^^ Dan DeCarlo in KATHY #8 (Aug. 1951, Standard Comics) ^^







^^ Dan DeCarlo in TIPPY TEEN #10 (Dec. 1966, Tower Comics) ^^

Curious. In the second comic, DeCarlo drew this for another comic book publisher in 1966? He was making his mark in ACP then, yet they let him do some freelancing? 🤔

Quote from: SAGG on May 14, 2018, 11:18:56 PM
Curious. In the second comic, DeCarlo drew this for another comic book publisher in 1966? He was making his mark in ACP then, yet they let him do some freelancing?

Despite what some people may think, Dan DeCarlo was never a regular "employee" in the usual sense. He began with ACP in 1951, with the 4-page story "No Picnic" in Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #4 -- which is the same year that the Bingo story posted above was published in Standard Comics' Kathy #8; meanwhile, DDC was also working for Stan Lee at Atlas/Marvel, and drawing The Yardbirds for Ziff-Davis' G.I. Joe.

The point to be made here is that Dan DeCarlo was never under any sort of contract with any publisher; not with Atlas/Marvel, and not with Archie Comic Publications, either. He started, and remained for the duration of his career, a freelance contractor, paid by the page.

Tippy Teen (and its spinoff title, Go-Go and Animal) were published by Tower Comics (perhaps more famously remembered by comic fans for publishing T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and its spinoff titles Dynamo, NoMan, and U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent). Tower Comics' owner was Harry Shorten. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Shorten was, from the early 1940s until the early 1960s, an editor for MLJ (and later Archie Comic Publications). In fact, Shorten had been the editor of PEP Comics #22, which introduced Archie. Shorten had a variety of side publishing projects, one of which was a syndicated comic panel (in collaboration with Super Duck artist Al Fagaly) entitled There Oughta Be A Law! (which, to put it bluntly, was a lesser imitation of the more well-known syndicated comic They'll Do It Every Time by Jimmy Hatlo).

In an effort to promote his own comic strip, Shorten (who had some direct connections with printers) on several occasions self-published collections of There Oughta Be A Law!. The last couple of these appeared under the Tower Books imprint, and at this point Shorten published some other paperbacks, so now he was officially a publisher. As a side note, Shorten was involved as a middleman in helping ACP gain the license to publish a Shadow comic book -- Archie's version went the superhero route, while at the same time, Tower Books' paperback line published writer Dennis Lynds' update of the 1930s Street & Smith pulp hero to the then-popular superspy genre, inspired by James Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. 

In 1965, noticing the rise in popularity of superhero comics, Shorten decided to start his own comic book publishing company, Tower Comics, and contracted with Wallace Wood to oversee those superhero titles as a "packager" of editoral/story/artwork. Not wanting to overlook the genre with which he had the most experience as an editor, he persuaded ACP's Samm Schwartz to oversee and package the stories and art for Tippy Teen. Because the format of all the Tower comic books was 25c for 68 pages of all-new material, the first issue of Tippy's comic also included contributions from Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo, in addition to the bulk of pages by Schwartz.

As a result of Schwartz' decision to go with Shorten's new company (one could hardly blame him, since he was probably offered a much better page rate by Shorten for packaging the entire contents of the Tower teen humor titles), ACP cut off all Schwartz' freelance assignments. It's not known if Schwartz simply declared that he was leaving ACP, or whether (it's been rumored) he was caught working on Shorten's material in the ACP offices, or whether he was given some sort of ultimatum -- but regardless of the fact that ACP regulars Lucey and DeCarlo also contributed (and perhaps they were threatened by ACP in some way, which would account for the relatively few pages they contributed to Tippy and Go-Go), Samm Schwartz was the only ACP regular to suffer a total loss of freelance assignments at ACP. After Tower Comics folded, Schwartz migrated to DC Comics to work on A Date With Debbi and Debbi's Dates, and didn't return to ACP until the early 1970s, after DC had cancelled those titles, along with Swing With Scooter, Leave It to Binky and Binky's Buddies -- abandoning the teen humor genre entirely.

I should add that perhaps not coincidentally, sometime around August or September of 1966 Dan DeCarlo began doing ALL the cover artwork for the ACP line of teen humor titles. This may have been ACP's way of insuring that they kept him busy (and at a better page rate, as covers paid more than interior page rates) -- too busy to work for other publishers like Shorten's Tower Comics, even if Shorten paid better rates for interior story pages, and keeping DeCarlo happy enough to remain with ACP exclusively as a freelancer. It was a win/win situation for ACP, because consistent, quality cover artwork helped solidify the brand at that time.

After Bob Montana died, and Dan DeCarlo took over the assignment of drawing the Archie daily and Sunday newspaper strip, it's possible that there was an actual contract involved in DeCarlo doing that work; the newspaper syndicate may have insisted on it. Or not -- the syndicate's contract may have been exclusively with ACP, with it being left up to them who they assigned to write and draw the strip, as long as the end product was satisfactory to the syndicate.

I like Go-Go. 

Is it just me or does she seem like the love-child of Josie and Albert?

Looking through the first four issues of GO-GO AND ANIMAL, I think I'm going to take back what I said about Harry Lucey not contributing that many pages to Tower Comics. It looks like the bulk of the stories in GO-GO were all by Harry Lucey. There are other people in there as well, and at least a few stories that have kind of an 'unfinished' Dan DeCarlo look to them, like maybe DeCarlo did the rough layouts (or breakdowns, as they were sometimes called) and another artist did the finished pencils, inked over by yet another artist.

The Harry Lucey stories look quite distinct, however... full pencils on those by Lucey.

...TIPPY TEEN material was,  additionally,  reprinted in the 70s by Martin Goodman's short-lived Atlas Seaboard Comics,  relettered,  to be called VICKI.

Quote from: ASS-P on May 27, 2018, 05:11:23 AM
...TIPPY TEEN material was,  additionally,  reprinted in the 70s by Martin Goodman's short-lived Atlas Seaboard Comics,  relettered,  to be called VICKI.

Four issues, with covers drawn by Stan Goldberg. Stan G didn't do any of the interior artwork for Harry Shorten's Tippy Teen or Go-Go and Animal. He was a regular-salaried employee (head colorist for the entire line) in Marvel's production department from 1949 (age 17) until 1968, when he went freelance. From then on, he continued to color and draw stories for Marvel (Millie the Model and Millie's Rival, Chili), while freelancing on teen humor art assignments for DC (on Debbie, Scooter, and Binky), Archie, and those four Vicki covers for Chip Goodman's Atlas Comics. Stan got around, becoming known among publishers as the go-to guy for a quick turnaround on a teen humor story, or especially, a cover.