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 writing 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.