Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson's Blog
January 7, 2020
Happy 130th Birthday to the Founder of DC Comics
It’s a super heroic birthday for the Major—130 years ago January 7, 1890. And it’s only taken 20 plus years to get a semblance of recognition for the man. I say semblance because his name should be synonymous with comics and that hasn’t quite happened yet.
As Uncle Douglas and I were told on the occasion of touring the DC offices in New York in 2004—“If it weren’t for your grandfather, I wouldn’t be here.” To which, I replied—“neither would I!” This has been said to me, many, many times since by people in the industry and yet there are still people—gatepersons, if you will–in the industry who have the opportunity to support recognition of the Major’s accomplishments and yet, do not. And along with those gatepersons there are some comics historians who continue to buy in to the old Donenfeld and Liebowitz scenario of–he wasn’t really here–and if he was here, he didn’t do anything–and if he did do anything, he was a terrible person. Right. Here’s a news flash for those of you who refuse to acknowledge or recognize the Major’s contributions to comics—even WB/DC recognize the man! Wake up and join in on the FUN. We’d love to have you at the party.
I just finished a short essay on the Major for the University of Chicago Press for Source: The Comics Issue—thanks to Arne Flaten for including the Major. I’ve written and spoken about the Major for so many outlets including my recent book DC Comics Before Superman—thanks Dan Herman and David Armstrong–that you’d think I could do it on autopilot. But each time, I write MWN’s story I struggle to put it into just the right words—often because I have to cram a huge life into a few words. And each time I write it, I want to include the latest research and each time I write the Major’s story I think about those who will read it and what I want them to know.
So, here’s what I want you to know about the Major. It’s in two parts because it’s going to take that much room! Part Two will continue on Saturday to mark the 85th Anniversary of DC Comics with the appearance of New Fun #1 on January 11, 1935.
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was born in Greeneville, Tennessee and grew up there and in Portland, Oregon in a household with a strong female presence—his mother—Antoinette Wheeler. Antoinette was a writer, an editor, a suffragette and out in the world at a time when most women did not leave the home. She instilled in MWN, a pride in his ancestry especially of his grandfather, Christopher Wheeler, wounded in the Civil War and afterwards a doctor and newspaper publisher. Antoinette encouraged in MWN a love of Scotland and a love of the romantic ideals of knighthood partially to overcome his father, L. O. Strain’s weak character. And she passed on to him the family love of horses. It’s not a surprise that MWN would create strong female characters and no surprise that he wrote a number of swashbucklers and that horses often figure in his adventure stories.
Joining his mother in the suffragette custom of hyphenating her last name he also took his stepfather’s last name of Nicholson. MWN headed to St. John’s Military School in 1909 finishing in 2 years instead of the usual 4. He began his military career on the Mexican Border chasing bandits and by 1915 commanded a troop of African-American Buffalo soldiers in the Philippines. Witnessing the prejudice his troops endured he challenged his superior officer to a contest of Machine Gun Readiness meaning riding up at a full gallop, jumping off the horse and putting the Machine Gun together. The Major, in just a few short weeks, turned his men into a world-class Machine Gun troop breaking all records and written up in books and magazines of the day. His experiences with the Buffalo Soldiers would be another influence upon his writing.
In late 1916 the Major, under assignment to Military Intelligence traveled to Japan, China and Siberia. He was with the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia during WWI and the Russian Revolution. It was an exotic world and a rich moment in history for a writer to experience. Many of his later stories and comics would reveal those experiences and influences in Siberia and the Far East.
Posted to Paris after the war, MWN met the beautiful Swedish aristocrat, Elsa Karolina Bjorkbom. These two idealistic romantics found one another in Paris during the Roaring Twenties. According to the family story the Major proposed to Elsa at the top of the Eiffel Tower as the band played “Fascination.”
MWN’s idealistic notions were soon to come into conflict with his superior officer and by 1920 the Major was headed back to the US and towards a court martial under questionable events. The drama that ensued involved what appears to be an assassination attempt and a letter to President Harding that was published in the New York Times. When the trial finally took place, all charges were dropped with the exception of the published letter in the New York Times. It’s a complicated story that takes up two chapters in the coming book. Military Historian Robert Wettemann has presented several papers on the subject including “The Billy Mitchell of the Calvary.”
Discouraged with military bureaucracy and wanting to follow his dream of writing, MWN, left the Army and began his second career that would last most of his life—writing adventure stories for pulp magazines. The pulps so-called because of the pulpwood paper on which they were printed were highly popular in the 1920s and 30s featuring 100s of magazines such as Adventure, Argosy, Thrilling Stories, Detective Stories and many more. The first known story of MWN’s was “The Wolves” published in McClure’s magazine August 1924 and the last known is “Rifles for the Apaches” published in Triple Western Winter 1956. MWN wrote adventure stories based on his experiences in the US Army as well as westerns, detective stories often featuring a Federal agent as the good guy and a number of swashbucklers about pirates and medieval knights. These plots and characters would appear later in comic book format.
Not content with being one more writer attempting to get published MWN took control of his destiny by becoming a publisher himself and starting a newspaper syndicate in 1925, Wheeler-Nicholson Inc. publishing political cartoons, comic strips and articles. He published original comics like “Vivian Vanity” the flapper and sometime detective, as well as adaptations of classics such as Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers prefiguring what was to come with his comics magazines in 1935. He was no match for the muscle of syndicates like the Hearst Corporation and by the end of 1926 went back to writing adventure stories for the pulps.
Writing for the pulps was lucrative and MWN, Elsa and their children moved to France with a flat in Paris and renting an ancient chateau in Vic sur Aisnes. From the photographs of the time it appears to have been idyllic with a houseful of friends and relatives, dinner parties, tennis and all the while the Major writing away. The chateau in Vic sur Aisnes would be a location for a number of his stories including “The Road Without Turning” nominated for an O’Henry Short Story Award.
Like all idyllic moments this one came to an end with the advent of the Great Depression. MWN’s income along with his fellow writers decreased and the family returned to New York. Like almost everyone else in the country times became difficult and the Major had to figure out a way to take care of his family that now consisted of five children. The Major, never one to lack courage, had an aha moment seeing the British Comic Cuts on the newsstands. His big idea was to create a uniquely American comics magazine and Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson audaciously decided to do so right in the middle of the Great Depression.
As Uncle Douglas and I were told on the occasion of touring the DC offices in New York in 2004—“If it weren’t for your grandfather, I wouldn’t be here.” To which, I replied—“neither would I!” This has been said to me, many, many times since by people in the industry and yet there are still people—gatepersons, if you will–in the industry who have the opportunity to support recognition of the Major’s accomplishments and yet, do not. And along with those gatepersons there are some comics historians who continue to buy in to the old Donenfeld and Liebowitz scenario of–he wasn’t really here–and if he was here, he didn’t do anything–and if he did do anything, he was a terrible person. Right. Here’s a news flash for those of you who refuse to acknowledge or recognize the Major’s contributions to comics—even WB/DC recognize the man! Wake up and join in on the FUN. We’d love to have you at the party.
I just finished a short essay on the Major for the University of Chicago Press for Source: The Comics Issue—thanks to Arne Flaten for including the Major. I’ve written and spoken about the Major for so many outlets including my recent book DC Comics Before Superman—thanks Dan Herman and David Armstrong–that you’d think I could do it on autopilot. But each time, I write MWN’s story I struggle to put it into just the right words—often because I have to cram a huge life into a few words. And each time I write it, I want to include the latest research and each time I write the Major’s story I think about those who will read it and what I want them to know.
So, here’s what I want you to know about the Major. It’s in two parts because it’s going to take that much room! Part Two will continue on Saturday to mark the 85th Anniversary of DC Comics with the appearance of New Fun #1 on January 11, 1935.
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was born in Greeneville, Tennessee and grew up there and in Portland, Oregon in a household with a strong female presence—his mother—Antoinette Wheeler. Antoinette was a writer, an editor, a suffragette and out in the world at a time when most women did not leave the home. She instilled in MWN, a pride in his ancestry especially of his grandfather, Christopher Wheeler, wounded in the Civil War and afterwards a doctor and newspaper publisher. Antoinette encouraged in MWN a love of Scotland and a love of the romantic ideals of knighthood partially to overcome his father, L. O. Strain’s weak character. And she passed on to him the family love of horses. It’s not a surprise that MWN would create strong female characters and no surprise that he wrote a number of swashbucklers and that horses often figure in his adventure stories.
Joining his mother in the suffragette custom of hyphenating her last name he also took his stepfather’s last name of Nicholson. MWN headed to St. John’s Military School in 1909 finishing in 2 years instead of the usual 4. He began his military career on the Mexican Border chasing bandits and by 1915 commanded a troop of African-American Buffalo soldiers in the Philippines. Witnessing the prejudice his troops endured he challenged his superior officer to a contest of Machine Gun Readiness meaning riding up at a full gallop, jumping off the horse and putting the Machine Gun together. The Major, in just a few short weeks, turned his men into a world-class Machine Gun troop breaking all records and written up in books and magazines of the day. His experiences with the Buffalo Soldiers would be another influence upon his writing.
In late 1916 the Major, under assignment to Military Intelligence traveled to Japan, China and Siberia. He was with the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia during WWI and the Russian Revolution. It was an exotic world and a rich moment in history for a writer to experience. Many of his later stories and comics would reveal those experiences and influences in Siberia and the Far East.
Posted to Paris after the war, MWN met the beautiful Swedish aristocrat, Elsa Karolina Bjorkbom. These two idealistic romantics found one another in Paris during the Roaring Twenties. According to the family story the Major proposed to Elsa at the top of the Eiffel Tower as the band played “Fascination.”
MWN’s idealistic notions were soon to come into conflict with his superior officer and by 1920 the Major was headed back to the US and towards a court martial under questionable events. The drama that ensued involved what appears to be an assassination attempt and a letter to President Harding that was published in the New York Times. When the trial finally took place, all charges were dropped with the exception of the published letter in the New York Times. It’s a complicated story that takes up two chapters in the coming book. Military Historian Robert Wettemann has presented several papers on the subject including “The Billy Mitchell of the Calvary.”
Discouraged with military bureaucracy and wanting to follow his dream of writing, MWN, left the Army and began his second career that would last most of his life—writing adventure stories for pulp magazines. The pulps so-called because of the pulpwood paper on which they were printed were highly popular in the 1920s and 30s featuring 100s of magazines such as Adventure, Argosy, Thrilling Stories, Detective Stories and many more. The first known story of MWN’s was “The Wolves” published in McClure’s magazine August 1924 and the last known is “Rifles for the Apaches” published in Triple Western Winter 1956. MWN wrote adventure stories based on his experiences in the US Army as well as westerns, detective stories often featuring a Federal agent as the good guy and a number of swashbucklers about pirates and medieval knights. These plots and characters would appear later in comic book format.
Not content with being one more writer attempting to get published MWN took control of his destiny by becoming a publisher himself and starting a newspaper syndicate in 1925, Wheeler-Nicholson Inc. publishing political cartoons, comic strips and articles. He published original comics like “Vivian Vanity” the flapper and sometime detective, as well as adaptations of classics such as Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers prefiguring what was to come with his comics magazines in 1935. He was no match for the muscle of syndicates like the Hearst Corporation and by the end of 1926 went back to writing adventure stories for the pulps.
Writing for the pulps was lucrative and MWN, Elsa and their children moved to France with a flat in Paris and renting an ancient chateau in Vic sur Aisnes. From the photographs of the time it appears to have been idyllic with a houseful of friends and relatives, dinner parties, tennis and all the while the Major writing away. The chateau in Vic sur Aisnes would be a location for a number of his stories including “The Road Without Turning” nominated for an O’Henry Short Story Award.
Like all idyllic moments this one came to an end with the advent of the Great Depression. MWN’s income along with his fellow writers decreased and the family returned to New York. Like almost everyone else in the country times became difficult and the Major had to figure out a way to take care of his family that now consisted of five children. The Major, never one to lack courage, had an aha moment seeing the British Comic Cuts on the newsstands. His big idea was to create a uniquely American comics magazine and Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson audaciously decided to do so right in the middle of the Great Depression.
September 7, 2019
DC Comics to reprint New Fun #1
How It All Began: part 1
Great news from DC Comics! They are publishing a reprint of New Fun #1, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's first comics magazine published under National Allied Publications. The magazine will be reprinted as a commemorative hardcover, original tabloid size with essays by Roy Thomas and me, Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson. New Fun #1 appeared on newsstands January 11, 1935. The commemorative edition celebrates the 85th anniversary of the founding of DC Comics. It is also "the Major's" 130th anniversary of his birth, January 7, 1890 in Greenville, Tennessee.
This moment has taken 22 years. I have been actively working since 1997 for DC and the larger comics community to recognize the Major’s importance to comics history. The reprint of New Fun #1 is an emotional moment given the journey that has led to the decision of DC to acknowledge Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson as the founder of DC comics. I’m grateful to those at DC who have been supportive of my efforts all these years. Here is the brief announcement sent out to "solicit" sales. DC has not even begun their PR efforts and already this simple announcement is generating interest.
I did not get to this moment without a lot of encouragement and support. This moment and everything that came after originated from members of my family. My father, Malcolm, Jr. was the catalyst giving me letters and photographs of significance. Photos, letters, and interviews with the aunts and uncle were instrumental along with hands on assistance from them and cousins and siblings in the early days. Without their contributions, I would never have accomplished anything. However, I am not the voice of my family nor do I speak for them. Each of them has their own story. This is mine, which, has been, in many ways, a personal journey of searching for family identity. I do not speak for the Major either. He speaks for himself in his own words and through his creative work.
Although people add to comics history through the huge online repository that has occurred in the last few years there is nothing like old-fashioned detective footwork to lend context and discover clues. As a young girl I devoured the Nancy Drew stories (loved that roadster!) graduating to the classics, Sherlock Holmes and all the characters created by Agatha Christie and onward to modern writers like Tony Hillerman. My favorites were mostly the female detectives like Christie's Miss Marple and Dorothy L. Sayer's Harriet Vane. The detective as an archetype is a pivotal figure in much of literature. That archetype lives in many forms throughout the comics magazines including the very name of the company--Detective Comics.
Research is detective work. Seeking information on site at archival institutions offers rewards that cannot come from online searches. Some of my research on the Major is so old that it came from copies of microfiche! I’ve stood in front of Xerox machines for not only hours but days. Just as rewarding is making the journey to the places lived. I traveled to East Tennessee a number of times and on one trip thanks to cousin Ian's sleuthing I was able to find our great-great grandmother's grave and the building where the newspaper founded by our great, great grandfather Christopher Wheeler that still exists! On another trip to Manlius, NY where MWN attended military school, the archivist became fascinated by the stories and searched for old yearbooks while I was there. Discovering the past on a computer screen, for me, does not have the same sense of treasures found, when you hold the artifacts in your hands. Several years later I went on a journey to Oregon and Washington to find the "ranch" the Major refers to from time to time in his bios. Just as I was about to give up, in one of those serendipitous moments, the park ranger who knew the area well, happened to come in and off we went. From old plat maps and his knowledge of the area we found it! It was a real Indiana Jones moment.
One of my favorite trips was to London and Paris--well, of course! Our Swedish cousin, the patriarch of the Swedish side took me on a journey to Vic sur Aisne north of Paris where we visited the ancient chateau the Major, Elsa and their children lived for a time in the late 1920's. And what a treat to go to Cuba and the Hotel National in Havana where Meyer Lansky, friend of Harry Donenfeld, had his casino. Sitting at the bar in Sloppy Joe’s in Havana having my picture taken right where the Major and Elsa, his wife, Vin Sullivan and Whitney Ellsworth had posed for a photograph in March 1937 was a you are there moment.
One of the aspects of the Major's life that inspires me are his pulp adventure stories. I kept hearing from the older family members that my grandfather wrote stories and when I questioned what kind of stories, they were dismissed with a wave of the hand and a pfft. The non-fiction books on military history and the many articles in Look and Harpers that he wrote were considered his best works. I kept looking for those "pfft" stories and when I found them a whole world opened up. They were pulp adventure stories and the pulps were the key to everything in MWN’s creative life. I fell in love with the pulps and discovered a community of people who were knowledgeable about popular culture in the 1920's, '30's and 40's. I learned a lot from them about the writers, publishers, printers and the business of distribution with its inevitable connection to mobsters. Even more important I discovered the crossover from pulps to comics not only through the business side but creatively and deliberately by the Major thus Adventure, Detective and Action Comics.
I've been collecting and reading the Major's pulps for most of this journey. They've given me clues to his story and inspired more than a few trips to places he wrote about. Reading his often semi-autobiographical stories based on his military career helped me get through the military archives and begin to see the real experiences that the files cannot tell. On one trip to Fort Bliss I stood in the parking lot of the museum there, which has, among other artifacts, an exhibit on the African-American Buffalo Soldiers who play an important part in the Major's story. I looked across the parking lot to a huge escarpment thrusting upwards to the sky and it suddenly hit me that the Major had described that very place in "Beelzebub the Bane." A direct connection to an author's voice is paramount to understanding them.
At last we get to the comics. I was intimidated for a long time by the sheer volume of details of magazines, stories, characters, artists, writers and the editors and publishers that make-up the known world of comics not to mention that it's basically still the domain of men particularly in my area of comics history. I stayed in the isolated world of research and did not attempt correspondence with anyone. All that changed in 2008 when the Major was inducted in the Eisner Hall of Fame at San Diego Comic Con. Suddenly I was in the midst of around 140,000 people who love comics. Over the last 11 years I've attempted to cram volumes of comics history into my head. Fortunately, for the most part, the comics community is an inclusive and generous community and most of the men I've met and collaborated with have been welcoming. Like any woman, I've had my share of bias and at least one nasty bullying--no girls allowed--scenario. That never stopped me as a girl and it doesn't stop me now. A web site went up. I started writing articles, going to comics conventions, meeting some of the greats of comics and having the opportunity to speak to them one on one. I gained a support system of colleagues and good friends who have steered me in the right direction and I've had a lot of fun! There are a number of blog posts here on the site with photos of conventions and the grand and wonderful people in my life.
All of this is leading to something bigger than its parts. Research is one thing but creating a story from it is another. I have been fortunate in the authors who have included the Major in their published works and who extended me the courtesy of contributing to their works. In 2014 John Locke and I collaborated on The Texas Siberia Trail, a reprint of the Major's pulp stories organized by his military career from the Texas/Mexican border to the Philippines, Siberia and Europe. It is published through John's press, Off-Trail Publications. In December of that year Shannon Wheeler created a 3-page comic from my outline of the Major's story that was published in The 2014 New Yorker Cartoons of the Year. In 2017 I appeared in Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics and last year Hermes Press published DC Comics Before Superman: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's Pulp Comics, a collaboration between me and David Armstrong who supplied the majority of the artwork. And here we arrive at the reprint of New Fun #1 to be published by DC with contributions from me and one of the great writers and editors in comics, Roy Thomas. There is much more to come. 2020 is going to be a great year to celebrate the Major's 130th and the 85th anniversary of DC Comics.
Great news from DC Comics! They are publishing a reprint of New Fun #1, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's first comics magazine published under National Allied Publications. The magazine will be reprinted as a commemorative hardcover, original tabloid size with essays by Roy Thomas and me, Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson. New Fun #1 appeared on newsstands January 11, 1935. The commemorative edition celebrates the 85th anniversary of the founding of DC Comics. It is also "the Major's" 130th anniversary of his birth, January 7, 1890 in Greenville, Tennessee.
This moment has taken 22 years. I have been actively working since 1997 for DC and the larger comics community to recognize the Major’s importance to comics history. The reprint of New Fun #1 is an emotional moment given the journey that has led to the decision of DC to acknowledge Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson as the founder of DC comics. I’m grateful to those at DC who have been supportive of my efforts all these years. Here is the brief announcement sent out to "solicit" sales. DC has not even begun their PR efforts and already this simple announcement is generating interest.
I did not get to this moment without a lot of encouragement and support. This moment and everything that came after originated from members of my family. My father, Malcolm, Jr. was the catalyst giving me letters and photographs of significance. Photos, letters, and interviews with the aunts and uncle were instrumental along with hands on assistance from them and cousins and siblings in the early days. Without their contributions, I would never have accomplished anything. However, I am not the voice of my family nor do I speak for them. Each of them has their own story. This is mine, which, has been, in many ways, a personal journey of searching for family identity. I do not speak for the Major either. He speaks for himself in his own words and through his creative work.
Although people add to comics history through the huge online repository that has occurred in the last few years there is nothing like old-fashioned detective footwork to lend context and discover clues. As a young girl I devoured the Nancy Drew stories (loved that roadster!) graduating to the classics, Sherlock Holmes and all the characters created by Agatha Christie and onward to modern writers like Tony Hillerman. My favorites were mostly the female detectives like Christie's Miss Marple and Dorothy L. Sayer's Harriet Vane. The detective as an archetype is a pivotal figure in much of literature. That archetype lives in many forms throughout the comics magazines including the very name of the company--Detective Comics.
Research is detective work. Seeking information on site at archival institutions offers rewards that cannot come from online searches. Some of my research on the Major is so old that it came from copies of microfiche! I’ve stood in front of Xerox machines for not only hours but days. Just as rewarding is making the journey to the places lived. I traveled to East Tennessee a number of times and on one trip thanks to cousin Ian's sleuthing I was able to find our great-great grandmother's grave and the building where the newspaper founded by our great, great grandfather Christopher Wheeler that still exists! On another trip to Manlius, NY where MWN attended military school, the archivist became fascinated by the stories and searched for old yearbooks while I was there. Discovering the past on a computer screen, for me, does not have the same sense of treasures found, when you hold the artifacts in your hands. Several years later I went on a journey to Oregon and Washington to find the "ranch" the Major refers to from time to time in his bios. Just as I was about to give up, in one of those serendipitous moments, the park ranger who knew the area well, happened to come in and off we went. From old plat maps and his knowledge of the area we found it! It was a real Indiana Jones moment.
One of my favorite trips was to London and Paris--well, of course! Our Swedish cousin, the patriarch of the Swedish side took me on a journey to Vic sur Aisne north of Paris where we visited the ancient chateau the Major, Elsa and their children lived for a time in the late 1920's. And what a treat to go to Cuba and the Hotel National in Havana where Meyer Lansky, friend of Harry Donenfeld, had his casino. Sitting at the bar in Sloppy Joe’s in Havana having my picture taken right where the Major and Elsa, his wife, Vin Sullivan and Whitney Ellsworth had posed for a photograph in March 1937 was a you are there moment.
One of the aspects of the Major's life that inspires me are his pulp adventure stories. I kept hearing from the older family members that my grandfather wrote stories and when I questioned what kind of stories, they were dismissed with a wave of the hand and a pfft. The non-fiction books on military history and the many articles in Look and Harpers that he wrote were considered his best works. I kept looking for those "pfft" stories and when I found them a whole world opened up. They were pulp adventure stories and the pulps were the key to everything in MWN’s creative life. I fell in love with the pulps and discovered a community of people who were knowledgeable about popular culture in the 1920's, '30's and 40's. I learned a lot from them about the writers, publishers, printers and the business of distribution with its inevitable connection to mobsters. Even more important I discovered the crossover from pulps to comics not only through the business side but creatively and deliberately by the Major thus Adventure, Detective and Action Comics.
I've been collecting and reading the Major's pulps for most of this journey. They've given me clues to his story and inspired more than a few trips to places he wrote about. Reading his often semi-autobiographical stories based on his military career helped me get through the military archives and begin to see the real experiences that the files cannot tell. On one trip to Fort Bliss I stood in the parking lot of the museum there, which has, among other artifacts, an exhibit on the African-American Buffalo Soldiers who play an important part in the Major's story. I looked across the parking lot to a huge escarpment thrusting upwards to the sky and it suddenly hit me that the Major had described that very place in "Beelzebub the Bane." A direct connection to an author's voice is paramount to understanding them.
At last we get to the comics. I was intimidated for a long time by the sheer volume of details of magazines, stories, characters, artists, writers and the editors and publishers that make-up the known world of comics not to mention that it's basically still the domain of men particularly in my area of comics history. I stayed in the isolated world of research and did not attempt correspondence with anyone. All that changed in 2008 when the Major was inducted in the Eisner Hall of Fame at San Diego Comic Con. Suddenly I was in the midst of around 140,000 people who love comics. Over the last 11 years I've attempted to cram volumes of comics history into my head. Fortunately, for the most part, the comics community is an inclusive and generous community and most of the men I've met and collaborated with have been welcoming. Like any woman, I've had my share of bias and at least one nasty bullying--no girls allowed--scenario. That never stopped me as a girl and it doesn't stop me now. A web site went up. I started writing articles, going to comics conventions, meeting some of the greats of comics and having the opportunity to speak to them one on one. I gained a support system of colleagues and good friends who have steered me in the right direction and I've had a lot of fun! There are a number of blog posts here on the site with photos of conventions and the grand and wonderful people in my life.
All of this is leading to something bigger than its parts. Research is one thing but creating a story from it is another. I have been fortunate in the authors who have included the Major in their published works and who extended me the courtesy of contributing to their works. In 2014 John Locke and I collaborated on The Texas Siberia Trail, a reprint of the Major's pulp stories organized by his military career from the Texas/Mexican border to the Philippines, Siberia and Europe. It is published through John's press, Off-Trail Publications. In December of that year Shannon Wheeler created a 3-page comic from my outline of the Major's story that was published in The 2014 New Yorker Cartoons of the Year. In 2017 I appeared in Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics and last year Hermes Press published DC Comics Before Superman: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's Pulp Comics, a collaboration between me and David Armstrong who supplied the majority of the artwork. And here we arrive at the reprint of New Fun #1 to be published by DC with contributions from me and one of the great writers and editors in comics, Roy Thomas. There is much more to come. 2020 is going to be a great year to celebrate the Major's 130th and the 85th anniversary of DC Comics.
