William Woolfolk

Bill Woolfolk was an American novelist, television writer and comic book author who wrote stories for many popular wartime comic-book characters, including Captain Marvel and Blackhawk.

Bill Woolfolk was known for his range of writing output, having achieved success in the areas of comic books, novels, and television screenwriting.

[1] Woolfolk began his career as an advertising copywriter from 1938-40, then as a freelance writer for magazines from 1940-42, after graduating from New York University.

Woolfolk served as story editor and chief scriptwriter for the show, which ran from 1961 to 1965, and two of his scripts -- “A Book for Burning,” about censorship, and “All the Silent Voices,” about birth control -- were nominated for Emmy Awards.

[3] Woolfolk worked in the comic book business, starting with MLJ Magazines, from 1941 through 1954, with time out for military service.

[4] He rose in the business to become one of the highly paid writers of comic books, earning $300 a week, ten times the average salary.

[3] In 1944, William "Bill" Woolfolk and John Gerard "Jack" Oxton, Sr., an Illustrator and Film Editor at Paramount News/Paramount Pictures in New York City, together co-founded their own comic book company, O.W.

[7][8] Victims of the acute paper rationing of 1945-1949 which bankrupted many U.S. Publishing Companies during World War II, O.W.

[13] At the request of Kable News, he became a periodical publisher in 1955, launching the monthly gossip magazine Inside Story as a rival to Confidential.

[3] Woolworth told the anthology Contemporary Authors: "Writing during the so-called Golden Age of comics, I soon became the best paid and most sought-after writer (there was little competition) in the field.

[3] Woolfolk became a TV screenwriter, primarily working on the courtroom drama The Defenders, where he also was a script editor.

[5] At the time of his death, his novels had sold over six million copies, and eight had been selected by the Book of the Month Club.

[3] In his interview with Contemporary Authors, Woolworth summed up his writing career:[3] No literary monuments have ever been erected that proclaim: 'He was versatile'.