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Author Topic: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...  (Read 14372 times)

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Offline Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« on: May 22, 2011, 11:47:20 AM »
I've split this away from Roy's topic to encourage more readers and clean up Roy's Commissions topic.
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Hey Roy,
Here's a suggestion if you are still looking for any.
I had an idea for a commission that could not only be fun but historically significant.
The problem would be only a few still living artists could supply it.

Background -
AlterEgo101 has a Fox Features theme.  Victor Fox as you know was one of the first to jump on the superhero bandwagon after DC published Action #1.  He had many heroes in his stable, most of them second and third stringers most don't know.
Fox also had a lot of great artist come through his stable as they matured and moved on usually being owed money!

So we know what he published, the characters, etc.  And we know who he used for artists - Simon, Kirby, Fine.
BUT we don't have a clue just What did Victor Fox LOOK LIKE?  AE101 didn't have a picture.  This was my big hope but it was not to be.

My suggestion - find a GA artist that worked for Fox to do a portrait of the mystery man that is Victor Fox!
It could be a simple job or more involved if you had some of the characters he published included.

I'm actually surprised that nobody has done this already at some point in the past.

The hard part will be finding someone still alive that is willing to do it.  Two that come to mind are Joe Simon and Al Feldstein.

It's all most likely pie in the sky but the man that was Victor Fox is almost a complete enigma and I'm sure many would like to put a face on him.

-Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« on: May 22, 2011, 11:47:20 AM »

Offline Roygbiv666

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2011, 01:28:22 PM »
Hey Roy,
Here's a suggestion if you are still looking for any.
I had an idea for a commission that could not only be fun but historically significant.
The problem would be only a few still living artists could supply it.

Background -
AlterEgo101 has a Fox Features theme.  Victor Fox as you know was one of the first to jump on the superhero bandwagon after DC published Action #1.  He had many heroes in his stable, most of them second and third stringers most don't know.
Fox also had a lot of great artist come through his stable as they matured and moved on usually being owed money!

So we know what he published, the characters, etc.  And we know who he used for artists - Simon, Kirby, Fine.
BUT we don't have a clue just What did Victor Fox LOOK LIKE?  AE101 didn't have a picture.  This was my big hope but it was not to be.

My suggestion - find a GA artist that worked for Fox to do a portrait of the mystery man that is Victor Fox!
It could be a simple job or more involved if you had some of the characters he published included.

I'm actually surprised that nobody has done this already at some point in the past.

The hard part will be finding someone still alive that is willing to do it.  Two that come to mind are Joe Simon and Al Feldstein.

It's all most likely pie in the sky but the man that was Victor Fox is almost a complete enigma and I'm sure many would like to put a face on him.

-Yoc

Hi Yoc

That sounds interesting, but not really up my alley or pocketbook.

Michael Netzer has actually drawn a bunch of portraits here: http://michaelnetzer.com/mnop/?tag=portraits-of-the-creators-sketchbook

I think the idea was that they were for Wikipedia. Maybe he'd be able to do it - I'd imagine even GA artists couldn't do a portrait from memory, they'd need a photo reference.

Offline Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2011, 04:48:34 PM »
Memory is all they'd have to work from Roy.  As far as I can tell there's no pictures of the man out there.
Even his background is very fuzzy.  Only one published source has speculated on his roots and I've never seen it confirmed anywhere.

Well, like I said, it was a pie in the sky thought.
-Yoc

Offline philcom55

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2011, 04:18:59 AM »
Nice idea, and not necessarily 'pie in the sky'. Did anybody ever find out what happened to him in the end? Perhaps he's still alive somewhere in South America, along with all the other aging crooks and war criminals! :)

Bearing in mind the number of artists he swindled over the years it's possible that one of them would be only too happy to produce a suitable caricature on the understanding that he'd be remembered that way in all future histories of the medium until the end of time. Perhaps something along the lines of Marvin Stein's famous image of Ben Oda, Joe Simon, Joe Genola, Mort Meskin and Jack Kirby from the cover of the American Justice Traps the Guilty no.56 would fit the bill...?

http://i53.tinypic.com/24mb4g6.jpg
(In fact it occurs to me that somebody probably did use him in this way as the model for a crook or unscrupulous publisher. The problem is that there are so few people left who'd be able to spot the likeness after all these years!)

 - Phil Rushton

Offline Roygbiv666

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2011, 07:36:07 AM »
Well, I believe Al Feldstein has a web-site, http://www.alfeldstein.com/. His painting are around $2k, I'd imagine a pencil sketch would be far less. You never know, he might do it for free if you tell him about it.

Offline John C

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2011, 03:52:39 PM »
Taking for granted that the Eisner guy in "The Dreamer" actually looks like Eisner, it stands to reason that "Vincent Reynard" bears some resemblance to Fox, Yoc.

Or maybe he's entirely fictional, created by one of the artists who wanted to run a company, but didn't want to take the heat for his bad decisions.  Like Remington Steele, without the manners.  I'm not suggesting anybody take this seriously, but it's amusingly worth noting that the history of the form HAS seen two cigar-chomping Kings of Comics...

Offline Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2011, 08:08:27 PM »
I never thought the lead in The Dreamer looked much like Eisner and For Sure the Jimmy Samson character looks Nothing like Jerry Iger did at that time.  Google will show you he sure wasn't a short nebish with glasses.  So I've never given Eisner's Dreamer version of Fox much faith.

-Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2011, 12:03:05 PM »
There might be a photo of Fox laying about somewhere, after all he did make a big splash in 1948 in Time magazine with his "people are idiots" statement.  At the time it was considered just as inflammatory than perhaps even Gaines' later Senate hearings testimony regarding that CSS cover.

Offline Roygbiv666

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2011, 12:38:51 PM »
There might be a photo of Fox laying about somewhere, after all he did make a big splash in 1948 in Time magazine with his "people are idiots" statement.  At the time it was considered just as inflammatory than perhaps even Gaines' later Senate hearings testimony regarding that CSS cover.

This one: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804769,00.html ?
The quote is apparently "There are more morons than people, you know." - http://www.dreadfuldays.net/soti/soti_chapt10/soti_chapt10.html

Maybe there's a pic in the Time article if you get reprint permission, or check a large library/microfiche.

Offline Yoc

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Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2011, 04:28:10 PM »
Thanks for the links Roy!
I've found just one picture online with Victor Fox in the title.
But who's to know if the little girl with the very unique name "Celestine Fuchs" is related to 'our' Fox or not?

-Yoc

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4819/victorfoxandcelestinefu.jpg

Offline Roygbiv666

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Re: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2011, 06:11:49 PM »
Would he likely look like his stand-in from Eisner's "The Dreamed"?

http://thecomicsdetective.blogspot.com/2010/07/dc-vs-victor-fox-testimony-of-will.html

During the hearing, would they have taken photos for a newspaper maybe? I searched for New York Times entries at the time of the hearing, but nothing came up.

This could be a fun detective project.

What about making a list of Golden Age writers and artists who worked with/for him, then we could contact them and see if they have any pix? Tic-toc.

Offline Yoc

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Re: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2011, 06:25:57 PM »
'The Dreamer' Roy.
I still think Eisner took a lot of liberties with how he drew people in The Dreamer.
I sent the above photo to Feldstein and heard nothing back.  After that it'll need legwork.

Any help is welcome!
-Yoc

Offline Geo (RIP)

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Re: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2011, 09:35:17 PM »
It sounds like your a lot closer then before with this and other information you've been gathering. Wishing you lots of good luck with it Yoc. I know it's been a long time coming.

Geo

'The Dreamer' Roy.
I still think Eisner took a lot of liberties with how he drew people in The Dreamer.
I try and send the above photo to Feldstein.  After that it'll need legwork.

Any help is welcome!
-Yoc
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Re: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #13 on: May 25, 2011, 11:40:44 AM »
This one: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804769,00.html ?
The quote is apparently "There are more morons than people, you know." - http://www.dreadfuldays.net/soti/soti_chapt10/soti_chapt10.html

Maybe there's a pic in the Time article if you get reprint permission, or check a large library/microfiche.

Yeah, that's it... the "morons" remark... it was big news back then.  

I was looking through Nicky Wright's "The Classic Era of American Comics" and he commented there that Fox happened to be from England, entering the comics biz as an accountant with DC Comics... which is one of the reasons why he jumped into the fray with "Wonder Man," he saw how profitable Superman was first-hand.  Anyway, there might also be photos of him with regards to DC's early days... not that that is any more well documented... early comic biz history is a dark and muddled place it seems.

Offline Bob Hughes

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Re: Looking for a Victor Fox photo or drawing...
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2011, 02:27:59 PM »
Fox never worked for DC. He published an Astrology magazine which was distributed by Independent News.  That's how he got his hands on Action Comics sales figures, looking through the rate cards for his own magazine.

I think Feldstein might be your best bet.