Davida Lichter-Dale 1947‑2018

Other than the Bullpen, Marvel had a few other departments in the 70s. Legendary business person and occasional inker, Sol Brodsky had one (I seemed to work for him at the start of my time, Nov, 1978), perhaps called “Licensing.” The British Department—also seemingly run by Sol which did stuff – yeah… you guessed… for England. (Marvel UK was a thing that took our old comics, translated them from “English” to English by changing “color” to colour, “honor” to honour and “schedule’ to shedule (joke! Just say it, don’t correct me). Then pretty much printing them all in order.

Then there was the Black & White Magazine Department. When is a comic a magazine? Apparently when it fits in a certain sized rack in a magazine shop. As the deceptively simple department name suggests, all the books therein were printed in black ink only. Well… the covers were done in color because Marvel wasn’t crazy, but the in-house name for those mags were “black & white slicks.” For you see, the covers were printed on glossy, flint-coated paper. Cheap but durable enough to hold the colors. ‘Slick’ –oh yeah; pile up a few and those bastards slide all over the place. But they looked great.

There’s a lot of people who work in comics that aren’t well known. A gal named Davida is one of them. She was already well established by the time I set foot in the place. One of the quiet workers who came in every day and moved comics out every day. Davida had unusual, dramatic good looks and so, one fine day, I screwed up my courage to the sticking point and took some head shots.

Here’s Davida:

In yet another clear case of nepotism, Lenny Grow who was in charge of running the Bullpen, was Davida’s cousin! But unlike most of the other nepotistic hires at the place, Davida really could do her job. Which was taking all the parts of any particular magazine and assembling that mess into a form that the printers could print!

I’ve mentioned “paste-up and mechanicals” before. Davida’s job title was probably something like Production but what she did was p-u & mechs. (You may well ask, what the hell was so “mechanical?” The mechanical part was two-fold. You had to know how to size the “live” area of the board—the part that was to be printed – within the specifications as set by the printer. Then you used a series of instruments—hand tools (!)—to paste all the pieces together. Finally you had to know how to mark up the pages/boards so that the separator knew what to do. Sure, they were sharp guys and gals, but left to their own imaginations… well, you never know what you’d get back. Better to tell them using their own very secret language! That was the “mechanics” part—quite a bit of technology involved. “Agate measure,” “picas” and PMS swatches… sometimes needing to know how negative flats worked.)

Something few people at Marvel knew about Davida was that she came directly from National Lampoon magazine—her first job. There she worked on the elaborate “High School Yearbook” number.

Ooooh, such naughty stuff back in the day!

And this was the authentic yearbook! What a massive production. Doing a real yearbook was a royal pain but to do an entire fake one– ! But Davida was eminently qualified.

I point all this out to give you an idea that what Davida did was important. If she did not do her job, you did not see The Savage Sword of Conan, or Kull and the Barbarians…

Davida had a streak of art talent in her, but she never showed it around the office. She did graduate from the School of Visual Art in New York City. At SVA she met her future husband, artist Robert Dale, thus her professional name became Lichter-Dale. At SVA, she apparently took production method courses. Which was practical because it’s easy to sell a skill.

When she was tired of laughing at Lampoon, she may have dropped a hint to her cousin and faster than you can scream, “By Crom!” Davida was in the Marvel Bullpen! Of interest was that this was a time period at Marvel when the people in charge didn’t want “comic” people. There were a lot of staffers who were really interested in nurturing and maintaining the characters’ status quo.

Davida was one of the people who didn’t really care one way or another. Even later, when she got into some of the titles and characters, she tried to just do her job.

In my estimation, that was all that was needed to be a Bullpenner!

Here’s a few more from that afternoon, so long ago. I always try to say something funny, then upbraid my subject for laughing, then tell them not to show their teeth. I know; but sometimes it works. In Davida’s beautiful case, it was hard to get a bad picture.

Someone brought in a couple of kittens to be taken away by cat people in the office. Who can not play with a kitten in the otherwise grim and forbidding environment of an office! New leader of the Black & White Department, Lynne Graeme and Davida were playing scratching post for this small intruder.

Finally, at the limits of obscurity, Marvel Christmas Office Party 1978! (Something I intend to cover more fully soon.) I had literally just gotten a flash unit for my camera—and it looks it! This point in time was just as I was on staff for my second month. I didn’t really know people all that well. The big guy was, of course, Marvel’s own Editor in Chief Jim Shooter, dancing with him, Davida. Who knew the big stiff could shake a leg? Or maybe it was just that sweet smile of Davida’s that got him to his feet.

Davida spent about a couple of years at Marvel. The 70s leading into the 80s Marvel was what I call the waking giant phase. The run up to bigger stories and character development was gathering speed just then. However, for whatever reason, she decided to move on—could have been something as simple as money (Marvel was a publishing house after all…). Lenny’s managerial position had been excised from the corporate structure and so was he. He moved on to more fertile fields in advertising where he flourished. He eventually took two of the Bullpen’s production people—my stat-room comrade Mark Rogan and soon after, Davida. Where they both flourished!

As I understand it—from speaking with Lenny Grow, she wound up in Florida. I only got back in touch, via FaceBook, apparently a few months before she died. She said she’d fought off cancer and was improving every day. I extended my high hopes and kept it brief. I looked forward to chatting some more but it was not to be.

She lost her final battle with the insidious cancer. But I know she fought with the heart of a lioness.