'U.S.S. Stevens'.
Sam Glanzman was an American comic book artist, writer and inker, who began his career in the 1940s, during the "Golden Age of Comic Books". He is best-known for his war comics for Charlton, Dell Publishing, DC Comics and Marvel. Glanzman's World War II stories stood out for their realism and originality, especially the feature 'The Lonely War of Willy Schultz' (1968-1970), and his semi-autobiographical experiences on board of the U.S.S. Stevens, as told in the 'U.S.S. Stevens' series. He was among the first U.S. comic artists to use comic books for autobiographical purposes. Glanzman also broke new ground by addressing issues like homosexuality, racism and discrimination in an era when this was all still a taboo. Glanzman was a mainstay in the American comic book industry until the 1990s, while in the 21st century he also made webcomics. Apart from writing and penciling, he also inked his own stories, because he considered "pencils almost like stick figures".
'Flyman' from Spitfire Comics #1.
Early life
Samuel Joseph Glanzman was born in 1924 in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in Virginia and Long Island. His uncle and mother were artists, and his two brothers also chose an artistic profession. Louis "Lew" Glanzman also worked as a comic book artist and painter, while Davis Charles Glanzman worked in the production department at Charlton. Sam Glanzman had no formal art training. As a child, he learned drawing by copying Hal Foster and pulp illustrators.
Superhero comics
As early as 1939, Glanzman started working on comic books through the packager Funnies, Inc. Like most of the early comic book artists, his work initially dealt with the upcoming superhero genre. In 1940 and 1941, he drew stories with 'Aman the Amazing-Man', a superhero created by Bill Everett, for Centaur Publishing's 'Amazing Man Comics'. At Harvey Comics, he created 'Fly-Man' in the comic book 'Spitfire Comics' (1941). Further work includes a story with the 'Human Meteor' for 'Champ Comics' and contributions to 'Hello Pal Comics' and 'Green Hornet Comics', all in 1943.
War comics
The first of Sam Glanzman's many war stories ran in 1943 in Harvey's 'All-New Short Story Comics'. He additionally wrote and drew biographical comic stories about real-life war heroes like American fleet admiral William F. Halsey and United States Coast Guard Commandant Russel R. Waesche for 'Real Heroes' by Parents' Magazine Press. During this period, he regularly worked with his brother Lew Glanzman.
'Newsboy Hero', New Heroic Comics #59 (March 1950).
World War II & post-war graphic career
During World War II, Glanzman served in the Pacific on the destroyer U.S.S. Stevens. The experience gave him enough inspiration for dozens of future comics, even though he didn't return to drawing directly until after his discharge. Back in civilian life in 1946, he first worked in cabinet shops, lumber mills and boat yards. Glanzman eventually found employment with Republic Aviation in Farmingdale on Long Island, New York, where he installed machine guns on military jets. He slowly returned to comic books, contributing a couple of stories to the Fox Comics title 'Western Frontier' in 1948. He then returned to drawing "Heroic True Life Stories", this time for Eastern Color's 'New Heroic Comics' (1949-1954). He additionally made appearances in Gilberton's educational title 'The World Around Us' (1958-1960), and tried his luck in children's book illustration, although Glanzman continued to spend most of the 1950s working for Republic Aviation.
'The Lonely War of Willy Schultz' (Fightin' Army #76, October 1967).
War comics and other work for Charlton
Between 1958 and 1961, Glanzman was a regular collaborator with Charlton Comics. He drew a great many stories for the company's war titles, which included 'Army Attack', 'Attack', 'Battlefield Action', 'Fightin' Army', 'Fightin' Air Force', 'Fightin' Marines', 'Submarine Attack', 'U.S. Air Force Comics' and 'War at Sea'. The stories, often written by Joe Gill, were characterized by their grittiness, authenticity and sense of detail, especially in the ships, aircrafts and weaponry. In 1961, Glanzman moved over to Dell Comics, but continued to contribute stories to Charlton throughout the decade. Signing with "SJG", he worked on new war stories for 'Attack' and 'Army War Heroes', for which he created the feature 'The Iron Corporal' with Willi Franz (1967-1970).
Glanzman and Franz' most notable collaboration was the feature 'The Lonely War of Willy Schultz', which appeared in 'Fightin' Army' from 1967 to 1970. Despite being set in World War II, it reflected the anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam era. The main character was a conflicted German-American US Army captain, battling with his loyalties. It was a far step away from the general heroic tone of war comics. Sam Glanzman's war stories continued to be reprinted by Charlton until well into the 1980s.
'Hercules' (1967).
Glanzman's 1960s Charlton work further includes a comic book adaptation of the 1962 'Marco Polo' film, directed by Hugo Fregonese. Glanzman and writer Joe Gill also cooperated on adaptations of short stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs for Charlton's 'Jungle Tales of Tarzan' (1964-1965). They also delved into Greek mythology with thirteen issues of 'Hercules: Adventures of the Man-God' (1967-1969), of which the artwork was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement, psychedelia and Hieronymus Bosch.
'Combat' #12 (April-June 1964).
Dell Comics
Glanzman's work for Dell Publishing also mostly dealt with the war genre. He contributed to nearly all 40 issues of 'Combat' (1961-1973), as well as all eight issues of 'Air War Stories' (1965-1966) and all three of 'World War Stories' (1965). He also drew the comic books based on the TV war shows 'Tales of the Green Beret' (1967-1969) and 'Garrison's Gorillas' (1968-1969). In Dell's 'Four Color' series, he worked on adaptations of the movies 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' (1961), 'Lad: a Dog' (1962) and 'Hatari!' (1963), easily switching from underwater adventure to sentimental animal drama and safari action. He returned to the mysterious depths of the ocean with the science fiction comic book 'Voyage to the Deep', in which he showed a talent for drawing mysterious undersea creatures as well. Four issues were published between 1962 and 1964. For 'Flying Saucers', he drew comic strips based on "true stories" of UFO sightings (1967-1969).
'Kona' #9.
Kona
With Don Segall, Glanzman also created Dell's more campy hero 'Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle' (1962-1967). The stories were set on a lost world in the Pacific, where the present-day caveman Kona serves as protector of a stranded scientist and his family. Glanzman co-wrote and drew 21 issues full of dinosaurs, monsters and lost worlds. Apart from Segall, some plots were written by Paul S. Newman or the New York beatnik rabbi Lionel Ziprin. Glanzman also drew the comic book's back-up feature 'Anak'.
This Happened To Me
In addition to his work for comic books, Glanzman had a feature in Outdoor Life magazine, called 'This Happened To Me' (1967-1973), in which he illustrated stories sent in by readers.
'U.S.S. Stevens' story from Star Spangled War Stories #172 (August 1973).
U.S.S. Stevens
In 1969, Editor Joe Kubert placed Glanzman at DC Comics' war comic books department. Throughout the 1970s, he was a staple of anthology titles like 'Our Army at War', 'Star Spangled War Stories' and 'Weird War Tales' with his series about the 'U.S.S. Stevens' (1970-1977). The feature was based on his own experiences during World War II and completely written, penciled and inked by himself. Spanning at least 58 chapters, it is considered one of the greatest achievements in war comics, with each story being an exploration of one of the many facets of war. Glanzman also worked on back-up features like 'Battle Album' (1970-1978), 'All About' (1978-1982) and 'Warrior' (1970-1978), which all gave educational insight into the machinery, battlefields and key people of different wars in history. New 'U.S.S. Stevens' stories appeared in 'Sgt. Rock Special #1' (1992) and the 'Joe Kubert Presents' six-issue anthology limited series (2012-2013).
'The Haunted Tank' (G.I.Combat #178, May 1975).
The Haunted Tank
Glanzman additionally succeeded Russ Heath as the main artist of the feature 'The Haunted Tank' in 'G.I. Combat', and drew over 225 stories between 1972 and 1987. Most were written by Robert Kanigher, some by Archie Goodwin, while Dick Ayers participated in some of the artwork. 'The Haunted Tank' was a mix between war and supernatural stories, and centered around a M3 Stuart tank protected by the ghost of 19th-century Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart. Glanzman and Kanigher also cooperated on two issues of 'Sgt. Rock' in 1988. Other work for DC include contributions to some of the company's supernatural/mystery titles, like 'Ghosts' and 'House of Mystery', and installments of the back-up feature 'Wild Frontier' in 'Tomahawk' (1971-1972).
"A Sailor's Story 2: Winds, Dreams and Dragons" (Marvel, 1987).
Marvel Comics
In the second half of the 1980s, Glanzman wrote and drew more comic stories based on his own World War II experiences for Marvel Comics. These appeared under the title 'Of War and Peace: Tales by MAS' (1986) in the comic book 'Savage Tales', and even more explicitly in the graphic novels 'A Sailor's Story (1987) and 'A Sailor's Story 2: Winds, Dreams and Dragons' (1989). With writer Michael Palladino, he made stories for the title 'Semper Fi' (1988-1989), focusing on the US Marine Corps during various years of US history. He also provided the artwork for the 27th issue of 'The 'Nam' in 1989.
Later comic book career
In 1989, Glanzman contributed to Tim Truman's publishing company 4Winds, writing and drawing two sci-fi graphic albums featuring the Kona-like character 'Attu'. The character returned in the two issues of 'Fantastic Worlds' by Flashback Comics in 1995. Glanzman continued to work with Truman as his inker in the 1990s. They cooperated on three mini-series of the western comic 'Jonah Hex' (originally created by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga) for DC (1993, 1995, 1999), and on three issues of 'Turok, Dinosaur Hunter' (1994) for Acclaim Comics. He also inked Hearn Cho on three issues of 'Zorro' at Topps (1994). In the early 1990s, he drew a new 'Robin Hood' comic book called 'Thief of Sherwood' for the Canadian A-Plus label of Roger Broughton, but only one of the four completed issues was released (1991).
'West of the Dakotas'.
With writer Joe R. Lansdale, Glanzman contributed another war story to DC/Vertigo's 'Weird War Tales' #2 in 1997, and a horror-suspense story to 'Weird Western Tales' #2 in 2001. He also made contributions to the anthologies 'Streetwise' (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2000) and '9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember' (2002). In 1999, Glanzman and Lansdale's western graphic novel 'Red Range' was released by the small press label Mojo Press, dealing with the forgotten or ignored Black heroes of the Old West.
Webcomics
Already well into his late seventies, Glanzman turned to creating webcomics in the early 2000s. On Kirk Sivertsen's website comicstories.com, he published comics like the 19th century nautical adventure 'Apple Jack' and the Roman centurion series 'The Eagle', the latter a new collaboration with writer Willi Franz. Sivertsen also released some of Glanzman's comics in print, such as the western-frontier comic 'West of the Dakotas' (2002), written by James MacCormick.
"The Eagle".
Reprint series
In the period 1999-2001, Avalon Communications reprinted much of Glanzman's work for Charlton Comics in a number of mostly one-shot titles, including 'Hercules', 'Flyboys', 'Nam Tales', 'Star Combat Tales', 'Total War', and 'ACG Comics Presents Fire and Steel'. In 2014, editor Drew Ford launched a line of graphic novel reprints for Dover Publications. The collection started with Glanzman's autobiographical 'A Sailor's Story', which received praise from The New York Times. The next release, 'U.S.S. Stevens: The Collected Stories' (2016), was nominated for an Eisner Award in May 2017. Through his own imprint It's Alive! at IDW, Ford launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a color reprint of 'Red Range' in late 2016. The book was published in June 2017.
'Red Range'.
Legacy and influence
After a fall of which the injuries had required surgery, Sam Glanzman passed away on 12 July 2017. At age 92, he was the second-oldest comic book creator still writing and drawing newly published work, after Al Jaffee. Since June 2016, he had been working on one of Dave Sim's rejected horror stories from the 1970s, but production went very slow due to failing health. Although no household name among the general public, the modest Sam Glanzman had many fans within the industry, including Stephen R. Bissette, Kurt Busiek, Garth Ennis, Stan Lee, Paul Levitz, Jim Steranko, Tim Truman and Mark Waid.
Sam Glanzman.