In the mid-1940s, Boltinoff started doing longer stories for DC. Henry later said having his brother as an editor never made it easier to sell a page - harder, if anything, with both striving to avoid any appearance of favoritism. Murray Boltinoff spent most of his career at DC, editing such titles as Challengers of the Unknown, Legion of Super Heroes and Doom Patrol. When Ellsworth complained (as editors often do) of overwork, Henry Boltinoff suggested his brother, Murray, as an assistant. The only certainty was that practically every DC comic book would contain something by Henry Boltinoff. They were mixed randomly, with "On the Planet Og" sometimes turning up in Tomahawk and sometimes in Tales of the Unexpected and "Hy Wire" sometimes in Strange Adventures and sometimes in Superman. They began seeing print in 1940, and continued for decades.Ĭasey the Cop, Super Turtle, Jerry the Jitterbug, Homer, Doctor Rocket, Moolah the Mystic, Cora the Carhop, Little Pete, Chief Hot Foot these are only a few of the characters Boltinoff created for DC. Ellsworth gave him a go-ahead to submit fillers, ranging from half-page gags to tiny stories in the 2-3 page range. Two years after that, he called on Whitney Ellsworth, DC's editor, whom he'd come to know while making the magazine rounds, and asked for steady work. Then he freelanced for magazines, selling hundreds of cartoons to Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal etc. He worked there from 1933 until the paper folded, in 1937. He was a professional cartoonist before he was out of his teens, drawing pictures for the theatre section of The New York American, where his brother, Murray, was an assistant editor. And tho generations of comic book readers know him almost exclusively for his DC work, the vast majority of his millions of fans know absolutely nothing about anything he's done in comic books.īoltinoff was born in 1914 in New York City. Henry Boltinoff never worked on Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman or any of the other long-lasting and numerous superheroes thatįorm the bulk of DC Comics' output over the past two-thirds of a century - and yet, his work has probably appeared in more individual DC issues than that of any other creator. Please contribute to its necessary financial support. If this site is enjoyable or useful to you, Noted for: Hocus Focus, Stoker the Broker and more, including dozens of filler characters for DC Comics Worked in: Comic books and newspaper comics For today, we can only do our best to carry on the tradition.HENRY BOLTINOFF Born: 1914 : : : Died: 2001 The existing collection of Boltinoffs runs out in October, Junior Whirl, and the world, Unlike the journalistic hoi polloi, we honor Boltinoff and will miss his work. And few of us ever failed to spot at least four out of six differences. Ministrations? How many students of his minutiae went on to rewarding careers asĪrt critics or graphic designers? How many trivia buffs were driven stark raving mad by "Hocus-Focus" and its world of endless itemization? We may never know. How many futureĬrime scene witnesses were better prepared to remember relevant details thanks to Boltinoff's Reading "Hocus-Focus" made better observers of all of us. Stealth a parallel universe of boys with disappearing hats and girls with repositionedĪrms a bracing burst of vaguely unsettling Americana in which flowerpots and lampsĬould move or vanish without logic or reason "Hocus Focus" plunged readers intoĪ world of detail as spare as it was compulsive, with Boltinoff as ourĪrbitrarily twisting the elements to render the whole incomplete, the real unreal. That asks the sharp-eyed reader to "Find at least six differences in details between panels."Ī dreamscape of exasperated coaches whose striped shirts shifted with barely perceptible For more than 30 years, in more than 300 newspapers,īoltinoff kept kids of all ages perplexed with "Hocus-Focus," Track exactly which features people actually look at, Boltinoff would beĪ household name and Maureen Dowd would be selling pretzels atįedEx Field. York Times found room to mourn the death of Boltinoff.īut in a just world, in a world where newspapers, like web sites, could Section in the country, not even the media-heavy death notices of the New In the words of a daughter, "just a very, very kind man." No other obituary Paragraphs that, among other things, the legendary newspaperman had onceĭrawn a Wall Street cartoon entitled "Stoker the Broker," and that he was, Of those two, the HoustonĬhronicle dispatched Boltinoff in four short sentences. States bothered to mention the passing of Henryġ9 at his home in Lake Worth, Florida. The newspaper game really is that only two journals in the United It's a measure of just how meretricious, dishonorable, and self-deluded
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