RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books pseudonyms of comics writers and artists

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I was just looking through a 1977 DC issue, and they had a DC profiles page for "Barry Jameson".
Which I know from prior experience is a pseudonym for the early work of writer David Michelinie.



https://viewcomiconline.com/our-fighting-forces-issue-177/



I love the part about: "Barry Jameson was created to write. He almost has no other life besides his typewriter."

And especially: " 'My greatest personal pleasure', Barry told DC Profiles, 'came when I met my favorite writers: Virgil North, Sergius O'Shaugnessy, Wesson Smith, and Bart Regan.' "

Names that back in that time only a few insiders would know, are all pseudonyms for pro comics writers, and not actual names !

"Virgil North" = Mary Skrenes
"Sergius O'Shaugnessy" = Dennis O'Neil
"Bart Regan" = Robert Kanigher

And the last, "Wesson Smith" kind of threw me and I didn't have any knowledge of, but is clearly a pseudonym as well, a play on Smith & Wesson firearms.

I did several searches online for that last one.
No listings on Comics.org
And I kept initially just pulling up listings for guns, when searching for Wesson Smith.
Finally, I tried going to IMDB, where a search for "Wesson Smith" showed as the screenwriter for 3 movies, "The Hot Oven" (1975), "Rollerbabies" (1976), and "Double Your Pleasure" (1978)
https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-hot-oven
https://mubi.com/en/us/films/rollerbabies
https://mubi.com/en/us/films/double-your-pleasure-1978

All three directed by someone named Carter Stevens. From the titles alone, they appeared to either be comedies, porn, or some combination of the two.
And looking up Carter Stevens confirms this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Stevens

So I'm guessing "Wesson Smith" is Dave Michelinie's porn screenwriter pseudonym for a few of his early years.

In a text page interview, probably on a DC editorial page, I recall Barry Jameson in 1977-1978 interview saying he was a "huge fan of David Michelinie."
Great stuff !

Many writers and artists use pseudonyms for a variety of reasons.
Some to later distance themselves from early work, to kind of separate it from their later more developed professional work.
Others, particularly in the 1960's era, used pseudonyms at Marvel or DC, because they were exclusively contracted to work for one company, and used a pseudonym to hide when they were picking up extra work at other companies.
Female writers, in comics, SF and other genres of fiction, use a male-sounding pseudonym, because they feel, at least until established, that readers and professionals will respect their work more if they think it is written by a man. D.C. Fontana (a k a Dorothy Fontana), writing and script-editing for the Star Trek TV series, used initials to hide her gender, to get started in writing, for just that reason.
Some just use other names for fun. French artist Jean Gireaud, a k a "Moebius", described it as one of many names he used, drawing under a different style with each new name, until he finally liked one style the best, and settled on the Moebius name and visual style.

Apparently Dave Michelinie (who began his career at DC in 1975, taking over SWAMP THING from Len Wein, and also doing stories in HOUSE OF SECRETS and other DC mystery titles, and on later titles and new creations) used the name for stories he maybe wasn't so proud to be writing, such as KARATE KID. Because he was simultaneously doing work under his real name for DC, he was clearly proud enough to display his name at the same time on other work, so maybe compartmentalizing other work that he felt wasn't either his forte, or maybe was work he reluctantly did at an editor's request for just a paycheck.

Michelinie jumped ship at DC because of the DC implosion in late 1978, along with Al Milgrom, Bob Layton, Jerry Bingham, Bob Wiacek, Pat Broderick, Bob Mcleod, Terry Austin, Michael Golden and many others, who suddenly found a complete absence of available freelance work at DC, and ended up revitalizing Marvel on the titles they became regulars on. And by that time, the ones who'd been using pseudonyms felt accomplished enough to drop using them.
Michelinie's best for me will always be his work on IRON MAN 115-156, AVENGERS 181-191, and his later AMAZING SPIDERMAN 298-328 run with Todd McFarlane. Leaving his porn days far behind.

https://viewcomiconline.com/iron-man-1968-issue-115/

https://viewcomiconline.com/avengers-v1-181/

https://viewcomiconline.com/the-amazing-spider-man-1963-issue-298/

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The guy I saw with the most pseudonyms was DC editor Murray Boltinoff, for anthology titles such as GHOSTS that he edited. I don't know if he just enjoyed writing under another name, or if he did it as sub-par filler when he couldn't get other writers to do the work.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Boltinoff

Pseudonyms :
Woody Adams,
Blair Bolton,
Ray Bolton,
Al Case,
Anne Case,
Bill Dennehy,
Bob Donnely,
Evan Douglas,
Wesley Marsh,
and Sam Meade

GHOSTS
https://viewcomiconline.com/ghosts-issue-1/

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
https://viewcomiconline.com/tales-of-the-unexpected-issue-119/

Another DC writer on these two titles, Carl Wessler, I also thought was a Boltinoff pseudonym, but it turns out he's a real name, and another person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Wessler

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Anton Drek, the alter ego of artist Don Simpson, when he did porn/underground work. From what I could observe, all done for Eros comics (an imprint of Fantagraphics by Gary Groth).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Simpson_(cartoonist)


I have one called ANTON'S DREKBOOK, a collection of mostly one-page gags and fake parody covers and story versions of romance comics, superheroes, horror, science fiction comics, etc.
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=51701779

Juvenile, pornographic, silly, and often very funny.
Like the rest of Don Simpson's work.

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=51855934 (WENDY WHITEBREAD)

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=megaton+man&pubid=&PubRng= (MEGATON MAN)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=border+worlds&pubid=&PubRng= (BORDER WORLDS)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=113051 (WASTELAND)

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"Francis X. Bushmaster" = Gerry Conway.

This is a pseudonym Conway used in issues of HOUSE OF MYSTERY and HOUSE OF SECRETS, circa 1970-1972.
Possibly because he was exclusively contracted at Marvel, so did work at DC under another name.

I wondered how Conway selected this pseudonym. Perhaps boasting about his prowess at scoring with women?
Or projecting a prowess at the time he wished he had?
I'm envisioning Sherman in the American Pie movie, who billed himself as "The Shermanator".
Although Conway on these issues intermittently wrote under his own name, as well as under the Bushmaster alias.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY (in issues between 188-200 or so. As Conway in 188 and 196, as Bushmaster in 193 and 200)
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-193/

HOUSE OF SECRETS (as Conway in 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, and 89. As Bushmaster in 94.)
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-secrets-1956-issue-94/

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Why did some artists working for Marvel in the sixties use phony names?

• by Mark Evanier
  
  
  Because DC editors sometimes frowned on "their" people working for the competition. There was a certain arrogance behind it, along with the fear that if you were working for someone else, you might not be spending every waking minute on your DC assignments. You'd lose stature around DC (where some liked to believe their standards were so much higher than any other company's) and the fact that you were willing to work for Marvel's lower rates wouldn't help you to get a raise if you continued working for DC. Ergo, until such time as you felt the Marvel work was steady, you might elect to hide behind a pen name.
  
  
  This was sometimes a sudden decision, as you can see from the credit box above, which is from Fantastic Four #39. Frank Giacoia was scheduled to ink the issue and from the spacing, it's obvious that when Artie Simek did the lettering, he inscribed Giacoia's whole name. Then Giacoia inked the issue and apparently chickened-out and asked to have his pseudonym — which he'd been using on all his previous Marvel work — substituted. Someone whited-out his last name and lettered in "Ray." A lot of the bogus credits are like this...last-minute substitutions of the fake name for the real.
  
  This whole topic, by the way, usually prompts the question, "Couldn't the DC editors recognize the artists' work?" And the answer to that one is ...
  
  1. Some could not. You'd be amazed how many people who've worked in comics — often in high-ranked positions — couldn't and still can't tell Kane from Kirby.
  
  2. Most DC editors didn't look too carefully at the Marvel books. (Some didn't even look at the DC books from other editors) and...
  
  3. The bogus names provided a certain level of deniability. If caught, an artist could say, "Oh, I was just doing some ghost work to help out a friend. I wouldn't work for Marvel."
  
  Here's a guide to some of the folks who elected to hide, at least at first, the fact that they were working there...
  
  Gene Colan worked under the name "Adam Austin"
  
  Jack Abel inked some of Adam Austin's work under the name "Gary Michaels"
  
  Werner Roth passed himself off for a time as "Jay Gavin"
  
  Gil Kane drew one Hulk story as "Scott Edward"
  
  Jerry Siegel wrote The Human Torch as "Joe Carter"
  
  Frank Giacoia was actually doing the work credited to "Frank Ray" (Once Giacoia was working primarily and openly for Marvel, he did some inking jobs for DC that were credited to "Phil Zupa.")
  
  Robert Bernstein wrote scripts as "R. Berns"
  
  George Roussos inked under the name "George Bell"
  
  Jim Mooney inked as "Jay Noel"
  
  Bill Everett was occasionally credited as "Willie Bee" or "Bill Roman." (Roman, of course, is "Namor" spelled backwards.)
  
  Jack Katz drew some stories under the name "Jay Hawk"
  
  Sam Kweskin worked briefly under the name "Irv Wesley"
  
  And Mike Esposito set the house record for pen names, working as "Mickey Demeo," "Mickey Dee" and "Joe Gaudioso"
  
  Also, Don Rico did a few pseudonymous scripts for Marvel under the name of "N. Korok"
  And Ernie Hart did a few as "H.E. Huntley." Rico told me he used the pen name because he was writing novels at the time and didn't want his publisher to know that he was taking on other work, and for low money. I have no idea why Hart so elected but it was probably something similar.
  
  Lastly, there were quite a few issues of Millie the Model and other teen comics signed by Sol Brodsky or "Solly B." Brodsky was the firm's Production Manager and an occasional inker, and he did ink a few of the Millie stories that bear his credit. But they were all at least pencilled by Stan Goldberg. At the time, Stan was doing occasional work for the Archie Comics people, and they didn't like to see their artists drawing in that style for other publishers. So when Stan drew teen comics for Marvel, they put Brodsky's name on them in the hope that the Archie editors wouldn't know it was him.

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Another I looked at recently, in the credits of STRANGE TALES 180 are several (i think pretty obvious) playful pseudonyms used by Jim Starlin. where he was taking on multiple duties on a single story as writer, penciller, inker and colorist, and for the hell of it, since his name was already on the credits once, he made up other acronyms for the additional credits.

Sam Jilttirn
J.L. Minirats
Ms. Natjril

full issue at:
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Strange-Tales-1951/Issue-180?id=33297


I picture Starlin with a scrabble board, moving around the letters over and over to come up with these.

In 181, and where the series continued in WARLOCK 9-15, Starlin would list the credits for the letterer, colorist, inker and editor, and then at the bottom just modestly list himself as "finisher", or "everything else", as if he were just the guy doing little add-ons to someone else's story, instead of the very talented guy who was the writer and artist on one of he best series in comics history.

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Another, that John Byrne used for his writer/artist debut on FANTASTIC FOUR in issue 232, John Byrne credited himself as writer and penciller, but then the inker was a mysterious "Bjorn Heyn", that a few issues later Byrne admited in the letters page was him too.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Fantastic-Four-1961/Issue-232?id=26930

I can't recall if he was just having fun with the readers, or if Byrne for the first issue was trying out reader opinion of his inks (the first issue Byrne inked himself for Marvel), to solicit unrestrained initial reader opinion of the inking on 232, before later revealing the inker was Byrne himself.

Byrne had early on inked his own pencils working for Charleton in 1975-1976.
On the "Rog 2000" backups in E-MAN 6, 7, 9 and 10.
On DOOMSDAY +1 issues 1-6,.
On SPACE 1999 issues 3-6.
On EMERGENCY issue 1.
And WHEELIE AND THE CHOPPER BUNCH. But his art had vastly changed and improved by the time Byrne began inking again on his FF run in 1981.


https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/E-Man-1973/Issue-6?id=171774
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/E-Man-1973/Issue-7?id=171775
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/E-Man-1973/Issue-9?id=171777
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/E-Man-1973/Issue-10?id=171769

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-1?id=153140
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-2?id=153144
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-3?id=153145
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-4?id=153146
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-5?id=153147
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-6?id=153148

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Emergency/Issue-1?id=164541


https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Wheelie-and-the-Chopper-Bunch/Issue-1?id=171742

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Space-1999/Issue-3?id=171751
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Space-1999/Issue-4?id=171752
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Space-1999/Issue-5?id=171753
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Space-1999/Issue-6?id=171754
https://viewcomiconline.com/space-1999-issue-6/

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CBR had a write-up in 2022 about the Barry Jameson pseudonym in my opening post.
https://www.cbr.com/dc-spotlight-profile-fictional-writer-barry-jameson-david-michelinie/


Apparently Paul Levitz and David Michelinie were initially going to work as a collaborative writer team on KARATE KID where the pseudonym emerged.
But Levitz was removed, so it became just a Michelinie prseudonym.

There's also another image at the link of the DC Profile for "Barry Jameson", since the image linked in my opening post has expired.

The article erroneously says that "Barry Jameson" was the only DC Profile for a creator who didn't actually exist.
But Profile # 88, "Ted P. Skimmer" is also not a real person, another pseudonym, for Bob Rozakis.

There were a total of 90 DC Profiles from 1977-1982, two of them ((84 and 85) I could never find.
I think they were created but accidentally set aside and never published.

Full list of DC Profiles:
https://www.comics.org/story_by_feature/dc%20profile/sort/chrono/

I find it quite odd that established writers would use pseudonyms, other than for things like April Fool's Day.

Edit: sorry, now I've seen the first post which explains the historical rationale. I can't see anyone doing that anymore.

Second edit:

"So I'm guessing "Wesson Smith" is Dave Michelinie's porn screenwriter pseudonym for a few of his early years."

OK, now I understand! :D

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Well, another I could mention is Moebius(a k a, Jean Giraud), who said in an interview that when he started doing comics in the 1970's, just for fun he would use a new name with each assignment, each time using a different new art style, until he settled on Moebius, and began consistently using that name.


Another pro who used a pseudonym is Richard Corben, who in his early 1970's underground work would sign his name as "Gore".
(A tribute to EC artist Graham Ingels, who signed his EC work as "Ghastly". Much of Corben's early work was clearly horror work patterned after the EC horror material).


Underground artist Tim Boxell (in many of the same issues, such as in FANTAGOR) also used Ingels-like pseudonyms,such as "Grisly".

I think in their cases, Corben and Boxell were well enough established, and had such distinctive styles that would immediately be recognized as their work, no matter what name they signed it with.
I recall an "Arzach" parody by Tim Boxell, playfully mimmicking Meobius' work, where Boxell signed the first page as "Moeboxell".
And Boxell's art, clearly parodying Moebius, in a 2-issue undergound anthology series titled NO DUCKS (a funny animal series released shortly after Gerber's HOWARD THE DUCK,in which the tributes and parodies began to pile up pretty damn high.)

Quite a different scene nowadays. The only creator I know who uses a pseudonym is Matt Fraction.

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From Marv Wolfman's listing on Wikipedia, here's a story of how in 1971, Wolfman's name was mistaken for a pseudonym, that allegedly broke the Comics Code rules :




They mistook his story credit for taking on the literal persona of a wolf-man, rather than it simply being credit of his actual name, Marv Wolfman.
And the Code staff wanted to censor it !
Hilarious.

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Man, how did I neglect to mention the most visible pseudonym of all?

Stan Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee


Lee was born Stanley Lieber, and early on as a teenager worked as a gofer for Martin Goodman in the Timely Comics offices. When Simon and Kirby left in 1942 to work for DC (they were actually secretly already working for both Timely and DC for a while, till Goodman found out and fired Simon and Kirby for moonlighting at competitor DC. Kirby believed that Stan Lee eavesdropped on Simon & Kirby's office conversations in 1942, and was the one who told Goodman about their DC work, and got them fired.)

But in any case, Goodman promoted Stan Lee to editor at Timely after Simon & Kirby left, where Lee remained from 1942 on, still there when Kirby returned to Timely/Atlas/ Marvel in 1958. And Lee remained through very good years at Marvel from 1958 up till 1972, after which Lee scaled back his duties as writer and editor and moved to the California/Hollywood coast, essentially becoming Marvel's representative in Hollywood to arrange licensing deals to get Marvel characters into movies, television and animated cartoons.

But that's Stan Lee NOW, who though deceased at age 95, remains a comics god, arguably the most revered and loved of comics creators.

But as Lee himself writes in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS (1974), Stanley Lieber for many years into the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's began using the name Stan Lee as a pseudonym because he was ashamed to be writing comics, that Lee planned comics writing as a temporary gig, to at some point leave comics to do "serious" writing, at which point he would write under his real name, as Stanley Lieber.
But...
As Marvel Comics became extremely popular throughout the 1960's, to his surprise he became enormously popular and loved as Stan Lee, even going on the lecture circuit to speak at universities, and at comics conventions, so that at some point before writing about it in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS in 1974, he legally changed his name to Stan Lee.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Origins-of-Marvel-Comics/TPB?id=126076

Stan Lee also has a brother (in his 90's, but still alive and drawing Marvel's newspaper comic strips) by the name of Larry Lieber, who never changed his name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Lieber