I've received lots of favorable comments about the selection of E. Nelson Bridwell for this year's posthumous Bill Finger Award. This one is from Jack Lechner…
I'm very happy to see Mike Friedrich and E. Nelson Bridwell being honored, even though no one on the unanimous Finger Award panel seems to have gone for my own choice, Denny O'Neil.
I'm especially happy because Mr. Bridwell was once very kind to me. In the summer of 1971, I was 8 years old, and a big fan of DC Comics in general — and Kirby's Fourth World in particular (including the chatty missives written by you and Steve Sherman). I was visiting my grandmother in the Bronx, and on a total whim I called up the DC office and asked if they gave tours. Somehow, I got handed to E. Nelson Bridwell, who said they didn't, but that I could come by anyway. So I did, accompanied by my long-suffering mother. Mr. Bridwell greeted me, and actually did tour me around the office. I peppered him with questions about various books and characters, which he answered graciously, while my mother quietly gave up on having any idea what we were talking about.
There were three high points of the tour. The first was when I mentioned that besides Jack Kirby, I was devoted to the work of — naturally — Denny O'Neil, who was then writing both Green Lantern/Green Arrow and World's Finest. Bridwell smiled and opened a door to a small office…and there was Denny O'Neil himself, with an impressive head of bushy 1971 hair. (I was too awestruck to say anything to my hero.) The second was when Bridwell showed me page proofs on the as-yet-unpublished Forever People #5, featuring Sonny Sumo, possessor of the Anti-Life Equation. This felt like being able to read next month's newspaper today, and my mind was suitably blown. The third was when, before we left, Bridwell gave me brand-new copies of issue #4 in each of the Kirby titles, the first of the 25¢ "bigger and better" comics.
I don't think I came down from the high of that visit for months. I've never forgotten E. Nelson Bridwell's generosity, considering that there was absolutely nothing in it for him — except making a little boy very happy.
Knowing Nelson as I did, I believe every word of this account including the selfless motive. He was a very gentle, friendly man who — and this is just my opinion — was not properly respected by some at DC in that period. The guy was absolutely brilliant but folks who weren't as bright treated him the way Alan Brady treated Mel Cooley. If I had his brains and I went on Jeopardy! today, I'd kick James Holzhauer to the curb.
I know what you mean about reading "next month's newspaper today." The first time I visited the DC offices was Monday, June 29, 1970. The most recent DC comics I'd bought off the newsstands were books that had left that office for press three months earlier. So to see the current comics they were working on or had proofs of lying about was like being catapulted three months into the future.
And a lot of changes had happened during those three months. The DC symbol in the upper left hand corner of the covers had changed. Longtime Superman editor Mort Weisinger was retiring. He was there doing some bookkeeping-type work on his last issues but he no longer had an office and no longer had any power. Quite a few comics had changed creative staffs or undergone remodeling. It was somewhat jarring.
I was there with my then-partner and one of the many people we met that day was Nelson Bridwell. Everyone was nice to us but some people were nice to us because they were just nice people and some were nice to us because we were Jack Kirby's assistants. Nelson was definitely in the first grouping.