Mon 30 Jun 2008
FREELANCE ODYSSEY: The Autobiography of W. Ryerson Johnson – Chapter 31.
Posted by Steve under Authors[17] Comments
Pulp western tales were his primary fare, but he also wrote adventure stories, slick magazine stories and articles, men’s magazine stories, mystery novels and short stories, western novels, comic book continuity, and both young adult and children’s books. A partial list of publications to which he contributed: Collier’s, Coronet, This Week, Doc Savage, Phantom Detective, EQMM, and Hustler.
I got to know Johnny fairly well during the last few years of his life. He and his wife visited Marcia and me on several occasions, and we corresponded more or less regularly. We also swapped inscribed copies of various publications; among the ones he sent me are several 20s and 30s western and adventure pulps such as Star Western and Cowboy Stories containing his rangeland novelettes.
When Johnny told me he was writing his autobiography, I asked him if I could read the manuscript in progress and he obliged with a photocopy. Unfortunately it’s a rough draft which he intended to revise but never quite got around to, rambling and speckled with errors and inconsistencies, and with a few missing pages; it would require a considerable amount of editorial work to put it into publishable shape.
Some chapters, however, such as this first installment of one on his relationship with Davis Dresser/Brett Halliday, can be printed with a relatively small amount of editing. A few others will follow as time permits, including those pertaining to his colorful pulp-writing days.
by W. Ryerson Johnson
Dave Dresser came to town, a fresh breeze blowing out of the West. Breeze? Better say gale. Maybe, hurricane. Known to his readers as Brett Halliday, he wrote the popular hardback series featuring tough Miami private-eye, Mike Shayne.
Dave had my name as chairman of the Pulp Section of the Author’s Guild, and he looked me up at our apartment at 110 East 38th Street. So different in surface ways, we vibed from that first hard hand-clasp and eye-flash contact. I’m low-key; I don’t make waves except as a last resort. Dave would make waves on a sunny-day millpond. He made big waves bigger everywhere.
More than any other series writer I have known, Dave identified with his bigger-than-life storybook character, Michael Shayne. Shayne was lean and spare – a hard-bitten guy addicted to conflict. Tough and turbulent, but coming on amazingly gentle sometimes, sensitive and understanding. Ruggedly honest. As personal as you can get in your reactions to things. Nothing was as act-of-God to Shayne. Everything was an act-of somebody, and if it was a heedless or hostile act, somebody better look out. A direct action man, Shayne stormed around and got things done – if not in one way, then in another.
Same with Dave.
Mike Shayne put away a bottle of Martell cognac a day. So did Dave. They both woke up in the morning chipper as a young robin, head cocked for the dew-fresh worm. (The Martell people sent Dave a case of it one time in appreciation of the promotion he was giving their product in the Shayne novels.)
Volatile was the word for Dave. One time at a party far long in alcoholic liberation I called him that. Volatile. I didn’t think it was a bad word. But Dave glared and hauled his fist back.
“Did anybody ever land one hard on the end of your overhung jaw, Johnny?”
(For the record, he didn’t.)
When I first met Dave, his Michael Shayne was selling millions of copies. Shayne was one of the most successful detective series characters ever launched. And yet it was rejected by 22 publishers. They cited all kinds of reasons, from their opinion that the so-called hard-boiled school of mystery fiction had run its course and was dead, dead, dead, to just plain “unsaleable as written.” (Today, children’s book publishers are quite generally claiming that dinosaur books are “dead” – while teachers and librarians emphatically state they’re the liveliest titles on the racks.)
In November 1951 a new writer’s magazine came out: REPORT TO WRITERS. Dave had an article about his series character in the first issue: “The Hard Times of Michael Shayne.” Before 1936 he had been doing half a dozen romance novels a year for the drugstore circulating-library trade. At $250 a book – no royalties.
Then he wrote his first Shayne manuscript: Dividend on Death. It kicked around for several years before Henry Holt bought it. Holt printed five Shayne titles. None of them sold more than 3000 copies in hardback, with an unimpressive pick-up on a couple of titles in paperback reprint.
Henry Holt bowed out.
Dave pushed the titles around to half a dozen other publishers, and finally Dodd Mead bought. From the time the first Shayne novel appeared, it was a dozen years before it was making much money for anybody.
Now it was roaring – so successful that Dave decided to do his own printing. Dodd Mead, after a lot of filling and hawing, apparently figured that part of the profit was better than no profit, and agreed to continue circulating the series.
Dave put the books together and presented the complete package, jacket and all, to a printer. As I recall, he told me it cost him something like 32 cents to get a copy of the finished book off the presses. They sold in the hardback edition at $2.50. The novels were published under the Torquil imprint.
Torquil was the name of Dave’s dog.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:51 am
I also got to know Ryerson Johnson during the last years of his life. We met at Pulpcon which he attended regularly and had several conversations over the years. Since I collect original art from the pulps he sold me quite a few interior drawings from the Popular Publication titles such as Detective Tales, New Detective, Dime Mystery, Star Western, Dime Western.
I asked him how he came across so many drawings and he told me at one time he was an editor for Popular Publications in the 1940’s. The job lasted only a few years and when he left he was allowed to take whatever original art he wanted. He chose three original oil paintings that were used as covers and a big stack of the interior black and white drawings. These drawings were for the most part quite large and done on a heavy cardboard. I still have some and many I sold or traded over the years to other collectors.
We corresponded for awhile with some of the letters coming from his address in Maine and some letters coming from other addresses including Hawaii. He told me he was a professional house sitter and would live and watch over a house while the owner was away or on vacation. Until he fell and broke his hip at the end of his life he was very active and though in his 90’s could run ahead of me up the hotel stairs at Pulpcon.
He told me about the book that he was writing on his pulp writing days and I’m glad to see Bill Pronzini has a copy. I hope to see more installments.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
Ryerson was one of the mainstays at Pulpcon for many years, and everyone who met him liked him. I had the chance to speak to him alone only once, but that’s mostly because he seemed to have a small crowd of people around him everywhere he went.
He enjoyed the attention he received, and deservedly so. It’s too bad there aren’t many people around any more who were actively involved with the pulp magazines. Over the years, though, Pulpcon has been able to tell some of them how much their work is still enjoyed.
And, yes, more installments coming soon!
— Steve
June 25th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I met Mr. Johnson in the late 80s. He came into the collectible comics shop I ran in those days (in Charlotte NC). I rarely saw anyone of his age in the store so I struck up a conversation with him and he told me that he’d written for the comics, mainly back in the 50s when E and O Binder called him to offer him work when they got themselves in a bind (no pun intended). That’s how he ended up writing the one and two page text stories for Dell Comics and ended up writing scripts for Dale Evans, World’s Finest, and a few other titles for DC Comics.
Eventually my wife and I went to visit him at his home in Lubec ME and he showed me around his pre-Civil War house. We had a great time and we stayed in touch via letters for several years.
During the few times when we got to sit together and talk, he told me many interesting tales of his days working in the pulps, and some funny stories from when he was Bennett Cerf’s editorial assistant.
One thing that I thought was funny was when Robert E. Howard’s name came up in conversation. Mr. Johnson said, “Oh, yeah! That guy’s good! What’s become of him?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Another thing that he made a point of saying on one of my face to face meetings with him was that he had a LOT of respect for Robert Bloch. He thought Bloch was just a tremendously talented writer.
January 28th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
I knew Johnson very very well; when I was born he was my neighbor and my father was one of his closest friends. I spent many hours with Johnson in his studio and loved him dearly- he was the closest thing to a grandfather I had.
I grew up with Johnson- visiting his Lubec house every summer from wherever we happened to live at the time. Until he passed away I visited him each summer and grew up sitting in his studio reading pulps and Doc Savage and mystery novels.
he had the formula from lester himself- showed how to write the Doc novels chapter by chapter. Big rock by the back door Johnny said Lester had moved for him; lester was a big man.
he also had a letter from Elron Hubbard to him; he used to edit Good Housekeeping with Elron years back. Elron told him; “Johnson, we’ll never get rich selling pulp at 1/4 cent a word; religion is where it’s at; I have a plan”.
he also had a copy of the “Halloween Tree” by Bradbury with a drawing in the inside cover with the inscription “To Johnson, for the years 46-47 editing together; thanks for giving me my start”. I asked him and he told me that when he edited gangster pulps in Chicago he paid 1/4 cent a word. One day he got a call from a little kid; about 13 or so it sounded. The kid chewed him out for rewriting the ending of a story Johnny had bought and published. Johnny soon after met the kid, he was 14 or so; it was Bradbury publishing awfull ganster pulp stories under a pen name. Johnny said the kid got better and started getting 1/2 cent a word and Johnny couldn’t pay that so he no longer bought. That was Bradburys start.
Bradbury and his fans deny this but Lois still has the book though she hits 100 this summer and her memory on all things is getting dim, there some days-gone the next. the book had tickets for the latest copy of the Pandemonium Theater Companies latest play in it still as bookmarks.
Johnny also travelled across Europe in Vaudaville playing musical saw. he told me in invented tremelo on it in the Budapest Opera house when he had to play before the Queen. he was so nervous; he forgot to go to the bathroom before the set. Halfway thru the show he had to pee bad! His leg started shaking and this beautifull tremelo started: the audiance broke into applause! Worked well so he incorporated it into the show.
Find the feminist experimental film by Holly ” Bullets Before Breakfast” and the voices in the collage of images in the background are johnny and the music is him playing musical saw. Johnny showed me the video of the film and asked me what I thought of it; he was having a hard time understading experimental feminist film art. I couldn’t do much more to explain it but to say “Its art Johnson- its supposed to be that confusing”.
Johnny told the best stories- it was a magic thing to hear him tell stories of the past and he rehearsed the performances of those stories. they were works of art in themselves and I recorded what i could to video before he passed on.
many folks loved Johnson and he was a beacon of light to all who knew him in that, no matter what age he became, he was so young in spirit that he was a perpetual kid. From him I learned that, while the body grows old, the spirit does not have to. he touched more lives than anyone can count and we all remember hSteve Copel- Jan 2011
December 14th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I am researching artists who worked at the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936. Lois Lignell (Mrs. Johnson) was one of those artists. Even though her name is on many books, very little has been printed about her. I’ve pieced together a short bio. Her father was Werner Lignell an architect in Butte, Montana. At some point, she moved to New York. At the exposition, she worked with a Japanese artist named Gozo Kawamura and later illustrated a children’s book her husband wrote called “Gozo and His Magical Kite.” The last post says Mrs. Johnson would celebrate her 100th birthday in the summer of 2011. Is she still living?
December 14th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Correction, Mrs. Johnson was born in Minnesota; her mother was from Montana.
December 16th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
David
In reply to your question, here’s what Bill Pronzini told me in a pair of emails about Lois Johnson. I doubt that she’s still alive, but it’s possible. Perhaps there’s something here that you’ll find useful, perhaps even in tracking down either her or their daughter.
— Steve
Steve:
No, I don’t know if Lois is still alive, though like you, I doubt it. I had no contact with her, unfortunately, after Johnny died in the mid 90s. I knew she was an accomplished artist; I have an inscribed copy of the collaborative kid’s book David Bush mentions and her illustrations are quite good. She and Johnny had a daughter living in Florida whom they visited yearly in the 80s and early 90s, but I don’t remember her name or in which city she lived. Also don’t recall if there’s a mention of her in Johnny’s unpublished autobiography, but I’ll look through the manuscript later today and let you know if there is.
Best,
Bill
Steve:
Here’s some more info on Lois from Johnny’s autobiography:
She and Johnny met “in the studio of the sculptor, Gozo Kawamura, on 6th Avenue a few doors below 14th Street [in New York City]. A pertly smiling, exquisitely tiny thing, she was up on a ladder sticking toothpicks in the side of a monumental statue of a horse. That’s what I thought. Actually, she was gobbing gray plastilene onto the statue armature, filling it out to the ends of the toothpicks. Gozo Kawamura…had invented an impressive Goldbergian enlarging machine that brought so many urgent orders from other sculptors for enlarging their small originals cast in plaster, that he hardly had time for his own work. With Lois assisting, he was enlarging statues all over the place. They did Prometheus, the golden boy who stretches out above the skating rink just off Fifth Avenue at Radio City. They did the U.S. Supreme Court statue enlargements, and went down to Dallas to do the Texas Centennial pieces.”
Lois had come to NYC from Duluth, Minnesota. “I got very interested in Lois, and when she went home for a while to Duluth, I practically commuted between New York and Duluth.” At that time Lois had also written and illustrated, in collaboration with Betz Princehorn, a children’s picture book called FIVE JAPANESE MICE AND THEIR WHISKERS, published by Farrar and Rinehart.
Lois and Johnny were married in 1938 “by a Japanese preacher in a Japanese American Dutch Reformed church in Manhattan,” celebrated that night by attending the New York World’s Fair, and spent their honeymoon in an “old falling-down family mansion” Johnny had inherited in Lubec, Maine. That house, renovated, remained one of their two primary residences (the other for many years was Algonquin, Illinois) until Johnny’s death.
After their marriage they collaborated on a number of children’s books, and Lois operated Lignell Enterprises, “her potpourri mail-order and art-and-design business as she called it.”
Their daughter’s name is, or was, Jennifer (called Jeffy by her parents). No mention that I can find of whether or not she was married or when she moved to Florida.
Bill
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I too knew Johnny and his wife Lois and even “babysat” Jennifer one summer when Johnny and Lois were out of town.
The first time I was supposed to meet Johnny was at a writer’s club meeting in Elgin, IL. I was excited that he was going to be at the meeting, but was disappointed when I got there to find out that that something had come up and he wouldn’t be there. Seems he had found a treasure map and was off hunting for that treasure, though I can’t tell you if he found it.
Johnny’s stories were indeed magical, as was his prowess at playing the musical saw. I spent many hours enjoying being a guest at their Algonquin, IL home.
Linda
November 2nd, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Lois is in fact still alive and with jennifer down in South Carolina. She is over 101 now and still is painting- her memory on five minutes ago is shakey but ask her about her art experience in the 40s and she is clear as a bell. She didn’t make it up last summer because it is getting very hard to move her from down south to the Lubec house- last summer I fear she was on oxygen. Hoping to see her this summer when I return to Lubec- she is still going!
January 16th, 2013 at 2:41 pm
I’d just like to thank you for printing this.I’ve been a mike shayne and doc savage fan for a long time, but only recently discovered from the bibliography to Torture Trek that they collaborated. Hopefully there might be more to come on their collaboration? anyway, thanks. cad
June 12th, 2013 at 9:02 am
Anybody know where my cousin Jennifer is? Ryerson’s daughter, Jennifer, married a chiropractor and moved to Florida and I’ve lost touch. Thank you.
William
July 1st, 2013 at 8:34 am
I just came across this website and enjoyed reading everyone’s reminiscences. Mom, Lois Johnson, is still very much alive at 102 but not able to do much traveling. She is with us in North Carolina. Maybe we’ll get to Maine this summer.
Bill/William, I would love to talk with you again.
July 1st, 2013 at 8:59 am
Jennifer, How wonderful it is to hear from you. I’m very pleased you saw this long post from the past about Ryerson. I’ve sent your comment on to both Bill and William, along with your email address, and I’ sure that both will be getting in touch with you.
— Steve
July 1st, 2013 at 10:58 am
Lois illustrated A Tree Is A Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla for the Adam and Charles Black edition of the book. Her illustrations are utterly adorable.
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:00 am
Just a quick anecdote about Ryerson Johnson’s mystery series for kids which featured Bob Blake. When I was a kid, my mother and I rode a train from Little Rock, AR to Washington, D.C. to visit my aunt. On the way, I read all of the books that I had brought with me, so I had to buy some more for the trip back. The books that I bought were the Bob Blake series. I read all four books on the 2-3 day train ride and loved them. Over the years I lost the books and couldn’t remember the author’s name or much about them but did remember them fondly. I am now a tenured English professor and through the glory of the internet have been able to find them. I have tracked down two of the books and find that they have held up well. The man could really write. I now teach a course dedicated to hardboiled crime fiction, turning my boyhood love of mysteries into a vocation. I have a copy of Frank Gruber’s Pulp Jungle about his experience writing for the pulps, and I would definitely like to read more of Ryerson Johnson’s autobiography.
July 9th, 2014 at 9:30 am
I remember Ryerson from all the Pulpcons & certainly was impressed with his stories of the pulp years. I went to Maine years ago & interviewed him. Does anybody have copies of his autobiography?
July 9th, 2014 at 9:42 am
Black Dog Books has had Ryerson’s book on their forthcoming schedule for some time now. Here’s a link to their webpage:
http://blackdogbooks.net/index.php?Itemid=15&option=com_zoo&view=item&category_id=9&item_id=142