HATS! But Not For Salicrup

Hats; what’s with the hats? Well, I touched upon this hat business before and I can give a painless, quick recap. It’s a really bone-headed root cause. And considering the two principals behind it… “bone-headed” is a kind appraisal. Of course I kid the powerhouse duo of Jim Shooter and Bob Layton. Jim actually is a genius and comics was lucky to get him When we’all knew him, he was our Editor In Chief. Our North Star, our lodestone… except for the hat.

Bob Layton, sometimes a penciler, sometimes a writer, then again an inker—best known for all time as the “Hercules & Thor” story person. Again, a healthy slathering of genius… but for that hat.

Hat… right! There was this TV show that was wildly popular in its day. “Dallas.” That ‘day’ started in 1979 and lasted to an unbelievable 1991 plus spin-offs! The show had a surprising lead monster star, Larry Hagman. Who was better known as the bumbling astronaut from the 60s TV comedy, “I Dream of Jeannie” (a more easily understood popular TV show… kids, just google “Eden belly-button.” You’re welcome). Dallas was about a Texas oil baron who manipulated and dominated his family, businesses and partners, wives, cable-TV providers, cashiers… okay; everybody. A rat, a scoundrel and apparently the man you loved to hate.

His name? I don’t know his name. I only know his name’s initials: JR. I fully blame Bob for associating the scurrilous, menacing nature of this TV character with the powerful yet genial aura that Jim Shooter radiated. And the slight alphabetical advance of JR to JS… clearly irresistible.

The step from yukking it up over this mild drollery to me, Ace Photographer, actually taking a picture of Jim looking like JR is lost to the swirling mists of time. Or the swirling mists of booze. (And I stress again: kids, don’t drink!) All I know is, one fine day I’ve got Jim Shooter standing in from of me with a cowboy hat on.

[All conversations imaginary.] “Smile, Jim, Like JR crushing a business rival!” I said, with my shutter finger poised.

“Smile, like you’re JR extorting your daughter!” I breathed, awaiting “the moment.”

“Smile, like you’re JR, marrying your best friend’s ex-wife!” I exclaimed, smiling as I tripped the shutter.

“Jim! Smile like you’re caning Rick Parker!” Bingo! That’s the smile I longed for!

But I kid Jim who really was a good sport and who also hasn’t pressed any lawsuits in my direction (yet). Remember also that Jim stood 6’-5” in his stockinged feet—this day he was in his standard issue black Florsheims and this lovely cowboy hat. I believe it was just shy of “6 gallons.” So I’m pegging him at a ceiling-scraping 7-foot even.

Friends and comrades, I expended nearly 3 minutes looking for where this picture ran. Suffice it to say, these pictures are of better quality. And my explanation of what lay behind it is more accurate.

At this point, my labors done, my camera equipment neatly stowed, freelance monies spent on David’s Cookies and coffee—I could rest.

No, I couldn’t. While I was sleeping off my cookie stupor, Jim had been pacing the halls of Marvel toying with an idea like a cat plays with a mouse. Sure, he looked good in a hat—that was a ‘given.’ But… what… if all his editors wore hats!!??

When I say, ‘pacing the halls of Marvel’ I believe I mean, drinking downstairs in the Ultimate Lotus (bar/restaurant located in the world-famous Drake Hotel and folks, when staying at the Drake, just say the Marvel secret word, “Unus” for an additional good-night chocolate for your pillow*) with you-know-who (–not Rick Parker).

Before one could say, “Obnoxio The Clown,” I was once again trying to settle my cookie-addled nerves to take portraits of Editors.

In hats.

Special hats for special Editors. Kowed into silence by the hats, I did not think to ask if these hats were from their own closets.

In addition to searching for “JS” I did find the Bullpen Bulletins (an issue of Marvel Age that ran in February, 1982) that featured all these resplendent editors! The award-winning designers of those pages reduced their tightly-cropped, be-hatted heads down to the size of an “inverted Jenny” postage stamp and ran them at 65-line screen on newsprint. I may be as big a fan of hiding “combination skin” as much as the next guy. But this was ridiculous. Here, now, it can be shown, these beautiful, much younger people as handsome and beautiful as they ever were (except Weezie who continues to defy aging expectations).

Denny O’Neil has more “legendary” labels than I could list. But, he’s Irish. Irish, I say and he’ll wear his damn newsboy cap as soon as look at ye!

Tom DeFalco, Creator, Editor and fruit vendor. The man is Italian. I mean a real bonzoni. I believe he’s hiding two meat-a-balls in his cheeks! His friends in the Marvel chapter of the Commedia Dell-Arte call him Il Dottore (trans.: plot device).

Affable Al Milgrom. Yet another stack of superlative titles but we all know him as Editor-i-Al. Suffice to say, he’s done everything there is to do in comics—including riding through villages on horseback, terrorizing freelancers!

Editor of Many Hats, Jim Salicrup, has no hat. It can be revealed that, yes, Jim IS wearing a hat. This is a rare but expensive “wig hat.” Made of real human hair. Under this hat is Jim’s real head of hair, springy and curly like Harpo Marx. Except he talks.

Finally, Louise Jones whom I playfully, perhaps accurately, call Editrix. And only a few years hence from the taking of this sequence of pictures, Boss. Listing her accomplishments would (almost) run as long as this article. It’s not my place to describe Weezie (not “Wheezie” –this name has nothing to do with her very loud breathing—I am certain it has something to do with some family member not being able to clearly say her name, hopefully not at an advanced age). Sure, I could point out her clear-eyed gaze, able to pierce any freelancer’s vile lies or her unfailing niceness in the face of quivering Assistant Editors. But I will let these portraits do the talking—try to ignore whatever the hat is saying.

Below is the “winner” out of the pack of the above. Weezie seemed to be a natural at knowing good poses. Below is the face I got to know as her faithful servant. The Face That Launched A Thousand Plots!

“BROWN! If I had two of you, you’d still be a half-wit! You call this proof-reading? I call it doof-reading! Do it again and do it better. Then again! Find ALL the mistakes not just the ones YOU made! Let this be a lesson to me, never bet with humanoid life forms when DeFalco says the over-under is 3 points! And I really needed that steak knife set! Arrrggh!”

*Don’t be ridiculous.