the paperback book which had just come out, and he told me that if it did well, he might do more Adam Link stories, as a sequel to that paperback. I got him to autograph an EC comic book. He was the friendliest, most outgoing guy you’d ever want to meet.”174
Otto Binder poses with Carole and Phil Seuling, dressed as Mary and Captain Marvel. Courtesy of David Armstrong.
Binder with Robert Klein and Michael Uslan, who he’d invited into his home two months before, at the 1965 New York convention. Courtesy of Jean Bails.
Binder helped judge the masquerade that night, and attended a screening of the Adventures of Captain Marvel serial. He was quoted as saying, “The serial is very professionally done … but it’s not Capt. Marvel.”175 However, he didn’t have the outright contempt for it that C. C. Beck did.
At one point, Tom Fagan found Otto Binder and Bill Finger in the downstairs bar, talking with a reporter from The New Yorker. When the article appeared in the magazine on August 21, it seemed to suggest that Binder looked down on comic books. The reporter wrote, “Mr. Binder estimated that he had written approximately three thousand comic book scripts over the years, and added, ‘I spend only about a third of my time writing for the comics now. Otherwise I’d go—Well, it’s a weird world.’”176 Binder had high regard for the comic book medium and its fans. His frustrations and negative thoughts were about the business itself, from his standpoint as a freelancer.
“As with many science fiction gatherings back through the years, I’ll always have fond memories of the New York Comicon of 1965,” Binder said in a letter to Jerry Bails written two weeks after the event. “If SF fans were high caliber, I think the comics group—the top cream of it—is still more outstanding. “To me, the most striking part of the Comicon was the thriving sale of comics to collectors, and the startling prices you got during your auction of Bill Finger’s things.”177
Despite radiating the air of a successful writer, Otto Binder was trying to make up for lost ground, and ferreted out assignments whenever he heard that a publisher needed material. Often, the assignments were for odd strips and backup features. Around this time, a literary agent named Roger Elwood came into the picture.
Roger Elwood (b. 1933) was born and raised in southern New Jersey. A devout Christian, he joined the ranks of professional writers shortly after graduating from high school. During the 1950s and 1960s, he sold hundreds of articles to magazines like Photoplay, Grit, Weekly Reader, and Ladies Home Companion. He was a facile writer and indefatigable marketer of his own work. By 1960, he was using his knowledge of the writing marketplace to place work by other writers.
His first contact with Otto Binder seems to be when Elwood was editor of Shindig magazine, and rather inexplicably published two of Binder’s horror stories in that magazine for teenagers. Probably Roger Elwood’s two most pronounced traits were his energy and his persistence. Whatever his religious views or odd behavior (it was said that he exhorted nonplussed editors to join him in prayer to bless their mutual endeavors), Otto recognized in the younger man the go-getter attitude that was necessary in a successful literary agent. Sometime in the middle 1960s, they formalized their agent-client relationship, an arrangement that lasted for the rest of Binder’s life. Most if not all of his non-comics work (which would be considerable) passed through Elwood’s hands, for the standard 10 percent agenting fee.
Ballantine Books’s Dracula paperback featured a “graphic novel” adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel, adapted by Otto Binder and Craig Tennis. Art by Alden McWilliams. ™ & © respective copyright holders.
In mid-1965, Otto signed a contract with Ballantine Books to write a book to be titled The History of the Comic Books. Perhaps Ballantine’s interest was a result of the successful publication of Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes that year (after serialization in Playboy). Binder’s collaborators in the project were Jerry De Fuccio (of Mad magazine) and Russ Jones (who edited the first issue of Creepy). Ballantine hoped to get the book out within six to eight months. For reasons unknown, the project never materialized.
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br /> One of the highlights from the mid-1960s—besides the Adam Link stories in Creepy—was OOB’s adaptation (with Craig Tennis) of Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel Dracula. It was published in regular mass paperback form, with most pages containing two panels. This adaptation, with nicely atmospheric artwork by Alden McWilliams, ought not to be forgotten when the history of the graphic novel is written, for that’s what it was. Dracula was published by Ballantine Books in 1966, leading off with an introduction by Christopher Lee.
Unfortunately, too many of Binder’s comics scripts from this period were of the sort he wrote for the new Harvey Thriller line. Otto got in touch with Joe Simon, who was the editor of Harvey Comics’s attempt to jump on the superhero bandwagon. Binder’s stories were invariably used as filler material. “Secondary features of a ‘humorous’ nature were added,” observed writer Lou Mougin. “These were generally written by Otto Binder, and they worked out about as well as most attempts at camp in comics did: They didn’t.”178 Some of the characters he wrote were Campy Champ, Man from S.R.A.M., and The Saucerer.
Most promising, perhaps, was “Robolink,” in Spy-Man #2. It was obviously Otto spinning a variation on Adam Link. In this case, an intelligent robot from 1966 finds himself in 2069, amidst a war between ruling computer “cybers” and humans. But there was no follow-up in the next issue. In fact, a glut of superheroes on the newsstands led to the Harvey Thriller line’s early extinction, before any of the titles exceeded three issues.
In 1966, Binder sold Bantam (publisher of mass-market paperback books) on the idea of a series of prose Marvel-character books. Bantam had wanted to do a Batman book, which SF and comics fan Ted White was angling to write, but Signet had first refusal rights on all DC characters. In a sense, Binder had made an end-run around Stan Lee. He selected the Avengers (a team made up of several Marvel superheroes) for his book, and The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker became the first of the series.
Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary Page 20