Egomania Read online

  Dad was born 1901, and died some 68 years later, mere weeks before Man landed on the Moon.

  Throughout the 1930’s Dad worked for Fox West Coast Theaters, at which he painted huge poster like things that were used to hang in the lob-bies of movie theaters in San Francisco. They didn’t have the printed post-ers in those days. At least not in the first run movie houses. During these years we saw all the first run movies for free; dad just called the manager and said we were coming!

  Later we moved to Southern California and what followed in Holly-wood simply reinforced this dedication, though we had to pay for the films by then, but Dad was making a lot more money, so it all evened out. And it was during war times. Gas was rationed, so was food. Dad did, though, get some food under the counter, so to speak, for over the counter art work. I remember the thrill of Dad meeting the man at a street corner and exchang-ing “gifts”—it was the other side of going out and gathering cans or buying those War Bonds. Black-market meat for a bit of commercial art.

  My father wanted me to go into show business as a singer. I’d been given private vocal lessons since I was around nine years old and done my normal appearances here and there. In time I had developed a style and pro-fessional level that opened some very interesting doors and fed me into the very beginnings of a career in that business. But that wasn’t my dream.

  When I finally sold my first story, ah, what a thrill that was. I made a life-altering decision.

  Dad felt: “You can do both!” Meaning I’d out-grow my interest in writ-ing and pay attention to realistic matters: a singing career.

  Ah, the passion of it all.

  I mean: Dad’s passion was all vested in my becoming the second Sina-tra, or the Mario Lanza of my day. Sure. Dreams are made up of such illu-sions. Many a parent has driven their child down the road to self-destruction via great success, or simply great success, or simply down a dead end road. Many Super Stars were pushed into fame by a mother or father possessed with the idea of their child’s name in lights.

  I told Dad: “Well, I think I want to be a writer!”

  “Wonderful, son,” he probably said, verbally giving me a generous pat on the head, “that will be nice. You can write and sing!” The implication, of course, was that I would probably outgrow this silly impractical ambition and could then place all my attention on the practical manner of a suc-cessful career in show business.

  Sure. Sound, loving advice, missing one vital point of order: My passion was writing, not singing.

  #

  I still have vague memories of being a young child in San Francisco. Dad worked for Fox West Coast theaters and did those grand large paint-ings used in the lobby of the theaters to promote the movie playing at that very moment. For a while Dad had a few of them in, of all places, his gar-age, all of which, sad to say, are now long gone.

  But I remember going backstage, usually upstairs, or elsewhere in the theater in downtown San Francisco, and watching Dad work.

  Mostly, though, for me, it was a natural education in art. I simply picked up a lot of pointers by watching and listening. At times he did work on ads for newspapers—freelance work. And also did some cover art for small pamphlets on the California Missions, some of which I still have.

  When I was seven we moved a few dozen miles south of San Francisco to Milbrae, where the folks bought their first home. We stayed there for one year before moving all the way to Los Angeles, when Dad got a job at Pa-cific Title & Arts Studio, in Hollywood.

  Returning to Southern California we settled not far from 20th Century Fox Studios and even closer to Westwood Village, a few minutes from Santa Monica. And then there was Hollywood, not far by bus or car. It was the beginning of the war, the big one, the Popular One, to say nothing about the bloody one. We tend to ignore all that. Not only thousands of Americans, but people from all over, including German, lost their lives in the retaking of Europe, away from the Nasty Nazi Monsters of Germany’s Third Reich—under the Master Leader of the savage fanatic crazies of that government, Adolf Hitler, Mein Fuehrer! Those few years of history were difficult for all concerned and a disgusting blot on an otherwise noble nation.

  The nation was up in arms and totally supportive of the war. We’d been attacked without warning by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and rallied around the President and flag. It was a time when being an American, when saluting the flag, when proudly standing together in a solid firm front, was not only popular but a total devotion to a common cause and a belief in ourselves and our good place in history and our mission to stop the monsters in Europe and then in Asia.

  The Russian front slowly swelled away from Moscow and right into what was Poland and in the last months of the war my wife’s family was rushing to escape the on-coming armies, for she (Brigitte) came from Prus-sia in a town named Elbing. Her story is a feast of horror and reveals the human side of war for the German population. She was far too young to be anything but a child rushed though the last days and weeks just ahead of the Russian invasion forces.

  And me? Heck I was having fun playing war and going to school and just being a kid. I had wonderful parents, even if not perfect, but very lov-ing and caring and protective.

  Dad did his daily job, which had given him safe exit from the draft–his work involved movies that were also made for the government and ex-empted him from military duty. We also lived in a rationed society, a wel-comed state of affairs. All people recognized the importance of winning the war and being a part of it, doing our duty for our country and our men in uniform. We were totally supportive!

  We thrilled to movies with John Wayne single handedly defeating the monsters of the Pacific and, I believe, did his number against the African and/or European front. He was a master of battle. And I remember the first Gregory Peck film, Days of Glory (1944), where he was introduced and played a Russian. This was when they were on our side thus that was a hero role. We had many actors that went into the army by choice when they could have avoided it for any of a number of reasons. And, of course, there was Glenn Miller who sought to bring his whole popular civilian band into the armed forces. That didn’t happen, but he got his commission and formed one of the best bands ever! (And certainly his best musical organi-zation.) And he, like many other heroes of the time, died in the war.

  My Dad, being in the motion picture business, gave me access to a lot of interesting things. We saw one heck of a lot of films, so that when TV came along later, that was a natural for us. The whole Hollywood scene was my childhood in many ways. And the war years were certainly important.

  Now the company he worked for did the screen credits for studios like MGM and Warner Brothers, and a few other top film producing enterpris-es. One of Dad’s jobs was to paint backgrounds for the titles and screen credits, which others in the art department hand lettered, many times on glass plates.

  I can’t remember any of the films Dad actually did, too many years ago, but I do know he had done the Alfred Hitchcock drawing that was fea-tured in the television series under that name! I don’t think he originated it, but did do the version actually photographed for the show.

  Most of his life was involved making a living as a commercial artist in order to feed his family. And that was, at times, a drag. Even if working in the film industry, which got him deferred from the draft, kept him safe at home, since Pacific Title did work on government films from time to time, the job was at times creatively draining on him.

  But for me, there were other advantages of having an artist for a father! One of these was the Easter Eggs. He could make some very fancy designs on eggshells. And then, too, there were other little pluses. He made a num-ber of additions to my childhood through his art. Alas, most of that is lost to memory.

  I usually got A’s is art class. Never knew if that was because of any na-tive, personal, talent or the fact that the teacher maybe wanted to impress my father. Dad claimed that I showed more artistic talent as a teenager than he did at that same age. Of course, he was some
what biased, my being his one and only son!

  His influence was very strong in the department of using one’s natural talents in a commercial way, rather than as pure art. Though Dad was hung in the San Francisco Legion of Honor, which wasn’t no crab apples!

  I might leap ahead at this point and confess to one incident that took place between Dad and myself, which was far from enjoyable. He was do-ing a cover with Mars in the background (the planet hanging high in the upper part of the sky—into which a magazine logo could easily be placed. But he didn’t do Mars justice. And so I figured I’d try to show him the way. And I tried, by God I tried, and he showed me the way how not to help him do a cover! He was furious! I was sadly impressed and depressed over the whole thing. But we both did learn a lesson: he to be more scien-tifically correct and me to limit my suggestions to verbal ones when work-ing with him on covers.

  I didn’t start reading compulsively until around age twelve, and I had my nose stuck in a book from then on. It became my social life, more than the real life around me. But then, the folks left West LA in a few years to move across the hills to San Fernando Valley after the war and settle in the small town of Encino, right next to Tarzana. Even more importantly, where Edgar Rice Burroughs was to live his last years and die. But, alas, I didn’t know about that. I only knew that I was reading his books at a hungry rate and that in the coming years I’d spend a lot of time going to Hollywood and Los Angeles by bus and streetcar. And one day in a second hand bookstore I run into a nice fella who asked if I had read anything by Ray Bradbury. This was followed up with his announcing he was Ray Brad-bury: What followed had nothing to do with world wars and nothing to do with anything but the world of science fiction! I had never heard of s-f fan-dom, nor people like Forrest J Ackerman until that accidental meeting with one hell of a nice young writer! What later followed created swift connec-tions which were in a few years to help launch not only my career as a writer, but would result in my meeting of that young German lady destined to be my wife.

  Throughout all this was that singing thing that Dad had in mind for my future career. And against that was my fannish sci-fi collection, ever grow-ing. Once I went to an early convention in San Diego I was more than hooked.

  It was around this time that our lifetime work together began. I wanted some original cover art, like they sold at science fiction conventions; pub-lishers offering manuscripts and art to help support these early gatherings. And thus started our collaborative efforts that continued over the years.

  And that’s the story I want to relate, for it opened doors in several ways, and even to this day has been effective in my designing covers on books for Wildside Press. Some of the covers are self-designed, from the ground up, such for Dimensions: Past, Present & Future, for The Ersatz for Any One Can Die. And a number of others, such as Epic Dialogs of Mhyo were mostly designed totally by me outside of some art (in this case, the dragon). Most of the rest are a combination of elements gathered together from bits of original art Dad did. In a few cases I adapted the covers that appeared on the original pocketbook editions so many years ago. Others, I simply did in part or in whole.

  The point being: I’m not an artist, but I learned a lot about art and about composition and about covers over the years. All of this experience made it possible to do some work professionally, even being hired by one of the top pulp publishers, Leo Margulies, who, in his later years, came out west in semi-retirement. He was still publishing magazines such as Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and Zane Gray Western. He had done something like 40 different titles during the forties back east. But in the early ’70s he came to Los Angeles and needed somebody to put together the covers for these magazines. Forry Ackerman suggested me and I was doing that for about a year.

  A lot had taken place between the early years of working with Dad on covers for the sci-fi magazines and then with Leo. I even sold one of Dad’s covers to him for the Mike Shayne, January 1974 issue.

  What a delightful man Leo was, too. This was a tough professional, but a wonderfully open and giving mensch. He would look at something you brought into his offices and either frown, saying: “Can’t use it!” or give off a wide generous grin and see that a check was instantly written out. If he had said he couldn’t use it, I’d find out what was needed, do it and deliver on deadline! He was amazed and delighted when I came in with just what he needed and had that check in my hands before I left his office.

  The short time I worked with him was quite a learning experience, too.

  This all occurred during a period shortly after my mother’s death. I was in a very bad space, emotionally drained. His offices were in the Holly-wood area, almost an hour away from Thousand Oaks. He seemed to be interested in having me do the total magazine layouts, paste-ups, but that would have meant coming to his offices on a daily basis. He also encour-aged me to offer him some manuscripts, but I simply wasn’t able to write at that time. I might have learned a lot from him if things had been different. But what a delightful man he was.

  Again, I keep getting ahead of the story.

  I almost forgot to clear up a point. It has to do with the extra L in Dad’s signature for magazine covers. The name is Nuetzel and he added an extra l so that it balanced out to: Nuetzell.

  Magazine and pocketbook covers were totally alien fields for Dad. He wasn’t a heavy reader, for one thing and for another he knew less than nothing about science fiction. That was my department! I had become an avid reader and collector for a number of years. By the time I started writ-ing, things had changed for me to mainly collecting copies of magazines containing stories I’d written—and later copies of my books.

  Leaping ahead too far into the future, again…

  I thought, maybe it might be possible to get Dad to do some covers and I could have the original art returned into our hands.

  What a wonderful thought; and what a wonderful idea. And what a fantastic learning experience that would open doors I had never imagined possible that day I met Ray Bradbury in a second-hand bookstore in Holly-wood.

  Who would have believed this chanced meeting would have so many dramatic effects over my life?

  Heck, if it weren’t for Ray I would never have met my wife! And he never has met her!

  Links and twists and turns all gathered together and around the future developments that lead to a partnership between father and son. And it all started somewhere in the beginning of the 1950’s.

  Some times fathers and sons work very well together. It may take a bit of time in order to get to the point where they can work smoothly together. We had our moments. For us it was a mixed bag.

  The silk screening project was one thing that sometimes worked, and other times didn’t. One of my first collaborative efforts with him was on the Egyptian project. He had developed an outlet for silk-screened prints of his art where he did the design and the screens. Then the printing was done with the help of my mother and my cousin Carl and, of course, myself. Many of these projects went just so far into commercial success. But one of the most successful ones was based on a suggestion I made:

  “Dad, how about a series of Egyptian pictures? Start with a litho of a wall and then we can silk screen over that with pictures like they have on Egyptian tombs and ruins.” Well, that’s exactly what we did. I filled the original order of 1,000 prints of a twelve-set series. They were sold to a framing house that did so well with them they wanted to order more. At that time we decided, for reasons I’ve forgotten, to just sell the design to them, which we did, along with the litho negative so they would have the background to silkscreen the pictures on. I don’t know what happened after that insofar as the numbers of sales, but we walked away from that project with a wee-profit.

  I won’t go into any more details concerning these projects Dad was in-volved in and I mention this only as a matter of record and illustrating how we were able to work hand-in-hand on some things. In this case he was top dog, so
to speak.

  In cover work it was a totally different matter.

  Here I was in a somewhat better position. The first cover I sold by my-self, agenting and going through the whole selling process. Ray A. Palmer was an established sci-fi pulp editor who was publishing his own digest magazines [Other Worlds and Science Stories] out of the mid-west and had, previously, been editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Stories for Ziff-Davis.

  The first items we sent to RAP, as he was generally called, were turned down flat, but we learned a lot about cover design from him and made a new sketch idea I submitted. They returned it with a suggested change. This was done and accepted and appeared on Science Stories, the February 1954 issue, which had a cover story by John Bloodstone (penname belong-ing to Stu Byrne) titled The Last Days of Thronas and a requested bio con-cerning Dad. Well, it was supposed to have been written by the artist in question, but was my first published writing; for I ghosted it for him.

  I still have letters from the editor accepting this cover for publication and I was thrilled to the ends of the known universe! My head was swim-ming in galactic dust and didn’t come out for a very long time.

  This sale caught Forry Ackerman’s attention and we signed on with him, with me playing in-between man. The deal always was: the art returns to the artist. This meant, though, in reality to the son of artist: me! Over the years I ended up giving the originals to Forry for his Ackermansion. Many of them have now fallen into the hands of sci-fi collectors. But for a period of time, long enough to satisfy my hunger for such things, I owned each and every one. And some of them I actually had designed. I’d come up with the ideas, Dad would execute them, and I would hand them over to Forry who managed to rack up quite a nice list of sales.