one swell illustrator

This was my xmas card a few years ago:

The following is an excerpt from Ron Goulart’s exhaustingly thorough treastise, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History.

“The Imperturbable Santa was stylishly written by Jerzy Pavlak and competently drawn by Leo Mergenthal – the creative duo that also brought Blazing Snow Commandoes, Gnome Patrol, Magnus, Elf of Mystery and Aurora, Queen of the Frozen Northern Polar Regions to the comic book page. For six-and-a-half years Pavlak and Mergenthal’s action-packed adventures ruled the industry.

“However, Jerzy and Mergie, as their fans called them, were almost constantly at  odds about the creative content of their work. Pavlak tried to take the comics into a gritty real-world environment with real-world issues and problems. In issue 78 of Santa for instance, he introduced a villain named Bindl the Pusher. Mergenthal , on the other hand, preferred to create stories of fantasy – flights from reality that left the reader with a warm glowing satisfaction.

“The contentious nature of this artist/writer relationship often spilled onto the pages of their work. Mergenthal (whose real name was Bjorn Hafthorsson – he changed it because he thought it ‘sounded too Elfish’) sometimes in a fit of pique would often draw the villains with facial features closely resembling Pavlak. To retaliate, Pavlak would write lengthy dialogue so that word balloons and caption panels filled the page and left little room for actual drawing. If fact, The Imperturbable Santa, issue number 135, had thirteen pages of solid dialogue! Except for the rare top of a head or an occasional flying fist, there was practically no art at all.

“Even though critics hailed this particular issue as the pair’s finest collaboration, sales were abysmal and the publisher, Xmas Comics Group, pulled the plug. This failure was all that Mergenthal needed to call it quits. He left an exquisitely hand-lettered resignation note push-pinned to his drawing board: ‘PAVLAK. STUFF IT.’

“Pavlak remained in the comics business. Shortly after Mergenthal’s departure, he became the  editor-in-chief of Xmas’s adult comics division – large black and white adult-themed comic books printed as magazines to avoid the restraints of the creative hobbling Comic Books Code. 

“After forty-two mostly successful years in the comics game, Jerzy Pavlak retired. He and his wife Leona and their shih tzu puppy Tiara moved to Miami Beach to be near their youngest daughter, a yoga instructor and spiritual healer.”