Edited by John Morrow & Jon B. Cooke
THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS Edited by John Morrow & Jon B. Cooke John & Pamela Morrow Founders & Publishers Design & Production by Jon B. Cooke • Proofreading & Micromanagement by John Morrow Transcribing by Rose Rummel-Eury “Treasure” Cover Art & Colors by Tom McWeeney This Book is Dedicated with Appreciation to The Loyal TwoMorrows Readership Special Thanks to Danny Epperson, Cory Sedlmeier, & Adam Cadwell and to all who helped TwoMorrows along the way, though are not represented in this book ©2020 TwoMorrows Publishing Copyrights & Trademarks
Ant-Man, Avengers, Bucky, Captain Maerica, Captain Mar-Vell, Darkhawk, Dr. Doom, Fantstic Four, Galactus, Green Goblin, Hulk, Human Torch, Ikaris, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, New Mutants, Red Skull, Sentinels, Silver Surer, Spider-Man, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Toro, Vision, Watcher, Wolverine TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. / Aquaman, Atom, Batman, Big Barda, Blackhawk, Blue Beetle, Darkseid, Demon, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Infinity Man, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Kamandi, Kliklak, Legion of Super-Heroes, Mary Marvel, Mr. Miracle, Nemesis, Orion, Shazam, Superman, Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics. / Alter Ego character TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas / Battle of the Planets TM & © Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. / Captain Action TM & © Captain Action Enterprises, LLC / Captain Victory, Galaxy Green TM & © the Jack Kirby estate / Fighting American TM & © the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Estates / Prime8, Tekeli-li! TM & © Jon B. Cooke / Skyman TM & © Dark Horse Comics, Inc. / Star*Reach TM & © Mike Friedrich / T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents TM & © Radiant Assets, LLC / Thunderbirds TM & © ITC Entertainment Group Limited / Vampirella TM & © Dynamic Forces, Inc. / Comics Buyer’s Guide TM & © Krause Publications. / Hand of Fire TM & © Charles Hatfield. / Woodplay catalog TM & © Woodplay Inc. / CaptiveAire logo © CaptiveAire. / Xal-Kor TM & © Grass Green. / Mr. Monster TM & © Michael T. Gilbert. / Comicology TM & © Brain Saner Lamken. / Archie characters and MLJ super-heroes TM & © Archie Comics. / Snoopy, The Phantom TM & © King Features. / Savage Dragon TM & © Erik Larsen. / From the Tomb TM & © Peter Normanton. All pictured publications are © TwoMorrows Publishing, a division of TwoMorrows Inc. The characters shown on each cover are © their respective owners, as indicated on the original publications. We have attempted to properly credit photographs included in the book, but even if photo credits are unknown, all images are © the respective owners. Please inform of us omissions, and additional credits will be included in any updated editions of this book. Alter Ego TM & © Roy & Dann Thomas / Back Issue, RetroFan TM & © Michael Eury & TwoMorrows Publishing / BrickJournal TM & © BrickJournal Media, LLC & TwoMorrows Publishing / Comic Book Artist TM & © Jon B. Cooke / Comic Book Creator TM & © TwoMorrows Publishing & Jon B. Cooke / Draw! TM & © Action Planet, Inc. & TwoMorrows Publishing / American Comic Book Chronicles, Modern Masters, Rough Stuff, Jack Kirby Collector TM & © TwoMorrows Publishing / Write Now! TM & © Danny Fingeroth & TwoMorrows Publishing.
TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING
10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 USA www.twomorrows.com • email: twomorrow@aol.com First Printing • January 2020 • Printed in China Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-092-2 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-093-9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editors’ Prefaces................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction by Mark Evanier: “The Morrow ‘Kids’: Too Good Not to Like”.......................... 7 Foreword by Alex Ross: “In Praise of John Morrow”............................................................. 9 Ladies First: Pam Morrow, The Brightest of Two Morrows.................................................. 10 1994: John Morrow’s The Kirby Collector: To Honor the King............................................ 14 1998: Jon B. Cooke’s ‘Kirby Collector for the Other Guys’: Comic Book Artist..................... 54 1999: The Alter Ego Trip of Rascally Roy Thomas................................................................ 84 2000: Jim Amash: “If You Worked in Comics, You Deserve to be Remembered”..............124 2001: The Companion Books—Glen Cadigan’s Five Years of Yesterday..............................138 2001: The Fever Dreams of George Khoury......................................................................142 2001: Mike Manley and the Art of Making Draw! Magazine............................................148 2002: Danny Fingeroth: The (Not So) Secret Origin of Write Now!...................................168 2003: Mark Voger’s Monster Mash and More Pop Culture Fun........................................172 2003: Michael Eury on the Origin of Euryman and the Birth of Back Issue......................178 2003: Eric Nolen-Weathington and His Masterful Time with Modern Masters.................193 2006: Bob McLeod Gets Into the Rough Stuff..................................................................208 2008: Joe Meno on Building his BrickJournal.................................................................215 2009: Pierre Comtois’ Marvel Books: Through the Decades at the House of Ideas...........218 2012: American Comic Book Chronicles: Creating Chronicles with Keith Dallas..............223 2013: Jon B. Cooke’s CBA (Sort of) Returns: Comic Book Creator.....................................233 2018: Michael Eury on RetroFan: The Crazy, Cool Stuff We Grew Up With........................242 TwoMorrows Bibliography: 1994–2019.......................................................................246 Afterword by Paul Levitz: “The Deep Dive of TwoMorrows”..............................................251 Postscript by Jon B. Cooke: “My Yesterdays Today… and TwoMorrows”...........................252 Epilogue by John Morrow: “It All Comes Back to Jack… and Family”..............................254
LADIES FIRST
Pamela Morrow
Co-Publisher, Morrow #1 Born: 1964 Residence: Raleigh, North Carolina Vocation: Graphic designer Seminal Comic Book: Are you kidding? (But I did read Watchmen and Maus) Below: In 1995, not long after The Jack Kirby Collector launched, Pam trained for and placed third in a bodybuilding competition. You can see why John never talks smack to her, unless it’s about the across-the-state bicycle ride they took, as she recounts here. Yes, that’s “Incredible Hulk” Lou Ferrigno with our own “Little Barda” a week later at Chicago Comic-Con.
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The Brightest of Two Morrows Jon B. Cooke: So, how’d you and John get together to begin with? [laughter] Pamela Morrow: Wink, wink. Is this equivalent to, “What on earth do you see in this guy?” [laughter] I met John in the ’80s, at Auburn University, where we were both studying art. He hung out with a guy I thought was kinda cute and who seemed like someone I would like to get to know better, so he was actually my “in” to getting to this other guy. As fate would have it, I got to know John better instead. The more time I spent with him, the less appealing the other guy came to be. What struck me most was his sense of humor; he was always making me laugh. John was easy-going, very down-to-earth, not pretentious like so many other guys I had known, and was someone who could always find the bright side in any situation. We both ended up attending a Christmas party where John convinced me to let him drive me home. His car was supposedly just down the street. As it turned out, the car was over a mile away, at his apartment, and by the time we walked there in the freezing cold, I could have walked home myself to my own apartment! JBC: Well, John’s version is that he’d had a couple of drinks, and since he doesn’t drink very often, he wasn’t thinking that clearly. Pam: That’s probably true. We laughed a lot along
that cold and blustery hike as he kept trying to convince me the car was just around the next corner. We did finally arrive and he did drive me to my apartment. I invited him in and while we thawed and continued to laugh, it did reach a point I thought he would never leave! Finally, we said good night and decided to meet for lunch the following day at an old Auburn haunt, James Brown’s Family Restaurant, a buffet-style set-up in an old converted funeral home. (Yep, you read that right.) They had great food! Had comedian Bill Engvall been there, he would have definitely said to me, “… and here’s yer sign.” [laughter] We were pretty much an item from that point on and the rest is history. I couldn’t meet a better guy. He’s an amazing dad, a great husband, with a moral character that can’t be matched. And he still makes me laugh. JBC: Did his comic book hobby give you any pause about dating him? Pam: I didn’t think much about the comic book hobby. It was more of an “Isn’t that sweet… ” reaction. Not knowing the impact it would have on my life, kept me from running away screaming, I guess. He also sold some of those comic books to help us buy our first house, so what’s not to love about comic books?! JBC: In your early advertising days, where did you envision you’d end up in your careers? Pam: Wow, I’m not sure I thought that far ahead. I did think it would always be advertising. I never could have imagined publishing centered around comic books. I had hoped God would continue to bless us with work, which always seemed to just fall out of the sky. We never lacked for business. I feel our work was creative and of excellent quality, and we were recommended constantly by word-ofmouth. Work would start to thin out and before we could really begin to be concerned, a big project would come our way. I do have a theory: When you take care of the world, the world takes care of you. Back to my hubby being a great guy, he has always given in many ways to those less fortunate or just down on their luck, and it has always come back to our family a hundredfold. It has never failed. I recommend anyone try it. It’s a cosmic boomerang of comic book proportions!
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JBC: Do you still cringe at how far the quality of typography has declined due to computers? Pam: Yes, that was a hard one for me. In the old days, we ordered type from the typesetter and pasted it to mechanical boards. I came from an advertising agency that had us cut apart type letter-by-letter with an X-Acto knife—and not just large headline type, but tiny body copy as well. We had to make sure it was visually balanced black-to-white, and the spacing was just-so. When that went by the wayside and computers took over and letter spacing was extra horrendous, I thought the world was coming to an end! All this type with letter spacing you could “drive a truck through”—how would I fix it?! Once I got off my high horse and realized I could actually kern letters on the computer much faster than by hand with an X-Acto, I calmed down. There was something special about crafting that old type to perfection by hand, though, that never really translated to the computer. JBC: What do you remember about when he first told you he wanted to do a newsletter about Kirby? Pam: Again, “Isn’t that sweet… ” comes to mind. [laughter] I had no idea how that little newsletter would change our world. Honestly, my biggest concern at the time was that it be a quality piece, even if it was just a little commemorative newsletter to a handful of Kirby fans. John wanted to fold it in thirds with a postage stamp on it and send it through the mail unprotected, to get ripped and run over by the postman! How could I allow this?! JBC: What would he do without you? [laughter] Pam: I convinced him to get better quality copies instead of using our rinky-dink office copier, leave it flat, and mail them in 9" x 12" envelopes (because the one thing I did know about comic book geeks is they like their stuff in pristine condition!). We could even make the envelopes cute and copy art on the outside! Does anybody still have one of those awesome envelopes?
Pam Morrow: The Brightest of Two Morrows
JBC: You’d probably be surprised how many readers kept those. Even the one John cluelessly sent out with a Nazi super-villain on it, swastika and all. The letters you must’ve gotten over that one… Pam: And so it began. The newsletter got longer and more in-depth and finally became a printed piece going from 8½" x 11" black-&-white, to partial color, to tabloid-size, and finally full-color. It amazes me to this day that there is never a lack of art or information to fill up each issue. Jack Kirby’s body of work is astounding. It’s a mystery how a Kirby Collector comes together—things just seem to come out of nowhere in a kismet kind of way. Jack seems to have his hand on every issue. JBC: What do you remember most about that first summer after you had just started the Kirby Collector? In 1995, you went to San Diego, but also to the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and Chicago Comic-Con… Pam: Comic book conventions, oh my! That was a first for me! I did not know what in the world I had stepped into. Who were these grown people dressed up like Halloween in July? 25 years later, I am still taken aback by a lot of things I see at Comic-Con. When friends ask me to describe it, I am often at a loss for words. I have met many famous comic book artists and writers and inkers at conventions over the years. They have all been so nice and gracious. JBC: On your envelope stuffing nights for each
Above: January 16, 1987, will live in infamy, as the day a beautiful young woman unknowingly committed to a life of comic-cons, fanboys, and looking daily at John’s muy macho facial hair.
APPROVED BY THE KIRBY ESTATE This is the publication Kirby fans have been waiting for! The Jack Kirby Collector is a new 16-page publication by and for collectors of the artistry of the King! It features news of upcoming Kirby projects, reviews of Jack’s work, personal recollections, and plenty of great Kirby art (including rare and unpublished work)! And it’s produced entirely by Kirby fans! Celebrate the career of the King of comics, Jack Kirby! Send $2.50 to: TwoMorrows, 502 St. Mary’s St., Raleigh, NC 27605.
Above: This first ad for The Jack Kirby Collector ran in an August 1994 issue of Comics Buyer’s Guide. Pam had no idea the effect it would have on her life. Inset left: A major numbskull move was for TwoMorrows to thoughtlessly feature the Nazi swastika symbol emblazoned on the Red Skull on an early mailing envelope. Readers complained it looked to their postman like they were receiving neo-Nazi literature in the mail!
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1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR
The Kirby Collector : To Honor the King John Morrow
One Morrow’s Early Daze
Jon B. Cooke: Dude, where are you from? John Morrow: Montgomery, Alabama. I haven’t been back much since I graduated from Auburn University. It was a great school experience, though I can’t say I particularly miss Alabama. My mom Born: 1962 still lives there and my dad did until he died a few Residence: years ago. As time goes by, you don’t go back as Raleigh, often. I have two older brothers, Bob and Paul, in North Carolina Atlanta and a younger sister, Janet, in Birmingham. Vocation: Publisher, My deep South roots are very strong, which might TwoMorrows Publishing explain why I never heard of The New Gods before Favorite Creator: I saw an ad in The Comics Buyers’ Guide. Duh! JBC: Is anybody else in your family creative? Seminal Comic Book: John: My mom is a musician—I guess I got that Kamandi #12 from her. From ninth grade on, I was convinced I John’s lifelong appreciawas going to be a band director. I went to music tion of comic book creator school for two years and realized, “Wow, I can Jack Kirby leads him to make this pitiful amount of money doing someproduce a modest Kirby thing else, and not have the hassles of being fanzine in 1994—and, in a band director.” So I switched majors halfway turn, inadvertently starts a through college, and transferred to Auburn and publishing enterprise. got my art degree. I met my wife Pam—she was recruited right out of college by a large ad agency Right inset: Poster promoting here in North Carolina. The Jack Kirby Collector, given to Pam graduated a quarter before I did, so I folretailers in 1995, and printed at lowed her here to North Carolina. She helped me the same time as TJKC #6— another financial risk that, early get my foot in the door at the big agency where on, paid off for TwoMorrows. she was working, and I started picking up freelance illustration and design work with them, and our advertising career took off from there. We both hated working for agencies because the pay was horrible and the treatment was usually bad, but it was an amazing learning experience. Auburn got their first Apple computers the quarter after I graduated, so our school training was all conventional graphic design and advertising skills. I didn’t know a computer from a telephone back then, and I remember picking up one of my first jobs as a freelance designer for an art director who was out on his own, and had an early Macintosh computer: A Mac SE/30. He said, “You’ve gotta see The Jack Kirby this thing!” It had a tiny black-&-white eight-inch Collector screen, not even grayscale, right? He said, “Look First Issue: 9/7/1994 what this can do!” He showed me how you clicked Editor, The Jack Kirby Collector, Morrow #2
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little dots and you could create perfectly smooth line-art drawings. Back in those days, we had French curves and Rapidograph pens for doing that by hand. When you tried to draw a precision black line-art logo for somebody, it was painstaking and always frustrating for me. To see what he did on that computer… it was very primitive by today’s standards, but I thought, “This has potential.” JBC: These were Bézier curves? Vector art? John: Yes, probably Adobe Illustrator version 1.0. I could immediately see how this could be a great time-saver. I had no clue it would evolve into what we have today—it’s become our whole lives. Every time I went in there to pick up a job from him, he’d show me a new thing he could do with it, and I remember coming back and talking to Pam about it. Pam hated cutting Rubylith and Amberlith to make color separations. They had grunts at the big agencies who would do that for you, but I had to do it myself as a freelancer. So when I saw this
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on the computer, I thought, “This has potential to eliminate the need to cut that film.” We used to drop off mechanical boards at the local camera shop to be shot. You’d have to drive over there, leave the artboards, pick them up a day or two later after they had time to shoot them; it was a long process. That was when modems first came into play. What were they, 1200 baud or some incredibly slow thing? I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day, I could drop off the art there and they could send it back to me through the telephone like a fax?” I didn’t yet make the connection that one day I’d be sending it both directions, or that I would be able to scan it myself, like I do now. Computers changed what we do, and now we can’t live without them. But in those pre-computer days, Pam taught me how to hand-kern typeset galleys. You glue it down on a mechanical board and with an X-Acto knife and T-square, you cut a
little trench below and above each line, and then you cut out the whitespace between letters where the typesetter didn’t bump them tight enough, and slide it over in the trench. Spacing the letters more evenly visually makes a better-looking, more professional headline. But that ad agency she worked for took it to the next step. They hand-kerned the tiny body copy when they’d get it back from the typesetter; their mechanical boards had hundreds of X-Acto knife cuts on a single newspaper ad, because they would go through and hand-kern every single letter of the body copy, not just the headline. It was insane, but Pam taught me how to visually look for poorly kerned type. She is a super-detail person. That was eye-opening for me.
1994
I wouldn’t have lasted in their production department, though—I was much more suited for freelance work. I remember going in for my first freelance job at her agency; I’m right out of school. The art director says, “We need this billboard illustration done; can you do this?” I was doing airbrush at the time and I said, “Sure, no problem.” It was to be a winter scarf that flowed across the whole billboard, with parts of it hanging off the ends, and it had a Piedmont Airlines logo on the scarf. So I stayed up all night working on this illustration. When I brought it in the next morning, he said, “This is perfect, exactly what we want.” I’m thinking, “Great, I’m gonna get paid!” He saw me sort of just standing there and said, “Okay, send me an invoice and I’ll get it processed.” I said, “Huh? A what? What’s an invoice?” The guy thankfully took sympathy on me and sat me down, and said, “This is how it works.” They didn’t teach us the practical business end in art school—they just taught us the art end! So he said, “This is what an invoice looks like, and you submit it to me, and you get your money in 30 days.” “Thirty days?! We have to pay rent next week; what are we going to do for the next 30 days?” But I started getting the hang of it; understanding how it works, reading a lot of books about how the whole advertising industry works for freelancers. So Pam worked full-time for her agency and I worked freelance, and, after two years of that, I was doing most of my freelance work for one small agency that couldn’t afford me anymore. I was doing so much work for them, that it was cheaper for them to hire a full-time person to do what I was doing, but they gave me first dibs on the job. I was stuck: “Well, if
Above: Long before comics, John got hooked on pinball. Here he is, seven years old, with his first machine, at Christmas. Today he owns a commercial one and used his knowledge of the game to write an intro for DC’s In The Days of the Mob collection of Kirby stories. Below: College graduation from Auburn University led Pam Morrow to a large advertising agency.
1995
John Morrow: The Jack Kirby Collector
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1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR I lose them, they’re my biggest client… ” so I took the job and stayed there for another year-and-a-half or so, but I really didn’t like working for an agency. It was okay, but freelance was more my thing. So Pam and I built up enough of our own clients with late-night and weekend freelance work, that we were eventually able to quit our jobs and start our own small advertising and graphic design firm. JBC: Creatively, when you were young, did you draw? John: Absolutely! I drew all the time. But I was going to be a music major; I was going to be a band director. Drawing was something I would do for fun, and I had no inkling it would end up having any relationship to my career some day. JBC: What were you drawing when you were a kid? John: Mostly comic book stuff. That was the pipe dream: be a comic book artist like most comics fans that age dreamed of, right? I had so little clue about what really went on in trying to be a comic book artist. I could draw a super-hero figure, a pin-up figure, but trying to figure out how to tell a story from panel-to-panel and page-to-page and vary the angles and shots to make it interesting? I had no inkling of how to do that. JBC: It’s amazing how many comic book stories we looked at— the hundreds, maybe thousands of stories—and we didn’t pick up on any of the storytelling; we just took it for granted. John: We weren’t even aware how they were walking us through the story. “I just like this guy’s work. Oh yeah, this is a fun story to read.” That’s the thing about Kirby: his style was a shorthand thing, never meant to be fine illustration work. The first time I saw a Kirby drawing, I thought, “This guy can’t draw. Where are all the muscles and the fine details?” But when I sat down and actually read my first Kirby comic, I left it going, “Wow, that was a great story!” With a Neal Adams story, you invariably stop somewhere in it and go, “Look at that! See how he drew that arm?” Or, with Ditko, I got hung up on the way he showed the bottom of the foot, and the weird way he twisted the arms and the wrist. But Kirby kind of flowed because of his storytelling ability; it was smooth and before you knew it, you were done reading one of his stories—and it stuck with you. So, I drew lots of comic book drawings, and I did sell quite a few. My mom was real supportive of it. There was an annual craft fair at a local park in Montgomery and she said, “Why don’t you set up and sell your drawings?” So I gave it a try. It was something like $10 to rent a booth, and my dad made a backdrop to hang stuff on. I sold $80–100 worth of stuff that weekend,
Above: John’s first super-hero drawing at age 13, following an art lesson from his Aunt Kim. She showed him how to use simple shapes to create the form, and from there he swiped a Jim Mooney Sub-Mariner figure, from Marvel Spotlight #27 [1976]. “My future was definitely not as a comic book artist,” says he.
mostly to parents whose little kids were too young to realize my art wasn’t that great. That was really good money. Of course, I turned right around and spent it on comics… JBC: How old were you? John: Around 15. Then I went to Montcon ’77, my first comic con. C.C. Beck was the only guest. It was in downtown Montgomery at the civic center, and I got a table there and set up the same backdrop that I used at the craft festival. I didn’t sell a lot because people there knew how bad I really was, while little kids walking up at a craft show would go, “Wow, super-heroes!” They put me right next to C.C.’s table. It was just fantastic! He was the nicest guy, and the local paper came and wanted to get his picture in the Sunday edition and he said, “Let’s get my friend John in the picture with me.” So the photo was of C.C. and me in front of my backdrop, with me holding comics I was selling. JBC: Do you still have that? John: I do, yeah. Here’s some interesting synchronicity for you. When they took the picture, it was a color photo. They were just beginning to try to print color in our local paper, and it was the most horribly blurry, out of register print job you’ve ever seen.
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Even so, all my friends at school saw me on the front page of the paper that Sunday. Here’s the funny part. Paul Hamerlinck knew C.C. Beck, and when Beck died, Paul got possession of all his old files. So Paul is the curator of C.C.’s files. That’s part of how the whole FCA section in Alter Ego keeps going, because he has C.C.’s archives. A few years ago, I got a package in the mail from Paul. I opened it up and it’s that picture, with a note that says, “Is this you?” Apparently C.C. asked the photographer for a print of it. So now I’ve got a really nice black-&-white print of C.C. and me, with my long, shaggy hair and my Jack Kirby Captain America #193 T-shirt. It was one of those pivotal moments in life you don’t know is going to play out later… when I was taking that picture that day, I had no clue I’d ever be in comics. You just never know where you’re going to end up in life. JBC: So, you play the French horn? John: Yes, and electric bass guitar. JBC: How old were you when you started in band? John: Seventh grade, so 12 or 13. My brother Paul played the French horn ahead of me and he only stuck with it in middle school and then quit. We had a French horn sitting around the house and my parents said, “You’re playing the French horn because we’re not going to buy another instrument.” I stuck with that through college; I was the Band Captain in high school. I got to conduct the band, write arrangements for the jazz band, and learned a lot about music theory in high school. I was the stereotypical band geek. I won the John Phillips Sousa Award, the top award for our school’s music program. I made All-State Band in high school. You go and audition and they pick the best musicians in the state, and then you all go hang out at the University of Alabama for a week, staying in the dorm rooms and playing really difficult music. JBC: Did you have a mentor or any teacher who was really pivotal in your development? John: Absolutely: Mr. Farrell J. Duncombe. He was my high school band director, an African-American man who marched with Dr. King in the Selma March to Montgomery when he was young. He
1997 John Morrow: The Jack Kirby Collector
was very active in the Civil Rights movement and was a huge influence on me. My high school was roughly 50% white and 50% black—a very integrated school. I probably had as many black friends as white friends at school. To be living in Alabama in the ’70s, right after the Civil Rights movement, you would think it would be a horrible, ugly situation— there were still some ugly things, but by that point, the schools were all integrated and it was more or less a non-issue, at least in my age group. My high school was a little rough. We occasionally had kids who brought guns to school, and lots of fights. But I was in band and kept my nose clean. Band kids are generally good kids; we all hang together and don’t get in a lot of trouble. It was a lot of fun. I didn’t enjoy high school that much, but I really enjoyed band.
Above: C.C. Beck and John at Montcon ’77, John’s first comiccon. Like Subby on the previous page, his drawings weren’t traced; just swipes done by looking at his favorite comics. Below is a sketch C.C. drew for John that weekend.
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boola!” and I don’t know why, but she busted out laughing, really hard. She was on the floor laughing for a couple of minutes, with tears streaming down her face. It was so, so funny to her. I think that sealed the deal for her. For me, that winter I got the flu and was sick as a dog; I missed my classes for seven days and couldn’t get out of bed. One day, I heard a knock on my apartment door; I staggered over—I hadn’t bathed in probably three days—and Pam was standing there with a bowl of won-ton soup from the local Chinese restaurant, because she knew I hadn’t been out, and probably hadn’t eaten. This was another one of those moments where you hear angels singing: “Ohhhh, you’re going to take care of me the rest of my life. You’re a keeper! I think I love you.” That’s when I knew. JBC: So you were steady from that point… John: We had actually been steady from our first date on Valentine’s Day. That was embarrassing. I was too big a dope to think that you might want to have a dinner reservation on that day. I got dressed up, picked her up, and she asked, “Where are we going?” I said, “We’re going to the best restaurant in town!” We get there and, of course: “Do you have a reservation?” Huh? “Reservation? What’s that?” I was such an idiot. So, we ended up having our romantic Valentine’s dinner at the local family steak house, because it was the only place without a drive-through we could get into without a reservation. That’s another instance where she should have run away screaming, but I guess she found it endearing. It is a great relationship and we’re well-suited to each other. JBC: How long did you two go out before you proposed to her? John: Our first date was in February 1986, and I proposed on her birthday in June. I was 23 and she was 22. That spring break, we took a trip to Orlando with a bunch of friends from school. That’s where our relationship really blossomed, hanging out there with all our buddies. There was another couple in our circle of friends who you’d think
2008 John Morrow: The Jack Kirby Collector
would never get together in a million years—they became a couple down there, too. They’re still married to this day. It’s funny how things happen. Then, in May, Pam graduated from Auburn and moved to North Carolina, after being recruited by the big agency up here. I still had a quarter to go, so I flew up in June and proposed to her, then finished my last quarter that summer and graduated from Auburn. She foolishly said yes and we got married the following January, 1987. The rest is history.
2009
Above and below: Catalog for John and Pam’s longtime swingset client, and a billboard design Pam produced while working at a smaller agency before they formed TwoMorrows Advertising. In those pre-digital days, these boards were hand-painted at sign companies, by skilled artists who copied the layouts and illustrations given to them by ad agencies. Previous page: Some of the many high school illos John produced.
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1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR ed to show off in that venue. It’s not like some of the advertising work we’ve done, where you’re trying to blow people away à la Chip Kidd, without the benefit of Kirby’s art to help you. JBC: I think it’s functional and nice to look through those first issues we worked together on. They exude a very pleasant feeling. John: Yeah, very pleasant. That’s what I was going for. You and Pam are a hundred times better designers than me. I get such a kick out of it when one of your issues comes in—I’m thinking, “Boy, I wish I could design like this,” but it does not come natuJohn: Yes, it was. It was very unconventional, with some concep- rally to me. When Mark Voger, who’s done several books for us, tual photos. You look back at your old design work in school and turns something in—and Scott Saavedra, designing RetroFan, there’s a level of excitement to that work, but it’s not necessarily every time he turns something in, I’m like, “Man-o-man!” It’s this very well done. You’ve learned so much since then. You’re kind crazy foreign object to me that I could never produce myself, of embarrassed to look at it, but you have to admire the energy but I can so admire it and wish I could. That is not false humility; and thought you put into it. I know my limitations as a designer, although I can certainly hold JBC: I have this mental thing of always thinking that I was not as my own. good as I am now. Even if it’s only a week or three issues ago, I But all modesty aside, I know what’s good and what’s not look at it and go, “I would have done that better now.” I guess good, particularly when it comes to functionality. We’ve occait’s a lack of compassion for oneself. sionally pushed out stuff where I’ve thought, “Ugh, I really wish John: Maybe, but I’ve never viewed myself as a world-class this looked better.” This particular designer didn’t cut it too well, graphic designer, although Pam is one. I never took an art class and I had to spend hours fixing the basic, most fundamental until my third year of college. I understand the principles of stuff, like legibility and text flow. But you have budgets to work graphic design and I think I’m a decent designer. If it comes to with and deadlines, and you can’t micromanage every single advertising design, I’m even better. But I’m no Chip Kidd, and aspect. That’s when it’s nice to work with pros like you where I think that’s to my benefit, especially in the field of advertising. I know I’ll have no real issues with the design, even if I hit a You get a lot of self-indulgent designers like Chip Kidd—and I page or two where I’ll mull over, “Hmm, does that design work admire his design skills, he is amazing—but I think he and others or not?” It always works at a certain level, even if my particular like him sometimes forget that form follows function; like “Wow, sensibility would be, “Oh, this might work better if we turn it this that’s remarkable. That’s innovative design. But was this effect way…”. I have such respect for you, Voger, and Saavedra, there’s that you used the most effective use of your budget?” Whether no way I’m going to change your layout. There’s no way. I’m not it’s embossing or foil stamping or varnish or die-cutting or that infallible, but I know when something stinks up the place! You kind of thing, to me, the question should always be, “Did it sell don’t stink up the place, ever! the product?” I’ve always been focused on that above a flashy JBC: Golly, thanks! design aesthetic. John: What a nice compliment. When I did the first Jack Kirby Collector issue, I didn’t bend JBC: I don’t stink! That’s good. I’ll take it. As memory serves, you over backwards to impress people with my design skills. I wanted guys were always scrambling and working on a swingset manusomething nice and functional that seemed to fit the material. I facturer catalog. stepped back and let Kirby’s art “wow” people, because that’s John: Yes. Somehow, we always tended to have a lot of clients what I think you should do. You don’t want to compete with Kirby involved with wood products. This was a redwood swingset to grab people’s attention—you’ll always lose, so why bother? company and we worked for them for 15 years or so through Just do something functional and let his art carry the day. I think three different owners. Then the third owner, a big Northern that served me well. I guess you could look at an early Kirby Col- outfit, bought them out and had their own marketing team, so lector and make the assessment, “That’s boring design.” Well, we were shown the door. That was a great client for us. We set it’s highly functional, readable, and legible. I didn’t think I need- up big photo shoots with all these swingsets. That was always a
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2018 The World of TwoMorrows
1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR stuff, they weren’t trained; it was basic typesetting. I had a little leg up in terms of producing something; even though TJKC was photocopied, it looked professional, and that gave us a boost early on. Although we were trying to do the best work we could based on our training, it wasn’t like, “Oh, we’re going to build an empire.” We just had to do this right. Seriously, we had no inkling that anything would come of The Jack Kirby Collector, except as something to do for fun until it died out.
Meeting Jack
JBC: You didn’t have a passion for print? I mean, I just had to do a magazine, had to do a fanzine, had to do something in print. I was crazy about print, and comics were a part of it. Had you not done that, could you have done a fanzine or periodical on the French horn or something else in your life? John: I don’t think so. It was simply because Kirby died and I had gotten to meet him in 1991. That was my goal: I just wanted to shake Jack’s hand and tell him I’ve enjoyed his work. Finally, in 1991, we were doing another direct mail piece for the swingset company, and we hired a freelance illustrator to do the cover. He did amazing cut-paper illustration—I found out he was located in Los Angeles. We’re a small business, self-employed, and everyhouse. That was a really smart move. That’s where we had our thing that can, needs to be made a business expense; you have first child, Lily. Working at home, having a baby there, worked to keep your taxes down. I could justify flying out to meet him out great. Then, we realized after a couple of years, “We are the for the project, and then finally getting to go to San Diego Con. youngest people in this old neighborhood, and there’s nobody So in 1991, for our working vacation, we went there, and had for our daughter to play with.” That’s when we moved to North our meeting with the illustrator for the swingset mailer. We had Raleigh to a more conventional neighborhood, and raised our a day to kill and I finally got to go to Comic-Con and meet Jack kids there with a neighborhood swimming pool and playground. Kirby. Pam had no real interest in going to the convention. She JBC: Did you build the house? wanted to hang out in Old Town San Diego and go to all the John: Yes, in 2004, we built the house here specifically with work shops—that was a fun side trip for her. So while she hung out in in mind. It’s a great location for us, especially with raising kids. Old Town, I went to Comic-Con. Back then, you could show up, Now that we do less advertising work, it’s way bigger than we buy a ticket and go in, not go online six months beforehand and need, but it’s still a great place for us. hope beyond hope that you might get lucky and score a ticket JBC: You mentioned you had a subscription to CBG; were you for it. You could get an affordable hotel room the same day, involved with the fanzine community? Did you have stuff pubtoo. It wasn’t such a big deal then. So I drove into the parking lished at all, or publish anything else prior to TJKC? deck, went up, paid for my ticket, walked in, and tried to find out John: Not really. That was beyond me. I learned this whole pub- where Jack Kirby was. lishing thing by the seat of my pants. I didn’t have anything to go I’m looking around—even then it was the biggest convention on, except I’d read some issues of Comics Interview, The Comics in the country, but back then the hall was walled off. They didn’t Journal and CBG. But like I mentioned, The Comic Reader, and use the whole convention center. Where the wall was, is roughly the original version of Alter Ego, the mimeograph ’zines from the where our booth is now. When you’re there next summer, stop ’60s, I’d never seen those. I knew they existed and knew there where our booth is and see the three million booths beyond us— was a rich history of fan publications going all the way back to that’s all new since 1991. the ’60s, but I never had the opportunity to see them. I found out Jack Kirby was going to be at the Genesis West JBC: So the only model you really had was company newsletters? booth. I went over there and talked to a guy who was hanging Was The Jack Kirby Collector an echo of anything? out at the booth, who said, “Yeah, Jack will be back later.” I John: It’s not. It’s an echo of our advertising work, if anything— didn’t know who this guy was; it may’ve been Greg Theakston, not that it’s designed like an annual report, for instance. I didn’t but it definitely wasn’t Mike Thibodeaux. He had a portfolio of look at Comics Interview or CBG or The Comics Journal for art there and I was flipping through it. I remember one specific inspiration at all, except for maybe the enthusiasm that went into piece: It was a Kirby pencil rough on 8½” x 11” typing paper, them, but not the look. That’s probably good—even if you look regular old white paper, for the Forever People #8 cover, the at the first issue of the Kirby Collector, the typography is pretty “Billion Dollar Bates” issue, and it was $50—a really beautiful clean, simple, and readable, whereas in a lot of the earlier fan loose pencil drawing, and you could tell everything going on
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1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR late-breaking kirby news!
may not have made the best business decisions, but creatively, taking DC books up to 25¢ and putting those Golden Age reprints in the back, was awesome to me, seeing what Simon & Kirby’s work looked like in the 1940s compared to Jack’s work April 1995 in the 1970s. And then seeing these new stories with the same characters was a blast! To me, that’s the wonderment of Kirby. Special APRIL NEWS Supplement Now, I think I know just about everything about Jack’s career, but back then, I knew next to nothing. JBC: The juxtaposition of the classic Guardian and this all-new affect are She-Hulk and Dazzler, which were created by Stan clone counterpart absolutely blew me away. I think it was the Change Affects Nearly The Lee after Jack left Marvel in 1970.” Stan Lee could not be reached for comment. Entire Line Of Marvel Comics Goody Rickels issue: “What is this? Are you kidding? They have In a related story, Marvel is making Jack Kirby the posthumous Editor-In-Chief, finally rectifying a situation that has arvel Comics announced this week that they intend to give plagued Marvel for years. “We’ve been receiving bad press a history? Oh, Newsboy Legion; kind of corny. But that clone— Jack Kirby credit for all the Marvel characters he helped about our treatment of Jack for years. We finally decided it was conceive individually and with Editor Stan Lee. time to do something about it,” said the spokesman. wow!—Captain America in the DC Universe! That’s pretty cool.” In a press release, a company spokesman offered reasons for the change of heart. “Our decision is due in large part to a letter-writing campaign instigated by Dr. Mark Miller of And then finding out it’s in the ’40s…? Portland, Oregon (see enclosed letter). We’ve been inundated with mail. The flood of letters we received from throughout the John: I was the exact same way when I discovered those Golden U.S. and abroad completely overwhelmed our shipping department. We had to do something or risk delays in getting our Age reprints. “Wow! You mean this character existed 30, 40 books into the comic stores.” The veritable flood of mail pouring in was apparently a major deciding factor in Marvel’s recent acquisition of Heroes years ago?” World distribution, and their decision to exclusively distribute their own comics. “This situation showed us how vulnerable JBC: Yeah, it was the past, it was the present, but it was also this we are, relying on the old ways of getting our books out to the public. Another avalanche of mail like this could put us under.” cloning and DNA and all this stuff from the future. The spokesman said that Kirby’s official co-credit line will begin with the November cover-dated Marvel comics, which should coincide with this year’s San Diego Comic Convention. John: He took the old thing and completely refreshed it, comThe familiar line “Stan Lee Presents:” will be replaced with “Stan Lee & Jack Kirby Present:” on most Marvel comics, pletely made it its own thing for today, which was what Kirby was including: Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, X-Men, Silver Surfer, Iron Man, and many others. Practically every book in the Marvel about. He could take any old hackneyed idea and turn it into line will be affected. “About the only characters this doesn’t something amazing that would blow your mind. That’s why I was attracted to Kirby. It was never boring—sometimes odd—but never boring. I try to convey as much of that wonder as I can in the Kirby Collector. Early on, a lot of articles I didn’t run were like, “Jack tends toward hyperbole in anything he says,” or “I’ve basically, “Here’s what Jack means to me. I read that Jimmy Olsen with the Guardian in it and it brought tears to my eyes.” never been a crier.” Maybe Jack did color that scene a little bit That was great for me to read, as a fan, but I had to say, “Is this and there’s something to that—but Stan’s friend Joe Maneely material for a publication like this or not?” Sometimes I would had just died, so Jack may have actually seen Stan crying. I get run it and sometimes not. But when guys like you showed up, all more into that in the Stuf’ Said book. of a sudden we started getting some meat in those articles. You JBC: We’ll leave it at that. Initially, did you envision the Kirby did that Sky Masters piece in #15. I had no idea that had gone Collector to be basically a showcase for his artwork—rare, unon, the lawsuit with Jack Schiff in the ’50s. That really brought seen stuff, unpublished stuff? You come from a graphic design some amazing history to life, and I remember when you turned in background. Was it visual? John: I pictured it 50/50. I wanted to celebrate the guy’s life and that piece and dug up those legal documents from the New York courts. I was like, “This is going to stun people when it comes career. For the first issue, I took every piece from my collection out.” I mailed that issue to Roz Kirby, and three days later, I got a that I thought people had never seen and used it. Anybody can throw together an article about Jack’s Jimmy Olsen run and show phone call from her. It was one of the worst days of my life. She’s on the phone saying, “Yeah, I just got this issue. This is horrible. I a bunch of panels from Jimmy Olsen. There’s nothing wrong feel like you were digging through my garbage. Why would you with that. I’d enjoy reading it. But to me, take the extra step print this?” I never stopped to think she might object to this… and show an unused Jimmy Olsen cover. If you present that, it and I’d disappointed Kirby’s wife! But they were like any other fleshes out the discussion a lot. That’s what I tried to do. When family, like my own—they didn’t air their dirty laundry in public. I learned, “Oh my gosh, Jack photocopied his pencils all those years in the 1970s!” so we could see his pencils before they were I guess the whole Sky Masters/Jack Schiff thing had been hinted inked, or altered by an editor or art director up at DC or Marvel, at, but had never been documented like you did in that article. JBC: How kind you are. You never told me that Roz called you. it was mind-blowing. “What a treasure trove of history this is!” John: I didn’t call you right after that? That was my focus. It wasn’t to just do an art publication by any JBC: If you did, I have completely blocked it out. It was my finest means—16, 32, or 64 pages of beautiful Kirby pencils, as nice as that would be. I wanted to discuss them and have people talk piece of investigative journalism. John: It was! I really thought that was the moment people were about what Jack meant to them and what the stories meant to going to stop taking this sweet, little Jack Kirby publication for them, and learn more about the guy’s life and career. granted and go, “Wow, these guys are working hard to set the I didn’t even know the Newsboy Legion pre-existed before those Jimmy Olsen issues came out. Then Carmine Infantino—he record straight.” It was an amazing piece of journalism. Maybe I FREE
to our U.S. Subscribers
Marvel Gives Kirby Co-Credit!
M
The Jack Kirby Collector, April Fool’s Supplement #1, April 1995. Published once-in-a-lifetime by TwoMorrows Advertising, 502 Saint Mary’s St., Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. John Morrow, Editor. Pamela Morrow, Asst. Editor. Regular issues and back issues: $2.50 each U.S., $2.70 Canada, $3.70 outside N. America. 6-issue subscriptions: $12.00 US, $13.20 Canada, and $19.20 outside North America. This supplement’s print run: 250 copies. This supplement was mailed the week of Mar. 15, 1995. All characters are © their respective companies. All artwork is © Jack Kirby unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © the respective authors.
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was trying to hide my shame. JBC: I think you were being kind not telling me because you knew I would be crushed. We were in constant communication at the time. We had no inkling we were delving too far. We were thinking about history and not family relations so much. John: Or politics. That’s where it became obvious to me that we’re marching into some political minefields… JBC: Because Jack doesn’t come off that well in that story. It’s a humiliating story that Jack had to go through. But it’s an important story because it predates the Marvel Age that he started with Stan. It was one of the main reasons he went to Marvel. John: Absolutely, if Jack hadn’t gone through that, he never would have ended up at Marvel and Fantastic Four never would have happened. JBC: I still don’t think people understand the implications of that, to be honest with you. John: Well, if they read the Stuf’ Said book, they’ll understand. I think a lot of people do, largely because of that article, though. Even in the Kirby Unleashed biography of Jack and any other fanzine biographies, up to that point, there were hints to it, like there was a “dispute with DC.” That was the most I’d ever seen. Once that article was printed, it was like “The cat’s out of the bag.” But to Roz and the Kirby family’s credit, they never held it against me, and were always supportive of the magazine. JBC: Credit where credit is due: Joe Simon in The Comic Book Makers had given the location of the court and specific dates, so I had my intrepid younger brother Andrew run down to White Plains, make copies of all the transcripts and send them to me. It blew us away. I think another important aspect of the Kirby Collector was that you included an interview with Kirby in every single issue, right? Hasn’t that been one constant? John: Anytime I could, I tried to include an interview. I’ve missed a few issues, but it was my intention to have some kind of interview with Jack in every issue. I also wanted to include a photograph of Kirby, not just from the ’80s, but the ’60s or ’70s. When someone picked up a copy for the first time and said, “What is this?” I wanted there to be actual words by Jack and a photo, so they’d know what he was really like. That was very important to me. It seems kind of simplistic, but that’s what I wanted to do. Here I am at issue #75, and I still have at least four more full Kirby interviews I’ve never run. Somehow they keep turning up. Stan Lee did about a million interviews—so many interviews that I’ve found for the Stuf’ Said book—but for Jack to
John Morrow: The Jack Kirby Collector
have done as many as he did? He sat at home at his drawing board and drew all the time, but he did an awful lot of interviews. He had a distinctive way of talking and a distinctive way of trying to get his point across. There’s a lot of depth in what he said—which sometimes left you scratching your head. It’s kind of a puzzle sometimes… JBC: To say the least. There may have been depth, but clarity? Maybe not! John: Well, I discuss that in Stuf’ Said. It’s excerpts from all these interviews. I was able to take out the most concise things and use those. JBC: It’s always difficult for me to follow his train of thought. He’s never easy to quote. As a writer, I know it’s very difficult to find a usable Kirby quote. When did you start seeking material that had substance to it, that was really talking history—as opposed to just discussing comics series and what had already been published? John: That was #6, because the Fourth World was always my favorite Kirby work. I didn’t know how many issues we’d last, taking a gamble actually printing them and not Xeroxing. I thought, “I’m going to get to the bottom of this whole ‘Fourth World’ thing. Why did it get cancelled and how was Jack originally going to handle the ending? Was he going to have Darkseid die? Was he going to have Orion die? That later Hunger Dogs graphic novel—is that really how he planned to end it?” I couldn’t believe it was. It wasn’t a very satisfying ending to me. I’m glad he finally got to do it, but it didn’t feel quite right. I set out with my
Above: At John’s first con as a publisher (HeroesCon 1995), he had the thrill of hanging out with both Chic Stone (left) and Dick Ayers (right). That’s Nick Cardy, Murphy Anderson, and Julie Schwartz behind Ayers. What a line-up! Previous page: “The day I nearly killed Roz Kirby!” said John. “I planned to send this 1995 April Fool’s flyer to subscribers, to encourage them to sign Dr. Mark Miller’s petition to get Marvel to credit Jack for his creations. I ran it by Roz first, and the day she got it in the mail, I get a call: ‘John, you almost gave me a heart attack when I saw this!’ She didn’t read my cover letter first, and thought the headline was real! I subsequently removed the credit gag in the final April Fools flyer—but today, it’s no longer a joke!” Below: John with Roz and Jeremy, at San Diego Comic-Con, in 1997.
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1994: THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR own meager journalistic skills, to interview all the people involved. I got nice interviews with Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Mike Royer, and tried to track it all down. I crunched all the circulation numbers I could find to see if it really sold all that poorly, and whether that’s why it got cancelled. I determined that, no, they sold pretty well, but didn’t sell as well as Carmine expected, for the money DC was paying Jack. If you compare them to other titles coming out at that time, they certainly weren’t bad sellers, they were just expecting Jack to be a miracle worker. Of course, we found out later, with the distributors selling off the back of their trucks to the comic dealers of the world to sell at conventions and in their secondhand book stores, those numbers didn’t get reported. All those issues sold a lot better than got reported by the distributors, as you later documented in Comic Book Artist. JBC: How did you interview the guys? In person? On the phone? John: On the phone. I bought a handy dandy Radio Shack tape recorder and an adapter to plug in to the phone line. It worked fine. It was such a blast. “Wow! I can interview Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman, the two guys who worked with Jack on the Fourth World. This is so exhilarating!” Those were my first interviews. Now I know them and can talk to them anytime I want, but, back then, it was such a fanboy dream come true to get to do this. I took my one page of original Kirby art, from New Gods #9, to Comic-Con and got Mark and Steve to autograph it. I met Mike Royer for lunch and got him to autograph it, and then Roz at her home. If the Kirby Collector had ended there, after issue #6, I would have been a happy puppy, even if it hadn’t gone any longer. From there, the fans took over. Guys like you helped guide the direction, taking it where it was going to go. JBC: Kirby Collector #6 was the first issue I read. It was, quite simply, a mind-blowing experience. I wonder if you and I connected because we were so similar? The Fourth World was very, very big for me. Also I worked in advertising; I was a graphic designer. I had this insatiable curiosity. These are all things you can say about John Morrow—not to say we were twin brothers from different mothers, but it was pretty close. Though I was the bad boy in the family… John: We have a lot in common. When you contacted me out of the blue, I remember at that point, America Online was coming to the fore and I had learned what email was and signed up. That was before Google and readily searching the Web. I think you emailed me. JBC: I’m pretty sure I’ve got that email. I printed it out. It was, literally, my first day on the internet. I established my AOL account: jonbcooke@aol.com, which I still have, 23 years later. The first thing I did a search for was “Jack Kirby.” When I found
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Left: Archie Comics legend Stan Goldberg, besides having colored the earliest adventures of many of the mainstay Marvel Comics heroes, was in awe of Jack Kirby. He sent John Morrow this illo after reading Kirby Five-Oh! (TJKC #50).
out there was a Jack Kirby Collector, I was mad. It was issue #6 at that point. “How could I not know this existed?” I was mad! [laughter] So, I immediately ordered three issues and you sent them right off. I emailed you and said, “I must have all the other issues; this is fantastic. Oh my God! I must be a part of this.” I immediately determined I must be in two features in every issue. You were not going to stop me! I forced myself on you, so to speak. John: You don’t realize that was such a godsend! “I don’t have to do it all myself. I can keep it going!” We were very busy with our advertising stuff too. Every issue of Kirby Collector, I was working on it until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and then getting up at 6:00 to do regular work. You and I both remember the hours we put in during those days. It was insane. But we loved it! We were young, I didn’t have kids, though you did. I could work those hours. JBC: I started interviewing for you. I did my own transcribing, which is insane to consider now. I can’t believe how much work we did while having a day job. I would stay up until three in the morning, transcribing. I did every single one in CBA #1. John: I still have all the old AOL emails from early on; I’m sure most of the timestamps on them are from 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. It wasn’t just you, I was emailing others at the same time and getting responses. JBC: We’d talk on the phone every day and rack up huge long distance bills we’d have to pay, splitting the charges. I’d have the agency accountant come up to me and say, “What are all these calls to Raleigh?” I’d stammer, “I’ll take care of them.” John: God bless Richard Howell. Early on, he volunteered to be my proofreader, probably because I had so many typos. I said, “I can’t pay you, but I’ll send you all the issues.” He said that was great. I’d send printouts of each new issue; he’d proof it, and on Sunday nights—Richard is meticulous [Jon chuckles]—we’d spend four hours on the phone going over changes. It was fun and crazy, but reached a point much later on, where there wasn’t physical time to do it, and the long distance bills added up. I said, “Just mark up the pages and send them to me.” JBC: It was excruciating! Richard was comma-crazy on CBA! John: But that really helped with the professionalism. I developed a style sheet that I sent to you guys—when to put in quotes versus italics, and semicolons to keep it consistent, because I was not an English major in college. After issue #2 or 3, I got called on the mat by people: “You used the wrong form of ‘their’ versus ‘there,’” that kind of stuff. I quickly had to bone up on proper English because I was never a writer. Having guys like Richard around gave it consistency and professionalism. JBC: Was the Kirby Collector your first experience as an editor? John: Well, I edited advertising copy when needed, especially
The World of TwoMorrows
it, they just don’t—for whatever reason, they got burned out. They’re not actively transcribing for us or writing articles or doing layouts, but I still hear from them from time to time. It’s still gratifying to know we haven’t burnt bridges—we’ve built them. That’s what we’re still trying to do… and it all goes back to Jack Kirby.
the work… that I pay my bills on time. I think that would make him very happy. When we were kids—because we didn’t have a lot—he always harped on “money, money, money… you don’t waste it!” I’m very frugal to this day because of it. The Future I’m glad to hear that. For any JBC: It’s been a long trip. It’s 25 years, a significant of our contributors out there milestone for any company. Maybe what we’re do- who ever got a check a few days ing is insanely self-indulgent, but it’s good! I’m glad late—pay attention!—it’s usually I pushed you to do this book. It’s important to me, not my fault. Sometimes I get too. It’s the most creative and productive time in busy and I don’t get the checks my life. Here I am turning into a senior citizen now. out as quickly as I want, but not I’ve never been as energized because we’re not in life as I am now; there’s going to pay you! so much to do! And I’m not Sometimes we going to do everything with get sidetracked… TwoMorrows and you’re not an editor forgets to going to do everything with tell me who to pay… my kid me, and we’ll be proud of one gets sick… Carmine threatens another. I look at Stuf’ Said to sue us… “The check’s in and I know I so wanted to the mail.” Really! be in that book, but it’s okay, JBC: You know what’s interbecause I know I can make it esting, and I believe this is into other projects of yours. true for you: The very last John: You largely, but also thing I did for CBA, every sinGeorge Khoury, Michael gle time, and it’s true today, Eury… so many of you guys is my editorial. One of the have shown me stuff in comics reasons for it has to do with and pop culture I had no extalking directly to the reader posure to. I’m looking at our and saving the last word for new magazine RetroFan— him or her. I’m very grateful I just sent #4 to the printer—and other than the for Stan Lee, to be honest with you, because the Shazam! TV show, I don’t think there is a single way he communicated with the reader made the thing that’s covered in that issue, that I was perconnection so warm. It was cozy and nice and sonally exposed to as a kid. I didn’t watch Star Trek, I never cared about Harvey Comics, and Ray Harryhausen—these were not on my radar. But I’m fascinated reading about this stuff and fascinated seeing the enthusiasm these guys have for that, because it was a big part of their life. JBC: One thing I definitely want to get into print: I’ve worked with a number of publishers before, but I never worked with somebody as committed to paying people like you are. You pay your people on time and accurately! Every month I’ve gotten a check from you over the years from the books, and that’s remarkable because there are many almost-crooks and full-blown crooks in this business. John: Thank you. I take that as the nicest compliment of all. I wish my dad were around to hear that. That would impress him more than the quality of
John Morrow: The Jack Kirby Collector
Top and bottom: In 2008, John produced the 200-copy limited edition Kirby: Deities portfolio, assembling all of Jack’s original New Gods concept drawings; it was an immediate sell-out. And by tracking down the original art, he remastered the fabled Kirby Unleashed portfolio in 2004. Along with Kirby100, Kirby Five-Oh!, Stuf’ Said, and Dingbat Love, these are publications John is most proud of. Center: An original pencil drawing from Jack Kirby’s 1970s sketchbook, gifted to John by the Kirbys. Previous page: Original ads that ran in Comics Buyer’s Guide. John’s first missed deadline came, he said, “When I couldn’t properly finish my Fourth World issue for TJKC #5, and pushed it back to #6. It was worth the delay!”
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1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST
“A Kirby Collector for the Other Guys” Jon B. Cooke
Kid Cooke
John Morrow: Mr. Cooke, where were you born? Jon: Kingston, New York. We lived in Westchester County. At the time, it was the highest per-capita income county in the United States. It’s a suburb of Born: 1959 New York City, the exact town Don Draper from Mad Residence: Men “lived” in, a show which perfectly captured West Kingston, that time and place. We were not as wealthy as our Rhode Island neighbors—we rented—but my siblings and I grew Vocation: Freelance up around high-income, well-off people. graphic designer JM: Isn’t that also where Prof. X’s mansion was? Favorite Creator: Jon: That was next door. Yeah, but they wouldn’t let Jack Kirby us Cookes in. [laughter] Seminal Comic Book: JM: You weren’t “mutanty” enough. Jimmy Olsen #133 Jon: I was the fifth of six kids. I have a little brother, The Jack Kirby Collector’s Andrew. Comics were a part of the whole culture in surprise success paves the the ’60s. I remember Batmania. I read Richie Rich, way for a follow-up Gold Key Comics, Lois Lane… I do remember the TwoMorrows magazine— first time I bought a brand-new comic off the stands. Jon B. Cooke’s awardI have a distinct memory of being nine years old and winning Comic Book Artist. buying Captain America, the one where he’s smashing through the Dec. 8, 1941, New York Times. Right inset: “If memory serves,” JM: Oh wow! So was that Cap #109? [Jon nods] said Jon B. Cooke, “this placard was created to promote Comic That was your first comic? Really? Book Artist magazine just before Jon: No, that was the first new one I remember Neal Adams offered to ink an buying with my own money. I’d buy them used, like unpublished penciled Batman Classics Illustrated, in Ossining. My oldest brother piece, the results of which saw print as CBA #1.” The illustration collected Marvels. I thought Marvels were a little was derived from Joe Kubert’s off-putting. The best word that comes to mind was cover art for DC’s Strange Adven- Kirby looked “grotesque.” I’m telling you: the Kurt tures #219 [Aug. 1969]. Schaffenberger/Curt Swan DCs were much more welcoming: slick, neutral… probably neutered. JM: Safe. Jon: “Safe”! That’s a perfect word. Marvels were, “Whoa!” Something was going on there. I think I was kind of repulsed—or probably “repelled,” is a better word—by Jack’s drawings. But I remember Jack’s style and I remember Ditko. Stan Lee was a household name at home. Marvel was big—my sister loved Ditko’s Doctor Strange—but my brother would not allow us to look through his comics. I believe he had started with Fantastic Four #1. JM: [Chuckles] So, they were prized possessions in Comic Book Artist the house. First Issue: 3/21/1998 Jon: Well, his possessions. Richie would not allow us Editor, Comic Book Artist
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Coming in 1998 from the publisher of The Jack Kirby Collector.
to look at them, so he’d have to be out of the house when I’d sneak up to peek. When I was probably four or five years old, I remember seeing Ant-Man and thinking, “Wow, this guy in the helmet is really cool, and he’s small like me!” But, as I grew older, with Marvel, I was put off by the “to be continued” at the end of stories. By the time I was turning 10 or 11, I thought, “What a rip-off! They’re forcing me to buy the next issue. I’m going on strike against Marvel.” I remember Tower of Shadows #1, the Steranko story. But I was not a comics fan. I was a reader. It was just a part of life. You watch dumb afternoon TV, you cook up Creepy Crawlers, and you play with Major Matt Mason toys. But something happened that changed me. JM: When did it switch over from you being just a casual reader, to an obsession? Can you point to a
The World of TwoMorrows
certain issue, series, or character? Jon: Yes, I can. I don’t know whether the memory is truthful or not—though I have since persuaded myself to believe it—but we lived in Europe for a year. My mother got divorced and she and her two youngest children—Andy and I—went to live in Ireland, England, and France for about a year. JM: How old were you? Jon: It was 1970, so I was eleven and Andy was nine. It was the absolute, most important life-changing event that happened, because though we didn’t go to school, we still received a profound education, one that led me to pursue a creative life. My mom took us to all these historical sites and she would allow us to buy one comic book a day. In a way, we were homesick, so comics helped us feel connected. In that isolation and being in new places, we quickly became comic book fans. We branched out from American comics and bought British comics, as well. Plus we made up our own comics. Before my mom got divorced, she was a suburban housewife raising six children smack dab in the middle of the ’60s. After the break-up, she became a hippie, pretty much. It was very freeing. She was really proud of us for just being creative and would let us seek our own muse. Andy and I would make our own comics and tell each other stories before we went to sleep. We’d act out Star Trek episodes and be scared by The Outer Limits. It was a lot of fun. JM: Is that why you are closer to Andy today? Jon: Well, yeah, but we were also the two youngest, so it’s natural we paired off. Andy went to Colorado for a couple of years in the latter ’60s to help with his severe asthma. He came back to this hippie family! [laughter] He was this straight-laced little kid with a suitcase and a buttoned-up shirt: “Who are these people? What am I getting into?” We had a really good time and he was soon converted into a long-haired kid. We were very close and have been very tight ever since. We created our own comics to entertain each other. He created Mighty Boy and I created Atomic Man, basically our own respective riffs on Superboy and Captain America. We even dreamed up our own imaginary publishing company:
1998 Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
Anglo-American Publications, AAP. JM: Were they a team or in separate stories? “The Adventures of Atomic Man and Mighty Boy”? Jon: No, no. I was an older brother and was going to do things my way. [chuckles] We had very demarcated interests in comics. I was very much a Captain America kid and he was a Spider-Man kid. More importantly, he was into Mister Miracle and I was into New Gods, he was into Kamandi and I was into The Demon. With brothers, everything is competitive; you are constantly trying to out-do the other. That comic book you asked me about? The one that changed me from reader to fan…? Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, the first ’70s DC comic by Jack Kirby. I had seen Challengers of the Unknown just prior to that and remember seeing this “Kirby is Coming” blurb. I really had no idea who or what Kirby was. I wondered, “Is Kirby a thing? Is it a character? Is it a new series coming out?” I remember having no idea. And then, when Jimmy Olsen blared “Kirby is Here!”… boy, was he! I share the exact same reaction as Walter Simonson, although he was obviously older, in having my mind blown by that single comic book. I think he was in college when it happened to him. For me, I was 11 or 12, and my jaw dropped to the ground. “Oh. My. God!
1999
Above: TwoMorrows banner produced in 1998 for the San Diego Comic-Con convention booth, in the first year of Comic Book Artist’s existence, during which Roy Thomas’ legendary fanzine, Alter Ego, was a flip-side mag in CBA. Below: Jon as a seven- or eightyear-old, which puts this pic at around 1966 or ’67. He looks to be reading a DC war comic book.
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1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST JM: What year were you actually overseas? Jon: It was 1970–71. By September of ’71, we returned to the States and were back into school. It was the start of the 100-Page Super Spectaculars. I can mark my life by all these dumb comic book things. [chuckles] We were quite poor at this point. JM: You were at your first Seuling convention early on. Jon: Right. Jack Kirby was there. I was 13 years old by then and Andy was 11 and we were pretty young. We had seen an ad in one of the Creepy or Eerie magazines. We said, “Wow!” and talked our mother into letting us take the bus without her. My sister lived in New York City and we stayed at her apartment. We would stay up all night at the Seuling cons to watch movie serials until we passed out under the seats on the carpet! It had a huge impact. I can’t describe how wonderful it was because these giants were all around. Jack was there and I shook his hand. By then, I was in awe. He meant so much to me; I can’t even describe it. I There is so much going on!” People peg that as a criticism; I beg had a dysfunctional relationship with my own father, and Jack (in to differ, kind sir! It was like the floodgates had opened and I a way) was a surrogate father, at least creatively. He shared more loved everything that was going on—even as corny as these hipwith me, much more than my own flesh-and-blood father had pies, the “Hairies,” and the Outsiders in the “Wild Area” were. shared. That sounds sad, but it was good. As you know, John, I’m JM: This is the difference between you and me: we’re three or emotional about Kirby. He means a great deal to me. I love him. four years apart in age. You got into underground comix, which I JM: You saw the ad in an Eerie or Creepy. When did you first affix never did. yourself to Warren’s output? Jon: That took a little bit of time. Jon: Probably around then, but we always looked through everyJM: So, you weren’t seeing them while they were new? thing on the stands that even remotely looked like a comic book. Jon: Yes, I was, but I was very young. It’s really amazing to think JM: When did you learn about Warren as a personality? how much happened to my brother and me in a short amount of Jon: It was probably at that 1972 convention. He was a character. time. I did not see Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 the exact This is back in the day where all of these incredible luminaries month it was published, but in the following fall when I found were just standing around. You’ve mentioned Jim Steranko being it in a London newsagent stand, three or four months after U.S. in his white jumpsuit. And, yes, there he was, holding court with release. It was—for a lack of a better term—a remaindered copy rabid fans! Andy and I hung around Michael Kaluta and Bernie that had made it to England. I don’t want to really get into it; but Wrightson at their table, and they used Andy as a go-fer to get back then you could get DC back issues from the ’60s en masse. coffee. We used their table as home base! They were really, really We moved from England to Paris and, every day, we went to nice to us, while to fans… they weren’t rude, they certainly weren’t Brentano’s, the English-language bookstore, where there were welcoming typical fans to sit behind the table, but for some reanew comics on the stand. All of a sudden, I’m seeing New Gods #4 after I had just seen New Gods #1 in England. “Wow! What has son, they liked us and let us join them. They were rock stars to us! The undergrounds came along because our mother was single. happened between these three issues?” I was totally obsessed… She was dating and made friends with a group of young peoand that was also when Neal Adams and Bernie Wrightson were ple in their 20s. This will sound more provocative than it was—it hitting their stride. The time between when we became comic wasn’t a commune, but we hung out at a house where a bunch of fans and went to Phil Seuling’s first convention really wasn’t that unmarried young people lived together. There was a pile of comic long. It was just a year-and-a-half between Jimmy Olsen #133 and books there. I always made a bee-line for comic books in any form July 4, 1972, our first New York Comic Art Convention. Nowadays, or fashion if they were around. If there were words and pictures, I I just marvel at how quickly it happened. A massive change had went for it, and there were some undergrounds and they knocked taken place. We became huge fans of all comics.
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me out. I thought they were great! I looked at stuff that was completely inappropriate for my age! JM: Which explains a lot of things today! [laughter] Jon: It does; we don’t need to go into that! [laughter] I saw some of Robert Crumb’s stuff really young and I just thought, “This guy is amazing.” You’d see all these wonderful, wonderful artists. It was also the age of reprints, too. Especially Jack’s stuff. You’d see his Atlas monster reprints, DC Golden Age comics, and even the Western reprints. I was nuts for all of it. At every single period, Kirby’s work showed unrestrained enthusiasm. I remember distinctly when the Fourth World was cancelled, where I was and how crestfallen I was. I remember being happy to see The Demon #1. I was saying, “Well, at least Jack’s not giving anything less than 100%.” You could still tell he was bummed. We all were. But he put his all into The Demon, and Kamandi, too. Kirby has always been a constant in my life. I may have stopped reading comics in the early ’80s, but when Captain Victory #1 came out, I called Andy (who was living in New York City at the time) and said, “You have to buy that for me and send them to me,” ’cause Jack was back, baby!
be doing a comic book fanzine anymore, thanks very much! (Though I was never ashamed of reading comics.) I went to college and the first thing I did was become a part of the campus alternative magazine. We’d stay up all night and do paste-up. That was the turning point. I was writing features, drawing editorial cartoons, doing production… “I can really do this,” put something together myself. It was the tactile nature of it; to do this with your hands, create this thing, and then see it in print, and it’s your creation. I could draw. I was a cartoonist, but to combine Getting into Print that with typesetting…! JM: At what point did you decide, “I’m going to do Wow! Then the big thing some kind of design/art career”? was to see your name in print. That was an amazing Jon: Well, shortly after we came back to the States moment for me. As John Morrow knows, I’m a real from Europe, I’d seen Locus, the science-fiction egomaniac! [laughter] When I saw my name in print, news ’zine. (It’s a trade magazine for SF pros and se- baby, that was the biggest thrill! rious fans.) I’d seen this thing and it was just a typed- JM: I know. When you get that first taste of a byline up thing that had personality. I wouldn’t call it crude, on something, it’s weird how it feeds our egos, but but I definitely wouldn’t call it slick. I remember it’s not like being in a movie or having your song seeing that and going, “What? Why, this is homeon the radio, I would imagine. It’s a more personal made. I can do this!” So, with my two older brothers thing. I don’t know how to describe it. and younger brother, we created The Omega Comic Jon: It’s intimate and yet public. It’s weird, I never Magazine Review (OCMR), and we did about six or really thought about it. I think it’s validation. Maybe seven issues, just stapled-together newsletters. I that’s a part of it. When I worked with you on The typed them all up and traced art, and they were just Jack Kirby Collector, I really made sure to get two as crude as can be. They were a joy to make. things in every issue. It wasn’t competition with anyJM: How old were you? body else. I just loved this thing so much, I wanted Jon: From 1972 to 1974, so 13 to 15. When I was to give that extra effort. I also wanted to help you 15, suddenly—boink!—there were girls, so I won’t out, but it was definitely an ego thing… seeing my
Above: Jon still calls this, the one-shot CBA Special Edition of Dec. 1999, his favorite single publication to produce, perhaps due to the fact it not only includes his selections for the very best of early 1970s DC Comics, but also because it was comic book-size. “That’s a neat size to work with,” says Jon. CBA SE was not without controversy as it was initially created only for CBA subscribers, and, being in demand, retailers and their customers balked that it was unavailable in stores. Eventually all was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Previous page: John and Jon at the TwoMorrows booth, 1998 San Diego Comic-Con.
2002 Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
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1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST Left: Jon’s bleeding heart political comics work from his radical college days. Bottom: Example of Jon’s advertising work during the early TwoMorrows years: a bus wrap.
that’s it. [laughter] But I do count one dealer as among my very best friends, so don’t think I believe that about all of them! JM: Right there just nailed perfectly why—The Kirby Collector first and then CBA—immediately caught on with people. It’s so obvious from our first issues. For you… and no offense to Gary Carter, but this is not Comic Book Marketplace here; this is Comic Book Artist. You couldn’t care less what a book is worth. There is no mention of value anywhere in CBA. Who wants to waste valuable space on talking about what a comic book is worth, when you can talk about what went into actually making it? I know that’s why the immediate response to it was amazing. People latched onto it; “Wow! This is what a fan magazine is supposed to look like.” It was universally acclaimed. You can go back to CBA #1 today and read it and go, “Wow! This is really, really good.” It’s there and the
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heart and the soul’s there. I know that’s why it did so well. It sold extremely well. I wish we had those numbers today on any of our publications, but it was a different era, right? The whole speculator boom pretty much cleaned out the comics fans. I go back and look at those issues and they are amazing. It didn’t even have a slow burn. You were very cagey; you said, “We have to have Neal Adams on the cover.” Jon: I was being reactionary when I joined up with TwoMorrows, in a way, because I was very unhappy with how things looked, generally, in the comics-related publication field. I remember some publications that were truly ugly to look at. Except for some periods when the Journal was smartly designed, there was pretty terrible-looking stuff overall. But comics are a graphic medium! It’s visual! There are some very exciting designers in professional comics, but that did not necessarily transcend outwardly. So it was important for you and me, as designers, to improve the look of the comics press. Kirby Collector #6 was the first issue I bought, and I immediately noted you followed the axiom, “form follows function.” You were perfect at letting the bombastic Kirby artwork be the showoff aspect while being restrained with your layouts and being perfectly readable. You understood your subject visually and how to showcase it to its best advantage. And, through fits and starts, I strove to do that with CBA, and I think I accomplished that, to some degree in my magazines, as well. With comics, we’re talking about a graphically visual medium, so publications about that medium need to reflect that. It should be pleasant; it should be fun, and that’s what I think we push for most of the work. JM: We did. And, for visual content, we sought out and formed alliances with art dealers to get access to their unseen stuff. They’ll see something unpublished and priceless in terms of comics history, have it for five minutes and sell to somebody who puts it in a closet, never to be seen again. That was pre-internet; pre– Heritage Auctions having a million scans online. We sought them out; we went the extra mile to get some extra art in there, and the dealers were very helpful. We wanted to jazz people with these publications and I think that was a huge asset. It wasn’t just good historical coverage—we put the extra effort in visually. Jon: Another hugely important moment for me was when I received a letter commenting on the first or second issue of CBA, which insisted I need to establish context for any given issue. He wrote, “The first issue was great, but if I didn’t know anything about comics in the ’70s, I’d have almost no idea what the hell you were talking about.” I needed to establish context. That was a very important moment for me. It’s always on my mind. JM: You were too close to the material and assumed people knew… Jon: The notion of context went through my mind like electricity! So, today, I am always building on that. I’ll stop and look over whatever
The World of TwoMorrows
the subject is I’m covering, and I’ll ask myself if I’ve properly established context. What if somebody stumbles across what I’ve done? I have no right to assume anything about that reader. The second thing that dawned on me about context (and this took a little longer) was it was of supreme importance for me to find a photograph of whoever I was interviewing or was featured in an issue. It’s a no-brainer, but readers want to put a face to the interview subject. Some people, few had ever seen before. What did Doug Moench look like?
CBA Begins
Jon: How do you recall Comic Book Artist magazine starting? JM: I remember thinking the next logical step after the Kirby Collector was a Neal Adams Collector or a Wally Wood Collector or a Will Eisner Collector, but it quickly became obvious that, “Could their careers sustain an ongoing, regular publication?” We could do a book on them or a mini-series, but you were immediately, “No, no…”. That’s where the idea came to put Adams on the cover of CBA #1, right? “Okay, we’ve got Kirby, let’s do Adams.” Who’s the next obvious choice? Is that what happened…? Jon: I knew that was your idea. You know me: I definitely had my own notion about what I wanted it to be. I wanted to push it closer to what it became. JM: I remember you and I talking about it at the San Diego Comic-Con. I don’t remember if it was your idea or my idea—it was probably yours. You probably said the words, “Let’s do a Kirby Collector for all the other artists.” But I do remember kicking around ideas for the name and I remember “Back Issue” was a name I came up with for CBA originally, and you didn’t like it, and you came up with “Comic Book Artist,” and I liked it; it’s simple. It says what it is. It’s a household name, like Xerox or Band-Aid. [laughter] That’s perfect. Jon: I can’t say I remember you coming up with the title “Back Issue,” but I would have immediately said, “No, I don’t want to talk about the artifact; I want to talk about the creator.” I want to talk about the history. That’s what I loved about The Jack Kirby Collector: you weren’t talking about Captain America. You were also doing themes. You were doing Marvel… that’s when we really started cooking. You did a Marvel issue; you did a DC issue. That’s when I went crazy, interviewing four or five people for each of those issues. That started something. I think CBA was an outgrowth of that. Otherwise people would have just been talking about the comics and the characters. I think it’s fine what Back Issue has done, but it is just not my approach.
Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
JM: I know I suggested the name “Back Issue,” because later on, when we were starting the new magazine, I wanted to finally use that name; I always really liked it. I wanted to co-opt that name, so anytime somebody talks about a “back issue,” they are saying the name of our magazine. I remember feeling mildly disappointed on the flight home from whatever convention that was: “Aww, it was such a good name…” [laughter] You had a much better idea for a name, so now anytime somebody talks about a “comic book artist,” they’re saying the name of your magazine! Jon: Do you remember anything about Arlen Schumer coming up with the name? JM: No, I don’t remember having any contact with Arlen back then. Didn’t he do the logo, though? Jon: Well, he definitely created the logo. I think it was the second Ramapo (New York) Con I went to, and the idea of CBA really started to gel. I recall sitting on some grass with Arlen and David Spurlock, spit-balling ideas. Arlen says he came up with the name, though I don’t remember, but wouldn’t argue against it too strongly. He might be right. JM: You never told me, “Arlen has a great name for the mag.” You had the name “CBA,” as far as I remember. Jon: I think I would have given him credit right off. Arlen did a great job on the logo; there’s no doubt about that. The logo was just perfect. JM: Well, for posterity: The idea was yours, the name was yours, the
Odds are, you’re a longtime comic book fan who simply refuses to give up on our much-maligned art form. You love good art, great stories, and comics that are FUN. We’ll bet that you’re also dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and seek out the old stuff because frankly, it’s simply better. Well, get ready to feel good again because there’s a new magazine ready to knock your socks off and give you back that old thrill. It’s called COMIC BOOK ARTIST and it’s published by TwoMorrows, the folks who bring you THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR. Published quarterly, each 68 page issue will feature extensive, comprehensive looks at great comic book artists, writers, editors, and the books they made great! Our first issue will focus on A ReAl Golden AGe: dC ComiCs 1967-74, the era of “Artist as Editor” that began with DICK GIORDANO and crew’s arrival from Charlton and ended with ARCHIE GOODWIN’s departure. Behind a new NEAL ADAMS Batman cover (pencils at left), we’ll feature interviews, art, and features on such greats as JACK KIRBY, JOE KUBERT, NEAL ADAMS, DICK GIORDANO, JOE ORLANDO, ALEX TOTH, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, STEVE DITKO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, STEVE SKEATES, UE ON NICK CARDY, C.C. BECK and many, many more. Our debut 1st ISS APRIL! number will be the most comprehensive look at that remarkable SALE IN listing in Look foragazine" time ever compiled. We’ll also have rare art — such as Neal s the "M ril' Ap Adams’ thumbnails for a forgotten Batman story, unseen Nick n in sectio S or PREVIEW Cardy pages from a controversial Teen Titans tale, unpublished ibe! subscr Alex Toth covers, pencils from Kirby's Fourth World before they were inked, and much more — with spotlights on the underappreciated work of DC war artist SAM J. GLANZMAN (with interview & checklist) and The Shadow’s MIKE KALUTA. This puppy is just chock full! And our next issue will look at The seCond WAve of mARvel ComiCs: 1970-75, examining the overlooked work of such greats as GIL KANE, BARRY SMITH, MIKE PLOOG, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, ROY THOMAS, BILL EVERETT, FRANK BRUNNER, STEVE ENGLEHART, JOHN & MARIE SEVERIN, and many more! To show that we’re not stuck in the ’70s, we’ll also have issues on Batman ©1998 1986: The BesT(?) YeAR in ComiCs, WARRen mAGAzines, and ToWeR DC Co mics. Use d with omiCs . So subscribe to COMIC BOOK ARTIST and relive the thrill that C permission . made you love comics in the first place! FIRST ISSUE SHIPS IN APRIL, 1998. Please send ❏ Sample Issue $5.95 Please send me the next four issues. Enclosed is ❏ $20 in US ❏ $27 (US Funds) Canada & Mexico ❏ $37.00 (US Funds) Outside North America Total Enclosed: $ ___________ (US funds only, please).
TwoMorrows 1812 Park Drive Raleigh, NC 27605 USA
PRICES INCLUDE SHIPPING. Please send check or money order in US funds payable to: TwoMorrows Advertising
Name ____________________________________________________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________________________________________________ City _________________________________________________ State _______ Zip ___________________
Country_____________________________________ Phone _______________________________________ Editorial Offices & Advertising Information: contact Jon B. Cooke, Editor, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892. If you have art or an article idea, please contact Jon, but SEND FUNDS TO N.C. ADDRESS ONLY!
Above: This ad appeared in The Jack Kirby Collector #19, promoting the second magazine from the ever-growing TwoMorrows line. Below: In the early 2000s, Jon got the bright idea to start yet another publication, this one self-published. Alas, Comic Book Artist Bullpen lasted a mere five issues.
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people for that first issue… CBA #5 was so easy, even though it was a super-thick issue, because I had already transcribed so many interviews with so many people I had intended to get in #1. Even the Warren issue was actually bursting at the seams. The same thing with the first Marvel issue, CBA #2. I had to make two additional issues out of that material that didn’t make it in the first one, I think. JM: Yeah, and here comes issue #3: “Let’s have another Neal Adams’ cover, because we both like Neal Adams a whole lot!” I don’t remember how that happened. Jon: Because I was late with the Warren issue; I couldn’t get it done. Warren had been initially planned for #3. Kris Adams, Neal’s daughter, called me up and said, “Hey, Jon, we’ve got this great unpublished wraparound X-Men cover. Wanna use it?” JM: I didn’t even consider that, in theory, it wouldn’t be commercial to have the same artist on two of our first three CBA covers. I didn’t think like that back then. “We’ve got another Neal Adams cover!? Are you kidding? He killed it on The X-Men. Got one for issue #4, too, Kris?” [laughter] Then I saw your Nick Cardy cover for #5… that painting! I don’t remember what that painting was intended for initially. Jon: I think it might have been intended for The Greatest 1960s Stories Ever Told collection. JM: I have always liked Nick’s stuff… but, even though I loved his covers, he drew his heroes looking kind of flabby. He didn’t really define the muscles. They were soft. Then, I saw that painting! I still remember that acid yellow burning my eyes: “This is going to be awesome!” The fun I had seeing what you were coming up with each issue even to the point of… Jon: Getting Gil Kane to do a cover…? Whoa! These were dreams coming true! Unused Bernie Wrightson at his peak, and an unseen Nick Cardy painting…? Those first five issues were just dynamite and people always talk about that with me. “Yeah, I really liked you in the beginning. Today, not so much.” [laughter] The beginning was very exciting. The people we interviewed were excited, too. Being there when Jim Warren came out of seclusion… JM: I remember that New York con at Madison Square Garden. There were more exhibitors than attendees at that freaking show! I couldn’t believe what a poorly attended con it was. I did meet Jim Warren there. What a strong personality he had… what a remarkably commanding presence. Jon: There came a time when you were really busy with The Kirby Collector and I got busy with CBA, and I was always pushing you to add page count to CBA. You were very, very patient with me, but there
Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
came a point where we were about to hit the bookstore market and you pushed back. JM: Yes, I was very patient with you. Every issue: “I can’t make this fit in 100 pages, John. There’s no way.” “Well, how many do you need?” “I need about 148.” I groaned and you always said, “But it will be really, really good, John! I promise!” And, sure enough, it always was really good. That’s my Steve Jobs mentality: I didn’t know it at the time, but it was: “Just make it good. Don’t worry about how much it costs; just make sure it’s really good quality and people will latch onto it.” And they did. The Kirby Collector started TwoMorrows and built us a lot of goodwill, but CBA put us on the map. It wasn’t just because you won that first Eisner Award (but that certainly didn’t hurt). It was like when a rock band comes out with a hit song, but are they going to be a one-hit wonder or are they going to do a follow-up? Then they do the follow-up and it cements them as somebody who’s got longevity— that’s what CBA did. Nobody knew the name “Two Morrows” yet, but they knew The Kirby Collector. Then, CBA came along and it was, “Boom! Oh, wow! Okay, this is good stuff. We’re going to stick with these TwoMorrows guys.” That cemented our very loyal Kirby Collector following to go on and try some other stuff. Also, that brought in people who thought, “Oh, Jack Kirby, that’s old stuff. Wait a minute… Neal Adams!? Hold on… Don McGregor?! Really, Jim Warren?! Okay, I’ll follow that.” It broadened our audience greatly. Then both publications fed off each other’s popularity. I wish I could say that we planned all this out to work so well, but I know neither of us had any grand master plan. We just did
Above: The Warren Companion [2001] was the first expansion of an issue of CBA, this one #4. This is Alex Horley’s wraparound cover art for the Eisner-nominated book.
Above: Few people have been more supportive of Jon’s efforts than the legendary James Warren, who participated mightily in The Warren Companion. This photo was taken during one of Jon’s visits to interview Jim in Pennsylvania. Previous page: Jim Warren even mentored Jon and Andrew Cooke during production of their fulllength feature film documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in 2007. Eisner participated in the making of the biographical movie, though he passed away before its completion. Andrew directed and co-produced, and Jon wrote and was one of the film’s producers.
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what we liked, and hoped people would enjoy it. Jon: Like now, we enjoyed working together then. JM: We both had full-time gigs going at the same time. I don’t think people understand I didn’t just decide one day, “Oh, I’ll start a publishing company… and let’s start a Jack Kirby magazine… and, hey, let’s start another one.” This wasn’t our livelihood. You had a full-time job when CBA started. Pam and I did full-time advertising from 1994 all the way until the recession in 2007, when things mostly dried up in advertising. I was working two full-time jobs and you were working two full-time jobs. I have so many old emails time-stamped at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when we were typing back and forth to each other, because neither one of us could go to bed until we finished the work and met deadlines. Jon: Believe it or not, for me, all I could do at home in the beginning was transcribe the interviews. I couldn’t do any layout at home. I didn’t have a computer at home and I had to do it all at work, 40 miles away in Providence. I would spend the entire weekend at my office, all-nighters, blaring music, to get this thing done. I’ll never forget how unbelievably exhausted I was after pulling multiple all-nighters for CBA #1. I remember it was springtime. Coming home in the early daylight hours is still very clear. CBA #1 was such a hit, it paid for our swimming pool. To this day, I still look at it from my studio above the garage and remark, “CBA #1 did that!” It did, because that issue had a second printing. JM: Before readers think you were installing some big, in-ground heated pool with sauna, it was a modest, nice backyard above-ground pool for you and your kids to float around in. When you told me CBA #1 bought you a pool, I thought, “That’s awesome!” Jon: Did we pay Roy Thomas anything for Alter Ego when it was in CBA? I don’t think so. JM: I’d have to look. We paid phone bills because back then we had to pay for long distance calls, and we reimbursed for shipping, but I’m trying to remember: did we pay layout people back then? Jon: No, you did layout. I did layout. JM: Did we pay transcribers? Jon: No, we did our own transcribing at the start. JM: Right. It was all black-&-white printing, which was just the norm. Publications about comics couldn’t afford color back then. Comics Scene did and it lasted, what, a dozen issues? Not many of them could afford color. We did all black-&-white for the first 15 years at TwoMorrows before we were able to make the jump. Readers didn’t mind. Jon: The paradigm shifted when we could do color. In the very beginning, I had very close relationships
Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
with art dealers because we were always in search of unpublished material to sustain reader interest. We were always in search of… frankly, to be honest, unpublished stuff by Neal Adams. JM: Not just find the art, but find the story behind it, too. Jon: Right. We would be inquisitive about what was going on. Neal was very open to answering our questions, though his recollection was sometimes at odds with his collaborators.
Controversy ’n’ Conflict
Jon: What do you recall of controversies with CBA? JM: I recall a very sick feeling in my stomach when you sent me that fax that Carmine Infantino was objecting to the Jericho stuff in CBA #1. That was the very first time I had encountered any kind of major controversy with this stuff. It was all joy and fun until then. Then, “Oh, crap! He’s threatening to sue us?!” Jon: And that’s the first issue! JM: Yeah! I never considered that there would ever be a lawsuit over any of this stuff! I was totally naïve to that aspect of things. “So, how do I deal with this? We’re not The Comics Journal. We’re not supposed to get sued. We’re not publishing scandalous stuff.” That was heart-breaking for me. Carmine called Tom Stewart “The Comics Savant.” At least I got a good chuckle out of that. Every year after that, Tom would be at our booth with his name tag, “The Comics Savant.” He really embraced that name. Jon: Carmine was eventually placated. JM: It smoothed over. And that experience taught me, “Okay, people get upset and worked up to a fever pitch; and you have to take a deep breath and calm down.” Reasonable people can disagree. That’s par for the course. As long as you don’t have malicious intent, it generally works out okay. Jon: It was surprising to learn how emotional people working in the business still were about events of, at that time, 20 to 30 years in the past. How we immediately touched a nerve by unwittingly delving into the politics behind this stuff. I had not even the foggiest idea. It was really, really surprising. There was such intrigue! The Carmine/Kirby controversy is what started it, right? There was something in Comics Buyers Guide with Mark Evanier, right? JM: Yeah. That was ugly. Carmine wrote a letter to CBG that was insulting to Kirby, and saying basically that Kirby was great creatively, but he just wasn’t very smart. That caused a lot of people to get very angry at Infantino and start writing responses. I did,
Above: Jon was the first nonMorrow to help out at the TwoMorrows booth during San Diego Comic-Con in those early years. Here are Pam and Jon showing off their pearly whites in 1997, Jon’s very first SDCC. Below: The three CBA collections.
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1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST Left: Rascally Roy Thomas and Jon B. Cooke at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con.
JM: Chris Day… Jon: No, how quickly we forget! You found me, John Morrow! [laughter] I had just quit my ad agency job and gone freelance, working out of my home. By then, I had the studio built and my own computer/scanner/printer set-up. JM: Oh, that’s right! Jon: I designed A/E for four or five issues. I had a great time because I have never had a problem working with Roy. I might roll my eyes at so many changes, but I find that he’s almost always absolutely right about a change. Virtually every decision he asks for, he makes the issue better. So I’ve always gone with it. His changes are never about his ego or any control thing over design. JM: Every change he requests, makes it better. Absolutely. when Kirby was the more creative of the two. It’s still an evolution, Jon: Absolutely. Look, Roy is no designer. Things get super-dense. though; I’m still trying to comprehend all this. And the Kree/Skrull He always gives way too many images to fit into an article, typically. I don’t know if it is right to sacrifice design in the scheme of War thing—it’s fascinating that there is still a dispute over that. things, but it is definitely more informative (but more readable? I People remember things and then you dig up the facts and find, “Your memory may not be 100% about that.” How do you present dunno). He definitely gives the reader more. Any issue is chock full of stuff. It ain’t always the prettiest presentation, to be sure… that? All you can do is show it as genuinely and honestly as you JM: People buy it for the content; they don’t buy it for the pretty can, and let the readers decide for themselves. page layout. I’ve personally gotten critiques over the years, Flipping Over Alter Ego “Some of your publications don’t look as good as some of the Jon: We’ve still got to talk about Alter Ego. others.” They don’t specify which, but maybe they’re talking JM: A big mistake I made was in mis-remembering you as the one about Alter Ego, which is a fine-looking mag; it’s just not slick. who got Roy to do Alter Ego in CBA. I just always assumed it was We upgraded the look a bit around #70 or so. There were some you that contacted Roy, but Roy said that I contacted him, and I typographical things that, as a designer, I couldn’t stand anymore, just found the old letters and emails that show that. but they’re just minor tweaks here and there. The average person Jon: I found some old faxes, too. After we first met, Roy hinted probably doesn’t notice, but at least I feel better. It’s all personal that he would be interested in us putting together a special Alter preference. Roy puts everything he can into every issue. He just Ego issue of CBA once or twice a year. Then I asked him to be does and that’s what I love. I like working with people like you. CBA’s contributing editor and suggested we do A/E as a flipside Every single one of you just wants it to be as good as it can be. for every issue. It basically started with Roy’s openly pondering Jon: He’s got a healthy enough ego for sure, but nonetheless, being a part of CBA, if for one issue. At the same time, maybe you it’s always a pleasure to work with Roy. It’s exasperating, it can be were concerned about getting enough content out of me for a thrilling, it can be, “Oh, my God!” But it’s always agreeable. quarterly magazine, and having A/E would account for a chunk of JM: Roy and I have never had a cross word with each other in each issue. For another thing, Roy was enthusiastic about getting 20 years. We’ve had a couple of minor disagreements here and A/E going again, even if just a portion of another mag. And, boy, there. I wouldn’t call them “arguments” about Stan Lee and Jack did Roy have the goods! My God, to have such a beautiful Joe Kirby, but we can disagree with one another about Lee and Kirby, Kubert Hawkman cover for the first issue! And to have the Roy and Roy is an extremely professional person. He’s reasonable and Thomas associated with CBA! We haven’t even talked about him he’s very fair-minded. I can’t ask for a better person to work with yet. I was a massive fan of Roy Thomas in the ’70s and ’80s! Huge! on a regular basis. JM: Me too. I was in awe! “You’re telling me I don’t get to just Jon: On rare moments, his memory might be faulty, but I’ll take interview Roy Thomas, but I get to work with him regularly?!” his word over almost anyone else’s. Even though our politics are Jon: I quickly found out, “What did I get myself into?!” [laughter] I pretty far apart in certain aspects, we have a genuine affection love Roy to pieces… but boy, he can keep you on the phone! for one another, I think. We all have a genuine friendship, I think. JM: He’s also a very meticulous editor. I remember he drove our I know he respects me. (Plus I love Dann.) All three of us—you, poor designer insane on the first solo TwoMorrows issue of Alter me, and Roy—were there in the beginning of CBA, a very exciting Ego, and the guy quit halfway through. He said, “I just can’t do time, and he also always gives credit where credit is due. it.” Roy was too demanding. “I just can’t work with him; he’s too JM: He has a healthy creative ego, but he’s not an arrogant egoparticular. Too many nitpicks.” So, I had to finish the design on tist, and that’s what you want. You have to have a healthy creative the first issue. Then I said, “I’ve got to find someone else who can ego to be a good creator. I think Jack Kirby had a healthy creative work with Roy because I don’t have time to do this.” I love Roy, ego; he was proud of his work and he would defend his work, but but I could never design an ongoing magazine with him. he was a humble man in general. That’s kind of how I find Roy. Roy Jon: Do you remember who you found? will stand his ground on comics history, on creative directions on
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The World of TwoMorrows
1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST Left: December 18, 2003 edition of the Providence Journal’s lifestyle section, featuring CBA. Next page: Jon’s San Diego Comic-Con badges during his first stint at TwoMorrows.
so it was eye-opening for me. That’s why I liked #4, the Warren issue, so much because I knew zero about Warren… I mean, nothing at all. Reading that, I was just mesmerized, not because I have any affection for that material, but for the story that you crafted in that issue of this company I knew nothing about. It was the same kind of thing I got reading the Steranko History of Comics when Jim wrote about Jack Cole’s life story as a kid, going on his bike ride across the country. I was never a Jack Cole Plastic Man fan, but reading about him painted a vivid story in my mind. I was hooked. CBA #1 especially, was that way for me; it just worked for me as a story I hadn’t heard before. You told the story of DC Comics in that era—of stuff no one had really covered at any length before. That’s always been my gut on things: If I’d buy it… if I’d read it… if I’d enjoy it, fine. It doesn’t have to be geared toward me specifically, but if I can get into it, then sure, it’s got value and we should publish it. CBA #1 was eye-opening to me, as a fan, not just as your publisher—taking this so much further than anything I’ve ever seen done in The Comics Journal, Comics Interview, Amazing Heroes, or Comics Scene… this is it; this is the meat-&-potatoes of comics’ fandom here. It blew me away! I didn’t mean to interrupt you here… Jon: Thank you! I have to say… that’s the highest compliment, John. It doesn’t happen that often, but when it does happen, there will always be a letter, “You know, I have no interest in Charlton Comics, but you made it interesting.” I’ve always taken that as the greatest appreciation because that’s my intent. Me, I look at CBA #1 and go, “Oh my God, what a mess.” I know the enthusiasm was there, but I know it was rushed and I didn’t take time to focus on the layout… I didn’t know what I was doing. I over-planned (and still do). I had conducted so many interviews and thought I could fit much more into the issue than I did. Those first eight or nine issues of CBA featured content initially intended for three or four issues. I have to say, too, part of CBA’s creation was in response to The Comics Journal. I had picked up TCJ #105, years earlier, the blue
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cover featuring Kirby’s art fight against Marvel, and that completely blew me away. I instantly became fanatical about The Comics Journal. It was real-world. All these other magazines—you were right, John—they were all about value or trying to re-live some previous decade with puerile nostalgia, but TCJ was what is happening now. Groth will probably shrug at this, but I wanted to do Comic Book Artist as if there had been a (not-as-critical) TCJ back in the ’70s, if only their in-depth interview section. Their interviews have always been excellent and captivated me (though I loved the news section, as well). You could learn so much from them and that’s what I wanted to do with these issue-by-issue retrospectives. When I was putting together a theme issue, I was very focused on only dealing with the subject at hand. And, in the beginning, it was DC in the 1970s. So, when I called up Archie Goodwin, my plan was just to talk about his short-lived impact on DC Comics in the mid-’70s. He was only there for 18 months or so at the most, but he did really wonderful work—Manhunter in Detective Comics, anyone?—and I do this interview with him where we just talk about that material, and, in my mind, my plan is to come back soon and talk to Archie about his Warren Publishing work. But what I didn’t know was that this would be his very last day at DC! He went home and, two weeks later, Archie Goodwin was dead. That was a massive bolt from the blue for me. “I’ve got to get this stuff done.” It became like a mission. I was stunned. All of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming obligation. In comparison to all the other copy-edited interviews in CBA #1, you can read how verbatim the Archie Goodwin interview is, because I felt responsible to be painstakingly accurate. Every single “hem” and “haw” and “uh” is in there because I knew these were the last words on record of a hugely important comics creator. That’s what it became in a lot of ways: a place for creators to give their eyewitness accounts of comics history. I don’t know… the identity of Comic Book Creator has shifted back, here and there. I get disappointed when people use that old Woody Allen line, “I like your earlier, funnier stuff.” People would say, “I really liked CBA in the first couple of years, man. You were really good,” implying that what I do now is sh*t! I have a little resentment for that, but I do completely understand what they are talking about. It was new. Nobody had done this. I was dedicated to exhaustive oral histories of certain eras. And I also had a massive amount of energy back then. I would transcribe until 3:00 in the morning and then go to work at 8:00 a.m., work until 5:00, come home—with an hour commute each way—and transcribe until 3:00 a.m. again, night after night. Then work on scanning and layout the entire weekend at my workplace. A book that had come out a year or so before CBA #1 was the second edition of The Comic Book Heroes, by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones. A lot of it was wonderful because it was anecdotal, generally knew its stuff, and was breezily-written. But there were a few glaringly wrong things and some of it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited. They were making snarky insinuations that John Broome was a total pothead. I said, “Wha–?” I asked around and eventually found out that was not true. I took umbrage; I was annoyed by that—but I loved that there was a book of comics
The World of TwoMorrows
history that was engaging and readable! I wanted to do things like this, but I wanted it to be accurate…. If I can quickly say this: the thing with CBA and the stuff that I’ve done, it’s through the words of the person saying it, an oral history, so what they remember doesn’t necessarily make it true; these are their memories of it. But I’m not going to put in brackets the correct facts of certain things; I rarely do that. You know what I mean? I wasn’t trying to trap anybody into saying anything with any kind of “gotcha” kind of bullsh*t you can see in other interviews. You know what other magazine we’re talking about. [chuckles] I always grapple with what exactly my mission is and I ultimately come down on the side of the interview subject having their say. In essence, I am sharing primary source material for some historian to select excerpts and put it all in context and to point out factual errors. I mean, look at the footnotes in Sean Howe’s Marvel history and see how often he dipped into CBA interviews for the ’70s section of his book. And I’m completely okay with that because I know my role is to create primary source material for future historians (including me!). JM: That’s the thing: back in the day, you had Amazing Heroes and you had The Comics Journal and they were flip-sides of the same coin. Amazing Heroes didn’t have the hard-hitting approach that TCJ did, and it was a lot more positive (while still informative) than TCJ. You managed to kind of mesh those two together. You got the journalism there, but it was a positive, uplifting, fun experience to read an issue of CBA, even though there were some sad, depressing things in there. Your enthusiasm and positivity show through. That’s why people say they like the early issues better. You were young, naïve— well, maybe not that naïve—naïve compared to now that we are much older. That boyish enthusiasm you had for this material and the way you covered it struck a chord with people. It evoked that same enthusiasm people had when they were reading those comics. I think that’s why, even today, I hear from people who say, “I don’t buy any new comics, but I buy everything you publish about comics.” That’s the highest compliment to me and that’s because we still evoke in our fan publications that sense of wonder (or whatever you want to call it) we all got as kids, buying these comics off the stands and wanting to know, “Wow! I want to be a comics artist one day. I wonder how this guy does this inking? How do these writers come up with these ideas?” All this stuff when we’re too smart to know better that we’ll never be that comic artist or that comic writer. When
Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Artist
you read this as a kid, it’s just this amazing sense of wonder about this stuff. And here comes CBA, covering all that stuff we read as kids and covering it with a sense of wonder. That, to me, is why it’s so successful—and why The Jack Kirby Collector was too, for that matter. Jon: I did want to make my magazine as enthusiastic as the subject we were covering; in content and in the design. In general, comics strive to be graphically appealing and that’s what drew me into comics to begin with. It’s a visually appealing medium. And yet, as I said, so many publications about comics looked awful. I think readers, in part, responded to TJKC and CBA because they were pleasantly designed. You and I are professional designers, so we could design these things to make them accessible and enjoyable in content as well as design. Again, it’s philosophical. Again, you would always admonish me, “Hey, chill, Jon! It’s only comics,” and I’d emphatically reply, “But it’s comics, John!” [laughter] This stuff deserves serious consideration, damn it! I believe comics have the potential to be literature, and sometimes comics are just trashy fun. I’m pretty militant. I wonder if I’m the last TwoMorrows editor who still goes to a comics shop every week and continues to buy them. I still do love comics, today’s as well as yesterday’s; I just love them. I still get fascinated when I see, for instance, Jack Chick comics, and it plagues me to wonder, “What’s the story behind this?” I love European and international comics. “What’s the story behind this? Oh, gee whiz, I’d love to talk to the creator about this.” I immediately fall into that mindset. I am endlessly curious. So I’m lucky: people still want to read what I find out about my stupid obsessions! Thank you, guys! JM: I’m looking at a copy of CBA #1 and I see the incredible amount of unpublished artwork in here. Would you agree that this was another big draw for CBA? You didn’t just throw two galleys of text on a page and stick a little spot illustration on there, you really put some thought in there about “How can I put the most valued-added material possible in here, visually?” Jon: That’s exactly the phrase. “Value-added.” But it wasn’t that conscious. I just wanted to see unpublished stuff. “Wow! This is cool!” JM: That was always our big thing: “We have to set this publication apart from any other that’s been out there and make sure people are getting what
Above: Jon with his first Eisner Award, in 2000. He would win five.
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1998: COMIC BOOK ARTIST Left: Around 2005, TwoMorrows solicited Jon and George Khoury’s Swampmen, which originally sported this Douglas Klauba cover, but the book was delayed by Jon until 2014.
Bombing the Carpet
JM: When you did what I call your “carpet-bombing” issues, like the first Charlton issue, you were like, “I’m going to make this the most thorough, exhaustive thing that ever looked at Charlton in the history of mankind. No one will ever be able to do a more comprehensive look at Charlton than this!” And you did just that. The only problem was, all the material couldn’t fit in a single 100page magazine, even a 148-page magazine. We ended up splitting it into two issues. I don’t know if people look back and think it was all planned: “Oh, #9 is the first part of Charlton and #12 is the second part.” No, that wasn’t the plan at all. You were so enthusiastic and compiled so much material, and foolishly thought, “I’ll get all this into one issue somehow.” Jon: My plans have always been completely untethered to reality. JM: You’d get instructions to make a 100-page issue and end up with a 300-page book! I was almost “Stan Lee” to your “Jack Kirby” on that. Stan would say, “Jack comes up with enough ideas in one story, for me to use in a whole year’s worth of issues.” You were that way with these carpet-bombing issues. I was like, “Dude… hold something back—we could do a book!” You’d say, “No, no! I gotta fit this in! We gotta tell the whole story!” I know we’re going to do a Charlton Companion if we ever find the time, and it’s going to reuse a lot of material from the two CBA Charlton issues. I could say, “Let’s do a Charlton book that reprints those,” and you’d say okay. Six weeks later, I’d have something double the length of those two issues with all-new material in there. he’s such a nice guy.” [laughter] (Truth is, George says he offered [laughter] I think that sums up the history of our relationship. We to pay me but I refused.) George’s motives are so pure and earwork well together because you come up with great ideas… nest, it is impossible to say no. He gets despondent readers don’t Jon: Thank you. I just can’t help myself, John. It’s an affliction. sometimes share his enthusiasm or that pros aren’t being respon- JM: …and I find a way to facilitate those ideas. So, I’m very happy sive, but I do try to soothe and remind him his contributions to the with that relationship. Hey, I think ideas are hard and facilitating field are immeasurable… and that expectations are pure poison. is easy. You mentioned difficulties being a self-publisher. I think I did have a blast with George and with Chris, and I’m glad they that’s why we work well together. I think CBA, especially the first put a foot in the door. I still have an awfully hard time delegating 12 issues, is a great example of us working off our strengths and and collaborating, but working with the persistent (and talented) weaknesses. I hate that it ended, ever. I wish we were still doing few has been beneficial to my mags and to me personally. CBA and we’d be up to #150 by now. I need to give a shout-out to David Roach, too, who was a Jon: Thank you. Things happen for a reason and our relationship priceless addition to CBA throughout its run. He is a master of mi- is more solid. I’m much calmer and pragmatic than in the old nutia and, especially, the stories of international artists, plus he has days. I’m a little more disciplined… or let’s say much less prone a specific love for much of what I love, so it was a joy to discuss to stress-out. It’s a more comfortable relationship. You’re also future issues with him, albeit via long distance to Wales! I remain more agreeable! You let me do what I want! And I try to be more flabbergasted at his incredible grasp of comics history. His work as reasonable. It’s chaos in a certain way. We plan so many different my co-editor of The Warren Companion is staggering. things and I’ve got significant work outside of TwoMorrows… Chris Knowles was a great contributor to CBA and his enthuJM: My philosophy is: Okay, 10 years from now, they’re not going siasm was always infectious and appreciated. He contributed to remember we were six months late on something, but they mightily to that “Spirit of Independents” issue and I think he was will remember the book that came out six months late. That’s my the one who first suggested that I do it. He helped out enormous- thing, as long as it doesn’t kill the budget with late fees and stuff ly with those early issues—and on much, much more in my life. like that. If you have to push the deadline to make it a better pubIt’s funny: I look through those issues and I feel, in a certain way, lication, I’m okay with that. That’s why I like working with people mixed. It was kind of all over the place in a certain way. Right after like you: I just turn them loose and let them do great stuff and it’s that, I started covering individuals like Walter Simonson, Alex going to reflect well on me. I love that with all our contributors. I Toth. The focus kind of shifted. I was just following what I wanted do my own little Kirby magazine and write some of the articles for to do. I wasn’t disciplined. it and sometimes I do a whole one. My job is to facilitate talented people like you and give you a place to do your thing, and try to
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The Alter Ego Trip of Rascally Roy Thomas Roy the Boy
Comics. That was the comic that got me started, Jon B. Cooke: Roy, was it comics first as far as pub- as much as anything, but the individual comics, Editor, Alter Ego too, got me interested. My second favorite comic lications/ periodicals go that caught your interest? would have been Flash Comics, because it had The Did you like magazines, in general? Born: 1940 Roy Thomas: Of course. I was probably four-and-a- Flash, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, and later The Residence: half or something like that (and I was involved with Atom. Within the next year, I encountered Captain St. Matthews, things other than comics) when my parents—most- Marvel and that crew and the Marvel books and, South Carolina to a lesser extent, most of the super-heroes. I just ly my mother—bought me Little Golden Books. I Vocation: Freelance didn’t have enough dimes. My parents didn’t have remember one called A Day in the Jungle, around Writer/Author/Editor much money and probably shouldn’t have bought that same time, with animals (including a black Favorite Comics Creator: me as many comics as they did, but thank heaven panther, and I loved black panthers) going around Stan Lee they did! looking for somebody in the jungle. There were Seminal Comic Book: JBC: I remember talking to Jerry Bails about this a couple like that which I read over and over until All-Star Comics #25 and I’ve always been fascinated with your obsesI memorized them. My mother also read them to Roy Thomas was a foundme. They helped me learn to read, too. (And thank sion with the Justice Society of America. It was ing member of comics obvious to me as a reader back in the ’70s and heavens they taught me to read upper and lower fandom in the 1960s, and ’80s, especially with your All-Star Squadron and case letters; the comics were only good for the his Alter Ego fanzine was even prior to that. I wonder, and tell me if this is upper case letters.) But, I don’t know what else I a pioneer of its time in read except the Little Golden Books. There weren’t true: Is it that you saw a shared universe with these documenting comics hischaracters, and that was the epiphany so many as many children’s books back in the early ’40s. tory. In 1965, he became people had with Marvel Comics in the ’60s? JBC: What was the seminal comic book that got Stan Lee’s right-hand man Roy: I specifically remember telling someone— you going? Was it All-Star Comics #4? and a key writer at Marvel and I don’t recall if it was a neighbor or my little Comics, eventually serving Roy: All-Star #4? Hey, how old do you think I am, as editor-in-chief. But, as Jon?! That was 1941! [laughter] No, the first All-Star sister (she would have been only one or two at the retirement from his pro time)—maybe somebody who saw one of the comI would’ve seen could have been #24, but was career beckons, he returns ics, and I remember having to explain, at the age probably #25, the first one I definitely remember. to his first love, and of five or under, that what I liked was that all the JBC: Was that the one that launched you into relaunches Alter Ego at characters were together. That’s a little four-yearfandom? TwoMorrows in 1999. old’s version of a shared universe. Then The Marvel Roy: It launched me into reading comics as a Family appealed to me, as they were a somewhat kid, but I know that by the time I saw All-Star, I’d shared universe. They had their separate series; already seen a couple of comics with Wonder they got together, even if they were so much alike. Woman, Green Lantern, and a couple of the other I always wanted that to happen with the Marvel characters. It wasn’t like that was my first comic and right from the start, I saw this comic with seven characters, but I don’t know if I ever saw the two All Winners Squad issues [All Winners Comics #19, characters… but what blew my mind about it was I had seen these characters in separate stories and Fall 1946, and #21 Winter ’46–47], as you’d think I’d remember them, because I was five or six when here they were all together and I didn’t see that they came out. So, yes, it was that shared universe; anywhere else in comics I was buying, and unforthat’s what appealed to me. tunately when I went looking, I didn’t find it again By the time Marvel proper started [in 1961], DC either. They didn’t do that with the Timely Comics, already had a shared universe, as Superman and except for a couple of issues that I may not have Batman had been together for years in World’s even seen. There was The Marvel Family, but they Finest Comics, and Julie Schwartz had been doing were pretty much the same character, just multithat for years. He had Flash and Green Lantern Alter Ego plied. First Issue: 7/1/1999 cross over by that time already. There just wasn’t anything quite like All-Star
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Fantastic Four #1 came out in August of 1961. By that time, I think there had already been two Flash stories with Green Lantern. That became the shared universe for me, too. It was really the DC shared universe first and then the Marvel; it’s just that the Marvel passed up the other one. At DC, it became very clear, very quickly, that only the Julie Schwartz universe and that Superman/ Batman thing were together, and the rest of DC comics seemed very compartmentalized. Even the ridiculousness of Superman and Batman being minimized and sometimes appearing minimalized on the Justice League covers was kind of crazy. Within about a year, Stan was doing it right. He was having the characters in the same universe. This was way beyond even All-Star. JBC: If you had an issue of All-Flash Comics and an issue of Flash Comics, you’d choose Flash because you were getting a bargain because it had more characters in it? Roy: Oh, yes. All-Flash would have been further down the list. My favorite character, based mostly on visuals more than stories, though I liked the stories too… was Hawkman, who appeared in Flash Comics, but not in All-Flash or anything else. I liked Green Lantern, too, probably more than the Flash. But I liked all those characters in varying degrees. JBC: So, have you thought about it? You came out with four volumes of All-Star Companions… is it sentimental? Is it the stuff has substance? What is it? Roy: It’s based on several things, I think. One is partly sentimental. I’m interested in the history of comics, but I’m aware of the fact that All-Star isn’t automatically one of the best comics out there in terms of quality. At times, it had better than average art. After all, in the height of it, when I was reading at five, six, seven years old, it had Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Lee Elias, Irwin Hasen,
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Alexander Toth, all working on it. I could tell that it had better art than many comics I was reading. When I did All-Star Companion, I suppose it was largely out of sentiment. But an old Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide talked about All-Star #3 as being up there with the very top breakthrough titles by bringing in that kind of shared universe in the same way as the Human Torch/Sub-Mariner stories were doing around the same time. I felt it was a title with history and lineage—from All-Star Comics through the Julie Schwartz revival in Earth-Two and through my own work and so forth—and that’s the first 50 years between 1940–90 (from then on, I totally lose interest; I see it having almost no connection anymore to the old comics). JBC: If you could only pick one comic artist, would it be Joe Kubert? Roy: It’s always been Joe Kubert because of a combination of his Hawkman from the ’40s, even more than the ’60s—even though I like them both—and then his Tor in 1950, which I think was his best work. It would probably be Kubert, but when I look at it, I have to realize, too, that right up there with him, even if I didn’t know it always, was Kirby. From the time I was at least about six or
Left: Roy and wife Dann, the night before their wedding in 1981. Below: Roy holds an original copy of Alter Ego Vol.1, #1, at the “Golden Age of Fanzines” panel at the 2011 Comic-Con International: San Diego. Panel participants included moderator Bill Schelly, Jean Bails, Roy Thomas, Richard Kyle (behind Roy in the photo), Paul Levitz, Pat Lupoff, Richard Lupoff, and Maggie Thompson.
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1999: ALTER EGO Left: From left to right, a powerhouse gathering of talent: Irwin Hasen, Roy, John Romita, Sr., and Stan Lee at the 1995 Chicago Comic-Con.
Weren’t there letters columns in MAD comics? Roy: I think there were, but they didn’t really inspire fans to get together exactly, although they might have in some cases. They were mostly just comments about the comics. I had never heard of science-fiction fandom until Jerry sent me Xero; although it was called a science-fiction fanzine, it was more than that. JBC: You know the first fanzine I ever saw—which blew my mind—and it was just the fact of it, was Locus. Roy: I’ve got some copies of that. Locus was like a newszine. JBC: The idea you could put out something yourself that looked this primitive in a certain way, it was pretty inspiring. Roy: Well, Alter-Ego, God knows, was pretty primitive with that so, whenever I saw the names “Simon and Kirby” on anything, spirit duplicator, those first three issues—but Jerry had ambition. I didn’t know who they were or who did what, but anything that By the fourth issue, he was already into offset printing. “Hey, said “Simon/Kirby” on it was exciting. There would be Stuntman we’ve reached Nirvana now!” and that wonderful Kid Adonis story that was all by Joe Simon in JBC: How did you first encounter Jerry? Was it through the a Kirby vein (with this character called Superior Male, who was letters columns? a take-off on Superman… came from another planet to have a Roy: No, I was sent his address by Gardner Fox. fight with this boxer). I almost never bought Kubert’s war comics, JBC: How did you get in touch with Gardner Fox? even though I loved the art in them, and I didn’t buy Kirby’s roRoy: Julie sent me his address. He must have talked to Gardner. mance comics or Black Magic. But I was always aware of the fact I can’t imagine he would have sent me the address without it. that these two were the very best. What happened was: I wrote three pretty much identical letters JBC: What was the first fanzine you encountered? Did you see at the same time, as sophisticated as I was at the time—19 or science-fiction fanzines at a young age? 20—to the “editors” of Green Lantern, Flash, and Justice League Roy: No, I encountered them when Jerry Bails was getting of America. One of those got printed in Green Lantern #1, and, started on Alter-Ego, and he sent me the first three issues of of course, they all went to Julie. Right away, I was writing to him Xero from the Lupoffs, which Julie Schwartz had loaned him, about All-Star and wondering if they had copies around they which unfortunately went lost in the mail when I sent them back could sell—God knows I had no money—and he told me that to Julie. [laughter] I felt bad about that for many years, although I Gardner Fox was the guy who wrote quite a few of the All-Star don’t think Julie cared that much. Comics, like the first 30-something of them. He said, “You might So, Xero influenced me right away and what I was trying to do want to write him,” and gave me his address in Yonkers, so natfor Alter Ego. But it was February 1961, practically the same time urally, within 15 minutes, I wrote him a letter. He wrote back and as when I helped start Alter-Ego. said that six months or a year ago, he sold them to a young guy JBC: Wasn’t there mention of fanzines in the letters columns? from Missouri named Jerry Bails, who was now in Detroit with a
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1999: ALTER EGO Alter-Ego and write an article and everything. Next thing you know, I’m the official (if not really) coeditor of this magazine. JBC: What was the effect of seeing Xero for the first time? Was it exciting? Roy: Yeah. First of all, it had articles on comics. The three issues loaned to Jerry by Julie had Captain Marvel by Dick Lupoff, a general article on DC by Ted White, and a Justice Society article by Jim Harmon. They were all well-written, literate, and nostalgic mixed with history. I see magazines like this one called Reminisce, and they’re all so shallow. I could never get into an article that’s a few hundred words of something I was interested in. It’s got to have a little more meat to it. These guys, even if it was a nostalgic article, even without much access to the comics, just to their memories, especially the article by Lupoff on Captain Marvel—they remembered a lot about it and they were thinking about what was behind the idea and talking about the literary and artistic qualities. It was part history, part nostalgia. So, Jerry and I tapped into that, maybe me a little more consciously. Jerry probably had his own ideas formed; he was kind of a data guy. I liked creative writing and was more interested in turning a good phrase than Jerry was. He was the type who wanted to get the information out there. We weren’t that much alike in our approaches, but we made a fairly good team for those few issues. JBC: Did Xero have some focus on non-super-hero comics? Roy: Yeah. What I liked about Xero was as an introduction to the whole world of science-fiction fandom. Although I never got into that, I’d been a science-fiction reader since I was a kid. I was an early member since the mid-’50s of the Science-fiction Book Club, with books coming in every month or so. I loved reading science-
fiction books and going to sciencefiction movies. So, the idea that there was this fandom and sometimes even the pro writers would write letters, that was interesting to me. The letters pages were much more interesting to me than what I’d seen from anything in the comic books… they were about something. Lupoff had such a great talent for editing that kind of magazine. Maybe it was more of Dick Lupoff’s thing than Pat’s, but she really had a lot of fun, too, because she liked science-fiction and she handled the letters pages very well. So the science-fiction part of it, or just the science-fiction fanzine part of it, at least, was just about as important to me as the comics content. I tried ordering a few other science-fiction fanzines I saw mentioned in Xero, but I was invariably disappointed because they were just about science-fiction! What I realized very quickly was Xero was really about everything. It really was a popularculture ’zine. It was about fantasy, science-fiction, fanzines, and comics… damn near anything. It had stuff on the old pulp magazines, which I was unaware of. If you could come up with an interesting article about something and relate it to things, they were interested in putting it in there. I think that when I saw real science-fiction magazines, they were just writing articles about particular science-fiction authors; they were interesting, just not as much. Xero was the only one that really garnered my full attention and interest.
Learning From the Best
JBC: I vividly recall my enthusiasm, particularly when you were Marvel’s editor-in-chief, for your informative text pages in the early issues of titles, before they had enough mail for letters
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1999: ALTER EGO for the very first issue, which was a mask with the [then-hyphenated] word “alter-ego” over it. When Ronn came in—being an artist—he designed a better-looking (and hyphen-less) one, with better lettering overlapping, much more artistic with #5. I kept that going because I liked it, until such time as, I guess Sol Brodsky—when he and Stan were going to be my silent partners on #10, Sol got Sam Rosen to redo it. I’m pretty sure it was Sam, rather than Artie Simek, who did the logo that’s been used ever since. I hope he got paid for it. [laughter] It’s certainly been used a lot! It just evolved over a period of time. It’s inherent in the first issue, you know, it just got improved by Ronn. JBC: Were there subscriptions to Alter Ego? Roy: Yes, I had them. I don’t know if Jerry or Ronn did. I don’t think I inherited any unfulfilled subs from Ronn. I had subscriptions for three or four issues. In fact, that was my problem when I left: I still owed some people money. For at least ten years or so, I carried around two or three boxes of those little 3" x 5" cards with all the sub information, because I always intended to either restart the magazine or give people back their money or somehow compensate. In the end, a couple of people wrote and asked for their money back, and I sent it, but I’m afraid my intent would have benefited from a few hundred bucks or so that I didn’t have. JBC: Was that endemic of the fanzine world? Did you have subscriptions to other fanzines and they just disappeared? Roy: I don’t remember much about it. I think some of them
did. Some of them, like Xero, didn’t want any payment. Don and Maggie’s Comic Art lost money on every issue as it was. Therefore, subscriptions would only cause them more trouble. [laughter] I remember sending a couple of quarters taped to a card to Dick Lupoff because Xero was 50¢. He sent it back with a note that said, “Don’t be silly,” because they didn’t want to deal with money, that’s why they were fanzines. It was oddly the comic book people who tried to make money, people like us. [laughter] I had to, because on my teacher’s salary, I couldn’t afford to spend several hundred dollars on an issue to put it out. If I couldn’t get some kind of money, I wouldn’t have been able to put it out. Maybe some others didn’t have to put their hardearned money into it, but I was just trying to break even. I didn’t need to make money, but I couldn’t afford to lose money. JBC: Was there a market for A/E? Roy: I think there was a market for it. I think with Alter Ego #7, I had about 1,000 copies, which isn’t bad, when you consider that it’s all word of mouth. Julie gave us a plug or two in his letters pages. We would’ve gotten one or two more plugs from him if I had wanted them. I think there were about 1,000 copies of #7 and then, of course, G. B. Love reprinted it later on, so actually there are several hundred more of that issue. The most we ever got to, the one we advertised with Marvel, #10 with Gil Kane on the cover; that’s the one where Stan and Sol were going to be my partners. Well, Stan backed out and so did Sol, although he still helped me out. There we got up to 4,000 or 5,000. I don’t know anything about the next one, as Mike Friedrich took it over and he basically started from scratch. This was five to seven years later. JBC: Hmm. So, you started editing with #7? Roy: Yeah, that’s the first real editing I did. JBC: What was your logistical, practical experience? Roy: Well, I had my little electric Smith-Corona. I typed everything out and justified the margins by counting the letters on
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draw some pictures. I got Richard Kyle to do some pieces for me on the Justice Society because I liked his writing so much in Xero. Paul Gambaccini, who took over the [Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors] stuff and who later became very noted on the BBC radio over in England, did some work. Glen Johnson, who was then teaching on an Indian reservation in New Mexico, was another contributor. We were all people who were corresponding; we’d been trading comics and things like that. I sort of knew what they could do. Sometimes I’d suggest something they could do and sometimes they’d suggest something. I think I suggested a lot of the topics, probably most of them. I was open to somebody else coming in with something they wanted to do. I went after stuff, like the Mexican comics feature. I got Fred Patten to do some work on that. I think I generated most of the ideas, but I was always open to somebody bringing in something they were interested in. I just didn’t want to count on it. I didn’t want to sit back and wait for something to come in. JBC: Are you a natural editor? Roy: I think so. That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily good always, but I’m natural. I’m literate. I miss something once in a while; I’m not the greatest proofreader in the world. I’m a decent proofreader and can be fairly good when I take the time, which of course, we don’t always have the time to do. Since I can write myself, I’m able to spot at least some of the things that need to be changed with other people’s writing, although I didn’t want to do anymore than I had to. So, I probably am a natural editor—except, in comics, I discovered I didn’t like
the editor-in-chief job at Marvel because it drew me away from doing anything creative. It was just an endless grind, as Marv [Wolfman] and Len [Wein] and Gerry [Conway], and even Archie [Goodwin] all discovered after me. But doing Alter Ego then—and doing it now—is a pleasure. My wife refers to it as “my mistress.” [laughter] JBC: My wife says the same thing! [laughter] Roy: Well, okay. We have that in common. [laughter]
Turning Pro
JBC: What was it like for the first time to see your name in print? Did it give you a jolt? Roy: Yeah! It must have been the letters page in Green Lantern #1. The first time really would have been in the fanzines. And even though I knew that we were only doing 150 copies, Xero only printed a couple hundred copies, maybe eventually a few hundred, and I had a letter or two and articles and one All-in-Color piece in there… but it was a thrill to see my name in print, or to see something I wrote in print, like the whole article on the Fawcett heroes besides the Marvel Family characters in Xero, or a letter I might have written. Yeah, I liked that. That was one appeal of it; that’s why
Below: Photo of R.T. from the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper, May 17, 1965. This is just prior to Roy becoming a professional comics writer and editor—the accompanying article states that 24-year old Roy is an English teacher, the publisher of Alter Ego, and that its current circulation is 1,200 copies per issue.
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I recognized instantly that Marie Severin had seen clear through to the heart of me when she did that cartoon of my “first day in sculpting class.” She had done it back in late 1965; I had just known her for four or five months. Here I am in my first day in
sculpting class and I’ve got this big granite block and what have I managed to carve on the first day? The first six letters of my name! [laughter] R-O-Y-T-H-O- and I’m still chiseling away down at the bottom! I loved that from the day I saw it. Not everybody has that feeling, but I’ve always liked seeing my name in print or seeing my work in print. I don’t care for doing stuff anonymously. Once in a while I do, but unless the money is real good, I don’t have a desire to do it just for the sake of doing it if there’s no credit attached to it. JBC: Can you remember the effect of Alter Ego #7 on the readers? Were people excited? Roy: Yeah, I think they could see that this was an exceptional magazine; one of the best fanzines that had come out. There was certainly more substance in certain ways in issues of Xero, which wasn’t entirely a comics fanzine, or in Comic Art, which was. But certainly in the vein of a comic book oriented around the super-heroes, we had the color and the printing… It was generally literate, mainly because I wrote most of it, some under a couple of different pseudonyms—like Rick Strong, the name of one of my roommates. It was literate and Biljo White did a good job imitating C.C. Beck pictures, and Ronn Foss did one or two drawings, and so forth. It was, all in all, a superior production. I look at it now and I think, well, it doesn’t show up too well against the stuff being done now, but you can’t compare it that way, you have to compare it to what was being done then. At that time, it was kind of an advance in comics fanzines. But it was a natural thing; it was evolving. The first three issues were spirit duplicator, the fourth one was photo offset and bound at the side, sort of crudely. The next two by Ronn varied in size and were different sizes and too small, and mine came the closest, even though the dimensions were smaller, to a comic book size. It was a comic book fanzine that looked rather like a slightly smaller comic book. And that was the effect I was looking for. JBC: You gave it up because you went professional?
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1999: ALTER EGO Left: Roy with Michael T. Gilbert in the 1990s.
couple of lines of dialogue, so I had a black-&-white copy of that page and then it was printed without the dialogue. I thought that would be interesting for people to see, how editors change things… especially as I wasn’t that beholden to Marvel anymore. It wasn’t like I was badmouthing the editors, but I wasn’t going to worry that much about whether they wanted that shown or not, unless there was a legal issue. Plus, I had my own memories and different things from the old days. Sketches here and there of things that never got made, or rejected pages or rejected this or whatever that I had saved because I hated to throw stuff away Roy: Before that, I hadn’t really thought about doing it because that had never been printed. How hard could it be to come up I didn’t want to get involved with publishing again. I didn’t want with 10 or 15 pages every few months to talk about some of that to get involved collecting dimes and dollars and trying to keep stuff? I wasn’t really thinking in terms of going out and finding up that kind of schedule. I liked the editing part, but the publish- other people to write for it; I was pretty much thinking I’d be ing stuff, the bookkeeping, that’s not my strong point. doing it all myself, originally. JBC: Was it largesse, or a leap of faith for you to go with these JBC: You naturally fell into having a balance of different stuff: TwoMorrows guys whom you hardly knew? Stuff from your era of working in comics, plus some Golden Age Roy: Well, there must have been a number of issues of The Jack of Gardner Fox, with letters that Michael Gilbert found. That’s Kirby Collector by then. It seemed at least pretty good, basically interesting that you immediately—I would surmise—fell into the on the same professional level as the stuff we had done on Alter role of editor to find a balance, to have a mix. Ego, like Mike’s issue. It seemed like it was in that same vein, Roy: Right, I mean, obviously, since the Golden Age stuff had above or below. Of course, I figured, “Why not?” Originally, it always been an interest of mine. I didn’t have a lot of access to was kind of a lark. I certainly wasn’t thinking of it as anything original stuff, but there were things here and there. Things like that was going to make any money… and I still don’t! [laughter] Jerry Bails might have put into a more obscure publication, like I didn’t think about it in terms of money. It wasn’t going to solve the four missing Gardner Fox JSA stories that have been tracked any problems otherwise, but it might give me something to do. down in varying degrees. At one time, I owned about 10 or 15 It was going to be a quarterly magazine and, you said, what, it pages of original art from one of those—trying to figure out had to fill 14 pages or something like that? what the others were and what they were like, and corresponJBC: Right. dence with Gardner. I was making a mix of Golden and Silver Roy: It became a bigger section in most of the issues, but it Age material. The main thing was, from the beginning, I knew started out to be like 14 pages. I thought, “That’s not that hard.” that I wasn’t going to deal with stuff I myself wasn’t interested My idea was I could deal with certain things about my own cain—unless it had to do with my own work or something close to reer and I wouldn’t have to look up much of anything else to fill it. I was going to basically deal with stuff that led up to the time I something like that four times a year, and a lot of it would be art stopped being editor-in-chief [in 1974]. After that, my interest in work. There wouldn’t be too much for me to do and it sounded keeping up with current comics fell off the edge of the world. like fun… and it was! JBC: How do you recall being in the pages of CBA? Did you JBC: Did you have a pile of material of like, “Hey, maybe some- get any notice from people? Were people happy Alter Ego was day, this stuff can or should see print”? back? Did anyone notice? Roy: Yeah, I had stuff I had kept over time and always thought Roy: I guess so. Did I publish an address in there? I don’t I might use someday. For example, there’s one thing that’s still remember. I’m sure I got faxes and letters right away, so there never been published. (I’m not sure I even have it anymore.) must have been an address in there. When I was doing Doctor Strange, there was a scene in there JBC: Oh, yeah. I think that was a very important thing. I think where Rintrah, a guy who looks like a minotaur, who was Doctor you were seeking material right off the bat. Strange’s apprentice for several years under different people. Roy: Probably so. I don’t know exactly why I decided… but I (I inherited him; I didn’t make him up.) There’s a scene where thought somebody else might pop up with some pages. Around he becomes Alf from TV that Marvel was doing a comic of, too. the third issue, Michael Gilbert—who, of course, has been They decided there was a problem with the Alf contract, so they around ever since—basically provided the flip cover for that suddenly turned him into Howard the Duck. I had a copy of the issue. The first person who came along was Michael, who I think page with him as Alf. just suggested he had some stuff he could make something out I hadn’t saved much from those years; I’d moved around and of. I had him send some stuff and it worked out, so I had him had enough clutter without keeping a lot of copies of old scripts send some more stuff. I don’t know if he’s in the last two issues and things like that, which weren’t going to have much value of Volume 2, but he was in a couple of them, at least. Then, anyway. But I would save pieces of art. There was a Black Knight when it became a magazine on its own, it became inevitable that series, where I was pissed off at the editor because he took out a Michael would be a part of it.
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MICHAEL T. GILBERT ON HIS ALTER EGO ADVENTURE Was it 1965 when I saw my first copy of Alter Ego? Yeah, yeah, I think it was. I was 14, living in Levittown, New York, and swapping comics with a pal who also had a stack of ’zines for trade. I’d never seen a fanzine before, but I was instantly captivated. There were two older issues of Alter Ego in the stack, but the one that especially fascinated me featured Captain Marvel’s arch foe, Black Adam, as depicted by fan artist Biljo White. The art was cruder than the pro comics I collected, and over four times the price (at 50¢ a pop), but inside were stories about mysterious Golden Age heroes completely unknown to me. The book, issue #7 [Fall 1964], included articles on the legendary Justice Society of America, the original Human Torch, and a long piece on Fawcett’s Marvel Family by Roy Thomas. I was hooked! Little did I know that my career would later intersect with Alter Ego‘s editor in ways I couldn’t dream back then. After a little trading, I picked up that and also issue #5 starring Ronn Foss’ ama-hero, The Eclipse. Foss’ drawing of this intriguing character fascinated me. Roy went pro at Marvel in 1965, first as a writer, then editor, but continued publishing Alter Ego on the side. His last issue was #10 in 1969, after which he finally hung up his spurs. By then Roy was far too busy helping Stan Lee run Marvel to continue his beloved Alter Ego. Cut to 1978, when Michael T. Gilbert Roy’s friend Columnist, and fellow Alter Ego writer Mike Born: 1951 Friedrich sugResidence: gesting taking Akron, Ohio over the reins of Alter Ego… Vocation: Cartoonist, Comic Book Writer/Artist though he did so only Favorite Creator: for an issue, 1. Will Eisner, 2. Steve Ditko as things Seminal Comic Book: turned out. Jimmy Olsen #25 Roy agreed,
Roy Thomas: Alter Ego
and Mike’s interviews with cartoonists Bill Everett and Moebius became the issue’s centerpieces. Mike snagged an Everett caricature by Marie Severin for the front cover, with an intricate border illustrated by Everett. A back cover illo by Moebius book-ended the issue. None of the drawings were colored— which is where I come in. By the late ’70s, my comic book career was beginning to take off, and I was drawing comics for Mike, who had graduated from writing to publishing comics. These included Star*Reach and a “funny animal” series, Quack! I’d contributed to both, and when Mike needed someone to color the covers for this new issue of Alter Ego, he asked if I was interested. Was I! Being a part of my beloved Alter Ego, even a very small part, was a dream come true for this fanboy. I
hand-separated the covers, adding spiffy color-holds as a special effect. And that (I assumed) was that for Alter Ego. Ah, but Fate had other ideas! Fifteen years later, a fan named John Morrow decided to produce a fanzine devoted to his idol, Jack Kirby. The Jack Kirby Collector started slow, but soon proved to be a perennial hit. It spawned other comic book-oriented magazines, including Comic Book Artist by Jon B. Cooke. While Jon was planning the first issue in 1998, Roy contacted John Morrow, and offered to write some articles under the Alter Ego masthead. Jon (always the fan!) and John (always the fan!) discussed the possibility of reviving Alter Ego as a mini-magazine within Comic Book Artist. If only they could convince Roy Thomas to restart and edit his old fanzine… Happily for fandom, Roy agreed to it. Two decades after its demise, Alter Ego was coming back! I was living in Eugene, Oregon around that time, home of the Gardner Fox papers. It resided in the University of Oregon’s Special Collections section, minutes from my home. Gardner was a DC mainstay writer for decades, having written some of the earliest stories of Hawkman, The Flash, The Justice Society, and too many other characters to list here. While studying Gardner’s papers, I came across a box of letters sent to Fox by fans beginning in the late ’50s. And among these were several by a young comics enthusiast by the name of Roy Thomas! Back in the early ’80s, Roy and I had worked together on the sword-&-sorcery series Elric of Melniboné. I sent him copies, thinking “Roy The Boy”
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1999: ALTER EGO me first; first I saw it was I read it in a magazine somewhere. JBC: I remember the real coup for me was not only having “Alter Ego,” but in the second issue, we had an interview with Stan Lee that you conducted for my side of the mag. That was like, “How are we ever going to get an interview with Stan?” Violá! Roy Thomas! Roy: That was kind of weird because I did a couple of little ones later on, but this one was fairly major because I got a few things out of Stan that other people hadn’t thought to ask him. I think it was a nice coup to get me interviewing Stan for the first time ever. That was a nice, long interview. A lot of good stuff. JBC: Did you like Comic Book Artist magazine on its own? Going Solo… With Friends Roy: Sure! Some of the parts were on things I wasn’t so interJBC: How do you recall the “divorce” from CBA? ested in, but I’m a big fan and admirer of the comic book field, Roy: I can’t remember who it was, maybe it was John… maybe so whether or not I like a particular comic book or a particular it was one or both of you. Maybe it was at a convention. I have approach, I’m still glad to see that’s there. One issue, you’d covan idea it came from both of you, together, so it was probably er more stuff I’m interested in and another issue, you’d not, but at a convention, rather than on a phone call—suggesting that that’s true of Alter Ego for somebody else. Some people are only I take Alter Ego and make it a magazine all of its own. On the one hand, it would have been kind of fun to do and then I could interested in the Golden Age stuff and some people are only interested in the Silver Age or whatever. But, I always thought you make a couple of bucks, although it wouldn’t have been the did a great job and you always put a lot of work into it. answer to any economic problem. So I kind of accepted it, but I One of the reasons I wanted to get other people to regularly was a little worried, trying to fill whatever length—80 pages, four contribute to A/E and why I went to Bill and Michael, and even times a year—not that there wouldn’t be enough material, but Paul Hamerlinck very quickly, is because I didn’t want to put in just that it was going to be a lot of work and so forth, so I was a as much work as you did on the magazine! [laughter] I really feel little apprehensive about doing it, you might recall. But… like you had—it seems like—a real labor-intensive way of going JBC: I think there was just a slight lag… or maybe you were in there and figuring out how to thoroughly cover the subject preparing for the first issue. I do want to say: In the meantime, and went in there with both barrels blazing, and I had a little I think it was at the time I had just put the Neal Adams issue to more dilettante approach to it, I suppose. bed, I came down and visited John, and then my family and I JBC: John says I used to call it “carpet bombing.” [chuckles] visited you and Dann. That was fun. Roy: Right. I remember that. I think you talked me out of a copy Roy: I suppose it is! I just felt like I could never get that involved in it unless I was really sure it was going to make a lot of monof Bernie Wrightson: A Look Back. ey. [chuckles] I wanted to do it, but I wanted to find a way… I JBC: I did not! You offered it to me! [laughter] Roy: No, no. That’s okay. That’s all right, I don’t mind. It’s okay… mean, I was doing enough work anyway, but I didn’t want to be I probably got rid of it because every time I looked at it I just got responsible for every single page of 80 (or whatever) number of pages. It went up and down. Michael was already doing stuff, mad because once Bernie accused me in print of stealing his so I said, “Well, if you want to do six pages”—he was getting a King Kull artwork. pittance for it, but it seemed like he enjoyed it—and Bill Schelly JBC: See, I was helping you out! [laughter] and I had already done The Best of Alter Ego book together and Roy: Which is funny because later, it turned up—somebody found it for him and he ended up selling it—but he never apolo- he was doing his fandom thing, so if it was going to be a sequel to Alter Ego and the old fanzines, why not have sort of a fandom gized for accusing me of stealing it! thing and deal with fanzines from the ’60s through maybe at JBC: Oh, well. Roy: “It was at the bottom of Roy Thomas’ closet,” I think is the most the early ’70s? Who better to do that than Bill, who liked way he described it. [chuckles] Well, I admired Bernie as an artist, the exposure? We got along well. Then, I’d been getting the but if he had a problem with me, he should have mentioned it to FCA [Fawcett Collectors of America] newsletter for several issues
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and started becoming a regular contributor to FCA. I had my own column for about one issue or so in there. It could be a regular thing if I wanted it. Unbeknownst to me, Paul was apparently running out of steam and feeling like he couldn’t continue it. He had to publish it, you know? He liked gathering all the material, but he didn’t enjoy getting involved in all the publishing either. When I made him that offer, he was very happy to fold FCA into it—without the flip cover—but otherwise not too much unlike how Alter Ego folded into Comic Book Artist that first time around. I’d always stick it at the end and it always had its own cover even though it was an interior cover. Unlike the other things, I felt that FCA had already been a separate magazine, just like Alter Ego had been, and it wasn’t like it was just a department like “Comic Crypt” or “Comic Fandom Archives,” I made it like a magazine within a magazine. And of course, for several years, we had the FCA logo on all the covers. JBC: Did you have a longer history with FCA that went back to FCA/SOB or any early incarnations? Roy: Only in the sense of the unpleasant contacts I had with C.C. Beck. JBC: What was that? Roy: As you can imagine, I’m a big fan of his work, Captain Marvel and everything. I didn’t like what he did in the ’70s, but the stuff in the ’40s and ’50s was great. I was in contact with Otto Binder and he was a big fan. Even though Fatman the Human Flying Saucer hadn’t been too good, Beck was a big talent. I don’t remember where it was, but in various places here and there he began to attack things. He didn’t care that much for the Marvel approach to doing comics and he really went after Barry Smith about the time of some of the early Conans and right before. Beck and I talked occasionally and exchanged letters, and I found him somebody who felt like his view of what comics should be was exactly right and there wasn’t any other way to do it. It had to be that cartoony style that he liked. It wasn’t just Barry Smith, but Mac Raboy, too, who were “betrayers of the pure comics.” I thought that was nonsense because maybe he didn’t like it and maybe I didn’t like it—I hate manga, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s an illegitimate art form, you know? Then he finally stepped over the line. Sometime in the ’70s, he wrote me a letter with a weird conspiracy thing he came up with—just to gather attention and to keep things kind of riled up and, I guess, give him something to do, I don’t know. He said we should have this “hammer and tongs” kind of argument, going at it back and forth
Roy Thomas: Alter Ego
at each other in the magazine, like we had sincerely before. It would be about comics and only we would know that we really respected each other. The idea was to be unpleasant and anything short of name-calling. It’s like we would have a “wink, wink, nod, nod” kind of relationship in it just to garner interest. I said, “I consider that kind of dishonest. If we’re going to argue, we can argue, but I don’t want to have an agreement to argue.” I don’t think we ever had any contact after that, but I continued to respect his work. I bought one of his Marvel Family paintings, but I found him someone I couldn’t really deal with. We were just on a different plane and I was willing to compromise a little bit, but I saw him as someone who wanted it all one way and was unwilling to see another viewpoint. I figured there was no sense in conversing with him any longer. JBC: How did you meet Bill Schelly? Roy: Well, I’m not sure. I think we ran into each other at San Diego conventions and things. I believe one of the first things… we may have had some tiny contact, but mainly he contacted me when he was really getting into high gear or almost finished with his book on comics fandom, in the early ’90s. It was the first big book on fandom. He asked if I’d want to proofread it and write an introduction to it. I think he talked to me about it once or twice. I said fine and I think I proofread it—even made a few suggestions. After that, I was really pleased with that book and he was going off in his own directions, including reprinting some of the old, early comics I had done. Then, strangely enough, Gary Groth brought us together again. (That’s a sentence I never figured I’d say.) [chuckles] Gary—or at least somebody in The Comics Journal, and I have a feeling it was Gary—did a
Above: In Jerry Bails’ hotel room at the 1995 Chicago Comic-Con, where numerous pioneers of comics fandom gathered to reminisce about olden days. Shown are (left to right) Jerry, Howard Keltner, Roy, and Bill Schelly. John and Pam Morrow were there, as were Richard “Grass” Green and others.
Previous page and below: Roy and Neal Adams may disagree on their respective level of input on their Avengers work together, but one thing is not in dispute: It will always be seen as a highwater mark in comics. Here’s an Avengers #93 spread, inked by Tom Palmer.
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shows you how old all these people were. Stan was one of the last and he was almost 96… Who’s left? Al Jaffee from Marvel is still around, Allen Bellman, and I guess Ken Bald, Stan’s old friend, is still alive [Editors note: Ken died the month after this interview was recorded, on Mar. 17, 2019, at 98]—but, there’s almost nobody left who was drawing in the early ’40s—even the late ’40s, when Romita came in. There are so few of them left, especially from the early ’40s. I think Jim got a little depressed and I don’t think he was that interested in going over and interviewing people from the ’60s and ’70s. JBC: For one thing, Jim is a man out of time in a certain way. I think you touched on the fact that he was good friends with a lot of these aging people. Roy: This was back when he was inking… One reason we don’t talk as much as we could is that he’s not inking as much now. He loved to get on the phone and talk while he was inking! So I’m grateful for Jim being the A/E interviewer and being interested in the same time period as I was. Just like I wouldn’t be interested in doing an A/E that dealt with guys from the ’80s—it’s not like I don’t respect those people—it’s just that I wouldn’t personally be interested in doing it. It wouldn’t be something I would especially enjoy. If I did such a mag, it would be a professional thing for money. When I’m working on stuff from the ’40s–’70s, it’s something that is of genuine interest, but my interest drops off after the ’70s, you know? JBC: Did you ever meet Marc Swayze? Roy: I never did face-to-face. I talked to him on the phone occasionally. We got along okay, but I didn’t talk with him on the phone as much as with others. He was a very nice gentleman. I think we probably had different viewpoints on things, but he was a real gentleman. It was so nice to see some of those pieces he did… sometimes they were a little repetitious because, after all, he only worked in one small corner. He worked on the Captain Marvel stuff and Phantom Eagle and a couple of stories for Charlton. That was pretty much it. You can’t write forever on that stuff, but he did a pretty good job of coming close! [laughter] He did it very well. He wrote it well and projected such a nice personality. It was a real pleasure. He came in the package with Paul Hamerlinck, I guess, who had already started working with him when FCA was a separate magazine. JBC: You’ve met Paul? Roy: Yeah, at conventions; not that often. We maybe had a meal or two together and have been on panels together. I don’t know if we’ve ever sat down and had a long conversation. Nowadays,
Roy Thomas: Alter Ego
almost everything is by email, very rarely are there phone calls. Once in a while it’s necessary. Even with any of them, Michael or Bill, and so forth, it’s almost always emails. It’s the same with Richard Arndt, who is the main interviewer now. JBC: How long has your association been with Rich? Roy: Well, I’m not sure. He started edging in doing things about the latter time Jim started edging out. A few years ago, he started wanting to do some interviews. Jim was kind of moving away from it. He had a couple of extended interviews that weren’t exactly cover features: He had that Tony Tallarico interview and there was one other before that were spread out over five or six issues. Richard came along and wanted to do them and kind of picked up the slack as Jim was somewhat dropping the reins. Richard was interested in picking them up. He did a good interview, too, so I figured, “Let’s see how it goes.” I don’t have Richard in quite as many issues as Jim was, but it’s not that he couldn’t be—he has a bunch of things backed up, and it’s just that other things come up—so he’s in about half, or more than half, of the issues. He does a good job as an interviewer. I think he probably has to do more research on things, where Jim was already doing that. Again, he has the main thing that I think a person needs to do that kind of interview: to do thorough preparation. JBC: So did you have to sell Dann on you doing the magazine? Roy: Every day, Jon! Every day! [laughter] JBC: Has it been, at all, a moneymaker for you? Roy: Well, I make money at it. Dann says, “It must be 30¢ an hour.” [chuckles] It makes money. It might be up at five figures a year. It’s nothing that, if it went away tomorrow, it would make a real difference in my life economically, but I like that connection because I’m interested…
Above: The original, unused cover design for Alter Ego #138, featuring Harlan Ellison. Below: A lovely painting of Mary Marvel by Marcus Swayze, the co-creator—”visualizer,” if you will— of the girl super-hero. Swayze’s “We Didn’t Know… It Was the Golden Age” column ran for several years in Alter Ego, recounting his experiences working at Fawcett Comics in the 1940s.
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1999: ALTER EGO Left: Roy will forever be known for his stellar writing on Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, and his barbarian-themed issues of Alter Ego are perennial favorites. Here’s Rafael Kayanan’s luscious cover art for A/E #108.
Roy: If it’s a hobby, it’s taking up way too much time, and if it’s a business, it’s taking up way too much time for not enough money. JBC: Right on, Roy Thomas! [chuckles] Roy: It’s just that we like what we’re doing; we have a respect for the people and history and think it deserves to be… just before Comic Book Artist came out, in that flyer that made me think about becoming part of it, you expressed the idea that it was a Jack Kirby Collector for “the rest of us”—I think that was the expression—to cover the people that weren’t going to be covered in The Jack Kirby Collector. It was a lot of good people. JBC: Absolutely. Did you ever imagine that you’d be at… what? Number 156? Roy: I’m working on #159 and #157 is out, but no, no, it’s amazing! People ask, “How can you do 150 issues?” They look at this on the shelf or I’ve been giving them all this stuff. “Well, you just do one and a couple of months later, you do another one. All of a sudden, you realize you’ve done 157 issues!” It’s not like you set out… if you thought about doing 100 or 200 issues, you would have run away from it and not done it. But, you start work and it kind of piles up. Nothing has come along that takes away enough time. I’ve been getting other work. Right now, luckily, I have enough time to do it, but I’ve got a Conan assignment from Marvel and a Captain America & The Invaders assignment, to do a special of that. Plus about five or six—mostly for Marvel, but some for DC—introductions to books that are fairly long. Some of those for omnibuses are 6,000– One thing I hate, but don’t get angry at, is when I see people 7,000 words long, you know? in CAPA-Alpha say that this is our “hobby.” That’s not a word I’ve JBC: Right. ever used for it. I think of chess as a hobby, a game I like to play. Roy: Okay, those don’t quite pay for themselves, but I get a But I never thought of comics as a “hobby.” I thought of it as book or two. On the one hand, it would be nice to do more an interest or avocation, all kinds of things. “Hobby” seems too comics, but if I went back to doing one or two comics a month… weak a word for it. I just never think of it that way. Dann refers to if something like that happened, I wouldn’t have time to do Alter Alter Ego as my mistress because when I spend time with it, I’m Ego because it is something that will eat up an indefinite number not spending time with her. I think she liked the idea more when of hours. I have to keep it down… I run into this all the time with we were having all the interviews with all the old people before contributors, you probably do, too: They give you an idea and they died off, because you’re giving recognition to people who a couple months later want to know how it’s coming and I say, haven’t had a lot in their life; they haven’t had their say and to be “I haven’t thought about it. I’m three issues ahead of that right recognized for what they did. I think she appreciated that aspect now. I have to get it going, but I can’t be devoting that much of it. Of course, now, it’s still true; people are still dying off. Now time or thought to it.” Your situation may be different. Mine is I the Silver Age people are dying and, for that matter, I’m editing try to keep all those plates spinning, but I have to concentrate obituaries for people I’m not that familiar with. on one issue at a time or I’d go nuts. But Dann doesn’t mind my doing the magazine. She would JBC: You’ve never missed a deadline? probably feel I spend too much time on it—and you may have Roy: Well, sometimes we’re a little later than usual but not really. the same problem, Jon. There’s a line from the wonderful Audrey Some of that has to with the production people, particularly as Hepburn/Albert Finney movie, Two for the Road: “You have only Dann calls him, “Saint Chris Day” [for photo, see page 115]. You two speeds: 110 and stop!” I think that’s the way people like us and a few other people have also done issues and done them so are. If we do something, we go all in for it. The idea of casually well, but Chris has done so many. doing it and not really caring about it or devoting the time that’s JBC: What’s it like working with him? necessary is not in our character, so you have to be “all in,” one Roy: Well, I can only look at my side. I guess since he went away way or another. My “all in” is a little different kind of thing than for a while and then when we needed somebody, he was happy yours is, but it’s still “all in” in its own way. to come back. He said he’d do it for a year, and he’s been doing JBC: I wonder if that’s the connection you, me, and John share. it for two or three years now, so I guess he doesn’t mind. I think We have respect for it. It’s not a hobby. it’s great. I give him the work and he puts it together intelligently
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2000: ALTER EGO
If You Worked in Comics, You Deserve to be Remembered Jim Amash
Interviewer, Associate Editor of Alter Ego Born: 1960 Residence: Greensboro, North Carolina Vocation: Comic book artist Favorite Creator: Jack Kirby Seminal Comic Book: Too many to choose from! A major component of TwoMorrows’ version of Alter Ego is its relentless search for the life stories of creators from comics’ past. Few have done more to find and celebrate those unsung heroes than interviewer Jim Amash.
Below: TwoMorrows books Jim has co-authored—just a few of hopefully many more to come!
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The Acme Years
Eric Nolen-Weathington: How did you first hear about TwoMorrows? The Kirby Collector? Jim Amash: I met John back in ’86, when I was working at Acme Comics [the Greensboro, North Carolina comic book store] and we had Jack Kirby as a guest at our convention. John found out about it a couple of months or so after it happened and was really upset. I remember when he came in, and he was asking about Kirby. He was so sorry he’d missed it. It was killing him, you know? He drove all the way from Raleigh to Greensboro, just to hear about the convention, so I thought, “Well, that guy likes Kirby.” [laughter] ENW: That’s about an hour and 45-minute drive. Jim: Right! That was the first time I met John, but the first time I heard about The Jack Kirby Collector was from Bob Millikin, who used to work for Acme Comics after I left and became a comic book artist. He heard that there was a Kirby Collector magazine that was going to come out, and I think I got John’s phone number and called him, and John was surprised that I remembered him. I didn’t remember him by name, but we had talked when he came in the shop, so I remembered him. And because he knew I was a big Kirby fan, he gave me a comp copy, and then gave me comp copies after that! Of course, I was thrilled about it. And I contributed to the magazine some over the years. I contributed some photographs, a few Kirby pencil pieces that nobody had seen. Well, one had been seen in the
Jack Kirby Masterworks, an unused splash of Black Panther. I wrote a couple of small articles and I did interviews with John Severin, Mike Royer, and Joe Sinnott, all about inking Kirby. I may have done one more, but it’s hard to remember after all this time. ENW: Was that the first time you ever interviewed someone, or had you done interviews at the shows you ran? Jim: I’d interviewed people at the shows. And then I’d interviewed a few people in the APA [Amateur Press Association ’zine] that I was in. I’d interviewed Alex Toth, too. Alex was the first formal (even if it was kind of informal) interview I ever did. We talked every single night, sometimes more than once, and we talked about interesting stuff, I felt, and he felt that too, otherwise he wouldn’t have talked to me. [laughs] He was not always a patient man, you know. [laughter] Anyway, I wanted to do an interview, and also kind of have a record of our calls, but the problem with that was Alex got really uptight about it, and I wasn’t getting the kind of answers that I had hoped to get. But I did get an interview out of it, and then later I called him and filled in a few things. That was the first interview I conducted that was not done at a convention. ENW: And when was that? Jim: That would have been about 1990. I published it in the APA a year or two later, and then Jon Cooke reprinted it in Comic Book Artist. ENW: And, just for context, at what point did you start working professionally as an inker?
The World of TwoMorrows
Jim: Nineteen ninety-two. ENW: Okay, so you were talking to guys before you even broke in to the industry. Jim: Well, Acme Comics put on a convention every year, so I got to know a lot of people through the years. You know me: I’m a guy that’s easy to talk with, so I’d go to a couple of other conventions and meet people and talk with them, and before I knew it, I knew people! [laughter] I wasn’t trying to make connections to get into comics by knowing all these people. In fact, none of the people I met at conventions got me into comic books. They helped me, because I would send my work out, and Alex Toth would criticize my work, and very gently—certainly a lot more gently than he criticized other people. I accused him, “Alex, I think you’re kind of soft on me because you like me.” His thundering answer was, “Like hell I am!” [laughter] “I’m not cutting you any slack! I just think you’re better than you think you are. At least you’re doing honest work. You’re not trying to be showy; you’re trying to tell a story.” There were other people: Gray Morrow, Pat Boyette, Steranko, Dan Barry. I could spend some time on how Dan Barry taught me things about figure drawing and stuff like that. He was very important for me to understand some things: composition. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in fine arts, so I had an easier time breaking into comics because I had an art background, and I was doing fine art before I was doing comic books. And I had a couple of cartoons published in Amazing Heroes way back, sometime in the ’80s. ENW: I didn’t know that! Jim: I forgot about that myself. [laughter] Tom Heintjes, a buddy of mine, had gone to work for Fantagraphics and became editor of The Comics Journal. One day he just said, “You ought to submit a couple of cartoons to Amazing Heroes.” I did and they were accepted. I remember one of them was an editorial about how Marvel had treated Kirby by not wanting to return his artwork, and making him sign that long form. I knew Jack, and I certainly was going to do something about that, and I did what little one man who’s not in the business could do, which is complain. [laughter] I always told my customers about it. Years before I got into comics, I’d tell people what I believed about the Lee and Kirby creation process, and that Jack was, at the very least, the co-creator, which sometimes Stan would say that, and often he didn’t. And when he gave a deposition in the Kirby Family v. Disney lawsuit, Stan claimed he created everything, which was not true.
Jim Amash: Interviewer Extraordinaire
ENW: No. [laughter] Jim: Anyway, I became, not a frequent contributor, but I contributed some to the Kirby Collector, and I actually got to know John.
Above: A recent HeroesCon (Charlotte, North Carolina) encounter between Roy Thomas and Jim. Photo by Heidi Amash.
Working With Roy
ENW: When did you first encounter Roy Thomas? Jim: I believe I met Roy in ’93. Somebody was putting on a small show in Charlotte and knew what a Roy Thomas fan I was, and thought it’d be cool to sit us next to each other, which really was great. We had a great time. Immediately started talking—two big talkers at the same time. [laughter] Nobody else got a word in. I got to ask him some questions, informally, of stuff I was interested in, and he asked a little about me, and that’s how Roy and I got to be friends, I mean literally from that moment on! And then, of course, later Roy started doing Alter Ego on the flip-side of Comic Book Artist, and then A/E became a magazine on its own again after many years of lying dormant. I didn’t contribute to the earliest issues, because there was something about Roy that I didn’t realize. I was talking to Bill Schelly at the San Diego convention about him, and he said, “You’ve got to understand something with Roy: unless Roy knows that you know a lot about something, the best way, if you want to do something for Roy, is to approach Roy.” I’d been waiting for Roy to approach me, but I guess he was so busy, because he was still doing comic books, running the farm, running the magazine—you know, having a real life. [laughter] I’m sure I wasn’t on his radar when it came to the early issues, so I took Bill’s advice and called Roy, who said, “What do you have in mind?” I said, “There are two guys that really need to be interviewed. One is Vince Fago, because he was the main [Timely] editor when Stan Lee was in
Below: 2011’s Alter Ego: Centennial (a.k.a. Alter Ego #100) featured the first extensive interview with Jim about his work documenting comics history.
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2000: ALTER EGO military service during World War II.” He’d been interviewed once, but very inadequately, I felt, and he was hardly mentioned by Marvel’s 50th anniversary book, in ’89, because they wanted to focus on the Marvel Age rather than pre-Marvel Age. And I said, “The other person is Gill Fox,” who had given a great interview to Steranko for his History of Comics. But I felt like there was more that Gill Fox could say. And since these men were in their 80s, I figured you just can’t wait around. Roy says, “Great idea. I was thinking about interviewing Vince myself, but I’ll be happy to let you do it.” So, I interviewed both men. Roy was exceptionally pleased, because he didn’t know what I was going to do. He didn’t give me any guidelines; he just figured I knew what I was doing. Roy’s like that: If he has faith and trust in you, he’ll let you do your own work, because he knows that’s how you get the best work out of somebody, instead of standing over their shoulder all the time. So when I did that—and I gave Roy a John Belfi interview that I had published in an APA as well—Roy was very pleased and asked if I wanted to become associate editor of the magazine, and I said, “Yes!” ENW: Sucker! [laughter] Jim: Yeah, he didn’t know any better! I claim he was drinking! I actually don’t know if Roy drinks, but we’re going to claim it anyway! [laughter] ENW: What did being an associate editor entail, for you? Jim: It meant that I could pitch ideas. It meant that Roy could use me as a sounding board. For many years, I was the first person he would talk to, more often than not. I was more of a sounding board than either Bill or Michael T. Gilbert. I think I was handier, because I was awake all the time. You know I don’t sleep much. And because the interviews I was doing were going to be bigger parts of the magazine by page count. Usually, Mike and Bill’s sections were anywhere from five to ten pages each, depending on what they wanted to do that particular issue, but some of my interviews were going 20–50 pages. Sometimes Roy would call me up and say, “This is what I’m thinking of doing for scheduling for the next six months,” or the next year, or whatever. And he’d go over it with me, and I remember one time, I said, “You’ve got two DC issues in a row. Do you want to do two DC issues in a row?” Roy said, “No, I wouldn’t. I’d like to switch to a different subject for each issue. Okay, I’ll put that one back a month, and then I’ll move this Marvel one in between.” That was something I appreciated: Roy always appreciated and asked for my input. And he has never, never, never once treated me like a subordinate, but as an equal. It’s my favorite working relationship I’ve ever had with anybody connected with comics. Roy made it very easy to work for him. I stayed as long
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as I did because of Roy, who never questioned why I interviewed this or that person, because he understood what I was trying to do. There were a few people he did suggest I interview. Lily Renée may have been his suggestion. But he just let me do what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t even tell him who I was interviewing most of the time. I would do an interview, and when I was done with the transcriptions and all the editing I felt needed to be done, I’d send it to him, and that would be when Roy would find out what I was doing. I usually did not tell him in advance. When he made me associate editor, he said, “You have carte blanche to do whatever you want.” And I said, “Great!” He said, “Well, who are you going to talk to next?” He was just being curious. I said, “Stan Goldberg!” Of course, Roy knew Stan, worked with Stan, admired Stan—and that was mutual by the way. Stan Goldberg really liked Roy a lot. I had felt that Stan was almost completely ignored in that Marvel 50th Anniversary book, and since Stan was the color designer of the Marvel universe, and it was hardly ever touched upon, I was determined to do something about that, and get him to talk about coloring the heroes and villains. Because he colored all the covers up until, I guess, ’65, or ’66, and he colored some afterwards even. Even when he was working at Archie, he still found time to occasionally color for Marvel in the ’60s through the 1980s. I don’t believe there’s a single Marvel hero or villain before ’66 that wasn’t color designed by Stan Goldberg, and I felt like that deserved a lot of attention. ENW: Had you started working for Archie Comics by that point? Jim: Yes, I had actually. I started there in ’96. ENW: Did you already know Stan then? Jim: No, I didn’t! [laughter] I called up my editor, Victor Gorelick, and I told him what I had in mind, and I said, “Could I have Stan’s phone number?” And so he gave it to me. I called up Stan and he knew who I was, because he’d seen my work in Archie comics. We had only worked together on a one-pager, that, frankly, I didn’t like the inks I did. Stan didn’t like the inks I did either. [laughter] Stan was kind of picky, but he was such a gentleman, I know he was reluctant to say anything. He didn’t admit that until I told him that was my first job for Archie, and I said, “I wish I had done better.” I want to spend a little time here on Stan, not just because we were such dear, close friends, and I ended up being one of his main inkers. Bob Smith was his all-time favorite inker, and Stan said I was his second favorite all-time inker, regarding his Archie work. I can’t imagine he liked me more than Bill Everett. [laughter] But that was Millie the Model stuff. Stan had been interviewed, of course, numerous times, but not really about
The World of TwoMorrows
they told me something, and I had it on tape. But if somebody tells me, “I want to say something, but it’s off the record,” I always shut the machine off. They wouldn’t have known whether or not I did, but I did, because I wasn’t going to be dishonest. If they trusted me enough, then I owed it to them to be honest with them. But some of the things don’t matter now. One person I interviewed, frankly, was a racist, and I had to do some editing, because I didn’t want my name on something like that, and I cut some of that out. And I’m not sorry I did it. People can say, “Well, that’s not being objective.” Well, that’s too bad. There are certain words that I would not use, and it wasn’t even protecting them so much as, you get a story that’s that kind of repugnant, and I just didn’t want to print that. And it’s not me being politically correct, because you know I’m not. But I think it’s a matter of taste, and discretion, and dignity. When we did the Matt Baker book, we had to decide what were we going to do on the subject of Matt Baker’s sexuality. We wrestled with that for a long, long while. ENW: Oh, yeah, we definitely wanted to get at least a couple of different sources of corroboration. Jim: Right, and the main thing is, I don’t think either of us really doubted that we had to print it, because it was part of the man’s life story, but at the same time, we didn’t want Matt Baker to be defined by that. I didn’t think that would be right. The art is what mattered. Or, if it’s a writer, the writing is what matters. You’ll notice in a lot of my interviews, there’s only so much personal information that I print, because I usually didn’t ask that many personal questions. Sometimes something about their personal life was relevant to the story at hand, and sometimes not. When their personal life was important to their career, then yeah, you put it in, but I was doing comics biography, not necessarily life biography of the individuals I talked to. ENW: Do you have any particular standout favorite interviews you did for Alter Ego? Jim: Joe Simon, Jerry Robinson, Stan Goldberg— especially in Stan’s case, I was friends with all three of them until they died. Al Jaffee, certainly. Al has a near photographic memory, and gave me tons of stuff about working at Timely. I’ve interviewed Roy about his career every decade up into the ’90s. My favorite is the first part of the decade when Roy was getting going before the responsibilities of the editor-in-chief, because Roy was able to spend more time with people than he was able to later. I always found Roy’s memory to be very good. But there are just so many interviews that I did, that it’s
Jim Amash: Interviewer Extraordinaire
hard to pick just a few—maybe the longer ones. Mike Esposito was another favorite interview. That one was so long we had to break it up into two issues, because Mike is a great storyteller. He didn’t tell me everything either! That’s another thing about Roy: I never had a page count. Not once. Most magazines have a word count limit or a page count limit. I never had any restriction. I told Roy, “I’m going to go wherever information leads me, and whatever information is relevant to the subject of comic book history is what I’ll hand you.” And it didn’t bother him a bit. There were only a couple times he ever cut anything, and one time was for an X-Men issue. He was publishing a transcript of an X-Men panel in San Diego, and in the Dave Cockrum interview, we had a few paragraphs that covered the same ground as in the panel, and Roy said that he didn’t really want the redundancy. He said, “I can cut it from the panel, but that would seem awkward. How would you feel if I cut it from the interview?” I said, “You know, you’re right. Once said is enough for the issue, it’s not going to bother me if you cut
Above: One that got away…for now. Jim’s efforts on the Lou Fine spotlight in Alter Ego #17 [Sept. 2002], cover seen below, led to plans for a solo book on the extraordinarily talented Golden Age artist, in conjunction with Modern Masters maven Eric Nolen-Weathington. Originally announced a decade ago, real-life got in the way of the co-authors, but don’t be surprised to see it completed in the near future.
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it from my interview.” The point is, you see how thoughtful he was. And I felt that was important, because of his consideration. One of the few times I got into trouble was with the John Romita interview. I edit heavily. The problem was with John, I couldn’t cut the excess, the immaterial, out of that interview, like I could some others. I called Roy, I said, “Roy, we’ll never be able to publish this in one issue. It’s just not possible. It’s too long! What do you want to do?” He said, “Well I don’t mind doing two issues.” I said, “Roy, I think this would be three issues!” He said, “Well, that’s probably a little too much if its most of three issues.” Roy gave it some thought and said, “How about if we turn it into a book? How do you feel about that?” I said, “Well, that sounds fine to me!” So we got off the phone, he called John Morrow, John said, “Great idea!” Roy called me back, “John said, ‘I think it’s a great idea!’ What do you think?” I said, “I think it’s a great idea!” And that’s how the books came about! The interview with Carmine Infantino ended up being a book for that reason, but when I interviewed Carmine, I interviewed him a couple times, in shorter interviews. But we’d talk every day, sometimes two or three times a day, and every so often Carmine would say something that I hadn’t heard out of him before, something that was really cool to learn. One day, we were talking about John Ford Westerns, and how John Ford had influenced him, and I said, “Carmine, how would you feel if you said that again, and I taped it?” He said, “Why do you want to do that?” I said, “Carmine, you’ve never talked about that in any kind of depth. This was great, and I think it ought to be preserved.” He said, “Are you going to print it?” And I said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, I just want to save it first.” So he said okay. Of course, the retelling wasn’t quite as good as the first time. Anyway, sometimes, with his permission, I would record him. I’d say, “Carmine, there’s a couple things I want to ask you.” It was all very informal. So I had hours and hours of tape of Carmine and I talking. A lot of times it was nothing important, nothing to do with comics, and often it was. Eventually, Carmine said, “Why don’t we turn this into an interview?” I said okay, so we did a formal interview. And, of course, we had the same problem that we had with John Romita. We couldn’t fit it all into a magazine, even two issues. So it became a book. And sometimes Carmine would be kind of antsy about it.
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ENW: He went back and forth on whether to actually do it or not. Jim: Right, he was afraid of offending a certain person, to which I said, “Nonsense! Anybody can publish a book if they want to as long as they have the legal right. Carmine, did you know that more books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any man in the history of the world?” He said no, and I said, “Carmine, if we took your attitude literally, there would be one book on Abraham Lincoln.” Eventually, between that and a couple of other things, Carmine agreed to the book. Sal was the second book we did together. Same problem with the Sal Buscema interview; it was too long for Alter Ego. I want to say this about the Sal and Carmine books: since they were originally supposed to be done for Alter Ego, I went to Roy each time and explained the trouble. And Roy didn’t want to do any more collaborations. He had enough to do. I wasn’t going to put them in book form without Roy’s consent, since they were originally done for Roy, and he was great about saying, “Don’t worry about it. Go ahead and do it. If you get a chance to turn it into a book and make yourself some money, I’m not going to stand in your way. It’s not going to bother me.” For many years, I proofread Alter Ego, too. Sometimes I’d be inking comics, and I’d quit working at three or four in the morning, and then work on Alter Ego until six in the morning, go to sleep, wake up about ten o’clock, and do Alter Ego for an hour or two, whether I had to interview somebody, or I had to write something, and then I would go back to inking. That was a grueling schedule for many years. One Christmas Eve, I had an issue to proofread. So my wife Heidi drove us to my mother’s house, and I proofread in the car, and I proofread until all my brothers and sisters started coming in. And when I got home, I finished proofreading. It was just a lot of work that I had going on between Alter Ego and comics. Alter Ego never made me a lot of money, but I never did this for the money. Of course, I wanted to get paid, because payment’s there, but this was on account of love. Roy doesn’t make a fortune out of this; Roy does it for love. He understands the importance of this. I want to say something about Brian K. Morris: I was doing my own transcription, and I edited as I transcribed. After I transcribed, I’d edit again, and Roy would edit, then send it back,
The World of TwoMorrows
2001: CONTEMPORARY BOOKS
The Fever Dreams of George Khoury George Khoury
Author, Kimota!: The Miracleman Companion, True Brit, Image Comics: The Road to Independence, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, Comic Book Fever Born: 1971 Residence: Princeton, New Jersey Vocation: Freelance Writer/Author/Editor Favorite Creator: Alan Moore Seminal Comic Book: Star Wars #68 Author George Khoury goes to great lengths to help TwoMorrows reach new audiences—even traveling alongside CBA editor Jon B. Cooke to Northhampton, England in 2002 to visit Alan Moore.
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If there’s a Cousin Itt listed in the Official Handbook of the TwoMorrows Universe, that would be moi. Like Itt, I’ve been sporadic in my guest appearances over the last three decades and I only speak when spoken to because I tend to drag a conversation on much too long and no one wants that. Outside of a few members of the TwoMorrows family, no one seems to understand my high-pitched gibberish or why I do the things that I do. It hasn’t been easy being this misunderstood, but please know that my aim is true and that every word I put down for TwoMorrows Publishing was done purely for the love of comic books. Because I wear my heart on my sleeve and can’t imagine living in a world without my favorite medium. My road to TwoMorrows began in 1995, when I was a Marvel intern “Zombie,” during my senior year of college. I had arrived at the “House of Ideas” after having spent two years working in a small financial firm where I had slowly realized that management didn’t see any potential in making me a full-timer, despite bestowing various empty promises. Looking for something fulfilling for myself and my future, I applied for an unpaid editorial internship at Marvel Comics with the high hopes of finding a learning experience and mentorship
there, but got neither from my four-month investment. Feeling disenfranchised, I went back to my dead-end job at the firm, continued searching for solid employment, and even made the costly mistake of taking Master’s of Business Administration classes in the hopes of making me a more attractive job applicant to potential employers. (Spoiler: it didn’t.) When life kicked back, I suddenly felt that I needed an outlet to bring some joy into my life when I needed it most: through writing. All throughout the early and mid-1990s, I had a subscription to the Comics Buyer’s Guide and it was there where I first saw something about John Morrow and The Jack Kirby Collector. The death of Kirby had affected everyone. I still remember where I was where I first saw this somber news on the front page of USA Today: paying for lunch at the Saint Peter’s College cafeteria. To later read about how such a somber moment inspired someone to celebrate the life of their favorite comic book creator, with a passionate fanzine authorized by the Kirby estate, was right in my wheelhouse.
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Albeit short, those early Kirby Collector issues were alluring to me and packed a nice punch when I finally saw them on sale at Jim Hanley’s Universe in good ol’ New York City. I only picked up issue #6 because the Kirby/Sinnott Darkseid versus Orion cover appealed to me. My wallet and I were on a low budget, but it wasn’t long before I came back for more of the ’zines. TJKC #16, with the Frank Miller-inked cover art and feature, was the one that finally convinced me that maybe I, with my contemporary interest, had something to contribute to TwoMorrows. In my head, the hardcore Kirby fanatics were an older bunch who experienced the King in his prime and bought his work when it was brand-new on the newsstand, before I was born or cognizant of the world around me. This issue made everything about Kirby’s world much more relatable to me. Also, this was the ish where I really took a shine to Jon B. Cooke’s work, whose energetic flair helped to turn this fanzine into a full-fledged magazine. I made first contact with John Morrow in 1997 through a phone call. By that time, I had already started my so-called freelance writing phase and done a little work for small publications—CBG and Creative Screenwriting—and had just enough confidence to pitch my work around to other publications I enjoyed reading. To my surprise, I remember Mr. Morrow was amiable during my suggestion to interview Warner Brothers animation guru Bruce Timm about his strong Kirby influence. This was a bit of a surreal experience because, until that point, all the editors I’d ever met were generally arrogant wherever I went, and dismissive when it came to cold pitches. Yeah, TJKC didn’t pay for articles but, money or not, I approached my work there with the same degree of devotion because I don’t know any other way to put together an article. For me, you’re either all in or not at all. Apparently, the Timm interview [TJKC #21] was good enough for John as a year or so later he was receptive to my next offer for a virtual Kirby
panel with a gigantic Who’s Who of 24 all-star comic book creators, as well as a feature interview with Alex Ross that was all included in the same issue [#27]! From there, I did interviews with Alan Moore [#30], Ladrönn [#31], and most of the brilliant Fantastic Four creators who followed Lee and Kirby on the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” [#32]. My last real contribution to TJKC was simply to suggest one of my favorite Kirby pieces for the cover of #34 when the editor/publisher was telling me that he was stumped, and he surprised me by taking my suggestion. Again, John was the first editor I ever dealt with who had an open mind and, more importantly, was willing to listen to my fever dreams, and that meant a lot to me around the close of the last century because it encouraged me to keep on writing, whether it was for TwoMorrows, other publications, or myself. Around the summer of 1999, my frustrating job-hunting was taking a toll on me, and the notion of pitching articles to publications was beginning to be a hopeless, soul-draining experience. I started to withdraw from freelance work and stopped dealing with editors who didn’t want my work. I didn’t go to any fancy Ivy League schools or have friends in high places, or necessarily have a background or a face that anyone wanted to be around, so my options were limited at best. Instead, I wanted more than ever to do the things that I wanted to do on my own, and started work on Gotcha!, my own fanzine—and the very first thing that I wanted to explore was the story of Miracleman and of the comic book creators behind the character and stories that I always cherished. Even with its pedigree of having an epic saga written by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, two giants in the comics industry even 20 years ago, the Miracleman saga was lost in a legal limbo
Above: George Khoury joined up with TwoMorrows like a house on fire, particularly when he formed a massive virtual panel, bringing together 24 all-star comic book creators who shared their views on the King of Comics. His efforts appeared in Kirby Collector #27, behind a Kirby/Bruce Timm cover. Below: George’s much-acclaimed Miracleman companion book, Kimota!, started off as a fanzine called Gotcha! Its cover was designed by CBA editor Jon B. Cooke, with art by Mark Buckingham, doing a pastiche of a Captain Marvel ashcan that Fawcett Comics made in 1939 for trademark purposes.
Back in 2000, I had asked John Morrow if he would consider designing the cover of my ’zine, Gotcha!, because I wanted it to look good—he turned me down because he didn’t have time, but suggested that I speak with Jon B. Cooke. I knew and liked Jon’s work from The Jack Kirby Collector and Comic Book Artist, and I looked forward to finally speaking to him. Not only did JBC create a simply irresistible design, he refused my money for the assignment—it was a gesture that I never forgot. Afterward, we finally worked together on Kimota and Image Comics: The Road to Independence. I moved up to the big leagues and wrote for his magazines Comic Book Artist and Comic Book Creator for more years than I have fingers. — George Khoury
George Khoury: Comic Book Fever Dreams
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2001: DRAW!
The Art of Making Draw! Magazine A Sketchy Start
Mike: Yes, Dave is a musician and my brother Marc has dabbled in everything from music to photograJon B. Cooke: What’s your middle name, Mike? Editor, Draw! phy. My family is very creative. Mike Manley: Cole, like Nat King Cole. JBC: What was the subject of your father’s photogJBC: Where are you from? Born: 1961 raphy? What made him outstanding? Mike: I’m from Detroit, Michigan; grew up and Residence: lived there until I was 13. Then I moved to Ann Ar- Mike: He did a lot of landscapes and human interUpper Darby, bor, Michigan. I lived there until I moved to Philly in est. He has boxes of photos of us as kids—whatevPennsylvania the summer of 1984. I’ve been out east since then. er struck his interest, but he’s taken tons and tons Vocation: Comics, of great landscape photos. One award he won was JBC: Did you have creative people in your family? animation, and for a dog looking in a window or a door, waiting for Mike: Yes. Actually, my grandfather was what you newspaper strip artist would now call a “display letterer.” He was a com- his master to return. I remember that as a kid. Favorite Creator: mercial artist. Back in the day before computers did JBC: The subject of your mom’s paintings? Jack Kirby Mike: I remember her doing pen-&-inks and I everything, he used to do the hand lettering, like Seminal Comic Book: in the supermarket… big signs. He worked all over remember still-lifes. The Kirby Jimmy Olsens JBC: What kind of upbringing did you have? Suband had several accounts: car dealerships, superFurthering TwoMorrows’ urban? How would you characterize it? markets. My mom was artistic. She used to draw trend of having its fan Mike: Middle/working class. and paint and my dad is a fantastic photographer. publications produced by There are definitely artistic inclinations in my family. JBC: What did your dad do? professionals, a new line Mike: Initially, he worked for the board of educaJBC: Is your father professional or amateur? of “how-to” publications tion and then for the post office. Originally, he was Mike: Amateur. I think he wanted to be a photostarts taking shape with a mailman and eventually inside as a clerk. journalist at one time, and he still takes a lot of the introduction of Draw! JBC: Your mom was a housewife? great photos. He has Instagram and Facebook magazine, edited by top Mike: Yeah, she was a housewife and a good mom; comics artist Mike Manley. accounts, and he’s won a lot of awards. she didn’t have a job outside the house until I was JBC: What’s your father’s name? in my mid-teens—pretty much like a lot of people Mike: Pierre. Mom’s first name is Nancy. who grew up in my generation. JBC: She was being creative when painting? Inset right: Mike Manley, set up in Mike: Yeah. I must have JBC: That’s when the latchkey generation began. Artist’s Alley, in 2005, to promote his own Action Planet self-publish- been early teens, when ing imprint, as well as his various I remember she was Draw!-related publications. taking art classes at a local community college for a while. Looking back, there were always a lot of reproductions of art on the wall at home. There was always art around. They’d take us to the art museums around Detroit. JBC: You have siblings? Mike: Yeah, two brothers. My middle brother is Dave and my youngDraw! est brother is Marc. First Issue: 3/1/2001 JBC: Are they creative?
Mike Manley
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Mike: Yeah, in the ’70s and ’80s. JBC: Did you have newspapers in the house? Mike: Yes, the Detroit Free Press and, later on, the Ann Arbor News. JBC: The accompanying comic strips… did they impress you at all? Mike: Thinking back, yes. Probably more as a kid— Peanuts, Wizard of Id, and B.C.—those are what I remember. I remember looking at Steve Canyon, when Caniff was still doing it. I remember thinking the way he would draw mouths was a little weird, an odd style to me as a kid. Flash Gordon and Steve Roper and Mike Nomad—I remember those as a kid, but I got more into reading the strips probably from Scholastic. They’d have those reprint books in school. You could get these Charlie Brown reprint books. I think I saw that stuff more through there and I was probably into comics and stuff because my dad was into comics. He would tell us about the comics he read as a kid. He read The Spirit. I didn’t know any of that stuff at the time. He liked Popeye and The Phantom, which is ironic because that’s what I do now! He’s more excited about me doing The Phantom than maybe anything else. JBC: [Chuckles] What’s the first comic you remember? Mike: There are probably others I read before this, but there’s one I read that fascinated me. It
2001 Mike Manley: Draw!
2002
was a Superman, and on the cover there’s some guy made out of crystal laying in some kind of sarcophagus. I was trying to find it and eventually I found a copy online. That’s the first comic; I loved Superman as a kid. It was probably my favorite comic book, although I loved Batman, but I liked Superman the most. JBC: Were you exposed to the TV show at all? Mike: Yeah, I watched The Adventures of Superman, and like other kids growing up in the ’60s, I watched the Batman TV show. For us, a big thrill was we could go over on Sunday night to my grandparents’ house and watch their color TV. I remember the transformative experience of being able to see your favorite TV show in color! It was so shocking and dramatic! My favorite show was Lost in Space and I remember seeing an episode in color and seeing the robot’s claws were red. “His claws are red? That’s so awesome!” I was so used to seeing everything in black-&-white, so seeing in a whole other dimension was pretty cool. Like everybody, I loved Space Ghost and The Impossibles, and Frankenstein Jr. was one of my favorites. It’s pretty horrible to watch now and Space Ghost is pretty horrible, too! There were some nice drawings and some terrible drawings. The stories don’t
This page: Above is young Mike (circa 1971, in Detroit) honing his artistic skills, and meeting idol Jack Kirby at the 1983 San Diego Comic-Con. Below is The Phantom by Mike, a current assignment.
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including delivering work to the clients. I worked for him for a couple of years and I learned a lot from him. When I went to Washtenaw Community College, I wanted to learn how to draw the figure better. I originally wanted to go to art school, but my parents didn’t plan for it. Nobody said, “Okay, Mike. This is where you want to go; this is how you go about applying for it. This is how you apply for financial aid.” There was nothing there for that. It was not something that was planned. Dad said, “Oh, you can go to Washtenaw,” and I was there, but they weren’t teaching me anything—the pasteup, all that commercial process—I had already been doing that stuff. Why am I going to pay somebody to teach me something I already know how to do? Wanting to know how to draw the figure and paint better—they weren’t teaching all that. There was a live model, but the teacher wasn’t coming around and saying, “This is how you put the bones in, proportion, this or that.” I got frustrated and quit and followed the path of self-learning all the way until I went back to college at 45 to finish my undergrad degree and, in 2013, I started and finished my master’s degree. I came back to it because I was teaching. I started teaching in the early 2000s, not too long after I started Draw!, which led me to teaching because a friend of mine, Charlie Parker, who does a lines and colors blog, was teaching at DCAD, Delaware College of Art and Design, and they were looking for somebody to teach storyboard class, which is what I was doing at the time. I went down and talked to the Dean and the head of the animation department. I showed them my stuff and the magazine. They hired me and I started teaching. After I started I thought, “I really like teaching,” so I decided at that time because people said, “If you want to teach, you need to finish your degree.” There are two ways of teaching in America: you can be famous and they don’t care if you don’t have a degree because you attract people to the school, or you have so much experience—I had more experience than anyone at the school as far as animation and comics. But, if you want to go on now, part of the issue, what’s destroying everything is they make everybody get these degrees, but they don’t pay that much. So, you pay $80,000 minimum to get your Master’s, but nobody’s paying you $80,000 to teach! You’re lucky if you get $30,000–40,000. Nobody gets tenure anymore. I started the magazine and I teach because I remember how I was as a teenager—really desperately wanting to do this job. Really desperate out in
Mike Manley: Draw!
the wilderness. You’re haunting any bookstore, any library, hunting down any process. How do you do this? How do you draw a figure? So the magazine comes out of me, as a teenager, trying to figure out, “How do I achieve my dream, living in Ann Arbor, Michigan?” I’m going to a couple of shows a year, meeting people—some of whose art you don’t even like! I tell my students, “You go to a show and maybe this guy isn’t your favorite artist. ‘I prefer Neal Adams or John Buscema and I’m meeting Keith Pollard!’ (Nothing against Pollard—I’m just using him as an example—he wasn’t my favorite like Frazetta or Moebius, or something like that.) But this guy’s successful; he’s working in the business. If you’re lucky enough that he gives you five minutes, you write down what he says. You be serious and be thankful.” I remember an incident with him. He was looking at my stuff and he said, “You’re having trouble with your heads. You’re not doing the necks right.” I wrote it down and when I went back home, I wrote on a piece of paper, “Not doing necks right.” I stuck that above my drawing board. That’s the thing… I’m going to lick that. I’m going to learn to draw my heads better. JBC: Do you look at it where that boy who wanted instruction led you to being an instructor and editor of a how-to magazine? Is it a straight line? Mike: I think so. The desire to learn as a student, even though I’m a teacher—I still have that desire to improve myself as a student. When I meet a young student coming in, I can clearly put myself back in their place—where they were. Having the desire, saying, “I want to do that.” Everyone has a dream and then there becomes the reality of
Above: Friends for life: Mike with Jamar Nicholas and Bret Blevins. Below: A Mike Manley commission.
Below: A fourth Best of Draw volume was planned, but was shelved due to low initial pre-orders.
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to Z”—about how you go about actually drawing in very specific steps. I remember reading How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and I’d see layouts and they would show you some steps, but there would be steps in-between that were missing. Like you would see an Alex Simmons The Art of Making Comics rough and then see his finish, but you wouldn’t see anything about how to do a rough: “Oh, I’d put it on a lightbox and tighten it up,” or Neal Adams using his Artograph to “project stuff down,” or Gil Kane, to “blow stuff up.” There were a lot of steps that I remember when I was younger, I wanted to know how to do this, so that was my impetus. When I was young, I would try to find any source that I could, but there was no source that was complete, so I wanted to make a magazine that would completely cover the process like you’d see in other magazines about commercial art and design. I think somebody mentioned that I should run the idea past John Morrow, so I sent him an email, I believe, and we hit it off. He seemed to really like the idea and started the ball rolling. JBC: So you knew about TwoMorrows? Mike: Oh, yeah. I had been buying all the other magazines like Comic Book Artist and The Jack Kirby Collector, so I was already familiar with them. JBC: Did you have a mission besides the how-to aspect? Were there artists you wanted to promote or showcase that may have been more neglected? Mike: Not necessarily in that regard, although I did—and even more so today—believe everything is connected through drawing. Whether it’s John Singer Sargent, John Buscema, Jack Kirby, Moebius, Dave Cooper, people working in animation… it’s all connected through drawing. That’s the one thing all this figurative art, classical art, have in common. Whether a narrative in painting, film, or comics, it’s all connected through drawing. Each format has its own criteria and its own demands, but it all connects through drawing. When I look at a drawing in animation by the Nine Old Men [Disney animation veterans], the beautiful work on things like those classic Disney films, and then look at the drawing by John Buscema or Albert Dorne or somebody like Alex Toth—who bridged, because he worked in both mediums—you see that beautiful sense of form and trying to understand things. All drawing is linked in trying to understand three-dimensional form and depicted in a 2-D surface; whether you move it through animation or on a single surface, it’s all connected that way. So, I had always been interested in animation as a kid. I wanted to work
Mike Manley: Draw!
in animation and was very interested in working in animation and comics and illustration—all the people I admired when I was growing up worked in animation—or, I could do a cover, or I could draw a comic book. It didn’t seem like you had to have a specific job where you could only do one thing. By that time, I was working in animation, working on the Superman and Batman shows and working up Samurai Jack. So that gave me a chance to bring people who worked in animation into the magazine and talk about their processes as well. More people in comics want to do animation these
Above: An unused cover for Mike’s Monsterman comic. Previous page: At inset top is the cover of Mike’s Action Planet Comics #1 [1996]. At bottom is Mike sharing some convention time with comics legend Moebius.
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Mike Manley: Draw!
NUMBER 19 FALL 2009
$6.95
THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS AND CARTOONING
IN THE U.S.A.
Characters TM & ©2009 DC Comics.
important. One of the things about being able to give accurate information is also based upon the fact that the field is always in flux. The way things are in the comic book business, the first issue of Draw! is very different from the latest issue. So many people are doing digital now. Everything is basically digital delivery. In the beginning, at 30th Street Station, there was Egbert Delivery Service. I’d pay a guy $50 and he’d run it—along with other stuff—up to Marvel and DC on the train. Nobody does that anymore. Nobody runs to FedEx. Nobody wants your original art. And I’m teaching, I just started my second week teaching my high school animation class— these kids, some 15–17, some 14—how they interact with the world, what jobs are going to be there for them; how different it is for them at 15 than it was for me. How different it is for them from when I taught students while I was doing Draw! So that whole aspect of the business is changing almost daily. It’s changing rapidly. The medium of comics as a format is still growing, but it’s not going to continue to grow in the comic book store. It’s going to grow online, it’s going to grow on the cellphone. Again, it’s all being powered by Disney—the most successful entertainment company in history. The fact is, they’ve made billions of dollars on these comic book properties and invest absolutely zero money advertising comic books. You can go to Target and Walmart or any place and see Captain America shields and Iron Man toys, and you will not see them spend one red cent on advertising in publishing. JBC: Are you happy to be in publishing? Mike: I still like being in print and in the newspapers. It’s very odd from the standpoint… the readership is very stratified. I have people who have been reading Judge Parker since it started. I’m doing The Phantom right now. There are people who have literally been reading The Phantom since 1936. There’s nobody reading comic books that long, but there are many long-term readers of the comic strips. They’re a different type of reader. They’re not like the 14-year-olds that are reading all the stuff on Webtoons. Those kids reading on Webtoons are not interested in reading comic strips. Those kids don’t even know who Calvin and Hobbes are now. Again, we’re turning a corner in time where the Baby Boomers’ booms’ booms don’t know the comic strips. In five years, they won’t know Peanuts, they won’t know Charlie Brown, because there’s nothing for them to access. They see what comes through the phone. I see that with my students. They see what’s current and
A NAME ARTIST THAT MIKE
THAT MIKE INTERVIEWS INTERVIEWS
BOB McLEOD CRITIQUES CRITIQUES A A NEWCOMER’S NEWCOMER’S ART ART
PLUS: MIKE MANLEY’s
what’s curated through the multimedia companies. So you don’t see a lot of Charlie Brown stuff. We grew up with it. We grew up with Scholastic, we read the newspapers. They just know what they see and you don’t see that stuff much. JBC: What were some of your best Draw! experiences? Mike: One of the nicest things that ever happened to me was last year in Baltimore. I hung out with Tom Palmer, who I’ve known for several years. He’s not only one of the best guys ever—such a nice person—but he came up to me, unsolicited, and said he loved the magazine, and said I ask the questions that people want answers to. If Tom Palmer reads the magazine and actually gets something out of it, then that’s great! When Joe Kubert or any of the people I admire gave me a compliment on the magazine… on Facebook, when García-López likes one of my strips, I can’t
Above: Many an issue of Draw begins with roughing in a visual idea for the cover—by Mike, publisher John Morrow, or designer Eric Nolen-Weathington. Here’s one for a (sadly) never-realized issue featuring Mike Mignola. Previous page: A very Manley layout drawing for Monsterman.
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PETE VON SHOLLY: A JOURNEY TO TWOMORROWLAND
It’s been a while since we put together our “Von Sholly Trilogy,” but I fondly remember the process and am pretty happy with much of what we did—and wish we had done better with other parts! I’ve been asked to write something about working with John Morrow, so here goes… I first learned about John and his company through a discerning friend who told me about a brand-new publication called The Jack Kirby Collector. He raved about its high quality and so I looked into it right away, being a long time Kirby fan. I snatched up the first couple of issues, all that were yet available, and agreed it was great stuff. I got in touch with editor/publisher John and sent him all the Kirby stuff I had, some of it unpublished pencils, and became an early, if modest, contributor to the mag. I wanted to see it thrive, and if anybody reading this has any goodies to throw in, please do so. As TJKC got bigger and better, John’s line also expanded into quite an enterprise. I also was able to meet John in person every summer at the San Diego Comic-Con and sit at his table to chat with him and his team, including his delightful wife and daughters, the TwoMorrows staff (Hi, Eric!), and members of the Kirby Museum. I always made it a point to visit the TwoMorrows booth and always enjoyed it.
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A couple of years later, I had an idea for a project, but had no idea what, if any, publisher might want to take a chance on it. I fondly remembered and relished the truly great original MAD comics and magazines as well as The Nation Lampoon in its prime. That kind of satire was really appealing to me and poked well-deserved fun at its targets, so why should the old monster magazines and the (then) current fan press not be similarly skewered? I asked. And John, bless his heart said, “Let’s see if we can make this work”—or something like that, so I was off and running. And I have to say it was really quite a bold move for him because what I was proposing was really outside the realm of what he normally published. Despite his concerns, he believed in me enough to take a chance—or he thought that maybe the idea was commercial enough to make us a few bucks, either way. In those days, one could solicit a new book and product through the big distributor Diamond’s Previews magazine, and see how many orders came in. If the interest and orders were there, a publisher would be safe to print the book and if nobody was interested, he could simply not go to press. My first TwoMorrows book, the oddly-named Crazy Hip Groovy Go-Go Way Out Monsters, did well enough with orders, so John went ahead with it. I don’t think it’s that simple these days.
Crazy Hip Groovy Go-Go Way Out Monsters
A monster mag satire seemed a good place to start… A very early influence on me was this black-&-white magazine printed on cheap paper that was hated by parents and teachers everywhere— but loved by us kids. One problem maybe; this landmark publication was brought forth in the late 1950s and early ’60s, so the question initially was: “Are there enough fans of this kind of thing still around and reading fanzines to support such an effort?” Of course, our subject was the legendary and original monster mag
that had far-reaching influence on our culture. A great many kids grew up to make monster movies and write horror fiction as a result of what they learned in its pages. Of course I’m talking about Famous Monsters of Filmland, published by James Warren and edited by Forest J Ackerman. This was our target and it was all done with love. FMoF had many wonderful and very important functions and features in the beginning. In its pages we learned about Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, the iconic actors who portrayed Frankenstein, Dracula, and the rest, and the key make-up men who transformed these actors with putty, hair, glue, and rubber appliances in order to bring our favorite monsters to the screen. We also got to know the men who created the fantastic special effects we loved, and gave us rare insight into how they did it. We were even treated to news and interviews about new films “coming to theaters near us soon.” It was all very exciting stuff. Yes, there was really a time when you’d see a movie and your jaw would drop at the visual effects and you’d exclaim, “How did they do that?” Not anymore—the answer now is “with a computer” 99% of the time and nobody is surprised by special effects anymore—but that’s now and this was then! There was another side of the picture though—apart from all the wonderfulness, there were definitely things about FM Peter Von Sholly and its many Editor, Crazy Hip imitators in Groovy Go-Go the magazine Way Out Monsters (and movie) field that Born: 1950 were worthy Residence: of lampoonSunland, Calif. ing. The Vocation: really cheesy Storyboard Artist, and schlocky Author, Illustrator side of Favorite Creator: certain films Jack Kirby and studios Seminal Comic Book: was pretty New Gods #7 (“The Pact”) glaring.
The World of TwoMorrows
2002: WRITE NOW!
The (Not So) Secret Origin of Write Now! Danny Fingeroth
Editor, Write Now! Co-editor, The Stan Lee Universe
“Be totally factual, or else be so vague that you can get away with knowing nothing about your subject.” —Stan Lee, Write Now! #18, 2008
This article is totally factual. Except where it’s vague. Residence: By 2002, I’d been working as a professional New York, NY comics writer and editor for 25 years, most of that Vocation: Writer/ time at Marvel Comics, running the company’s Editor/Historian Spider-Man line. I had learned a lot about making Favorite Creators: comics, some of it the hard way—by making lots of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby boneheaded mistakes. I had a lot of thoughts and Seminal Comic Book: ideas and feelings about comics writing, and was Superman #149, “The eager for a way to share them with people. Death of Superman,” by But how to do it? Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Well, among my career experiences was having and George Klein briefly met John Morrow at a San Diego ComicTo complement its Con, and having written Marvel’s Darkhawk series, magazine on drawing which Mike Manley had drawn for its first 25 issues. comics, TwoMorrows soon (Mike and Tom DeFalco had created the characintroduces a companion ter, but I wrote every issue of the series.) We also publication, again edited worked together on a couple of Darkhawk Annuals, by a working comics pro, and Mike had been an artist on some comics that I writer Danny Fingeroth. had edited, as well. So I knew Mike pretty well. Cut to 2002. Mike was doing his great Draw! magazine for TwoMorrows. It occurred to me that Inset right: Mike Zeck and Phil maybe there’d be interest on the company’s part in Zimelman’s cover to Write Now! #16, which featured a Silver Surfer my doing something similar, but for comics writing. writers’ roundtable discussion. I contacted John, and it turned out he’d been thinking about doing a writing magazine, too. And from that conversation, Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now! (the official full title) was born. Now, of course, I didn’t want to draw just on my own experience to do the magazine. That would be good for an article or maybe even a book. I wanted to have multiple voices giving advice and lessons in writing comics. And I knew where to find those voices. After all those years in comics, I knew a lot of people. And those people knew a lot of people. And many of those people were comics writers, artists, editors, executives and so on. They all had stories to tell and lessons to teach and advice Write Now! to give. First Issue: 8/1/2002 Besides that, aside from my own experience and
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access to other people’s experience, I was lucky enough to have a great deal of journalistic ignorance. Why “lucky”? I’d written or edited a zillion comic books. I’d even worked as writer or editor on some magazines at Marvel, but those were mainly fancy-format comics with some text features. But I’d never really put together, from beginning to end, a magazine that was predominantly articles. So I had a lot to learn. But, by the same token, I wasn’t burdened by the rules or established modes of thinking of magazine editors. While this meant that I ended up re-inventing multiple wheels on multiple occasions, it also meant that I could discover new ways of doing things, often by accident. And I had John Morrow himself offering comments from the sidelines, which was essential to the magazine’s development. The first issue of Write Now! “suffered” from an overabundance of riches. I wanted so much to fill it
The World of TwoMorrows
with great interviews and articles that I had enough material for three issues, which I nonetheless decided to stuff into one. Plus, since there was so much cool text material, it was in danger of overwhelming the visual side of the magazine. While it was a writing magazine, it was one about comics (and animation)—media with heavy visual aspects, to say the least. John encouraged me to add more visuals, and I saw he was right. For that first issue, I had interviews with J.M. DeMatteis and Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis and Tom DeFalco and Mark Bagley and, oh yeah, with Stan Lee. If you bought it, boy, did you get your money’s worth. (And you can still get a digital version at the TwoMorrows website, of course.) These were, for the most part, long, in-depth interviews. I had a million questions and these folks weren’t shy about giving answers that more than answered them. Each interview could have been—and maybe should have been—its own book! As the issues went on, I became more adept— WN was an earn-while-you-learn journalism course for me—and the issues became somewhat less dense and breathed more, so the content was easier to read. I added more how-to’s—we called them “Nuts & Bolts”—and tried to include a decent amount of independent-oriented material, as well as content focused on the so-called mainstream. Looking back at those early interviews, I can see how I allowed some of them to go off on fascinating, but perhaps not completely necessary, digressions. Later interviews were tighter, more focused on passing along lessons about craft and about the professional world, and were perhaps slicker reads, but I think, perhaps, some unpredictable quirkiness was left behind. At the same time as WN was being produced, I was doing a fair amount of teaching of comics writing at New York University and The New School, among other places, and each endeavor informed the other. Articles from WN became handouts I gave my classes, and topics raised by my students became subjects for WN. An interesting aspect of doing WN was that,
2002
2003
Danny Fingeroth: Write Now!
although it was a print magazine, it would not have been possible without the internet and email. I was living in New York. TwoMorrows HQ was in Raleigh. My great designers and brilliant editorial staff were also working from their homes. The magazine, though, came together as if we were all in the same office. (I will say, though, that there were times—as is often true in our digital world—where us all being together in the same place to discuss things would have been more efficient that going back and forth with countless emails. But such, apparently, is modern life.) One of the best things about doing WN was that it enabled me to, especially with the interviews, establish and/or strengthen my relationships with various creators. I could simultaneously be fellow professional and fanboy geek. With people I already knew well, I could probe their answers a little deeper. With people I hardly knew at all, I could now get to know them as more than just credits in a comic. With the interviews, I felt that, on the one hand, I needed to emphasize craft and career advice in terms of shaping my questions and guiding (or at-
Above: The week Danny spent researching Stan Lee’s archives, at the University of Wyoming, yielded spectacular dividends through his and Roy Thomas’ book, The Stan Lee Universe, giving fans access to Lee’s private documents and correspondence, much of it with lasting historical significance. Here’s Danny with the book at the 2016 Wizard World Richmond con. Photo courtesy of and © Danny Epperson.
Below: In the category of little known TwoMorrows tidbits: The “Nuts & Bolts” logo that appeared in issues of Write Now! was originally designed for one of TwoMorrows’ advertising clients’ newsletters back in the 1990s.
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2003: POP CULTURE
Monster Mash and More Pop Culture Fun My generation of comic book fans got in through a weird side door—the 1966 TV Batman played by Author, Hero Gets Adam West, and all of the brain-twisting hoopla Girl!, The Dark that went with it, the toys and trading cards and Age, Monster Pop Tart premiums. Everything was Batman in ’66. Mash, Groovy, You had to be there. Holly Jolly This got us reading comic books, which were sometimes as crazy as the TV show. I preferred the Born: 1958 1950s Batman stories reprinted in 80-Page Giants Residence: and paperback digests, over the contemporary BatOcean, New Jersey man comic books published at the time. The older Vocation: Newspaper stuff seemed more like the TV show. The artwork Features Writer, was more cartoony, in a good way. A Dick SprangPage Designer drawn Joker still holds a strange fascination. Favorite Creator: Of course, we little punks wound up Ross Andru falling in love with the comic book as a Seminal Comic Book: medium unto itself. Metal Men #22 In ’66, I was an eight-year-old South Jersey boy scraping together There’s more to life than comics, and TwoMorrows pennies, nickels, and dimes to buy looks to capitalize on fans’ comic books at two establishments, broader pop culture chiefly: the Woodcrest Drug Store influences, with Mark and the Berlin Farmer’s Market. I read Voger leading the way. everything from Harvey’s kiddie stuff (Little Dot, Hot Stuff, Sad Sack) to DC (Flash, Inset right: Kurt and Dorothy Justice League of America, and my favorite, Metal Schaffenberger, in images which Men) to Marvel (which one friend complained was only saw print in black-&-white “hard to read” because they squeezed in so many during TwoMorrows’ pre-color days. words). This era, from ’66 to ’69, remains my personal Golden Age. To this day, when I see “go-go checks” on the cover of an old DC book, I figuratively salivate. I segued into the Warren horror books (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella) and, during my college daze, the sex- and drug-obsessed underground comics, particularly the work of Robert Crumb. I’d pretty much stopped buying contemporary comics, but I kept an eye on them. Then something happened in 1989, when I was a married career guy of 31. Tim Burton’s movie, BatHero Gets Girl!: The man, was coming out in June, with Jack Nicholson Life and Art of Kurt playing the Joker in a then-novel casting coup. (For Schaffenberger better or worse, here was the film that ignited the Published: 11/1/2003 renaissance of super-hero movies.)
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This triggered something in me—a sort-of return to my childhood, when we used to safety-pin towels around our necks as capes, and “played Batman” in adjoining backyards, swinging off of tree branches as we re-enacted fight scenes from the Adam West TV show. Well, I was no longer swinging from branches, but I began buying up vintage comic books from my youth. Reading those old books was like stepping into a time machine. The difference this time was that I began identifying, studying and contrasting the styles of the various artists. When I was a child, I loved the
The World of TwoMorrows
2003: BACK ISSUE
The Origin of Euryman and the Birth of Back Issue Who He Is and How He Came to Be
out in the 1970s, studying their text pages and learning about comics history. I was born on September 28, 1957, in Concord, Editor, Back Issue In the tenth grade, I began cartooning, writing North Carolina. My parents were periodicals readBorn: 1957 and drawing my own gags, and comic books about ers: Dad, a baseball fan, loved my teachers, plus lampoons The Sporting News, and Mom Residence: of DC and Marvel characters. New Bern, adored movie and celebrity I’m sure I wasn’t the only kid North Carolina magazines. The newsstand was to come up with a “Green a weekly stop for our family, Vocation: Freelance Flashlight,” but since streakwhere I was drawn to the racks Writer/Author/Editor ing—running nude in public— of colorful “funnybooks.” Favorite Creator: was a fad back then, I might’ve I initially read comics based Dick Giordano been the only one drawing The upon familiar TV characters, Seminal Comic Book: Flash as “The Flesh” (luckily, but once the Adam West-starDetective Comics #350 his super-speed and my limited ring Batman premiered, on As Comic Book Artist ability kept his naughty parts a ABC, on January 12, 1966, moves to a different blur). But it was my homemade when I was barely eight, I was publisher, TwoMorrows super-hero comics that cultivatcaptivated. With Detective and needs a new title to reed a degree of fandom at ConBatman as my gateways, my place its top-seller on the cord High School, since they next discovery was The Brave schedule. Based on having starred my classmates as caped and the Bold, the Batman previously worked with crusaders. One kid with a long pro writer and editor team-up book which would neck who was nicknamed Michael Eury, John ultimately become my all-time Morrow knows he is a “Weasel” became Weaselman, favorite comic title and my perfect fit to edit the new with a stretching neck inspired introduction to many other DC periodical, Back Issue. by Elongated Man swipes. Another kid notorious characters. Fast-forward to September 1967 and for hurling spitwads became Wonder Wad. the premiere of the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four During my junior year, I started writing fan letters animated cartoons, on ABC, on Saturday mornto Murray Boltinoff, the editor of Brave and Bold. Right: Mickey Eury, age 8, ings. Those series’ respective comics became my was destined for greatness, welcome mat for reading Marvels. In January of 1974, I bought the brand-new B&B based on that steely look of #112, a 100-page issue teaming Batman and Mister By the time 1970 rolled around, I was entering determination on his face. Miracle. In its “B&B Mailbag” was printed my my teens and had “aged out” from the fold. That name, with my appeals for future Batman co-stars. didn’t last long. I was 13 and my baby brother, John, was five when Batman #232 [June 1971] was My first DC “credit”! I really wanted to work in the comics business, brought into our home. Whether Dad selected it for but since its hub, New York City, might just as soon us or little John pointed to its bright green cover have been another planet for a kid from small-town or I on a whim wanted another Batman fix, I don’t North Carolina, I chose my second love—music recall. This was the now-iconic Denny O’Neil/Neal (I was a trombonist)—as a career path. In the late Adams issue that introduced Ra’s al Ghul. Its blend 1970s, I obtained a bachelor of music education of intrigue and excitement and its photo-realistic degree at East Carolina University. Neal Adams artwork captivated me. I read the After college, I briefly taught middle and high cover off of it—and after a brief nap, my passion for school band—and hated it. I left my job and wafcomics was reawakened! fled for much of the 1980s, along the way workSoon I was reading many DCs and Marvels—and ing as a record store clerk, cable TV subscription Back Issue soon, some Charltons and Atlas/Seaboards. I also salesman, producer/talent/cameraman at a public First Issue: 11/19/2003 bought the various comics reprint books that came
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access station, and singing telegram messenger! At this time, I started to establish a fandom profile by joining APAs like Interlac and the newly minted CarolinAPA. Fantagraphics launched Amazing Heroes magazine around this time. In its earlier years, I had two “Silly Covers” cartoons published, one an issue of Superman with Red Kryptonite turning the Man of Steel into Slim Whitman, the other an issue of Marvel’s Dennis the Menace with Galactus summoning Mr. Wilson as his new herald. I was also writing a lot of letters to comics, mostly DCs, with many making it into print. In July of 1984, at Monkey Business Singing Telegrams, I met my wife-to-be, Rose. Less than two years later we became a couple, and in April 1986 we headed from Charlotte, North Carolina, toward the mecca of comics production, New York City. We had only $1,700 to our name, a crappy Chevy Chevette that couldn’t make it up a steep hill (heck, it could barely clear a speed-bump), and a U-Haul loaded with long boxes of comics. We couldn’t afford to live in New York, though, and ended up within striking distance, in the Wilmington, Delaware, area, near some college friends of mine who were in grad school at the University of Delaware. I worked part-time in a video store, did a little performing with a comedy troupe, and started to do some freelance writing for local newspapers, while continuing to produce ’zines for APAs. I also produced a newsletter for a local comic shop. One of my Interlac APA pals—Mark Waid—had recently become the editor of Amazing Heroes, and, in 1986, I submitted to him a review of Joel Eisner’s 20th anniversary book about the Batman TV show. Mark published my article and gave me more assignments. With Amazing Heroes, I wrote numerous preview articles, hero histories, and creator interviews, and began to make industry contacts.
’80s!) that appeared in #28 [July 1985]. Jim liked my sense of humor and offered me the chance to write scripts for “Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham,” which was, by that post-Star Comics period, the back-up in Marvel Tales. I wrote a handful of Spider-Ham stories, including ones introducing the Punfisher (Charlie the Tuna meets the Punisher) and a Spider-Ham/Forbush Man team-up. Big fun! (I’d love to write Spider-Ham again…) Marvel Tales #205 [Nov. 1987] contained my first Spider-Ham story, a professional milestone. Jim Salicrup was a great encourager, and I’ll always be grateful to him for affording me my first pro credits. Since I was mostly paid for my Amazing Heroes work with Fantagraphics products (where I discovered the wizardry of E. C. Segar’s Popeye), the Marvel work, for which I signed work-for-hire vouchers, scored me my first freelance paychecks. Rose worked as a medical receptionist and I still kept my freelance video-store job, but money was tight and our big meal out each week was at a local pizza Joining the Ranks of the Pros buffet. I began to venture out to other publishers, Another score was an over-the-transom piece writing a few Underdog and Mighty Mouse: The I did for Marvel’s Jim Salicrup for Marvel Age New Adventures scripts for Spotlight Comics… but magazine, a spoof of coming attractions (such as an they went under and my work went unpublished X-Men/Michael Jackson crossover—hey, it was the (and uncompensated). I also remember pitching
Above: Michael and future wife Rose, up to monkey business in 1985. Coincidentally, that’s an un-inflated Superman mylar balloon on the background wall!
Below: A proud papa to the 2019 Eisner Award for “Best ComicsRelated Periodical/Journalism.”
2004 Michael Eury: Back Issue
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2003: BACK ISSUE My biggest “Gosh, wow!” fanboy moment in this position came as I (along with Rose) accompanied Dick and Pat to Los Angeles, in December 1990, to host DC’s Holiday Party for West Coast freelancers (I had never seen pink and blue spray-painted Christmas trees until that visit… and haven’t seen them since, now that I think of it). The party was a blast, but the activity I’ll never forget was being taken on a V.I.P. tour of the Warner Bros. television and film studios. We first visited the office of Howard Chaykin, who was working on The Flash weekly series at the time, then were led onto other sets, where I strolled along some familiar back-drops. We visited the set of the family drama Life Goes On (yes, I opened their refrigerator to see what was there), and when asked if there was any set I’d like to visit, I naturally said, “The Flash”! There we got to observe the taping of a special-effects scene where John Wesley Shipp, in costume, very patiently hoisted Amanda Pays over his shoulder and ran At this time, I was also assigned a revamp/revival of Who’s Who, which, alongside designer Keith “Kez” Wilson, we re-imag- in place, take after take, for what became a super-speed scene. That night we had dinner with Gil Kane (yes, he did call me, “My ined in the looseleaf format. As Who’s Who editor I got to work with, albeit briefly, just about every artist in the biz in the late ’80s boy!”), Howard Chaykin, and Dick and Pat. Back in New York, on the job I had hoped that my editorial and early ’90s. Amazing experience. When my officemate—coincidentally, Mark Waid!—left DC, I inherited from him Legion of colleagues would perceive me as someone from the inside of Super-Heroes (which had recently been rebooted into its contro- the department who was their voice “upstairs,” but, truth be versial “Five Years Later” phase), plus mop-up on the final issues told, my promotion disrupted my relationship with some of the editors. I was too immature, too unsure of myself, and too, well, of Secret Origins. nice to toughen up to grow into the potential Dick had seen in In early 1990, my DC career took a detour, as Dick Giordano, me, and, over time, I grew unhappy and asked to return to the the editorial director, offered me the newly created position of editors’ pool. By 1991, I was an editor again, returning to Legion, “assistant to the editorial director.” How could I say no? I got to developing Legion spin-offs, and developing other projects like work closely with Dick and his aide, Pat Bastienne, traveling exAmbush Bug Nothing Special and Eclipso: The Darkness Within. tensively, meeting creators, promoting the company at convenAlso, at this time, an undiagnosed, untreated progressive tions, writing the “Inside DC” house column, and learning about hearing loss was adversely affecting my ability to understand and the executive side of the company. Other than Who’s Who, my titles were reassigned. I learned so much from Dick—particularly, perceive verbal information. As a result, I was speaking and/or acting inappropriately at times, mishearing or not hearing what how to nurture and encourage talent and creative visions—and was being said to or around me. Between this burden and my found in him a fantastic mentor and friend.
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At Dark Horse, I once again worked with and learned from Diana Schutz, as well as Bob Schreck, plus Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley, and David Scroggy. And, boy, the talent on my books! John Byrne, Doug Mahnke, John Arcudi, Eric Luke, Adam Hughes, Matt Haley, Steven Grant, Paul Gulacy, Doug Moench, Dan Jurgens, Kevin Nowlan, Tim Hamilton, Eddie Campbell, Chris Warner, etc., etc., etc. I also got to do a little writing, most notably Hero Zero #0 (which I co-plotted with my wife), starring a Dark Horse super-hero that was a blend of Ultraman and Shazam!, and its follow-up, Hero Zero vs. Godzilla, which was set at the San Diego Comic-Con. After a few years my diminishing hearing was souring me. I had gotten one hearing aid in my worst ear, but was drowning in self-pity. Also, as a mainstream super-hero guy, I never found
my groove at Dark Horse amid its creator-owned and Hollywood-licensed titles. So, by late 1995, I went freelance again, taking with me a newly launched Dark Horse title to write, Adventures of the Mask, based upon the cartoon show which was based upon the Jim Carrey-starring movie (which was based upon the Dark Horse comic…). This was great fun for the year it was in print. I also reconnected with DC, through its Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing adjunct, and wrote a lot of short stories for DC’s Looney Tunes comic, starting with “I’ll Take Manhattan,” a Marvin the Martian tale, in Looney Tunes #28 [Apr. 1997]. Over the next few
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his Studio Chikara brand and offered me the chance to write a book about a classic toy he knew I loved. And thus my book, Captain Action: The Original Super-Hero Action Figure, was born. I tracked down people who had worked on the Ideal Toys Captain Action line and interviewed them, from Captain Action’s creator Stan Weston, to my old contact and friend from comics Murphy Anderson, to Jim Shooter and Gil Kane, who worked on DC Comics’ Captain Action spin-off title. Studio Chikara ultimately couldn’t publish the book, however, which was another blow to me. Luckily, Tom Stewart, with whom I was networking online as a fellow Captain Action fan, suggested I contact John Morrow about TwoMorrows publishing my Captain Action book—and I’m glad I did! John was game, and our long-standing professional and personal relationship began in 2001. TwoMorrows released Captain Action: The Original Super-Hero Action Figure, in softcover, in 2002. When my comp copies arrived, I was exhilarated—sure, I had many publishing credits in
the past, but with this my byline was on the spine of the book! That was the comics fan-turned-pro’s equivalent of a community theater actress finally seeing her name in lights on a marquee.
TwoMorrows, TwoMorrows, I Love Ya, TwoMorrows
After Captain Action was done, I pitched to John a bio of my former boss, Dick Giordano, which he accepted. With Rose joining me, I flew from Oregon to Florida, where Dick had retired, and spent a week interviewing Dick for the book. Dick was extremely gracious and allowed me access to his vault of original art—a treasure trove! He also said I could have any art there I wanted. I kept three pieces: for Rose, an unpublished late-’60s DC romance cover (which is framed in my office) and a romance comic splash page, and for me, the title page to a Batman story of Denny O’Neil’s that Dick illustrated for Batman #247 [Feb. 1973]. (In retrospect there were two other pieces I wished I would’ve taken, a Batman cover featuring Cat-Man and a page
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ROBERT GREENBERGER: IN GOOD COMPANY Growing up in the 1970s, fanzines delved into bits and pieces of the comics history, grabbing snatches of interviews with figures now long gone. But they were out inconsistently, the quality of the writing and editing haphazard. These were soon after followed by the rise of The Comics Journal as the singular source for serious coverage of the field, and just as they decided to become too elite for mainstream comics fare, offered us Amazing Heroes. Similarly, Hal Schuster provided us with Comics Feature, which gave the world a platform for Carol Kalish pre-Marvel. When I entered this realm with Comics Scene, I provided a mainstream vehicle to explore comic books, comic strips, and animation. None of us lasted, but the appetite for interviews, histories, and character profiles only grew. Thankfully, 25 years ago, John Morrow saw that appetite and did what any self-respecting fanboy would do: fill the gap. He knew there were the Jack Kirby fans who couldn’t
get enough about the King or those who loved and respected the legacy of the Golden Age and its number one ’zine, Alter Ego. By adding Comic Book Artist, then Back Issue, and then the line of artistcentric books and biographies, and character companions, he’s succeeded where everyone has failed. He has grown a small, respectable publishing company, releasing works that might appeal to niche interests, but does them for the sheer joy of the content. We’ve learned things about the underrated greats like Herb Trimpe and Don Heck and so much more. John should be lauded and celebrated for the American Comic Book Chronicles, the first set of in-depth explorations of comics history. There’s been nothing quite like it and it fills a void in our business. As a former journalist and editor and fan, I was delighted to be a reader. Then, as opportunities arose, I began writing for the titles, notably Back
Dick inked over José Luis García-López from the Batman/Hulk crossover, but I didn’t want to seem greedy.) In 2003, the biography I wrote, Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time, was published by TwoMorrows. I’m honored to have captured Dick’s myriad contributions to the field between its covers. John Morrow’s wife, Pam, designed both of my books and John and I developed a strong relationship—and I delivered my materials on time! So one day, in early 2003, I believe, John contacted me about editing a new magazine called Back Issue. This was during the time when Jon B. Cooke had taken Comic Book Artist magazine to Top Shelf. John wanted a new comics mag to replace (not
Michael Eury: Back Issue
Robert Greenberger
Issue. Here, Contributor, I could ring Back Issue my years of Born: 1958 professional Residence: experiencFulton, Maryland es to the Vocation: profiles, hisHigh school teacher, tories, and writer, editor, bon vivant interviews. Favorite Creator: I don’t get Too many to pick just one rich on these Seminal Comic Book: (neither does Superman, issue number John) but do lost to history them out of affection for the content and the pleasure of helping fill in the gaps. It reconnects me to people or titles I haven’t talked to in ages, which makes up for the lack of riches. The entire TwoMorrows line deserves plaudits, but it all starts with John, and I salute him.
replicate) it on his schedule. After careful consideration I decided to do it—and am glad I did! John had some departments in mind for the magazine: “Greatest Stories Never Told,” “Pro2Pro” interviews (originally suggested by David “Hambone” Hamilton), “Rough Stuff” pencil art showcases (the brainchild of Ken Steacy), and “Beyond Capes” (non-superhero comics). He provided careful executive guidance but largely let me to develop the tone of the magazine as I saw fit. (Thanks, John!) CBA was a tough act to follow, and so I decided to make BI different from CBA in its tone and presentation. The magazines’ titles clearly, for me, delineated how their contents differed: Comic Book Artist was (mostly) about the talent, while Back
Above: The inestimable Mr. Greenberger conducted an extensive interview with Michael Eury in Back Issue #100 about the mag’s history. Here’s page one of their chat.
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2003: BACK ISSUE Issue would be (mostly) about the comic books themselves. The other idea I brought to the table from this developmental period was BI’s thematic structure, believing this would give me an editorial framework, plus keep each issue fresh for our readers as well as ye ed. Sixteen years later, that formula continues to work! We started with “DC vs. Marvel” for #1 [Nov. 2003], and, as I write these words in mid-February 2019, have just put to bed our “Batman Movie 30th Anniversary” issue for #113. Robert Clark, the magazine’s original designer, was fundamental in establishing the look of Back Issue, from its cover logo to its department logos to its overall graphic layout. Early in the magazine’s run Robert moved on to other things, but his contributions still remain in our DNA. Thank you, Robert!
You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly
A pivotal personal experience happened on October 10, 2004, during my second year of producing Back Issue, with a connection, coincidentally, to the magazine itself. As you’re probably aware, Christopher Reeve, the handsome, athletic star of four Superman movies, narrowly survived a freak horsebackriding accident in 1995 which left him a quadriplegic, unable to breathe without an oxygen tube. He initially wanted his family to pull the plug, but through their love they convinced him that he was “Still Me” (the title of his autobiography). And thus Reeve became a real-life superman, inspirationally speaking of his personal goal of walking again one day while serving as an advocate and fundraiser to help those with spinal cord injuries. In September 2004, I reached out to Christopher Reeve through the Christopher Reeve Foundation about an interview for Back Issue, wherein we would discuss his legacy as Superman
and his work for spinal cord injury research. I was prepared to fly to the East Coast on my own dime and offer to Alex Ross the opportunity to paint a portrait of Reeve as Superman for our cover. After a few encouraging dialogues, I received a message on Friday, October 8, 2004, that the interview could not happen “at this time.” I was bummed. But the worst news came two days later, on Sunday, the 10th, as I learned on CNN that Reeve passed away that very day. I was crushed. I had never met him, but Christopher Reeve was my hero—first, for bringing to life my Superman, and second, for his advocacy for people with spinal cord injuries, which he did from his wheelchair for the last nine years of his life. The day Christopher Reeve died, my life changed. I stopped feeling sorry for myself over my hearing loss. This was no gradual adjustment—it was a transformation, an epiphany. I stopped bellyaching, “Why me?” and asked, “What do I do next?” That latter question pointed me toward a self-help/advocacy/information nonprofit called the Hearing Loss Association of America (hearingloss.org), from which I learned communications and coping skills… and soon became a leader and motivator within the organization. I regard Christopher as an angel who, on his trajectory from this earthly realm, “spoke” to me and pointed me to this path of revitalization. I look nothing like Lois Lane, but I was saved by Superman!
Life in the Back Issue Bunker
In the years since, through my progressive, adult-onset hearing loss, I have also learned patience, something I lacked earlier in my career, which has also helped me grow as an editor. I no longer lose sleep over deadlines; problems are merely puzzles waiting to be solved. Okay, it wasn’t always that way. Early on, BI had a narrow production window. The second issue was dropped on me
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2003: MODERN MASTERS
A Masterful Time with Modern Masters Starting out With Comics & Sci-Fi
Jon B. Cooke: Where are you from, Eric? Eric Nolen-Weathington: I grew up in a small town called Winterville, population about 1200. JBC: Did you have creative people in your family? Eric: Sort of. My family is of mostly Irish/English descent, and on my mother’s side, they were tall-tale tellers; great storytellers. My mom played guitar and piano. Some of my immediate family probably had some talent, some writing ability, but never did anything creative professionally. There were a lot of teachers in my family. My mother was a teacher and became a principal in an elementary school. Two of my aunts were teachers, my grandmother was a teacher, and a bunch of my cousins became teachers. I grew up in more of an educational environment than a creative one. JBC: What did your dad do? Eric: He also started out as a teacher. He taught and coached at the middle-school level. He gave that up pretty fast and joined the family business, which was the only grocery store in our small town. My great-grandfather had started it back in the early 1900s. My grandfather took it over, and then my dad, aunts, and uncle took over when he retired. Most of them lived on the same street, so I saw lots Below: Eric says, “I’m pretty sure this was Christmas of 1979. I’m in my Superman pajamas, holding a knock-off Star Wars blaster (Space Wars, maybe?), and you can see an unopened Batman utility belt sitting in the background, which I would wear with my Batman Halloween costume from that point on (and not just at Halloween).”
Eric Nolen-Weathington: Modern Masters
of family every day. Eric NolenJBC: What was the name of the store? Weathington Eric: It was Weathington’s Clover Farm. Clover Series Editor, Farm was a small chain of independent grocers, on Modern Masters a similar level to Piggly Wiggly or IGA. I’ve come Born: 1970 across the Clover Farm brand here and there up and down the East Coast, usually in small towns. Residence: JBC: Was the town you lived in a backwater? Mebane, North Carolina Eric: No, it was about ten miles from Greenville, which was the county seat, and had East Carolina Vocation: TwoMorrows University, so it was a college town. It wasn’t comoffice manager pletely podunk. Favorite Creator: JBC: Did you have brothers and sisters? Alex Toth Eric: I have a younger brother. I was the oldest Seminal Comic Book: child in my family and the oldest grandchild on my DC Special #29 mother’s side. That was a weird place, because on (The Untold Origin of my father’s side, I mostly had cousins much older the Justice Society) than me. My father was a surprise baby and far Having proven to be younger than his brothers and sisters. There was a diligent worker who a big gap; my older cousins had all gone off to keeps TwoMorrows’ office college before I was old enough to interact with running smoothly, Eric them on a regular basis. There were two cousins in gets the opportunity to town who were a couple of years younger than me spearhead a new line of books on current artists— who I hung out with. On my mother’s side, I also and he comes through had a gap. My cousins were either much older or with flying colors. much younger. I didn’t really have anyone my age to play with. JBC: What kind of kid were you? Bookish? Eric: I started reading when I was four. Being in that gap, I spent a lot of time by myself. The first thing I remember reading, or told I was reading, was Highlights magazine. Then, in kindergarten, I remember getting up in class to read Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In the first grade, I read all The Hardy Boys books. JBC: You read those in the first grade? Eric: Yeah. The library had about 20 of those Hardy Boys books, so I read all that they had. I started going to the third-grade reading class when I was in the first grade, once a week. I read comics as a kid too, of course. The first I remember was a Gold Key Tweety and Sylvester comic. And then I had a few DC comics that came trickling in over the years— Justice League and World’s Finest 100-pagers, stuff Modern Masters Volume 1: 4/23/2003 like that. It’s hard to remember which issues I had
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2003: MODERN MASTERS war, humor, a lot of variety of styles… I read it all. JBC: Were you drawn to the form or to the content? Was it “anything that’s comics” or were you gravitating toward super-heroes? Eric: If the story was cool and the art looked cool, I didn’t really care what it was. There were some I read more than others, but I read them all over and over. I realized the newer Archies were not as good as the older Archies. Back in those times, they were reprinting a lot of older stuff, so I was seeing a lot of the reprints. I remember reading the Super Friends Limited Collectors’ Edition with the Alex Toth feature at the back showing how cartoons were made. That grabbed my attention, too. It was kind of funny being so young and knowing who Alex Toth was, I guess. JBC: Did you get an allowance? Eric: Yes, and I had to work for it. Once a week, I had to vacuum the house and, every other week, dust the house. I started because the covers quickly became torn up because I read them mowing the grass when I was in the fourth grade. Then my dad over and over. I had two or three different 100-page books, so it bought another house that he was renting out and I mowed that must have been around 1975. 1976 was when I started reading lawn, too. By the time I was in the seventh grade, I was cutting comics more regularly. other people’s yards too, and I had six or seven yards at that JBC: How did you initially encounter them? Were they just around? point. It got up to 15 yards by the time I was in high school. Eric: My dad brought home the Tweety. I don’t know where he JBC: Did you buy comics with it? got it and I didn’t ask! [laughter] Usually I’d get comics when my Eric: That’s the funny thing: I didn’t really buy comics myself mom would go to the Eckerd’s drugstore and I’d get a comic when I was little. I would occasionally, but more often I’d get my off the spinner rack. There was a comic shop in Greenville, in a parents or grandma to buy me comics because they were cheap. run-down part of town, literally next to the railroad tracks. Three I used my money for Star Wars figures! [laughter] Star Wars came quarters of the store was used books and one quarter dedicated out the week of my seventh birthday. Going to see Star Wars to new and used comics. I think they opened up in 1978 or ’79. with two of my cousins was literally my birthday party. [laughter] My pediatrician was three or four blocks from there and, if we So that really struck me and stayed with me for a long time. I had to pick up medicine, the pharmacy was right next door to stopped buying the figures around 1984 and switched to buying that bookstore and we’d sometimes go in there afterwards. That fantasy and science-fiction novels. Like I said, I didn’t buy that was the first time I saw lots and lots of comics in one place. many comics. After I inherited that big stack, I had the equivalent Also, kindergarten classes lasted half-day and, since my mom of a long box of comics by the time I was seven! I didn’t feel the worked at the school and dad was at his job, I would go to this need to buy comics because I had so many to read. I’d still get lady’s house, Miss Barbara. She had two sons: One was in the a dozen or more a year, especially during the summer because eighth or ninth grade and the other was about to graduate high we’d be at the beach or something with my grandmother. We’d school. They had two big stacks of comics, almost as tall as me go to the grocery store and I’d help her get what we needed, (which, at that time, wasn’t all that tall… even now). They had and she’d let me and my brother each pick one off the spinner a bunch of the Treasury Editions from DC, so I was seeing a lot rack. Between the two of us, we were bringing in a decent numof reprint stuff. I inherited about half of their comics from them ber of comics per year, so I was still getting my fix, but spending a year later after I stopped going to their house. The cool thing my own money on things that were more expensive. In 1983 my about it was, there wasn’t a lot of super-hero stuff. It was a big family’s store got a spinner rack, and I bought a bunch of comics mix of stuff: There were war comics—mostly DC titles—and a during that year. But I think my cousins and I were the only ones lot of Harvey comics, especially Richie Rich and Casper, some who bought them, so after the contract expired they got rid of anthology books, and a lot of Archie comics, so I had a big mix… the comics.
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away from anything resembling mainstream comics. I wasn’t quite ready for that. I got into some of those guys later. JBC: Did you contribute to any fanzines? Eric: No, I wasn’t thinking that way. At that point, I had met very few creators. There were some local artists working in the area. We had Richard Case come in for a signing when the first Doom Patrol collection came out [1992]; he was the artist. I met him and got a page of Doom Patrol original art from him. When the first Sin City book came out [1992], Frank Miller came to the store and did a signing. I went to the airport with the owner of the shop to pick him up and we all went to lunch. Then he did a signing at the store that day. So, I met Frank Miller—I had comic book experiences, but I was not a small-talk kind of guy; I didn’t like doing all the talking, so that kind of thing wasn’t something I thought about until I started working for TwoMorrows. JBC: Was it exciting to meet Frank Miller? Eric: Yeah, it was cool. He was on a whirlwind tour. The thing I remember was that he was pretty nice, but I was low man on the totem pole. We had two shops, one in Chapel Hill and one in Raleigh, where I worked, and the owner and my manager were there. I guess I was somewhere between “just” an employee and “assistant manager.” I did assistant manager type of things, like employee schedules and ordering. I was making $10 an hour, so I deferred to the guys who paid the bills to do the talking. I didn’t talk to Frank; I was more just a fly on the wall. It was cool though. I’d never done a lot of conventions; I hadn’t gone to any up to that point. HeroesCon was driveable, but still fairly far away. The idea of having to try to get off work, drive down there, and spend the money—that was beyond my budget at that point. JBC: Did the comic book shop work appeal to you? Was anything about the comics culture drawing you in? What was the name of the shop? Eric: Foundation’s Edge. It’s still there, named after the Isaac Asimov novel. My manager bought the store while I was there, and there was a point when he was looking for a partner, and he found someone. If I’d had the money, I would have tried to go in with him to buy the shop. I was into it enough to contemplate that because I hadn’t found anything else demanding my attention. So, yes, I was into it, but I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do long-term. JBC: When did you meet your wife? Eric: At the comic book shop. Donna’s boyfriend was a customer, so she started coming in with him
Eric Nolen-Weathington: Modern Masters
and then she started buying her own comics. After she broke up with him, we started hanging out, and that was that. JBC: When did you get married? Eric: Nineteen ninety-five. I quit the comic shop about three months after we got married and took a “real” job. [laughter] Marriage spurred me on to find something that paid more. JBC: How many kids do you have? How old? Eric: We’ve got two. My son just graduated college, he’s 23 and my daughter is 13.
Above: Alan gifted Eric with the cover he drew for the book, along with this cover layout. Below: Cliff Chiang drew this on the inside front cover of Eric’s personal copy of Modern Masters Vol. 29, along with a very kind note, an homage to one of his childhood favorite comics.
Finding TwoMorrows
JBC: You were obviously familiar with TwoMorrows? Eric: Yes. I joined the company in 2000. I never bought The Jack Kirby Collector, but Comic Book Artist started coming out and that was something I was interested in. I started buying that. Then Alter Ego split off and I started buying that, too. I was interested in the Golden Age and Silver Age guys and to some extent, Bronze Age guys.
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2003: MODERN MASTERS interview because I had to really work to gain his trust. In a sense Alan was a big influence on the format of the series. There is a chapter in the book called “Under the Influence,” which was his idea. He said, “I want to talk about the guys I like.” I said, “How about a whole chapter? We could also show a bunch of their artwork.” We both liked that idea and it seemed to make him more comfortable and excited about doing the book. That became something of a mainstay for the series. I didn’t do it for everybody, but in most of the books, that chapter is in there because of Alan’s initial suggestion. JBC: How did you pitch it to Alan? Eric: I told him, “Don’t see this as a be-all, end-all book on your life. This is your life to date, not a memorial. I just want to get your memories on paper before they start to fade.” That was part of the thing, too. We wanted to price it to be accessible. I wanted people to be able to read them. I didn’t want it to be art collectors just picking up the ones about the guys they already liked. I wanted the readers to get to know the artists as people. “I want them to get to know Alan as a person.” That’s how I pitched it to him. He went with it. JBC: Was it to be a book or a magazine? Is it a hybrid? Eric: We wanted to do a hybrid. We were hedging our bets. That’s also why we were numbering them; we could say it was a magazine that came out sporadically. Also, that was a way we could bring down the price point. We settled on 128 pages and black-&-white, no color. We got to where we’d do a color section, but only as long as the artist had done the coloring. That was the point: cheap and accessible. I wanted people to read them. JBC: How were the orders for the first volume? Eric: Pretty good. We weren’t really sure what to expect and I deserved more robust biographies, but who might not have as big of a following, either because they’re slower or didn’t have a don’t remember what they were at this point. John was happy, long run on a popular book. I thought having a series would help so I was happy. They were good enough where I knew I could go ahead with the second one, that was the important thing. [laughthat. And John agreed. ter] Once the second one came out with George Pérez, people The first volume featured Alan Davis. Back in 2001, George were going back and finding the first one, as well. So, it built up Khoury was working on his Miracleman Companion and wanted for the first few, where I was building a regular readership. to get Alan Davis for the book, but didn’t know how to contact JBC: Was it important for you to do Alan Davis first or was it him. Alan was going to be at HeroesCon that year, which is a happenstance? Was it an accident of the HeroesCon, or did it convention TwoMorrows always attends. Jim Amash snuck me hearken back to when you picked up the trade paperback back into the creator dinner hosted by Shelton Drum (and I probably in the day, or is it both? have to thank Shelton for not kicking me out of the restaurant!). Eric: Both. A lot of it was he had never really done any kind of Towards the end of the evening, I was able to strike up an acin-depth interviews. I saw a void I thought people would respond quaintance with Alan. So, when John started asking about people I wanted to cover to. Part of it was happenstance with being able to meet him at the right time, because he didn’t do a lot of U.S. shows. That’s in the series, I said, “How about Alan Davis? I already know him kind of the way it goes throughout the Modern Masters history. a little bit; I have his contact information; and he doesn’t really talk to the press that much. If I can get him, that would be pretty I always prefer to pitch books face-to-face. I don’t like to send an out-of-the blue email or make a phone call. I try to personally great.” He was drawing X-Men at that time. We had a big list of hand them a book to look over and show them, “This is the kind people, but I said, “Let me try him.” Luckily, Alan agreed to do of thing I want to do.” Most of the artists now are familiar with it, but he was really, really hesitant to open up at the start. He the series, but during those early days, it was more important for had been kind of misquoted on interviews with Wizard magame to talk to them face-to-face. That chance meeting with Alan zine, but he was familiar with our stuff because he loves comics history, and he had done the interview in Kimota! for George, so was a big impetus for getting him first. JBC: For the line-up, did you have a wish list? he decided to give it a shot. I really learned a lot about how to
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Eric: Yes, I had a list of about thirty to forty artists. There were some guys I asked early on that I never was able to do, including Mike Mignola at the top of that list. It was a year or maybe two years in before I got to talk to him face-to-face. He would say yes, but something would always come up, and he’d be too busy. That was fine. I’d be upfront with them: “I know it’s going to take a lot of your time, and you’re not going to get a lot of money out of it. You’ll get some money, but probably not as much as your time is worth. But, please do this anyway. I’ll work around your schedule to make it as convenient for you as possible.” [laughter] I was always worried about that kind of thing; I didn’t want it to become a drag for anyone, you know? I wanted them to enjoy it as much as possible, and for it not to become a burden on them. When I was talking to artists about the project, I would always stress that. Some guys wanted to do the interviews in big marathon sessions, and some preferred to talk for an hour and then do another one in three or four weeks. Whatever worked for them, I tried to accommodate. JBC: Who else was on that wish list that you never got? Eric: P. Craig Russell was one of the first guys I talked to, but he’s a self-starter and does that kind of stuff himself. I thought he’d be a long shot anyway. Some guys like Dave Stevens I never had a chance to meet. He passed away before I had a chance to really talk to him. Mignola was really the big one that got away… and there were others, like Paul Smith, who wasn’t interested in doing it. Some guys want their work to speak for itself or they’re not comfortable doing interviews. Some guys may have an art book deal with another outfit. I never got miffed or anything; I completely understood. Do what you gotta do. I didn’t get upset; just maybe a little disappointed because I wanted to know more about them. JBC: You had a pretty strict format, and you kept to those aspects. When you got José Luis GarcíaLópez, did it pass through your mind that it would be a good idea to do a larger book, something outside the series? Or were you focused on Modern Masters as your baby? Eric: José was very soft spoken and almost shy to a point. His was supposed to be the fourth book, but he got busy and Kevin Nowlan was free and was going to be the fifth book, so we switched them around. I had some parameters for who I asked. For the “modern” part of Modern Masters, I define that as anyone who came into the business after Neal Adams. Because I didn’t necessarily see the
Eric Nolen-Weathington: Modern Masters
Modern Masters books as a be-all, end-all biography/art book kind of thing, but rather a “here’s this section of his life” kind of thing, I never really thought, “I can’t cover somebody in this format because they’re too big.” All the guys I was talking with were still working. This wasn’t going to be their “big, end-of-career, bow out.” I was working under the assumption that down the road, we could do a follow-up book. That was my hope at least. “If they stick around, I’ll come back to some of those guys 15–20 years down the road and tell the rest of their story.” JBC: Was it a nice bump in your income? Eric: It was nice, especially once I had three or four books under my belt. It could vary fairly wildly from month to month, but there was a certain floor. It wasn’t a huge amount, but when you’re getting an extra $300 a month with a young family, it makes a difference. The more books I had, the more steady it would become. Some would fall off and others would pick up the slack because they were newer. I was working 60 hours—neither job paid a lot—plus having to do the Modern Masters
Previous page: After the book came out, Alan Davis said he wanted to draw something for Eric as a thank you for making the book a pleasurable experience. This showed up in the mail a few weeks later! Above: Eric and the kids, Caper and Iain, in 2010. Below: Initially announced around 2005 in collaboration with a different co-author, Eric’s long gestating Jim Aparo book is still in the works.
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2003: MODERN MASTERS on top of that for like 10–12 hours a week, sometimes. There would be some weeks I wasn’t working on a Modern Masters, but I’d be doing stuff at home freelance, like proofreading. If you want to make a living doing what we do, you have to put in a lot of hours. So, having that commission check was nice. JBC: What was the best-selling Modern Masters? Eric: Bruce Timm. His appeal expanded beyond comics. There were people who were fans of the cartoons he was doing, and those people weren’t necessarily into comics. There was a popular message board about cartoons I was on from time to time. (I’m a big animation fan.) They did a review of the book and my Amazon sales jumped dramatically. That was huge. I think we did five printings of that book. JBC: Wow. Did you stop? Did it saturate? Eric: That fifth printing had a slower sell-through, obviously. By that point, it was ten years out of date, but it still sold steadily. Doing a sixth printing would have been too much, though, so we didn’t do that. JBC: People who aren’t into publishing might not realize it, but to reprint it again, the book itself has to pay for production costs. Even though there might be a desire for the book, it’s usually not profitable to reprint. You were putting out a volume once every six months? Eric: That was the plan. There were times we put out three a year because things shifted around and you might get lucky with schedules and things like that. There was one year where I did four. JBC: How did the DVDs come into play? Eric: There were these two brothers up in Toronto, Canada, who made instructional videos for corporations; that was their gig and they liked the Modern Masters books, because one of them was an artist. They approached John about the possibility of doing a documentary about an artist and John asked, “Do you think we can tie it in with one of the Modern Masters?” JBC: Were the DVDs successful? Eric: Not really. I look back on it and wish we could have had more time to work on it. That first one with George Pérez, I wanted to find someone who wasn’t working on something for DC or Marvel; someone with whom I could make an arrangement without having to pay a lot of licensing fees. Production costs were up front, and we had no idea how the DVD would ultimately
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do—or if we could even pull it together correctly. It was a first-time experience for TwoMorrows and for all of us. George Peréz was working on a Witchblade project, and they had no problem with us including their imagery. I was going to MegaCon in Orlando the next month—George lives about 30 minutes north of there—and was going to be at the show as well. Ron Marz, who was writing the Witchblade story, was going to be there. Everything lined up nicely, so, “Okay, let’s do it.” We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, so we were kind of figuring it out as we went along. The guys came down from Toronto the day before I got there and filmed him drawing, working on the cover. I was there the next day at George’s house and we shot a little tour of his studio, with me talking to him. It was really on the fly. [laughter] We talked to other creators at the show. Phil Jimenez was there; he’s a big Pérez fan, so that worked out really well. The timing was too perfect to pass up, but I wish we’d had a little more time to really plan out what we were doing. It turned out all right. I’m not embarrassed about it, but I’m not super proud of it either. It could have been much better. It could have been a lot worse, so all things considered, it was fine. JBC: Did comic fans want to see the documentaries? How did it sell? Eric: It sold okay. We had a number of them signed by George, and they sold well up front. It didn’t really have a life after the initial solicitation, but it worked well enough that we tried it again with Michael Golden. We went to his place in Connecticut and hung out with him and Renee Witterstaetter for two days. There were a lot of headaches with the second one, technical issues. Their hardware crashed and we barely got footage out of it. There were all kinds of problems we weren’t set up to handle, so we decided it wasn’t really worth it to keep it going.
Branching Out
JBC: What else have you done besides Modern Masters? Eric: Books with Jim Amash, who became one of my best friends. We did books on Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino, and Matt Baker, all of which were very satisfying. I also did a book with Nick Cardy, which I just loved because I became good friends with him during that process. If you’d have told me when I was a kid that the guy drawing all these DC covers I loved would someday become a friend years later, I would’ve told you that you were crazy! That’s one of my favorite things out of all of
The World of TwoMorrows
2012: AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES
Creating Chronicles with Keith Dallas I don’t think I ever told John Morrow that my first experience with TwoMorrows Publishing wasn’t an issue of The Kirby Collector or Comic Book Artist or Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego or even Michael Eury’s Back Issue. It was The Legion Companion. In 2003 my lifelong appreciation of comic books had led me to writing news articles and reviews for SilverBulletComicBooks.com (later renamed Comics Bulletin.com). As such, I was always on the lookout for new comic-related books to spotlight, and Glen Cadigan’s comprehensive history of my secondfavorite DC property perfectly fit the bill. Over the long term, my purchase of The Legion Companion altered the course of my writing career. In the short term, though, it was a book I couldn’t put down. As if the interviews with such fabled Legion creators as Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Dave Cockrum, Mike Grell, and Jim Shooter weren’t engrossing in and of themselves, the volume was also a visual feast: page after page after page of Legion-related artwork, including dozens of never-before-seen private commissions. Long before I finished reading The
Keith Dallas: American Comic Book Chronicles
Legion Companion, I came to a near-fanatical Keith Dallas determination: I was going to produce a similar volSeries editor, The ume about my favorite DC property: the super-hero American Comic I had adored since childhood, The Flash. For the Book Chronicles record, I have no “favorite Flash.” It doesn’t matter to me if the hero running across the page is Jay or Born: 1969 Barry or Wally or Bart or even that John Fox guy. I Residence: just love the concept of “the Fastest Man Alive.” Sound Beach, (Truth be told, the reason why I love the concept so New York much is because running was the one athletic acVocation: College tivity I excelled at when I was an awkwardly skinny Professor kid. The Flash reassured me that “strength” wasn’t Favorite Creators: just measured in the size of one’s muscles.) So if Keith Giffen, Carmine there was a book that I was meant to write, The Infantino, John Byrne, Flash Companion was it, but my problem in 2003 and Alan Moore was that I didn’t really have the résumé to convince Seminal Comic Book: John Morrow (or any publisher for that matter) to Watchmen #1 trust me with a book-length project. At the same Publisher John Morrow time, I knew I would be forever kicking myself if I had long wanted to prodidn’t at least throw my hat into the ring. So I spent duce a complete overview the next three years continuing to write, refining of comics history. So, when my Flash Companion pitch, and crossing my fingers Keith Dallas pitches a that John Morrow didn’t tap someone else to write 1980s history book to him, the book in the meantime. it seems like the person Finally, in 2006, I felt it was time. I hadn’t seen to tackle such a herculean any TwoMorrows press release promoting the task had been found. impending publication of a Flash Companion, but I knew I couldn’t risk waiting any longer. By way of introduction, I emailed John a detailed Flash Companion outline. As expected, John wanted to know how many other books I had authored. I admitted that this would be my first, but to prove to him my ability to handle the project, I directed him to all the articles I had written and all the interviews I had conducted up to this point. If they weren’t enough to convince John that I was his man, then it just wasn’t meant to be. A week later, John responded. He was impressed enough with my work that he gave me the green light to get started. (Interestingly enough, I soon learned that Michael Eury already had designs on producing a Flash Companion for TwoMorrows but he was too busy handling other tasks at the time, so he graciously relinquished the The American Comic project to me.) Book Chronicles First Volume: 11/1/2012 Nothing quite beats the elation one gets when
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a publisher accepts a pitch. What quickly followed my elation, however, was the dread realization that I now had a lot of work to do—too much for me to accomplish by myself in one year, the deadline that John had set for me. So I reached out for help. I started with writers I had worked with at SilverBulletComicBooks.com: Jim Beard, Jim Kingman, Christopher Power, and Jason Sacks. Chris Irving then gave me permission to reprint his interview with Harry Lampert. Andy Mangels provided me with a CD-ROM library of Flash materials and research. My pal Bill Walko volunteered to design the book, and to my great delight one of my best friends, Don Kramer, took a break from penciling Detective Comics to draw the Flash Companion cover (colored by the extraordinary Moose Baumann). My roster of contributors was being filled out, and as I began attaching writers to specific assignments, Jim Beard asked me, “Have you contacted John Wells?” John and I had never met or interacted online, but I certainly knew of him. Put more accurately, I knew of John’s reputation as one of the foremost experts on DC Comics. As it turned out, this wasn’t true. John isn’t just an expert on DC Comics. He’s an expert on all comic book subject matters. (Don’t ask him, though; he’s too humble to admit the truth.) In his uniquely polite way, John responded to my request for help by agreeing to pitch in as best he could, given his burdensome workload. “As best he could” ended up being a half dozen articles, a series of interviews with Mark Waid, and a bunch of wonderfully tongue-in-cheek Rogues profiles. By the time production on the Flash Companion wrapped up, I
Above: Keith in 1979 with his Nana. Love that Curt Swan-drawn Superman shirt!
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was forever grateful for John’s involvement. Besides his individual contributions, his fact-checking and feedback of everything within the volume proved invaluable. Not long after John began to help me, I vowed to include him in any future TwoMorrows project I could convince John Morrow to publish, and not just because John Wells is tremendously knowledgeable. He is also one of the kindest, most accommodating, friendliest, most genuine people on the face of the Earth. He’s the kind of person who restores your faith in the human race. In short, he became my very good friend, and the only time I feel bad being John’s friend is when I realize that I’ll never come close to doing for him what he does for me. I’ll always be in his debt. I didn’t have to wait long to fulfill my vow to John Wells. Soon after The Flash Companion was published in 2008, John Morrow called me to congratulate me on a job well done. The book was selling very well, so he wanted to know what I wanted to do next. After we batted around a few ideas, John let me know that TwoMorrows’ Companion line was winding down because the licensing fees were too prohibitive. So I proposed a book that documented the comic book industry during the decade in which I grew up: the 1980s. I didn’t want to focus just on “the Big Two” (i.e. DC and Marvel) but also on all those groundbreaking independent publishers that catered to the budding Direct Market: Capital, Comico, Eclipse, Dark Horse, First, Pacific, etc. I envisioned a book that unfolded chronologically (i.e. year-byyear), so readers could experience how the decade progressed as it happened. They could then see which trends came and went, which creators rose to superstardom, and ultimately, how the whole industry transitioned from the newsstand to the specialty comic shops. John Morrow loved the idea, but he didn’t want to publish a single volume on the 1980s; he wanted to release a series of volumes that covered the entirety of comic book history, from the 1930s to the present day. I told him that I only had the time to write the 1980s volume but I knew who to contact to write the volumes covering the other decades, and I would gladly serve as the series’ editor-in-chief, responsible for managing the other authors and making sure all the volumes were aligned in approach and style. Thus was born the American Comic Book Chronicles series, and little did I realize in late 2008 that this series would consume my life for the next eleven years (and counting). It’s fair to say that neither John Morrow nor I really knew what we were getting ourselves into when we came up with this idea. As every ACBC author has learned (the hard way, unfortunately), each volume requires a lot of work, far more work than anyone
The World of TwoMorrows
Even though I had accessed so much information, ACBC space restrictions didn’t allow me to explore the event in depth. When I saw that some of my research included articles John Wells had previously written, the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. A book that comprehensively explored the DC Explosion/Implosion (its origins, its unfolding, and its impact) would be right in our wheelhouse. John agreed, but he refused to commit to the project, solely because he was inundated with work. I’ve heard that line before, and little did John know that over the years I’ve sharpened my ability to rope him into projects that he didn’t have the time to get involved in. I didn’t revisit the idea until late 2017 when I reminded John of the impending fortieth anniversary of the DC Explosion/Implosion. If we were going to pitch a book about the event to John Morrow, it was then or never, and I made clear that I could only do the book if he co-authored it. Never underestimate the power of a guilt trip because soon thereafter, John and I officially pitched Comic Book Implosion to John Morrow. If I remember correctly, our esteemed publisher accepted our pitch not just because of its subject matter, but also because of our unique format for the book. I wanted to take a break from the kind of narrative presented in American Comic Book Chronicles, so we told John Morrow that Comic Book Implosion would instead present a plethora of oral testimonies from the comic book executives,
editors, writers, artists, journalists, and even fans who experienced the DC Explosion/Implosion as it happened, threaded together in chronological order. Supplemented with lists and descriptive entries, the book would be deliberately scant of editorial commentary in order to allow readers to come to their own conclusions about the event. As John Wells and I put the book together, I felt like my TwoMorrows career had come full circle. I was once again producing a DC Comics-centric book, similar in focus (but not in format) to The Flash Companion. (Heck, if we could have gotten away with it, I would have proposed a title of The DC Implosion Companion.) Every book has its own set of challenges and obstacles to overcome, and Comic Book Implosion was no different. Besides compiling scores of testimonies from fanzines and interviews, we also spent a lot of time figuring out how to make our “oral narrative” both coherent and entertaining. Once you finish a book, you never know how your readers are going to react to it, but much to our relief, the majority of reviews and feedback was positive. The appreciation we received, though, still didn’t prepare us for the announcement that Comic Book Implosion was nominated for a 2019 Eisner Award for “Best Comic-Related Book.” I’ve long felt that John Wells deserved greater accolades for his knowledge and accomplishments, so for that reason, I consider it a distinct honor to share the Eisner Award nomination with him. I also consider it a distinct honor to have contributed to TwoMorrows Publishing. I am awed by how over the course of 25 years, John Morrow parlayed his modest Jack Kirby magazine into the most distinguished line of comic book history publications ever produced. John’s vision and acumen have allowed TwoMorrows to persevere in a turbulent marketplace, and I cannot thank him enough for taking a chance in 2006 and trusting me with a book-length project when he had every right to turn me down. Here’s to John and TwoMorrows’ next 25 years!
Keith Dallas: American Comic Book Chronicles
Previous page: Keith alongside David Greenawalt, and inset is Bill Walko. They’ve designed the ACBC volumes, and it’s been an honor to work with so many talented designers like them for the last quarter century. Inset left: Keith and John Wells’ 2018 book, Comic Book Implosion, received an Eisner Award nomination for “Best Comics-Related Book.” Above is Keith and his wife, Shannon, at the Eisner Award ceremony. Below: Longtime fans will recognize that the inspiration for that book’s cover was a DC Comics house ad from the 1970s.
— Keith Dallas
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CBA (Sort of) Returns: Comic Book Creator [We join John Morrow and Jon B. Cooke in mid-conversation, continuing from the Comic Book Artist interview on page 83.]
It might make you more money. It might make us more money, but it wouldn’t be a satisfying experience for us or the reader, so I don’t think we’re going back to that. John Morrow: We built—largely through CBA— Jon: No! There’s also a new discipline. our own competition. People saw CBA and said, We have to stick to a regular page-count, “We can do our own magazine.” How many mags no deviation. cropped up between the time we started CBA JM: If we were black-&-white printing now, and now that are not around any more? Wizard’s gone—it wasn’t direct competition—CBG, Comics we could make exceptions occasionally. Diamond wouldn’t care as long as the price Now, Comics Journal… well, the Journal’s essenwas the same. They don’t care if you give tially gone. People are a little bit jaded and more them twice as many pages. They only care used to getting the info, and also getting used to if you change the cover price or give them seeing unpublished art at Heritage Auctions—you fewer pages than you solicited. didn’t have that when CBA started. Comic Book Creator is every bit as good as CBA, and the color Jon: We can’t go to black-&-white. I don’t think the readers would stand for it. is a great addition, but people have easier access to this kind of stuff now, so it’s a little harder to sell. JM: I don’t either. It’s such a better experience in color. Comics are a colorful medium… After Jon B. Cooke: I think there’s also an audience attrition. There’s also this strange dearth of interest, coming off your great Kirby issue, CBC #1, you did though we retain a certain type of fan who likes this the Joe Kubert issue, your tribute to Joe [CBC #2]. People really responded to the heartfelt nature of history stuff, the material that stretches back. Two Morrows now has a quarter-century of our own his- that. They saw it as your love letter to Joe. It may not have been the most commercial choice for a tory. I think that kind of fan base is loyal but pretty small. There’s also a newer generation who expects second issue… everything for free—the “Napster effect” that hurt Jon: [Laughter] Especially making it a giant trade paperback. That was weird! us all, ultimately. With TwoMorrows, our base is JM: It was weird, but it needed to be done and we “we break even.” You’re the one who set up the don’t mind doing weird stuff here. We don’t have model and you don’t seem to expect super-sales. You certainly welcome stellar returns, but slow and some corporate overlord that says, “You can’t do that.” You come up with a crazy idea, and I’m like, steady wins the race. “Can I make this work financially?” JM: It does, but at the same time, the elephant in So, the one thing that puzzles some readers with the room is we are getting older and I have to put two daughters through school, so it would be nice CBC is you’re not showing a bunch of super-heroes to have the old sales numbers we used to have for on the cover. Explain your thinking about that. Jon: Well, I have an interest in featuring artists proCBA #1, and needing two and three printings to moting their own creator-owned stuff, if they have help make ends meet. That would be really nice. it. Did you think I had some philosophical motive? It’s been 25 years and the recession was a tough JM: Well, we talked about it. You didn’t want to be time for us—late 2007–09. You saw it when you beholden to Marvel and DC because it is a differcame back, Jon. “Wow, these are the numbers ent world now. You wanted people to feature their now compared to 1998, 2000?” We have to set own work. We went into CBC knowing this wasn’t our expectations realistically. the most commercial work. I can’t think of a single The other thing is, when we made the shift thing over all these years that we went into for a to full-color, that set us up. It’s hard to go back. There’s probably a business model where we could commercial reason; that’s always been a factor, because you’ve gotta make ends meet, but can you take CBC and do it in black-&-white, with a lower think of a single project you’ve done where “We’ve cover price. Would that make you more money?
Jon B. Cooke: Comic Book Creator
A measured return by Jon B. Cooke to TwoMorrows meant it was inevitable he’d do what he does best: a new ground-breaking magazine about comics. Above: Renowned illustrator Drew Friedman produced this caricature of Jon B. Cooke for the CBC editor’s business card and promotion during the “Year of Weirdo” events as he toured in 2019 to support The Book of Weirdo, the cover of which Drew… ummm… drew!
Comic Book Creator First Issue: 5/6/2013
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Above: Alex Ross’ pencil rough for the cover of Comic Book Creator #1, including a really cool—albeit unused—concept for the CBC logo. Next page: Cooke and Morrow ham it up after Jon receives the Inkpot Award during his “Spotlight” panel at the 2019 Comic-Con International: San Diego. Photo by Kendall Whitehouse.
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got to make a boatload of money!” was the reason we’re doing it? Jon: I knew that the Adam Hughes issue of CBA was going to do well, but it was the excitement of loving his art. He was an equal fanboy in his own way and wanted to be a part of it, and gave us such a delightful cover. JM: Right. And we certainly didn’t mind that the issue sold great! Jon: No, but that wasn’t the intent, as you say. It
2014
was because he deserved it! JM: Same thing with CBC. Jon: I’m not the most commercial-minded fellow… I want to make a really good reader experience. I want the reader to have no doubt that we gave it our all, in whatever it is. If I’m entrusted by a columnist, if he gives me that material, I’m going to do the best I can do to make him look good. If there’s one thing I’m very gratified about, my columnists have said, “Just do your typical job and I’m happy with that.” It’s an “attaboy” that I really want. Again, I never thought about things commercially. It’s instinctual; I love it all. There aren’t many people like me out there who love it all, but I do! I am as enthusiastic about Mary Fleener’s work as I am Alex Ross’. That’s just how I am. JM: I am so glad we got Swampmen out, making it part of CBC. That’s a clever little twist I came up with for Kirby Five-Oh! and Alter Ego: Centennial. When we want to do some special thing like that, we make it a regular issue of the magazine, but we also consider it a book, as well. We’re getting two possible distribution avenues. That is a commercial consideration that we take on. We’ve got a built-in audience for it. The subscribers get it, so you’ve sold that many copies up front, so that is a commercial consideration, Jon. We could have done Swampmen as just a book, but it really fit the venue of CBC, so considering it the sixth issue, I thought it was a great fit. Jon: I have always wanted to do a regular summer annual, and it’s the closest we got, which is okay by me. We did have that fantastic Frank Cho cover. The unfinished Swampmen was a sore point for a period when I just bagged out delivering it in the ’00s, but I was able to score some redemption by getting it done and it’s a good issue. And you’re right: it’s not an issue, it’s a book, and it’s about to sell out. There are ideas I have about ’70s comics… when I saw the American Comic Book Chronicles, I had a burrowed frow… or a furrowed brow [chuckles]; this is a subject area I wanted to go into, and I will, in my own way. “Keep ye eyes peeled,” as I say.
2015 2014 The World of TwoMorrows
2018: RETROFAN
RetroFan: The Crazy, Cool Stuff We Grew Up With In June of 2018, TwoMorrows released the first issue of a new quarterly magazine edited by yours truly, RetroFan. Its tagline, “The Crazy, Cool Stuff We Grew Up With,” defines its subject matter, but to fine-tune that into a more specific demographic, our primary focus is pop culture of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. RetroFan is sort of the Back Issue magazine of content other than Bronze Age comic books. But it’s far from an alternate flavor of BI. While ye ed’s voice and nostalgic sensibilities may provide RetroFan’s pulse, it’s the contributors and their vast and eclectic interests and areas of expertise that make each issue a groovy grab-bag of everything from a Jaclyn Smith interview to a Jonny Quest flashback to a history of Captain Action (just some of the content in #7, the nearest Above: Publisher John Morrow had a ball for two years, scooping issue to date). up back issues of some of the You ask, “How did RetroFan originate?” worst 1960s comics ever, to loan to RetroFan almost started back in 2012. Back then Michael Eury for Hero-A-Go-Go! I—humble editor of both Back Issue and the mag in question—was juggling multiple jobs, including the executive direction of a nonprofit organization whose demands were becoming more than I could manage with my existing editorial work of Back Issue and writing books. I was weighing options, and one of them was to leave the nonprofit position (which I did). That would free up some time to start up a second publication, a “Retro Magazine,” with TwoMorrows. Yet when I finally slowed down my pace I realized the time wasn’t right for me to launch a new, ongoing magazine. But I was ready to take on something new, and pitched it to John Morrow: writing a biography of RetroFan Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. That didn’t materiFirst Issue: 6/13/2018 In 2018, a full-blown pop culture magazine was in the offing, and Michael Eury was ready to tackle it.
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alize, but it started a dialogue with John in which we brainstormed Mythmakers, a series of softcover books to be written and edited by me that would be the writer/editor/executive equivalent of Eric Nolen-Weathington’s Modern Masters artist spotlights. I lined up the first eight subjects: Len Wein, Roy Thomas, Paul Levitz, Mark Waid, Marv Wolfman, Karen Berger, Mike Richardson, and Kurt Busiek. Each consented and I was preparing my interview questions for Len. Then came a snag when Len hesitated, as he was considering writing his autobiography. There was also my concern about market saturation from TwoMorrows, since Jon B. Cooke’s Comic Book Creator was launching. In May 2013, John Morrow and I agreed to pull the plug on the Mythmakers project. There was an additional reason for Mythmakers’ cancellation: My mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, on Mar. 15, 2013, and her caregiving became a family responsibility for the next four years, until her passing on Mar. 15, 2017 (four years to the day from her diagnosis). Watching Mom wither away was difficult, but it was a blessing to be able to provide loving care for the woman who had given so much of herself to me. During the last year of Mom’s life, I was involved with the research and production of my most recent TwoMorrows book, Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, and Culture of the Swinging Sixites. I didn’t realize it at the time, but surrounding myself with warm memories from my comics-crazed childhood with Hero-A-Go-Go provided solace, taking me back to an era when my mother and father (Dad passed in 2004) were young, happy, and vital. Hero-A-Go-Go also allowed me to build an excellent relationship with its designer, Scott Saavedra. After Mom’s passing, when my life was returning to normal, I was ready to put a new project back on the table. So John and I dusted off the old “Retro Magazine” concept. One of the toughest challenges we had was settling on a title. “Retro” websites, conventions, T-shirt companies, video game magazines, you name it, had locked in “Retro Magazine” and other similar names. Then one day John suggested to me, with a
The World of TwoMorrows
2018: RETROFAN Left: Michael Eury being interviewed in 2018 for Comic Culture, a broadcast produced by students at the University of North Carolina, at Pembroke. Inset center: The incomparable Scott Saavedra, layout guru of RetroFan.
background in Hollywood visual effects—and like the other columnists started as a fan, most notably of monster and sci-fi cinema. We brought in Hero-A-Go-Go’s Scott Saavedra as designer, and off we went… until things started to go wrong. Our first issue cover, spotlighting our premiere issue’s celebrity subject, Lou Ferrigno, went through several permutations. Licensor fees were too pricey for us to depict the TV Hulk and Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man, and we were denied use of Filmation’s Star Trek on the cover. Then, as the deadlines for #2’s manuscripts were rapidly approaching, personal matters led to the unexpected departure of two of my columnists, Martin Pasko and Ernest Farino, and their material had to be reassigned late in the game. Wondering if I, like the tomb raiders from Jonny Quest, had unleashed the Curse of Anubis, minus the shambling mummy, I asked my wife, “Rose, is this magazine cursed?” She assured me that these were growing pains that I’d get under control. And I did. I was sorry to lose Marty and Ernie, but that gave me the chance to allow our designer to become a columnist— Scott Saavedra is a really fun guy, as readers of his old Comic Book Heaven series know. Then I recruited pulp master Will Murray as a columnist. With Mangels and Shaw!, that was still a formidable line-up of columnists. Soon, both Marty and Ernie were able to return to the magazine—hooray!—and #1 and 2 encouraged a flood of queries from freelance writers wanting to contribute. Weird, that in a short window of time, ye ed went from needing contributors to
having more than I can manage for any single issue! But believe me, that’s no complaint… what editor wouldn’t want an army of talented writers? The downside is, with only 80 pages in a quarterly magazine, occasionally our regular contributors will rotate off for an issue,* but their dedication to the magazine and unique perspectives are crucial, and so long as they want to be RetroFan writers, this will be a home for them. Same with the guest writers, although practicing the “Patience is a virtue” dictum is crucial since I now have a backlog of material to keep us going for a long time to come—and new ideas are pitched regularly. RetroFan is being distributed to comic shops and sold through the company website, as you’d expect of any TwoMorrows publication. But it’s also available at Barnes & Noble and we’re working to get it onto other newsstands. This is a risky venture, but a valuable one in an effort to attract a broader commercial audience than currently exists within TwoMorrowsWorld. I’ve received lots of mail from people who stumbled across RetroFan at B&N… and have connected with a few of my new guest contributors there, too. As with Back Issue, I’m dedicated to RetroFan and am behind it for the long haul, even while other publishers may be shying away from print. These days, every time I read the paper or watch the news I’m bombarded by bleakness… retreating to 80 pages of the crazy, cool stuff we grew up with isn’t such a bad place to visit!
— Michael Eury
* As of this writing, RetroFan has increased frequency to bi-monthly status—six times a year!
Above: Rose Rummel-Eury, reporting for duty as Lady Action at one of Michael’s many personal appearances. She’s even helped man the TwoMorrows booth at pop culture events!
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The World of TwoMorrows
TwoMorrows Bibliography: 1994–2019 Sept. 5, 1994
The Jack Kirby Collector #1
Edited by John Morrow
July 1, 1997
The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Vol. 1
Edited by John Morrow
Mar. 1, 1998
Comic Book Artist #1
Edited by Jon B. Cooke
May 1, 1998
Jack Kirby Checklist
Compiled by Richard Kolkman
July 1, 1998
The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Vol. 2
Edited by John Morrow
July 1, 1999
The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Vol. 3
Edited by John Morrow
July 1, 1999
Alter Ego Vol. 3 #1
Edited by Roy Thomas
Dec. 1, 1999
Comic Book Artist Special Edition #1
Edited by Jon B. Cooke
Mar. 1, 2000
Comicology #1
Edited by Brian Saner Lamken
June 1, 2000
Comic Book Artist Collection Vol. 1
Edited by Jon B. Cooke
July 1, 2000
Streetwise: Autobiographical Stories by Comic Book Professionals
Edited by Jon B. Cooke & John Morrow
Mar. 1, 2001
Draw! #1
Edited by Mike Manley
Mar. 1, 2001
Alter Ego: The CBA Collection
Roy Thomas
June 1, 2001
Comicology #4 (last issue)
Edited by Brian Saner Lamken
July 1, 2001
Prime8: Creation
by Jon B. Cooke, Andrew D. Cooke, Chris Knowles, George Freeman, & Al Milgrom
July 1, 2001
The Warren Companion (TPB & HC)
Edited by David A. Roach & Jon B. Cooke
July 3, 2001
Mr. Monster: His Books of Forbidden Knowledge, Vol. Zero
Sept. 1, 2001
Kimota! The Miracleman Companion
Nov. 1, 2001
Sense of Wonder: A Life in Comic Fandom
Dec. 1, 2001
The All-Star Companion Vol. 1
May 1, 2002
Xal-Kor the Human Cat
May 1, 2002
Comic Book Artist Collection Vol. 2
June 18, 2002
July 1, 2003
Comic Books & Other Necessities of Life: A Collection Of POV Columns by Mark Evanier Celebrate the 25th ANNIVERSARY OF TWOMORPanel Discussions: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling by Durwin ROWS PUBLISHING, today’s premier purveyor of S. Talon publications about comics and pop culture, with this special Write Now #1 Danny Fingeroth retrospective look at the company thatEdited changedby fandom forever! By publisher and JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR editor I Have To Live With This Guy! by Blake Bell JOHN MORROW and COMIC BOOK ARTIST/COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine’s JON B. COOKE, it gives G-Force: Animated by Jason Hofius & George Khoury behind-the-scenes details from BACK ISSUE magazine’s Captain Action: The Original Super-Hero Action Figure by Michael Eury MICHAEL EURY, ALTER EGO’S ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY (author of KIMOTA!, EXTRAORDINARY Comic Book Artist #25 (last issue of Vol.1) B. Cooke WORKS OF ALAN MOORE, and otherEdited books), by andJon a host of other TwoMorrows contributors! Introduction by MARK Modern Masters Vol. 1: Alan Davis Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS, Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new cover by TOM McWEENEY! Available in SOFTCOVER, ULTRA-LIMITED Captain Victory: Graphite Edition by Jack Kirby, edited by John or Morrow HARDCOVER with a 16-PAGE BONUS MEMORY ALBUM! Wertham Was Right!: Another Collection of POV Columns by Mark Evanier (256-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $37.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-092-2 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • Diamond Code: JUL192275 The Life and Art of Murphy Anderson by Murphy Anderson & R.C.Order Harvey
July 30, 2003
The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore
July 1, 2002 Aug. 1, 2002 Sept. 1, 2002 Dec. 9, 2002 Dec. 23, 2002 Apr. 1, 2003 Apr. 23, 2003 June 1, 2003 June 18, 2003
by Michael T. Gilbert
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK by George Khoury BELOW TO ORDER THIS BOOK! by Bill Schelly Edited by Roy Thomas
THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS by Grass Green
Edited by Jon B. Cooke
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_94&products_id=1522
Sept. 1, 2003
by George Khoury, etc. (272-page ULTRA-LIMITED HARDCOVER) $75 ISBN: 978-1-60549-093-9 • (Digital Edition) $15.99Stewart • NOT SOLD IN COMICS SHOPS! Against the Grain: MAD Artist Wallace Wood (TPB + HC) Edited by Bhob
Oct. 1, 2003
The Legion Companion
Oct. 14, 2003
Dick Giordano: Changing Comics One Day At A Time
by Michael Eury
Nov. 1, 2003
Hero Gets Girl! The Life and Art of Kurt Schaffenberger
by Mark Voger
Nov. 1, 2003
Back Issue #1
Edited by Michael Eury
Nov. 4, 2003
Wallace Wood Checklist
by Bhob Stewart & Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr.
Feb. 4, 2004
The Fawcett Companion: The Best of Fawcett Collectors of America
by P.C. Hamerlinck
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http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_94&products_id=1523
by Glen Cadigan
The World of TwoMorrows
All characters TM & © their respective owners.
BOOKS FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING
ER EISN RD AWAINEE! M NO
MONSTER MASH
GROOVY
MARK VOGER’s time-trip back to 1957-1972, to explore the CREEPY, KOOKY MONSTER CRAZE, when monsters stomped into America’s mainstream!
A psychedelic look at when Flower Power bloomed in Pop Culture. Revisits ‘60s era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, TV, MOVIES, ART, COMICS & CARTOONS!
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-064-9
(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9
MIKE GRELL
LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER Career-spanning tribute to a comics art legend! (160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $27.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-088-5 (176-page LTD. ED. HARDCOVER) $37.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-087-8 (Digital Edition) $12.95
KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID
Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB (the UK’s preeminent horror comics history magazine): Atomic comics lost to the Cold War, censored British horror comics, the early art of RICHARD CORBEN, Good Girls of a bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH, BRUCE JONES’ ALIEN WORLDS, HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL, and more! (192-page trade paperback) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $10.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6
(176-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6
THE MLJ COMPANION
Documents the complete history of ARCHIE COMICS’ super-heroes known as the “Mighty Crusaders”, with in-depth examinations of each era of the characters’ history: The GOLDEN AGE (beginning with the Shield, the first patriotic super-hero), the SILVER AGE (spotlighting the campy Mighty Comics issues, and The Fly and Jaguar), the BRONZE AGE (the Red Circle line, and the !mpact imprint published by DC Comics), up to the MODERN AGE, with its Dark Circle imprint! (288-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $34.95 (Digital Edition) $14.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-067-0
COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION
In 1978, DC Comics implemented its “DC Explosion” with many creative new titles, but just weeks after its launch, they pulled the plug, leaving stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished. This book marks the 40th Anniversary of “The DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics, with an exhaustive oral history from the creators involved (JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others), plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics forever!
ER EISN RD AWAINEE! NOM
(136-page trade paperback with COLOR) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $10.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-085-4
(272-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $36.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1
IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB
EXPANDED SECOND EDITION—16 EXTRA PAGES! Looks back at the creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s complicated relationship! Includes recollections from STEVE DITKO, ROY THOMAS, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and other Marvel Bullpenners! ED AND EXP COND SE ION! IT ED
HERO-A-GO-GO!
MICHAEL EURY looks at comics’ CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV’s Batman shook a mean cape!
JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE
The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time, in cooperation with DC Comics! Two unused 1970s DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE and SOUL LOVE magazines! (176-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $14.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5
AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES:
8 Volumes Covering The 1940s-1990s
LOU SCHEIMER CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION
Biography of the co-founder of Filmation Studios, which for over 25 years brought the Archies, Shazam, Isis, He-Man, and others to TV and film! (288-page paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $14.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-044-1
AND THESE MAGAZINES ABOUT COMICS & POP CULTURE:
FOCUSING ON GOLDEN & SILVER AGE COMICS
OR -COL FULLDCOVER HAR RIES SE nting me f docu ecade o d y! c ea h s histor ic com
COMICS OF THE 1970s, ’80s and TODAY! THE NEW VOICE OF THE COMICS MEDIUM TM
C o l l e c t o r
CELEBRATING THE LIFE & CAREER OF THE “KING” OF COMICS
THE CRAZY COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH
TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.
Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com
TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
In 1994, amidst the boom-&-bust of comic book speculators, The Jack Kirby Collector #1 was published for true fans of the medium. That modest 16-page, black-&-white, photocopied labor of love spawned TwoMorrows Publishing, today’s premier purveyor of publications about comics and pop culture. Celebrate the publisher’s 25th anniversary with this special look back at the company that changed fandom forever! Co-edited by and featuring publisher John Morrow and Comic Book Artist/Comic Book Creator magazine’s Jon B. Cooke, this 256-page retrospective gives the inside story and behind-the-scenes details of a quarter-century of examining the past in a whole new way.
Also included are retrospectives of dozens who’ve been contributing to TwoMorrows, foremost among them Back Issue magazine’s Michael Eury, Alter Ego’s Roy Thomas, George Khoury (author of Kimota!, Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, and others), Mike Manley (Draw! magazine), Eric Nolen-Weathington (Modern Masters), and many more. From their first Eisner Award-winning book, Streetwise, through the BrickJournal LEGO® magazine, pop culture fun with Monster Mash, and up to today’s RetroFan magazine, every major TwoMorrows publication and contributor is covered with the same detail and affection the company gives to its books and magazines.
37.95 in the U.S. Softcover ISBN: 978-1-60549-092-2 $
53795
TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina
9 781605 490922
Printed in China
ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-092-2 ISBN-10: 1-60549-092-X