Woody Gelman

Woody Gelman
Woody Gelman in 1972
Born	Woodrow Gelman 1915(1915) Brooklyn,New York City
Died	February 9, 1978(1978-02-09)(aged 62–63) Valley Stream, New York
Area(s)	Cartoonist,Publisher
Notable works	Nostalgia Press Popsicle Pete Topps

Woodrow Gelman(1915 – February 9, 1978) was a publisher, cartoonist, novelist and an artist-writer for both animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintagecomic stripsin quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks. As an editor and art director for two-and-a-half decades atTopps Chewing Gum,he introduced many innovations in trading cards and humor products.

Gelman was the co-creator ofPopsicle Peteand the co-creator ofBazooka Joefor Topps.He was also a co-creator ofMars Attacks,adapted into the 1996 film byTim Burton.

Born in Brooklyn, Gelman attended City College of New York,Cooper UnionandPratt Institutebefore signing on as an assistant animator, in-betweener and scripter withFleischer Studiosin 1939, continuing to write forFamous Studiosin 1946.

He is the uncle of the psychologistSusan Gelmanand the statisticianAndrew Gelman.

Comic books and advertising

Gelman was the creator and writer oftalking animalfeature "The Dodo and the Frog" forDC Comics.His comic book work from 1944 to 1954 includedNutsy Squirreland other talking animal comic books of the 1940s, includingFunny StuffandComic Cavalcade.He also wrote and drew the crime story, "The Kid from Brooklyn!", forHeroic Comics#32 (Sept. 1945).

In 1945, Gelman teamed with Ben Solomon to form a New York advertising art service, Solomon & Gelman, to create advertising campaigns involving cartoon characters, such as theirPopsicle Petemagazine and ads for the Popsicle company. Topps writer-editorLen Brownrecalled how the partnership led to Solomon and Gelman to sign on full-time with Topps:

Woody had a partner in his art business named Ben Solomon who was also out of animation. They both left Paramount about the same time and came back to New York and started the art service, which was called Solomon & Gelman. In fact, they published the boys series books, called Triple Nickel books. They sold for 15¢. Solomon became the art director at Topps, and Woody was the creative director... Actually, he left Paramount after he got involved with trying to unionize the animators and the studio got wind of it and fired whoever was involved. Paramount was down in Florida in those days, so he had moved down there. He came back to New York in 1944 or 1945 and opened a studio, doing art advertising. Popsicles used to feature a kind of Bazooka Joe character in their advertising, Popsicle Pete, and he was in a lot of their ads that were aimed at kids. I think Woody came up with the character. Later he got involved with Bazooka Joe. Through his art service, Woody was approached by various corporations for advertising work. Topps ultimately came to him, and the owner at that time was impressed with Woody and offered him a job. Woody closed down his art studio which he'd operated for seven or eight years... He did a lot of different stuff. Those were just the two that I remember, Bazooka Joe and Popsicle Pete, because they were cartoon characters, but the studio produced a lot of stuff, basic product artwork for advertisements.

Topps

In the autumn of 1951, Gelman andSy Berger,then a 28-year-oldWorld War IIveteran, designed the 1952Toppsbaseball cardset on the kitchen table of Berger's apartment on Alabama Avenue in theBroadway Junctionsection ofBrooklyn.

From 1953 to the late 1970s, Gelman headed Topps's Product Development Department, working with a staff that included associate creative director Len Brown, gagwriterStan Hart,visual concept creator Larry Reilly, writer-cartoonistsArt SpiegelmanandBhob Stewart,and designer-cartoonist Rick Varesi. Gelman assigned work to numerous freelance cartoonists, includingJack Davis,Mort Drucker,Jay Lynch,Bob Powell,John Severin,Tom Sutton,Basil WolvertonandWally Wood.Beginning in 1967, Gelman supervisedWacky Packages,one of the biggest fads of the 1970s, and he was responsible for devising many other Topps cards, stickers, posters and humor products over decades.

Triple Nickel Books

Gelman designed and publishedThe Picture History ofCharlie Chaplinin 1965

In 1955, the firm of Solomon & Gelman published a series of 64-page juvenile novelettes. Because they retailed for 15 cents, the line was called Triple Nickel Books. The first Triple Nickel Book was very successful, as it was based on the life of Davy Crockett when Crockett was a national fad. At the same time, they published two other Triple Nickel Books about the adventures of the Power Boys, juvenile fiction in the tradition of the Hardy Boys. At least eight Power Boys adventures were published under the pseudonym Arthur Benwood, a name created by combining the first names of Ben Solomon and Woody Gelman. The line includesThe Secret of Crazy Cavern(1955),Riddle of the Sunken Ship(1955),Castle of Curious Creatures(1956) andMystery of the Marble Face(1956). These books are included in the University of South Florida's Special Collections: Tampa Children's Literature Collection.(The Triple Nickel titles are apparently unrelated to Mel Lyle's later and slightly better-knownPower Boysseries from the mid-1960s.)

Nostalgia Press

After doing a facsimile reprint of the 1945Little Nemo in Slumberlandsoftcover, with anAugust Derlethintroduction, Gelman began Nostalgia Press in the early 1960s. One of the earliest Nostalgia Press books wasThe Picture History ofCharlie Chaplin(1965), designed by Gelman and showcasing a large collection of rare Chaplin memorabilia.In 1960, he was an associate editor ofThe American Card Catalog.

The first Nostalgia Press hardcover wasFlash Gordon(1967), a reprint ofAlex Raymondcomic strips, and this book had a follow-up utilizingFlash Gordonproof sheets supplied to Gelman by the artistAl Williamson.Two years later, he compiled art byCharles Dana GibsonforThe Best of Charles Dana Gibson(Bounty Books, 1969), with accompanying biographical material and an introduction by Gelman.

Nostalgia Press editorsRon BarlowandBhob Stewart,along with EC publisherBill Gaines,selected 23 stories, one previously unpublished, for the full-colorEC Horror Comics of the 1950s;with introductions by Stewart andLarry Stark,this oversize (10 "x 14" ) hardcover was published by Nostalgia Press in 1971.

In 1973, Gelman published a collection ofLittle Nemostrips, first published in Italy. Gelman discovered original strips at a cartoon studio where McCay's son worked in 1966. Many of the original drawings that Gelman recovered were displayed at theMetropolitan Museum of Artunder the direction of curatorA. Hyatt Mayor.

In the 1970s, Gelman did two collections ofScorchy Smith,and he moved into yet another area, publishing a magazine,Nostalgia Comics,mainly devoted to reprints of comic strips. The first issue of his earlier magazine,Nostalgia Illustrated,was completed in 1967 as a dummy but was never published. Instead, Gelman sold the title and some material to Magazine Management, which did at least a dozen nationally distributed issues in the early 1970s. During the 1970s, he also published hisGolden Age of the Comicsseries, reprinting such strips asMandrake the Magician,Terry and the PiratesandThimble Theatre.

Other work by Gelman appears inWacky Packages,published by Abrams in 2008.

Films

Robert Altman's live-action filmPopeye(1980) is adapted fromE. C. Segar'sThimble Theatrecomic strip. The screenplay byJules Feifferwas based directly onThimble Theatre Starring Popeye the Sailor,a hardcover reprint collection of 1936-37 Segar strips published in 1971 by Nostalgia Press.

Tim Burton's filmMars Attacks(1996) was adapted from Topps 1962Mars Attackstrading card series written by Gelman and Len Brown and illustrated by Wally Wood, Bob Powell andNorman Saunders.

Awards

In 1971, he was honored by theAcademy of Comic Book Artswith Recognition for Preservation and Popularization of Comic Art.

Gelman, who lived inMalverne, Long Island,maintained a collection of rare American and European periodicals dating back to the 19th century. His collection ofWinsor McCaycartoons is housed in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum atOhio State University. He died February 9, 1978, of a stroke at Franklin General Hospital, Valley Stream, Long Island.His nieceSusan Gelmanand nephewAndrew Gelmanare prominent academics.

See also

• List of Flash Gordon comic strips

External links

• Lambiek Comiclopedia biography.
• Wacky Packages Web Pages
• Michael Edwards on the Lyle/Gelman connections
• Woody GelmanatIMDb