Kin Platt

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Kin Platt (August 12, 1911-November 30, 2003, New York City, New York) is an American writer-artist best known for penning radio comedy and animated TV series, as well as children's mystery novels, for one of which he received the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award.

He additionally wrote comic books (creating an early funny-animal superhero, Supermouse) and comic strips.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Kin Platt
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Kin Platt

The son of Daniel and Etta Hochberg Platt, Kin Platt in the mid-1930s wrote radio comedy for George Burns, Jack Benny, the comedy team of Stoopnagle and Budd, and The National Bisquit Comedy Hour of 1936. Later in the 1930s, he wrote for Disney and Walter Lantz theatricall cartoons, and he broke into comic books with humor stories featuring the character "Happy" in the Better Comics omnibus Best Comics #1 (Nov. 1939). Platt went on to write and draw many features in the next few issues and to draw such features as "Captain Future" in Better's Startling Comics; "The Mask" (no relation to the 1990s Dark Horse Comics character), featuring a district attorney turned costumed crimefighter, in Exciting Comics; and writer Richard Hughes' Doc Savage-like "Doc Strange" (no relation to Marvel Comics' Dr. Strange), in Thrilling Comics.

After doing WWII military service with the U.S. Army Air Force's Air Transport Command from 1943-46 began working for such comic book companies as Timely (the 1940s predecessor of Marvel), for which his features included "Widjet Witch" in Comedy Comics); and Better/Nedor/Standard, where he created Supermouse in 1948.

For the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, Platt wrote and drew the comic strip Mr. and Mrs. from 1947-63, and The Duke and the Duchess from 1950-54. Additionally, he drew theatrical caricatures for such newspapers and magazines as The Village Voice and the Los Angeles Times.

Startling Comics #2 (Aug. 1940), starring Captain Future. Cover art by Kin Platt.
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Startling Comics #2 (Aug. 1940), starring Captain Future. Cover art by Kin Platt.

In the 1960s, Platt scripted TV animation, including for the Hanna-Barbera series The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Top Cat and Jonny Quest (for which at one point he held the title of "story director"), as well as for Hal Seeger Productions' Milton the Monster.

He began writing children's books and young-adult mysteries in 1961, winning the 1967 Edgar Award for juvenile mystery for Sinbad and Me and earning a 1970 nomination for The Mystery of the Witch Who Wouldn't. Platt eventually published more than 30 books, including general-reader mysteries. His pseudonyms included Guy West, Alan West, Wesley Simon York, Nick Tall, Nick West, Noah Zark and Kirby Carr, according to Platt material in the Contemporary Collections holdings of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.

Platt also returned to comics around this time, writing occasional stories for the DC Comics titles G.I. Combat, Our Army At War and Star Spangled War Stories in 1964. His final known comics credit is a 48-page adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Marvel Classics Comics #1 (1976).

The 1973 film Baxter!, a psychological drama starring Patricia Neal, was based on a book by Platt.

[edit] Quotes

Al Jaffee:

   
“
 I knew Kin. Dave Gantz said that Kin created [the print-advertising comic strip] the Pepsi Cola Cops. I didn't know Kin had done that, but it was his style. That may have been what brought him to Stan Lee. Kin sort of looked like Groucho Marx and had both Groucho's sense of humor and delivery; a very funny guy. He wrote very well and did so in a lot of mediums. He was one of the truly gifted guys in our business, very smart and very talented. Whenever he came into the office, things got lively. I also remember getting together with Kin and his wife in Long Island after the war. I don't doubt that Kin created Squat Car Squad, since it’d been something he was familiar with.[1]
   
”

[edit] Bibliography

Kin Platt self-caricature
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Kin Platt self-caricature

[edit] Children / young-adult fiction

  • Big Max, illustrated by Robert Lopshire (Harper, 1965)
  • The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear (Chilton, 1968)
  • Mystery of the Coughing Dragon (Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, Book 14) (1970; as Nick West)
  • Mystery of the Nervous Lion (Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, Book 16) (1971; as Nick West)
  • Hey, Dummy (Chilton, 1971)
  • Chloris and the Creeps (Chilton, 1973)
  • Chloris and the Freaks (Bradbury, 1975)
  • Headman (Greenwillow, 1975)
  • Big Max and the Mystery of the Missing Moose (Harper, 1975)
  • The Terrible Love Life of Dudley Cornflower (Bradbury, 1976)
  • Run for Your Life (F. Watts, 1977)
  • Chloris and the Weirdos (Bradbury, 1978)
  • The Doomsday Gang (Greenwillow, 1978)
  • Dracula, Go Home (F. Watts, 1979)
  • The Ape Inside Me (Crowell, 1980)
  • Flames Going Out (Methuen, 1980)
  • Brogg's Brain (Crowell, 1981)
  • Frank and Stein and Me]] (F. Watts, 1982)
  • Crocker (Lippincott, 1983)
  • Darwin and the Great Beasts (Self-illustrated) (Greenwillow, 1992)

[edit] "Steve Forrester" young-adult mysteries

  • The Blue Man (Harper, 1961)
  • Sinbad and Me (Chilton, 1966)
  • The Mystery of the Witch Who Wouldn't (Chilton, 1969)
  • The Ghost of Hellsfire Street (Delacorte, 1980)

[edit] Mysteries

  • Dead as They Come (Random House, 1972)
  • A Pride of Women (Robert Hale, 1974)
  • Murder in Rosslare (Walker, 1986)

[edit] "Max Roper" mysteries

  • The Pushbutton Butterfly (Random House, 1970)
  • The Kissing Gourami (Random House, 1970)
  • The Princess Stakes Murder (Random House, 1973)
  • The Giant Kill (Random House, 1974)
  • Match Point for Murder (Random House, 1975)
  • The Body Beautiful Murder (Random House, 1976)
  • The Screwball King Murder (Random House, 1978)

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Al Jaffee interview, Alter Ego #35 (April 2004), reprinted at MadMumblings.com

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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