©2020 Ken Quattro Definitions: Nikkei are Japanese immigrants of any generation. Nisei are second generation Japanese immigrants who are citizens of another country. Sansei are the third generation of Japanese immigrants who are citizens of another country. __________________________________ Most American comic strip fans opening their newspaper on Monday, June 28, 1943, and reading the Superman strip for that day, would…

©2020 Ken Quattro PROLOGUE: Comic book history has mostly been viewed from the perspective of the male reader. As a consequence, male comic fans, (and I include myself) have a blind spot. If a comic or a genre falls outside our realm of interest, we discount it. Romance comics rank at the top of that ignoble list. The artists who…

©2020 Ken Quattro Jerry Siegel’s letter to Josette Frank was cordial, friendly and personal.   “Hope Stanley was pleasantly surprised by the acceptance of his synopsis. The check which I sent to DC to be forwarded to him has probably already reached him.” [Jerry Siegel letter to Josette Frank, June 1, 1942]   Although Siegel had gotten the name of…

©2020 Ken Quattro Cincinnati is one of those cities pollsters love to cite as representative of America as a whole. It sits at the bottom end of Ohio, perhaps the most mid-American of all states. While nominally a northern town, it is separated from Kentucky only by the Ohio River, and shares not only its southern weather, but many of…

©2020 Ken Quattro   Aurora Plastics products comprised a major part of my childhood. I had an Aurora N-guage model trains set, and Aurora slot car set, and I built a ridiculous number of Aurora models during my youth. Model planes, model cars, model ships. When they came out with models based upon historic sporting events–Babe Ruth hitting his 60th…

©2019 Ken Quattro The vast majority of people reading the Oct. 25, 1940, issue of FAMILY CIRCLE magazine had no way of knowing that it was a setup. The featured interview with Dr. William M. Marston, conducted by “Olive Richard,” was in reality, an interview between a husband and one of his two co-habiting wives. “Olive Richard” was the pseudonym…

©2019 Ken Quattro New Yorkers like to claim that it’s their water that makes their pizza and bagels taste better than anywhere else. I’m not about to get into that debate, but I will say there must be something in their environment that produces comic creators. Of course, the proximity of the comic book industry to the NYC schools has…

©2019 Ken Quattro It was 1941 and the debate about the effects of comic books on the youth of America had been raging in earnest for over a year. Sterling North’s article, “A National Disgrace,” published on May 8, 1940 had jump-started the discussion and the comic book industry had been on the defensive ever since. Within the comic book…

©2019 Ken Quattro The details were purposely oblique, in keeping with military protocol. “…now at the Hotel Astor is Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who was in command of the mounted detachment of the A.E. In G., who will go from New York to Washington to ask for a leave while he returns to Sweden for his wife, who has a Swedish…

©2019 Ken Quattro As with all soldiers, Second Lieut. Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson spent his first months in the Army in training. Upon finishing his instruction at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, he was temporarily assigned to Fort Meade in South Dakota to await the return of the Second Cavalry from the Philippines. He finally joined up with them when they arrived at…