Wonderman By Bob Oskner

This is not your father's Wonderman. Or Eisner's, either.



Reblogged from http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Wonderman is not supposed to be the same character as the "Wonder Man" of Victor Fox, the one that DC comics sued over. They just used the name again with a slight change.

Actually this story looks almost like another Captain Kirk and Devil story, except that Wonderman doesn't actually use a spaceship, and fights with the devil instead of saying he's his friend. A lot of this stuff tends to be similar.

"Lilith" is another character from mythology, sometimes said to be associated with the Devil. The two are frequently associated in fantasy stories, usually working together against the forces of good.





Wonderman Brad Spencer:
http://home.comcast.net/~pfeonline/PEC_06/INTRO_20.HTM


Wonderman History ( Different Characters Called Wonderman ):
http://wondermangraphicnovel.blogspot.com/


Wonderman Plaigerism Suit:
http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/07/dc-vs-victor-fox-testimony-of-will.html



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Will Eisner And The Wonderman Plagiarism Suit

The tale of man who told a tall tale.


Reblogged from http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=29784

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece was an "extra" in the Phantom Lady collection at "Comic Book Plus", because Victor Fox published some of the Phantom Lady comics. The page numbers follow those of the Phantom Lady comics in that set.





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Will Eisner And The Wonderman Plagiarism Suit

Wonderman somehow failed to live up to his name and wasn't all that wonderful. And in this case Will Eisner didn't exactly live up to the hype either.

Wonder Man (Fox Publications)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

Wonder Man
Cover of Wonder Comics #1: The only appearance of Wonder Man.
Publication information
Publisher	Fox Publications
First appearance	Wonder Comics #1 (May 1939)
Created by	Will Eisner
In-story information
Alter ego	Fred Carson
Abilities	Vast super strength, speed & stamina, multiple extra sensory and vision powers, invulnerability, longevity, flight.

Wonder Man is a fictional comic book superhero, created by Will Eisner, whose first (and only) appearance was Wonder Comics #1 (May, 1939).
The character is of some historical significance by virtue of the lawsuit that resulted from his only appearance.

 Fictional character history

Wonder Man's secret identity is Fred Carson. During an excursion to Tibet, an old monk bestows Carson with a ring that gave him the power to fight evil when the need arose. His powers are almost exactly like those of Superman, the character he's based on.

 Publication history

Wonder Man was created by Will Eisner in the Eisner-Iger Shop for Victor Fox, who was publishing astrology magazines when he ran across his distributor's reports on the incredible sales for National Periodicals' Action Comics in February 1939. He immediately decided to get into the comic book business, setting up offices in the same building DC had theirs, then contacted Eisner. Using the pen name Willis, Eisner wrote and drew the first issue of Wonder Comics which appeared on the news stands less than six weeks later.

 Lawsuit

On March 15, 1939 DC Comics brought a copyright infringement lawsuit against Fox, due to the character's similarities to Superman, as well as story and illustration elements that were similar to previous Superman adventures. The case was brought to court in Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publications, Inc., 111 F.2d 432 (2d Cir. 1940), in which Eisner defended the originality of his creation. Despite this testimony, the subsequent decision forced Fox to drop the character after just one issue.
Wonder Comics however, continued as a title, featuring Yarko the Great in #2, then changed its name to Wonderworld Comics featuring The Flame in #3 and continued for another 30 issues.
This was the first copyright lawsuit in comic book history and set a precedent for DC Comics' vigorous protection of its characters (see also National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications).
The dispute is depicted in disguised fashion in Eisner's semi-autobiographical graphic novel, The Dreamer. However, this depiction is at odds with Eisner's own testimony at the trial, transcripts of which were unearthed in 2010.^[1]
See Master Man for a similar character.

1. ^ http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/07/dc-vs-victor-fox-testimony-of-will.html

 External links

• Wonder Man at Toonopedia
• Wonder Comics #1 - A Wonderful Prize? Article on Wonder Man ring prize from Wonder Comics #1
• Article by Mikel Midnight, from material by Ron Goulart
• Court transcripts and analysis of testimony in the case of Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publications, Inc. from The Comics Detective.
• Transcript of Eisner's testimony at trial

                                                            *                   *                     *


I have some complaints about Eisner, particularly the way he had his comic book "hero" the Spirit beating up on his girlfriend. And now it turns out he wasn't even telling the truth about the Wonder Man lawsuit in his autobiographic novel where he referred back to the Wonder Man plagiarism case.


Eisner's THE DREAMER had it that he had copied Superman under Victor Fox's orders and later testified to that effect under oath. But what the record shows is that Eisner perjured himself by claiming to have independently come up with "Wonder Man" on his own without an influence of any kind from DC Comic's Superman. I think Eisner thought that was a good story: whether or not he believed it himself, he had everybody else believing it for a while. Me too. I had no way of knowing anything else about it at the time.

Reblogged from http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/07/dc-vs-victor-fox-testimony-of-will.html:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I put those pictures on my blog some time ago, and now I can't seem to put any comments between them. The subject is covered in greater detail at the site I got them from.

One last word: Wonder Man is a sissy! If he was supposed to be a copy of Superman, he sure wasn't a good one!



Wonderman Plaigerism Case:
http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/07/dc-vs-victor-fox-testimony-of-will.html




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Ebony, Buckwheat, and Bumbazine

 

 

In Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT, Ebony White is the hero's kid sidekick,  who assists him in his adventures.

 

 

 

 

Ebony was a stereotyped comedy character and was frequently used as comedy relief in the stories. 

The Spirit sometimes mistreated his sidekick, subjecting him to violence in one story which was supposed to be funny*. The character's complaints of not being treated fairly were also supposed to be funny.

 

 

 

Ebony was sometimes shown with a group of white kids, which resembled "Our Gang" somewhat.

Ebony may have been influenced if not inspired by Our Gang's "Buckwheat", who was played by William Thomas. Buckwheat also appeared in the comic book adventures of Our Gang, which were originally done by Walt Kelly.**

 

 

 

 

 

 Today Walt Kelly is best known for his comic strip POGO, a tale of anthropomorphic animals set in the south. What is not so well known is that these comics originally included a character who was similar to Buckwheat, and who could even be considered a later version of the character that Kelly had been drawing in OUR GANG.

 

 

Here the character was called Bumbazine. Bumbazine was the only important human character in these stories ( sometimes the only human character to put in an appearance ).  It could be said that the early POGO was something like a different version of OUR GANG, with funny animals in place of the other kids.

Bumbazine was eventually dropped from the stories and the cast of POGO then consisted entirely of funny animals.

The way that the old artists depicted black people in their comics is frowned upon today, but it's been said that during his period on OUR GANG comics Walt Kelly thought that later on he improved the character of Buckwheat and made him less of a stereotype. While I am not familiar with those comics myself, it appears to me from his early POGO comics that Kelly liked the black character and thought of him as being "one of the boys", which was also supposed to have been the idea in the original OUR GANG comedies.

While complaints about the stereotyped black characters used by both Will Eisner and Walt Kelly may be seen in some accounts, there is not as much criticism of their work as there is of some of their contemporaries. This seems to be related to an adulation of their work over that of some of the other artists of that period.



*"The Spirit Am Unfair To His Assistant", Spirit story for August 17, 1941.

** Ebony beat Buckwheat into the comics, but Buckwheat was in the OUR GANG comedies before Ebony's comic adventures had begun.



OUR GANG comic books:
http://ourgang.wikia.com/wiki/Our_Gang_Comics


William Thomas ( "Buckwheat" ):
http://ourgang.wikia.com/wiki/William_Thomas_Jr.




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Sorta Phantom Lady Before There Was A Phantom Lady

The November 10, 1940 Spirit section has a character that looks like the Phantom Lady:

But they didn't begin publishing Phantom Lady stories until August 1941 in POLICE COMICS, so they didn't have the Phantom Lady when this Spirit story came out.

Will Eisner actually took credit for the creation of the Phantom Lady, but the original version of the character's costume bore less resemblance to the Eisner character we're talking about .

However, the redesigned Phantom Lady they had in the Fox comics could have been influenced by the look of the earlier Eisner villainess.




Phantom Lady:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Lady

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That's The Spirit

I thought about revising this so that Charlie Brown would be in it,, then I decided to put it through as it is. Charlie Brown will have to wait his turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artwork is inconsistent in this story, with the proportions of the characters appearing to be different in different panels. I've seen that in Spirit stories before.










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