Alvin Schwartz (author)

Alvin Schwartz (born November 17, 1916, in New York City, New York) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, and comic-book writer best known for his Batman and Superman stories, in the latter of which he introduced DC Comics' popular Bizarro World. He received the industry's 2006 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.

Schwartz is sometimes confused with another author of the same name, approximate age, and place of birth, even among some booksellers.

Biography

Early life and career

Alvin Schwartz debuted in comics with an issue of "Fairy Tale Parade" in 1939. He went on to write extensively for Sheldon Mayer at All-American Publications, and then for National Comics, two of the three companies that would merge to form DC Comics.

Golden Age of comics books

Schwartz wrote his first Batman story in 1942, extending into the Batman newspaper comic strip in August 1944 and the Superman strip two months later. Through 1952, he scripted for most of the company's newspaper strips. As well, for rival Fawcett Comics, he wrote stories of the hit Superman competitor Captain Marvel.

1950s

Until ending his association with DC in 1958, Schwartz contributed comic-book scripts for such superheroes as Aquaman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Lantern, such other characters as the Newsboy Legion, Vigilante, Slam Bradley, and Tomahawk, and such comic books as "A Date With Judy", "Buzzy", and "House of Mystery". Among Schwartz's enduring contributions to the Superman mythology was written the first tale of Bizarro, chief denizen of an opposite, interdimensional world where "hello" means "goodbye" and citizens did good by doing bad (mischievously in the earliest of stories). The character and the eventually expanded concept has entered into wider pop culture being referenced in such mass media as the TV series "Seinfeld".

Corporate work

After leaving DC, Schwartz went into corporate market research, helping to develop the techniques of Psychographics, typological identification and others. As research director for Dr. Ernst Dichter's Institute for Motivational Research, he provided strucural and marketing advice to such corporations as General Motors to General Foods. He joined the advisory committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

Other writing

Schwartz wrote three novels for Arco Press, one of which, the detective story "Sword of Desire", won praise for its takeoff on Reichian orgone therapy, a popular psychotherapeutic technique used during the 1940s and 1950s. His novel "The Blowtop" was published by Dial Press in 1948. Under the title "Le Cinglé", it became a best-seller in "France".

In 1968, he moved to Canada, where he wrote documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada for nearly 20 years, and did a number of economic and social studies for the Canadian government. Additionally, Schwartz wrote and lectured on superheroes, and received a Canada Council Grant for a study on religious symbolism in popular culture, using Superman as a springboard.

Later life and career

In 1997, Alvin Schwartz published a metaphysical autobiography, "An Unlikely Prophet," that claimed that Superman, as a fictional character known throughout the world had attained the status of a "tulpa" (in Tibetan Buddhist thought, a kind of autonomous, "real" illusion) and that Schwartz had actually met him in a New York City taxi.

In the mid-2000s, Schwartz began writing a weekly web column. He lives with his wife in the rural village of Chesterville, about 40 kilometers southeast of Ottawa, Canada.

Awards

Schwartz, along with writer-editor Harvey Kurtzman was awarded the comic-book field's 2006 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.

Quoting AN UNLIKELY PROPHET

Bibliography

* "The Blowtop" (1948) ISBN 1-58754-007-X
* "Sword of Desire" (Arco 1952) under pseudonym of Robert W. Tracy
* "An Unlikely Prophet" (1997) ISBN 0-9659521-2-6
* "A Gathering of Selves" (2006) ISBN 1-59477-109-X

=References=
* [http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/alvin/ After the Golden Age] a semi-regular column by Alvin Schwartz for [http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/ World Famous Comics]
* [http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/alvin/ Official Message Board]
* [http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/alvin/aboutalvin.shtml About Alvin Schwartz]
* [http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/alvin/?noframes;read=692 How many Alvin Schwartzes are there?]
* [http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2006_05_25.html#011552 "News from Me" (column) by Mark Evanier: "This Year's Bill Finger Award"]