Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Woolfolk Records 1945/01

Woolfolk notebook page: scripts written in January 1945William Woolfolk sold scripts to Continental, Holyoke, Rural, Fawcett, MLJ, and Quality this month. He was getting $5-$7 a page, and made $1064 (over $12,000 if adjusted for 2011) on comic book scripts in January 1945.

I'll leave out the payment info in the transcriptions. Bold indicates my publication data added; with few descriptions at this point, some can be no more specific than comic book series title.

Graybeard appeared in three consecutive issues of Captain Marvel Jr: 37-39. From the writing style on the stories themselves, I'd credit all three to Woolfolk. I'm pretty sure that the story labelled simply "The Gray Beard" here is the second one of the three, since the third is on the May page and there are no Graybeard stories described between (and there are no undescribed CMJ stories this year).

Some stories' issue numbers I deduced from Howard Keltner's definitive Golden Age Comic Books Index. Chin Chop appeared in Mask 2 and Power 3, and Dr. Mephisto appeared in Power 3 and 4; Woolfolk had submitted his first stories of each in December. UPDATE: I misread "Palui" as "Palvi"; seeing the comic itself eventually showed me my mistake and let me specify the Captain Midnight story's publication..

Can anyone pinpoint the publication of the Don Winslow story by its two-word descriptions?

The scan of the original notebook page is © Marc Svensson.

January 1945 comic book scripts by William Woolfolk

6 pg Sentence of Death"Sentence of Death" Suspense 9, Aug/45
Miss EspionagePower
Don Winslowoverland trek
Don Winslow
Captain Marvel Jr.Antbear returns
"The Return of the Antbear" Capt Marvel Jr 35, Jan/46
Murder at the Rodeo"Murder at the Rodeo" Suspense 10, Win/45
Chin ChopPower 3, Aug/45
Dr. MephistoPower 4, Sept/45
Merlin, the Boy MagicianMask 3, Aug/45
10 Black HoodPep or Black Hood
Destroyer 171National
12 Black RaiderPower
Captain Marvel Jr.Gray Beard
"The Stolen Half Century" CMJ 38, May/46
Captain MidnightPalui Island
"The Phantom Army of Palui" Capt Midnight 41, Jun/46
Captain AeroCapt Aero
The Looney Crimes[not published in Suspense before cancellation]
Captain Marvel Jr.Zugqumps
"The Amazing Zugqumps" CMJ 42, Sep/46
PT BoatModern
12 The Green Feather[not published in Suspense]
fiction story for WigglesTaffy
Phantom Eagleboxing champ
"PE Catapults His Punch" Wow 42, Apr/46

5 comments:

  1. I think the "Palvi Island" Captain Midnight story is really "Ice Cream Plague of Palmyra Island" in CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT #47. It's a 7-pager there, which would mean it was cut by a page. Think so?

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  2. I'd seen that story title listed and considered the possibility myself; I'm hoping to see the issue eventually and look for traces of Woolfolk there to confirm the suspicion.

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  3. Black Raider is probably from POWER COMICS #3. Can you check the style on that one?

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  4. Also, I think the Miss Espionage story is from POWER #3 also, cut by one page.

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  5. I see in my records that when I looked at POWER 3 and 4 some time ago, I put down the Black Raider story in #3 and the Miss Espionage and Boy Magician stories in #4 as Woolfolk possibilities--I put a question mark after his name all three times.

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