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Touring campuses, promoting comics: DC did it first
J David Spurlock
20 May 2017
For DC, INFANTINO TOURED UNIVERSITIES, RADIO, TV, CONVENTIONS & NEWSPAPERS including the MAY 2, 1971 NEW YORK TIMES article 'Shazam! Here Comes Captain Relevant'. Unlike Stan, Carmine was more interested in images of DC comics running than a photo of himself. Carmine scooped Marvel by securing for DC, both THE COVER (concept & layout by Infantino, finished art by Kubert) and the article TITLE which incorporated DC's "SHAZAM." As well as playing up DC's flagship social relevency title Green Lantern by O'Neil and Adams, The TIMES item said, "THE artist who has produced the most innovative work for Infantino is 53 year old Jack Kirby ... Infantino has been asked up to YALE [University] to talk about Kirby's new books, and to BROWN [University], for the new course in Comparative Comics. Students in Comp. Comics will doubtless relish Kirby's toying with words like 'gravity' (and other mild Joycean puns sprinkled elsewhere) to suggest elements of his parable of culture vs. counterculture. Suffice it to say here that the Forever People are from New Genesis, where the land is eternally green and children frolic in joy, and their enemy is Darkseid, who serves 'holocaust and death.' Infantino adds: 'The kids at Yale think Kirby's new books are more tuned in to them than any other media. They're reading transcripts from ‘New Gods' over their radio station. The Kirby books are a conscious attempt to show what things look like when you're out where the kids are. The col lages, the influence of the drug culture. We're showing them basically what they're seeing. We're turning into what they're experiencing.'" [Kirby & Infantino photo from Disneyland Con 1971 with Evanier in back]
Chris Tolworthy: That can't be Evanier. He has hair! :)
Patrick Ford: Mark Evanier: Babe magnet.
Patrick Ford: As I recall Infantino was also interviewed by TIME magazine around this time. I'm convinced Stan Lee got news of the GL-GA drug story and cut in line to get the SPIDER-MAN story out first.
There are strong indications that the Department of Health Education and Welfare never asked Lee to help in the war against drugs. The most obvious evidence being there was no mention by Lee of the letter at the time of publication. It is very difficult to believe that if Lee had received such a letter he would not have trumpeted the letter loudly in the comic books the month of publication.
Further in 1971 Martin Goodman's son was on the CCA board. In fact the CCA was hardly an independent organization it was set up and run by the major comic book publishers. In my opinion the "rejection" by the code and running the issues without the CCA seal was nothing but a publicity stunt.
Patrick Ford: You can see here who ran the CCA in 1971. It was: Archie, DC, Charlton, Harvey and Marvel.
Patrick Ford:
Patrick Ford: As with many of Lee's "stories" it seems the claim there was a letter from the Department of Health Education and Welfare came years later. I am pretty sure the first mention was in the Les Daniels book from 1993.
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