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SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS…
Denny O’Neil and Pat Boyette’s grim 1967 science-fiction story “Children of Doom” was supposedly created overnight after editor Dick Giordano discovered that the material previously prepared for the second issue of Charlton Premiere was suddenly unavailable due to legal complications. Fortunately, with the splash page ballyhooing that it was “A Charlton Classic,” it’s still considered a leap in storytelling for mainstream comics, with its experimental mixture of black-and-white panels and full-color art used to support the tale, whose theme is mankind’s fixation on atomic self-destruction. Giordano, who would soon switch over to DC as an editor, was young enough to understand that his teenage readership was interested in artistic experiments.
Cover art by Pat Boyette, 1967
Before O’Neil (under the alias Sergius O’Shaugnessy) wrote “Children of Doom,” he had entered the comic industry by writing the copy for the 1966 Captain America Marvel Mini-Book, distributed across America in gumball machines. He primarily wrote stories for Marvel’s Millie the Model, as well as Westerns such as Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt. Denny also wrote a few superhero comics, including Daredevil and Strange Tales, on Nick Fury and Dr. Strange. He also began to write for Charlton on Go-Go, Abbott & Costello and “The Sentinels” (a backup series I really loved, due to the cartoony art of Sam Grainger) in Thunderbolt, as well as Space Adventures Presents U.F.O. and Strange Suspense Stories, almost all signed with the “Sergius O’Shaugnessy” pen name. Denny probably did that so Marvel wouldn’t discover than he was moonlighting for a competing publisher.
Well, maybe not that competing. … After all, Charlton was owned by the Mob, which had a printing factory and plenty of paper but no taste. After all, the same printers coughed up a lot of pornography. Therefore, the editors weren’t there to achieve perfection. Charlton’s only goal was to keep those printers busy 24 hours a day. Not only did Charlton print magazines, comics, paperback books, and porn, it also printed cereal boxes! Despite its mediocre quality, Charlton’s comics attracted many of the freelance artists and writers who were eager to create without an editor breathing down their necks. Steve Ditko, Sam Glanzman, Tom Sutton, Joe Staton, and John Byrne often brought in memorable work for Charlton, as did Pat Boyette.
Boyette was a Texan cartoonist as well as a radio and television newscaster. Primarily known as the co-creator of the costumed hero Peacemaker, Pat worked in almost every genre in mainstream comics. He did work for Archie, Valiant Entertainment, Fantagraphics, Image, Apple Press, Warren, Marvel, First, Skywald, Renegade, A.C.E. Comics, but primarily for Charlton, for which he drew hundreds of stories.
But let’s talk about Charlton Premiere #2’s cover…
My primary element for what I consider to be an Oddball Comic has always been, “How the hell did this comic ever get published?”
As a comic book writer and artist for well over half a century, I can vouch that us cartoonists like to mess with editors. We often add details that might not please the Comics Code Authority, or do it merely to rattle the boss. If our editors have missed our visual pranks, I tend to blame their lunches, which have possibly included a few adult beverages or other inebriants.
When I was a senior in high school, I bought this copy of Charlton Premiere off the spinner rack in the Mayfair market down the street from my parents’ home. Years later, while digging though my by-now-much-bigger comic collection, when I had been drawing mainstream and underground funnybooks for a few decades, I ran across this issue again.
And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Right smack-dab in the center of this cover is a spaceship. One that closely resembles metal male genitalia. And it looks like it’s about to invade the Galactic Yellow Panties. A good example of an artist seeing what he could get through his editor all the way to print, in this case, outrageously so.
Oh, so you already noticed that? Thank Dick Giordano* for not noticing that! Or was that his “Goodbye, Charlton. Hello, DC?”
And welcome to Oddball Comics.
* He was a pleasant man and my first editor on DC’s Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! – SS!
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MORE
— ODDBALL COMICS: 1970’s The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril. Click here.
— ODDBALL COMICS: 1978’s Marvel Team-Up #74. Click here.
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For over half a century, SCOTT SHAW! has been a pro cartoonist/writer/designer of comic books, animation, advertising and toys. He is also a historian of all forms of cartooning. Scott has worked on many underground comix and mainstream comic books, including: Fear and Laughter (Kitchen Sink); Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie); Simpsons Comics (Bongo); Weird Tales of the Ramones (Rhino); and his co-creation with Roy Thomas, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew! (DC).
Scott also worked on numerous animated cartoons, including producing/directing John Candy’s Camp Candy (NBC/DIC/Saban); Martin Short’s The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (NBC/Hanna-Barbera Productions); Garfield and Friends (CBS/Film Roman); and the Emmy-winning Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies (CBS/Marvel Productions), among many others. As senior art director for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, Scott worked on dozens of commercials for Post Pebbles cereals with the Flintstones. He also designed a line of Hanna-Barbera action figures for McFarlane Toys.
Scott was one of the comics fans who organized the first San Diego Comic-Con, where he has become known for performing his hilarious Oddball Comics Live! slide shows.
Need funny cartoons for any and all media? Click here! Scott does commissions!
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