For several days now, the rumor has spread through comic book forums on the 'net that Joe Gill, one of the most prolific writers in the history of the medium, passed away last December. I've received many an e-mail asking me if it was true and why I hadn't posted something about it. Easy answer: I didn't know if it was true…and the people I knew who knew Joe Gill didn't seem to know if it was true, either. Mr. Gill had little or no family so there didn't seem to be a simple way to check and find out. Finally, sadly, I think I have sufficient confirmation.
Gill was born in 1919. His earliest known work in comics was for Timely (now Marvel) in the early forties and he was among the many writers who wrote Captain America after the departure of Simon and Kirby. In the late forties when the company switched over to teen comics and westerns, he was one of their busiest writers but he eventually fell into disfavor with the editor there, Stan Lee, and work began to become sporadic. By the early fifties, he was doing most of his writing for a company called Funnies, Inc., which supplied publishers with stories and artwork.
One of those publishers was John Santangelo of Charlton Comics. The comic book business was entering a rocky period with many companies going under and Santangelo decided he wanted to build a stable of writers and artists who'd work primarily in the firm's plant in Derby, Connecticut. For many, this meant relocating to that area but the deal included a certain stability along with very low rates. Someone once described the terms as "We'll pay you a third of what the other houses pay but we'll give you three times as much work." Santangelo was familiar with Gill's work (and legendary speed) via Funnies, Inc., and offered Joe a contract. Joe accepted and for the next three decades — until Charlton shut its doors — he was their star scripter, producing thousands of scripts for every kind of comic they published. In a business where some writers were pressed to write a book a week, Gill often produced a finished manuscript in a day.
His work included westerns (Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok), war comics (Marine War Heroes, Fightin' Army), romance comics (Love Diary, Teen Confessions), crime comics (Crime and Justice, Vengeance Squad), science-fiction comics (Space Adventures, Doomsday Plus 1), comics based on movies (Konga, 1776), comics based on books (Jungle Tales of Tarzan), comics based on newspaper strips (The Phantom, Popeye), comics based on cartoon shows (Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw), comics based on live-action TV shows (The Bionic Woman, Emergency), comics about martial arts (Yang, House of Yang), ghost comics (Ghostly Tales, Haunted), comics about car racing (Hot Rod Racers, Grand Prix), comics about surfing (Surf Kings) and anything else Charlton put out. He handled (and in some cases, co-created) a number of recurring characters and super-heroes, including Captain Atom, The Blue Beetle, Hercules, Peacemaker, The Fightin' Five, Sarge Steel, Son of Vulcan and Judomaster. In addition to all this, he worked often as a writer and/or editor on Charlton's many non-comic magazines, many of which featured pulp-style romance or crime fiction.
Charlton kept Gill so busy that he rarely had time to work for other publishers. He scripted a number of books for Dell in the sixties…for not much better money than he was receiving from Charlton. In 1968 when former Charlton editor Dick Giordano began working at DC, he brought Gill along and gave him work — at DC rates, which seemed astronomical to Joe at the time — on The Secret Six, Hot Wheels and a few other titles…but Gill's association with DC did not survive Giordano's ouster and it was back to the lousy money in Connecticut. He professed not to mind very much. Charlton's editors accepted whatever he did and rarely, if ever, asked for revisions. After the company shut down in 1986, Gill largely retired. In the company's waning days, he sold a few more scripts to DC for their ghost comics but when Charlton ceased publishing, Joe largely retired…and I'm afraid that's all I know about his later period.
There are a number of debates in the comic book community as to who stands as the most prolific writer in the history of the medium. The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized the late Paul S. Newman for that distinction…and he may well be, although he got in there in part because he was smart enough to submit himself as such. Others have argued for Stan Lee, Robert Kanigher or my personal nominee, Vic Lockman — but if anyone could ever properly calculate the numbers, it sure wouldn't surprise me if the winner turned out to be Joe Gill.