| Arnold Drake | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1924-03-01)March 1, 1924 United States |
| Died | March 12, 2007(2007-03-12) (aged 83) New York City, United States |
| Area | Writer |
Notable works | Deadman Doom Patrol Guardians of the Galaxy |
| Awards |
|
Arnold Drake (March 1, 1924 – March 12, 2007)[1][2] was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating theDC Comics charactersDeadman and theDoom Patrol, and theMarvel Comics characters theGuardians of the Galaxy,Havok andPolaris, among others.
Drake was posthumously inducted into theWill Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.
Arnold Drake was the third child of Max Druckman, aManhattan furniture dealer who died in June 1966 at his home inForest Hills, Queens, New York City,[3] and Pearl Cohen. His eldest brother,Ervin Drake, born Ervin Maurice Druckman, and the middle brother, Milton, both became notable songwriters.[4] His family wasJewish.[5]
At age 12, Drake contractedscarlet fever, confining him to bed for a year, a time he spent drawing his owncomic strip creations.[2] Years later, turning to writing, he studied journalism at theUniversity of Missouri and later atNew York University.[2]
Collaborating with co-writerLeslie Waller (together using the pseudonymDrake Waller) and artistMatt Baker, Drake wroteSt. John Publications' pioneeringIt Rhymes with Lust, a proto-graphic novel comics magazine sold on newsstands in 1950.[6] At some unspecified point before or after this, he met a neighbor of one of his brothers:Bob Kane, the co-creator ofBatman for one ofDC Comics' precursor companies. After collaborating with Drake on some projects, Kane introduced Drake to editors at DC.[2]
Comic books during this time did not routinely list creator credits; historians have, however, pinpointed Drake's first DC work as the first seven pages of the eight-page Batman story "The Return of Mister Future" inBatman #98 (March 1956).[7] Soon, Drake was scripting stories across a variety of genres for DC, from adventure drama ("Fireman Farrell" inShowcase #1, April 1956, drawn byJohn Prentice) to humor (1960s stories for the company'sBob Hope andJerry Lewis comics) tomystery andsupernatural fiction (the anthology seriesHouse of Mystery) to science fiction (the feature "Tommy Tomorrow" inWorld's Finest Comics #102, June 1959, and elsewhere, and the feature "Space Ranger" in several issues ofTales of the Unexpected, to give a sampling).[8]
In 1962, Drake and his friend,Bob Haney discovered the product of a small company distributed byNational Periodical Publications'Independent News,Marvel Comics, and were impressed by its bold new quality. However, when the pair confronted National's publisher,Irwin Donenfeld, about the new competition, they were frustrated by his curt dismissal of the rival, citing their current large revenues.[9]
In 1963, as Drake had warned, Marvel's increasingly profitable circulation increased enough to force Independent News to allow it to publish more titles.[10] Meanwhile, editorMurray Boltinoff asked Drake to develop a feature to run in the anthology seriesMy Greatest Adventure.[11] Given the assignment on a Friday with a script due that Tuesday, and inspired to emulate Marvel's idea for superheroes with more character depth,[12] Drake conceived of what would become the superhero team theDoom Patrol, and turned to another DC writer,Bob Haney, to co-plot and co-script the first adventure.[13] ArtistBruno Premiani designed the characters.[13][14] Drake would subsequently script every Doom Patrol story, with Premiani drawing virtually all, from the team's debut inMy Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963) through the series retitling toThe Doom Patrol with issue #86 (March 1964),[15] to the final issue of its initial run, #121 (Oct. 1968).[16] Drake andBob Brown introducedBeast Boy inDoom Patrol #99 (Nov. 1965).[17]
Meanwhile, Drake noticed that Marvel Comics published a series of their own,The Uncanny X-Men, barely a few months later that seemed to mirror his own series' concepts in many respects. These included the concept of a wheelchair-using mentor leading a team of outcast superheroes who often clashed with a team of villains called theBrotherhood of Evil Mutants that seemed too close to the Doom Patrol's own enemies, theBrotherhood of Evil. However, Drake found no support for his complaints from National's editorial staff until Drake was forced to concede at that time that it could have been a coincidence.[18] The Doom Patrol bears a strong resemblance to Marvel's older series about another super-powered quartet, theFantastic Four: Elasti-Girl of the Doom Patrol has abilities similar to Mr. Fantastic, Negative Man's powers are similar to those of the Human Torch, Robot-Man is like the Thing (an extraordinarily strong man bitter about being trapped in a freakish body), and the Chief is behind the scenes as the Invisible Girl is invisible.[19][20]
Premiani and Boltinoff appeared as themselves in the final story, discussing the impending demise of the team, but Drake, who had included himself in the script as well, did not. In 1981, Drake said that DC publisherIrwin Donenfeld had ordered him removed from the story because Drake by then had left to work at rivalMarvel Comics, following a dispute with Donenfeld over Drake's DC page rate. Drake said he consented to complete the script because of his friendship with Boltinoff.[21] Comics historianMark Evanier believes that, additionally, Drake, among others, was "ousted" for being "a loud voice in a writers' revolt during which several of the firm's longtime freelancers were demanding health insurance, reprint fees, and better pay."[2]
By this time, Drake and artistWin Mortimer had co-created DC's "Stanley and His Monster", a whimsical feature about a 6-year-old boy and his large, tusked, pink-furred and hardly ferocious "pet", which debuted in thetalking animal comicThe Fox and the Crow #95 (Jan. 1966). One comics historian hailed the feature as a precursor ofBill Watterson'scomic stripCalvin & Hobbes, "where a boy keeps company with a marvelous being, the very existence of which is unknown by any of his more worldly associates. Its most direct antecedent in comics is probablyCrockett Johnson'sBarnaby, where parents repeatedly interact with their son's supernatural friend even while denying the possibility of that being's existence."[22] Drake wrote the revival of theQuality Comics characterPlastic Man in 1966.[23] He wrote several stories forThe Adventures of Jerry Lewis including issue #101 (July–Aug. 1967) which featured artistNeal Adams' first full-length story for DC.[24]
With artistCarmine Infantino, Drake had co-createdDeadman, a murderedcircustrapeze artist whose ghost traverses the country seeking the unknown man who killed him.[11] Deadman's first appearance inStrange Adventures #205[25] included the first known depiction ofnarcotics in a story approved by theComics Code Authority.[26] Drake additionally scripted the following issue's story, miscredited in several reprints as written by Jack Miller.[27] The character would become a mainstay of theDC Universe well into the 2000s.
Other work for DC during this time included stories of the adventuring quartet theChallengers of the Unknown.[8]
Letterer Clem Robins, who worked with him, wrote that Drake
...had it all: economy, pacing, a sure ear for dialogue, humor, and the ability to invent characters you believed in and cared about. ... [In his] long run on DC'sJerry Lewis book, ... he got to demonstrate his macabre sense of humor. There was one issue (#95) that parodied the [P.O.W. prison-break movie]The Great Escape, in which a summer camp's inmates attempt to bust out from under the watchful eye of the head counselor, Uncle Hal, who dressed in aGestapo uniform and whose sexuality was extremely questionable. It was all pretty risqué for 1966, but it was almost unbelievably funny.[28]
In the late 1960s, Drake freelanced forMarvel Comics, beginning withCaptain Savage #5 (Aug. 1968), starring aWorld War IIMarines squadron; he would additionally script some later issues of that series, plus a single issue of the WWII seriesSgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Drake wrote the run ofX-Men #47–54 (Aug. 1968 – March 1969, co-writing his initial issue withGary Friedrich), which included two rare circumstances of stories drawn but not written by the noted comics writer-artistJim Steranko. Drake introduced several new characters to the series, includingMesmero,[29]Lorna Dane,[30] andHavok.[31] Drake as well wrote issues of the space-aliensuperheroCaptain Marvel, stories for the superhero satire comicNot Brand Echh, and a story of the jungle lordKa-Zar. InMarvel Super-Heroes #18 (Jan. 1969), Drake and editorStan Lee co-created theGuardians of the Galaxy,[32][33] a far-future team offreedom fighters gathered from different planets of theSolar System. The characters would star in a 62-issue series in the 1990s, and inspire anew team of that name in the 2000s.
By mid-1969, however, Drake had left Marvel. His next new comics work to be published was a supernatural anthology story inGold Key Comics'Grimm's Ghost Stories #1 (Jan. 1972) – the first of many stories for that company, including for the seriesBoris Karloff Tales of Mystery, and the licensed TV-series titlesDark Shadows,Star Trek, andTwilight Zone, among others.[8] His Gold Key work included what comics historianMark Evanier called "a particularly long and delightful stint onLittle Lulu",[2] beginning with issue #232 (May 1976). In 1973, Drake began freelancing again for DC occasionally, writing stories for series as varied asWeird War Tales andSupergirl.[8] Beginning in 1977, Drake contributed stories to several issues ofCharlton Comics' black-and-whitesatirical-humor magazine,Sick.
Drake contributed to all four issues ofStarstream, a 68-page anthology series with cardboard covers that adapted classic science-fiction stories. There he would also use thepen names H. E. Arloff, Pamela Eckard and H. Dawes.[34] That series was published byWhitman Comics, the rights-holder to several properties it licensed to Gold Key, and Drake would continue with Whitman when it began distributingLittle Lulu and its other properties itself in 1980.[8] By 1981, Drake was executive director of the Veteran's Bedside Network, an organization through which actors, actresses, andsound engineers would perform scripted material to entertain patients inVeterans Administration hospitals in the New York City area.[35]
Drake's last known original comics story for nearly 20 years was the six-page "G.I. Samurai" in DC'sG.I. Combat #276 (April 1985). He resurfaced two decades later with the 12-page "Tripping Out!", illustrated byLuis Dominguez, in the mature-audience comics magazineHeavy Metal vol. 26, #6 (Jan. 2003). This story was accompanied by a one-page biography of the two creators.[8]
Drake wrote the foreword, introduction, preface and afterword of DC's 2002 hardcover reprint collectionThe Doom Patrol Archives #1. He was also working on a new Doom Patrolgraphic novel, a prequel story, at the time of his death.[36] He also wrote a five-page afterword, "The Graphic Novel – And How It Grew", inDark Horse Books' March 2007 reprint of his and collaboratorsLeslie Waller andMatt Baker's pioneering, 1950 proto-graphic novelIt Rhymes with Lust.[8]
Drake collapsed days after having attended the February 23–25, 2007New York Comic Book Convention, where he had had, organizers said, "a touch of pneumonia".[2] Admitted to New York City'sCabrini Medical Center, he died of pneumonia and septic shock.[37]
Drake received several awards for his comics work, including the 1967 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story ("Who's Been Lying in My Grave?" inStrange Adventures #205 withCarmine Infantino), the 1967 Alley Award for Best New Strip ("Deadman" with Carmine Infantino inStrange Adventures),[38] and a 1999Inkpot Award.[39]
In 2005, Drake received the first annualBill Finger Award for Excellence in Comics Writing.[40] In 2008, he was posthumously inducted into theWill Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.[41]
Drake wrote the screenplay for the 1964horror filmThe Flesh Eaters, which he produced.[42] He wrote the screenplay forWho Killed Teddy Bear, a 1965 release starringSal Mineo andJuliet Prowse, as well as the title song for the 1970 filmIls sont nus (translated into English under the titles 'We Are All Naked' and 'Days of Desire').[43][44]
Drake wrote lyrics for musicals, co-writing the book forG&S: or, The Oils of Araby (1980), with his brother, songwriter-composerErvin Drake.[45]
{{cite book}}:|first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Writers Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, joined by artist Bruno Premiani, had an objective of their own in producing the first-ever adventures of the Doom Patrol: to create a super-hero title for editor Murray Boltinoff amid a fledgling period for anthology comics such asMy Greatest Adventure.
{{cite book}}:|first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)One comic that I know preceded the 1971 amendment [to the Comics Code] wasStrange Adventures #205, the first appearance of Deadman!...a clear reference to narcotics, over THREE YEARS before Marvel Comics would have to go without the Comics Code to do an issue about drugs.
Mesmero was a mutant super-hypnotist.
{{cite book}}:|first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Preceded by | Doom Patrol writer 1963–1968 | Succeeded by Paul Kupperberg (in 1977) |
| Preceded by | (Uncanny) X-Men writer 1968–1969 | Succeeded by |
