Comic Book Creator - Comic Book Artist (Vol. 2) #3 by PressPad

“For the Celebration of Comics” SERVING READERS SINCE 1998

Jon B. Cooke EDITOR/CREATOR/DESIGNER

Chris Staros & Brett Warnock Top Shelf Productions PUBLISHERS Barbara Lien-Cooper MANAGING EDITOR George Khoury SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christopher Irving ASSOCIATE EDITOR/CHIEF CORRESPONDENT Chris Knowles ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Tice TRANSCRIBER Greg Preston CBA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER

MASTHEAD AND COVER DESIGN Bissel & Titus www.bisseltitus.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David A. Roach Fred Hembeck Michelle Nolan Joe McCabe TITLE ORIGINATOR/CBA CLASSIC LOGO Arlen Schumer CBA MASCOT Woody J.D. King ISSUE THEME SONG “Dodo” Dave Matthews COVER ARTIST

Darwyn Cooke

www.cbanow.com www.topshelfcomix.com Editor: JonBCooke@aol.com Publisher: staros@bellsouth.net

This issue dedicated in beloved memory of:

Walter Willett A missed friend & fellow Plastic Man afficionado

PASSAGES “Archaic Al”: R.I.P.

Certainly one of the sadder events in recent memory was the very sudden demise of ALAN HEWETSON, celebrated editor/ writer of the Skywald “Horror-Mood” black-&-white magazine line of the ’70s. For years, CBA had been searching for the talented scribe (who had helmed the unforgettable Psycho and Nightmare scream-fests) in the hopes of covering those periodicals published by Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman, so we were delighted when the affable author made our acquaintance recently via the Internet. Immediately the enthusiastic writer agreed to participate in a number of projects with Ye Ed, including participation in the forthcoming RetroHouse book, SWAMPMEN: MUCK MONSTERS OF THE COMICS (where he was to be interviewed about his work on the ’70s revival of that gran'daddy swamp creature of the funnybooks, The Heap). Al was also to help promote his forthcoming Headpress book for next issue, as well as be part of a future Comic Book Artist Classic section devoted to his Skywald comics (which, for the latter, the writer/editor wrote us a long and fascinating essay). Suddenly, while he and Ye Ed were finalizing these projects, Al suffered a massive heart attack in his Ontario home. We extend our deepest condolence to Al’s wife, Michelle, and CBA is now preparing a special memorial section devoted to the man for our June issue (Vol. 2, #5). Testimonials and memories from “Archaic” Al’s peers and fans are welcome. Rest well, Mr. Hewetson. You are missed.

Geo. Woodbridge CBA was also distressed to hear of the death in January of one of Mad magazine’s most accomplished artists, the indomitable George Woodbridge. Noted for his highly illustrative style, George began his comics career in the mid-’50s working for Marvel/Atlas on various war and Western strips, Western Publications on Lassie, and Gilberton on their World Around Us series, before joining E.C. Publications in 1959. According to Maria Reidelbach’s Completely Mad, the artist was given entré at the satirical magazine by his childhood friend (and Mad editor) Nick Meglin. George would eventually become an authority on historical and military costumes, illustrating a number of seminal books on the subject. Godspeed, George Woodbridge.

William Steig While the wider world may merely note that the acclaimed cartoonist/author was creator of Shrek!, CBA readers no doubt recognize William Steig as being one of the most creative artists ever to grace pages of The New Yorker, the magazine — to which he contributed to for nearly 75 years! — he is most closely associated. An astonishingly talented artist, William mastered virtually any medium he would turned his attention to, such as the gag cartoon, sculpting, his idiosyncratic psychoanalytical “symbolic” drawings (a genre he was arguably the single — albeit brilliant — practitioner), and even children’s books. But Ye Ed will best remember the guy for his sublime ability to connect with kids. Eternally childlike, Steig once remarked, “I’ve always despised old people. I got angry at my father when he began to show signs of age. I thought, ‘Oh, come on, cut it out.” He was 95 years young when he died in October.

4 8 11 18

DEPARTMENTS Ye Ed’s Rant Heroes 4 Knowles Knows Aeon of Flux 6 Khoury’s Land of the Lost Punishing Fury 8 Comic Book Chit-Chat Sparky’s Legacy: Gary Groth on The Complete Peanuts 11 CBA High Five: Howard Chaykin’s Top Five Illustrators 18 Shameless Hype: Plugging Ploog’s Abadazab 10 Don McGregor Riding Shotgun 20 Irving on the Inside Land’s Lady 22 Incoming! Letters o’ Comment to CBA 24 Fred Hembeck Dateline: @*!?# 26 To Be Continued… What’s coming & George Khoury bio 112

FEATURES

33 44

Jay Stephens Sketchbook 27

The Jet Cat cartoonist’s work on Teen Titans, Nickelodeon & more

Darwyn Cooke New Frontiers 34

From Batman Beyond to Catwoman to The New Frontier, the brilliant “newcomer” gives us a comprehensive look at his life

Dave Stewart Awash in Color 44

The young comic-book colorist on his impressive accomplishments

Mark Chiarello Comics By Design 68

We launch “Pop-Ed Pages” by talking to DC’s editorial art director

Comic Book Artist Classic Little Archie Color Cover Gallery My Adventures with Little Archie: Gary Brown’s Overview Bob Bolling An Adventurous Career

47 48 49 52

The Little Archie creator/artist/writer on life with the puny redhead

Dexter Taylor Taylor-Made Comics 64 The “other” great Little Archie artist on his long comics career COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published 10 times a year by Top Shelf Productions, P.O. Box 1282, Marietta, GA 30061-1282 USA. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. Chris Staros & Brett Warnock, Publishers. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, 3706 Kingstown Road, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287. E-mail: JonBCooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to Top Shelf, NOT the editorial office. Single issues: $10 postpaid ($12 Canada, $13 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $39.50 US Media Rate/$59.50 US Priority Rate; $69.50 Canada Air Mail; $89.50 Air Mail elsewhere. All characters © their respective copyright holders. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2004 Jon B. Cooke. Cover acknowledgement: All characters ©2004 their respective copyright holders. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Comic Book Artist’s shameless hype, capsule reviews, news briefs, mini-interviews & other ephemera of note

• March 2004

Sparky’s Legacy

Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth talks about The Complete Peanuts

BY JON B. COOKE/TRANSCRIBED BY STEVEN TICE Comic Book Artist: Did you read Peanuts as a kid? Gary Groth: I did. I remember reading the strip in the ’60s, when I was a kid, but I have to admit that it didn’t have any greater impact on me than any number of other strips. I was a desultory comic strip reader as a kid. I’d just read anything from Andy Capp (which I distinctly remember, oddly) to Dick Tracy to Peanuts. I have to admit Peanuts didn’t have any greater impact on me than most of the other strips I read in the newspaper. CBA: In retrospect, do you remember them perhaps better than Andy Capp? Gary: Well, it’s hard to say, because I’ve re-read Peanuts since and have come to appreciate it more. I was a late bloomer in regards to Peanuts. At some point, I recognized Peanuts was a great strip, but in the same way I recognized that about certain strips which I knew were great but which I didn’t love, without having them becoming a significant part of my life. If you read the interview Rick Marschall and I did with Charles Schulz, in 1987 [though published in the final issue of Nemo, #31/32, Jan./Winter ‘91], which we’re reprinting in the first volume of The Complete Peanuts, you’ll notice I don’t know shit about the

strip. All of the questions I asked Schulz are generic, or based on the flow of the conversation. I didn’t go prepared, and wasn’t sufficiently prepared spontaneously because I wasn’t familiar enough with the strip. I think I added a lot of follow-up in the interview where I tried to pin him down on many of the answers he gave, but I wasn’t asking him specific questions about the strip. It was really only in the ’90s when I finally went back and started re-reading them that I gained what I’d call my more mature appreciation of the strip. (I have a very idiosyncratic and unsystematic kind of discovery process.) I can’t even say why I started to re-read the material; it just happened to be something I wanted to do at that time and as it turned out it was a propitious time to do it. But prior to that, I was really very dilettant-ish in my appreciation of Schulz. CBA: Obviously, the strip had mainstream appeal, and it was very highly merchandised and licensed. Were you wary because of its enormous success? Gary: You mean prior to the ’90s? I think that was part of it. I don’t think I deliberately avoided Peanuts because of that, but I think there was a kind of subconscious aversion to loving it very

much because of that very mainstream popularity. I was just into what I considered more radical work, into underground comix and alternative material. I had to go through that period before I could come out of it and go back and appreciate different kinds of work, like John Stanley’s Little Lulu, for instance. CBA: Other genres you hadn’t given attention to, let’s say? Gary: Yeah, usually older work. I think you hit the nail on the head: There was a period probably in the ’70s and ’80s where I just didn’t pay attention to Peanuts, because it did not represent any kind of edge for me. It was such an establishment strip, such a heavily-merchandised strip. CBA: Now that you’ve obviously had a chance to look back at it with more informed or appreciative eyes, are you surprised that such a subtle strip, a strip that really dealt with the angst of being a child, became so successful? Gary: Well, looking over it, I can see its mass appeal. I think there are these anomalies, where

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Comic Book Chit-Chat great artists achieve popularity. I’m not sure I could name anyone off the top of my head besides Schulz, but it occasionally happens. [Thinks for a few seconds] [Vladimir Nabokov’s sexually charged novel] Lolita is an example. Everyone knows what Lolita means. Why the hell did that book break out? CBA: Lolita was perhaps, maybe along with Peanuts, very much tied to its time. It came out when Playboy was gaining popularity, the Kinsey Report [on human sexuality] was released. Maybe part of Peanuts’ success was tied to the baby boom?

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Gary: That’s right: they both may have been at the right place at the right time. I guess that’s true of almost everything. It all depends on where and when you are. CBA: You went through a certain period of radicalism in your life. Did you look at, perhaps (to pick an example) the naming of [Snoopy’s bird friend] Woodstock, with a wry eye? Gary: Well, not at the time. That would have been what, ’69? No, I was a blissfully ignorant in 1969. I would have been 15, and about social and political realities I didn’t know shit from shinola. I’d only barely heard of Woodstock.

CBA: You weren’t going through a latent hippy stage? Gary: No. You know, in another year or two, by 1970 or ’71, I became a belated hippy. A faux hippy. CBA: Then your corruption started to take place? [laughs] Gary: Yes, I remember having arguments with my parents over growing my hair long. Or rather, I just stopped cutting it. [laughs] I missed Woodstock. I was two or three years behind the curve. I became aware of Vietnam a little later than a lot of people and partly because I was about to be drafted! CBA: You had a father in the military, right? Gary: Right. CBA: What is it about Peanuts that makes it art? Gary: I did a tremendous amount of research on Schulz and the strip before I did my 1997 interview, so, looking over it all, it was the depth and the resonance and the pain, I think, that struck me most forcefully about the strip. I was continually amazed at how Schulz was able to create this life’s work that repeated a handful of themes, yet each time he tackled them, they had the same resonance they had had in the previous incarnations, or he would actually add to it in some inexplicable way. CBA: For instance, what themes are you talking about? Gary: Well, rejection, of course. CBA: Charlie Brown’s rejection by the little red-headed girl, you mean? Gary: Yes, and that kind of heart-break applies to just about everybody. It’s so universal it’s banal but Schulz was able to transform what could easily have been a cliché in a lesser artist’s hands into something truly profound. Also, Lucy’s rejection by Schroeder… The alienation in the strip also resonated universally. Almost everybody (except people I really can’t stand) have felt themselves this sense of pain, this loss, this alienation, if not continually throughout their lives, then at certain periods in their lives. Obviously these feelings were important to Sparky and the memories of alienation and rejection stayed with him his entire life, and not just about the little redheaded girl. Every artist can depict pain, but he was able to universalize it so eloquently, and with such compelling and iconic characters, that he was able to ride that razor’s edge of being a great artist and being a commercial artist. (I don’t know if that answers the damned question.) CBA: I think it does. [laughter] How about

stylistically? Was his minimalist style artistic? Gary: How can you imagine the strip being drawn in any other way? That subtle, gestural approach had to have something to do with how well he communicated all of his themes. He was something of a pioneer in that reductive style that a lot of people went on to abuse. CBA: But Schulz’s style is very difficult to replicate, isn’t it? Gary: Well, that’s what I hear from any number of artists, like Ivan Brunetti or Chris Ware. They just can’t get that same line. I assume that’s true, because that line represents his signature. This is true of every line by any superlative artist. There are artists with extraordinary lines, and then there are artists with other strengths, who don’t have that same quality. But it is impossible to replicate that Schulz line, because it’s like handwriting, it comes out of his being, out of who he is and what he’s experienced. It’s not just a matter of technique; it’s a matter of form and content forming a perfect whole. The line is just exquisite, and why it’s exquisite, and why it’s exquisitely appropriate, is one of those mysteries of art. I guess that’s partly what makes the strip as good as it is, because you can’t dissect it. You can look at that line until you fall over, but you still can’t quite figure out what makes it so expressive. And that’s true of, I think, every great cartoonist, like Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, etc. That line is just so distinctive and expressive. CBA: Now, since The Complete Peanuts is starting from Year One, you must have looked at the development of his style. Is there a radical shift in the early years? Gary: Well, my impression is that his style achieved maturity pretty quickly. I mean, the very early strips are obviously very different from what it became. I did study the strip pretty closely six years ago, when I interviewed Sparky [The Comics Journal #200, Dec. ‘97], and I haven’t gone back recently and looked over the whole 50 years, but I think his approach and his line does evolve over the entire course of the 50 years. In the first five years, he achieves what we really recognize as the style of Peanuts pretty quickly. I mean, you can see it in the first two years, which represents the first book, and by the end of volume one, all the characters are pretty recognizable, with the possible exception of Snoopy, who’s still walking on all fours. But you can see Schulz figuring it all out, trying to determine where he’s going to go and how he’s going to evolve as an artist, how he’s going to depict these kids. The first year or so, there’s a crudity to

TOP: The very first Peanuts comic strip, from October 2, 1950. Courtesy of Fantagraphics. Peanuts ©2004 United Feature Syndicate. ABOVE: The “father” of Charlie Brown in (presumably) a 1960s photograph, courtesy of Kim Thompson and Fantagraphics.

The CBA

Darwyn Cooke is an “old-school” type of guy, the kind who still believes we need heroes. Whether he’s talking about artist Alex Toth or Hal Jordan, the cartoonist is passionate about the subject and nowhere is it more evident than in his current on-going DC Comics six-issue mini-series, The New Frontier, an epic retelling of the origin of the Justice League of America written and drawn by Darwyn. The creator, who cut his comic-book teeth on various Catwoman series over the last few years, was interviewed via telephone on April 24, 2003, and Darwyn copy edited the final transcript.

Comic Book Artist: What year were you born, Darwyn? Darwyn Cooke: 1962. CBA: So you do go back! I’d bet people think you’re just a new, young hotshot on the scene, right? Darwyn: It’s funny sometimes when people meet me. I try to explain that I’m in my second life, my second career. CBA: Well, I guess we’ll learn it all here. Where are you originally from? Darwyn: Toronto, Canada. Born and raised. CBA: What kind of childhood did you have? Did you live in the city itself? Darwyn: Only when I was a very small child. We moved out into the suburbs when I was in grade one. It was a very typical North American childhood from that era: a suburban home. I also had two younger brothers. CBA: Any sisters?

Darwyn: No, much to my mother’s chagrin. [laughs] CBA: What did your mom do? Darwyn: She was a really bright lady who would work when she felt like it and took care of the house when she felt like it. So for two years she’d be home making lunches and keeping house, keeping everything rolling, then she’d get bored and say, “Well, I’m going to go get a job.” She did various things: office manager, restaurant work, whatever she felt like doing. CBA: She was an empowered woman? Darwyn: Yeah, I’d say almost totally, except for her attachment to my father. [laughs] CBA: But love will do that? Darwyn: Yes. My father was a bit of a rascal. I’d say he was her weakness. CBA: What did he do? Darwyn: My father was a construction worker most of his life, and ended up running the union.

PAGE 33: Hal Jordan/New Frontier illustration for Tripwire magazine, 2002. ©2004 DC Comics. PAGE 34: (From top) Motion blur from the Batman Beyond title sequence; Martian Manhunter (from NF); “Heroes of The New Frontier”; Catwoman by Darwyn Cooke (pencils) and Doc Allred (inks). All ©2004 DC Comics. KUU Snowboard Girl advertising illustration by Darwyn for KUU Snowboards (’97) ©2004 the respective copyright holder. Kids from Batman Beyond by Glen Murakami and Darwyn. ©2004 DC Comics. PAGE 35: (From top) Portrait of Darwyn by Steven Manale; detail of the Slam Bradley color guide (’01) ©2004 DC Comics; Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #11 (Apr. ’02) cover ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Selina pencil drawing (’01); art from Batman Beyond by Bruce Timm and Darwyn; Dana Tan from Batman Beyond by Shane Glines and Darwyn. All ©2004 DC Comics. ABOVE: Green Lantern from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. OPPOSITE PAGE: The Suicide Squad from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. All images courtesy of Darwyn Cooke.

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CBA: Did they stay together? Darwyn: Yes. My father passed away a few years ago. CBA: Is the peculiar spelling of your first name something you were born into? Darwyn: Yes. That was one of my father’s little things, I guess. There’s absolutely no reason for this at all. He never would tell me, either, why he named me “Darwyn.” Then — I think it was my 21st birthday — he finally told me. My father had a hard time, like a lot of guy’s fathers, showing any emotion, but he said, “I knew a guy in high school who had that name. I didn’t really know him very well, but I did know he was the nicest person I’d ever met in my life. So the name stuck with me.” So there’s no deep mystery behind it. CBA: That’s pretty nice, though. Darwyn: Yeah, it’s great. It’s a name you definitely have to grow into. CBA: What, did you take a ribbing for it? Darwyn: Yeah, well, you know, when you’re a kid, if there’s anything different about you… CBA: You and I share, besides the fact not only do we share the same last name with the same spelling, first and last names consistently misspelled, which can be mildly annoying. So when some artists get really pissed off when I misspell their names, I go, “C’mon, dude! Geez, take it easy. My name is Jon Cooke, y’know?” [laughter] Darwyn: I’m so used to it at this point that it doesn’t even register on me anymore. CBA: I guess I should ask for my readers if we’re related, but I know we’re not, as my paternal grandfather was illegitimate and left on the doorstep of a family called the Cookes. Were there any creative inclinations in either family? Darwyn: Not really. The closest my mother’s side was I got some creativity from my grandfather — her father — who I never met. Apparently, he had quite a degree of creative ability. CBA: Were you into the trappings of American pop culture? Darwyn: Oh, very much. In Canada, in the ’60s anyway, we had very limited access to American culture. This was before cable and everything, so we got one American TV station, from Buffalo, which we could pull in on the aerial. As a matter of fact, the first thing my mother says I was clearly enthusiastic about as a child was the Batman TV show. She says that it didn’t matter what I was doing, her responsibility was to get me in front of that television at 7:00 on Tuesday and Thursday nights, no matter what! [laughter] She says I wouldn’t talk to her for two days if the schedule got screwed up. [laughter] CBA: So for 1966 and ’67 you were a junkie for Batman. Did you pick up American comic books as well? Darwyn: Yes, we got a lot of American comics up here. Like a lot of people, I suppose, as a child I loved comics, but I got away from them around nine or 10. It wasn’t until I was 13, I guess, when I was visiting some relatives for a couple of weeks, and I was bored one day and ended

up buying a comic book. I had been very interested in artwork and drawing my whole life. It was an issue of Spectacular Spider-Man; I remember they did it as a black-&-white magazine first and then the next issue — the last one — was in color. It was the one where Osborn flipped out. What a great book to have picked up for my return to comics! The next day, I was so excited, I went out and bought four sheets of Bristol board. Back then, there were those real toxic markers, and I got three big, fat Magic Markers. So I spent the next three or four days just swiping these wonderful Spider-Man drawings John Romita had done. I think it was right there I knew I loved it; this was what I wanted to be: a comic book artist. CBA: So did you become a comic book collector from that moment on, as well? Darwyn: Yes, I became a big-time collector at that point. Of course, back then it was just whatever you could find at the newsstands, especially where I lived. When I was a kid, there were six places you could buy comics in my neighborhood you could get to by bike, so I checked them all. I didn’t even know when the new ones came in, so it was just a matter of always checking and grabbing everything you could. CBA: Did you have a particular favorite artist you started to clue into? Darwyn: Oh yes, absolutely: Neal Adams. This would be around, say, 1973, ’74, ’75, I guess, right when he was The Man. I remember I was deeply interested in art, and had done a lot of drawing and painting up until that point, but I never really connected it to comic books. Back then, there was the stigma, as well, where comics were seen as another thing entirely, and I thought I was going to be a… CBA: “Artiste?” Darwyn: Yes. So a guy like Adams was tailor-made for me. And I think it mirrors the reason Alex Ross is so popular right now. Young people really, really like the idea, I think, of a convincing reality being constructed around these fantasies. Adams delivered that in spades. CBA: Maybe because that approach places the reader within it, making it a comprehensible, believable world? Darwyn: Well, you look at what was going on then: even with great guys like Romita Sr., say, the style was still very simple, very much cartoon, compared to what Adams did. Now, at this age, I look back and oh, Adams is probably one of the worst things that happened to the medium, when I look at it historically. But at the time, yeah, he was definitely my hands-down favorite. CBA: How was Adams one of the “worst things” to happen? Darwyn: Well, when you get past Neal and what he did, you get into the way he influenced the medium. I think he took a certain emphasis off storytelling and placed it more on illustration. I don’t think we really see it start to fall out completely or we don’t see the results of it until the Image explosion. There’s a really strange line you can draw between Neal and those guys. But that’s not Neal’s fault, by any stretch, but I do believe it shifted the emphasis to a great degree

THIS PAGE: Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. Promotional image for Darwyn’s animation company, The Brotherhood (’98). ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. OPPOSITE PAGE: Wonder Woman from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. All courtesy of the artist.

Of course, the minute you start to trace the lines back, you get to, say, [newspaper comic strip] Johnny Hazard, then Terry and the Pirates, Scorchy Smith, and the whole business. If you’re capable of making those connections, I thought it came together very clearly. Now, implementing the results of these realizations would take years, but at that point, in my teens, I was positive this is what I was going to be, so I studied these things for ages. CBA: You know, the Super Friends treasury was just eye-popping! Alex did this incredible section on animation. Was that eye-opening for you as well? Darwyn: Absolutely. That’s what was so important for me in that treasury. It was that piece he did on how cartoons are made. The wealth of information there and the way it was presented, I thought, “Man, this guy’s a genius!” I was bought all the way in, and from there on in it was a hunt. By then, I’d discovered there were a couple of old comic stores downtown, so I’d make the pilgrimage down. Not having price guides or checklists or anything, it was tough going, but back then, comics weren’t bagged, so you could rifle through the boxes all day long. I would see things I liked, or say, “Holy shit! This is by that guy.” I could tell it was by Toth and I would take it home. CBA: Toth could be really tough to find. Being at the newsstand, I would

BELOW: Magdelina from Witchblade Animated comic book drawn by “The BBC” (J. Bone, Dave Bullock & Darwyn Cooke) (’03).

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literally rifle through almost all the comics (except for the Archies, maybe) and I experience this process of discovery with so many different artists I would never had encountered in the super-hero books. Darwyn: That’s right. CBA: I discovered Walter Simonson in the back-up pages of Star Spangled War Stories [#140, June ‘73], when Archie Goodwin was editing the title. “Whoa, this guy’s cool!” Darwyn: That guy is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in the business. CBA: Archie or Walter? Darwyn: Well, Archie too, but I was talking about Walter. When I was a kid, Walter was one of the first real comic artist personalities I got to meet, and that guy taught me exactly how to be in the future. When I meet people who are excited to be meeting me, I try and treat them as kindly as Walter treated me.

What a wonderful man! CBA: He truly is. I believe Walter’s cut from the same cloth as Archie, just a core of pure niceness. He is the first guy in the business I ever dealt with, too, and I can now call him my friend, but I’m still in awe. Darwyn: I lived and breathed for “Manhunter”! I cried when the character died. I thought that was the most amazing, innovative series I had ever seen [Detective Comics #437-443, Nov. ’73-Nov. ’74]. Again, Walter’s style was so different from anything else. It’s funny, because most of the guys I talk to, like [DC art director/The New Frontier editor] Mark Chiarello or any of the guys I know who are about my age, they were heavily into Marvel Comics during this period of time, but I wasn’t at all. I thought those books were loud, crass, and noisy. I also didn’t have much time for superheroes. I thought all the war books, Westerns, and the mystery book were the genres I really enjoyed, and yeah, you would be exposed to so many different artists because of the nature of those books. CBA: I started on Kirby’s work over at DC and then I went to Marvel because they were reprinting a lot of Jack’s stuff. Darwyn: I’m looking at a page from Fantastic Four #64 [July ’67] on the wall here I bought a couple of years ago. This is when I realized there was something to Kirby. You know the Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst story arc [FF #62-63, May-June ‘67]? CBA: Yes. Darwyn: I bought those off the stand when they reprinted them in Marvel’s Greatest Comics [#44-46, Oct.-Nov. ‘73]. I was like, “Holy shit!” [laughter] I was talking about this book in San Diego two years ago as I was walking along (I’m not sure who I was with) and then — bam! — an art dealer had a page from that issue hanging up! CBA: Kismet! Darwyn: Just like that! CBA: So you had to buy it. [laughs] Did you increasingly turn your back on the more illustrative realistic approach, or were you able to reconcile Toth and Adams? One was an indulgence and one might be actually teaching you something? Darwyn: There were so many different influences. I’m trying to hit the

TOP: Wolverine and Doop in Playboy style cartoon (’02). Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. INSET ABOVE: Selina in bath(’03). Character ©2004 DC Comics. All art this spread courtesy of Darwyn Cooke.

Awash in Color:

The Diverse Pallet &

What makes Dave Stewart a special talent, Darwyn Cooke confided, is the fact the colorist is also an accomplished artist in his own right (as you will see in Dave’s drawings accompanying this interview), giving our subject greater insight in his approach to the work than perhaps his peers. He was interviewed via phone on November 23, 2003. Comic Book Artist: When and where were you born, Dave? Dave Stewart: Boise, Idaho, on August 3, 1972. CBA: Did you have brothers and sisters? Dave: One younger brother. CBA: Was your family creative? Dave: My mom painted, but other than that, no. She did a painting every four years or so. She would paint a portrait, from a face out of a magazine, things like that. CBA: Did you draw at an early age? Were you creative? Dave: Yes. In sixth grade, I was drawing my own comics and actually selling them to kids at school. CBA: Did you key into comics young? Dave: Yes, I did. I started collecting comics. My mom and dad were religious fundamentalists but they got ahold of them and pitched my whole comic book collection in the trash. Around sixth grade, I wasn’t allowed to have comics anymore. In college, I got back into them again. CBA: What kind of comics were you reading before they threw the collection away? Dave: I remember some of my favorites were the Art Adams X-Men Annual [#10, Jan. ‘86] and I remember reading a lot of Eclipse stuff. CBA: Did you put up a defense with your parents? “Hey, these aren’t so bad”? Or there was just no changing their minds? Dave: I didn’t have much of a chance. I didn’t want to see the comics go. It was pretty bad, but I did continue to draw, and that spurred me on even more, because I didn’t have comics to read, so I had to make my own comics to fill that void. CBA: What kind of comics did you do? Dave: It was a lot of science-fiction stuff, with robots. CBA: Were you watching any animated cartoons at the time? G.I. Joe, for instance? Dave: Every once in a while, I’d watch some cartoons, but other than that, not much. CBA: Your parents were pretty

strict about what you would be exposed to? Dave: Oh, yeah. They were very, very religious. CBA: Were you able to be creative within that environment? Dave: It was weird. I remember I was a fan of [the Marvel mini-series] Rocket Raccoon [#1-4, May-Aug. ‘86, Incredible Hulk #271, May ‘82] at the time. I had picked it up. Little did I know that I’d be coloring [Rocket Raccoon artist] Mike Mignola’s art years and years later! [laughs] I really loved that book. Then my parents caught wind of it and they said, “These are talking animals. That’s demonic. Animals don’t talk, so you can’t have this comic,” and that was that. They were afraid of the imagination. They didn’t want me drawing monsters, didn’t want me to draw talking animals, or anything like that, so I was stuck with war and sci-fi comic material, as long as it didn’t get “too crazy”. CBA: So they kept a strict eye on what you read? Dave: Yes, pretty much. I tried to make them happy. I was totally immersed in fundamentalism myself, so I tried to be a good boy. [laughs] CBA: Did you go to parochial school or were you home-schooled? Dave: I went to private schools up to grade seven, and then after that I was home-schooled. These were private Christian schools, so they didn’t have a lot of creative activity. I was always encouraged to draw when I was in class, but beyond that, there wasn’t a lot of creative stimulation. CBA: Did you go through a period of rebellion? Dave: Well, like I said, I was really into the religious part of it, too. I thought I was doing the right thing, but when I started going to college, I guess I started rebelling a little bit. My eyes started opening up. It’s that whole thing: you’re just fed one idea throughout your

conducted by jon b. cooke

CBA

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Hues of Dave Stewart

The CBA Interview

whole childhood, and the, when you get away from home, you start considering different ideas. I think the whole thing about fundamentalism is that they don’t want any sort of outside influence to pollute what you’re supposed to believe or to influence you, so they keep all of that away. They just know they’re right and can’t be really questioned. CBA: Did you have buddies and friends you were able to hang out with? Dave: Up until seventh grade, yes. In school, I had lots of friends. We had a good time, but the home schooling is pretty bad. Also, we tended to move a lot because of my dad’s job. CBA: What did he do? Dave: He was a building materials salesman. CBA: Were you pretty much up there in the Idaho area? Dave: We moved from Boise to Blackfoot, Idaho, then to Wichita, Kansas. We moved back to Walla Walla, Washington and back to Boise for a while. Then to Spokane, and then finally to Portland, Oregon. CBA: So your entire high school education was home-schooled? Dave: Yes. CBA: Was that stifling, in retrospect, to not go through the typical American rituals of one’s teenage years? Dave: Yes. I knew it at the time. I knew I was missing out on so much. I was awfully lonely. At one point, we were living up in the forest on five acres of land. My dad was working for the Spokane Indian tribe. CBA: Did you make the best of the time, or was it just lonely? Dave: It was pretty lonely. Finally, when I was around 18, I got a job and started making friends (though I wasn’t allowed to drive for a while). I worked in the back at Dairy Queen. [laughter] It was pretty fun and it was cool, being around real punks. CBA: Did you continue to draw through the high school years? Dave: Yes, I did. I was always drawing. It seemed like I was still drawing comic-book-related stuff, like science-fiction material, if I could. As I got older, my parents paid less attention to that kind of stuff, so I started actually drawing monsters. [laughs] CBA: Looking back, were you developing quickly? Dave: I think so. I spent a lot of time doing it, so yes, I think I did. I didn’t have any art teachers; I’d just read books about drawing and stuff. I was self-taught.

CBA: Where did you get the books? Did you go to libraries? Dave: Yes, libraries. If I saw something that was good at a bookstore, I’d buy it. I purchased books on painting techniques, water coloring, and things like that. CBA: Where did you go to college? Dave: I went to Portland Community College. CBA: What was your major? Dave: Graphic design. CBA: Was that choice a direct result of you drawing? Dave: Yes, definitely. I knew I wanted to do something creative. My parents wanted me to be an architect or something like that. They wanted me to get a good job, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to do that, so graphic design being the closest thing to maybe having a good job and still be creative. [laughs] CBA: Did you graduate? Dave: I did, yes. It was a two-year program that took me three years. [laughs] CBA: Were you working while going to college? Dave: Yes. I had a whole bunch of jobs, at that time. I started out as a box boy at Safeway [supermarket], ended up at a butcher’s block [meat market] at Albertson’s, then worked in a lumberyard, worked in Hollywood Video helping the art director paint these giant airbrush murals on the walls. That was pretty fun. We’d take a canvas, stretch it out, I’d prime them, and then airbrush these huge scenes on it. CBA: These were promotions for upcoming video releases? continued on page 104

transcribed by steven tice

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ABOUT OUR “COVER”: Superb rendering of Little Archie and his co-stars by the character’s creator, the great Bob Bolling, drawn exclusively for Comic Book Artist. Colored by Aaron Reiner. All characters ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc. TOP: Little Archie commission piece drawn by the incomparable Bob Bolling, featuring Mad Doctor Doom, Chester, and our red-headed hero. From the collection of Mark Worden. Art ©2004 Bob Bolling. Characters ©2004 Archie Publications,Inc. ABOVE: Quartet of Bolling covers for various Little Archie titles. RIGHT: Detail from a Little Archie house ad. All courtesy of Gary Brown and ©2004 Archie Pubs, Inc.

DEDICATION: Given that the comics historian contributed this entire “issue” of Comic Book Artist Classic celebrating Little Archie, we gratefully dedicate this to:

GARY BROWN

I first met Little Archie on a whim. When I was 10 years old, I had just started to pay serious attention o comic books. The purchase of Action Comics #226 (Mar. ’57) had instantly propelled me into what would become a lifelong hobby of reading and collecting comic books. At first, my buying habits included mostly those books that were 10-year-old-boy friendly, namely the Superman and Batman titles. But, occasionally, when I had a few extra dimes and quarters in my pocket, I searched the squeaky wire racks for new comics that might appeal to me. Mostly, those included an occasional Dell cowboy comic book, Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, and the John Stanley/ Irving Tripp Little Lulu. One day in 1958, with few new comics of interest on the stands and two quarters to spend for cutting a neighbor’s lawn, I came upon Little Archie #4. I was instantly fascinated by a comic book that featured a teenage Archie as a kid. It was enough to snag me and my 25¢ (plus tax). After taking the issue home and reading it several times, I was hooked. I was an 11-year-old boy, so not yet interested in the regular Archie books and their comedic teenage boy/girl interaction. However, the idea of reading about this American icon as a little kid seemed fascinating to me. The stories were funny and I easily identified with the characters. What initially drew me to the Little Archie comic books, however, was the sense of community that Little Archie and his pals offered. They had a group of close friends they called “The Good Ol’ Gang” and they often did things or had adventures together. It wasn’t one kid against the world, but one kid supported by boys and girls of his own age. Writer and artist Bob Bolling created a world for Little Archie and his buddies that, although it was expanded to other cities, countries and planets from time to time, was well defined and consisted of what most young kids would consider an ideal existence. There was a clubhouse, a creek for fishing and

swimming, forests and hills for exploring, and a relatively safe environment in which kids could run, roam and play. And it had all the demands and rules young kids dealt with in everyday life. Their parents had them do chores and keep their rooms straight, but were there for the kids in times of need. There were bullies and casual not-so-nice kids in school and, on the south side of town, in the guise of the Southside Serpents, a rival gang. The boys did not want to play with the girls, but more often than not, the girls got to participate anyhow; and even friends disagreed and argued. It is interesting that Bolling has said Archie’s editors and top brass basically left him alone in writing and drawing his Little Archie stories from the first issue on. There were occasional editorial forays into new titles like Little Ambrose, Little Archie in Animal Land, and Little Archie Mystery, but the higher-ups never told him to write certain stories or stop drawing a particular way. This means Bolling was allowed to create this world and keep it spinning by subtly using many of the same characters and events to trigger new tales. Dexter Taylor, the “other” Little Archie artist, has said in conversations that he also was allowed to write and then draw stories without prior editorial approval. However, some word editing would be done on the final product, if needed. The best example of this is Bolling’s creation of Little Ambrose, a kid smaller than the other members of the Good Ol’ Gang and subsequently picked on by them. However, Bolling gave Ambrose determination, so the kid who hadn’t grown into his large red hat yet constantly hung out with Little Archie and his friends in an effort to win their respect and friendship. But Little Ambrose is more than a mere sympathetic character. His diminutive size makes him the catalyst for all sorts of exploits and misadventures. For example, in the story “Balloon Boy” (Little Archie #10), the gang makes a crude version of a hot-air balloon, but none of them are brave enough to go up in it. So, they turn to Little Ambrose,

Overview by Gary Brown

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who jumps at the chance, thinking it will put him in good standing with his “elders.” Of course, the flight turns into a humorous disaster involving everyone and putting Ambrose back on the outside. However, Bolling allows Ambrose to succeed in friendship with Little Archie on many occasions in a oneon-one relationship. The title’s star understands that while Ambrose can be a pest, he has a good heart. This is a theme Bolling returns to many times with Little Archie: people are basically good. Although Little Archie and others have to look hard to find it at times, it still is there. That theme is best typified in the story, “In Trouble,” (Little Archie #21). Little Archie gets in trouble at school by fighting, shooting a squirt gun, and stealing Jughead’s lunch. So, Principal Weatherbee calls Mr. Andrews and makes an appointment to visit that afternoon to talk about Little Archie. While driving to the Andrews’ house, Weatherbee spots Little Archie walking home, but the picture he gets of the youngster is much different. Little Archie picks a flower for a little girl, helps an elderly woman cross a busy street and rescues a distressed cat from a tree. When Weatherbee meets Little Archie’s father, he changes his tune and says what a nice young man the boy is. Little Archie, unaware of the principal’s change of heart, is upstairs in his room putting together model airplanes. As a kicker, when Weatherbee gets in his car to leave, he asks Mr. Andrews for help to release the emergency brake. Why? “Someone” put glue on his steering wheel and Weatherbee can’t move his hands. Aside from Little Ambrose, Little Archie’s relationship with Betty is perhaps the most interesting. The Betty-loves-Archie-but-he-doesn’t-know-it theme is carried over from the “Big” Archie comic books, but Bolling often digs deeper into Betty’s character. In “The Long Walk” (Little Archie #20), Betty sees Veronica walking home from school with Little Archie, so she calls him up to see if he would walk home with her the next day. Little Archie is uninterested, but a bribe of a strawberry soda makes him agree. Frustrated that Betty “tricked him” into going for a walk like Veronica had done, Little Archie decides he will give the “sissy girl” a walk she will never forget through Spook Woods and Hocomock Swamp.

Betty, on the other hand, is delighted and wears her favorite dress in anticipation of a lovely walk home. But Little Archie drags her through quicksand, over a log on Carson’s Creek, near a hornet’s nest, into a briar patch, past bats and ants, and finally over an “extra-mean barbed wire” fence. Betty matches Little Archie step for step, even though she is a mess and her favorite dress is ruined. As they pass Veronica and other friends at the soda shop, they all laugh at how Betty looks. Realizing he’s hurt Betty, Little Archie apologizes and tells her, “You’re as brave as any boy.” Betty’s feelings for Little Archie are revived and she gets to cut a lock of his hair for her scrapbook. This is a good story by itself, but Bolling uses two devices to help bring home the important points. One is a full-page map showing the “long walk” home through all the dangers Little Archie could find. It graphically demonstrates just what Betty had to endure. Second is a framing device using three of Betty’s stuffed dolls: a panda bear, a captain, and a witch. He has them come to life on a shelf in the bedroom and discuss what Betty is doing and why. The bear and the captain can’t figure out things, but the witch warns that Betty is “under someone’s spell.” The story’s final panel shows a dirty and tattered Betty sleeping, scrapbook under her head, with a big smile on her face. The bear and captain dolls wonder what happened to her, but the witch has the poetic answer: “Can’t you tell her heart’s full of joy, put there by a red-haired boy?” As Bolling became more comfortable with writing and drawing Little Archie, he started to explore storylines outside the Riverdale boundaries. He began by putting Little Archie into adventure stories, then quickly moved into using fantasy and science-fiction. Although popular topics such as battling pirates, going to Mars and fighting a monster were used, Bolling was able to put his own clever touch on the stories. For example, to put Little Archie in the time pirates ruled the seas in “Pirates” (Little Archie #21), he used a confused scientist who accidentally releases a mysterious vapor while sitting by Little Archie, thereby sending him into Blackbeard’s clutches. To get our hero to Mars, Bolling brought two Martians to Earth on a mission in “On Mars” (Little Archie #18) and they run into Little Archie,

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Comic Book Artist: Let’s start off at the beginning — where and when were you born? Bob Bolling: I was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, on June 9. I’m a Gemini, so I jumped around a lot. And if I give the year, I’m going to get a lot of brochures from long-term care facilities and retirement homes and funeral homes. CBA: So, you’re older than 19? Bob: Yes, old enough to drink. Would you like a beer? (Did you know that in Col. Sanders’ will, he asked to be cremated extracrispy? I deal in facts, since we’re talking about funeral homes.) CBA: What about your childhood? Tell us a little about your parents and how you lived as a child. Bob: It was perpetual charm, I’d have to say. My father was a scientist and a chemist, and my mother was a bacteriologist. That’s where they met, in the laboratory. My father was head of the laboratory in city hall in Brockton, Massachusetts. He also was an expert murder witness and a ballistics expert, and he and my mother got together over test tubes, and that’s how I was created. But he was a great man. I think he always wished that I had followed in his footsteps. For Christmas, he’d always give me microscopes and things like that. They were interesting, but I always wanted to draw. He had a marvelous gun collection. Fantastic. Sometimes he’d give me toy guns. And I lived with guns. I was shooting a rifle when I was five or six years old down on the Cape [Cod], with supervision, of course. But I never got interested in guns; I was always interested in drawing and reading, which I did a lot of. CBA: Where did that interest come from? Were you interested in the comic strips in the newspaper? Bob: Yes. I always wanted to write. When I was a kid, we read comic books and swapped them, and then the Sunday papers would come, as well as the daily papers, and I’d devour them. My father had a pretty big library in his den and I would read and look at all the books that were of interest to me. I’ll never forget one thing that interested me, even though I was only about three years old — I used to toddle into his den, and the bigger books were on the bottom. I was able to get one particular book out. It fell down and I was able to lay on it and look at it. It was Dante’s Inferno. It had the most hideous engravings of people in hell and it was written in Latin, but I couldn’t read it anyway.

The The CBA CBA InTervIew InTervIew 52 CBA V.2 #3

Conducted Conducted & & Transcribed Transcribed by by Gary Gary Brown Brown

In 1956, comic book artist Bob Bolling, a freelancer struggling to adapt to the “house style” of Archie Comics, was given the opportunity to create a “kiddie” version of America’s Typical Teenager, Archie Andrews. Under Bob’s tenure as writer/artist, the resulting title, Little Archie, would in many ways surpass the rest of the publisher’s line, as Bob infused the comic with mystery, drama, and pathos. here, we’re proud to present perhaps Bob’s first interview, conducted on Oct. 20, 2001.

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Bob: Yes, I always liked to draw, and, let me digress a bit here: I’ve always had a problem with following directions. I’m serious. I can’t follow directions. This just happened Thursday and last August. If you give me a blank to fill out with name, address and such, I can’t do it. I always write on the wrong line. I did it on the address label to Archie Comics on Thursday. So, we were in the first grade with Miss Stevenson. A lovely woman, just pretty and lovely. We were having our art class with crayons and we had to do exactly as she told us. We had to make the round, orange circle and the stem-like legs and the little boxy shoes, and whoever didn’t do it exactly as Miss Stevenson said, you stopped — stopped working — and lay your crayons down. Well, I was one of the first ones she told to stop, and I felt terrible, but then she went and no one was looking, so I kept going on. I drew the figure and the figure was going down the walk. I put flowers on either side and I think I put a house in the background. Then, I saw Miss Stevenson coming over and I thought, “Oh, I’m going to get it now,” and she looked at it for the longest time, then said, “Class, look what Robert’s done,” and she praised the picture. From that day on — I was six years old — I knew I wanted to stick with it. CBA: In school, did you take art classes of any type? Bob: Yes, I did. I took all kinds of drawing classes. In high school, I took a lot of art classes. Then, I was on the school newspaper. So, I had this feeling I wanted to do a comic strip or do comic books. I went to art school in Boston. I graduated from Vesper George School of Art in Boston. It was a commercial art school. I actually regret going there. I wish I had gone to Massachusetts School of Art for four years. I would have had a much better background and I would have been more qualified to teach. And I would have been a better artist, but you know, you can’t tell a kid anything. CBA: Would that be because it offered a broader education? Bob: Well, Mass. Art was four years and Vesper George was a three-year school. I got there through the G.I. Bill. I enlisted in the Navy and I was qualified through the G.I. Bill, so I got my schooling for virtually nothing, plus $75 a month to spend recklessly. When I lived in New York City, I went to the School of Visual Arts at night. That’s where I met and studied under Burne Hogarth, who did Tarzan. Oh, he was great. I learned so much from him. For me, it was the right teacher at the right time. I still buy some of his books. I bought one within the last year and I’ve learned something from it. He was uncanny. He knew his subject and he knew how to teach it. And if you have a receptive person, he’ll take off like a rocket. CBA: He’s had several books on figure drawing, I know that. Bob: Oh yes, he’s got Human Anatomy, Dynamic Light and Shade, How-ToDraw Dynamic Hands, and ABOVE: For an never-realized fanzine devoted then he has another book to the character (The Little Archie Review, to that I bought, it’s in my be edited by Gary Brown), fan artist Alan studio, about setting up the

But those engravings are still engraved on my mind. My father carried a gun with him everywhere he went. He had it in his back pocket, and he slept with it under his pillow. He had threats against him for the court appearances that he made being a ballistics expert, and I remember during the Depression when we were kids, we didn’t have much to do, so I’d take two or three kids and we’d go down to his laboratory in city hall and we’d take the stairs elevator and I’d walk in like I owned the place because my father ran it. He would show us interesting things that he worked on. I remember one particular time, a woman had been murdered — and scalped — and he brought out the scalp to show us little kids. You see, my father was Swedish and they tell things like it is. They don’t show any emotion because this is the way things are. So, he took out the scalp and I remember the long, black hair and how they kept the ears and everything. And then he had a heart and lungs in preservative or formaldehyde or something. If I saw those things today, I would wince, but as a kid it didn’t bother me. Every day was an adventure and that was the way it was meant to be. It never bothered my friends, either. I think if he did it today, someone would have him arrested for emotionally disturbing children. CBA: Of the comic strips of the day, which were your favorites? Bob: I liked Smitty. And in comic books, I liked Zatara the Magician. He had the strong darks in the drawing that made the figures stand out. Very dramatic shadows. And I always liked Hans and Fritz — I’m talking about when I was real little — Hans and Fritz were a favorite of mine because I guess I could always identify with the shenanigans that Hans and Fritz got into. CBA: Was there a time when you didn’t just like to draw, but learned you were pretty good at it?

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human figure. I take it in the car with me and read it when I’m waiting to pick up [Bob’s wife] Marianne after work. CBA: Okay, you’re out of school and you hit the streets. What was the first stop? Bob: Oh, those were the worst years of my life. I couldn’t get a job. Nobody wanted my work. Boston was full of art students. I needed money. My father was dead and it was just my mother, my sister, and I. I couldn’t get a job at artwork. I made out a portfolio and I used to go into Boston as often as I could and go around to the agencies, but no luck. I would meet other people from Vesper George doing the same thing. Here’s an interesting story: This girl named Barbara who was in our class and was she sexy — and she didn’t mean to be sexy. This was one of the few times that somebody really was sexy naturally, but she couldn’t draw at all. Her art work wasn’t even average. So, I ran into a guy and we were talking and it turns out she was the only one in the class who got a job. CBA: She probably had the right connections. Bob: Yeah, she probably knew somebody. Anyway, I drove a cab in Brockton, a 12-hour day and I’m just a kid. From 7:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night. That’s a long time. I remember walking home and I’d be tired and I didn’t feel like drawing or working up samples. Those hours were too long, but I finally got a job working for the state. I was digging ditches and sweeping streets — all kinds of street work — and we worked near the Plymouth Rock area where my ancestors first came, and here I am picking up papers around Plymouth Rock. But I didn’t have to work every day, so it would allow me a day each week to go into Boston and look for a job. I finally got a job drafting for a warehouse insurance company. Being an artist, I was pretty good at drafting and lettering, and they liked my samples. So, I got a job drafting. We’d sit in this big, drafty room and draft. I did all right and they liked me. The salary was good, but once a week, I would go over to the Boston Record-American art department and bug them. I wanted to get on the art staff and, after the kid I replaced left, they hired

me because they were tired of me coming around. This gave me a job on the newspaper, but at less money and worse hours — from 11 in the morning until 8 at night. So, I got to work with both shifts, the day shift and the night shift. I learned a lot there about commercial art and just the drawing. I was always running into guys I went to art school with, and one day I met a guy named Carlton Plummer. He was looking at my stuff and he said, “You know, I know a job for you. I just went for an interview with a guy named George Shedd, he’s doing a comic strip about the sea, and he looked at my work, but he said my work was too loose.” Carlton was a very good artist, but he did work loose. So, he said, “Here’s his address, why don’t you contact him?” So, I did. I went over to see him. And at that time, I was interested in scuba and skindiving, and I was doing some, so that was good. He kind of liked my work. I mean, if you look at it now, it was pretty bad, but anyhow, he hired me. He asked when I could start. I thought a couple of weeks, but he said, see if you can get here in a week. So, I did. We were working at his home in Hingham [Massachusetts]. I used to drive to his house every day. He had like a studio or a room there where we worked on Marlin Keel. He and his wife and I would have story conferences, and we’d talk about story ideas and the way we thought things should go, and I could tell then he was having trouble with Post-Hall Syndicate. This was one of those strips that the salesmen actually sold before it got going. They sold a lot of papers. But the strip wasn’t living up to expectations and I could tell that. Days and weeks would go by and things weren’t going that good. So finally, we went into see Bob Hall in Boston, George and I went in and he said we’ve got to do something. George had been in Atlanta previously working down there with Ed Dodd [Mark Trail] and Ed was helping George on the strip. George had worked with Ed to get Marlin Keel started, then he moved back to Massachusetts and hired me. Well, the upshot of it is, Bob Hall said to get back to Atlanta and do what Ed Dodd tells you to do… or you’re out.

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no Little Archie retrospective would be complete without a chat with the “other” great artist on that series, Dexter Taylor. Following creator Bob Bolling was no easy task, but Dexter made a superb impression. CBA interviewed the artist on June 22, 2002.

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Comic Book Artist: When and where were you born? Dexter Taylor: I was born January 1931, in Canada. Brantford, Ontario. CBA: What about your parents? Dexter: My father had graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though he couldn’t get a job at first, but he eventually found a job in Canada. When World War Two broke out, I was just a kid, and my mother didn’t want to stay in Canada, since they both were Americans, so we moved back to Massachusetts. I did a lot of moving as a kid. My father would get a job and that would end, so he’d get another job and we’d move. CBA: When did you discover you had a talent for drawing? Dexter: It was in first grade. I knew I liked drawing. I’d meet new kids and make friends, but then we’d move again, so I think I sort of turned inward and spent more time drawing. I drew for anything to do with school — the school newspapers, the town newspapers — I’d just draw as much as I could. I mean, as much as they would accept my work. CBA: In growing up, what sort of comic books and comic strips did you enjoy? Dexter: Oh yes, I had great appreciation for Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. In Canada they led the comics pages with King of the Royal Mounties, I liked that. And of course, I was always a Carl Barks fan. I don’t know if he did all of the Donald Duck books I read, but I always liked his stuff. And I was a fan of Little Lulu by John Stanley, too. CBA: After high school, what sort of training or schooling did you have? Dexter: I went to the same school Bob Bolling went to, Vesper George. As far as I am concerned, it didn’t help me that much in cartooning. But what really helped me in cartooning was when I got the job at Archie and I started meeting all these guys there. I thought I was a good cartoonist before I got the job at Archie, but when I got there, I found people there who were very, very good. CBA: I guess working at Archie was on-the-job training? Dexter: Yes, on-the-job training, that’s right. CBA: Vesper George was in Boston? Dexter: That’s right, I think it went out of business sometime in the early 1970s, but at the time I went to it, it was booming. All the veterans were back from World War Two and going to school on the G.I. Bill. And boy, were they good! I was just out of high school because it was several years after the war and when I saw some of the work they were producing, I thought, “Jeez, I’ll never get a job.” And they used to periodically announce that only about 10 percent of all ABOVE: Recent photo of Dexter Taylor taken by Gary Brown.

of the people who graduated got a job in the art field. But I was just lucky. I came to New York and met Bob White. Bob had gone to Vesper George, too, and they had you sign something that allowed them [the school] to withhold a certain portion of your artwork that got graded in school. And they withheld a lot of Bob’s work because he was pretty good, even in those days. CBA: How did you meet Bob White? Dexter: I was at a place in New York once and they mentioned the name Bob White. (How many people do you know with the name Bob White?) I found out he went to Vesper George, so he became a friend of mine. Bob was working at Archie at the time and, at one point, there was a job opening to do work on a new comic book called Archie’s Mechanics. Well, I didn’t think I could get the job, but Bob White told me to come down and I did. I showed my work to [Archie editor] Harry Shorten and he talked to me for a while. I didn’t think I had the job, but Bob White went in and really did a selling job on me, and I got the job. I started working and, at first, I think Harry thought I couldn’t do anything right. But they kept me on. Eventually, I wrote this story for Super Duck, and Harry was talking to me about it and asked, “Did you copy that from somewhere?” I said, “No.” He said, “It is a very good story.” I was in after that. CBA: What did you do on Archie’s Mechanics? Dexter: I did some of the lettering and paste-ups, and the coloring. I put the book together. Of course, it was with the help of the editor. We had a special editor on Archie’s Mechanics who was from Popular Mechanics and was hired for that book. So, he didn’t know any more about comic books than I did, but we muddled through. Unfortunately, they sent it to a cheap printer up in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The stuff came back and the look of the book wasn’t very good. Also, there was a lot of type in the book and kids don’t want to wade through all those words. CBA: Did you continue to work at Archie after that? Dexter: Yes, they decided to keep me on and little by little I got better. Everybody at Archie — and I mean everybody — helped me. You mentioned [artist] Bill Vigoda earlier. He was one of those who gave me help. CBA: Bob Bolling had told me the same thing. When he first started there, he was inexperienced and everyone pitched in to show him things. Dexter: Yes, in fact Bob already had experience working on a comic strip. Marlin Keel was put out by Post-Hall Syndicate. The guy who was the head of Post-Hall was a super salesman and got it into a lot of newspapers. Post-Hall sent George Shedd and Bob down to work with Ed Dodd [of Mark Trail]. He was showing them how to writer a good continuity comic strip and all, but there was a snowball effect and too many newspapers dropped it. CBA: When you got out of school, did you decide you wanted to do work on a comic strip or comic books? Dexter: Oh, either one. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I could do anything else. CBA: So, that was something you always wanted to do? Dexter: Oh, I loved cartooning since I was in first grade. It was just a question of how good you were. Like I said, the Archie artists like George Frease, Harry Lucey, Bob Montana and all the rest of the guys all helped me. And little by little I got better and better. Bob Bolling was a big help to me. CBA: What else did you do at Archie during the early years?

Dexter: I would probably say it was in 1955. I started doing work in Archie’s Jokebook, doing single pages. And then they let me do Super Duck. Archie’s Jokebook was selling very well and they used to hide my work in the middle of the book. And then, Harry let me try Super Duck and he liked it. And I did Super Duck for a while. CBA: When did you start working on Little Archie? Do you remember when the first story was? Dexter: No, I don’t remember the first one. It would say it had to be 1956 or ’57 when I first started doing work for Little Archie. As I said, I was strong on ideas, so I wrote a story and Bob Bolling helped me. I also penciled it and Bob White inked it (and when I say, “Bob White inked it,” I mean he also would correct it: If a leg or arm wasn’t right, he would ink it in correctly). I did one or two Little Archie stories like that and then I caught on. CBA: Did you ink your own stories after that, or did others ink your pencils? Dexter: No, not in the beginning. I liked inking my work because, by that time I had gotten better and I was doing a fairly good job. CBA: Were you writing your Little Archie material after that? Dexter: Yes, I’ve always been able to write, but I liked penciling, too. So, they let me do both. CBA: Is there one that comes easier for you: writing or drawing? Dexter: No, because sometimes you think of an idea and you say, “Hey, this is great,” but then you write the story and it’s not so great. I know when I have a good story and when I don’t. I know that much. Sometimes it comes out great and other times it doesn’t. I give 100 percent on every story I do. That’s one of the things that Bob Bolling taught me. He said, “Whether you get five cents for it or $500 for a piece of art, always do your best.” Because if you don’t do it, someone else is going to crawl over you and do a better job. Not only that, but when you do your best work, you love what you’re doing, and I love what I’m doing. CBA: Tell me about your wife and family. Dexter: I met Jackie in 1955 and we got married in ’57. We had four children.

TOP: From the collection of Gary Brown, a Dexter Taylor original! Art ©2004 Dexter Taylor. Characters ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc. ABOVE RIGHT: Dexter delineated the Little Archies on this cover for #43. Characters ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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l’s e v r a M f o n d fa r a h e i d a p ew u r g lo e l h e r h a i g h u C o k r a Alth rM ha o t t i i w d e e / n r i o l t r c i e e r s th rt di e a s , u f s e n i o r e e h h s r et, a supe s s a the t s s l l e t a a c e e r r g t a ’ s h mic vy t o v C a s C D c i t s s p i a t r h r a the nd f a is pe o m a s r a e i s s u 0 h 7 t 9 the 1 , s y a creative en d y r o l g via d e w e publisher’s i v r e t n as i w k r a M . r o t artist-edi . 3 0 0 2 , 4 1 r e emb v o N n o e n o teleph Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Mark? Mark Chiarello: I was born and grew up in Freehold, New Jersey, home of Bruce Springsteen… and proud of it! CBA: What year were you born? Mark: I was born on Halloween in 1960 and was your absolutely-average, suburban American kid. I watched Batman (the Adam West one) on TV, collected baseball cards and Wacky Packs, and played with G.I. Joes and Hot Wheels. CBA: Were your parents creative? Mark: No, not per se. My dad was an executive for Ford Motor Company; my mom was a housewife. They always looked at me a little strangely because I wanted to be an artist until, in the ’80s, I got a job with Disney. Then, all of a sudden, they understood the whole artist thing. CBA: What, the minute you got a paycheck? [laughter] Mark: Pretty much. Well, America embraced Disney, because every Sunday night you’d watch The Wonderful World of Disney on TV, so they finally realized that maybe I actually could make a living at art. CBA: Do you have brothers and sisters? Mark: Yes, I have two older brothers. One’s a surgeon and the other works for Ford Motor Company. CBA: Did they ever show any creative inclinations? Mark: Absolutely none. I’m the only creative person in the family. CBA: Were you read to a lot as a kid?

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Mark: No, not really. I now read to my kids every night and I love it, but my parents really didn’t read to me. We had books around, but no, not really. CBA: Did you watch a lot of television? Mark: I watched a ton of TV. I’d been a TV freak for much of my life. I watch very little now, but I find myself very nostalgic for the shows we all watched when we were kids: The Munsters, Batman, The Brady Bunch, F-Troop. CBA: Any particular affinity for The Twilight Zone? Mark: Oh, absolutely. The Twilight Zone, along with the normal stuff: The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart show, Mary Tyler Moore. CBA: Dark Shadows? Mark: Dark Shadows was a pretty awful show. I’d come home from school and try to watch it, but it really kind of sucked, because all us kids wanted to see monsters. You might see something cool on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery; you might actually see a monster. But on Dark Shadows, you had to wait way too long for it. CBA: You watched the New York City TV stations? WPIX, WOR and Metromedia? Mark: Sure! I would watch the Yankees on channel 11, the 4:30 movie on channel 7, and The Million Dollar Movie on channel 9. CBA: When did you first start drawing? Mark: I guess I always have and was always the best artist in the class all through grade school and high school. Then I got to college, I went to Pratt Institute, and all of a sudden I was just another guy, just another artist. It was pretty depressing. CBA: Did you draw for the high school yearbook and school projects? Mark: Oh yeah, all that stuff. CBA: Did you like the attention? Mark: No. I really don’t like to be onstage in any way or be the focus of anything. It embarrasses me to be in the public eye. CBA: But do you get some satisfaction out of the people you admire and promote and are friends with, that they get the attention? Mark: I love the fact that so many of my friends are in the comics business and they’re big superstars and are extremely popular. Every now and then, I get a bit envious and I wish it were me sometimes, but I feel like I’m doing an important thing being a “behind-the-scenes” guy at DC, so it balances out. CBA: So do you have an inclination to strike out on your own or keep developing?

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Marvel cartoons — Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the Marvel superheroes — those awful cartoons with the great theme songs. That’s what planted the seed, but I didn’t start looking at and buying comic books until I got into eighth grade and high school. CBA: But when you bought Topps’ Wacky Packs and things like that, did you key into the art? Mark: Oh, the artwork was really important to me, but I didn’t have the realization at that point that somebody actually painted or drew these things. I didn’t know who Wally Wood was or any of the guys who did the Mars Attacks cards and all that cool Topps stuff. But I bought it all. I would buy a product from Topps and not realize Jack Davis was this cool artist who was doing it; I just knew there was some cool artist doing it. CBA: Did you read Mad magazine? Mark: Yes. I remember reading a couple and being struck by Mort Drucker’s artwork. He was one of the first artists whose name I made a mental note of. CBA: Were you a pretty active kid? Were you social in the neighborhood and into athletics? Mark: I played baseball from dawn ’til dusk in the summer like every other kid, but, as with many comic book artists and writers, I spent most of my time in my room drawing or reading science-fiction. CBA: Was science-fiction big with you? Mark: Yes, though television was the biggest thing with me. Columbo, The Night Stalker, Hill Street Blues… television was everything! CBA: So what were you drawing if you weren’t that keyed with comics? Mark: A lot of sports stuff. I was a really big baseball fan. Keep in mind, baseball was still the National pastime when I was a kid, guys like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Tom Seaver were still playing. But comics? No, not until I started reading them as a teenager. CBA: Were you an avid baseball card collector? Mark: Oh God, yeah. I still collect them a bit. It was a real kick for me, in the early ’90s, when I got to produce a set of my own baseball cards, The Stars of the Negro League set. That’s one of the projects I’m very proud of. CBA: Was that for Eclipse? Mark: Yes, that was Eclipse. I can tell you, they were a heck of a lot of fun to work for… NOT! [laughter] CBA: Were these painted portraits or photographs? Mark: They were fully-painted portraits of the old Negro League players — Satchel Page, Josh Gibson, etc. — a very good buddy of mine, Jack Morelli, wrote the bios on the back. The set was really well-received. Playboy did an article on them, as well as The New York Times. CBA: Did you helm the project? Mark: Yes. It was absolutely my idea. I hired Jack to do the writing and I put it all together. CBA: Had you always recognized that, before Jackie Robinson, black baseball players were not appreciated? What was your motive to do the set? Mark: Jack lives up by the Baseball Hall of Fame, in upstate New York, in Cooperstown. We go a couple of times a year. Everyone certainly knows Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth. But then who’s this guy, Judy Johnson? Or who’s this guy, Cool Papa Bell? I was just surprised there were guys in the Hall of Fame I really didn’t know of very well. So I researched the Negro Leagues, and it’s remained a topic of interest for me to this day. CBA: What made you pick up an Amazing Spider-Man comic book? Mark: A high school buddy, a guy named Frank Antonides, was a hardcore DC fan. I think, through him, I just started picking up comics. Another friend, Mike was really into Marvel, specifically Spider-Man. Frank and I would always have arguments about Marvel versus DC. I refused to look at

Mark: The worst part of my life is the daily battle I fight in my head: Should I be on staff? Should I be a freelancer? Should I go back to drawing? I think I’m doing valuable work at DC and really like it here. There are a lot of great people I’m working with, but gee, aren’t I supposed to be an artist? How come I’m not doing my own stuff? There’s just not enough time in the day to do both, so unfortunately my artwork has had to take the backseat. CBA: But you’ve sneaked some projects in here and there, right? Mark: For the first five years at DC, I could do both. I would do freelance work on the weekends; some covers, trading cards, the Batman/Houdini book, stuff like that, but I just found it impossible, because I have twins at home; that takes up quite a bit of time. There’s only so much you can do. It was hard for me to completely jettison my artwork for a few years, but I’m really at the point now of having to get back to it. Something inside me is pushing me back. So I’m trying to figure out how to commit to some studio time. I’m at the point where I want to see if I can get a project going that I could slowly chip away at, over the course of a year or two. I was a real Marvel fan when I was a kid. Those are the characters from my childhood that I just love. I refused to read a DC comic book as a kid. Such was the mentality that Stan Lee foisted on us all. So about two years ago, I put together a project, a crossover DC/Marvel project, Batman fights all of Spider-Man’s villains. You know, Mysterio and the Lizard, the Rhino, Doc Ock. Everybody was really jazzed to do it at both DC and Marvel, but then a lot of tension between DC and Marvel arose, so it was put on the back burner for a while. CBA: That was something you would write and draw? Mark: Jeph Loeb was going to write it for me. I was going to paint it. Hopefully, when the climate is a little better between the two companies, I can jump back into it. CBA: What was the first comic you recall reading? Mark: It was a Spider-Man RIGHT: Simply as an comic. I don’t remember excuse to give a the number. shout-out to the CBA: A Steve underrated ’70s TV Ditko Spider-Man? show — a favorite of Mark and Ye Ed — Mark: No, it was a here’s a shot of John Romita. It was Peter Falk as toward the end of Columbo! Romita’s run. Romita became a childhood hero. I got into comics hardcore in the early ’70s. Romita had come off the book, Gil Kane did a few issues, and then through the Ross Andru years. CBA: You must have had some exposure to comics in the ’60s when you were growing, right? Mark: Not a heck of a lot. Batman on TV was a monstrously big thing for all us kids, and watching the