Sheldon Mayer. 04/01/17-12/21/91
Golden Age Genius.
Legend of Legends.
Visionaire Extraordinaire.
by Dr. Augustine Luscano PHD

Sheldon Mayer. Visioniare Extraordinaire of the Golden Age Comics. Editor. Writer. Animation Artist. Comic Artist. Inker, Pencilist, Letterer... Most of all Sheldon Mayer: The Man; The Tribute; and The Legend should be remembered for rendering, grouping, and mentoring some of the keenest minds from diverse backgrounds into the comic industry into one of the greatest text book models of Inception to Conception in successful Business Models in any Industry equalling anything that Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, or Steve Jobs has done the past 20 years with the computer and the Internet. I, Dr. Augustine Luscano, your narrarator and author will focus on Sheldon Mayer's genius, brainstorming and the vision that Sheldon Mayer and Max Gaines. shared and coordinated during the Depression and the advent and during World War II. What talking pictures did for movies... the inception and conception of the comic book to the Depression, Pre War and World War fantasy, rags to riches, and ultimately the birth of the Super Hero filled the hearts and minds of a nation on the brink of failure, depression, recession, and defeat all with a four color process and two staples monthly.

Sheldon Mayer born on April Fool's Day 04/01/17 and passing on the Winter Equinox in 1991 on 12/21/91. A Fool Never To Be and A Season Ending and A Season Beginning on the shortest day and the longest night of the year... A Pagan Farewell to the a cornerstone of Golden Age Comics, Golden Age Heroes and publishing numbers and runs never seen or equaled again. Sheldon Mayer, the young teen animator at the Max Fleisher Studio in the mid 30s and artist, writer, inker, and pencilist for the McClure Syndicate of Comic Strips in the 1930s in the meantime Sheldon Mayer was freelance writing for DC (HG Wells The Time Machine, Stage Coach, Dell (The Funnies) ) with Mayer's own Scribbly -Semi Autobiographical Boy Cartoonist Series that began at McClure and continued later in All American Comics, and Centaur Publishing-the McClure references unfortunately are not referenced in the listing for Scribbly in 1935. Some say, but it is had not been documented that Scribbly was began and sold in 1931 by Sheldon Mayer as early as the age of 14.

To better understand Sheldon Mayer, we have to begin in late 1934 and early 1935 and his relation with McClure Syndication and Publishers and a man of greater or equal brilliance named Max Gaines. In 1935, Max Gaines approached Eastern Color Printing with the bold concept to take Daily and Weekly Comic Strips from the Newspaper Syndication and incorporate them in a "Comic Book." Eastern Color Printing runs off 35,000 test prints and the test run is a complete success. No returns. Sold Out. Requests and concepts for other "Comic Books" are flooding into Eastern Color Printing. Over the next 12 months the Comic Book is born and found on every newsstand in America. In its appreciation for Max Gaines' Comic Book concept Gaines is given a "hearty hand shake" and shown the door to the street of Eastern Color Printing as if it were mirror of the Bank Manager scene from the WC Fields movie The Bank Dick. Max Gaines did not have the comfort of the infamous Bank Dick's Black Pussy Bar to drown his sorrows and misfortunes as did WC Fields (ever wonder how the Black Pussy got by the censors at the time-I have?) Instead, Max Gaines hits the pavement and print beat undaunted by the outright theft of his conception and vision and discovers through his publishing contacts that the McClure Newspaper Syndicate has a pair of idle color presses.

Sheldon Mayer Pencilist By Year

Sheldon Mayer Pencilist By Name

Sheldon Mayer Scribbly Series

Sheldon Mayer Inkist By Year

Sheldon Mayer Inkist By Name

In early 1936, Max Gaines approached and negotiated with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate to let Max Gaines to print the "New Comic Book Format" at McClure on the two idle presses in return for half the net proceeds. The McClure Newspaper Syndicate seeing the success that Eastern Color Printing is having with its "New Comic Book" agrees and Popular Comics is out in its first print run-Popular Comics Cover Gallery 1936 to 1948. Popular Comics, as a variety comic from Humor, Crime, Military, Science, History, Science Fiction, Fantasy and every aspect of stories and plots including puzzles and contests to entertain everyone and someone in every family in the Depression era readership from rich to the very poor. In 1939, starting with Popular Comic Issue #44 to Issue #113, a distinct change in economics, the comic industry, and world politics changed the face of Popular Comics to include less cartoonish type characters and to focus on super heroes, detectives, military, and adventure series as a reflection of both Gaines and Mayer's political view of the events of what was happening historically in Germany and Japan-many Popular Comic issues were dedicated to Series "E" War Bond efforts by its comic characters. At the end of WWII in Popular Comic Issue #114 the publication return to its variety format with an equal balance of humor, super heroes, adventure, and detective themes. Popular Comics ceased publication in 1948 after Sheldon Mayer stepped down as Editor and Max Gaines had moved onto EC Comics (Education Comics.)

Popular Comics was printed under the Dell Publication name including these legendary Hall Of Fame Comic Characters and Series: Dick Tracy, Hop Harrigan, Mutt and Jeff, Winnie Winkle, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Terry and the Pirates, Smitty, Smokey Stover, Tailspin Tommy, Moon Mullins, Don Winslow, Gasoline Alley, Magic, Cicero's Cat, Little Orphan Annie, Gang Busters, G-Men, Mr. Wong, Masked Pilot, Captain Tornado, Hurricane Kids, Marvel Man, The Voice, Doctor Hormone, Wally Williams, Sky Hawk, Professor Supermind and Son, Smilin' Jack, The Owl, Felix The Cat, Harold Teen, and Tiny Tim.

In the Max Gaines McClure business plan Gaines had already calculated the inventory of newspaper dailies and weekly dailies into 68 and 100 page format "Comic Books" and knew that reprinting and the compilation of newspaper dailies and weeklies had a shot print life span of 2 to 3 years depending on how many other presses and companies began to enter the new Comic Book Industry. In 1935, enter Sheldon Mayer to the McClure Newspaper Syndicate doing most of the reformatting and cut up artwork and print set for Popular Comics for McClure. Mayer himself at 18 as the aspiring cartoon artist and the brilliant Jack Of All Trades and Visionaire. Whenever there was any "white space" or "filler space" no matter how small or anywhere in Popular Comics Mayer would place his own cartoon and comic series creations. Gaines and Mayer immediately became joined at the hip and the head. The Bill Gates, Howard Hughes, Rubbert Murdock, and Richard Branson of the Golden Age of Comics. A Think Tank of talented editors, writers, artists and publishers that few business models can be compared to even in today's electronic age.

For the next two years Popular Comics lives up to its name running compilations and complete up to date series of all of the favorite series of the past 20 years with new series beginning to emerge. In 1937, Sheldon Mayer tells Max Gaines about a two creators Jerry Shuster and Joe Siegel and their caped and muscled Superman Series of a super hero in red-and-blue tights with every incredible attribute available to any physical and sense beyond anything conceived to date. At that time, every newspaper in New York had rejected the Superman strip thinking it was too much for one character and the dress a little too feminine for its readership. Mayer and Gaines with the foresight and vision to the pulse of eager nation on the brink of either recovery or disaster from the Depression and possible World War contact Jerry Shuster and Joe Siegel and this historical moment is frozen in time. Action Comics and Superman are born and in retrospect it took Gaines and Mayer several months to have all of the numbers in front of them to see what they had really created and conceived.

Sheldon Mayer Writer By Year

Sheldon Mayer Writer By Name

Maxwell Gaines DC/EC Comics

Sheldon Mayer Editor By Year

Sheldon Mayer Editor By Name

Since the inception of the Comic Book by Max Gaines in 1935 by 1939, 30 Comic Book Publishers have merged and been created to produce over 150 different titles monthly. The Comic Book Publication business plan text model taught in business schools worldwide of combined sales of over 15 million copies and a readership of over 60 million people. Industry numbers in 4 years have gone from a test run of 35,000 copies to 15 million copies-an increase of almost 500 times the initial run at Eastern Color Printing in 1935.

When Max Gaines (majority owner) formed the partnership with Jack Liebowitz (minority owner) to create All-American Publications with funding from Harry Donefield, CEO of both National Allied Publications (publisher of Action Comics) and the sister company Detective Comics, which produced comics in conjunction with Liebowitz's other company, DC, Scribbly got a four-page monthly slot in All-American's flagship title (appropriately named All-American Comics). In April of 1939 at 22, Sheldon Mayer was offered the Assistant Editor Position (MC Gaines was the original Editor of All American Comics) at DC Comics of the new All American Comics for its first edition. Sheldon Mayer's duties with All American Comics also included writing, penciling, lettering, and inking the All American Comic premiere and series. By the time the second edition came out Sheldon Mayer had been promoted from Assistant Editor to Editor and replaced MC Gaines who would later leave DC and open EC Comics. (See the Sheldon Mayer Time Lines as Editor, Writer, Inker, and Pencilist.) Sheldon Mayer was virtually doing everything excepting the coloring of the All American Comics. Little is know of Mayer's involvement with the coloring of the volumes of his creations but it can be assumed that with over 1,100 pencilist credits and 800 inker credits that coloring at least would equal Mayer's known lettering credits which are over 80. As coloring and lettering are the most time consuming aspect of comic creation with all of Sheldon Mayer's other duties it is most likely that this was jobbed out or delegated to others on the staff, a very talented staff that would grow and grow with Mayer over the decades.

Soon Sheldon Mayer edited and participated in the All American Comic and with DC began grooming artists, writers, and creators of the super hero creations Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Justice Society of America. The list of Golden Age Hall of Fame Artists, Writers, and Creators is the most impressive staff to ever have worked under one person. As editor, Mayer brought out the best work in such stellar creators as Irwin Hasen (later famous for Dondi), Gardner Fox, a New York Attorney(creator of Steve Mallone, District Attorney, The Flash and Hawkman, and co created the Justice League of America with Sheldon Moldoff and Sheldon Mayer for the Mayer-edited Flash Comics), Robert Kanigher (who later wrote Metal Men and The War that Time Forgot), Artist Sheldon Moldoff, Artist Martin Nodell Green Lantern and the Pillsbury Doughboy character for Pillsbury, Artist Alex Toth (Space Ghost, The Mighty Mightor), Bill Fingers, Mart Dellon, Irwin Hasen. In some cases, it was Mayer who brought the individual into professional cartooning. His greatest achievement in the area of talent discovery was to give Julie Schwartz (The Flash, Justice League of America) his first job in comic books. Gaines had first rebranded All-American with its own logo, beginning with books cover-dated February 1945: All-Flash #17, Sensation Comics #38, Flash Comics #62, Green Lantern #14, Funny Stuff #3, and Mutt & Jeff [4] #16, and the following month's All-American Comics #64 and the hyphenless All Star Comics #24. When Liebowitz later merged his and Donenfeld's companies, the All-American titles first bore the DC logo once again (starting with December 1945's Sensation #48 and Flash Comics #68, continuing with All-American #70, All-Flash #21, Comic Cavalcade #13, Green Lantern #18, Funny Stuff #7, and Mutt & Jeff #20) before finally being fully absorbed by what was now National Periodical. In 1945, Gaines sold most of his titles to DC, and went off to found EC Comics. Mayer stayed behind, and continued to edit such titles as Sensation Comics (Wonder Woman) and All-American Comics (Hop Harrigan). He also developed new titles for DC, such as Leave It to Binky.

One of the best examples of bringing brilliant minds together was Sheldon Mayer's babysitting, grooming, and inception of the Wonder Woman character created by Harvard-trained psychologist Dr. William Moulton Marston, who wrote the Wonder Woman stories under the pseudonym Charles Moulton. Dr. William Moulton Marston was the inventor of the Polygraph Lie Detector. Dr. William Moulton Marston first tests on the Lie Detector were directed to the answering of queries to infidelity, fantasy, and other sexual and maritial subjects. Review the FBI PDF File Documents from Dr. William Moulton Marston and the FBI - PDF Secret Lie Detector Communicatuions FBI UnClaissified but still whited out for security-one of many FBI files kept on Dr. William Moulton Marston as Marston's fantasies, sexulaity, Amazonian Female Dominance, bondage, domination took the interest of J. Edgar Hoover for many reasons some say some of them personal reasons for Hoover's entertainment and delight. The actual premise for Dr. Marston submitted his first script about "Suprema, the Wonder Woman" to Editor Sheldon Mayer in February 1941 under the pseudonym Charles Moulton. Editor Sheldon Mayer had to attend to he wandering mind and fantasies of Marston and assigned the pseudonym Charles Moulton to assure that Marston's past writings, observations, and profile did not effect any of the publications that Wonder Woman would soon appear in. The symbolism of the Golden Rope could remain in place but the Amazonian, Domainance, Bondage themes had to be toned down to the lowest level possible. The "Suprema" name was quickly dropped by Mayer from Wonder Woman, and Marston selected artist Harry Peter to draw the feature, over Mayer's objections. Wonder Woman made her first appearance in All Star Comics 8 (December 1941/January 1942), an origin story with an unusual combination of illustrations and text. Wonder Woman immediately took the lead story and cover spot in Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942). In Summer 1942, Wonder Woman #1 appeared on newsstands. Remarkably, Wonder Woman continued to make appearances in all three comic books, and also appeared with Green Lantern and Flash as a regular in Comic Cavalcade starting in Winter 1942-43. All of this from the mind of the Doctor who invented the lie detector and was somewhat stimulated by female dominance and Amazonian fantasy that has to be continuously critiqued by Mayer. Some of the bondage scenes that did make it through could have appeared easily in a John Willie's Bizarre or an Irving Klaw publication of the time if they stood on their own without the story line behind them. Brillant as it was Wonder Woman could well have ended up an underground work spinning off into a completely different direction if it were not for the guidance and direction of Sheldon Mayer.

The accompanying vertical panel is from Wonder Woman (First Series) 21, January-February 1947, Page 10A. © DC Comics. Editor: Sheldon Mayer. Title: "The Mystery of the Atom World". Script: William Moulton Marston (as Charles Moulton). Penciler; Inker; Colorist; Letterer: Harry G. Peter. Note the radioactive bondage that holds Wonder Woman and not a physical means of transending the act.

Shelton Mayer successfully incepted and edited the Golden Age Comic Titles: Flash, Sensation Comics, All-Star, Star-Spangled, Adventure, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Comic Cavalcade, More Fun, Popular, and many other titles. Under Mayer's editorial guidance Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Dr. Mid-nite, The Atom, Wildcat, The Spectre, Hourman, Mr. Terrific, Sandman, Starman, Manhunter, the Star-Spangled Kid and many other comic characters were born in comic history.

Meanwhile, Mayer never lost his love of cartooning continuing Scribbly's monthly adventures until 1944, he exercised his editorial prerogative to produce an entire issue of All-American's Funny Stuff single-handed. In the fifth issue (Summer, 1945), The Three Mouseketeers, Bulldog Drumhead, McSnurtle the Turtle and all the other features were written and drawn by Sheldon Mayer, making it, by most accounts, the most desirable issue of that title from the point of view of a modern collector of Sheldon Mayer's cartoon artistry.

In 1944, Max Gaines sold out his majority interest to DC Comics and began EC Comics and Sheldon Mayer stayed with the DC group continuing in many capacities. On August 20, 1947, at the height of his career and life Max Gaines in typical real to life comic book form Max Gaines was boating on Lake Placid on a beautiful, seemingly unevental day with the son of his good friend Sam Irwin vacationing on his motor boat when suddenly another speed boat cut across the bow of Gaine's boat. In an instant, Max had to make the decision to save himself or to try to the reach the young boy and push him out of the way of the oncoming speed boat and sure death. In true comic book form and surrealism without hesitation Max reached the boy pushed him out of the way and took the full impact of the crash and was killed instantly by the boat that cut across his bow. On that day a part of Comic Book History died. Fortunately, Max's son William aka Will aka Bill Gaines a NYU Senior Chemistry Student left NYU to take over the EC Empire. Will Gaines had inherited the skills, innovation, and brilliant business mind to continue EC Comics and later create Mad Magazine and a host of other publications and titles that equal his father's gift to comic book history.

In 1948, Mayer decided to give up editing and go back to his first love. Scribbly got his own comic that year, and little Mayer-created gems like Bo Bunny and Doodles Duck started turning up sporadically in such titles as Funny Folks and Animal Antics. In 1956, Sheldon launched the feature that Mayer lavished the most care on, and stayed with longest, Sugar & Spike. Sheldon Mayer continued to write and draw Sugar & Spike until 1971, when failing eyesight forced him to abandon cartooning. Mayor moved into scripting, and contributed quite a few stories to the DC's fantasy/horror line. During this time, Sheldon Mayer also created an unusual and interesting (but not commercially very successful) superhero called The Black Orchid for DC. After numerous operations, Sheldon Mayer's sight was restored enough years later; and Sheldon Mayer went back to producing new Sugar & Spike stories. Times had changed. Readership had changed. Comic Books themselves had changed and the American comic book market was no longer able to support such a feature as Sugar & Spike, so the Sugar & Spike stories were mostly published in the overseas market.

Always keeping busy, Mayer worked on several tabloid-formatted comic books for DC in the mid-1970s, including the DC's first use of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer since the early '60s; and a collection of Bible stories with layouts by Mayer, filled in by several artists, the most prominent of whom is Joe Kubert (Sgt. Rock). The first Bible Stories of the Old Testament was very successful but time, commitments, and other unknown factors never finished the New Testament stories that Sheldon Mayer wanted to print. Much reminiscent of the Pictures and Stories of the Bible that Mayer had begun in 1942 and later continued at EC Comics had done in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

For more information on the Scribbly, Sugar & Spike, and other cartoon created as Sheldon Mayer as the artist I recommend you visit these two fine web sites: Sheldon Mayer, the Artist" and SugarAndSpike.net" both of these sites are dedicated to the works of Sheldon Mayer and deserve recognition for the time and effort that their creators have taken in time lining the artistry of Sheldon Mayer. SheldonMayer.com is a dedicated tribute to the insight into one of the brilliant minds of the Golden Age Comics as the Editor, the Visionaire, the nurturing genius of writers, creators, and artists from all walks of life from attorneys to doctors to naturally talented artists and writers that were all drawn together for this special moment in time when people read and fantasized from a simple four color process in hard written lettering. Questions? Comments? Corrections" Please Email Doctor Augustine Luscano. A Hero is Always A Hero Until The Hero Turns Into A Legend. A Legend Is Remembered and Cherished Forever. Sheldon Mayer Is One Of the Heroes and Legends of the Golden Age of Comics!