Creator Conversations - Retro

In the time between January 2007 and June 2015, journalist Bryan Stroud had the opportunity to interview several members of the Old Guard of the comic book community. These are the people who worked in the bullpens, creating characters that are still loved today and crafting the visual style of graphic storytelling for generations to come. Some of these industry pros were happy to tell stories while others chose short, to-the-point answers - but all of them were generous with their time. Watch this page for weekly Wednesday updates.

June 26, 2019

An Interview With Alex Ross - Martian Manhunter and Other Influences

June 26, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

TV Guide, Dec.8-14, 2001, cover by Alex Ross.

Nelson Alexander Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an American comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first came to prominence with the 1994 miniseries Marvels, on which he collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvel Comics. He has since done a variety of projects for both Marvel and DC, such as the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come - which Ross co-wrote. Since then he has done covers and character designs for Busiek's series Astro City, and various projects for Dynamite Entertainment.

His feature film work includes concept and narrative art for Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and DVD packaging art for the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable. He has done covers for TV Guide, promotional artwork for the Academy Awards, posters and packaging design for video games, and his renditions of superheroes have been merchandised as action figures.

Ross' style has been said to exhibit "a Norman Rockwell-meets-George Pérez vibe", and has been praised for its realistic, human depictions of classic comic book characters. Because of the time it takes Alex to produce his art, he primarily serves as a plotter and/or cover artist. Comics Buyer's Guide Senior Editor Maggie Thompson, commenting on that publication's retirement of the Favorite Painter award from their CBG Fan Awards due to Ross' domination of that category, stated in 2010, "Alex Ross may simply be the field's Favorite Painter, period. That's despite the fact that many outstanding painters are at work in today's comic books."

In case I'd not mentioned it before, the catalyst for my renewed interest in comics several years ago was due to a gift from my life-long best friend. He sent me a copy of Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come and the fire was reignited in a big way. I'd never seen the like of Alex Ross' work and was absolutely mesmerized with the story. It started me on this journey and there's been no looking back for over a decade now and I have often marveled at my good fortune. Well, a few years ago I was given a fabulous opportunity to interview THE Alex Ross! How could I possibly pass that up? The problem, of course, was what on Earth to talk about that he hadn't discussed in detail many times over? I thought and I thought and I came up with the fact that it was the 60th anniversary of the Martian Manhunter, a character Alex had portrayed masterfully in his oversized JLA book. I had an absolute ball speaking with the master painter and got to tell him just what his work meant to me and...well, you'll get to read his response. From the latter part of 2014, Mr. Alex Ross!

The Justice League of America by Alex Ross.

Bryan Stroud: Some factions believe that the debut of the Martian Manhunter was actually the first new hero of the Silver Age, while others maintain that it’s the Flash in Showcase #4. Then again, is the first character of the Silver Age a superhero or a science fiction figure?

Alex Ross: He would be both, realistically. He’s a character that distinctly belongs to the Silver Age, and he’s definitely a superhero, even if his costume looks like a leftover remnant of the S-F/pulp construct costume. But he…I know when you first read those original stories it doesn’t really read like a superhero story. It reads more like science fiction, but there’s definitely the superhero aesthetic.

JLA: Liberty and Justice (2003) 1 pg66, art by Alex Ross.

Stroud: Precisely, not to mention that he started out being a gumshoe, hence his placement into Detective Comics.

Ross: In a way I have a special connection to him because it was a unique thing in my own collaboration. I kept him largely out of Kingdom Come because initially the story needed to come down to this final showdown between Superman and Captain Marvel. Those two counterpoints. If you add in more power on the Superman side of the equation, in the form of the Martian Manhunter, in that final conflict, it’s not really going to work. So Mark Waid and I had sort of a disagreement about it initially and I had to sort of talk him into it - that he was being used by Batman and his team, but not in the sense of what you thought of for him.

He could still read minds and provide intel to Batman, but he wasn’t really up to being the superhero he’d been all this time. He’d been more affected by his time with humankind. That was a diversion from Mark’s ambition for the character to use him more ambitiously as part of a true unification of a classic Justice League hanging out with Superman in the Kingdom Come series.

My thought was that if you add him with Superman it’s almost like you’ve got two heads of the team and I always saw him as much more associated with Batman, especially because of the length of his tenure with the group. All of this sort of prompted me for when I got around to doing the one shot for Justice League and that I’d make it all from his point of view as the preeminent sort of narrator/character for the story. Because I had skipped using him.

He’s a character I’ve loved, but I just didn’t want to throw off Kingdom Come for all that it had been conceived to be. Plus what Mark didn’t appreciate or maybe see the same way as I was that in many ways Kingdom Come was itself an analog of the entire DC history rather than an approximation of the DC Silver Age that he was most fond of because when Superman defines his sort of Justice League kind of team, it truly was a snapshot of the Justice Society. As per the comics of the 70s and 80s where you’ve got Power Girl in there and the version of the Flash and Green Lantern are clearly much more the originals than the Silver Age versions. So throwing in Martian Manhunter is not really what I’m doing here. It’s not what I wanted to do.

Superman: Peace On Earth (1999) 1 Alex Ross

Many people have called out Kingdom Come as being a tribute to the old Earth 2 Superman up against older versions of DC characters in many cases. That was the thing I was trying to pay tribute to.

I didn’t really have a visual in mind, particularly as a shape shifter. He wouldn’t be older. So you wanted to have some sort of visual. His was more of an intellectual and had been damaged by his experiences. Sort of like David Bowie in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” He’s still connected to his inherently alien roots and it left him as a compromised figure.

Stroud: Differences between Superman and J’onn. Physicality? Did that cause one to take off and the other to be somewhat sidelined?

Ross: One thing about John Jones is that he doesn’t have the iconography of a symbol that everyone can grab onto. He doesn’t have a complicated, romantic subplot in his background. His time in Detective didn’t involve any real romance. So these human connections that we make and the iconographic connections are missing. Maybe if he had some sort of stylized “M” on his belt or something, but because he’s a mostly nude figure running around, it sort of throws off what people use to identify him with.

While he’s absolutely essential to the group dynamic of the JLA, perhaps more so than Superman and Batman, because he was in the first adventure while they were not. It began with 5 characters rather than 7.

Intellectually he kind of inherited the role of the Spectre from the old JSA when they revitalized the whole Justice League concept.

I always for some reason, even as a kid, held this connection to the character and maybe it was just prescience on my part that one day I, too, would be bald.

There are a handful of characters that have this kind of look, so I had a passion for them. So, you’ve got Martian Manhunter, you’ve got The Vision, you’ve got the Red Tornado. They’re all this certain type as a sort of detached bald guy. I don’t know why.

Stroud: Detached is probably the ideal descriptor, too, He’s kind of Spock-like.

Ross: You mention Spock and there’s such an appeal for that. The world understands, because the world is in love with Leonard Nimoy. When you have these characters, and the impact they have in the world of comic book stories, they become the most interesting, sometimes main character in those books. Because they become unique as fundamental parts of teams. They’re the character holding down the book. The guy who’s just always there. They’re often the character that the writer of the book can make the most hay with. In writing the story they can extrapolate and built that character and develop it, whether it’s the Vision getting married, or the Red Tornado’s ultimate human development.

In the storylines the authors were building these team books and no one was competing with those main heroes or those who couldn’t do the same kinds of things as Superman or Batman.

Stroud: Whose idea was it to use him as the narrator?

Ross: The genesis of the oversize books was something I was building up to doing from coming off of Kingdom Come. I’d made a short detour to a Vertigo series for a year, but knowing I had this burning desire to return to Superman above all, I put together this pitch that was based around what I felt were the four icons of DC that I wanted to do the one-shots of and that were approved. Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman.

Beyond that there was nothing on the schedule or nothing predicted or nothing expected (by myself included) so when I got to the end of going through the Wonder Woman book, I knew I had this burning desire in me - this thought that I would rebel against this typical version of DC which is always mired in specific versions of their lead heroes. I thought, “Could I actually take this further by doing a full-on, Silver Age Justice League?” Which in my mind would be the most eternal version of the group because if you check back in a few years later, they’re going to most resemble the original version of the group. What they might have been if given time.

Batman: War On Crime (1999) #1, cover by Alex Ross.

You had the heir apparent to the Flash character, you had the guy who would be Green Lantern, you had Aquaman, who was still Arthur, but he was the most tripped-out, revisionist version of the character. He was unrecognizable to most people.

So not wanting to really play with those versions because they don’t inspire me, I wanted to rejuvenate through this little corner of DC that I was carving out. And part of the carving out that I was doing here related to illustrations I did for both the Warner Studio Store and the version of Justice League I did or even the covers I did for Wizard Magazine. I was bringing in the classic versions of these teams.

On the one hand, I felt like I was getting away with something. I was working against the editorial tide. Even though I may look like the most obvious company guy by the way I was embracing this company’s characters, I was actually being something of a rebel against editorial dictates. *chuckle* And that’s only continued.

I had done many illustrations that he was part of (John Jones, that is) and the idea of eventually building this one shot based around the Justice League, which, at the time... Remember that Barry Allen was still dead, Hal Jordan was still dead, Aquaman was still missing a hand. All these things were different with these main characters. But Paul Levitz had no editorial revisions that he had in mind. Everybody just sort of thought, “You’re off doing that crazy thing over there that nobody cares about.”

The truth was, at least at the point that I was doing the project, there was a feeling that I could get as much attention as anything else that was being published. And maybe that was true of other things that I just didn’t realize, but there was a sense that the audience was open to special projects and whether or not you had a story that was worth telling. Whereas it appeared after a certain point after the story was out that the audience was more properly trained to shy away from caring about special projects. They were more likely to concentrate on how the top talent in the business were only producing work that was more the mainstream from what was showing where the characters were now.

In some cases that was almost weirdly disconnected as far as having something like the Ultimate’s line from Marvel and their eccentric indulgence beyond normal continuity, but because it was fully embraced by the company and was of course conceived by one of the publishers, it had all the company support that other stuff, whether it was my tabloid books or other things like it, it did not come from the publisher or the company and they had no vested interest in it, so it couldn’t get the same kind of push upon the market or the audience.

So for the period of time I worked on those tabloid books it felt like I could get as much attention for these things as I could achieve. The hope was that you could check in on these things years from now and they would still be readable in whatever context.

Stroud: Why the original Martian design rather than the more humanized version?

Ross: Well, realistically, what I was exposed to in the late 70s, around ’76 and ’77, at that point, when he was being brought back into storytelling the artist that was working with him, I think it was Mike Nasser, who did a backup in Adventure Comics where he had a fight with Supergirl and that was probably my first impression with the character. He had the prominent brow and looked very interesting and unique.

Now, as to whose idea was the stupid thing. It was basically…and it will look like I’m grabbing glory for myself in some ways here, when the pitch was made to DC, I was actually wanting to pitch it myself. Mike Carlin was not exactly encouraging. He was editorial overseer of pretty much everything at that point. I didn’t have any of that kind of writer credibility yet. They would have had me go through a series of hoops to prove I could actually write something. And they may still be doing that with lots of people, but my Hail Mary was to reach out to my recently made friend, Paul Dini and say, “Hey, what do you think of this?” And he jumped on board and what that meant was that largely they would build from the concept, especially from the Superman story, the concept that I had an outline for early in the story and then he expanded upon it with a much more elaborate outline.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) #1, cover by Alex Ross.

The way that we worked on the four books was that Paul would write a lengthy outline. He wouldn’t break down the pages or write out any dialogue. I would break down the full story in…it was very Marvel style. I’d never worked Marvel style, where I would lay out the whole thing and then his text would be provided after the layouts had arrived. So he could see where everything was going to go. That was the four books. Then with the one shot which was Secret Origins which we sold the Justice League for, and then the sixth book was the Justice League one shot.

That was one where I got it in my head the idea which I had to defend over the years. In a way the book itself was my 9-11. My reaction, because I wanted to build a story out of the issue of hysteria. I basically wanted to have the Justice League facing off against a hysterical public, and that was based upon what seemed to be an oncoming, arriving disaster of biological proportions.

Of course my biggest inspiration in the story, and it’s pretty clear when you look at it, is The Andromeda Strain. Because when I was a kid and I saw that movie, I thought it was the most realistic way you could ever do aliens, because you’re going to find that there’s microscopic life in the universe. The idea of toxic stuff was interesting for whatever reason, but think of how realistic that movie plays. Now that’s not quite so sexy placing it against a superhero group who punches things, but I had my reasons. It was a story that I grew up with and ---- most stories drawn by Dick Dillin. One was the two-part storyline in Justice League that was called “Takeover of the Earth Masters” and it’s from issues #118 and #119. It had the Justice League fighting a larger kind of biological threat. It looks like giant single-celled organisms that fall from the sky. They attack and sap the strength of the Justice League members, much like we had in the story.

But also there was a World’s Finest issue that had the Atom going inside of a human body and he was fighting some kind of malignant force that was in the story. Inside this body that Atom was trying to save. Basically I adapted both things in this one graphic novel. He does the whole Neal Adams Batman thing going inside of Flash’s body. Then there was the rest of the whole biological phenomenon in Africa. It was basically taking the two inspirations that go from that story to Dick Dillin’s Justice League story. It has its relevance also to me in that it was the very first Justice League comic book that I ever got. I was 6 years old and I think this was 1976.

Wonder Woman: Spirit Of Truth (2001) #1, cover by Alex Ross.

So it was so important to me that I was plotting this extensive storyline so that I could literally block out the entire story, wrote an extensive outline that covered all the points of the whole thing and handed it off to Paul for him to essentially compose the final dialogue. So this was much more…

I didn’t write it out the typical way where Paul would write it first. I basically handed him the story and Paul would, as I would hear about it later, would openly complain to our circles of people like Bruce Timm and Chip Kidd and our editor - basically kvetch about how his story had germs that the Justice League gets to fight and other stuff that I’d worked on like the short stories with Chip Kidd with Superman and Batman fight cool stuff, where people fought against things bigger than germs.

Now again I point this out because Paul never said any of that stuff to me while we were working on it. It’s not like I even got a fair shot to defend or even accommodate. It was just simply one of those things. Several people I talked to over the years asked why I formatted it toward that direction rather than something like the Superman/Spider-Man crossover or the Superman/Muhammad Ali book. Of all the things that were simply the greatest influences of my life, the major feeling I had was, you know I don’t need to create more fights where there’s a marketplace flush with material that contains that.

I just wanted to create something that felt sort of like it was something that would appeal to a kid as well as to an adult. I wanted to create this hybrid art form. Almost a children’s storybook where the hero can still be consumed by a kid.

It never really seemed to take off in any great way like say Mark Waid and Bryan Hitch did one oversized story of the Justice League that had more of that kind of level of action in it. Unfortunately that must not have performed as well as what would have opened up a whole market of people doing it. I’d have liked to have seen that. I mean it just didn’t have anybody’s real support.

I remember when I had to sit down with the art director Gil Posner with a pitch and he said it had to be better than Dick Grayson stops being Robin. That was my pitch! There was a whole lot more to it, but… He didn’t know what I was going to be pitching other than, “I have an Elseworlds idea.”

Shazam: Power of Hope (2000) #1, cover by Alex Ross.

Stroud: I guess you didn’t read a lot of the old Silver Age JLA stories.

Ross: I have all that stuff, but my major exposure to that had to be simply the tabloids released in the 70s which had those stories in it and I find the charm in it that certainly leaves a deep impression on my mind because I love the origins of things. But of course being much more a child of the 70s it was more Dick Dillin’s run and George Perez’s run and the Super Friends. A lot of what I was doing was a hybrid of all these things. The common ground. When you showed Martian Manhunter it showed appreciation for the Silver Age beginnings because he was there for the first many issues and then when he leaves it’s more of the 70s era. Because he’s ultimately replaced.

Then there’s the impressions of the world made from the cartoon, Super Friends. That’s where the group is led by a very active Superman and Batman, Aquaman and Wonder Woman. I can easily brush off Robin. But even when they expanded it later and added other members to the Justice League they left out the Martian Manhunter. So in my mind he was just removed from the general public so they couldn’t fully appreciate and understand and in part some confusion about his definition and that there is so much more overlapping with what you already have in Superman. That’s why of course you wouldn’t necessarily put him into the cartoon. The main reason they had Aquaman in the show was that he was somebody who did something fundamentally different than the other guys.

They could have included Flash, but essentially it’s one of the powers that Superman has. That was kind of my mindset. I wanted to bring all these guys together under the same roof. A lot of the illustrations I did for the Justice League. The Martian Manhunter was someone I almost discounted until I fully realized how important he was to the formative unit of the Justice League.

He never had heat vision did he? I get upset when I see them portray him with that and it’s, “When did he get that?” It would seem like if fire is a problem for him, he wouldn’t want heat vision. (Mutual laughter)

Bruce Timm will tell you that he’d rather work with Marvel characters, but this is what he was given, so he’ll work with the Justice League, but I think he was trying to put Marvel powers into the mix a little bit. It becomes very convoluted because the people that were taking charge of the stories weren’t actually the editorial overseer, but the talent. “Whatever you want. You’re in charge.”

While I always felt like whatever I was doing with the character, at least I could be consistent with what I understood. If you look at any of the stuff I did, not counting Kingdom Come, but the Justice League one shot and the Justice series that I did, you will never see Wonder Woman flying. Because in my world she should never have done the exact same thing as Superman. There shouldn’t be that overlap in power and by the same token, Martian Manhunter would never have heat vision.

Stroud: That would go far in explaining how you focused more on the telepathic abilities and the shape shifting.

Ross: Right and during the Grant Morrison run they were really exploring those sorts of things, whereas the guys in the 60s didn’t understand all the ramifications of what he could do. In the 70s when he was no longer part of the Justice League and then in the tumult of the 80s there was much more effort put into the capabilities of the character. You could get more of an idea of how different and alien he could be.

Stroud: Do you think that the fact that he didn’t have a stand-out foe diminished his potential?

Ross: That’s correct, other than a whole planet of white Martians, but there was never much done with that. That was something that was only teased out in the 70s and then they would build upon that in the 80s and then in the 90s it seemed like such a pivotal part of his past.

JLA: Liberty and Justice (2003) #1, cover by Alex Ross.

What used to bother me was when people would take the character and be completely indifferent to what had happened in the past with him. I would even have to correct this with Paul Dini. He would write that he was a sole survivor. He’s not a sole survivor! When he came here from Mars it might have been a desolate planet, but there were other Martians. He wasn’t the only one, he was just trapped here. He was stranded in the first established adventures, and eventually he would get reunited with his fellow Martians and I certainly didn’t notice any kind of reboot that completely wiped out the Martian race.

Eduardo Barretto/Gerard Jones series. One of the best works ever done with the character.

That really grounds what I thought of the character more than anything else.

Stroud: (This is where I tell him how profoundly Kingdom Come affected me.)

Ross: It’s always really nice to hear, but when I’m told I’ve rekindled something for the art form that someone once loved I wonder if that should come with an apology from me. Basically I just helped you get back on the drugs you were on before. So much of this business and the fandom we bring to this art form is a corruptive one because it starts overtaking your attention, your passion. If you’re a collector like I am, suddenly you’re getting stuff that you wouldn’t have…

It also dovetails nicely if you’ve read Darwyn Cooke’s “New Frontier.” For the stuff where he used Manhunter in that, it feels very much like a kindred project, because the story is entirely set in the 50s and so what he’s dealing with, with his own way of living in this society is very true to the roots of the character.

The goofiest thing that has built throughout my career is that I’ve made models out of friends of mine. I’ve got a particular friend I base my version of Superman on and so forth and so forth and I would usually be the guy behind the camera. In unique points, idiosyncratic points, I would put my face more in the character. So when you saw a couple of times in “Marvels” the Vision, well, that was me, being the Vision. So even in Kingdom Come when I had the character of the Martian Manhunter appear, by the time I did my one shot it was like, “Eh. Let me stand in for the Martian Manhunter.”

Now after all these other books based on the likeness of friends of mine, I make this guy look a little bit like me. But that was more a functional thing of the fact that I didn’t have anything better who I could get to do the posing. The Martian Manhunter is just more of an expression with that down, kind of morose looking face and the exaggerated features that anybody can do to some degree. So, the ironic thing is that in a way this is the character who is ultimately me played on film.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Superman, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Martian Manhunter, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Batman, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Plastic Man, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Wonder Woman, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Captain Marvel, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Green Lantern, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Aquaman, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

JLA: Secret Origins (2002) Flash, written by Paul Dini with art by Alex Ross.

June 19, 2019

An Interview With Howard Chaykin - Hanging Out With the Continuity Crew

June 19, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Howard Victor Chaykin (born October 7, 1950) is an American comic book artist and writer best known for his American Flagg and Black Kiss comic series. Chaykin was first introduced to comics by his cousin, who gave him a refrigerator box filled with them. After high school, Howard hitchhiked around the country before (at age 19) becoming an assistant to comic artist Gil Kane.

In 1970 he began publishing his art in comics and science-fiction fanzines, and (leaving Kane) started work as an assistant to Wally Wood. In 1972 Chaykin began working with Neal Adams, a move that would lead to his first work at DC Comics.

Howard found steady work with the "Big Two" throughout the seventies, working on projects like the first Star Wars comic adaptation for Marvel or penciling World of Krypton (1979) - the first-ever DC Comics mini-series. In 1983, First Comics launched the American Flagg! series with Chaykin as both writer and artist. The series was successful for First and proved a highly influential mix of Chaykin's ideas and interests — jazz, pulp adventure, science fiction and sex. In 1988, Howard created perhaps his most controversial title: Black Kiss. The 12-issue series (published by Vortex Comics) contained his most explicit depictions of sex and violence, matching a story of sex-obsessed vampires in Hollywood.

Mr. Chaykin's distinct straight-to-inks style set his work apart from that of his contemporaries and through the years he worked on comics from just about every major publisher. He continues his comics career to this day and recently wrote & drew the War Is Hell (2019) one-shot for Marvel Comics.

I got to meet Howard at the Denver Con a few years ago and we chatted for a little bit and I bought a piece of original art from him. I also asked if he'd consider being interviewed and he agreed, giving me his card, an elegant little thing with his e-mail and phone numbers, which I thought was a nice touch. So, I called him up, thinking I'd learn a lot about his time at Continuity, but he explained he wasn't really part of the group - just a guy who would come around to the studio from time to time. Still, we had an enjoyable chat and I look forward to seeing him again.

This interview originally took place over the phone on June 5, 2015.

Secrets of Sinister House (1972) #17 pg11, art by Howard Chaykin.

Bryan Stroud: What led you to Continuity in the first place, Howard?

Howard Chaykin: I didn’t work there. I’d been Neal’s assistant before the studio was open. Many of us had spent time in his office, but I’d never worked for Continuity. For me, Continuity was a place to spend some time before I got on the train to go home to Queens. So if that’s the extent of our relationship, good talking to you. Goodbye.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Chaykin: The fact is, I never had studio space up there, I don’t think I ever did a lick of work in that office, but I was there, almost every day, while I was living in Queens. I’d stick around there and I’d go have drinks with Sergio (Aragones) or Gray (Morrow) or (Alan) Weiss or one of the other guys and kill a little time before I had to get on the train to head back to Queens, but after I moved there was no point in going, so I stopped.

Stroud: Okay. I’d heard before that it began more or less as a hangout because Continuity was located sort of between the Big Two office buildings.

Chaykin: Neal (Adams) and Dick (Giordano) opened Continuity as a place to work and also to have an actual, serious company, which was a really good idea. In retrospect, I think what they were trying to do, consciously or not, was to recreate something like Johnstone & Cushing, a company that used comic strips for advertising back in the 40s and 50s. To a great extent, Neal introduced a lot of the Johnstone & Cushing techniques to comic books. Lou Fine was there and I’m pretty sure the Mr. Coffee stuff that Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff collaborated on were produced for Johnstone & Cushing. I think Neal was looking to recreate that same sensibility. And of course they did enormous amounts of board work. Just endless storyboard stuff.

Stroud: That sounds consistent with some of the other stories I’ve heard. Even though a lot of comic work was cranked out, advertising was the bread and butter.

Chaykin: Pretty much - and you must understand that in those days, comics pay was just awful. Anybody with any skill sets would go out and some would try to become painters while others (like me) who had studied with Neal, turned to storyboards. I loved doing this sort of stuff for him because he was a terrific board man.

American Flagg (1983) #1 by Howard Chaykin.

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion (1972) #7 pg1, penciled by Howard Chaykin & inked by Tony DeZuniga.

Accident Man (1993) #1, cover by Howard Chaykin.

I did work for him on storyboards, then I went out and did my own stuff with a partner and on my own as well. Before everything went digital, these jobs were a very nice way to generate some income. Any way you could make between $150.00 and $200.00 a day back in the 70s was really good money.

Stroud: Sure, and the cost of living wasn’t what it is today, either.

Green Lantern (1960) #196, cover by Howard Chaykin.

Chaykin: No, not at all and I had a good time doing the work. I did a lot of storyboarding and enjoyed the process. It was interesting too to watch what they got right and what they got wrong.

Stroud: That is precisely what Joe Barney was telling me or perhaps it was Steve Mitchell. They said that if you wanted a real insight as to what it was like, go catch a few episodes of Mad Men. It was very, very close.

Chaykin: Very much. It really had that kind of sensibility. The only difference is that in the real world guys like Pete Campbell had hair down to their shoulders like Sonny Bono. The freak look was much more prevalent in advertising than the way the show portrayed it.

Stroud: Based on a few of the photos that Larry Hama and some others have shared, I can see exactly what you’re talking about.

Chaykin: No question.

Stroud: Even Walt Simonson was practically unrecognizable in a couple of those shots.

Chaykin: We were all long-haired freaks at the time.

Stroud: All in all, how long would you say you spent time up there with Neal and company?

Chaykin: Like I said, I never worked there, but during the first two years of its existence I was there frequently. It was just a place to screw around at the end of the working day.

Stroud: Did anyone serve as a mentor or was there someone you learned something from?

Chaykin: Well, of course I worked for Neal directly. I was his assistant in the days before Continuity and it was a good thing. I learned a great deal. I don’t see much of him now, but to tell you the truth he’s one of the five most influential men in my life.

Weird War Tales (1971) #9 pg1, art by Howard Chaykin.

Stroud: I’m assuming the others would be Gil Kane and Woody and…

Chaykin: Gray Morrow and Joe Orlando. Joe was my rabbi at DC my first couple of years in helping me to learn how to work with a corporate client.

Stroud: I’ve heard so many good stories about Joe.

Chaykin: He was one of the best guys ever. Just an absolute prince. A true great man in the business. An unacknowledged giant. What a great guy.

Stroud: Absolutely. Tony DeZuniga couldn’t say enough good about him.

Chaykin: Joe was Tony’s primary contact up there, so that’s right.

Stroud: Someone else was telling me he had a real gift for showing you how to do a layout without making you feel like an idiot.

Chaykin: Joe was a prince. He was also really funny. Just one of the great guys.

Stroud: Another person I enjoyed very much was Nick Cardy.

Chaykin: Nick was one of my favorite artists. A really talented guy that no one seems to remember.

Stroud: He did tell me that when he was working, he felt like he never got a pat on the back from some of the editors he did work for.

Chaykin: Whenever Alex Toth described the way he was treated by Sheldon Mayer it sounded like abuse. I never understood how these guys could continue to function treated that way. There seemed to be this measure of contempt from editorial. I ended up moving to California because I was never going to make enough money in comics to support my lifestyle. I’m grateful for that because if I’d stayed in New York I would have had to work in editorial and I’d be very difficult to work for. I’m not a very nice person. I’m not particularly interested in people’s feelings, but I’m not abusive. I believe that a lot of these guys were abusive.

G.I. Joe (2008) #7, cover by Howard Chaykin.

I’ve heard the stories from some of these older guys and it sounds like it was just awful.

By the way I’m sorry I can’t be much help to you on the Continuity stuff, but it really wasn’t a big part of my life. Again, I was Neal’s assistant before the studio and when Neal opened the shop he had (Alan) Kupperberg and (Steve) Mitchell. Alan and Steve knew each other from high school. They were among the very first along with Larry (Hama), me, Ralph (Reese). These were the guys who were in comics at our age.

Stroud: Not to mention a few Detroit imports like Greg Theakston.

Chaykin: Right, but Rich Buckler was in that Detroit crew first. These were the guys from out of town who became New York émigré’s. So anyway, Neal had Alan and Steve working for him in those days. I hung around more than anything else.

There was a great bookstore downstairs called Scribner’s and a saloon called Nemo’s, which was a great place to pick up stewardesses. There was a coffee shop called Kenby’s where we ate and hung around. That block is now gone, replaced by corporate high-rises.

Back then 48th street was filled with the 5-story office buildings that were so prevalent in New York from the end of the 20th century. A lot of them were remade in condominiums.

Stroud: It seems a lot of your peers spent time with Wally Wood. Did he just have a rotating cast of assistants?

Chaykin: I was there, Larry and Ralph preceded me. There was also John Darryl Smith, a guy who got out of comics early and is now an antique weapons designer in Boston. He was there very briefly. Kupperberg was there for a while as well. Paul Kirchner, too.

These days I live in a small town outside Los Angeles, so I’m not really in the loop. In fact at this stage, my career is functionally done because the commercial stuff has reached a point where I’m too old school for this shit. I can live with that. I’ve done enough.

The Flash (2016) #63 Variant cover by Howard Chaykin.

Stroud: You’ve had a pretty long career…

Chaykin: That’s true, but I speak a language that contemporary comic books don’t understand or care about. One thing in particular that has happened to comic books in general with the diminution of narrative is that the concept of actual consistent continuity seems to be fading. You take a television show like Glee, a series filled with contradictions and that sort of narrative inconsistency has spilled over into comics where a specific continuity, which should be a valid form of narrative, is no longer being used.

Stroud: Well here we are in the age of texting and tweeting and I sometimes think that attention spans have diminished.

Chaykin: I think you’re mistaking that for stupidity and willful ignorance.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Chaykin: But I sometimes sound like the cranky old man in the corner. It wasn’t really different when I was a kid. It just seems different.

Stroud: You’re a quadruple threat, Howard, between penciling, inking, scripting and painting.

Chaykin: I don’t paint anymore and there’s no difference between penciling and inking for me because I draw in ink. I never learned how to ink the way comic book inkers ink and it kept me out of the big time for a long time until I realized it wasn’t necessary. I could find a stream to lead right to finished artwork. It didn’t necessarily look like anyone else’s work and that was an eye-opening experience for me and a very valid one.

I spent a lot of time just trying to turn my liabilities into assets. I suck in a lot of ways and I’ve had to learn how not to suck. So learning how not to suck has been a very valuable lesson.

War is Hell (2019) #1, cover by Dan Panosian.

Stroud: What can you tell me about being Gil Kane’s assistant?

Chaykin: I met Gil when I was thirteen. He was one of my heroes as a cartoonist and later I got word through the grapevine that his assistant had died, so I got in contact and became his assistant around the age of 18. He was one of the most influential men in my life. He was a liar a cheat and a thief in many ways, but I learned a great deal from him about how to do what I do.

All too often I open my mouth to speak these days and I feel I can hear Gil speaking from beyond the grave. Some of the things that he believed in and talked about inculcated themselves into my beliefs as well. He was a hugely influential figure and I’m glad I got to be part of his memorial. As morose and moribund as most memorials are, the fact is he was great and fun to be with and yet a difficult piece of work. He was no walk in the park.

Stroud: Clem Robins told me that if he liked you, you had a lifetime relationship, but if he didn’t it was all over.

Chaykin: I couldn’t have put it better myself. Quite right.

Stroud: He also said he could never figure out the Kane/Toth feud.

Chaykin: Oh, I can help with that. Toth was a Jew-baiter, another only child of that generation. They knew each other from the time they were kids. They met when they were 14 or 15 and they hated each other from the minute they met. Gil, to his credit, was able to put aside his personal loathing for Alex to describe him as the greatest cartoonist of his generation.

Alex, on the other hand, was a miserable f*** who couldn’t see past his own prejudices and small-mindedness. I believe that Alex Toth was the finest cartoonist of his generation. He was insanely influential. But an absolutely impossible person. An unbearable guy. To describe him as difficult would be to diminish the meaning of difficult. He was just impossible, but again, an astonishing talent. His genius has taken my breath away at times. Yet for all that he was just a complete wreckage of a human being.

Stroud: To wrap things up, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Chaykin: I live a pretty boring life. I’m a movie-goer, a reader and I hang out with my wife. She is my boon companion and we travel quite a lot, which we enjoy.

Wraparound cover for American Flagg: Hard Times HC by Howard Chaykin.

June 12, 2019

An Interview With Angelo Torres - A Comic Artist Designed To Drive You MAD

June 12, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Angelo Torres (born on April 14, 1932) is a cartoonist and caricaturist whose work has appeared in many comic books, as well as a long-running regular slot in Mad Magazine. Torres was friends with artist Al Williamson in the early 1950s and occasionally assisted him on work for EC Comics with fellow artists Frank Frazetta and Roy Krenkel (known as the Fleagle Gang). A story (which was to be Torres' first solo at EC) titled "An Eye for an Eye" in Incredible Science Fiction (1955) #33, was rejected by the Comics Code and did not see print for the first time until 1971. When the E.C. comics line failed after the enforcement of the Comics Code, Torres (and several other E.C. alumni) went to Atlas Comics and drew a number of short stories for their mystery series in 1956-57 - titles such as Astonishing, Spellbound, Uncanny Tales, Marvel Tales and many others. Torres later worked for Warren Publishing under editor Archie Goodwin. He contributed art on 20 stories for Creepy, Eerie and Blazing Combat from 1964 through 1967. From October 1969 until April 2005 he drew the satires of contemporary U.S. television shows (and later movies) as the penultimate feature in Mad Magazine (whereas Mort Drucker drew the movie parodies in its opening portions). He was named #61 in Atomic Comics' (retailer) list of The Top 100 Artists of American Comic Books.

I think it was because I located that copy of All Star Western #2 containing the El Diablo backup story that nudged me to contact Angelo Torres, who was depicted in the tale, along with Dick Giordano and Gil Kane and even though it was another short and sweet exchange, Angelo was friendly and kind and I still get a kick out of sending him birthday greetings each year. Enjoy learning a little about one of the famous Fleagles.

This interview originally took place via email on January 26, 2015.

Creepy (1964) #1 pg47, art by Angelo Torres.

Bryan Stroud: How did you become interested in art?

Angelo Torres: Growing up in the 30s with the great Sunday funnies being drawn at that time and with so many great comic book titles filling every newsstand, I began copying the characters and attempting to create my own. My school notebooks were full of drawings which didn’t help my grades and by the time I got to high school all I wanted to do was draw a newspaper syndicated strip.

Stroud: What was your training?

Torres: I attended the School of Industrial Art, a vocational high school in New York City where I got my first formal art training. Graduating in 1951, I went into the Army for the next two years after which I used the GI Bill to study at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts).

Stroud: You have a very realistic style. What led you to comics?

Torres: My dream had always been to do another “Terry and the Pirates” or “Steve Canyon”. I loved Milton Caniff’s work and tried to emulate it. I was also a huge fan of Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, so even though I loved almost every strip appearing then, I wanted more than anything to draw in a realistic style. Attending classes at C&I, I found that my fellow cartooning students had no interest in doing a syndicated strip but dreamed instead of breaking into the comic book business - with EC Comics as their main target. I found myself going in the same direction.

Stroud: You’ve done nearly every genre, from crime to Adventure, War to Western, Science Fiction and even a little romance. Where did you feel most comfortable?

Mad Magazine (1952) #150 pg43, art by Angelo Torres.

Torres: I have always felt most comfortable and gratified doing historical work. My work on Prehistoric World and World War II for Classics Illustrated, the war stories for Warren and the Civil War book for Marvel are still some of my most satisfying work.

Stroud: Tell me about the Fleagle Gang.

Torres: Ah, the Fleagles. A couple of us from the art school, led by Nick Meglin (who in later years would become an editor of MAD Magazine) had become regular visitors to the EC offices in lower Manhattan. Always welcome by Bill Gaines and to some extent Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman, we also got to know some of the artists. Al Williamson became a close friend and on one of his trips to EC to deliver work, Nick, George Woodbridge, yours truly and Roy Krenkel tagged along with him. As we entered the office, somebody, they say it was Harvey, called out “Here comes the Fleagle gang” or words to that effect. It stuck, the fans got hold of it and the rest is history.

Stroud: Most of your stories in the comics were 4 to 5 pages. Was that your sweet spot or just what was assigned?

Torres: I did whatever was assigned to me. If it was a subject I liked I didn’t care about the number of pages.

Stroud: Did you have an editor you particularly enjoyed working with?

Torres: Archie Goodwin at Warren stands out and of course, the guys at MAD, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, my editors for so many years.

Mad Magazine (1952) #369, cover penciled by Mick McGinty & inked by Angelo Torres.

Stroud: You were at it before the Comics Code. How do you feel that affected your work?

Torres: It never affected my work except for the one story I did for EC, “An Eye For an Eye”. It kept being rejected and Gaines was forced to shelve it.

Stroud: You’ve done work for many, many publishers: EC, Archie, Warren, Prize, Marvel, Charlton, Classics Illustrated, Sick, Harvey, DC and even Bongo. Any preferences?

Torres: How can I choose? They all hired me and liked my work. But if I had to, it would have to be EC. There was no one like William Gaines.

Stroud: You’ve done very little superhero work except for special projects like

the Supergirl promotional comic from Honda and the “Celebrate the Century” super heroes stamp album. Is it your preference to do other styles besides superheroes?

Torres: Ironically enough, one of the first characters I ever attempted to draw was Superman. My comic book collection growing up was comprised mostly of all those superheroes of the late 30s and 40s but for some reason, my drawing interests were elsewhere.

Stroud: You also did an “Epic Battles of the Civil War” project for the Historical Souvenir Co. How did that come about?

Torres: The Civil War project began with a phone call from Marvel. After learning that the other sections would be done by George Woodbridge, Gray Morrow and Richard Rockwell, I decided I had to do it. I have never regretted it and think of it as one of my better efforts.

Worlds Unknown (1973) #1 pg10, art by Angelo Torres.

Stroud: I see you had some work in the first issue of Witzend. Did you work directly with Woody?

Torres: I can’t remember what work of mine appeared in the first issue of Witzend and I never worked with Woody on anything.

Stroud: You seemed to find your home with MAD. Was your work at SICK a precursor?

Torres: Absolutely, as was my earlier work with Bob Powell. It was great fun being in at the inception of Sick and working with Joe Simon.

Stroud: Do you prefer penciling or inking?

Torres: I have always preferred penciling and inking my own work and have always done so with very few exceptions.

Stroud: Are you still doing work?

Torres: No big projects any more but, yes, I still do a piece here and there.

Stroud: Do you do commissions?

Torres: Only those I feel comfortable doing and that look like fun to do.

Stroud: Do you think Gray Morrow did you justice in the El Diablo story?

Torres: Gray Morrow was a dear friend and I loved his work.

Stroud: What else can you tell me about that story? I believe Gil Kane, Al Williamson and Dick Giordano and Phil Sueling were also characterized?

Torres: I know little about the story but it was always fun to throw your friends into a job. We all did it at one time or another.

Superman: Bradman Commission (1988) #1, cover penciled by Curt Swan & inked by Angelo Torres.

Frankenstein Mobster (2003) 5B, cover by Angelo Torres.

Supergirl (1984) 1 Honda-Safty Campaign, cover by Angelo Torres.

Lenny Brenner, Bill Gaines, Antonio Prohias, Angelo Torres, and Nick Meglin.

June 05, 2019

An Interview With Sal Buscema - Helping To Define Marvel's 70's Style

June 05, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Sal Buscema poses with a Defenders piece done for charity. — **Sal Buscema** poses with a **Defenders** piece done for charity.

Western Gunfighters (1970) #1 pg1, penciled by Werner Roth & inked by Sal Buscema.

Silvio "Sal" Buscema (born January 26, 1936) is an American comics artist, primarily known for his work at Marvel Comics - where he enjoyed a ten-year run as the artist of The Incredible Hulk. He is the younger brother of comics artist John Buscema. Like John, Sal attended the High School of Music & Art, graduating in 1955. He got his start as a comic-book inker in the early 1950's when his brother agreed to let him ink some comics pages. After high school, Buscema was drafted into the peacetime U. S. Army in 1956. Classified as an "illustrator", he served with the Army Corps of Engineers stationed at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

In 1961, a call from his brother brought Sal to New York City to work with John at the advertising agency Alexander Chaite, Inc. After a year-and-a-half, John returned to the comic-book industry while Sal waited until 1968 - when he began working for Marvel Comics. In June of 1968 Sal got his first assignment - inking the the 10-page Western feature "The Coming of Gunhawk", by writer Jerry Siegel and penciler Werner Roth. Though that story was eventually published in 1970, Sal's first (credited) published work was penciling the cover to X-Men (1963) #48 and inking over his brother's pencils in Silver Surfer (1968) #4. Within a year Buscema was penciling the team book The Avengers, and for the next thirty years he was one of the most prolific artists at the company. From December 1975 (#194) to July 1985 (#309) Sal was the series penciler for The Incredible Hulk (1968). After working for DC shortly in the late '90s, he returned to Marvel in 1999 for the Spider-Girl Annual.

In 2012, Buscema inked IDW's G.I. Joe Annual and the ongoing Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms series.

"Our pal Sal" is proof that the talent gene can indeed be found in more than one family member. Sal was a very enjoyable guy to speak with and by all accounts, he's popular enough that his commission list stays pretty full. If you happen to be interested, he's represented by the fine folks at Catskill Comics. Meanwhile, here's the man himself:

This interview originally took place over the phone on July 6, 2012.

X-Men (1963) #48, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by John Romita Sr.

Bryan D. Stroud: Do you remember what your first published piece of art was?

Sal Buscema: That would have to be in 1959 as far as commercial work, but actually as I think about it, I’ll bet it was something I did for the Army because believe it or not my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) in the Army between ’56 and ’58 was as an illustrator for the Engineer Corps, which surprised the heck out of me. So I couldn’t tell you precisely what it was, but that would probably be the first professionally published thing I ever did. I was attached to the Engineer School at Fort Belvoir and worked there for almost two years doing those illustrations for the Engineer Corps.

Of course I worked with John (Buscema) on comics before I got into them myself. He was working for Dell Publishing at the time and occasionally when he got into deadline problems I would work with him doing backgrounds, inking them and that kind of thing in order to help him out.

Stroud: Did you have any formal training?

Buscema: My only formal training was where both John and I attended, which was the High School of Music and Art. Are you familiar with the movie and T.V. show “Fame”?

Stroud: I am.

Buscema: Well, that was the school they were talking about. Of course at the time they were doing “Fame,” the movie and the television show, it had expanded to not only music and art, but had expanded to the performing arts also. So it is now the High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts. It was quite a school that was established by the Mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia. He thought it was necessary to have a school that dealt with the fine arts and serious music and it really was quite a school. We had 4 symphony orchestras, believe it or not and the art curriculum was pretty difficult. I was commuting from Brooklyn and would leave my house probably about a quarter to seven in the morning and take a subway to the school. It was actually located pretty much in the heart of Harlem on 135th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York City just on the other side of CCNY. The art curriculum was extensive and very, very good. Unfortunately, being a kid and not being too bright I just didn’t take full advantage of it, but I guess enough of it rubbed off on me so that I could at least try to make it a career.

Silver Surfer (1968) #4 pg1, penciled by John Buscema & inked by Sal Buscema.

That was the extent of my formal training. John went on to Pratt Institute for a year or two, I think, which was a very, very fine school at the time. I wanted to get right into the business and am not sorry that I did. It was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. And that’s at an age where you’re not usually making very many good decisions, but it worked out for me and I’ve never regretted it. I had the opportunity to go to Cooper Union in New York City which was a very fine art college, but it dealt primarily with fine art and I wanted to get into the commercial end of the business, so I declined that and got a job as an apprentice and as they say the rest is history. So aside from the training I already mentioned, I’m primarily self taught.

Stroud: I’m genuinely surprised that you didn’t have more formal training. Your work has always been lovely.

Buscema: Having been doing this now for nearly 60 years, I developed the belief that no one can teach you to be an artist. You have to learn on your own. You can get guidance, which is essentially what you get in school. Unfortunately there are some schools that misguide you, which is just an unfortunate fact of life. There isn’t much you can do about that. At the period of time when I was looking for more extensive training there really weren’t very many good schools to go to, so I just jumped right into the business and learned right on the job. In that respect it was a very good beginning for me.

Stroud: So, you were in the commercial side of the industry to begin with?

Buscema: Yes. My first job was in a commercial art studio and for the first 13 years of my career I was a commercial illustrator, graphic designer and whatever the rest of it might entail.

Stroud: That’s usually the goal of many artists, and yet you went into comics. How did that come about?

Buscema: It was my desire to do comics initially, but when I was ready to do comics the comic book industry was pretty much dead. We’re talking about the 1950’s. I graduated in ’53 and in the early ‘50’s you may remember the big scandal about comic books back then. Of course if they compared them to what they’re doing today they would be like children’s stories. It’s amazing how the times change. The industry was so depressed that John had to get out of it also and go into other areas of commercial art because there just wasn’t any work available, much less so for a beginner like myself. This is why I was forced to go into other areas of commercial art. It was wonderful, wonderful training for me. I was very happy with the results and if I had to do it all over again I would not change a thing.

Silver Surfer (1968) #4 pg20, penciled by John Buscema & inked by Sal Buscema.

Stroud: Do you recall the page rates when you were getting your start?

Buscema: Let’s see, I always use John as kind of a yardstick because he was 8 years older than me and got started in the business with Timely and Stan Lee when he was 20 years old. That would have been 1948. He started working for salary, but as things began to deteriorate somewhat in the industry he went on to become a freelancer and I would say that the page rates were, for the top people, and of course he went on to become one of the better known people in the business, probably in the area of $35.00 to $40.00 a page, perhaps as much as $50.00 penciling and inking.

If you had enough work and a reasonable amount of speed you could make a living. Of course salaries back then were much lower than they are today. He did all right until the bottom fell out of the industry.

Stroud: When you made the transition to comics did you start at Marvel?

Buscema: Yes. I was very fortunate. Is’ a funny story, actually. John accidentally met Stan Lee in Manhattan one day. They just bumped into each other on the street. They got to talking, discussing the old days and this was years after John had left Timely and went into other areas of commercial art and Stan was asking him about his desire to do comics because he said the business was coming back. This was probably right around the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s.

He said, “John, we’re looking for people, so if you want back in, just say the word. We can pay better rates and business is really picking up and we need good people.” So that’s what he did. He was commuting from pretty far out on Long Island to Manhattan with the commercial art job that he had and while he was making a good salary it was really a burden for him because he was commuting 4 hours a day and it was just killing him. So when this opportunity presented itself where he could be a freelancer and work at home, he jumped at it.

Now when I heard about that and heard that the industry was doing well again I decided I needed to take a crack at it. He’d mentioned it to me because we communicated by phone and I worked for about a year because I had to learn how to do comics. I’d never really done them except for the little bit I’d done with John.

Our Love Story (1969) #12, cover by Sal Buscema.

The big thing was superheroes by the likes of Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, John Romita, Sr. and their peers and they were flourishing. Marvel was doing very, very well and so I decided to take a crack at it. I worked up a 6-page story, just in pencils, I really wanted to ink. That was my first love. I just wanted to be an inker, but John said they were looking for pencilers, so I thought I’d try that and then adjust from there.

I made up the samples, Stan saw them and he liked them and consequently I worked for Marvel for over 40 years.

Stroud: Wow! You can’t ask much more than that.

Buscema: No. I’ve been very blessed. It’s been a wonderful career and I’m still doing it. I will continue to do comic books as long as people want me to do them, although now I’m just doing inking and have been for the last several years. I enjoy that thoroughly. It’s a lot of fun. All you’re doing is finishing the work, to be blunt about it, as opposed to a penciler where you’ve got to put in a lot of thought into the storytelling. The pacing, the design of the story, page and panel layout, breakdown, it’s just so much more difficult and so much more work. As an inker, you get the stuff that’s already penciled and finish it off and have a great time doing it. To me it’s just a lot more fun.

I enjoyed penciling very much. I did it for many, many years and worked on just about every character that Marvel had and I did enjoy it a lot, but it is a lot of very hard work. It requires a lot of thought, effort and energy and comparatively, inking is a blast. I could do it in my sleep. There’s a little hyperbole there, but that’s the way I look at it. Inking is just a lot of fun and that’s why I enjoy it so much, because to me it’s really not work.

Stroud: What more could you ask? According to another friend of mine who is an industry pro, he’d seen your pencil work before and said it looked like your primary method was breakdowns. Was that your usual approach?

Captain America (1968) #137, cover by Sal Buscema.

Buscema: I was asked to do breakdowns. One of the things that I was blessed with was strength in my storytelling ability and I was pretty fast. I was able to crank out stories at a pretty good rate of speed. It took me a few years to get to that point, but once I got there it came fairly easily to me. Because of that ability, Marvel would come to me frequently and ask me to do fill-in jobs where they were having deadline problems on given books. So in order to expedite things and to get the stories done faster I would do what they called breakdowns, where pretty much everything was there. My breakdowns were fairly tight. The only thing that was lacking were the blacks and if you’ve got a good inker they know where to put the blacks and they would follow my stuff pretty well.

With breakdowns you could turn out a story a lot faster. Since Marvel came to me frequently and asked me to do this additional work, obviously I could not do really tight, finished pencils on all of them because the time just didn’t allow, so I would go with breakdowns and it got to be a pretty normal thing. I enjoyed that a lot better when I was penciling and inking my own books. I would just do breakdowns for myself because then I could do the finish work with the inking.

At one point for Marvel and I was penciling and inking two books a month. That was a real boon to me because the way we worked back then, rather than the computer driven world of comics today, I would pencil the book, or rather do breakdowns and then the dialogue would be written and the lettering would be done and then it would come back to me for inking. Then it was a matter of doing the finish work with the ink. I actually draw better with a brush than I do with a pencil. Why, I don’t know. It just seems to be the way things are. Anyway, that was a real boon to me because I enjoyed the inking more than the penciling, so it was just a nicer way for me to work. I did that for a lot of years at Marvel and of course a lot of other guys did, too.

Again, my breakdowns were pretty tight, so if another inker got a job to do on my pencils, everything was there for him. He didn’t have to do any guesswork or redraw anything. Essentially what breakdowns were in my case was just straight line. No blacks, no shading, nothing of that sort. What you saw in the comic book was what I did in pencil without any of the blacks that would appear in the finished product.

Stroud: What were your favored tools?

Buscema: At the time Windsor-Newton were producing the best brushes in the world, but their product really deteriorated in later years and frankly I’ve had a lot of problems finding good brushes. I switched to a pen for a period of years because I could not find good brushes that would work the way I wanted them to work. I was fortunate enough to find some brushes produced by a small company in Ireland. Apparently an elderly retired couple decided they wanted to have a little side business and became the American distributor for this company. The name of the brush is Kolinksky. They’re really good brushes, though not as good as the best Windsor-Newton brushes were years ago. Still, they do what I want them to do.

As far as pencils, I just use a good old HB or plain old No. 2 pencil. I’ve also used Pelican ink for years, but have found it difficult to get it from my distributor in large bottles. I have also had good luck with an India ink made in Japan. It’s good quality, a nice dense black and I’m delighted to have found it because I can get it in large bottles which of course reduce the cost by a considerable amount. Unfortunately I can’t tell you the brand name because it’s written in Japanese. (Laughter.)

Stroud: Who were your artistic influences?

Buscema: The old masters, of course such as Michelangelo, who was one of the greatest draftsmen who ever lived; Peter Rubens, who was another absolutely magnificent draftsman; the more modern classics, I just absolutely fell in love with the work of John Singer Sargent. Rembrandt, obviously was one of my all-time favorites.

Where commercial artists are concerned I would list Robert Fawcett, which is a name that’s probably not terribly familiar. He was with the correspondence course known as the Famous Artist’s School, which was started by Albert Dorne back in the ‘50’s and it became a really outstanding school for commercial artists. It was composed of the twelve top commercial artists of the day. Al Parker was one while Albert Dorne was the president and founder of the school. Robert Fawcett, probably one of the greatest draftsmen America has ever produced; his work was absolutely exquisite; he did story illustrations for Colliers Magazine and in fact all of the major magazines of the time which are now all defunct unfortunately. And of course Norman Rockwell was another member at the school.

Where Monsters Dwell (1970) #34, cover by Sal Buscema.

Defenders (1972) #1, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by Jim Mooney.

Incredible Hulk (1968) #277, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by Al Milgrom.

At any rate, I was greatly influenced by Robert Fawcett. His drawings and illustrations were just magnificent. He did a series for Colliers Magazine many years ago written by a descendant of Arthur Conan Doyle and they were about Sherlock Holmes. He did these absolutely magnificent illustrations that were just beautiful and what’s ironic about it is that the guy was color blind. His wife was also an artist and she would help him with the colors.

That’s a short list, but right now I’m just very much into John Singer Sargent. The man was an absolute genius. When I look at his paintings I just cannot believe the brush strokes. The control that he had and the mastery of color was simply unreal.

Action Comics (1938) #759, cover penciled by Ron Frenz & inked by Sal Buscema.

Stroud: You’ve had a lot of wonderful collaborations over the years. Does anyone particularly leap to mind as especially enjoyable to work with?

Buscema: As far as the guys I’ve been working with recently, Ron Frenz, who I think is probably one of the top five guys in the business today. He’s a tremendous storyteller and a wonderful draftsman. His stuff is so dynamic and powerful. Tom DeFalco. These are two very good friends of mine. We are not only colleagues in the business, but we’ve known each other for many years and they’ve been just a joy to work with. We did Spider-Girl together and the work has kind of petered out a little bit, but Ron and I are working together now for IDW Publishing in California on G.I. Joe and various other projects.

Before that, Mark DeMatteis, who is a terrific writer who comes up with just wonderful stuff. When I first started working on the Hulk I was working with Len Wein. He and I had a wonderful relationship and I think we did some good stuff together. You must remember I’ve been at this for over 44 years now and sometimes the names aren’t that easy to access, even though I had some terrific experiences with many, many good people.

I loved inking Herb Trimpe’s stuff. He and I collaborated on a recent job for IDW and it was the first time in about 35 years that he and I have worked together. I loved inking his stuff.

Stroud: I’ve heard only good things about Herb. He seems to be one of those salt of the earth guys.

Buscema: He really is and the funny thing about that is Herb and I communicated maybe once or twice over the years on the phone and that was the extent of it. We didn’t know each other except through our work. Recently Ron Frenz was attending a comic book convention in Baltimore and I told Ron that since it was convenient we were going to meet and have lunch together and come to find out Herb Trimpe was also there as a guest so for the first time in over 40 years I got to meet Herb Trimpe in person. He was just one of the finest gentlemen you’d ever want to meet. He’s a super guy and I’ve only heard wonderful things about him and it was just a joy to see him there. We talked for a while and it was just really a lot of fun meeting him after all these years of collaborating.

Captain America (1968) #154, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by Frank Giacoia.

As a matter of fact, when I first started talking to Stan Lee about getting work at Marvel, the first guy that he showed me, whose work he used as an example of what he wanted in storytelling was by Herb Trimpe. Herb was a wonderful storyteller. It was very graphic, very simple and very straight forward and very well done. He was the first guy I saw up there at Marvel in person being utilized by Stan Lee.

Stroud: Did you have a favorite character you worked on over the course of your long career?

Buscema: Absolutely. My favorite would be the Incredible Hulk. Far and away. I love the character and did it for almost 10 years. As a matter of fact Herb did it for 7-1/2 years and I did it for almost 10 and what’s so funny is that there was a book produced a couple of years ago that was a history of the Incredible Hulk and neither one of us are in there. (Chuckle.) I find that really extraordinary since between the two of us we had 17 or 18 years’ worth of work illustrating that character. He and I had a good laugh about that. Maybe they were just highlighting the more recent talent. Just the nature of the business I suppose. Anyway, that is definitely my favorite character and I’d work on him in a minute given the opportunity.

Stroud: Do you feel like they’ve done him justice on the big screen?

Buscema: I felt like they finally captured him very well in The Avengers. Better than the first two films. The first movie certainly had its moments, but I just didn’t care for the movie that much or for the story that much. I think they really got carried away and never felt like Ang Lee had a feel for what the character was all about. I didn’t like the fact that he was 25 feet tall, for example and I really felt like they missed the boat. Now I thought some of the animation was excellent. He was a little too good looking for my tastes.

I thought the second movie was much better in terms of the story. In a lot of instances, I didn’t think the animation was that good. The drawing of the figures just wasn’t that good. It had its moments, too and was superior to the first movie, but in The Avengers I thought they really captured what the character was all about. It was a lot of fun and they even managed to inject some comedy into it and I really liked it. I just think they finally hit their stride. The first two movies, especially the first, just missed the boat. The second one was better and I thought The Avengers was excellent.

Incredible Hulk (1968) #278, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by Al Milgrom.

Stroud: I’m with you. I was with everyone else in the theater audience laughing my head off at those two particular scenes.

Buscema: (Laughter.) They were hilarious and it was like he was a big kid. This 6 year old mentality with the strength of a billion guys was absolutely hilarious. I think it’s part of what makes the character interesting and so much fun to do. The possibilities are almost limitless with a character like that.

Stroud: You’ve worked both Marvel method and full script. Do you have a preference between them?

Buscema: Oh, yes. Marvel method far and away. One of the reasons I’d given up penciling was because first of all I’d had enough of it. I think I’d just gotten to the point where I was over-saturated. I didn’t want to do any more penciling. Essentially, I’d retired. Even though I want to continue working I was officially retired some 11 or 12 years ago.

Working full script is just an absolute bore. I think it was the genius of Stan Lee who came up with this concept of working by giving the outline of the story to the artists and telling them to flesh it out and this is what created the excitement of Marvel comics. It made them head and shoulders above anything else that was being produced in the ‘60’s, ‘70’s, ‘80’s and even the ‘90’s and made them the biggest selling comic book company in the world. I think it was because of that method. The stories were so much more dynamic. I mean who can tell a story better than Jack Kirby, pictorially speaking? Stan recognized that the gift these guys had and said, “Let me just give them their head. Let them do whatever they want to do.” The result as fantastic. To this day I cannot understand why it was abandoned.

I don’t even look at comic books any more. I was at Borders a month or two ago and out of morbid curiosity I walked over to the comic book end and picked up a couple of Spider-Man books and one or two others and leafed through them and I had to put them back on the shelf. I can’t stand looking at them anymore. I don’t know what’s happened to the medium of comic books, but that’s not what they’re doing anymore. They’re just not doing comic books anymore. They’re trying to reproduce movies in comics and it doesn’t work. It never will because it’s a completely unique and different medium.

The Buzz (2000) #1, cover penciled by Ron Frenz & inked by Sal Buscema.

They’re working on them full script. I speak with Ron Frenz frequently and he’s doing work for DC occasionally and doing work for Marvel occasionally and they’re all working from full script and he can’t stand it. He hates it and for the reasons I stated. It’s so restricting. It’s a case of the writer telling the story by telling the artist what to do, where to place the characters, what he wants in every panel. It just doesn’t work as well. We, as artists, think visually. I know they say writers think visually, too, but it’s just not the same. I think it shows in the difference of the product between today and the product of the heyday of Marvel. There is no comparison as far as I’m concerned.

It’s interesting. I don’t do conventions any more, but when I was, especially back in the earlier days, most of the attendees were children; kids or at least young people. Then there was this extraordinary change in later years. The last dozen or so conventions that I did revealed to me that the people waiting in line for drawings or autographs and so forth were 30, 40 and 50 year-olds. And every one of them telling me, “I don’t buy comic books anymore, when I want to read a comic I re-read my old ones. I just don’t buy them anymore.”

This is why the industry is about 20% of what it used to be. I don’t understand why this is not recognized by the powers that be. The only conclusion I can come to is that they are strictly trying to satisfy their own creative egos. That’s the only way I can put it. They’re not interested in selling comic books. When we were doing comic books, to us it was a business. We were in the business of selling comic books and we sold a ton of comic books. There was a time when Marvel had 50 or 60 titles a month and if a comic book was selling in the 40,000 to 50,000 range per month, it was on the bubble.

I just heard a story recently where the editorial staff at Marvel was all excited because their top Spider-Man book sold 50,000 copies. This is what’s happening now and I just find it extraordinary. When I was doing Spider-Man there were four separate Spider-Man books. Mine was in third place and it would sell anywhere from 220,000 to 230,000 copies a month. Combined, the four books sold over one million copies a month. Now they get excited over 50,000. And as I said, 50,000 in sales for a particular issue back in Marvel’s heyday, probably would have led to that book being canceled because the sales weren’t good enough.

Spider-Girl Annual (1999) #1 pg4, pencils by Pat Olliffe & inks by Sal Buscema.

So that’s where we’ve come and I don’t understand why. I don’t understand the thinking anymore. The comic books we used to do are being produced on film now. They’re certainly not being produced in the books. I have no idea what they’re doing and I just don’t even look at them anymore.

Stroud: The last new books I enjoyed were John Severin’s art on Dark Horse’s “Witchfinder.” John Severin was just the best at vintage western work and this was a showcase for him. I was especially impressed where some pages had no dialogue at all because it didn’t need it.

Buscema: Exactly. One of the nicest things that ever happened to me, pertaining to what you just said, when Mark DeMatteis and I were working together on Spectacular Spider-Man in the book where Harry Osborn dies, I got very emotional about that because Mark wrote a beautiful plot for me to flesh out the story with and the last couple of pages are the very emotional part where Harry passes away and Peter is overcome with grief and goes to Mary Jane about it and she’s overcome and it was just really an emotional trip for me and I guess I put a lot of that into the last two or three pages of the book and Mark wrote absolutely no dialogue. He called me up to tell me. He said, “Sal, those pages were so beautifully told that they didn’t need any dialogue, so I didn’t put any in.” That was one of my proudest moments in my career because coming from a guy like Mark DeMatteis, who is just an outstanding writer, it really moved me a lot. It was very touching.

Stroud: What higher compliment could you receive?

Buscema: That’s what comic books are supposed to be. Comic books are supposed to be pictures, telling a story. The ideal that we always worked for on a monthly basis was to tell the story so that it didn’t need any dialogue. And of course it’s a pipe dream, because you’ve got to have dialogue, you’ve got to have descriptions and so forth, but this was what we worked toward. I have no idea what they’re working for today. I look at pages of panels of heads talking to one another and I have no idea what’s going on and I don’t care. (Chuckle.)

It’s very sad. It’s a wonderful medium, but it’s dying a slow or maybe pretty rapid now, death. Thank God for the movies because we can kind of rejoice when we see these movies and most of them are wonderful. I never miss them and have frankly been disappointed in very few of them. Most of them have been very well done.

DC Retroactive Flash The '70s (2011) #1, cover penciled by Benito Gallego & inked by Sal Buscema.

Stroud: You did one recent project that was kind of interesting to me when you inked the Retroactive Flash from the ‘70’s for DC.

Buscema: Is that the thing with all the gorillas in it?

Stroud: That’s the one.

Buscema: Oh, yeah. The penciler was a guy from Spain, I believe and one of the reasons they asked me to ink it was because I think the guy was just very, very rushed. They must have given him a ridiculous deadline and if I’m not mistaken it was something like a 28-page story. It was more than 22 anyway. (26 in my copy.) Essentially what they wanted me to do was tweak it a little bit. It looked to me like the guy just banged out the pages because he had a ridiculous deadline.

He’s a pretty good draftsman and looks like he’s a pretty decent storyteller, but the pencils left something to be desired. So being a penciler myself I think they just wanted me to tweak it. It was somewhat of a fun job. I was very reluctant to do that to another penciler because I didn’t like it done to me when I was penciling, but in this case I think it was necessary because some of the panels just seemed to have a lot of stuff omitted. Let me put it that way. It was kind of an interesting job. I saw the finished product when I got my comps and it looked okay.

Stroud: I thought so and it was just interesting to me to see your work on a DC book, even though it’s far from your only DC work.

You mentioned your new work with IDW. How did that come about?

Buscema: The work at Marvel and DC kind of dried up and I just want to keep working. Not out of financial necessity, but I just happen to be one of those weird people. First of all, I enjoy what I do so much that I don’t even consider it work, but I’m also one of those individuals that think that work is good for you.

When you retire, what do you do for 24 hours? Well, you sleep for 8 and you recreate for 8. What do you do with the other 8? There’s just so much recreating you can do and I was climbing the walls after a while and I said, “I’ve got to get some work.” Keep busy. I decided I’ve got to keep working as long as people want me to work, if for nothing else to maintain my sanity.

G.I. Joe_ A Real American Hero (1982) #177, cover penciled by Ron Frenz & inked by Sal Buscema.

So I knew one of the editors at IDW. I had done a cover or some small work for him that he’d asked me to do and he used to work for Marvel, so I called his number and he wasn’t in so I left a message and told him what the situation was and I said I was trying to get some work because I want to work. I didn’t hear anything back and then I guess it was 5 or 6 weeks later when I got a call from Chris Ryall who was the editor-in-chief at IDW and they said they had gotten the message from this other editor’s voice mail and that he was no longer with the company and they just hadn’t changed the voice mail and they were really sorry that they didn’t get back to me sooner. So they had just discovered this message that I’d left and they said they’d be more than happy to have me do some work for them and I said I was delighted to hear that and here we are. I’m doing work for IDW now. I appreciate it and they’re a smaller company, but they seem to have their act together and I’m working with a good young penciler there along with working with Ron Frenz on G.I. Joe. I’m working with Lee Ferguson who is a very talented young man and we’re working on a book called “Forgotten Realms” where it’s actually a licensed product having to do with the Dungeons and Dragons game.

It’s good, solid stuff and I’m enjoying it thoroughly. I really am. It’s fun inking different people, too. My philosophy is that you’ve got to keep busy or you just sit and sign your own death warrant. The body and the brain need to be kept active.

Stroud: Do you do much in the way of commission work?

Buscema: Oh, yeah. I’ve got an agent and we’ve got a 25-year relationship and he comes through with commissions fairly frequently.

Stroud: Have you tried you hand at painting?

Buscema: It’s something I’ve tried in the past and it’s something that I always want to get to, but for some reason I just never get to it. But it will happen. I know it will because all I have to do is open one of my books on John Singer Sargent and I get inspired and I start to think, “I’ve got to do something. Paint a portrait or a landscape or something.” I’ll get around to it one of these days.

Stroud: I know that among your interests is something that two of your peers have also done, namely Frank Springer and Joe Rubinstein who have both hit the stage on occasion.

Buscema: Oh, you’re talking about Community Theater. I’m a ham from way back. I did stuff in school and then one year when I was well into my 40’s I decided it would be fun. I was looking for another activity and thought, “Why don’t I try Community Theater?” I wound up doing it for over 20 years.

It wore off after a while. It was fun while it lasted and I met a lot of wonderful people and made a lot of wonderful friends. It was just a really terrific experience. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

DMC (2014) #1, cover penciled by Sal Buscema & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Sal Buscema 1992 Creator Trading Card (signed)

Daredevil (1964) #69, cover by Sal Buscema.

May 29, 2019

An Interview With Ken Bald - Golden Age Co-Creator of Namora & Sun Girl

May 29, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Kenneth Bruce Bald (born on August 1, 1920) was an American illustrator and Golden Age comic book artist best known for his work on the Dr. Kildare and Dark Shadows newspaper comic strips. Ken was born in New York City and his first published work came early when comic-book fan art he drew at age 14 was published in More Fun Comics (1935) #9, from National Publications.

Captain America Comics (1941) #7 Pg45, penciled by Ken Bald & inked by Bill Ward. This was Ken’s first published professional work.

After finishing school, Bald joined the studio of Jack Binder - one of the early comic-book "packagers" who would supply complete comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium. His first known professional comics work (via Binder) was the seven-page story "Justice Laughs Last," starring the super-speedster Hurricane - in Captain America Comics #7 (Oct. 1941), from Timely Comics. Beginning in 1942, Ken (again via Binder) began drawing features including Golden Arrow and Bulletman for Fawcett Comics.

On December 7, 1942, Bald enlisted in the Marine Corps - serving with the 5th Marine Regiment-1st Marine Division and seeing combat in Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa. He served from 1943 to January 1946, rising to the rank of Captain.

In the 1940s, Ken drew stories featuring superheroes such as Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Blonde Phantom, the Destroyer, and Miss America. He both wrote and drew a number of Millie the Model humor stories in the comics Georgie and Patsy Walker, and he drew the teen-humor character Cindy in Georgie and Judy Comics and Junior Miss.

Bald co-created and penciled the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner spin-off character Namora, in "The Coming of Namora" in Marvel Mystery Comics #82 (May 1947). He also co-created the Timely superhero Sun Girl, who starred in a three-issue series in 1948. In addition to his superhero work, Ken contributed several horror/suspense stories to titles such as Adventures into the Unknown, The Clutching Hand, Forbidden Worlds and Out of the Night.

In 1957, Bald transitioned to comic strips, beginning with art duties on Judd Saxon — about "an executive turned detective" for King Features. In 1962 Ken started drawing his next strip - Dr. Kildare (based on the T.V. show of the same name). He continued to draw the strip for 22 years, far outlasting the television show. In 1971 Bald helped to create a Dark Shadows comic strip (again based off of a T.V. show), though that strip ended in 1972.

With the end of the Dr. Kildare strip in 1984, Ken retired — although Guinness World Records in 2017 declared him the world's oldest comic-book artist and the oldest artist to illustrate a comic-book cover (both at age 96) when he came out of retirement to illustrate a variant cover for Marvel's Contest of Champions (2015) #2.

Mr. Bald passed away on March 17, 2019.

It's a rare and wonderful opportunity to speak to a Golden Age creator. Nearly to a man, they were simply first-class gentlemen and Ken Bald was no exception. He was a member in good standing of the Greatest Generation and as a Marine, saw action in Okinawa and Guadalcanal, yet he was gentle and kind when I got to speak with him and spoke briefly and fondly of his time in the service. I wish I'd kept in a bit closer touch with him. We just lost him a couple of months ago at the tender age of 98, holder of a couple of Guinness World Records for oldest living cartoonist and oldest cartoonist to have recently published work. I hope you'll enjoy learning a little about him from this short interview.

This interview originally took place over the phone on June 11, 2012.

Bryan Stroud: You must have been a comic fan from the beginning based on that contest you won in More Fun Comics #9 as a young man.

More Fun Comics #9 pg17, featuring fan art from a young Ken Bald.

Ken Bald: Yes, but I was first impressed by Hal Foster. He had a Tarzan strip first before Prince Valiant and I thought that was great.

I went into comics when I graduated from Pratt because it was a job and there were 5 or 6 of us who graduated. There were illustrators and quite a few went into advertising bullpens in the big agencies. They started in the bullpen at $15.00 a week. We went out to Jack Binder’s studio where everything was piece work, but the first week I remember going home with $55.00. So it took off from there.

We didn’t make much per page. On the backs of those 17” boards we worked on we had a list of what you did. The layout guy who roughed things in had his name down and he got so much and the ones that did the secondary figures got so much, the ones that did the main figures, which was what I was mostly associated with got so much and this is all penciling mind you. The inking on secondary got so much as well as the main figures and the background and of course the lettering, so you had sometimes 6 or 7 guys working on the same page.

That was how it went for a while until Jack Binder made me the art director and that paid so much and after that I just did the covers. That was good work.

I enlisted in the Marine Corps December 7th , 1942, a year to the day after Pearl Harbor. So I really only worked for Jack from late May or early June of 1941 through 1942. We got so big that we moved to 507 5th Avenue which was between 42nd and 43rd which was great. We had 30-some guys working on the pages at that time. Jack Binder was great to work with. He and Olga his wife were wonderful people and he had a daughter that was awfully sweet, too.

We were great out there in Englewood, New Jersey where we started. There were maybe 10 of us when this all started in his living room which had drawing tables all around it and then we got so big he renovated this area above a barn/garage kind of thing. It was very nice, actually and that was when we’d grown to a group of 30-some odd and moved into New York City to be closer to our clients like Street & Smith and Fawcett. Most of the famous characters we did, such as Captain Marvel, Bulletman, Bulletgirl, Mister Scarlett, Spy Smasher and Captain Midnight were for Fawcett.

Sub-Mariner Comics (1941) #24, cover by Ken Bald.

Then for Street & Smith I know I did Doc Savage, Mandrake and some Ibis the Invincible. It’s been so many years now. It’s crazy. (chuckle) Then in December 3, 1943 they sent me overseas. I married Kaye October 30, which was a Saturday and that Wednesday we went back to Camp Lejeune where I was stationed and the following Saturday, one week after we married, they sent me to San Diego and Kaye followed me out as soon as she could, but by December 3rd I was aboard ship and I served for 25 months before I got back. I did well. We saw a lot of combat in the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. I eventually ended up a Captain. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

But while we were at Binder’s it was great. We could take a 2-hour lunch and play 6 or 7 innings of softball right across the street. We were mostly young guys and then we’d work late into the night because it was piece work so it was all about how much you wanted to work and how long you worked as far as how much you made.

When I came back in the early part of ’46 I went to Timely and met Stan Lee and we really hit it off and became very close friends. He had a studio apartment in the Hotel Alamac up on 77th Street and Broadway and I’d meet him there and we’d go out in the evenings. He started me out writing and drawing things like Millie the Model and a whole slew of those girl magazines and then Captain America. Later it was Namora and Namor, the Blonde Phantom and Sun Girl. I did a lot of girl stuff along with Captain America and Namor.

I actually drew Millie the Model in Paris because my wife, Kaye, who performed on Broadway and had a wonderful career as a singer and actress, was invited to perform in France and she accepted with the stipulation that I could come along. So I was able to do my work and send it back to Stan during the period which was about six months. She sang all through France and Belgium. It was sort of a delayed honeymoon for us and it was delightful. As I mentioned before, we had a quick wedding and a week later I was shipped out overseas.

Kaye took a break from her career when the children began to come and later, after our third child was born she began to do so many television commercials they dubbed her the “Commercial Queen.” She did a large number of them and I believe she was in her 70’s when she did the last commercial.

Human Torch (1940) #34, cover by Ken Bald.

She also had a starring role in a movie she did in California while we were stationed out there. She stayed with my aunt and uncle in L.A. and signed with Columbia Studios and was in several movies there. Then she had the opportunity to star in a movie titled, “An Angel Comes to Brooklyn.” It was a musical and featured a great song called, “It’s a Great, Wide, Wonderful World We Live In.” She gave it up, though when we moved to New York to pursue my career.

She’s a Brooklyn girl that I met while I was at Pratt because my best friend was Vic Dowd, who is her brother and that’s how we met. It’s worked out beautifully and she’s still good looking at 88.

Stroud: Good for you! My brief chat with her on the phone made me feel like she was an absolute delight.

Bald: She is. Marrying her was one of the smartest things I ever did. I’m not giving you much except for the fact that I got to put Millie the Model in Paris while we were there. We lived not far from the Eiffel Tower and Paris was great. I was introduced to escargot and loved it.

Thinking back, we had no idea that we were in the Golden Age of comics at that time. Comics to me were a step toward illustration. I kept trying to do illustration and advertising while I was doing this stuff for Stan and while I was doing all the covers for American Comic Group. That included titles like Lovelorn and Romantic Adventures and western covers and scary ones; Adventures Into The Unknown - that sort of thing.

Eventually a fellow up in Boston had seen some of the commercial comics I’d done and he had an idea for a syndicated strip called “Three Against the City.” He came to see me and did a script for one week and I drew it up and we gave it to King Features and they had it for a month and then they decided that it was too much “big city,” to try to sell throughout the Midwest and so forth. But they did say they liked the artwork and when they had what they considered a saleable strip they would call me. Usually you think that’s a lot of bunk, but almost two years to the day they did call me with this idea for “Judd Saxon” who was a troubleshooter for a big, major conglomerate that would go one time to offshore drilling rigs and then to Asia for some other thing they were investing in. It was an adventure kind of strip that included business.

Adventures Into the Unknown (1948) #23, cover by Ken Bald.

At that time they had “Executive Suite,” and other big business themed things like that which had been popular in the movies so they were trying to capitalize on that and asked me to draw it. So I did that for 7 years, and it did okay but it never got a Sunday page. So then they came up with the possibility of doing “Dr. Kildare.” They said I would have a Sunday strip immediately and I think I did that for 23 years. There was one full year where I didn’t have a single day off. It was when I was doing “Dark Shadows,” which was a 7-day strip with the 6 dailies and the Sunday and “Dr. Kildare” which was 6 days and a Sunday.

Meanwhile I was still trying to do the advertising work that paid and so for one year I could not take off a day, it was so much work. So at the end of that year while “Dark Shadows” was really big in the bigger cities, particularly the East Coast and West Coast along with Chicago and Detroit; it didn’t do too well in the Bible Belt. They couldn’t buy into a vampire hero evidently. I liked doing it and the people at the Daily News in New York got more mail about when it got dropped than they ever had up to that time. People liked it, just not enough. It was not carried by King Features.

I had to sign the strip “K. Bruce.” My middle name is Bruce. King Features didn’t want me to sign it “Ken Bald” or whatever I was using on “Judd Saxon” and “Dr. Kildare. “ I hated in a way to give it up (“Dark Shadows”) but financially it wasn’t doing very well whereas “Kildare” always had a big overseas market in places like South Africa and Japan and at least one Chinese paper and of course Europe.

So I kept that up and also did some movie posters in the ‘50’s for films with Mario Lanza and “Frisco Bay” with Alan Ladd. In addition I did some book illustrations and of course the advertising work. Advertising work paid better than most anything else. Consequently I didn’t do any comic book work since the middle ‘50’s.

Stroud: So you missed out on all the backlash at the time.

Bald: And now with the website and all (www.kenbald.com) I’m back to doing the comic work again. (Laughter) It’s like I’m starting all over again. So far the most popular commission I’ve done is Captain Marvel, but I’ve been asked to do Sun Girl, Blonde Phantom, Namora, the Sub-Mariner, Doc Savage and of course lately there’s been a demand for the Dark Shadows stuff. I owe that to Johnny Depp. (Mutual laughter.)

The first week of Dark Shadows strips, with art from Ken Bald.

Stroud: That’s created new interest, I’m sure.

Bald: It certainly did. We got to see it at their invitation, Kaye and I, and it seemed like it couldn’t make up its mind if it was going to be campy or drama. That’s what I thought about it, so it was a bit of a disappointment in a way. It had a few good laughs, but I was disappointed. I preferred the way it was on the television series.

Stroud: My wife and I went to see it and I had a similar reaction. I didn’t dislike it, but I don’t think it will become part of my personal movie library.

Bald: I’d like to reiterate that everyone I worked for and with was very nice and kind. Stan Lee and his wife Joan are still some of Kaye and my closest friends. He just recently sent me a picture of the two of us at the last Comic Con in New York and it was the first one I’d ever attended. It shows the two of us sitting together and he’s doing his autograph and I’m still laughing in the picture because he’d just said, “Can you believe it, Ken? They pay $50.00 to stand next to me while I’m sitting for a picture, and they line up to get it autographed for another $50.00. Is that something else?” Anyway, we talk quite often and our wives talk more often than we do. He also sent me a photo of him signing when he got the star on the walk of fame or whatever it was just recently. I am very proud of that friendship. We go back to 1946.

Until just the last few years, where I’ve had to give up flying we used to go out there pretty much every spring we stayed with Stan and Joan both when they lived on Long Island and then when they moved to L.A. Unfortunately we don’t travel like that anymore. I played basketball until my 84th birthday, but my knees aren’t that good now, so I teeter and totter some, so I’m a lot more careful. It’s kind of a shame because I’ve been an athlete all my life and love football and basketball. In fact I’ve been a fan of the New York Giants since I was probably 17 years old.

Stroud: I see you’re going to be a guest at the Baltimore Comic Con in a few months.

Bald: Yes and Michael Finn put out a nice press release about it. This will be my second one since the one back in March that I mentioned earlier.

I wish I still had more of my originals. Syracuse University has over 1,000 of my Judd Saxon strips and a doctor who is a collector has all but cornered the market on my Dr. Kildare run.

The first week of Judd Saxon strips, with art from Ken Bald.

All the things now are new work and I just continue to think it’s funny that after 70 some years of being a working professional artist that I’m back to doing what I started with. (Laughter.) My memory may not be accurate, but it seems to me that back then, doing main figures was worth a dollar and a half or at the most two dollars for the pencil work. Inking was about the same. So I estimated that the total cost of a page to Jack Binder might have been $17.00 or $18.00 back in the day. But of course because it was piece work you tried to get it done as quickly as you could to get by. One of the things the artists, including myself, used to do was to put a lot of back views into the panels. Those were much easier to do, drawing the back of the head and the shoulders and such. But then I think it was Rod Reed at Fawcett who started saying, “Backside Binder.” We had to do less back views. (Mutual laughter.)

Oh and before I forget I wanted to mention another very close friend of mine, Kurt Shaffenberger who did Superman for a long time and Supergirl and Superboy. He remained for his whole life doing the comics. I think he stopped in his late ‘70s. I went to his 80th birthday party and I’m glad I did because he died shortly thereafter. I also knew Clarence Beck who originated Captain Marvel and his wife, Hildy through Jack Binder from the time when I was doing Captain Marvel.

Stroud: The original crew. What a wonderful opportunity. You worked on so many characters, but did you have a favorite?

Bald: As far as overall, it was Barnabas Collins, but for superheroes I guess maybe Bulletman was my favorite at the time. But of course I was happy to do whatever assignment I had given to me by Stan or whomever I was working for.

Stroud: You’ve had a wonderful career.

Bald: I’ve had nothing to complain about. I’ve met nice people, had my scholarship at Pratt renewed which helped me get my start and had a very good life.

Contest of Champions (2015) #2 Ken Bald Variant.

Miss America (1944) #1, cover by Ken Bald.

Venus (1948) #1, cover penciled by Ken Bald & inked by Lin Streeter.

Venus (1948) #1 cover recreation by Ken Bald.

May 22, 2019

An Interview With Joe Barney - From the Crusty Bunkers to the Goon Squad

May 22, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Joseph John Barney (born in 1956) is an American artist best known for his work in comic books and graphic art. Joe began his career at age 19 as an illustrator at Continuity Associates in New York working with Neal Adams. He also worked on Madison Avenue, turning out hundreds of storyboards and 'animatics' for TV commercials. He free-lanced as a comic book penciler as well, working on such famous Marvel characters as The Hulk, Thor, War Machine, Silver Surfer, and the Fantastic Four.

In the nineties Joe moved west to work in the burgeoning multimedia arena. Some of his projects have included: character design for Broderbund software's Carmen Sandeigo nemesis Chase Devineaux; animation artwork for the CD-ROM games Mysterious Island and Marty the Mouse for Elliot-Portwood Productions; a web adventure comic series for Eplay, an educational children's web site; production paintings and storyboards for the CGI 'cinematics' of Crystal Dynamic's Akuji the Heartless Playstation game; and a 'film noir' comic book for the I.T. consulting firm Xpedior.

His current project (with writer Cary Bates), Saurheads, is an original animated film property featuring dark humor with dinosaurs.

Another Continuity member in good standing is the great Joe Barney, who had a number of interesting stories and observations while toiling away at Continuity all those years ago.

This interview originally took place over the phone on March 3, 2012.

Marvel Super Special (1977) #37 pg1, penciled by Joe Barney & Larry Hama and inked by Tom Palmer.

Bryan D. Stroud: If my information is correct, you began at Continuity at the age of 19?

Joseph Barney: Yes, I was hired in March of 1975. I was at the School of Visual Arts at the time, but my credits didn’t transfer from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where I’d studied for a year, majoring in art. So because SVA, for some reason wouldn’t recognize my credits, I was forced to repeat all the foundation year courses about color theory, etcetera, all over again, and I began to get bored and impatient. I was there because I wanted to learn to draw comics, and SVA was supposed to be the comics school, founded by Burne Hogarth, with instructors like Will Eisner. But there were a lot of teachers there who had zero respect for comics, or even illustration. It was the times I suppose, and in the 70’s avant-garde was the order of the day -- illustration and comics weren’t real art. “Art School Confidential” had it nailed with that John Malkovich teacher character –“I was the first to do triangles”. I had a few teachers like that there. I did get to sit in once on one of Will Eisner’s classes, a second year course. I was smuggled in by an older student, and I wasn’t supposed to be there, but he looked at my portfolio anyway, and was really encouraging to a dumb kid who barely knew who he was. I got the impression he was a very kind man, and really enjoyed imparting his wisdom to a new generation.

I was renting an apartment with two schoolmates in what was basically a classic tenement building on East 92nd Street. One of my roommates from school had a friend, who took his portfolio up to Neal Adams, which we figured was kind of crazy, given his portfolio. But then he came back and said, surprisingly, that Neal was very nice to him, gave him coffee and even had his secretary call up Marvel, to get him an appointment to show his stuff. And the amazing thing was, the guy’s drawings were just horrible, childish. I thought, “If he can get that kind of reception, what have I got to lose?” So I grabbed my portfolio and went to Continuity to see Neal Adams.

Of course I was pretty nervous. I got the same routine I saw lots of other artists get, including Frank Miller, Marshall Rogers and others. He flipped through my portfolio, giving about a second or two to each page (chuckle) while I stood there sweating. Finally, he just said, “What would you say if I said you don’t draw enough?” “I’d say you’re probably right.” “Mm-hmm… Would you like to do a little work while you’re here?” I said, “Sure.” “Well, here, trace off this macaroni package we’re doing for this commercial job.” So I’m tracing macaroni in one of this little reference library room, where they had this lightbox desk, and about 20 minutes later he comes back and says, “listen, I’m kind of looking for assistants right now, and I thought maybe we’d give you a try, and if it turns out to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, maybe we’ll make it an ongoing thing.”

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #7, cover by Joe Barney.

So I was in the right place at the right time, really. I was pretty much the first of what I think of as a second wave of young blood there, being at the tail end of the Crusty Bunkers. The Crusty Bunkers, I think, had sort of served as a test run, intentional or not, that proved that a group effort inking late books under Neal’s supervision could be a profitable thing for all involved, and keep the work flowing for the young up-and-comers. But it consisted of a lot of independent artists, not Continuity renters, just guys who would come up and occupy a desk for the duration of a particular inking job. There were a bunch of young guys who were hired on, or rented space after me in the following year or two. After me there was Joe Brozowski, Carl Potts, Michael Netzer, Lynn Varley (not a guy), and Bruce Patterson; I think Terry Austin and Bob Wiacek had already been working for Dick Giordano, and started formally renting a space soon after I arrived. Ralph Reese and Larry Hama were already renting in one of the back rooms, and had been doing the freelance thing there for Neal, as well as their own stuff, for a couple years already. They both had sort of apprenticed with Wally Wood in the years before that. It was quite a time--and place--for young artists.

Stroud: I expect. Did you have a particular specialty? It seemed like for the most part that a lot of the Crusty Bunker work was strictly inking during those frenzied overnight turnaround jobs.

Barney: Well, the Crusty Bunkers was basically inking jams, whereas we all pretty much did a little of everything—whatever was called for—penciling, coloring, paste-ups, whatever. By the time I was around, because it was basically a new group, and guys like Berni Wrightson and Alan Weiss were busier with their own work, the Crusty Bunkers were basically no more, so we needed a new name. Somebody dubbed us The Goon Squad, and that sort of stuck for a couple years. Neal had gotten an account with Charlton Comics to do these black & white, magazine-sized comic book adaptations of three TV shows, The Six Million Dollar Man, Space 1999 and Emergency! (which was the most boring one of the three for us to draw). Do you remember that show?

Stroud: Oh, yes. I used to watch it when I was a kid. My Dad was very much into cop shows and anything related to them so I saw ‘em all. The FBI, Dragnet, Police Story, Police Woman, The Rookies, Adam 12…

Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #15 pg 66, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Jeff Albrecht.

Barney: Yeah, and I think Emergency was sort of a spin-off of Adam 12. I think they had the same producers. Of course we all wanted to draw super-heroes, but those books were actually a good thing for all us young artists to cut our teeth on. It’s a lot more of a challenge to make comics about paramedics exciting than it is super-heroes.

Neal had a process where he would review our layouts, our incompetent, 19-year olds layouts, and he would go over them with a Pentel and correct our drawing, and if necessary, the compositions. It was amazing what he could do with a Pentel and a tiny little space of paper. Everything he put down was structurally correct: anatomy, perspective, folds in clothing, cars, buildings… his knowledge was just amazing.

I don’t know if you know his technique, how he would do his own layouts. He’d take an 8-1/2” x 11” sheet of paper and fold it in four, and make four pages of the story out of it, so each quarter was a complete page. And they were incredibly tight, precise little things. He would then stick the layout into an Artograph, which was this huge overhead projector sort of device. You’d stick the layout sketch in the projector, and it projected it onto the drawing table. You would then raise and lower it to enlarge or reduce the image to the size you needed on the final page, and trace it off, enhancing it as you went.

So we would basically use the same technique for the Charlton TV stuff. We’d take the layouts that Neal had edited, then go into the Artograph room, turn off the lights, and follow the process. There were two desks in the room, each with one of these big, unwieldy projectors, and there would often be someone else working at the other Artograph to keep you company. We also used a lot of photos, which the TV people provided for us, that we’d also use the Artograph for. Wally Wood had a famous credo that was passed on to us through Larry and Ralph: “Never draw what you can copy; never copy what you can trace; and never trace what you can cut out and paste in.”

So anyway, then Neal would review the finished penciled page one last time, and then “Diverse Hands” (that later became a pseudonym Marvel used for group deadline saves) would do the inking. On the Charlton TV books, besides Neal, who did primarily figure work and faces, there was Gray Morrow, Vicente Alcazar, Ed Davis, Sal Amendola… I think Russ Heath did some work, Bruce Patterson, Terry Austin and Bob Wiacek, and of course Dick Giordano -- and the rest of us ‘kid pencilers’ all pitched in on the backgrounds. So it was one big group effort. The end result could be kind of a mish-mash -- some pages would turn out better than others -- but they still came out better than most of what Charlton published, and it was a really great learning experience for all us young guys.

What If (1989) #70 pg1, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Don Hudson.

Stroud: I know more than one of your colleagues has said they learned a tremendous amount there even though they said Neal was not exactly a teacher.

Barney: That’s true, for the most part -- he wasn’t specific about any tips, per se, other than generalities like “thinking about what you were doing”. (Which is of course, a good idea for most things). He also emphasized the need for using reference photos, instead of just drawing, say a car, out of your head. A large part of his incredible store of knowledge of how to draw things, and people in particular, came from his years doing Ben Casey, where he used Polaroid’s he’d shoot for each scene, using himself, family & friends as models. I remember he also had specific ideas about the proper way to hold a pencil or pen. I tried to change my grip to the way Neal held it, but I just couldn’t get used to it, and control the pencil as easily. Later on, I asked Berni Wrightson about that, and he said Frazetta told him you should just hold it in whatever way came naturally... Recently though, I saw a close-up photo of Frazetta holding a pencil -- and he had the same grip as Neal’s.

You mostly learned by observing what he did, and by what he corrected in your work. Looking back on it, Neal was really a generous guy to take on this unruly mob of dysfunctional kids. It probably didn’t make him much money for the bother.

But I wouldn’t say he accepted just anybody. I was sitting next to Neal when Frank Miller came in. Much like me, he was this nervous kid from the sticks -- here in the big city with the famous Neal Adams looking at your work. Neal gave him pretty much the same routine I got, where he just thumbed through his work and concluded, “It’s not good enough.” Obviously it didn’t discourage Frank. He worked up more pages and came back and went through it again, I think two or three times. It was the same with Marshall Rogers. I think he told Marshall he was too old. He may have been 5 or 6 years older than we were.

Stroud: Oh, that’s funny.

Barney: (Chuckle.) I guess that was the test. If you really wanted to be a comic book artist, and Neal Adams gave you the bum’s rush, you needed to come back and keep trying.

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #7 pg 15, original art penciled by Joe Barney & inked by George Freeman.

Stroud: Your earlier recollection reminded me of Bob McLeod’s story that his artwork wasn’t really up to snuff but Neal realized he needed a gig, so he made that magic phone call to Marvel and got him a job as a letterer.

Barney: Sure, he would recommend you to the companies, and vouch for you if an editor asked. The first comics job I worked on was a Wonder Woman job that Dick Giordano had, and he didn’t have time to do, and Neal offered the penciling to me, as a sort of “ghost artist”. So that was the first actual comics penciling I did; this was before Neal got the Charlton TV adaptations. It was in my first few months there, pretty much before any other “Goon Squad” members were hired on. So actually, this was my first experience with the Neal Adams Method of penciling a comic book page. Again, I would do the layouts on 8X 11 paper-- in this case from Marty Pasko’s full script--and Neal would then review them and correct them with his Pentel. Then I’d Artograph them onto the final page, polishing them until they were acceptable enough for he and Dick to ink. I think Dick did most of the inking on that story, with Neal most of the close-ups of faces, and maybe Terry Austin and Bob Wiacek doing backgrounds, as they were exclusively Dick’s assistants at the time.

That was pretty cool, to be 19 and doing published work with Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, even if it was uncredited; looking back, I think it was basically a gift from Neal, to give me a shot so early on.

Stroud: I’m sure the thrill was immeasurable and probably a good confidence boost, too.

Barney: Oh sure. Then, about a year later, around the time we were finishing the run of the Charlton books, Cary Bates came up looking for artists to work on an idea for a spinoff book he had. Cary had been coming around the studio to visit, and I think he also became a renter soon after that period. This would have been early ’76. He had an idea for a spinoff of The Flash, which he was writing then, featuring Gorilla City and starring Grodd the Super-Gorilla, and he was looking for artists to do some samples to pitch a series to DC.

Stroud: I remember the character well.

An unpublished page from Grodd of Gorilla City, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Terry Austin. — An unpublished page from **Grodd of Gorilla City**, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Terry Austin.

Barney: I’m not exactly sure how it came about that there were two pencilers involved, but Carl Potts, another new Continuity recruit, got brought in on the project, and Terry and Bob, who were kind of a team then, were assigned to the inking. So there were two pencilers and two inkers on the book, as well as two writers, Cary and Elliot Maggin. But Cary and Elliot had already been a team for many years, on several DC books, with Elliot more the dialogue guy, and Cary more the plot guy. If you go to my website you can see the double-page spread for Gorilla City, inked by Terry, who did a great job on it. I spent about a week just on those two pages, because they set the scene, and the design style of the city for the story -- and they helped to sell the idea to DC.

So at one point in 1976, Carl and I had to go up to meet with Carmine [Infantino] with our sample pages, to get the green-light on the book, which was sort of like going before the Mafia Boss. (Chuckle.) Pretty nerve-wracking. He had been the publisher since about 1970, I think…

Stroud: That sounds about right. (Note: Carmine’s wonderful autobiography, “The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino,” has the timeline listed as 1967 for his ascension to Editorial Director and then Publisher and President in 1971.) And of course not only was Carmine the big boss, but also the original Silver Age Flash artist, which must have added an additional burden to your pitch.

Barney: Exactly! (Chuckle) We were trying to outdo his own, established version of Gorilla City I guess, which for the most part was standard ‘50s futuristic architecture. But he did green-light the thing, and we finished it, it was lettered, and were all paid… but then there was a big shakeup at DC, with Carmine leaving and Jenette Kahn coming in. So it just sat on the shelf for a year, until they finally stamped it with that infamous stamp, and gave the artwork back to us. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but basically it was, “This is not going to be published." Like I said, the final product was a bit of a hodge-podge, so it was understandable. Everyone did a good job, but the style varied drastically from page to page, and it just didn’t gel.

Someone else recently did an interview with me about Gorilla City, under the title “Greatest Stories Never Told”. It would have actually been a very commercial idea, I think. Sort of a Planet of the Apes meets Howard the Duck satirical kind of thing.

Stroud: Why not? It worked for Kamandi. Did you have anyone at Continuity that you hung out with or was there any time for socializing?

Another unpublished page from Grodd of Gorilla City, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Terry Austin. — Another unpublished page from **Grodd of Gorilla City**, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Terry Austin.

Barney: Well, we were all together pretty much 24/7—or at least, 16/7-- so I was friends with pretty much everyone there, I guess. Marshall Rogers was a good friend. As was Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Michael Netzer, Bruce Patterson, Joe Brozowski, Mike Hinge, Bobby London… Carl Potts and I were sort of partners for about a year, freelancing onsite at an ad agency Continuity farmed us out to.

Continuity was this long railroad kind of layout, basically a long hall with a series of rooms off to one side. I started out in the front room, sitting to there right of Neal for the first year or so. I was on salary that first year, and I forget exactly how everything happened, but at some point I changed over to working freelance, billing by the job, with storyboards or animatics work broken down into penciling, inking and coloring. There was the front room, and then the next room back was the ArtOGraph room, which was next to the reception area/office, by the elevator, then down the hall was Jack Abel’s space-- a room with two or three desks in it. Next to that was Terry and Bob’s room, then the small reference library/lightbox room, which was later rented by Greg Theakston; then Ralph and Larry’s room, and in the back was what became Marshall’s space, which he shared with Bobby London for a time, and later his writing partner Chris Goldberg. The rest of the back area was storage, which was eventually cleared out and became the space I was renting for my last couple years there. Each space consisted of a drawing table and a tabaret. In the in-between years, I was Jack Abel’s roommate for about a year or two, during the period I was doing the Gorilla City project. Jack was one of the old-timers who had been around for a while. Of course, I was a big fan of all the 60’s Marvel stuff, that’s really why I got into comics, and I didn’t fully connect at first that Jack was the guy who inked Iron Man over Gene Colan, in “Tales of Suspense”, because he had used the pseudonym “Gary Michaels” on those books. In the 60’s, artists often didn’t want to take the chance of burning bridges at either Marvel or DC by crossing between companies, so they sometimes used pseudonyms to keep the rival company from finding out you were working for the enemy. Anyway, we would listen to the Bob and Ray Show every noon hour -- they still had a daily show on AM radio, with their hilarious comedy skits, in the 70’s. Bob and Terry were in the next room, and they were fans too, so we would all listen to Bob & Ray together while we worked. Fun times.

Finally, for whatever reason, I ended up in the very back room, a former storage area where the air conditioning unit was. My roommate there was science fiction illustrator Mike Hinge, who was from New Zealand, and was primarily a cover artist for science fiction novels and magazines. He specialized in covers for digest books like Analog and Astounding. He’d also done a couple of covers for Time Magazine in the early 70’s, including the famous Nixon cover, “The Push to Impeach”. He was a very imaginative guy with a unique style – his work inspired a lot of Steranko’s psychedelic graphics that he inserted into stuff like his Shield books in the late 60’s. Steranko even published “The Mike Hinge Experience”-- a large sized sort of portfolio book -- through his SUPERGRAPHICS company.

Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #15, cover penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Larry Mahlstedt.

Mike had kind of fallen on hard times, and had lost his lease on the loft he’d lived in for years, and he was in dire need of a place to work, so Neal let him stay in the back room. It became his living/work space. It was pretty rough going for him -- he was probably in his early 50’s at the time, and had to shower at friends’ apartments. I think it, understandably, made him a bit cranky, though he was a basically a good-natured guy (unless you were a publisher) -- a little eccentric, but then most of us renters there had our quirks… He had this incredible record collection -- it was his prime focus, his main obsession, next to science fiction. He hated the term "sci-fi", and would jump down the throat of anybody who used it; he considered it a vulgarization of the term for what he considered a legitimate art form. He liked to listen to whatever the latest was in music, the more avant-garde the better. Many was the night we'd stay up working – often all night-- at Continuity, with separate headphones, taking turns introducing each other to whatever was “the latest”: Ultravox, XTC, Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Talking Heads, Philip Glass, and scores more … but my favorite band name from the Hinge collection was this early Industrial group, with the hilarious name "Throbbing Gristle"…THEY were OUT there. But then, so was Mike… We were studio mates, there in the backroom, for two or three years. He passed away a few years ago.

Stroud: Ah, yes. I think it was Greg Theakston telling me about Mike Hinge and his affection for using “Gehman Mahkers.”

Barney: Yeah, I was reading about that on Greg’s blog… it’s true, I can still hear him saying that, with that thick New Zealand accent...

Sometimes I wish I’d stuck with the comic book work. I tended to be a little too perfectionistic with it, and the advertising work was a big diversion, a detour from comics and illustration. There were good and bad aspects to doing the advertising stuff. The good part was that it paid at least three times as well as comics, and kept us struggling young artists alive, with maybe even a little money in the bank left over. But the bad part was that it kind of sucked you in and diverted a lot of energy from doing work that might actually be published. With the advertising stuff, the work that was only seen by a few clients of the ad agencies, and ultimately just ended up in the circular file, or if you were able to get the art back, in your portfolio. But comics pay was just dirt cheap back then. Starting rates of something like $25.00 a page for pencils and inks. Neal was able to shift easily between the advertising & comics stuff, but for some of us, it was hard to do both.

Stroud: It seems like Ralph Reese was telling me that the advertising paid a lot better, but the payment would be 90 days down the road or so.

Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #15 pg 27, penciled by Joe Barney.

Barney: Very true. The bigger agencies would hold onto your pay longer, I think because they made sizable interest on the money, due to the volume of people they employed. Ralph and I and Joe D’Esposito were partners in our own commercial art studio for about 6 years, called Studio 23, after we left Continuity.

Oh, so speaking of comics, and to rewind a bit… Jim Steranko was the first professional to ever look at my work. It was at the Detroit Triple Fan Fair Convention in 1971. It was my first convention. I was 16, a kid from small town Wisconsin and totally clueless, and I thought, “Well, if I get a chance to show my work, I have to have a real portfolio, like the professionals.” So I used my little sister’s doll clothes case, a sort of attaché case, because it had a plastic fake leather veneer. (Mutual laughter) Years later I heard that Steranko himself claimed real pros didn’t use fancy leather portfolios, but tended to carry their samples in folded cardboard bound with a string. I didn’t expect that I’d necessarily get to show my work to Steranko, but figured I might get to show it to somebody, so I should be prepared and have a portfolio that looked “professional”.

At the convention, I befriended Keith Pollard, who lived in Detroit, and was also aspiring to break into comics. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Detroit Triple Fan Fare was run by future Continuity renters Greg Theakston and Michael Nasser (now Netzer). I have some pictures from those conventions, and years later, was looking at them and it was, “Hey, that’s Mike Nasser.”

Stroud: Yeah, in fact, I think Mike told me he picked Neal up at the airport to drive him there one year.

Barney: Somewhere I have this iconic photo I took there of Neal doing a Pentel sketch of Deadman, which has since become a sort of famous Adams piece of art -- it was even used in a portfolio around ’75 for Christopher Enterprises, one of the early comics portfolio publishers. And of course, now I can’t find it. It’s around here somewhere … (Chuckle) It was just so odd because here I was, just this kid at this convention, in the presence of greatness, watching one of my idols… And I could never have imagined that just two years later I’d be working for the guy at his studio in midtown Manhattan, sitting right at “the right hand of the father”.

Anyway, Keith Pollard was also trying to break into comics, and told me about this clandestine, top secret 10 o’clock meeting Steranko was going to hold that night with a small group of aspiring artists. He was planning on publishing a magazine of some kind featuring up-and-coming young talent. I don’t think it ever got off the ground. Anyway, Keith kind of smuggled me in, and when Steranko showed up, he eyed me up and down and said, “Who’s this?” I was the party crasher, and all eyes were suddenly on me. I timidly explained I was just looking for an opportunity to show my portfolio. I was just a fifteen year old kid. So, even though I was an uninvited outsider, I remember he actually said “OK. Lay it on me”. Groovy, man! (Chuckle.)

What If (1989) #70 pg5, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Don Hudson.

Now you have to understand, Steranko was a superstar, at the height of his fame at the time, and he played the part to the hilt. Again, it was like you were in the presence of one of the gods, and Steranko was the God of Cool. He looked like a cross between James Dean and James West, wearing this all-white, sort of Saturday Night Fever suit. Very intimidating to a kid, especially after drooling all over his Nick Fury, and other originals, all day in the art room. They were the first actual original comics pages I ever saw. So anyway, he looked at my work and asked, “Ever been to New York?” I said, “No.” I guess I was supposed to ask him something beyond that, because the conversation just sort of died there. (Chuckle.) But I took it as a note of encouragement anyway, that he would suggest I was good enough to go to New York and try my luck.

So that was my first convention experience. Vaughn Bode and Jeff Jones were there, too. I didn’t know who Vaughn was at the time, and I only knew Jeff’s work a little from fanzines. They would later become two of my all-time favorite artists. This was just before their monthly strips in the National Lampoon. Russ Heath was also there, whom I also didn’t know of at the time: he was another one I would also later work with at Continuity on commercial stuff. I think the next year was the convention Neal attended, along with Barry Windsor-Smith and Michael Kaluta. I was actually living across the hall from Mike during my first year at Continuity, in a tiny studio apartment on West 92nd Street. There was a guy who was the sole assistant to Neal on commercial work when I arrived, named Steve Harper. Steve was a primarily a fine art-style painter, who lived in the apartment across from Kaluta when I first arrived at Continuity. He was a friend of Mike’s from Virginia, and I guess Mike got him the gig with Neal. He’d been there for a year or so as Neal’s assistant, doing mostly storyboard coloring, and I don’t think he had any aspirations to do comics, or especially, advertising, so he decided to go back to Virginia and do his painting. So luckily, I was in the right place at the right time, and took over his desk. In fact, I also took his apartment. (Chuckle.)

That was a really magical year for me. Mike had just completed his run on The Shadow the year before, and he did his first portfolio, oil paintings illustrating Dante’s “Inferno”, while I was there. He had this small two-room apartment stuffed with all these very cool antique books and knick-knacks.

There was one especially memorable series of incidents there in that building… I guess I was about 6 months into my Continuity employment, and Mike had asked me to watch his apartment while he went home to Virginia for a vacation. Of course I couldn’t be there in the daytime, so when I came back from work and checked on his place one night, I found that his skylight had been broken, and somebody had obviously been in the apartment. I guess they’d gotten a portable TV and not much else, but I had to call him in Virginia and tell him the bad news. After he came back from vacation about a few days later, while I was at work, he heard some rustling in my one-room studio apartment, and went over to check it out. This time the guy had broken in through my own small skylight. (Chuckle.)

But Mike actually caught this guy, basically made a citizen’s arrest. Our apartments were on the fifth floor, the top floor of the building, so he went and got this CO2 pellet pistol, which I think was actually still considered an illegal firearm in New York City, and he very bravely went up to the roof and nabbed this guy at (pellet) gunpoint, saying “You’re coming with me, kid.” So he marched the guy downstairs and called the cops, and when they arrived, he was told by the cop doing the report that that it wasn’t entirely legal, so Mike swapped it out for a replica gun that he just happened to have around.

Stroud: For artistic reference, no doubt. (Laughter.)

Barney: No doubt! I was also around during The Studio era in 1976, when Mike joined Bernie, Jeff Jones and Barry Windsor-Smith to share space for a couple years. “The Fab Four”, people called them at the time. It was a grubby old machine shop with high ceilings, and I remember pitching in help to clean it up and convert it to an art studio. That was an amazing thing to witness. They did some fantastic work in that place; they all grew tremendously as artists in the two years they were together.

Stroud: The stuff of legend. I adore Bernie. He’s always been very unassuming when we’ve spoken.

Barney: A very down-to-earth guy. I hung out with him a bit in those days, drinking beer & chasing girls.

Stroud: I was looking over your webpage and I see you list animatics as a specialty. Was that a takeaway from Continuity?

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #7 pg 6, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by George Freeman.

Barney: Yeah, we did a lot of those there. In those days, they actually had exclusive animatics houses where they’d actually shoot them, and add voices, & sometimes music. It was sort of a dry-run rough draft of the commercial to see how it played, before the client actually committed to shoot the actual commercial. Back then, we just did the drawings, and then sent them over to them be filmed in 16 mm for the ad agencies. It was very limited animation, of course. You’d do something for Gillette, for example, of a guy shaving, and the arm was a separate cutout, and they’d just show the arm moving and the shaving cream disappearing on the face, that kind of thing. We had to cut out all these elements and make sure they worked before sending the art over to be filmed. Nowadays, thanks largely to computers, Neal can do everything himself. He’s done some real cutting-edge animatics with computer in the last decade or so, and as you may know, is now applying that expertise to “motion comics”.

I haven’t actually done any animatics for commercial purposes myself for a long time, other than some art for game cinematics. I’ve actually done a few-- I guess you could call them animatics-- for my own projects recently though, using film editing programs. I’ve just finished a proposal in DVD format with Cary Bates, a proposed dinosaur film, a Pixar-style thing.

Stroud: Is that the “Saurheads” I saw on the website?

Barney: Yes. I left Continuity in 1980 a with a couple of the other guys, as I mentioned before, Ralph Reese and Joe D’Esposito, who were also looking to branch out on their own. It wasn’t that we weren’t happy with Neal, but we figured we could maybe make a little more money on our own, and I guess we basically wanted to stretch our wings and make our own way. So we got a studio together on 20th street between 5th and 6th and called it Studio 23. We called it that because 23 was my sort of my ”magic number”, and because it sounded better than “Studio 20”. My wife at the time, Mary, was our rep and studio manager.

We were doing a little bit of animatic work, but mostly storyboards and what they call “comps”, which were marker-drawn pre-visualizations of magazine ads. Alex Jay was our studio mate, too. He rented the room next door. Alex is a top-notch book designer in general, but specializes in logos; he created a lot of iconic Marvel logos, like the one for Walt Simonson’s Thor books. He also did a lot of work for the late Byron Preiss, who published a lot of comics-related stuff at the time… Alex was designing all these different books for Byron with people like Steranko, William Stout, and Moebius, so we’d see these originals come through the studio, this fantastic original art.

Stroud: Oh, wow.

Slomo from Saur Heads by Cary Bates & Joe Barney. — Slomo from **Saur Heads** by Cary Bates & Joe Barney.

Barney: Anyway, when I was creating SAURHEADS with Cary Bates, Alex shot the photostats for our presentation. Cary and I were both pretty disgruntled with the pay in the comics field, and the prospect of having to live hand–to-mouth for the rest of our lives. We’d seen how much Garfield was making in merchandising at the time, and one of us got the idea to do a dinosaur strip. Of course everyone loves dinosaurs, we figured. It should be good. It should be big. So we whipped this thing together in our spare time, and as I was working on it, this book came in to Alex to design, that William Stout was co-illustrating with a former Disney artist, called “The Little Blue Brontosaurus.” Which was kind of worrisome, since our main character was also blue.

Vump from Saur Heads by Cary Bates & Joe Barney. — Vump from **Saur Heads** by Cary Bates & Joe Barney.

Stroud: Uh oh.

Barney: As it turns out, that book apparently became the inspiration for the “Land Before Time” series. Alex also designed two more William Stout dinosaur books at that same time, a Ray Bradbury dinosaur book, and Stout’s most famous book, which was called “The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era”. The publisher of these books was Byron Preiss. Alex did a lot of work for Byron. He was both a writer and publisher. Are you familiar with the name?

Stroud: It’s not coming to me.

Barney: He was very well known in the business at the time, mostly as a publisher & editor, but also a writer. He worked with a lot of big name artists, trying to do books outside the comics mainstream, mostly in trade paperback form. He did a lot of projects with Ralph, starting with the long-running One Year Affair in National Lampoon. He also worked with Harvey Kurtzman, Howard Chaykin and many others. Harvey came up a few times to work with Alex on the design of a book called “Nuts,” which was a MAD Magazine kind of thing, only in paperback form. Another very nice, very unpretentious guy, considering his monumental accomplishments in the field.

In the early years, being just an ignorant Marvel-centric kid, I wasn’t fully cognizant of how huge some of these people were. I would see Wally Wood come to Continuity once in a while, to visit Ralph and Larry, his former apprentices. He was a very quiet guy, and gave off this aura like, “Don’t bother me, fanboy.” (Mutual laughter.) I picked up on that, so I left him alone, as did everyone, I think. I mostly only knew his Marvel and Thunder Agent stuff; as I said, I was pretty ignorant at the time.

I mentioned before, our post-Crusty Bunker group was called the Goon Squad. Before that name was concocted, Larry Hama, who was possessed of this pretty acerbic wit, at the time referred to us as “The Seven Dwarves”. (Laughter.) His own version, though: Funky, Scuzzy, Spacey, Dorky… I forget the rest. (Mutual laughter.) He had a name for every one of us.

Stroud: He really does have a wicked sense of humor.

Barney: Yes, he does. Like Wally Wood, his mentor, and Ralph, who also worked with “Woody”. Larry and Ralph were high school friends, and shared this back room at Continuity for a few years, and would sort of riff off each other. Then Ralph left for a while to work at home, and Cary Bates took over his space for a year or so. It was kind of musical chairs at Continuity in those days.

Stroud: Lots of coming and going it sounds like. You were obviously there for a few years.

Barney: 1975 to 1980. Probably about as long as anybody in that period. As I’m sure you’ve heard many times, Continuity was like the coffee shop hangout for artists and writers who came to midtown to do business at Marvel or DC, or some other publisher. It was smack-dab in midtown, 48th street between 5th and Madison avenues, a half block from “30 Rock”. I remember, during my first few months there, Jeff Jones came in, on his way to the Lampoon with a big “Idyll” page, and my eyes just about fell out of my head, it was so beautiful. I was just so amazed by it, and he seemed just kind of blasé about it. He was a very low key, quiet kind of guy in general. One of my art idols, for sure.

I had a Frazetta-inspired Conan painting I was attempting at the time, for The Savage Sword of Conan, I think. It was my one of my first attempts at trying to do oil painting, and Jeff gave me a few pointers, mostly about reflective light and color. Dan Adkins was the editor of the Conan black and white books at that time.

So I had this pretty elaborate scenario in the painting, with Conan fighting off about 20 demons. These Nosferatu-like demons, all coming up from this foggy stairwell, clawing at him, and he’s trying to fend them off, with the obligatory girl being sacrificed on an altar in the background. When it was nearly finished I took it to Adkins at Marvel to see what he thought, and he said, “Well, the painting’s not bad, but we can’t use this. You can’t have Conan beating up on a bunch of little guys.”

Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #15 pg 37, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Frank Turner.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Barney: I mean, there were about 50 of them, and this girl is about to have this knife plunged into her in the next room. Come on! That was the end of my attempt to paint covers. Different opportunities arose, I think I went on to Gorilla City right after that.

We’d also play volleyball in Central Park. That was another fun aspect of Continuity life at the time (and pretty much our only exercise). In that period, it was very of a loose-knit affair, it was a blend of freelancers and people from Marvel and DC, as opposed to later on when there were clear-cut, permanent Marvel or DC teams. Each week someone was appointed captain, and they’d choose people for their team from whoever showed up. Neal played for a couple games. In addition to the Continuity guys, there was Archie Goodwin, Alan Weiss, Jim Starlin, Sergio Aragones, Walt and Weezie (Simonson), Jo Duffy, Jim Shooter…

Jim was like 8 feet tall, which was kind of unfair to begin with. (Chuckle) He played very competitively, and one time spiked the ball really hard, accidentally hitting this poor girl right in the face -- which, understandably, brought her to tears. He felt terrible about it. He walked away from the game, dramatically, saying, "I've got to go. I'm going to hurt someone." I believe the title of that episode was "Volleyball No More..." (Laughter)

Stroud: I think Steve Mitchell told me he was the only one who had a prayer as far as height on Jim.

Barney: Steve was pretty tall too. Before I got there, he was hanging around Continuity and they used to call him “Baby Conan”. He had sort of this baby face at the time, I guess. That was the kind of humor they had running around the place – more often than not, at somebody’s expense.

You’ve probably heard the story about the gag the old-timers would play on the newbies. They would take a sheet of acetate and put it over your artwork while you were gone…

Stroud: Oh, the ink blot or spilled ink bottle.

Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #15 pg 33, penciled by Joe Barney & inked by Frank Turner.

Barney: Yeah. So somebody had done that to Neal, but he was wise to it, and just calmly peeled off the acetate and said “Ha, ha.” So one night Mike Nasser, who idolized Neal and could draw just like him, copied this Superman figure that Neal had been working on, sitting there on his drawing board –perfectly -- and then poured ink directly on it (laughter), and switched Neal’s drawing with it. When Neal came in the next morning, he just smiled and tried to peel the acetate—but there was no acetate -- and for a minute he was taken aback that the ink was actually on the drawing. Mike’s impression was so good, it took him a minute to realize it was a forgery. Practical jokes abounded.

We just had so many colorful characters up there at the time, and in retrospect, I really didn’t appreciate at the time just what an amazing group of talented people came through there. Take Russ Heath. I remembered those Sea Devils covers he did for DC I read when I was a kid in the 60’s, done in those wash tones, and how they looked so much more interesting than anything else at DC at the time. (This was before I discovered Marvel.) I knew he was kind of legendary for his DC war books - which I was never terribly interested in as a kid -- but didn’t realize he was the Sea Devils artist until I’d been there a couple years. I did a fair amount of penciling of animatics and storyboards that Russ inked. Like Neal, he could make average-looking pencils look very slick with his superior inking skills.

Russ had a lot of great stories, including the now-famous one about his time working for Harvey Kurtzman at Playboy. He got called out there by Kurtzman to help with a deadline on Little Annie Fanny. They gave him a room in the mansion, free room & board, maid service, the works … and he was working away on that job for a few weeks, finished the assist, and then, since nobody said anything, he just stayed there. He was there for something like, I think, nearly a year! I guess one day Hugh Hefner asked someone, “Hey, who is that guy, anyway?”, and he got the boot. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: What led you to the west coast? The Hollywood connection?

Barney: No, I just needed a break from the stresses of the city. It can get to be kind of a grind, and I’d been there for sixteen years. My brother lived in Montana, so I knew the area, so I moved there for a while, doing a few Marvel jobs by mail. I also won a commission to do a line of posters at the time, which were to be the first computer-generated Marvel characters. The first two were to be War Machine and Ghost Rider. I didn’t know 3-D modeling myself, but had a friend who helped me with that, constructing a basic model, while I did the layouts, color schemes and fixed figure proportions in Photoshop. The War Machine poster was almost finished, but right around that time the infamous Ike Perlmutter hostile takeover episode happened at Marvel, and they went actually went bankrupt, and their entire poster line got canceled, as well as most of their titles, for a time. Another hard luck story, I guess. That’s showbiz… (Chuckle)

Garloo from Saur Heads by Cary Bates & Joe Barney. — Garloo from **Saur Heads** by Cary Bates & Joe Barney.

After a few years in Montana, I met a woman here in California while on vacation, moved out here, and though she’s now gone, I’m still here... Northern California is beautiful, and a nice place to be weather-wise of course, and you’ve got all the dotcom and game companies and that sort of work available. That’s what I’ve been doing for the most part in recent years. Storyboards for the game industry, some illustration, logos, whatever comes up. I’ve recently formed my own company, Communicomics, with the aim of specializing in comics and animation for corporate and other markets. Some of the most lucrative jobs I’ve had out here involved creating comics for “IT consulting” companies who wanted to use the novelty of comics as an attention-grabbing communication tool. One that I did was a Film Noir detective take-off, a murder mystery to find out where the company was going wrong. I think there’s a great future niche for comics like that. Then there are my personal projects, like SAURHEADS, and a sci-fi graphic novel I’m developing called “Eye”. So I’m basically all over the map, career-wise. The “fine precipice living” of freelance life.

Stroud: What a rollercoaster. It sounds like you’ve had some fun along the way, though and are still standing. Is there anything I neglected to ask about that you’d like to discuss?

Barney: Nothing in particular… I’ve been on kind of a nostalgia kick recently, reconnecting with old friends & studio mates on Facebook, so this has been fun, bouncing around a little through time, and some good memories. It’s been enjoyable. Nice talking with you Bryan.

May 15, 2019

An Interview With Paul Kirchner - Starting Out With Continuity and Wally Wood

May 15, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Awaiting the Collapse (2017) by Paul Kirchner.

Paul Kirchner (born January 29, 1952) is an American writer and illustrator who has worked in diverse areas, from comic strips and toy design to advertising and editorial art. Paul attended Cooper Union School of Art but left in his third year, when (with the help of Larry Hama and Neal Adams) he began to get work in the comic book industry. He started with penciling stories for DC’s horror line and assisted on the Little Orphan Annie strip. In 1973, Ralph Reese introduced Kirchner to Wally Wood, for whom he worked as assistant for several years.

In the mid-1970s, Paul wrote and illustrated the surrealistic comic strip Dope Rider for High Times. For Heavy Metal he did an equally surrealistic monthly strip, the bus. His the bus strips were collected in a book published by Ballantine in 1987. A new edition was released in 2012 by French publisher Tanibis.

In 1983–84, Kirchner did the licensing art and in-pack comic books for the Robo Force robot toy line from CBS Toys. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, he wrote and drew comics features for He-Man, GoBots, ThunderCats, G.I. Joe and Power Rangers magazines, published by Telepictures.

Paul stopped doing comics from the mid-90s to early 2010s. Between 2013 and 2015 he drew new episodes of the bus which have been published in various magazines in the US and Europe. He also re-launched Dope Rider for High Times. He is currently doing a comic strip, Hieronymus & Bosch, which is featured in the comics section of the Adult Swim website.

Stay tuned after the interview to read 4 full comic stories that Mr. Kirchner worked on!

Paul was yet another Continuity Associates alumni and had a few choice stories to share about his time there. Short, sweet and enjoyable.

This interview originally took place via email on February 16, 2012.

Murder by Remote Control TPB (2016), cover by Paul Kirchner.

Bryan Stroud: It looks like you had some art training. What sparked your interest in the field?

Paul Kirchner: I was a comic book fan as a teenager. After high school, I moved to NY in 1970 to attend Cooper Union School of Art. I got a job working in a comic book store and began attending comic conventions. I wanted to get into the field myself.

Stroud: What led you to Continuity?

Kirchner: A classmate of mine at Cooper Union knew of my interest in comics and was a friend of Larry Hama, who was Wally Wood’s assistant at the time. I went to visit Larry at his apartment in Brooklyn to show him my work. That same night, he took me up to meet Neal Adams at Continuity, then located at 9 E. 48 Street.

Stroud: Were you strictly a colorist at the time?

Kirchner: I did some coloring on Neal’s storyboards when there was a crunch. I also penciled a job that he then inked, “Deep Sleep.” (He had to pay for the pencils out of his own pocket as he had had his portfolio stolen when he was sleeping on the subway, and it contained a penciled job he was supposed to ink, among other things.) At Continuity, I did a lot of assisting work for Ralph Reese, penciling in backgrounds, etc., as did Larry Hama.

Stroud: Who did you meet there?

Kirchner: Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Jack Able, Ralph Reese, Vicente Alcazar, Russ Heath, Mike Hinge, Pat Broderick, Scott McLeod, Lynn Varley, Ed Davis, Mike Nasser, and Cary Bates (with whom Larry shared a small office) all had desks up there at one time or another.

Frequent visitors included Gray Morrow, Al Weiss, Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Rick Bryant, Joe Barney, Denys Cowan, Sergio Aragones, Frank Brunner, Greg Theakston, Val Mayerik, Alan Kupperberg, Joe Rubinstein, Walt Simonson (who always had a blanket over his shoulder like Linus, for some reason). Cartoonists who came into town to drop off a job at Marvel or DC would often drop by Continuity and hang out for a while. It was casual and there were always people there. Jim Steranko and Bernie Wrightson sometimes came by and there are other people I’m probably forgetting.

Stroud: How long did you spend time at the studio?

Kirchner: I was up there pretty regularly when I lived in NY, from 1972 – 1975, and then would come by and hang out whenever I was in the city for about ten years after that.

Stroud: What did you learn?

Kirchner: I learned a lot from working with other people, getting their often harsh criticism, and watching how they went about things. Picking up the tricks of the trade.

Stroud: How was payment handled or were you there more for the association?

Kirchner: You got paid based on what percentage of a job you were responsible for. You generally had to wait until the check came in to get your share, though Neal gave people loans when they needed the money. A lot of the time I was just hanging out, though.

Stroud: Do you have any particularly fond memories of the time spent?

Kirchner: Yes, lots—enough to fill a chapter. We did a lot of things as a crowd. We’d all go out to eat together, or to catch a new movie. We had a lot of parties.

One time, Larry Hama brought us all down to Chinatown to watch authentic, non-sub titled Kung Fu movies, and we were chastised by a woman in the audience because we were making too much noise. “This is not Disneyland!” she said in a strong accent.

When Neal was away for a weekend, a bunch of us played a terrible practical joke on Joe Rubinstein, pretending we were all high on LSD and messing up the studio. (Mike Nasser had dummied up a fake piece of Neal Adams original art that we defaced.) Joe has never forgiven us, to this day.

We all went to a strip show together when it came out that none of us had ever been to one. Chaykin reached onto the runway to pick up a sequin that had fallen off the stripper’s G string and told her, “I’m saving this as a memento for my Nipponese friend,” handing it to Larry.

Chaykin was an extremely funny guy. When he and Alan Kupperberg got together it was like a professional comedy team the way they played off each other. Ralph Reese was very funny, with a sort of devastating sarcasm. No one could deflate you like Ralph. Neal was the alpha dog; he’s a mover and shaker, he motivates people and gets things done. He was always trying to form a union of comic artists in those days. That didn’t happen, but Neal was one of the people that helped get creators more rights.

Stroud: Did you rent any space at Continuity?

Kirchner: No.

Stroud: Did you interact with Neal much?

Kirchner: Yes, a lot. Neal had his desk in the front room right in the center, with desks on either side. I think there were five or six drawing tables in the front room. Neal liked to talk while he worked and didn’t enjoy people who had no conversation. There was one guy who was pretty laconic and didn’t pick up on Neal’s conversation starters. Finally Neal stated, “You’ll never make it as a comic book artist.”

“Why is that?” asked the guy, startled.

“Because you don’t have anything to say,” answered Neal.

Every once in a while someone would come up to the studio to show Neal his portfolio. This would always interest the rest of us because of the suspense: if the guy was good, Neal would make a few calls and get him work right away; if he wasn’t, Neal could be devastating. I once saw him start flipping through the pages of a guy’s book faster and faster and making fart noises with his mouth. One of the regular visitors—already a working professional—wanted Neal to appraise a page he was proud of. “There are so many things wrong with that that it will take me about 20 minutes to go over them.” Neal said, “I’m too busy right now, but could you come back in two hours?”

Dope Rider: Metaphysics, by Paul Kirchner.

It sounds cruel but Neal would actually explain what he thought was wrong with your art and that was invaluable.

Stroud: It looks like you took a page from his book in your focus on advertising work and storyboards. How did you settle on these specialties?

Kirchner: I was doing comics and then got into doing toy-based comics like He-Man and Go-Bots for Telepictures, a company that put out magazines based on toy lines. In 1986, an ad agency was impressed with my work on the Go-Bots and brought me in to do storyboards on that line. From then on, I got steady work from then and still do today. I find storyboarding fun and I am fast at it.

Stroud: Were there any particular benefits to your association there?

Kirchner: Yes, I got to meet a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. I miss the camaraderie.

Stroud: Did you enjoy your comic work?

Kirchner: Yes, but I always worked too slowly to be very successful at it. It was only when I got into toy design and advertising, where the deadlines are tight, that I learned to pick up my speed and work efficiently.

Stroud: You did some strip work. What was that like?

Kirchner: The first professional work I did was on the “Little Orphan Annie” strip, assisting Tex Blaisdell. Neal recommended me to Joe Orlando, who was an editor at DC. Joe gave me some horror scripts to pencil that Tex would ink. Tex was a friend of Joe’s and Joe wanted to help him out.

By teaming us up, he could give Tex a high inking rate and me a low penciling rate (which I was happy to get). Tex and I hit it off and he had me assist him one day a week on Orphan Annie. It was the day before the week’s strips were due, and I would bring them from Tex’s house in Flushing back to the Daily News building in Manhattan, where I would slip them under a door at about 2 am.

Outside of that, the only strip I worked on was “The Bus,” for Heavy Metal, and that only had to be done once a month.

Stroud: I see you were one of Wally Wood's many assistants. What did you learn from Woody? Did you enjoy the experience?

Kirchner: Working with Wally Wood was a life-altering experience. I wrote about it at length in a piece that was published in the Comics Journal and reprinted in Bhob Stewart’s Woodwork. Woody was a great friend and mentor.

As with other short entries in this series, we have provided a gallery consisting of Mr. Kirchner’s work - only this time it takes the form of full stories! First up: Survivors from Epic Illustrated (1980) #4, written and illustrated by Paul Kirchner.

Click on the photos to make them larger so you can read each story.

Epic Illustrated (1980) #4 Survivors pg1.

Epic Illustrated (1980) #4 Survivors pg2.

Epic Illustrated (1980) #4 Survivors pg3.

Next we have a story from Weird War Tales (1971) #27: when does the enlisted man become The Veteran - written by Jack Oleck, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and inked by Tex Blaisdell!

Our next story comes to us from House of Secrets (1956) #120! Written by Sheldon Mayer, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and again inked by Tex Blaisdell - read along to see if The Right Demon Could Do It!

Finally, we explore one of man’s oldest fears - being BURIED ALIVE! Written by Jack Oleck, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and inked by Neal Adams - House of Mystery (1951) #236 brings us Deep Sleep!

You can see more from Mr. Kirchner at these websites:

http://thedoperider.blogspot.com/

http://www.paulkirchner.com/

May 08, 2019

An Interview With Mike Royer - Working With Jack Kirby & Winnie the Pooh

May 08, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Michael W. Royer (born June 28, 1941) is a comics artist and inker, best known for his work with pencilers Russ Manning and Jack Kirby.

Mike came to southern California in early 1965 to pursue a career in comic book art. He became an assistant to artist Russ Manning on Gold Key's Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book, beginning with issue #12 (Jan. 1966), and Tarzan, beginning with issue #158 (June 1966). By the following year, he was also working with artists Warren Tufts and Alberto Giolitti on the company's Korak, Son of Tarzan comic.

The Rocketeer 3D Comic (1991) #1, cover by Neal Adams.

While continuing to work primarily for Gold Key, Royer began freelancing for Warren Publishing's line of black-and-white horror-comics magazines, drawing the eight-page story "Space Age Vampire" in Eerie #23 (Sept. 1969), and later drawing a handful of stories in Creepy and Vampirella as well.

Royer inked the covers for some of writer-penciler Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" epic at DC Comics, which he began after leaving Marvel Comics. Mike became Kirby's primary inker at DC, working on all of the Fourth World titles. He additionally inked Kirby's next two DC series, The Demon and Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth among other Kirby projects.

Royer also lettered and inked the last six months of Russ Manning's Tarzan Sunday-newspaper comic strip and, in the late 1970s, the first four months of Manning's daily and Sunday Star Wars comic strips.

Beginning in 1979, Royer spent 14 years on staff with The Walt Disney Company, doing art and design for books, comic books and comic strips, theme parks and licensed merchandise. His comics work there included designing and art directing the movie tie-in Dick Tracy and Rocketeer 3D comic books.

Since 2000, Royer has produced freelance art and design, including work on Digimon products and screen icons for the Fox Family cable television channel and its Fox Kids programming bloc.

In 2018, Royer was the Inkwell Awards Guest of Honor at their annual live ceremony.

Mike Royer has had a long and impressive career, and he is probably best known as one of the best inkers over Jack Kirby's pencils on his DC work, such as Mister Miracle, The Demon and Kamandi. Mike had some great stories to share, which I hope you'll enjoy just like I did.

This interview originally took place over the phone on January 16, 2012.

Magnus Robot Fighter (1963) #12 pg4, penciled by Russ Manning & inked by Mike Royer.

Bryan Stroud: It’s pretty well established that your career got started in the mid-‘60s, but I couldn’t tell if you’d had any art school training.

Mike Royer: I went to art school for about a year. I was born and raised in the Willamette Valley in Oregon into a middle-class family who didn’t have the funds to say, “Here, kid. Here’s your money for school.” So I worked real hard during the summer and saved money and was able to go to school for a year and borrowed a little money which I paid back after that first year.

It was just too hard from my standpoint to apply myself properly for the lessons from art school and also work 6 hours a day at the Ben Paris restaurant in downtown Seattle. There was just no time to have a life.

So it was almost a year and I finally just had to pack up and return home. I had all kinds of strange and interesting adventures in art school. I learned to never get a room in a big city YMCA…

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Royer: The people that you meet… Renting an apartment on Capitol Hill with a buddy I met while I was up there and having the stereotypical World War II era Polish landlady who developed a crush on me. Trying to stay away from her added to my “excitement.”

But getting back to your question my school was, unfortunately, the School of Hard Knocks. I sometimes look at the careers of other… I guess I could call them contemporaries or maybe close artists; you know, the 4 or 5 guys who go to New York City and get a loft and work together and use each other as models and that sort of thing and wait for years and years to get married. Maybe I just wasn’t that definite. I knew what I wanted to do, it’s just that I didn’t know how to go about doing it.

I went to a convention in 1964 and took a comic book that another fan, Dale Broadhurst did the writing adaptation. I did the drawing for an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, “The Wizard of Venus.” We got permission from Hobart Burroughs to do it. So we printed this thing up and took it to the convention and met a lot of interesting people, like Harlan Ellison, who is a fascinating, fascinating, brilliant writer and eccentric, lovable human being. Well, you either love him or hate him. I love him.

I went primarily because I wanted to meet Russ Manning, who I learned from a fanzine was an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. I thought, “Well, everybody will be going to the Dum-Dum in the 1964 World Science-Fiction Convention in Oakland,” but of course he didn’t show up because he had a career and a life. But I met Camille Cazedessus who was the editor of “E.R.B.Dom” Burroughs fanzine and he apparently after the convention in Oakland went to southern California and visited Russ Manning who was living out in the Modjeska Canyon outside of Orange, which was near Santa Ana. So he told him about me, and Caz wrote and urged me to send some samples off to Russ - which I did - and m-a-n-y months later Russ wrote back and said that if I wanted to be an assistant then I would be perfect for the part, or words to that effect.

So I took that as an excuse to pack up my family, tell the place I worked that I would be taking a month’s vacation and we put half our belongings in storage and packed the rest in a U-Haul trailer and headed for southern California and figuratively speaking parked in Russ Manning’s yard and said, “I’m ready to go to work.” So he gave me work.

Stroud: So I guess it was one of those “who you know” situations.

Royer: It helps to have people on your side. That’s how it started. I assisted with Russ for about eleven months and my day job for 5 days a week was credit manager and paint salesman for Sherwin-Williams. I worked with Russ on weekends and nights and after eleven months he mentioned that he knew someone named Mike Arens who worked at an animation studio and they were looking for people who could ink and draw, but primarily ink. So I went into Hollywood and met Mike Arens and went to Grantray-Lawrence Animation to work on the, by today’s standards, extremely cheap and crude Marvel superheroes cartoons which basically consisted of taking stacks of the comic book art, taking parts of the art, pasting it down, extending it down into drawings and occasionally a new piece of art to bridge the comic book panels and limited animation and lip movement. I’m sure you’re familiar with the old Marvel superheroes. Captain America and Thor. The Sub-Mariner had only had about 4 issues published at that time in Tales of Suspense or Tales to Astonish or whatever book it was. It was half a book.

Detective Comics (1937) #452 pg1, penciled by Ernie Chua & inked by Mike Royer.

So we created a lot of brand new stories for Sub-Mariner. I did some penciling and a lot of inking. I got to meet guys like Doug Wildey and Mel Keever and Mike Arens became my real mentor. This was the guy that told me, “If you ever go to talk to an editor you don’t want to be able to turn down a job because you can’t do what is necessary.” He taught me how to letter, which was simply explained to me that lettering each letter is something that you draw. When I was at Disney and was a character art manager and handing out artwork that had to be inked we had a thing where if there was any lettering on it I’d hear, “I don’t letter,” and I said, “Look at it. It’s drawing. Ink the drawing.” I just learned from Mike Arens how each letter was just part of the drawing.

Mike gave me work and I inked and lettered some of his stories for Peterson’s Cartoons Magazine. I also worked with Mike in that year, ’66, worked with him on, believe it or not, Batman, the comic strip, that appeared in shopping newspapers in the south. They were 4 to 6 panels every week that appeared in the supplement of this newspaper. You’d find it on the rack at the supermarkets. It was the TV version of Batman.

Stroud: What a surprise!

Royer: Nobody ever knows about that and the only thing I have to document it is old thermofax copies that are now a really rich brown.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Royer: But Mike was my mentor and it lasted…I seem to be on these 11-month cycles in the beginning of my career. With the Marvel superheroes I was on that for about 11 months. Then they had a layoff and at the same time Russ Manning was being asked by his editor at Western Publishing to consider doing much more work. He’d done some Tarzan work that was very popular and they wanted him to do the Tarzan adaptations as well as Magnus and some other stuff. He said the only way he could do it was if I were assisting him. But there wasn’t enough money in it to be a full-time income for me, so I got a call from Chase Craig and he said, “Would you like to come in and get some work?” So I never even had to show samples and the first thing that I did for Western Publishing…and I don’t know how many people know this or if I’ve ever mentioned it in an interview before, but the first thing I did was that I penciled a frame tray puzzle of Superboy leaping into the air as the grizzly bear takes a swipe at him. And then it was painted by one of those publishing painters on the east coast and that was my first job for Western.

House of Mystery (1951) #236 pg3, penciled by Steve Ditko & inked by Mike Royer.

So I was working with Russ and doing inking and some lettering for Western Publishing. At some point in there Russ was offered the Tarzan comic strip. Then in 11 months or less I got a phone call from GrantRay Animation saying they’d got the deal to do the first Saturday morning animated Spider-Man series and would I like to come back into work and was interviewed by their new production manager who, in some sort of cockeyed wisdom had been hired from the construction business to be the production manager. You tell me how that makes any sense.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Royer: And I sat there opposite this guy and he said, “Okay, if you can only work 20 or 25 hours a week that’s fine, but we can’t give you any screen credit if you’re not in house.” Being a naive 20-something I didn’t think that I could just go to the screen cartoonist’s union, that I was a member of, and scream bloody murder and they would have jumped all over this guy and said, “Oh, but yes he does get screen credit.” But, again, being a naïve 20-something I thought, “Well, okay, that’s just the way it is.” I laid out about one third of those shows. Anyway, after about 4 weeks of that or even less, I was working directly with Grant Simmons, who was the “Grant” of Grant–Ray, and he was an old timer from way back. You’d see Grant Simmons’ name on the old Tom and Jerry cartoons as well as Ray Patterson who was the “Ray” of Grant-Ray and was on the producing end in New York City.

After 3 or 4 weeks when I was meeting with Grant and going over his stick figure layouts and field sizes and storyboard he said, “You know, Mike, you’re really in trouble. People in the studio are really madder than hell at you. “ I said, “Why?” He said, “Because the work that you turn in for 20 or 22 hours a week is more than they do in house in 40 hours.”

Of course you must understand when you’re in house, there’s a lot of water cooler conversations, meetings, bs-ing, all that stuff. I said, “Well, what do I do?” He said, “Charge me for 40 hours.” So, I worked 20 to 22 hours a week and charged him for 40 and everybody was happy.

Stroud: Not a bad gig. (Chuckle.)

Captain America (1968) #211, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

Royer: Yeah, it’s funny. I guess I’ve been naïve my entire life. The studio went bankrupt right at the end of the Spider-Man job and one of the problems was that Ray Patterson’s wife June was in charge of the script department and she had I think 4 or 5 writers and rather than give each writer a different show, she would have a whole group of writers write their version of that week’s episodes. (Pause.) Think about it. You’re spending a lot of money that’s unnecessary, and whatever her reasoning was, and she may have wound up with better stories by picking the best of the group, but I don’t think it was a wise business decision and of course they wound up going bankrupt.

I remember on a Friday afternoon getting a phone call from Grant Simmons saying, “Mike,” we got to be pretty good friends; “Mike, the Sheriff is closing us down on Monday. If you’d like to drive into the studio tomorrow morning, you can have anything you want.” So rather than go in and take home piles and piles of cels of Spider-Man and Green Goblin and all the other characters, Electro and all, what did I take home? Two pages of original art that got sent out to the west coast. One from a western comic that was drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by…somebody and then a page of Captain America penciled and inked by George Tuska. Now of course if I’d have taken all the rest of that stuff home I could probably have retired a lot earlier.

Stroud: It’s hard to imagine what those could have gone for.

Royer: But I thought at the time, “What the hell do I want with all this crap?” I’ve got to tell you, though, it was a fun time because of all the people that I met: Meeting Doug Wildey, who was a kick in the pants, besides being extremely talented. I remember one time back in the Marvel superhero days that we were in the room picking brushes. You’d have a dozen cards with 4 to 6 brushes on them such as your series 7 number 2’s and we all did the same thing. You pulled a brush out and you licked it and if it came to a point that you liked then that’s the one you took back to your drawing board. It happened to be the same day that Stan Lee came out to visit the crew at the studio and we’re all kibitzing and licking brushes and hanging around and Doug licks a brush and remember, this is 1965 or ’66 and he says, “This stuff is shit!” Now here it is 2012 and I would kill to get some of that mid-60’s “shit.”

Stroud: That’s right. I’ve been told by more than one person that the quality certainly has not improved over the years.

Weird Mystery Tales (1972) #2 pg2-3, penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

Royer: When you talk about state of the art, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Think about it. State of the art. “This is the state of the art brush from Windsor-Newton.” Yeah, but the state of the art sucks rubber donkey lungs.

Stroud: (Laughter.) Russ Heath is in your camp. He told me that if he could just get a decent brush it would make life so much easier. John Workman suggested that even the ink doesn’t seem to be of the same quality as it used to be.

Royer: I’m able to get an ink that seems to be nice and densely black, but if you leave the cap off for longer than 20 minutes it turns into molasses. The jar that I have now that I ink from I’ve thinned down with water so much that it’s probably 80% water, but it’s still black as sin. But as I said, leave the cap off for half an hour and you’ve got to thin it down more.

Back in the Marvel superhero days there was an artist there named Herb Hazelton who was an excellent fine artist. Back in the days when they had a wax museum down on Knott’s Berry Farm was still in business with all these wax replicas of famous paintings, Herb had actually done all of the reproductions of the famous paintings and Herb inked off an ink block. I’ve often wondered if you could still go to an art store and get an ink block. He would just wet the brush and rub the brush across the block and then you could get the ink as thin or as thick as you wanted depending on how much ink was in the brush. But then again, why do I want to find something that makes inking easier? All these years. But, sometimes you have to do what’s necessary to put food on the table.

Disney Store Concept art from September 1998, drawn by Mike Royer.

The 21-1/2 years that I did Disney character art was probably years that I spent as “creator” and the 7-1/2 years working with their stores was, at least for anybody who had a creative bent of any kind, like heaven. Everything that I drew, they bought. Whether they produced it or not.

Stroud: Wow. You can’t beat that at all.

Royer: What a great time! Every morning I’d have coffee with my wife and we would discuss ideas. Sixty percent of what I did for the stores was concepts. The other forty percent was correcting and cleaning up other concepts in house, or doing final art on my concepts. Most of my concepts were so finished they could turn them over to somebody else.

Forty percent of my ideas came from my wife. They would either be a springboard for an idea or I would just use one hundred percent of what she said. It was fun. We used to go to antique malls and be walking down a row and she’d point and there’d be an old Jack and Jill book from the 1920’s and Jack and Jill were standing on a bridge over a creek and she'd say, “What if you had Pooh and Piglet fishing off the bridge?” Then what I drew was Pooh and Piglet sitting on a log, fishing out of a large wooden barrel full of water.

After the whole Disney store thing went to the devil, which is a good title for middle management…it was months later when I was sitting at the board in my studio and my wife would stick her head in and say, “What if you did Pooh and…oh, we don’t do that anymore.” I do have my soapbox and will go to my grave being a Disney company man. Of course it’s a company that started ceasing to exist when Frank Wells died, but that’s another story.

Freedom Fighters (1976) #1 pg1, penciled by Ric Estrada & inked by Mike Royer.

I highly recommend a DVD that is available, I think, from Disney Home Video. It’s called “Waking Sleeping Beauty.” I digress, but I just watched it last night and what a fantastic thing.

Stroud: I’ll have to check that out. One of the things I was going to mention is that it’s rather ironic that Disney now owns Marvel and you’ve had such strong connections to both companies.

Royer: It’s funny. One of the problems is that I’m 70, and the mentality, it seems to me, in most companies, the corporate mentality is if you’re over 30, you’re on the downhill side, and if you’re over 40, you’re brain dead. Or, if you’re over 30 or 40 and you’ve been doing it for a while, you’ve got experience and you want to be paid for that experience. But I find that you get what you pay for. I never did anything for the stores that didn’t walk right out the doors.

Stroud: It’s hard to think that someone can arbitrarily put a shelf life on talent.

Royer: Well, when I was younger I wanted to do adventure stuff. Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, that kind of stuff. But I married early, had young kids, couldn’t go off in that garret in New York with the Bernie Wrightston’s and those people who all became incredibly talented, vital artists, and so I found that I could ink and I got a lot of work and supported a family for many years as an inker and doing the occasional penciling job. A couple of jobs I did in the Hanna-Barbera superhero comic books for Gold Key/Western Publishing that I actually drew and inked and lettered the entire books, but I couldn’t get any drawing assignments from Chase Craig. I said, “Look, Chase, let me save you some trouble and I’ll just produce the whole book for you. I talked to Mike and Sparky. I can ink and letter and do the whole thing.” He said, “Sounds great to me.” So then I penciled and inked and lettered the whole book and let them think that Sparky and Mike drew it and just let it go.

Which leads me to believe that a lot of editors don’t know caca from Shinola. I mean a decade ago when I moved back to Oregon and the consumer products industry went into the toilet and I started contacting comic book companies to see if they had any inking jobs or anything like that because nobody was doing funny animal comics any longer. What I wanted to do and was working myself toward was doing big foot type comic work. When I would call these editors they’d always say things like, “Oh, we’ll keep you in mind when we have a Jack Kirby project.”

2001: A Space Odyssey (1976) #5, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1976) #9, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1976) #10, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

No matter what kind of samples I sent them, and I’ve drawn everything from Alvin and the Chipmunks to Zorro, but if you say Mike Royer to them they think it’s got to be a Jack Kirby project. I’ve got a letter in my portfolio from a producer at Bagdasarian Productions regarding the story board that I did for an Alvin and the Chipmunks Go to the Movies show (I moonlighted during a two-week vacation, doing a month’s worth of work in two weeks; it almost killed me, but I wanted to stretch my muscles) and the letter from the producer says, “Your story boarding is Eisensteinian,” referring to the famous Russian filmmaker.

Stroud: Ah. I wasn’t familiar with the name.

House of Secrets (1956) #139 pg8, penciled by Steve Ditko & inked by Mike Royer.

Royer: I chose Bagdasarian when I heard from some colleagues at work who were buying story boards at the time back in the early ‘90’s, I guess and supposedly the toughest S.O.B. to work for was Bagdasarian. So I thought if I wanted to try to learn anything, that’s where I’m going. I met the man once when I came in with the first half of the story board and the only thing he said when looking at the first half of the board was, “It’s so nice to see someone using their imagination.”

The fee for the story board and three model sheets was $6,000.00. When the check came it was $8,000.00. So I like to think that I did a pretty good job. The unfortunate thing is that because the Korean studio that was doing the artwork had fallen behind schedule, they did my show, I think, on a weekend, and it’s available out there on one of the Alvin and the Chipmunks Go to the Movies DVDs. This had to be around 1991 because we were dealing with Chip Tracy merchandising at the studio. When I was offered work I said, “Let’s do Chip Tracy.”

But I thought that was pretty good to get a $2,000.00 bonus from the toughest S.O.B. in the business. Especially when editors at DC and Marvel were saying, “Well, we’ll keep you in mind if there’s a Kirby project.”

I will say that I’m proud of my connection to DC comics because they are absolutely fabulous in sending reprint royalty checks. I just love it when they reprint a whole volume of The Demon. I inked and lettered all of them and therefore don’t have to split the reprint money with someone else. And that’s nice.

Stroud: I’ve read where Jack stated that you were his favorite inker. Now was it his insistence that you were pretty much exclusive on his DC work?

Royer: It’s funny, as I recall it, as long as he was producing comics, he never said who his favorite was. But as soon as he left comic books I noticed that he didn’t have any problem saying that I was his favorite inker. People ask me who my favorite inker is and I tell them my favorite inker was Joe Sinnott…but I was the best. Now I don’t mean that as any kind of egotistical thing. It’s just that I did what Jack wanted. I think I retained all of his power and the one time, for example, that I tried to pretty something up, doing my Joe Sinnott in my subconscious, I prettied up Big Barda’s face and I got a phone call from Jack saying, “Don’t EVER change the faces!” So I never changed Barda’s face after that. I did slim down her ankles once in a while and her waistline, but it was the face that was important, at least to Jack.

The Eternals (1976) #14, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

Getting back to your original question I met Jack when he was doing stuff for Marvelmania, a merchandising outfit in southern California, maybe in the Santa Monica area. During the Mavelmania days in the late ‘60’s I got a phone call one evening and I answered it and this voice said, “Mike Royer? This is Jack Kirby. Word is you’re a pretty good inker.” That’s how it started. I went out to his house and the first thing I ever inked for him I said, “I’ll bring this back to you tomorrow.” “No, no, do it here.” So I sat at his drawing board and he looked over my shoulder. Talk about pressure. It was that shot he did for Mavelmania of himself with Spider-Man and all the Marvel characters kind of swirling around him at the drawing board.

Stroud: Oh, yeah, the one where the Human Torch is lighting his cigar?

Royer: I can’t remember. I mean, we’re talking late ‘60’s. I live in the past when it comes to movies, but my own career is a matter of remembering the nuts and bolts and things like eating chocolate cake and drinking milk with Jack in his kitchen, but that’s all I remember. Anyway, as a result of that and apparently he was pleased, I started inking a bunch of stuff for him at Marvelmania. In fact I even inked a whole bunch of stuff for Jim Steranko for Marvelmania. Steranko came and stayed at our house for over a week. Now that’s another story… I mean that with great affection.

In a conversation with Jack on the phone, he’d mention he was going back to New York and he couldn’t tell me why, but he had me in mind for this project. Then a short time later I get a phone call from Maggie Thompson saying, “What’s this I hear that Jack Kirby has left Marvel and is going to DC?” I said, “Its news to me.” Then about the same time I got a phone call from Jack saying, “Well, I’ve left Marvel, I’m going to DC and I wanted to take you with me, but they wouldn’t let me.” So Jack had me in mind from the beginning that I would be inking and lettering his DC work. Because what Jack wanted to do was to show DC and ultimately Marvel that the world did not end at the Hudson River. You could live on the West Coast and produce comic books successfully. The whole operation: Writing, editing, penciling, inking, lettering, everything. But I guess DC didn’t want to lose any kind of control on it and so with the urging of Steve Charmin and Mark Evanier, by the time Jack was ready to do issue #5 of Mister Miracle, Forever People, New Gods, etc. he finally got his wish to have me ink and letter his books. At the same time, he wanted to make sure Vince Colletta had work if he wasn’t inking Jack’s stuff at DC.

1st Issue Special (1975) #6, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

DC fully expected me to fail, thereby justifying their desire to control things on the East Coast. So the reason they said yes was that they fully expected me to fall on my butt. To their chagrin, I kept up with Jack. The only inker who inked his complete output, as well as lettering it. I had to letter a book in two days and ink the pages in 3 days to keep up with that. Probably the best thing I ever did for Jack other than to ink the books the way he wanted me to, and by the way he wanted them to look like they were done by him, was that I helped him prove to them that his idea of having a West Coast operation was viable. Of course there may be someone at DC who would dispute that. “Oh, Mike, we knew you’d be just fantastic.”

I made a great impression with Carmine Infantino. In July of 1970 I’d been doing stuff for Jack at Marvelmania and then I was back there at the Seuling 4 th of July convention at the Satler Hilton and I went up to the DC offices and I went into Carmine’s office and I said, “You know, you should let me ink Jack. I could do a better job than Colletta’s doing.” I had lunch that day with Dick Giordano and he said, “You know, Mike, you’re going to get a reputation as being cocky, walking into the publisher’s office and telling him you can do a better job than somebody else.” That wasn’t really my intent, but I was still the naïve kid simply stating the facts. I could do a better job.

Stroud: Well as the old saying goes, “If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

Royer: I don’t want people to think I’m anti-Colletta, I just don’t think he was right for Jack. Colletta was from the old school and luckily I had mentors from the old school, like Russ Manning, Sparky Moore and others way back in the mid-‘60’s, so I learned that, “Mike, you get your first job on your ability and every job after that on your dependability.” Well, there are different rules for comic books now. You’ve got prima donna’s that are dealing with the direct sales market, so if they say it’s going to be late, then that’s what you tell the dealers and it’s late. But in those days if your deadline was the 5th of the month, it behooves you to have it in on the 4 th . And Colletta was a guy that Stan or whoever the editor or publisher was, could give him a book and say, “I need it by this date” and Vince Colletta would have it by that date. He has his supporters and his detractors and my only gripe about Vince Colletta is that I don’t think he was right for Jack. But there are probably other people who loved his work on Thor.

Plastic Man (1966) #14 pg19, penciled by Ramona Fradon & inked by Mike Royer.

I can remember sitting with Phil Spicer back in the ’64-’65 timeframe and looking at old fanzines with the rare Jack Kirby pencil reprints and him asking, “Why doesn’t anybody ever ink Jack?” So when I got that phone call from Jack it was like, “Oh, God, I’ve got a chance now to ink Jack.” Maybe it’s something that’s held me back in my career in that whenever I ink somebody I try to ink it the way I feel he would have inked it. I inked a couple of Ka-Zar’s at Marvel and John Verpoorten, the editor, called me and said, “Mike, I wanted you to give this a Joe Sinnott look and really embellish it.” I said, “I wish you’d have told me that and also told me how much more you were going to pay me to do that.” Because I inked the two stories to make it look like Don Heck had inked it.

I did get a nice compliment from Ramona Fradon a few years ago. I met her 5 or 6 years ago at the San Diego Con and she was talking about the one and only Plastic Man comic that I inked for her for DC and she said it was the only time that she’d ever had anyone ink her. Everyone else put in their own personality and changed it. In fact, bless her heart, she said if she were still doing Brenda Starr, she’d have me ink it.

Stroud: How very nice.

Royer: Nice lady. I’ve met some real talents that were…real talents and I’ve met some real talents that were incredible people. People like Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, to a certain extent Jim Steranko, who is an institution all to himself. What a talent. What a genius talent. I have my heroes. Some of whom are still alive, and unfortunately many that aren’t.

Did you have any questions? I’ve been going all over the place. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: I’m enjoying this thoroughly. There’s a legend that you’ve been to every San Diego Con. Is that true?

Royer: No. I’ve missed a few of them. I don’t think I’ll be going again. It’s not Comic Con any more. It’s this huge marketplace for the motion picture and television industry. And the toy manufacturer’s and the game people. One of the problems with International Comic Con is that tickets go on sale for the next year’s event and the place is full of thousands and thousands of kids who have scraped together every dime to get admittance because they want to get all the freebies. Giant bags with the pictures of Buffy and stuff like that stuffed with all the freebies being given out and so by the time the tickets go on sale the line for the general public, anybody that might have some money to spend, there just aren’t that many of them left. You have to get them instantly or forget it.

Batman Adventures Annual (1994) #2, cover penciled by Bruce Timm & inked by Mike Royer.

I could be exaggerating, but you’ve got 80,000 or 90,000 kids there that don’t have any money. Particularly they don’t have any money for old comic books. The people that would buy old comic books are older and have some money and…they couldn’t get tickets. I may be oversimplifying it, but this is an amalgam of opinions I got from several dealers who aren’t looking to be going any more.

I went there last year and set up with some friends who always get me a table and I think it’s because they like the way I introduce them to every single good looking woman that comes by the table. So, after expenses, I should have just stayed home because I wound up going away with thousands of dollars’ worth of artwork. If I’d just kept that artwork and stayed at home and taken it someplace else that I could have sold it, I’d have been better off.

I’m not crazy about WonderCon this year because it’s going to be in Anaheim. So now it’s going to be closer to the studios. Last year I think there were two studios represented at WonderCon. Eventually I think it’s going to become another media event.

Denny Miller, who was a Tarzan and did 20-some Wagon Trains and did some work with Juliet Prowse and worked with Peter Sellers had me do some drawings for a book he did about 5 years ago. He was going to some of the comic cons, but when he went to International Comic Con he said the sad thing is that nobody knows him. In other venues you’ve got the old-timers like me or the generation behind it that remembers things like Wagon Train. Everybody remembers The Surfer who comes to shore in Gilligan’s Island and that’s Denny. He was mentioning some other celebrities who did just as badly because nobody knows who they are. I found that the majority of people who stopped at my table last year didn’t even know who Winnie the Pooh was, and the new feature was just opening in the theaters.

Getting back to your question I’ve been to about 80% of the cons in San Diego, but after the first five or six years I was at a weekend thing in Orange County and had lunch with Shel Dorf and Shel asked if I was coming to Comic Con that year. I said, “Yeah, as long as you’re giving us West Coast guys a room. I’ll do anything you want. Panels, anything.” He said, “Well, we’re not giving you guys rooms anymore because you’ll come anyway.” I could understand from a budget standpoint that they could no longer comp West Coast artists, but if he’d put it in the context that because of the cost they can’t comp us I’d have said, “Okay, I can still be there.” But the way it was presented was that, “Well, you guys will come anyway, so why should we give you anything?”

So for the next couple of years I didn’t go. Let’s see, my Inkpot is dated 1978, so I probably skipped for three years. Most of the people I knew understood why, because it was just the way it was presented to me. I didn’t mind not being comped, I mean it was nice of them to comp us West Coast guys, but as the event got bigger and they got bigger talent from the East Coast it takes money to do that. So I think I’d boycotted it for about three years and then I got a phone call from Gene Henderson. He was always involved with the Inkpots and Eisners and so forth including security and who knows what else. He’s one of the backbones of the convention over the decades. So he said, “Hey, Mike, are you coming down to Comic Con?” “No.” “Mike, you’ve got to come.” “No.” “Come on down!” “No.” Finally it was, “Mike you’ve got to come, you’re getting an Inkpot.” “Uh…okay, I’ll be there.” So I wasn’t supposed to know, but it was the only way he could make sure I’d be there.

At the Inkpot Awards, which was always part of the banquet, Jim Steranko was the emcee, and he knew that I had been boycotting it for two or three years, which was really silly of me to do when you think about it, but he said, “For his loyal, never-ending support of the San Diego Comic Con…” With his tongue rammed up his cheek. I do remember standing in the doorway at a party in ’78 at two in the morning and someone came up behind me, put their arm around my shoulder and said, “Well, we got ours, kid.” I turned around and it was Burne Hogarth.

Stroud: I’ll be darned.

Royer: I’m thinking, “It took them that long to give an Inkpot to Burne Hogarth and here he is looking at me and saying, ‘We got ours.’”

Mike Royer with Burne Hogarth at the 1978 Inkpot Awards.

I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve met over the years. Way back in the early ‘70’s I went to Seuling’s conventions for something like three years in a row from ’70 to ’72 and I remember at the ’72 luncheon with the Academy of Comic Book Artists and talking with John Romita about the kind of brushes he used. Pros ask pros the same questions that fans do. “What kind of pens do you use? What kind of brushes do you use?” I was so amazed that the wonderful work John Romita was doing was accomplished with a Windsor-Newton series 7 Number 4. Not a 2 or a 3, but a 4. So I took my plate of food and I went to sit down at a table and simultaneously here’s Stan Lee with some gorgeous blonde on his arm and we all sat at the same table. This gorgeous blonde with the long, shoulder length hair had glasses on. What I did next Stan got instantly and laughed aloud, but she looked at me with a glance that said, “What?” We sat down and I looked over at her and said, “Could you take off your glasses?” So she took them off and I said (faux British accent) “My God, you’re beautiful!” She didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but Stan knew it was an old movie cliché. But at least once in my life I made Stan Lee laugh aloud.

Stroud: When I got to meet you in Portland and you signed my copy of The Amazing World of DC Comics that contains what I believe is the only published “Murder, Inc.” Days of the Mob story…

Royer: That’s the one they re-lettered, too. That’s not my lettering. Costanza or somebody re-lettered it. I never understood why they did that. Did they dislike my lettering that much?

Stroud: It does seem strange, particularly since it shows your credit as letterer.

Adventure Comics (1938) #442 pg24, penciled by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & inked by Mike Royer.

Royer: I remember when I was inking that and showing it to Richard (someone) and he said, “Wow! This is Simon and Kirby in the 1950’s.” If you compare it to the ‘50’s stuff it may not be the same, but it had the feeling of it and when I was inking those pages my mindset was, “This is 1950’s Simon and Kirby.” I enjoyed inking those pages. Of course I think the very best inking I ever did on Jack was on his gods. Dark Horse recently published some of those and I think it’s the best inking I ever did for Jack.

We didn’t have the luxury of scanners back then, so I would deliver the pages directly to Jack. I lived in Whittier, and he lived out in the Thousand Oaks area and while I don’t recall what kind of drive it was it seems like it wasn’t a long drive, maybe 26 or 28 miles, but I would either send them Special Delivery back when the Post Office offered that service. I could just walk to the back dock of the post office and some guy would come out and I’d just hand it to him, unlike today. When I didn’t do that I’d visit him in person. My most vivid memories of those times weren’t the actual nuts and bolts, but just pleasant times sitting with Jack in his studio, going over the pages and looking out the window at my kids playing in his swimming pool and talking with Roz and the times when I’d go alone, enjoying milk and chocolate cake and Jack talking about the movies he loved. I learned early on that his favorite movies were the Warner Brothers from the ‘30’s. When you look at Jack Kirby’s comic books, or at least when I do, I can make an instant connection. When he said he loved those movies it was like, “Of course.”

I like to think that I gave Jack Warner Brothers inking and Joe Sinnott gave him MGM inking. If you’re not as in love with old movies as I am you might not make that connection, but I can see that connection. I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are movies with Warren William and there is an MGM film called “Skyscraper Souls” which is the best Warner Brothers movie that MGM ever made. It’s the Warner Brothers gritty drama and it’s like Jack Kirby inked by Joe Sinnott. Then if you take Warren Williams in “Employees Entrance,” which is a similar type of genre and it’s Jack Kirby inked by Mike Royer.

I don’t know. There are still people who don’t like my work and that’s okay with me.

Kamandi (1972) #15, original cover art penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

Stroud: I think they must be few and far between. I’ve never run across anyone denigrating anything you’ve done.

Royer: Well, sometimes I look at some of my old work and I don’t like it. As we’d talked about before, I started out wanting to be a straight adventure cartoonist, but in 1979 realized what my real bag was. I look at some of the stuff I did for Jim Warren and some of the stuff I like and some of the stuff is like, “God, as much as I can’t stand Jim Warren, he took a chance on me and printed it.”

Sometimes I’ll hear stuff like, “I really liked your work on such and such” and I think, “Really? I mean, really?”

One of the things that really ticked me off with Jim Warren was that when he started out he had Wally Wood and Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta and people like that working for him, but for whatever reason he had to greatly reduce his page rate to stay afloat. So what he did was start using new guys like me and Bill Black and a few others. Some of us developed into tremendous talents and some of us went other directions. He paid $29.00 a page. To pencil, ink and letter. But he would not return the original art. So I had started working with Jack and I knew that I could maybe make time for Warren jobs or I could just go out taking a stand. So the last job I did for him I went to great expense to a local stat office and had stats made of all the pages. Then I sent him the stats. A few days later I get an irate phone call from Jim Warren: “How dare you make the unilateral decision to not send me the original art? I cannot pay for the damned stats and if you do not send me the original art, you will not be paid!” Well, I sent him the originals, but between the time I sent the stats and the phone call, I had tweaked the artwork. I changed a couple of things and added some stuff. I was very angry when the book hit the stands and I looked at it and it was obvious that he’d printed from the stats.

Where this really galls me is that right at the moment there’s a complete Jim Warren Creepy story on eBay that I penciled, inked and lettered. In fact, sometimes when I look at something my memory does work. I remember the panel where Alex Toth told me, “Mike, if you really don’t understand all that, you don’t need to put it on there.” Referring to some guy’s back musculature details. And here is this 8 or 9 page story on sale at eBay for $99.00 to $199.00 a page. The $99.00 ones are the stats because it was a time crunch, so rather than re-draw it I just did a stat and stuck it down.

Kamandi (1972) #15, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

It really galls me that here is this stuff being sold that was never given back to me. It really galls me to go to a convention and see one of the Magnus Robot Fighter comic book covers that I did where they took an old Manning cover and wanted me to do a line drawing of the painting and then to see it on the wall of an art dealer for $1,000.00. I remember very clearly asking Chase Craig, “Can I please have that back?” “Mike, it’s too much trouble.”

Now this is not to be saying that if I didn’t have those Creepy and Eerie and Vampirella pages I wouldn’t be selling them on eBay as fast as I could. When you’re paid $29.00 for something and 30 or 40 years later you’re seeing it on eBay with pages going for $199.00 or more, it’s like, “Dammit!”

Stroud: Tough to take, I’m sure.

Royer: Why are other people profiting off that? I can see that if I have the page and sold it for $50.00 and 20 years later somebody’s got it for $200.00, okay. That’s business. But I had no say in that art being out there. It just really burns me.

Stroud: It’s a sore spot with a lot of your fellow professionals and the debates rage on about “liberated” or stolen or whatever term you like to use.

Royer: Oh, yeah. I know some stories about “liberation” and stuff that’s been liberated by people who turn around and get on their soapbox about how it’s unfair that the artists didn’t benefit while they’re sitting on stuff that they “liberated,” but that’s another story for another time.

I still have a lot my Disney store art left and if I ever run out I’ll just redraw it, because it will still be my original art and as a freelancer I own it, but as far as my own original art from comic books I have three pages from the Tarzan Twins, a lot of which is just godawful and some of it I’m proud of, and I have on my wall here a Tarzan comic book page from the European Tarzan comics that I penciled and 90% of it is inked by Russ Manning and a tiny background detail by Dave Stevens and it’s signed, “To Mike – The only other artist I’ve had the privilege of inking. Russ Manning.”

Stroud: Priceless.

Kamandi (1972) #15 Pg1, penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

Royer: Framed next to it is a page from another Tarzan story that I penciled, inked and lettered. I have two pages from that and one is framed on the wall. I’m not even sure if I still have the Sunday Mickey Mouse page that Don and I collaborated on. I laid it out and he tightened it up. I inked and lettered it.

Working for Jack, the only originals I got, he was nice enough to give me a Captain America that I inked and I think that’s all. I wound up giving art away to friends and trading it to people because if I wanted to own some Jack Kirby original art unless it was something that Giacoia or Sinnott had inked I was too close to it. I didn’t want to collect his pages inked by me. Of course 40 years later I’d LOVE to have some of that stuff.

At the wake for Jack somebody associated with the family gave me a Black Panther book which was only two thirds of the book and if I’d had it I’d have kept the double-page splash page, which wasn’t there and I wound up giving and trading that away. I was still close enough to it, you know?

Stroud: Sure.

Royer: Jack’s been gone what, seventeen years now? 1993? Has it been that long?

Stroud: Hard to believe.

Royer: Yeah. We only lived 16 miles apart.

Stroud: When you think about the tremendous volume of material he cranked out and that it still commands such a premium, it’s obvious his talent was and is well recognized.

Royer: There was a big flap last year at one of the comic book collector’s association websites. Last year I did a dozen superhero pinups. I took pinups that Jack had commissioned for fans over the years and blew them up and traced the pencils and inked them on 11” x 14” paper. Strathmore. I signed them “Kirby/Royer” because it was Kirby’s drawing. I didn’t think I was committing some sort of sin. I then sold two thirds of them to a guy in Australia who then started trading them at $3,000.00 apiece! He was apparently hiding the fact that I’d traced Jack’s pencils.

Darkseid pin-up 2012, from Jack Kirby By Mike Royer.

So on this website as they were tarring him with the brush of fraud they were also tarring me with things like, “This is totally Mike Royer original art.” I will argue to my grave with these bozos that that’s not so. It was a Jack Kirby drawing that I traced and inked and if it was Jack’s pencils I wouldn’t have sold them for $250.00.

So I’ve got another dozen of them that a friend is going to list for me on that same website, but they’re signed “From Kirby by Royer.” I’ve got four Captain America’s, I’ve got a Silver Surfer, I’ve got a Big Barda, the Hulk fighting some guy, Ka-Zar, The Demon and Thor. For my money, if you want a Jack Kirby/Mike Royer pin-up, this is the closest you’re ever going to get. But they now feature “From Kirby by Royer” so they can’t accuse me of being a fraud. It’s all because someone else tried to hoodwink a collector by eliminating the fact that I had reproduced his pencils, but it’s still a Kirby/Royer drawing. So I’ll continue to take issue with people who say, “Oh, this is totally a Mike Royer original.” If it were a Mike Royer original it wouldn’t look anything like Jack Kirby. It would have high eyes and a big nose and big ears and a tail.

Everyone has their opinion on what something is and what something isn’t and so to make sure I can avoid any future flap, for the purists they will say “From Kirby, by Royer.”

Stroud: And that should be the end of that.

Royer: I’ve got a picture here of the Silver Surfer and it’s a great drawing. It’s got the Silver Surfer and all kinds of planets and comets and all kinds of stuff going on and if it actually had Jack’s carbon under it, it would go for thousands, I’m sure. And there’s a part of me that feels guilty putting $350.00 on it. Then again, I spent a lot of time on it, too.

Stroud: Did you get credit for the postage stamp that features your Green Arrow?

Bullseye by Jack Kirby next to Green Arrow by Mike Royer.

Royer: No, no. What really gripes me about that…I tried to set the record straight in the Jack Kirby Collector, but I don’t think it ever resonated with anybody. Because everybody talks about the ”Green Arrow stamp inked by Mike Royer.”

DC sent me a scan or a photo-copy of a western character they called Bullseye. It was in fringe, leathers, a cowboy hat and a feather, pulling back on a bow and inked by somebody who inked their personality over Jack’s pencils rather than inking it the way Jack would have penciled it. They said, “Can you take this pose and make it an early 1970’s Jack Kirby/Mike Royer Green Arrow?” Which is exactly what I did. So it’s his pose, his stance, his dynamics, but I made it Green Arrow and all the folds and everything is the way Jack would have done it in the ‘70’s. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s the “Green Arrow inked by Mike Royer.”

It was printed on a comic book; a special one-shot thing of Kirby’s ‘50’s Green Arrow and then a few years later it winds up being on a postage stamp. It’s first day issue was at Comic Con in San Diego and I think they figured they might sell $200,000.00 worth of stamps. A buddy of mine in the Post Office gave me the Post Office newsletter stating that they sold over $500,000.00 worth of stamps at Comic Con.

Stroud: Whew!

Royer: I think I must have signed at least two or three dozen first day envelopes for the Post Office employees. Or at least you’d like to think it was for their employees. Not a week goes by that I don’t see a Mike Royer signed first day envelope on eBay for $5.00. If I’d known that I’d have grabbed as many as I could and taken them with me. “One each for my kids and one for myself and…” Just like Grant Simmons, “Come in and take anything you want!” All right, I took what I wanted rather than something I thought might make me some money down the road.

Kamandi (1972) #15 Pg2-3, original art penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Mike Royer.

I’m finding that everything sells. I’ve been toying with the fact that I have this big giant glass jar with the metal screw lid on it that’s full of ribbons and memorabilia from conventions and stuff. I’ve got buttons and I have all of my Walt Disney Mickey Mouse credit cards. I’m wondering in my old age if anyone would pay for a credit card with Mickey Mouse on it issued to me. I wonder if anyone would pay anything for that?

Stroud: It wouldn’t surprise me for a second.

Royer: I used to get letters from guys in prison. Anymore now I don’t even open them. They’d ask me to please sign a couple of cards for their children. Then I see them on eBay two weeks later. Or the people that write and say, “You is one of my favorite cartoonists. I would like a drawing, please.” I guess they encourage inmates to write letters to celebrities. It’s like a way to make money by selling autographs or something. Give me a break.

Let me share one last story about a time I was with Roy Thomas on a panel and he turned to me and said, “You know, your name is on the cover of a magazine every month.” I said, “Really?” He pulled out a copy of “Destroyer,” and said, “If you cover up the DEST you’ve got Royer on the cover every month.”

May 01, 2019

An Interview With Thom Zahler - Making Comics With Love (and Capes)

May 01, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Thom Zahler at Baltimore Comic Con 2018.

Thomas F. Zahler is an American comic book artist best known for his superhero romance comic, Love and Capes. He attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art where he learned from instructors like Irwin Hasen and Hal Campagna. In 2006, Thom debuted the first issue of his popular superhero/romantic-comedy series, Love and Capes. Zahler wrote and drew 24 issues of L&C (across three series) before moving on to find further success in other creator owned titles such as Long Distance (IDW), Warning Label (WebToon), and Time and Vine (IDW).

Thom has frequently contributed (as a writer and artist) to the My Little Pony comics from IDW and (as a writer) to the Disney XD cartoon Spider-Man: Web Warriors. He also wrote the pilot episode of the "Knights of the Zodiac" Netflix anime series, set to debut later in 2019.

Thom Zahler might seem a bit out of place in my roster of interviewees and he was actually suggested to me as a potential interviewee by a friend and I'm so glad he was brought to my attention. A successful graduate of the Kubert School and a man influenced by some of the comics I loved as a boy, he fit in pretty nicely, I think.

This interview originally took place over the phone on December 24, 2011.

Love and Capes (2006) #1 by Thom Zahler.

Bryan Stroud: You mentioned in our preliminary e-mails that you grew up on Bronze Age comics with a little Silver Age thrown in. Which titles did you enjoy?

Thom Zahler: I was a huge Justice League fan. I loved Superman. I read mostly DC. I went through my phases on all of them. I think I was drawn to the books because they were never as continued as Marvel. Marvel books just didn’t seem to end. When you’re getting comics based on when your parents decide to buy them, it’s important. You don’t know when you’re going to get that next issue of “Flash.” So, the fact that a story would end cleanly was kind of important.

Stroud: A man after my own heart. I was going through the same thing, but in my case, it was whenever I could scrounge a quarter somewhere.

Zahler: My parents had comics as a reward program for me because I was reading from a pretty early age. So, if I cleaned my room, I got a comic. That kind of thing. It would be like a comic a week and it worked out pretty well. I enjoyed Justice League a lot and I went through my Legion phase for a while. Shazam! Captain Marvel. And then I started retroactively buying them. Because comics used to be where you bought them at a convenience store and then went to a comic shop. When I started going to comics shops, I realized that DC published those 100-page for .60 collections and some of the giant treasury editions, so that’s where I started getting the Silver Age and some of the Golden Age stuff. They would reprint that stuff kind of relentlessly. You’d get a new 16-page Justice League story and everything else would be a reprint and I just ate that stuff up.

Stroud: It was like finding buried treasure. How else would you ever run across those stories unless you had an older sibling who still had their collection?

I suspected a strong Justice League influence when I looked at your work online (loveandcapes.com). I thought, “Hmmm. A satellite above the earth for a headquarters; the Liberty League, hmmm… I think I can see an influence here.” (Mutual laughter.)

Love and Capes (2006) #1 pg1 by Thom Zahler.

Zahler: Exactly. I love that era.

Stroud: At what point did you decide, “Hey. I’d like to try this.”

Zahler: Honestly, I have known all my life. There was never a point where I didn’t think I was going to be a cartoonist. I knew when I was 8 or 9 my Aunt Alice got me a copy of “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way,” and that was the first book that really kicked things into gear.

Stroud: Ah, John Buscema.

Zahler: Yes. My Dad did art a little bit before he went off to Vietnam and when he came back, he ended up working for the post office. My aunt did some art and my grandpa did some art. That whole side of the family is pretty talented as far as art goes and drawing was encouraged and it was never looked at like it was a novelty. It was just something you did. But when I got “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” it was the first book that started to really take apart the process and I started learning how things were made. I remember reading where you need to have a compass to draw circles and I asked for a compass from my Dad’s art supplies and he said, “Why don’t you just use my ellipse guide?” “No, it says here that you have to use a compass, so I’m using a compass.”

But it was the first book to explain how to draw characters beginning with stick figures and basic shapes and how to do construction and while there are a bunch of books like that now, but at the time that was the only one of its kind as far as I know. And I still think it’s one of the best.

Stroud: I got a copy not long ago and it does appear to be a wonderful resource, even though I lack any kind of artistic talent, though what is it Joe Kubert says? Something like if you have the desire and put in the time you can do it, but I suspect I’m the exception to the rule. (Chuckle.)

Zahler: Well, he asked me for some money when he was teaching me, so maybe that’s part of it. (Mutual laughter.)

Weekly World News (2010) #2B, cover by Thom Zahler.

Stroud: I think it’s fantastic that you weren’t discouraged during your early interest. I had the privilege of interviewing Ric Estrada shortly before he passed away and he remarked, speaking of his time as one of the original instructors at the Kubert School, that quite often he’d run across the typical scenario where the words “art” and “starve” automatically go together while he tried to explain to people that there are the Walt Disney’s and others who have proven otherwise.

Zahler: There is very much commercial and fine art. I was always able to find regular meals. My Dad was very okay with the whole idea. It was my Mom who was more resistant, but it was an education process. Because of the notion of the freelance lifestyle and the way comics work and so forth. Freelance art work is very different from most people’s experience. To a certain degree it’s like, “Hey, I want to go to the NBA,” or “I want to become a rock star.” People succeed every day, but it’s a pretty rarified number who do. And it takes a great deal of education to help them understand that there are a lot more places where art and cartooning are used than what you might think, because when you tell people you’re a cartoonist, they will automatically think Disney, newspapers or comics. I’ve got a friend who’s redesigned Willy Wonka for the Willy Wonka Chocolate bars and I‘ve done stuff for Prilosec for one of their TV ad campaigns and there are just a lot of places where cartoons are used and people miss it. But it’s still there. There’s a lot more work out there than people give credit for.

Stroud: Precisely. I think it was Don Perlin who told me he used to do technical drawings like those exploded diagrams for repair manuals and such and it had never occurred to me that, yeah, someone has to draw those. I think it’s absolutely right that we see it every day, but don’t see it. Another example struck me when I saw a billboard and realized, at some point, someone had to lay that out. When we lived in Japan, I took note of their heavy use of cartoon characters instead of human models in advertising.

Zahler: Wasn’t it Scott McCloud who hypothesizes that one of the reasons cartoons are so successful is that they strip away so much information? With something complicated if you break it down into a cartoon, you’re left with just the basic concepts of it. It’s more like a direct line, where your brain isn’t processing, “Oh, this is a person and that’s his reaction,” whereas if you see a smiley face, two lines and a smile, you instantly know what it is and what it means and it gets to you faster that way.

The Green Hornet (1991) #32 pg17, penciled by Rich Suchy & inked by Thom Zahler.

Stroud: That makes very good sense. Did you have any favorite creators from your days as a fan?

Zahler: Curt Swan was one of my favorites. He was the not the first artist I recognized. The first artist I recognized was Kurt Schaffenberger, because he drew the “S” shield just a little bit differently than everybody else, but afterward Curt Swan was the one I got into because his style was just so solid. It may not have always been the most interesting layouts, but he never made a mistake.

I went through my George Perez phase, and of course I still like his work. That’s when you got into the whole detail thing and George executes it very well, but a lot of times people will look at very detailed art and think that’s what makes it good whereas I have since gotten more into the Bruce Timm/Darwyn Cooke school and their stuff is so simple, but it has everything you need in it. So clean and oh so perfect. But yeah, early on it was definitely Kurt and Curt as the main two and I’m a big fan of Gerry Conway’s writing. Roy Thomas as well.

Gerry created Firestorm and he was the first new character to come out while I was collecting. I think the first issue #1 that I ever picked up was his. Probably Steel #1 was the second because I think they came out the same month. But Firestorm was the first new character that came out and the first where I got in on the ground floor of the character. A lot of it was bringing that Spider-Man sensibility to DC. It was nice seeing a second-tier character and I know I’ve said it somewhere else before, but I loved it when Firestorm came to the Justice League. He was the screw-up. I think as far as a writer goes, it was a very brave move for Gerry to take his character and make him the dumbest character on the team. But it also gave the character…Superman is going to be Superman and isn’t going to make rookie mistakes or see things the wrong way. Generally, he’s going to be right. So what was nice is that Firestorm is the one who would react to a problem with, “Oh, we’re completely hosed. There’s no way we’re going to get out of it.” The Justice League takes him aside and it’s “We’re the Justice League. We’re going to figure this out.” I thought it was really interesting to see that dynamic and I think it’s something that gets lost in some team books.

Love and Capes (2006) #2 by Thom Zahler.

In the 80’s you’d have situations where half the cast was characters who had their own books, but the other half of the cast existed only in the Justice League with Green Arrow, Elongated Man, Black Canary, and what that let you do was have a core of characters that you could actually play with and have stuff happen to them in the course of the book and the main characters, the bigger characters were still in the book and interacted with them, but you wouldn’t get a revelation in Superman’s life in the Justice League title, it would happen in the Superman books. You would get a revelation in Hawkman’s life in Justice League, because it was the only place he was appearing.

Stroud: An astute observation. You’re right, too on Firestorm that he did become something of comedy relief for lack of a better term. The Marvel sensibility observation is dead on, too. Al Milgrom confirmed to me that his cover on Firestorm #1 was his attempt at vintage Kirby.

You graduated from the Kubert School. What stands out in your mind from that time period?

Zahler: All of it is a bit of a blur. It was very much boot camp for artists. I enjoyed the people I went to school with and I had as good a time as you could for as hard as you were being worked. It wasn’t always completely pleasant, because it’s a factory. You do 10 classes a week and each is about 2-1/2 hours long. At least this is what it was like when I went there. So you do 10 assignments a week. By the time I came home I think I’d done a hundred projects, which was kind of unheard of, at least to me.

Stroud: Holy cow.

Zahler: It was amazing how much they got you into the process of getting it done. There wasn’t a lot of coddling like you sometimes hear about. You know, how artists have to be inspired to get the work done? No. It was more like, “It’s due next week. Go!” And there’s a lot to be said for it. I hate telling up and coming artists that practice is important, because that’s what everybody told me and it’s not that I didn’t think it was true, it’s just that I understand that I need practice, but what else can I do besides just practice? I’ve heard that it’s the part that I have to do, and it’s amazing how much better you got just because of the repetition of working every day and late into the night, although I never pulled an all-nighter at Kubert. I knew a lot of people that did, but apparently, I had either low standards or a good work ethic. I probably didn’t pull any all-nighters until after I graduated. I’ve pulled a couple since, but not when I was at school.

Love and Capes (2006) #4 FCBD by Thom Zahler.

Stroud: Fascinating. I’ve spoken to a few of the instructors like Dick Ayers, Hy Eisman and Irwin Hasen.

Zahler: Irwin was one of my teachers. Hy was at the school and I don’t have any proof of this, but my last name begins with a “Z” and during my classes my first year it feels like the typical instructors got the first four classes because they’re held Monday and Tuesday and they teach A, B, C and D and we in E got the weird instructors, meaning the ones who didn’t fit that mold. Hy Eisman taught lettering and he’s legendary for how he taught lettering at the Kubert School. He was not my lettering teacher. Hal Campagna who did “Bringing Up Father” was. Oddly, I’m one of the guys out of my class who got a career as a letterer out of school. So, everybody talks about, “Oh, yeah, Hy Eisman is the lettering teacher,” and it’s “No. I’m the guy who didn’t have Hy.” I didn’t have the same animation teacher as everybody else, either. My instructors for some reason seemed to be different.

Stroud: I’ve forgotten what Irwin’s curriculum involved.

Zahler: I think he taught Basic Drawing 2 and 3. It was basically an illustration class. Some of the course descriptions got a little vague. I had Bart Sears as a teacher for story adaptation where we ended up drawing a lot of comic book pages. We illustrated some Doc Savage stuff, but it was a lot more comic book storytelling class than the class it was actually purported to be. There were teachers who took advantage of things, in a good way, to teach you something beyond what you were being taught, just by virtue of the class. So, in storytelling, for example, I remember doing some wash drawings because we had to buy some gray paint to make it really work. We were doing wash drawings and paintings that weren’t really typical, but it was what Bart wanted to teach us. In addition to these assignments and stories it was something he wanted to teach us during that time. Irwin’s class was Basic Drawing for the second and third year and he was one of the few teachers who…when you draw on a chalkboard it’s very different than drawing on paper. The angle of the board is wrong and the medium is different. You can’t finesse it the way you can with a pencil and it was interesting how he could just walk up and draw something on a board and it would look the same as if he had drawn it on paper.

Love and Capes (2006) #5 Thom Zahler.jpg

Stroud: Were there any particular lessons that were more valuable than others or was it just a grand whole?

Zahler: There are several, but one is that I took a caricature class and I didn’t like it and I didn’t see why I had to take it and I didn’t want to do caricatures for a living, but I had kind of based my life off a line from a Batman comic, from Dark Knight when Alfred is trying to tell him that hey, you’ve got to have a backup plan and Batman says, “Can’t have a back door, might be tempted to use it.” I was one of those irritatingly smart kids in high school. Phi Beta Kappa, National Merit Scholar, all of that stuff. But I wanted to make sure I didn’t have anything to fall back on. I wanted to be an artist. It was either that or live in a refrigerator box. Those were my options.

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Zahler: I made sure I went to art school to where that was all I could do. I took caricature class because they told me I had to, but I thought, “Man, I’m never going to use this stuff.” Well, first thing when I got out of school, I was doing caricatures in an amusement park because I had cleverly structured it so that it was all I knew how to do.

That was just a lesson in the idea that if someone wants you to learn something it’s probably not a bad idea to learn it. Even if you don’t think you’re going to need it. It’s been a pretty invaluable skill in my toolbox. For a while about a third of my income was from doing caricatures. When you’re starting out it’s great to actually manage to make a living. Ever since I graduated, I have managed to make a living as an artist. I was always using the skills from school to do it.

Mike Chen taught the business of art and he taught narrative art and he had a very professorial way of teaching, but there was also a lot of learning how to give a client what he wants. It wasn’t that you were doing the drawing you wanted to do, it was that you were doing the drawing based on an assignment he was giving you. Learning how to fulfill the needs of a client is a very important skill to learn in the actual narrative storytelling you were learning.

Love and Capes (2006) #6 by Thom Zahler.

Love and Capes (2006) #7 by Thom Zahler.

Love and Capes (2006) #8 by Thom Zahler.

In the same way I’ve done some teaching. Usually after school programs or little day classes. I don’t think I have the patience and the temperament to teach long term. But Bart Sears was drawing “Justice League Europe” while he was one of my teachers. We were second year students and I know that among the continuum of students I went to school with I was a pretty good utility infielder, but I was never going to be the million-dollar franchise player. You’d show your work to Bart and he knew it wasn’t as good as it should be and you just felt very aware of the difference in your skills as compared to Bart’s. Bart would look at a page and say, “Oh, I really like how you did…” and he’d point something out where you had a really interesting composition, or you drew something particularly well and then he would tear the rest of the page apart. But the thing that would happen is that he would tell you the one good thing that you had done. He’d let you know that you had redeeming value.

Love and Capes (2006) #12 by Thom Zahler.

There are those teachers who will just tear things apart. They’ll say, “Well, I shouldn’t have to tell you all the good stuff because I shouldn’t have to prop you up. I’m just going to tell you the stuff that you need to fix.” And it becomes kind of relentless and you end up questioning the value of the product you’re doing. His teaching style was the kind that helped you see that, “Hey, I realize what you’re doing, and then make sure that you’re on the right path and then I can tell you everything after that.” That’s something I’ve tried to do, because I was just really impressed with how well he did that.

Stroud: That certainly seems to me like a much more viable method, particularly in an artistic environment. I noticed that you’re basically a one-man band. You write, do the art, letterer, colorist, publisher…do you do windows, too?

Zahler: I do them around the house. I’m the only person I know who will work for my own crappy rate. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: Is it more satisfying doing the entire project or does it create its own frustrations?

Zahler: I think more satisfying, at this point, for lack of a better term, is that it’s become more incestuous. Because when you’re learning traditional comic book work, you’re taught to make your pencils as clear as possible for the inker. And I’ve been doing my own stuff for so long, especially with Love and Capes, that it’s become very hard for me to break out the process. I know people who have encouraged me to get an intern or an assistant to help speed up the process. There are times when Love and Capes, as much as I love it, is not necessarily an immediate source of revenue. It’s generally a back-end source of revenue and it’s one of those things I’ve done to promote myself as a creator, but it doesn’t make my house payment. At least not at this point. So, I’m taking on other client work and it’s important to get that stuff taken care of along with everything else. With the book I don’t have a clear point of demarcation any more where I can just hand it off to somebody.

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #1 by Thom Zahler.

I started out as a letterer, so I doubt I’d ever give that up anyway, but I write the script when I write the book. I dialogue when I’m lettering it, because I’m both the letterer and the writer. I can do that. The effort of having to section out one of those tasks so I can hand it off to somebody would likely take me as much time as just doing the job myself. But also, it’s a project which I decided to try, because I thought it would be a good idea. I didn’t have to worry about taking anyone else down with me.

When I did Free Comic Book Day, there’s a point where you say, “Hey, I’m going to take this brand new book,” because I did an original for every Free Comic Book Day, “and essentially give it away for free “, and there might be a lot of people who would say that was a bad idea. I didn’t have to convince anyone, because I’m the only one who works for me and I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay everybody else in this chain not knowing how well the book was going to do. It sets me up so that I can take the risk myself. It’s not only a product I can put out, but it makes it easier for me to decide things without having to worry about providing for other people along the way.

Stroud: So there are definitely some liberating aspects to it.

Zahler: Very much so. It allows you to take the risks and also my inker is never waiting for pages from me. It’s a remarkably streamlined process. Since I don’t have to give out anything to anyone else it’s just easier. Communication is obviously internal. It’s just me and the mirror. I don’t have to worry about messing up somebody else’s schedule. If the client comes in at the last minute and I have to do a caricature for them, I’m not messing anyone else up. It allows me to fit it into the parts of my day where it will fit in without having to worry about messing anyone else’s world up.

Stroud: I imagine it’s nice, too, to not worry about someone not catching your vision of what you wanted to happen on the page. (Mutual laughter.) Love and Capes began in 2006, correct?

Zahler: I think you’re right. I started the book the year before and it came out in February at MegaCon and it was in stores in June, I think. It was originally released to the public the same week that “Superman Returns” came out, which I think was ’06. It just gets a little blurry because I know that I was doing work on it before it was published, so it had been with me a little longer than it has everyone else.

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #1 Cast of Characters by Thom Zahler.

Stroud: Of course. I imagine it’s been gratifying with how well it’s been received.

Zahler: That’s just been amazing. It’s not the first project I wrote and drew myself, but it’s the first one that people noticed. One of the things I did was to do a bunch of guerrilla marketing techniques, especially with the first issue. I worked with Mid-Ohio Con and got them to advertise in the first issue to help pay for the printing, but part of the deal was that I would give out 100 copies at each convention I did that year so they would get their ad out. I would find whatever the longest line was. So, at Comic Con I went to the line waiting for Joss Whedon and I just gave out a bunch of them figuring that people want to read comics. They don’t generally turn down a free book. They’re going to check it out. And people would show up at my table afterward and say, “Oh, I read this and this part was so funny and I love how you did this.” It was the first book I started getting that kind of reaction to. People had read the book I’d done and I knew they liked it, because it was causing people to come up and talk to me afterward.

I’ve also been impressed with the number of people who are much better than me that seem to like the book. When I found out Kurt Busiek was a big fan of the book it just seemed bizarre. I know Mark Waid had been giving him copies of the book, but I never actually had any proof that he was reading them. Because when you give somebody copies of a book for free, you generally don’t quiz them on it afterward. I like Mark’s stuff and if he’s reading, great. I didn’t know if he’d like them or not and we’d see each other for such little periods of time that I wasn’t following up on it. We were at MegaCon and we were talking about the sixth issue and he’s talking about how he really likes this part and he’s squeezing his fist which involved the last panels in issue six, and what I thought was cool was that I realized he was doing it so that he didn’t spoil the book for anyone else who was in the line. That’s when I realized, “Oh, my god. He’s reading the book and he’s enjoying it.” It was great.

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #2 by Thom Zahler.

Stroud: I know this isn’t news, but I see Tony Isabella praising you to the rooftops at every opportunity.

Zahler: Yes, he is. Tony’s a friend of mine, but most of my friends don’t have any problem telling me when I’m screwing up.

Stroud: It looks like you have a wonderful mix of topical humor along with hero clichés. Does it seem to flow together pretty naturally? What’s your creative process like?

Zahler: The latest arc is a little bumpy for me because every iteration of Love and Capes is getting farther and farther away from my area of expertise. The way Love and Capes is set up is that every 6 issues is essentially like a TV season. I write in 6-issue arcs. That’s my commitment when I start the project, because a lot of independent publishers will go, “I’m going to do this 52-issue Magnum Opus,” and then get 3 issues in and run out of money. So, I did the first issue as a standalone and if I do issue #2, then I’m going to do issue #6. Every time I start up, I look on the horizon and say, “This is a reasonable amount of work that I can do and this is the amount of work that I’m going to do. As a self-publisher, I can afford to do it.

So, the first 6 issues are about them dating, and I’ve dated people before. The next 6 issues are about them being engaged and I haven’t been engaged before, but I’ve thought about it and when your friends get engaged, you’re very involved in that process. Then this third arc is about them being married. I haven’t been married before, but I’ve seen other people be married and I have friends my own age who are, so I’ve got some good reference. But now, Abby is pregnant, and I’ve got no idea. My friend Colleen lent me her book, “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Being Pregnant,” so I burned through that just trying to get a better feel for everything that’s involved and to try to come up with story ideas that you wouldn’t necessarily think of.

I tend to write page by page. I will know where a story is going to begin and end, but I don’t necessarily know the middle. Recently I’ve had a couple of books where the ending kind of changes based on what I initially planned. I killed off a character in the most recent issue from IDW; Love and Capes: Ever After #5. I know I said 6-issue arcs, but I had done a Free Comic Book Day issue as #13, so 13 issues plus the IDW make that 6-issue arc. I’d killed a character off and originally it was going to be a lot funnier, but then the ending wound up being different. Because I was at the funeral of a guy I’d gone to school with. It was just monumentally crowded and there was honestly an hour and a half wait to get up to see the body and the family. So I had a lot of time to think, and I thought, “Man. It had to be really rough being a superhero when somebody dies, because you go the funeral, but you can’t say ‘How do you know him?’ or you have to come in with a cover story.”

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #3 by Thom Zahler.

That’s kind of how I arrived at wanting to do some stuff about death in comics and how transient it is. So there’s a scene where the superheroes are actually checking out the body and they’re going through a litany of the ways people get resurrected. Just make sure that none of those are actually in play for this case. I think in terms of comic book storytelling the reader empirically knows that everything is transient, especially in a world where we’ve brought back Barry Allen and Bucky. That nobody is actually dead forever in comics, but the important part is to make the characters think that the character is dead forever. Or you can play against that if you really want to. But it’s kind of the same way you know that Superman is probably going to take care of whatever menace he’s facing. It’s just a matter of making the ride interesting enough and making the story engaging enough that you’re not as concerned about the fact that you kind of ultimately know how it all ends. So, in the same way I wanted to deal with superheroes who get them to the point that they’re not worried about it being a real death. It is a real death, now what are we going to do?

Past that, I write on Post-It notes, because every Love and Capes pages is 8 panels. There are two 4-panel sequences. My friend Bill Williams who does the books for Lone Star Press in the days before the iPad pointed out to me that a comic book page is vertical. A computer monitor is horizontal. So if you’re going to do a comic that you’re going to put on a website you might as well cut the comic book page in half, turning it into a monitor size because the act of scrolling down is kind of an unnatural reading act. So, part of Love and Capes comes from things like Bloom County, which I’m a huge fan of, but just that 4-panel gag format.

Also, when I did the first issue I didn’t know if it was going to do well enough for me to keep doing print books, so I wanted a way to keep doing it on the website. Just because Love and Capes tended to be 3-panel, beat, 3-panel, beat format, so I write it on Post-It notes and put it on my kitchen wall because it’s the longest wall in the house that doesn’t have anything on it. Then I can move the book around as I need to from there. Sometimes the note will be, “Something funny happens here,” which I hate when I write that, because eventually I have to do it.

Stroud: (Chuckle.)

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #3 pg1 by Thom Zahler.

Zahler: There’s a little bit of music to it. It will be, “Okay, I’ve got this scene with Crusader and Abby and there’s another scene of Crusader and Abby later on and I need to have something happen in between so I need to have this beat happen where I focus on these two characters and…better.” But it allows me to see the book and say, “Okay, page 15 is the last of the first page of the Mark and Abby scene, page 17 and 18 are going to be a Darkblade scene and page 19 at the end of the book is going to be the final scene, so it’s a good tool to write visually. Originally being trained as an artist makes it my natural wheelhouse.

Stroud: I presume you produce your work on the computer? It seems hardly anyone does it on the board much anymore.

Zahler: It’s half and half. I pencil by hand and I ink by hand. With Love and Capes, I’m inking on marker paper; layout paper. Through a light box. Then I scan it in and I color it and I composite it very much like an animated series format where I’ve designed the bookstore and once I’ve designed the bookstore I don’t have to keep redrawing it unless the characters are directly interacting with some element. I’ve gotten better and better at creating sets that are much more useful. Mark and Abby buy an apartment building at one point and the original beat up apartment that they were remodeling for a couple of issues, the banister up to the second floor was one piece of artwork, so when I’d draw them I’d have to redraw the banister because it had to be in front of the characters. When they finally remodeled it, I figured out my lesson and just did a second layer on Photoshop and now I don’t have to redraw the banister every time somebody goes upstairs. Stuff like that just makes it…for doing a full color comic and doing every part of it, realistically I work at a quarterly pace. That’s why there’s a delay between every series I do for IDW because I have to work monthly. So, I have to work ahead to get to the point that it will come out monthly, but I’ve been working on it for about a year before the first one comes out.

Love and Capes_ Ever After (2011) #4 by Thom Zahler.

Just in terms of things like that I’m using the computer as best I can to make it do as much and as complicated as far as the things I do. I’ve started doing the covers as blue lines. I’ll get a fairly tight pencil and I’ll scan it into the computer, do whatever computer modifications I need to whether it’s putting on a logo or drawing something technical, which works really well on the computer. Anything from a building to just doing a giant circle, where it would be a pain to get a compass to work it that large. I’ll have that stuff inked in black, but the actual artwork will be in blue pencil printed out on my printer and then I will ink by hand because I’m looking to have more original artwork. As a businessman I’m cutting off a revenue stream if I don’t have originals. I could change the process with Love and Capes, but at this point, 20 issues in, it just feels like, “Why mess up a good thing?” But any project from here on out I’m going to be putting a little more ink on board to make sure that there is more product that I have and will be able to sell.

Stroud: It makes good sense, because it’s incredible how the market has just gone bananas the last several years, I’m sure for the more modern stuff, too, but it’s rapidly getting to the point that most mere mortals cannot afford the average Silver Age page, never mind older stuff. There seems to really be a demand out there. Digital comics seem to be the future and I sometimes wonder if something isn’t being lost in the process.

Zahler: I’m a big proponent of digital comics, mostly from a television point of view. I’ve found that…like I have a Kindle and I love it because there are books that I want to read that I do not need to own. At a certain point your bookshelf becomes a bunch of animal heads. “Hey, I read this book and I read this book and I read this book.” I read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and I enjoyed it, but I’m probably never going to reread that book. I don’t need to physically own that book for the rest of my life, so it works just as well on a Kindle, whereas I love the art of Pixar and every time a movie comes out and there’s something particularly neat that isn’t going to work on a digital display.

The thing I like about digital comics is that it makes it easy for me to get an individual issue. I would love to have a subscription format because… like DC did “Blackest Night” and it was something like a 60-issue crossover by the time everything was factored in and I don’t know that I needed to buy all 60 issues. I think I would have been just as happy reading it in digital format and just buying the collection afterward. But I think you’re right in that there’s part of the process that’s getting lost and it may be possible to find a middle ground where, for instance the same way I watch Castle on TV. They give it to me for free by putting in some ads, but I still buy the box set at the end of the year and the season because I like the show so much. I don’t do that for every show, but I’m willing to pay more of a premium.

Love and Capes: Ever After (2011) #5 by Thom Zahler.

Getting back to comics, for something like All-Star Superman, which I’m going to go back and reread because it’s just so gorgeous and I’m going to have to have every issue of that, but there are other projects where, say, I read the Simpson Comics and I actually think they’re pretty brilliant, but I don’t need to have an Absolute Edition collection. It’s more than the artwork requires and the Simpsons are a little bit more disposable long term, but it’s the only one I can think of that I enjoy at the moment and it goes in the collection, but I’m probably not going to necessarily touch it again.

Stroud: It may be because my very first interview was with Gaspar Saladino and I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for letterers, but one of the things that stuck out for me was your use of translucent word balloons. Is that an original innovation of yours?

Zahler: I’m not going to say I invented it, but I don’t recall having seen it somewhere before. The reason they came about is personally embarrassing to me, because I did come up as a letterer. I did a test page to conceptually see how I would lay out and design the characters and I didn’t leave enough room for the lettering. And that’s horrible, because as a letterer that’s one of the things I complain about.

So, I was doing a sample page and I didn’t leave enough room for the dialogue and I didn’t want to have to make room to redraw it, so I said, “Oh, what happens if I make it transparent?” I found I really liked that look. I like being able to see a little bit of the art behind it. I think the first issue has a little bit different translucency than the rest of the issues because some of that was experimenting with printers and how it would look when it actually prints, but yeah, I like that and I like the upper and lower case, which is something I never thought I’d care for.

Lettering is one of those great invisible arts. If you do it right, nobody’s going to notice and if you do it wrong, everybody’s going to complain. I take great pride in being able to lay out this dialogue-based comic and make it very readable and be able to have natural, conversational cadences because of the way you letter it. I know there’s an example in the second or third issue that... I have a group of friends who read every page after I get it done because their job is to tell me when I start screwing up. They’ll catch dialogue errors and I’ve actually had friends catch continuity errors. I think that’s pretty insane, given that they’re my characters.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2012) #32 Sub Variant cover by Thom Zahler.

One of my best friends has an 8-year old daughter and she loves the book. He has read it to her over and over and over again and we got into a discussion over how old Abby is. He won it! I was like, “Wait. How can you win this discussion over how old Abby is? She’s my character!” But I couldn’t win. He’d made his case flawlessly.

Getting back to lettering, you can tell the people who know how to letter and you can tell the people who know how to type. I have this theory that you should learn how to do things the old way so that when you learn the new way you know the steps that you’re skipping. When I was at Kubert, comics were still being separated by hand. So that was a process we had to learn. It was on the tail end of being useful. It was a 3-year program, so by the time we finished our third year DC was starting to do digital coloring and you knew that was going to change everything. But it was still important to be able to learn color separation because when you’re working on a page and trying to figure out how to make a black a rich black to it prints right or how this is going to print being able in your head to break it down into CMYK and getting the plates right in your head is an important skill to have.

In the same way I computer letter most of the stuff that I do. I have my own font that I’ve used on occasion. A lot of clients really like the Comicraft fonts and they’re lovely fonts that I don’t have any problem using, but knowing where to place a balloon and how to fit the copy in it right; those are skills that I think are best learned by doing it by hand. Then when you go to computer lettering you know what steps the computer is doing for you. And it makes it easier to integrate it into the process.

Stroud: I could see Love and Capes easily being turned into an animated format. Do you see that possibly happening?

Zahler: I’ve had a lot of people tell me that. I honestly see it as a live action sitcom. My fear…and I can be talked out of this, by either a very convincing case or a truckload of money, because I’m not a proud man, is that most of the animated cartoons that are successful on television these days have a bit of an edge to them. Even the Simpsons, which has a very nuclear family that love each other, but a lot of the jokes have a spark to them. They’re really funny, but I don’t know that an animated TV series that has at its heart an honest-to-god relationship would work as well. I just think that might be a bit much to ask of the viewing public based on current buying trends.

Love and Capes: What To Expect (2012) #1 by Thom Zahler.

I think Disney and Pixar seem to be able to do it, but I’m worried that in a serious format people wouldn’t respond to it in the same way. The structure of Love and Capes is actually very heavily based on sitcom where most of the superhero stuff takes place off camera; the same way that in most sitcoms the characters have jobs, but you rarely see them go to them or do any actual work. It actually brings down the special effects budget. It keeps a lot of the expensive stuff happening off camera as far as special effects and production work goes.

In terms of what I’m doing I like it because it lets me focus on the characters. I’ve had a couple of fight scenes in the book, but it’s not what the book is about. If you want to read a book with cool fight scenes DC and Marvel publish a bunch of cool comics every month, but if you want to read a relationship comic there are very few of those out there. I figure it’s important to stick to the parts that are unique and by virtue of that it makes a lot of the other stuff fall by the wayside.

Stroud: Keep to the niche and run with it. I see you’re planning to be at Emerald City Comic Con in the spring. Are you a regular on the circuit?

Zahler: Oh, yes. Last year was legendary. I think I did 16 shows. I just decided that there were a bunch of shows I’d put off doing for one reason or another and last year I got kind of carried away. I think I did them all. I like doing the convention circuit and I’m trying to cut back just a little so that it’s not as hard to get other work done as I’m traveling the country. But I’ll be doing, just in the first quarter of the year, Emerald City in Seattle; MegaCon in Florida; and Wonder Con in Anaheim this year, which is a little disappointing because I wanted to go to San Francisco this year. And then I do the big shows in New York and San Diego. San Diego, at this point, I feel like I can’t not do. Part of it is that if you’re not there, people think you’ve left the industry. The other part is that I have a booth and it’s a very well positioned booth. It’s #2000, which, in terms of being able to give people a location is one of the better numbers to have. It’s been there for 8 or so years at this point, so I know if I give it up I’ll never get it back.

Love and Capes: What To Expect (2012) #2 by Thom Zahler.

For a show like San Diego, it seems counter-intuitive, but you see more people if you stay in one place. Because eventually whoever you want to see if probably going to walk by. Whereas if you’re a moving target and they’re a moving target you’re probably going to miss somebody. Having a booth has got me more conversations and contacts than when I would wander the floor separately.

I also like the travel. I try to book the trips a couple of days on either side so I can enjoy the city, especially if it’s one I haven’t been to. I’m lucky enough that I have a lot of friends in a lot of the cities, so I stay with them or extend my trip that way. On my trips to San Diego I’m always up in LA for a week afterward. It works out well.

Stroud: Very sweet. As I wrap things up here is there anything I didn’t ask that you’d like to bring up, Thom?

Zahler: There’s a new Love and Capes series coming out in either June or July of 2012. It will pick up where the last one left off; the pregnancy that I alluded to. I can’t talk about it because there’s a lot of stuff in play, but there is going to be a Love and Capes Valentine’s Day thing that will happen. From a purely marketing point of view it’s the best day to promote my kind of book, even though I don’t have an actual physical issue coming out. There will be one or more things happening to promote the book, because that’s the day people will be paying attention to it. And of course, the website is loveandcapes.com. That’s the big stuff.

If you would like to see Mr. Zahler in person, he has several more convention appearances planned for 2019. Thom will be at Comicpalooza (May 10-12), Denver Pop Culture Convention (May 31-June 2), HeroesCon (June 14-16), San Diego Comic Con (July 18-21), Fan Expo Canada (August 22-25), DragonCon (August 29-September 2), Cincinnati Comic Expo (September 20-22), Mighty Con NOLA (September 28-29), New York Comic Con (October 3-9), Baltimore Comic Con (October 18-21), and Grand Rapids Comic Con (November 8-10)!

April 24, 2019

An Interview With John Severin - A Master of Humor & Horror, Westerns & War

April 24, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

John Powers Severin (born on December 26, 1921) was an American comics artist noted for his distinctive work with EC Comics (primarily on the war comics Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat); Marvel Comics (especially its war and western comics); and for his 45-year stint with the satiric magazine Cracked. Severin was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2003.

John was a teenager in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York City, when he began drawing professionally. While attending high school, he contributed cartoons to The Hobo News, receiving payment of one dollar per cartoon. After high school, he started renting studio space with Will Elder & Harvey Kurtzman - working on logos and packaging mostly. Inspired by the quick money Kurtzman would make in between advertising assignments with one-page gags for Stan Lee at Timely Comics, Severin worked up comic samples inked by Elder. In late 1947 Severin was given his first comic art job by the team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at Crestwood Publications.

Over the next several decades, John enjoyed a storied career in comics. He moved easily through genres - often switching between westerns, war titles, superheroes and fantasy books. In the early 1950's, he was one of the original 5 artists to start Mad Magazine. As recently as 2011, he was lending his distinctive style to Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever.

Mr. Severin passed away at his home in Denver, Colorado on February 12, 2012 at the age of 90.

Two-Fisted Tales (1950) #25 Buzz Bomb pg1, penciled by John Severin & inked by Will Elder.

John Severin & Will Elder (c.1951) with some pages from Buzz Bomb.

Two-Fisted Tales (1950) #25 Buzz Bomb pg2, penciled by John Severin & inked by Will Elder.

This was another of those short and to the point interviews (via letter), but despite that, it was a thrill to be in touch with the legendary and incredibly talented John Severin. I still am not certain the reasoning, but I was tickled when his sweet wife sent me what I presume were comp copies of what may have been John's last published work, the 5-issue Witchfinder mini-series from Dark Horse. She also asked me if I'd consider writing a letter about them. Well, I was glad to do so and to my surprise and delight, they published it in issue #3 of B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Long Death. To date, it's my lone published letter in a comic book and I'm still kind of proud of that.

This interview originally took place via the mail on November 22, 2011.

Great Action Comics (1958) #1, cover by John Severin.

Bryan D. Stroud: My research tells me you sold you first professional work at age 10! That must be a record.

John Severin: That seems to be the rumor, but for the record, it was in early high school doing cartoons for the Hobo News.

Stroud: You attended the High School of Music and Art in New York?

Severin: Somewhat.

Stroud: Who were your artistic influences?

Severin: Charlie Russell, Hal Foster and Howard Pyle.

Stroud: What made you decide to go into comics?

Severin: My friend, Harvey Kurtzman’s influence.

Stroud: The earliest comic credit I could find was for DC’s Boy Commandos in 1942.

Severin: I never drew that character, and I was in the Pacific in 1942.

Stroud: How well did you know Joe Simon and Jack Kirby?

Severin: Jack gave me my first job and I continued to work for them. At that time, I also took on American Eagle.

Stroud: Was your time in the Army helpful for your work on war books later on?

Severin: Yes, it was part of my life experience.

Two-Fisted Tales (1950) #36, cover by John Severin.

Stroud: You’ve done extensive work on war and westerns. Was that by choice or by assignment?

Severin: Both.

Stroud: Russ Heath told me you were one of the very best western artists.

Severin: Well, thank you. I return the compliment.

Stroud: You’ve done a little work on superhero titles, but mainly the aforementioned and some adventure, horror and humor. Russ and Bernie Wrightson didn’t like doing superheroes. Is that your take as well?

Severin: Yes. I’m a realist.

Stroud: You’ve won a bushel basket of awards. I noted an Alley for Best War Title of ’67 and ’68 for Sgt. Fury and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a Sparky Award in 2001. Were there others?

Severin: Some others have been: The Eisner Hall of Fame, the Jules Verne Estate Lifetime Achievement, Marvel Shazam, Best Horror Western for Desperadoes, the War Collectors Hall of Fame, the National Inkpot Award and the International Inkpot Award and every letter I receive telling me I have given someone pleasure is equally gratifying. I’ve been around a long time, so they come from kids to fans who go back fifty or sixty years.

Stroud: You were one of the first to work on Mad. What was that like?

Severin: A lot of fun.

Stroud: You have credits for Warren, Charlton, Harvey and DC, but Marvel seemed to be your home. Why?

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #109, cover penciled by Herb Trimpe & inked by John Severin.

Severin: Stan (Lee) gave me lots of scripts and covers.

Stroud: What was your favorite assignment?

Severin: After all these years, I can’t say. I enjoyed drawing them all.

Stroud: Were deadlines rough?

Severin: Yes and no. They are an essential part of the business.

Stroud: What was your production rate?

Severin: Fast enough to meet multiple deadlines.

Stroud: How were page rates back in the day?

Severin: I was fortunate enough to do well.

Stroud: There was a pretty small group doing war books for DC back in the day to include Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, Jerry Grandenetti, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, Ric Estrada and Mort Drucker. How often did you encounter them?

Severin: I am friends with Kubert and Heath.

Stroud: Did you ever do any advertising work?

Severin: Yes, but I never worked at an agency. I did Sgt. Fury for the Wall Street Journal, some westerns for Ford Motor Company and a few things for the Enquirer.

Stroud: Did you do any syndicated work?

Wyatt Earp (1955) #2, cover by John Severin.

Severin: Some. I don’t remember. I know I did a series for the New York Post.

Stroud: What are your favorite tools of the trade?

Severin: A #2 pencil, preferably a Mongol and a Croquil pen.

Stroud: Did you like doing covers or interiors?

Severin: Interiors, because it allows you to develop the story and characters.

Stroud: Did you use a lot of reference in your war and western work?

Severin: All that I could get hold of any subject.

Stroud: You’ve done historical figures like Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp. How did that differ from doing fictional characters?

Severin: The only thing factual about them were their names. The stories were all fictional.

Stroud: Many of your peers paint. Do you?

Severin: No, only a couple of colorblind artist’s fiascoes.

Stroud: Do you do commissions?

Severin: I never have time to do many.

Stroud: Do you do conventions?

Severin: No, I only have once or twice.

Cracked (1958) #62, cover by John Severin.

Battle Action (1952) #26, cover by John Severin.

Cracked (1958) #72, cover by John Severin.

Yellow Claw (1956) #2, cover by John Severin.

Journey Into Mystery (1952) #30, cover by John Severin.

King Conan (1980) #18, cover by John Severin.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #2, cover by John Severin.

Mystic (1951) #56, cover by John Severin.

Witchfinder_ Lost and Gone Forever (2011) #1, cover art by John Severin.

Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever (2011) #1 pg9, art by John Severin.

Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever (2011) #1 pg16, art by John Severin.

BPRD: Hell On Earth- The Long Death (2012) #3 letterpage.

April 17, 2019

An Interview With Elizabeth Berube - Bringing Cosmopolitan Style To DC's Romance Line

April 17, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Elizabeth Safian Berube (born January 7, 1943) is an American comic book artist, best known as a romance comics artist for DC Comics in the 1970's. Simply signing her work "Elizabeth," her modern, stylized art was used to illustrate fashion features, horoscope pages, tables of contents, and other various ornamental pieces. She was also a prolific colorist, first for Archie Comics and later for DC. Throughout her career she has worked on children’s books, greeting cards, and other commissioned work.

She attended Martin Van Buren High School in Queens (graduating at age 16 in 1959), where she started a comic strip for the school newspaper, which has been continued by different students to this day. After leaving school in 1961, Berube became a colorist and assistant editor for Archie Comics (continuing at that publisher in various freelance capacities until 1975). In the early 1960's she also met editor Jack Adler, who later brought her into DC Comics. Liz also started a newspaper strip (called Karen) that was carried by 40 papers at its peak.

In 1969 Berube began working on DC’s romance comics line, bringing more modern, stylized art to the genre - which was still being drawn in a realistic style. One of the few women in the field, Berube worked on such titles as Date with Debbi, Falling in Love, Girls' Romances, Heart Throbs, Secret Hearts, Young Love, and several others. At one point during this period, Berube was offered a position as editor of the whole romance line but as a single mother in her mid-twenties, she preferred the flexibility of working from home that pencilling and coloring allowed. The DC romance line folded a few years later; Berube was the last female contributor.

From the mid-1970's through the 1980's Liz worked as a colorist, mostly for DC. She was known for mixing her own hues and marking the combinations for the printing separators. She also did coloring for Neal Adams’ Continuity Studios in the mid-to-late 1980's.

I had the great pleasure of getting to know Liz, the talented colorist and artist and to learn about her time at DC Comics when it was still very much a boy's club. Liz is as sweet as they come and is still doing things, to include a coloring book featuring some of her classic artwork and making a con appearance here and there. She's a delight, as you'll soon read.

This interview originally took place over the phone on November 4, 2011.

Young Romance (1963) #166, Beauty on a Budget with art by Elizabeth Berube.

Bryan Stroud: Did you have an interest in art right from the beginning, Liz?

Liz Berube: My mom used to tell me I painted on the walls when I was 3.

My uncle's bedtime stories (aside from Disney) were from the "POGO" comic strip, by Walt Kelly. There were also some books of reprinted strips that were very popular in the late 40's. You could say I was "weaned" on them. Very political satire. I still have 6 or 7 original books. They’ve been out of print for 40 years. But I just loved it. Still do.

I look at it now and think, “My God, I was reading this when I was 7?” That was my destiny as far as I was concerned. I was determined to become the next Walt Kelly.

I met him when I was a student at School of Visual Arts - my class was picked for a TV audience, along with Al Capp, Walt Kelly.... and the man who did "Sad Sack."

I started to gush a little, when introduced ....and he brushed me off. "Yeah, yeah, kid...drop me a line at Hall - and I'll send you an autographed strip." All Al Capp wanted was a lunch date.

Yup – my destiny was cartooning ... no doubt in my mind. I also used to make little books for family birthdays and holidays. Nothing I liked better, except riding horses and swimming. And, yes - I would have gone in that direction, had it been more available to women. It wasn't.

I was offered a job with another Walt…Disney, though.

Stroud: Really?

Berube: I sent a copy of Bambi with the butterfly on his tail that I’d copied off some comic book back or something. I sent it to him and of course the personnel department got back to me and they said, “We would hire you tomorrow if you weren’t 10 years old. So when you reach 18, contact us (the Disney personnel department) and we’ll see what we can set you up with.”

Amethyst (1985) #14 pg2, penciled by Ernie Colon, inked by Bob Smith, & colored by Liz Berube.

I was born and raised in New York City. I graduated high school early. I was 16. So by the time I was 18, I was in the business world. I was coloring comic books and in my off times I was a receptionist. I had a lot of friends who had gone out to California told me, “Its plastic! You’ll hate it! Don’t go.” And I took their word for it instead of trying it for myself and I never did get out there. But then, I've been gullible all my life. For instance: I actually turned down a scholarship to Cooper Union ... because they asked me to teach, after graduation.

I had no real support from my family....and no real knowledge of the art field - so I turned it down. (ME? Stay in a classroom?) Whatta maroon, to quote Bugs Bunny! So - the wordy answer to that question... is Yes, Bryan.... I carried a sketch book with me everywhere I went ...I was very interested in art. Naive...but interested.

Stroud: Did you have any formal training in the arts?

Berube: Well, I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York and I majored in cartooning. At Visual Arts they have a wonderful program. They go from foundation up. So you learn life drawing, you learn cartooning, you learn everything. I really enjoyed it, but it was such a Bohemian atmosphere that I got very little school work done. It was mostly gabbing in the lunch room and everybody sketching everybody else and that sort of thing, wearing black and drinking coffee. (Chuckle.) I never did graduate. I think I had 1/2 year there left to go.

From there I went to Archie Comics because that was the only thing on the bulletin board that it looked like I could do for an immediate income. They gave me a job right away. I worked as a colorist and as an editor with Victor Gorelick. Vic really taught me the business, in general, from the ground up. From there I went into freelancing and when I couldn’t find work I’d get all dressed up out of Vogue Magazine and I’d get myself a job as a receptionist. I was tricky. (Mutual laughter.)

You would be amazed, but in 40 years things have changed. I went to Dell Comics and the editor, whose name I forget, promised me a summer issue, which was like 80 pages, to color and I was tickled pink. He said, “Why don’t we have lunch and talk about it?” Being raised in New York I was pretty careful about things like that. So I politely declined. I told him I had other plans. And he asked me 6 or 8 times to meet him somewhere for a drink or for lunch. I was 18 maybe at that point. I began to see it was the old casting couch thing that they had in Hollywood. When I finally turned him down quite firmly, he never called back again. Of course I never did any work for Dell.

Doorway to Nightmare (1978) #1 pg12, drawn by Val Mayerik & colored by Liz Berube.

Shortly after that I met Jack Adler and he got me started at DC.

Stroud: After Jack passed a few weeks back I was going through my copy of the Amazing World of DC Comics that featured him and Sol Harrison on the cover (Issue #10) and as I was re-reading it, I discovered you were mentioned in there. Maybe you knew that.

Berube: Really? No ... I didn't know he'd passed. Once I left NY… most of my friends and co-workers grew "out of touch".

Stroud: As he’s being interviewed…the publication date was January of 1976, he said, “…I began to color the covers on a freelance basis because there was no time for them during the day, until we reached a point where we realized that that was too time-consuming. They had to be done some other way and I had been discussing it for some time. That’s the point at which Tatjana Wood started to color them. Jerry (Serpe) had become a full-time colorist then as did Tommy (Nicholosi). Then Tommy left and Liz Safian (now Liz Berube) started coloring and she’s been coloring ever since.” “Did Liz ever work in your department?” “No, she never did. She worked at Archie Comics, as an assistant editor and colorist. She’s a good artist, too. She did some romance art for Dick Giordano’s love magazines in the sixties.” So, you made the interview back in 1976.

Berube: How nice. I’d love to get a copy. I love saving these things. Jack was always a prince, to me... and I'm flattered

Stroud: Jack was very gracious when he granted me an interview.

Berube: I can't see Jack as being anything BUT gracious. He taught me an awful lot because I kept coming up with interesting combinations for color and in those days it wasn’t easy for the separators. So he taught me how to draw a line and how to mark it up and I marked up every page with a Rapidograph. Very small, but very legible. And I never had errors in my comics the way the other colorists did. Jack taught me a lot. He knew so much about production and really everything that had to do with comic books. He became a very good friend.

Falling In Love (1955) #119, Beauty on a Budget with art by Elizabeth Berube.

He even got me started in photography because we both loved instant art. Jack was one of the people I was very sorry to leave behind in New York.

Stroud: He seemed to be a man of many talents and gifts.

Berube: Many.

Stroud: It’s remarkable how many innovations he came up with between the washtones and the use of photographs on some of the covers and so forth.

Berube: And, he had a fabulous sense of humor. Jack got me started. I went up to DC cold. Absolutely cold. And I had absolutely nothing to show except a few things from Archie Comics. Jack took one look at my colors and said, “You’re hired.” Even when I’d go off to do other jobs there was always a place waiting for me when I came back.

Stroud: That certainly speaks to your ability.

Berube: Good man. It speaks to his loyalty and generosity. I wouldn’t mind having 5 minutes with him again. Just for a hug. :)

Stroud: He used to call me and at one point he said, “Bryan, if you’d like to spice up the interview, I’ve got an idea. I’m going to give you my cousin’s phone number. Perhaps you’ve heard of Howard Stern?”

Berube: (Laughter.) That’s funny, because I didn’t realize the connection until I saw it on Facebook. I knew one of his other cousins who was a photographer for Vogue helped my son when he was with FIT when we moved back to New York for about 5 years. Jack was wonderful to David. But I didn’t know that he was related to Howard Stern.

Stroud: Well it certainly shocked me no end and it took me awhile to work up the courage to use the phone number he gave me, but as it turned out all I could get was a sophisticated voice mail system and I didn’t have the guts to keep trying. The only other time I used it was after I heard of Jack’s passing to leave a message of condolence.

Adventure Comics (1938) #450 pg1, drawn by Jim Aparo & colored by Liz Berube.

When you were doing your illustration work I noticed that you did a Robert Kanigher script among others. Did you have a particular writer you enjoyed interpreting?

Berube: Well I absolutely loved Alex Toth’s more modern stuff, but generally, Bryan, I have to be honest; it was a job to me. I was good at it, but I had a son to support. I was a single mother. This way, I could do it at home and I just didn’t pay much attention to who did what.

Except later on when it got to Batman and Neal was my editor. There were a few other people. I enjoyed working for Sal Amendola very much. Of course - Dick Giordano, Joe Orlando, Carmine Infantino. Oh - I should mention that Bob Kanigher was helpful in preparing a folio. Nice man. Yes - his stories were more with the times.

There were a couple of others whose names I don’t’ recall right now. It was great because I’d go in and they’d flip through the book and go, “Okay.” No corrections, no nothing, just, “Here’s another one.”

Because of the tricks that Jack taught me, and out of necessity, there were times that I would just color a book overnight and bring it back in the next day. And I was the only one who did. Pencilers are always late. Inkers are always late. And it comes down to the colorist to make up for the lost time and get the comic book printed. So Jack used to say to everybody, “If you need it two weeks ago, call Liz.”

Stroud: So you were the Vinnie Colletta of colorists.

Berube: (Chuckle.) I haven’t heard that name in a century.

Stroud: From the material I read it sounds like he was either very much appreciated or very much reviled because apparently he used to commit the cardinal sin of inking Jack Kirby and to save time he would sometimes change the backgrounds by removing characters or it abruptly became the brick wall from a brownstone or something.

Berube: Oh, Kirby must have loved that.

Shade the Changing Man (1977) #1 pg5, drawn by Steve Ditko & colored by Liz Berube.

Stroud: People were just furious about it, but I’ve read where more than one person said, “Look, Vinnie never blew a deadline. Sometimes it was not the most attractive thing, but the most important thing to an editor is making those schedules and Vinnie never failed.”

Berube: The only time I got in trouble with being late one time…I was going to tell about it - but it has to do with an unfortunate time in my family...so I'd rather not. Let's just say: “I fell off a horse." And I totally agree with that theory on Vinnie. If the clock came down to US and a book was late.... it was "due to the last person holding it."

Stroud: Well after all, if your track record was as good as it was that had to have been a very understandable anomaly.

Berube: "Track record " " I fell off a horse " .... too funny.

I enjoyed doing the artwork as well. The filler pages were a lot of fun. The ones for the girl’s romance books.

Stroud: You did quite a few of those.

Berube: Yes…and just when I was really getting into it and developing a specific style for it, I kept saying to them, because they kept saying they were going to cut them out, “Turn it into a comic book Cosmopolitan.” Because Cosmopolitan had just made that big thing with Burt Reynolds where he was the centerfold. And then Cosmopolitan became a very popular magazine for girls in their 20’s and 30’s and late teens I would imagine.

I began to turn my pages more and more toward the Cosmopolitan format. Then they offered me the job of giving it one more shot if I’d edit the magazines. And I have to say I had a couple of reasons for not doing it. The first one, and I’m ashamed of this, but I’ll be honest: I didn’t know how I would be able to handle “the boys,” being the only female in the office who knew nothing about editing, or next to nothing. I didn’t know how I’d be able to handle them.

Girls' Love Stories (1949) #147, Your Fashion Horoscope with art by Liz Berube.

Young Romance (1963) #169, Dates’N’ Mates with art by Liz Berube.

Stroud: Of course.

Berube: The second reason was that I didn’t want to put my son in one of those preschool places that were so bad at the time. I think that would have been the early ‘70’s. There were horrible things happening. It was so convenient to work at home. And then lastly, it’s not that I’m lazy, but I like my comfort and I like my own schedule. And to be able to work at home when I wanted to do the work; if I wanted to stay up all night or if I wanted to work in the morning, I really didn’t want to have to go into Manhattan every day. It was a totally stupid thing to do, because when I look back at it now, as an adult, (laughter) I don’t consider 24 being an adult. When I look back at it now I realize they were earning $75,000.00 or $100,000.00 a year! I could have hired someone to bring David into the office to be with me.

Young Love (1963) #121, Beauty on a Budget with art by Elizabeth Berube.

I think the biggest problem was that I was intimidated. Even though I was very friendly with all the guys and they were wonderful to me. Oh, they were a little flirtatious, but harmless. It wasn’t like the guy at Dell. I was very close to Dick Giordano and Carmine Infantino. I got a real kick, too. I’d come in wearing these short skirts and Carmine would yell, “Liz, you got the best legs in New York!” I’d say, “Where's that raise, Carmine!” (Mutual laughter.) So there were definite advantages to being a woman at that time.

But I was afraid of failing. As I look back, I don’t think I would have. I might have saved the romance line. (Why not - look what Wonder Woman could do with a couple of bracelets.) Hah... listen to ME... I MIGHT have found a cure for the common cold, too ....... (snort)

Shoulda, coulda, woulda ..

Stroud: Well, hindsight being what it is, I applaud your priorities. My wife and I made that kind of decision and we never drove new cars, but we didn’t regret it.

Berube: With all the stories in the papers of things happening at the day cares I just wasn’t willing to take the risk, but I was also concerned about how I’d deal with the guys.

Looking back at it now I know they would have helped me. They would have been very helpful, but there were some who would have been jealous of my position in the company. Because I was getting work that they used to get and weren’t getting any more.

Stroud: I can see where that would be a hindrance.

Berube: When you’re young and attractive, which I was; people used to stop me and tell me I looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor, it makes it even more difficult. .. Then there’s a certain amount of resentment, because "she looks that way and I don’t " I don't think it's that bad, now - but back in the 60's ....the cat fights were wild... and priorities were surface, much of the time.

Stroud: It’s funny that you made mention of legs earlier. I found a couple of examples of your art pieces on the web and there’s one here in front of me titled, “Legs,” and you’ve got some fun little depictions of young women with these long, lanky legs and text with, “The shorter the skirts get, the more looks for your legs, whatever the occasion. Give the legs the attention they deserve and watch the attention they get!” (Mutual laughter.)

Young Romance (1963) #170 pg.20, Beauty on a Budget with art by Elizabeth Berube.

Berube: Now I didn’t write most of these pages. (I did write that one.) Somebody else did. Like the “Happenings” pages. Or “Love Life” or whatever it was called. It was usually a 2-page spread. I took a lot of my things out of Cosmopolitan. New styles, only I adapted them to the younger people. There was one that Mike (Frigon) keeps talking about and he said everybody talks about it. I don’t know if you’ve seen it on the net. You probably have. I used to call it “Beauty on a Budget.” I’m a big fan of Windsor McCay. Always have been. So I started trying out the little people with the big objects. So I had one girl sitting on a cucumber. Now most men might not know this, but cucumbers are a beauty treatment for many things. But all Mike gets is comments about the sexual aspect of it. He says that I was the only person who put sex into the comic books. I said, “Well, Mike, it wasn’t intentional.” (Chuckle.) It was just something I was trying out. I never really thought much about the cucumber aspect. I found one blog that I was looking through that somebody was putting me down rather harshly for bringing sex into the comics and the whole cucumber thing and I’m like, “Lighten up.”

Stroud: One of the things that strikes me about your artwork is the intricate hair. Good grief it must have taken an age to pencil and ink some of these incredibly elaborate hairstyles.

Berube: It did. It did. I got that from my mom. She did several beautiful portraits that unfortunately were ruined in a flood. There was one of Katharine Hepburn that was exquisite and she did it by creating the shadows and then erasing to get the light. It was unbelievable. She had one of a woman sitting by a pool with pussy-willows and the hair went the length of the drawing. I was so struck by that I began to experiment with it and it became my trademark, along with the art deco and the art nouveau that I still love. If I was rich I’d do my whole house like Erte.

Stroud: I bet it would be marvelous.

Berube: When I had the comic strip, they used to tell me my long-legged drawings were like John Held, Jr. who I’d never heard of. And I looked him up and sure enough. I think his era was the ‘20’s or ‘30’s and sure enough there it was and I’d never seen anything of his. Flappers were his thing....

They say that artists put a lot of themselves into their artwork and I had what I thought were large feet and very long legs. Of course over the years that’s changed… So I was just drawing myself as far as the comic books went and the comic strip. I did a comic strip for Newsday Syndicate.

A Karen strip by Liz Berube, demonstrating the “long legs, big feet” look. — A **Karen** strip by Liz Berube, demonstrating the “long legs, big feet” look.

Stroud: “Karen,” right?

Berube: Yes, “Karen.” I’m trying to get hold of Bill Moyers to see if I can get copies. Most of the originals are gone. They were ruined in a flood out here. I think I have 3 originals left. They used to send me tear sheets every week and I don’t know where they went. They were probably in the pile that got ruined. I was very lucky to find a great agent. I had 3 agents, who would rather take me to bed than get me work and then I found this guy named Bill Neely and he liked my work so much that he didn’t even charge me. He said, “When you get going, then you can pay me.” He went to Bill Moyers and he showed him my stuff and Bill Moyers, in turn, took the cartoons to his daughter- whose name was Karen. He said, “Do you think these are funny?” Well, if you look back at them now, some aren’t really funny anymore because the ‘60’s were a different time and girls are actually dressing that way.

Blue Beetle (1986) #20 pg1, penciled by Ross Andru, inked by Dan Bulanadi, & colored by Liz Berube.

Anyway his daughter was 15 and she liked it very much, so he said, “She’s in.” “We’ll buy her.” Bob Gillespie, who was the editor, came to my home and brought the contract and my father, who swore I’d never make it as an artist, and said that I should marry a rich man, you know, the whole thing, how fathers are, (laughter) he broke out the champagne and we had a little party and it was wonderful.

Then ... along came life ... and "I fell off a horse"...and couldn't work.

Don’t you just know that the very next week they were taking “Mark Trail” from the New York Post and they were going to put in “Karen.”!!!!

Stroud: Oh, no.

Berube: Oh, yeah. I had 40 newspapers and they were all taking them at top dollar, but when that happened they put in something else and a couple of years later Cathy Guisewite came up with “Cathy.” My God, they were going to put me on the Johnny Carson Show to promote it and I was deathly afraid of Johnny Carson. He was so nasty to women. I begged them. I said, “Please. Merv Griffin!” (Mutual laughter.) “Don’t put me on Johnny Carson!” But it all ended anyway, so I guess things happen the way they’re supposed to.

Stroud: I suppose so, and it’s always interesting because at that time - and maybe still today, a syndicated strip was the brass ring. Everybody wanted one of those.

Berube: When I ran into trouble after my mom died, because I lost my sense of humor, I started buying gags. It was Jack who put me onto the people who could really catch onto my humor. So I was buying gags for a while and just illustrating them. Then it all went to pot. That’s when I got into the filler pages for the romance books. I enjoyed that even more than the comic strip. Almost. I have no complaints - I "peaked" at 24 ... and had my "dream".

Stroud: Nice. It looks like Dating IQ and Beauty on a Budget were totally your babies, so to speak.

Young Love (1963) #119, Beauty on a Budget with art by Elizabeth Berube.

Berube: Yes, they were. I did my own inking and coloring, but let someone else do the lettering on them. Once in a while I would do the lettering. I had that little lettering guide. That ancient tool we used to use. My son is trying to get me to do it on Photoshop and so far I just can’t get the hang of it. I’m currently under some tight medical restrictions, too, which frustrate me, because I need more time than just an hour or so in a day to exercise my creativity. But, it will change and improve with time. I will get it back.

I also have a goal to do some convention appearances, but again, I need to get to the point I can do it. I’ve told Mike that I can maybe do it this spring if he gets me a lounge chair so I can stretch out and not have to sit in a seat for an extended period of time. And, as life throws me off horses - I continue to work on commission and illustrate a children's book here and there.

Stroud: (Laughter.) Did you use pen or brush for your inking work?

Berube: Both. Basically I used to do a very loose pencil, just for position, and I would take a Rapidograph, which nobody uses any more, and I used Magic Markers in a very thin configuration for when I would draw. I would use the colored ones if I wanted to color something in. But I would use a brush for a large area. Anyplace you’d need a large area of black rather than just sit there with a Rapidograph and keep going back and forth. That was a pain to say the least and it slowed me down. I’m very good with a brush. I learned how to do the brush strokes in high school art class. I can work with just about anything. And I surprise a lot of people because there are so many specialists out there. Nobody seems to know how to do it from soup to nuts any more.

Just as an aside, I did a cartoon the other day with a woman in a delivery room, feet in the stirrups and all and suddenly it’s “If you’d like to deliver, please press the “#” sign.” So I know my sense of humor is coming back. (Mutual laughter.)

I was thinking of Non Sequitur for a comic strip, but of course, according to the cosmic consciousness theory, at any given time an idea you’re having is simultaneously being had by at least 5 other people, so of course someone had already come up with this wonderful idea for a strip. I always liked Bloom County, too, as far as strips go.

Black Lightning (1977) #1 pg1, penciled by Trevor Von Eedon, inked by Frank Springer, & colored by Liz Berube.

Stroud: That was a favorite of mine, too. Calvin and Hobbes, too.

Berube: Oh, Calvin and Hobbes. Yes!

Stroud: I saw it written that you were the last woman to illustrate a romance comic. Is that hype or the real deal?

Berube: That’s the real deal. I didn’t know it. I had no idea. I didn’t know I was the only woman illustrating romance comics. And when Dorothy Woolfolk took over when I turned down the editor position, she was much older. She must have been in her 50’s or more and she just wasn’t in touch with the mind of a teenager. So they decided to cancel it. Sadly, it's like the soaps...there are just so many ways of saying the same thing, over and over....and over.

Stroud: Unfortunate. I know there were a lot of titles and the credits I saw for you included Girl’s Love Stories, Girl’s Romances, Heart Throbs, Secret Love, and Young Love. I mean there was a pile of the romance titles there. Did they all get canceled at the same time?

Berube: Yes. They just discontinued the entire romance line. Pretty sure. Trina Robbins would probably know more about that.

Stroud: Was it Jack Miller who was the overall romance editor at the time?

Berube: What do you mean by overall editor? Carmine was the one in charge.

Stroud: Right, but they had editors over some of the different genres, like Joe Kubert for the war books and Joe Orlando for the mystery titles…

Berube: If Jack Miller was a "higher up"....I didn't know it. Dick Giordano was my "go-to-guy"... and it was Joe Orlando who got me my first pages. It was his idea to have me start doing the pages. I did some really beautiful stuff. I have copies of them, but the originals have walked off. That’s probably how they ended up in Germany and Mike got a hold of one of them for $150.00. That’s actually what I used to get paid for the penciling and inking. That’s back in the day, of course. I’m sorry that I never kept any of them. I mean, who knew? I thought it was all Superman and Batman and those kinds of things. I never thought that I would be some kind of celebrity. It’s nice, but…

Girls' Love Stories (1949) #148 pg6, art by Liz Berube.

Stroud: As you mentioned earlier, quite correctly, back in the earliest days of the comics industry, the thing I’ve discovered from a lot of the folks I’ve spoken to in that first generation, it was, simply, a job. Nothing more than that, and for the most part it wasn’t even what their main desire was. Often they were doing that while they were chasing illustration work in the mainstream magazines or a syndicated strip. Comics was a last resort for a lot of these folks. It was disposable, cheap entertainment that didn’t get much respect.

Berube: I was a single mother - I gave it plenty of respect.

Stroud: On the other hand, it was a quick buck where you could get paid each week.

Berube: I loved it. I loved coloring. To this day I just love to color. I consider myself more of a colorist than a comic artist.

Stroud: After all you spent a number of years doing it and I’m presuming when you did so you went from freelancing to a staffer?

Berube: No. I was still freelance. If I had wanted to change that - I would have taken on editing the Romance Line.

Stroud: Okay. It seemed like most of the production people were on staff along with the editors.

Berube: As far as I know. I just did my job, Bryan...and the more they gave me, the happier I was. My attention was on my responsibilities to my family and taking care of business. (along with a monthly run to the Dude Ranch .... to take a break and undo the stress of my working hours.)

Stroud: I probably conducted the last interview with Ric Estrada before he passed away…

Berube: I remember Ric.

Elvira's House of Mystery (1985) #1 pg1, penciled by Ron Wagner, inked by Bob Oksner, & colored by Liz Berube.

Stroud: He was telling me that when he taught at the Kubert School, being one of the original instructors, was that he had to try to overcome the thought that when you tell your parents you want to be an artist, the first thing that comes out of their mouths is, “Oh, you’ll starve.” He tried to point out that many people have succeeded and continue to do so.

Berube: Well, I wasn’t Van Gogh, but my work was accepted very openly. I think that the average Joe is concerned with making a living ... and, yes, starving is the general train of thought. Joe doesn't realize that someone has designed the label on his beer...or the cereal box on the table. I think that's the problem - or WAS. When people mentioned "art"...the train stopped at the Rembrandt station…and few realized how lucrative and enjoyable COMMERCIAL art could be.

Stroud: You mentioned earlier you’d done some work at Continuity. How did that come about?

Berube: In 1985 or 1986 I went back to New York just because I missed it so much and there was nothing available at DC. I think it was Dick Giordano who had started Continuity with Neal [Adams] and he suggested that I go talk to him. My interview was with Neal’s wife Corey and she took one look at my coloring and said, “Did you do this with a brush or an airbrush?” I said, “That’s all brush.” So she talked to Neal and they hired me that day. I worked "on staff" ... and still did freelance for DC.

Once in a while I’d get a comic from DC, but that was when Sal Amendola was doing the job as editor of the Elvira book that they were trying. I did an absolutely fabulous sketch of Elvira and I inked it up and I showed it to him and I said, “Sal, wouldn’t it be great if you got different artists to do their version of Elvira and publish it in each book?” He thought it was a fabulous idea, but it got kiboshed and as a result, I gave Sal the original. I still have many copies of it, though. You want to talk about sexy. That screamed sex. And I meant for it to do that. I brought the hair in draping over her arms and it’s a technique I still use now when I draw. It was too bad, because I think that would have gone over very big. You know, to have a collector’s thing. I even suggested to them…do you remember the old Katy Keene comic books?

Stroud: I sure do.

Berube: I tried to get DC to start something like Katy Keene, because the girls loved that and that’s a market for younger girls. They loved cutting out fashions and putting them on little dolls. But nope, they didn’t like that either. To this day I think it would be a marvelous idea. Or maybe even some kind of coloring book. But, nobody listens to me. (Laughter.) They don’t know what they’re missing.

Stroud: This is a little off the wall, but I discovered a Phil Berube who did filler pages during the Golden Age at DC. Any relation?

Berube: I have no idea. Berube comes from a man I was married to for 10 years and I sometimes get questions about an Alan Berube, but I don’t know any of these people. I may even drop "Berube"...and go back to "Safian." Of course, I've been saying that since life "threw me off the first horse"....but that's a horse of a different color!

It's been fun, Bryan....thanks. ;)

Claw the Unconquered (1975) #2 pg4, drawn by Ernie Chua & colored by Liz Berube.

Heart Throbs (1949) #125, The Counter Rebellion with art from Liz Berube.

April 10, 2019

An Interview With Cary Bates - The Silver Age Superman Scribe Discusses DC

April 10, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Cary Bates (on the left) sits with Elliot S Maggin (on the right).

Cary Bates (born in 1948) is an American comic book, animation, television and film writer. He is best known for his work on titles like The Flash and Superman. Cary began submitting ideas for comic book covers to DC Comics at the age of 13, and a number of them were bought and published. The first was the cover to Superman #167 (Feb. 1964) when he was 17. Bates spent most of his career at DC Comics working on Superman and the super-family of heroes, although he also worked on Justice League of America, Captain Atom, and several other titles. He began working for the publisher in 1963 and continued to do so until the early 1990s. Among his contributions to the Superman mythos, he and artist Curt Swan co-created the supervillains Terra-Man, the 1970’s version of the Toyman, and the superhero Vartox. In 1972, Bates and artist Art Saaf launched the first Supergirl series.

Justice League of America (1960) #123 pg.13.

Bates caused quite a stir among fans when he wrote The Flash #275 (July 1979) wherein the title character's wife, Iris West Allen was killed. And a major shakeup occurred when The Flash would inadvertently kill his wife's murderer (Reverse-Flash) in The Flash #324 (Aug. 1983). This led to the story "The Trial of the Flash" in which the hero must face the repercussions of his actions. Bates became the editor as well as the writer of The Flash title during this time and oversaw it until its cancellation in 1985.

Bates appeared in his own comics as himself several times, alongside superheroes such as the Silver Age version of The Flash and the Justice League of America. In 1987 and 1988, he wrote some stories for Marvel Comics' New Universe line and created the Video Jack series at Epic Comics with Keith Giffen.

His other work includes the comic strips The Lone Ranger (1980–1983), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1981–1983), and Disney's Gargoyles during the 1990s. In 2008 he returned after a 20-year absence to Marvel and wrote True Believers, a limited series about a team trying to uncover secrets in the Marvel Universe. Bates made a return to writing Superman, this time as an Elseworlds story titled Superman: The Last Family of Krypton, published in August 2010.

Maybe it was because he was a character in a Justice League of America story I read as a boy or maybe it was simply my enjoyment of the stories he crafted, but I set out to interview Cary Bates and it was a little challenging to find him. He doesn't seem to do conventions or keep a higher profile like some of his peers, but thanks to a little luck I was able to enjoy an e-mail interview with a writer I've long admired.

This interview originally took place via email on August 21, 2011.

Action Comics (1938) #354, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Curt Swan.

Bryan Stroud: Who hired you?

Cary Bates: Mort Weisinger was the first editor I worked for. He was familiar with me from the dozen or so cover ideas of mine he used in the mid-sixties. Once I attempted writing he bought my second attempt at a full script (and the cover idea to go with it). It was an imaginary story for World’s Finest Comics.

Stroud: As a lettercol writer from Ohio, did you ever imagine you’d work for DC?

Bates: Not at first… but once both Mort and Julie Schwartz began using some of the cover ideas I submitted, it seemed like less and less of a stretch.

Stroud: When did you first visit the DC offices?

Bates: The summer of 1964. They were at 575 Lexington Avenue in those days.

Stroud: Did you have a favorite Silver Age story as a fan?

Bates: Way too many to choose from. Oddly enough, I was a huge fan of both Mort and Julie’s books. Even though their approaches were vastly different in many ways, both editors were ‘old school’ when it came to story hooks. They preferred to start with a strong cover first, then sit down with a writer to work out the plot to go with it. I supplied cover ideas for all my early scripts for both editors. But certain stories of theirs were direct inspirations for stories of mine. For example, Julie and Gardner Fox came up with “Flash of Two Worlds”(which introduced Jay Garrick and Earth-Two), and that in turn led me to create Earth Prime (see below).

Stroud: How about a favorite that you wrote?

Bates: I’ve always had a fondness for “Flash: Fact or Fiction” which introduced the concept of Earth Prime. In fact I just wrote a “sequel” of sorts (guest-starring Julie Schwartz again) some forty years later for the Justice League Retroactive 70’s book that DC put out this summer. And the double-sized Flash #300 I did with Carmine [Infantino], which was an overview of Flash’s entire career wrapped up in a macabre plot that posited a hospitalized Barry Allen wrapped in bandages, who it turns out, was struck by lightning years ago in his police lab... and was now discovering that his entire life as the Flash was a fantasy he created to help him forget he is paralyzed and bed-ridden.

DC Comics Presents (1978) #10, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Ross Andru & Dick Giordano.

For Mort, one of my favorites was a three-part story for Action Comics where the Time Trapper sent Superman on a one way trip into the future much farther than anyone has ever gone before, so far in fact, time finally looped on itself and Superman’s life began all over again. I can’t speak for Mort but for me this story was definitely influenced by Kubrick’s 2001, which had just come out the year before.

Stroud: You wrote in many genres, superhero, Western, mystery, etc. Did you have a favorite?

Bates: Probably super-heroes… though I always enjoy trying to pull off genre mash-ups. In retrospect I never thought the Superman villain Terra Man that Julie and I created ever quite worked on all cylinders. I had much the same feeling watching “Cowboys and Aliens”, which I felt was a not-entirely-successful 2011 attempt to combine westerns and science-fiction.

Stroud: Was there a storyline or lines you wanted to tell that were rejected?

Bates: Oh sure. One that comes to mind was a pre-John Byrne proposal for a Superman reboot that would have seen Superman clinically die and be brought back to life… only to discover he had been ‘de-powered’ and had partial amnesia, in essence “erasing” much of his past history (at least from his mind, anyway). In general it had some of the elements of the Byrne version but without resorting to a total continuity wipe of all the Weisinger stuff.

Stroud: It seems Mort Weisinger had a problem with the hippie culture at the time. True?

Bates: I never discussed it with him, but yeah, you could say he had “issues” with the younger generation. Whenever I came up to the DC offices to see him, he insisted I wear a tie (and I believe this rule was applied to [Jim] Shooter as well). Mort once told me he didn’t want Jack Liebowitz (DC’s owner back in the day) to walk by his office to see him talking to some “hippie”. But on the plus side at least he didn’t ask me to get a haircut.

Stroud: Did you create any characters?

Bates: During the Silver Age, several Legionnaires and few Superman villains (Faora, Terra Man, Captain Strong, etc.). Most of the original characters I came up with appeared in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s (Steve Lombard, the Captain Atom supporting cast, a few new Flash villains and supporting characters).

Captain Atom (1987) #1, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Pat Broderick.

Stroud: Among the superhero books you worked on did you have a preference?

Bates: I was always partial to Superman and Flash, which is probably no surprise to anyone given my long tenures with both characters.

Stroud: Many artists interpreted your stories, such as Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, Ross Andru and Kurt Shaffenberger. Who did you feel the best job interpreting your scripts?

Bates: I especially enjoyed my Superman and Flash stories with Swan and Infantino, since I was a big fan of both artists when I was reading DC comics as a kid. Curt must’ve drawn close to two hundred of my Superman stories and Carmine did the last several years of Flash’s run with me. But in retrospect though I will say it might have been better for my career if I had worked with a wider range of artists, especially some of the younger up-and-comers of the era.

Stroud: You were pretty much exclusive to DC, but did a little work for Marvel and Warren. What were the differences in the companies?

Bates: The non-DC work was either limited or short-lived. At Warren I was writing occasional stories over a two-year period and only had contact with the editor, Louise Simonson. At Marvel, I was working exclusively with Bob Harras, writing fill-ins on a few of the New Universe titles before the whole line was cancelled. I was exclusive to DC at the time I was doing Warren stories, so I had to get a special rider attached to my contract. The New Universe stuff came along after I had lost both Superman and Flash as regular assignments, so it helped fill in the gaps while I was ramping up Captain Atom and Silverblade at DC.

Stroud: Which editors did you enjoy working with?

Bates: I got along well with just about all of them, but I’ll probably always remember Julie as the one who was the most entertaining. As I mentioned I got to revisit Earth-Prime when I was asked to write the 70’s edition of the DC Retroactive JLA… so I gave Julie a big guest starring role. Maybe it was because my four years with Mort had prepared me for anything, but for the most part I was able to get along with just about every editor I was teamed with, including grizzled veterans like Murray Boltinoff and Bob Kanigher, who rarely end up on anyone’s favorites list.

Adventure Comics (1938) #381, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Curt Swan & Neal Adams.

Stroud: You wrote Superman #200, one of my all-time favorites, and Superman #300, another favorite. Was that by chance or by design?

Bates: Not really…it just turned out my tenure on the character was long enough for me to be there for both of those landmark issues. I believe #200 was Wayne Boring’s very last Superman story… and #300 (which I co-wrote with Elliot Maggin) was the story that Mark Millar went on record as saying served as the inspiration for his “Superman Red Son” graphic novel.

Stroud: You followed the Gardner Fox notion of writing Julie and other “Earth Prime” characters into comics. Cary Bates even became a super villain. Was that enjoyable or did it make it harder to plot?

Bates: While Julie and Gardner Fox both appeared in a Strange Adventures one off story in 1962, I believe I was the first person to write Julie into DC continuity when I created Earth-Prime (Flash #179, “Flash: Fact or Fiction”). At the time I had recently started working for Mort, who tended to be very territorial with his writers but he made an exception to “loan” me out to his long-time friend Julie. It was the first story I ever wrote for Schwartz ( in the summer of 1967, though it didn’t appear until the following year). The story has been reprinted many times but for some reason one of those reprint versions erroneously placed Fox’s name over my credit.

Stroud: You’ve been depicted a couple of times by artists, to include Dick Dillin and Kurt Shaffenberger. Who did you the most justice, so to speak?

Bates: Maybe the Irv Novick version. It appeared in a 70’s Flash story where I ventured to Earth-One.

Stroud: Whose idea was the photo cover featuring you, [Bob] Rozakis, [Nelson] Bridwell, Jack C. Harris and Carl Gafford on Superman #289?

Bates: I can recall the four of us and a photographer traipsed over to Park Avenue on a cold winter’s day for that shoot, but I have no idea who came up with the notion of putting real people on the cover.

Justice League of America (1960) #124 pg.7

Stroud: Was writing Hercules different from writing other mythological stories?

Bates: Not so much. The main attraction of that assignment was getting a chance to work with Walt Simonson. I think I only did two or three issues with him before it was cancelled.

Stroud: You were one of the new young writers and even followed Jim Shooter on the Legion. Did you feel at all intimidated?

The Flash (1959) #179, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito.

Bates: Back then (mid-late sixties), Shooter and I were anomalies; before we came along, DC had never hired teenagers to write major books and characters. Jim and I didn’t meet until years after Mort retired, though he would tried to fan the flames of competition (and insecurity) by telling each of us the other guy was the better writer. Looking back, Shooter and I were probably resented by any number of veteran writers in their 40’s and 50’s who had been slogging away at DC for years.

Stroud: Did you have any aspirations to edit?

Bates: No. Sitting behind a desk 9 to 5 dealing with writers, artists, schedules, office politics, etc. was never something I aspired to. Toward the end of my 15 year stint on the Flash I did take on a writer-editor role, but that was to expedite matters once it had been determined the book was being phased out to accommodate Flash’s imminent death in the Crisis cross over.

Stroud: You share some co-writing credits with Elliot Maggin and Martin Pasko. How does co-writing work?

Bates: With Elliot, after we worked out the plot together I would do the panel breakdowns and then he would write the dialogue balloons. It happened at least twice… once on the two part JLA-JSA team-up that featured Earth-Prime… and an acclaimed four-part Superman story that appeared in the mid-seventies, “Who Took the Super Out of Superman”.

Stroud: Writing is a very solitary exercise. Were deadlines difficult?

Bates: It depends. When juggling two or three regular books at once, missing a deadline can cause a cascade effect that can really screw you up. For scheduling reasons most of the stuff I wrote for DC in 80’s was done in two stages… first I’d write the panel breakdowns in order to get pages to an artist ASAP… then write the dialogue balloons weeks later on top of the penciled pages. But often even when I was on time schedules would overlap so I’d be doing breakdowns for one story while dialoguing another. These days I only do full scripts… and because I don’t have to turn out several books a month, I have the luxury of taking more time on assignments. But there are always exceptions. A few months ago when I took on two of DC’s Retroactive books they were already on the fast track, and my issues were scheduled back to back… all of which meant I had just two and a half weeks to turn in two full 26-page scripts. Invariably anyone who writes comics over the long haul comes up against occasional deadline binds and you have to deliver. It just goes with the job.

Nightmask (1986) #3, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Al Milgrom.

Stroud: What enticed you to go into comics, a relatively scoffed at profession?

Bates: I started very young, submitting cover ideas that started appearing on DC covers from 1964 onward. When I sold my first script in the fall of ’66 I was a freshman in college in Ohio. My parents started having financial problems around that time, so had it not been for my writing I would not have been able to continue paying tuition… so it would not be inaccurate to say Superman put me through college. I graduated with an English degree, which would have probably led me into teaching had I stayed in the real world, but I chose to move to New York to continue writing comics full time.

Stroud: Tell me about your time at Continuity.

Bates: I rented office space there from ’75 to ’88. Several of your other interview subjects (Larry Hama, Greg Theakston) have gone into quite a bit of detail about how Continuity was a sort of an industry hub for freelancers back then, which was definitely true. I think I was the only writer there, everyone else were artists. Aside from all the comics pros that would regularly stop by, you never knew who’d you run into. I remember meeting Siegel and Shuster up there (this was when Neal [Adams] was helping them negotiate a stipend and screen credit from Warners when the first Superman movie was in production). Though Chris Reeve never showed up (to my knowledge), we’d get occasional visits from actors who were associated with comics properties, like Jack Larson (the 50’s Jimmy Olsen). Continuity is also where I first met John Haymes Newton (the original Superboy on the Salkind-Viacom syndicated series from the late ‘80’s). As it turns out, it was the Superboy series that ended by long tenure at Continuity, because the following year (’89) I moved to Florida where the series was being filmed when Ilya Salkind offered me a gig as executive story editor.

Stroud: Please tell me your memories of…Julie Schwartz.

Bates: He could be irascible and intimidating (I think he worked at it) until you got to know him, but I had a head start on just about all of my peers because our working relationship began when I was just 16. At the time I was just a fan and lettercol writer visiting the DC offices (such things were allowed back then)… but I think he was impressed by the fact I had two dozen crudely-drawn covers under my arm (out of that first batch, I think he ended up using 3 or 4 of the ideas). All in all, I worked with Julie for about 20 years consecutively, right up until the Byrne Superman revamp of the mid-eighties.

Justice League of America (1960) #123, written by Elliot S Maggin & Cary Bates. Cover by Dick Dillin.

Stroud: Mort Weisinger.

Bates: As I’ve said, Mort started my writing career. Many others have gone on record over the years how he could be an unpleasant and difficult man, but here again I guess I fared better than most… perhaps because I was just 16 when I first met him. And since he was the first editor I ever worked for, I had no one else to compare him to (except Julie).

Stroud: Jim Shooter.

Bates: As I’ve said, we didn’t actually meet until well after our respective Mort experiences. And since Jim spent the vast majority of his career at Marvel while I was at DC, we never worked together either.

Stroud: Nelson Bridwell.

Bates: I always got a kick out of Nelson’s encyclopedic knowledge of arcane facts and trivia on just about any subject you could imagine. And his range of interests extended far beyond comics. He could recite lengthy passages from Shakespeare without missing a line.

Stroud: Denny O’Neil.

Bates: I shared an office with Denny briefly at 909 Third Ave, DC’s location before the Rockefeller Center days. Because we had become friends in the 70’s, we worked well together in the 80’s when he was my editor on Captain Atom and Silverblade.

Stroud: Wayne Boring.

Bates: Never got to meet the man.

Stroud: Carmine Infantino.

House of Mystery (1951) #240 Pg.9, written by Cary Bates with art from Ruben Yandoc.

Bates: As a kid I was a huge fan of Carmine’s art on Flash, Adam Strange and Julie’s “new look” Batman, but by the time I got to know him he had traded in his drawing board to become DC’s editorial director. Years later in the ‘80’s, when he returned to penciling (and Flash, fortunately for me), it was often surreal for me to contemplate the fact I was now writing the Flash scripts that Carmine was drawing, when twenty years earlier I was just another fan who was eagerly devouring every Flash comic the day it hit the stands.

Stroud: Kurt Shaffenberger.

Bates: Only knew him as someone I’d occasionally say hi to in the halls.

Stroud: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

Bates: I don’t believe I ever met Mike, but I worked with Ross for about a year in the late ‘70’s. A real interesting guy, and someone else who had many interests outside of comics. Some of the radical tone and plot shifts that took place in my Flash stories while Ross was the editor were a direct result of his input.

Stroud: Curt Swan.

Bates: All class, a total gentleman. One of my fondest memories of Curt was when he and were flown out on the Warner corporate jet to Metropolis Illinois for the initial grand opening of their Superman exhibit. This was some time in the early ‘70’s.

Stroud: It looks like you left comics in the 80’s, but have recently been making a comeback. Did you feel you had more to contribute?

True Believers (2008) #1, written by Cary Bates. Cover by Paul Gulacy.

Bates: After being away from comics for quite a while, primarily working in TV and animation, it was quite easy for me to get back in the groove again. Maybe because the 15 years I spent doing other things recharged my batteries or something. In any event, over these past three years I created a mini-series for Marvel (True Believers)… for DC I wrote the a 144 page Last Family from Krypton, the first Elseworlds story in over a decade. And aside from the aforementioned Retroactive books I’m currently writing a creator-owned series for DC that will be out sometime in 2012. So I guess the simple answer to your question is “yes”.

Stroud: I was surprised to learn from Len Wein just how many different places a writer can work, such as video games and cartoons. Have you done any interesting work of this type?

Bates: Of the half dozen or so animated shows I worked on, Gargoyles (for Disney) was probably the most interesting. The producer was Greg Weisman, who was my co-writer on the ‘80’s Captain Atom revival. But in general, for a variety of valid and logistical reasons, you just don’t get the same degree of creative freedom in TV that you get in comics. I also worked on a few video games in the early nineties, but never made the attempt to pursue that field as a career choice.

April 03, 2019

An Interview With Sy Barry - Longtime Illustrator of The Phantom!

April 03, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Sy Barry with a Phantom illustration in Australia. — **Sy Barry** with a **Phantom** illustration in Australia.

Seymour "Sy" Barry (born March 12, 1928) is an American comic-book and comic-strip artist, best known for his work on the strip The Phantom, which he worked on for more than thirty years. The brother of comics artist Dan Barry (who drew the Flash Gordon comic strip), Sy began his professional career as his brother's art assistant. By the late 1940s, Sy was working as a freelance comic-book artist (primarily as an inker) for publishers including Lev Gleason, Timely, and National Comics. At National, he worked on features including Johnny Peril and The Phantom Stranger.

Barry went on to do assistant work on the King Features Syndicate comic strips Tarzan and Flash Gordon. He was hired by Capp Studio to draw Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, a comics pamphlet published in 1957. Upon the 1961 death of The Phantom artist Wilson McCoy, King Features hired Barry to take over that strip. Barry remained on it for more than 30 years - until his retirement in 1995.

Sy Barry, in addition to being the brother of Dan Barry, is best known for his many years of work on the Phantom syndicated daily strip, but he also did some work in the Golden Age for DC comics and others - one of the few of that era who are happily still with us. Sy celebrated his 91st birthday on the 11th of March. I see he has a website now, too. Sy was fun to talk to and is yet another first rate gentleman who had a long career with both pencil and ink.

This interview originally took place over the phone on August 21, 2011.

Treasure Comics (1945) #9, cover by Sy Barry.

Bryan Stroud: It looks like you had kind of an interesting path to becoming an artist. Would you tell me about it?

Sy Barry: I guess I always knew that I could draw. From the time that I was holding a pencil, before I could write my name, I was always sketching and drawing. The thing is that I rarely drew any of the Disney characters or cartoon characters. I was always drawing figures around me. Faces and people. I was always more interested in drawing illustrative things, even as a kid. I liked to draw very realistically and not doing humorous stuff. So that itself gave me the challenge of having to duplicate what I saw and to memorize what I saw and drawing things that I remembered and I developed a skill for being able to put down on paper things that were not in front of me.

I was always involved in art projects at school. Of course I was able to get off easy on some of the tough subjects. (Chuckle.) I would always cram for my tests, but I missed a lot of my subjects during the usual school hours working on projects and working on things like scenery on plays and special art projects. When something came up that had to be done for the school, any kind of staging or murals or all these artistic things, I was involved. In fact, one of my pieces of art was displayed in the New York City Museum of Art for half a term.

Stroud: Wow! Magnificent.

Barry: As a kid I thought it was an absolute highlight of my life. So these things, the fact that I was recognized and getting special treatment now and then really drew me to the field of art even more.

Stroud: I’m sure the encouragement was invaluable.

Barry: I had some wonderful teachers, too, who in my lowest moment spurred me on and got me going again. So those were my learning years.

Western Comics (1948) #44, cover penciled by Carmine Infantino & inked by Sy Barry.

Later I went to the School of Industrial Art, which is now the School of Art and Design in New York and many of my artist friends, several of whom have passed away, have been former students of the School of Industrial Art. Many of them landed in comics and illustration. Many illustrators also were found in the shelter and comfort of comics to start to earn some money and they began to do more realistic comic strips and comic books and became illustrators in comics rather than having to struggle and wait years to become famous as an illustrator. So comics was a wonderful shelter for not just humor, but realistic adventure formats as well.

Stroud: Ah, yes. Others have told me it was a good place to hone your skills and also to earn a living as you could get a weekly check.

Barry: Exactly. Of course, there were some rather difficult companies, very miserly companies, who made you wait months before you received your check and made you struggle and by the time you received your check it had been just about spent. So there were those difficulties you ran into with many companies. Some of the comic book companies were operating on shoestrings and they would try to get the artist to get the work going and hold them off and wait until the books got printed and on the stands and see if they sold before the poor artists got paid. Writers as well. So we had our difficulties with the publishing companies.

But there were the more respected and established companies like DC and Marvel and Ziff Davis. Hillman Publications was another pretty well established company. They were reliable.

Stroud: I remember Joe Giella telling me that Hillman was the first company he did work for at the beginning of his career.

Barry: My first job was with Famous Funnies and I must say that even though it was well known amongst the artists, it was a very difficult company to work for. That was one of the lower echelon companies, to put it nicely. (Chuckle.) You had to wait awhile before you got paid. They made it very difficult for you.

Sensation Mystery Comics (1942) #111, cover penciled by Murphy Anderson & inked by Sy Barry.

My very first job was a filler page, both pencils and inks, and the whole thing paid $15.00. It was a 7-panel page. I had to wait 3 months for that $15.00. I was all of 17 when I did it and $15.00 to me was like two weeks’ pay. We were so poor that $15.00 was a hell of a lot of money. My mother kept thinking that I was lying to her that I didn’t receive my money yet. (Chuckle.) These were the kind of things we ran into unexpectedly. We just had no idea this would happen.

Another thing that led me into comics was the fact that my older brother was in it and I saw him making money, and it seemed like an awful lot of money, even though I didn’t know that he was doing a lot of pages for that money. (Chuckle.) I mean layouts were like a dollar and a half a page, finished pencils were five dollars a page. My brother worked in a factory. It was actually on a farm. They worked in a barn. There were several artists. He and Lee Ames and Andre LeBlanc and Mort Meskin and several other young men. At that time they were in their late teens or early twenties and they were all in the same boat working in a factory.

What they would do is that a smart guy would take stories from a publisher, take a whole book from a publisher, and instead of hiring an editor and have an established office, they would take on people who would be able to put a book together. Getting writers, artists, getting inkers and band them all together and produce books.

Stroud: An assembly line process.

Barry: Yes, they would make a 35 or 40 percent commission on these books and pay out salaries and all. They paid out piecework. It was like a factory where they paid out piecework just like a shirt factory. That’s how things were done way back then. This was before the war. This was around 1939 and 1940.

Stroud: Right in the infancy of the industry.

Barry: The infancy, exactly. He (Dan Barry) was only around 17 then himself. He’d left school. He left school when he was 16-1/2 in his last year. He’d skipped a couple of times and he just couldn’t see himself finishing school. He didn’t have money and was just feeling too despondent and decided to take his art and make some money with it. And that’s what he did. He began to work at one of these factories and then he began to get his own work and eventually he worked at DC and that’s when I began to work with him when he began to take on some freelance work. I began to help him with backgrounds and I began to do some layouts for him and before I knew it I was getting work myself and so I began to cut down my work with him and eventually got my own accounts.

Strange Tales (1951) #16 pg9, art by Sy Barry.

I worked for Stan Lee and I worked for Julie Schwartz up at DC and I’m sure you know of him. Julie was a writer and an editor at DC and he was very well known.

Stroud: Yeah. He cut a wide swath for a number of years up there.

Barry: He did and he influenced a lot of artists, too. He was a pretty amazing guy. He had his shortcomings. There were things he’d be a real pain in the ass about and I’d have my little arguments with him, but he was a brilliant guy and a very efficient and effective editor. He really knew his job.

I worked in comic books for about 16 or 17 years and then from the adventure work I began to do romance stories, full stories and covers for Phyllis Reed and she was a wonderful lady to work for. Really wonderful. She did a lot of her own writing as well as getting writers to write for her. I was one of her top artists.

Then I had worked up a strip with another guy, Frank Giacoia, and we had a strip idea. At that time he was a dear friend and we worked well together…when I could get him to work. I don’t know if Joe [Giella] has told you about Frank Giacoia.

Stroud: I’ve heard stories from Carmine [Infantino].

Barry: They were on again, off again friends, Carmine and Frank. They would be friends and then have arguments and then be friends again. Their relationship was a very rocky one.

Frank was the kind of guy who was a wonderful artist, but you could not get him to sit down at the board and work. There were times when he was just totally psychologically detached from his work and he couldn’t apply himself and you couldn’t get him to apply himself and he’d have scripts lying around waiting to be done. He’d be holding off the editors and they were going crazy trying to get the work from him. So Joe and I many times had to go over and give him a hand and help him finish up his work or get layouts going for him and tighten them up. He was a good artist, but there were times when he was absolutely paralyzed. He would not be able to put a thing down on a blank piece of paper.

The Phantom: Slave Market of Mucar strip from 8-21-61, art by Sy Barry.

So he had his problems, but he and I developed a strip idea. It was a civil war strip and we had just presented it to King Features and it was under consideration. A couple of months later they called me and they asked me if I would fill in for Wilson McCoy on The Phantom because he was in the hospital. They asked me to do the dailies temporarily. So, I began to work on it, and after I delivered my first week of work, they called me and said, “Sy, this looks like Flash Gordon. It doesn’t look like the Phantom. It’s beautifully done, but it’s not at all like McCoy’s style.”

I don’t know if you remember Wilson McCoy’s style on the Phantom back in the late 50’s, up to 1961?

Panel From The Phantom: The Jungle Olympics from 9-26-93, art by Sy Barry.

Stroud: I’ve seen some examples.

Barry: Okay. Well, it was very childish looking, very un-slick and it lacked the real bold and dramatic technique that was applied in those days.

Stroud: A little simplistic, perhaps.

Barry: Very simplistic, and what they wanted was a gradual change. They wanted me to try to duplicate his style. I didn’t realize that. I thought they wanted my artwork. So they discarded it and asked me to do another week of work. So I did it much more simply and they were more satisfied with it. They were worried that the editors would see such an extreme change that they could lose papers as a result. So they wanted me to follow the style and it was just murder. It was so difficult for me to undo what I knew and work in those simplistic terms. It’s almost like being a philosophical writer and then having to go back and do childish fiction stories or children’s stories. (Laughter.)

Stroud: A giant leap backward.

Barry: You had to undo everything that you had developed. Your own technique and your own thinking and begin thinking the way this guy thought. I only gave it about three or four weeks and then it gradually became my style. So by the second month it was pretty much my own technique.

Stroud: That had to be a relief.

Adventure Comics (1938) #198, cover penciled by Curt Swan & inked by Sy Barry.

Barry: Oh, it was. I hated working that way. It took me twice as long! To do the work simply, believe it or not, took me twice as long because I had to un-think my own thinking in those terms. It was just a whole different process.

Lee Falk’s writing was marvelous. He was just a brilliant writer, but as the years went on, some of the Phantom villains would get lost on islands and never came back. The stories got distracted. The Phantom ended up someplace else and sometimes I’d call him and say, “Hey, what happened to Bababu?” This is one of the villains. “You left him on an island and he’s lost or stranded somewhere. Don’t we need to get back to him?” He’d say, “Don’t worry about it, Sy, I’m working on it.” Bullshit! He wasn’t. He’d forgotten him! (Mutual laughter.) He was totally into another story. He was working his way into another story without ending the previous story. He just forgot that he left the guy stranded there.

These were the things I was running into. He’d show an army and then the leader of this army has a certain name and then in the middle of everything he changes his name. He’s got a different name altogether and a different leader. These were the things that were beginning to happen and I was getting very worried. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: I can imagine.

Barry: Another problem I had with Lee was that he would never come through with the script that I wanted. He always kept me behind with a script. Every time I tried to take a vacation and I’d ask him to write several weeks ahead, he never did it for me. He only did it when he wanted to go away somewhere. So when he got an extra script going, I would have to try to work doubly hard to get the extra script finished so that I could take a vacation at that time.

That was the only time I was able to get my work ahead was when he was going away. So I would plan my vacations around that time. So my life was tied to his, not just by way of the scripts, but also vacations. It went beyond the work itself. So he had his way of trying to put me down and he found little things to do to try to minimize my significance on the strip. He was the power on the strip.

The Phantom (1948) #981, cover by Sy Barry.

Stroud: That’s a shame and it’s not necessary.

Barry: Our relationship was not evenly divided and I was always fighting for positioning and for the kind of credit that I deserved while he was always trying to minimize and withdraw the credit from me. It was so ridiculous and unnecessary. He had his position. He already had all the honors and accolades that he needed. He was given the sterling silver T-square and the gold T-square and the golden compass and everything for all the work that he’d done honoring the work that he’d done on the strip. So he had all the honors. Why did he have to take it away from a guy who just wanted to produce a good piece of art and contribute to the advancement of the strip?

Stroud: It makes no sense.

Barry: Not only was he egotistic, but it’s obvious that he was also insecure. He felt that I was taking a certain amount of prominence away from him. I mean he’d secured his position so solidly. He was one of the officers at the National Cartoonists Society. He never quite made president, maybe because of his personality. (Chuckle.) People could not really warm up to him. He seemed to have this paranoia about people taking away his position in comics itself.

It was well-secured, though. Everyone told him that he was a great writer and had a couple of brilliant ideas like the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician and he had everything going for him. It was definitely a sense of insecurity. There’s no question about it. You wouldn’t be trying to take little bits of popularity away from another guy who you feel might be threatening you when all he’s doing is just doing his artwork and doing his thing and helping make the strips more secure. That’s all I was trying to do. Trying to get some quality into the artwork. That was my principle, to try to get some excitement into it and I felt like I was successful in doing that, because judging from the fan mail I got and remarks from other artists, things they noticed in my artwork that were unusual and so forth helped me know that I was doing well with the strip.

Strange Adventures (1950) #2, cover penciled by Jim Mooney & inked by Sy Barry.

I never felt my own need to have to put him down. I always praised him any time I was asked about him. Publicly or privately. I praised him for having been the kind of genius he was for having developed these two strip ideas and for maintaining them and for maintaining the quality - or most of the quality anyway. (Chuckle.) Over the years it wasn’t quite as well written as it was earlier, but I always praised him for the brilliance of the concept of these strips and the fact that he kept it going for all those years.

Stroud: And what did that cost you? Absolutely nothing.

Barry: It didn’t cost me anything. He deserved his credit and I gave credit where it was due. I always did. If I felt an artist was good, even the young guys coming up, when I saw them developing I would praise them. I told how much I admired the fact that they’d made something of themselves.

There were guys that I broke into the business who later became very successful. They themselves got to do a lot of work and went on to become members of the Cartoonists Society, officer in the Cartoonists Society and not only were they grateful to me, but they were very good. I would praise them for it and years later I would see them at a Society meeting and I’d tell them of my admiration for them. I’d praise them for having made it and contributed so much to comics. Nothing was more important to me than how comics itself was doing. How well it was getting by and how well it was doing. To see young men with extreme talent creating new ideas and new concepts: I admired all this. It kept it alive. It kept it thriving with these new ideas.

I never regretted having lost some of the old techniques or regretted seeing new techniques come in and new ideas and concepts and approaches. These changes are what keep art and comics going, I think.

Stroud: I agree. For some reason you remind me of a story Mike Esposito told me about Burne Hogarth, who he’d studied under. Apparently Hogarth had a rather complicated personality, but Mike said he made it a point to tell him how much his mentoring had helped him and he said he could tell that Burne was touched.

Young Men (1950) #22 pg20, art by Sy Barry.

Barry: Oh, that’s wonderful. You see acknowledging this and making it known to the person that you feel this way; not being embarrassed to tell the person that you admired what he did or appreciated what he did and contributed to comics. Because I know what it’s like to work hard and try to establish an idea or a concept or a style. I know what it means. I know the application that’s needed for this and the difficulty and hard work and sweat that goes into it. To maintain that style and that quality is a very difficult task. When somebody acknowledges it, it’s a beautiful thing for them and they feel better. It inspired them. To hear from another artist that they like what you’re doing and especially when it’s someone you personally admire, my God, it’s so inspiring. It just gives you such a boost.

Stroud: What higher compliment could you receive?

Barry: So true. Now you spoke about Bernie Hogarth. It’s funny, because in the early days, one of the things I did with Dan was working on the Tarzan daily strip.

Stroud: I’d forgotten.

Barry: Yes, it was one of the earliest bits of freelance work that I did with Dan. He was paying me on a freelance basis. I was doing layouts for him or I would ink for him. He’d do layouts and I’d tighten them up for him and I would ink them and ink with him. It was just the Tarzan daily. We actually did it for a few years in the early 50’s just before he got Flash [Gordon].

I think he started in ’49 and left it in ’51. It was about a three-year run. I think he got Flash around the end of ’51. There, too, I helped him get a few weeks ahead on Flash. Three, too, he got started on the Flash daily, so I got to meet Alex Raymond. When I got to meet Bernie Hogarth, I went up to his studio, which was in his apartment. My brother had an apartment like that later on.

You would go into the main area of the apartment and it was one step down into the living room area, but there was also a staircase at the end of the living room that went upstairs to the bedrooms, in an apartment house, believe it or not. I don’t know how they designed this thing, but it was really remarkable. So you’d go up the staircase and there’d be a landing there and that landing would take you into the bedrooms. Then in one of the upstairs bedrooms was his studio. It was this beautiful, brightly lit studio and it was on Central Park West.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story (1958) #1, art by Sy Barry.

It was a beautiful apartment and of course he was very wealthy. He’d written anatomy books and he taught and of course they paid him very handsomely on the Tarzan daily. Trust me, he was very well paid, especially for those Sunday strips. He was a brilliant guy. My brother was pretty much an intellect, too, so they had some very good discussions and Dan could hold his own, intellectually and philosophically.

As a result, I began to read up on some of the things they would discuss, like the philosophers and their early writings and I began to study the Greeks so it rubbed off a little on me. I guess it never hurts. I felt that a little learning was not a dangerous thing. (Mutual laughter.) It can even be a very useful thing.

Stroud: It was probably good grist for the mill on your work down the road.

Barry: Absolutely.

Stroud: It looks like most of your work in the comic industry was pre-Comics Code. Do you think the Code made much of an impact on the industry from your perspective?

Barry: I’ll tell you about those days. During the time that they began to use the Code there was a lot of horror artwork that was being produced. A lot of horror stories and new horror books were coming out all the time. In fact, little tiny publishing houses began to open and turn out these horror stories, paying very little and producing some of the ugliest stories you’d ever want to see. I mean, you’d be horrified by them, which was the purpose of the story, of course, but it upset me very badly, because to me it just represented a terrible deterioration of comics itself and what direction it was going.

Loving comics so much and just admiring every facet of it, as well as the artists themselves; some of my best buddies having to do this kind of work in order to make a living. It so disturbed me. At the time I was working up at DC and DC wouldn’t touch this stuff.

Marvel, or Timely back then was a company that always seemed to be on a rollercoaster. It would produce something like 50 books at a time, and they paid their artists and paid them well, and they had wonderful new ideas all the time. In fact, DC would take 3 or 4 years to develop the same idea that Marvel would use. They (DC) waited awhile, taking a more cautious and conservative approach. But, they were successful because of their caution.

Sy Barry working on a strip, circa 1970.

But Marvel always had these new ideas and new concepts and eventually it began to pay off, but the way they would present these ideas way back then in the 50’s is that they would produce a great deal of books suddenly, flooding the market with them, to try to have some impact on DC. They were always competing with DC. So these books would sell in the beginning and then after a couple of months these books were just being left on the stands and they would start to lose money on them, so of course they dropped them. They would go down to like 20 books. Then they would stay on that level and then a year or two later, they’d flood the market all over again. (Chuckle.)

It would always be some new idea. “War stories! We’ll do war stories!” And they would begin to influence the market, and they did this all the time. And before you knew it, about six months later, DC is starting to produce war stories. So their editor, who used to do science fiction, and was buying science fiction scripts and art, suddenly was beginning to change to war stories.

The next thing you know these armies from other planets started coming to our planet and they’re starting wars with us and before you knew it, we got into soldier’s uniforms again. (Mutual laughter.) From futuristic uniforms to present-day uniforms and we’re back in Korea. You’d see some of their best artists working on the war titles. Then Two-Fisted Comics came in with Harvey Kurtzman’s crew over at EC comics.

Stroud: Classic stuff.

Barry: Jack Davis was there, too, and was one of their best artists. What a wonderful artist he was.

Stroud: When you were doing your work, did you use much reference?

Barry: I did. I had my own file and called it my morgue. Particularly for my Phantom work, I had past stories that I could refer to with villains until I developed some of my own. I certainly did use reference for particular places and vehicles and planes and things like that. I needed a lot of reference, so I had a pretty thorough file. In those days, of course, we didn’t have the internet. Now I don’t even need those files. I gave them away because all I have to do is get onto Google for all the reference I need.

Stroud: It has become a game changer.

Barry: It changed things radically, and there are caches of information and links providing thousands of sources of information.

Stroud: Yes, Nick Cardy was telling me that he doesn’t have a computer, but is familiar with how it works and he compared it to getting stuck in a revolving door with no way out.

The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog (1952) #11, cover penciled by Gil Kane & inked by Sy Barry.

Barry: (Chuckle.) That’s right, because the more you research, the more you find. It can make it a challenge to find THE picture that you want to use or THE area that you want to use. What I always tried to do was to take several pieces of reference and then make my composition out of it. I never just stole something cold. It’s not a good idea. You leave yourself vulnerable for a plagiarism suit or something if you aren’t careful.

I used a lot of material from libraries and of course I had 60 years of National Geographic at my disposal as well. I’d also taken the time and effort to make a separate index to help me find things when I needed them. What year and what issue. That kind of thing. You couldn’t afford to spend all your time sifting through 60 years of magazines to find an elephant in the jungles of Africa.

Stroud: I have some reprints of classic stories you worked on and I know you did some work on Superboy, but you seemed to do mostly non-superhero characters. Was that by choice or assignment?

Barry: It just happened to be the story that was written at the time. I had no influence over which stories I would take. I did work on Curt Swan’s wonderful pencils and I did work with Jerry Robinson. In fact, I finished a story when Jerry became ill and finished up a Batman story he’d done. He was, of course, very attached to that character. In fact, he developed the Joker. I got to know him way back. He was a friend of my brother’s and I got to know him. Dan moved out of the country for a while and I got to see Jerry every so often. Just a lovely guy, and he’s still around.

Stroud: Yes, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with him a few times and of course he’s been very heavily involved in the Cartoonist’s Associations and other activities.

Barry: He always was. He was always interested in and worked on social issues and credit and compensation for reprints and all those things he felt artists and writers had earned and deserved. He worked very heavily to try and improve our lot. A lot of it came to pass, too.

Stroud: I think the title of his new book puts it very well: “Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics.”

The Phantom Stranger (1952) #1 Carmine Infantino Sy Barry

Barry: He really is and he knows how to speak. He knows how to handle both sides. He could deal with publishers and executives and how to deal with artists, too, because artists can be very individual. To try to get individual heads together is a very difficult task.

He helped to form a guild many years ago, back in the early 50’s, he and a few of the other guys I knew. One of them we shared an office with and they began the guild and it was working for a while, but then again, the individualism of the artists forced it to break up. Thank heavens other things were happening to help artists get their commissions and royalties on reprints. That’s been a wonderful thing.

You’re probably wondering why I retired. I began to run into more and more problems with Lee [Falk] and there were more and more battles with the scripts and what have you. Also, productively and creatively I felt like I was running into a brick wall. I couldn’t produce any more. I was physically getting tired of it and emotionally getting unhappy with what I was doing and I felt no desire to continue doing something I was unhappy with.

At the time I was beginning to paint and I was enjoying doing that and that’s when I began to think, “I’ve had enough.”

Stroud: Well, if the joy has gone out of it, what’s the point?

Barry: Right, and I recognized that and I’m not unhappy that I did that.

Stroud: After a 33-year run I can’t imagine there’s anything to regret.

Barry: Exactly. 33 years is a long time. I think if he’d been a different kind of individual and collaborated and worked with me I would have been a lot happier and still been on the strip.

As a side note, Joe [Giella] and I worked together in comic books where he collaborated with me on stories and he worked on my strip, too.

Stroud: I was going to ask you about that. I think the world of Joe.

Man Comics (1949) #25 pg1, art by Sy Barry.

Barry: We’re dear friends. In fact, we went to high school together.

Stroud: I didn’t realize that.

Barry: Yes. Joe and I and Emilio Squeglio, another artist and Al Skaduto who did “They’ll Do It Every Time,” and he passed away about 3 years ago. We miss him dearly. The four of us were very, very close friends and we still are. I just spoke to Emilio the other day. He worked on Captain Marvel for Fawcett Publications.

Stroud: One final thing, Mr. Barry. I ran across a beautiful rendering of the Phantom that you’d done where he’s unmasked. Now is it me or does he look just a little bit like Sy Barry?

Barry: (Laughter.) Do you think so? I don’t know if you have a picture of me, but he doesn’t look like Sy Barry, that’s for sure.

Stroud: Well, your self-portrait and some of the photos I’ve seen show a pretty handsome man, so I just wondered…

Barry: (Laughter.) Thank you. No, no. It was just a face I was trying to produce that should have looked like this when the mask was off. And the funny thing is that you never see his eyes and so I’d never developed what his eyes look like and they’re such an important part of the face.

In fact, Bill Lignante tried putting eyes on the Phantom in the Sunday strip before I started. He was temporarily doing the Sunday and I was doing the daily and when he tried putting eyes in there it caused such a terrible reaction. The nerve of the man. What gall. (Mutual laughter.) I think he was trying to get some attention.

Stroud: He got it!

Self Portrait With The Phantom and Flash Gordon, drawn by Sy Barry.

March 27, 2019

An Interview With John Calnan - A Comics Artist Too Often Forgotten

March 27, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

John Calnan (born February 1932) was an American comic artist for DC Comics who illustrated titles such as Superman, Metamorpho, and Batman - where he co-created the character Lucius Fox. Calnan got his start in the industry by inking Lone Ranger comics for Dell Publications only a short while after attending the School of Visual Arts (where he was instructed by Jerry Robinson). He also did some work for Classics Illustrated and worked in the field of advertising.

Skilled as both a penciler and an inker, Calnan worked with some of the greats in the industry - including Dick Giordano, Rich Buckler, and Tex Blaisdell.

John retired in 1996, but continued doing side jobs and the occasional commission.

Mr. Calnan passed away on December 27, 2016 at the age of 84.

John Calnan was not as well known as some of his peers, but he did a lot of work, some uncredited, on such features as Metamorpho, Batman and some ghosting on some daily strips. He was a gentleman through and through and I was very saddened when his bride called to tell me he'd passed away. Generous guy that he was, he gifted me with a piece of original art that I treasure. I was also able to incorporate him into a feature for BACK ISSUE before he left us and that was very gratifying.

This interview originally took place over the phone on July 12, 2011.

World's Finest Comics (1941) #232, cover penciled by Ernie Chan & inked by John Calnan.

Bryan Stroud: Mr. Calnan, thanks for taking some time for me.

John Calnan: Please call me John. By the way, how did you get my name?

Stroud: You know, I’m a bit fuzzy, but I stumbled across something online where the rumors of your death had been somewhat exaggerated.

Calnan: That’s right. It was two or three years ago and I got a call from someone saying, “Hey, we’d heard you were supposed to be dead.” He called very nicely and asked my wife, “Can I speak to John?” He was wondering whether I would answer or not. I did answer. (Chuckle.) So I managed to straighten that out pretty quickly.

Stroud: Good! So how did your career as a cartoonist begin?

Calnan: Well, I graduated high school and then went to the School of Visual Arts, which at that time was the cartoonists and illustrators school where I met Tom Gill and inked The Lone Ranger and also worked on other Westerns, including Cheyenne. So that was my introduction into the field.

From there I just sort of progressed along until I found myself doing a little bit of work for Classics Illustrated and then I started doing work for advertising agencies.

Stroud: That was a big leap back in the day. It seems like if someone could get that kind of work they’d leave comics in a heartbeat.

Calnan: Yeah, I just sort of did that very thing. I let them go and I was working on staff. Then around 1966 I started doing a few more of them and then I again stopped and went to another agency and one of the guys there who knew some people over at DC suggested I show my stuff over there. So I began doing some work for DC while I was still on staff at the ad agency.

DC Special (1968) #25, cover by John Calnan.

Stroud: So, you sort of bounced back and forth a little bit.

Calnan: Yeah, I became an advertising art director and TV producer for agencies and still kept the comic work on the side.

Stroud: Goodness knows the life of a freelancer is far from secure, so hedging your bets was probably a good thing.

Calnan: I worked all the way up through the early 80’s with the agencies and then I went completely freelance. I kept my hand in on the comics and also freelanced on advertising work.

Stroud: Obviously you made a career out of it.

Calnan: A pretty good career, I think. I retired in 1996.

Stroud: So, your career began in the 60’s?

Calnan: Right in the beginning of the 60’s, yes. As I mentioned earlier I was inking over Tom Gill on The Lone Ranger, but you probably won’t see my name anywhere. Dell Publications at the time didn’t give any credits at all no matter who was working on it.

Stroud: I think that was the case for pretty much all the publishers for years. Speaking of inking, you inked over some pretty good names at DC like Dick Dillin…

Calnan: I loved his work. I inked over his work quite a few times. That was a really easy job.

Stroud: I understand he did very tight pencils.

Calnan: That’s right.

Batman (1940) #307 pg3, penciled by John Calnan & inked by Dick Giordano. The first appearance of Lucius Fox. — Batman (1940) #307 pg3, penciled by John Calnan & inked by Dick Giordano. The first appearance of **Lucius Fox**.

Stroud: I think I read somewhere that he put so much detail into his work that they wondered how he made a nickel at it.

Calnan: I think we were all wondering that. (Chuckle.) He must have used both hands at the same time.

Stroud: In fact, it seems like he didn’t use paste-ups for logos and such.

Calnan: I don’t recall ever seeing any paste-ups on his pages.

Stroud: He must have been fast.

Calnan: Some guys were. I won’t mention who, but I knew one guy who could pencil five pages in a day.

Stroud: I’ve heard that legend told of two men just off the top of my head: Jack Kirby and Mike Sekowsky.

Calnan: I guess you did hear about it then.

Stroud: Joe Giella called Mike “The Speed Merchant.”

Calnan: (Chuckle.) That’s a good definition.

Stroud: How long did it usually take you to do a page, John?

Calnan: Considering the fact that I worked all day, it took me quite a few hours at night to do it, because I wouldn’t get home until about 7 o’clock at night. I’d have dinner and then get to work. I was still doing freelance work for the agencies at that time, too, so I’d sometimes have to prioritize. “I can’t do a page tonight. I’ll have to do it tomorrow night.” Still, I delivered the story on time.

Stroud: Burning the candle at both ends.

Calnan: Yeah, I did quite a bit of that.

World's Finest Comics (1941) #243, cover penciled by Rich Buckler & inked by John Calnan.

Stroud: From what others have told me it seems to be an occupational hazard. I know for a few of them night time was the only time they could work without distractions or interruptions.

Calnan: I fortunately had a very tolerant wife.

Stroud: I see you did a fair amount of penciling, too.

Calnan: I penciled all my Batman stuff.

Stroud: Yes, and it looks like Tex Blaisdell worked with you a lot as an inker.

Calnan: Yes and Dick Giordano did some, too.

Stroud: Dick was really fantastic.

Calnan: He was great. I wish I’d had him all the time.

Stroud: No less than Neal Adams told me that Dick was his best inker at DC.

Calnan: Dick had a great faculty for inking sort of in the style of the penciler. So the pencil work wasn’t lost. There were one or two guys out there that if you handed them the story it came out looking like his work instead of anybody else’s.

Stroud: Another notable collaborator was Rich Buckler.

Calnan: Yes, I think I inked Buckler at least a couple of times.

Stroud: I noticed on an issue of “Ghosts” you got to draw none other than James Dean.

Calnan: (Laughter.) You’ve done your homework.

Ghosts (1971) #44 pg28, art by John Calnan.

Ghosts (1971) #44 pg29, art by John Calnan.

Ghosts (1971) #44 pg30, art by John Calnan.

Stroud: I try.

Calnan: I worked on so many different things at DC. It’s amazing I got that much work out of them. I did war books, Young Love, Unexpected, Witching Hour, Ghosts, Teen Titans, I did some stuff on Superman.

Stroud: It looks like you got to work on a lot of the major characters, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and even Metamorpho, the Element Man.

World's Finest Comics (1941) #220 pg6, original art by John Calnan.

Calnan: I had Metamorpho for a year and half or something like that. One thing nice about him was that you couldn’t screw his figure up because he kept changing so much.

Stroud: (Laughter.) Of course Ramona Fradon was the original artist on that book and she said she loved the goofiness of the character.

Calnan: I think I got it shortly after she left to do her syndicated strip. (Brenda Starr) I remember thinking, “Gee, I’ve got to change completely for this one.” But it turned out to be a lot of fun working on it.

Stroud: Did you have a favorite scripter you liked to work with?

Calnan: No real stand outs. Most all of them were pretty good and I had no problems with anybody.

Stroud: Did you have a preference between penciling and inking?

Calnan: Oh, yeah, I prefer the penciling for the simple reason that everything had to look spic and span perfect by the time the inker left it, whereas if there’s some little thing wrong as a penciler, the inker could come along and straighten it out. I won’t tell you who, but I had a prime example. There was a story I had to ink for one artist and all his major figures were about 5’4”. So I had to go through the story and lengthen the majority of them. That takes up a little extra time.

Stroud: Sure, and time is money in that world.

Calnan: Oh, yes. So, anyway, I can’t say anything wrong about National Periodicals. They were great and they just kept feeding me work and I was quite happy with it.

Stroud: I believe it comes through in your work. I looked at a handful of examples and it all looked like terrific stuff.

Calnan: Thank you. In quite a few cases the inker made me look good. There were so many books I forget all that I worked on.

Stroud: Did you ever read anyone else’s books?

Batman Family (1975) #10, cover penciled by Bob Brown & inked by John Calnan.

Calnan: Several come to mind. I enjoyed the work of Jim Aparo, Joe Kubert, Dick Dillin, Rich Buckler and of course Neal Adams. I liked the Green Lantern/Green Arrow books. That was a great series.

Stroud: I liked it, too. Even after Neal Adams left it.

Calnan: I didn’t really follow it after that.

Stroud: It’s interesting how characters evolve. I asked Jerry Robinson where or even how he thought Batman could go after 70 years.

Calnan: Jerry Robinson. When did you speak to him?

Stroud: I spoke to him last just a few weeks ago to let him know about Lew Schwartz passing away.

Calnan: Is he still working?

Stroud: Not as a cartoonist, but he stays busier than any three men between his National Cartoonist Society work and his recent books and other activities.

Calnan: He wouldn’t remember me, but he was one of my instructors at the School of Visual Arts, back when it was still called the School of Cartoonists and Illustrators. Jerry was a very good instructor and gave some valuable tips about cartooning work.

Stroud: How about that? He told me about some of his students who went on to make a name for themselves to include Steve Ditko, Stan Lynde and Stan Goldberg.

Calnan: Unfortunately I never met any of them.

Stroud: Well, in the case of Steve Ditko, hardly anyone has. (Chuckle.) He keeps a very low profile.

Calnan: I guess that sort of brings you up to date on me. I’m retired, but not really retired. I’ve got so many requests for paintings and drawings that I keep busy. I generally have a listing of what I need to do right on the drawing board here.

Witching Hour (1969) #16 pg2, penciled by John Calnan & inked by Bernie Case.

Stroud: So, are you doing commission work?

Calnan: I haven’t had commission work for a little while now. I’ve been doing favor paintings I guess you might say. I just did one with 37 figures in it with a hellish scene at the bottom and a more heavenly one at the top. And I’ve been asked to do a city scene by a mountain in Italy. Fortunately I’ll have photo reference for that one.

Stroud: Good for you. I know some of your peers have done the same, by going into painting. Al Plastino has sent me copies of some of his paintings and Frank Springer was doing them before he passed away.

Calnan: Joe Giella really loves to paint.

Stroud: He told me that. I’d love to see some of his work.

Calnan: I saw one he did of the Phantom and he is quite the painter.

Stroud: One thing I neglected to ask is that so many cartoonists got into the field because they were fans of strips as kids. Would you categorize yourself there?

Calnan: Absolutely. I was an avid reader of comic books and strips.

Stroud: Any particular favorites that leap to mind?

Calnan: Prince Valiant, of course. And the thing about Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is that he had an original hanging up in our school on exhibit. We’re talking the 1950’s. At the time it sold for $300.00, which today I guess would probably be around $4,000.00 in today’s dollars.

What really impressed me though was the sheer size of the page. It must have been 20” x 30”. It was about the size of a drawing board all by itself. Such beautiful work.

World's Finest Comics (1941) #235, cover penciled by Ernie Chan & inked by John Calnan.

Stroud: I’ve wondered just how many careers Hal Foster started without even suspecting it. He’s mentioned consistently as an influence along with Milt Caniff and sometimes Roy Crane and Van Buren. I actually have an original Abbie ‘n Slats. So much great stuff and I wonder where it’s all going in the computer age.

Calnan: It’s all going that direction and I think it won’t be long before newspapers are out of it completely.

Stroud: Kindles and iPads are changing the world of the printed page it seems.

Calnan: The digital medium has really been a game changer. Animated film times have been cut in half at least.

Stroud: Did I neglect anything? Was there a genre you enjoyed over the others during your career?

Calnan: Well, to make a dollar it was whatever came along. (Chuckle.) But I still prefer working on comics.

Stroud: Is it correct that you worked on the Catholic Treasure Chest series of educational comic books?

Calnan: I don’t believe I did any work for them.

Stroud: Okay. There’s some misinformation out there, it seems.

Calnan: Now I did do some things for a Catholic organization in the Midwest, but that was little spot illustrations. No comics. I don’t recall the name of the publication, but I’m sure it wasn’t Treasure Chest.

Stroud: If I’m not being too personal, how old are you, John?

Calnan: In February I turned 79.

Stroud: You’re still a young man.

Calnan: Well, my doctor says that cartoonists keep working…even after they’re dead.

March 20, 2019

An Interview With Frank Thorne - Red Sonja Artist & Wizard at Large

March 20, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Frank Thorne posing with a Red Sonja statue.

Frank Thorne poses with a Red Sonja cosplayer, 1976.

Frank Thorne (born June 16, 1930) is an American comic book artist-writer, best known for the Marvel Comics character Red Sonja. Beginning his career as an artist in the 1940's, Frank turned out a multitude of stories for Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, The Green Hornet, Tom Corbett Space Cadet, Tomahawk, Mighty Samson, Enemy Ace and numerous others.

Red Sonja was originally a minor Robert E. Howard 16th-century gunslinger character ("Red Sonya") who was made a mainstay of the sword and sorcery Conan canon by Roy Thomas. After the character was spun off into a solo feature, Thorne succeeded penciler Dick Giordano in drawing her for Marvel Feature (1975) #2, continuing through most of her 1977-79 solo series, Red Sonja.

Thorne went on to create a number of erotic fantasy comics and characters, alongside his other works. These include creating, writing and drawing the features "Moonshine McJugs" for Playboy; "Lann" in Heavy Metal; and "Danger Rangerette" in National Lampoon, as well as several others.

It was a short, right-to-the-point sort of interview with Frank Thorne, but even at that, his rich sense of humor shows through.

This interview originally took place via email on June 21, 2011.

Marvel Feature (1975) #2, cover by Frank Thorne.

Bryan Stroud: According to my research you started in 1948 at Standard Comics doing romance work. True?

Frank Thorne: My ignoble career started in the pulps, before Standard.

Stroud: Comics wasn't the most respectable profession back in the day. What led you there.

Thorne: All I ever wanted to be was a cartoonist

Stroud: Did you attend an art school? If so, which one?

Thorne: The Art Career School, atop the Flatiron Building at 23rd and 5th in Manhattan.

Stroud: You've been a penciler, inker and writer. Is any of those roles a favorite?

Thorne: I prefer to do it all

Stroud: What other artists have influenced you?

Thorne: Alex Raymond, Hal Foster, and Neil O'Keefe.

Stroud: You've worked for virtually everyone in the business, from DC and Marvel to Dell, Warren, Gold Key, Seaboard, Archie and Dynamite. Where did you feel most comfortable? How did the companies contrast?

Thorne: I NEVER worked for Dynamite, they just reprinted all my Sonja stories, without permission or recompense. I did but one series for Marvel--Red Sonja.

Adventure Comics (1938) #434 pg.1, art penciled by Frank Thorne and inked by Jim Aparo.

Stroud: When you worked at Marvel, were they giving you Marvel style scripts? If so, how did you like those as compared to a full script?

Thorne: Never worked in the "Marvel Style"; always a written script.

Stroud: Did you have any favorite collaborators as far as writers?

Thorne: Roy Thomas was the best.

Stroud: How about editors?

Thorne: Roy Thomas and Joe Kubert.

Stroud: Are the legends about Robert Kanigher true?

Thorne: Don’t know any, but he was a damn good writer

Stroud: You've worked in many different genres, to include adventure, war, mystery, horror, sword and sorcery, jungle and western. Do you have a favorite?

Thorne: I LOVE drawing women.

Stroud: Much like Russ Heath, you've not done any superhero work. Is that a conscious decision?

Thorne: I don't like superheroes.

Stroud: The list of characters you've worked on is pretty impressive. Flash Gordon, Green Hornet, Conan, Red Sonja, Dracula, Moby Dick, Tarzan, The Phantom and Enemy Ace to name just a few. Were there any restrictions with how you could portray them or did you feel pretty free to do what you wanted?

Thorne: They always gave me leeway.

Dr. Guy Bennett daily strip from 4-8-60, art by Frank Thorne. — **Dr. Guy Bennett** daily strip from 4-8-60, art by Frank Thorne.

Stroud: You've done syndicated strip work on Perry Mason. How did that come about?

Red Sonja (1977) #10, cover by Frank Thorne.

Thorne: I was 20 years old and walked in to King Features with my samples, they gave me the Perry Mason Daily and Sunday.

Stroud: Was it a good gig? A strip seemed to be the holy grail back in the day.

Thorne: The pay was huge! We bought a house and a yellow convertible.

Stroud: What was your typical production rate?

Thorne: I knocked the daily and Sunday (which I hand colored) each week for near two years.

Stroud: Who were your friends in the business?

Thorne: Hy Eisman who writes and draws Popeye and the Katzenjammer Kids these days, and Fred Fredericks who writes and draws Mandrake.

Stroud: The life of a freelancer can be tough, but you've hung in there for decades. Any regrets?

Thorne: Better hand-to-mouth than 9-to-5

Stroud: Are there any characters you'd have liked to work on, but didn't get the opportunity?

Thorne: "Buffy" by "Dementia"!

Stroud: Do you think the industry will survive? Sales seem to be slumping.

Thorne: Comics will always be around, in some form or other.

Stroud: What do you think of the television and movie adaptations of comic book characters? Have you seen good or poor examples, in your opinion?

Moonshine McJugs, drawn by Frank Thorne.

Thorne: Superman 2 was good, Hellboy great, Spider-Man so-so. I don't watch many comic book movies. I love "The Whole Wide World"; a semi fact tale of REH. (Robert E. Howard.)

Stroud: Do you still attend conventions and are you still The Wizard?

Thorne: Haven't attended a con in decades. Nobody but Bryan Stroud would remember me. I've hung up my wizard's hat

Stroud: Are you doing commission work?

Thorne: Yes, Mighty Nib is my agent.

Stroud: Any plans to retire?

Thorne: Never hadda job, so how can I retire?

Stroud: What job has given you the most satisfaction?

Thorne: "Moonshine McJugs" (Playboy) is my favorite. I've been contributing to Playboy since 1980.

Stroud: Did you expect this to be your career, meaning as an illustrator?

Thorne: I hoped it would be, but even if illustrative I'm ever a cartoonist.

Stroud: Any advice for those who want to break in today?

Thorne: Keepa drawin' realistically, and THEN head for Henti, or whatever, preferably your own style.

Stroud: Do you use the computer at all or still working by hand?

Thorne: I work by hand, but the computer is the greatest research tool in the Universe!

Stroud: What are your preferred tools of the trade?

Thorne: Strathmore 2 ply 500 series vellum, Hunt’s 102 crow quill pen points, and Dr. Martin's TECH dyes

Stroud: What's your process when composing a page?

Thorne: A CLOSE-UP on every page makes them work.

Although he is best known for his talents in drawing women, Mr. Thorne’s horror art is also to be held very highly. Reproduced here in it’s entirety is the story “Pingo!” from House of Mystery (1951) #221. Written by Michael Fleisher with art by Frank Thorne.

Frank Thorne (as the Wizard) poses with a Ghita cosplayer. — Frank Thorne (as the Wizard) poses with a **Ghita** cosplayer.

March 13, 2019

An Interview With Nick Cardy - A Prolific Cover Artist for DC's Silver Age

March 13, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Nicholas Viscardi (born on October 20, 1920), known professionally as Nick Cardy and Nick Cardi, was an American comics artist best known for his DC Comics work on Aquaman and the Teen Titans. Cardy was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005. As did many early comics professionals, Cardy entered the comics field working for Eisner & Iger, a company founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. Joining the studio circa 1940, he worked on Fight Comics, Jungle Comics, Kaanga Comics, and Wings for Fiction House Publications. Nick did World War II military service from 1943 to 1945, earning two Purple Hearts for wounds suffered as a tank driver in the armored cavalry. In 1950, Cardy began his decades-long association with DC Comics, starting with the comic book Gang Busters. He began developing his breakout reputation with Tomahawk, his most prominent series at the time. From 1962–1968, he drew the first 39 issues of Aquaman, and all its covers through the final issue (#56). Cardy first drew the Teen Titans in The Brave and the Bold #60, wherein the superhero sidekicks Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad were joined by Wonder Woman's younger sister Wonder Girl in her first appearance. When the team was spun off into their own series with Teen Titans (1966) #1, Cardy penciled or inked (sometimes both) all 43 issues of the series. Cardy also drew the fondly remembered but short-lived, quirky Western series Bat Lash - about an expert gunslinger who was nonetheless a dandy.

Mr. Cardy died of congestive heart failure on November 3, 2013.

Nick Cardy was an absolute titan (no pun intended) of the Silver Age and I tried for a long time to track him down. Unfortunately, while the vast, vast majority of folks in our hobby are stellar and helpful, you also run across the occasional self-appointed gatekeeper and such was the case with Nick. I was told that he didn't like doing interviews and that he was kind of shy and everything had been said and other assorted horse-feathers, but when a friend who knew I'd been trying to reach him suggested a particular avenue, the onion began to peel. That person referred me to another, who referred me to another, who helped set up this interview and what a treat it was. For a "shy" person, Nick had plenty to share and was so friendly and gracious. It's one of my favorites.

This interview originally took place over the phone on April 15, 2011.

Bat Lash (1968) #1, cover by Nick Cardy.

Bryan Stroud: Mr. Cardy, I wanted to begin by thanking you for your time. I’ve been lucky enough to speak with a couple of your peers and they had very fond memories of working with and spending time with you.

Nick Cardy: My pleasure. I guess you could say that Carmine Infantino is a fan of my work.

Stroud: It’s interesting that you mention Carmine. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with him several times and you’re 100% correct. He adores your work and it almost looks like he kind of passed the torch making you the primary cover artist at DC.

Cardy: Well, what happened was at the time I was doing Bat Lash. Any new books come out and if they feel it has a potential they would give it about a 7 month trial. Now I could be wrong on this. But generally Carmine said what they do is they give it a year and if it doesn’t make any money then they drop it. So, on the last thing that I did of Bat Lash…did you ever see Bat Lash?

Stroud: I’m lucky enough to own three original issues of it and I really enjoyed the series a whole lot.

Cardy: Well, I wrote number two. That was the one with the tombstone.

Stroud: Yeah, in fact that’s one of the copies that I own.

Cardy: Well, Roy Thomas with Alter Ego is going to write a feature about Bat Lash.

Stroud: That will be wonderful.

Cardy: I had three magazines. The latest one was several years ago where I showed a painting or drawing, but I showed it would be on the top of the page and on the bottom I would show how it started with thumbnails. Little pictures with final tracing and color notes and then the painting. And I would do that with almost all of them.

So now there’s a new book coming out maybe the end of April or maybe early May about my war sketches that I had. (Nick Cardy, The Artist at War)

Stroud: Yeah, that looks fascinating.

Germany 1944 - Cutting Meat From A Bombed Horse, by Nick Cardy.

Nick Cardy_ The Artist At War (2011) pg89, by Nick Cardy.

Cardy: Well, the thing is that during the war I carried…in your duffel bag was your luggage, your sleeping gear, you carried your laundry, everything. It was in the duffel bag. That’s where your possessions were. So I had about eight 3 x 5 little spiral sketch pads. And I always did a lot of sketching. And some of them are very rough, because it wasn’t safe to sit out there in a combat zone drawing. So I took notes and on some of them if I found a larger piece of illustration board or something I had a little box of…years ago they used to have these cough drops that had a lid on it like Sucrets or something like that. Well at that time I was about 21 or I don’t know, but prior to that I had a little something underneath with a wire that you could put your thumb through like a palette. And then I’d put little squares of water color in it. And I had a brush that was cut. I had one of these stationery things that had a spiral thing where you could spiral the brush into it and you could seal the brush inside and spiral it and you had a brush that was pushed around and bounced around, see. And that was my watercolor setup.

Whenever I did pen and ink sketches, I had a fountain pen that I took. It was a gold tipped pen and I took the point and I reversed it. I rolled it over on its back. The point is what I’m referring to. Then I bent it very gently so the tip would go maybe a sixteenth of an inch. Just a little pressure and you bent it. So you could put that on its side and get a broad stroke. And then I used a lot of spit. (Mutual laughter.)

Now these inks weren’t waterproof. If I did a pen and ink sketch, and maybe there was a situation where I needed a little tone on the face, or maybe the sky or something, you put your finger in your mouth and wet it and just go over the ink and spread it out. But you could only do it that way five times. Because you run out of fingers. (Chuckle.) You don’t want to be talking with a purple tongue, you know?

Anyway, I had all those sketches in a box and then, oh, years later I didn’t want the pads to get mutilated, so I tore the pages out and put them in a loose leaf vinyl type thing. Then my agent, Renee Witterstaetter, she’s a fantastic woman, she’s the only woman I know who reminds me of when you get a movie star and the movie star is making a movie. This agent goes out and gets with all the publicity people and lets them know this girl’s going to do a fantastic movie, you know? And they call to review, and that’s where the publicity gets around and sometimes it’s been more publicity than what the movie’s worth. (Chuckle.) But every now and then you get a long shot that pays off. I certainly hope this book will fall into that category.

Getting back to my time in the service, in Germany they would use blackout shades. So that when the bombers came over no lights peeked out. Every now and then I would take one of those shades and do a little oil painting on it. Then one time I found out one of the drawings had been out in my garage for about 30 years. I tried to salvage it, but it still looks like an antique. (Laughter.)

Challengers of the Unknown (1958) #71, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: It sounds like you were thinking ahead by holding onto all those sketches.

Cardy: No, it was just a matter of perhaps being a little bit of a packrat. For example, I still have some watercolor paper I bought when I went to high school. It’s tucked in some corner somewhere. And the pages look like they have freckles on it, because some of the pages weren’t cured, so some of them, after a certain period of time, you can see little spots coming up in the paper where it wasn’t completely acid free or whatever.

Stroud: When you were doing so many of the covers for DC back in the day, did you have regular cover conferences with Carmine?

Cardy: Yes. Carmine was very good at it and his covers were always a success. In fact there were some of his covers that brought DC back to life. It seems to me that there’s always a little friction. There seems to be an undertone of friction somewhere around. If one guy gets elected, the others get upset. But he used to make layouts and he’d show me the layouts. He’d say, “Nick, what do you think?” I’d say, “That’s great, but if you want to give it more power why don’t we tilt it this way or that way?” And we’d chat around until we came out with a cover. Because sometimes; I’d find this in drawing, too, when you have a good cover, like he used to have covers that were on a slant. He’d have the landscape on a slant.

Stroud: That seemed to be a favorite technique.

Cardy: Yeah, and then there was one scene where I had Superman on a slab and on the shoulders of these four soldiers. I remember it was raining. They thought it was like a dead theme. But then they had that same theme with Aquaman on a kind of slab and then they had someone else on a slab on another cover. So sometimes you go with the success. But then you stop and you go to a different angle. He liked me for the reason that we both enjoyed using our talent in whatever we were trying to create. So we got along and I think the work showed that.

Stroud: Carmine is probably your biggest fan, but you already knew that.

Cardy: You know I’ve often thought that had I been drawing Captain America or Superman for a long time, there would have been a lot of prestige with that. But when you draw characters that are secondary, they’re like backups. It doesn’t pack the punch. People don’t clamor to see Aquaman. It’s just not as popular a character as Superman.

But when you read a lot and you’re a fan, you’re a fan. You like almost anything. And sometimes you become a fan and the people become a fan of the artist. He can even show an intermediate character and no matter what he does it will sell the book. For example if you have a story of Aquaman coming out drawn by [Jack] Kirby, and an Aquaman drawn by Nick Cardy, Kirby is better known and it would sell better than one with Cardy.

So that’s why I say had I drawn…let’s see, I had started with…years ago, a police thing. “Wanted” or something, I forget. It was a detective story. Then I was going up the ladder with Tomahawk and then Daniel Boone and then Congo Bill and I went up. Then I did Aquaman and the Teen Titans and then Bat Lash.

Now with Teen Titans, I had done about 40 books both insides and covers. So when they wanted me to do Bat Lash, at that time Bat Lash came in at a time when all the Westerns were being deleted from TV. They were old hat. People didn’t want to watch them anymore. But at the same time in Europe the Spaghetti Westerns were being discovered. Bat Lash came out at the time of the Spaghetti Westerns. Then when they found out it wasn’t making any money here in the states because they were tired of that, but in Europe they couldn’t get enough. Carmine said, “My God, these guys are so hungry for your westerns.”

But, when I was doing the layouts for Bat Lash, they still wanted me to do the Teen Titans. So I had Neal Adams pencil one or two stories; Carmine penciled one or two stories and George Tuska as well. All the top guys were helping by penciling it and I inked it. Sometimes I couldn’t put the time into it because of course they give you deadlines and when you’re working against a deadline you can goof off the first couple of days, but you still have to make the schedule. (Chuckle.)

Teen Titans (1966) #1, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Oh, yeah. Especially with two books I’m sure it was challenging.

Cardy: Yeah. So afterward Bat Lash was discontinued and Carmine didn’t want me to go to waste, so he put me on doing covers. I did most of the covers for the characters. I must have done about 400 covers.

Stroud: Easily.

Cardy: By the way, I looked at it, and this is a repeat thing, because on one of the books they had me write the prologue, one of the Teen Titans collections I think, and when I wrote the prologue I said, “I think I’ve done enough comics to cover the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and maybe one or two side panels.” (Mutual laughter.) Because you know you take those pages, and you put them side by side, and they’re something like 18” high and 11” wide or whatever, but you put them side by side, you can cover a whole wall with my Bat Lash work and after a certain length of time, I’d put them like cards. I’d tape them at the bottom and then when I was through I’d fold them up and put them away. (Chuckle.) But I had some hanging up. After a year of hanging up there they started turning yellow with age. So anyway a friend of mine bought the whole batch. In those days they didn’t sell for much, though.

Stroud: Right, no one had any idea that the art would be valuable later.

Cardy: Right. I remember one time I was someplace and I said, “Here, would you like a Batman cover for your wall?” They said, “Gee, Nick, I’ve got so much crap up on the wall now I don’t have any room for this.” Later on I used to get $60.00 or $65.00 for a cover. That’s pencil and ink at that time. Then I found out in 2001 one of them went for $19,000.00.

Stroud: Holy cow!

Cardy: I never got any of it. Whoever had it’s got it. And there’s one collector who collects everything of mine, and he put me on TV. If you look up Nick Cardy, maybe you’ll find it. He put up this thing cataloging all my stories that got put out.

Girls' Love Stories (1949) #139, cover by Nick Cardy.

You see I don’t have a computer. If I had a computer, I’d never get any work done. You go to the computer and say, “I’m going to look up sales on suits at this place.” So you look up the suits and they don’t have what you want, so instead of cutting it there, you say, “Well, let me look at J.C. Penney,” and you spend all day looking for these damned things and the next thing you know its lunch time. And you’d be surprised. Living in a day is sometimes like coming out of your bed and you get to one of these revolving doors. You go from one door and you go to the next door and you go to the bathroom, the next one you go to the kitchen, then you go to the studio and the next thing you’re back in the bathroom and you keep going and you get a phone call and then figure you’re making half a turn. (Chuckle.) And when you count the diversions that you have in a day and it’s amazing anything ever gets done.

I can get pretty absorbed in my work, too. One day I was sitting by my window drawing and I saw these people going by with a big package of things and they saw me and said, “Nick, aren’t you coming?” I said, “Where are you going?” They said, “What’s the matter with you? Didn’t you know there’s a hurricane coming?” So they said, “You’ve got to evacuate. Either go to a shelter, or take your car and drive.” I called someone and they said to drive 40 miles away.

I decided to take a trip after I spoke to this officer. You can’t overestimate the power of a hurricane.

Stroud: Yes. I can speak from some experience, unfortunately.

Cardy: It’s sad.

Stroud: It’s a very helpless feeling.

Cardy: I’m reminded of my tank story. It’s not a new story, but I was in an infantry division, and when I was going across the Atlantic I got pleurisy. We were on an English ship and were zigging and zagging all the way over in order to not give a perfect target for the German submarines. So when I got to England I was in the hospital for about a month and when I got out this Lieutenant Colonel was interviewing people. He said, “I see you got a promotion from the infantry to the motor pool.” I said, “I don’t know how it got there.” My General had said “We’re not going to send him over there as a private. Send him over as a step up. Put him in the motor pool.” When I got there I was a private first class and he said, “Oh, you’re from the motor pool. Can you drive a tank?” I said, “I can’t even drive a truck.” So I felt like the nails were being put on my coffin lid with this stamp he was using on some paperwork. He’d stamp here and stamp there and it felt like the nails being driven in. So of course they put me in a tank and as the time went by I kept saying if you’ve ever been to Belgium and seen any buildings that didn’t have corners you’ll know I’d been there. (Mutual laughter.)

Strange Adventures (1950) #241, cover by Nick Cardy.

You drive a tank with levers and not a wheel. You pull the right lever and it locks the right wheel while the other wheel keeps going, so that’s how it turns. Simple, child-like logic. Then we were moving positions, getting back to the original tank story, and my tank driver says, “Hey, Nick, I’ll let you drive. You see the tank ahead? Just follow it. If it stops, you stop.” So I did that and we were carrying an infantry outfit on the back of our tank. They would sit on the back where the ventilating system is. You’d be literally moving a whole infantry division with you.

So when the tank ahead of me stopped, I stopped. At the second point I stopped again and at that second stop more troops were coming up on the tank. They were coming up the side and coming in the back and I was wondering, “How the hell many more can we hold?” Then I went again through two more stops and finally they said to stop. The driver went out and said, “Okay, lock it.” So we locked it. There was a pause up ahead.

I got out and there were some woods where we’d paused and I went back there to relieve myself and when I got back these guys were arguing with my driver. I asked, “What the hell happened? What’s going on?” He said, “You know what you did, Nick?” “What?”

You must understand that when I drove, these roads were small, and these tanks were so wide that I put an imaginary white line, because if the traffic is coming the other way, I’d be blocking the whole road. Anyway, he said, “You were going so close to the trees, you brushed these guys off and they kept running after the tank to get back on.” But he got the brunt of it. They chewed him out because they thought he was the driver.

First of all, he shouldn’t have given the job to me. These guys start out by going into the tank corps. Believe it or not they go through a hell of a lot of training. In my case, some guy must have been killed or something. I was a replacement and they put me in there and I didn’t know what to do. I know I had a Tommy-gun on the ground, a little machine gun that I could fire out of the tank, but I didn’t know where the hell the ammunition was or how to put it in. (Chuckle.) I know they would have showed me, but meanwhile I’d hear, “Nick, there’s a big fence we’re coming up to. Just hit the fence as we go along because sometimes they have enemy tanks waiting behind the fence.” So I’d do that and then when the ammunition ran out I just didn’t have any more to shoot. (Laughter.)

Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love (1971) #4, cover by Nick Cardy.

So I went through three tanks like that. Anyway, that’s the humorous part. Sometimes you’d have spots where you find we’d liberated one or two concentration camps. When they saw the American tanks come in, they’d leap for joy. They’d come running up to the front of the tank before it even stopped.

The rumor from headquarters was that some of these guys died right after the Americans came in and fed them. Their systems weren’t used to good food. You had the misery of seeing one house when we got to the Rhine and we went to this house and found a trapdoor and here are these women with babushkas on and oh, the terror on their faces. Women and children looking up at the trapdoor. It looked just like all heads. It was like a sardine can and they were terrified. Talk about getting someone scared like hell. We said, “Take it easy,” but the enemy always pictured…one side always pictured the other side as monsters. Propaganda.

Sorry for the tangent.

Stroud: I don’t mind a bit. I thought if you don’t mind I’d ask a couple of technical questions as far as materials and things.

Cardy: Go ahead.

Stroud: It looks like since you pretty much always penciled and inked your own work, were you fairly loose on the pencils? Was most of your artistry from the brush?

Cardy: Well, I’ll tell you, I used to, many years ago, when I worked for Eisner, there was an artist called Lou Fine. He used to work with a Japanese brush. A #1 brush. The point was so long and so fine that you could get a line that almost disappears on you. It was so fine, and I got influenced by him. I also saw the pen he had, so I bought one like it. The lines were so fine and my anatomy wasn’t that good. I was learning.

When I was a kid I had paintings that I did for the school that they published in the Herald-Tribune or one of those early papers. The teachers wanted one on sports. It was a 4 x 8 panel and another one did his panel. Mine was on sports and the others were on classroom activities. So that was published and quite a bit of the stuff was published, and boy, now I was a professional.

Secret Six (1968) #2, cover by Nick Cardy.

So when I got with Lou Fine I tried to learn from his detail, but he was a better artist, in my opinion, than Bill Eisner. Bill Eisner’s line was heavier and he was a better story-teller. Then I got some different brushes. In fact, at one of the conventions I was sitting next to George Tuska and he said, “Hey, Nick. Do you still use a #8 brush?” I said, “A #8 brush?” Are you familiar with brushes and their numbers?

Stroud: A little bit.

Cardy: A #1 is very fine and it goes up the line and gets a little thicker and I was looking for when the hairs come out of the ferrule, that’s the metal part, sometimes they have hairs that come to sort of a bulb and make a very sharp point and they hold a lot of ink. Yet you still have the fine point. So with the smaller brushes, they don’t have that big a bulb. You just have what’s on the tip of the ink pen and you get a sharp line. But when the ink runs out of one of those with the big bulbs, you have a thicker line. So I had a lot of brushes and at the time they may have been about $3.00, but in the past 30 years or so it’s gone up to about $18.00 for a good brush or more.

So I learned to get a heavier line to get away from the fine line because everything I did I figured you could hardly see the legs. I wanted more power. Then I got too powerful. (Chuckle.) Then gradually I worked my way and say I’m going to do a cover or any designs in a story, I would go to make an abstract figure. I would put a circle for a head for example. First I would put a design on the page where I would design where the picture’s going. What I wanted to tell. If it’s a motorcycle, I’m not going to put it in a compositional line that’s vertical, like a church cathedral or something. You want to put it where the horizon shows and you get the speed of the vehicle or the action you want to do.

So you make all these designs in the beginning without figures or anything and put a bar or something to indicate the figures. But you don’t show a lot of legs and all that. You work it that way and then you do the black. If it’s too heavy on top you go with a little darker spot on the bottom to work out a balance and all these things. That I did mainly for the covers.

Then it was a free for all. When they get a print it will be a black and white print and there are certain artists in there that do the coloring. At least that’s the way it was before computers. (Chuckle.)

My Greatest Adventure (1955) #24, cover by Nick Cardy.

I hate to knock anybody, but every now and then they had a group of artists that did the coloring and it wasn’t like with the computer. You had to do it with ink dyes for your colors. They would do that with each page. So sometimes you’d tell them, if they don’t have any artists there to tell them, sometimes some of the covers came out as if they called the janitor to say, “Here, finish this job up.” But the majority of those guys worked hard to do that. It still wasn’t like the computers, though.

In the beginning, when I was working for Eisner, for about five pages I was getting $25.00 a week. This is in 1940. At that time if anybody made $100.00 a week that was a hell of a lot of money.

Stroud: You bet.

Cardy: And if you bought a home for $20,000, it was “Oh, my God!” Everything is relevant, you see.

Things changed over the years. I was born at the time of the Great Depression where you were just living from hand to mouth. I didn’t go to college or anything like that because I couldn’t afford it. So instead I went to the library and I lived in Manhattan on Third Street. I would walk to 82nd street to the modern museum of art and spend a day looking at the paintings. I would take a little notepad and things like that. You would have some guys who would copy the paintings with paint. They would never let you copy the same size as the painting. It had to be either larger or smaller. Never the same size. Because they were afraid people would start selling them. But that was my education.

Stroud: So, you’re mostly self-taught and natural talent.

Cardy: Yes, and if I wanted a life class, I’d go to the Art Students League and for $1.50 you could spend the time drawing with your own pad and there was an instructor that came in who would walk around and check things out.

I used to know a guy who would sit next to me and whenever you had these models I would draw the figure and everybody else would draw the figure. Anyway it was some time later and I got a call from him and he said, “Hey, I’m having a one man show, do you want to come down?” So I came down and he had his paintings on the wall. Little abstractions. So we were leaning into the edge of the door. We had some line or something like you have at these parties and this little short man was showing these two beautiful girls around and describing what the painting was. “You see what the artist is trying to do? He’s trying to come from this direction.” And he’s trying to build this thing up and we’re both listening to him and these girls were enthralled. So my friend looked at me and he says, “You know Nick, I wish to hell I knew that when I was drawing it.” (Mutual laughter.) This guy was going on a fantasy of his own and it was impressive. It sounded great.

Rip Hunter... Time Master (1961) #4, cover by Nick Cardy.

DC 100-Page Super Spectacular (1971) #14, cover by Nick Cardy.

House of Mystery (1951) #171, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: What a line.

Cardy: One time I was drawing and I heard this guy on the television and I stopped. Everything he said was fantastic. He was talking about composition and what the impressionists went through and oh, it was great. And then there was a little commercial break and they came back on and he said, “Look, I’ll show you what I mean,” and he got down and he started drawing and what he was doing was awful. He couldn’t draw at all. I think he’d have done better if he’d just continued talking. His talking was great, but his drawing was lousy. It was like a Picasso. Did you ever see Picasso’s work?

The Spectre (1967) #8, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Yes.

Cardy: He used to have these women in profile with both eyes on the same side of the head. So they had these two people, a man and a wife and he says, “Honey, there’s a girl that poses for Picasso,” and you see this girl walking down the street with both eyes on the side of her head. (Mutual laughter.)

But anyway, I feel I’m monopolizing this with a lot of oddball stuff.

Stroud: Not at all.

Cardy: You were asking about the material. I hope I answered it.

Stroud: Yes, that part. Can you tell me a little more about the brushes? The material, for instance?

Cardy: Oh, it had to be sable. Especially for those, because with the bristle brushes, they’re better for painting or if you’re preparing…say for example if you’re going to have a board, illustration board, and you want to have a one tone background, then you could use a bristle brush. You can do it very quickly and very lightly, but bristles leave a lot of…it’s like combing your hair where every other tooth is missing. You can see the streaks in the paint when you put it on. Unless of course you want it with that effect.

I use the sables and the sables are very expensive. They were very good. When you had a sable brush and you pressed down to make a line, after you picked it up, the sable would go back into position. With the cheaper brushes if you’re putting pressure on it to create a line…say you’re doing a fine line. Then as you’re getting into the line you want a little more pressure on it and then to lighten up, a sable brush will help you on that. But if you have a cheap brush, as soon as you push a heavier line, that brush stays in that position. It doesn’t go back to the point. That’s why there are certain sables that are more expensive than others.

Now the Japanese, when they had their brushes, they had them on bamboo sticks. They had the hairs, and I don’t know how they were conditioned, but they would tie a string in the middle of the hairs and they would twine the knot and it would go through the bamboo and when the hairs got to the other end they would pull those hairs that you’re going to paint with to the brush and that makes the ferrule. Sometimes they would push it through a little stub and then that stub fits into a smaller piece of bamboo that fits into a little larger piece of bamboo. And if the hairs are getting a little short you can pull them out a little.

Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu (1974) #15, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Clever.

Cardy: But they never work. When you pull them out, at least for me, they would lose their sharpness. But with me, every now and then, if I lose my sharp brush I always use it again because I had to work with texture. I would use a fine line generally for a woman’s or a man’s skin or a little heavier depending on the material of a shirt as compared to a coat or as compared to a fur coat. When I made the lines of a fur coat I just more or less put ink in the brush and then pat it down on a dry pad so the hairs would come out. No point at all, just hairs and I’d do the lines with that. Then I’d make it come out a little hairy, you see. Then the other lines would come out less heavy.

In all my art that I’ve done, every month, my work would look different. Because I had what I would call a mix-master. Now bear with me. This is a silly old man talking. I had a mental mix-master that, if I liked the drawing of two or three different artists that drew faces well, or do women’s hair well, I would try to copy them in a sense. Then I would go from one to the other and then I would put that in my mixture. In the pot. Then I would go somewhere with somebody else who doesn’t do the faces that well, but does the figures beautifully. I would take what I learned from him and put it in the pot. Those would be my building blocks. I’ll take from Degas, I’ll take from Michelangelo, the body, I would take all these where you’d need anatomy, anything that I needed, I’d put it in the blender.

After about a year…not even a year, you change that and get a different blender. Because if you stay with the blender, you’d get like where so many guys would just copy the style of Terry and the Pirates or Flash Gordon or Prince Valiant by Hal Foster. They’d copy these different guys and they’d never get out of the groove, so they don’t become original. They become imprints of their master. If you change it, then you build your own.

I never knew what my style was until one of the artists came in and I asked him, “How the hell do you know I drew it?” He said, “Oh, I can tell your style.” What was his name? His name was Katz, but he changed it when…

Aquaman (1962) #39, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Gil Kane.

Cardy: Gil Kane, yeah. We went to school together. Gil Kane said, “I can see your work.” A lot of other fellas, you could see their work, but I tell you when you go into the comic business, you’re going into a place where there are a lot of artists, a lot of writers, and it’s like walking into a physical maze where you walk in and out and nobody praises anybody else. You know what I mean? It’s a battle of egos.

Stroud: Because of competitiveness?

Cardy: Well, yeah, and also, with me, there were people who liked my work, but they never told me.

Julie Schwartz one time wrote in one of my books, you know when people write things they know about the artist, “Oh, I know him,” that sort of thing.

Stroud: Oh, the foreword?

Cardy: Yes. His article was “Well, the thing I remember about Nick Cardy is that he came in one day with a cover and he showed it to Carmine and Carmine said, “That wasn’t the layout I gave you,” and Nick said, “No, it’s better,” so Carmine said, “You’re fired.” Then supposedly I turned around and walked out and then Julie told Carmine, “You know, it’s a beautiful cover.” Carmine said, “All right, you’re hired.” So when I met Carmine at a convention I told the story and he said, “Nick, that’s so stupid.” We always got along. He respected my talent and I respected his opinion, because it’s a matter of when you have two heads, sometimes you get better stuff done. So I said, “Look, Julie’s right down there trying to sell his book. Let’s go see him.” So we went down and I told him the story and Carmine said, “You know how I feel about Nick. We never said that.” So Julie looked up and he said, “Well, it was a nice story anyway.” (Mutual laughter.) He had a way of brushing things off.

One time there was an artist friend of mine whose work I like very much and he was a gentleman. I met him and his wife at this motel in San Diego and we went down to have dinner at the hotel. Julie was sitting at the table and I sat at the table and we were talking and then these two people came. They hadn’t been to San Diego in years and he came up there and they were older friends that he’d known for a longer time and this other guy’s wife said, “Oh, Julie, you know I’m going to be a grandmother.” He said, “I’ve got 4 great-grandchildren.” She said, “Yeah, but you’re old.” And that was the first time I ever saw Julie Schwartz quiet. He didn’t have a comeback!

Teen Titans (1966) #28, cover by Nick Cardy.

But nobody said your work was nice in the comic business. They were afraid you’d ask for a raise.

Stroud: Okay, that kind of makes sense. It seems like that was a big part of the business, trying to keep costs down.

Cardy: Well, when I did the Teen Titans…you’ve seen the Teen Titans, haven’t you?

Stroud: I sure have.

Cardy: On one of the Teen Titans covers I did a Christmas tree and the story was about Scrooge. I was reading that and so my editor says, “Hey, Nick. When was the last time you got a raise?” I said I didn’t remember. It had been quite a while. So he said, “Let’s talk to the guy and see if we can get a raise.” So we went to see the boss and he said, “Nick’s been here for 20 years and he hasn’t had a raise.” So the guy said, “Well, you know, we’re trying to cut back and get rid of the deadwood,” and there was no raise, so we walked out of there and I figured, “I’m going to do a bang-up job,” and it was that Christmas issue cover that had every little pen line, every detail. I put a lot of crap in it.

Stroud: I remember it. Beautiful job.

Cardy: I liked it. Only on some parts, the color was off, but it was done by a colorist that I liked and he had more experimental looseness. So I told Carmine I was going to do this cover and then I’m going to quit. He said, “Hang in there, Nick. We’re going to have some changes.” And the changes were that they made him president.

Carmine was always fair. A lot of guys liked him, but the editors were mainly the big wheels and the intelligentsia of the comics. The artists were always one step above a floor walker. (Chuckle.)

Unless you were very good, then you would be something they’d point out for other artists. “Can you emulate this guy?” And there wasn’t that much. One editor, for example…and this is a repeat. I’ve said it so often. I was doing Congo Bill, and Congo Bill and his sidekick, I forget what his name was, in those days they put sidekicks with the superheroes so this way the younger kids would get an interest and read them, too. So Batman had Robin and of course there were others, too.

Congo Bill (1954) #1, cover by Nick Cardy.

Anyway this Congo Bill came to a plain where they were supposed to cross and at the end of the road in the dialogue, Congo Bill tells the kid, “We can’t cross the plain right now because the rhinoceros is charging to get the zebra for his meat.” So I tried to tell them, “You know, you can’t do that because a rhinoceros is herbivorous. It doesn’t eat meat.”

Stroud: That’s right.

Cardy: “What are you trying to do, break my chops or something?” Then I just decided I’d let it go. They were the boss.

Then in the same issue they were going into another plain and they wanted to get out of there. They were trapped. Something was coming up behind and he said “Look, Keaneau,” I think that was the name of the kid, “you jump on the back of that hyena and run and get help because the hyena is the fastest animal in the jungle.”

Stroud: (Laughter.)

Cardy: There again I went to this guy and said, “You know, I hate to say this, but the Cheetah is the fastest animal.” And it was, “You again? What the hell?” And then when the thing was published I got the mail saying that I didn’t know anything about animals. This guy wouldn’t change for anything. His mind was made up. “You low life. You peasant. You can’t talk to the boss like that. You can’t tell him what to do.”

It was then that I understood why they call these people peons. Because everybody pees on you. (Laughter.)

Stroud: That’s right. You’re always wet. (Mutual laughter.)

Cardy: When you’re dealing with people in business, quite a few of them are good. The majority are nice guys. But every now and then the people with business in mind carry the green flag with the dollar sign on it. They’re thinking about keeping that company going. Whatever profits they have, which they’re entitled to get, but one time I had several artist friends I worked with and I had an agent at that time.

Marvel Premiere (1972) #28, cover by Nick Cardy.

One guy was a photographer and he would take say an Oldsmobile or a Cadillac and he would see the photograph, but he would airbrush the car in the way that he did it and it would look spectacular. Then they gave it to a different artist to do part of a little Italian villa building. So they had a guy do that. Then after he was through they had a guy who did figures that were in the doorway of that piazza, sort of leaning on a rail, looking in awe at the car. It was a beautiful illustration. So when they showed it to the guy at GM, he said, “That’s fantastic! One of the best things I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful!” And it was. It was a beautiful job. Then came the “but.” “But I was wondering, could you possibly turn that car about a foot to the right?” (Mutual laughter.)

Now these are intelligent men. But somehow they figured the artist could do anything. (Chuckle.) How are you going to turn the thing? This is before computers. With the computers they could do it, but then… That’s the sort of thing you had to deal with. Sometimes they would give you a layout, like I went to an agency and the main art director gave you stick figures because this was a soap opera. They were selling soap or whatever it was. In the Sunday pages they had about two or three rows of these commercials that the artists did. So he’d do something with stick figures and so you modeled the stick figures and you did imaginary drawings and you made those stick figures come to life. Then when they took it to the photographers to have them photograph the models, they used what I did as a guide. If it was art, that was different, but if they wanted to do a television commercial they would use that as a guide. They would then photograph their models according to that. When you get through the man who’s going to but that thing goes up to see the art director, and he said, “Oh, this is nice. Did you do this?” He said, “Yeah, I did that.” And all he’d done were the stick figures. So if you try to step up the ladder too fast they were quick to slap you down.

But I was in luck. The agencies I worked with were fantastic.

Stroud: It looked a little like some of your work might have been done with a grease pencil. Is that true?

Cardy: You mean the paint lines didn’t look clear? It looked like a pencil line?

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion (1972) #5, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: It just looked like it had the texture of a grease pencil.

Cardy: Did you follow a pencil line that felt that way or was it a brush that faded?

Stroud: I wasn’t really sure. Probably the brush.

Cardy: Well, what happens is sometimes when I do a figure or a line and I want the line to fade a little I would have full ink in it and then I would know when a brush was getting dry and I would go that way and it looked like it faded. I didn’t use grease pencils because if you went over that with watercolor the watercolor would never react to it. It’s like working on wax with watercolor. It beads.

Stroud: It couldn’t adhere.

Cardy: You could go over some of them, but it disturbed me, because it was something I couldn’t correct if I wanted to correct it. It was like a permanent thing.

Stroud: You seemed to be the perfect artist to work with Bob Haney’s scripts because he had a lot of action built into them. How was he to work with?

Cardy: Bob was a nice guy. I liked him. We were friends. The last time I met him was in San Diego. He went to live in Mexico and he used to have a beard. But Bob Haney, a lot of his strength was in the 60’s. They had the sayings, the lingo. It’s like you’re reading a comic book and the kid comes up and says, “Oh, whoop-de-doo.” Well you know the whoop-de-doo doesn’t fit today. But he had a lot of sayings from the 60’s that he kept on using into the 80’s.

Stroud: That doesn’t work very well.

Cardy: His stories were very good because he did a lot of writing and they kept him busy. But unlike some of the other fellas he had the dialogue of the 60’s.

Stroud: He just couldn’t break out, I guess.

House of Secrets (1956) #104, cover by Nick Cardy.

Cardy: Well, let me put it this way: He had a lot of success with that, so he stayed with it. And there are some guys, like Mike Sekowsky, where he had his drawing down so pat he could have made a patterns for clothes. And he didn’t write.

There’s a story with Mike Sekowsky. I always get a kick out of this because I love repeating, because it’s funny to me. But maybe the people are tired of it. Roy Thomas says, “Nick Cardy’s a fine artist, but Nick, try to change to some new material.” (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Well, I haven’t heard the Sekowsky story, so please.

Cardy: Okay. Mike Sekowsky and I came in and delivered our jobs at the same time. 24 pages. Murray Boltinoff, the editor, looked at Mike Sekowsky’s drawings and said, “Mike, I love your work, but this is one of the lousiest jobs you’ve ever done.” Mike said, “Well, I thought you were in a hurry.” “Yeah, but this awful.” So Mike said, “Well, I pushed it a little.” So Murray gave him another script and he gave me another script at the same time and sent us on our way.

Mike was just recently married and he asked me over for dinner, and as I left, there was a little bookcase right by the door and on it were the 24 pages of art. It was for the script we’d got just a while ago. He was fast. He had it all finished. I said, “Is this an old strip?” He said, “No, that’s the one I got last week.” 24 pages. And so he’s waiting a little while until he gets a chance to go downtown and give it to Murray. So it was longer before he took it to Murray Boltinoff and this time he says, “Mike, you’re fantastic! This is great! You see what happens when you put more time into it?” And he’d put the same amount of time into it as the other job. The only difference was that he held off on the time he turned it in. (Mutual laughter.)

I did feel sorry for a lot of these editors. They had a pecking order. Every company had a pecking order.

Mike Sekowsky made me his buddy. And I’d have wanted to be his buddy, because he was a big guy. He had white hair and he had pale blue eyes and features that were a little pinkish and sometimes when he’d get a little excited, more red. It looked like he was getting angry and puffing up and getting ready to blow.

One time I was in a bar across the street where the people would go after work from DC and there was a customer giving one of the bartenders, who always knew what we wanted to drink, a hard time. I said, “Mike, you going to catch the train?” “I’m going to wait around.” He’s looking at this guy and he was holding the rounded edge of the top of the bar. And his fingers were getting white. So I started backing up. I didn’t want to be around for the explosion. (Chuckle.)

And there was another guy who used to work there. He used to have a habit, and I won’t mention his name, but he used to have these girls sitting at the table and he’d have an arrangement. When he wanted to make a good impression on this girl, he’d be talking or drinking with her; this was after work, and the guy says…he’d have some artist call him and say, “Hitchcock’s on the phone for you,” and he’d say, “Tell him I’ll call him back later.” (Mutual laughter.) When he’d do that I could see the girls’ expression and it was like, “Oh, wow!”

One time this same guy invited me and a few others to his new house in New Jersey. He had a big pool there and said, “Bring your suit.” So there were a lot of guys there and we were swimming around the pool and some other artists that came without a suit, they came with their wives and sat on the benches and were talking and then when the party was over I was invited to someone’s wedding and I was going along the buffet table and behind me were two Greek women dressed in black and they had black veils or babushkas over them and this one woman popped up and said, “Hi, Nick.” I turned around and it was one of the wives of the guys who had been sitting and talking by the pool at the other party. And she said, “Oh. I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.” And these two women in black made the sign of the cross and took off. (Laughter.)

It was like the old vaudeville they had in the burlesque houses and you’d have two rooms and in one room was a guy trying to fix a trunk or packing a trunk up, he and his wife, and another couple would be coming down the hall and are about to knock on the door, but before they knock they hear, “Did you get it in?” “I’m trying. I’m trying.” The guy is sitting on the trunk trying to close the lid and you can see that on the one side, but on the other side of the door…you know. It’s a double entendre.

Superman (1939) #253, cover by Nick Cardy.

You can’t really worry about what people think. I tell you. After I got shot in the war…I got wounded twice, and I figured once I get home, I’m not going to worry about a damned thing unless somebody is shooting at me.

Stroud: There you go.

Cardy: Because life is too short. This is another thing I’ve said. This, again, is a repeat. They’re going to say, “You know, we’ve heard that story before.” But people want to hear it. Did you ever have situations in your life where you got really a lump in your throat? Where it was such a shock or so surprising or something that it really took you back?

Stroud: Oh, yes.

Cardy: Okay. So mine was when we were coming back on the freighter after the war and we went through storms for a whole week, bouncing around on that boat and when we finally stopped, one of the guys said, “Hey, Nick, can you take a couple of the guys and police the deck of cigarettes?” It was very early in the morning. I went on the deck and there was a fog and we were angry. There was nothing there. I couldn’t see where the hell we were. We could have been in San Diego, we could have been on the tip of Long Island. As we were policing, the fog started going down and I looked up and there, right above my head, was the Statue of Liberty and she was holding the book. Talk about a lump in your throat. After three years, you know? It was all worth it, and that kind of thing stays with you.

Stroud: I can appreciate that. I know that when I was overseas, my best friend there was an Army Captain in the Transportation Corps and he had a favorite phrase that sound like a similar philosophy. Any problem that came along, he said, “Did anybody die? No? Then we can fix it.” I thought that was the right perspective.

Cardy: Oh, yes, because did you ever find yourself in someone’s home where they’re having this big fight and you’re a bystander? You don’t know what the hell to do. I always figured it was so much a waste of energy. I know that when people live together, sometimes they crawl up each other’s back. Especially if you’re an artist or a writer, because you’re always home. When I would get a script, I’d sit down in a chair and I could read the script and write on the side what my direction would be. I’d be relaxing, but in the same room my wife would start up a vacuum cleaner and start cleaning up and I’d have to pick up one leg and the other leg and here I am sitting and she’s doing all the work. I felt guilty, so I had to go in the other room. (Chuckle.)

Justice League of America (1960) #100, cover by Nick Cardy.

It wasn’t fair, because when a person goes to work, they’re about 8 hours away from home. But when you’re home all the time, you add those days up and instead of living 5 years you’ve lived almost 10 years together. You see what I mean? But anyway, when you get my age, all these little piddling things, you find they don’t mean anything.

Stroud: (Chuckle.) I’m very slowly beginning to gain a little bit of that wisdom myself. Did you have a favorite editor that you worked with?

Cardy: Well, I’ll tell you. The one I had, he died. He was a nice guy. He was very good. He gave me leeway because he trusted my judgment on the art and if I wanted to change something and make it 3 panels or 4 panels and I’d tell him and he’d say, “Sure.” His name was George Kashdan. Now did you mean writers or editors?

Stroud: Both, actually, so please.

Cardy: Well, Kashdan was the editor and sometimes he wrote stories. But Murray Boltinoff had a good brain, but guys who had been there a long time always passed the buck to him. He was a very quiet fellow. He was very serious. He didn’t have anything funny to say. When something funny happened, he’d have this smile on his face, but he wouldn’t go hog wild slapping his leg or anything. But he was a nice guy as I got to know him.

The only trouble that was a mystery with him was whenever I was in his room one time he says, “Nick, come with me.” I said “Where?” He said, “Come on. Come with me.” We go to the bathroom and he’s standing at the urinal and I said to myself, “What the hell am I doing here? I don’t have to go.” But when you’re there you get the urge to go. (Mutual laughter.)

So one time Ramona Fradon and I were on a panel and they were talking about the editors and I had just spoken about Murray and told this incident about the urinal and she said, “Well, I liked Boltinoff. He was a nice guy.” I said, “Did he ever ask you to go to the bathroom with him?” She looked at me and said, “No, he didn’t.” (Mutual laughter.) I feel like if you can’t get a laugh in life, what the hell good is it?

Crazy Vol.3 (1973) #12, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Now you did manage something that a lot of your peers wanted to do when you got onto some syndicated strips.

Cardy: Oh, yes. When I came out of the service I had decided not to go into comics. I was working on my portfolio to go to be an illustrator. But in those days I used to go to the Illustrator’s Society. I wasn’t a member, but I’d go there and they would have the originals hanging on the wall. I looked up how many artists that they had at the Illustrator’s Society. At that time they had about 400 artists that were very good. Half of them were at the very top. The rest were very adequate and I figured, “How am I going to compete with these guys?”

So I finally broke it all down carefully and I came to the ones that had humor and there were few of those. And some of them, when they were humorous, a lot of these fellas didn’t do the originals from their head. They did them with models that they’d photographed. In my case, I couldn’t afford to photograph a model, so I did everything. I did caricatures, for examples, of celebrities, but I didn’t go overboard. Like the guy who used to do the caricatures for the New York Times. I forget his name. He was fantastic. He used to hit it right on the head. He’d do Katharine Hepburn and you could tell it was her. But my God, when he had a point to exaggerate, he’d exaggerate it. There were these three models that were beauts, and this lady that was on in years, she came along with them and my wife had a habit that got me annoyed in a sense. I wasn’t really angry, but I’d show off a drawing. So she said, “Hey, Nick, why don’t you draw caricatures of them?” So I made caricatures and of course when you make a caricature, you exaggerate.

Stroud: Yes.

Legends of Daniel Boone (1955) #1, cover by Nick Cardy.

Cardy: If the mouth is bigger in proportion to the nose, then you make it bigger, and so forth. And when they showed it to the girl, it was, “Oh, yeah, that’s nice.” These were the kind of girls who could never go by a mirror without stopping. Or even a store window. So when I did this, they saw these distortions and it was, “Oh, that’s nice,” but with the old lady I left the wrinkles out and she thought I was St. Peter. (Laughter.) And you could see the light in her eyes. “Oh, my! That’s beautiful!” I’d tucked her chin in and I’ll tell you, I’m a fantastic plastic surgeon. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: You made an instant fan there.

Cardy: Oh, yeah. I could make them really ugly and this guy from the Times I was mentioning, he could do it, but he had the likeness and he hit it on every one he ever did. He’d do that every Sunday on the Times page.

But with my wife, the last time we did it, her younger brother, who was married and they’d just had a baby and she said, “Oh, Nick. It’s adorable! Why don’t you do a drawing of it?” I said, “It’s too small. They all look like Winston Churchill.” They do! Have you ever seen a picture of Winston Churchill? They all look exactly like that. If you take out the cigar and put a pacifier in there, you’ve got it.

So I did the pencil sketch, but she had 14 cousins or so and it was, “Oh, how nice. Could you do this on my son?” It just kept going on and I had to do it for people I didn’t really like. They didn’t like me, but they took it anyway. And I did some of the parents, and after it was all over I did about 40 drawings without getting a cent. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Oh, geez. You started a new career there.

Cardy: Well, at least I like drawing faces, but then there’s sometimes I used to take my work to a vacation. I worked in every room in the house from the basement, usually, because it was the coolest. They didn’t have air conditioning. Sometimes I’d work up in the attic and you’d hear all the laughter in the yard or sometimes I’d be in the cellar surrounded by all the preserves in the jars. (Chuckle.) After a while I began to feel like a preserve.

Batman (1940) #208, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: Hard to get a good light source, I imagine.

Cardy: You had to bring your own. But, that’s part of life, you know?

Stroud: When you worked on the Batman strip, how did that assignment come about?

Cardy: What happened was when I came out of the service, as I mentioned before, I wasn’t going to do any comics, so I was doing covers for some magazines. They weren’t the big magazines, but they were paying a fantastic price. $100.00 or so. Just about the same as a model. You’d pay the model $100.00. With a model it’s different. You’re informing the people that they like your work. But then you could get the original back and you could sell it. In the old days they used to put them in the trash can.

I met a guy who was a production manager that had a little garbage pail and he had all these stacks of pages and he’d tear them up and throw them in a bucket. He’d tear them in half and throw them into the bucket. Then I saw this big lineup. He had all these stacks of drawings going up about 5 feet high. When he left I’d pull out the Teen Titans and Bat Lash and took them home with me.

Stroud: Good for you.

Cardy: They never gave them back. Then when you get them back, you can save them, but at that time they were just going to be torn up and thrown away. At that time they felt they had the right because they paid me for it. What they’re really paying for is production rights.

The thing is that if you know how to talk legalese, where a period or a comma make a big difference…well, let’s just say it’s a good idea to have a good agent.

So when I came back I started doing my samples and then I did some of these covers and that was to pay for the expenses. Then someone called up and said, “Nick, could you do the daily strip for Tarzan?” Burne Hogarth was the writer at the time and through him I would get a script and I did Tarzan. After that, I did the Casey Ruggles strip.

Showcase (1956) #32, cover by Nick Cardy.

I had a book out and I was going to make a cover. It was all daily strips that I had done and some that weren’t sold and any art that had to do with dailies. I was going to have my cover with me in the nude and I had my arms wide and daily strip went right across my crotch and I was holding it at both ends. The title was, “Nick Cardy Strips.”

Stroud: (Laughter.) Very clever.

Cardy: I never used it because I figured people would think, “Boy, this guy’s really a dirty old man.” I wanted to be safe and innocent, but I wish I had done that cover. Someday I’ll make a sketch of it and show it.

The book was done in paperback and printed in Canada and I think it’s out of print. It’s very hard to get one of those books now. Have you seen my book? The last one that came out?

Stroud: I haven’t managed to get a copy yet. It’s on my list and I’m aware of it.

Cardy: Sometimes my books have the same covers in them. They try to get me to change things, but the last one was where I have some stuff from the portfolio and I have some war scenes and some of the advertising work I did and the western paintings. It has a bunch of stuff. So this one here…the one that’s coming out, is stuff that’s never been seen before. It’s all from combat. Then they want to make one that features the humorous things I’ve done.

Stroud: That would be a treat.

Cardy: Then another one that Renee wants to do…I have about three western paintings and they’re 24” x 36”. Real oil paintings. Using that along with Bat Lash, we could make a western series.

Now I got a check for one of these covers and my God, now I’m getting money where I could have used it 40 years ago. (Chuckle.)

The Brave and the Bold (1955) #60, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: I’m reminded of an interview with Paul McCartney where he was being honored with a customized guitar and he said something to the effect, “I remember when I couldn’t afford one of these and now they’re giving them to me.”

Cardy: It’s just like in the Army. I was in the Army and I got to drawing a little and this Red Cross nurse came along and she saw my combat sketches and some of my drawings in my office, the duffel bag, you remember, and she said, “Can I borrow this to show at an exhibit in Paris?” I said, “Sure,” but I don’t know where the hell it was exhibited. But then I got an offer from the Army in the information and education department that said, “You’re an artist. We can use you.” I said, “Were the hell were you three years ago?” When you’re in one of those positions you’re dealing with people who are just Army people. You don’t have to do any shooting. I was an expert with a rifle, but as far as cleaning it, forget it. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: It seems like you would have been a natural to work on Eisner’s P.S. Magazine.

Cardy: Well, I called him and he said he wasn’t involved in the hiring and couldn’t do anything about it. He didn’t want to rock the boat.

Stroud: Are you still going to conventions?

Cardy: San Diego invited me this year, but I had fallen down. I was carrying some groceries up my stairs in the carport. The concrete driveway. As I was on the second stair the wind blew the door into me and I had both arms full of groceries and I fell backwards on the concrete. It took me awhile to get up. I didn’t want to get up too quickly because I’d bumped my head. I wanted to get up slowly in case anything was broken. I didn’t want to aggravate it. I got up fine, got into a chair and called my doctor and he said to come over and he’d take a look. But then when I went to lie down on the bed…when you go to bed, you sit at the edge of the bed first, then you wiggle back and sling yourself into the position in the middle where you’ll get comfortable. So I sat on the bed and tried to get my feet up, but I couldn’t because pain ran from the top of my head all the way down to my toes.

Stroud: Oh, no.

A Wonder Woman commission done by Nick Cardy.

Cardy: So I stayed in that one position. They took X-rays and everything else and then it got to where I lost weight and my hand wasn’t accurate any more. It was shaky. It took about a month or so and I had to stop going to conventions. Because if I got up too fast and turned, it could be a problem. I didn’t want to go to the airport myself. The only thing I was thinking was that if I go to the airport I’m going to fall down and I might as well bring a hat with me. This way, if I fall down, the hat will be in my hand and when I’m on the floor people can drop whatever they want into the hat. (Mutual laughter.) Make it pay, you know?

Stroud: Are you still doing commissions?

Cardy: I do some. Most of them are recreations of covers that I had done before.

Stroud: I’m sure those are very popular.

Cardy: A lot of them are from Bat Lash, but the sad thing is that every now and then you do a cover or a drawing and you charge a certain amount…a lot of the artists get pissed off because say you did a drawing and charged $50.00 for a quick sketch and then they will send it to eBay and get maybe three times the amount for it.

Stroud: Flipping them. Yeah.

Cardy: A lot of artists got angry about that, so they boosted up their prices. Meanwhile the poor guy that just wanted the picture to hang on the wall in his house had to suffer.

Stroud: Everybody pays for the few bad apples, it seems.

Cardy: So that’s the freelance work that I do now. Sometimes for an article in the paper they’ll want me to do a drawing. I’m always home. Right now I’m getting a Bat Lash done for Alter Ego for an issue coming out in the fall. They’re doing an article and it talks about how they like my work and respect my work and then there’s that comment again: “Nick, try to get some new material.” (Chuckle.) Then when I called up the writer had interviewed me and he has it all set and then he said he spoke to Roy Thomas and Roy Thomas says, “Has Nick got any originals?” I thought he meant if I had any original art around. Then I knew what he meant. Originals for the book. So I decided to do some.

Superman (1939) #276, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: That will be great.

Cardy: Because if you open the book, otherwise it would be, “I’ve seen that before.”

When you have different people that are in this business, they mention, I’m looking up a writer and they’ll say, “Stroud…Stroud…Dan Stroud, the movie actor.” And then they know what you do. With me they’ll look me up and they probably have the old prints that have been there for years and when they do the write-up all they can show are the prints they have on file. And my files have been shown many times.

Stroud: I guess you could call them classics.

Cardy: I would like to redo some of the coloring on my covers that I have done or any piece of art. I spoke to my agent and I said, “I want to redo the colors.” “Don’t touch the colors. That may be what they want.” I wish I could give them something that I could color myself. But they probably wouldn’t like it as much as the old one. When you get something nostalgic, they’re attached to that and then when you do something different, try to improve it, it doesn’t look like the original and they don’t like it as much. It’s like seeing a movie you’d seen before with some actors you like and then a new version comes along and they go in a slightly different direction but you don’t care for it. You still like the impression the original left on you.

Stroud: Yeah, when the nostalgia factor kicks in, nothing else will do. I know when I talk to your old buddy Al Plastino, he says…

Cardy: Somebody called me for some anecdotes about Al. We were in school together. We did a mural together and I have part of that picture where it shows me mixing colors and he’s on a ladder or something right alongside me, but you don’t see his face, but you can see the painting of his face. I did the heads and he did the figures. I never knew what happened to it. We never finished it.

I’ll tell you a story. Did you know that I sang on the Metropolitan stage?

Aquaman (1962) #42, cover by Nick Cardy.

Stroud: No.

Cardy: Yeah, I did.

Stroud: Wow! How did you pull that off, Nick?

Cardy: Oh, it was my voice. Let me put it this way: They had picked out a chorus from all the different high schools and I was one of about 200 that sang on the Metropolitan stage as a group. (Chuckle.) But when people hear that they think you’re an opera singer or something. I wanted to sound big. (Laughter.) But I actually did. I think we sang something from an opera. I used to know the name of every composer and every bit of music and who performed it. Today I don’t even know what the hell I had for breakfast. (Chuckle.) I apologize at first if I can’t remember something from 60 years ago and I bounce around like I did today.

March 06, 2019

An Interview With Joe Staton - Co-Creator of E-Man, Kilowog, & the Huntress

March 06, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Joe Staton (born January 19, 1948) is an American comics artist and writer best known for being the co-creator of the hero E-Man. Joe started his comics career at Charlton Comics in 1971 and gained notability when he teamed with Nicola Cuti for the super-hero series E-Man (1973). Staton produced art for various comics published by Charlton, Marvel, and Warren Publishing during the 1970s.

Hired initially by Roy Thomas to work for Marvel, Staton was then recruited by Paul Levitz to work on DC's revival of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics (and later Adventure Comics). In these titles he illustrated stories including the origin of the JSA and the death of the Earth-Two Batman. Staton also illustrated the solo adventures of two female JSA members created during the revival – drawing The Huntress and Power Girl in Showcase. During that time, Joe additionally drew Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, the '70s revival of the Doom Patrol (in Showcase), and the Metal Men. In 1979, Staton began a two-and-a-half-year run on Green Lantern during which he co-created the Omega Men with writer Marv Wolfman.

Joe Staton, in addition to his wonderful talent, is just a flat out wonderful guy. I've called on him a few times since this first enjoyable interview and he's always been generous with his time. In fact, my bride and I enjoyed a nice dinner with he and his lovely wife Hilarie when he was a guest at the Denver Con.

This interview originally took place over the phone on February 18, 2011.

Adventure Comics (1938) #458, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Jack Abel.

Bryan Stroud: You’ve done a lot of work over the years and for so many different publishers. I’ve seen credits for Charlton, First Comics, Archie, Marvel, DC and I’m sure I’m missing some. Was there any place you felt more comfortable working?

Joe Staton: I was always pretty comfortable at DC. I always felt like I understood those characters pretty well. I was very comfortable at Charlton, too. They let me do whatever I wanted to do.

Stroud: I realize that what with the life of a freelancer being what it is, even though you’re doing work for a particular publisher you’re still kind of not working for them as such since it’s the same home studio.

Staton: Exactly. Basically you’re day labor. And you never know when your day is over.

Stroud: (Chuckle.) How long does it usually take you to crank out a page?

Staton: When I was really productive at DC, in the late 80’s I would normally pencil three pages a day. At least two pages of superhero stuff per day and then through the 90’s when I was doing Scooby I’d routinely do three pages a day.

Stroud: That’s moving right along.

Staton: Well, there’s a lot more drawing on a superhero page. I doubt if I could do that now, but I was pretty productive back then.

Stroud: Did you do everything yourself or did you get help on backgrounds?

Staton: I never quite figured out how to work with assistants. I’ve had people who helped me with different things over the years, but I think the most I ever worked with anybody was with Bruce Patterson when I was penciling and inking Green Lantern. He did a lot of my backgrounds and he was really good at that and eventually he inked the book. I’d call Bruce my main assistant or co-worker or whatever the right term might be.

Stroud: Green Lantern had to be a fun assignment.

Green Lantern (1960) #107, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Giella.

Staton: Yeah, I really liked Green Lantern. I bought the first Green Lantern issues off the stands when they came out.

Stroud: Clear back to Showcase?

Staton: Yeah. Green Lantern was always one of my favorite characters, ever since those tryout issues. I really wanted to draw Green Lantern, and was glad I had a good run there.

Stroud: At one point didn’t you work with Gil Kane a little bit?

Staton: I did. I was working on E-Man in ’73 or ’74 and Gil called me up out of the blue and asked me if I’d like to do layouts for him. He seemed to like the way I did figures in space. He was annoyed by people who always did close ups with cropping. He was always trying to cut corners and get people to do his work for him. I was thrilled to do it. I think I worked for Gil for about a year and I learned a lot. I learned quite a bit just by watching Gil put a page together. After a while I was a pretty good Gil Kane. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Did it intimidate you at all to take on a character like Green Lantern who had been so well established and especially by someone of Gil’s stature?

Staton: Of course! Gil wasn’t working on Green Lantern when I worked for him but I certainly was formed a lot by what Gil had done on Green Lantern. He was mainly working for Marvel when I worked for him.

Stroud: I thought it a bit ironic that Roy Thomas hired you while at Marvel and then Paul Levitz at DC and the irony to me was that in the case of Paul he hired you to work on the JSA All-Star book and Roy is maybe the ultimate All-Star fan.

Staton: Well, Paul actually hired me off the bat to do The Karate Kid. I was finishing Ric Estrada’s layouts, but I guess the next thing up was the Justice Society. I really loved that title. I loved the idea of doing something from the 40’s and bringing all the Wally Wood stuff into it. I never really warmed up to Karate Kid that much, but I loved the Justice Society.

DC Super Stars (1976) #17, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Bob Layton.

Stroud: I fell in love with the JSA when they began reintroducing them in the classic Crisis crossovers in the 60’s.

Staton: When DC did reprints of the 40’s material in the back of books, that’s when I really got to know them.

Stroud: Really classic characters to me and even though a lot of the Silver Age versions are revamps of them, it’s always impressed me what Gardner Fox and company were able to do with them. I sometimes wish Alex Toth had got more involved like he did with the Golden Age Green Lantern.

Staton: Oh, yeah. His stuff was great.

Stroud: I see you’ve worked on Power Girl and the Huntress and the Legion, Doom Patrol, Metal Men and others. Did you take many cues from the prior artists?

Staton: I generally tried not to make too abrupt of a change from anybody else. I would kind of pick up on what had gone before. You can’t help changing things a bit, but I always tried to be respectful of what had gone on before.

Stroud: Is it true that you got to work some with Ross Andru and Mike Esposito on the Metal Men?

Staton: Actually I did not work with Andru and Esposito on the Metal Men. I did work with Ross on an issue or two of the Justice Society. The Metal Men I did was with Marty Pasko. I think I inked that job myself. I was a later generation on the Metal Men, but I certainly would have loved to work with them. I’m a big Andru and Esposito fan. I loved Ross, what little contact I had with him.

Stroud: I’ve heard many great stories about Ross and it was a real pleasure to get acquainted with Mike. I’ve wondered what Ross was like, but I understand he wasn’t as gregarious as Mike.

Staton: (Chuckle.) I wouldn’t say he was gregarious, but he was an awfully nice man. We hit it off because his father was, I believe, a classical violinist in the Cleveland Symphony, but he didn’t have any records of his father’s performances. One of my best friends was Leslie Gerber who was a dealer in antique records and an authority and we tracked down a record for Ross of his father.

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #50, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Rubinstein.

Stroud: Fantastic!

Staton: I had a good connection with Ross.

Stroud: That must have made his whole week.

Staton: It certainly made his afternoon. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Apparently you and Marv Wolfman developed the Omega Men. How did that come about?

Staton: It was pretty much Marv’s idea. Marv wanted to generate DC’s version of the X-Men, so it was generated off Marv’s ideas and I did the design. We went back and forth a little bit on those and we came up with the stories. Marv was always good with ideas.

Stroud: I’m always impressed with how prolific some writers can be. Len Wein’s recent work for DC showed me he hasn’t missed a step.

Staton: So many of the writers are just great that way. For the artist it’s often just a matter of endurance. After a while you’ve sort of been there and done that, but the writers have to come up with new ideas all the time. I don’t’ see how guys like Marv and Len and Steve Englehart and Mike Barr, a lot of the guys of my generation, just kept coming up with good ideas and adventures all the time. That’s got to be even harder than drawing.

Stroud: The two disciplines certainly have their pros and cons. Maybe more mental versus physical, for example.

Staton: Joe Orlando once told me that old comic book artists are prone to bad backs and alcoholism.

Stroud: (Laughter.) Joe would have known. He’s another I’ve heard many great stories about. I know that Carmine Infantino has had some physical ailments directly related to his chosen profession.

Staton: It will do it. You have to get up and move around every once in a while.

New Guardians (1988) #1, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Mark Farmer.

Stroud: Of course, the whole problem, if you can call it that, with being a freelancer is if you don’t produce, you don’t eat.

Staton: That’s right. Nobody pays you for showing up. (Chuckle.) Joe told me that when he was hired to edit on staff at DC it was like retiring. He’d go into the office and it didn’t matter if he did anything, they gave him money. (Chuckle.) It wasn’t like having to actually work or draw or anything.

Stroud: That did seem to be the brass ring at the time. I noticed you served for a while as art director at First Comics. What was that assignment like?

Staton: We basically proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was not cut out for management. (Laughter.) I don’t think I was too bad at it, but my way of working generally is “Tell me what you need and come back when you want it and it will be done.” Being an art director involves sitting in meetings and everybody decides what to do and figuring out who has to do it, make sure they’ve done it and if they haven’t done it to keep on top of them… I’m just not cut out for that.

There was one time I was proud of being the art director. We had shifted from one printer to another with a different kind of separations and we brought everybody in who could hold a brush and Bruce Patterson was involved in that, Doug Rice, and we all kind of re-colored the entire line overnight. When you can bring people in and get them to focus on something like that, that’s a good feeling.

Stroud: That does sound like a satisfying and Herculean task.

Staton: Yes it was. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Let’s talk a little about some of your special projects. I saw a credit for the 9-11 Project, for example.

Staton: The comics companies wanted to do something to contribute after 9-11. Everybody wanted to do something. I had such a long history with Paul Levitz and had worked with him so much that he picked me out as one of the guys to do a page with him. I was really proud of that. We did our page, which I think stands up. It’s a really sweet page. I was very pleased to be involved with that.

Batman & Robin Adventures Annual (1996) #2, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Terry Austin.

Stroud: It sounds like a great honor. I don’t know precisely how many people were involved, but I’ll bet it was a limited pool.

Staton: Yes and you know everyone wanted to get in on it.

Stroud: You both pencil and ink. Although I’ve learned in speaking with other artists that’s not completely out of the realm as a lot of wonderful, well-known inkers also pencil.

Staton: Yes, but even a good penciler will sometimes get an extra finger on a hand or lose count of just how many panes there are on a window or something. It’s better if an inker can actually do some drawing and figure things out while he’s working on it.

Stroud: Do you have a preference between the two?

Staton: Actually, I really like doing both. Sometimes I’m not that thrilled inking my own stuff because there are certain lines I’ll make by reflex that I’d rather not have in the drawing, so it’s better to work with an inker who can take my stuff in a direction that I’d like and maybe couldn’t do it myself. There are also things of mine I’d like to ink. Specifically, doing something that I know matches the kind of lines and shadows that I’d put down. Then there are times I’ve just inked…actually I’ve inked quite a bit of other people’s pencils, I’ve inked Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema both on The Hulk. One of the best times I had was inking Elfquest over Wendy Pini’s layouts. That was a lot of fun. Looking at how Wendy inked her own stuff, I tried to approach her layouts bringing her feeling for textures and things over into my inking.

It’s good, especially if the penciler has his or her own style and you can compare what you’re doing to what they’ve done and you learn a lot that way.

Stroud: That had to be excellent grist for the mill. I know that when I saw that it struck me as how different a project it was compared to other work you’ve been involved with.

Staton: One funny thing I realized was that my inks on Wendy ended up with a lot of Wally Wood in them. Mainly because of bringing in those black and white patterns and working on the space the way he would. It seemed to match up with Wendy’s style pretty well.

Showcase (1956) #97, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Orlando.

Stroud: Ah, Woody. What a gifted man. It’s heartbreaking how things ultimately ended up for him. And now mere mortals cannot afford the pages he worked on.

Staton: When I started at DC on the Karate Kid, he was doing a lot of finishes at that time so I looked a lot to his work. I’d always followed his work, but I tried to pick up on how he used his space especially. The way he would set such a solid, three dimensional setting with the use of black and white. I tried to pick up a lot from him. I had the chance to meet him just a few times toward the end, but I really thought a lot of his work.

Stroud: Yes, and it’s kind of neat that you got to do some work on Power Girl, which was one that he and Ric Estrada first worked on together.

Staton: That’s right and according to Joe Orlando every time Woody brought Power Girl back he tried to make her bust larger and see if anyone would try to stop him. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: It’s funny how the Comics Code was to deal with at the time.

Staton: Well, didn’t Kirby have to draw shorts on the Silver Surfer for more or less the same reason?

Stroud: It might have been. Perhaps even more ridiculous was the shorts on Fin Fang Foom. (Mutual laughter.) Shorts on a dragon. C’mon.

Staton: That’s right. Where do dragons buy their shorts? (More mutual laughter.)

Stroud: And how is it everything got shredded off the Hulk but those pants?

Staton: Atomic irradiated purple pants.

Stroud: Or one of my all-time favorites, Elasti-Girl’s amazing growing costume.

Staton: I always wondered about Elasti-Girl growing so large and yet having that short skirt.

Silver Surfer Annual (1988) #1 pg.4, penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Rubinstein.

Silver Surfer Annual (1988) #1 pg.8, penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Rubinstein.

Silver Surfer Annual (1988) #1 pg.20, penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Joe Rubinstein.

Stroud: And how about the Atom? His costume materializes when he shrinks, but what happened to his street clothes. Julie Schwartz, where are you when we need you?

Staton: He could have probably given you an explanation, too.

Stroud: I wouldn’t be surprised. He was there pretty much from the beginning.

Charlton Bullseye (1975) #2, cover by Joe Staton.

Staton: And in addition I think he was H.P. Lovecraft’s last agent. His memories went back beyond comics.

Stroud: Exactly. I’ve gathered that a lot of the sensibilities he brought to the comics, such as coming up with a cover and then building a story from it hailed right back to the pulp era. Apparently it was a common technique then.

Staton: It makes sense. You’d need more lead time to get your color separations done, then to have a writer knock out 120 pages overnight or something.

Stroud: I see some notable inkers who worked on your pencils include Dick Giordano and Bob Smith. Did you have a particular favorite as far as inkers?

Staton: Well, Bob Smith, who inked me on Plastic Man, is now inking me on some work at Archie. We’ve worked together well. I’ve always liked Bruce Patterson’s work on my Green Lantern stuff. I mentioned we worked together, but when he inked his own stuff he had a nice, crunchy pen line and his inking seemed real solid. It always seemed like the people had some meat on them when he inked. I really liked what he did. I’ve done some stuff with Horacio Ottolini out of Argentina. I guess I’d say he’s probably the best inker I’ve ever worked with. Remember when I said that the best inker is one who can see where you’re going even when you couldn’t quite get there? That’s really the best situation and Horacio has kind of a European, kind of a Wally Wood thing going. I did some Batman stuff with him and some Femme Noir, which is a creator-owned property. Horacio always made everything seem really real. I really liked what he did.

Stroud: Do you remember the center spread that you did for Amazing World of DC Comics #15 with Wonder Woman?

Wonder Woman (1942) #245, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Frank Giacoia.

Staton: Oh, with Hitler?

Stroud: That’s it.

Staton: I had not thought of that in years, but now that you mention it, I do remember it.

Stroud: Do you remember if it was specifically for that book or was it for something else?

Staton: I have no idea after all these years. I’m thinking it was for the book, but I really don’t know.

Stroud: Well, it’s a really beautiful piece of work. A nice, big 2-page splash with the Justice Society including the Golden Age Green Lantern.

In addition to the Karate Kid I see you also worked on the Creeper over Ric Estrada. Did you ever get to meet Ric?

Staton: I did meet him a couple of times just in passing at the DC offices. Unfortunately I never really got to know him. I think I came in to DC at a time when they were really kind of short of people and Ric seemed to be working around the clock laying pages out and they would be handed off to different people to do finishes on them. So they were really working him hard then. He had enough on the page to know what you were doing and they expected you to bring a lot to it. He was a very hard-working guy.

Stroud: Sounds like you were working off some loose stuff.

Staton: It had everything you needed.

Stroud: It’s interesting how some pencils are nearly non-existent and others, like a Jack Kirby almost make you wonder what the point of inking them might be.

Staton: Brian Bolland pencils are more detailed than most finished inks. Of course he does all his stuff on the computer now, but like you said, “Why do you need somebody to ink this?”

Scooby-Doo (1997) #106, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Heroic Age.

Stroud: Joe Rubinstein was telling me that with the advent of the computer inking sometimes isn’t even needed any longer since they can reproduce them in such a way that it comes out as well.

Staton: You do hear from time to time that one of the companies is going to do away with inkers. So far, it’s just been a rumor, but with Photoshop and many of the younger guys doing such over-the-top full pencils you wonder why is it being inked.

Stroud: It’s going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out eventually. Of course how many times have they predicted the demise of the entire medium? It does seem to manage to come back from the brink each time, though.

Staton: I think over the last 40 years I’ve lived through the-end-of-comics-as-we know-them at least three times. Probably more than that. I remember sometime in the early 70’s being at science fiction or maybe a comics convention and Maggie Thompson of all people was saying there probably wouldn’t be any comics in the next five years. (Chuckle.) Fortunately Maggie called that one wrong.

Stroud: I keep hearing distribution is the big problem. Maybe digital versions are the future.

Staton: They tell us print is dying totally, so I don’t know.

Stroud: It looks like you were the go-to guy on certain special projects. We already talked about 9-11, but I also saw credits on the superhero stamp album and some Big Books and Heroes Against Hunger, too. Is that because of your request or are you someone they automatically think of?

Staton: A little bit of both. For a long time at DC if there was anything odd that needed doing they knew I enjoyed doing it. Or maybe guys who are my pals like Paul Kupperberg or Marty Pasko or somebody like that would be editing and they would think of me when they needed something done.

Stroud: Reliability always shows through.

DC Challenge (1985) #7, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Steve Mitchell.

Staton: You’re talking about special projects, one thing I’d like to mention is the Batman book about land mines. That wasn’t something I really had a big interest in, but I really got interested in it while we were working on it and I think I did some of my best work on that book. Bill Sienkiewicz did an amazing inking job on it and Denny O’Neil gave us a great script. That’s one I’m real proud of.

Stroud: I’m impressed with Denny’s gifts. Some of my favorite comics from back in the day were written by him and I just love the Knightfall novel he did.

Staton: Speaking of people coming up with good ideas, Denny was at it before I got into the industry and he’s still at it. He’s kind of the poster child for enduring writers.

Stroud: He told me a great story about how journalism prepared him for working in comics. To summarize he said he got used to working with editors and understanding that his words were not made of diamonds.

Staton: (Laughter.) That’s a wonderful thing to know.

Stroud: It’s been interesting to learn about how different editors worked in different eras, from the old iron-fisted types to the nearly irrelevant ones at later points when “rock-star” artists could do nearly whatever they wanted, deadlines notwithstanding.

Staton: The transitional time, like when Bernie Wrightson and others were coming in, had people who were determined to do comics, and because they wanted to do comics and do them right, you had some very different attitudes compared to the earlier talent, I think.

Stroud: I would agree. You had the generation who did comics because it was what was available or maybe for a quick payday and then those who came later who really had a desire to work in them.

I guess this time with you wouldn’t be complete without discussing your E-Man character. Can you describe that evolution?

E-Man (1973) #1, cover penciled by Nicola Cuti & inked by Joe Staton.

Staton: Well, that was when I was young and really enthusiastic. (Chuckle.) I had a positive attitude toward the work and Nick Cuti was editing at Charlton. Nick, and here’s another connection, had worked for Wally Wood and had lots and lots of ideas. George Wildman, who was editing, was willing to give Nick a shot at a lot of things and at one point they were thinking of a new line of Chalton superheroes. But management kind of shot that down. George wanted a chance to do some of the clever things that Nick had in mind, so he let Nick go ahead with his character, which was E-Man.

I had worked with Nick quite a bit on the ghost stories at Charlton. In fact, that was what I started out doing there. And we had hit it off really well. I really liked working Nick’s scripts and so I was the guy who got called to do the visuals on E-Man.

He told me his original idea, and I really hated it. (Chuckle.) He originally thought E-Man would be a worker who was caught in an atomic explosion at a plant or something. I said something like, “Oh, no, Nick. That’s just like some old Stan Lee stuff.” So Nick said, “Well, I’ll think of something else.” So he called back and said, “How about E-Man is this life form from an exploding star?” I said, “Well, that sounds cool. Nobody has ever done that.” And I think that’s true. I don’t think anyone has done a character based on that idea before or since, so we went from there and Nick had all these great ideas. The great thing with Nick was that he had such likeable characters. Nick is such a sweet guy and such a nice person that it comes across in his characters.

Stroud: How can you go wrong?

Staton: Yeah. We really clicked and he gave me my head on coming up with the visuals. Throwing in jokes or whatever I felt like. We worked really well together. I’m proud of E-Man. People tell me it’s the best stuff I’ve ever done and I sometimes ask, “Well, what about the other stuff I’ve done for the last 40 years?” (Chuckle.) But it was good stuff. I’m still proud of it.

Stroud: Rightly so. I was looking at some of the covers and they remind me very much of the painted covers on the old Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom books. Were they painted or do you know?

E-Man (1973) #10 cover painted by Joe Staton.

Staton: They were painted. Pat Boyette lived in Texas and he found the world’s cheapest color separator in Texas. It turned out that you could get painted, color covers separated cheaper than Charlton could do them by hand in house. So they told us all if we were interested in painting covers, (for no more money, of course,) we could give it a shot. So several of us did painted covers. Don Newton did some brilliant Phantom covers and Tom Sutton did some really nice horror covers and painted them. So that’s how that came about. We had a shot and it didn’t cost Charlton any money.

Stroud: So, you were the painter on the E-Man issues?

Staton: Yeah. They were all acrylics.

Stroud: Beautiful stuff that really stands out.

Staton: It was different for the time.

Stroud: Do you color or letter at all, Joe?

Staton: I have lettered--at Charlton. They’d send you a script and you’d send the art back, inked and lettered. There were no steps in editorial that had to be done, so I lettered a lot of my stuff at Charlton. I’m not especially happy with lettering, but I can do it. When I was doing work for Charlton my poor wife had instructions not to talk to me when I was lettering, because I would start to write down what she said rather than what was supposed to be in the script.

Stroud: (Laughter.) Occupational hazard, I guess. I’m reminded of a story Russ Heath told me about working at home and being occasionally interrupted by his wife and it would take him awhile to figure out where he was at, just wreaking havoc with a rhythm.

Staton: My wife grew accustomed to my saying, “Hold on, I’ve got to wash my brush. I don’t want the ink to get hard.” You have to laugh at things like that.

Stroud: Its small wonder you guys keep the hours you do. I’m sure at times it’s easier to work in the middle of the night.

Millennium (1988) #1 cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Bruce Patterson.

Staton: When I first started at Charlton my preferred working hours were to awaken at four in the afternoon and work until four in the morning. My wife was teaching then, so she would be coming in when I was just getting ready to go to work. That just really didn’t work. So I eventually readjusted and keep kind of normal human hours now. It’s amazing she lasted through those first years, but she did.

Stroud: I notice that you’ve inked the very unique work of Fred Hembeck, who is also a big fan of yours.

Staton: I’m a big fan of Fred’s and a friend of Fred’s, so that works both ways.

Stroud: I’ve been working my way through his Omnibus and it’s been great fun.

Staton: Break out your magnifying glass.

Stroud: Oh, yeah. A few of those did not reproduce well and some of that copy is really tough to pull out, at least for these middle-aged peepers. At any rate one of the segments mentions you specifically and how much he loved your work on some title that escapes me at the moment. I just thought it was neat that you guys got to collaborate later.

Staton: I really liked what little bit of inking I got to do with Fred. I think he’s like Jules Feiffer with his characters commenting on the world.

Stroud: An apt comparison. I have to confess that initial exposure to his work left me scratching my head, but it grew on me in a hurry.

Staton: And then the curlicues on the knees.

Stroud: Gotta have those. (Chuckle.) I was looking at a particular story you’d done, “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne,” and was really struck by the retro style art kind of reminiscent of Dick Sprang…

Staton: Oh, yeah. That was on purpose.

Stroud: Was that directed or something you came up with?

DC Retroactive: Green Lantern (2011) #1 cover by Joe Staton.

Staton: I think it was my idea and I don’t think anybody objected to it. It was based on the approach I took to the Justice Society, except I was looking more directly at Dick Sprang. I had one of my very best inking jobs ever on that in George Freeman. With George that was definitely a case of an inker seeing where you’re going and taking it the rest of the way. We really meshed on that one.

Stroud: It’s a neat job. I love the retro feel to it and yet it still manages to be contemporary in its own way. I think it showed your chops as far as adaptability, too.

Staton: Alan Brennert did that script. He doesn’t do many comic strips but when he does he really hits all the human notes and makes it seem like people relating to people.

Stroud: That reminds me of Denny again. He told me he much prefers writing human scaled characters and for that reason really loves doing Batman. He said something to the effect that how do you relate to a Kryptonian who cannot be hurt? I’d never really thought of it in that way and it stuck with me.

Staton: Alan Brennert also wrote the origin of the Black Canary story that I did in Secret Origins.

Stroud: I haven’t had the pleasure.

Staton: I think it was in the last issue and practically nobody in the world saw it. But it has the Earth One Black Canary dying of cancer while the second Black Canary from whichever Earth we are, is at her bedside and I practically wound up in tears drawing that story. It was all about the humanity of these characters. It was just really lovely stuff. And Dick Giordano inked that one. If you ever get a chance, compare the inking that Dick did on that Black Canary story to what George did on the Bruce Wayne Autobiography. They’re two of my best inking jobs and two of my best stories, but they look completely different. To me they don’t look much like the same person had anything to do with them.

Stroud: I’ll make it a point. It was announced awhile back that you’ve got the Dick Tracy daily. Now that’s not the first time you’ve worked on that character, am I right?

Staton: Which direction are you approaching this?

A Dick Tracy commission done by Joe Staton in 2016.

Stroud: Well, you’re not a stranger to Dick Tracy.

Staton: I always say I was reading Dick Tracy before I could read. (Laughter.) Which, I think, is true. I was so impressed and drawn to the world Chester Gould had created that I would look at Tracy even before I could read the stories. I think one of the things that drew me into comics was Dick Tracy. So I’m kind of winding up where I started.

Stroud: I’ve speculated more than once that a lot of the success that Batman and maybe to a lesser extend The Flash enjoyed is because they’ve got the most interesting gang of villains or rogue’s gallery and I think that goes right back to Chester Gould.

Staton: Yeah. A lot of people compare Tracy to Dick Sprang’s Batman. A lot of that overlaps for me. It’s kind of a world of its own.

Stroud: Well I know that back in the day it was certainly the brass ring to land a syndicated comic strip. Is this something you’ve pursued actively? Is it as prestigious as it used to be?

Staton: It’s not the big deal that it was at the height of the comics, but it’s something I’ve really wanted to do, and I’ve always been able to think in terms of comic strips because I came to Tracy so early. For a while in the 90’s I penciled Mickey Spillaine’s Mike Danger strip, which didn’t get a lot of distribution, and I did one of the first graphic novels for Andy Helfer at DC. A crime story done in four panels on a page, so it looked like a comic strip.

Some people feel that the few panels in a strip constricts you too much and you can’t go crazy with layouts, but I don’t know. I think it’s a good way to tell a story. I’m comfortable with it.

Stroud: I certainly wanted to congratulate you. It’s got to be a very satisfying achievement in more ways than one.

Staton: Thank you.

Joe Staton, Nicola Cuti, Paul Levitz, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein at a convention circa 1974.

Stroud: Any other interesting projects you’re doing?

Staton: Well, I just did some work for Archie where Archie and the gang are trapped in computer games, like in Tron. And I also recently completed an illustrated version of Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” for Penguin and that’s out now. So I guess I’m still doing odd things and returning to the old. I’m currently working on an issue of Green Lantern Retroactive, written by my old friend, Len Wein. Whatever you’re doing, I’m your man. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Still fully employed and it’s served you well for, what, 40 years now?

Staton: 40 years as of April 19th .

You can see more from Joe (including his convention schedule) at JoeStaton.com!

February 27, 2019

An Interview With Jose Delbo - Silver Age Penciler, Inker, & Cover Artist

February 27, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

José Delbo (born December 9, 1933) is an Argentine comics artist. He is best known for his work on Wonder Woman for DC and The Transformers for Marvel. José Delbo became a professional comics artist at the age of 16 working for the Argentine Poncho Negro series. Due to political instability in Argentina, he moved to Brazil in 1963 and then to the United States two years later. His early work for the U.S. market included Billy the Kid for Charlton. His first work for DC Comics appeared in The Spectre #10 (May–June 1969). Jose became the artist on the Wonder Woman title with issue #222 (Feb.–March 1976) and drew the series until #286 (Dec. 1981).In 1986, Delbo began working for Marvel where he drew ThunderCats, The Transformers, and NFL SuperPro. He co-created Brute Force with Simon Furman in 1990.

Delbo also taught at The Kubert School from the 1990s until 2005. After moving to Florida, he taught at a "cartoon camp" program for school aged children in Boca Raton.

I enjoyed a short exchange with Mr. Jose Delbo, another instructor from the Kubert School via e-mail and later had the pleasure of meeting him at the Denver Con, where he'll be making a return appearance this year.

This interview originally took place via email on January 25, 2011.

Wonder Woman (1942) #253, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Dick Giordano.

Bryan Stroud: According to my research you began at 16 in the industry. Was cartooning something that caught your imagination?

Jose Delbo: Yes, I was 16 when I started drawing comic books in Argentina where I was born. I grew up with American comics that were being published in Argentinean magazines and I loved them.

Stroud: Did you have any formal art training?

Delbo: Yes, my teacher was a great Argentinean cartoonist, Carlos Clemen. I later went on to become one of his assistants.

Stroud: You did work for nearly all the publishers to include Charlton, Dell, Gold Key, DC, Marvel and Acclaim. How did they compare?

Delbo: It's hard to compare the publishers. In DC I did Wonder Woman and most of the heroes of DC. For Marvel I did the Thundercats and the Transformers.

Stroud: Did you feel any particular advantage to one company over another?

Delbo: I received more leeway working for Marvel because Marvel gave you just the plot instead of a full script. That allowed me to be more creative. At least that's how they did it when I was working there. In general I enjoyed working with all the publishers.

Stroud: Did you have a particular editor you enjoyed working with?

Delbo: I worked with almost every editor. I have fond memories of working with Paul Levitz, Julius Schwartz and Don Daley.

Stroud: How about a favorite writer?

Conan the Barbarian (1970) #226, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Mark Texeira.

Delbo: Again, Paul Levitz, Len Wein and more but I don't remember the names.

Stroud: You pencil and ink, but it looks like penciling might be more of a specialty. Did you have an inker you thought was particularly good over your pencils?

Delbo: Well I have several inkers who were very good in different books. I got great guys like Al Williamson, Dick Giordano, Joe Giella and Al Gordon.

Stroud: When you worked for Tower, did you interact with Wally Wood?

Delbo: Not really, at one point Wally Wood did ink some of my pages on Wonder Woman.

Stroud: Was it easier to do a comic book character as opposed to a television adaptation?

Delbo: Both of them were fun. I had a lot of fun doing The Monkees. I enjoyed that one very much.

Stroud: Which projects gave you the most enjoyment?

Delbo: Besides The Monkees, the Beatles Yellow Submarine and definitely The Lone Ranger. I love westerns.

Stroud: What was your production rate?

Delbo: Well it's hard to say. It all depended on how difficult the script was but normally it would be two to two and a half pages per day of pencils.

Stroud: Were deadlines ever a problem?

Delbo: Deadlines are always a problem for a cartoonist but I always managed to meet mine.

Stroud: You managed many cartoonists' dream by working on daily strips, both Superman and the Phantom. How did that compare to comic books?

Ghosts (1971) #55 pg1, art by Jose Delbo.

Delbo: Again they are two different things. It was much easier to do three panels then a full comic book.

Stroud: How long were you doing the dailies?

Delbo: I don't really remember when I started or when the Syndicate canceled the strip. I know that I penciled the Phantom for almost a year as a ghost artist.

Stroud: You were an officer in the National Cartoonist's Society. Tell me a little about your involvement. Who did you enjoy associating with?

Delbo: I was Vice-President of the society. For me it was a tremendous honor and emotionally rewarding as I was able to meet some of the great artists that I had always admired like Milton Caniff, John Cullen Murphy, Burne Hogarth and others.

Stroud: When did you teach at the Kubert School?

Delbo: I believe that I started in the 90's and I taught up until I moved to Florida which was in 2005.

Stroud: What was your specialty, or in other words, what did you teach?

Delbo: Basic Drawing.

Stroud: Who else do you remember being on staff while you taught there?

Delbo: Joe Kubert (of course), Hy Eisman, Irwin Hasen, Mike Chen, Tex Blaisdell.

Stroud: Tell me about your cartoon camp.

Delbo: About 13 years ago when the International Museum of Cartoon Art opened in Boca Raton, Florida, we started a cartooning program for school aged children. It's a place where they create their own comic books, make animated cartoon movies and a variety of other activities related to comics and cartoons. Since the first location at the museum we have run the camp at about a dozen different schools and Universities in the Florida area.

Stroud: Do you do commissions?

Delbo: Only under special circumstances.

Stroud: Do you keep up with the industry much anymore?

Delbo: Well, I keep track more or less of the industry but I don't work full time anymore.

Stroud: Where do you think comics are headed? Do they still have a future?

Delbo: Comics unfortunately have a tremendously hard time competing with the video games, but I believe that reading and using your imagination is something that will endure forever. A person who reads comic books and likes to draw could be in the future a great video game designer.

Stroud: Any current projects?

Delbo: I am currently working on my own graphic novel that I believe is a different idea then what I've seen out there. As soon as I finish it I will start looking for a publisher.

ThunderCats (1985) #10, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Brett Breeding.

House of Mystery (1951) #210 pg25, art by Jose Delbo.

Dino Riders (1989) #2, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Danny Bulanadi.

Brute Force (1990) #1, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Joe Sinnott.

World's Finest Comics (1941) #320, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Karl Kessel.

The Transformers (1984) #41, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Dave Hunt.

NFL SuperPro (1991) #10, cover penciled by Jose Delbo & inked by Joe Sinnott.

Wonder Woman (1942) #285, cover by Jose Delbo.

February 20, 2019

An Interview With Bob Smith - Longtime Inker for DC & Archie Comics

February 20, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Robert Allen Smith (born November 18, 1951) - better known as Bob Smith - is an American comic book artist, notable as an inker with DC and Archie. After Bob first became interested in comic books in the early '70s, he contributed to Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach. Shortly after relocating in New York in 1975, Smith entered mainstream comics with the story The Bogus-Men Will Get You if You Don't Watch Out! in Plastic Man (1966) #12 while continuing his art education at the Art Students League.

He worked for DC until 2011, inking numerous titles (including Black Canary, Green Lantern, & Secrets of Haunted House) while also working on DC style guides and other items for Joe Orlando's Special Projects Department. Smith also drew cartoon features for Crazy Magazine.

In 1998, he began inking many titles published by Archie Comics (usually collaborating with Stan Goldberg) and also inking the Archie daily and Sunday strips.

Bob Smith, talented inker and for many years now an Archie Comics stalwart, was a lot of fun to meet at a convention in Portland a handful of years back. I believe it was at the same time that I got to meet Tom Orzechowski. At any rate, Bob is a gentleman and has had a steady career in the biz we all love.

This interview originally took place over the phone on January 22, 2011.

Secrets of Haunted House (1975) #31, cover penciled by Jim Janes & inked by Bob Smith.

Bryan Stroud: John Workman told me a little about how you both began in the industry together. What are your recollections?

Bob Smith: It must have been about 1971. I’d gotten interested in comics only a couple of years earlier. I’d never been that interested before that. I was interested in cartooning and such, but comic books? No. Somehow, though, I managed to get fascinated by it. I was hanging around this bookstore and was buying old comics and stuff and I’d started to do some artwork and I showed it to the owner of the bookstore and he said, “You should show that to John Workman.” So, I gave John a call and got together with him and we started collaborating after that.

Stroud: And is it correct that you two traveled east together to break into the business?

Smith: Yeah. In 1975 we moved back to New York together.

Stroud: As I recall he said you were both lucky enough to get assignments the first thing.

Smith: It actually took about a week and a couple of trips up to DC. We managed to get in to see Carmine Infantino and he seemed to like our work and John got a job in production right away. I was given Plastic Man. We did some stuff for Marvel, too. Some work for Crazy Magazine.

Stroud: Okay, so you didn’t keep all your eggs in one basket.

Smith: No. We were trying to get anything we could at that point. Money was starting to run out pretty fast. (Chuckle.) We were staying in a motel on Staten Island.

Stroud: Ah. I believe it was Bob McLeod who told me how intimidating he found New York City initially and he had to take another run at it later.

Smith: We were pretty lucky, actually. I’ve heard horror stories about people who tried for years to get work and just couldn’t find anything. Here we managed to get something within just a few days. Now it would be impossible today.

Justice League of America (1960) #185, cover penciled by Jim Starlin & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: Ah, yes. John was remarking how at the time you could just stroll on into DC, but those days are gone.

Smith: Oh, yeah. You can’t so much as walk into the building now without being strip searched.

Stroud: The security requirements these days get onerous. Never mind flying.

Smith: Oh, yeah. I flew back to New York in October and I think it’s going to be another three or four years before I put myself through that again. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: I certainly can’t blame you. Now at the time that you got in, with the full understanding that the industry has been cyclical right from the beginning, where were things then, if you recall?

Smith: They were talking about everything folding up. We were told by people that you could probably get a job, but the whole business will likely go under in the next six months. This was right before the distribution system changed. General distribution was falling apart and the companies just figured it was over. Sales were dropping. Of course, sales were so much better then than they are now.

Stroud: I’ve heard stories that fanzines back in the day sold more copies than a lot of comic titles do today.

Smith: I think they were dropping titles when they dropped below 400,000.

Stroud: Anyone would kill for figures like that now.

Smith: Oh, yeah.

Stroud: Did you go through the whole implosion while you were working for DC?

Smith: Yeah, but I was lucky. I was under contract at the time. So I managed to hang in there. A lot of people lost books and several editors got let go. I think Gerry Conway and Denny O’Neil were let go at that point. I think even Al Milgrom was up there at the time and he was let go.

Archie (1960) #500, cover penciled by Stan Goldberg & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: I seem to recall someone saying that the next thing they knew he was lined up at Marvel looking for work.

Smith: Denny ended up over at Marvel, too.

Stroud: That was such a mess. I’ve heard different stories of how it all came down.

Smith: I never did know.

Stroud: It seems like Carmine told me they tried to pack the racks with new titles and then a gentleman’s agreement on pricing was ignored and then…Shazam!

Smith: Also, Marvel was reprinting practically every book they had. The stands were flooded with reprint material.

Stroud: And then there was that horrible winter storm in New York where they couldn’t get the product out. Anyway, I don’t know how it will all turn out in the end.

Smith: The digital thing may change things to a certain extent. They may be able to pick up some extra sales that way. But who knows what will happen there.

Stroud: Didn’t DC recently fold up its digital comic thing? Zuda?

Smith: I don’t know a lot about it. I knew a couple of people who tried out for it, but I never really checked it out. I think it was more of a news strip sort of thing. I just don’t think it worked out the way they wanted it to. I think at some point they’ll be looking more into comics that you can download to computers and iPods and so forth.

Stroud: Well, Kindle’s and Nook’s and the like seem to be catching on and while I hate to sound like a Luddite, there’s something about holding a book…

Smith: Yeah. You can’t smell the newsprint if you’re reading the comic book on the computer.

Captain Atom (1987) #18, cover penciled by Pat Broderick & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: Precisely. In my mind one of the great things about picking up the great old Silver Age comic books, whether at shows like the one I saw you at in Portland or through eBay auctions, is that when I crack that thing open the smell of it takes me right back to when I was 12 years old.

Smith: Yeah. And the displays on those units right now are black and white, so you wouldn’t necessarily be able to read a comic book on them anyway. Now the iPad displays color, but they’re about twice the price of a Kindle.

Stroud: It will be interesting. I see among your credits that in addition to inking, which is probably what you’re best known for, you’ve done a little bit of penciling, too. How did you happen to settle on inking?

Smith: Well, they hired me as an inker. I was doing some penciling for Crazy Magazine for about the first year, but they liked the look of my inking, so I started inking and unlike some guys who started out inking like Jerry Ordway, I just sort of shifted over from penciling and just kept inking. I was faster at it. Every time I tried penciling I was just so slow at it that I just found I couldn’t make any money at it. I wasn’t doing enough of it to pick up any speed.

Stroud: Obviously for the life of a freelancer, that’s the name of the game. If you can’t produce, you don’t eat. What’s your typical production rate, Bob?

Smith: I can do a couple of pages in a day.

Stroud: Very respectable.

Smith: Although on things like Plastic Man and Super Friends I could do 3 pages in a day. On superhero stuff I’m a lot slower. I just started doing a superhero book for Archie and oh, boy. It’s been a good 10 years since I’ve done any superhero work and it’s taking me a little time to adjust.

Stroud: You’ve worked with some great penciling talent and I was told that Gene Colan felt you were one of the few inkers who really did his work justice.

Smith: Yeah, Gene seemed to like my inks. Garcia-Lopez seemed to like what I did, too.

Night Force (1982) #3, cover penciled by Gene Colan & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: Mike Esposito was telling me how challenging it was to work on Gene’s stuff because it wasn’t well defined.

Smith: It was like inking fog. From two feet away all the pencils look really nice and when you’d get close up everything just seemed to dissolve. It’s all in tone. There aren’t very many clear, precise lines. It was so much just tonal work. If you’ve ever seen his pencils reproduced…I know awhile back they were trying to do that and they had to color it so lightly it really didn’t work very well.

Stroud: Gene’s stuff is definitely in a class by itself.

Smith: Oh, yeah.

Stroud: Tom Palmer seemed to be Gene’s other favorite.

Smith: He has such a strong style that you always know immediately who it is no matter who inks it.

Stroud: That sounds exactly like what Bernie Wrightson told me about inking Steve Ditko the one time he did. He said something to the effect that Steve’s pencils were so strong that no matter who did it or what you did, it looked like Ditko.

Smith: It’s like Carmine. I remember when Warren did something with Carmine where a bunch of inkers worked on it and Bernie was inking one of those jobs. It was very interesting seeing all these different inkers on Carmine’s work. I think it was in the late 80’s.

Stroud: I understand Carmine is no picnic to ink. Someone described his pencils to me as a “mare’s nest.”

Smith: Yeah, Ross Andru was kind of the same way. There were two or three different lines to choose from and you had to kind of pick the right one. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: (Laughter.) I think Joe Giella, who obviously worked a lot with Carmine said you just had to erase what you didn’t need and take it from there. How you would decide, I cannot imagine.

Adventure Comics (1938) #479, cover penciled by Carmine Infantino & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: I always felt that I had picked the wrong line to ink. I never really liked what I had done over Carmine for that reason.

Stroud: Carmine told me that he didn’t much care for Murphy Anderson’s inks, but his favorite was Frank Giacoia.

Smith: Well, he and Frank had been friends for years.

Stroud: Yeah. It did sound almost like he and Frank preceded you and John by several years in approaching the publishers. What sort of equipment do you favor, Bob?

Smith: I use a combination of pen and brush. I use several different points. I’ve settled down on a few specific kinds. Quill pens and a couple of different brushes.

Stroud: Did you have a penciler you especially enjoyed collaborating with?

Smith: I did enjoy Gene a lot. Ramona Fradon was the first penciler I worked with at DC and her pencils are very nice to work with. Dick Giordano was a lot of fun to ink.

Stroud: I sometimes don’t think of Dick as a penciler, but obviously he did. I even own a few examples.

Smith: I didn’t do that many jobs over him, but those I did were enjoyable. I wish I could ink Garcia-Lopez again, because I don’t feel like I did him justice when I was inking Atari Force. He’s a great penciler.

Stroud: Is he still working?

Smith: He does mostly licensing stuff.

Stroud: That’s more lucrative, I imagine.

Smith: Licensing work pays pretty well. I know a lot of guys who have been doing that. Mike Zeck, for example, has been doing that for the last several years.

Plastic Man (1966) #12 pg1 original, penciled by Ramona Fradon & inked by Bob Smith.

Plastic Man (1966) #12 pg1, penciled by Ramona Fradon & inked by Bob Smith.

Archie (1960) #600, cover penciled by Stan Goldberg & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: It seems you worked on all the major DC characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern…

Smith: I only got to work on one Superman job. I wish I would have got the chance to ink that one more. I was doing a lot of Batman work at the time, so I think I was tagged as a Batman guy.

Stroud: Were any of those stories particularly memorable?

Batman (1940) #385, cover penciled by Paris Cullins & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: I liked the assignments, but no particular stories are coming to me at the moment.

Stroud: It seems there’s a certain cachet to working on a major character.

Smith: It was a lot of fun. I inked a lot of stories for Detective. I think I was inking all of Gene’s work and Adam Broderick. Early on I inked some Irv Novick stories that were a lot of fun. I believe that was in the late 70’s. Now two people I missed inking were Curt Swan and Gil Kane. I really wish I could have inked them. I just never got the chance.

Stroud: Al Plastino said that Curt’s pencils were quite detailed.

Smith: I’ve got a framed pencil job by Curt of Superman and Supergirl. It’s very nice to have. It was one of his later works from the 90’s, but still very nicely done.

Stroud: It looks like you’ve done everything from horror to humor and heroes to war books…

Smith: Well, yeah, when you started out at DC at that point, they would give you a lot of the 6 to 8-page mystery and war books because that was just sort of how you started.

Stroud: Kind of the apprenticeship?

Smith: Yeah. I think that’s what the anthology books were good for. They were a good place to start. I miss those books.

Stroud: They had some wonderful stuff. I’ve sure been enjoying the reprints in those Showcase Presents editions.

Smith: I did quite a few on the mystery titles, but not much on the war books. They were with Murray Boltinoff. I got pretty close to Joe Orlando and did a lot on the mystery titles with him.

Stroud: Everyone speaks so fondly of Joe. Any memories to share?

Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew (1982) #2, cover penciled by Scott Shaw & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: He was very helpful. He was tough, but he was helpful. If there was something he felt you were doing wrong he’d put a piece of tracing paper over it and show you what you’d done wrong. He was a very good teacher.

Stroud: Sounds familiar and I’ve never heard anyone say a cross word about him.

Smith: Well, there were people he didn’t get along with and he could show a little temper, but I never had any trouble with him. He got along fine with the other artists, but I think the administration was where he had some trouble at times.

Stroud: It’s interesting how they sometimes feel if you’re good at whatever you do you can be an administrator over whatever it was you specialized in.

Smith: And if you don’t do well at that, they usually don’t let you go back, they just fire you. I think the only one I ever saw do that was Mike Carlin, who went back to being an editor.

Stroud: Maybe Dick Giordano, too.

Smith: I think he was an editor and then I think he quit and he and Neal Adams formed Continuity at that point. Then after that he went back to DC.

Stroud: Now as I recall, you were telling me in Portland that while I was under the impression you’d spent time at Continuity that you said you hadn’t?

Smith: Yeah. John Workman and I used to pop in there all the time and there were a couple of times when they said, “How would you like to work on something?” and I think we worked on an ad for a Looney Tunes show for TV Guide although I don’t remember ever seeing it. That was very early on. Then we showed up there one day and they were doing these black and white books for Emergency! We spent a day there working on that. But both of us had other work, so we really didn’t need to work for Continuity. They were doing a lot of tracing stuff and we just weren’t really interested in doing it that way. Putting photographs of helicopters under the projector and tracing them off. We just weren’t interested in it that much.

Stroud: Did you attend an art school?

The Huntress (1989) #12, cover penciled by Joe Staton & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: I have a degree in art from Western Washington State College. It’s a University now. I took a lot of painting and drawing courses. I also took some painting classes at the Art Students League in New York. I didn’t go to the Kubert School like a lot of the other people did.

Stroud: After Joe [Kubert] got the school set up it seemed to become the gold standard in fairly short order.

Smith: One of the guys up at Archie teaches up there and he’s a graduate. I don’t know if I could teach. It’s never really interested me that much. A lot of guys do supplement by teaching, though. I was offered a teaching job about 15 years ago, but I just really wasn’t interested.

Stroud: What other inkers do you admire, Bob?

Smith: Dick Giordano, Tom Palmer, Frank Giacoia, Bernie Wrightson. People who aren’t necessarily exclusively inkers, but in addition to their other talents they ink really well.

Stroud: Have you been able to interact with any of them?

Smith: Yeah, I’ve been able to get to know most of them. Certainly Dick. I shared a studio with him for a year. I think that was in 1994. Tom Palmer is someone I didn’t get to know very well. I’ve met him a couple of times, but can’t say I got to know him well. I never did meet Frank Giacoia. There’s just something about every one of them that I felt I could lift something here and there to use in improving my own work.

Stroud: I’m sure it’s very much an ongoing process and evolution.

Smith: Oh, yeah. You’re always learning and you always try to get better. You’ll go through a period where it feels like you’re stagnating and then suddenly one day you notice you’ve gone up a notch somehow.

Stroud: When did you make the shift to Archie?

Betty & Veronica (1987) #270, cover penciled by Fernando Ruiz & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: That was in 1998. I was looking for work and a friend of mine suggested I contact Victor Gorelick at Archie and so I called him and he sent me some photocopies of things to do some samples over and he seemed to like them and said, “I’m not sure I can give you much work.” The next thing I knew I had more than I could handle. So that worked out very well.

Stroud: You’ve made the rounds, too. In addition to what we discussed before I saw work for Dark Horse, Bongo, First, Defiant…

Smith: I was trying to recall if I did any work for Valiant. I think I went there a couple of times, but I don’t believe I did any work for them.

Stroud: Did you find any significant differences among the various publishers?

Smith: I didn’t think there was much difference. I’ve also done some work for IDW. One of the issues for Star Trek was running kind of late, so they got several different inkers to work on section of it. I think I did six pages.

Stroud: I’ve been talking with a lot of former Crusty Bunkers and some of those jobs sounded like they were you classic crank-it-out-over-the-weekend scenario.

Smith: I never got involved in any of those. I knew a lot of the guys, though, like Bernie and Kaluta and Alan Weiss as they did them. A lot of that was going on in the early 70’s.

Stroud: Greg Theakston described how even the rushed, collaborative jobs turned out looking professional.

Smith: Yeah, it’s fun to look back at those and try to pick out who did what. I understand on a lot of them that other people were doing the penciling, but Neal was doing most of the inking. I could pick out Alan Weiss on some of those jobs, though.

Stroud: What did you do for Star*Reach?

DC Comics Presents (1978) #97, cover penciled by Rick Veitch & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: That was some of my pre-professional work. John and I got involved in that before we moved to New York. In fact, I did one before I moved to New York and one afterward. The first day John and I came to New York, we went to Continuity first because we were meeting Mike Friedrich there. I did one story that was more realistic and one that was more humorous. The second one kind of drove me crazy working for DC at the time and trying to find the time to write, pencil and ink this job for Mike.

Stroud: Ah, a juggling act. That couldn’t have been much fun.

Smith: No, especially since I’d only been working for a couple of months and didn’t want to blow anything with DC. I recall an early Keith Giffen job and that was kind of tough to do. His stuff didn’t look like it did later. He was doing material that looked like Barry Smith. I guess you could say it looked a little crude. (Chuckle.) There were some jobs early on that they should not have given me because I just wasn’t ready for them.

Stroud: You must have shown them something because you kept working.

Smith: Yeah. When you’re doing a lot of that anthology stuff, you can blow a couple of them without really killing yourself professionally. Even just individual stories like backup stories and things like that. It wasn’t a terrible thing to make some mistakes. I think they were more concerned with just getting the work out there and getting it into print. At that point they weren’t so concerned about having the hot artist on the book. The sales maybe weren’t quite as important as they became later. It wasn’t like the royalty situation you had in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Stroud: Just keep up with the production schedule.

Smith: Yeah, you’ve got to keep things moving through production.

Stroud: I see you’ve done some special projects like the 911 book and the superhero stamp album. How did those compare to the other work?

Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #274, cover penciled by Rich Buckler & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: The superhero stamp thing goes way back to my working with Joe Orlando when he became the head of the licensing department or whatever it was called from being an editor. I did a lot of work for him there. Pamphlets and things for the Atari game and a bunch of other material. When the superhero stamp book came out I think it might have been Joey Cavialeri running it at that point. It was kind of fun inking the different artists. I never did see any of the stamps. It’s not like they gave me copies or anything.

On the 911 book I hadn’t received any work from DC in a year or so, but I heard that was happening, so I called Paul Levitz and asked if I could do a page for it. I wanted to be involved in it. I think he just sat down and wrote one for Joe Staton and me. I believe that’s how that happened. It made me feel good, whatever the circumstances might have been.

Stroud: John Workman tells me you’re quite the excellent caricaturist. Do you still dabble in that?

Smith: I haven’t done any caricatures in years. That was the kind of thing I was doing in Crazy Magazine. I had some samples of that and I think that’s what helped me get the job there. I had done some samples for political cartoons and stuff like that. Before coming to New York we had gone up to a couple of newspapers in Seattle looking for work, but we weren’t able to get anything there.

Stroud: I remember John telling me that a lot of places were using clip art.

Smith: They were phasing their art departments out and as the artists were gradually retiring they weren’t replacing them. I do remember doing an AT&T ad with Batman in it. I don’t remember who penciled it. That was another job for Joe Orlando.

I never did try to work for Mad Magazine. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t think I was good enough or something. (Chuckle.) I never did take them any samples, even though they were in the same building as DC. They were just downstairs at that point.

Stroud: Was that around the time Carmine was using Bill Gaines for consulting?

Smith: I remember seeing Bill Gaines come up to the office. This would have been around ’76, I guess. Before Carmine left at any rate.

Bat-Mite’s New York Adventure, penciled by Michael Golden & inked by Bob Smith.

Stroud: Just for fun I wanted to ask if you approved of Michael Golden’s depiction of you in “Bat-Mite’s New York Adventure.”

Smith: That was fun. Al Milgrom was in that and Todd Klein. It was one of those books that Al was editing at the time, before the implosion.

Stroud: (Laughter.) When I told Al that the story had been reprinted in the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told he said, “Oh, good grief, why?”

Smith: I seem to recall Bob Rozakis was in there, too.

Stroud: Yes and Tony Tollin and Jack C. Harris. Really a fun little story. What’s your typical workday like, Bob?

Smith: I usually start around 9 o’clock, break for lunch and then stop around 6:30. Sometimes if I feel really energetic, I’ll work for another hour after dinner. I sure don’t keep the same hours I used to. I’ll do six or eight hours these days. When you hear about people working for 16 hours or overnighters or 48 hours straight, I just don’t know how they do it. Maybe when you’re 22, but at my age, you just can’t do that.

Stroud: Well, the human body isn’t designed to just sit for that long. Carmine told me his recent back surgery was absolutely due to all that time at the table.

Smith: I know a lot of younger guys with bad backs. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never had any troubles. Of course, I make it a point to get up every hour and move around a little bit.

Stroud: Wise precaution.

Smith: I’ve never used one of those fancy chairs, either. I get by with a cheap chair from Office Depot. (Mutual laughter.)

Stroud: With the advent of computer art do you think inkers are an endangered species?

World's Finest Comics (1941) #277, cover penciled by George Perez & inked by Bob Smith.

Smith: I don’t think they’ve figured out a way around it yet. They’ve tried, but they haven’t perfected it yet. You can ink a book on a computer and maybe that’s how it will go someday, but as far as just making the pencils darker or something the penciler has to be so clean and so tight and most pencilers I know don’t work like that. So I don’t know that digital inking would really work that well.

I know that people like Brian Bolland and Kyle Baker do everything on the computer. There’s no paper involved. I know that you can use a tablet and actually ink and I can see scanning the pages in and inking it on the computer, so that’s possible.

I’ve only recently learned how to print out a blue line copy and work with that. That’s a major technological advance for me. (Chuckle.)

Stroud: Do you see retiring at any point?

Smith: No. I enjoy what I do, so I see no reason to retire. Unless my vision goes, or something I have no plans that direction. It might be a forced retirement at some point if people stop using me, but even then, I could probably find something to do.

Stroud: Good for you. They say if you enjoy what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.

Smith: For me it’s one of those things where you get up in the morning and you just look forward to starting. There are days I don’t look forward to it, but I know I have to do it anyway. A lot of the time I become a little kid again. “Wow! I’m working in comics!” Even at my age I get that feeling once in a while. I think John is the same way. And especially for a company whose comics I read as a kid. It’s just great.

February 13, 2019

An Interview With Bob Wiacek - Inking Collaboration at Continuity

February 13, 2019/ Bryan Stroud

Written by Bryan Stroud

Bob Wiacek (born January 7, 1953) is an American comic book artist and writer, working primarily as an inker. Bob got his start in the mid-1970s as a member of the "Crusty Bunkers" inking collective at Continuity Studios. For a short time in 1975–1976 he inked backgrounds (over Curt Swan's pencils) on Superman for DC Comics after which he moved on to regular inking work for DC. Then, in 1978, he began a long association with Marvel. Wiacek has inked over such pencilers as Carmine Infantino on Star Wars; John Romita Jr. on The Uncanny X-Men; June Brigman on Power Pack; John Byrne on Sensational She-Hulk; Walter Simonson on X-Factor; and George Pérez on Brave and the Bold. Wiacek also taught first-year students at the Joe Kubert School for a brief period in the early 1990s.

Yet another veteran of Continuity, Bob Wiacek has cut a pretty wide swath with his artistic abilities and he's a nice guy, to boot. I got to meet him at the Denver Con a couple of years ago and got a nice Man-Thing sketch from him, too.

This interview originally took place over the phone on November 12, 2010.

Ms. Marvel (1977) #20, cover penciled by Dave Cockrum & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Bryan Stroud: Which road led you to Continuity?

Bob Wiacek: It was kind of an interesting process because I had just finished with my third year at the School of Visual Arts and what happened was that I was showing my portfolio. I had known Mike Kaluta for a good number of years, since ’68 to be precise, so I went over to his place and showed my stuff and at the time he was finishing up the cover to his last issue of The Shadow. He said, “I’ve got to take this cover over to DC. Do you want to come along?” I said, “Yeah, sure.” I showed my stuff up there and they weren’t too impressed and they said, “We’re not looking for anybody.” So he said, “I’ve got another idea. Let’s go to Continuity.” So he took me over to Continuity and Neal [Adams] looked at my stuff and said, “Your drawing’s not that great, but your inking is kind of nice. You’ve got some nice things going on, so how would you like to work for Continuity inking backgrounds?” Of course I said “Yes.”

So that’s how I got it. And I still have those samples to this day, which is interesting because I’ve been going through the Wiacek Archives here. (Mutual laughter.) I found a lot of my old stuff and the very same inking samples that I had shown him. In fact, one of the inking samples that I had shown was my inks over a penciled Steranko Shadow piece that you may have seen in Comicscene #1 and Steranko Archives #1. I had shown the very same piece to Steranko a year before and he exclaimed, “Yeah, there’s some damn good stuff going on here.” He showed me my weak points and my strengths to boot.

Stroud: It’s interesting. Everyone has universal praise for Neal’s talent, but on the other hand they say he wasn’t much of a teacher.

Wiacek: I can say that he and the late Dick Giordano, God bless him, were a good balance. Neal could tell you what was wrong and he was absolutely right. He couldn’t show you how it was wrong or how to make it better. He’d say, “Look at this, look at this, look at this.” Finding out for yourself by studying other artists was one way to go. Now Dick, on the other hand would show you, and would demonstrate his techniques on how he inked with brush and pen. He was a very patient man. So learning from both of them was a real education.

Stroud: It sounds like they had an excellent partnership and unfortunately it didn’t go longer.

The New Titans (1984) #121, cover penciled by William Rosado & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Wiacek: The first Crusty Bunker assignment I worked on, which wasn’t credited as such was the 4th issue of Doctor Strange by Frank Brunner. It was credited to Dick Giordano. Dick was supposed to ink it, and he did the first couple of pages, but he couldn’t finish it because of scheduling problems so Neal and the Crusty Bunkers took it over. Dick would ink a few figures here and there but Neal inked most of the figures with Pat Broderick. I started inking things like asteroids and speed lines and other outer space stuff. So that was how I started out.

Stroud: So, it was a very collaborative effort.

Wiacek: Oh, yeah. It was pretty much up to Neal who to give the stuff out to. On one particular job which was penciled by Dave Cockrum called “Good Lord!” for Marvel’s Sci-Fi black and white magazine. Pat Broderick inked the alien creature plus the monsters which appeared in the story and brought out the Wally Wood-EC look that Dave wanted. Neal and Russ Heath inked the figures while the backgrounds were left to the rest of the beginners like myself.

Yes, Russ Heath would occasionally join in and ink figures on other Crusty Bunker assignments. It was great having him up there to see the gorgeous work he did on Sgt. Rock. And of course Dick and Ralph Reese would lend a hand. You probably know about all the other people that were there.

Stroud: I’ve been picking it up as I go along. Every so often I’ll get a surprise. Now did you actually rent space or just drop in from time to time?

Wiacek: In the beginning, no, but eventually as I started getting work on my own doing backgrounds for other artists that came up to Continuity. In fact I shared a little corner studio with Terry Austin. So yes, I eventually started paying rent there.

Stroud: How long were you there altogether?

Wiacek: From the summer of ’74 to ’78 or ’79. Let’s call it ’78.

Man-Thing (1979) #1, cover by Bob Wiacek.

Stroud: A fair amount of time. Who do you remember meeting there that left an impression?

Wiacek: Not just one person, but all. It was an interesting place because it was between Marvel and DC so many went there after working hours. You’d see Wally Wood up there once in a while. Mike Hinge had a studio in the back. Cary Bates was up there writing. Jack Abel rented space. Bernie Wrightson would come by and of course I mentioned Mike Kaluta. Howard Chaykin and Walter Simonson you’d see occasionally. All the “Young Turks” as they were known. Even Sergio Aragones. (Chuckle.) Every time he paid a visit was a joy.

I don’t know how well this will translate, but I remember one day he was working there up in the main studio with Neal. In the beginning Neal wanted to kind of look over the shoulder of a new person to make sure what he was doing was good. So Sergio was working on something. What it was I have no idea. Somebody was changing the radio stations at one time and had put on a Spanish radio station and you’d hear the Spanish DJ and all of a sudden Sergio just goes off on this Spanish DJ thing for about 5 minutes and he was so good, he had me just cracking up. He sounded exactly like the guy on the radio. He was using that crazy sense of humor and just really getting into it. He kept going on and on and it’s kind of hard to describe if you weren’t there. I had no idea what he was saying, but the way he was saying it was so funny. He perfectly captured the inflection of the guy’s voice on the radio immediately. Sergio is just a great guy.

There was an interesting thing one time when I was working late at Continuity and Larry Hama was going up and down the halls asking, “Does anybody have some free time? Woody could use some help.” So I asked, “Hey, Larry, what does he need?” To which he said, “He just needs you to outline some backgrounds on this job he’s inking.” I said, “Really? I’d like to do that. Sure, I’d love to work with Woody.” So he gave me the address. Woody had been living in an apartment in New York City at the time. I went up there and he was very nice to me. He showed me to a drawing table and told me what to do. He was inking Stalker #1 penciled by Steve Ditko. I was outlining backgrounds because everything had to look like his rendering, of course. He gave me a sandwich and I had a great time talking to him. He was a very quiet man. Having always been a fan of his work, it was ecstasy just working alongside him. He and Ditko were two of my favorite artists growing up so here I am inking with Wally Wood over Steve Ditko. It couldn’t be better.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #140, cover penciled by Rick Leonardi & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Bob Wiacek teaching an art class in the early ‘80s.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #68 pg1, penciled by Jordan Raskin & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Stroud: It’s sad how many greats we’ve lost.

Wiacek: Very. Just this last year we lost Giordano, Williamson and Frazetta. Recently Gene Colan. An era is passing right before us.

Stroud: What do you feel you took away from Continuity?

Supergirl (1994) #1, cover penciled by Kerry Gammill & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Wiacek: Just the fact that I was learning what inking was all about. You come in thinking one thing and you go in there and you learn something else. They really taught me about the business side of things, too. I made my share of mistakes, let me tell you, but that’s how you learn. Not just the work, but your whole attitude as well. I learned that just being there and being in the business and having such great teachers like Dick and numerous others was invaluable. Oh, and Al Milgrom was another one who would come up there occasionally. Sometimes even Jim Starlin. The names are coming back to me now. Milgrom would be up there a lot along with Wally Wood. Plus they were both good friends with Jack Abel.

Stroud: And after all it was a changing cast of characters from what I’ve been able to gather.

Wiacek: Yes, all the time. The whole experience really helped me later on to get jobs on my own. There were negative points, too, but I don’t really have to go into things like that. If you expect everything to be great, you’re going to be in trouble.

Stroud: How did the compensation work up at Continuity?

Wiacek: I was paid for everything I did. I remember the first check was for $25.00. (Laughter.) I never forgot that. I wish I had made a copy. It was from that issue of Doctor Strange I told you about earlier.

Stroud: Somebody was telling me that Neal had this very sophisticated and indecipherable system for deciding how to pay on these collaborative jobs.

Wiacek: Yeah, apparently he would go through copies of the whole job if I remember correctly and he would ask what you did. Then he’d make notations on what everyone had done and we would be paid accordingly.

Another job that comes to mind was a story which appeared in Journey Into Mystery #2 called “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” penciled by Gil Kane and beautifully inked by Ralph Reese. Unfortunately because the deadline drew near, Ralph could not finish it. So the Crusty Bunkers came to the rescue. Neal inked most of the remaining figures, but if you’d look closely at the last page, you’ll see where the Jack the Ripper figure, though mostly inked by Neal, the right arm was inked by Ralph Reese.

Machine Man (1978) #8, cover penciled by Jack Kirby & inked by Bob Wiacek.

I also remember Russ Heath penciling a Ka-Zar job that the Crusty Bunkers were inking practically at the same time. Then Marvel needed it back real bad so they had some amateurs in the bullpen up there finish it. To see the pencils and the way they were ruining Russ’ work was a crying shame. I mean at least at Continuity if it was rushed it was rushed by people who knew what they were doing.

Stroud: That sounds a bit like the story Greg Theakston told me about the Alan Weiss “Slaves of the Mahars” story that had to be inked practically overnight and then sat on Joe Orlando’s desk for a week after all was said and done.

Wiacek: I don’t believe if you’re going to have the thing laying there for two weeks, you separate the job and give it to different inkers. That’s just not the way to do things, especially if it’s not the inker’s fault. Many get the job late to begin with.

Stroud: I’ve heard a few stories about some editors. Murray Boltinoff, for one.

Wiacek: Murray Boltinoff was actually my first editor. I was working on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes inking Mike Grell at the time and Vinnie Colletta was the art director. I was tried out on the backup first and showed it to Vinnie and he really liked it. “Let’s give this guy a shot at the book. If he does really bad, we’ll throw him off,” he exclaimed. So they gave me the book. Everybody was saying, “Oh, boy, Bob, Murray’s not the greatest editor to start with.” So I was having butterflies in my stomach, but I have to say he never gave me any problems. Except deadlines, which all editors do. I’d heard stories and I’m sure the stories are true, but for whatever reason he didn’t lean on me like he leaned on everybody else.

Stroud: You hear all sorts of things. I have it on very good authority that Murray and Arnold Drake worked together famously. And then you’ve got Joe Kubert, who seemed to be the only guy on the planet who really got along with Bob Kanigher.

Wiacek: Right. I don’t think even Russ Heath got along with him.

Stroud: No and Russ was pretty blunt about it, too.

Green Lantern (1990) #101, cover penciled by Jeff Johnson & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Wiacek: I can imagine.

Stroud: He said Bob would look for your weak spot and he was careful not to show it to him.

Wiacek: There are some artists, personality-wise, who will look for your weak spot and I’m thinking of somebody already, but I’d rather not say who they are at the moment.

The only thing I didn’t like, and bear in mind I was very insecure when I first started at Continuity, was the unnecessary elitist attitude. You’re very nervous at that stage because you don’t want to make any mistakes and yet you’re going to make tons of them. Some took advantage of you being the new guy at Continuity and those who came to visit as well. To me it just wasn’t needed. It was like the bullying thing you go through in school and you think you’re going to get away from it, but you find out when you get to the real world they’re still going to be there in one form or another. That was an experience, because I learned more about myself and found out who the people were who cared and honestly wanted to help and those who really couldn’t care less. You have to sift through that and just say, “I won’t let this bother me.”

Stroud: That gets to be an art in and of itself.

Wiacek: To this day. You know years ago when I met Jack Kirby in 1968, that was a beautiful experience. I spoke to him on the phone before that. Jack was a regular guy. He was in the phone book and you could call him up and just talk. Now if he couldn’t because of a deadline he’d say, “Hey, I can’t talk right now. I’ve got a lot of work. “ But he would talk to me and I remember two friends and I went to see him when he visited Marvel. He actually took us to lunch, but I thought we were going to pay for it. We’re like these little minions listening to the man who practically created comics. We had the time of our lives to hear him regale about life in and out of the comic book business. Not only did he buy lunch, but he did a drawing for each of us. I remember thinking, “Oh, my God, this is beyond belief.” Things like that, you don’t forget.

It reminded me of the first convention I went to in ’67. I didn’t even know comic conventions existed before until some friends came up to see me one day in my apartment in New York City where I grew up. I was 14 years old at the time and they said, “Hey, they’ve got conventions for comics.” So we went. I think it was at the Commodore Hotel. They’d been putting them on since ’66 or maybe the year before.

Star Wars (1977) #25, cover penciled by Carmine Infantino & inked by Bob Wiacek.

The first professional I met was Jim Steranko. He was just starting to get noticed for his work on Nick Fury. Not only the first pro, but the first new pro, because he was still very much the new guy on the block. He answered all my questions and did a sketch for me along with going through how he was a magician and an escape artist. As he was leaving, with a beautiful girl on his arm, naturally, I remember people yelling as he walked toward the door, “Hey, Jim! Do a trick for us!” He looked back at us, took this book of matches and lit it, put it in his mouth and walked out the door. (Mutual laughter.) Another example of things that you do not forget.

Stroud: Oh, of course not.

Wiacek: At that same convention I met Bill Everett, Dick Giordano and another gentleman who had unfortunately died very early in his career, Rocke Mastroserio. He did a lot of Charlton work which was solid good comics, but what really sticks out in my mind, though is the work he did for Creepy and Eerie at the time. Really phenomenal stuff. Very graphic and photogenic. Very much the consummate craftsman. Dick Giordano always spoke very highly of him, but he died in, I think ’67. Not too long after that convention.

In fact I remember my first time at Marvel. I met John Romita, Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe. They each had desk in this small room. They were just so nice and were very happy to show me the original art to the comics they were doing at the time. Very hospitable and a joy to be with. Marie was just such a doll.

Stroud: It’s a shame we can’t hear from her any more. According to Irene Vartanoff, she’s completely and totally retired and only will make contact with friends. No fans allowed.

I’ve heard the legend of the phony ink blot, but were there any other particularly memorable times you have from Continuity?

Wiacek: The ink blot. Oh, yes. I wasn’t there at the time, but I heard all about it. (Chuckle.) My stories aren’t quite that colorful, but I do remember one time I had the radio on too loud and got yelled at to shut it off in a very descript manner. Jack and I got into an argument now and then, but I didn’t realize a lot of times when he was kidding. When I got to know Jack better it became clearer: “Ah, he’s trying to push a button here. Now I know what he’s doing.”

Spider-Woman (1978) #9, cover penciled by Carmine Infantino & inked by Bob Wiacek.

But when the realization hadn’t hit me yet he was going on about how William Shatner was a terrible actor. “What are you talking about? He’s not the greatest actor, but he’s certainly not the worst.” So we were bantering back and forth and it hit me, “I’m not working, and I’m bantering with this guy about William Shatner. What’s wrong with this picture?” And it was ongoing and everyone had heard it and they never let me live it down. “So, is William Shatner a great actor, Bob?” I thought maybe someday I’d get to meet Shatner and tell him what happened. (Laughter.) Back then I wish he could have come over to Jack and say, “Hey, what do you mean I’m not a good actor?”

These were the things that could pop up at any time when you were at Continuity. You just never knew what to expect.

Stroud: The place seemed like a magnet for those in the industry.

Wiacek: It really was, more than you know. The most interesting part was the fact that during the time that Tom Snyder was interviewing Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster with Neal about getting their due for the creation of Superman. Then later on in the program he interviewed Noel Neill, Jack Larson and I think Robert Shane. Then one day I’m in the studio and I heard this commotion and I go out in the hallway and there’s Neal and he had brought Jack Larson up to the studio with him. “Oh, my God, I’m meeting Jimmy Olsen!” (Mutual laughter.) It was kind of nice. You really never knew what to expect.

Stroud: Only in New York City. Did your time up there open some doors for you, Bob?

Wiacek: Absolutely. Getting my gig with the Legion of Super-Heroes was definitely a direct result. Inking backgrounds and secondary figures for Mike Grell, because he would occasionally come up there. I received an opportunity through working with Al Milgrom to work on Guardians of the Galaxy. He liked what I’d done on Legion of Super-Heroes and Archie Goodwin, who was Editor-in Chief at the time decided to get me started there.

I’d helped out on one issue of Captain Marvel inking Al’s work and he really liked what I had done, so again I’d got the job through Continuity, because he’d seen my work there and said, “Your stuff looks pretty good. Would you like to ink a page to help me out?”

Valor (1992) #15, cover penciled by Stuart Immonen & inked by Bob Wiacek.

Again, it was just being there where most of the time these professionals would just come by when they needed help.

Stroud: The right place at the right time. I think it was Bob McLeod who was telling me that Neal had done him a favor by calling Marvel and said, “I’ve got a guy here who can letter. Give him some work.” Basically getting your foot in the door and going from there.

Wiacek: Exactly. There was also a time when Neal didn’t think I was ready when Seaboard was starting to produce their first run of Atlas comics. Now they’re making a comeback.

Stroud: I’d read about that. (Note: As many may know it’s been announced that Mike Grell will be editor in chief at the resurrected Atlas.)

Wiacek: I’ll be interested to see how they do. Back then, though Pat Broderick was going to be the penciler on Planet of the Vampires and Neal said to me, “Well, maybe you should do up some samples and if you’re really good we’ll put you on the book with Pat.” So I said fine and I did, but they didn’t go over too well. I understood so they got somebody else to do it. But he did give me the chance. So I appreciated the opportunity and also the honesty in saying I wasn’t ready yet and looking back on it, I probably wasn’t.

Stroud: Did your experience there have anything to do with your teaching at the Kubert School later?

Wiacek: No, it had nothing to do with that. I remember meeting Michael Chen. I’d see him at conventions and he invited me to give him a call sometime, suggesting I might like to teach up there. It was one of those things where you’re at a convention and, “Hey, why don’t you come and do this?” That’s pretty much how I got that job at the Joe Kubert School. It had nothing to do with Continuity. That was in ’90 and ’91 when I was there.

Creator Conversations - Retro

Creator Conversations - Retro

As with other short entries in this series, we have provided a gallery consisting of Mr. Kirchner’s work - only this time it takes the form of full stories! First up: Survivors from Epic Illustrated (1980) #4, written and illustrated by Paul Kirchner.

Click on the photos to make them larger so you can read each story.

Next we have a story from Weird War Tales (1971) #27: when does the enlisted man become The Veteran - written by Jack Oleck, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and inked by Tex Blaisdell!

Our next story comes to us from House of Secrets (1956) #120! Written by Sheldon Mayer, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and again inked by Tex Blaisdell - read along to see if The Right Demon Could Do It!

Finally, we explore one of man’s oldest fears - being BURIED ALIVE! Written by Jack Oleck, penciled by Paul Kirchner, and inked by Neal Adams - House of Mystery (1951) #236 brings us Deep Sleep!

You can see more from Mr. Kirchner at these websites:

http://www.paulkirchner.com/﻿

Although he is best known for his talents in drawing women, Mr. Thorne’s horror art is also to be held very highly. Reproduced here in it’s entirety is the story “Pingo!” from House of Mystery (1951) #221. Written by Michael Fleisher with art by Frank Thorne.

You can see more from Joe (including his convention schedule) at JoeStaton.com!

Nerd Team 30

http://www.paulkirchner.com/