Book review: Man of Two Worlds by Julie Schwartz

Originally published July 28, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1393

I’ve written before about the fundamental lack of knowledge of, and interest in, the history of our little hobby. At the time that I was a young fan first discovering comics, and eagerly seeking out everything I could get my hands on, there were a number of tomes to be had. There were such works as The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer or Jim Steranko’s History of Comics and the essay collection All in Color for a Dime edited by Ðìçk Lupoff and Don Thompson.

But there is more than just the written history that presently exists. There is the living history of the comic and science fiction greats. And as anyone who has been keeping up with CBG, or with the industry, knows, we’ve been losing them. One by one, they’re gone, and if they didn’t write down their experiences in the forging of the industry or genre that we all love, then that’s it. It’s vapor mist. All those experiences, all that information, lost to us.

One doesn’t expect everyone in the industry to live up to the standard of an Isaac Asimov, whose autobiographies cover just about everything one could possibly want to know about the good doctor. But our little tribe has grown beyond the ability to depend on oral history, and although certainly no one is under any obligation to commit their life’s experiences to paper, it’s certainly nice when someone interesting takes the opportunity to do so.

For years now, assorted folks—including myself—have pestered the indefatigable Julius Schwartz to get his life’s experiences between two covers. There are few veterans as revered and beloved as Schwartz, or as knowledgeable. Starting as a fan in the world of science fiction, he eventually made a career of agenting short stories for some of the most acclaimed writers of the time. After that he became an editor, landing with DC comics where he was integral to the launching of what we now call the Silver Age of comics that brought us Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and other dead guys.

Julie has been omnipresent in the industry, a staple of enough conventions to wear out men half his age (like—I dunno—me). I’ve seen him boogying on the dance floor at the San Diego Comic Con, the subject of a song written especially for him by Seduction of the Innocent’s Bill Mumy and crooned by Mumy in his best Rudy Vallee imitation. (Including, it should be noted, a hilariously ribald lyric that I can’t really repeat. Suffice to say that it rhymes “Schwartz” with “Racing Horse.”)

During the past years, whenever Julie is in attendance at a convention, you never knew what you were gonna get until you saw him. Sometimes he looked like he was in pain. Other times he was bopping around the convention looking extremely fly for a white guy. And oftentimes he’d be talking about finally getting around to producing that autobiography. To getting those stories and anecdotes he’s been telling for years onto paper.

Well, it’s finally done. Aided and abetted by writer Brian M. Thomsen, with an afterward by Harlan Ellison (who, by the way, wrote the foreword for the But I Digress trade paperback, a fact Krause never frickin’ mentions in their ads, hint hint), we now have Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics, published by the fine folks at Harper Collins.

Basically, Julie has done exactly what folks have been asking him to do. He’s presented “a memoir of (his) eighty-five years in science fiction and comics.” The books occasionally flows in the not-unusual stream of semi-consciousness that characterizes most autobiographies, forsaking chronological order for the purpose of conveying some thought or anecdote. For instance, he digresses off a discussion of the roaring 20s in order to bring up a conversation with Mike Richardson decades later… so that he can segue back to the real reason that Yankee Stadium is referred to as the House that Ruth Built.

Indeed, those are the most interesting types of items in the book. The “real” reason things happened, the “real” stories behind things, ranging from who was truly responsible for Batman, to the reason why L. Ron Hubbaard’s likeness appeared on the cover of Weird Tales, to the true origin of Kryptonite. The book is full of asides and side bars, going off on intriguing tangents (not to mention nicely breaking up blocks of copy) and is written in a breezy, chatty, off the cuff style. There are some points where Schwartz gets positively scathing. Editor Mort Weisinger is chided by Schwartz a number of times for his inability to wrap himself around telling the truth (Julie claims Weisinger’s epitaph should have been, “Here Lies Mort Weisinger… Again!”). And his characterization of a young Jim Shooter trying to do an end run around Schwartz by complaining to DC higher-ups over alleged poor treatment—resulting in Shooter being fired by Schwartz—is hilariously scathing. Furthermore, an overview of Schwartz’s fan days and subsequent career reads like a Who’s Who of SF legends.

Would I recommend it? Sure. However… (and you knew it was coming)…

I’m greedy. I wanted more.

As I noted, it’s not fair to hold autobiographies up to Asimov for comparison. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Asimov’s memoirs were gargantuan… more than seven hundred pages each. Julie was a contemporary of Asimov’s, certainly lived as varied and fascinating a life, but Man of Two Worlds weighs in at just under two hundred pages. A Who’s Who, to be sure, but frequently there’s about as much depth as a Who’s Who as well. Names are mentioned, people fly past, but more often than not, they don’t come to life as people for us. It’s as if they’re so clear to Schwartz in his own head that he just figures we can see them as clearly as he. But we can’t. We don’t really get a feeling for what made these SF pioneers tick. What their singular point of view was that drove them, what their foibles were, what they were like beyond the realm of the written words they plyed for their trade. Several times throughout the book, Julie tells an anecdote about someone without mentioning their name, and then drops in the identity at the end to give it a zinger feeling. That’s fine as far as it goes. But as long as we’re zinging, it would be nice of our heartstrings were zinged, and that doesn’t happen near enough.

It’s as if Julie is simply too polite, too much of a gentleman. Even his discussions of proper credit and such are covered by an up-front disclaimer which says, “Great minds are allowed to disagree and their recollections may differ from mine… and that’s okay by me!” Basically, the past is treated with kid gloves. Furthermore, some of the omissions are startling. Okay, sure, it’s interesting to know the story behind the color of Hawkgirl’s hair, but I’d sure have liked to know how he felt about the Senate hearings in the 1950s and the rise of the Comics Code. Schwartz worked for Max Gaines at one time; how did it feel for him to watch Gaines’ son get crucified by witch-hunting senators looking to pin the blame for juvenile delinquency on comics? How did it feel to have characters his company owned labeled by Dr. Wertham as homosexuals (Batman and Robin) or symbols of totalitarianism (Superman). How, in short, did the real world impact on the fantasy one that Julie Schwartz helped shepherd along? Dunno.

Furthermore, we have little-to-no sense of Julie’s life outside of the realm of science fiction and comics, as his subtitle says. It may very well be that was his choice. To let us get just so close and no closer. That’s naturally his call to make; it’s his book. But in making that decision, it neutralizes some of the drama, the real world sense, that a memoir can have. Schwartz’s wife and family suddenly appear a third of the way into the book with no build up, although there’s a brief mention of their courtship some pages later. Maybe I’m just too tuned in to the subject of family life these days, but I certainly know that the birth of my first child had a life-changing impact on me. How’d Julie feel about becoming a husband? A dad? Dunno.

Understand: I adore Julie Schwartz, both as a creative force and as a man. And in reading the book, I enjoyed finding out about his contacts, and the people whose careers he shepherded along, and the forging of the Golden Age characters into the Silver Age, and the Secret of Successful Comic Book Covers, and all that stuff. I just would have liked to find out more about… him. Him and the people in his world. I guess that wasn’t the book he set out to write. Kind of wish it was.

But at least, as noted, the stories and anecdotes are all in one place, between two covers, as advertised. Which means that—as Mel Brooks would say—the Schwartz will be with us… always.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY. He’s mentioned on page 183 as a “talented scripter.” And you’re not. So there. Nyaaah.)