Number 746


Mr. Nodel and Mr. Norman


Don Norman, who did these well-illustrated strips for Web of Horror #1, in 1969, was actually artist Norman Nodel. Nodel, who had an elegant pen line, had a long career in comics beginning in the Golden Age. He was at the height of his illustrative abilities with Classics Illustrated #167, Faust.

Here are a couple of pages of Faust, from the original art I found on the internet.


According to the short Lambiek bio, he also did work under the Don Norman name in Creepy and Eerie, as well as at Charlton under his Nodel name. Norman Nodel was yet another pseudonym. He was born Nochem Yeshaya. The last ten years of his life were spent illustrating books and magazines for Jewish children. As the Lambiek bio also says, he worked up until the last day of his life, which was in February, 2000, at age 78.

Web Of Horror was a short-lived Creepy imitation from Major Magazines, which also published Cracked. During Web's three issues there was early work by young artists like Bernie Wrightson, Ralph Reese, and Mike Kaluta, among others, as well as by comic book veterans like Syd Shores and Nodel.

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Number 125


Toni Gay by Norman Nodel


Tony Gay? Butch Dykeman? Say, is somebody kidding with these names? I don't know for sure, but there they are, from this early 1950s story from a comic book called Popular Teenagers. Did those names have the same meanings as we might give them 55 years or so after the comic was published? That I also don't know…although I'm guessing the scriptwriter might have hung out with a hip crowd who used those words to describe a certain group of people years before the words themselves passed into popular usage.

We'll never know because the scriptwriter is unknown. The editor, L. B. Cole, and the artist, Norman Nodel, are all dead. With no way to prove it I think the names might have been a way of playing with the reader.

Toni Gay, in looks--the Bettie Page hairstyle gives it away--and name, seems to be related to an earlier L. B. Cole, creation, Toni Gayle, who appeared in a crime comic called Guns Against Gangsters. A Toni Gayle story appeared in Pappy's #22.

Norman Nodel (real name Nochem Yeshaya) was a very fine illustrator who worked for publisher/editor L. B. Cole for years on various projects, including comics, magazines, and is probably best known for his work in Classics Illustrated. Cole had very high regard for Nodel, and had this to say about him in an article by E. B. Boatner in The Comic Book Price Guide #11, 1980: "Norman Nodel was another extremely talented and much under-publicized illustrator who worked with me at Star [Comics] in 1951. He also illustrated for me at Classics and Dell and on World Rod and Gun [Magazine]. He had an opera quality voice and the God-given hands for illustrating--one of the nicest people you'll ever meet."

Cole was a canny publisher who used reprints and recycled material. The source for this Toni Gay story is Popular Teenagers #6, published under the Accepted Publications banner.

Click on the thumbnails for full-size images.

 

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Number 124


Norman Nodel's The Great Houdini


Illustrator Norman Nodel is most familiar for his work in Classics Illustrated during the 1950s and '60s. He had worked for Classics editor, L. B. Cole, for several years on various types of publications. I think of Nodel as an illustrator because his work for Classics Illustrated had qualities more of illustration--beautiful penwork and somewhat static figure drawing--than they did of comic art. I think the best example of his work is in Classics Illustrated #167, Faust By Goethe.

"The Great Houdini" was a biographical comic book story published by Classics Illustrated in a series called The World Around Us. It was in issue #25, September 1960, titled The Illustrated Story Of Magic.

Recently there's been a renewal of interest in Houdini's death. Was he poisoned or did he die of a ruptured appendix caused by a blow to the stomach as has always been claimed? This World Around Us story mostly focuses on Houdini's career, but doesn't stay away from the reported manner of his death, although it's told in the same matter-of-fact style as the rest of the 11-page biography.

Click on thumbnails for full-size images.

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