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(Mr. Mystic), Nordling (Lady Luck), and Mazoujian (Lady Luck) worked on various projects before becoming major contributors to The Spirit newspaper supplement, and Cardy, who in time would be known for his artistry with female characters, eventually took over Lady Luck after Mazoujian left the studio. Fine (Black Condor, The Ray), Meskin (Sheena), Crandall (Doll Man, Blackhawk), and Tuska (Uncle Sam) were invaluable contributors to other comics produced for Busy Arnold and Quality Comics. Kane produced short features for Eisner before deciding that the money was better elsewhere and making his name as the creator of Batman. Several (Tuska, Henkel, Crandall, Fox) wound up creating crime comics for such publications as Police Comics and Crime Does Not Pay. Kirby, who worked at Eisner’s shop long enough to warm a seat, turned out to be one of the greatest comics artists ever, from his collaborations with Joe Simon (Captain America) to his work with Stan Lee and Marvel (Fantastic Four, Thor). A few, most notably Fine and Fox, moved away from comics and into advertising, while Kirby and Cardy (Teen Titans, Aquaman) had lifelong careers in comics and did their most lasting work long after leaving Eisner.

41 “When his work came out”: Interview with Joe Kubert.

41 “Lou had never”: Mike Barson, Ted White, and Mitch Berger, “… and I Threw In a Hat … ,” Heavy Metal, November 1983.

42 “When Eisner would leave”: Interview with Bob Fujitani.

42 “He was a hell of a nice guy”: Interview with Nick Cardy.

42 Tuska/Powell dustup: Nick Cardy disputed this account, first in an interview with comics historian Michael T. Gilbert and later in my interview with him. According to Cardy, he approached Tuska at a convention and asked him about the fight, and Tuska told him he’d punched Rafael Astarita while he was working for Harry Chesler, not Bob Powell while he was working for Eisner & Iger. “The story I heard from George is that he was working at Chesler, and this other guy was picking on a young kid. George said, ‘Why don’t you lay off. Pick on somebody your own size.’ When the guy up and said something nasty, George cleaned his brush, rinsed it out and put it on his taboret, got up, and smacked the guy. The guy went through several tables. And that was the end of the story.” When reminded that Will Eisner had witnessed the altercation and immortalized it in his novella The Dreamer, Cardy admitted that something like that could have happened before he was employed at Eisner & Iger or when he was absent. “Maybe Tuska hit Powell, too, I don’t know. He could have, because Powell was the type who would get into trouble.”

43 Kirby confrontation: Ronin Ro, Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution (New York: Bloomsbury, 2004), pp. 4–5; Will Eisner, The Dreamer, p. 26; Jean Depelley, “Will Eisner Speaks!,” Jack Kirby Collector #16.

43 “Look, we don’t want”: Ro, Tales to Astonish, p. 6. All other direct quotations in this passage are from this source.

44 “Jack was a little fellow”: Depelley, “Will Eisner Speaks!”

44 “I was kind of”: Interview with Stan Lee.

45 “I was upset”: Interview with Nick Cardy.

45 “We had a whole bunch”: Mark Evanier, “POV,” POV Online, posted September 1, 2000.

45 “I wrote them”: Joe Siegel, “An Interview with Will Eisner,” Spirit Magazine #2.

46 “We were all concerned”: Ibid.

46 “The creation of”: Danny Fingeroth, Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (New York: Continuum, 2007), p. 17.

47 Superman: Gerard Jones’s award-winning book, Men of Tomorrow, offers the best available history of Superman and its creators, the disputes over ownership, and early comics history in general. His account of the acceptance of Superman can be found on pp. 121–125.

47 Wheeler-Nicholson’s loss of his company: Harry Donenfeld’s hostile takeover of National Comics has been recorded, disputed, and debated to the point where all the specifics may never be known. While admitting that the Major had poor business sense, Wheeler-Nicholson’s descendants, quite understandably,