I wonder too whether the writers just turned in their stories and then the artists did their work, or if there was more of a collaboration.
At that point in time the standard was full script and the editor would give it to an artist.
Mark Evanier in the 1970s commented that the editors didn't really care for the writers to talk to the artists. True, I think these were different editors, but everything I've heard about Western Printing (the company that produced Dell's comics up to 1962) seems like they could be set in their ways on certain ideas.
I think that Western's Editorial setup was fairly standard throughout the industry. They had a Chief Editor, who was above everyone and often was the chief story editor, as well. And most publishers had an art editor, as well, who had more interface with the artists. Otherwise, small publishers who had no artists in house, hired a few outside freelance individuals, and the only editor was just a story editor, who dealt directly with those artists. Or if they needed more than a few artists (because of having a larger number of regularly issued titles, had contracts with comic book artist studios, and the chief editor or his in-house editorial artist or assistant editor dealt wth the artist studio head or artists.
Western seemed to work in a similar setup most of the way through their run from the late 1930s through the early 1980s, having a large studio of artists (most working in their company artist studio building, and a few others working from their homes (like Carl Barks, after he started suffering from asthma-like symptoms from the air conditioner fans). they had artist studios in New York and Hollywood.
The artists (who didn't also write their own stories- like Carl Barks did) generally had no contact with the writers.
When I started with Dutch Disney, during the early 1980s, they had a chief editor above everyone, who only had direct contact with their longest tenured, and most prolific storywriters, and had a few story editors under them who dealt with the writers, and am art editor, who dealt directly with the artists. There were two ways of submitting stories. One was an artist and a writer, who often worked together, teaming up to submit a story and the other was writers submitting a story, which was assigned by the company to an artist. The company had a staff of local, Dutch artists, and staff of local Dutch writers, that could each come in to the office to meet with their editors, as well as 2 German artist-writers, who dealt with the publisher through the mails, and by telephone. Aside from that, most of the stories which came from lesser writers, who had not teamed up with artist friends, were given to a Spanish studio by regular contract.
When I started also working with Danish Disney in 1989, they had mostly a staff of storywriters in England, (because the chief editor loved the British hi-brow humour of Monty Python and it's precursor comedy repertory groups), as well as a small studio of local Danish writers (which I joined) and moved there for part of each year. All the writer's stories (except for those of a couple favoured Danish artists), were given to Danish Disneys contracted studios in Spain. Later, I brought in my main writer/artist partner, who worked with me on Dutch Disney stories, so there we both had direct artist/writer contact. Over 30 years of work with Danish Disney I only worked as a storyboarder and storywriter, and had no contact at all with artists until one artist liked my Gyro Gearloose stories and always asked for them. So. I became one of the studio's two main writer/storyboarders for that character, and looked up that Argentinian artist (who lived in Majorca), and we had some (unofficial contact). But only the most prolific Spanish artists ever visited Denmark.
As for the New York contracted outside artist studios, I think that only the publisher's chief editor had contact with the day-to-day art studio foreman, rather than the individual artist who worked on the story. Of course, when a tiny publisher hired a couple freelance artists who worked from their homes, they came in and met with the story writer in the publisher's office, when a meeting was needed. And few small comics publishing companies had a couple contracted artists working in their offices and the only storywriters were the editor and his assistant.
I have no idea how US publishers worked after the very early 1960s.
