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There is a righteous man perishing in righteousness, and there is a wicked man living long in his evil-doing. Kohelet 7:15 |
Julius "Julie" Schwartz (June 19, 1915 – February 8, 2004) was a comic book and pulp magazine editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in the Bronx, New York. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various times he was primary editor over the company's flagship superheroes, Superman and Batman.
He was inducted into the comics industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1997.
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Born in 19 June 1915, Julius Schwartz, grew up on 817 Caldwell Avenue in the Bronx, to his Romanian immigrant parents, who emigrated from a small town outside Bucharest, Romania. He graduated at Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx at age seventeen.
In 1932, Schwartz co-published (with Mort Weisinger and Forrest J. Ackerman) Time Traveller, one of the first science fiction fanzines. Schwartz and Weisinger also founded the Solar Sales Service literary agency (1934–1944) where Schwartz represented such writers as Alfred Bester, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, and H. P. Lovecraft, including some of Bradbury's first published work and Lovecraft's last. In addition, Schwartz helped organize the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.
In 1944 he became an editor at All-American Comics, one of the companies that evolved into DC Comics. He recruited Bester to contribute to the company's line of comic books. In the 1950s he oversaw the revival of superheroes such as the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Batman, and the Atom, which led to the Silver Age of comic books. This revival has been cited as an inspiration for the transformation of Marvel Comics in the 1960s. The Schwartz-edited line of titles was regarded by many as being more creative and dynamic than other DC titles of the time, notably the Superman line edited by Mort Weisinger.
In 1964, Schwartz was made responsible for reviving the faded Batman titles. Writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino jettisoned the sillier aspects that had crept into the series (such as Ace the Bathound, and Bat-Mite) and gave the character a "New Look" that premiered in Detective Comics #327 (May 1964). He also helped writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams come to prominence at DC Comics.
From 1971 to 1985 Schwartz was the editor of the Superman titles, helping to modernize the settings of the books and move them away from "gimmick" stories to stories with more of a character-driven nature. This included an attempt to scale back Superman's powers while removing kryptonite as an overused plot device. This proved short-lived, with Schwartz bowing to pressure to restore both elements in the titles.
As an editor, Schwartz was heavily involved in the writing of the stories published in his magazines. He worked out the plot with the writer in story conferences. The writer would then break down the plot into a panel-by-panel continuity, and write the dialogue and captions. Schwartz would in turn polish the script, sometimes rewriting extensively.
Schwartz retired from DC in 1986 after 42 years at the company, but continued to be active in comics and science fiction fandom until shortly before his death. As a coda to his career as a comic book editor, Schwartz edited seven releases in the DC Graphic Novel line adapted from classic science fiction works by Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Bradbury, and others. In 2000 he published his autobiography, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics, co-authored with Brian Thomsen.
His wife, Jean Ordwein (who had been his secretary before they married), died in 1986 from emphysema, after 34 years of marriage. Schwartz's relationship with Jean had been particularly close, and he never remarried or dated following her death. Not many years later, Schwartz's stepdaughter Jeanne — Jean's daughter from a previous marriage — died from the same illness under similar circumstances.
Schwartz died at the age of 88, after being hospitalized for pneumonia. He was survived by his son-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
He remained a "Goodwill Ambassador" for DC Comics and an Editor Emeritus up until his death. He was a popular guest at comic book conventions, often attending between ten and twelve conventions a year.
In 1998, Dragon*Con chairman Ed Kramer established the Julie Award, bestowed for universal achievement spanning multiple genres and selected each year by a panel of industry professionals. The inaugural recipient was science-fiction and fantasy Grand Master Ray Bradbury. Additional awards, presented by Schwartz each year, included Forrest J. Ackerman, Yoshitaka Amano, Alice Cooper, Will Eisner, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Carmine Infantino, Anne McCaffrey, Peter David, Jim Steranko and Mickey Dolenz.
In addition to his induction into the both of the comic-book industry's halls of fame, Schwartz received a great deal of other recognition over the course of his career, including:
Schwartz has appeared as himself in a number of comics:
Nick Cardy on the popular but apocryphal anecdote, told by Schwartz, about Carmine Infantino firing Cardy over not following a cover layout, only to rehire him moments later when Schwartz praised the errant cover art:
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