Comic Book Creator - #9 by PressPad

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No. 9, Summer 2015

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

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also: LEILA LEIZ • STAN GOLDBERG • THE GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS • KATIE GREEN

S u m m e r 2 0 1 5 • Vo i c e o f t h e C o m i c s M e d i u m • N u m b e r 9

About Our Cover

Art by JOE STATON Color by MATT WEBB

Comics Chatter Remembering Seth Kushner: The late photographer/writer’s good friend and collaborator Christopher Irving recalls the recently departed CBC contributor................. 3 Katie Green: An interview with the Lighter Than My Shadow graphic novelist............. 4 Aushenkerology: A personal ode to Cowboy Henk and the great European comics..... 6 Incoming: The Therapeutic Value of “It” and Roy Thomas on Kull the Conqueror........ 10 The Good Stuff: George Khoury talks with artist Leila Leiz about living the dream...... 14 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred chats up longtime pal Joe Staton....................... 17 Stan Goldberg: Part one of Richard J. Arndt’s interview with the late cartoonist and Marvel colorist, a man remarkably appreciative for his long career in comics........ 18 GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS SPECIAL section Johnny Lee Achziger’s Olympian Achievement: CBC’s three-part examination of a little-known but breathtaking 1970s comics project starts with recollections of the guy who authored and helmed the tabloid-size (and ill-fated) series............ 26

Only two things were requested of cover artist Joe Staton: Please include Alec Tron, Nova Kane (a.k.a. Katrinka Colchnzski), and any other creator-owned character he’d like to add — plus caricatures of his kind self and lovely bride Hilarie… and, boy, does Our Man deliver! The bonus figure here is Femme Noir, the artist’s and writer Christopher Mills’ “Blond Justice of Nocturne City,” a tough-talking, gun-slinging, curly-haired vigilante. Check out www.femme-noir.com for her crime-fighting exploits. — Ye Ed. If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

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Joe Staton, Myth-Maker: The issue’s featured subject shares the story behind his spectacular artistry on the Greek mythology comics series................................ 30 John Workman’s Mighty Aphrodite: The artist who followed up Joe on the shortlived series talks about the Gods’ brief revival in Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach....... 32 The Comics Library: R.J. Arndt looks at Tintin and the Great Library Mystery............ 34 THE MAIN EVENT The Energizing Art of Joe Staton: CBC ’s exhaustive interview with the artist on his career, from Charlton to Dick Tracy, also featuring wife and collaborator, Hilarie.... 36 BACK MATTER Creator’s Creators: Steven Thompson........................................................................... 79 Coming Attractions: Peter Bagge & WARP! The Broadway Play................................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: X-Ray specs’ mystery artist revealed!......... 80 Right: Sporting the kinchy hues of CBC pal Mort Todd (himself profiled in #4), it’s E-Man and Nova Kane as drawn by the indomitable Joe Staton. The fave Charlton character will be appearing in Todd and Roger McKenzie’s Charlton Neo title Charlton Action soon. Find details at www.morttodd.com/charlton.

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com!

www.twomorrows.com

Comic Book Creator is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2015 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

The Other Man Called Stan

Stan G.’s Truest Colors Part one of our interview with the late, great artist about his Marvel and Archie work Conducted by RICHARD J. ARNDT CBC Contributing Editor

Above: In 2010, in consideration for Stan Goldberg’s considerable contributions to Archie Comics from the mid-1970s onward, IDW published Archie: The Best of Stan Goldberg. Inset: The artist at the 2012 Comic-Con International: San Diego in a photo by Kendall Whitehouse. Below: Detail of Stan G.’s Millie the Model #140 [Aug. 1966] cover.

CBC: Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Stan: You’re welcome. I regard all the time I’ve spent in comics with a great fondness. All the people I’ve worked with — Joe Maneely, Stan Lee, John Buscema, Sol Brodsky, Mike Esposito, Frank Springer, all those guys. It’s all real history and I’ve got a great memory. I remember them very fondly. Now that the whole interview is over, thank you for calling, Richard, and that’s the end of it. CBC: Ooookay! [laughter] Before that actually happens can we start off with information about your early life? How you got interested in drawing, that sort of thing. Stan: I grew up during the Depression, in the 1930s. Money was pretty tight in those days, but my dad was fortunate enough to work for those years. Sometimes he had private jobs, but for the most part he worked for the government until he retired. He worked in the Social Security Administration and in the Internal Revenue Service. I was an only child, but that was fine. I didn’t have to share anything with a sibling and I never even missed having a brother or sister, because it was the type of family that would be called an “extended family” today. There was the matriarch, the grandmother, and the patriarch, the grandfather. Mine had a little house in the Bronx. They came from Europe and worked themselves up. They lived in the Lower East Side, where all the new immigrants lived. My grandfather was a tailor. He designed clothes and that sort of thing. When they made enough money, they moved to the Bronx, which at the time was considered moving on up. They bought a little house and had four children, one of whom was my mother. Their house was the meeting place for all the relatives. I had aunts and uncles and a few cousins and we all hung out together. I was always treated quite royally because I was a good grandson. The good nephew. The good son.

Photo © Kendall Whitehouse. Archie TM & © Archie Publications, Inc. Millie the Model TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

[Stan Goldberg began his career in comics in 1949 as a colorist for Timely Comics. Within a few years he became the head of the colorist department, which lasted until ’58, when Timely/Atlas experienced a publication implosion after their distributor went out of business. He then went freelance (and has remained so throughout the rest of his career), beginning with work in TV commercials, then as the colorist for Marvel Comics from ’59 through the mid-’60s. He was also a penciler for numerous teen humor books, including Marvel’s Millie the Model, DC’s Binky and, most notably, Archie Comics’ Archie, among many others. In recent years, before his death last August, he worked for Bongo Comics drawing The Simpsons and for Papercutz on their Three Stooges and Nancy Drew titles. He also did many public service projects, including a one recently dealing with bullying. Mr. Goldberg has been a true mainstay of comics from the Golden Age to his passing at age 82. What follows is the first of a two-part interview conducted between March and April 2013. — RJA]

I always drew, so I was always sitting in a corner and they’d ask “Draw this. Draw that,” and I did. I wasn’t running around the house screaming or breaking things or causing trouble. My cousins used to tease me, you know. “Everybody loves Stanley.” But it was an easy childhood. Of course, my parents knew that I drew and they always encouraged me at it, but they never encouraged me to go out and make a living as an artist. Not because of any lack of talent, but they never thought I would succeed. Nobody really knew what jobs were available for artists in those days. My dad worked for the government and he suggested that I get a federal job, take some tests, work, and retire with a nice pension at the age of 49 or 50. My dad, though, worked until he was 75, and he loved working. My mother would always say, “On Sunday, you can sit home and paint. I’ll buy you an easel.” It never dawned on me that I’d end up with a career as an artist. I graduated from high school. In fact, I got out a little early because I skipped some classes. I graduated when I was 17 years old. Most kids didn’t graduate until they were 18 or older. I went away as a counselor at a summer camp, up in New Hampshire, teaching arts and crafts. When

#9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photo © Jason Chatfield. Archie characters TM & © Archie Publications, Inc. The Thing TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

I came back, I called up a good friend from school and asked him what he’d been doing all summer. He told me he had this job, but that he wasn’t going back there on Monday, so why didn’t I go up there and take his seat because they’ll need somebody up there. I didn’t even know what job he had, but it turned out that he had a coloring job in the office of Timely Comics. He’d been doing some menial coloring gigs there. There were a lot of books there and a lot of pages to do. So I went up there on Monday and I remember a guy came in who ran the department and he asked me who I was and what I was doing there. I told him I was taking over for my friend — my friend’s name was Marvin — that Marvin wasn’t coming back and he’d asked me to take his chair. I don’t know why, but they gave me some things to do immediately and that’s how I came to work at Timely Comics. This would have been the end of August, so at the beginning of the next year, which would have been 1949, the whole bullpen was fired. I was there for four months and then, I don’t know why, but everybody was laid off. Within a few months they were publishing again and they started hiring artists, writers, and production people back. They wanted me to return to work in the coloring department and, because I had another job by then and I was afraid they’d fire me just as soon as I returned, so I told them no. I didn’t hear from them for a while. Then I got another note from them asking me to please come back. “We like what you do. We’ll give you a couple of dollars raise.” You know, it’s funny: There was another guy up there who got a callback, too, and we thought we were both getting a five dollar raise but they split it between the two of us, so we both got $2.50 apiece. It was a big $25 salary I was making at the time but, in those days, $25 was not that bad for a 17-, almost 18-year-old kid. I also liked that I was working on all the comics that I’d read as a young boy. I sit at my grandmother’s house, on her porch, reading all the comics. I loved Captain America. I loved the Young Allies. I loved those books, but didn’t know who the artists’ names were. I knew all the characters though. I did come back to Timely although it took until the third time that they called me. The job I had in the meantime looked like it wasn’t going anywhere. Not that I knew that this one was going to last for over 60 years! But it did. So I went back and, within a year, I was running the coloring department. The guy, John D’Agonisto, who’d been running it before me, was about three years older than me. About six months or so after I returned, he went to another company to work in their coloring department. That company that John went to was also started by two former Timely colorists. One of them was a Italian fellow who later became an editor at Charlton Comics… CBC: Would that have been Pat Musulli? Stan: Yeah, that would have been Pat. Pat and another guy Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

named Hubie Paley. They formed their own coloring company. They worked for a bunch of different companies coloring their books. They did very well for a long time because there were a lot of publishers around putting out comic books and some of them didn’t have a color department. So Pat and Hubie formed this company and did alright with it for quite a while. I don’t know what their rates were, but they had a lot of work. I freelanced for them from time to time, after the day’s work at Timely. I’d spend half the night making some extra money working for them. One night I worked the whole night there. I told my parents where I was going to be, though. John D’Agonisto left Timely to work for them, clearing the way for me to become the head of the coloring department at Timely. John became an artist, working as an inker. He worked for Archie Comics for years and years. He inked probably hundreds of my pages. We were good friends right up until his death a year or so ago. Up until then, he was my oldest friend in the business because I met him when I was 17 years old. The Timely offices were in the Empire State Building at that time. The coloring department was a part of the Bullpen. We were in a different area at first, but shortly, after I came back, they moved the coloring department in with the rest of the Bullpen. We were in a different area because the offices at the Empire State Building were too small. When Timely moved to a different building we had a bigger space and were all moved into the same offices. After the Empire State Building, we moved to a big old hotel on Park Avenue. I think it was called the Hotel Marguerite and

Previous page: Inset bottom, courtesy of Heritage Auctions, is Stan G.’s cover art for Millie the Model #165 [Dec. 1968]. Above: Stan Goldberg was honored by the Australian Cartoonists’ Association in 2010 as he received their Stanley Award for the “Comic Book Artist” category. Courtesy of then-ACA president Jason Chatfield. Below: Kirby & Ayers’ Thing pin-up from FF #2. Hues by Stan G. Courtesy of Cory Sedlmeier.

the gods of mount olympus

An Olympian Achievement Johnny Lee Achziger recalls the ambitious tabloid-sized mythological comics project by JOHNNY LEE ACHZIGER [YE ED’S NOTE: Back in the 1970s, I encountered a tabloidsized, black-&-white comic book exquisitely drawn by a young Joe Staton entitled The Gods of Mount Olympus. The series was short-lived but unforgettable, and it was subsequently reformatted for a regular-size appearance in Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach anthology. Serendipitously, I came in contact with the original publisher and writer, Johnny Lee Achziger, who agreed to share the story behind this lovely production. Also featured is contributing editor (and Star*Reach Companion author) Richard J. Arndt’s interviews with Joe and John Workman about Gods.]

Above: Cover of the first Gods of Mount Olympus tabloid. Art by Joe Staton. Right: Promo art by Joe of Athena, the goddess of war. All Olympus art in this section courtesy of Johnny Lee Achziger.

I owned an old ’67 Ford station wagon and had just spent some $300 getting it ready for the trip (new tires, brakes, shocks… I had everything checked out… everything except #9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Gods of Mount Olympus TM & © Johnny Lee Achziger. Art © Joe Staton.

I have been a comics fan since I learned to read in the mid-1950s. I published a few fanzines in the late ’60s/ early ’70s (The Collector’s Chronicle, Quintessence), and I later published a collection of World War II-era Phantom comic strips, the first and only in what was going to be an ongoing series of comic strip reprints, with Alley Oop and Al Williamson’s Secret Agent Corrigan in the works. But sales were so low, I had to cancel all those ambitious plans. I had always wanted to be a comics writer and had actually “auditioned” when DC had a sort of open-house solicitation for new writers sometime in the ’70s (they called it the Junior Woodchucks, I believe). But, unfortunately, I wasn’t motivated enough to actually sit down and write all the time as any real writer must do. So I decided I’d publish my own comic books. I toyed with the idea of publishing a weekly, tabloid-sized comic, similar in format to the great Menomonee Falls Gazette, but featuring all-new stories and art by top professionals. I even wrote to dozens of writers, including Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Jane Gaskell (who was very nice), and Robert A. Heinlein (who wasn’t), about adapting their works to comics. I also inquired about licensing some popular TV and movie rights, such as Kung Fu, Honey West, and James Bond 007. When I finally realized what all this would cost, I came to my senses and decided to go with something in the public domain. I had always enjoyed reading about ancient mythology and thought that would be a subject that would be of interest to many in fandom. So The Gods of Mount Olympus was chosen. Let me state up front that I was a very naive young man when it came to how things worked in the real world of publishing (or in the real world in general actually), so everything you read from hereon reflects that youthful stupidity (I never did anything maliciously, I just didn’t know what I was doing). My memory of exact dates and such may not be perfectly clear, but what follows is as best as I can recall. It was sometime in late 1973 when I started this endeavor,

which turned out to be cursed from the get-go. My first inclination was to ask the popular fan artist Don Newton to draw it, but I wanted to go with a “professional” artist (I don’t think Newton had turned pro yet), so I wrote to three of my favorite artists, offering them a guaranteed $25 per page up front with a possibility (based on sales) of as much as $75 per page. Two of my choices, Barry Smith and Russ Heath, never replied to my generous offer, but Joe Staton did respond, in January 1974. I didn’t know what was going on with him at Charlton at the time, but he replied that he would be interested in doing three issues of the series. I was thrilled to have Joe as my artist because I loved his art at Charlton, especially E-Man, and he had recently done some color covers for Fantastic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories magazine, which got me hoping that I could get him to also do some color art. The first thing I commissioned, an illustration of Ares and Aphrodite, just blew me away! I thought it was the best art Joe had ever done and was certain the project would be a success! I used that art in a full-page ad in the Comic Buyer’s Guide; it looked typeset, but the lettering was actually done with those little stick-on letters that you’d rub on one at a time! I advertised the 16-page, tabloid-size comic at $1 per issue, three issues for $2.75, six issues for $5. Joe had only committed for three issues and wondered why I offered a six-issue subscription, but I figured if he bailed, I could continue the series with someone else. The response to the ad was not overwhelming. On the day I took the book to the printers, I only had about 100 orders (I think I got less than 200 orders total). But I went ahead anyway, thinking I could sell a bunch of copies to dealers like Bud Plant (well, actually just Bud Plant; there weren’t a lot of choices in those days). The art for the first story came in and I was thrilled! Joe did a fantastic job and I thought sure we’d make a fortune on this series once the word got around. I had 3,000 copies printed and started work on the next two issues. By now it was Spring ’74 and I thought it would be a great idea to take my product direct to the fans and attend some comic conventions. So I sent Joe the scripts for the next two issues and asked him to get them done as fast as possible so that I could take them to the summer cons. When the art for #2 and #3 arrived, I was somewhat disappointed because it looked very rushed (in fact, Joe stated he had done the third issue over a weekend). I don’t blame Joe at all because I had put the rush on him and he came through as best he could under the circumstances. The art wasn’t bad by any means, just nowhere near the standard he’d set with the first issue. So I printed up the second and third issues at the same time (another 3,000 of each) and picked what I thought would be the best conventions to debut my pride and joy. I had never been to a con yet, but I chose Houston Con as my first stop, intending to go on to New York after that. The following is a true story — several of the people named here are still alive and can testify to the truthfulness of this insane misadventure. Let me also mention that I never in my life did drugs. I was just very stupid at times.

The Gods of Mount Olympus TM & © Johnny Lee Achziger. Art © Joe Staton.

the radiator). I stuffed it full with 2,000 copies of each issue (remember, these were tabloid-size!) and together with my friend Don Kruger, we left Spokane, Washington, and set out for Texas. We drove all the way through Montana, over 700 miles, that first day (that state had no speed limit in those days) and turned south into Wyoming, stopping for the night in Sheridan. The next morning we continued south down the eastern side of Wyoming (did you know that eastern Wyoming is a virtual desert? Neither did I!). The temperature was over 100 degrees and I started to see the radiator gauge go up and up, then greenish liquid started trickling out through the edges of the hood. We were in the middle of the desert, with no towns even close. I pulled over and poured all the water we had into the radiator, then set out again. By the time we neared Cheyenne, Wyoming, steam was billowing from the engine. I took the first exit near Cheyenne and the car died on the exit ramp, but we had enough speed going to coast into the inevitable gas station nearby. The attendant there called a tow truck, which hauled us into town and dropped us off at a Ford dealership repair shop. Now, I knew little or nothing about cars, so when the mechanic told me that the radiator had a massive hole and by continuing driving while it was overheating probably warped the heads and blew the engine, I immediately wrote off the car as damaged beyond repair and started thinking of alternative means to get to Houston. I started calling car rental agencies, but because I didn’t have one of those new-fangled bank cards, none of the major agencies would rent to me (and none would accept cash!). Finally I got a local company to rent me a Volkswagen bug. I thought about renting a small trailer and pulling my 6000 copies of Gods to Houston behind the VW bug, but wisely thought the better of it. Finally, we decided to rent a U-Haul. Of course, the U-Haul dealer didn’t have any of the small vans, so we got a 20-foot Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

moving van to haul about a half-foot of comics. Did I mention that I didn’t have enough cash to rent the U-Haul? Nor did I have a bank card. So I went to a nearby bank and asked for a loan! When the nice bank man stopped laughing, he offered to call my bank back in Spokane so I could see if they could do anything to help me. My bank wouldn’t loan me any money, but checking my account, $800 was available. By coincidence, this was the exact amount of the check I had just mailed to Joe Staton for the artwork of #2 and 3… okay, it wasn’t a coincidence. Joe just hadn’t gotten the check yet. So my feeble-minded brain thought that if I had my bank wire me that money, I could make enough in Houston to put the money back, then I would give Joe the money in person in New York, and everything would be fine. But instead of just letting his check bounce, for some stupid reason I had them put a stop-payment on it. So my bank wired the money down to me in Wyoming and we rented the U-Haul. The next morning, I went back to the Ford repair shop and the mechanic told me he thought that if they patched up the radiator we would be good to go. But my brain was convinced that the car was

Above: Spectacular spread by Joe Staton from The Gods of Mount Olympus #1. Someone hurry up and reprint TGOMO at large-size… this masterwork deserves it! Below: Johnny Lee Achziger and his then-fiancée in the 1970s. They have been married for 36 years now!

THE ENERGIZING ART OF

During a period when the “good” comic art was heavily rendered and often overly realistic, the arrival of artist Joe Thomas Staton to the comics scene in the early ’70s, boasting an effervescent, energetic cartooning style, was a delight. Starting at the bottom rung of the professional ladder, Joe began at Charlton Comics, very soon teaming-up with enthusiastic writer (and artist) Nicola Cuti at the Derby, Conn. imprint. Together they created E-Man, perhaps the character they will always be best remembered for, though each would go on to have stellar careers as comics pros. This interview was conducted at the Staton abode in Kingston, N.Y., in mid-March, where we were joined by Joe’s lovely wife, Hilarie. The transcript was copyedited by the pair.

he in the Air Corps immediately before that? Joe: Right. In World War II. He and my Uncle Dave Staton were briefly together in Italy. They would get together on bombing runs… They weren’t bombers, but they were being bombed! So there’s a family history of war stuff. CBC: By the Italian Air Force or the Luftwaffe? Joe: The Luftwaffe. I’m pretty sure. I think. CBC: Wow! He wasn’t involved in any of the invasion force? Joe: No, but he was involved in helping evacuate Naples when Vesuvius erupted. CBC: What year was that? Joe: ’46? ’45? I need to look up these things. [laughs] Hilarie Staton: I’m the reference person. [Looking online] The last serious eruption was in ’44. Joe: Because the U.S. Army was there handy, they had all these trucks to get people out of town. There were all these ashes coming down… CBC: Yeah, right, and we know what happened there before. Joe: Right. We saw that movie. CBC: Did he share any specific stories about the war? Joe: Not really. Occasionally, but mostly funny stories, stuff like that. Getting lost in Libya in a jeep and trying to get out. That sort of thing. Daddy died when I was young, so I heard a lot of stories from my Uncle Dave. CBC: Do you have brothers and sisters? Joe: I have one sister, Janice. Jan may get me for this: When she was born, my parents wrote back to my Staton grandfather and told him her name. He didn’t recognize the name so he figured it out phonetically. He always called her John-ah-see. [laughter] She’s not quite two years younger than me. She was a paralegal for a long time, and actually, before that, she was an agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which we always thought of as the FBI [laughs] CBC: A cop? Joe: She was an investigator. She did have to carry a gun and she got tired of that. She was actually involved in wearing wires and that sort of thing. #9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comic Book Creator: Where are you originally from, Joe? Joe Staton: I was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and I mostly grew up in West Tennessee — Milan, Tennessee. I am a Southern boy. My dad was in the Air Force. That’s why we happened to be in Fort Bragg. We were actually at Fort Pope, which was the Air Force… Pope Field. So I am briefly from North Carolina. CBC: Were there any creative people in your family? Joe: I had an uncle who was an artist. My grandfather had things that he had drawn. He didn’t follow it up, but you could just see that he had done it, illustration-type stuff. Just enough to know that he was interested. So… CBC: What is your mother’s maiden name? Joe: Butler. CBC: Staton is an English name? Joe: It’s English. From what I’m told, it’s a Saxon name. With me it’s a long “a.” Stay-tuhn. CBC: I guess many must say Stah-tuhn. Joe: Yeah. One of my early credits at DC was very often Stanton. [laughs] And I’ll be plugged at conventions very often as “Stanton,” with that extra “n.” CBC: What’s your middle name? Joe: Thomas. CBC: Joseph Thomas Staton. Joe: Not Joseph. It is Joe. CBC: So the Air Force was very new then? Was

From E-Man to the Gods of Olympus to The Huntress to Green Lantern, a dog named Scooby, and Dick Tracy, this guy named Joe has done it all!

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke • Transcribed by Steven Thompson • Portrait by Kendall Whitehouse Hilarie: She worked with insurance investigations. Joe: Right. And being in Florida, there’s a lot of insurance fraud. CBC: How come? Joe: Boats. Lots of boats. You can do things with boats and then collect on them. Sink them and burn them. CBC: Are you close with her? Joe: Reasonably, yes. CBC: Were you close growing up? That’s only two years, right? Joe: Well, I was terrible to her, but I would say we were reasonably close. CBC: Are your earliest memories in Tennessee? How long were you in North Carolina? Joe: I was born there and then we moved around to different parts, mostly in Tennessee. CBC: Were you always moving? Joe: We moved several times. Yeah. CBC: How was that? Joe: I… guess it was… okay! [laughs] Yeah. CBC: What are your earliest memories of growing up? Joe: The comics. My earliest memories are always what comics was I reading at the time. [laughs] I’d be reading Gene Autry, and that’s what happened that year. Now I’m reading Superboy, and that’s what happened that year. I was learning to read. That sort of thing. CBC: So, Gene Autry was the first comic that you remember? Were you immediately drawn to it? Joe: Well, I just remembering reading Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. All that stuff! There was a lot of that. Of course, the earliest things I remember are Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. CBC: Comic strips? Joe: As long as there were newspapers and strips, I was drawn to the strips, drawn to Chester Gould. It was strange. Before I could read, there was that strange drawing. I was always following that. CBC: What were your impressions? Was it the weird villains? Was it the earnestness of the protagonist? Was it… ? Joe: It must have been just the weird black-&-white drawing. CBC: Pruneface? Joe: Pruneface, Flattop, and all that.

CBC: That’s some weird characters! Joe: Yes. That’s right. Bonnie Braids… all that stuff. CBC: Do you remember the newspapers that came into the house? Joe: Oh, golly. It was later. When I was little I had no idea what papers there were. Back in West Tennessee, there were always the Memphis Press, the Commercial Appeal, and Memphis Press-Scimitar. I think it was the Commercial Appeal that had Dick Tracy. Jackson, Tennessee, had the Jackson Sun. I still follow the Jackson Sun online although they don’t carry Tracy anymore. That’s the weird thing. Mike

Previous page: Upper left are, of course, some of Joe Staton’s best-known characters, including E-Man and the Green Lantern Corps. Photo of Joe at the 2012 New York Comic Con snapped by Kendall Whitehouse. Photo inset is uncredited pic of Hilarie. This page: Upper right is the Paul Levitz/Joe Staton creation, The Huntress. At right, done for John Read’s superb Stay Tooned! magazine, Joe’s self-caricature used as cover for #2 (2008). Colors by the marvelous Matt Webb. Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

Photos courtesy of Joe and Hilarie Staton.

Joe: It was! CBC: Was it mimeographed? Joe: It was mimeographed… badly. CBC: And the illustrations were drawn on ditto? Joe: No, not ditto. On mimeograph stencils. You remember mimeograph stencils? Hilarie: They were blue. CBC: I always mix ’em up with ditto. Joe: Yeah, a lot of fanzines were done on ditto, though mimeograph was preferred because it lasted better, but it was harder to reproduce. I guess it was like fabric with a sort of wax in the fabric and you typed it and the keys would like punch the letters. To copy art (and I still have mimeograph tools around somewhere) you would trace the art onto the stencils. CBC: I remember that. You had to redo your art. Joe: Yeah. I do say I’m probably the only currently functioning artist who was influenced by having to adapt his art to tracing on mimeograph. CBC: So if mimeograph comes BACK… ! ’Cause we know it will, like vinyl! [laughter] Joe: If civilization collapses, there’s going to be runs on these… these… CBC: “Who do we know? Send out the pigeon!” Joe: There’s warehouses full of stencilers! You ask Maggie Thompson! Maggie knows all that stuff. Maggie was the master of drawing on mimeograph stencils. CBC: The master of the mimeograph master. Joe: [Laughs] Right! And as Maggie reminded us, Steve Stiles was the real master. CBC: So it was Maelstrom at the time. You get that in the mail and you realize that there’s a community of like-minded people… Was it the science fiction elements in Julius Schwartz’s edited comics? Is that what attracted you? Joe: Yes. CBC: What were you reading as far as fiction goes? Who was a favorite? Joe: Oh, golly. Clifford Simak … my all-time favorite over all was Philip K. Dick. I still read Philip K. Dick. I like Murray Leinster for just straight stories. Oh! And I went through a spell when I was a teenager reading all of the Burroughs stuff! I guess I was a younger teenager. I knew it was junk but I loved it! CBC: The first three or four Tarzan books, but the others… oy! Joe: Oh, who could be critical at that age? [laughter] CBC: All the Pellucidar, John Carter, Carson of Venus in the Ace paperbacks… It was a golden age for that stuff, right? Joe: With the Frazetta covers… CBC: Roy Krenkel… Joe: Yeah! I guess it was Krenkel, right? CBC: They alternated. Joe: So I had those and I went through a spell of reading H.P. Lovecraft. Historical note: Where we live, Kingston, New York, is famous in the annals of H.P. Lovecraft history because he had his suitcase stolen in Kingston, New York. [laughs] CBC: Clark Ashton Smith probably took it. Were you into movies at all? Joe: Not so much movies. I guess there weren’t that many outlets for movies or I just didn’t see them? I do remember going to drive-ins. CBC: How many times did you move between the time you were, like, five and 15? Joe: About three or four. CBC: It didn’t have much of an effect on you? Leaving an entire community behind and starting in a new one? Joe: I don’t remember that being a problem. Hilarie: After you were ten, you only moved twice. Joe: That’s when Daddy died and we stayed in Milan near my mother’s family and especially her brother Tom Butler. CBC: You worked on the school newspaper? You did some writing? Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

Joe: I did some writing. CBC: You had a natural facility to write? Joe: Yes, it came naturally. And I did some art and a lot of paste-up. I guess that’s as close to being social as I was. There would be group gatherings where everybody would get together and paste-up the newspaper. And I would get to hang out with the cheerleaders who also worked on the paper. CBC: When was the first time you saw your name in print? Joe: Apparently the letters I sent to Julie Schwartz. CBC: Did that have an impact on you? Joe: Yes. CBC: It had your street address, too? Joe: I think it must have, yeah. Hilarie: They could have sent it to Milan and it would have reached you. It’s not a city. It’s a small town. Joe: Right. Julie Schwartz is my touchstone. Other than Chester Gould, he was really the first name I attached to somebody who was significant in the comics. So I sent Julie letters and some were published. He was doing the kind of science fiction I liked — Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. CBC: Did you like “Adam Strange”? Joe: Yes! I really liked “Adam Strange.” A beautiful strip! CBC: For the school newspaper, did you do spot illos or editorial cartoons? Joe: This one time, for the school yearbook, I did caricatures of some of the teachers and I would occasionally do a drawing of a sports event for some reason. It was cartoony, exaggerated stuff. I think they were well-received. I don’t remember any objections. I was just trying to get a cartoon likeness. CBC: No biting satire? Joe: No. [laughs] That was in college! CBC: Those were really changing times. Where were you when JFK was assassinated? Joe: I was in the school library in high school. They didn’t end school but they announced it on the PA system. CBC: They said the President’s dead? Joe: Well, they announced he was shot. I guess they didn’t know he was dead at that point. CBC: Did that affect you? Did you feel like times were changing? Joe: I did think that things were getting a little strange, yes. CBC: Did you feel with Camelot coming on, with the Presi-

Above: As your incredulous editor learns during this comprehensive interview, Hilarie Wolford married artist and aspiring comics creator Joe Staton when he was jobless, in 1971. It was during their budget-conscious honeymoon to Mystic Seaport when Joe stopped at the bottom-of-the-ladder Charlton Comics in Derby, Connecticut, which would jump-start the man’s career. These photos of the couple were shot in the early 1970s. Note the brass plaque. 41

This page: Before becoming a comic book professional, Joe Staton contributed to science fiction fanzines, and even scored a number of art assignments from legendary editor Ted White for Amazing and Fantastic Stories. Above is Rich Brown’s 1972 zine, Beardmutterings #2, profusely illoed by Joe. Below is presumably an unused Fantastic cover (courtesy of Heritage) and inset are two of Joe’s cover jobs for the SF digest mag in 1973–74.

your prospects? Were you always college-bound? Was that assumed? Joe: I think I would occasionally trifle with ideas of heading out and trying to get into comics or something before I went to college, but I don’t think it ever was seriously considered. I was always headed for college. CBC: How did you make spending money when you were a teenager? Joe: Oh! Well… [Hilarie laughs] My uncle Tommy Butler was manager of a Purina feed store. It was a farming community. And I worked for him fairly often, help unload rail cars of chicken chow and corn and stuff like that. The high-point of my working for him was when I would assist in vaccinating chickens. [laughter] CBC: Where’d you have to vaccinate them? In the butt? Joe: No, in the armpit! Chickens are prone to a form of colds and they have to be vaccinated. You do two things to chickens at the same time. You burn off the tips of their beaks with a little electric wire and then you stab ’em in the armpit. It wasn’t like a regular job, Occasionally, I’d work for him. I did odds and ends of other things. CBC: The fanzine work, did that become an obsession? Joe: I’m not sure it was an obsession, but it took a good bit of my time. I did a lot of that. CBC: Yeah, but at the time you would otherwise be socializing, right? So you’re in the room, you’re working alone, yelling at your sister to keep the noise down… Did you get an art table or did you work flat? Joe: I guess I worked flat or on a drawing table for a long time. I actually took the Art Instruction Course through mail when I was in high school. And the table came with the course. I’ve gone through several tables since then. The one I’ve got now I’ve had a long time. For a long time I had a little easel thing that you could use a board on. I have to find one of those somewhere. I really need one of those for shows. But I had a little, angled easel thing you could use on that table. CBC: And this art course that you took? Did they judge your work? Did they grade it? Joe: They corrected it and graded it. CBC: Was it good? Was it useful or were they full of it? Joe: It was limited, but at least they had textbooks that told you what people did, that sort of thing. So, specifically, it was not as useful as it might have been, but exposing you to information was good. CBC: Did you have art classes in high school? Joe: I don’t think we ever had art classes in high school, but there was a college close by, Murray State College, in Kentucky, that had summer workshops for art and I went to those for… what? Two or three… ? Hilarie: Two years, I think. Joe: At least two years. So that was really good. CBC: Were they expensive? Did your mother pay for them? Joe: Gosh, I don’t know. I don’t remember what they would have cost. I probably had a scholarship. CBC: Were you good at saving money? Joe: I’ve always been pretty good at saving money. CBC: Did you continue to buy comics into your older adolescence, your older teens? Joe: There was a spell when I wasn’t buying comics. Hilarie: He was spending his money on science fiction. Joe: Probably! I remember getting back into comics. In Jackson, Tennessee, there was a second-hand bookstore run by an old railroad man named Bill Frady. The connection here is that Mike Curtis — who today writes Dick Tracy — was a regular at Bill Frady’s and was buying his comics and science fiction at Bill Frady’s. I didn’t run into him! CBC: You never met him! Joe: Basically! Mike’s a little bit younger than I am. A couple years, but not much. He was buying his stuff at Bill Frady’s, I was buying my stuff at Bill Frady’s but we didn’t know each other. We probably would’ve crossed. But I ran into somebody that had dumped a bunch of Marvels. I #9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Artwork © Joe Staton. Fantastic TM & © the respective copyright holder.

dent coming in, that there was a sea-change coming? Was it a hopeful time? Joe: Yes, I remember Kennedy’s time being very hopeful. CBC: You were in the South, right? What were your views on civil rights at the time? Joe: I was pro-civil rights and all. That sort of thing. CBC: Did you belong to a liberal family? Joe: Well, not really liberal but accepting. CBC: How was the neighborhood? The society you were in? The culture you were in? Joe: Pretty conservative. I mean, my school was all-white and that was before integration. CBC: So your sympathies were with desegregation? Joe: Yes. I was with Kennedy. I was actually very pro on Kennedy. CBC: So it was terrible when he was assassinated? Joe: Yes! It was a shock! CBC: Then times really started changin’ pretty quick, right? Joe: I think, in lots of ways, I’m still a child of the early ’60s. I’m still a Kennedy guy at heart. CBC: What were

Strip © Joe Staton. E-Man, Nova TM & © Joe T. Staton. All others TM & © their respective copyright holders.

pressed by those… I forgot about the Harvey reprints! It was a real shock to me seeing those. Those were great. CBC: Did it have an impact on you as far as your drawing? Joe: Certainly on layouts. I realized that was something cool and different. CBC: What was George Wildman like? Joe: Very friendly, very accommodating. Sal Gentile was still there when we went in. I guess George was basically running things, but Sal was officially in charge, so we talked to Sal and George. Both were nice guys. George was especially friendly and accommodating. Sent us away with a story and some paper. They had pre-printed pages with the borders and everything to make sure you didn’t get the wrong sizes for the originals. Hilarie: The pay there was pencils, inks, and letters for $24. Joe: Which I thought was fine. [chuckles] CBC: How long would it take you to do a page? Joe: Well, I got to where I could do three pages a day. Obviously it took longer to start out, but I do remember some specific day when I got three pages done and that was my speed from then on. CBC: Did you work every day of the week? Joe: Oh, yes. [laughs] Hilarie: Or nights. CBC: And how did you get it to Derby? Joe: Oh, just shipped it out by mail. Occasionally, we went up to Derby to turn things in and hung out. CBC: Not in a rush to deliver, but just to check in? Joe: It was always good to check in and be a familiar face around the office. And after a while they kept on giving me stories. CBC: Did you socialize with them at all? Did you go out to lunch? Joe: Yeah, when we’d go up. CBC: Look, just to be frank, Charlton wasn’t looking that good at the time. After Dick Giordano left and Sal Gentile came in, there was a lot of Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia, and some work that wasn’t necessarily pretty. But your stuff came in and was fresh! Joe: That was after Nick was there. [laughs] I knew they were obviously bottom of the barrel, but I didn’t approach it as I was the savior or anything. It was just, “This is where I’m working now.” Hilarie: It was a first step. Joe: Yeah, right. Was Tom Sutton working there by then? Hilarie: Yeah. CBC: Not very much. He was mostly at Warren. Joe: Oh, right. CBC: You came in at that transitional time, when Charlton got a second wind. Nick and George were a part of that. You seemed to approach it with enthusiasm and maybe gratitude. Joe: Well, yeah! I was trying to do the best job I could, you know? CBC: Was there any sense that Charlton was on the comeback? They’d gone through the Action Heroes. Were you familiar with that work? Joe: Oh, yes, certainly all the Ditko stuff, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle… And I came after it. [laughter] I was not at DC when Bernie and those guys were making the big breakthroughs, I wasn’t there when Dick Giordano was making the big breakthroughs at Charlton. I’d come along at odd times. CBC: You forged your own path. Look, I did, not one, but two issues of Comic Book Artist devoted to Charlton. The first one was the Action Heroes with Dick Giordano. The second one was the Charlton of you, Nick, and George. Joe: Right, with the cover with all the hosts. I loved doing that cover. CBC: Yeah, that was great! CBC: I had a contest to see who could name them all. Because there were a couple there that were tough even for me. Joe: There was one little blob of a thing behind somebody that nobody identified. Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

CBC: What was it? Joe: I think he was called the Thing. [laughter] CBC: Ghost Manor was the first job and then you did the Secret Romance? Joe: Actually, I think the way it worked out was the first thing I did was the Ghost Manor story and they gave me Primus right after that. I think the first issue of Primus is dated the same as that ghost story. I did all of them, however many there were. [Looking at the Primus photo covers] Sal liked to do those collages. He did those personally. CBC: February of ’72. So it was ’71 that you were actually working on a licensing project. A series! Right off the bat. Joe: Yeah! CBC: You have to explain for our younger readers who Primus was. Who was he? Joe: [Laughs] Well, back in the days before cable, there was syndication and local stations had to fill in time slots that didn’t

Top: Joe Staton strip for the ’75 New Con souvenir book.

movie was out, Papillon. And there were all these pictures of Dustin Hoffman in these really thick little glasses in Papillon, so I just thought, “Well, he’s not Arnold Stang, but he’s close enough. So that was the original visual. Dustin Hoffman looked very mousy and very rat-like, and I think I have some memories of an E.C. character who looked… CBC: Yeah, right. “Outer Sanctum.” Joe: Right. And that was a reprint in one of the black-&white paperbacks and that was the original Mauser. So it kind of all came together. He’s Mauser, he looks mousy, he carries a Mauser. It’s just one of those things. You can’t get that mix of names and visuals again that just comes together. CBC: And his demeanor? Was it cynical, hard-bitten? Joe: Yeah. Although Nova’s tough, she’s not bitter and she’s trying to keep E-Man’s idealism, his niceness, intact around Mauser, and Mauser is presented as a kind of cynical, embittered character, so the dynamic is really between Nova and Mauser fighting for the soul of E-Man! That’s the basic dynamic there. CBC: And ultimately what would Mauser use E-Man for? Joe: Violence? When we were doing E-Man later, Mauser employs E-Man as an agent in the detective agency, but that’s just a technicality. Hilarie: But I think the goal for Mauser isn’t violence. The goal is to solve whatever it is and, very often, whether he’ll admit it or not, it’s something fairly humane and so even though they may be going after the soul of E-Man, where they end up is a fairly humane place, whether he does it for Mauser or for Nova. Joe: Yeah, I think part of it is both Nova and Mauser are trying to be tough or they’re tough enough but they basically have hearts of gold. Hilarie: They’re tough in protecting E-Man, too, because he’s not tough and that’s something they don’t wanna see him lose! [laughs] Joe: Yeah, I don’t think we ever got into this as a story, but if E-Man had fallen into the wrong hands when he first came to Earth, he could’ve taken over the Earth or he could’ve launched an intergalactic war. I mean, even turning to the dark side is certainly not a pleasant proposition. His powers have to be channeled and maybe he doesn’t understand that Mauser’s cynicism is only a front. I mean, actually, once you start talking about it E-Man is a more complex character than he might seem to be. CBC: Does he have potentially infinite power? Could he be god-like? Joe: I always figured him as a minor deity. He has the power of a supernova. CBC: Which means he could obliterate the solar system. Joe: He could! Yeah. Well, he’s part of a supernova. He could probably take out the other planets, that’s for sure. CBC: Never knew it had such depth. Did you have interest to write at all? You’ve written some things, right? Joe: There are things that have been written with my name on them. [Joe and Hilarie laugh] Never been seriously motiComic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

vated to write my own stuff. I submitted some script ideas for Primus when I was doing that and they told me, “That’s Joe Gill’s job.” So I didn’t follow up on it. Hilarie: He likes drawing too well! Joe: I think writing comics properly is a whole other thing, [chuckles] a little too complex to work out the structures. CBC: E-Man lasted 10 issues and, in 1974, you got into Marvel, inking The Avengers. Hilarie: Oh, right. That’s the phone call. Joe: Oh, that’s right. Roy Thomas called up out of the blue. He was editor at Marvel at that time and Roy called up, told me his whole life story for about an hour, and then says, “Would you like to ink The Avengers?” I said, “Well, yeah!” And he says, “Okay. It’s on the way.” He sent the Sal Buscema pages. [laughter] CBC: Was it just as easy as that? [laughter] Was it like, “Hey, honey, I’m at the House of Ideas.” Hilarie: It was like that! Joe: It’s like Gil Kane called up one day and says, “My boy, would you like to do layouts for me?” and I said, “Sure.” And then Roy calls up and says, “Hey, you wanna ink for Marvel?” “Okay.” CBC: You were a fan of Gil’s work, right? So, in the chronology here, where did Gil fit in? Joe: I was working for Gil while I was still doing E-Man. I worked for Gil, I guess, for about a year. CBC: Did you get paid? Joe: Very little and not often. Gil died owing me money. Hilarie: But it was well worth it. Joe: Yes. Well, I told Gil one time that, “Well, you’re not gonna pay me, so I’ll chalk this up to education.” Actually, he started laughing and said, “Oh, that’s great!” [Hilarie laughs] I would like to get some of those layouts back. CBC: So, what was the commitment? Did you go in to his… Where was his place?

This page: Two lasting friendships made during Joe Staton’s freelance career at DC Comics include Paul Levitz (above) and Brit artist sensation Brian Bolland (below). Levitz & Staton co-created The Huntress together. Bolland drew the cover for the collection seen top right.

Above: Thanks to recruiting by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton received a ton of DC assignments in the ’70s, including a stint on Plastic Man and illustrating the two-part run of Power Girl in Showcase [1978]. Cover detail of Showcase #97 and panels from same.

CBC: Obi Wan Kenobi! “These are the reservations you’re looking for.” Joe: We are the droids who have reservations! [laughter] Yeah, that was quite an evening! CBC: Now, he was quite a raconteur. Did he impart his wisdom on you? Was it a dialogue? Joe: It was a… Hilarie: A monologue? Joe: It was a monologue. He did pause occasionally to let me agree with him. [laughter] Hilarie: But his stories were great! Joe: Oh, yeah. He had stories about everything! And he had theories about everything and how to draw stuff. I was very impressed with Gil. But he understood that he was not transformational. But he was very dynamic. CBC: Did you channel him at all in your Green Lantern work? Joe: Oh, yeah! CBC: Actually, a lot of your work you could argue is Kane-influenced. Joe: Well, it’s that whole composition in depth thing, really. My super-hero stuff shows a lot of Gil’s composition and storytelling. Because, you know, when I was working for him, I was totally trying to understand how he told a story. That was what I was doing and it stayed with me. CBC: Do you think he’s under-appreciated? Joe: Yeah, I think so. I did talk to him on the phone very often. I’d ask him questions and he would explain things. CBC: You not coming the fan route, but you were a professional right off. You were a neophyte in the beginning, but you were a peer! You looked at it as a job. Was the end goal ever to work on Superboy or Superman or… ? Joe: [Laughs] My goal was to do comics! Hilarie: Joe introduced me to comics. I never got the feeling he was a “fan,” except for specific comics, specific issues at certain times. It was always, “This is what I’m gonna do. This is what I was meant to do!” Joe: Right. CBC: And you were a professional. Were you always on time? Joe: I was always on time. I was compulsive about being on time. But I do remember I was inking one issue of The Incredible Hulk when the previous issue was on the stands. That was close. Hilarie: And then there was the time that we couldn’t leave for vacation because we were waiting in the mail for pages to come for him to ink and they would arrive one or two at a time. Even though he was intending to take the assignment with him, he couldn’t leave because not all the pages were there! CBC: You’re in Marvel and simultaneously you did a “Mike Mauser” back-up in Vengeance Squad. Joe: Yeah, we did several Mauser stories in Vengeance Squad. I think Mauser is one of the all-time great characters. CBC: Scary Tales! I was always curious. There seemed to be some books coming out of Charlton that seemed linked to certain creators — for instance, Monster Hunters and Haunted Library with Don Newton and Midnight Tales with Wayne Howard… Scary Tales came across as your book. Did you design the host? She had orange hair. Joe: The Countess Von #9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Joe: Wilton, Connecticut. Hilarie: It wasn’t too far from Charlton, but I don’t know that it was in the same exact direction. But we drove over there and hung out for a day at his house. CBC: What’d you think of him? Hilarie: Oh, I was really impressed! [laughs] He intimidated me! CBC: Did he call you, “My boy”? Joe: He always called me, “M’boy!” Hilarie: And his wife was really sweet. Joe: And his mother was there. A sweet little lady. Very much a little old country lady. Our favorite Gil Kane story is a show in Boston, Newcon, and we were there and going out to dinner with Gil and Archie Goodwin and our friend Colleen. We wanted to go to Trader Vic’s. We had no reservation and it was very crowded. Gil just took over and he was looming all over everything. The maître de was trying to see if we had reservations and Gil was doing this thing with his hands. He kept his hands moving so that the maître de couldn’t see his book and Gil would say, “I know we’re late, my boy. We missed our time, but maybe you could fit us in, my boy.” Hilarie: Over and over again! Joe: “My boy!” he was calling him and the maître de had no idea what to do so he gave us places! [laughter] It was amazing! I never figured out what he was doing. I think it was like Mandrake the Magician. He gestured hypnotically…

the years. Marty Pasko wrote it for a little while, but you’re always associated with the character. It’s a threesome… or foursome. I don’t know. Joe: Well, it’s a three and a half-some if you count Teddy. [laughter] The core crew of E-Man is E-Man, Nova, Mauser, and Teddy. CBC: I’m sorry I jumped over Teddy. [Hilarie laughs] I’m always forgetting he was a part of the original run, wasn’t he? I’m always thinking he was part of the First Comics’ run. Joe: He was. He got stranger later. CBC: What was he? Hilarie: A koala bear! Joe: He’s a koala bear. Samuel Boar, the evil energy czar, had found that there’s a small ball of sun-like energy inside the earth and he was going to capture it and steal it and sell it as a power source. He had a henchman who was an Australian who had a koala bear and… [laughs] And during the course of that adventure, which is where Nova became a super-hero or super-heroine or whatever she is, Teddy was acquired by E-Man and Nova. The henchman I guess was sent off to prison, but they took custody of the koala. He’s been with Nova ever since. [Jon and Hilarie laugh] You two don’t seem to be taking this totally seriously. CBC: I’m so sorry. He certainly was a cute little fella. [laughs] You know Mike Mauser was enough, but then she’s a super-hero, and why don’t you throw in a koala bear? It just added that Jack Cole kind of wackiness. It may not be Woozy Winks but… along the same path. Were you gonna keep him? Was there any reaction to that story? We’re gonna keep him around? Did you like drawing him? Joe: Yeah. CBC: [To Hilarie] Did you like him? Hilarie: Yes, I did. In the whole first E-Man run, Joe was known for what he put in the backgrounds so, if they didn’t plan to keep him, he ended up in the backgrounds anyway, so he got kept. Joe: That’s right. I forget which one it was. There was one issue of E-Man where we totally forgot Teddy. Teddy was not in the story at all and I went back and had him sitting in a chair in Mauser’s office without explanation. He was sitting listening or something! [laughs] Teddy’s part of the crew. CBC: You said he got stranger in the First years. What made him strange? Joe: I think Teddy is totally blissed-out forever. He’s at one with the Universe. Very happy. He’s prone to break into dancing without explanation. He doesn’t sing, but he dances. CBC: You were stalwart with DC there for a while. Joe: I was. I was kind of drawing everything there for a while. I did some Superboy. Hilarie: When he did Superboy… talk about going back to his roots. We went back to visit his mother and we got his old high school yearbooks! So he could have reference on what people in a small town of that time period looked like. Joe: My version of Superboy was kind of retro. It had a ’50s look. It was when the Kents had their store in town. In the Kents’ store they had a rack of comic books, that sort of thing. CBC: Who was writing it? Joe: Tom DeFalco wrote several of them. I think he was… CBC: Is that where he started off his professional career? At DC the late ’70s? I don’t remember his name before that. Joe: I don’t know. Hilarie: You said he wrote Wheelie. Joe: Oh, yeah. He was writing the Wheelies at Charlton, so he was around before then. We did one really cool Superboy story that brought back a teenage wizard from an old story, That was fun. CBC: Did you collaborate with Paul or did you just get a full script? Did you just say, “Hey. I’d like to do this?” Joe: It was more a question of “Hey, I’d like to do this.” I was around the DC offices a lot in those days. Paul Kupperberg, Marty Pasko, would have something up and I’d say, “Oh! I’d like to do that!” You know. That’s why I seemed to be Comic Book Creator • Summer 2015 • #9

the main artist on Showcase or something like that. Something kept on coming up that sounded like… “Oh! We’re going to do Showcase #100 with everybody who’s ever been in Showcase.” “Oh! I’d like to do that!” CBC: Did you sometimes get overwhelmed? Were you good at saying no at the right times? Joe: Not so good at saying no at the right times. [laughs] Mostly I would say yes too much and then wind up sleeping too little. It kind of wore you down over time, I guess. CBC: [To Hilarie] Did you see much of him? Hilarie: No, not at all. We did very little traveling at that point. I was teaching, so I was in the schools all day. No, we didn’t see a whole lot of each other. Joe: We just kind of waved at each other. [laughs] CBC: Did you tell him, “You’re working too hard”? Hilarie: Oh, everybody told him that. He was a workaholic, always has been. That was not anything new. He was working on things he liked. Joe: That was the trouble. I did like it. I really enjoyed doing it. Hilarie: And he was perfectly happy. There wasn’t any major changes that were in the offing. CBC: [Laughs] You and he both always working all the time… to this day! Joe: I work less now than I used to. I very seldom work ’til way in the morning these days. Hilarie: That’s true. CBC: You had a reputation for pulling through, getting the job done. Was that a source of pride for you? Joe: I think it was. Sometimes it worked against me, but I think I was pleased that people know that I would get things done. CBC: The database says you did a job for 2000AD? Joe: Oh, yes, right. I did one story in 1979 for 2000AD. It was called “Black Hawk.” It was about a black slave taken into space to fight a gladiator. We were visiting Brian Bolland. I’d met all the guys up at 2000AD and because I was there, they gave me an assignment. So I did that one. I was thrilled to do it. It seemed very cool. They paid me well. CBC: What’s your relationship with Brian Bolland? Joe: Brian is a real good pal, for a long, long time. We hit it off with Brian and Rachel immediately. Hilarie: Immediately! We had

Above: Teamed with writer Steve Englehart, Joe Staton made a considerable contribution to the Green Lantern mythos, as they developed Guy Gardner and created such characters as Ch’p and Kilowog during their ’80s tenure.

#9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

who’d like to do some Green Lantern covers.” And Jack knew Brian’s work very well from 2000AD and he says, ‘Okay! Great! Here’s what we need.” CBC: That was Brian’s first American work? Hilarie: Yes. CBC: Who do you think is your best inker? Joe: My best inker is Horacio Ottolini, who inked a Femme Noir story and also the Batman Elseworlds story, Citizen Wayne. Archie Goodwin put us together. Archie had samples from Horacio and saw that we would go very well together, so I did my Batman Elseworlds story, which I really liked and thought I did a good job on, and then Horacio just found things in there that I would never have thought to finish off or add mood or lighting, or… CBC: A true embellisher! Hilarie: Yes! Joe: A real collaborator! And then strangely enough, when I was on Scooby, Horacio was working in the studio that was doing Scooby in Argentina, so he wound up inking a lot of my Scooby-Doo stories and he did wonderful, wonderful Scooby-Doo inks. CBC: You had to send ’em all the way down to Argentina? Joe: Well, DC did. CBC: Did you ever meet him? Joe: I have never met him. CBC: Do you communicate with him? Joe: Yes, we’ve had conversations. His daughter speaks English, translates for him, and now there are functions online we can more or less translate. CBC: Other favorites? Joe: Always liked Bruce Patterson’s stuff on Green Lantern. Andrew Pepoy inked a lot of my Scoobys. I liked those. CBC: How do you like your own inks? The best? Joe: No, I like Horacio’s best. CBC: Better than you? Joe: Yes, much better than me. There were a few jobs that Dick Giordano did that really stand out. One job that really stands out — just the one time — was a Brave and the Bold issue called “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne,” which was the story of how Bruce and Catwoman fell in love. They were married in that story. That was inked by George Freeman. CBC: And it’s beautiful work. You did the old-time Batmobile in that, too. Did not Alan Brennert write that story? Hilarie: Yes. gone to England during the summer. We wanted to go to science fiction [fandom]’s Worldcon in Brighton and that was CBC: Let’s talk about Alan a little bit. What do you think of at Labor Day. We wanted to go early, so Joe found a comics’ him as a writer? Joe: They don’t come any better! convention in London and it was six weeks earlier. So we CBC: Did you ever meet him? went early and Joe needed someplace to draw. Joe: Oh. Yeah. We’ve met several times. Joe: Paul Levitz knew Richard Burton, the writer, who Hilarie: He’s a very nice guy. was working at Marvel UK when we were talking about the CBC: I have exchanged emails with him. He seems quite fact I needed somewhere to work. So Paul checked in with grateful for your work. Richard and Richard said there was a spot I could sit and draw at Marvel UK while I was there. But I think Richard left Joe: Oh! I did two stories that Alan wrote. A lot of people know that one, “The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne.” Marvel UK before we got there. So I had nowhere to work, George Freeman inked it and I think it’s great. It gets rebut Richard knew that Brian’s wife Rachel was going to be printed a lot. I also did a Secret Origin of The Black Canary working on a project outside the apartment for a whole so that Dick Giordano inked and nobody knows that one. It’s her table was empty. So he set it up for me to go over to in the last issue of Secret Origins and never gets reprinted Brian’s flat during the day and draw and Hilarie was going because it’s not in continuity anymore. But it’s just such a off finding tours and seeing the country. So I would sit back to back with Brian and he would draw and I would draw and beautiful human story. CBC: Alan wrote it? we would talk back and forth. Joe: Yeah. Alan did a really nice Batman story Dave CBC: Who’s Rachel? Gibbons did. I didn’t do it but Dave Gibbons did. So that was Joe: Rachel is Brian Bolland’s wife and she was a fabric really nice. Whatever Alan does, it’s always the best of designer. whatever it is. CBC: And she had an art table? Joe: Yeah, she had an art table and Richard found out that I CBC: Didn’t you also do another Brave and the Bold story? could use her table while we were in England. So that’s how Joe: I did a Brave and the Bold story that was Batman and Plastic Man that Jim Aparo finished. we met Brian and Rachel. CBC: Now there’s a mix! Hilarie: When we went, Joe had a job to do. Joe: Which worked very well. It’s more Jim Aparo than it is Joe: I was probably still on Green Lantern. I think that’s me, but it looks really nice. when I called back to the states and Jack Harris was the CBC: That’s very interesting. What’s the biggest surprise editor. I told Jack, “I’m sitting her with this guy in England

This spread: Joe Staton is now living the dream, drawing his beloved Dick Tracy daily newspaper strip, teamed with Mike Curtis! One of the detective’s recent adventures had him solving the mysterious disappearance of Little Orphan Annie!

control of this? Is he your baby and you don’t really want to see him in the hands of other people? Or are you pragmatic about it? Joe: It’s not like I’m specifically trying to control things. It’s just how things are. We wanted to mention that if anybody’s reading this that E-Man would be a really great property to film! At one point, before the super-hero boom, Roger Corman was interested in picking up E-Man. It would have been a lower budget operation and he had some changes in mind. He was going to move Nova to Las Vegas and she would be part of the chorus line at a club. That would have worked! I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t. But before he actually got to the point of making the deal, he went to a film festival in Germany and he talked to people at the festival and they said, “There’s no future in doing these super-hero movies, so forget it!” [Jon laughs] So he backed out of it and that never happened. I guess that’s as close as E-Man’s ever come to being a proper movie. CBC: So far! Since we’re plugging, you have this set of characters: you have the innocent super-hero, the stripper with a brain and a heart of gold, the tough, rat-like detective, a dancing koala bear, and a whole set of villains! Hilarie: Many topical! Joe: Certainly Samuel Boar is still a topical character. We have the Entropy Twins, Mad Wax, and so on. A whole bunch of villains. One thing we worked on at First with E-Man was to see E-Man as the only super-hero who was the sidekick in his own book. The Adventures of Michael Mauser, starring E-Man! It could actually make a very goof lighthearted police procedural week-to-week with a super-hero sidekick! Lots of good visuals. E-Man really should be filmed or on TV! CBC: Did we talk in depth about Nova? About her personality? How strong she is? I would think she would be a great role for an actress to express individuality, control of the situation, and still be provocative. Joe: Actually you do wind up with a tough detective and a super-hero, and the one in charge is the stripper. CBC: She’s not just a stripper! She’s got multiple majors. Archaeology, geology! Joe: She’s at least a grad student by now! So she’s educated. Hilarie: She’s smart! Not just educated. CBC: She’s smart, she’s self-reliant. She’s living on her own in the very beginning. Joe: I’d love to be acquainted with Nova. CBC: Heck, yeah! When you get these guys, “Hey, I love that Nova!” It’s not just a lusty thing, but it’s like, “Yeah. This is a really dynamite personality.” As much as I want Wonder Woman to be like that, she’s not always. They try to do it and then they slip off into different personifications. But Nova’s always been tough and she’s soft, all at the same time! Just remarkable… Is it a testament to Nick? Nick’s comfortable with women, is he? Joe: Yeah. Hilarie: Yes. Very! CBC: I mean, that’s not always true of a lot of comic book greats. [Joe laughs] He knows how to depict females in comics, right? Not #9 • Summer 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

I do believe Big Al is part of canon. [laughter] Teddy was in the original run, so he’s still there. And Marty had a great character called Mad Wax! He could change shapes. It’s just a great name. I love it! [laughs] CBC: Has DC or Marvel ever approached you guys about E-Man? Joe: At one point, there were kind of second-hand feelers that DC might want to pick up E-Man to be part of the Charlton purchase, but nothing ever came of it. CBC: Dick Giordano was a friend of yours, right? Did you ever say, “Hey! Check this out!” Or did you want to maintain control of your character? Joe: It just never happened. I know when Nick was still on staff at DC, he had approached them. I guess he talked to them about picking up E-Man from First. Nick had an idea for the Rubber Band: E-Man, Plastic Man, the Elongated Man, and Metamorpho! All the shape-shifters an they would be the Rubber Band. That woulda been cool! CBC: Except who’s the comic foil? Joe: Hey, they’re all comic foils! [Hilarie laughs] That’s when they team-up with the Inferior Five, right? Just so the could have comic foils. But DC didn’t go for it. It just never happened. CBC: Do you want to, in our heart of hearts, maintain

This page: Hey, it was a ’70s thing, okay? Rutland hosted a Halloween parade every year, and comics folk were only happy to oblige. Here’s some float participants dressed up as Charlton characters in the mid-’70s, Note E-Man’s skivvies! At bottom is Joe Staton and Nick Cuti checking out the float. Next page: Joe and Hilarie during Ye Ed’s March visit to their Kingston, NY, abode.

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Joe: Well, he’s a grandpa. He’s got family and kids and hat because once Tracy’s hat’s been shot off, he retires, and he puts it on his Wall of Hats! This is something Chester grandkids and so on. CBC: In real life, if he was first came in 1931, what’s the Gould introduced. He has hats that have been blown off math there? with handguns, with shotguns, that have been knocked off with machetes. Dick Tracy has all these hats! So Black Jack Joe: [Laughs] The thing is you can’t think like that! CBC: I was just curious! Is it going to be collected? wants to contribute to Dick Tracy’s Wall of Hats. Sometimes Joe: That unfortunately doesn’t seem to be in the works. he shoots Dick Tracy’s hat off and he gets arrested and he’s CBC: And you won two Harveys. Was that as a team? sent away. He’s happy! He’s a good character. Double-Up is Joe: Yeah, our whole little team. just a big guy with a bull-whip. He’s a threat but he’s not one CBC: And who else is on the team? of the more exotic characters. We have a brother and sister Joe: Well, there’s me. I do the pencils. Mike Curtis writes team called Silver Nitrate and his sister, Sprocket. All their crimes have to do with old movies. Oh, and we have a horror it. His wife, Carole, is his first, in-house editor. Our inker and show host gone bad named Abner Kadaver, letterer is Shelley Pleger and our colorist is Shane Fisher. And our police consultant has been Sgt. Jim Doherty. And with his sidekick, Rikki Mortis, who’s in our editor in Chicago now is Tracy Clark. Our editor used to punk regalia. She’s really cute. And we be Leigh Hanlon. And the funny thing is, Shelley and Shane bring back the old characters. came to our team because they had worked with Mike on Hilarie: And the crossovers! Joe: When Little Orphan Annie’s strip was Shanda the Panda! So Mike kind of showed up with the IF so YOU ENJOYED whole teamTHIS lined PREVIEW, up! [laughs] And, of course, Hilarie is my canceled, she was left on a cliffhanger, ORDER THIS ownLINK trafficTO manager! people wondered for years did AnnieCLICK make THE CBC:OR YouDIGITAL guys had FORMAT! the audacity to use their copyrighted it back after she was kidnapped byISSUE the IN PRINT characters and then end up with the strip. That’s pretty cool! Butcher of the Balkans. So we finished up that story! Punjab, the big Asian bodyguard, Joe: It is, like, entirely unreasonable! [laughter] Hilarie: Had a lot of luck that they didn’t get sued. sent him to “fly with the Magi.” Which is, Joe: Yeah! Right! [laughs] you know, something magical. It has to CBC: Well, yeah! It was like, “Do we sue these guys or do do with Annie characters and had to do we save on the lawyers’ fees and hire ‘em?” I like that pragwith plots from the 1940s and we actually brought in some characters from Terry and matic thinking! They’re not angry. ‘No! Let’s just hire ’em!” Pretty good job! “This Staton brings the work in on time. We the Pirates. don’t have to worry about deadlines!” The best place to see Tracy is GoComJoe: With Tracy, we do have to worry about deadlines. It’s ics. And occasionally we’ll just do one or amazing! I’ve talked to Ramona Fradon and June Brigman two pages with other comic strips where about this — that you can be doing a daily strip and be we know the people involved. Dick Tracy perfectly on time and the next day they’ll call you and tell you had to go out to Hootin’ Holler to see if there’s anything going on with Snuffy Smith. you’re six weeks behind. I don’t know how the math works outBOOK or where the days#9 go but somehow there’s a whole We had like a couple days’ crossover COMIC CREATOR different frame of timeto passing with Funky Winkerbean. We did a crossJOE STATON on his comics career (from E-MAN, co-creating on daily strips. The Huntress, and his current stint on Dick Tracyday. comicWe strip),had like half an hour to get the We had a the call one over where Walt Wallet from Gasoline plus we showcase the lost treasure GODS OF MOUNT OLYMstrip in and Shane Fisher, he’s normally a designer Alley came to town for about a week. We by Joe!Sunday PUS drawn Plus, Part One of our interview with the late JOHN WORKMAN, HEMBECK! a huge printplus shop out in Detroit. He left work, went home, consider it very “meta.” You know STAN whatGOLDBERG, the for FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 colored the Sunday strip — fortunately he lived close. He kids say? [laughs] When fiction comments(84-page (Digital Edition) $3.95 the strip in less than half an hour and uploaded it or on itself. Everybody in a strip kind ofhttp://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_132&products_id=1205 knows colored otherwise we would have missed being printed that week! they’re in a strip. CBC: By your calculation, how old is Dick [chuckles] CBC: Do you have a fitness regimen? You are quite trim. Do Tracy if he was a human being? you exercise at all? Do you walk? Joe: As I draw Dick Tracy, I think he’s 52 Joe: Actually, this is a three-story house, so I walk a lot just years old and I think Tess is about 48. in the house. But I have a friend, Paul Abrams, another artist, CBC: Fifty-two? That’s mature. who lives just a couple of blocks away and we will routinely go for long walks. We have a real nice Victorian cemetery right up the street and we’ll go for long walks in Montrepose Cemetery which was designed by Calvert Vaux. I do a lot of walking. CBC: And you two said you did 20 shows last year? Hilarie: Maybe not last year. Maybe the year before it was 20 and last year was a little less. CBC: But still! That’s more than a third of the year! Joe: Yeah, I think this year is just like six or seven, which is more reasonable. CBC: What’s your favorite show? Joe: Heroes Con, in Charlotte. CBC: Without hesitation. Joe: Yeah. It’s all comics. Very friendly people. Shelton, who runs it, really cares about comics. It’s a very family-oriented show You can bring little kids to it and they’re just fine. It’s a real good show. CBC: What are your plans coming up? Do you have any comics in mind that you’d like to do? Joe: Actually, I have several things I have to get done. I mentioned I’m doing an old script that Nick wrote for Don Newton for Michael Ambrose’s Charlton Spotlight. CBC: “Mastermind”! He kind of looked like Sinestro. Joe: Yeah, right. Don did those designs so I’m working off