| Sam Glanzman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Samuel J. Glanzman 1924 (age 87–88) |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Artist |
| Pseudonym(s) | Sam Glanz SJG Sam Decker |
| Notable works | Hercules "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz" |
Sam J. Glanzman (born 1924)[1] is an American comic-book artist, best known for his Charlton Comics series Hercules, about the mythological Greek demigod; his biographical war stories about his service aboard the U.S.S. Stevens for DC Comics and Marvel Comics; and the Charlton Comics Fightin' Army feature "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz", a Vietnam-era serial about a German-American U.S. Army captain during World War II.
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Sam Glanzman, whose brother D. C. (Davis Charles) Glanzman is a comic-book artist,[2] and whose brother Louis "Lew" Glanzman began in comics before becoming a fine art painter,[3] ended his formal education after grade school.[4] Glanzman broke into comics in late 1939, during the period historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books, at Funnies, Inc.,[3] one of the early "packagers" that supplied comics to publishers then entering the fledgling medium. There, for Centaur Publications, he wrote two-page text stories with incidental art for Amazing-Man Comics. Later for Harvey Comics, he created Fly-Man in the superhero anthology Spitfire Comics #1 (Aug. 1941), writing and drawing the feature for at least two issues. He also contributed to Harvey's All-New Short Story Comics (where he published his first recorded war story); Champ Comics (doing the superhero the Human Meteor); and the radio-show tie-in series Green Hornet Comics through 1943.[5]
Following his World War II service in the U.S. Navy, during which he was stationed on the destroyer U.S.S. Stevens, he was discharged in 1946.[3] Glanzman eschewed comics ("I was getting $7.50 a page for [Fly-Man], pencils, inks, story, and coloring. ... I figured, 'Hell, that's not much money.'"[3]) and began a peripatetic career doing manual labor in cabinet shops, lumber mills, and boat yards. After marrying in the 1950s, he worked at Republic Aviation in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, installing machine guns on military jets.[3] During this time, he lived in Rockaway, Queens, New York City, and in the Long Island towns of Valley Stream and Massapequa Park.[3]
Seeking to return to art, Glanzman had done some work for the Eastern Color series Heroic Comics and New Heroic Comics in 1950, and found better-paying assignments doing children's-book illustration. He additionally did possibly uncredited work for his brother, Louis Glanzman, on a hardcover-book series for children about aircraft.[3] Work was not steady, however, and Glanzman returned to Republic.[3]
Still determined to work in art, Glanzman in 1958 answered a classified ad seeking comics artists, and began working with Pat Masulli, the Manhattan-based executive editor of Derby, Connecticut's Charlton Comics, a low-paying publishing company that traditionally allowed its comics creators great creative freedom, albeit from indifference to the quality of the product turned in. He specialized in stories for the war titles Attack, Battlefield Action, Fightin' Air Force, Fightin' Marines, Submarine Attack, U.S. Air Force Comics, and War at Sea, producing a large amount of authentically detailed work through mid-1961,[5] when he switched to Dell Comics. There he draw for the anthology Combat, drew the movie adaptation Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (and the suspiciously similar, four-issue Voyage to the Deep), and a range of titles from lost-world adventure (Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle) to heartwarming animal drama (Lad: A Dog).[5] He occasionally still moonlighted for Charlton, using the initials "SJG" for his work on the 1962 Marco Polo movie adaptation and elsewhere.[5]
Beginning mid-1964, Glanzman moved regularly between Charlton and Dell assignments, almost exclusively on war stories, but also on a Charlton Tarzan series.[5] With writer Joe Gill, he created the Charlton hardboiled detective character Sarge Steel,[5] which would later be acquired by DC Comics in 1983, when a fading Charlton sold the rights to many of its characters.
At this point, during what fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, Glanzman, with writer Gill, created the Charlton mythological-adventure series Hercules: Adventures of the Man-God, which would run 13 issues (Oct. 1967 - Sept. 1969),[5] and showcase Glanzman's experimental side, where he might float Art Nouveau-bordered panels within action tableaux filled with Hieronymous Boschian nightmares.[6]
He also during this time co-created, with writer Will Franz, "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz",[7] a departure from most other combat features of this time, with its conflicted hero caught between loyalties, in part because of his German heritage. During combat in the European Theater, U.S. Army captain Schultz is falsely accused and convicted of murder; he escapes and blends into the German Army while seeking a way to clear his name and retain his Allied allegiance. The feature, reprinted as late as 1999,[8] was serialized in Charlton's Fightin' Army #76-80, 82-92 (Oct. 1967 - July 1968, Nov. 1968 - July 1970).[5]
During the 1960s as well, Glanzman freelanced for Outdoor Life magazine.[2]
War-comic editor-artist Joe Kubert brought Glanzman, a veteran in dual senses, to work on G.I. Combat (for years illustrating the feature "Haunted Tank"), Our Army At War, Star Spangled War Stories, Weird War Tales and other combat titles at DC Comics, one of the two industry leaders. Glanzman would also occasionally draw stories for DC's supernatural-mystery anthologies. By late 1979, with most of DC's war titles either canceled or converted to character series with established teams, Glanzman remained solely on G.I. Combat and began freelancing again for Charlton. Following his last "Haunted Tank" story, in G.I. Combat #288 (March 1987), Glanzman drew two more stories for DC a year later, in Sgt. Rock #420-421 (Feb.-April 1988). He would return to ink penciler Tim Truman on the Western miniseries Jonah Hex: Two Gun Mojo (Sept.-Dec. 1993), Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such (March-July 1995), and Jonah Hex: Shadows West (Feb.-April 1999).
Glanzman also contributed a handful of war stories to Marvel Comics from 1986-1989, in the black-and-white adventure magazine Savage Tales, the Marine Corps series Semper Fi, an issue of The 'Nam, and most notably A Sailor's Story / Marvel Graphic Novel #30 (March 1987), a 60-page true account, which he both wrote and drew, of his time on U.S. S. Stevens during World War II. Unusually for Marvel's graphic-novel line, it was released in hardcover rather than as a trade paperback. A trade paperback edition followed, together with a sequel, A Sailor's Story, Book Two: Winds, Dreams, and Dragons, which continued the story up to the end of the war.[5]
Other work in the 1990s included inking some issues of Turok Dinosaur Hunter for Acclaim Comics and Zorro for Topps Comics, and writing and drawing a serialized feature in Flashback Comics' Fantastic Worlds #1. His last known works are in two anthologies: Writing and drawing the 10-page, true-life story "On the Job: Cooks Tour," in the graphic-story trade paperback Streetwise (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2000, ISBN 1-893905-04-7), and the donated, four-page "There Were Tears in Her Eyes," in the squarebound benefit comic 9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember #2 (2002).[5]
From 1999-2001, the Avalon Communications imprint America's Comic Group / ACG (not to be confused with American Comics Group / AGC) reprinted copious amounts of Glanzman's Charlton Comics work in a number of mostly one-shot titles, including Hercules, Flyboys, Nam Tales, Star Combat Tales, Total War, and ACG Comics Presents Fire And Steel.[5]
In 2003, Glanzman began working on webcomics, writing and drawing the 19th-century nautical adventure Apple Jack, and reteaming with his "Willy Schultz" writer, Will Franz, on the Roman centurion series The Eagle.[9]
Glanzman's USS Stevens stories for DC Comics appear in:[10]