Sheldon Moldoff
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| Sheldon Moldoff | |
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| Born | April 14, 1920 New York City, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Penciller |
| Pseudonym(s) | Shelly Moldoff |
Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff (born April 14, 1920, New York City, New York) is an American comic book artist best known for co-creating such DC Comics characters as Hawkgirl and Poison Ivy, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" (uncredited collaborators) on the superhero Batman. He is not to be confused with fellow Golden Age comics professional Sheldon Mayer.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and career
Born in Manhattan but mostly raised in The Bronx, Sheldon Moldoff has two brothers, Sonny and Stan Moldoff.[citation needed] He sold his first cartoon drawing at age 17. "My first work in comic books was doing filler pages for Vincent Sullivan, who was the editor at National Periodicals",[1] one of the three companies, with Detective Comics Inc. and All-American Comics, that eventually merged to form the modern-day DC Comics. Moldoff's debut was a sports filler that appeared on the inside front cover of the landmark Action Comics #1 (June 1938), the comic book that introduced Superman.
Moldoff did military service in World War II.
[edit] Golden Age
During the late-1930s and 1940s Golden Age of comic books, Moldoff became a prolific cover artist for the future DC Comics. His notable covers include issue #16 (July 1940) of All-American's flagship title All-American Comics, featuring the first appearance of the Golden Age Green Lantern. In 1940, he created the Black Pirate, and became one of the earliest artists for the character Hawkman.
When superhero comics went out of fashion in the postwar era, Moldoff became an early pioneer in horror comics, packaging two such ready-to-prints titles in 1948. He recalled in 2000 that, "I had shown This Magazine Is Haunted and Tales of the Supernatural to [Fawcett Comics'] Will Lieberson before I showed them to [EC Comics'] Bill Gaines, because I trusted Will Lieberson much more. He showed it to the big guys at Fawcett, and he said, 'Shelly, Fawcett doesn't want to get into horror now; they don't want to touch that'".[2]
Moldoff then did approach Bill Gaines with the package, signing a contract stipulating that he would be paid a royalty percentage if the books were successful. Several months later, when EC's Tales From the Crypt hit the newsstands, Gaines reneged on the deal, Moldoff recalled in 2000, with EC attorney Dave Alterbaum threatening to blacklist Moldoff if he took legal action.[2] Afterward, said Moldoff, "Will Lieberson said, 'Let me bring it back to Fawcett again, and see if they'll take the title'. And so they did; they took This Magazine Is Haunted and Worlds of Fear and then Strange Suspense Stories. What they did was pay me $100 for the title, and give me as much work as I wanted, and I also did the covers. So that went on that way".[2]
Moldoff, who received no royalty there, either, created the cadaverous host Doctor Death, and was a major influence on Fawcett's horror line, which also included Beware! Terror Tales, and Unknown World.
[edit] The 1950s and '60s
In 1953, Moldoff became one of the primary Batman ghost artists who, along with Win Mortimer and Dick Sprang, drew stories credited to Bob Kane, following Kane's style and under Kane's supervision. While Sprang ghosted as a DC employee, Moldoff, in a 1994 interview given while Kane was alive, described his own clandestine arrangement:
| “ | I worked for Bob Kane as a ghost from ' 53 to ' 67. DC didn't know that I was involved; that was the handshake agreement I had with Bob: 'You do the work don't say anything, Shelly, and you've got steady work'. No, he didn't pay great, but it was steady work, it was security. I knew that we had to do a minimum of 350 to 360 pages a year. Also, I was doing other work at the same time for [editors] Jack Schiff and Murray Boltinoff at DC. They didn't know I was working on Batman for Bob. ... So I was busy. Between the two, I never had a dull year, which is the compensation I got for being Bob's ghost, for keeping myself anonymous".[3] | ” |
Kane and Moldoff co-created the original, teen Betty Kane, the Bat-Girl, Poison Ivy, as well as the novelty characters Bat-Mite and Ace the Bat-Hound. Ironically, all three were largely phased-out in 1964 after a change in editors.
Moldoff was let go from DC in 1967, along with such other Golden Age artists as George Papp and Wayne Boring. He turned to animation, doing storyboards for such animated TV series as Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, and wrote and drew promotional comic books given away to children at the Burger King and Red Lobster restaurant and fast-food chains, as well as through the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team.
[edit] Later life
Moldoff retired to Florida with his wife Shirley, and continued to appear as a guest at comic-book fan conventions into the mid-2000s.
[edit] Awards
- Inkpot Award: 1991
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Lambiek Comiclopedia: Sheldon Moldoff
- Comic Art & Grafix Gallery: Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff
- Sheldon Moldoff interview,Alter Ego #4 (Spring 2000)
- Sheldon Moldoff interview, Alter Ego #59 (June 2006), pp. 14-23; previously unpublished interview conducted in 1994 for Comics Interview magazine.
