 
The Major was so dismayed at the low-level tactics used against him in 1938 to force him into bankruptcy
and take his company, DC Comics, out from under him that in a
classic old-fashioned harumphing manner, he refused to ever mention it again, believing in the old adage that one day the
rascals would get what was coming to them. Well, that didn’t happen. There was a time, BTI—before the Internet—when information was
scattered between a newspaper here and a magazine there, and was often simply unavailable. Besides, how many people do you
think were interested in the behind-the-scenes events in the fledgling comic book industry? One. Okay, maybe two. Information did not rocket around at the speed of light, eventually becoming
viral in nature, as we have become accustomed to today. It never occurred to the Major that one day all the misinformation
and half-truths and insinuations that had been spread about him would be almost the only things that remained of his legacy. Several events have
occurred over the past ten years that have caused our family to break the long silence. Among these was a resurgence of interest
in the true history of the comic book that followed the publication of Michael Chabon's 2000 novel The Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier and Klay, a fictional treatment of the story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster,
creators of Superman, who were originally discovered by the Major. This was followed among other books by Gerard Jones’s
2004 history Men of Tomorrow, and, just recently in 2008, David Hajdu’s
wildly inaccurate The Ten-Cent Plague, presenting a version of the Major's life
that is not only downright wrong but dances on the thin ice of character defamation. Many of the rumors, half-truths, and
full-on bizarre stories that these books contain have been repeated and proliferated ad infinitum
throughout the Internet and in print for a long time, and it's time for the truth to be told. Stay tuned for a biography of
the Major.
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Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
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Read All About It
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Hot off the Presses
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Scholarship vs. Ancedotal History.
Much of the history of comics
up until recently has been a repetition of what scholars refer to as anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence refers to those
great stories we all love. However we all know that some of them just might be a teensy bit enhanced for dramatic effect or
may be skewed by whatever axes the teller may have to grind. We're not excluding ourselves from that possibility either.
That's why academic scholarship and serious detailed research are important. However sometimes the hard cold facts can be,
dare we say it, boring. So where do we go from here? Instead of an either/or why not a combination of the two? Gerard Jones
does an excellent job of telling some great tales that are based on pretty solid research. Peter Coogan and Bradley Ricca,
who hail from the academic world are doing their own version of action heroes in academia. Tom DeHaven who writes non-fiction
and teaches is also a writer of wonderful fictional tales based in the comics world. These are just a few of the many who
are bringing a whole new approach to the fledgling field of Comics history.
Speaking of Scholarship, Dr. John Lent, publisher of the International Journal of Comic Art recently
asked us to offer a rebuttal to David Hajdu's depiction of the Major in his book, The Ten Cent Plague.
We were happy to comply. The journal has an academic standard but it is highly readable and enjoyable. Dr. Lent does a superb
job of documenting cartoonists from all over the world and there is always thought-provoking and fascinating material.
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The terrific guys at TwoMorrows Publishing from John Morrow to Roy Thomas to Jim Amash did a fantastic
job with this month's issue. Jim, who interviewed several family members put everyone at ease. Your editor especially enjoyed
swapping yarns with him about the history of Comics. Jim is an artist in his own right at Archie Comics. Roy Thomas deserves
special mention for his incredible patience and for the prolific material throughout the whole issue. It's a real collector's
item. We're especially proud of one of the younger members of the clan, Ian Wheeler-Nicholson, one of the Major's 21 grandchildren
and a writer and editor who interviewed Creig Flessel shortly before his passing. We thought it would make for an interesting
read--the Major's grandson interviews one of the last surviving artists from those early days. I think you'll agree.
The issue also contains lots of never seen before photos which your editor cajoled out of various family members with
special thanks to the Swedish side of the family, our cousin "Uncle" Finn Andreen. Some of the sillier aspects about the Major
are addressed pertaining to his appearance and to more serious misinformation including his military career, his publishing
background and his prolific creative output over a lifetime of work. He wrote over 117 novels, novellas, short stories, and
serials in addition to four books of military strategy and hundreds of nonfiction articles. He had a military career that
included intelligence work, started several publishing companies, began the comics business, and to top it off taught himself
the basics of chemistry when he was in his 60s and patented inventions that are still in use in several industrial applications
today. It's staggering to imagine the discipline required just to accomplish the writing part of his resume--and it indicates
a person who was virtually the opposite of a dilettante.
Besides Ian Wheeler-Nicholson's
interview with Creig Flessel your editor has an interview with Antoinette WN Harley, the Major's eldest daughter and both
interviews address some of the economics of that period during the Depression. At the height of the Depression at least a
quarter of the adult population of the U.S. was out of work. That's one out of every four adults. Really scary bad times.
The Major had a start-up business in the midst of this with an industry that had never existed before and had no established
fan base. Did he often find himself short of funds. Indeed he did. He also did his best to pay everybody as much as he could--often
going without pay himself despite being the sole support for a wife and five children.
Readers
will also be interested to learn that he was very involved with the debut of Superman. He was the one Siegel and Shuster sent
the drawing to, remember? A veteran story writer like the Major was too sharp to miss the potential of a superhuman adventure
hero. He believed in the character from the beginning and worked hard to see it developed. We don’t want to say too
much because we don’t want to get in the middle of the
DC—Siegel and Shuster argument, since we don’t have a dog in that fight. But we do know for sure that the Major
most certainly was involved as any competent editor and publisher would be, and Jerry Siegel often said, that without him
they never would have made it in print. That’s
enough.
We're excited about the opportunity to begin to tell the Major's side of the story. He may not have
been the world's best businessman, but he was one hell of a creative guy. He loved what he was doing and wanted everyone involved
to do well. He believed in the talents of the people he hired and encouraged them to succeed. The Major deserves some respect
for his endeavors and that's what matters to us.
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