| Mort Weisinger | |
|---|---|
 Weisinger andDC Comics proofreaderGerda Gattel in 1975 | |
| Born | Mortimer Weisinger (1915-04-25)April 25, 1915 New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Died | May 7, 1978(1978-05-07) (aged 63) Great Neck, New York, U.S. |
| Area(s) | Writer, Editor |
Notable works | Action Comics Superman |
| Awards | Inkpot Award, 1978 Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2010 |
Mortimer Weisinger (/ˈwaɪzɪŋɡər/;[1] April 25, 1915[2] – May 7, 1978)[3] was an American magazine and comic book editor best known for editingDC Comics'Superman during the mid-1950s to 1960s, in theSilver Age of comic books. He also co-created such features asAquaman,Green Arrow,Johnny Quick, andthe original Vigilante, served as story editor for theAdventures of Superman television series, and compiled the often-revised paperback1001 Valuable Things You Can Get Free.
Weisinger was born in theWashington Heights section ofNew York City and was raised inthe Bronx, as the son ofAustrian Jewish parents. His father was a businessman in the garment trade. At 13, he was introduced to science fiction by means of a borrowed copy of the August 1928 issue ofAmazing Stories (featuringBuck Rogers andThe Skylark of Space). By 1930, Weisinger was active in some of the earliest SFfan clubs andfanzines, includingThe Planet. In 1931, Weisinger hosted a meeting of pioneer SF fan club "The Scienceers", which was attended by a youngJulius Schwartz, who recalled that the two became "very friendly... [and] got along well together."[4] A year later, Weisinger, Schwartz and Allen Glasser joined fellow-future professional editorForrest J. Ackerman in foundingThe Time Traveller, which they styled "Science Fiction's Only Fan Magazine". The claim was more than mere youthful bravado, according to SF historianSam Moskowitz, who described the 'zine as the first devoted entirely to science fiction. Drawing on information they had gleaned from writing letters to the SF magazines and authors of the day, the young fans published interviews with, and short pieces by, established SF writers, and in the process gained increasing familiarity with the personalities and situations of the genre in that era. The first issue featured "a one-page biography ofEdward 'Doc' Smith... [and] some news items."[4]
After high school, Weisinger attendedNew York University, where he worked as editor of the college's newspaper and magazine, but left before graduating. With Schwartz, he approached the editor ofAmazing Stories (T. Connor Sloane) and "sold his first story": 'The Price of Peace'.[4] In late 1934, Weisinger suggested that he and Schwartz "ought to go into the agency business," noting (according to Schwartz) that the duo had
"...got to know a lot of writers and artists and so on... [Mort explained] 'When a writer writes a story he lives out of town, and he mails it toAmazing Stories. If it's rejected, it has to go all the way back to California. So he sends it toWonder Stories. Then it goes back and forth, because they send it blind. They don't know what the editor wants. Now we talk to the editors, and he can find out if they want an interplanetary story of about six thousand words, or if they want this or that. Then we can relay this information to the writers. And of course we can become their agents and collect the usual fee of 10%.' "[4]
Schwartz concurred, and they formed the Solar Sales Service ("We always believed inalliteration," noted Schwartz[4]), the first literary agency to specialize in the related genres of SF, horror, and fantasy.Edmond Hamilton was the agency's first client, andOtto Binder soon followed.[4] Solar Sales eventually represented many prominent SF and fantasy writers, includingJohn Russell Fearn,Alfred Bester,Stanley Weinbaum,H. P. Lovecraft, andRay Bradbury. But while Schwartz continued the agency into the early 1940s, Weisinger moved on; he took a job with the Standard Magazine chain, publisher of a range ofpulp magazines. Standard had acquired writer-publisherHugo Gernsback's defunctWonder Stories and added it to Standard series of "Thrilling" publications (Thrilling Detective,Thrilling Western, and others). Weisinger became the editor ofThrilling Wonder Stories,[5] and bought stories by Hamilton and others from his former partner Schwartz. Weisinger was soon editing a range of other pulps by Standard, includingStartling Stories andCaptain Future, and "was in charge of no fewer than 40 titles" by 1940.[5]
In March 1941, Weisinger moved from Standard Magazines toNational Periodicals (laterDC Comics) primarily as editor of theSuperman andBatman titles.[5] Among his earliest jobs, however, was the task of "dream[ing] up some new characters" – these resulted in the line-up ofMore Fun Comics #73, and took the form ofAquaman,Green Arrow,Johnny Quick andVigilante.[5] Weisinger's fledgling career was soon interrupted when he was conscripted in 1942,[6] and he served as asergeant in Special Services. Stationed atYale (and rooming withBroderick Crawford andWilliam Holden), he wrote scripts for aU.S. Army "radio show called 'I Sustain the Wings' " in New York City.[5]
He met and married (Sept. 27, 1943) his wife, the former Thelma Rudnick. They had two children, a daughter, Joyce, and son, Hendrie.
Weisinger returned to his job at National after his discharge from military service in 1946, and resumed his editorship of the Superman comics, the Batman titles and others. His tenure was marked by the introduction of a variety of new concepts and supporting characters, includingSupergirl,Krypto the Superdog, thePhantom Zone, the bottle city ofKandor, theLegion of Super-Heroes, and a variety of types ofkryptonite. Attempting to rationalize Superman's powers, it was under Weisinger's watch that the "concept that in a world circling a yellow sun [as opposed to Krypton's red sun] his [Superman's] powers are multiplied" came to be introduced to the Superman mythology.[5]
Realizing that "Batman was my favorite [character]," Weisinger realised that the crucial difference was that "Batman can get hurt."[5] In order to better allow the reader to identify with the invulnerable Man of Steel, Weisinger frequently featured stories in which "Superman lost his powers and had to survive on his natural wits."[5] Pitted against Superman's wits wasLois Lane, and under Weisinger's editorship stories in which she sought to prove that Superman was Clark Kent abounded.
Weisinger "enjoyed surprising the readers," and to that end introduced a number of "live personalities... real people" into the comics, includingCandid Camera'sAllen Funt,This Is Your Life'sRalph Edwards,Steve Allen,Ann Blyth andPat Boone among others.[5] Weisinger was particularly "proud of having dreamed up the "imaginary story" gimmick to motivate otherwise impossible stories," (non-canonical 'what if...?' scenarios not bound to series or character continuity, timeframe or logic), and for "having conceived the idea of DC's first giant anthology - The Superman Annual."[5]
Weisinger "eventually gave up editorship of Batman and many of the other magazines and concentrated on the #1 superhero," both in the comics and elsewhere.[5] In the early 1950s, he was "called out to California byWhitney Ellsworth . . . to work as story editor for theSuperman TV series."[5] Weisinger recalled in 1975 about this experience that
On the way out to the coast, we sat in a roomette on a train with a tape recorder and plotted about fifteen stories for the series. I metGeorge Reeves, the actor who played Superman and was one helluva nice guy – very, very unaffected. The amazing thing was that when you met Reeves you said, 'My lord, it's Clark Kent!' It was like seeing Clark step out of the comic pages into three dimensions.[5]
Through Weisinger's previous "experience with television," Reeves landed "aguest star spot, "Big Red S" and all, on theI Love Lucy show."[5]
Weisinger's influences on up-and-coming writers in SF and comics also extended, by these means, to television.Jackson Gillis was shepherded from his work onThe Adventures of Superman toPerry Mason andColumbo (alongside many, many other credits).[5] Weisinger also highlightsDavid Chantler,William Woolfolk andLeigh Brackett as "examples of proteges and associates who have surpassed him in term of success."[5]
Weisinger was sole editor of all of the Superman titles from 1958 until his retirement from comics in 1970.[7]
Many of Weisinger's ideas came from talking to kids in his neighborhood, asking them what they wanted to see, and then attempting to riff on those ideas. Such talks inspired him to create theLois Lane andJimmy Olsen spin-off titles "over a lot of opposition" from the management who "protested that the characters weren't strong enough."[5] Weisinger later bought a story fromJim Shooter while unaware of the writer's age,[8] and hired him for a popular run on "TheLegion of Super-Heroes" even after discovering that he was only 14 years old.
Weisinger encouraged a staticpicture book style of illustration in his stories,[citation needed] and was known for reusing previously published stories as new story ideas. A noted example of this is a 1950s story featuring Superman encountering an alien being he thought might have been his long-lost brother; this was reused in the early 1960s as aSuperboy story introducingMon-El.[9]
Over time, Weisinger found himself growing disenchanted, and even embarrassed to reveal his primary job, saying "When people asked me what I did for a living, I would suppress the fact that I was editing Superman. I'd tell people that I wrote forCollier's orThe Saturday Evening Post."[5] He recalls that he attempted to get himself removed from his editorial position by "asking for bigger and bigger raises," but instead found his demands met – even to the extent that he was given "generous stock options" and "made a vice president of public relations for the company."[5] He did eventually leave, and bought himself a whiteCadillac to "bolster my ego."[5]
Weisinger was criticized by some for having amicromanaging attitude and a heavy-handed, overbearing treatment of his writers and artists. He was well known for his abusive treatment of the DC employees. Indeed, his son also confirms he was abusive to restaurant waiters as well.[10][11][12] Criticism has also been leveled at Weisinger for quashing creativity by dictating storylines.Jim Shooter, who wrote for years under his editorship, praised Weisinger's "rules" for writing comics but criticized his rigid adherence to them: ". . . Mort’s rulesalways worked, story-mechanics-wise. Easy, idiot-proof, safe. Trying things that explored the frontiers beyond the confines of Mort’s rules was tricky—fraught with opportunities to fail—but if you were daring, if you had the necessary depth of understanding and the skills, you could do wonderful things."[emphasis in original][13] Weisinger has commented, "People have always accused me of being an egomaniac as an editor because I always gave the writers my own plots. I did that for a reason. If I asked a writer to bring in his own plots, and he spent a weekend on four of them, and I didn't like any of the four, then he'swasted a whole weekend. . . . . The least I could do was to think of a plot for the writer and if he liked it – I'd never force it down his throat – we'd kick it around and evolve a story."[5]
One concept Weisinger brought to comics from the pulps was creating a story "around a pre-drawn cover," a concept taken up across the industry, most notably by colleague Julius Schwartz.[5] During Weisinger's reign, the Superman comics maintained a reasonably tight internal continuity, but related little to the rest of theDC Universe. Weisinger was succeeded in 1970 by his childhood friend and longtime colleagueJulius Schwartz. Weisinger was later immortalized within the Superman comics "as a bust in Clark Kent's apartment."[5]
In addition to his SF agency and extensive editorial work for DC Comics, Weisinger found time – particularly after his retirement from DC – to write a considerable number of articles for a wide variety of magazines. Weisinger was reported, in 1975, as having "had articles inThe Journal of the AMA,Reader's Digest,Collier's,The Saturday Evening Post... [and]Parade."[5] His articles ranged from one on theComics Code forBetter Homes and Gardens to an article entitled "How Ralph Edwards Fools 'Em" for which he "accompanied Edwards on severalThis Is Your Life escapades to get the story of how the clever impresario suckered the celebrities whom he was to honor on his popular '50s show."[5]
Weisinger occasionally contributed articles to the writers' magazines –Writer's Digest,The Author & Journalist, etc. – from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Weisinger had a particular interest inbeauty contests, writing an article forParade on "why certain finalists in theMiss America pageant can never win the crown," as well as a "best-selling novel" entitledThe Contest (published in hardback by World, and in paperback byNew American Library).[5] Weisinger had once been a "judge in a preliminary Miss America contest," through which he "learned the inside story," later travelling to Europe with the then-"world-famous host of the real-life contest," a friend of Weisinger's at the time who refused to talk to him again after reading the resulting novel.[5] For the author, however,The Contest netted a $125,000 movie option and "printings in several foreign languages."[5]
Weisinger's best known book was "a compendium of freebies available to anyone" entitled1001 Valuable Things You Can Get For Free, first published in 1955 and which (as of 1975) had "gone through 41 paperback printings and sold over three million copies."[5] Weisinger's book was praised byAbbie Hoffman inSteal This Book, and earned its author a place in "Who's Who".[5]
Weisinger lived for much of his life inGreat Neck, New York, and stayed there until his death from a heart attack. In 1985, he was posthumously named as one of the honorees by DC Comics in the company's 50th anniversary publicationFifty Who Made DC Great.[14]
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