Fred Schwab
Encyclopedia
Fred Schwab was an American
cartoonist
whose humor panels and short features were published in a wide variety of comic books from at least 1938 to 1950, during a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books
. His notable comic-book appearances include Timely Comics
' Marvel Comics
#1 (Oct. 1939), the first publication of the company that would become Marvel Comics
; and some of the earliest publications of the companies that would become DC Comics
.
's Art Students League and influenced by such cartoonists as Billy DeBeck and Milt Gross
. He broke into the nascent field of comic books as a teenager in 1936, at Manhattan
's Harry "A" Chesler studio, often credited as the first of the comic book
"packagers" that supplied complete comics to publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium
. In 1939, Schwab began freelancing for two other packagers: the Eisner-Iger studio, and Funnies, Inc. He signed his work both with his own name and a variety of pseudonyms that included Boris Plaster, Fred Wood, Fist E. Cuffs, Stockton Fred, Fred Ricks, Fred West, and Fred Watt. For this reason, and because creator credits were not routinely given during the early days of comic books, a comprehensive list of his credits is difficult if not impossible to compile.
Whether for a packager or on his own, Schwab supplied gag cartoons in 1938 and 1939 to the glossy magazine Boys' Life
, and in the early 1940s to the military magazine Yank
. Schwab's first known comic-book credit is as writer and artist of the two-page "Tenderfoot Joe" Western
-humor feature in Centaur Comics' Star Ranger #1 (Feb. 1937). Other early work includes the one-page "Silly Sleuths" in the publisher Detective Comics
#1-2, 5 and 7 (March-April, July, Sept. 1937), from Detective Comics Inc., one of the predecessors of DC Comics
; the two-page "The Great Boodini" in Centaur's Funny Pages vol. 2, #3 (Nov. 1937); the one-page "Butch the Pup" in More Fun Comics
#33-35 (July-Sept. 1938), from DC predecessors National Allied Publications/National Comics; a Sherlock Holmes
parody feature for Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1-2 (Aug.-Sept. 1939); and much more in issues of National's Adventure Comics
, Action Comics
, and others.
For Funnies, Inc., in 1939, either Schwab or Martin Filchock drew the cover of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly
#1 (sources differ), an unpublished series designed to be a promotional giveaway in movie theater
s. That comic is best known for the first appearance of the superhero
the Sub-Mariner, created by fellow Funnies, Inc. freelancer Bill Everett
. When Funnies, Inc. then supplied the contents of Marvel Comics
#1 (Oct. 1939), the first comic book published by Marvel Comics
predecessor Timely Comics
, the packager included both an expanded version of the Sub-Mariner story plus five one-panel gags by Schwab that appear on the inside front cover under the rubric "Now I'll Tell One".
Schwab also supplied humor pieces and features in the 1940s for Columbia Comics
' Big Shot Comics; Fiction House
's Fight Comics; Four Star Publications' Captain Flight Comics; Fox's Fantastic Comics; Novelty Press
' Target Comics; and Timely's Daring Mystery Comics
, in addition to much work for National.
In 1948, Schwab drew in a more adventure-oriented vein when he began ghosting
for Klaus Nordling
on the lighthearted adventure feature "Lady Luck
", which originated in Will Eisner
's syndicated
Sunday-newspaper
comic-book insert, The Spirit Section. Schwab, under Nordling's byline, drew a number of Lady Luck stories later reprinted in Quality Comics
' Smash Comics
#79 (Oct. 1948) and in the last four of the publisher's five issues of Lady Luck, which took over Smash Comics' numbering from issues #86-90 (Dec. 1949 - Aug. 1950).
Archives reprints of Golden Age Superman comics (1989–1991).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
whose humor panels and short features were published in a wide variety of comic books from at least 1938 to 1950, during a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
. His notable comic-book appearances include Timely Comics
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
' Marvel Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s-1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books...
#1 (Oct. 1939), the first publication of the company that would become Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
; and some of the earliest publications of the companies that would become DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
.
Biography
Fred Schwab was educated at New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Art Students League and influenced by such cartoonists as Billy DeBeck and Milt Gross
Milt Gross
Milt Gross , was an American comic strip and comic book writer, illustrator and animator. He wrote his comics in a Yiddish-inflected English. He originated the non-sequitur "Banana Oil!" as a phrase deflating pomposity and posing. His character Count Screwloose's admonition, "Iggy, keep an eye on...
. He broke into the nascent field of comic books as a teenager in 1936, at Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Harry "A" Chesler studio, often credited as the first of the comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
"packagers" that supplied complete comics to publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
. In 1939, Schwab began freelancing for two other packagers: the Eisner-Iger studio, and Funnies, Inc. He signed his work both with his own name and a variety of pseudonyms that included Boris Plaster, Fred Wood, Fist E. Cuffs, Stockton Fred, Fred Ricks, Fred West, and Fred Watt. For this reason, and because creator credits were not routinely given during the early days of comic books, a comprehensive list of his credits is difficult if not impossible to compile.
Whether for a packager or on his own, Schwab supplied gag cartoons in 1938 and 1939 to the glossy magazine Boys' Life
Boys' Life
Boys' Life is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America . Its targeted readership is young American males between the ages of 6 and 18.Boys' Life is published in two demographic editions...
, and in the early 1940s to the military magazine Yank
Yank, the Army Weekly
Yank, the Army Weekly was a weekly magazine published by the United States military during World War II. The idea for the magazine came from Egbert White, who had worked on Stars and Stripes during World War I. He proposed the idea to the Army in early 1942, and accepted a commission as Lieutenant...
. Schwab's first known comic-book credit is as writer and artist of the two-page "Tenderfoot Joe" Western
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...
-humor feature in Centaur Comics' Star Ranger #1 (Feb. 1937). Other early work includes the one-page "Silly Sleuths" in the publisher Detective Comics
Detective Comics
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
#1-2, 5 and 7 (March-April, July, Sept. 1937), from Detective Comics Inc., one of the predecessors of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
; the two-page "The Great Boodini" in Centaur's Funny Pages vol. 2, #3 (Nov. 1937); the one-page "Butch the Pup" in More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935-1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first American comic-book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of...
#33-35 (July-Sept. 1938), from DC predecessors National Allied Publications/National Comics; a Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
parody feature for Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1-2 (Aug.-Sept. 1939); and much more in issues of National's Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics was a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1935 to 1983 and then revamped from 2009 to 2011. In its first era, the series ran for 503 issues , making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman...
, Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
, and others.
For Funnies, Inc., in 1939, either Schwab or Martin Filchock drew the cover of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly
Motion Picture Funnies Weekly
Motion Picture Funnies Weekly is a 36-page, black-and-white American comic book series created in 1939, and designed to be a promotional giveaway in movie theaters...
#1 (sources differ), an unpublished series designed to be a promotional giveaway in movie theater
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
s. That comic is best known for the first appearance of the superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
the Sub-Mariner, created by fellow Funnies, Inc. freelancer Bill Everett
Bill Everett
William Blake "Bill" Everett, also known as William Blake and Everett Blake was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner and co-creating Daredevil for Marvel Comics...
. When Funnies, Inc. then supplied the contents of Marvel Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s-1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books...
#1 (Oct. 1939), the first comic book published by Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
predecessor Timely Comics
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
, the packager included both an expanded version of the Sub-Mariner story plus five one-panel gags by Schwab that appear on the inside front cover under the rubric "Now I'll Tell One".
Schwab also supplied humor pieces and features in the 1940s for Columbia Comics
Columbia Comics
The Columbia Comics Corporation was formed in 1940 as a partnership between Vin Sullivan and the McNaught Newspaper Syndicate. The idea was to publish comics featuring a mix of McNaught-owned comic strip reprints like Joe Palooka and Charlie Chan as well as original features.The first title...
' Big Shot Comics; Fiction House
Fiction House
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
's Fight Comics; Four Star Publications' Captain Flight Comics; Fox's Fantastic Comics; Novelty Press
Novelty Press
Novelty Press was an American Golden Age comic-book publisher that operated from 1940–1949. It was the comic book imprint of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post...
' Target Comics; and Timely's Daring Mystery Comics
Daring Mystery Comics
Daring Mystery Comics is an American comic-book series published by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the 1930-1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books...
, in addition to much work for National.
In 1948, Schwab drew in a more adventure-oriented vein when he began ghosting
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
for Klaus Nordling
Klaus Nordling
Klaus Nordling was a Finnish American writer-artist for American comic books. He is best-known for his work on the 1940s masked-crimefighter feature "Lady Luck", and as co-creator of the Marvel Comics superhero the Thin Man. Some of Nordling's earliest comic books are signed F...
on the lighthearted adventure feature "Lady Luck
Lady Luck (comics)
Lady Luck is a fictional, American comic-strip and comic book crime fighter and adventuress created and designed in 1940 by Will Eisner with artist Chuck Mazoujian . Through 1946, she starred in a namesake, four-page weekly feature published in a Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert colloquially...
", which originated in Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
's syndicated
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
Sunday-newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
comic-book insert, The Spirit Section. Schwab, under Nordling's byline, drew a number of Lady Luck stories later reprinted in Quality Comics
Quality Comics
Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing company that operated from 1939 to 1956 and was an influential creative force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books....
' Smash Comics
Smash Comics
Smash Comics is the title of an American Golden Age comic book anthology series, published by Quality Comics for 85 issues between 1939 and 1949...
#79 (Oct. 1948) and in the last four of the publisher's five issues of Lady Luck, which took over Smash Comics
Reprints
Schwab's work has been reprinted in publisher Ken Pierce's two-issue Lady Luck (1980); DC's Millennium Edition: Detective Comics 1 (2001); and Marvel Comics #1: 70th Anniversary Edition (2009). A handful of his humor pieces appear in DC's first three volumes of SupermanSuperman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
Archives reprints of Golden Age Superman comics (1989–1991).