Russ had once worked as an assistant to Leonard Starr (Mary Perkins On Stage), and we would sometimes trade anecdotes about incidents at the Wally Wood studio and the Leonard Starr studio. These discussions eventually led us to script "Ghost Artist," a satire on the interactions of comic book and comic strip artists with their assistants.

You can spot first name references to Leonard Starr and Charlton editor Sal Gentile. I asked Charlton Spotlight editor-publisher Mike Ambrose about the transition at Charlton of editors Gentile and George Wildman, and he responded, "George's earliest editor credits appear in some of the late 1971 ghost books, and by January 1972 he was credited as editor across the line. Sal Gentile moved up into the magazine division, as had Pat Masulli before him. I don't know what happened to him after that, but he evidently died a few years ago, because I bought a group of his sketches and stuff from an estate sale in December 2002, from a Florida seller."

In the story, the name of comic strip artist Jimmy Elder is not a reference to Bill Elder. It's actually a combination of people Russ knew in the UK film industry--writer-director Jimmy Sangster and writer-producer Tony Hinds, who used the pseudonym John Elder. Sangster and Hinds scripted Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966). The name of our character Tony Sansom also combines Hinds and Sangster, since John Sansom was a pseudonym used at least three times by Sangster. Further, Russ devised his own pseudonym, Jack Younger, as the flip side of John Elder. In 1976-79, Russ used Jack Younger as his byline on a half-dozen or so horror-fantasy novels, including Claw, Curse of the Pharaohs, Demon, Devlin, Maniac!, Rest in Agony and Satan Sublets. However, to make it even more confusing, there are some comic book stories credited to "Jack Younger" which were actually scripted by me.

The "personal habits" sequence of "Ghost Artist" has specific references to Starr's "French cigarettes" and to Wood's overheated studio and his psychoanalytical reflections. Once Wood went into a self-analysis monolog and later left for an appointment, leaving me and Dom Sileo both working at the studio drawing tables. After some ten minutes passed, Dom said in frustration, "Why does he have to tell us all that?"

The ending of "Ghost Artist" is probably inspired by my memory of "Portrait of the Artist," Harry Harrison's short story about a comic book artist who is replaced by a computer. It was published in the November 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and reprinted the following year in New Dreams This Morning, James Blish's memorable anthology of science fiction stories about musicians and artists. (Harrison became familiar with computer theory and gunsight computers during WWII when he was trained to repair the secret Sperry Mark I.)

Since Russ and I had written and illustrated several stories for Charlton by this time, we anticipated doing the artwork for "Ghost Artist," but Wildman instead gave the script to Steve Ditko. I was disappointed we weren't going to illustrate the story, but as you can see, Ditko brought an intensity with a striking contrast between the two characters. He also added a nice touch by making Jimmy Elder a caricature of Russ!

For another Ditko story about a comic book artist, "The Blue Men of Bantro," go to Yoe's arflovers.

Russ Jones is the founding editor of Creepy and a pioneer in the publication of original graphic stories in mass market paperback books, such as Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror (Pyramid, 1966).

During the late 1960s, Russ lived at 127 West 79th Street, a huge apartment building called the Clifton House, and I would go over there to join him in inking pages for DC Comics. A few years later, Russ and I collaborated on a series of stories for Charlton Comics. Here is "Truck Stop" which was published in Ghostly Tales #108 (November 1973).

A series of events led up this story. Russ had done some work for the Twilight Zone comic book. One day I ran across a copy and mentioned to Russ that the stories in that comic book were several steps removed from the style and approach of the Twilight Zone television series. Pondering this, I began to wonder what Rod Serling might have written if he had worked for comic books. I decided it might be fun to script a story that would attempt to duplicate the type of atmospherics, themes and settings that Serling put into the TV series. There were episodes that took place in small town soda fountains, in rural areas and roadside diners.

This led to the thought that I could base such a story on a real-life incident that happened when my brother Joe and I were driving cross-country in 1969. It was very late, around midnight, as we drove through pitch black darkness in Arkansas. Nothing was open anywhere, and many hours had passed without food. I suggested that we stop at the first place we spotted.

Suddenly, out of the blackness, loomed a sign that simply read, "EAT". We pulled up and went inside. It was totally deserted. No customers, no one behind the counter. In the middle of the room, floor to ceiling, was a huge hand-painted sign, illustrated with a cartoon chicken, that read, "Gitmo's! If you want mo' you can git mo'!" We stood there staring at this sign. Then a woman wearing a blue bathrobe appeared and said, "What kin I do for you boys?"

I said, "I'd like some of that fried chicken."

"Yeah, I'll have that too," said Joe.

She said, "Well, I cain't git y'all enny fried chicken, but I can serve you up some Gitmo's."

"Okay, fine," I said. "We'll have some Gitmo's." We sat on stools at the counter and watched as she began frying chicken and heating vegetables.

I asked about the sign, and she explained, "Oh, yeah, he had big plans. He said he had the luck of the pluck. The idea came to him one day while he was in one of those Minnie Pearl Chicken places. Said he was gonna be franchisin' and fryin', fryin' and franchisin' 'til Gitmo's stretched from here to Atlanta. Yes sir, he was a schemer, all right, but there's a difference 'tween a planner and a doer. After all that talk, he jus' took off one day. It was all jus' a pipe dream. So y'all are sittin' in the one and only Gitmo's you'll evah find."

She set the two plates on the counter. As it turned out, Gitmo's and Coca-Cola made a terrific combination, and I was thinking how great it was that we had stumbled into this four-star eatery with superb Southern cuisine. Cleaning up behind the counter, she walked out into the center of the cafe and sat down at a table behind us.

As I ate, she struck a match to light a cigarette. She sat there smoking in silence. She was facing us, but we could not see her. It was an odd reversal of the usual spatial arrangement where a manager and employees are visible to customers seated at counter and tables. We continued to eat, but knowing she was sitting there in silence, staring at our backs, made me uneasy. Of course, there were no other customers, so there was no real reason for her to remain behind the counter. I heard her move the ashtray as she crushed out the cigarette. Silence.

I wanted to turn around, but I just kept eating. Eventually, she broke the silence. "If you boys are interested, I can show you something you've never seen before and will never seen again."

"Oh, yeah, what's that?"

"I can take you boys across the road over there and show it to you." I looked out the door toward the highway. Across the road, nothing could be seen in the darkness. There were no lights visible anywhere. Only blackness. I thought, No matter what she says next, there is no way I am going across the highway with this woman.

"We can walk over there," she said, "And I can show you a mummy with a glass eye."

"Well, er, thanks, but we have to get going. The Gitmo was great!" I stood up, put some money on the counter, and we departed, driving away into the inky blackness.

Once the "Truck Stop" script was written, I did the penciling and lettering. Russ did the inking, while I inked the backgrounds. Note that several panels in "Truck Stop" parallel the real-life situation, such as entering the diner and finding it deserted, the top row of panels on page three and the nothingness as seen from the doorway. The signs and prices were based on fading memories of 1950s Texas cafes where one could get a bowl of chili for a few coins or spend a bit more to dine in style with a "Chicken Fried Steak". The coloring obscures the Chicken Fried Steak sign in the third panel of page three.

It seemed to me like a Serling touch to take Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology, and put him in a modern setting. The real River Styx is 35 miles long, located at the Alabama-Florida border. Many years ago, traveling from Alabama to Florida, I went over a bridge on that river, and I have never forgotten the quick glimpse of the sign at the bridge entrance. It appeared to be an official state sign and read:

River Styx - Charon Crossing

            Matt Fox cover for July 1948 Weird Tales.