Gary Friedrich

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Gary Friedrich (born 1943, Jackson, Missouri, United States) is an American comic book writer best known for his Silver Age stories for Marvel Comics' Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, and for the following era's Monster of Frankenstein series.

Friedrich — no relation to fellow comics writer Mike Friedrich — was the first successful new writer brought in to the burgeoning 1960s Marvel after fellow Missourian Roy Thomas. Succeeding Thomas on Sgt. Fury, Friedrich and the art team of Dick Ayers and John Severin produced a World War II series for the Vietnam years, combining militaristic cameraderie and gung ho humor with a regretful sense of war as a terrible last resort. The humanistic military drama was noted for its semi-anthological "The" stories, such as "The Medic" and "The Deserter". Additionally, one story was an homage to / retcon of the movie Casablanca, and Friedrich annuals caught up with the Howlers in both the 1950s Korean conflict, and in the 'Nam. The series under Friedrich won the Alley Award for Best War Title in 1967 and '68.

World War II meets the '60s: Sgt. Fury gets by "With a Little Help from My Friends" (Issue #67, June 1969). Cover art by John Severin.

[edit] Early life and career

A young-teen friend of future Marvel writer and eventually editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, Friedrich worked at a record store in Cape Girardeau, Missouri after high school. In February 1964, he obtained a job at his hometown of Jackson's two weekly newspapers, which were being combined into a single twice-weekly. "I was working about 80 hours a week for $50", he recalled in 2001.^[1] "I wrote, edited, and laid out the entire newspaper. I was the whole editorial staff without any help. It was driving me crazy". Friedrich had gotten married the year before and by now had a young son, but, "I didn't have time for anything because I was working all the damn time." The marriage fell apart, "and even that wasn't a major problem for a while because I was so damn busy and I was either working, drunk, or both", Friedrich said,^[2] alluding to the alcoholism from which he began recovering on "New Year's night in 1979".^[3]

When the newspaper ceased publication in late summer 1965, Friedrich began working a union job at a Cape Girardeau factory, installing heating elements in waffle irons. Roy Thomas, now a Marvel Comics staff writer in New York City, called his friend with the suggestion that freelance work might exist in the newly resurgent medium. Friedrich took a Greyhound bus the following day, and stayed with Thomas and a fandom friend, Dave Kaler, in Manhattan's East Village. Shortly afterward, Friedrich and Thomas took an apartment on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.

This was a time of transition between the beat movement and the hippie era, when the Village flourished as a creative mecca. "The Village was a really neat place to be at that time. We went to the theater that was to become the Fillmore East; it wasn't called that yet, but they were starting to have some rock concerts, like Chuck Berry. ... I began to let my hair grow and become a real New York hippie",^[4] he recalled, encapsulating the hybrid of blue-collar, Midwestern background with youth-culture progressiveness that combined to give his Sgt. Fury stories a distinctive sensibility.

Before the demonic motorcyle-rider that Friedrich would help create years later, he helmed the Western Ghost Rider. Issue #1 (Feb. 1967), art by Dick Ayers.

With the help of Thomas, who recommended Friedrich to Charlton Comics editor Dick Giordano, Friedrich began writing romance comics for that low-budget publisher, where many pros got early breaks. "I did it with a great good sense of humor", Friedrich recalled. "I wrote things like 'Tears in My Malted' and 'Too Fat to Frug'...."^[5] With anonymous help and input from Thomas, Friedrich also began writing superhero stories, beginning with his backup feature "The Sentinels" (with penciler-inker Sam Grainger) in Peter Cannon ... Thunderbolt #54 (Oct. 1966; actually the sixth issue, due to the series continuing the numbering of a canceled title). He wrote the feature for two more issues before handing it off. Friedrich also dialogued the debut and the next three stories of the Blue Beetle, plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko, in Captain Atom #83-86 (Nov. 1966 - June 1967). Friedrich's last recorded Charlton story was "If I Had Three Wishes", penciled by Ditko, in Ghostly Tales #60 (March 1967).

[edit] Marvel Comics

By this time Friedrich had already begun writing Westerns for Marvel, including issues of Kid Colt, Outlaw; Two-Gun Kid; Rawhide Kid; and his first regular series, Ghost Rider — launched with debut-issue co-plotter Thomas, and running six issues, mostly co-scripted by Friedrich and series penciler Dick Ayers. Friedrich also contributed to the parody series Not Brand Echh. He began on Sgt. Fury with #42 (May 1967) — co-scripted, as was the next issue, by Friedrich's Western pardner, Sgt. Fury penciler Ayers. The next issue, a flashback to the Howlers' first mission, was co-scripted by Friedrich and Thomas.

Following this inauspicious beginning came the first of several Friedrich "The" stories, "The War Lover" (#45, Aug. 1967) — a shaded exploration of a trigger-happy soldier and the line drawn, even in war, between killing and murder. Daring for the time, when majority public sentiment still supported the undeclared Vietnam War, the story balanced present-day issues while demonstrating that even in what is referred to as "a just war", a larger morality prevails. While war comics at this stage were less overtly jingoistic than in the 1950s, Friedrich's allegorical approach was ahead of movies and television as well, occurring years before M*A*S*H would tread similar ground. Friedrich's story also marked the first time since the early Lee-Kirby Furys that such provocative humanism appeared in a full-length tale, rather than in the occasional "very special" short stories that represented the preferred length at rival DC Comics. Friedrich would write several more "The" stories, including "The Assassin", "The Peacemonger", and the unromanticized A.W.O.L. drama "The Deserter" (#75, Feb. 1970), based loosely on the real-life case of WWII Private Eddie Slovik.

The Incredible Hulk Special #1 (Oct. 1968). Cover art by Jim Steranko.

Friedrich continued through #83 (Jan. 1971), with the late part of this run having reprint issues between new stories, and again for the even-numbered issues from #94-114 (Jan. 1972 - Nov. 1973). Issue #100 (July 1972) featured a present-day, fictional reunion gala.

Friedrich also launched the far shorter-lived, 19-issue U.S. Marines series Capt. Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders (changed to Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders with #9), running Jan. 1968 to March 1970; and the nine-issue U.S. Army book Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen, running June 1972 to September 1973.

These brief efforts proved more pedestrian than his Sgt. Fury work, and Friedrich settled into the niche of utility writer. His first regular superhero title for Marvel was The Incredible Hulk, for which he wrote a handful of issues starting with #102 (April 1968; the premiere issue, following the Hulk feature in the "split book" Tales to Astonish), as well as the 1968 Hulk annual. The series would not, however, launch him as Thomas' natural successor later on Marvel's flagship titles, which went to such later hires as Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. Friedrich mostlh would be assigned titles in transition or facing cancellation, including, variously, [Uncanny] X-Men, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the "Black Widow" feature in Amazing Adventures. He was also given many non-superhero features, including such Westerns as The Gunhawks.

During this time, Friedrich also wrote prose stories for the line of men's magazines owned by Marvel's then-publisher, Martin Goodman.

Friedrich was the co-creator and initial writer of Marvel's motorcycle-demon Ghost Rider, and later teamed with that character's first artist, Mike Ploog, on Marvel's Monster of Frankenstein — the first five issues of which (Jan.-Oct. 1973) contained one of the most faithful adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel to appear in any medium.

In early 1977, as his alcoholism was progressing to a crisis point, Friedrich's sole comics work was writing the seven-page Captain Britain stories in the character's namesake Marvel UK weekly comic book.

[edit] Later career

Friedrich's other work includes writing for the Skywald line of black-and-white horror-comics magazines. For that company he created Hell-Rider — a Vietnam-vet vigilante motorcyclist with a flame-thrower-equipped bike — in a namesake two-issue series (July-Aug. to Sept.-Oct. 1971). The following year, Friedrich worked with Thomas on the similarly motorcycle-mounted Ghost Rider.

Additionally, Friedrich freelanced for the short-lived Atlas/Seaboard Comics, where he co-created the character Man-Monster with Rich Buckler and Mike Vosburg in Tales of Evil #3 (July 1975). He also wrote the third and final issue of Morlock 2001, with the very rare art team of Steve Ditko and Bernie Wrightson; the third and final issue of The Brute; and the fourth and final issue of IronJaw before eventually leaving the comics industry to return to Missouri.

After his 1977 stint writing Captain Britain stories for Marvel UK (see section above), Friedrich would be published just once more: scripting Topps Comics' Jack Kirby-created Bombast #1 (April 1993), reteamed with plotter Roy Thomas and Sgt. Fury artists Dick Ayers and John Severin.

[edit] Quotes

Roy Thomas on the genesis of Ghost Rider: "I had made up a character as a villain in Daredevil — a very lackluster character — called Stunt-Master ... a motorcyclist. Anyway, when Gary Friedrich started writing Daredevil, he said, 'Instead of Stunt-Master, I'd like to make the villain a really weird motorcycle-riding character called Ghost Rider.' He didn't describe him. I said, 'Yeah, Gary, there's only one thing wrong with it,' and he kind of looked at me weird, because we were old friends from Missouri, and I said, 'That's too good an idea to be just a villain in Daredevil. He should start out right away in his own book.' When Gary wasn't there the day we were going to design it, Mike Ploog, who was going to be the artist, and I designed the character. I had this idea for the skull-head, something like Elvis' 1968 Special jumpsuit, and so forth, and Ploog put the fire on the head, just because he thought it looked nice. Gary liked it, so they went off and did it".^[6]

Friedrich on the above, in 2001: "Well, there's some disagreement between Roy, Mike and I over that. I threatened on more than one occasion that if Marvel gets in a position where they are gonna make a movie or make a lot of money off of it, I'm gonna sue them, and I probably will. ... It was my idea. It was always my idea from the first time we talked about it; it turned out to be a guy with a flaming skull and [who] rode a motorcycle. Ploog seems to think the flaming skull was his idea. But, to tell you the truth, it was my idea."^[7]

[edit] Books

• Brown, Len, and Gary Friedrich, Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Tower Publications, 1970)
• Brown, Len, and Gary Friedrich, Encyclopedia of Country and Western Music (Tower Publications, 1971)
• Brown, Len, and Gary Friedrich, So You Think You Know About Rock and Roll (Tower Publications, 1972)

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001): "Groovy Gary & the Marvel Years" (Gary Friedrich interview; offline)
• Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001): "Son of Stan: Roy's Years of Horror" (Roy Thomas interview on 1970s horror comics)
• Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001): "Len Brown, Dynamo"" (interview)
• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
• The Grand Comic-Book Database
• "Hell-Rider: A Memoir of the '70s"
• International Heroes: Man-Monster