Here’s the second portion of SECRETS BEHIND THE COMICS, editor Stan Lee’s self-published pamphlet which purported to give the inside story on how comic books were made.
Even in 1947–and this applied to virtually all of the publishing house of the period, not just Timely–the Editor was the Key Man.
This section does give us the opportunity to see what a comic book script looked like during the Golden Age, at least at postwar Timely.
These days, a format more akin to a screenplay is generally used, with copy of all sorts indented below the panel description copy rather than alongside of it.
Here, another vintage Timely workhorse is spotlighted, Kin Platt. He’s not very well remembered these days beyond the hardest of hardcover comics historians. His penciling style is very nice, though.
The same can be said of letterer Mario Acquaviva–few remember him these days.
Violet Barclay, on the other had, is a bit better known–in part because she was one of the relatively few female artists working in the field at that time.
More SECRETS BEHIND THE COMICS to come!
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Mario Acquaviva’s lettering reminds me of Artie Simek–nice, readable, round letters, and ornate first letters for captions. I assume Simek learned a lot of these lettering tricks from Acquaviva–since Adorable Artie was a mainstay at Marvel until his death in 1975.
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I remember Kin Platt not from the comics, but from books I read when I was a kid, like THE MYSTERY OF THE WITCH WHO WOULDN’T and SINBAD AND ME. And from adult novels I never read, but saw in the library (or maybe in Woolworth’s) like THE PUSHBUTTON BUTTERFLY and THE KISSING GOURAMI.
I was startled, years later, to learn he’d done comics, too.
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Thanks for sharing these! …Especially since the originals sell in the $500 range! The graphic style of the book is very engaging, kind of a 1940s version of Understanding Comics.
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Kin Platt was a Renaissance man. He worked in radio comedy, he was one of the best Timely funny animal artist of the war era, with a freewheeling, frenetic style as good as, and possibly better, that Vince Fago’s. (Fago and Platt were decades long friends into their 90’s). He also did the Mr. and Mrs. syndicated newspaper strip for a time. And yes, he write a ton of young reader novels. When he passed away I put together an obit for him that ran someplace, maybe Alter Ego Magazine, I forget.
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