General Category > Comic Related Discussion
Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
David Lawrence:
Oh god...that is brilliant! And that's certainly got to be a Feldstein caricature of Fox.
I've been researching Fox for the last couple of months. I really got started because I'm such a Jack Kirby and he's such an influence on my writing, and the constant references to Fox as mysterious and such got me wondering.
I discovered that to some degree I duplicated research already done for the Blue Beetle Companion, which I bought just for the Fox info, but I think I've found some stuff that nobody else has pieced together yet. I'll probably put together an article on him in the next couple months.
It's amazing that a man who was so many times involved in legal tangling...the shipping frauds of the early 1920s, the stock fraud of 1929, the DC lawsuit of 1939, assorted legal troubles in the 1940s could completely elude the camera.
I have found photos of his family, though I'm not sure about posting because they are from a copyrighted work. I think I know where I can get a photo of Fox...but it likely won't be good, only a headshot, and the cost is a little prohibitive. But I'm thinking about it.
Yoc:
Hi David,
I would truly LOVE to read what you've found and see any pictures!
Hehehe wasn't that a fun story? I'm glad I could share that with you. I used some panels as part of the archive Phabox and I recently released.
The Phantom Lady Archive v2 - The Fox Years. We covered as much as we could find on Victor Fox who really has fallen though the cracks of history. A dubious character for sure but I'd love to know more about him. The Blue Beetle Companion was the only source to claim background info on Fox's name change and family ancestory. I went digging on the recently release NYC 1940 census and found three Victor Foxes - none of them our man though.
I found one court case from the 40's that I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else. An Oct 1944 court martial. His part ownership in Cornwall Shipbuilding Company and testimony for the prosecution filled a hole in his history nobody else has talked about afaik. I had to give up my Fox search so we could finally release the long long delayed collection.
Check it out in the Fox bio in our PL collection - http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=20074. I have a bibliography at the end of it.
The direct link to the Fox bio is here - http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/preview/index.php?did=19663&page=18
David Lawrence:
You're going to laugh but Fox sort of reminds me of my grandfather, though on a much grander scale. He likewise was the son of orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Hungary in his case, and bounced from scheme to scheme. I think I sort of understand Fox. Don't necessarily approve, but I get his thinking.
I've seen news reports of the 1944 court case but not the court documents. The 1920 case dragged on for years and apparently set some kind of important precedent in maritime law. I've found Fox in the 1940 census. For some reason I had some difficulty but his WW2 draft record helped me find it. 1900, 1910, 1920 as well. 1930 I haven't been able to find.
I know the Fox family was in Nottingham by 1891, courtesy of the 1891 English census. A list of surnames in Vilna...their hometown in Lithuania...lists no Fox, but does have Fuks (kind of funny, don't you think?) and Fuchs. No specific info though, just a surname list.
Fox's name at birth was Samuel Victor Jacob Fox. Family was in Fall River by 1900. Another Fox family from Russia lived 500 feet up the road from them, leading me to believe that despite reports that it was mother Bessie who had family there it was actually father Joseph.
There are photos of Joseph, Bessie and a some of Victor's sisters in Meryle Secrest's biography of Stephen Sondheim because...wait for it...Victor Fox is the UNCLE of Stephen Sondheim!!! Though he rates little more than a mention a fair amount of family background is presented in a couple of pages in the first chapter. For some reason it makes me imagine a Kirby influenced ASSASSINS, with Red Skull, Dr. Doom & Darkseid replacing Booth, Oswald & Charlie Guiteau.
I'm trying to figure out how to contact Secrest to see if she is willing to share any info or put me in touch with her sources. However, the book is 15 years old and her sources were elderly even then, so...
It's all sort of funny when you think about it. Fox has a reputation...deserved no doubt...for being a thief. Yet Martin Goodman ripped off Joe Simon & Jack Kirby...and he got Jack again in the 60s. We all know what DC did to Siegel and Shuster. Could Fox have been any worse? And had Fox not so totally rubbed Simon the wrong way couldn't he have ended up publishing Captain America? And how might that single super-star in his hands altered the fate of his company, the history of comics, and his own reputation?
As to a photo of Fox himself...unless he somehow got an exemption denied to everyone else in the USA...there HAS to be one attached to his passport records! Unfortunately only records before 1925 are available online so they have to be ordered. They are public records and can be purchased...but all you get are photocopies, the snapshot attached is very small, and the cost is steep at $150.
Still, if we can gather up a handful of curious people and pool the costs. I've attached pre-1925 passport images for Victor's mother Bessie, to give you an idea what we might hope for.
John C:
I don't have anything to add. I just want to mention that I'd totally read Crimes by Cats.
Yoc:
Wow! Thanks for all the info David!
And I'd be willing to help with costs if you can find a group to help pay for the photo.
Alter-Ego magazine might be interested in something like this.
Hehehe, I love that alternate history idea of Capt. America at Fox.
"I want an explosion on the third panel of each page dammit! I don't care if Bucky is asleep in the tent - Blow it up!"
So that photo with Celestine Fuchs - it might well be The Victor Fox...
I stumbled across it in a simple Google Image Search but it didn't come with any real info.
--
I'm guessing you likely saw the NY Times page from November 1, 1917 right?
Debt decision again World Costume Corp and Victor S Fox vs Mr I. Eisfeidt for $321.95.
Also found with Google search. I have a pdf of the page if needed.
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